Latvian folk art. Hi there! Are you a Latvian? I am at the Īgums Crossroad, Valmiera region, Latvia.

I have a new BLOGSPOT. See: http://mywealthvirus.blogspot.com/

 [21] November 18, 1918 – November 18, 2011

Ninety-three years have gone by since Latvians declared themselves to be an independent country, Latvia.

Technically speaking, after all these years Latvia still exists. After losing independence in 1940 to the Soviet Union, Latvia reemerged as an independent country in 1991 again.

The question today is whether the twenty years of government since regaining independence have justified the hopes of those Latvians who waited to see their country independent again.

The answer, if based on the state of Latvia’s economy and culture is—no. The hopes and expectations of Latvians have not been justified.

It is not however a question of democratic elections that decided the answer, but an understanding of history, the times, a sense of where the future lies, and the availability of men and women with a perspective on the world sufficiently embracing and sure of itself to lead confidently. Unfortunately, Latvians do not have a sufficient number of such people, and those who do have a perspective are repressed by a media also repressed and delusional every time it projects an advertisement.

The reason for the shortage of Latvians with intelligence of breadth is not the fault of Latvians, but the result of most everyone in the world having been absorbed by the illusion that the prevailing political economic system is faultless. As long as the system put money in the pockets of a sufficiently large number of people to persuade the media that happiness is the state of most of the system’s inhabitants, there were but few critical minds that thought and said otherwise.

Some economists, generally academics, blamed the working economists for not perceiving that the reason why the system was dysfunctional was not to be sought with this or that nation or bookkeeping error, but that the dysfunction had reached a pandemic http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pandemic stage and was systems wide. The system(s) is generally understood as that particular enlightened order that can be stuffed under the heading of neo-liberal capitalism or liberal neo-capitalism (actually interchangeable terms) and was brought into the world (princes having been outlived) by past wealthy oligarchs, who, naturally, are more enlightened than the rest of men and women. Another name the system is known by is a “self-regulating market economy”.

It is the self-regulating system that today so regulates that a good portion of Latvia’s own have become economic refugees. Under the self-regulating market, a half a million Latvians have left Latvia (some say only 350,000), while my countryside neighbor insists that it is actually a million who have left. While I know of no factual basis for agreeing with “a million” figure, I assume that it is nevertheless an honest reflection of what it feels like to be a countryman when one compares the Latvian countryside of twenty years ago with that of today.

In short, Latvia under the present government (that strange griffon that has impressed Latvians into the neo-liberal self-regulating capitalist system) has not, come November 18, 2011, justified itself to those of us who hoped to see it recover and stand on its own feet. Indeed, many of us (those who had some critical perspective on the delusional West) had never had any desire to see “Latvia go West”, but would have been happier seeing Latvia participate in the ‘game’ of real politic. Latvia’s geographical location indeed allows it its own geopolitical strategy.

Having allowed themselves to be stuffed into the sack of the EU and NATO, those of today’s Latvian government increasingly appear to be chameleons rather than griffons http://latgola.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/500px-coat_of_arms_of_latvia-svg.png  . As a chameleon the government increasingly looks like a leech on the body of the Latvian community by now nearly exhausted by its many misfortunes. The next misfortune of immigrants replacing missing natives is at our door.

Given the failure of the leadership of the Latvian state, it would be significant if from within the inner circles of the leadership there came a voice and, too, says NO! I have suggested in the past that the voice belong to Latvia’s President. I still believe so. The nation, too, will be grateful if the President takes advantage of November 18, and presents the West, the East, and Latvians themselves with a reverse “shock”— resigns from office.

The shocked will be awed at the vistas of geopolitical potential that opens the moment Latvians cut for themselves a new door.

The leaning barn.

[20] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (8)

Part 1.

Warren Buffet on a buying spree here.

The failure of Latvia as a viable economy, whether guided by Latvian Latvians or Latvian Russians or a coalition of same is that both parties look toward the future in the outdated terms of a “growth” economy.

The financial and economic disaster enveloping the world today (and Latvia in particular) is thought of in terms of a “short lived” event—even if the event is presumed to last for ten or more years. The mindset of our times appears to have been occupied by the interests of urbanites who cannot get off the Shoals of Growth.

The urbanites are permanently immobile, captured by brain-lock, metallic rock band entertainment and all.

On the other hand, all around the Shoals of Growth are the Digital Floating Islands, which though limited to their given size, can readily help those stranded on sand bars. The art of getting off a shoal is to untie one’s mind from the knot of "growth" and tie it to a "tree" on one of the Digital Islands.

