Poland and Slovakia Wednesday, September 23rd 2010

Last weekend (from early Friday morning until late Tuesday night) Don and I went to Poland and Slovakia. We flew to that tourist mecca, Krakow, a gorgeous ancient city that was not destroyed in the 2^nd World War and that is less expensive than most European cities. It is possible to eat a meal there for 3 dollars, and to see indescribable gorgeousness. Wavel Castle: the original capitol of Poland, built on an even more ancient hill-fort, burial place of kings and of Poland’s heroes, root and center of Polish Christianity and home of Kraken the Dragon, killed by King Krakus, who gave their names to the city; Krakow: pre-WW2 home to a great and large Jewish community decimated by the Nazis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w-P%C5%82asz%C3%B3w_concentration_camp), 500-year old synagogues cheek-by-jowl with Catholic churches; Jewish cemeteries with rare tombs; St. Mary’s, the most beautiful cathedral I have ever been in (and I have been in many, in many countries), with a bugler who plays the same mournful tune on the hour, 24/7, to commemorate the attack of a Mongol (called Tartars by the Slovaks and Poles, and Huns by us, as in Attila) army—the bugle call saved the city, but a Mongol arrow caught him through the throat. Every hourly bugle call is ended mid-note, in memory of that death.

We rented a car and drove south to the Tatra Mountains, tall and craggy and rocky, with snow at the tops already in mid-September. The way south from Krakow is only an hour and a half, curving and climbing upwards the whole time, winding through mountains from which we could see the even higher ones still south of us. In these lower mountains are Goral shepherds who make a smoked cheese called oshipky, very popular with the Polish people, with a texture similar to smoked mozzarella. I find the taste unpleasant, despite its being totally gorgeous looking, being made in decorative molds whose patterns have survived for centuries. The shepherds’ families sell the cheeses on the side of the “highway.”

We drove to Zakopane, a famous ski resort in the Polish Tatras, but found it too crowded and busy. So we drove to a nearby mountain village and stayed in a room rented for $20 by a beautiful old Polish woman who spoke not a word of English, but who took my hand and showed me what I needed to know. She and I kissed and hugged when we parted, despite communicating only in sign language and a scant smattering of Polish on my part. A highlight of any visit to the Tatra area is Goral architecture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorals

After walking around the village and admiring the view of the Tatras and wondering how so many back-yard ski lifts cam to be erected, we set off to drive through the Tatras to the Slovak border, where we stopped at the fast-running river and the Slovak man who sells toilet-use, cold drinks and beers, as well as hiking guides and maps, showed us great hospitality in return for getting a chance to use his English. Our drive was beautiful—somewhat, I imagine, like driving through the Alps, although the highest Tatras are about 8000 feet, rather than double that, as the Alps can be. And, thankfully, there were guard-rails! We also drove through some of the Belianske Tatry, a somewhat geologically distinct, lower range, right next to the High Tatras, and which are LOADED with ski resorts and the distinctive Goral wooden architecture. http://www.beliansketatry.com/en.html

By the way, there is excellent beer in Poland, with the best we tasted being Zywiec—pronounced Zhiviets. The beer is not as good in Slovakia (it’s not very good in Sweden, either, by the way), which makes better liquors and wines.

We continued on to the south east, stopping at Spissky Hrad (pronounced Spish-ski), the ancient ruined castle that is a symbol of Slovakia. It was a hill-fort and then a castle-fortress many thousands of years ago, and then ancient Celtic tribes came and built a hill fort on the nearest hill, making Spis outmoded. Later, when the Tartars/Mongols/Huns invaded, Spis proved more defensible, and it was re-built as one of the greatest and strongest fortresses in Europe. It withstood the Mongols over and over, and during the Renaissance became a lovely palace. Any of you who have seen “The Lord of the Rings” movies and remember the Hornberg, upon which the multi-level royal city of Gondor is built, will have some idea of what Spis Castle looks like. http://www.spisskyhrad.sk/en.html

We stayed in a small hotel in Kosice, and then attended mass at St. Alzbeta (Elizabeth) cathedral in downtown Kosice. A t least ½ of the people attending Mass did not receive Holy Communion. I later asked my cousin’s relatives about it and they said that it is because Slovaks (and possibly Poles, too) still think of the Church the way we used to before Vatican II; they do not receive Communion unless they have gone to Confession the day before. And the nun giving our Communion refused to place the wafer in my hands; she made me open my mouth to receive on my tongue.

Afterwards we wandered the beautiful medieval town square (beneath which archeologists have discovered the ancient Roman walls), and came across a car show, with all of the cars having been made in the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe (Skodas and Tatras, mostly, and an old Soviet army jeep).The cars that were made before WWII were quite beautiful, despite the low quality of them after the War.

