(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Whoever has emerged as the Storting's rebel is not at all SV, as it should have been, but Carl I. Hagen. Not primarily because FrP wants to spend money that is ours, but because all other parties hold the same money so close to their chest that one would almost think it was their own. Given that over half of the voters decided in the past four weeks, there is, ironically, much to suggest that FrP is sailing on a left wave.
The Soria Moria dreams gave the SV leadership an election campaign strategy that was so close to the Labor Party that voters preferred the original. And despite its contradictions, FrP has therefore come to the table in every single election debate. Those who have covered the table above all are Halvorsen and Djupedal. Every time they have tried to compete against Foss for responsible budget policy, they have covered the table. Every time Stoltenberg has been told that "Kristin is cheap to operate", they have covered the table. Every time they have backed away from the right-hand side's calculations, they have covered the table. And when they discovered that they couldn't even afford their own choice bottle, the school lunch, the irony was complete. The table was clear, and what was served was not school lunch at all, but free arguments to anyone who could break with today's sacred mantra, saying that Norway can afford to spend money.
I begynnelsen By April 2003, the situation was different. For the first time, polls showed that SV was the country's largest party, with a turnout of 22,7 percentage points. What was the background? Two months earlier, Norway's largest demonstrations took place, against the US's planned attack on Iraq. And the protests grew along with the Seattle atmosphere. This was not just a matter of quantity; The success of the anti-war movement was based on a political understanding: No to a war for oil. Thus, something parliamentary politicians had rarely done, namely to combine economy and politics into one and the same criticism of the system.
"One thing is the war," Kristin Halvorsen told Aftenposten after the record reading, "but this is wider than that." This is a reaction to the market, commerce and profit. Today, the same Halvorsen is negotiating on Soria Moria, and the likely result is that Norwegian soldiers will not be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Indeed, even the Iraqi staff officers may remain, we believe the media, for purely formalistic reasons, because NATO believes they are "resigned". In that case, what is "delivered" is not the officers, but the SV's resistance to war.
The 2000 received SV money support from LO for the first time. The prehistory was that 65 per cent of LO members in the private sector defied management's recommendations and went on a major and important strike. The alternative to solidarity was revealed as the lie it was: Salary moderation for 14 years had been in parallel with colossal dividend parties for the capital owners, and the term "Forschells-Norge" was for a long time part of the daily speech. That this strike was also sold may be another story. The interesting thing is that many in the trade union movement wanted a more radical policy than the Labor Party could give, and turned to the SV.
This year 40 per cent of the delegates at the LO Congress voted no to the pension reform, and the new allocation to the SV was NOK 750.000. What did we get for the money this time? An electoral strategy that reduced attendance to 8,8 per cent, and the full scrapping of pension pensions.
No one has so to the degrees managed to ask for Christmas in the fall as Høyre's young wonderboy Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, when he commented on the so-called consultation with LO. And no one has so far escaped with their cheeks to those degrees.
"This gives power to non-elected parties," Isaksen told NRK. Were any of our representatives able to tell the friendly Right puppy who is not up for election? Did anyone mention the billionaires on Trygve Hegnar's list? Did anyone say that the premise of everything called politics in this country is that competitiveness should be strengthened? That the capital owners should rob us? That the Union should be closed down and that the dividend party should continue, regardless of who is in government?
Absolutely not. While politicians have been discussing petty cash, John Fredriksen's private wealth has grown to 33 billion. This corresponds to more than fifty times the sum requested by the UN to stop the entire famine disaster in Niger. And instead of answering Isaksen's response, SV has accepted that it is taboo to demand that the billionaires pay the bills in Norwegian electoral debates. This year, they have even succeeded in choosing not to increase the tax level from 2004.
If Kristin Halvorsen was right in 2003, when she said that it was the fight against the war, the market, the profits and the "commerce" that gave the sails wind, why has she taken down the sails and let the wind go? That people who want Labor Party politics vote on the Labor Party may not have been a surprise. But when people who want SV politics think they have to vote FrP to blow the budget, then the alarm should go off.
The negotiating position SV has achieved against Stoltenberg is not very good. But all the more crucial now is that the ground floor of the party sets clear limits on how far our leaders may go. If Halvorsen and Djupedal are to continue the "cheap in operation" strategy from the government offices, the case is clear: They will spend four years to cover the table again, this time to a formidable election victory for Siv Jensen in 2009.
But such a result is not given in advance. SV and SU have gained thousands of new members in recent years. None of us want to be the fifth wheel of the Labor Party's cutbacks policy. Therefore, we must demand that the party conduct a policy that we can defend in the polling booth in four years. Then point one is to explain the war opponent Kristin Halvorsen that Norwegian soldiers have nothing to do in Afghanistan, regardless of the letter abbreviation on the uniform, or the color they wear on the helmet.
Jan Roger Ljønes and Eivind Johansen are members of Trondheim SV.
