Antons Benjamiņš varbūt balsos PAR!


A Moment For Remembering the First Latvian Woman Playright. Ramava.

Harmony centre (Saskaņās centrs) has issued a call http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/259012 for all Latvians to participate in the Referendum on the “”language issue—ragardless of what one’s conviction is, whether it is FOR or AGAINST enabling Russian to become the 2^nd official language of Latvia.

In effect, this writer is considering the possibility of voting AGAINST Latvian as the only official language in Latvia, and FOR Russian as a 2^nd language.

Considering how one may vote in a Referendum (before the Referendum takes place by discussing it) there is NO HEDGING the discussion, especially if a date for the vote is not yet set., But it does cause one to pause, the PAUSE coinciding with giving thought to the possibility of voting FOR, demands arguments that support doing so, thinking things through not necessarily in a linear fashion only.

Therefore, the following is a list of some of this writer’s reasons for imagining that the Latvian language has not served Latvians in a way that it is supposed to serve in the public spheres of politics, business, economic development, education, video, and so forth. The following is an informative blog on the state of NATO: http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/nato-banking-mess-creates-global-insurrections-and-wars/#more-13582

In effect: This blogger, Antons Benjamiņš aka Jaņdžs, varbūt balsos (may vote FOR) PAR!

NoHedge, re: The ‘Varbūt’ (maybe will) stands for "will ponder for sure".

I In fact, there are two Latvian languages. The first is the one assured ‘eternal’ existence by the Latvian Constitution. This language is the Latvian that evolved in Riga, Latvia’s capital city. The centre of most Latvian urbanism, starting on the cusp of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Riga contained all the elements of a society slated to become consumers consuming everything (newspapers including).

When the Latvian localisms were smoothed out of the-Latvian-language-at-large this Latvian (along with its own mannerisms) became what we know as the Latvian language today. The one region in Latvia that had a very noted idiomatic manner of expressing itself was Latgale. It was not long, before Latgalian Latvian was begun to be looked down on, a presumption of Latvian lawgivers in the Saeima to this day. The second Latvian language is the one spoken at home, whether in Latgale, or anywhere else. What distinguishes this second Latvian language from the first, is its informality and frequent use of the ‘endearing word’ (John=Johnny). The latter inflections almost never appears in documents or the public media in Latvia.

II The call FOR but one language in Latvian schools, does not free one of the yoke of pretentions projected by the first Latvian language (see above; which this writer speaks before he turns to English) against the second Latvian language. Indeed, the Chairwoman of the Latvian Saeima recently denigrated Latgalian on a very official occasion, when she rejected the Latgalian idiom of a Saeima deputy during his swearing-in ceremony.

III The attitude of the Latvian government with regard to  above I & II points, has not improved or come to greater self-consciousness, but appears to preserve the class prejudice that was at the basis of the discrimination between the two Latvian languages during the first half of Latvia’s existence (1918-1939). While many today dismiss class prejudice as a matter of another day, in Latvia the prejudice has continued to progress in a number of ways.

Students and teachers; a Moment For Remembering the First Latvian Woman Playright,
Marija Pekšēna, Ramava, 2011.

IV The consequences of snobbism in Latvia have been disastrous to Latvia in numbers of ways.

a)     The Latvian political and bureaucratic circles, the media including, reject all matters relating to populism as unmentionables. There is—to this writer’s experience—not one Latvia of the above mentioned stripes, who will acknowledge populism as a valid political orientation.

b)    Though accusing Latvians of intra-ethnic conflict may not be very nice with regard to all who hold the prejudice, the “not so nice” tag has its roots in related mindset, re ‘prestige’ http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/prestige/articles/  The ‘prestige comes with being an urbanite vs one from the countryside.This (let me say) ‘stupid’ polarization of society is mostly the doing of urbanites.

c)     This intra-ethnic polarization has cost Latvia at least 200,000 citizens to economic emigration. Whatever the accurate figure may be, the consequences are not only loss of labor force, but is a matter of profound demoralization to the people in the countryside. My neighbour recently responded to the above mentioned figure of 200,000 with: “It feels like a million have left”.

d)    In short, the consequences of snobbism in Latvia on the part of some Latvians who consider themselves to be more Latvian than Latvian Latgalians who do not speak 1^st Latvian without an accent. Thus, just imagine, if so-and-so Latvians who do not speak either 1^st or 2^nd version Latvian, insist that they have a right to continue studying in schools that teach in Russian or when teachers in Latvian schools should begin to teach Latvian speaking Latvian-Latgalian.

e)     The snobbism may also come in reverse. Thus, students in a countryside school may gang up on one who is from Riga. And I have heard quite a few Latvians complain that Russians call Latvian a fascist  language, as the gentleman in the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXKQxcqjMPQ appears to do  (I do not understand Russian, except on inspired osmosis of-the-moments as here) , though apparently for the interviewed person  the word ‘fascist’ is equitable with ‘nationalist’. Here we may be seeing and hearing a Russian liberal of the ‘a Russian-of-Riga’ mind set and its meme.