We then met my father’s cousin Marion in Myslava, a town just next to Kosice, and one of the villages that my father’s father’s family came from. When I was there 3 years ago, I could not find my great-grandparents’ graves (Maria Berova and Jan (Yan) Tomaskovic), but Marion’s cousin Margita (Gita, pictured above) brought us to them. We then spent the rest of the day with Gita’s family (her son, the son’s wife Jana, and their teenage son Tomas), at their beautiful home with amazing garden and yard. They were SO hospitable, giving us multiple apples from their yard, local honey from their own stock, dried herbs for an herb tea that they had made for me, from herbs they had grown in their yard, and fed us home-made cake and shots of a Slovak liquor, Fernat. We brought Marion and Gita up the mountain to Vyzny Klatov, the village that the Tomaskovic family came from before they moved down to Myslava. Neither of them had ever been there. It was a wonderful day, with everyone happy as could be, and Marion especially happy to introduce her father’s Slovak family to one of her relatives from America.

After visiting the day care center run by Jana (pronounced Yanna) in the morning, we drove westward along the southern border of Slovakia, at one point being less than 2 miles from Hungary, but unable to reach it, as the roads were unlabeled. I had wanted to see the Slovak Karst (limestone) region, which is also called the Slovak Paradise. It is a large area of mountains and steep valleys, with ski resorts and deep forests, bears, wolves, lynxes, and wild boars. We looked at the map and decided to take the route that we could tell went through the mountains, so as to see more than we thought we’d see from the highway. It turned out to be a logging road, without, unfortunately, any guardrails. Anna, Nick, and Eric will know exactly what this means to me, to ride on a narrow, bumpy road as it climbs steeply for a full half hour, going up at least a couple of thousand feet, without any guardrails anywhere. I did NOT end up on the floor of the car, and did not sob—both of these I and Donald both consider major improvements in my reactions. We stopped at a roadside spring, and got out to fill our water bottles, and Donald made me drink a few mouthfuls of Slovak booze, which very much helped, as did the 20 minute walk I took up the road. By the end of those 20 minutes, I had finally reached the top, and from there on the road was not as terrifying. The villages within these mountains HAVE to be completely cut off in winter, once snow falls, and it HAS to be a lot of snow. We emerged at last at Poprad, and were able to set off into the border mountains (with guardrails!!) again, making our way back to Krakow. Eric—I think Marion’s cousins took you to the Slovak Paradise years ago, right? I remember you describing the places you had to use metal ladders drilled into the rock to climb up some of the ledges. This method of using ladders to help hikers manage the worst spots, is fairly common in the Slovak mountains, it seems. Many of their mountains are steep and saw-toothed and require these ladders to be climbable.

It is fascinating to realize that eastern Slovakia is a different world from Poland, which is closer to Western Europe in many ways. Poles may be experiencing un-and under-employment and life may be a struggle for them, but eastern Slovakia is much poorer, as well as very off-the-beaten-track for tourists, oriented more towards the east (Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia) than the west, with tourist-serving people speaking German as a second language, not having any English. The smaller towns in the southern and central Slovak mountains are even less used to any tourists, as they are small and have no real tourist pulls, other than scenery, which other places also have.

Back in Krakow, we stayed in a budget hotel, a 5-minute walk from the Rynek (the largest town square in Europe). As night fell, the full moon came out and made the Rynek even more romantic and gorgeous. I can’t wait to go back to Eastern Europe again, for more of their hospitality, gorgeous scenery and beautiful cities and towns.

Models of Gamla (Old) Uppsala

The museum in Gamla Uppsala had models of the old community from a thousand years ago. Here are some of them.
One side of the community and of the cemetery of grave mounds, with the largest mounds in the rear, behind the Great Hall (king's/chieftain's home), and with the smaller houses between it and the more numerous smaller burial mounds.
The Christian church is in the rear, with a tower.
The pagan outdoor temple, made in a grove of sacred trees (in the last set of photos, the sacred central tree in this grove was shown as having the skins of animals and men hanging from it), is shown behind the early Christian church (with tower). They were contemporaneous. The terraced farm fields are in front, with homes at the bottom and on middle levels, and grave mounds just past them, near the sacred grove. Across the stream is a funeral pyre, smoke rising, with more burial mounds, houses, and the largest of the mounds nearby.

A different angle on the same scene. More homes and burial mounds, showing how close the living were to the dead.

A model of the Great Hall, I took a picture of it becausse it reminded me of Edoras, the hall of the Lord of Rohan. Certainly Tolkien modeled his Riders of Rohan on ancient Scandinavian culture, of which he was a student.

Religious Uppsala, photos

A beautiful painting on a wall of the "new" cathedral, built in the 1300s;

on the ceiling of the old cathedral (most of which burned in the late 1200s, but some of which was saved; saints painted on the arch of the old cathedral, including the ever-popular European favorite, Saint Barbara, with her tower;

and the pagan temple, as described by European contemporaries, with the skins of animals and men hanging from the tree in the sacred grove (of course, this is a model!)
And a beautiful statement at a bowl of "holy water" in the old cathedral (it IS a Lutheran church, and they don't use holy water, but it serves that purpose here)

More photos from Uppsala

The Uppsala castle, originally built by Gustav Vasa as a stronghold, but updated a few hundred years ago to be a palace.

This is the "Temple to Knowledge" created in Uppsala's late medieval university; it was a lecture-hall, with rows of standing students and curious observing the autopsies of criminals performed there to understand how the human body works. Each of the pink and blue rows is a row that students would stand behind. The rows are just barely wide enough to stand in, and take notes or draw pictures on the ledge in front of you.