Indeed, the Digital Islands allow one to leave the urban scene and its permanent state of Turrets like turbulences and get to move one’s computer onto earthquake proof woodland. The compulsion that forced the conquistadores to destroy the Inca garden of gold can be controlled by letting the Earth go fallow and seeing it covered with “green gold” again.

The presumption of the Union Party (consisting mostly of Latvian Latvians) is that every Latvian naturally gets all tied up in knots and suffers of Turrets for the sake of always being and always remaining a good patriot. The Union Party’s particular knot is known as The West.

The Harmony Party, on the other hand, is knotted to The East, because it believes that the East’s Gaslands will solidify into pure gold if one but wishes this to happen strongly enough.

The Digital Islands can get Harmony Party off its shoal, too, by reminding it that the language of business is English and Gaslands spelled in Russian cannot blow a bubble around the Earth as English can.

So, this is where the Latvian Latvians and Russian Latvians get to fulfill their need for “growth”. Like in the days of the Hansa League, Riga (within certain limits) gets to become like the Wild West which the medieval knights sought in the East. One way to “grow” Riga (now shrinking down to 600,000 inhabitants) is to rent it out to the highest bidder, say, Beijing, and repeat the experience of Hongkong on the Baltic.

Out of a union of Union and Harmony parties—which union has potential, because both are agreed to rent themselves out to the highest bidder—a new post-Latvian Latvian society, one that is truly Latvian, is born. Surprisingly, this society may move to live in the Latvian woodlands.

Sounds like a joke?  Go to the next blog to find out.

Part 2 follows.


The leaning barn and what used to be a roof.


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Part 2.

A Latvian politologue’s opinion (transl. from Latvian) on what makes him a political observer: “The author of these lines in not an economist. The window sill of geopolitics is also too high for him…. Therefore...." The above is followed by a defense and praise of a politically unstable blob known as the European Union or EU.

The presumption of our “civilized” world is that all geopolitically significant human movement is for ever toward urban centers. What used to be cities, entities owned by oligarchs trading with other oligarchs in ‘their’ cities (they did not trade with the countryside), have been erased and become said "unstable blobs" .

Whether the blob is the EU, a mega city, or a "grausts"  in Riga (a city which the tourist industry touts as a tourist’s must) in Riga, Riga gets to go where it is going as a result of its supporters.

The supporters of Riga may be loyalists, but more likely they are "blobbies". One can begin with the unstable blobby that is the President of Latvia and work down to the countryside poor full of envy of the blobbies in the city who seem to have it all.

Of course, cities like London, cause the Thames River, which has to pass through it, to emerge into the English Channel looking like green piss that turns the North Sea a pale green. Riga has only the Bay of Riga to pollute. For all that, the blobbies try to present the blobs as shimmrering stars.

Who is to blame? Why is such uni-polar view ruling over Latvia?

Before one despairs of such uni-polarity, it may be actually be good for Latvia, at least now that it has happened. Bank driven “fools gold”, imprinted as a permanent advertisement on the brain of all “good Latvian people” who have bought into it, is driving the wild boars from forests to dig my garden. As I do not shoot wild boars, I would make them my soldiers—if I could but outlaw boar hunting.

If it was forbidden to shoot the wild boars, humankind would have its forests back in shape soon. Driven from their forests by the magic of the chainsaw, the wild boars cannot help but come and dig up my garden. If the law forbade boar hunting, and if the “farmer” was to return the boar-dug land to forest and retreat to another field, lost forests and forest landscape would come back in a hundred to two hundred years.

Part 3 follows.

The other end of the leaning barn.

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Part 3.

Latvians, who create and live in the geopolitical environment of post-Riga Latvia, ought to adjust the arrow on the face their compass from “deforest Earth” to “accommodate the boar”. A practical way of doing this is to dedicate Latvia to the service industries of emerging tomorrow rather than a declining yesteryear.

I see boars as front line warriors against urban dwelling farmers for who the earth is but to exploit and “growth” their pockets.  

The farmer as homesteader is long gone or has become an exception. It is not difficult to persuade the farm worker who needs a job that exploitation of planet Earth is needed if he is to eat. One almost never hears that letting land go fallow and re-grow into a forest brings income sufficient unto the day.

Some such (as described above) must be the future of our planet if humankind is to survive. In other words, growth in the future can only happen through “de-growth”.