First Latvian Woman Playright, Marija Pekšēna. Ramava. 2011.

V  For a  Latvian to consider a vote FOR Russian, with which vote goes (in his mind) an automatic AGAINST Latvian there is much to do and think about. One of the questions is, of course, would this question have arisen if the economy was or is doing well?

A large crowd of populists is waiting at the door of the Latvian Saeima, everyone in it wanting to know if the Saeima knows that to the populist Latvians the country feels as if  a million people have gone?

A Painted Tree.

December 10, 2111

The currently “hot” political issue in Latvia is the consequence of a successful signature gathering campaign that will lead to a Referendum of whether the 2^nd official Latvian language ought also be Russian.

While most everyone believes that the outcome of the Referendum cannot be anything but an AGAINST vote against the Russian language becoming an official second language, is this necessarily so?

This writer’s sympathies were revealed when in a 1991 paper, he suggested that the official language of Latvia be in the future English, with Latvian and Russian languages playing their role within the subjective realm known as “home”. The writer’s failure to learn Russian after a total of twenty-seven years in Latvia, Russian ancestry on the mother-side, and believing the Latvian Children of Johns’ Festival to be a relic of Russian Orthodox festivals in the distant past when the forests still ruled the surface of planet Earth, attests to a view paradoxical of the one that some readers are likely to already see as AN ANTI-Latvian orientation. No doubt, I favor the Latvian language as a language of the subjective over its officialese, for which trouble I have a couple of self-published books of translations in English of Latvian folk-poems to show.

Wood for the Temple Complex.

In any case, the possibility that the anticipated AGAINST vote may not be so overwhelming as the reps of the oligarchs in the Latvian Saeima expect. There may not be any “Ureka!” for the fascist-nationalists which is but an small inflection from “Hurraa!” . The “Hurraa!”  role ill befits the descendants of the Children of Johns, who never addressed the Sun as “Saule”, but always as “Saulihte” or Dear Sun. “Saulite” is a word, that should be the first word in the Latvian national anthem. “Dievs” (God) was put there by by sn exercise in metamorphosis, a romanized view of life the--of the lighthouse on the hill--the romanization beginning about the 18^th , which puts my great great-grandfather in the Herrnhuter ranks. My grandfather's cardinal rule was "never speak ill of anyone while at the dinner table" No one did, and learned resentment instead.

The Roman instilled tradition and presumption of substituting human lives for lack of self-discipline, rather than become able to reflect on life and act with mindfulness, occupies a large place in the content box of Latvian consciousness. Therefore, with the help of teaching the Latvian mind to do a little hocus pocus in the mind-set, it may come to see the romanizing (a way of metaphormozing one religion into another) as a an event that can be understood, as when a vision of Romans become Enterprisers (Uznehmehyi) is repeated often enough to seem natural. Thus men identified as Latvian Oligarchs. Meanwhile, the taking human life has been dubstituted by substituting human life with economic depravation (called ‘Capitalism with a Heart’ in America), nevertheless leading to an economic death for an entire society and culture somewhere else.

Having joined NATO, Latvians now officially participate in such distant, distasteful and ultimately ill serving violent events appearing out of the sky and out of the blue, for which they contribute 2% of the annual wealth of the Latvian people''

I have to confess that I often call people by the name of populists. The Latvians call themselves “tauta”). I believe that the word “tauta”, it is a synonym (albeit denied in the media) for Latvian "tautas" way of identifying themselves as  populists. The Latvian media gives evidence of many tendencies to bend Westward, which means it is from the ceiling in the room below and the enourmous magnet beaming pro-Roman beams and, therefore eternally, pro-West slanted, because it knows little or nothing of the history of the West and even less of "tauta". It will not permit itself to associate populism with the word “tauta”, which it nevertheless obviously means.

So, the issue of removing the Russian language, and replacing it with Latvian in schools which heretofore have been teaching in Russian, has been met by over 180,000 signatures gathered by the Russian speaking Latvians to make Russian officially Latvia’s 2^nd language. Now the extreme rightists, having earlier gathered significantly less votes for their initiative against the language at school, are raising their voices in angst, and saying that the large number of Russian signers was but a Russian “protest vote”. Apparently the kids gave up smoking cigarettes to start smoking mini cigars.

Not likely that it was but a PROTEST VOTE!

IT WAS A VOTE TO REMOVE A GOVERNMENT WHICH HAS PRESUMED ITSELF TO REPRESENT THE STATE.

Who knows how many Latvians will sympathize with having their State free of corruption, having a Government where corruption by way of Romanization, becomes Catholicization, becomes Monetization and becomes Globalization. Still, this is how my rear-view mirror projects the psyche (mind set) of the current government and how iit shows naked with its regard for the place and role the State has in its heart of hearts.