As a temple, there are fake marble columns, just as in the churches here.
Looking down at the autopsy table from one of the higher rows.

Burial Mound Finds, Gamla Uppsala

A recreation of one of the boat burials, showing how the man and his grave goods and animals were buried.


the actual remains from that boat-grave.

Here are some of the grave finds from Gamla Uppsala--one man's boat grave and one woman's grave. From hers, some of the metal, stone and bone jewelry and the cloak-fasteners remain(I cannot get the blog program to rotate the photo, even though I have rotated it in the original program) ; from his, the metal bits from the wooden shield, the gold harness from a horse, and weapons, drinking horn, and helmet remain.

Visiting Uppsala and Gamla Uppsala

Tuesday, September 14, 2010:

This past weekend we went to Uppsala, a city (the 4^th largest in Sweden) just north of Stockholm (it’s a 40-minute inexpensive, fast train ride, which is how we got there) that was the capital of Sweden 500 years ago, when Sweden BEGAN, under Gustav Vasa (he united the people in battle against Denmark, which controlled all of Scandinavia at the time. The Danish king had called all the Swedish nobles together for a council meeting, and then had many of them murdered right there at the meeting, to teach the rest a lesson. Among the dead were Vasa’s father and brothers. Like a good Klingon -and he was about the size of one, judging by every image we have seen of him- revenge became his life-goal, but like a human, success became the best revenge. He began a royal dynasty that lasted a very long time (I’m not looking it up right now!), and Sweden not only gained its independence and its sense of itself as a country for the first time, but it also entered into a period of wealth and power, at least at the governmental and capitalist levels (the vast majority of Swedes remained very poor until after WWII, when Sweden, unlike most of Europe, did not need to recover, as they had suffered no damage, after declaring themselves “neutral” and negotiating with Hitler. Like the U.S., they were able to “hit the ground running,” economically, so to speak, and their economy, just like the U.S, boomed).

Uppsala was a great city to visit, much easier to manage than Stockholm, which is so spread-out that it’s hard to get to know at all—there’s always another neighborhood or city island to see. In an Irish village, it’s easy to have “a local” as there is not much—or any—choice. Even in Montague, it’s pretty much a choice between the Rendezvous and the Lady Killagrew. In Stockholm, there’s another café on every corner, and often more than one on each block, and so there’s always another one to explore, even close by. Uppsala is also very spread out, but most of that is either industrial, the university campus, or housing for the masses. The downtown is itself manageable, although still a city. And it is an extremely culturally diverse city (Stockholm is, too, but the non-Swedes are concentrated in the suburbs (here the suburbs are low-cost, and the downtown is the desirable and expensive real estate—like Manhattan vs. Queens, except that it’s as if ALL of Manhattan is desirable), and so there are only some Stockholm neighborhoods—Soedermalm is the one that comes to mind—that have any noticeable ethnic and racial diversity on the streets. In Uppsala, the downtown was hopping with students (it has a large university that attracts students from ALL over), with Muslim women in head-scarves (we saw a lovely mosque, which we have not seen here in Stockholm though I am sure they exist in the suburbs), with Asians, South Americans, Africans, Turks, etc. The shopping was funkier, and we stumbled unknowingly upon their Culture Festival, which was kind of like a HUGE Katonah carnival (for those of you from that neck of the woods), but without the rides. It was night-time, and the city was lit up with booths that sold Thai food, cotton candy, candied almonds being made right there—and boy, did they smell and taste great!!—with art and craft shops that were open (yes, I bought gifts for my ADULT “kids”), with art galleries that were also open (we visited a gallery-workshop where the woman wove large, spectacular portraits of people on her loom, and they looked just like photographs) with music of ALL sorts (we listened to a rock band, to a band playing American country music, to a Turkish group singing, to a wonderful female jazz singer, and to a great swing band, which had a terrific female singer. These were only a few of the many competing outdoor music venues), and the cathedral (more on this later) was lit up so beautifully.