While Riga rented, say, to Berlin (Latvians have a historic relationship with the German people) brings enough “growth” to keep happy those born to city life, Latvians can establish headquarters for their own “Green tree” Party in Jelgava, by which process Jelgava becomes the capital city of Latvia.

There are people who are anxious that renting Riga means to prostitute Latvian ideals (whatever these as yet seldom discussed ideals may be). I am happy to say that I am not suggesting anyone prostitute themselves, but diminish their prejudices.

Clearly, it is in the interest of the Earth and all its nations to belong to an Earth-protecting union. The present unstable blobs, which we find dot the map, are not sustainable.

By nature human beings are creatures that are cautious in the extreme, and will keep making unstable blobs their living spaces—if this has become a seemingly sustainable event—until they are struck by an irreversible catastrophe.

Traditionally, in many pre-modern societies a “reminder” of the reality that lay at as foundation of society was human sacrifice. Society sensed that this was a reality that cannot be fudged. While exemplified by likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus, or St. John, reality became ever more unreal after the cities led humankind into a warp of virtual reality. We are still caught up in this warp and do not seem to be able to get out of.

For this reason, I would like to suggest that it is time for the Latvian public (such as remains) to come out from behind the trees and suggest that by virtue of the computer city folk can also live in the countryside that is let to become forest again.

How are we going to do that? What are you going to live on? Will there be butter on our bread?

The answer is as simple as it is complicated. The ways of a Latvia fully dedicated to a post-growth de-growth economy are many. But here is one: Latvians declare all of Latvia a biosphere for trees.

No one can enter and live in the Latvian forest without express permission of the Jelgava government [let us remember that Riga has been rented to Austria (?)]. Because Latvians keep their own numbers low, which by the way they can do, because their population is presently said to be in a death spiral, the transition ought not to be all that difficult.

When the Latvians (Latvian Latvians, Latvian Russians, Latvian Germans, Latvian Swedes, etc.) will have rented Riga and re-founded their capital in Jelgava, then Latvia will no longer be an unknown country. The whole world will have been watching and taking example.

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Part 1.

Latvia’s human sacrifice: abandoned children neglected

http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/254993 

It is common among mythologists and anthropologists to see in sacrifices [made in what are called “foundation myths” (usually of and by “primitive” people)] as “foundational acts”. It is also common to refer to such foundational sacrifices as foundational violence.

A favorite scholar, literary critic and  philosopher of mine is Rene Girard. Professor Girard wrote some very thought provoking books about human sacrifice, especially about the role in human sacrifice of the “scapegoat”.

The scapegoat in mythology is the person whom the community selects—for whatever reasons of its own—to sacrifice when the tensions inter- or intra- a group has reached the breaking point, i.e., the community is threatened by the tensions with breaking up.

At such times, what ever it is that ails the community screams for a correction. The circumstance may be a physical provocation, an enemy, or it may simply be confusion. However, the expectation of violence becomes part of everyone’s subjective self. When subjective concensus unbeknownst to itself reaches a peak, yet remains unspoken, we may count on it that someone will speak up.

He/she may go to the temple and speak to the priest.

“Holy brother, I think it is So Andso who is creating all the trouble among us. I believe you should consider that we have him done away with, have him sacrificed. At least, let us chase him from our midst.”

To which the holy brother replies: “I see what You mean. I have for some time been thinking along those same lines, except that I do not think that So Andso is at fault, but that it is You. Temple guards, seize this man and lock him up. He looks starved. Fatten him up. Bring him every night a new village virgin for company.”

Imagine now that you are a young Latvian man who went to complain to the priest and received the above sentence. Would you leave the virgins untouched?

If you are a Latvian of today, surely not. You would take everyone of the virgins and give them a ride on the best horse You had. The priest would then call the villagers together and give them the news.

“That son-of-a-bitch should be castrated,” screamed an elderly woman. “Off with his head!” screamed a great number.

“We should not do this,” said the holy brother to the villagers. “Not today anyway. We had our foundational sacrifice many years ago. That event horriblis was terrible enough, but it brought us together. Which is why we have become a kinder and a more united people. Now we only sacrifice once a year to remind ourselves that we live not in a virtual but real world.”

“I agree,” seconded someone out of the group that had gathered at the temple. “That was a bloody event that should not be repeated often. Okay, give John another virgin for the night.”

“Good,” said the holy brother. “The next summer solstice, Johns Day, does not come until June. The temple will keep John supplied with virgins. When Johns Day comes, John will hang his head in shame, but die happy. And we all will breathe a sigh of relief”.

