Thursday, September 15, 2011

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

The text below is in Latvian. It is a Open Letter to the Latvian public calling to VOTE on September 17th by casting an EMPTY ballot. The letter also calls for the resignation of the Latvian President Andris Berzins immediately following the elections. The blogger believes that the current President of Latvia was illegally elected. That is to say, he was elected by a Latvian Saeima, which the previous President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers, had dismissed as corrupt. This dismissal was subsequently confirmed by the public through a Referendum vote. The following link states the results (in Latvian): http://www.delfi.lv/news/referendums-2011/zinas/referenduma-oficialie-rezultati-10saeima-atlaista-ar-650-518-balsim.d?id=39788569 vote.

Labdien!

ATKLĀTA VĒSTULE TAUTAI.

Jau labu laiku rakstu (Latvians On Line http://latviansonline.com/forum/viewthread/34327/), ka vienīgais veids kā pozitīvi iespaidot un panākt nepieciešamās politiskās pārmaiņas Latvijā ir BALSOT AR TUKŠU APLOKSNI.

Saprotu dažādos iebildumus šāda veida protestam pret korupciju Latvijas politiskās aprindās, tomēr ir skaidri redzams, ka Saeimas atlaišana nekādi neieviesa Latvijas mēdijos populistu viedokļus par valdību, tās korumpētību, un cerības uz reālām parmaiņām. Tieši otrādi, populistiskos (publikas) viedokļus vairāk vai mazāk represēja kā politiskās aprindas, tā daudzi mēdiju avoti un žurnalisti, un debates notiek ļoti seklā līmenī, ja mēdiju stingri monitorētās diskusijas pat var nosaukt par debatēm.

Mans personīgais "populistiskais" viedoklis ir, ka tagadējais Latvijas Prezidents Andris Bērziņš ir korumpētas Saeimas iebalsots ārzemju banku ieliktenis. Tā kā balsotāji atzīst Saeimu par korumpētu iestādi, tai nebija un nav morālas tiesības A. Berziņu ievēlēt. Tomēr, tāpēc, ka tas tā ir noticis, Prezidentam Andrim Bērziņam ir no Prezidenta amata jāatkāpjas jau 18. septembrī, tas ir, dienu pēc vēlēšanām.

Vispaviršākais novērotājs var secināt, ka Prezidents Andris Bērziņš izvairās no valdibas korumpētības debatēm, jo piedaloties tiks pievērsta sabiedrības uzmanība viņam pašam. Neizbēgams ir jautājums, kas ir tie (un kas aiz tiem) kuri ieteica Andri Berziņu Prezidenta amatam ieteica un vaskoja viņam slēpes, lai sīkais oligarhs varētu ieslēpot Rigas pilī pār akmens bruģi. Man personīgi nav šaubas, ka viņa aizmugurē ir ārzemju bankas (iespējams zviedru). Katrā ziņā Prezidents Andris Bērziņš nevar izvairīties no šādām aizdomām, kuras izsauc viņa darbība kā bankas prezidents kādai zviedru bankas filiālei. Neatvairāmas aizdomas prasīt prasa, ka A. Bērziņš no Prezidenta amata atsakās, un piedalās jaunās Prezidenta vēlēšanās, kurās Prezidents tiek ievēlēts no tautas tiešā ceļā.

Vienīgais ceļš, kā panākt KONSEKVENTU DARBĪBU bez tālākās gurķošanās ir BALSOT AR TUKŠU APLOKSNI. Jo lielāks šāda veida balsotāju skaitlis un procents, jo skaidrāks kļūs latviešu tautas neapmierinātība ar ne tikai iepriekšējo atlaisto valdību, bet par debašu represiju vairāku mēnešu garumā pirms vēlēšanām sestdien, 17. septembrī.

Paldies par uzmanību un atsaucību.
Antons Benjamiņš, aka Jaņdžs

Saturday, September 10, 2011

A Dead Chicken at Latvia’s Doorstep (XIV)
But we cannot regain contact with meaning if we rely on the fallacious base that persists from the past. The critical thinking that we have absorbed [as a civilization] is opposed to dead meaning, ….–Jean-Michael Oughoirlian in “Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World,” by Rene Girard.

