Finland despises Russia. You’ll be hard pressed to find a Finn who’ll say one nice thing about their eastern bully. Finland was under Russian rule for over 100 years. Finland finally gained independence, then fought off the Soviets two more times losing a substantial part of the country. Finland even teamed up with Hitler to fend off Soviet domination.

Like the crazies in the United States who stockpile their basements full of canned foods and semi-automatic weapons in preparation of the looming race wars, some Finns in 2010 still believe Russia invasion is imminent.

This rocky history has unfortunately perverted the Finns view on the Russian people. Russian women are all whores. Russian men are all lazy alcoholics. Russians are not to be trusted. Dirty Russians ruinlocal spas. Russian women flaunt their wealth and arrogance at Stockmann’s department store. Russians are buying up too much property in Finland.

…all your typical xenophobic stereotypes. And not good for Russians living in Finland, a group who make up Finland’s largest minority.

As I’m writing this, it’s tough to find any comedy in Finland’s relationship with the Russians. War tends to do that, sadly. Two nations of people who normally would live side-by-side in peace and harmony in the frigid north, are pitted against each other thanks to a handful of lunatics. The healing process will take decades if not centuries.

And let’s be honest, the Finns and Russians aren’t THAT much different: Both survive in extreme weather conditions, both have a poor background, both love to get blinded on a Friday night, both think Lada make a crap car, both share much of the same bodily features, both have some fine looking women.

What am I missing? Where’s the humor here? Any Russians out there who want to share what they think of Finland?

You know those annoying foreigners who try to sell shit to strangers at the Kamppi Center in Helsinki? Well comedian Louis Zezeran and I decided to go annoy them… (turns out they’re actually very nice people)

Spending the holidays away from your family can be tough. So IESAF (International English Speakers Association of Finland) invites you to their Christmas Quiz & Party on Friday November 27th at 6pm

In Molly Malone’s, Kaisaniemenkatu 1 (nr. Kaisaniemi metro) Helsinki

Great prizes to be won, video cameras, Molly’s Money, Behnford’s Vouchers & lots more in Santa’s Xmas Quiz & the IESAF raffle.

Evening also includes British stand-up comedian Paul Westlake – and live band. Bring Your Sister, and a DJ so you can dance away the night.

Free gloggi & party food. Come dressed to impress… or not! Check out the Facebook Event page for more info!

City Councillor Jussi Halla-Aho of the True Finns Party has been found guilty of defamation of religion by the Helsinki District Court. He was ordered to pay a fine of 330 euros. However, the court dismissed a charge of inciting hatred against an ethnic group.

330 euros!? LOL!! Glad to know that “defamation of religion” brings on the same punishment as urinating in public. Whichever Finnish politicians created the laws on defamation of religion should be charged with defamation of religion, cause they’re obviously mocking all religious people with these joke punishments.

The next time Halla-Aho wants to defame religion, he’ll be forced to think, “Would I rather write crazy shit and get fined…or spend that same money on a PlaySation3 ?? Hmmm…” Halla-Aho couldn’t have bought such great publicity for 330e – next stop Parliament.

The prosecutor said Halla-Aho’s writings insulted Muslims residing in Finland and endangered religious peace.

Over the weekend I saw the new Finnish film, “Kielletty Hedelmä” (Forbidden Fruit). It basically describes how archaic and abusive Finland’s religious, “Laestadian“, sect are. They brainwash their children, ostracize those who question them, banish those who don’t agree, and tell their kids they’re spending eternity in hell. It’s mental rape.

As true and unsettling as the film was, its producers ‘defamed’, ‘offended’, and ‘insulted’ their religion. The film has ‘endangered religious peace’ and ‘incited racial hatred’, cause after watching, I was about to drive up to Nowheremäki and smack the bejesus out of them for what they do to innocent children.

I fear the Laestadians may force the authorities to go after the film’s producers next! …Oops, the Laestadians aren’t allowed to watch movies, so I guess they’ll never know… LOL!!

The controversial blogger and Helsinki councilman Dr. Jussi Halla-aho recieved today a conviction of “breaching the sanctity of religion” i.e. blasphemy. He was sentenced by the Helsinki district court to pay 30 day fines amounting to 330 euros. Dr. Halla-aho has stated he will appeal on the verdict.