I agree with Professor Girard that the scape goats [likely called by proto- Latvians “Cross-Johns” (Krish-Jahnji/ Christ-ianity)] are among the first human scape goats who were allowed to voice a subjective self. This subjectivity was later described as the subjectivity of a holy man or woman, even God. The New Testament is one such subjective story.

As a consequence of the switch of who is or is not guilty of seeking and persecuting a scapegoat, scapegoating became a crime.

However, if violence (idealized as ‘sacrifice’) is necessary for the foundation of a community—is it not that any and all violent events may be looked at as foundational violence? Even suicide, surely a misbegotten foundation act, is a foundational act nonetheless. A suicide more than likely gives witness to the fact that there is no community or nation worthy the name.

Going by such myths, the question that arises is “What is the foundational act of Latvia in 1991? We know what the foundational events were in 1918. What was the foundational act of Latvia in 1991?”

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Part 2.

We know that during the “Days of the Barricades” in Riga in 1991, the Omon, a specnaz group of the Soviet Union, let loose a barrage of bullets from the streets near the Ministry of the Interior http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y4wLPgTxwk and killed five people, a videoman/ filmmaker, among them.

One way that one may look at the death of the videoman is that he was filming the events of violence as part of the re-foundation ministrations begun by the Soviet Union.

As it happened, the Soviet Union did not survive, and a re-foundation of Latvia occurred instead. Still, the question remains—especially in the light of the corruption that followed—whether the deaths of said five was enough of a foundational sacrifice to become internalized in the body and blood of every Latvian?

The filmmaker was shot and died as one who documents an events. He recorded flashes of light from Omon’s guns firing. The camera also recorded the video camera falling in a dizzying whirl of its own motion, then coming to rest and pointing nowhere in particular. The filmmaker was struck by a bullet. His death was accidental in that he was part of the fifth estate (reporters) and did not face or fight the fire, but was moving away from it.  

In other words, the foundational violence of Second Latvia (1991) was not clearly defined. Sensing the vagueness, the uncertainty, Latvians prefer to “see” the Second Foundation of Latvia as “a singing Revolution”.

The re-foundational violence of Latvia’s was felt by many as unconvincing, and one man, Adolfs Bukhis, a tool and diemaker from Jelgava, tried a second foundational act in May of 1993. He shot himself in front of the Latvian Monument to Freedom in the centre of Riga. He died protesting corruption in Latvia’s government led by Latvians. Pervasive corruption had made Latvians feel that the re-foundation of Latvia had become a dismantling of Latvia.

It is of course difficult to say when re-foundational sacrifice is enough to begin exerting its influence on all who are witness to it. In the case of Latvia, all that can be said is that it did not suffice. A renewed Latvia was soon seized by interests that were able to neutralize emotions activated by such violence as had occurred in 1991. By 1993 the then Latvian government felt strong enough in its corruption to hide the notes found in Bukhis pocket, and there were few, perhaps no voices from the public that demanded that the notes be made public.

As for Mr. Bukhis, we do not know how he formulated his sacrifice. However, we may presume, that he viewed corruption in government as proof that government or elements in government were not part of the Latvian community, at least not of the kind of community that most everyone of the “singing revolution” had prayed for.

The re-founded Latvia that arose after surviving Soviet occupation was not a political entity structured horizontally, seeking an economic order working toward economic equivalency among its smaller communities. Instead, Latvia became a nation divided in those who dwelt on the “North Pole” and those who dwelt on the “South Pole”. This means that (an over simplification no doubt) that Latvians who live on the North Pole have beautiful smiles and shiny teeth, while Latvians living on the South Pole have rotten teeth and poor health.

The subjective thoughts of many Latvians on Foundation Day 2011 (commemorated on November 18) are restless and distrought. These thoughts are like cranes rising in air for a long journey, but yet circce in a circle of chaos. An order for flight has not yet emerged out of the whir.

The Latvian government (for practical purposes near broke) acts as if nothing is missing, that everything is in order.

The President and the Ministers of Latvia are working furiously to cut government expenses at the expense of poor Latvians. The poor Latvians have protested by leaving Latvia for a job abroad mosly. No one in government is thinking or suggesting ways of making money by way of analysis of the present and imagining untraditional niches that may be more compatible with the future.

