Chickens Running in All Directions (VIII)



A 'sovereign' Latvian government



In the previous blog, I wrote that “The reconciliatory event … must be an event of death …, because only death has sufficient charisma to impress and persuade the skeptical.”

In our day the reconciliation is of course to be accomplished by means of a democratically elected government. This is well and good. However, what does one do when the democracy turns out to be a self-enclosed system that does not recognize anything outside itself? Such a system victimizes ‘democracy’, and in due course becomes a unipolar government with the people tending more and more to gather on the unacknowledged other end, the other pole. In Latvia these 'other' people are called “populists”.

I also wrote that Latvia, its sovereignty in control of foreign banks, was in the process of desacralizing its sovereignty, and on its way to becoming an administrative area of the European Union by the name of Latvia. I pointed out that it was noteworthy that

“Two of the proxies [of European banks] doing the administering are already in place and easily identifiable. One is the President of Latvia, Andris Berzins http://www.planetrulers.com/latvia-president/ , while the other is Latvia’s Finance Minister Andris Vilks http://www.mk.gov.lv/en/mk/sastavs/vilks/ .”

A gathering of Latvian populists

Of course, a federated Europe has many opponents, not least among the Latvians. This may explain the fiction among some Latvians that Latvia is still a sovereign country. However, if the supporters of sovereignty are to take themselves seriously, the fact that the President of Latvia and its Finance Minister are, so to speak, Trojan horses of EU banks and the EU, the natives must be spending sleepless nights as they try to figure out how to get the horses removed from Troy’s marketplace. Can the Latvians remove said office occupants from said offices?

Some critics claim that Latvia has been stolen from its people. In this writer’s opinion, Latvia has not only been stolen, but has been robbed naked (izlaupīta līdz kailumam) as well,

·        what with the banks (plus the IMF and the ECB) encouraging Latvians as yet uneducated in liberal capitalist ways to borrow money that they were unlikely to be able to pay back, thereby rendering them helpless to resist de-sovereignization;

·        not to mention former Soviet apparatchiks blossoming into oligarchs with the help of, among other things, ‘the Harvard Boys’ http://michael-hudson.com/2011/08/russia%e2%80%99s-economic-interests-part-1/ , a wonder previously presumed only for the fern blossom on Midsummer’s eve;

·        by cashing in chips of the above, in place not only of the Trojan horses, but by way of said institutions and banks causing unemployment in Latvia, and forcing people (up to 20%) to emigrate to other countries to earn a living;

·        by causing deforestation of Latvia by way of inducing a debt crisis (a half, ~50%, of Latvia’s exports are in wood products, most of it raw timber), at the same time as stopping development of Latvia by permitting only well endowed foreign industries representing the status quo to invest in Latvia (ha, ha);

·        by all the above producing a demographic crisis over which the current Latvian leadership has but hypocritical concern. It is unlikely that the President of Latvia and Finance Minister will turn in their high retirement pay and salary, as the case may be, for Latvia regaining sovereignty.

Banks keeping Latvians employed

Thus, when speaking of death, we are actually speaking only of the death of Latvia as a sovereign nation. Whether an individual’s death as a scapegoat can re-found a nation through a sacrificial death in our time, as Karlis Ulmanis had an opportunity to do and become (but failed to) is doubtful.

Professor Rene Girard, whom I have quoted in a number of preceding blogs with regard to the scapegoat, is insightful not only in his analysis of the scapegoat syndrome. He also tells us that much of the literature of the Middle Ages is a ‘victimage mechanism’. Latvians are not yet conscious of this mechanism. For example, few Latvians realize that the 13^th century Chronicle of Henry (Indriķa hronika) http://www.indopedia.org/index.php?title=Chronicle_of_Henry_of_Livonia seeks to victimize ‘pagan’ (actually, pa-yan) proto-Latvians and that the victimization causes a substantial slaughter of native inhabitants and the destruction of their culture—of which their religion is a part.

A road somewhere in Latvia

As a consequence, Latvians today are greatly influenced by the victim syndrome. The best example of victimization is imprinted in the Latvian language itself. A language rich in endearing words (dear may become dearie, etc.), today this facility has become a grammatical formality (called a diminutive), a phenomenon vaguely remembered, seldom used. The endearing word is only rarely seen in the media. With all the proof that is necessary to call this linguistic phenomenon of the Latvian language a ‘term of endearment’, even the embodiment of the proto-Latvian people’s religion, the victims’ descendants chose to call a diminutive instead. No wonder we note with amazement the passivity (hailed by the apparatchiks of the Latvian government) of the Latvian populace when it comes to making political demands.

The victim of course cannot victimize, because to be a victim means to be inhibited, and any desire to act is tied in a Gordian knot http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_9_01.html . The state of finding one’s self a victim is a form of death that is sometimes known as living death.

This is why the question for Latvians is not how to be healed of the victim syndrome, but what steps to take when that syndrome has let slip out of hand national sovereignty and sees it replaced with a novel substitute: Latvia as an Administrative District of the European Union. The living dead then find themselves in an altogether ‘other’ state, perhaps as cooks in a kitchen trying to write a recipe for a system that transcends the unipolar world.

A burning issue at the core of  Latvian applewood

Is Latvia perhaps on the verge of untying the Gordian knot of political inactivity into which they have been tied by their unipolar government? Sometimes when something is untied, it unravels or a cover comes off with a whoosh.

