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by Latvian Latvians or Latvian Russians or a coalition of same is that both parties look toward the future in the outdated terms of a “growth” economy.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.


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

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.

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

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.

[19] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (7)

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?”

[19] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (7)

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?

[16] Harmony Centre &
Its Geopolitical Uses (4)

In the September 2011 elections, the Harmony Centre received 28+% of the total vote, which gave it 31 deputees at a Saeima consisting of 100. Excluded from participating in government by a coalition of the nationalist block, Harmony Centre now sits in opposition. From all signs, the party is for a loss of what to do next.

The lost look in the eyes of Harmony Party leadership (led by the Ushakovs-Urbanovich team) is nothing new. With its centre of power located in the municipal government of Riga, the party has never seriously projected for public consideration a geopolitical plan for either Riga or Latvia that is more than superficial.

Like the nationalist block [concentrated in the Union (Vienotība) Party)], Harmony Centre is a single issue gathering of jingoists. While Latvian nationalist jingoism expresses itself in a gnashing of teeth over whether the Latvian language will prevail as the language of Latvia, for Harmony Centre the issue is whether the Latvian government will relent and allow schools for Russian-speaking students teach their subject matter in Russian.

This one-issue conflict conflicts with the reason for the dismissal of the 10^th Saeima by now ex-President Zatlers, 
which reason was verified by a Referendum by the Latvian people. The issue at hand was and remains government corruption, the mismanagement of the Latvian economy and its collapse. However, when it came to the election of the 11^th Saeima, the successor to the dismissed 10^th—the issues brought to the debating table did not concern an economic-social-cultural vision of the fututre, but the divisive issue of who speaks Latvian, where, when, other.

No doubt there is considerable justification for the emotions indulged in by the Latvian nationalists when it comes to the Latvian language. The language has endured for thousands of years and, as I have often mentioned, projects great spiritual harisma by way of the ‘endearing word’, misnamed ‘diminutive’ by modern grammarians. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons the language may be dying. The following are some of the reasons:

1.     The Latvian people are in the middle of a demographic crisis engineered by Latvian politicians during the past twenty years. Up to 500,000 Latvians have become economic refugees to Ireland, England, and other countries.
2.     The demographic crisis creates a literary and cultural crisis. The number of ethnic Latvians hovers around the 1.2 million mark. If a century ago Latvia had one of the highest literacy rates in Europe, today the rate is among the lowest. Latvian publishing houses are not only being taxed by government out of business, but the decline in literary demographic has created a snake chasing its own tail situation: diminished literacy is threatening publishing with bancruptcy. The earnings of a writer of an original work, a book, does not justify the time spent to write a book in Latvian. It is almost certain that publishing business is kept in business by publishing books for Latvian schools. The other writers who can perhaps earn a living are translators of foreign literature.

3.     Points 1 and 2 (above) diminish the harisma of the Latvian language and put it on artificial life-suppor—the government. This makes the Latvian language less a real language than a virtual one. In other words, once the government collapses [and it is, arguably, in the process of collapsing (denied of course)], the language will face the ‘real world’, i.e. competition, unprepared.

4.     The Russian speaking Latvians, many of whom do speak Latvian, see the disadvantages of the Latvian language. Weakness is never persuasive, especially when it is surrounded by Latvians who create conditions that make the weak even weaker. Among the Latvian agents of weakness are Latvian Culture Ministers. Among the last four that come immediately to mind, there is not one who persuades that he-she understands the words “Latvian people” other than “Riga Latvians”. This results in a situation where lovers of opera and simphony music, who could easily travel to Stockholm, Vienna, Berlin, etc. to fill their cultural needs, receive more government support than the theatre. The theatre, the tool of mimesis-mime par excellance and the foremost teaching medium (from folk to high kitch to folk-metal) goes unnoticed. The theatre, mimicry, the art that transmits culture above all teaching aids, receives least government support and becomes culturally ineffective.