The Painted Tree as A Gate Post.

 The AGAINST Russian vote may perhaps be nullified by adding to the “FOR” and “AGAINST” vote, a third vote, one that is AGAINST, BUT FOR, MAKING THE REFERENDUM NOT BINDING. 

For this to happen  the Chairman of the Elections Office, Cimzars, must resign, because he is a committed “One Systems Man”. When in an earlier Referendum, he refused to agree that it is legitimate under the present law to make place for a square that would allow one to NOT-VOTE http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/ , by likening such an interpretation of democracy as being anti-State, because to think so means to think anti-state.

Thus, for Latvians, the question in the upcoming  Referendum in is whether it is "TAUTA" who is the rightful owner of the LATVIAN STATE, or whether the State is corrupt AND XENOPHOBIC?

The Temple to Destroyed Forests Bell or Gong.

THE FOLLOWING BLOG IN LATVIAN

In the following blog, I react to former Culture Minister, Sarmite Ehlerte, statement that "A divided community is not to anyone's advantage". The statement is made with reference to the soon to arrive Referendum, whether Latvia ought to have a 2nd official language, i.e., Russian. My response points out that the issue of the Latvian language is not only an ethnic one, but may go back as far as 1209, when Crusaders destroyed a "heretic" Christian community in Jersika. The repression of "dualist" religious belief had repressive effects that in this author's opinion have lasted to this day, a time, when the Latvian government of the last twenty-one years has pretty much ignored the existence of Russians in Latvia by various repressive means, one of the means being to simply ignore their existence or perhaps better said--their reality. At the same time, the Latvian government has been extremely negligent with regard to economic development of the country by essentially siding with the oligarchal model for society (the Polish Pans* being a model for today's oligarchs that is not so far in time or space from us), a model which was unilaterally imposed by the West on Latvia after the down-fall of the Soviet Union with all the liberal neo-capitalist prejudices in full bloom. This model for serfdom, imposed in 1991, is realized and understood only in our own day, seventeen and more years after the the 2008 financial collapse of the financial markets.

The idea that the Latvian Saeima may be serving the likes of  "Polish Pans" is not so far fetched. The following articles makes the point well with other examples http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/06/the-baltic-tigers%E2%80%99-false-prophets-of-austerity/.

December 6, 2011

No: Sarmite Elerte
Datums: 2011. gada 5. decembris 12:52
Temats: par referendumu

Epasts ar Ģirta Zeidenberga starpniecību.Sarmīte Ēlerte, Ministru prezidenta padomniece nacionālās identitātes, pilsoniskās sabiedrības un integrācijas jautājumos

S. Ēlerte.: "Sašķelta divkopienu sabiedrība nav izdevīga nevienam."

Jaņdža (EAB) atbilde: Agresīvi dogmātisks apgalvojums. Aizņemts no katoļu ticības, ka Pops apgalvo un izlemj visus svarīgos juridiskos jautājumus pēc sava prāta. S.Ē teikums paredz nākotnēju izlemšanu ar Krusta karam līdzīgu izpalīgu. Citiem vārdiem: uzvarētājs ņem un piesavinās visu.

Latviešu sabiedrības domāšanas stagnāts sākās ar Alberta uzbrukumu Jersikai, 1209. g. Tas bija laiks, kad latvieši sāka dot zvērastu (re: boyārs Kaupo) uz rakstītā vārda pamatojuma. Ar to tika sagrauts latviešu valodā pastāvošais dualisms, kas iekšēji apgalvo, ka valoda nav valsts cietums (kurā tautu var iesēdināt tās “ierakstītā” elīte, Saeima), bet realitāti ir iespējams mainīt uz tā pamata vien, kā ja ķēniņš apstākļu spiests pieļauj citādu realitātes izpratni (divvalodību), kā 1922.g. rakstītais Satversmes pants par valodu, kēniņa Visvalža lēmums pieļauj, —īpaši, ja ir ārkārtēja situācija—ka tā darīt ir iespējams. Katoliskā iedoma par viena uzskata negrozamību ir gana agresīvs, represējošs, un naidu kurinošs, kā iekšējai (ielokā dzīvojošai) tā ārējai (ārpus ieloka dzīvojošai)  sabiedrībai.

1209, g, Krusta karš prêt Jersiku un tās ķēniņu Visvaldi, kas notika paralēli Albigensijas Krusta karam, bija katoliski domājošo [krustnešu—tā laika oligarhu un bojāru karš prêt latviešu Jāņu bērniem, kam domāšana bija “dualistiska” līdzīgi tā sauktiem Katāriem (vel šodien nicinoši devēti kā Ķeceri)].