The demogrophic of Latvia is in a Death Spiral. At least one government official thinks that Latvians test out dumber than Russians when it comes to critical thought. Foreign banks are happy that Latvians are cutting down their private forests, because it means Latvians are paying off their debt.

The optimists are saying that though Europe is falling apart, Latvia is either re-founding itself or founding something else. Founded on air blown by a joke perhaps?

This property, 17.9 ha for sale. See http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 1.

The current dream of Latvian nationalist coalition parties to control Riga is based on the fact that Riga has been the capital city of Latvia since the foundation of Latvia in 1918.

Though Riga remained the capital of Soviet Latvia during the Soviet occupation, “occupied” Riga underwent significant changes. For one, the Latvian population, which had replaced a largely German population at the beginning of the 20^th century and constituted a majority of the Riga population by 1940, decreased as Riga became the domicile of many Russians in the fifty year period under the occupation of the  USSR.

Today the seats in the Latvian Saeima are roughly proportional to the ethnic divide in Latvia, even as Riga--with roughly 42% of Latvian Russians--remains a major centre of Latvian Russians.  

From the point of view of tactical manuverability and  geopolitical advantage, the Latvian nationalist dream and the consequences of their attempt to realize it, have proven as unrealistic as disastrous (currently fait accompli) to the interests of Latvians. There are two reasons for this:

a)     The Latvian Latvians who were forced to leave the countryside due to neo-capitalist agricultural policy of the EU (largely favored by Latvian nationalists) did not result in an increase of Latvian population in Riga. This is because of the corruption in the Latvian Latvian government (which uses ethnic jingoism to bamboozle the rest of Latvians into a deadlock vote) and misguided economic policies. In real-life, most Latvians bypass Riga for Ireland, England, and other countries offering competitively better job opportunities.

b)    The corruption of Latvian Latvian politicians resulted in straight-jacketed Latvian economic policies, which led to a take-over of Latvia by foreign (largely Swedish) banking operations. The infiltration of Latvian interests by the “West” (a term used to avoid using such terms as “Swedish”, NATO, or Brussels) has turned Latvian economic policies into a Ouija board like exercise. The Latvian Ouija board works, because the forces that guide the pointer remain largely unknown to Latvians and turns them into easily duped believers in magic.

The deadlock vote--the result of a never-ending stoking of jingoism (encouraged by the “West” of course)--has allowed the nationalists to create a dogma of sufficiently long duration to engineer an inter-Latvian geopolitical advantage for Riga. That is to say, a reapportionment of the territories of the earlier four regions of Latvia (formerly a mythic three) into five, created the new Region of Riga.

The Region of Riga expanded Riga’s territorial influence at the expense of the three regions surrounding it, re Vidzeme, Zemgale, and Kurzeme. With the exception of Kurzeme, all other regions were deprived of access to the sea.

In effect, the three landlocked Latvian regions (formerly only the region of Latgale had suffered from such disadvantage) have been forced to become economically dependent on Riga.

No wonder that Riga can so readily misspend 130 million to build a totally useless (I call it ‘broken wing’) glass frame for its library. [I have my ideas about its uses, but that for another time.]

Were it not for the self-induced ineptness of the Latvian Russian controlled Harmony Centre [its ineptness clearly a result of knee-jerk reaction to the Latvian Latvian coalition (thus failing to unite all Latvians], Riga might have fought off the penetration of Latvia by foreign banks and the weakening of its sovereignity.

Part 2 follows. The original at http://rigacapital.blogspot.com/

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 2.

An  offer of Riga to the highest bidder will result in disaster (except for the Region of Kurzeme) if it is done with the Latvian hypernationalist map of inter-Latvian geopolitical advantages intact.

If the reapportionment of Latvia’s regions is not deconstructed and Riga is not forced back into less expansive presumptions (for example, a 30 km radius from the flagpole on the tower of the President’s castle), a planto rent it would not result in an advantage to Latvians. The construction of the current map falls into the trap favored by the Unity Party (Vienotība) and Latvian geopoliticos advised by a Oija board controled by the “West”.

Although the Riga region is not the creation of the after- or post-‘fired’ government in office, it was created by the same forces. Also, the President of Latvia, AndrisBerzins) was still only the President of the Swedish afiliate in Latvia, Unibanka. He had not yet become a Swedish poke in Latvian ribs in the office of Latvia’s president. The President, therefore, deserves to recuse  himself from the office even at this late date.

