Recordings by Henrik Palmgren

The Icelandic Crisis as a background for the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (immi.is)

leo — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:35:11 +0000

Speaker(s) Birgitta Jónsdóttir Speaker(s) Henrik Palmgren

Language spoken English

Date of Recording Sun, 2010-01-24

Player-image:

Lars Palmgren from Gothenburg interviews the Member of Icelandic Parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir from the new Icelandic party The Movement to talk about the financial warfare that has been taking place against the people of Iceland since the Lehman Brothers-AIG world financial panic in September-October 2008 broke out.
The governments of London, the Hague and the EU have been,- with the backing of the IMF -, at the heart of what she calls a this `financial blackmail´.

The online whistleblower platform Wikileaks proved to be essential for Icelanders to know about the happenings in the background. This has led Birgitta Jonsdottir and others to develop the most progressive press law of the world, the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (immi.is). It is already playing a crucial role in the current attempts for a global harmonisation of laws concerning freedom of speech, the control of online media and whistleblower protection.

The interview is also published on Youtube under the title Financial War against Iceland (part I). In total there are 6 parts.

Topics Discussed: Privatization, Alcoa, Bechtel, Impregilo, Icesave, Terrorist Act, IMF blocking a loan to Iceland, 400 000 accounts in Icesave, MOU (Memorandum of understanding), European Union, ECOFIN (Economic and Financial Affairs Council), Wikileaks, American Bases on Iceland, John Perkins, Economic Hitman, The Political Elite of European Union, Friends of Iceland, savethepeopleoficeland.com, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Resources, Geothermal Energy, Water, Trade Advantages, Economic Warfare, “The Movement”, Outside the Left-Right Paradigm, Oligarchs, Monopoly, and much more.

Additional information

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUNpIbhaY1Y

Source: http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2010/01jan/RIR-100124.html (retrieved 28022011)

Red Ice Radio Gothenburg Sweden. January 24, 2010

Introduction
We have member of the Icelandic Parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir with us from “the movement” to talk about the financial warfare that has been taking place against the people of Iceland since the Lehman Brothers-AIG world financial panic in September-October 2008. The governments of London, the Hague and the EU with the backing of the IMF is at the heart of this financial blackmail. Don’t miss this important program. Topics Discussed: Privatization, Alcoa, Bechtel, Impregilo, Icesave, Terrorist Act, IMF blocking a loan to Iceland, 400 000 accounts in Icesave, MOU (Memorandum of understanding), European Union, ECOFIN (Economic and Financial Affairs Council), Wikileaks, American Bases on Iceland, John Perkins, Economic Hitman, The Political Elite of European Union, Friends of Iceland, savethepeopleoficeland.com, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Resources, Geothermal Energy, Water, Trade Advantages, Economic Warfare, “The Movement”, Outside the Left-Right Paradigm, Oligarchs, Monopoly and much more.

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Banks as canvas for media: Iceland economic crisis
1:08 [Henrik Palmgren] Hi friends, new and regular listeners. This is Henrik Palmgren, thank you for for stopping by and tuning in to Red Ice Radio. We have an important programm ahead of us today. One of our nordic neighbouring countrys is under attack from the Britisch, the Dutch and the IMF, the International Monetary Fund. Iceland has suffered severely from the economic situation, or rather depression and recession that has unfolded over a period of a year and a half or so. We have a member of the Icelandic Parliament, Brigitta Jonsdottir, with us to talk more in-depht about the situation. What I can mention here is, that a group within the Icelandic Parliament, called The Movement, has emerged from the mass struggle of Icelanders against the financial blackmail brought to bear against their country by Goverments in London and De Haag with the backing of the IMF. In the wake of the insolvency of three large Islantic Banks linked to the Lehman Brothers A.I.G world financial panic of September/Oktober 2008, we are going to talk more in-depht about the situation and basically what has happend up in Iceland.

Welcome to Red Ice Radio Brigitta, thank you for joining us here today on the program.

2:32 [Brigitta Jónsdóttir]: Thanks for having me.