Uppsala was also the center of political and religious leadership by the year 500, having been settled by about 2500 BC. Multiple shipping routes converged on Uppsala, and later, overland roads also went through there. The Uppsala that existed then was actually outside of the present city, and is now called Gamla Uppsala, “Old Uppsala.” There are archeological remains of hill forts and a great king’s hall, as well as the agricultural terraced fields that supported the king’s demesne. Like Birka, Gamla Uppsala has, they believe, over 3000 graves from the 6^th century through the next few centuries, but “only” 250-300 grave mounds have been located. (hopefully the figure of the adult walking in front of these mounds will give you some sense of the size of them) Additionally, the nearby area also holds large numbers of what are called “boat graves,” which are a boon to archeologists as the dead in these were not cremated, and so the bodies, their clothing and jewelry, armaments, and other grave goods yield lots of information about the culture of the time. Archeologists were surprised to find that some of the bodies, as well as cremated remains from the more numerous grave mounds, are female, and that they appear to have been rulers or at least highly important and high status individuals. I suppose that the archeologists see clues of a male-dominated culture, based on strength and ability in battle, given the importance of spears, daggers, bows, and shields, and assume that women MUST have been nothing but chattel in such a system. Given the write-ups in the otherwise excellent and absorbing museums, they continue to have difficulty incorporating these high-status women into their schemata. In fact, there are large “boat grave” cemeteries elsewhere in the country where EVERY body is female. These boat graves contain a body with armaments, signs of wealth and of international trade, animals such as horses, dogs, cows, goats, and packages of food, bowls, etc. They are packed for a long boat journey, and they “carry” what they will need on that journey and when they get to their destination. As usual, we spent hours upon hours wandering the acres of cemetery land and the informative and really well-done museum, as well as the ancient church. It is built around what remains of the original church that was the cathedral, and thus the center of ecclesiastic (church leadership, i.e. bishops, for those of you who don’t know that word) power in Swedish lands when Christianity became a political and spiritual force in those lands. That church appears to be, of course, built on what was originally a pagan temple, part of the royal complex. The church, although now small (a devastating fire hundreds of years ago meant that the cathedral and royal palace were moved to the place where Uppsala now is) was gorgeous, with fascinating remnants of the original paintings of saints and angels (in the entrance porch, there were three saints painted on the ceiling, all of them protectors against the plague). This painting is of St. George and the Dragon.

Oh—one more comment on the burial mounds: just as in Birka, the settlement of people during the time that this enormous cemetery was being built was very close to the mounds themselves. The dead and the living were in closer proximity than you can imagine, being from a culture that puts the dead by themselves in separate spaces, away from the living. The ancient Swedes lived WITH their dead; they were clearly not afraid of them, and it is believed that they would have sought out the council of their ancestors by going and sitting on their graves. The “king’s” hall was situated right smack up against the enormous grave mounds of what MUST have been male and female leaders (these mounds are among those that yielded a stunning surprise to archeologists when one of them was excavated and was first labeled the grave of a man, based on the grave goods, then the grave of a young male, based on the size of a couple of bones that were found to have survived the funeral pyre, and then, much more recently, the grave of a woman, based on more informed bone scans). Their presence must have lent authority to the living leader’s own power and status, reminding the people that s/he came from those earlier leaders and that they were behind her/him. It would have lent both political and spiritual power to the living leader, I think, in the way that having the Vatican sitting literally on top of the tomb of St. Peter, the first “pope,” lends authority to each living pope.

The “new” cathedral in Uppsala, which is STILL the ecclesiastic center of Sweden, even though the political capital has moved to Stockholm, is an enormous, beautiful, impressive place (the largest church in Scandinavia), with tombs of many of the kings and queens of Sweden, including the national hero, Gustav Vasa (who MADE Sweden convert from Catholicism to the Lutheran church). Unlike the important churches here in Stockholm, most of which were built AFTER the Reformation, one can still see Sweden’s Roman Catholic origins in this cathedral. An “amusing” fact is that a set of canons at Uppsala’s castle was trained permanently in the cathedral, so the Lutheran bishops would know the consequences of any protests they made to the Vasa dynasty’s rule, including decisions that affected religion, as the Lutheran church is the state Church of Sweden; thus the king or queen is at its head, the way the queen is vis-à-vis the Church of England.

