1.What to expect of yourself regarding politics?

Boooring…., many will say, and go to Youtube, Fox Channel, Netflix and HBO instead! Or Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder,Twitter, Facebook, you name it! We can go there too, its ok, even fine sometimes, but stop a minute or two here first.I suddenly got very tired

– No reason to yawn! It has to do with the fourth layer of your self, – your community and your country- self.

And It has to do with your self-esteem and the feeling of being an important agent in your own life!  When surfing over to the light entertaining stuff after some serious concentration, we will feel much better than usual .

I want so much this commitment of us, because I want every one of us to get a firmer grip on the steering wheel and the destination of our country and our future lives!You can absolutely take over the steering wheel in your life, if you engage in electing good leaders.

If you already feel you have that control, skip this article. Because then you’ll perhaps consider this a rather naïve post. If however  you want to continue I will ask:Do you like to be ruled like this with nothing to say, no matter if it is a man or woman pointing at you?

How do you define yourself regarding your influence on politics in your country?

Do you get shy because it is dangerous to have an opinion on these matters in your country?

Or do you drop your head down because it is embarrassing to be asked about something you don’t have interest in. Or do you just think or answer, shit, man.. what can l do to influence politics in my country!

      I just don’t hope my New President will be worse than the last one.

Then I must ask again: Have you ever sent an sms, to vote for your favorite Idol singer or other TV competitions? Many will answer        – oh yes, – of course I have! – Doing that can help him or her to win the whole show!

We vote and vote, but not always as eagerly when our lives are at stake

Well, then I guess you must believe you can influence the world of singing, with your vote! Perhaps many sms votes from your phone, as far as I know. It is not exactly the same with voting for a President, a Party or a Prime Minister, I admit.

There you have only one vote. But all the same you can talk with your family, friends and colleges and influence them to give their vote for your favorite candidate! Then,- from a psychological viewpoint,  I will define you as an engaged person, believing your opinion and acts really can matter and make a difference.

Political discussions before an election in the western world and in Africa

With that attitude, you won’t experienece that political issues just happen over your head in your country. You take part in your land’s development and course. The Arab spring in Tunisia, that gathered thousands of thousands of young and active people really made a change in that country.Tunisians made a great difference for their future when they engaged in their country’s politics

Now with our environment crisis hanging over us like the spiral arms of an approaching and growing hurricane, there is much we can agree about. The new and growing green shift industry may also unite industrial companies, and investors, like what happened when shipping went from sail to steam in the turn of the 1900 century.

From Wind to Motor and back to Wind again.

Now sun, wind power, water energy and hydrogen power can develop and transform like when the capacity of the old EDB and data machines, almost as big as locomotives, today can be put inside Our little cellphone chip.

A small cellphone chip

It is amazing! As human beings we are amazing too! Because together we can “go through mountains”, and  “build pyramids” or change a regime!

2. What to expect of your President, Prime Minister or national leader?

This is the other side of the coin in our Psychological Universe’s    self commitment project!

Would you expect your national leader and government to secure and protect the quality of life for most people in your country?

Would you expect that the elected head of state in your country, would ensure that government funds be distributed fairly among the population, meaning that those who have the least, would receive the most of official help, to eventually be able to fend for themselves.         Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Or would you expect your head of state to use government funds mostly on the already well-off and privileged elite that he himself belongs too? Allowing the handicapped, sick and poor, to be even sicker and poorer? By letting their potential employers lowering their income, making it impossible to buy or rent a home, without two or three underpaid jobs.

Put another way, would you expect that this head of state and his or her government reduced income tax for the richest and raised it for those who already have little?

 A newly poor family  evicted from their home.

– Is Democracy just a hoax?

In many countries in the middle east there is great skepticism about democracy.

If you however, say yes to the first question,- you probably still believe in democracy. And also probably that those of us who have the most, try to help out the less privileged, both by referring to, moral and ethics and the knowledge that very unequal distribution of wealth in a country destabilize the whole nation.

Helping others or ourselves, through changing politics, does not imply charity and private fundraising, but mostly through distribution policy, taxation and financial policy in general.

A poor woman with all her things thrown out in the street.

If you say yes to the second paragraph’s question, you have probably given up democracy, or your national leaders. Perhaps you really believe this leading position give national leaders the right to secure themselves and their privileged friends and class, and leave it to the unprivileged to rescue themselves, like refugees from Syria on wrecked floats in the Mediterranean Sea.

           A poor family lifted up by social welfare to a higher standard, or just  a family predestined to their posh lifestyle and castlelike home by heritage?