The above sentence, taken from the concluding chapter of the above mentioned book, struck me apropo the elections coming up in Latvia on September 17th.

Rene Girard, to whom the above statement is directed, has just made a remark with regard to the state of our global civilization. Girard claims that our contemporary patterns of thought have fallen into a pattern of “Puritanism [that] dessicates every text and spreads the most deadening boredom even in the newest situations.”

Girard goes on: “It is important for us to rediscover something in which we can believe, but there must be no cheating, either with the conditions that are forced upon us by the terrible world in which we live or in terms of those that dictate that the most rigorous research must do without any form of ethnocentrism, or even any form of anthropocentrism.”


What this has to do with the recent dismissal of the Latvian Saeima, the election of a President by the dismissed Saeima (the result of which is that the country is presided over by a man likely representing the interests of foreign banks), and a election campaign for a new Saeima that both looks and smells like a week old chicken on our doorstep, is that “dead meaning” taints every Latvian with its stench.

On the other hand, it is maybe not so extraordinary after all, because all of Europe today stinks like “dead meaning” might.

In Latvia, as well as the rest of Europe, “civilization” has come to an end, not by the will of humankind as a whole, but by “dead meaning” thrust upon it by about 0.1% of the total population. This unique minority is the so-called corporate individual, sometimes called “oligarch”, but in fact a relentlessly mindless corporation said to have a human face. This grotesque individual, “dead” by the fact of straight faced delusions, even if some see them as a group such as the Bilderbergers, for example. A Latvian, Andris Piebalgs, acts as an advisor to the Bilderbergers. Balloons were floated to find out if he would be a candidate for the presidency. He declined on career considerations. He is the Energy Commissioner for the EU.

The “dead meaning” floats past this writer’s eyes as the dead body of a man he saw from a tourist’s boat on the Ganges rowing past Varanasi With that body floats Europe and Latvia, the latter a dead-Soviet state, but with a western face.

Glory be to sanctimonium. In Latvia, it is not possible to replace the word  “God” with the word “Sun”, because the anthem is “sacred” and the Sun is unimportant compared to it. The humour of it is that proto-Latvians, the Latvians who lived before 1918 (the year of the founding of Latvia) had the Sun as their female Dearest Goddess. The post-1918 Latvia is firmly established in the mind of nearly every Latvian as the collective “dead meaning”. The future is to keep going on the basis of inertia, a new Saeima to follow the dismissed old one as readily as a hen lays two eggs, one after the other.

If one is looking for a revolution in Latvia or Europe, one has to think of how to disassemble the corporate individual protected on all sides by phallanxes of attorneys and minds dedicated to legality over egality. There have been many proposals over the years, but all made sure that everything was “democratic” and that “human rights” are respected so much so that neither corporate individuals nor soldiers with the country at war should be sentenced to death. The “dead meaning” (the over-justification of why the corporate individual should not be given the ax) gives the reader the chance here and now to go—as they say in Latvian—“Ka-plunk!”.
So, what can the Europeans and Latvians whose minds have been clogged with “dead meaning” do?

In practical terms, I will stick with what I have advocated before: Go vote, but drop into the ballot box an empty ballot. Another thing, the proto-Latvians lived among themselves much more democratically when their habitat was the wood and the small clearing they made there for themselves. In terms of human habitat, Europe then was a much better place on Earth than it is today.

The world today, too, would be a much better place if human beings took back their right to be human without corporate advice or interference. Latvians and Europeans could be among the first in the world to take the Earth back from the not so virtual infantiles.

Go drop into the box a blank vote and get rid of "dead meaning".

Friday, September 2, 2011

Chickens Which Ran in All Directions
Have Become Chickens Come to Roost (XIII)
A picturesque view from the road.
Latvia is about to get leaders who cannot lead anyone, anywhere, who have no plans for the future, no idea where they come from.

As for the future, none of the current slate of political candidates has risked his or her neck arguing or speculating about a future that has a chance to create a society for long-term survival. This is why they have no real politik projections, only cynical and self-serving plans. As for the past of Latvia, the Latvian leadership lacks any real sense of it, leaving it begin (and die) with the declaration of Latvia’s independence in 1918.