H: I am really glad to have you and I am really glad that we have someone here to talk about the situation that has been going on for quite some time. I’ve been hearing little pieces here an there in the Swedish Media and in the International Media, - US and the UK media -, and so forth. But I haven’t really gotten the inside story about what really has been happening. You were one of the voices out there who has been talking about the situation and what is actually happening. So what I want to do at the beginning of the program, is to ask you if you can just give us the background story. Tell us when this began and how the situation has unfolded for you guys up in Iceland.

B: Of course, it started with the collapse of not one bank, but all the big banks in Iceland who had been privatized five years before. The way the privatisation happend was that in a sort of typical way for how things are in Island and many other countries, is, that all the banks were sort of earmugs to different parties. And the party leaders helped to sell the banks to friends and allies for a relatively little price compared to the value and how they grew.   At the time, the Independence Party and the Progressive Party were in power in Iceland. The Independence Party had been in power for 18 years. Then, what happend was, that in a relativly short period of time many of the legislations that were supposed to monitor what was going on in the banking sector sort of vanished and became really weak. At the same time, the media went into ownership of the oligarchs of the banks. It was very difficult for ordinary people to follow what was really going on. The media was painting this picture of the successful Islantic oligarchs who were basically buying the world and turning from Millionaires to Billionaires. But at the same time you would have to put it in the context of a great Ponzi scheme, something like: Island has about the same amount of people as were working for Enron. I am sure many of the listeners of the program know the story of Enron.

Ordinary people working there had no idea what was going on. And they suffered. Their live savings vanished an so forth. It’s a very similar story for Icelanders. In a sense they are experiencing that we are experiencing one of the greatest swindles in history when it comes to annexion. During this five year period the growth of the Banks became 12 times the size of the Icelandic G.D.P (Gross Domestic Product). You can imagine what happend here when they all collapsed. We were doing really well before. We had a very similar social structure as in Sweden and often compared ourselves to Sweden.   The goverment decided,- during these times that were relatively good -, to expand everything. For example, we build the biggest dam in Europe and we sold the energy. But nobody knows the price of the energy that was sold to an American multi-national corperation called Alcoa to create a aluminium smelter. And of course we had companys like Bechtel

6:30 in Iceland building the aluminium smelter. And the notorious italian company called Impreglio that was in charge of the dam building. So we went into a situation that expanded everything. Which you should never during good times, you should do that in times of recession like we are experiencing now. We have no means of doing any construction now, because we got so indepted with the companys that were doing the construction around this huge dam.   Then, when the banks collapsed, there was, of course, an incredible chaos in the entire financial world all over the Western world and the British were really afraid when the Icesave Bank collapsed, which was linked to an Icelandic bank called Landsbankinn, or, owned by Landsbankinn. They were afraid that there would be a run on one of their own banks in England, if they wouldn’t put their foot down in a very affirmative way towards Iceland.

They were going to set an example with Iceland. So what they did,- instead of understanding that we were going through an entire economic meltdown -, they decided to put the Terrorist Act on us, on Iceland, Only later they changed it to Landsbanken, but for a while,- and of course we complained -, we were listed on a official British Goverment website, ranking with Al Quaida, Simbawe and North Korea. We were a Terrorist State.   This affected all credit lines to Iceland. Companys that had been in trading for fifty years and always payed could not get insurances from the big international insurance companys for payment. So, in order to import, because we rely havily on import being an island in the middle of the atlantic ocean, they had to pay up-front. But of course there were cash flow problems all over the world and, for a while, it looked like we couldn’t import enough food. Of course Icelanders were upset with the British and with the way the Icelandic Goverment dealt with it. They decided to take the soft approach,- other countrys would probably have told the British Ambassador to go home if they would have been faced with the Terrorist Act.   In a sense this is so totally absurd because we don’t even have an army or military in Island and the police does not carry guns, so, you know, we have always been a nation of peace. We have never participated in war. But unfortunatly we were among the nations that were on the list of “The Coalition of the Willing” which was actually a decision of two people in Island. Ninetynine percent of the Nation was against it. This brings us to the question: What is Democracy? Is Democracy something that can be controlled by two people and people can change their mind every four years? Or, should Democracy be something, where the general public can actually effect decisions that will change their lives, - more often that just electing new people every four years? It was an incredible victory for democracy that the President of Iceland rejected the so-called “Icesave Settlement” and listened to the plea of the people to be allowed to vote on this.