– Trickle down effects, or vacuuming up both the common American’s salary and tax money.

There is research on this that worldwide proves absolutely no spin off effect any longer by making the richer even richer. But the elite can sell tax reductions to politicians with that argument, and they can sell it forward to their voters!

The broad middle class from the 50, 60 and 70′ ties in America have vanished.  For this reason the possibility to have an affluent and stable middle class has disappeared.  (Robert Reich) A middle class that could secure real industry and production inside the US, and not only in Asia or Mexico. Remember General Motors and Detroit!

A middle class it could be, that work with their hands and heads, and not like the many money-makers in Wall Street or homebased stockbrokers and stock speculators, – trading on fictitious values, so called paperization. Through this last mentioned trend the wealthy business owners are cutting off the branch they have been sitting on for decades, when building up their fortunes!

Will they be able to buy back their “own” home

In ancient Greece it was normal that the rich aristocracy ruled the country and that they had many slaves. That was so in Sparta, Rome and Athens.  A few privileged men from the aristocracy ruled many city states in ancient Greece. But it was also in Greece that Democracy was born.

When much later the House of Hanover ruled England, from 1714 until the 19th century, England had a king and parliamentary form of government but was actually run as an aristocracy too. The country’s rulers were controlled by several families in the Whig party.

• Government by aristocracy we are told by historians, has in reality vanished from modern states.

That is not so if we look to the United States of America. An article lately read in the “Economist” shows that the gap between rich and poor is bigger than anywhere else in the rich world.  The American education system favors the well-off more than anywhere else in the rich world. America is one of only three advanced countries where the government also spends more on schools in rich areas than in poor ones.

The New American Aristocracy,

America’s university fees have risen 17 times as fast as median incomes since 1980, partly to pay for pointless bureaucracy and flashy buildings, the Economist tell us. And many universities offer “legacy” preferences, favoring the children of earlier students in admissions. This problem Barack Obama alluded to repeatedly in his state-of-the-union address on January 2016.

  The New American Aristocracy, pictured lately in the “Economist”

In the United States you must usually be very rich or have rich friends to run for presidency. I think this makes the whole democratic process very skewed or biased. “An aristocrat to be”, if we still believe in the American dream. I on the other hand, believe the only thing that will trickle down on him is rain!

3. How to let every person start their “life’s board game”, with the same set of dice.

The main reason my country was able to build a society characterized by small differences between the classes, was that the power eventually got into the hands of the Labour Party. Before that from 1887 they grew steadily in opposition. Then they were able to form their first government in 1928. From 1935 until 1965 they ruled continuously. And since then has been the party with most governments and prime ministers in Norway.

– From errand boy, trench digging and mechanic, – to Prime Minister.

Three Prime Ministers in Norway since 1935 had that humble background! As far as I know, they had no formal education else than primary school. But they were educated as union representatives, or trained in politics, history and speech skills inside the Labour party.    An old pictoral  visualization of the problem with uncurbed capitlism

4. What has this to do with politics today, you may ask.

These Prime Ministers and governments identified with the unprivileged working class, which nobody had done before. They were also much closer to the majority of the people they were chosen to lead.

• Important reforms for the common man and woman.

Labour in position passed many reforms, like free labour unions, the right to take a strike, laws against unfair sacking, and votes for women.There were also established a very succesful three part system of negotiations when general wages and salarys were to be set each year. These problems were then discussed between the worker’s,clerk’s and functionarie’s organization, (the mighty LO), and the strong organization of Company Emloyers( the NAF, now called NHO).

In 1970  when oil was found for the first time in North Sea, the State decided to own our only Oil Company. In reality this “Statoil” was “The People’s  Oil Company” securing a fund of thousands of billion oil “crowns” for the benefit and welfare of the people. This fund was meant for pensions, health care , social securance, free schools , kindergarden for all children rich or poor etc.

• Shipping Companies and some key Industri Companies still kept many of their privileges 

At the same time Labour governments accepted the rich elite’s contribution to our society, and also accepted to continue the tax privileges for our pride shipping industry operating ships all over the world! MS/ Seven Seas Explorer

Like the Congress in the US, Labour governments in Norway also had to take into consideration the conservative opposition in our Congress (called Storting)

 Very rich shipowner still able to laugh under social democratic Labour rule.

