Norway has a very large government structure, yet we are a very small country. The government is financing its own institutions, the media and the NGOs. It is quite remarkable. Even if you go a universities and want to research topics that are not politically correct, you will not get funds for it.
We have established a “total information package control” if you want, that resembles countries we don’t want to be identified with. The same people are financed from the same sources: The money flows from the government to the media to the universities and to the NGOs, says Erik Selle to The Herland Report. He is the leader of a Conservative party in Norway and founder of the Africa Israel Initiative.
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Hanne Nabintu Herland, historian, author and founder of The Herland Report: – It is a pleasure to have you with us, Erik Selle, as we discuss whether Norway is as “free and democratic” as the narrative tells us. In the US, president Trump recently wished for more Norwegians to come to the US, maybe not realizing to which degree Norway has become a nation on benefits. Almost half the size of the Norwegian work force now get state benefits, just to name one of the current problems in our oil-rich country.
Many say that the media is losing its ability to control the political narrative as large segments within the European population simply do not read the Liberal newspapers anymore. Many in Europe do not at all agree with the media elites and political elites on a number of issues. How would you assess these trends?
Erik Selle, leader of a Conservative party in Norway and founder of the Africa Israel Initiative: – To start in Norway and then expand to Europe: In Norway we have a very strong government. We have established a “total information package control” if you want, that resembles countries we don’t want to be identified with. The same people are financed from the same sources: The money flows from the government to the media to the universities and to the NGOs.
So, any time you need some expert voice, you can always go to the academia or the NGOs and find somebody that is paid by the state and subscribes to the political correctness of our time. In this kind of system, most people are checked mate. They don’t know how to stand up to politicians and journalists.
One thing is our professional politicians who have not had another job in their life, the other is all the journalists where 90 % of them come from the same background. Then you have the NGO expert suddenly saying the same thing as the journalists and professors. How are people going to think for themselves in a state where the government has total control through its funding of each of the sectors? How are these sectors to ever be independent?
Hanne Nabintu Herland: – It’s very interesting to observe how so many are paid by the state and on behalf of various lobby groups. For example, the journalist who used to work for the state TV-network here, Hans William Steinfeld. We even have a “state TV” called NRK here, and on this “state TV” that, by the way receives billions yearly from the government, recently we had this journalist attack The Herland Report, A number of years ago he quit working there and started his own PR company together with some others. He is now hired as a commentator in this “state TV” to criticize us for trying to be unbiased pertaining to Russia – and who knows who pays him.
And nobody asks who pays him to sit there. The PR companies and the lobbyists are very strong in this system too and it is a danger to democracy as well. The power is removed from the people and placed into the hands of “various interest groups”.
Erik Selle: – Absolutely. It is utter stupidity which is taking hold over our society when it comes to the way European newspapers have covered, for example, Donald Trump’s campaigning and presidency. In the mainstream media today its hard to find independent voices, it is “CNN all over the place”. Every time you get independent voices, they try to stigmatize them either as alternative as preferably right-wing kind of extremists. Using words that has no content anymore.
The presidents who come from the outside are usually the greatest. Look at Ronald Reagan. I think that Trump is going to be one of the greatest presidents. Why? Because he came from the outside. He proved, whether you like him or not, that you can come outside the establishment in the democracy of the US and win the presidency.
In that way, democracy is more secure in the US than it is here. We have a political party system that requires you to spend your whole life climbing up the political ladder in the party, in order to find your way to the main offices.
Hanne Nabintu Herland, founder of The Herland Report: – What you are saying is that we are worse here than in the US?
Erik Selle: – Absolutely. I would say so. Yet, the Norwegians are very hard to control in the long run. You can try to control them for a while, but they are used to battle the seas and the winds, the storms, we are fishermen and farmers and you don’t tell them what to do for a long time. So, I see a lot of hopeful developments, like The Herland Report.
It shows that we still live in a time that there is freedom for individuals that can make a difference. When you see in history, you always see individuals taking responsibly for their own people and progression. Just like Hans Nilsen Hauge. What did he do? He preached the gospel in this country and started businesses and made a lot of money and wealth for a lot of people. He was arrested by the priests and the police chiefs and spent 10 years in prison. Hauge challenged the political correctness and the mainstream media of the time, but he changed Norway.
Winston Churchill was demonized up to the very day when what he said 10 years earlier, that the war would happen and it happened. I recently saw the movie “Darkest Hour” about Churchill.
Hanne Nabintu Herland, founder of The Herland Report: – There seems to be a tendency in history. We now see how Google and Facebook algorithms remove or diminish the reach of pages that are not “politically correct enough”. Many are feeling bad about that, but I would say that people are initially freedom seeking. There is a limit to how long you can dictate to a people that they are not allowed to think or feel a certain way. We saw that with the Berlin Wall, the fall of Communism and so on. There is a limit to how much consensus you can demand in a population before their initial will revolt. We have seen that in history over and over again.
Erik Selle: – Absolutely.
Look at the way Brexit was reported on. You hardly saw any constructive reports on the consequences of Brexit in the media. Its was always this narrative of the need for “another quick referendum”. The international globalist, new Liberalists, it is like Reagan said; “If dictatorship comes to the US it will come through liberalism”. That’s what we are seeing happening now.
