Norwegians: Stick With What You Are Good At. (page 2)

Pubsinger

I LIKE Norwegians. . .

Ole Gunner Solskjaer is Norwegian!

I like Norwegians too, in spite of their insults. Some of the best posts I have ever read on the Witnesses came from Norwegians. I have laughed out loud reading some of Kent's comments. I think Jan has a great sense of humor and is a true scholar. They do tend to make comments that are unsupported insulting the U.S., like saying the depression rate is higher here than in Norway or some such. Not important, and wrong. I get tired of the stupid nationalistic stereotyping they try to do. I replied in kind.

Englishman

This is a later comment that I made on Kents board, for once I'll put the same post here:

My main concern in opposing Norms post is so that his productive stuff is not diminished.

When I first came on the net, 3 years ago, one of the first posts I read was by Norm. I was so impressed that I typed his name into every search engine that I could find so that I could read more of his writings. Later, in a phone call with Chuck from H20, Chuck told me that I would find him an interesting chap, so I was delighted to have several highly amusing conversations by phone with Norm as a result of this.

Recently, I have felt that Norm has taken a few swipes at the USA. I am not going to say whether I agree or disagree with what he has said, my point is that if he is overly critical about the US he will not be read with so much readiness by Americans who are tired of the WTBTS, because they will feel defensive about their country being criticised.

Ex-JW's who are going to be heard clearly need to battle on just one front mainly, Norms anti JW message is far too important that it should be diluted by overt criticism of the US.

That's how I feel. I could have just had this discussion on Kents board only, however, I felt that JW-D posters would have somethinig to say as well.

Englishman.

TheOldHippie

Big Brother Grunt speaks to us poor, ignorant people of the rest of the world, who have to stand nicely with our caps in hand, listening to Big Wisdom from the World's Police-Man, the Only Man Ever To Have Rescued Us, Big Brother Bush.
Me filled with admiration, me never dare talk against Big Police-Man, no no.

ozziepost

G'day Eman,

I recall that some months ago, the posters from Norway made some very vitriolic posts about Australians. It was prompted by the Australian government's treatment of illegal boat people.

The posts attacked ALL Australian posters as if they had anything to do with what had been taking place on the high seas. Quite a heated debate ensued on a thread that in my view diminished the whole raison d'etre of having a JW Discussion Board. Apparently all Aussies became demonised by the events in the minds of our fellow posters from Norway.

As was shown in the thread many Aussies were saddened or alarmed by the conduct of their government. Why attack the posters?

As you so rightly point out, we should not let our national loyalties or bias cloud our judgement in our postings.

Good one, mate!

Cheers,
Ozzie

"If our hopes for peace are placed in the hands of imperfect people, they are bound to evaporate."

- Ron Hutchcraft Surviving the Storms of Stress

one

Many who i considered the best have distanced from this site.

Is there an elite gathering place somewhere?

Or maybe they just think their job on this board have been completed
and moved on.

Atreyu

I must reply to Grunt - his image of Norway is heavily distorted:

Climate: Only Northern Norway is arctic. Where I live, we rarely have snow during winter. The temperature is only slightly colder than, say Denmark, Germany or UK.

Sweden: Any Norwegian can freely take residence or work in Sweden if he thinks that is a better place. And vice versa. Some move, for a time, but not many.

Gypsies and Romani: Transgressions has been made by the Norwegian government, but that is history. For many years now, gypsies in Norway have had many special benefits, like free villas and Mercedes cars.

Sami (Lapps): Transgressions has been made, but again, that is history. Now, the Sami have their own parlament, their own programs on TV and radio, their own schoolbooks etc.

"Skin heads beating exchange students to death": I've never heard about this. Though, there have been some racial motivated murders recently.

"Kidnapping of children of minority groups only to be placed in government homes and abused or experimented on": This never happens today, but I've heard of such incidents back in the 50ies.

"Lobotomies and such performed on minority members": Same thing. Happened in the 50ies, but not any more.

"They are just finishing paying off the relatives of the Jews they helped the Nazis murder": That's true. But we find the similar pattern in most European countries.