S.Elertes apgalvojums jautājumā par latviešu un krievu valodas tiesībām Latvijā, ir tiešā pretrunā ar krievu valodu runājošo latviešu uzskatiem.  Latviešiem ir vērts atcerēties, ka latviešu valodā ieceltie dualistiskie (laicīgie un garīgie) uzskati tiek represēti gadu simtu gājumā.

A Whirlpool of a Cloud on the Horizon.

December 5, 2111

Map of the Baltic states during the Great Northern War (1700-1721): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Northern_War_Part1.png

The history of Eastern and Central Europe is among the least explored histories. For practical purposes, it is an unknown history. At this time , this “known unknown history” is rather harmful to the people living in the region. The reason for this “known unknown” is attributable to the political interests, which have fought over the possession of the region over a long period of time.

Since the author was born in Riga, Latvia (1933), his interests are concerned with the fate of the Latvian people. His original knowledge of the history of the Baltic region was taught to him in Latvian schools, while he resided as a refugee in Western Germany, the history that he became familiar with is the version that traces Latvia's beginnings to the founding of the City of Riga in 1201 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/503392/Riga by Bishop Albert, who had landed there in 1199 with 23 ships filled with [the Order of the Brothers of the Sword , whom he attached as a branch unit to the Teutonic Knights in 1237). to wage a Crusade against the (?) Eastern pagans or perhaps Christians.



The Whirlpool of a Cloud is Caught by the Rake Formed of Dead Trees.

The interpretation of the early period of Riga (and Latvia) continues to be hazy for reasons of persistent obscurantism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism , its repressive force fed by numerous religious interests to this day. The pervasive repression in the Latvian culture of religion continues to this day (affecting all sectors of society),

http://www.makslasvesture.lv/index.php/Att%C4%93ls:Baumanu_Karlis_Ligo_1874.jpg

View of the Temple Honoring Destroyed Forests from the West.

While Latvia is said to be largely under the aegis of the Lutheran Church, it must not be forgotten, that the foundation of the Lutheran Church is Catholic, and remains Catholic in its outlook to this day (the Lutheran archbishop of Riga, Vanags http://news.frut.lv/lv/ppl/107258 , recently discussed making an alliance with the Catholic Church that had once dominated in Latvia’s eastern part, which was for a long time under Polish control. One of the unanswered myseries of the attack on Jersica is whether the inhabitants of Jersika were, as those of Carcasonne in France  http://www.cathar.info/1202b_chronolgy.htm , Cathar Christians, who—like those in Languedoc—may have had Slavic roots.

The diversion of the Slavic-Baltic language connection probably goes back to this time. Indeed, the linguistic split may not have taken place until the times of the so-called “Great Schism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism ,” in which conflict the agressor, the Roman Catholic Church, appears to taken the upper hand. The Catholic background of Livonia continues to favor (even in academic circles in our day) the prejudice held by the pro-Catholics prejudice, which may explain the Latvian  prejudice that “wills the ways of the West” (facilitated by aggressive behavior) and “offs the East”.

Religious obscurantism continues to influence the way the Eastern-Central part of Europe thinks about its history to the present day. If it is true that the famous sash of Lielvarde http://baltic-crossroads.com/store/index.php?p=product&id=301 is of Cathar origin (they were known to be fabulous veawers), the mystery of who inhabited Jersika is explained.

V iew of Temple Honorings Johns from the East.



In this writer’s opinion deliberate obscuring of history begins not only to camoflage the events surrounding the arrival of the Crusaders in Riga, but their attack in 1209 against the city of Jersika (likely a native colloquialism for Jerusalem), located up-river of the Duna (?Juna). The attack on Jersika coincides with the beginning of the Albigensian Crusade, especially the siege of the Cathar city of Carcasonne in Languedoc, France. While the attacks on Riga and Jersika were led by German knights, the attack against Carcasonne http://www.cathar.info/1202b_chronolgy.htm was led by knights from Northern France. No one is known to have survived the attack on Jersika.

Of some interest is the fact that the Cathars of Languaedoc could escape east to Croatia and Serbia, where the the religious were somewhat protected from the onslaught of the Crusaders because the area was a stronghold of the Slavs, who traced their religious influence to Byzantium or Constantinople (destroyed in the (?) 4th Crusade of 1204).

The focus of political conflict in Latvia these days is the Latvian-Russian languages issue. The issue was discussed in more detail in the previous blog. Even today, the President of Latvia, Andris Berzins, said that he will resign his Presidency http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/257837 if the Russian language Is to ever get a Constitutional foothold in Latvia, that is. if Russian were to ever become the 2^nd language in Latvia. The Latvian Constitution (Satversme) states that the Latvian language is the only language of Latvia, and does this no less dogmatically than the Pope insists that he remains the ultimate authority of all matters that concern Christianity.