5.     Just a few days ago the President of Latvia, Andris Berzins, traveled to Daugavpils, the easternmost city in Latvia, and made a donation of a month of his salary to schools and “to keep local culture alive”. This act by the President makes “the act of pity for Latvia” the official way of how to deal with the current crisis of the economy and community. I.e., there is no direct action by the Latvian government on the public stage vis a vis the Brussels monster, Swedish bank repression of Latvian interests, or demand debt forgiveness as recommended by many economists. The establishment’s wolves in sheeps clothing do not get mentioned by government or the anally retentive Latvian media. Instead, the equally anally retentive Harmony Centre gets to enjoy all the nationalist blame.

The Harmony Centre—while claiming to be fully committed to Latvia’s interests, at the same time does all it can to keep alive Russian jingoism. It keeps a more expansive vision of Latvia’s future out of sight of Latvian-Russians lest they lose sight of Moscow. This myopic view is also witness to and cause of Riga’s disintegration.

These jingoists on behalf of their respective languages are well matched, and are one of the reason why this check-mate may not be resolved by arriving at a commonsensical solution. A radical mimesis is required instead.

I have argued for quite some time that we must visualize Riga as an object to be exchanged by Latvians for Jelgava as their national capital. As the nation debates, Latvian Latvians and Russian Latvians ought to explore the possibilities of renting Riga to the highest bidder for the next hundred years. If the rent offer raises realistic interest, a national referendum should be held. People may be surprised that the vote may agree that Riga is put up for bid.

In fact, renting Riga may be a great deal for Latvia if the monies received pay off the Latvian national debt, allow Latvians to get rid of the Latvian political lobby that works on behalf of self-interest, and not least on behalf of the interests of the half million Latvian economic refugees, who may get a chance to return to Latvia.

The Russian Latvians, too, will be happy, because no one (whether Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, or Beijing) who rents Riga will do so for any other reason than making money. At least, such should be a precondition to any deal. The lingua franca of Riga of course will be English, the language of business.

PS A must read analysis by Stratfor of Russian geopolitical interests: click here.

[10] Darkness Seen Through Tiresias’ Eyes (7)

The enemy is a straw doll with a chainsaw between its legs.

As this blogger has pointed out through a series of earlier blogs, the real dilemma of Latvia is not the Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs) and its alleged tilt toward Russia, especially Moscow and its premier politician, Vladimir Putin, but that The Great Northern War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_War is being fought surreptitiously all over again.

The current political horsetrading is said to be a matter of a coalition of Latvian nationalist parties entering their coalition in order to oppose the Harmony Centre. It has been amazing to watch how these “Latvian nationalists” are surrendering themselves to the West, which is lead by the capital of a not so certain European Union—Brussels.

The chief leaders of the “Latvian nationalist” drang nach West is yet another coalition called “Vienotība” (Solidarity). A fractitious group, Vienotība (V) has sought to ally itself with a number of political parties, the chief of which is led by a former President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers. It is Zatlers who precipitated the dismissal of the 10^th Saeima by a People’s Referendum sanctioned by the Latvian Constitution.

The Zatlers’ Reform Party has just been demolished by six of its elected members (the so-called Olšteina Reform Group) abandoning the party and demanding from the “Latvian nationalist” coalition two ministerial posts to assure the nationalist coalition a majority vote in the Saeima. [One may presume that the ORG will—if successful—attempt to play the same role that the Likud plays in Israel.]

What are the “goodies” that are to accrue to the “Latvian nationalists West” for drumming and trumpeting the West?

The resurrection of Black John and the greening of Latvia.

Upon closer examination, we will discover that the West is a far more complex picture, more a collage than a picture. The reason for this is that in the case of Latvia, the real power of the West is possessed by and  expressed through Swedish banks.

Whether the Swedish banks operate in the interests of the Swedish goveranment is a question that cannot be answered without assigning it the role of “hidden hand”. This is not something this writer has the resources to answer in a definitive way. However, it is highly unlikely that the Swedish banks precipitated the handout of easy credit to the Latvians out of the purity and goodness of their hearts.

One may say that it was the great misfortune of Latvians, who having just (1991) escaped Soviet bondage and having no experience in capitalist markets, took the credit all too trustingly, believing it was all above board. Alas!