Dr. Halla-aho’s blog “Scripta – writings from the sinking west” came under scrutiny during his campaign for Helsinki city council as a nonaligned candidate on the True Finns ticket. Especially the women’s organization of the Green party took offence of his acerbic writings of immigration and multiculturalism. However bad taste is not a crime, which the Green Women found out trying in vain to destabilize Halla-ahos candidacy with frivolous police investigations.

The police took Halla-ahos blog under investigation after the state prosecutors office took interest in the case and the State Prosecutor Jorma Kalske raised two charges, one of “breaching the sanctity of religion” and another one “inciting hatered against a population group” of one blog entry appropriately named “A couple of baits for Mika Illman” (Mika Illman being the state prosecutor who had charged a few people over similar cases perviously). Halla-aho has stated he wanted to show the double standards regarding the treatment of different groups by the courts.

Surprisingly the charge on blasphemy stuck, even though that very law had been regarded as a dead letter since the 1960’s. According to the court “facts or logic do not have significance in religious discussion”. Fine by me, I’ll proclaim Charlie Manson as God and anyone claiming he is a deranged hippie will be charged, Helter Skelter.

Be white.

There’s got to be more to it than that!?

Not really.

Really?

Really. Even people with a sun tan are looked at suspiciously. Finns experience this when returning from a winter holiday to Thailand, and upon their arrival back in Finland, they spend a little extra time at border control than normal. Foreigners have been known to master the Finnish language VERY fast, so customs officers can never be too sure.

Well how do I dress like a Finn?

Depends on the persona you’re going for. There are essentially six kinds of Finns.

The Engineer

Finnish engineers have no idea what clothes to buy, because their wives do all their shopping for them. They wear whichever short-sleeved plaid shirt Ms. Suomalainen bought him from Dressmann. The color of the shirt need not matter, as long as it’s made of a material that does not need ironing. (btw, all shirts need ironing) Brown loafers are required, belts are not. Khaki pants must ride high on the waist. In the summer time it’s brown sandals (with socks) and capri-pants riding high. The most popular haircut is “balding, with a inner-tube of sand-colored hair around the head”. Face should be clean shaven, however most engineers cannot grow facial hair, and if they can, it comes in patchy. Glasses must be at least 10-years old. Jewelry should be wedding ring and meaningless gold chain around the neck.

The Businessman
See “Engineer”, just add wrinkled sport coat (drycleaning is insanely expensive in Finland), black belt (yes, even with brown loafers) and trendy-but-not-so-trendy glasses.

The Middle Aged Mommy
Start with short hair. You’ve been hassling with long hair all your life – you’re just sitting home everyday on maternity leave for the next few years, why bother looking attractive? And if you’re in the male-dominated business world, the short hair will make you blend in easier with your male colleagues. Make sure you buy thick “trendy” eyeglasses that hide what, if any, good looks you have left. Bonus points if the color of your glasses match the color of your dyed hair. Don’t wear heels, that’s a dead giveaway you’re a foreigner. And don’t have eyebrows, again, you must be a foreigner.

The Country Bumpkin
Comfort is key here. The classiest place you’ll visit during the week is Alko, so “dress to depress” as they say. Men, a 20-year old track suit is appropriate (cause who knows when you’ll have the urge to go cross-country skiing). Women, an aging Marimekko shirt, jeans, old white sneakers. If you want to dye your hair, dye it some shade of red, orange, or purple. Men, if there’s a situation where you need to dress up, like for instance, taking a trip to the next town over, wear a tie – just so long as it’s the same one you wore in high school. Jewelry should be the Finnish Lion dangling from a cheap gold-colored chain.

The Teenager
Teenage fashion changes so often, by the time I publish this, it will have changed. Want to know what the current teenage fashion is? Visit Sweden, have a look around, then wait five years…that’s what Finland will look like. All Finnish fashion is taken from Sweden…five years later. At the moment – Guys, wear an American baseball cap with a team you’ve never heard of. Girls, pile on lots and lots of makeup.