What if we consider the possibility that the Latvian language is not only a matter of ethnic identity for Latvians, but also performs a repressive function against all things Cathar and early Christian, that is to say, insists that it does not  perceive divinity in “dualistic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind) ” terms. In the instance of present-day Latvia, the dualistic view likely belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Black John, the Victim in Situ.

It may be argued that the proto-Latvian viewpoint is “dualist”, once expressed by the congregations of the Children of Johns, a priest of who is visible in the Latvian “Līgo” flag. If prejudicial views are denied in favor of equal rights, the image of the priest who presides over the congregation, visible in the far background of the illustration, is the same as one may imagine is likely to be presented by a Russian (?or Greek) Orthodox priest http://www.makslasvesture.lv/index.php/Att%C4%93ls:Baumanu_Karlis_Ligo_1874.jpg residing with the people in the countryside. For those who wish to dispute this tie, the picture also proves that a Christian priest need not hold in his hand a crucifix, but a greening branch will do.

As for dualism, the Latvian language, too, is “dualistic” by its nature—especially when one considers the cultivated autism (the Gordian knot on the Latvian mind) fostered by the “schism” between its official language and endearing words. (See discussion in above blogs). By the way, the Russian language has no shortage of endearing words.

How a photographer makes friends with a pile of wood 1.

November 29, 2111

The subjection of the Latvian language over the past twenty years to an increasingly brutal secularization, has been gaining increasing attention lately.

The attention is a byproduct of a successful signature gathering campaign by members of the Russian population for a petition to hold a referendum (the current amount of signatures 137,500; the necessary amount 154,379) to change the Latvian Constitution so it will allow the Russian language in Latvia to acquire equal rights to the Latvian language, in effect to make such constitutional changes as are necessary to allow Russian to become the second language in Latvia.

The issue was first raised by certain Latvian jingoists parties (re Unity and All for Latvia; Vienotība and Visu Latvjai). The intent to bolster the political popularity of said parties has resulted in a counter movement by the Russian segment of the Latvia’s population.

In the face of many years of Latvian “do-nothingn politics” to reform corrupt politics or improve the country’s economic prospects, the language issue has proven itself exceedingly popular among the Russian speaking segment of the Latvian population.

Though one can sympathize with the point of view of the Latvian jingoists to some degree, such sympathy soon comes up against the fact that the ultra nationalist viewpoint turns the Latvianlanguage itself into no more than an advertising tool for the above mentioned parties.

Once one perceives the divide that forms between a secularized language and its earlier spiritualized and emotive equivalent, one (whether one is born to the Latvian or Russian language) understands that the present use of one’s language may add up to little more than that of  an advertising tool. This is when one makes the conclusion that one’s language has become a tool for advertising as such. In other words, the issue that the Latvian ultra nationalists have unintentionally raised is to focus attention on their use of the Latvian language. Needless to say, the jingoist effect of promoting themselves highlights a misuse of the language of their forebears.



How a photographer makes friends with a pile of wood 2.

 The misuse suffered by the Latvian and Russian languages is the dismissal (in toto) of their innate spiritual values.

It is not often that one hears in our day a discussion of the spiritual values imbedded within the language one speaks. An attack against such values has been a long and ongoing process, which runs parallel to the secularization and commercialization  of all Western languages and the communal values imbedded in same since their ancient past.

One may go so far as to say that the spiritual values embedded in the language one speaks goes back to the days, when implicitly and communally shared values were replaced with overt “religions”. The first such overt religion to impose itself over a native people was Western Roman Catholic Christianity. Instead of allowing the “endearing word”, which is imbedded in the use of one’s language to play an active role in community life, “religion(s)” began to deny such values as “pagan”, stressing the canonical values of “religion” instead.

It is interesting that both the Latvian and Russian languages are rich and bountiful in “endearing words”. The “endearing words” of both languages have suffered many centuries of open and surreptitious denial.

What is an “endearing word”? The academic world to this day knows these words as “diminutives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive ”. Essentially a misnomer by gramaticians, the diminutive does not diminism anything. What it does is to inflect just about any word [(it depends on the language) English being poor in such; whereas Latvian, Russian, and German languages are exceedingly rich in same].

For example, the Latvian name for “stone” is “akmens”. By adding to the word the inflection “(t)inshs”, re “akmentinsh”, one endears it. The adding of the inflection is often an involuntary and learned act of mimesis, whereby one ‘gets into’, so to say, the word. A similar effect in English is achieved when one readdresses “John” with an affectionate inflection, by which process “John” becomes “Johnny”; another trick of the English language (probably left over from days of yore) is to end the name by adding to it the inflection “-kins.” Thus, the word for  “baby” or "daddy"(arguably “endearments” and a “diminutives”, both) is sometimes heard pronounced “baby-kins” and "daddy-kins"..

By insisting that Russian is given official recognition in the Latvian Constitution, the Russian speaking public in Latvia necessarily reminds itself that Russian, too, has deeply imbedded spiritual values, which become manifest, first, in the language, second, in the behavior of those who use the language through yet further projection of mimesis.

