| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Zany Days And Cheap Mondays Always Get Me Down
Quick, when someone mentions the country of Sweden,
what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Anything at all? For
most people, it’s meatballs, or maybe the fact that it has one of
the goofiest sounding languages in the world, and that‘s about
it. Which isn’t surprising since it’s a pretty quiet place where
very little of any particular consequence ever happens.
There was a time decades ago when it had a racy reputation
for being a place where everyone was blonde, good-looking and
sexually liberated, the place to go if sensuality and hedonistic
pleasure-seeking were things upon which you wanted to base a
lifestyle. Reference was made to that old reputation in the
1999 movie “Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me” when
a woman told Powers, “You’ve had more sex on the job than a
Swedish stewardess.”
But that’s all pretty passé in this day and age given that
sexual freedom -- or, to put it another way, promiscuity -- is
rampant throughout the Western world. Still, no one should be
surprised to learn that Sweden is the most secular of all
European countries, the number of regular church-goers
having dwindled to a very small percentage of the population.
But it’s not small enough for Bjorn Atldax, the designer of a
provocative logo for a trendy new punk-rock style of jeans
known as Cheap Mondays. The logo depicts a skull with a cross
turned upside down on its forehead, all for the purpose of
making young people question Christianity, as if it wasn’t
already an irrelevancy to most young Swedes anyway.
“It is an active statement against Christianity,” Atldax told
the Associated Press. “I’m not a Satanist myself, but I have a
great dislike for organized religion.” Atldax believes that
Christianity is a "force of evil” that has sparked wars
throughout history and therefore needs to be discouraged.
Of course, if Atldax were to acquire a more substantive
knowledge of recent world history than that which can be
gleaned from peacenik bumper stickers, he might realize that
Christianity has long since outgrown its proselytizing, territory-
conquering days. To call Christianity a “force of evil” now is
simply nonsense. Looking at the most destructive forces of evil
of the past century -- Nazism, fascism, communism -- and the
tens of millions who were slaughtered in their name, one can’t
help but notice a pronounced dearth of Christian-influenced
warmongering.
Despite its indifference, and sometimes outright hostility,
towards Christianity, Sweden is one of the most often cited
countries as a great place to go by Americans who are
dissatisfied with their own country in some way or who swear
they’ll bail out of the U.S. if ____ (insert Republican name
here) is elected president. In fact, if I had a nickel for every
time I’d heard some left-leaning American sing the praises of
that snowbound Shangri-la, I’d be . . . Well, I wouldn’t be rich,
but I would have filled up a fair-sized change jar by now,
enough to go out and get a nice meal of my favorite ethnic food,
which wouldn’t include anything Swedish since the food, as
well as the country itself, is the epitome of blandness.
Admittedly, though, as social welfare states go, it’s done
pretty well, perhaps better than most other European welfare
states. As pointed out in the CIA World Factbook: “Aided by
peace and neutrality for the whole 20th century, Sweden has
achieved an enviable standard of living under a mixed system
of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits.”
That’s all fine and dandy, but what most America-bashing
Sweden admirers, as well as hipster logo designers, fail to
realize is that whatever characteristics they find so appealing
about the place are all possible because of the greatness of one
particular, predominantly Christian country: the United
States. That’s because without America’s military might,
Sweden would be just another province within a larger Nazi, or
perhaps a Soviet, empire. How uncool would that be?
It’s one of those nattering little details of history that your
garden variety, social utopian doesn’t like to expend too many
brain cells thinking about. For ideological reasons it’s just so
much more palatable to believe that Sweden’s neutrality,
pacifism, welfare statism and general social liberalism are the
causes of its relative success. Then one can believe that if all
Western countries would simply emulate Sweden, the West
would basically be trouble free rather than having to deal with
the nastiness of things like global warming and apocalyptic
Islamic terrorism.
And speaking of apocalyptic Islamic terrorism, interestingly,
Osama bin Laden mentioned Sweden in his personalized
videotaped communiqué to the American people just before the
2004 election. In disputing President Bush’s claim that part of
the reason for the 9/11 attacks was because al-Qaeda hates
freedom, bin Laden said, “Let him tell us why we did not strike
Sweden, for example.” In other words, bin Laden was saying,
Sweden is free, but al-Qaeda didn’t attack it; therefore, it’s not
about freedom.