More on Swedish election

Warning: this is an explanation of this past weekend's Swedish election (Part 1), that then segues into a diatribe against the Tea Party, the Democrats, the Republicans, American voters, and our political rhetoric in general (Part 2). If reading liberal stuff makes your blood boil, you will want to stop after the Swedish election stuff. If you work for a bank, you don't want to read it at work or on your work email. And if you don't care about international politics, even about the rise of a neo-Nazi party in beyond-liberal Sweden, skip this blog altogether and just read my travel stuff. :) But it's my blog, so I get to write what I want ("It's my blog and I'll rant if I want to, rant if I want to...' With apologies to writers Walter Gold, John Gluck, Jr, and Herb Weiner, Producer Quincy Jones, and singer Leslie Gore) Part 1: The Swedish Election
By now you have probably read or heard about the upsetting 5.7% vote achieved by the party called the Swedish Democrats (in the U.S., voters tend to be so un-informed that the parties, if known, as they are here, as the Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats, and the Swedish Democrats, would all be confused with one another and voters would vote for one party while intending to vote for another one), who have their roots in Neo-Nazi-ism. They are NOT part of the center-right coalition I described in my last blog, and all of the major parties, no matter on the right or left, have furiously backed away from them. The fact is that 94% of Swedes did NOT vote for them, and so it's not as if they got a majority or anything like it. However, the fact that they won 5.7% of the vote means that they not only doubled their vote from the last election, but that they will have seats in Parliament. Since the "right" and "left" essentially split the rest of the vote, with the center-right coalition of 3 parties winning a slightly higher percentage of the remaining 94.3% than the left-coalition of 3 parties (but with the Social Democrats--the historic left party that dominated Swedish politics since the First World War ended until the LAST election--winning the largest percentage of votes out of all the parties running but at the same time winning its SMALLEST electoral share ever), the center-right coalition will remain in the Prime Minister's seat, and it is up to them to put together a government cabinet and a Parliament capable of passing legislation. Unfortunately, they will not be able to do so, even with their coalition of parties, since they did not win up a majority of the votes, so they need to negotiate with another small party to join them to make a majority. They have PROMISED to NOT do this with the neo-Nazi Swedish Democrats, and have made overtures to the Greens, which were part of the LEFT coalition and sharply criticized the center-right during the campaign. So far the Greens have said "no," but hopefully they will win some concessions from the governing coalition in order to join them in governing, because otherwise, they may break their promise and turn to the Nazi-types to pass legislation.
Many Swedes are horrified by the turn of events, and over 10,000 people turned out for an anti-racism rally (organized by a 17-year-old girl on Facebook, of course) in downtown Stockholm after the results were announced (by the way, the Swedes make it very easy to vote, as most countries do, by staging the election on a weekend --again, as most countries do--as well as allowing people to vote in the weeks leading up to it, so that the lines are not long. Why don't we do it that way? Answer, according to every single academic and politician who has analyzed it: Because it has always been important to PREVENT the majority of working Americans from voting, by holding it on ONE work day).
This seems to be a part of a problem the industrial world is having all over: the rise of racist, right-wing parties expressing anger, especially aimed at the immigrants who work in the worst jobs in each country, and/or who are seen as moving there to collect social services and not work at all, whether or not this is true. For example, even legal immigrants in the U.S cannot get most kinds of government assistance, and illegal ones pay into Social Security (because they often have fake Social Security cards) but cannot ever collect. They also work in the kinds of jobs that NO Americans will work in anymore, poultry processing, for example. But these kinds of facts are either not believed by many or do not matter; people believe what they hear, not what is true.
Interestingly, the European right-wing parties have different roots from each other. Some, such as the Norwegians, arose as anti-high-tax movements. In Sweden, however, there is no mass movement against the high tax system nor against the welfare state, which everyone pretty much supports (they only differ on defining and preventing "fraud" such as those who CAN work claiming disability to collect support, or those who supposedly move here from poorer countries in order to collect). It is very much, instead, a movement of anger against what are seen as those who threaten a pure Swedish identity, and especially against the Eastern Europeans (Polish, especially) and Muslims. This movement is made up largely of young Swedish males who don't know or don't care that the rhetoric being used is very similar to that used by the Nazis in Europe 70 -80years ago. And it appears to be fueled by rage against a changing economy that is viewed as threatening to their own place in the industrial workplace.

Part 2: My Own Political Fury
Meanwhile, instead of the disenfranchised, or even those THREATENED with economic disenfranchisement, rising up in fury at their poverty, their low chances of getting jobs or jobs that pay a decent wage, the starving of the social sector that has gone on in the U.S. for decades now, under the excuse that "times are hard, we can't afford it, we all must sacrifice," we are faced in the U.S. with a raging mass movement of the ENfranchised, of those who already have, who are furious at the idea that they might have to share their wealth with their fellow and sister citizens. The Tea Party's support does NOT come from the poor, or from young workers, or from young 20-somethings with college educations and no job prospects (the NINJA-Generation--No Income, No Job or Assets), or from the unemployed who have worked for decades and paid into unemployment benefits and are seeing those benefits threatened; no, it comes from the well-paid, already-well-housed, well-educated older Americans who do not realize that taxes are what are necessary in order for them to live in safety and to live in a society of educated, content, law-abiding people, that taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilization, instead of in chaos and violent anarchy. Millionaires and billionaires who think everyone ELSE has to sacrifice, while they deserve tax breaks simply for living, are who is bankrolling this movement of the rich and angry. Meanwhile, they claim that THEY need their tax breaks, while workers who have paid into social security and medicare all their lives can do without those services. Really!!1These same damn people are arguing both of these: "give me my tax breaks, and cut those people's unemployment benefits, because we can't afford them." They also want to privatize both social security and medicare by having everyone invest individually in the stock market to prepare for their old age and health care; think how well THAT would have worked over the last couple of years. But it's okay if OTHERS take risks; just not them. It's pretty much the same "ethic" that fueled the banking crisis: it's fine to screw over everyone else, because "I" have no responsibility for anyone else---but THEY have responsibility to "ME, " to make sure I stay rich. They never risk (because they get bailed out or get tax breaks for their losses), they never sacrifice, they never feel responsibility to anyone not related to them, and they NEVER acknowledge the debt to society THEY owe for the roads, bridges, ports, airports, schools, hospitals, R&D that they have benefited from and that WE all have funded, through OUR taxes. They've got theirs (and they insist, contrary to every fact, that they did it on their own. I once had a student insist that neither he nor his family should have to pay taxes, since they had earned it all on their own, while all the while he had gone to public school and was in public university, funded by taxpayers), and why should they make sure anyone else gets to have any, also? But everyone else can sacrifice to make sure THEY continue to be the richest people on the planet.