Arguably, the root of mimetic projection is to be sought in the use of language by a mother when she is addressing or for that matter feeding her child. It is, thus, that a language acquires the meaning of being one’s “mother tongue”’. And surely there is no Constitution, written law, political party, or advertisement company  that can take from us the language that comes to us first through mother's milk and hearing.



How through a self-portrait a photographer makes friends with a pile of wood 3.

A tool shed, said to be the site where in past years two men made their exit from this world,

November 22, 2111

As per blog of November 20, the ultra-nationalist Latvians have failed, because they have failed to understand the profound difficulties of maintaining the Latvian language as a projection of a Latvian religion, and because they have failed to extend the period of time available for a purely nationalist solution by failing to facilitate Latvia’s economic development and prosperity.

The failure of Latvian ultra-nationalists is their failure to understand Latvia’s geopolitical potential. They fail to see that their geopolitical potential is not for them alone to solve, but that they must perceive the geopolitical advantages of their given territory and of the territories of surrounding nations and be able to facilitate and mature the geopolitics of all.

The geopolitics of Latvia is not about the RIX of Riga or Riga as a shipping port. While these may be important elements in the picture puzzle, a more important element may be the Riga stock exchange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riga_Stock_Exchange . The latter is a Riga institution that receives hardly any attention. Why?

The reason for the failure of the Riga stock exchange (NASDAX OMX Riga) is, for one, that it is part of the NASDAQ network. Centered in New York, USA, NASDAQ is a trough and through a Western oriented imperial institution. Its Riga exchange is extension to the edge of the world.

NASDAQ and other western institutions are working toward absorbing the Rest of the World into the Western World some time in the future. The “some time”-clock when on Western time is actually on Catholic Time, a camouflaged Crusade led by market interests, may strike noon tomorrow or a hundred years from now, but the clock does not know the word “never”. For Latvia this is a crucial presumption, one that it ought not ever have accepted as a matter of principle, not even if a Western world were to eventually become the world of tomorrow.

The uncertainty of whether the world is to become “Western” is paralyzing to anyone on whom falls the burden. The uncertainty of whether the burden is a weight for a day or a hundred years is as paralyzing on all of the days. Being defined as being a border town on the Eastern border of a presumed Western Empire and finding acquiescence to that role in the Foreign Ministry of Latvia, makes NASDAQ OMX Riga a lesser exchange. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1jhF7KlESE .

As sharp an eye Latvians may have for an investment, when transferred to Latvia, said eye is prone to make misjudgements, because hunger for money soon spells “rapshi” which are beans to make diesel oil from.  The Lithuanians still have the cattle and the nuclear energy plant. While the latter is a risk that will never find insurance for the year 101, for the moment deludes the mind and keeps its focus off reality. This brings Riga and Latvia to a stand still. 

Another reason why the West blocks the way of Latvia developing in the geopolitical direction best suited for it is NATO. The military alliance--at one time a useful tool in opposing the Soviet Union--endeavours to become a tool of Western expansion today. When in agreement with such a policy, Riga cannot fail remain but a border town. Even more, Riga cannot pretend to achievement in the lifetime of any Latvian living today if the Latvian Foreign Ministry keeps cracking empty nuts.

I have already noted the failure of the Latvian ultra nationalists to recognize the endearing word—so essential to and such a major part of the Latvian language—to re-engrain itself in the language after the ultras have had their ways with it. So far, one must conclude that the “Latvian language” of Latvian public media is not capable of projecting the language as it was created by the proto-Latvian people's populist sentiment (subjective agreement among all of the users-imitators of the language) does not re-absorb Latvian as the language was understood by their forebears, but goes its own “ultra” liberal path. I call this the zionationalist or post-proto-Latvian path.

The failure of post-proto-Latvians to further the cause of the development of their language [ultimately a mental kind of seizure with regard to the faculty of mimesis] is the result of isolationism. By presuming to extract the Latvian language from the hardships it would face and would have to endure if it was to survive on its own—at the same time redefining Latvian as an language that agrees to exclude all endearing words—is “ingenious”, a word that spells the ultimate of disasters.

What will survive of Latvians as they conceived themselves in earlier times is a cancerous cell, because as it attempts to restore itself to preeminence, it necessarily faces becoming an isolated and vulnerable cell. There are cases of government supported languages before the Latvian language takes this course. The Latin of the Catholic Church is one such language that can be restored with the help of a dictionary. Moreover, the endearing word casts its psychic spell over many languages, not least Russian and German.

This is why this writer is for a Latvia out of NATO (unless it includes Russia), all the languages competing for dominant positions necessarily conceiving of themselves as instruments of the middle ground (between the East and West)—of which the bet on the one most suitable for bringing economic development to Latvia and Latvians is English.

