Caught entering the Woodshed.

December 8, 2011

The following was placed on a discussion site at Latvians Online, where this writer is a Participat.

Speculation for all its connection to finance or whether the sun will rise on Johns Day, the day following the Johns Eve bash has been dealt with in numerous ways in the past.

In the past, speculation over Sunrise was put to a stop with a human sacrifice, some of the more gory ways of doing this pictured in Aztec  temple illustrations.

A  reminder of this ritual was shown a few days ago in a travelogue program in Latvia. A group of men traveling in the Mongol territory east of Lake Baikal, were welcomed by the tribesmen, who killed one of their sheep to welcome these Latvian tourists. The method of good will on the part of these natives was to stretch a sheep (an ewe) belly up on the ground. One of the men then makes a slit in the ewe’s belly about the area of the bladder. As other men hold the legs of the sheep stretched out, the butcher reaches with his hand up the innards of the ewe until the hand reaches the heart, at which point he tears away from the heart the main artery. Now the Latvian tourists will eat, and the Sun will rise on Johns Day morning. No further speculation about the outcome is needed.

We may as well imagine Johns Day morning as the day the Referendum over the use of the  Latvian language prevails over Russian (the Sun rises), this sometime in April 2012. If the speculative anticipation is on mark, this will happen, because many Latvians today prefer to speculate-believe themselves to be in the majority.

The anticipation of victory by Vienotība, ZRP, and other politicianss is based on the speculation that Latvians are unlikely to vote FOR Russian—even if the Latvian Sun has long gone down with regard to Johns Day. This latter fact, can be deduced from numerous facts with regard to the Latvian language.

One fact is the demographic catastrophe caused by the Latvian governsment’s failure to come up with a successful economic program (cutting down Latvia’s forests to satisfy bank debt is hardly a reflection of economic success; rather, it is an introduction to what will happen to the Latvian population in the course of speculative time making its arrival felt.)

Two, inspite of the rhetoric by Latvian government about Latvian being of such primary importance to the survival of Latvians, Latvian books and other printed matter are not let reach the publicē TAX FREE. Just this past week the court shut down an operation by some young adult Latvians who were taking their concern about Latvian up the next logical step by creating an internet site, where people could read just about anything written in Latvian FREE. In typical self-righteous fashion the evening news program Panorama did a clip on this matter just a few evenings ago.

Three, the very real problems of the Latvian language caused by the neglect of Latvian economy and culture by the government are NEVER discussed on such programs as 100.pants, the latter a typically presumptuous program, which assumes to be  discussing important „news”. Only the usual run of politicians appear on the program, which continues the exclusionary tradition established by one Janis Domburs, a typical anti-populist Latvian media personality of years past. His present-day incarnation is one named Reders.  At this point, anything that is critical of the Latvian government is presumed to be populist, an indication of government control of the media. We may return to the article that is the topic of this discussion, in which Michael Hudson et al  point out that the time of the DEFEAT of POPULISTS occurs in the days of Sparta, when the local oligarchs invited the Romans to come defeat and kill  the democratic leaders of Sparta. I am inclined to believe that Professor Hudson is not making a speculative statement, because not all statements are speculative as some here tend to erroneously think.

What is of speculative nature in the Latvian and Russian language debate is whether Latvian will prevail. My perspective is to say NOT SO FAST to jump to such conclusions. The Latvian leadership, the media including, has consistently speculated with no success whatsoever about Latvia's future.. The failure is  mostly because it does not take into account the importance of the economy and jobs that a successful economy generates. As a consequence, there are hundreds of Latvian parents today anxious to find their children jobs in the far abroad. This is no speculation, but a statement of fact, because the yoke of debt slavery already lies heavy upon Latvia.

Incidentally, Krugman hyperlinked the “No People No Problem” article to his NYTimes’ blog today.

Entrance to The Temple Commemorating Destroyed Forests.

Post Script: to the Paul Krugman link: The Latvian governsment’s foreign and domestic policies may be described in terms of „No Latvians, no Problems.” http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/12/no-people-no-problem-baltic-tigers.html