[11] Darkness Seen Through Tiresias’ Eyes (8)

A mysterious ritual in Latvia. What is it about?

One of the most harmful assumptions of modern society is the idea that human communities form without any particular effort on the part of humans. In other words, society is the result of a natural drive to cluster together and, lo! we are a tribe, a kingdom, a nation, a city, whatever.

In the Western tradition, the seeds for spontaneous genesis of the community begin with the Bible. God creates Adam out of a clump of clay, then creates Eve from Adam’s rib, after which he is forced to chase both out of Paradise for allowing themselves to be tricked by a snake to eat an apple.

Having eaten the apple gives the human male and female their sex drive, they couple, and as a result of the coupling children are born. When the children are grown, they do as their parents did. As for the community, it springs from the descendants of the first human pair, all intuiting that they are related. In effect, how can related beings not come together in an intimate crowd of their own?

While the Bible leads to conclude that the community forms as spontaneously as suggested above, the background noise leaves evidence that those who wrote the Bible were not altogether convinced that all is all that simple. No sooner are the first children born, when the brothers, Cain and Abel, become jealous of each other, and Cain kills Abel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cain_and_Abel .

A Latvian warlock leads the dance until it comes out right.

The traditional and biblical interpretation for this jealousy between the brothers is that the offering at the altar of one of the brother is more pleasing to God than that of the other.

A second guess, however, will inevitably suggest incest as a more likely motivating force for the jealousy. Of course, cultivators of naïve societies and proponents of spontaneous community formation have resisted acknowledging this possibility. Even so, times change, and what was rejected yesterday is permissible  today. Thus, it is possible that the real reason for the brotherly conflict was not the acceptability of the offering of one over that of the other, but jealousy arising out of a society where incest (even political incest) was still the norm.

If this is so, the first socially significant act after the murder of Abel is the institution of the so-called incest taboo. The purpose of the taboo is not to eliminate incestuous desires (which cannot be done), but to keep the next pair of brothers from getting into a deadly fight over a woman again.

It is possible to interpolate from the above that the incest taboo is a step necessary in community building if the community is to be a lasting and long lived one. The taboo does not eliminate murder altogether, but it certainly makes a great effort to eliminate what is perceived as one of its main causes.



Subsequent steps in community creation were the ten commandments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments . One may perceive the commandments as an elaboration of the incest taboo. Unfortunately, today many people under the influence of the ideology of liberal democracy ridicule the commandments by viewing them as just another list of “don’ts” imposed by authoritarian governments.

Black John, symbol of maimed forest, gives his blessing.

Be that as it may, even with the Ten Commandments, the killing has not stopped. Modern man has to but look around him- and herself and see that the whole of modern society—what we like to think of as a community—\has been built on a foundation of war.

Let us return here to our doubts that the human community is a matter of sponteneous creation. If our doubts are on mark, is the condemnation of the murder of Abel by Cain the first act in community building?



The Latvian miracle:
Over the murdered body of an apple tree new leaves unfold even in the fall.



If we answer in the positive, we may argue that the jealousy between the brothers, Cain and Abel, is one of the first signs of human consciousness.

Which raises the question: Is the arousal of jealousy then what distinguishes a human being from an animal?

Many anthropologists today (though not all) argue that consciousness is imbedded in acts of mimesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimesis . Indeed, every child learns by imitating his-her parents and other adults about them. One may go so far as to say that the children who learn quickest are the most jealous to be like their parents. As anthropologist Michael Taussig puts it: “I… am taken in by mimesis precisely because, as the sensate skin of the real, it is that moment of knowing which, in steeping itself in its object, to quote Hegel, ‘…breaks down and supercedes fixed and determinate thoughts’”.

In other words, a “fixed and determinate thought” is incest and violence.

Now, as I have argued before, the current Latvian government is (by design or circumstance) an incestuous institution. Though its object of desire is not a woman in the conventional sense, the deputies of the government (its elected and unelected officials) all desire to possess Latvia without sharing it with others. The result is a victimization of Latvia, that is, a creation of unstable coalitions, frequent betrayals of trust, and rape of the country, including the possibility of its demise.

At this point in time, there is no way for Latvia to escape being victimized by the government’s incestuous desires but one. To break free of what have become “fixed and determinate thoughts” of its leadership,  the community of Latvia  must go through an event, a sacrifice in the real, without permitting itself physical violence.

What is to be done?

I have suggested in a number of blogs, and I suggest here, that the “sacrifice in the real” may be satisfied by the resignation of the current President of Latvia, Andris Berzins.



Youths and children embrace Black John. In the background the straw man with the chainsaw burns in envy.



Though Berzins election to office appears to be juridicially pure, given his past service to foreign banking interests, and absent a winnowing process such as the American election primaries, the subjective consciousness of the nation is sent signals that its leadership seeks contact with it for the sake of an orgasm for itself, while denying similar pleasure to Latvia by treating like a rubber doll.

This afternoon President Berzins asks the PM Dombrovskis (author of a book favoring the policies of Swedish banks) to form a coalition to lead the Latvian government .

[7] Darkness As Seen Through Tiresias’ Eyes (4)

An apple tree axed and murdered.