But, the people are standing up to their freedoms. You see that in Brexit. But the media says that there are only problems.
Erik Selle: – It shows, again, that the Judaeo-Christian values in politics create freedom whether you’re Latino, black or white, homosexual or heterosexual, man or woman. The ideal Christian values is based in the individuals ability to maximize the God given gifts that was given to them. It creates the societies that people want to live in.
So, I am questioning why the mainstream media doesn’t have a broader perspective on various topics. Why don’t they see the potential that lies in Brexit? The potential of a Europe with free nations, national sovereignty. On a broad scale, Europeans do not want a federalist Europe or a super government. We don’t want the bureaucrats in Brussels. How can a bureaucrat in Brussel, a 25 year old bachelor from somewhere, know what is best for the people of Northern Norway, for example?
Still, the Norwegian government is turning over our largest resource, namely water and energy, over to a European system that we have little control over. We are not even members of the EU, only the EEA, the European Economic Area. We have an energy demanding industry that creates jobs in Norway. But the Norwegian government wants to let the EU control our water resources, so we have to buy back much more expensive energy. What’s going to happen to our work places? Or our industry?
Taiwan, South Korea, the Tigers of Asia showed that if you have a nationalistic approach to business, to industrialization and protect your interests, you create nations that become financial locomotives. That becomes a blessing not only to their own people, but other countries as well. Why are we not doing the same?
On the Nationalistic Conservative platform, we have empirical evidence that this is what works. Globalization becomes an unjust idea that benefits the few. It creates inequalities. We have to tell this to the people that meet in Davos. We just had an World Economic Forum and I was actually totally surprised because for the first time, as far as I have seen, leading people in Davos went on television and said “we have met”.
So, as long as we want to maintain democracy, freedom and liberty, it’s imperative that the people of Europe and the US wake up and think for themselves.
Hanne Nabintu Herland: – We all know that over 90 % of the American media is owned by only 6 corporations, and half of those also own the weapon industry of the US. No wonder why we have wars everywhere. When globalization first emerged, the idea we were presented to was that Indians, Asians and people from poor countries would now partake in the market capitalist society. You would have a levelling out of income differences, yet we have seen the opposite happen. It must be quite a paradox for the leading media editors and commentators, knowing that they fight for the 1 % richest in the world.
Erik Selle: – Thinking back on the Soviet Union: You know, the Russians are really smart people. I really respect Russians and I love their culture. I have been there a number of times and lived there for two months. The history of the vikings shows how close we are to them historically.
If you go back to the period of the Soviet Union in Russia, they had brilliant academics, working and using all their intellectual capacity to make these five, ten, twenty year economic plans on the Communist ideological platform. This created famines and disasters all over. So, what I am saying is that all these “bright” people were contained within an ideological framework, a mindset. They could make the absolute most fabulous economical structures, make PHDs doctorates within and going to the same stupid destination. Why? Because they were contained in a mindset that simply did not work out in the real world.
Hanne Nabintu Herland: – We think of Soviet as this sad place where they lived under propaganda and famine, while we don’t understand that we live in a similar propaganda here. Look for example at the MeToo movement, initially a positive thing, women should not be raped or misused and so on. But it’s been hijacked politically, even here in Norway. One of the leading Labour Party leaders here, Mr. Trond Giske, was removed from office due to allegations, slander, random accusations put forward in a joint effort by the mainstream media. It was all undocumented allegations.
He had “touched somebody on the knee”, twenty years ago or something, and the person felt offended because he had “looked at her” or whatever. As long as it’s a woman coming with these allegations, all of a sudden that’s the truth? We don’t need proof anymore or to take the case to court, because “women always speak the truth”? The MeToo movement used politically killed Mr. Giske’s career even though he had not broken any law or offensive according to the law. It turned out people within his own party wanted him removed. It’s a paradox to me that nobody addressed the topic of who would benefit from him leaving office.
In the Giske-case, several journalist wanted to write the other side of the story, but they were told to shut up and “copy what you read in VG, Aftenposten” and “remember we are reducing our staff now”. I talked to several, who contacted me, appalled at what was going on. Who wants to loose their job?
Erik Selle: – Yes. We have to restart the democratic process, in a way. We have had democracy, or the so-called “rule of the people” for centuries now, constantly developing.
Now for example Terje Tvedt, a professor of history that just wrote a very interesting book about the Norwegian society and government moving into a multicultural agenda. He was interviewed by a journalist called Ole Torp on the state NRK Norwegian television, and it was pretty obvious to me that he probably hadn’t even read the book. He was just throwing all kinds of insults at the professor, a respected professor. I mean, it takes guts in Europe today to write something that is not politically correct. You should respect him even if you like his book or not. Trop threw on accusations and trying to portray him into a corner that would sort of delegitimize the whole book.
This is a problem. My suggestion for Norway is cutting the funding of these media outlets. Let the new initiatives grow up. Let people be free.
People feel very intimidated. There is research in Europe finding that in Norway people don’t dare to speak their minds anymore. I have friends in the US, people that have supported Trump all the way, they don’t even dare to say that they support the president of the US because they are afraid of being ostracized, loosing their jobs in America. We have slided into a kind of society that we never thought we would become in the West.
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