So the anger that is energizing the American right-wing political movement right now is NOT the same as that energizing the Swedish--or others'--right wing. However, this anger is also informed by anti-immigrant racism, and THAT emotion gives it a shared base with the non-elite Americans who do NOT need tax breaks for the wealthy. The wealthy politically USE these other AMericans who DO feel dis-enfranchised (whether or not they actually are. Survey after survey shows that it is white American males who are angriest about immigration and racial issues, as they feel less privileged than they feel they OUGHT to be, relative to women and racial and ethnic minorities. Even when they themselves are out-earning those women and minority men, they don't realize it, because they THOUGHT they'd be doing better than they are. And rather than blame corporations and the vastly wealthy for what they define as their predicament, they blame those BELOW them in the pay scale, as if THEY are to blame. Isn't this weird??? Why on earth DON'T Americans blame the rich and the CEOs for moving good jobs abroad, for wiping out unions, for fighting the minimum wage since it was first introduced in the early 20th century and at every single threatened increase in it since? Because American political rhetoric calls THAT kind of anger and blame (not the actual actions by the rich and by corporate owners against the working class) "class warfare," as if saying that corporations moved jobs first south and then abroad is a worse crime against the rich than the rich actually CUTTING those jobs and moving them to worse-paying areas is a crime against workers (poor victimized rich.). AND because our political rhetoric tells us that it's "welfare queens" who drive 40-year old Cadillacs who are to blame (25-30 years ago) or that it's hungry Central Americans whose lives back home are so horrible that they're willing to put up with jobs none of us would, just so they can send some money back home (exactly the way most of our ancestors did 100 or so years ago) who are to blame. The same privileged class that kept Hungarian and Irish miners at each others' throats, and southern whites and blacks at each others,' so that they wouldn't notice that THEY were cutting EVERYONE's wages, keeps telling us to blame each other for our woes, so that we won't notice that THEY are robbing us blind (think bank bail-outs, think tax breaks specifically for hedge-fund managers--the proposed ending of which one millionaire hedge-fund manager compared to the Nazi invasion of Poland, which is so grotesquely insulting to EVERYONE that he ought to have been chased from the scene. He was not. He said it at a banquet. Can you imagine? Ending the tax break for hedge-fund managers compared to the Nazi invasion of Poland? This man would play a Nazi in the movie). And meanwhile, tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires, which, face-it, none of us will ever be, will leave OUR nation impoverished. And then they will be able to say, "oh, but we HAVE to cut these services to veterans, to those otherwise-welfare-moms whom we sent to work and promised subsidized child care to, so their children wouldn't be left alone, to the unemployed, to schools; we can't possibly afford health care or that subsidized day care for poor moms, or to fix our roads or collapsing bridges, or to fund our state and national parks, or to clean up our environment, or make our borders safe, or to fix our roads and bridges and national parks, we can't possibly afford to have a jobs program....because the money just isn't there." And yet it WOULD have been there if we simply had the will to make them pay their share, instead of offering them breaks that the rest of us don't have. And we KNOW that "trickle-down" doesn't work; we KNOW from many studies that the very rich do NOT spend their tax cuts; we KNOW that they invest them into money-making schemes such as hedge-funds instead of into actual productive, employment-generating projects, such as into buying machinery to re-tool a factory so it can manufacture a new or improved product. We KNOW this. We also know that the population that actually uses any tax breaks by putting that money back INTO the economy is the poor and middle class, because, hey, they buy things with that money they otherwise can't afford to buy. And it IS, unfortunately, consumer spending that supports our economy, in a true trickle-down effect. All of this has been proven over and over again, by economists, for those who use facts, rather than ideology, to organize their political stances and voting behavior. These facts are readily available.
What angers me--even more than all of this--is that the Democratic Party has lost whatever balls it once may have had, and has turned into an ineffectual, running-scared group of politicians who care nothing about solving the nation's problems but only about getting re-elected (of course, the Republican party does the exact same thing, except that their FIRST concern is making Obama look bad, and they will do THAT at ANY cost, without caring a fig about the host of problems that beset us. Second is getting re-elected). We have a Congress made up of individuals who "govern" by ideology, not facts, and the Democrats seem incapable of even playing the rhetoric game against the Republicans, whose ability to define reality however they like is so eerily like "1984" that the book seems like prophecy. Obama continues to act like it's calm, fact-driven wonkiness that will win in the end, and unfortunately he has surrounded himself with "wonks" from the banking industry and those who made a killing in hedge-fund land, so his advisors create policies that profit the very people who will never vote for him or other Democrats, anyway.
Well who knew blogging could help a person vent? Now I know. Hopefully that will be it for my political blogging on here, as this is supposed to be a travel blog.