11:00 H: When was this, Brigitta?

B: Maybe I should go into a little bit of background, maybe I am moving ahead to quickly. What happend was that, after the collapse while we were laying down while having the Terrorist Act put on us, the British and the Dutch Goverments were blocking an IMF (Internationl Monetary Fund) loan to Iceland. The Icelandic Goverment was forced to take an IMF loan or it could not get help from, for example, the nordic countrys to deal with the immediate crisis. The nordic countrys said: We will not give you any loans, which I can understand to some degree, unless you go an IMF program. And then they said, along with the British and the Dutch, that we would would not get into the IMF program, unless we would agree to their terms, when it came to the Icesave dispute. And the Icesave dispute means, if we put it into numbers, that there were about 400.000 Icessave accounts in the U.K and in the Netherlands,- these were high percentage accounts, you would take a risk if you put your money in there -, and the British and the Dutch failed to regulate this.   This bank, a internet bank, was allowed to grow tremendously fast. When the Icesave bank collapsed they decided, - and god knows were the money went, probably on to one of the offshore islands -, to pay out their own citizens with the minimum, which was around 21.000 € for each account holder. But because these banks were related to an Icelandic Bank owned by a guy Bjorgolfur Thor and then they just send Iceland the bill and forced them to take it, using the IMF as,- how do you call it when you like owe money to the mafia and then if you can not pay it they send somebody to break your arm our something …

H: Blackmail?

Paint it black: Blackmail

B: Yes, blackmail, a thread: If you don’t do it our way, you won’t get any help at all. Then the Icelandic Authorities signed an M.O.U (Memorandum of Understanding) to the Dutch, saying that we would pay this. However there were some negotiations after that within the Ecofin, which is an institute within the European Union. We also have to bear in mind, that one of the big Partys in Iceland is very keen on joining the European Union. This all fits into some weird web that is very difficult to understand.

(More on the subject of Iceland joining the European Union is presented in an interview with another independent broadcaster, the Alex Jones Show from the US of America: `Iceland takes on the Now in The Spirit of 1776´ / `The plight and costs of accession’)

H: This reminds me on what was happening in Sweden before we joined the European Union. We also had an economy that was opened up to the world so that foreign companys and investors could come in. Georg Soros, among others, was one of the guys who bought up alot of Swedish currency and almost managed to crash our economy. Consequently, the Swedish People got scared of that and decided to go into the European Union. I am seeing a similar situation happening for you guys up in Iceland now, yet actually it is more severe because you are much lower in things like population and G.D.P.

B: Somebody said to me, when it came to Sweden and the EU application, that the only time there was majority for it was on the voting day, which is sort of sad. But, the way the European Union has been also used in order to blackmail us into doing it the way the British and the Dutch want it, is really sickening. There were actually some leaks of papers, reporting after the ECOFIN meeting, where the Icelandic Financial Minister was pressured into signing or accepting that we would not go into the courts with this. If we would go to the Courts, they would not lift the blockage on the IMF loan. And that is completely wrong to me.

We knew about this. When we were dealing the first settlement agreement with the British and the Dutch we got to (…) everything is so much surrounded with secrecy, the way this thing has been handled. The first disturbing thing was, with the settlement, was that one of the people that been part of the negotiational team and was sort of pushed out, contacted me and said: they are going to be signing it in two days. So I made a public inquiery in the parliament asking the Financial Minister if this is true, if this contract will be signed in a couple of days.

And he said: no.

The next day a got a phone call from the Heads Of State asking me to come to a meeting about Icesave and I was told that the contract had been signed. And then they were not going to let us see the contract. None of the MP’s that were supposed to be accepting this huge State Guarantee, were allowed to see the exact contract or the settlement agreement. But thank god to leaks, the contract was leaked through the internet.

H: That was on WikiLeaks wasn’t it? You’ve had major support from that website in terms of documentation coming out, right?

B: Yes, and in fact the main editor for WikiLeaks is actually in Iceland now. We are working on a really interesting project which I might talk about if we do another segment.  But yes, we are very lucky to have access to that, because we live in such a small community and people are very much afraid to leak stuff to the local media. So it’s been really helpful to have access to that sort of service, knowing that so far none of the sources have been revealed.