The fantasy of infinity begins at home. Elaine Meinel, daughter of a famed astronomer http://www.osa.org/About_Osa/Newsroom/Obituaries/AdenMeinel.aspx , reflects on the obsessions of her father and the influence of the Zeitgeist of our times on him and us, writes: “Watching these elites struggle with the banking/trade mess which they carefully cultivated and grew is amazing.  That is, their desire for infinity has destroyed the entire system of commerce and trade which is now tremendously out of balance and out of kilter with reality and is now in full self-destruct mode.  The system is desperately trying to reset itself backwards from infinity and they are all trying desperately to push it back into the ‘grow to infinity’ mode.” –Elaine Supkis http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/nobel-prize-astronomers-save-the-world-from-the-great-attractor/#more-12949

And inevitably ‘they’ will fail, because a recalibration of the system or, failing that, a system’s failure—a burning out of all bearings—is what awaits our Deux ex mahina or matrix as we speak. That is how this writer sees the times ahead. Latvian are not excluded from this inevitability.s

Another angle of the apple tree corpse.

The Latvian politicians have been on their own “infinity” train for a very long time. What is so interesting about the political infinity of Latvian politicians is that their infinity does not have a straight line (some folks do), but goes off in all directions at once.

The vehicle of this penumbra of infinite conceit, a kind of shadow that embraces the entire globe of being, begins with the “democratic majority of Latvians” engaged in repressing all things populist. Among the repressed are not only dissenting Latvians (the alleged minority), the Latvian poor, all recent Latvian emigrants, Latvians who do not speak Latvian, and a myriad of other unmentionables. Actually 99% of Latvians are among the repressed. You guessed right if you understant that the “democratic majority” consists of but 1%.

While it is not possible to identify all the elements that go into making the 1% of elites, it is quite possiblel to name the Zugspitze or as Latvians are wont to call, the Rockets or Motors.

The face of the perpetrator and murdered.

The first Zug (puller of the rope of infinite growth) is of course President Andris Berzins. While his vision for Latvia is as obscure to Latvians as to himself, he is suspect of being a lobbyist for Swedish banks. The suspicion comes as a result of Berzins being a retired bank president of a Swedish affiliate.

The second Zug is Valdis Dombrovskis, the Latvian Prime Minister. He is said to have co-authored a book notoriously propagandistic in favor of banks. The actual author of the book http://books.google.com/books/about/How_Latvia_Came_Through_the_Financial_Cr.html?id=D-b6Zyhd2JEC is a Swedish liberal neo-capitalist by the name of Anders Aslund. When all is said and done, Dombrovskis is a sheep with Swedish wool over his eyes.

The third Zug is former President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers, who is at the time of this writing trying to form a the next political coalition that runs the Latvian government. While Zatlers is a renown anti-populist and elitist (his professional life was that of a surgeon), he cannot be associated with any Swedish bank. Nevertheless, his financial advisor, Vjaceslav Dombrovskis http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics/?doc=43882 an exponent of liberal neo-capitalist infinite growth philosophy.

The fourth Zug is the Latvian Minister of Finance, Andris Vilks http://www.mk.gov.lv/en/mk/sastavs/vilks/ , has a decade long work record for the Swedish SEB bank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandinaviska_Enskilda_Banken . One can not not suspect him of being a Swedish mole in Latvian government.

The fifth Zug is the President of the Latvian Bank, Ilmars Rimsevics http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/N5Cn-V-QLM8/0.jpg [BA, economics (Riga), MBA (Clarkson)]. His bio is illusive, not to say missing from the internet. He is known for his liberal neo-economist views, which includes infinite optimism and growth by way of the squirrel wheel for ever.

The Perpetrator caught with his Thing showing.

Needless to say, most of the oligarchs of Latvia are on the squirrel wheels made in Scandinavia and have little sense of what is good for Latvia (as a community that needs much healing and a plan for economic development) for the long term. Growth, infinite growth, is—so it seems—everyone’s favourite motto, including the populists’. How else could it be? All of Latvia’s poor (=99%) cannot but demand betterment of their dire economic condition. As it is, they are forced to cut down Latvia’s forests at the behest of Swedish banks.

What is the alternative?

Please, trees, do not do this to me!

The answer is, of course, creative thinking. However, not the kind of creative thinking that goes with cutting decorative flowers, but the kind that identifies with those at the bottom of the barrel, but with a will to live at almost any price. The ‘almost’ time is here for the Latvians.

Latvians must do what the desperate but determined to live must do: Do the unpopular, the dismissed, the unacceptable (never re-examined), all those jobs that are most unpopular, like undertaker, temple keepers of unpopular gods, those who collect, then hide excrement that others shit.

What the populists are in need of doing to resurrect themselves as the 99% that they are, is to enter in league with the forests. No more cutting of Latvian trees by Latvian populists.

How is this to be done?

Too late to cover up the shame.  For more click http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/

Before I write more, here is what is happening in America that surely finds an echo in Latvia. See what you think what applies: http://www.alternet.org/story/152651/11_facts_you_need_to_know_about_the_nation%E2%80%99s_biggest_banks?akid=7680.171186.obV8Ui&rd=1&t=18

(With photos at http://rigacapital.blogspot.com/  To be continued… )



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.