The Child
This one is simple: For boys, blue jumpsuit. For girls, red jumpsuit. Finnish children are like penguins, it’s impossible to tell them apart, they all wear the exact same jumpsuits year round. It’s a regular occurrence for Finnish parents to take home the wrong child from daycare – but no worries, this mistake quickly corrects itself months later when the real parent, again, accidently takes home the “wrong” kid from daycare. “Even jumpsuits in the summer time?” you ask. Yes. It doesn’t matter if it’s +20C or -20C, all Finnish children must wear hats and gloves.

How do I walk down the street like a Finn?

Walk briskly with a lack of confidence. Don’t look ANYONE directly in the eye, ever. If someone looks directly at you, be careful, they’re drunk. If a stranger approaches you, pretend to be talking on your mobile phone. Stop and wait at all red crosswalk signs, even if all the common sense in the world says it’s okay to cross. Don’t do anything to stand out from the crowd, like dress a unique way or be any other race than white.

…what else am I missing?

Finland’s infamous immigrant-hater, Helsinki city councilman Jussi Halla-Aho, a member of Finland’s racist, nationalist political party, the True Finns, is court for, you guessed it…racism…

The Helsinki District Court read charges against Helsinki City councilman, Jussi Halla-Aho, on breach of the peace and agitating against an ethnic group.

According to the prosecutor, Simo Kolehmainen, Halla-aho has publicly defamed matters Islam deem holy. Halla-Aho has written in his internet writings that islam is a pedophile religion. In addition he has written that robbing passers-by and living off wellfare are national and or genetic features of the Somali Muslim people.

According to the Prosecutor, Halla-aho’s writings insult the Muslims living in Finland and endanger the country’s religious peace.

Representing himself, Halla-Aho admitted writing the articles in question. However, Halla-Aho denied the defamation charges. Halla-Aho claims that the prosecutor has taken the writings out of context. He plead not guilty.

A lot of Halla-Aho’s supporters were present and they laughed out loud when the prosecutor read excerps from Halla-Aho’s Islam writings.

Here’s a translation of the text that got Halla-Aho in trouble. Although my guess is that this was just “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, as he’s been writing this kind of stuff for years.

Halla-Aho goes after a lot of things in his post: “Politicians”, who create the laws Hallo-Aho loathes. “Free speech”, which there’s a severe lack of in Finland (very true). The “Muslim religion”, all religions are equally silly IMO. And “Immigrants”, oops, this is where Halla-Aho gets racist and retarded…

Somalis who constitute 0.2 per cent of Finland’s total population commit 12 per cent of robberies reported to the Police. One in ten Somalis living in Finland has a job. Committing robberies and living at taxpayers’ expense are a lot more common among Somalis related to their share of the population than killing while intoxicated among the ethnic Finns. Therefore, I present my assumption (that I do not regard as fact):

Robbing bypassers and living at taxpayers’ expense as a parasite is a national, possibly genetic characteristic of Somalis.

Robbing bypassers and living at taxpayers’ expense as a parasite is a national, possibly genetic characteristic of Somalis.

Ughh. This is where I quickly lose sympathy for the guy. Ignorant people like Halla-Aho should be ignored, yet court cases like these only further incite racial hatred in the country and bring more members to the True Finns party.

I haven’t got laid off…yet. But in today’s current economic situation, no one is safe. When I first moved to Finland I was unemployed for several months, and it was hard, but I’m wondering if it could be even harder now.

When I migrated in 2002, I didn’t have much more than a bunch of clothes, some CD’s, and a little cash. I had modest expectations, and I guess there were low expectations of me. I had little to lose, and worst case scenario, I just pack my crap up and move back home.

But almost seven years later – I have a loans, a car, a mortgage, responsibilities, a lot of friends, high expectations and there’s high expectations of me…a lot to lose. Without even exaggerating, you gotta figure that I’m not qualified for 99.99% of jobs with my less-than-perfect Finnish skills. Combine that with the absolute shit job market we have at the moment, my chances of finding worthwhile employment is slim, even with the network and skills I’ve gained since first arriving here.

It could mean me packing up everything and saying goodbye. Returning back to the states is fine, but I’d want to return on my own terms. I think I speak for all foreigners in the post above.