Iceland and the Process of Joining the EU

H: You mentioned that Iceland is a very peaceful country, but basically what we are talking about right here is,a kind of a economic warfare and the obvious question that comes up here is, what the reasons for this might be. Do you think that various Goverments like the British and the Dutch Goverment together with the IMF, are trying to take over resources on Iceland. What do you see is the main motive for this type of action?

B: If you study the history of the IMF and the way they operate,- I was watching a documentary on Jamaica recently -, you see that the IMF usually encourages that nations take on more debt than they can handle through a second or a third party, such as the Icesave settlement. Then, if you can’t pay back the IMF loan in time, then they will say: Ok, you get a really good offer here for your national energy companys: you have to take it. That is usually how it works. Depending on the location of the countrys etc. there are different assets or things that they demand to get like this. Of course I fear that if we don’t stand up now and stop this insanity that is happening right now…

20:24 With the Icesave settlement it means that every Icelander has to pay around 20.000 € with less services, wich is basically chopping down our welfare system. Of course, once we are desperate enough, we are willing to sell these assets, or the national wealth that we have when it comes to the enviroment and our energy and, of course, the fish. I think that the European Union and many other countrys look very much to these things that we have. Also our location is extremly important. It used to be important during the cold war, because we were right there in between Europe and the United Staates. They had an American base here for a long time. And now, because the North Way (north way?) has opened and ships can sail directly from Asia to America or Europe on a much shorter route. They probably also look at Iceland as a very good place to get oil for their fleets.

H: So, it’s a middle way, they can stop in Iceland before continuing their journey.

B: Which can be very dangerous with all this oil floating around…

H: The European Union has been looking to restructure their fishing industry, meaning that different countrys around the Mediterranean are basically now overfishing. They are looking for new waters and i’ve heard that the waters around the U.K are going to be utilized by other countrys and I am thinking now that they want to utilize the sea around Island as well for this purpose. Do you have sovereign access to alot of ocean up there?

22:30 B: We do have alot of access to ocean and fish and that is one of the things that makes Iceland interesting to join the E.U. Among The Movement, people are very concerned to join the E.U. And we have actually gotten insight from a couple of guys that have been involved in trying to protect the British fish from being completly consumed by the EU- regulation. They came and met with a few MP’s in Iceland and they warned us very strongly to be careful. What I think is interesting, is that a lot of countrys,- when they join the E.U -, are in a really bad shape. Like Sweden. You are not in a good position to negotiate a good deal when you are desperate. Of course we should look into joining the European Union if that’s what the nation wants, however, this is not the time to do it. For now we have to focus on ressurecting things in Iceland before we try to play ball on the International Arena. Like I said, the IMF managed to completly ruin the Jamaican agricultural industry in two years. Things can happen really quickly here and everywhere. And there are other countrys struggling in a very similiar situation as we are in. And I think that countrys that are in a similar situation dealing with those hawks, these experts in sucking out everything that is usable from nations, these countrys should join hands and work together and form an Alliance. I spoke with John Perkins and he said that we had been hit by an economic hitman. And I think that I have identified at least one of them.

H: Any names?

B: No, I have to varify it before I start to drop names. That is one of the things where I need to have somebody who is good at researching individuals to help me with. I asked John Perkins whom I was fortunate enough to meet when he came to Iceland: what we can do, now that we actually have the IMF?. And he also said, that we should form an alliance with countrys in South America, Africa and Asia that are in a similar situation. And now we are also having quite a few countrys in Europe in a very bad situation.

Look at Greece, they are facing serious problems.

Look at Athens which is in a constant state of semi revolution, yet we don’t get any news about it. But if you go down into Athens, the situation is really bad, also with the way they are dealing with immigration. I mean, they just stop political refugees there and dump them straight back to where they came from, to where they were trying to flee from.

26:30 Another frightening aspect of the European Union was shown in a leaked document, I don’t remember the name, about a european joint vision until 2020. It contains the basic idea to lock itself up, to not let anybody in, to become an island (…)

28:57 B: But like with Europe, the European Union and all these big alliances, the problem is that, in the end these Alliances tend to serve only one group of people. And that is not us, the People, it is the ruling elite of the world. That’s just how it is. And the big corporations, as we know and most of your listeners are probably aware of: they have no compassion.

