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Feb 13, 2023Liked by epimetheus

Its up to me to type something in your comment section glaringly obvious of Norwegian fuel extraction businesses benefitting from at least stifling flows from Russia to increase prices. The flows of money into Norway used to pay this particular for sale hierarchal system, the more money the more will jump on to support and defend the arrangement.

Do I think the Norwegian hierarchy had a hand in blowing up this pipe before or after reading an article about it? Hell yeah.

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I see it like that, too. They stand to benefit tremendously from this mess, albeit as 'junior' partner of the US blob. And collaboration with occupiers is something that, historically, most Norwegians can live with quite comfortably.

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Thank you for validating my WTH about Norway—that's what stood out to me. Nobody's talking about it. Ultra strange, everything. Great piece.

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Hi Celia, I agree, it's extra-strange, but all things considered--the expanding US footprint over here (esp. the B-52 and B-2-capable airbase near Trondheim and the nuclear submarine-capable naval base up north near Tromsø) indicates a deepening of said dependency.

Just yesterday I spoke with a friend (also a quasi-expat, for she came here as a Bosnian refugee in the early 1990s) about these staggeringly high levels of conformity and obedience. It's, of course, utterly inexplicable and betrays a sense of adolescence (akin to the 'Peter Pan syndrome', I suppose) that I, after a decade in Switzerland, a stint in the US, and 2.5 years in Norway find hard to comprehend. I cannot imagine how my friend must think about it after 30-odd years here.

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