For all of three generations now [70+ years since Karlis Ulmanis demise and his decommission of Latvians as a self-conscious and self-assertive community (1939)] the Latvian community—both in Latvia and abroad—has slithered about its own slippery gore, never quite able to manage an analysis of what happened to create circumstances that this should be so.


This writer has written about the past of the Latvian people in many blogs. His major conclusion may be summed up in a few words: a forest people are not a peasant people.


No doubt, the Latvian people have been forest and field dwellers, farmers, both. However, the Latvian roots in the forest, which is at the core being of Latvians (or proto-Latvians) have been deliberately erased by a myth that forced to the fore the story about Latvians slogging the plowed field as an exploited peasant http://uploads4.wikipaintings.org/images/vincent-van-gogh/sketches-of-peasant-plowing-with-horses-1890.jpg!xlMedium.jpg .


An afternoon sun

In other words, the Proto-Latvians, a people once politically free and democratic, with a language that celebrated the endearing word, with community and word protected from violence by the forests about them [which forest encouraged socio economic equality] were turned into uncertain democrats, urban dwellers no longer able to see the panorama of the whole (present, past, or future), but who present themselves as a demoralized pack of ‘elites’ and politicians of Riga. They are all happily setting the ship of state ever more adrift into the plastic rubbish at the centre of our planet’s seas.


While the Latvian people are correct to rate the occupation of the Soviet Union (in 1939 http://www.worldology.com/Europe/images/wwii_1939_ussr_baltic.jpg ) as a cruel blow to their existence as a community, this writer has been constant in pointing to the betrayal of the Latvian community by Karlis Ulmanis as a major contributing factor to the community’s demoralization, not to mention perversion of the state.


An unfortunate and no doubt once confused President Karlis Ulmanis is today variously accused of having  been a fascist dictator and/or a martyr to the Soviet Gulag—factors that play a part in what happened. However, the real “occupation” was accomplished by Ulmanis himself, when with no protest against an event that necessitated the shedding of his blood (if he was to avoid sheeding the blood of Latvians), he surrendered his personal job—presidency by dictat—for a job as an agronomer in the Soviet Union. Yes, Ulmanis died in a Gulag as the result of an outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa , not because the Soviets had scheduled him for execution there. Whatever the ideals of President Ulmanis may have been, his last acts denied them all.


While political science recognizes such an event as “founding violence” http://www.bluffton.edu/~mastg/Girard.htm , Ulmanis is responsible for creating a decommissioning violence, a mortal (potentially) psychological blow http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/38434/Trauma.pdf , which has been in effect since Ulmanis' nation-negating deed.


As a result of Ulmanis decommissioning of the State of Latvia (in a moral sense, one proud of itself), he created psychological conditions that have not been overcome to this day. This is not to negate the spirit of the Latvians who were outraged by the occupation and joined the Germans in attacking the Soviets. It is true that later (when easy guesses were belatedly acknowledged) the Latvians also turned against the German military. However, what needs highlighting is the fact that as a result of Ulmanis’ betrayal of the self-esteem of the community through his personal actions rather than acting through communal deliberations, the Latvian people, suddenly decommissioned psychologically, reacted to war and its violence emotionally as if it were liberating. The leaderless nation did not act with deliberation and rationally as it ought to have done.

 

As a result of the communal emotional state left to the winds and communal affairs not a matter of communally deliberated decision-making, the reputation of the Latvian legionnaires became exposed as much to eroneous action as to excuse-making that never examines the root cause of the psychologically induced uncertainty that haunts the psyche of Latvians today. History slip-slides as shallow men will let it. Certainly, a negation of Latvian history, whether in the far- or near-time, suits the current political elite and their sponsors.


To conclude: It is not the community-nation that is the concern of the current political elites. It is not the nation as a culturally sustainable entity that interests them. What is in the forefront of interest today are narrow and self-serving political schemes.


One ought not be surprised that the future of Latvia is never envisaged as, say, the land which may give Europe its future capital. It is well for the existing system that Latvia remain at the system’s periphery, where it can be exploited as borderlands generally are. That is also where the lands of the dead are traditionally found.

The road turning right.

Jaņdžs, aka Eso Antons Benjamiņš, 2. september, 2011-09-02.