Swedish National Elections

Since we are living in Sweden during their national elections (the relatively low-key campaign is happening right now), I thought I should say something about, however ill-informed I am. I am trying to get a handle on it by reading the English language online newspaper here, and if you yourself want to understand it, you should go to the web page of "The Local" in Stockholm, and check out their special Election Coverage. At any rate, the most important thing to understand is that, while there are two coalitions of parties running against each other (normally in parliamentary systems, coalitions, or voting blocs, are not formed until AFTER the election results, but this time around groups of political parties have already negotiated their coalition blocs beforehand,promising to work together after the election to make sure their shared policies can be legislatively passed), their politics have little to do with American-type politics. The left-wing government that had ruled Sweden successfully (by that I mean that they had developed a social "welfare" system in Sweden--spending money on roads, schools, museums, airports, job-creation, research and development, health care, housing, etc--that had created one of the wealthiest, happiest, and healthiest populations on earth) lost 4 years ago to a center-moderate coalition of parties. It has also successfully steered Sweden through an economic storm that has brought other countries to their financial knees, by continuing to stress job-creation and encouragement of companies that actually provide goods and services, as opposed to following policies that support the banking and other financial institutions. By keeping the economy as a whole strong, the banks have remained strong, and so has the Swedish kroner (crown). This center-moderate coalition is ahead in the polls, partly, it seems, on the basis of their campaigning on re-nationalizing the educational system, in order to restore order to it, on making sure students' work is graded, beginning at age 12, and on what passes for a "law-and-order" platform here, as people seem worried about rising crime rates (they are NOTHING compared to the States, but are still worrisome to Swedes), young people's behavior, and better integration of immigrants into Swedish society and culture (people are welcome here, as long as they become Swedish. This is similar to the French stance. Research here finds that immigrants who continue their ethnic identity, continue naming their children ethnic names, don't speak Swedish well, etc, continue to work in segregated and lower-paid jobs and to experience negative social responses from Swedes. I guess this is common-sense, right? Immigrants who leave behind their ethnic identities, learn the language, and assimilate, moved into mainstream society even in the US, historically (I use the word "even" because of the vicious anti-immigrant politics right now in the US, centered, seemingly, on the ignorant assumption that all immigrants are illegal immigrants, and that all Hispanics are illegal immigrants. Both of these assumptions are so un-informed that they would be laughable as simply stupid, except that they have vicious consequences. Thank God our own ancestors weren't treated similarly--and before you bring up "NO Irish Need Apply," it's a myth. There is absolutely no historical evidence of any such signs or practice. I know you've been hearing about it for years, but it's like the hitch-hiking prom-going ghost-girl who disappears in the night--and we've all been hearing about HER for years, too).

Okay, so at any rate, what I am learning about these two political coalitions is that, by American standards, both of them are extremely liberal. Basically their differences would be classified, in American politics, as left-wing vs. liberal. Yes, the "center-moderates" want to be "tougher on crime" and to beef up Sweden's contributions of manpower to NATO; yes, they want to continue the personal tax breaks both for those who hire domestic workers to clean, cook and watch their kids, AND for those who hire services in the form of carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc, while the left coalition wants to get rid of the tax break for hiring domestic service (these policies, by the way, have been or are being adopted all over Europe, on the basis of varying, and sometimes contradictory politics: pro-getting educated women to retain their link to the labor force; as a jobs-creation policy for low-education women; jobs-creation for trained crafts workers; jobs for immigrants;...It is also criticized as anti-immigrant, as sexist, as against women being homemakers, as maintaining a two-tiered economy,...) but keep the one for hiring the plumbers, etc. The left-wing slogan and platform stress that the nation has a responsibility to take care of ALL the nation before it thinks about tax cuts for the wealthy (everyone agrees on tax cuts for pensioners, who now pay higher taxes than workers, and on lowering taxes for workers; the left wants to raise taxes on million-dollar homes, which are less common here than in the States); the moderates' slogan and platform stresses that they must help integrate everyone into the Swedish economy and culture (Can you imagine the wonderfullness of living in a society where politicians have the guts to use words like "responsibility" and NOT just mean it fiscally, but in the sense that we all have a responsibility to each other?). One interesting policy that the moderates just suggested is a block payment of about $1000 to any immigrant who learns (can pass the language exam) Swedish within a year, rather than continuing to take the government-subsidized Swedish language classes; this policy was termed "condescending and patronizing" by the left, who argue that, of course all immigrants WANT to learn the language; we don't have to PAY them to do so. The ruling moderate coalition, as I said before, also thinks that Sweden needs to be better members of NATO and the EU, and that Sweden must provide greater incentives for going "green," including tax cuts for homeowners who purchase energy-saving materials for their homes.
In other words, the center-moderate coalition here is WAY more liberal than the Democratic Party in the US has had the balls to be in over 40 years, despite the here-and -there oddities of individuals within parties within that coalition, where individuals come out with anti-immigrant remarks, etc. One problem in understanding these issues, I think, is that many Swedes believe that it is MORE helpful to immigrants for them to assimilate than for them to retain their separate identities and cultures. And so arguing for programs that are meant to help immigrants to improve their economic standing in Swedish society, by NOT "being so Muslim" or so southern European in "lifestyle", language, and names (Muslims here are especially disapproved of if they behave in ways that are seen as demeaning to women) can of course be seen as insulting to immigrants and therefore "anti-immigrant," when there actually is some factual basis for their argument. It is cultural relativism vs. hard, cold, economic and social reality (which is not always the way we would like it to be). Swedes in general like ALL people to be "normal" and to conform to the mean; they don't like people who stand out in any way (Don and I on our 7-hour round trip driving weekend, plus hours of local driving while there, kept looking for ONE house painted a different color than Falun red or yellow, and NEVER saw a single one. It would make ME WANT to paint my house ANYTHING else). It takes courage in Sweden--more so than in most American cities--to dress differently,to pierce your nose and/or dye your hair pink. And yes, I know there are bohemian areas and cities in Sweden, but their existence speaks to the "normality" of the rest of Swedish life. Swedes themselves will say, "oh, but ____ is very bohemian." They do not deny that the rest of Sweden is conformist. Swedes in general like being Swedish, and they can't imagine why you wouldn't like to be Swedish too, especially if you emigrated here. It's not an arrogance like the French, because it's not that they think they are superior to anywhere else, necessarily (well, maybe they believe that their welfare state is). It's just that, in their own modest way, they are very happy being Swedish and want their immigrants to be Swedish too. They don't want the kind of hyphenated people that America is made up of- Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, Muslim-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, etc. They just want SWEDES. And this is seems to be fueling much of the current "conservative" (actually left-moderate) politics here.