[Parenthethetically, the reconstruction of the Riga region could begin by returning the formerly administratively unified region of “The Northern Vidzeme Biosphere" its unity and give it more generous legal powers to enforce a true biosphere, i.e., one protected from human predators cutting down its forests and killing the wildboars/pigs.

A map of the biosphere: here.  

In other words, in the process of deconstructing the Riga region back down to size, it should be kept in mind that Riga is a sweet. Riga has the potential of being rented to business under limited, but more or less sovereign authority of its own–for an agreed period of time. Latvians want investors to come to Riga and begin working at their business, but only by staying within boundaries drawn with the consent of the Latvian people. Those boundaries include limitations as to Riga’s extent on land and respect for the rights of the inhabitants of the rest of Latvia, not least for Latvia's “forest green” heritage.]

This is a good time for the Harmony Party to speak not only for Latvian Russians (the party’s majority membership), but to speak up on behalf of Latvian Latvian interests that have not been well served by Latvian nationalist destructiveness of Latvian interests.

It takes too long to tell all the reasons why a 3-way split of interests in Latvia and Riga (the deadlock between Latvian-Latvians and Latvian Russians) serves all three parties concerned, but one can reasily percieve that the language issue so troubling to the unity of Latvian citizens is replaced with English as the language of everyday social intercourse, while Latvian and Russian remains a subjective issue among the speakers when home.

In Jelgava, the next Latvian capital city, Latvian will of course prevail.

Latvian will also prevail in the rest of Latvia where “forest green” rather than the chainsaw or plow rules. As for the latter, it is misleading (as an ad on television loudly claims) that for the last seven hundred years the Latvians have been a peasant (zemnieku) people.

For more than half the above mentioned 700 years, Latvians were forest dwellers, who cultivated a patch of land (sokle) to enhance their forest diet with turnip and beet. The term "brotherhood of the forest" (Mezha brahlyi) was a popular term until even after the end of World War 2. The sense of freedom for a Latvian comes from the forest, not from plowing the land for the barons.

It is only after 1933 (the arrival of the so-called Ulmanis regime, that Latvians officially become descendants of peasants. They stay locked into this mistaken perception of themselves to this day.

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 1.

The current dream of Latvian nationalist coalition parties to control Riga is based on the fact that Riga has been the capital city of Latvia since the foundation of Latvia in 1918.

Though Riga remained the capital of Soviet Latvia during the Soviet occupation, “occupied” Riga underwent significant changes. For one, the Latvian population, which had replaced a largely German population at the beginning of the 20^th century and constituted a majority of the Riga population by 1940, decreased as Riga became the domicile of many Russians in the fifty year period under the occupation of the  USSR.

Today the seats in the Latvian Saeima are roughly proportional to the ethnic divide http://www.economist.com/node/21530161 in Latvia, even as Riga, with roughly 42% of Latvian Russians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Latvia , remains a major centre of Latvian Russians.  

From a point of view of tactical manuverability and  geopolitical advantage, the Latvian nationalist dream and the consequences of the attempt to realize it, have proven as unrealistic as disastrous (currently fait accompli) to the interests of Latvians. There are two reasons for this:

a)     The Latvian Latvians who were forced to leave the countryside due to neo-capitalist agricultural policy of the EU (largely favored by Latvian nationalists) did not result in an increase of Latvian population in Riga. This is because of the corruption in the Latvian Latvian government (which uses ethnic jingoism to bamboozle the rest of Latvians into a deadlock http://deadlocked.askdefine.com/ vote) and misguided economic policies. In real-life, most Latvians bypass Riga to this day for Ireland, England, and other countries offering competitively better job opportunities.

b)    The corruption of Latvian Latvian politicos resulted in straight-jacketed Latvian economic policies that led to a take-over of Latvia by foreign (largely Swedish) banking operations. The infiltration of Latvian interests by the “West” (a term used to avoid using the terms “Swedish”, NATO, or Brussels) has turned Latvian economic policies into a Ouija board like http://www.skepdic.com/ouija.html  exercise. The Latvian Ouija board actually works, because the forces that guide the pointer remain largely unknown to most Latvians and turns them into easily duped believers in magic.

The deadlock vote, the result of a never-ending stoking of jingoism (encouraged by the “West” of course), has allowed the nationalists to create a dogma of sufficiently long duration to engineer an inter-Latvian geopolitical advantage for Riga. This is to say, a reapportionment of the territories of the earlier four regions of Latvia (formerly a mythic three) into five, created the Region of Riga.