I don’t know how much the readers follow the Finnish politics and issues, but so far it seems that the old game of “broken telephone” gets even worse when it is transferred from the reality into a newspaper with a political slant, regurgitated, edited and then translated into a foreign language. One of my favorite authors, Mark Twain wrote of this in his short story “Running for Governor” already in 1870, and nothing much has changed since. So you may see headlines of “Finnish politician sued for blasphemy” but I bet the articles are more or less confusing the issues.

There is no confusion that we still retain a paragraph in the Penal Code on “blasphemy”, actually Ch.17 Par. 11: “Breach of the sanctity of religion “(563/1998). Which enables the courts to sentence people on the grounds of “ridiculing what others regard as holy”. Of course in modern times you can laugh at Jesus and God, but can you laugh at Mohammad?

Double standards if you can’t laugh at both equally – and Finland is a land of equality, isn’t it? Then again theres a few other vague subjective laws in the Penal Code that require only that you be accused of them. You don’t have to find a victim for these crimes which makes them perfect to be used in silencing people. There is a law Ch.11 Par8 – “Ethnic agitation” (578/1995) that says “A person who spreads statements or other information among the public where a certain race, a national, ethnic or religious group or a comparable group is threatened, defamed or insulted shall be sentenced for ethnic agitation to a fine or to imprisonment for at most two years.” Which of course is a noble law. Again the question is, are all races, national, ethnic or religious groups or comparable groups equal before the law? For example, can you say that Finns are prone to drunken killing sprees? So if you can say that, can you say that X are prone to robbing passersby and leeching off welfare?

The vocal (or can you say vocal of someone who writes but doesn’t speak much) anti-multiculturalism blogger and aspiring politician Jussi Halla-aho got into the eye of a shitstorm running for the Helsinki city council (he is now among other things supervising the wanking baboons and lethally biting camels in the board of the Korkeasaari Zoo) and now as a result he’s facing court of his blogpost he made in 2006 that questioned the above equality issues. It is quite important to note that the Green Women had no case and no crime to have investigated – not liking someones opinions isn’t enough grounds.

The text “A few baits for Mika Illman” (the state prosecutor) was in fact the *only* one the prosecutor took upon himself to draw charges upon. Can you call that a hook-line-sinker?

On the one hand I find the whole case totally preposterous, as it clearly has a political agenda. Then again “publishing the Mohammad cartoons” issue has been a watershed so the blasphemy part might prove interesting. A part of me though wants Halla-aho to be sentenced for the agitation, so I can sue the ass off anyone claiming Finland is a cold soggy dark place with drunk wifebeaters who have a difficult language.

Today’s Helsingin Sanomat features one of Finland for Thought’s long time readers, and friend of mine…

Wedding bells are increasingly ringing in Helsinki for foreign citizens. In 2007, at least one of the partners was the citizen of a foreign country in 26 per cent of marriages that were sealed in that year, and both were foreigners in 12 per cent of cases.
“It is a surprisingly large number”, says Tanja Leikas-Bottà.
Leikas-Bottà herself is one of the 457 Finnish women who said “I do” to a foreign spouse in Helsinki in 2007. At the same time 384 Finnish men married foreign women.

[...]According to statistics, when Finnish women marry outside of their own nationality, the spouse is usually from Western Europe, while Finnish men who marry foreigners often find wives in Southeast or East Asia, or in Russia.

[...]In 2007, 6.5 per cent of Helsinki’s population was foreign. The proportion is much higher for those of marrying age – that is, young adults.
In other cultures the pressure to marry can be greater than in Finland, where lengthy cohabitation without marriage is the norm. This can partly explain the large proportion of foreigners in the marriage statistics.

A modern day farce

Politicians in all countries seem to be able to start a leapfrog competition out of the blue. One minor brainfart and soon frogs start leaping out of politicians’ mouths left right and centre, only its blogs that are the culprits. And the more the politicians explain what they really meant the worse it gets. Just like the Watergate building break-in was a small article in the back pages the continuous denial of involvement only poured more and more gasoline into the fires and we all know what that ended up with. “I am not a crook.” As I said a while back Finnish politics has not been this much fun to follow since the Yoga Fliers ran for Parliament.

There isn’t exactly one thing that alone would be such a disaster, but the total of the past week is a chain of events best described as political correctness, stupidity and vicious sarcasm gone mad over equality, tolerance, freedom of speech and political liberties.