They only care to make profit. I think it is time for the people of the world to rise up against this. I hope that the semi uprising in Iceland, if we manage to say no on taking on private debt in the form of less services, in the form of our tax money vanishing in paying the interests of foreign loans, I hope that this NO!, will encourage people all over the world to stand up against the injustice in their own countrys.

H: Absolutely. How do you think Iceland could pull this off, how could you stand on your own when the country is dependent on import. Could Iceland sustain itself without that for a while. What would happen if many countrys in the world stopped trading with you?

Iceland on its own

30:33 B: Well, I think that there are a few options. One of the options for the Icelandic Nation to is to have the courage to say no. And I think it would be very critical, in orderfor this to happen, to have the Icelandic Nation feel the support from the people of the world. If the leaders of the world can not support us, then I know that the people of the world can support us. So we put up a petition at: SaveThePeopleOfIceland.com. We also try to put up information about the entire Icesaveprocess, articels etc. The interesting thing is that ever since the Icelandic President decidet to allow us to have a national referendum, we have been given more and more support from all levels of society. Everything from Journalist writing for leading economic papers, TV stations, and two specialists in European Law, saying that according to European Law, it only refers to one Bank collapsing when it comes to having to pay the minimum, it does not refer to an entire banking meltdown like we had.

I think that is is important to at least raise an awareness about the situation, because Icesaveis just a tiny bit of our problems. However it has very much to do with justice, and it is completly unjust that private debt is put on tax payers. Nobody should ever accept that. No leaders should ever accept that that’s okay. So, if the rest of the world decides to block us, then then they should really think that they could be next. We were the fifth richest country a year and a half ago and in a very short period of time we are at the same status as Developing Nations when it comes to debt. This can happen to any one of these countrys that are forcing us now to do this. The people should really be aware of the fact, that this could happen to them.

H: Absolutly. How do you think that the current Goverment has handled this. You mentioned the President Ragnar Grímsson. Has your Goverment been in bed with the British and the Dutch in the IMF in this case? Have they been trying to fight it?

33:37 B: Well that is the sad, sad part about all of this. Instead of using this wave of support from the general public,- e.g. from the British public -, instead of using that and pointing out what we have in common with people that are suffering from the same corrupt financial weaving into governments, they have been defending the bad contract that was made last summer. And the people that they chose to go and negotiate on behalf of Iceland were so totally incompetent, that it is…just..a, I don’t have words to describe how sickening that is … but thats a classic: The Financial Minister asked his political mentor to lead it. And this political mentor is totally unqualified to do that sort of negotiations. (…)   With The Movement I am in, we have three MP’s in the Parliament and we have a horizontal structure, we do not have leadership politics. I am now in the role of being the Party Group Chairmen, so I go to all the meetings with the Heads of State. What I have experienced at these meetings is a complete lack of understanding and willingness to go out and speak on behalf of the nation. They have basically let the British and the Dutch tell them what to do. And it is beyond my comprehension why,- I just do not understand it, I do not get it.

Maybe it has something to do with that we were a colony for a very long time, we were a Danish colony until 1945. Maybe we are just used to being treated really badly by our lords and masters. (sighs / laughs)

H: Do you thing they have alliances to other countrys, in that sense that they do not care for the Icelandic people, culture, way of life and that they are ready to sell out the country?

B: No, no, not at all, that would almost be better. In a sense I think that they are very naiv when it comes to dealing with nations like the U.K. I mean the U.K is obviously one of the best known colonist nations in the world and the way they have treated their colonies is appalling. So why would a negotional team from Iceland was naive enough to go out and negotiate with them, pleading for an understanding that we were in a financial mess and that there was some protest.

Of course the British does not .. 37:11 …. the bat. You have to play hard ball with them, there is no way they are going to feel sorry for us. I mean they are themselfes in a financial mess and the political situation in Holland is of course pretty interesting. It was just being briefed about the political situation in Holland by an aqaintance from Holland, they have their own problems to deal with, to say the least. Now, if the Icelandic government, the one that was in power when everything collapsed, and the one that is in power now, would have the courage to stand up for us, then I could forgive them if they came home with a failure. But they are not standing up for the nation. They are just being to obedient, maybe they are afraid, maybe they’ve been threatend. But these threats you have to understand.