There‘s actually some truth to that. What it’s more about is
the fact that the U.S. supports Israel and in plenty of other
ways dares to stick its nose into Middle Eastern affairs.
Sweden, on the other hand, is an innocuous, pacifistic,
inconsequential little country that minds its own business and
doesn’t give Islamofascists an excuse to attack it -- or at least it
hasn’t yet.
But despite what bin Laden said about not striking Sweden,
jihad is all about killing infidels and Sweden’s chock full of
‘em. And like other European countries, Sweden has had its
share of Muslim immigration. Malmo, the third largest city in
Sweden, has acquired a population that is 40 percent foreign,
many of whom are Muslims. As in other European countries,
many Swedish Muslims have difficulty assimilating, despite the
country’s liberalism and social utopianism. Many Muslims in
Malmo no doubt have one foot in a radical Mosque and the
other on a banana peel.
So, while logo designer Bjorn Atldax is trying through his
work to eradicate the possibility that an occasional Swedish
teenager might take an interest in Christianity, a demographic
time bomb is ticking away in Sweden. Secular ethnic Swedes
don’t reproduce themselves enough to grow their population
while Muslim immigrants do. The math is simple. Sweden is in
far more danger of going Islamic than it is of having some sort
of Christian revival. So where are the anti-Islam logos?
Orjan Andersson, the creator of Cheap Mondays, doesn‘t take
Altdax’s message very seriously: “I don’t believe in neither the
devil nor God. I’m not interested in religion, I’m more
interested in that the logo looks good.”
Fine, Orjan, whatever floats your boat. But one of the
fundamental characteristics of human beings is that they need
something to believe in. It doesn’t necessarily have to be
religion, but it needs to be something more than “that the logo
looks good” if life is to have much meaning or purpose. And
while your logo designer is busy misguidedly trying to wipe out
the last vestiges of Christian influence, the Muslims in your
midst have a very solid sense of purpose, and that purpose is
for the world, including Sweden, to be Islamic.
Quick, when someone mentions the country of Sweden,
what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Anything at all? For
most people, it’s meatballs, or maybe the fact that it has one of
the goofiest sounding languages in the world, and that‘s about
it. Which isn’t surprising since it’s a pretty quiet place where
very little of any particular consequence ever happens.
There was a time decades ago when it had a racy reputation
for being a place where everyone was blonde, good-looking and
sexually liberated, the place to go if sensuality and hedonistic
pleasure-seeking were things upon which you wanted to base a
lifestyle. Reference was made to that old reputation in the
1999 movie “Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me” when
a woman told Powers, “You’ve had more sex on the job than a
Swedish stewardess.”
But that’s all pretty passé in this day and age given that
sexual freedom -- or, to put it another way, promiscuity -- is
rampant throughout the Western world. Still, no one should be
surprised to learn that Sweden is the most secular of all
European countries, the number of regular church-goers
having dwindled to a very small percentage of the population.
But it’s not small enough for Bjorn Atldax, the designer of a
provocative logo for a trendy new punk-rock style of jeans
known as Cheap Mondays. The logo depicts a skull with a cross
turned upside down on its forehead, all for the purpose of
making young people question Christianity, as if it wasn’t
already an irrelevancy to most young Swedes anyway.
“It is an active statement against Christianity,” Atldax told
the Associated Press. “I’m not a Satanist myself, but I have a
great dislike for organized religion.” Atldax believes that
Christianity is a "force of evil” that has sparked wars
throughout history and therefore needs to be discouraged.
Of course, if Atldax were to acquire a more substantive
knowledge of recent world history than that which can be
gleaned from peacenik bumper stickers, he might realize that
Christianity has long since outgrown its proselytizing, territory-
conquering days. To call Christianity a “force of evil” now is
simply nonsense. Looking at the most destructive forces of evil
of the past century -- Nazism, fascism, communism -- and the
tens of millions who were slaughtered in their name, one can’t
help but notice a pronounced dearth of Christian-influenced
warmongering.