The storm in the Duck Pond

Four young men in Espoo were thrown in jail because speaking Swedish to the police, the tablods ripped. Not caring to mention the youth were in a house, at an 18-year ods birthday party, with about 50 other people, and rather were arrested for speaking up at the police, which gets you in jail for sure in these parts. The Sami council objected the use of “Two Language One Nation” slogan as the Sami are a recognized minority language. Before the Swedish Folk Party had time to get all indignant they got a massive wedgie when the aide of the Minister of Culture, Sports and Equality , the SFP chair,Stefan Wallin, state secretary Stefan Johansson went and groped two women at the Swedish Embassy’s reception on the Swedish Day. He promptly resigned. Of course the Fashion Police Resident Lenita Airisto went ahead and derided “Finnish Men” who are always drunk, cannot dress, act nor even speak proper, and was given a wee bit of a retort for claiming Finns speak “Monkey English”. Despite the short burst the whole issue might have been forgotten unless the SFP crone Maria Björnberg-Enckell elected to the Helsinki Council hadn’t written in her blog a pretty much “better people” comment to the lines that the reason the aide misbehaved was due to him being born in Korppoo (i.e. small hick town) and being overwhelmed being exposed to the cultured society such as the Swedish Embassy… we’re waiting for the duelling banjos.

The war between Green Women and Dr. Evil

A Finnish-language blog called “Scripta” authored by the linguist Dr. Jussi Halla-aho was a catalyst for the mayhem that followed. He has written for some five years very acerbic essays opposing the joys of multiculturalism. Lets say like Voltaire, his sharp tongue and acrid wit belie his seriousness of intent. The “official truth” in Finland has been promoting multiculturalism. However the multiculturalism they have elsewhere in Europe doesn’t always match with the noble aims. And while people have started questioning the policies almost any objections have been slammed down by the racist card. No debate against the “official truth” and no veering from the idealistic “chosen path”. But in the internet blogs and websites have sprung up though mainly then concentrating on the failures and ment to be offensive. Denying a debate is never a good idea if you wish to keep a consensus.

When the “True Finns” had made their landslide victory two weeks ago Dr. Halla-aho running as an independent predicted “it only starts now”. And he was correct, the initial shock and awe was replaced by pulling out the racist card and dismissing the True Finns as right-wing racists as some of the people elected were also members of the Suomen Sisu nationalist movement. The Minister of Justice being grilled of the fiasco regarding the electronic voting blunder was quick to make a statement she later said was misquoted that due to the win over the True Finns the Councils must receive training over tolerance.

As the True Finns were so morally objectionable the press and media had a field day taking quotes from here and there and churning out statements of how wicked the True Finns were and how the nation had “voted wrong”. A television talk-show had a field day over quotes from Dr.Halla-aho’s blog. However they forgot that they could not fool the people as the original texts were in the internet and the discussions flared within a few days so that people who had never heard nor paid any attention went to see for themselves what the uproar was all about.

Meanwhile the Green Women had noticed the vitriolic debate over the slanders over their beloved multiculturalism and picked up a comment in an old post in the blog of Dr Halla-Aho. Called “Multiculturalism and Women” (EDIT: Translation of the original article from another blog) the entry was regarding some rapes in 2006 when Helsinki rape statistics had surged and he had written, in an entry he said could have been better:

“The number of rapes will increase in any case. Therefore, as more and more women will undoubtedly get raped, I sincerely hope that at least the right women, the green-leftist reformers and their voters, will find themselves in the clutches of the rapists, who randomly select their victims. Rather them than anyone else. With people like that nothing else works, except when their own multiculturalist views turn against them.” (translation from the HS Int’Ed)

Which the Green Women obviously got extremely upset about and demanded a criminal report being filed as the entry “clearly promotes rape”. Nevermind the Greens should be very quiet about digging up old statements as their philosopher Pentti Linkola had openly written that the managers of industry should be executed among some other direct action pamphlets. The discussion over the issue is about the equivalent of Verdun in the net as now every assclown in the market is trying their best to fuel the flames.

2084

The unfortunate school shootings the past two years had started the government pondering over the control of the internet, and it was the consensus that as the internet is evil it must be controlled to save the youth.  The police reported in a brief that they had been monitoring the internet prevented a number of school attacks and “sent people for treatment”.