Just like with the Chinese: I’ve been the President for Friends with Tibet in Iceland and I went to a Interparliamentary Conference about Tibet in November. Before that the Chinese Ambassador called me and wanted to meet me. I understood his position and his role and I said to him: I know why you want to meet me, you want to meet me to tell me not to go. And I told him that I understood that he has a protocol and that he was supposed to tell me not to go, but no matter what he would tell me, I would go anyways.

And it’s the same with the British and the Dutch, they have a protocol and the the Icelandic Goverment does not understand the protocol. They have to play hard ball to take us as far as possible, and then we have to take them as far as possible, thats how it is supposed to with this sort of situation.

39:15 H: The weird thing here is, that your current President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson studied Economics and Political Science at the University of Manchester, he was the first person from Island who has gotten a PhD in political science. One would think that he would be on the ball on certain of these things…

B: Well, he has been defending us. However we have a political situation where he would be very much like a King in Sweden, he does not have any political power.

The Distribution of Power in Iceland

H: Who holds the political power in Iceland?

B: The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. The background of our Prime Minister is that she used to be a Flight Attendent and the Minister of Finance studied Archeology. But that wouldn’t matter if they had a political feisty and a sort of deeper understanding of how the world works. If they would have gone out to these countrys like Holland and Britain and studied the way they think politically, and had just talked to other Mp’s, and have some background information. However our Prime Minister has some real difficulties in speaking English for example. We simply lack the leadership that we need now. Everything sort of changed when the President decidet to stand with us, which was a bold move. Actually this Goverment is in part his co-creation. It is the first time that we have a pure left wing Goverment and he is their friend, eventhough he did not listen to them first, but the nation. He has never been one of my favorite people in Iceland but I respect him for that, I truly respect that decision he made.

H: This sounds like the interests from the international community, like the U.K, the Dutch, is to get Iceland into debt in order to call the shots off there. One thing I want to ask you about is the Thermal Energy that you have up there. Do you think that these things might play into it as well, that these things could be used for energy companies in the future or a new kind of technology being installed up in island, and that they would need access to your country for that? Do you think that this could be a part of this?

B: I think that we actually don’t have that much energy left. We have basically sold it dirt cheaply to the Rio-Tinto Comapny and Alcoa. I have been watching quite a few documentaries and followed up on the situation of water in the world. And because of the glaciers we do have alot of good water in Iceland. Maybe that and the location and the fish. Because we have compared to size an incredible amount of space to access fish. That and the location are going to become very importand in the next few years. Both, because of strategic reasons when it comes to power and war, and also because of trade.

For example it is interesting to see how much the Chinese have invested in Iceland. They think in long terms and that is a problem we have in most westernized Goverments, that they only think in four years, or five years, depending on the political term they have in power. I think that it’s going to be extremly interesting to see if we can stop this. And what will happen. I do not think that everybody is going to say goodbye Island. I do not think that we are going to end up “like the Cuba of the North” as the Minister of Finance has said. First of all we have all this energy and these greenhouses, we have all the fish and the lamb and so on, so I think we can be pretty much self sustainable if we need to but I don’t think thats it’s going to go in that direction. The reason being, that there are alot of other countrys, not just Europe. What I would like to see is our Goverment to form an Alliance with Latin America.

H: Tell us a little bit about The Movement, when it was formed and what you guys have been doing. When you talk about these things I guess that I is The Movement that is behind some of the ideas that you have presented here. Is that correct?

B: The Movement came out of the grass root movement, that popped up everywhere during the Soft Revolution we had. We joined all the grassroots movements together and decidet to run for office. We had eight weeks before elections and no money and we got more than 7% of the Votes. I encourage everybody who wants to change things from within to look into that. Instead of being left or right we decidet to focus on: what do we need to change? We made a checklist: We need demcratic reforms, we need to make sure that we never had another financial meltdown etc. Basically we were just working by the checklist. If the left-wing partys would do something that we think would fit within our checklist, we would work with them. If the right-wing partys would do something that was within our checklist, we would work with them. We would work with everybody as long as it’s within our checklist or agenda.