The “Latvian nationalists”—at least the current coalition-right, which likes to call itself such—make no mention of the actual powers that the West represents. There are no doubt many reasons why the “Latvian nationalists” are so secretive.

One recent reason for the secretiveness of the Latvian right wing coalition is that the truth might provoke a Latvian version of OWA or Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. In Latvia it could metamorphose into a movement called “Occupy Swedish Banks in Latvia” (OSBL), at the same time asking specifically for the resignation of the President of Latvia, Andris Berzins, who as a former bank president cannot escape the suspicion of being a lobbyist of Swedish bank interests.

[This writer wonders why the somewhat in your face news gathering organization that calls itself “Pietiek kampt” http://www.pietiek.com/ has not provided the Latvian public with research into the subject of Swedish banks.]

The chief point in making the above points is that there are two major interest groups (not one) contesting their influence over Latvia. One is the East through its affiliate, the Harmony Centre; the other is the West and Swedish (Scandinavian) banks through their affiliate the “Latvian nationalist block”.

Is it possible that the real interests of the Latvian people is actually not either of these direction signals, one that orientes them not with an arrow (>), but a sign that says here (X)?

If the Latvian people (this writer envisages them as an English language speaking equivalency that cultivates the language of its origins at home on the basis of free choice), chose an X or here location, then an altogether different geopolitical orientation emerges.

We have arisen, we are here, we are the X of Johns.

This is the reason why this blogger presents the argument that allows for the possibility of Riga becoming the future capital of Europe, replacing Brussels and the EU (European Union) with a United Europe (UE) as the geopolitical structure that the Latvians strive for. Such a United Europe would necessarily include what is now called the East and West. In other words, Latvia would then no longer be at the margins of the West as defined by Brussels, but at the centre of now and future geopolitical events.

P.S. About the photos: On October 15, 2011, "The Temple of Black Johns in Remembrance of Destroyed Forests" in Braslavas pagasts, Latvia, celebrated a "Remembrance Day for Trees". Major benefactors of the deforestation of Latvia are Swedish banks, because to cut down forests is the only way that most Latvian people can repay their debt to the banks and the oligarchs behind them.

[9] Darkness As Seen Through Tiresias’ Eyes (6)

Tiresias' eye over Tiresias' house.

The perfect Latvian lobby for Swedish bank interests:

Latvian President Andris Berzins

Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis

Latvian Speaker of the Saeima Valdis Zatlers

Latvia Bank President Ilmars Rimševics

Latvian Finance Minister Andris Vilks

Latvian Economic Minister Vjaceslav Dombrovskis; utt.

The above lobby is the dream team of Swedish banks. The qualifications of said as lobbyists have been written about in previous blogs.

The readers should also note that the above mentioned have their local headquarters in Riga. Their ‘far abroad’ headquarters are likely in Stockholm, Brussels, London, Washington, and not surprisingly other places, among which surprising other is Tallin, Estonia.

Tiresias in his car.

The latter emerged during the past week, when Tomass Ilvess, the newly elected President of Estonia, arrived in Riga for a visit with the Latvian President Andris Berzins a bare seventeen hours after he was elected for the second term to the office.

While the Estonian President insisted that he did not mess in Latvian internal politics, the themes that he brought up for discussion in the press proved anti-populist in the extreme http://www.diena.lv/diena-tv/politika/ilvess-velas-lai-latvijas-valdiba-stradatu-ar-skatu-uz-eiropu-13908597. In other words, I love the Latvian government and want to make sure it loves me, but only on the condition that the Latvian government does not play populist footsee with its people [which maybe contrary to the interests of the Estonian elite].

For one, President Ilvess told the Latvian President and the Latvian people (via the media) that the Estonians had the European Union and NATO dear to their hearts, and would be unpleasantly surprised if the Latvians were to begin to think otherwise http://www.delfi.lv/news/national/politics/ilvess-igaunijas-intereses-ir-latvijas-sadarbiba-ar-es.d?id=41122153 .