Was it not in the DDR and the good old USSR the dissidents got sent to the mental asylum?  So who says only the youth need to be saved. Also the immigrants must be saved from these wicked racists questioning multiculturalism. And while we are at it, why not save the poor politicians. After all several politicians had had to close commenting on their blogs because the public wasn’t understanding their best interests but were being all mean. Does this mean in a few years then anyone opposing the “official truth” and “chosen path” – off to the asylum with you? By 2084 we should have black helicopters and “thought police” as we already have political correctness,  email monitoring and foundations for a Ministry of Truth.

The chair of the “The Council for Mass Media in Finland” made a speech at the 40th anniversary of the council mentioning about curtailing the internet and subjecting it to the Council for Mass Media due to and other nice ideas. The local chief editor of the Hustler magazine went Larry Flynt on him. A complaint with the Council for Mass Media over the statement of the chair of the Council for Mass Media as he had mentioned pornography as one of the vile and wicked things that ought to be censored from the internet.

The fat lady sings in the end

Interestingly, the Ombudsman for Minorities has taken a pretty neutral stance on the whole issue. While the demonization of the True Finns was at its fashion stage she kept her cool not joining the bandwagon. But it may be she is an old fox – while a few years back she was smothering the discussion – any discussion – portraying the Finnish immigration policy in a bad light, she has now said there should be an open debate without “borderline opinions” rather finding a consensus. Oh, and why is the Minority Ombudsman careful of not stepping into the quagmire? Well, after all she is the human rights lawyer who was instrumental in importing the Somali refugees from the USSR in 1990. I guess it was a well played card to gain a seat in a shelter job, after all we wouldn’t need a Minority Ombudsman to deal with the troubles if we wouldn’t have troubled minorities needing an ombudsman.

The big mainstream political parties have also come forth stating that there needs to be an open discussion and tackling the problems. Now I wonder why you require 5 years of offensive blog posts and diarrea hitting the fan before you can have the sensible people actually take a stand and agree to disagree? Well, its better late than never but this discussion really should have taken place 10 if not 20 years ago. And hopefully – finally – at last they will not only start organizing the Finnish classes properly but implement an English user interface to the MOL job search engine. Can’t expect bloody miracles in a day.

Curtain and applauses.

Probably the heated debate and flamewars will continue, but hopefully the sensible brigade will take over once the intolerance of the tolerants has burned off.

After all, if you demand tolerance you may not yourself be intolerant.

The Turkish Embassy in Helsinki was subjected to a molotov coctail attack on Monday night around 3am. The door of the embassy was burnt and and a staff member was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, but there wasn’t further damage reported. The police have arrested four youths suspected of the attempted arson. The Finnish security police is investigating the arson along with the Helsinki criminal police, which haven’t released further speculations of the motives.   In their brief statement the police said the youth suspected of arson are Finnish residents, but some have “Kurdish background”. The Turkish Embassy has stated they are suspecting Kurdish PKK as there was a similar incident ath the Turkish Consulate in Salzburg, Austria on Sunday night . There was a demonstration in front of the Embassy the previous day objecting the treatment of the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan currently jailed in Turkey. The Finnish minister of foreign affairs Alexander Stubb has condemned the strike and assures Finland is taking further measures to provide safety for embassies and their staff.

(Sorry the article didn’t get all there the first time because of the database hiccups.
Hank W.)

Going once, going twice, gone… and there go the jobs in the paper industry. As the global recession dawns upon us there is going to be more and more “pops” when the weasels take our jobs and run away with the money. And what will the politicians do? Build garden cities. Yes, and meanwhile “Finland needs more workers”… sorry, did someone say “a cheap exploitable labor force”? There is always someone out there desperate enough to be brought in to do the job cheaper.

I always contradict people saying there is a “shortage of nurses”. There is no “shortage of nurses”. There is a “shortage of money and tenures” which results in people not wishing to enter the profession which has created an illusion of a shortage of nurses. Finnish polytechnics churn out about 3000 nurses per year – after 5 years maybe 500 remain in the profession. And why is that? The job is hard, the pay lousy and you have only short-term contracts. So instead of making the profession something people want to do – the answer is to bring in people from someplace where the conditions are if possibly worse and they think they are getting a good deal.