46:46 H: That’s fantastic, that is an incredible idea. Finally somone outside the left-right paradigm is actually looking at the issues instead of following these silly blocks that the politicall system seems to cling to. Thats great.

B: Yeah, it’s exiting, it’s a complete experiment. None of us had the ambition to be a politician before going into this. I come from the activist background, I am a poet and a writer and a journalist and I never had phantasies about being a politician. This gives us incredible freedom. We don’t have any old school politicians dealing with all the protokoll, we are there within Parliament to move and change and erode the protokolls that have gotten us into this sort of situation.

H: How is the turnout? You mentioned that in the first election The Movement got 7%, is it increasing or are you noticing that people are rallying behind your group?

B: Because we got all these grass root movements together we decidet, okay, we got all these differences, lets just put that aside and focus on the issues. So what happend after the elections was that, the people from different grass root groups who didn’t get into Parliament got sort of obset and wanted to change this into an ordinary party. Which we, those of us who were in parliament, couldn’t do. We actually broke of and completely flattened that old structure because we didn’t want to have people “belonging” to The Movement, to have them on file and so on. The only files we have with people are their e-mail adresses and we send them e-mails if there is something happening with all the different grass root movements. So we are just doing an experiment and it got alot of people obset, that we couldn’t hold together all the different grassroot movements. For a while we had next to none following. We got into Parliament in April, and started to work in May which is a relativly short period of time. But it’s growing again as people see our work. And I think that this is the only meassurement. I am not going to do anything in this work except if it feel right to me. I have nothing to loose, I don’t want to be a politician for the rest of my life. I just want to make the necessary changes to bring mor power and more tools to the people. So that they can have an effect and participate in the rulings of their own lifes.

Backgrounds on `Save The People of Iceland´ and the `International Modern Media Initiative´

49:40 H: So you and also the people of Iceland can go back and lead their lifes as they want to to and not suffering under this ridiculus debt that other countrys have pretty much put on you guys.

B: And of course there are people in Iceland responsible for this mess. I am on an committee that has started to work recently, just a week ago, which is going to be dealing with a report from a fact finding committee about what the causes of the downfall were and who is responsible.
This report is coming, it has been in the works since late 2008 and we, the Nation, are going to get it on the first of February. People are afraid that there are going to be white wars and that’s why we have decided to call in that special jury, to give the ministers responsibility for their blunders and so forth.

One thing we have to do in order to earn any credibility in the international community, is that we still have not have arrested any of these Icelandic oligarchs. They are still driving in their luxury cars, living at luxury homes in London and all over the world. And they still owe pretty much everything here, so you know, you feel really bad when you have to go to the shop and you are supporting them, because there is no other option.

H: So it’s a monopoly?

B: Absolutely. If you think about Iceland you can think about grand Sicilly, it’s like a mafia, but they don’t need any guns because it’s such a small community. They only care to assassinate you if you don’t say the right things or do the right things. Like the Universities, they failed before the collapse, because they wouldn’t say anything because then they wouldn’t get money from the goverment to carry on their research or whatever. This is how it was everywhere and this is what we have to deal with now. the big question is, how are we going to do it? I think this is extremly chanllenging and exiting. That is why I think this Project (immi.is) that we are working on with people like WikiLeaks and others is so exiting. I do ask people to have a look at WikiLeaks.org.

H: Absolutely. And I do want to ask you if there are any other websites that we can give out? Websites where people can find out more about the situation in Iceland. Some good sources that can help finding out what is going on?

B: First of all, I would direct you to the safethepeopleoficeland.com and then there is some Iceland specific material that has been leaked on WikiLeaks.org. For example correspondences between one of the heads in the negotiation on Icesaveand the chief director for the IMF. That is interesting. Then we are setting up a site that will be under the same url as the safethepeopleoficeland.com, which will contain alot of practical information for people who want to get to know a little bit more about the situation. You can also go onto my personal blog; joyb.blogspot.com, but I will have some more for you next time. We are working really hard to put all the right information in all the right chanels so people can can be informed.

H: Well Brigitta, thank you so much for your time today. We really aprecciate it. Keep up the great work and we will try to set something up so we can talk a little bit more with you later on.

B: Thank you so much.

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