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RSS icon Comments on Mother Norway, Take Me Home!

1

too many white people in norway.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | January 31, 2008 3:29 PM
2

No yodeling. We get drunk and go boating.

Posted by clarkj | January 31, 2008 3:36 PM
3

I wish my great-grandparents hadn't emigrated.

Posted by vooodooo84 | January 31, 2008 3:37 PM
4

@1 Thats because they didn't engage in colonial imperialism like most other large European nations

Posted by vooodooo84 | January 31, 2008 3:38 PM
5

OK, first, yodeling is a thing in Alps: think Switzerland, Austria, southern Germany (Bavaria).

OK, second: go to Norway (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, take your pick). You will find that, for all their socialism/liberalism and embodiment of utopian ideals that so enchant the New York Times and others--including the compassionate, enlightened attitudes on mental health that result in the socially oriented prison structure that Michael Moore's piece looks at--these are also very *conformist* societies in many ways. So the quaint liberalism/social awareness/compassion that you see in pieces like this belies a harsh rigidity as well.

They're great countries, though. Visit them in the summer when the sun shines longest day.

Posted by S. M. | January 31, 2008 3:39 PM
6

Here comes Dolly Dagger. She licks the blood from the jagged edge. Oh, suck it, baby.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | January 31, 2008 3:42 PM
7

I'm not sure about Norway in general, but there is no yodeling in Ibsen's plays - not a bit of it, saddly.

Posted by kinaidos | January 31, 2008 3:45 PM
8

Their methods may be unorthodox but you can't argue with results. Shame we're too scared and prejudiced to ever be as secure.

Posted by shub-negrorath | January 31, 2008 3:50 PM
9

It's easy to have super-high quality of life when you have huge amounts of oil and a tiny population like norway

Posted by Andrew | January 31, 2008 3:51 PM
10

@4: WTF? Have you been to Oslo? Walk around in certain neighborhoods and you'll find plenty of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa.

Posted by bma | January 31, 2008 3:52 PM
11

No, but they do ski.

Posted by Will in Seattle | January 31, 2008 3:52 PM
12

@3- Exactly.

I think Norway is kind of a reward for those who stuck it out through a string of bad winters and a nazi occupation.

The emigrants? They got North Dakota.

Posted by Jake (Really Jakob) | January 31, 2008 3:55 PM
13

Mm. Shirtless Norwegians.

Posted by Gloria | January 31, 2008 3:55 PM
14

No colonial empire? Norway colonized all of Scandinavia, most of Britain and Ireland, Iceland, parts of what is now France and Germany... Ever hear of the Vikings? The Normans?

Posted by Fnarf | January 31, 2008 3:56 PM
15

Michael Moore is a good filmmaker, and I agree with him mostly on the issues he covers, but he is NOT a good documentarian.

He know it's apples and oranges, but it sure is fun to get people riled up.

Posted by Dougsf | January 31, 2008 3:58 PM
16

Norway kicks ass! I used to go snowboarding there. Got a taste of their health care when I broke my shoulder. Hospital was beautiful inside, and all the nurses (girls and boys) looked like viking catwalk models. As a foreigner you do get charged for being submitted, but I got my address wrong for the bill. Still owe Norway 10 Krona, if they ever find me :)

Posted by Sto | January 31, 2008 4:04 PM
17

Norway colonized all of Scandinavia, most of Britain and Ireland, Iceland, parts of what is now France and Germany... Ever hear of the Vikings? The Normans?

And after their royal family was wiped out during the Black Death, they were ruled by the Danes for centuries, and traded to the Swedes after the Napoleonic Wars. Not really in a position to take pieces of Asia, Africa or America, like France, Spain, England, Portugal, Italy, etc.

Posted by bma | January 31, 2008 4:05 PM
18

@10 they do have a more liberal immigrantion and asylum policies then much of the rest of Europe which may account for diversity in the larger urban areas.

@14 I am speaking of modern post-renaissance nation-state colonialism, where the values or corporate entities of the mother nation are imposed upon another subservient territory. not pre-modern barbarian empires like the Vikings or Mongolians

Posted by vooodooo84 | January 31, 2008 4:11 PM
19

@3 I wish they hadn't, either.

Posted by chocotaco | January 31, 2008 4:14 PM
20

@3 and @12: Norway's great now, but it was a shithole in the years that emigration was big (1850s-1870s), the asshole end of Sweden, itself the asshole end of Europe (see: Pele the Conqueror). If your ancestors had stayed, they probably would have died and you never would have been born.

People didn't emigrate for fun back then.

Posted by Big Sven | January 31, 2008 4:17 PM
21

so voodoo, diversity=bad because diversity is the result of colonialism?

Posted by Bellevue Ave | January 31, 2008 4:18 PM
22

@21 I like diversity too, thats just the reason for it

Posted by vooodooo84 | January 31, 2008 4:24 PM
23

@18:

Who ya calling a "pre-modern barbarian", sucka??
ung, MAD NOW.