However, if  the isolationists prevail, there is the “Rent Out Riga to the Highest Bidder Program”; the one plan that will move The Capital of Latvia to Jelgava.

Besides paying off monies Latvia owes the IMF and ECB, and offering a percentage of Riga’s income to Latvian pensioners, Riga (rented for a hundred years to Germany or China) could as additional incentive offer to dig a navigable canal for ships (as the water level is sure to rise as the end of this century comes closer) from Jelgava to the Baltic sea.

If such a geopolitical program were to appear on the world stage, it is likely to become an attractive way to mime (and mine by way of mimetic activity) success. Such an alternative is surely more interesting than the sterile ultra nationalist mime that only pretends to it

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A tool shed, said to be the site where in past years two men made their exit from this world,

November 25, 2111

A major tragedy of the post proto-Latvian Latvia is the failure of mimetic transference of customs, behavior, and above all a sense of community between generations. There are a number of ways of measuring this failure among Latvians http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/mimesis.htm . The failure of the presaent to grasp the past, it is a common experience among Latvians living in Latvia and Latvians coming to visit Latvia from abroad.

There are a number of ways to explain the failure of the mimesis among Latvians.

For this writer, the a ‘small’ way this takes place became manifest, when in 1940 at the age of seven, he was forced to move by Soviet occupation of Latvia to a countryside farmstead of a relative. Having up to that time lived only in Riga and familiar with the the beach suburb of Riga, known as Jurmala http://sanatorij.lv/mce/uploads/tmceimages/More.jpg , the life in the Latvian countryside was a totally new experience. Above all, it was a sentient experience, what with the  farm animals, of which above all the horses http://www.missvelvet.com/bimages/farm.jpg were the ones which put one in touch with what  even today we call “horse power” or for that matter “horse smell http://www.smellshorsey.com/2007/11/does-anything-s.html ”.

While Latvians claim to be great fans of the theatre, which is a mimetic art par excellence, one wonders where mimesis has disappeared to in the every day life among Latvians today. One may safely say that until the occupation of Latvia by the Soviets, Latvian writers, playwrights, and artists projected their sense of identity in mimetic works of art.. Though there were plenty of differences that separated the works of Rainis, from Skalbe, Virza, Blaumanis, Peksena http://www.biblioteka.valmiera.lv/lat/piedavajam/literati/151 , to my own grandfather’s play that centered on instructing society of the dangers of alcoholism and lack of motivation it resulted in, the works were embraced by similar concerns that allowed the public to identify with the artists and their work as having something to do with their community and society. One of the connecting ties of mimesis in the late 19^th  and early part of the 20^th was agrarian populism, which was based on life in a more or less stable commune (saime), something akin to, but not quite as intangible as a household http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household  of a nuclear family of our day.

The art of mimesis became untied from the Latvian agrarian environment and became  bound to the city in the course of the Soviet occupation of Latvia. While this writer does not claim any great familiarity with the Latvian theatre of today, the latter has, indubitably, removed itself to the urban environment, where influenced by globalization, Latvia's own government acts to denationalize Latvia through subscribing to (copying) a globalized market economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_economy .

To a Latvian returning from abroad in the 2010s upon first reacquaintance with Latvia [Riga actually, because its environs are where the airplane lands] the most impressive thing (though not necessarily immediately apparent to the critical faculties) is the absence of anything particularly reminiscent of or identifiable as being Latvian in the nature of the site. In short, Latvia does not project itself as a place where a Latvian born in the 1930s (suffienciently far back to see Latvia in perspective) would identify with.

There are  a number of reasons why mimesis has failed  Latvians so thoroughly and completely.

The first reason that comes to mind is the Soviet economy, which was if not a market economy, certainly a money economy. If money was still in somewhat short supply during the Ulmanis regime (what with silver 5 lati Laima monikers), the Soviet regime, given its socialist ideology, was sufficiently large to flood the pockets of every Latvian with money. It was this flood of money—money being a tool of mimesis to the degree that money, paper money especially, can be mechanically copied and printed, ad infinitum.

As money made every agrarian populist feel himself ever less distinct from  a citizen in Riga (or Moscow for that matter), the human instinct for mimesis succumbed to the lassitude in attitude common to a modern society’s impersonal, robotized and virtualist ways. The Latvians easily persuaded themselves to cease calling any portrayal of the figure of the Goddess Laima “Milda” instead. This is singularly notable with respect to the figure standing with three stars in her hands on top of the Monument of Freedom in Riga. The name of secularized “Milda” echoes to the popular song “Matilda”. It is here that we can see the proto-Latvian agrarian past  become an urban post-Latvian populist past.