There wouldn’t be all these Finnish nurses working for the NHS in the UK or Norway unless it was the same situation – the Finnish nurses think they get a good deal. While on the one hand economically bringing in foreign nurses is a business decision – we wait 10 years. That nurse has either gone back home after saving enough money for a new house and childrens college, or then the nurse has a family here. She wants a better salary and a continuous job contract, but as the culture of exploitation is there – what is the answer? To bring in some other – cheaper nurse working for peanuts and not complaining of actually having to support a family on those wages. So it continues on and on and on without anyone needing to address the core problems of the system itself.

So I would rather say “Finland needs more jobs” – but theres always the patent answer of creating your own. Oh yes, even back in the days of the big recession of the 1990’s the magical answer was for everyone to put up an enterprise and start selling soap and vitamins. Fixed the statistics greatly but how many people selling soap and vitamins to each other do we need? Does the economy of a village run on everyone selling soap and vitamins to each other? Because the fact is that the production industries are outsourcing and if there is no production there is not much money in the economy after a while. Not that there is a lack of the “enterpreneurial spirit” in Finland. Or would this “make money and become rich” spirit. Now as everyone knows one cannot come rich in Finland with honest work. The welfare state has its hand in your pocket. But as the human animal operates on greed we have now had not only one but two pyramid schemes where someone has gotten the great idea of making a fast buck off peoples greed. The WinCapita system allegedly had 10 000 Finns “invest” hundred million euros into the pyramid… that is quite a mind-boggling sum to think of. Another smaller scheme called GPP has just unraveled selling “pension insurance”… So what does *that* say of the country? We do remember Albania had a revolution in the 1997 due to a pyramid scheme taking all the money out of the system – they were probably high up in the “global competitiveness” figures back then – before the weasels popped the bubble.

It is questionable how far Finland could afford to copy the Nordic Welfare State model with its limited resources in the first place. It has worked so far, but even Sweden has been showing a hiccup… Norway has oil and gas to support their regional policies, but Finland just thinks it has resources. The current political parties – the three largest having equal 21% of the vote at the moment cannot come into consensus of what needs to be done – so everyone does something and the direction… The decisions made back during the big recession of the 1990’s was to “liberalize” the economy have now in 15 years resulted in the liberated industries escaping away. You look at the latest survey on the “hi-tech” Finland and its broadband connections. Even if done by Cisco which has its own interests. The government expects private market forces to take care of the infrastructure – and what is the result? Finland is now in 13th place. Really is this the way to go? We are living interesting times as they say in the Chinese proverb. But Finland isn’t as much alone any more – the rest of the EU is to be considered, but is the direction of the EU any clearer? Surely each country is pulling into its own direction – and is the EU not a giant on clay feet?

So what will Finland be like in 5 or 10 years with the global competition? Weasellandia 2018? Scrapped remains of a welfare state turned into a cut-throat globalized capitalist state with huge income gaps and poverty – a polarized society with ghettos with proles the weasels use as a resource pool of easily exploitable cheap labor that can be popped off when not needed?

The only thing your average Finn can do thinking about this is drink cheap alcohol imported from Estonia and look at how the country is going to hell in a handbasket – and that is my positive outlook of the day.

Cliff Notes: Paha maa

The Helsingin Sanomat has written about some British & Irish paving labourers who apparently have not had “trouble finding work without speaking any Finnish”. So that proves false the assumption Finns are discriminating xenophobes and racists. Doing a paving job for 3500, sans receipt, when the Finnish quote is 8500-10K and the material cost alone is between 2-3K though might have something to do with the equation. Also the claim that Finnish officials are xenophobes and racists is proven wrong, as if a local Finnish resident would be driving drunk, stealing and doing black labor without paying the social fees and VAT; they’d be in serious trouble. But EU citizens are free to do whatever they effin please. So apparently there is a “need for workers” in Finland indeed and the EU has once again proven to be the source of multiculturalism that enriches the nation. Again three basic theses regarding immigrants in Finland have been proven wrong. I find this quite hilarious, though there’s an owner of a campsite full of complaining Finns (as opposed to whining foreigners) that might not think I am so funny.

Cliff notes: Snatch in Järvenpää