Ilvess also came to lobby for the Rail Baltic line, making no mention on the Riga-Moscow line http://bizness.delfi.lv/biznesa_vide/levitins-riga-maskava-projekts-nav-politisks-tam-ir-ekonomisks-pamatojums.d?id=37875151 , the latter which—an East-West orientation—is of greater economic importance for Latvia http://bizness.delfi.lv/biznesa_vide/igaunijas-prezidents-apliecina-rail-baltica-svarigumu-un-mudina-latviju-iesaistities-aktivak.d?id=41197953 .

Tiresias is not completely blind I.

While the Estonian President did not present himself as a messenger of Swedish interests in a direct manner, the message was clear in his elitist and  overtly anti-populist http://ltvzinas.lv/?n=video&id=5452 stance. In short, if the Latvian government does not follow his point of view, which is likely the Swedish point of view, then the Latvian government ought take an as anti-populist stance as his own.

At issue is of course the fact that an improved (fast) Riga-Moscow railway link is more important to the Latvian people than providing the Stockholm-Helsinki-Tallin trail an extension through Riga to Warsaw and the rest of Europe. At the expense of being crude: Surely the state of the Latvian peoples pocketbooks comes before that of Tallin.

The Latvian and Estonian, not to mention Swedish, elitist interest inroads into the interests of the populists of Latvia is what the current coalition forming among political parties is all  about.

President Ilvess of Estonia has many Latvian friends in the Latvian government and media in that they also are anti-populists in extreme.

Let me make a note here about the meaning of “populism”.

Tiresias is not completely blind II.

According to some political experts, the word ‘populism’ is fuzzy in the extreme in most circumstances (the Latvian politicians and media being a case in point in which the word takes on its ‘fuzzy’ meaning). On the other hand, the word takes on a precise meaning the moment its underlying fuzzy meaning connects with a budding or mature antagonism among various groups that may or may not make alliances among themselves as political equivalencies. These political equivalencies may be either right or left leaning. 

In the Latvian case, the establishmentarian anti-populist orientation is based on a fear of populism-left, while it is paradoxically bolstered by accusations of being populist-right by groups that are not ‘native’ to the land for anymore than two generations. Ipso facto, ‘populism’ becomes a word beat upon by the Latvian ‘elites’ rather than the ‘elites’ being criticised and opposed by Latvian populists.

Thus, the 1% of Latvian elites are able to repress 99% of Latvians, so to speak, without much trouble. One reason is that the majority of the 99% continues to identify with the ‘the natives’ who have inhabited Latvia for three generations or more.

Tiresias alive and murdered.

However, suddenly, there comes one President Tomass Ilvess of Estonia to tell the Latvian populists that Estonian-Swedish interests come before theirs; moreover, the Latvian government agrees with the Estonian President because it is oriented much like him. For proof, go to the beginning of the blog and read the list of direct and indirect Swedish lobyists in the Latvian government.

What in the world do the Latvian people do now? Are they not between a rock and a hard place? If they now turn from the ‘right’ where they are accused of being, do they not run into the no less false ‘left’ that has been assigned to the people who are in Latvia two generations or less?

May not the interests of the Latvian people demand an altogether different orientation than the one being pushed on them by Riga, Tallin, Stockholm, not to mention Brussels et al? And what about the pressures from Moscow?

The Destroyer of Forests on the rack.

Incidentally, Latvia has lost about 500,000 inhabitants since it became an independent country. The government’s policy in not encouraging motherhood, is not only a direct cause of suffering to mothers and their children today, but is a guarantee that the number of Latvians, whether right or left, whether one two or more generations in Latvia, will become 1.2 million in the next decade.

The house with the rainbow again.

Caught between the East and the West, must Latvians necessarily lean West? If the terminology keeps insisting in giving the “right” and “left” a traditional economic-sociological meaning, might not the Latvian populists find their own “left”, because at stake is not sociology but the survival of Latvians as a people, a culture?

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One mother's Latvian condition.


[4] Darkness As Seen Through Tiresias’ Eyes (1)

The famous play by Sophocles known as “Oedipus Rex” or “Oedipus the King” has long been the amazing gelatin pudding that Sigmund Freud baked at the beginning of the 20^th century.