The Region of Riga expanded Riga’s territorial influence at the expense of the three regions surrounding it, re Vidzeme, Zemgale, and Kurzeme.

With the exception of Kurzeme, all the other regions were deprived of access to the sea.

In effect, the three landlocked Latvian regions (formerly only the region of Latgale had suffered from this disadvantage) have been forced to become economically dependent on Riga http://mapsof.net/map/latvia-regions-map.

No wonder that Riga could so readily misspend 130 million to build a totally useless (I call it ‘broken wing’) glass frame for its library. [I have my ideas about its used, but that at another time.]

Were it not for the self-induced ineptness of the Latvian Russian controlled Harmony Centre Party [its ineptness clearly a result of knee-jerk jingoist reaction to the Latvian Latvian coalition (thus failing to unite all Latvians], Riga might have fought off the penetration of Latvia by foreign banks and the weakening of its sovereignity.

Part 2 follows. The original at http://rigacapital.blogspot.com/

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 2.

My geopolitical offer of Riga to the highest bidder, if using the Latvian Latvian or Latvian hypernationalist created map of Latvian territory would be a disaster to the other regions of Latvia.

If the reapportionment of Latvia’s regions is not deconstructed and Riga is not forced back into less expansive pretentions (for example, a 30 km radius from the flagpole on the tower of the President’s castle), my plan is not to the advantage of Latvians. It falls into the trap favored by the Unity Party (Vienotība) and Latvian geopoliticos advised by a Oija board controled by the “West”.

Although the Riga region is not the creation of the after- or post-‘fired’ government currently in office, it was created by the same forces. At the time, the President of Latvia, Andris Berzins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andris_B%C4%93rzi%C5%86%C5%A1_(Latvian_President) was still only the President of the Swedish afiliate in Latvia, Unibanka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEB_Unibanka . He had not yet ascended to become a Swedish poke in Latvian ribs from the offices of Latvia’s president. The latter, therefore, deserves to recuse http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Recuse  himself from the office even late after ascending to it.

[Parenthethetically, the reconstruction of the Riga region could begin by returning the formerly administratively unified region of “The Northern Vidzeme Biosphere”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Vidzeme_Biosphere_Reserve its unity and give it more generous legal powers to enforce a true biosphere, i.e., one protected from human predators cutting down its forests and killing off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx2EuC2sxLY&feature=related the wild pigs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeXqrHMSYNU .

A map of the biosphere: http://www.baltcica.org/casestudies/latvia.html  

In other words, in the process of deconstructing the Riga region to size, it should be kept in mind that it is a sweet. It has the potential of being rented to business under limited, yet more or less sovereign authority of its own–for an agreed to period of time. Latvians want investors to come to Riga and feel free to begin working at their business, but only by staying within boundaries drawn with the consent of the Latvian people. Those boundaries include limitations as to Riga’s extent on land and respect for the rights of the inhabitants of the rest of Latvia, not least Latvian “forest green” heritage.]

This is a good time for the Harmony Party to speak not only for Latvian Russians (the party’s majority membership), but to speak up on behalf of Latvian Latvian interests that have not been so well served by Latvian Latvian nationalist self-destructiveness.

It takes too long to state all the reasons why a 3-way split of interests in Latvia and Riga serves all three parties concerned, but one can readily percieve that the language issue now so troubling to the unity of the Latvian citizens is replaced with English as the language of everyday social intercourse in Riga, while Latvian and Russian remains a subjective issue among the speakers when home.

In Jelgava, the next Latvian capital city, Latvian will of course prevail.

Latvian will also prevail in the rest of Latvia where “forest green” rather than the chainsaw or plow rules. As for the latter, it is misleading as an ad on television loudly claims, that for the last seven hundred years the Latvians have been a peasant (zemnieku) people.

For much more than half the above mentioned 700 years, Latvians were forest dwellers, who cultivated a patch of land to enhance their forest diet with turnip and beet. The words brotherhood of the forest (Mezha brahlyi) was a popular term until even after the end of World War 2. The sense of freedom for a Latvian used to come from the forest and not from plowing the land for the barons.

It is only after, say, 1933 (the arrival of the so-called Ulmanis regime, that Latvians officially become descendants of peasants. They stay locked into that perception to this day.

[17] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (5)

Part 1.

One way to describe cruelty is as violence hidden. Hiding behind the milder word “cruelty”, violence and savagery can be obfuscated and hid in a mist. Such cruelty, i.e., savagery-violence, is the way of the Latvian government with the Latvian people.

