Sunday, September 25, 2011


126 wild cranes circling above my house in Braslava on September 25, 2011


[3] Into the Tunnel without A Light; or
The Liberal Neo-capitalist Destruction of Latvia

It is unlikely that the political leadership of Latvia is unaware that its actions are destroying Latvia, because the destruction is occurring very visibly, not to say painfully, with lack of food causing ill health and often death being the logical result among all age groups, especially among the young and old.

This morning (Sunday) this email via my mobile phone:

“Good morning, Mr. A…. May I ask you for help? Can you lend me Ls 20 for food, because K. cannot at this time send me money? I also would like to know whether you are driving to V. on Thursday. I have to be at the court, and would like to go with you. In July, I submitted papers to have the father of my child provide support money. I will wait for your answer. Have a nice day (Jauku Jums dieniņu).”

I know the family for many years, thus, I have contacted the mother and will find the Ls 20. She also asked me to wait for her until the end of the court session, because the father of the child has said he would beat her up, but was not likely to do so if someone was with her.


It looks that the cranes are ligning up.
 

Be that as it may, after seventeen years in Latvia (after 46 in America), I am near broke. Living on a fixed income (SS from America) and a reserve from old family property sold during the ‘fat years’, the reserves have been depleted, both, due to some investments having urned ‘bad’ by the financial and economic fiasco in America and elsewhere and due to the great need among so-called lower economic classes in Latvia even during those ‘fat years’. I still have my shirt on and enough to find Ls 20 for the mother (if only because I know the family's circumstances personally), but this does not mean that I sleep easy. 

Needy families are in every corner of the Latvian countryside. The mother above is not the only one I know. Just a few weeks ago, I called and received help from a television program (“Without Tabu”) to monitor the progress of the renovation of a couple of mildewed rooms that a municipal government of a small town has assigned to a poor (trūcīga) mother and her three children (1.5, 4, & 8 years). The circle of people whom I help is a private and subjective one, but includes such mothers and children as above, alcoholics (believed by me to be rehabitable), not to mention occasional trips to take some kid to the hospital, and of course encouragement.
My tomato crop after a bath.

Why do I write about this? Some readers of my blogs may recall that I have called for the resignation of the President of Latvia Andris Berzins, one who receives the highest pension of anyone in Latvia, and one whose arrival to the office of the Presidency may be judged to be wholly illegal if one uses wholly honest (godigus) standards.

The way I see it: when the former President of Latvia Valdis Zatlers called for the dismissal of the Latvian Saeima on grounds of corruption, that same Saeima did not, as was to be expected, reelect Zatlers, but pulled out of the high hat of corruption one Andris Berzins. The Latvian people endorsed Zatlers’ judgment in a Referendum vote. However, the corrupt Saeima had already successfully projected itself forward through Berzins, a former bank president, who, though suspect of being a proxy of Swedish banks, is not questioned about it by the timid and the extreme right wing (i.e., almost the entire) Latvian media.

Among the people for whose resignation I have called is also the Minister of Finance Andris Vilks, another proxy of Swedish Banks. There are others who, given their liberal neo-capitalist views, should be resigning. The President of the Bank of Latvia Ilmārs Rimšēvičs should be given the boot. He is the first line enforcer of the “internal devaluation” program, which makes the Latvian lats an increasingly worthless piece of paper, not to say tool for pauperizing the Latvian people and facilitating the takeover of Latvia by Swedish/Scandinavian banks. At least one Norwegian politician has been caught using Riga as his house of prostitution.

An article in the Latvian newspaper “Diena” [(23.9.11) re ‘Latvijas veiksmes stāsts’ by Sandris Točs] brought my attention to an article in The Guardian by the economists Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson. Titled “Latvia and the disciples of ‘internal devaluation’”, the article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/16/latvia-anders-aslund-austerity bring to our attention the implicit complicity in the destruction of Latvia by PM Valdis Dombrovskis, who in collaboration with the liberal neo-capitalist Swedish ideologue Anders Aslund has authored a book called “How Latvia Came through the Political Crisis”. [Read the link to whiff the stink.]

We can only boo Aslund, but surely, PM Dombrovskis ought to be given the boot, too. Once a student of physics, he ought to bring up his perception of complexity to the level of instead of saying “abracadabra”, he will also know the meaning of cadabraabra or caradababra. The genee just may be hiding in the last two versions, because he surely is not with Dombrovskis.

Sunshine in the sink.

I do not deny that ideologically, I am opposed to liberal neo-capitalism and to the present Latvian government and those who constitute its leadership (ex-president Zatlers including). My opposition to the neo-liberal cabal of Latvian politicians and the media can be supported by economic and financial arguments. However, most convincing are the screams for help coming through the above cited letter from a poor mother on behalf of her child. I can assure the reader that such letters can be multiplied by the thousands—ultimately all of which testifies as to the physical and spiritual pains that come with the destruction of my nation.

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