North Kymeenlaakso True Finns led by a literal nazi

If you're well aqcuainted with the minutiae of Finnish far right you will probably know that Väinö Kuisma starred in an hour long documentary called "Sieg Heil Suomi". Later he went on to found a party called "Suomi-Isänmaa" which you can probably form an educated guess as to the placement on the political spectrum of. Yes, a literal Nazi party right down to cute little red-white armbands and all.

A picture of Väinö Kuisma

2004 Väinö Kuisma's party participated in the elections for European parliament and ran a candidate called Petri Luumi. This is a matter of public record, feel free to check this yourself at www.vaalit.fi, should take you all of three minutes if you're curious. Luumi was recently chosen as the leader of the North Kymeenlaakso True Finns.

True Finn youth have their own election manifesto lol

Looks like the True Finn youth maintains the proud Finnish tradition of political youth movements being absolutely bizarrely insane. They came out with a 12-page election manifesto and oh my word it makes the True Finn election manifesto look positively eloquent in comparison.

Where the TF-proper electoral manifesto is neatly divided into sections concerning their economic policy, educational etc. the TF-youth manifesto is just 12 pages of far-right stream of consciousness writing. It has interesting and slightly worrying headlines placed seemingly at random, such as "The Global World Order is destroying the important creative potential", "The most important thing is the potential to be a good person" and my favorite "The work of the Global Capitalist Elite is societal parasitism". 

You might be interested to know that the TF-Youth has in its leadership an outspoken fascist named Teemu Lahtinen, who has previously been the leader of a "third positionist" movement called Suomen Sisu. Third positionism being the more moderate front of the movement, with the membership mostly being literal Hitler worshipping nazis and holocaust deniers. People previously or currently associated with SS is a veritable who's who of the Finnish far right scene, ranging from the scatological Seppo Lehto to Turku council member who spoke out in support of skinheads beating up immigrants with baseball bats, all the way to the future MP Jussi Halla-Aho, who is a can of worms in his own right.

True Finns announce election platform

The True Finns announced their election platform yesterday. It is quite something else, take a look.

1. Finnishness is Finland's gift to the world.
2. Culture funding must be directed in a way that strenghtens the Finnish identity. Faux-artsy postmodernists can procure their funding from the open market.
3. YLE's (national broadcast company) Swedish-language programming must be reduced.
4. War orphans must be registered.
5. The child benefits to those on higher income (in excess of €5000) can be reduced.
6. True Finns are for traditional family values (against gay marriage/civil union)
7. The portion of immigrant students in schools should be capped, in order to prevent separation of schools.
8. More physical education to schools. Behaviour must be graded for younger children than now, and there should be a behaviour grade in the final diploma.
9. Learning Swedish should be optional.
10. Village schools must be kept.
11. Finland to become a critical collaborator with EU instead of a model student.
12. Finland must prepare for the downfall of the EMU and EU in their current forms.
13. Finland must succesfully defend against NATO-membership and keep its universal conscription system.
14. Un-work-related immigration must be cut down by reducing the economic appeal of Finland and making it more difficult to bring immigrant families together.
15. Citizenship is a reward - residence is not enough, but language must be learned and one must be able to support oneself.
16. Ghettoization must be prevented with sensible housing policy.
17. No to flat tax
18. Green taxes must be succesfully defended against. No to higher energy taxes and congestion charge.
19. VAT must not be raised.
20. Stock dividends must be taxed at a higher rate.
21. Bring back the wealth tax.
22. Finnish work and entrepreneurship to be brought to the fore - economic growth must not be eaten into with domestic policies: adopt the True Finn climate policy.
23. Tougher sentencing for crimes. A foot collar is not the same as doing prison time.
24. Criminal immigrants must be expelled and begging must be criminalized.
25. One may not be punished for defending oneself.

True Finns' campaign manager - a convicted rapist

A word about the True Finns' campaign manager, Matti Putkonen. He was convicted of rape in the first degree in 2005 while employed as Metalliliitto's (Finnish metal workers' union) head of communications. Putkonen was ordered to serve 8 months in prison and to pay his victim €10,000 in damages. This in a country known for its leniency towards sex offenders. The trial was held in secret,  but considering the severity of his sentence it is likely his victim suffered considerable physical harm. This happened five years ago.

I won't call it ironic that a populist party like the True Finns, most voters of which will froth at the mouth raging against the light sentences handed out for rape in Finland, should have a convicted rapist as its campaign manager. It would be ironic if they didn't know about his sentence (which made headlines at the time). No, this is just hypocrisy at its finest. That is of course unless mr Putkonen is willing to listen to the TF-voters and get castrated like a sex offender apparently should.

True Finns' climate program a literal carbon copy

Timo Soini announced the True Finns' climate program early February. He obviously had high hopes for his mostly unenforceable and populist agenda, going as far as to publicly say "This is what I've been working on, all my years in Brussels." Too bad then, that the overwhelming majority of his climate change program is a fairly straightforward plagiarism of the Metalliliitto (metal workers' union) one, right down to the spelling errors.Yes, a person considered a plausible candidate for Finnish Prime Ministership was dumb enough to think he would get away with copying a major political program from the largest trade union in Finland without anyone noticing.


This is yet another attempt by the to obfuscate the fact he is by every account a worthless MEP. He has done nothing of merit in his years as MEP, instead cozying up to the more odious members of the right wing anti-semite lunatic fringe. The very same members who Nikki Sinclaire got kicked out of UKIP for not collaborating with. Birds of a feather flock together.

True Finns, or rudimentary Finns?

The Finnish-to-English dictionary at sanakirja.org defines the prefix "perus" as:

1. fundamental       
2. basic       
3. primal       
4. prime       
5. cardinal       
6. primary       
7. basal       
8. run-of-the-mill   
9. elementary       
10. rudimentary       
11. radical       
12. vanilla    

The prefix "perus" when used in the Finnish language indicates something that is lacking any distinctive qualities, something generic, standard issue. Translating the name 'perussuomalaiset' as 'True Finns' is about on the same level as translating "Tesco value sausages" into French as "Saucisson Vrai". A much more apropos translation would be "Standard issue Finns", and I for one recommend journalists everywhere start using it.