"I guess we all have our Quislings in the closet. I guess he is among the most famous of Norwegians, though most have probably never heard of him. Had Benedict Arnold taken over and helped kill all the blacks in the USA I guess he would have been a blot as big as Norway's toady.": This is a gross distortion of history. The Germans occupied Norway in April 1940. The king and the Government fleed to England. Quisling and his right-wing party was sympathetic towards Germany and made an arrangement with Germany in order to establish a national goverment to ensure Norwegian interests. Without Quisling's efforts, the fate of Norway could easily have been much worse. But Quisling had no hand in the deportation of jews. This was handled by German officers and Norwegian police, which was directly controlled by the German occupant authorities. The Norwegians who parttook in this did not know anything about the true destiny of the jews; they were told that the jews only were relocated to a new home in Poland or Ukraine. After the Allied victory Quisling was made a scapegoat for all the transgressions made by the Germans and sentenced to death. In aftermath, the name "Quisling" became synonymos to "Judas" to most Norwegians. Now, Quisling is only recognized by historians and neo-nazis.

Personally, instead of picturing USA as a nation of JWs, I think that the lifestyle of modern Norway is a copy of the American lifestyle. Norway is flooded with American films, TV soap, games, toys, sigarettes, soft drinks, hamburgers, sports equipment and clothing. Young Norwegians include American words and slang in their vocabulary and don't even know the Norwegian equivalents.

LDH

The temperature is only slightly colder than, say Denmark, Germany or UK.

Well, that's gotta be warm! I'll bet bamboo grows like wildfire.

Lisa

Imbue

Atreyu says:

Personally, instead of picturing USA as a nation of JWs, I think that the lifestyle of modern Norway is a copy of the American lifestyle. Norway is flooded with American films, TV soap, games, toys, sigarettes, soft drinks, hamburgers, sports equipment and clothing. Young Norwegians include American words and slang in their vocabulary and don't even know the Norwegian equivalents.

I've never been to Norway but I've known a few Norweigens here in the US. My experience leads me to believe this statment. Some of them speak English better than Americans and a couple I've known have no accent at all. They sounded American and could bond with american youth through their shared media experience. I thought they were American when I first meet them.

I don't have a problem with Norm's views. Some Americans have difficulty with forieners critizing their goverment. However, the US governemnt acts as a terrorist and has effected everyone. So, in my opinion anyone has a right to voice their opinions about the US government.

Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

hillary_step

Atreyu,

Grunt spoke of Norwegian 'history' in his post.

You agreed that the issues he mentioned were true but had happened 'in the past', ie. history.

Grunt has not actually distorted anything but reported quite accurately a facet of Norwegian history that would understandably rather be forgotten. Every nation, *without exception* has its historical and contemporary failings.

As to the Arab / Israeli / US orgy of gore, imho there is no high moral ground that could be stood upon on the part of any group, only national interests. I am often amused by the, ‘they only do it for oil’ argument that is leveled against the UK and the US. Of course they do. It is the responsibility of a nations leaders to protect that nations interest. The Western world runs on oil at present, it would rapidly fail without it and subsequently the rest of the world would suffer dramatically as a consequence. It would be irresponsible *not* to protect its oil interests.

Coffee shop Socialists are not rare in Europe, the drinking halls of many Universities are filled with them, full of beer and passion at 11.00pm at night. Amateur politicians and attention seekers with their pockets full of other peoples thoughts. Most of them eventually grow up to become the very people that they detested when they were young and ready to die for their cause….lol

Many of the slogans that I hear being uttered in defense of the Palestinian cause are the same ones that I heard when, with a hundred others, I was held in a hijacking in the seventies and watched two jeering Palestinian 'freedom fighters' shoot innocent passengers through the head merely for being from the US. One women pleaded for her life saying, "I have a two year old little girl", they laughed and stepped back as they shot her so that her blood would not spatter their American Levi jeans. The heroes shooting the villain and staining her pastel skirt.

There are NO heroes in these situations on either side, but there are many ill-advised opinions.

HS

Norwegians: Stick With What You Are Good At.

"If our hopes for peace are placed in the hands of imperfect people, they are bound to evaporate."

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