I am writing about the savagery-cruelty-violence by the Latvian government as it expresses itself through economic cruelty-violence. For more detailed and sensate proof see Michael Hudson’s and Jeffrey Sommers article in the Guardian.

As a result of the government’s economic violence, hundreds and possibly thousands of Latvian pensioners and children will die a premature death due to health problems, poor nutrition, and outright despair. Thousands more will leave Latvia as economic refugees. Suicide rates driven by despair in Latvia are among the world’s highest. Unfortunately, the Latvian media are in the habit of ascribing suicide to alcoholism, rather than to despair that results from unemployment, lack of money, and not least, a lack of educational facilities for potable skills.

One of the potable-useable skills that Latvian country folk possess is, unfortunately, the ability to use the simpleton’s tool, the chain saw. This barbaric instrument is then used to cut down Latvia’s forests, which procedure keeps Swedish bankers in plenty of spending money, while Latvians stay barely alive.

To obscure the cruelty of the Latvian PM’s, Valdis Dombrovskis, and emphasize the “cure”, Latvians are presented the Estonian economic model. Alas, according to Jeffrey Sommers and Markku Sippola, both economists, the Estonian example demands that Estonians accept economic serfdom to Swedish banks and submit to Swedish geopolitical interests. The Latvian PM is making sure that Latvians ‘accept’ serfdom similar to the Estonians by peddling an intellectually questionable product authored for him by Andres Aslund , a Swedish hack working for Swedish banking interests.

Of course, one may argue that cruel measures—as in unavoidable and necessary measures—can be justified if at stake is the existence of, say, a nation. It may be argued that such is the situation of Latvia today.

Having suffered under the delusion that to be “free” of the Soviet Union means to become truly free and—the next delusion—that prosperity will arrive automatically, Latvians are now again faced with  circumscribed freedoms and forced delusions regarding their sovereignty.

In blunt words, the circumscription (or hair cut) of Latvia’s sovereignty comes as a result of the ideology of the oligarch-owned West outfitted to serve Swedish banks and Swedish ways of spreading disinformation about themselves and their foreign policies.

End part 1. Part 2 follows. 

[17] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (5)

Part 2.

Way back in 1991, the then emerging political leadership of Latvia was faced with American sent ‘“Harvard boys” . These  agents charlatans (one example here), sanctified by credentials from one of America’s most prestigious universities,  proposed to reverse economic direction from Soviet-style socialism to American style neo-liberal capitalism. Naturally, the Boys favored to see (my intelligent guess) a Latvian government controlled by Latvia’s own charlatans.

The instant privatization of Latvia, the economic shock policy advised by the Boys, favored the entry into Latvian government offices folks who practiced empty rhetoric and prepared to utilize it to rise to a quick and privatized prominence.

One such prominent riser is the current President of Latvia, Andris Berzins. Selected to become President of Latvia by forces that used a pocket thief’s sleigh of hand to maneuver (how did they do it?) this white rabbit into the office at Riga pils (the presidential castle), remains everyone’s mystery. The government supported Latvian news media refuses to look into the matter. For them a "mysterious joker" in Latvian government hands is a given.

If the Latvian media does not look into the matter, write, and educate the public about it, it is unlikely that many readers, viewers, and followers of news know of the infiltration of Swedish lobbyists into Latvian government. This is why the Latvian intelligentsia does not even note this phenomenon with regard to the governments in Estonia and Denmark. The PM’s of the last mentioned countries just visited Latvia to reassure and strengthen the Swedish ministrants in Latvia. The Lord’s wardrobe attendants brush the dust off the Lord’s shoulders unselfconsciously, proving they do not know what they are doing—even if their doing harms Latvia.

The collaboration of the Latvian media with the Latvian led Swedish lobby in the Latvian government, leaves the Latvian-Russian led Harmony Centre the only force of opposition to the Western-and-Swedish bank-led attempt to “occupy” Latvia.

It is in the interest of Latvians (other than those compromised by Sweden) to have a government of their own, a government that is able to become the 3^rd force, the force that controls the geopolitical interests of Latvia with an undiminished sense of Latvia’s sovereign self.

One of the ways to achieve the status of the 3^rd force is to isolate Riga. The isolation is best done by offering Riga for bid to the highest bidder. The beginning bid may be set at a repayment of Latvia’s current debts; financing (paying for) the move of the capital of Latvia to Jelgava; and a yet to be determined annual rent, payable to the Latvian people through the Latvian government in Jelgava.