Despite its indifference, and sometimes outright hostility,
towards Christianity, Sweden is one of the most often cited
countries as a great place to go by Americans who are
dissatisfied with their own country in some way or who swear
they’ll bail out of the U.S. if ____ (insert Republican name
here) is elected president. In fact, if I had a nickel for every
time I’d heard some left-leaning American sing the praises of
that snowbound Shangri-la, I’d be . . . Well, I wouldn’t be rich,
but I would have filled up a fair-sized change jar by now,
enough to go out and get a nice meal of my favorite ethnic food,
which wouldn’t include anything Swedish since the food, as
well as the country itself, is the epitome of blandness.
Admittedly, though, as social welfare states go, it’s done
pretty well, perhaps better than most other European welfare
states. As pointed out in the CIA World Factbook: “Aided by
peace and neutrality for the whole 20th century, Sweden has
achieved an enviable standard of living under a mixed system
of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits.”
That’s all fine and dandy, but what most America-bashing
Sweden admirers, as well as hipster logo designers, fail to
realize is that whatever characteristics they find so appealing
about the place are all possible because of the greatness of one
particular, predominantly Christian country: the United
States. That’s because without America’s military might,
Sweden would be just another province within a larger Nazi, or
perhaps a Soviet, empire. How uncool would that be?
It’s one of those nattering little details of history that your
garden variety, social utopian doesn’t like to expend too many
brain cells thinking about. For ideological reasons it’s just so
much more palatable to believe that Sweden’s neutrality,
pacifism, welfare statism and general social liberalism are the
causes of its relative success. Then one can believe that if all
Western countries would simply emulate Sweden, the West
would basically be trouble free rather than having to deal with
the nastiness of things like global warming and apocalyptic
Islamic terrorism.
And speaking of apocalyptic Islamic terrorism, interestingly,
Osama bin Laden mentioned Sweden in his personalized
videotaped communiqué to the American people just before the
2004 election. In disputing President Bush’s claim that part of
the reason for the 9/11 attacks was because al-Qaeda hates
freedom, bin Laden said, “Let him tell us why we did not strike
Sweden, for example.” In other words, bin Laden was saying,
Sweden is free, but al-Qaeda didn’t attack it; therefore, it’s not
about freedom.
There‘s actually some truth to that. What it’s more about is
the fact that the U.S. supports Israel and in plenty of other
ways dares to stick its nose into Middle Eastern affairs.
Sweden, on the other hand, is an innocuous, pacifistic,
inconsequential little country that minds its own business and
doesn’t give Islamofascists an excuse to attack it -- or at least it
hasn’t yet.
But despite what bin Laden said about not striking Sweden,
jihad is all about killing infidels and Sweden’s chock full of
‘em. And like other European countries, Sweden has had its
share of Muslim immigration. Malmo, the third largest city in
Sweden, has acquired a population that is 40 percent foreign,
many of whom are Muslims. As in other European countries,
many Swedish Muslims have difficulty assimilating, despite the
country’s liberalism and social utopianism. Many Muslims in
Malmo no doubt have one foot in a radical Mosque and the
other on a banana peel.
So, while logo designer Bjorn Atldax is trying through his
work to eradicate the possibility that an occasional Swedish
teenager might take an interest in Christianity, a demographic
time bomb is ticking away in Sweden. Secular ethnic Swedes
don’t reproduce themselves enough to grow their population
while Muslim immigrants do. The math is simple. Sweden is in
far more danger of going Islamic than it is of having some sort
of Christian revival. So where are the anti-Islam logos?
Orjan Andersson, the creator of Cheap Mondays, doesn‘t take
Altdax’s message very seriously: “I don’t believe in neither the
devil nor God. I’m not interested in religion, I’m more
interested in that the logo looks good.”
Fine, Orjan, whatever floats your boat. But one of the
fundamental characteristics of human beings is that they need
something to believe in. It doesn’t necessarily have to be
religion, but it needs to be something more than “that the logo
looks good” if life is to have much meaning or purpose. And
while your logo designer is busy misguidedly trying to wipe out
the last vestiges of Christian influence, the Muslims in your
midst have a very solid sense of purpose, and that purpose is
for the world, including Sweden, to be Islamic.