Alright, I am now spinning sociology out of only a few sources,and so have gotten over my head. At any rate, I find this election interesting BECAUSE it is so different from American elections. I am enjoying being far away from the horrible politics in the US, which is so depressing and where it seems that so many people WANT us all to be furious all the time (my body and brain can't take all that anger). I can't stand all that negative energy being thrown around constantly--it's exhausting and frightening. Give me a calm, orderly, month-long (only) election campaign with mostly sane, calm politicians and media any day. Our campaigns, instead, seem to have degenerated into a bloodsport run by crazies and cheered on by media who are themselves starving for blood. Yuck.

Visiting Dalarna, the heart of Sweden

Monday, September 6^th.

This past weekend we rented a car and drove for about 3 hours, mostly north but also west, to an area of the country that is considered to be the authentic, quintessential Sweden. Supposedly if you visit the Lake Siljan (Silyan) region, you will see what Swedish people think of as what makes them Swedish.

Sweden is COVERED with lakes. If a town is not on the seacoast, it is likely on a lake or river. Water is ubiquitous, and in between all of this water is farmland and forest. Lake Siljan is Sweden’s 6^th largest lake (Lake Vanern is Europe’s 3^rd largest lake and Sweden’s largest). Together with two smaller lakes that connect to it, it covers over 350 square kilometers (I figure that miles are something less than 2/3 of kilometers, give or take, making it about, maybe, 250 square miles; for comparison’s sake, Lake Sebago in Maine covers about 117 square kilometers (45 square miles) in surface area. Lake Malaren is the third largest lake in Sweden, by the way).

Lake Siljan is within the Dalarna district, and while it looks amazingly like the lake district of Maine, with blue lakes scattered everywhere, in between pine forests, with low hills surrounding the lakes and growing taller in the distance, it is also quite distinct with its traditional architecture and painted red houses (the red paint comes from the copper mine we visited, nearby, in Falun). We stayed at a guest house in Leksand, which is at the bottom of a long finger of the lake. The guesthouse was gorgeous (see picture at top of post), with great food, and we could walk into town and down to the lake shore easily. We also drove to the next village, Tallberg, and hiked a bit down from the hillside, where the village is located, down to the lake and back again. And then we drove still farther north and hiked into a waterfall that is about 100 feet high.

Lake Siljan is so big that this finger seems like a very large lake, when in fact you can’t even glimpse the main part of the lake. When you finally drive north and see the lake, you are still only seeing a large bay of it, with a long peninsula forming what looks like the far end of the lake, but is only enclosing a portion of the lake. To see more about the Lake Siljan region, you can go to: http://www.geographia.com/sweden/lakedistrict.html

Leksand and Rattvik both have churches that date from the 14^th century. Locals villages would arrive to church on Sundays by boat, just like the one shown in this photo. While they each have had changes and improvements made, there are bits that remain from those early centuries, such as the crucifixes from the 1300s. We couldn’t take photos in the Rattvik church, as there was a wedding going on. A number of guests—including young adults—to the wedding were wearing local traditional outfits, as these are still brought out for celebrations and holidays.

Leksand is the home of the largest Midsummer festival in Sweden, where Midsummer (Midsommar) is the main holiday of the year. Over 14,000 people come to Leksand and join in watching the “maypole” raised. Each local village in Dalarna has its own maypole (It really is a midsummer pole, but I guess it got translated as “maypole” because that made sense to English language users), which stands in the village all year.

After leaving lake Siljan we visited a copper mine that was being mined in the 800s (or earlier) and closed in 1992. It was the source of most of the world’s copper in the 1600s, and was responsible for Sweden’s great wealth in that same century.

Our last stop for the weekend was Carl and Karen Larson’s house (shown in this photo), where they raised their 8 children and created a beautiful country home, filled with Carl’s paintings, both on canvas and on the walls and doors, and with Karen’s gorgeous self-designed textiles (weavings, needlepoint and embroideries). It is a place that lifts the spirits, and is in a beautiful area, with those red-painted houses with white gingerbread trim not only dominating, but being the only option for houses, besides the beautiful golden yellow that also comes from another stage of copper production.

And to see more of the Larson’s house, here is another link, along with one to Carl Larson’s paintings, many of which were of family members in that house.

http://www.google.se/images?q=Carl+larson&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF8&source=univ&ei=S1eFTNiSOMvuOaKSpcsO&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CEQQsAQwAw