Freud’s interpretation of Sophocles’ play, taken as if from the frothy top layers of the pudding when not yet set, seemed for a time credible enough.

Summary of plot: A son is taken from his mother’s breast at an early age and transported to another country. He happens to return to the country of his origin, kills the dragon (Sphinx) that threatens the city, and gets—as his prize—to marry the Queen, who is a widow. As it happens the Queen turns out to be his mother.

The mirror of reality.

The question of what happened that Oedipus should be removed from his mother’s breast and taken to another country constitutes the early mystery of Sophocles’ play.



The traditional explanation (and the one apparently encouraged by Sophocles’ himself) is that the King of Thebes, Oedipus’s father, did not want the boy, and to be rid of him had him exposed to the elements on the highest mountain nearby.

The task of taking the infant to the mountain top and leaving him naked and ankles bound to the elements is entrusted to one of the shepherds  of the King. The shepherd however takes pity on the infant and takes him to the kingdom of Corinth on the other side of Mt. Citheron. The childless King and Queen of Corinth adopt the infant for their own.

To prove to King Laius that his son Oedipus did not survive the night, another infant is killed in his place and his body is shown to the king as that of his own son. The dead infant is of course from one of the infants that are periodically offered to the Sphinx, a composite of all the Gods who receive human sacrifice.

The light to light the cave of Dismal.

The loss to Oedipus is that while his life is not exposed to risk and therefore he stays alive for sure, he loses his chance to be raised as the next king of Thebes. He will have to be satisfied with being a prince in a neighboring country, but remain an orphan to the role he was born to in the city-kingdom of Thebes.

There is yet another version of why the infant Oedipus was exposed to the elements. This version is motivated by the need to expose the infant to the will of the Gods.

That is to say, if Oedipus survives the night and is found alive the next morning, the citizens of Thebes will believe that the Gods have given a sign. The message is that the King’s son is fit to become the next king of Thebes. [For my version of the play http://rigacapital.blogspot.com/ ]

What is it about this story of events at the city of Thebes that connects with events in Latvia in our time?



Something like a kitchen cuboard that was.



The answer is to be sought in myth, be it sourced in an actual event or a fantasy. If a fantasy becomes part of the rhetoric of a nation so much so that it is believed to be actual and people act on it if they are ever called to re-found their nation. If the heroism of the past is imitated today, then heroism remains operative in our own time.

The founding myth of Latvia—albeit more than artificial and well worn by the Age of Enlightenment, which emerging Latvians nevertheless felt compelled to adopt as their own—is “Lāčplēsis” (literally: Wripper of Bears).

Whatever this is.

While the poet’s (Pumpurs) mythic hero is claimed by the Earth, when he falls into the Daugava river hugging the Black Knight, he is reassured resurrection by his lover Spidola (Bright One). Spidola jumps into Daugava and shouts: “The battle, Lacplesi, is not over yet. Spidola is coming to help you.”

Reassured of a mating with Spidola on the other side of the Sun (Aizsaulē), the mythic hero is indeed called to a reawakening. Be that as it may, he is reborn as the President of Latvia, one Karlis Ulmanis.

What does Ulmanis do when the Soviets cross the border of Latvia?

The furnace and the chimney.

Ulmanis was forewarned of the event if only by reduction and deduction: the Baltic Germans by special arrangement between Stalin and Hitler were fleeing Latvia for Germany. This writer, who had a German nanny at the time (1940), should know. His nanny offered his parents to take him to Germany with her. Germany was presumed to offer relative safety in those uncertain times. His parents chose not to separate their children to favor one.

However, when show down time came, President Kārlis Ulmanis did not resist the Soviets.

He did not declare war on the Soviets; nor send armed men to resist Stalin without a declaration of war; nor offer a barrage of resistance rhetoric; nor put a pistol to his head when the first Soviet official dared enter his office without his permission and his guard was shot.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!*

Instead, he took a job in the Soviet Union as manager of a collective farm. Had war not broken out, he would have lived many years yet. When the Soviets obliterated his grave, they had not premeditated his death, but took advantage of the circumstance.

(To be continued… )

*Photos are of an apartment assigned to a mother with three children--before renovation.