The genie in the bottle of Latvian ultra nationalists secretly wishes to return to calling “Milda” as “Laima” the Goddess. While such an attempt is not taking place overtly, it is implicit in the ultra nationalist insistence that the Latvian language as currently used be  given an immortal existence (as defined by the Latvian Constitution). As every Latvian ought to instinctively know, the mimetic value of the Latvian language is imbedded in the “endearing word”, the word that turns a leaf through an inflection [njsh; akmens <akmentnjsh] into a leaflet.

The ability of language to directly engage itself in an act of mimesis is not unique to the Latvian language alone. Russian and German languages, too, have this facility.

However, since the language that is on the mind of the Latvian ultra nationlists is in not a facilitator of mimesis, one wonders over the presumption that overtakes those who do not know their language as a mimetic language, but whose Latvian is a carbon copy of the language spoken among bankers and in business circles. If the latter is a true reflection of the “culture” mirrored  back at the urban secularist mindset, it is a cold moon that mirrors the Sun back to Earth. While moonlight http://www.pureanimegallery.com/d/2102-2/the-sif-moonlight.jpg may be the light of romance for two sexually shy individuals, for a community of lovers meeting at all stages of its members’ lives, it may be a cold and icy light.

This blog necessarily ends with a question: may any language with little or no mimetic function (given that such a function was given it by its originators), be accepted for a legalistic quick-freeze? As demanded by those belonging to social circles whose aim it is to impose themselves on shoulders of Latvia by secular (albeit legalistically enunciated) force?

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November 26, 2111

One may argue that a language that fails to display mimetic activity is a “dead language”. Why then does the ultra nationalist Latvian party by the name of “Everything For Latvia” (Visu Latvijai) presents the proposition that being in possession of a “dead language” [secured a place in society by legalistic means (by legalistically excluding Russian) is better for Latvians than living with realities as a competing language?

Exclusionism is a tendency among most groups that feel themselves threatened or ultimately facing a minority role. One may add that this tendency is enlarged when it flies on the wings of previously successful jingoist tactics, which reduced the mimetic capacity of Latvians.

In Latvia—as this writer has pointed out in a series of blogs at http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/  exclusionism has manifested its regressive influence several times in history.

1.     was about the 13^th century (1209), when the Roman Church led two successful Crusades against arch-Christians. The pincer of one Crusade was against the Cathars in French Languedoc region. The other pincer was thrust in 1209 against the Arch-Christians in Jersika, in then of Livonia. Jersika, a colloquialism for Jerusalem, was the likely headquarters for the Johns of  Children of Johns as the Latvians still call themselves on Midsummer Day or the Johns Eve Festival

2.     took place with the arrival in Latvia of the Herrnhuters in the 18^th century (1732). A Christian Reform Movement The Brethren came to Latvia to reconstruct by living example. The Herrnhuters came to Livonia to stay and mix with the agrarian populists in the countryside, the very ones who carried on whatever was left of the Children of Johns movement untouched by the Inquisition led by the zealots from and of Rome. The Herrnhuters, the writer’s own ancestors among them, reconstituted some of the moral fibre of the proto-Latvian people; however, beginning the second half of the 19^th century, when the Lutheran Church began to feel threatened by the successes of the Herrnhuters, the arch-Christian Children of Johns among Latvians were further repressed.

3.     In 1873 as this http://www2.la.lv/lat/arhivs/vesture/latvijai_90/images/Foto200712/Karogs_LV1.jpg picture confirms, the flag of the 1^st Latvian Folk Festival shows its leader as John, a native arch-Christian priest, in those days likely an orthodox (Russian) priest among the agrarian populists. Known as the “Ligo Flag” or Ligo Karogs, the image first appeared in a book called by that name, re “Līgo”. The book was rapidly repressed, said on the orders of Russian authorities, but most likely egged on by the Germanic ‘Catsholic’ Lutheran Church. While Latvian historians do not cover this period in any detail, the ‘repression’ ascribed to the Russian tsar would have been among those curiosities, when a central authority acts against its own interests. According to Matthew Raphael Johnaon, an authority on the Russian Orthodox Church http://www.amazon.com/Third-Rome-Russia-Tsarism-Orthodoxy/dp/0974230308 , this was the time when the Russian tsar Nicholas I attempted to regain from the German oligarchs in Livonia some of the influence lost to them in earlier centuries. While Nicholas I failed in his effort, the Latvians through the loss of their agrarian priests (due to the actions of Nicholas I successor Alexander II) lost all connection to their ancient arch-Christian roots. Today the role of the priests of the Latvian language is presumed for themselves by ultra nationalists  with no in-depth understanding of their own language.

If there was not a little doubt about the wisdom of Latvian ultra rightists, one might suspect their attack on (concealed as defense of) the Latvian language hints at preceeding from and leading to a ‘deep event ending’ as recent events in Norway a la Breivik http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3590 , who, too, was concerned over the drift of the youth of Norway away from rigid adherence to nationalist orientation.

What is left over from a barn for pigs of Soviet times.