Posted by Thor Khaan | January 31, 2008 4:27 PM
24

How can anyone say that norway is "sustainable" when 40% of it's GDP comes from oil?

Seriously? WTF?

Michael Moore's a fucking idiot.

Posted by Andrew | January 31, 2008 4:49 PM
25

I love Norway, but not many countries could do what they do even if they wanted to. Like others have said, Norway has shitloads of oil and a small population. They also allow very few immigrants.

Fortunately, unlike other oil producing Countries, they are saving up for when the oil runs out and diversifying their economy.

Living in Norway is sort of like being born rich. Great if thats you, but not exactly a model of others.

Posted by Giffy | January 31, 2008 4:52 PM
26

Democratic Socialism works in countries that came of age when simply in order for humans to survive they had to work together as communities. They weren't settlers of a continent full of resources (once they stole it from the natives), they didn't have the empowering Industrial Revolution, nor were their original settlers religious/political refugees with a strong streaks of anti-governmentism, anti-authoritarianism, puritanism and hyperindividualism, nor did they have quite the same strains of a fundamentalist monotheism which turns everything into an Either/Or, Good/Evil, Us/Them dichotomy. These religious fanatics were recognized for the dangerously derranged that they were, and forced across the sea where they could set up their own "winner-take- all, up-by-your-boots-straps, greed-is-good, you're either with us or against us, government isnt the solution it's the problem" system, inherently insecure about its own law-enforcement and social government structures, who can't fathom the idea of a shared tax base distributed so everyone can benefit with health care or mass transit or other anti-individualist infrastructures.

Is Norway perfect? No. No social government system is, nor should anyone claim to have or know a "perfect" way(the main weakness of Moore's documentary--a utopian myopia). But in terms of doing the most good for the highest numbers? Well...

But here? It's just not in our slave-owning, genocide-forgetting, Wild-Western politic D.N.A.

Posted by Andy Niable | January 31, 2008 4:56 PM
27

@1 Anyone who thinks Norway has "too many white people" has never walked down the street in Oslo.

@14 Norway didn't "colonize" all of Scandinavia. It wasn't even a defined nation at the start of the Viking era. There were different groups of Vikings in what are now Sweden and Denmark. (But yeah, some groups of Vikings were kind of badasses to other countries.)

And no... they don't yodel. It's safe to go visit.

Posted by Dave | January 31, 2008 5:05 PM
28

No. Austrians, Swiss and Bavarians yodel.

Posted by Jonathan | January 31, 2008 7:16 PM
29

Aw, how can such a quaint peaceful wuvvy country like Norway produce so many black metal bands? Oh the humanity.

Posted by mackro mackro | January 31, 2008 7:26 PM
30

I don't know about their GDP or immigration rules; but here's what I got out of it: Treat people like humans, and they act more humanely.
The US had too much ego to try that out. The politicians don't want to be "soft on crime." Lock 'em up and throw away the key, or, lock 'em up for 5 years, treat them like animals, then turn them loose to society.

Posted by socialworker | January 31, 2008 9:04 PM
31

I'm going to Norway for two weeks in June. I can't fucking wait.

Posted by Emily | January 31, 2008 10:53 PM
32

gorgeous country. amazing solutions to problems we can't even get our heads around in the states. but they have a much smaller, richer (oil), more homogeneous population -- a sort of trifecta for easily passing progressive policies. apples and oranges indeed.

Posted by Judith | January 31, 2008 11:10 PM
33

um, love the philosophical debate and all, but, really...the only real export/ import are the one's you can get in your bed...it's a lot easier when they can't really understand what you're doing...but the mutual satisfaction part is fantastic!

Posted by brandon | January 31, 2008 11:50 PM
34

i'm from norway and what isn't mentioned in that video is that oslo is the most expensive place to live in the world and that the taxes are egregious. the majority of the population is employed by the government which for the time being is rich with oil, but the money is running out.

Posted by norwegian | February 1, 2008 7:26 AM
35

The "smaller, richer, more homogeneous" argument is great, until you actually look at the populations of countries that are doing well in terms of health care, crime prevention and quality of life. Canada, for instance, is not much more homogeneous than the US, Norway's GDP per capita is comparable to the US, and, well, sure, the US is big. Still, the problem is the way we organize ourselves (like dumbasses) and the values we cherish(selfish individualism and ignorant consumerism), rather than the ethnic makeup of our country, or any lack of resources. Learn about Cuba (doing better than us by most measures) and read "America the Unusual" by John Kingdon.

Posted by Tim | February 1, 2008 9:15 AM
36

@31 Be sure to visit Vigeland Park if you're in Oslo. At the beginning of the video they showed snippets of it. It truly is amazing.

Posted by Johnny | February 1, 2008 9:51 AM

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