Norwegian Artists Buy Ad In WaPo
Some Norwegian artists and politicians placed a $50,000 ad in the Washington Post yesterday (link). The group collected donations from 4,000 Norwegians that called on the Bush Administration to apologize for the war in Iraq and pay restitution. This of course ignores the fact that the US is ponying up about $80 billion to rebuild the country - which is about a third larger than the entire gov’t budget of Norway, and about 40% of Norway’s GNP.
Some notes on Norway:
Norway is a country in northern Europe with a population of 4.4 million.
Norway is one of the dominant nations in skiing, second only to Russia/Soviet Union in the amount of medals won in alpine skiing.
(link)"In 1940, the Germans occupied Norway. Norwegian newspapers and media were full of anti-Semitic propaganda and the Norwegian government was taken over by Nazis (Quisling). Two years later, in 1942, 750 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Of these, only 25 survived. The remainder of the Norwegian Jewry managed to escape to Sweden, where they lived as refugees until the end of the war. Over 100 Jews served in the Free Norwegian Forces, mostly stationed in Britain. “
For comparison’s sake:
There are as many Norwegians in the world as there are Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals in the entire USA (link)
There are more 400,000 more Episcopalians in the USA than Norwegians in Norway.
There are about half as many in prison in the USA as there are Norwegians in Norway (2 m - op cit).
Ditto Americans of Norwegian ancestry (2.6 m).
Of course, the funding for the ad only came from 1/1000th the population of Norway. That equates to 294,000 people in the USA. Since each Norwegian kicked in an average of $12.50, if these 294,000 Americans each kicked in the same amount to buy an ad in a Norwegian paper telling Norway to “Shut the F*** Up and Mind It’s Own Business“, we could buy $3.68 m worth of ad space in VG, Norway’s largest newspaper with a circulation of 1.2 million (source)
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hey there, norway calling here
what a typical response from an american who supports bush, choose to attack when criticised instead of actually considering we might be right? So we have few people in this country.. with a considerably higher IQ average than over there. There is a reason we have continiously topped the best-place-to-live-in-the-world list for years now. We have a high edcuational standard and a way of life where we crave information and to reach higher standards. Wathcing your presidents “debate” a week ago was a sad story. They are both too fixed on the past and what happend and seem to be little interested in fixing things…instead blaming each other for things going wrong. Neither of the two are presidential material, but Bush is by far the more stupid and likes to do things way too fast. Kerry is trying to campaign as a smarter man, but you americans don’t like that do you? You like a president who will act rash and fast, the smart way which is ofcourse to look at a problem from more than the military angle to sort it…but that would be indecisive? cowardly? “wishy-washy?..
and like in ur article…u are just interested in looking to the past to have someone to blame…
Comment by Ludvig Elster — 10/17/2004 @ 8:01 pm
LE
I expected someone from Norway to stop by and support the 1/1000th of your population that paid for that ad.
Face it: the ad simply doesn’t matter. What I read was that the organizers hoped to raise enough money for a full page ad, but couldn’t. And I’ve also read that these idiots were extreme socialists in Norway.
In the end, they just wasted their money and if anything, provoked a backlash. Even many Kerry supporters were angry about this attempt at foreign intervention in our election.
Do yourself a favor: comment all you want, but leave us alone for the next two weeks.
Comment by Scott — 10/17/2004 @ 8:30 pm