However Labour (AP), set limits for the banks and financial sector, under a regime called plan-economy. This system was not so unlike President Roosevelts New Deal policy. This “deal” with the Americans from the 1930’s, was established in order to “Make America Great again” through rebuilding a middle class that had collapsed during and after the stock market crash on Wall Street1929. (Very similar to the aftermath of the 2008 worldwide crash, in New York)

 Irresponsable blown up paperized economy, and underlying great Depths caused the 2008 collapse on Wall Street

 The Great Crash of 1929, and lessons taming the crisis of 2008 “. (FILES) – This photo dated 1929, shows a view of people rushing to a saving bank in Millbury, Massachusetts,

• From poverty to prosperity

In Norway too, this kind of politics, made an infrastructure of laws and rights, privileges and obligations that made our country’s journey from poverty to prosperity succeed!

Nowadays however after the great international deregulation of the financial sector in the eighties, oil has lifted the living standard toward unprecedented heights. This wealth has also changed the agenda.

A few have now been too rich, I think.  Money has started to rule, more and more. The gap between the rich and ordinary wage earners, not to mention the poor, has expanded. Even since 2009 when Pickett and Wilkinson published their findings and tables it has grown bigger. Kate Pickett and Richard G. Wilkinson, researchers on inequality

These differences does not seem very much. But remember they are from 2009. Now in 2016 the wealth of the richest has skyrocketed . The 1% percent of billionaires out of the whole world’s 99% percents population,  now possess more than half of global wealth.

Are we envious of them? I am not! But I don’t want their money and accompanying influence, to rule my country and my life! Do you? Then get out of your sofa and speak up for justice  and real democracy!

As world famous Economist professorThomas Piketty noted: Wealth by heritage has made the difference between people in Norway greater than 100 years ago. And it’s like this all over Europe!  But  here in the western world, the gap is at it’s  greatest in America! How is this in Asia, except  forJapan, which has very equally distributed wealth? You tell me!

If you have inherited or own property or estate,- the value of it will grow about  10 to 20 % each year. That’s how it is in our main cities in my country. While wages, on the other hand , grow about 2% or less for ordinary People. Which is often not enough to catch up with the rising prices.  Unfortunately, you’ll loose money by keeping them in banks. Thats’s because  the rate is lower than the increase of prices and houshold costs.

Psychologically this is a big problem .Why?

5. “Your Self has more layers than yourself.”                –  A visualization of this 6 layered extension.

These are Babuscka dolls to put into each other, and they are my picture of our 6  layers of the Self. The little one is you and me, – our so called separate selves. But as I tried to show in the article “How I was born with you,me and the others”, – our self does not end there! http://www.selvuniverset.com/2016/07/26/how-i-was-born-with-you-me-and-the-others/

We have a second layer of self, being  our Family. And we have a third layer, – encompassing the group, – meaning our friends, colleges and so on. The fourth layer of our self,  the one we are mostly talking about in this article,  will include our bigger community, society and country.

But our country, and our life in general is very much dependent on global economy, trade agreements, wars going on elsewhere, immigration waves, and the varying international prices on oil. Therefore its meaningful to let the fifth layer of our Self include the global world and society as a whole.

Now there are only one big Babuschka left. Ecology and changing climate has taught us that we are very much depending on the environment! Therefore I also suggest a sixth layer of the self;- our wonderful nature with mother earth and the atmosphere as our most influential life giving factor. Even if global environment and nature seem further out than ourselves, family, friends and the country,  its there in every move we make. Nature and environment is naturally crucial for our way of life.

Outside our sixth self, there seems to be nothing. But with some hindsight, that isn’t really true. Here is of course our solar system and the vast Universe. First the millions of stars in our Galaxy. Then there are all the groups of galaxies that makes us spiral around in the Universe, with exactly that unique position necessary to give birth to human life! Wow, I must exclaim! That is an absolutely amazing thought!

However, I have only six Babuschkas to place us in. Therefore I just let the six have some ample room and space around them.

– All Americans over 18, attend to your extended self!

Yes, step up to your fourth layer.  In these days that is especially important for all you Americans. Even if you don’t like any of the two candidates, go for the one you dislike the least. Please take care of your self, by attending to your fourth layer. Because this represents the important you, that has to do with your American society and country.

If anything will trickle down to, or effect the first layer of your self, it is decisions made on the fourth level. So please take care of your whole self, by engaging in the outer layers of it.  Go and vote!

That goes for all non-americans too:  Engage yourself in YourSelf! Go and vote when there is an election or referendum in your country. Do it with your head, heart and broadened awareness of the consequenses of your choice!

Now its up to you! (The fourth layer of Your Self, points at you.)

Do you want the green curve in the table below, to decline further, and the blue to rise even more?

 Young voters in the era of Iphones and  SmartPhones

 The moment of truth, the job is almost done!