"UNDER ATTACK" SWEDEN VOTES

               "Don't know how to take it don't know where to go my resistance running low.

                         And everyday the hold is getting tighter and it troubles me so"

                                                    ABBA-"Under Attack" (1983)LINK

"Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has begun the final day of the general election campaign by warning about extremism and fascism......"

"SD leader Jimmie Akesson said Sweden had been 'an extreme country in many ways, not least when it comes to immigration'"......

                                                         BBC News-9/8/2018LINK

"It is you Social Democrats, you Moderates and you in the Swedish media that continue to create problems for our country.......People have been killed, and will continue to be killed because of your policies....The conflict in Sweden now is not between left and right, rich and poor or male and female.   It is between those who are destroying our country and those who are trying to save it.   The conflict is between you and us.  My name is Jimmie Akesson and I will do everything I can to sort out this chaos...."

                                                 Sweden Democrats Video-2018LINK

(SWEDEN IS VOTING STARTING AT 2AM EASTERN TIME SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH AND ENDING AT 2PM)

Sweden came to mean stereotypical things for me in my 1960's-1970's childhood,   It meant a socialist country with high taxes and national health care.   It meant movies with nudity in them, an era that started in Swedish film way back in 1951.   Heck, famed film director Ingmar Bergman fled to Germany as a "tax refugee".  It all seemed to  come together in the legendary "I Am Curious Yellow" film with full frontal nudity and Sweden's then leading politician, the anti-Vietnam War Olof Palme, both sharing "top billing" we can say in retrospect.

By the time "ABBA" came around I was an enraged religious drunk disdainful of anything from Sweden.  I've sobered up a bit since then.

Swedish politics moved on from the rule of Palme and his Social Democrats with the "Conservatives" getting their share of power.

But Sweden also moved on to new ways in its relation to the rest of the world moving from its neutralism in world affairs to connection with the emerging multinational power structure of the European Union.

Its new status opened a once insular nation up to interconnection with other countries and other people.

And then came international wars and crises and the refugees, the migrants flowing into Europe.

It was Sweden's "Conservatives", called the Moderate Party, who opened the floodgates with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt that included giving "undocumented immigrants" access to universal healthcare and allowing "family reunification".

After the Social Democrats took power, they brought more migrants in as the civil war in Syria continued to rage.

Sweden's problems began to mount ranging from violent crime to rape.   Gang violence turned whole neighborhoods into no-go zones.   Terrorism came to Sweden.

All the newcomers created long lines for health care clogging the system

Out of all of this the Sweden Democrats began their rise achieving 12.9 percent of the popular vote in the 2014 general election.

The problems have only worsened since 2014 and become so obvious that the Sweden Democrats have risen in public popularity ahead of this Sunday's election.

And of course the accusations about the "far right" and "fascism" have been thrown the way of the Sweden Democrats and their leader, Jimmie Akesson.

On Friday, Akesson received a threat letter bearing the logo of Islamic State demanding that he pull out of the election race or face beheading.

Polling data is what polling data seems to be, skewed different ways and quite possibly deliberately skewed.

Most show the Sweden Democrats in second place but a few show them in first place.

The way Sweden's parliament, the Riksdag, is elected is by proportional representation with all parties winning four percent or more getting seats.

Sweden has the usual Uniparty groupings of "Center-Left" and "Center-Right" alliances of parties but with the two groups each around 40 percent and the Sweden Democrats somewhere around 20 percent in the polling data, it looks like deadlock is coming.

We'll know the results in just hours and see how the 349 seats will be apportioned.    Then we'll see where things go from there.    Will a super coalition of Uniparties unite against the Sweden Democrats to form a government or will some other arrangement be made even one that includes them?