Stealing Latvia, Final Episode

Third part of Ra-gana’s story

Truck at the crossroads in Vilzeni



Ragana apologized for her fit of Turettes (see previous blog about the worms and all), then continued to tell her story to the impressed Latvians:

“The proto-Latvian witch Ragana was the Sun. “Ra” as you know is Egyptian for the Sun, while “gana” (really pronounced yana) is a herdess (as in cowherd), re Sun the Herdess of life on Earth. Another word which the proto-Latvians derived from “ra-gana” was “ra-zhena”, meaning productive. “Zhena” is of course the same as “Yana”, just differently pronounced. Zhenchina is Russian for a young girl or woman, which is equivalent to the Latvian “saules meita”.

“Where do you get all this stuff,” asked a Latvian.

“It’s all in the language,” answered Ragana, “all you have to do is open your ears. Did you know that the Latvian word for ‘birch’ is ‘behrzs’, which comes from the word ‘berzeht’, to rub?”

“You are making this up,” said someone in the audience.

“Not at all,” answered Ragana, “all I do is use my imagination. You see, once upon a time everyone from Kamchatka to Latvia who went to the sauna or sweat house used birch branches in place of sponges. They dunked leafy birch brooms in hot water and whacked their limbs with them to loosen the old skin. The fragrance is divine. This was called ‘berzēt’, to birch one’s self.”

“Alright, I get it,” said one of the Latvians, “except it’s the other way around: the word ‘berzeht’ comes from ‘birch’.”

“You are right,” granted Ragana, “I sometimes get so excited that I get things backward, though—you must know—when I go backwards, I really am going forward. That is how screwed up the world is.”

“So, what else have you to tell us? Why are you telling us about birches?”

“Ahh”, said Ragana, “that has to do with the new Latvian President-Elect Andris Bērziņš or Andris Birch, if you will. I told you before that Berzins ought to think twice before he accepts his election to the Presidency by the Latvian parliament as a valid. That is, of course, if the Latvian people vote to dismiss the Saeima in the coming Referendum.

Same truck, same place

Why should the Latvian people dismiss the Saeima? It has such nice people. Some former deputies were and still are well known musicians. Everyone looks so well scrubbed.

I will tell you why, said Ragana.

It is because the Latvian Saeima is engaged in—yes, it is true—surreptitious (secretive) de-soverenization of Latvia. This mouthful of words are the words that make Latvia disappear. After de-sovrenization is complete, the Swedish banks—to which the Latvian neo-liberals owe so much money, they can never repay it—will join Latvia to Sweden by way of the Nordic Battle Group. The Swedes never accepted their defeat by Russia in the Great Winter War (1700-1721) http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/slkrig_eng17b.htm . The Swedes are planning their moment of revenge as we speak http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/sl_kartor_sv1700.htm#Poltava .

Two cars at the bus stop waiting for guests.

Ten rolls of thunder! You mean that President-Elect Andris Berzins is planning to become the Swedish Viceroy of Latvia?

Something like that, said Ragana, like almost a king, yes. Maybe he will be called governor, like a governor of one of the states in America.

But that is ridiculous? We are in the 21^st century. Everyone knows that Latvians sang their way to freedom from out of the clutches of the Soviet Union. It was a great miracle.

I know what you mean, said Ragana, however, it is not as strange as you think. I just read in Stratfor’s geopolitical intelligence sheet on the internet http://www.stratfor.com/print/198089 that the alliances of the past centuries have not been forgotten. In a section called “Europe’s Spheres of Influence”, researcher Marko Papic http://www.qfinance.com/contributor-biographies/marko-papic , writes:

“The Nordic regional bloc (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia): These mostly non-eurozone states generally see Russia’s resurgence in a negative light. The Baltic states are seen as part of the Nordic sphere of influence (especially Sweden’s), which leads to problems with Russia.”

Almost high noon

Wow! said the Latvians. Why does no one tell us ‘the Swedes are coming’? That is a centuries old dream of Livonians.

Well, answered Ragana, that is because the blind are united in their blindness. The Latvians forsook their Sun Goddess, the symbol of their forebears that stood for the light of the universe. Moreover, they also no longer know they used to call themselves Children of Johns, the sons and daughters of the Sun—answered Ra-gana. You and I, all Latvians, are the goose for the gander in Sweden. One of our own, Andris Vilks, our Finance minister http://www.eib.org/about/news/andris-vilks-new-governor-for-latvia.htm may soon be the Swedish Viceroy's Vice-President of Latvia.

Holy cow!

The Swedes will deny any wrong-doing, continued Ragana. And, strictly speaking, they are right. How could they be wrong if the Latvian Saeima writes laws to their liking? Only a few days ago (7/29) the Chair of the Saeima, Gundars Daudze, insisted (NTV3) that the Saeima must continue to allow to vote in secret, else it will put the Populists in power. He was responding to Ilma Čepane, a deputy, who believes that Saeima’s votes should be public; that people ought to know who the deputies vote for.

Who are the Populists? asked the descendants of Latvian populists who had lost their historical bearings. We hear the word all the time, yet all we know is that it is a very bad word. Neither the media or anyone in Latvian government ever explains it. Can you tell us what the populists do?

They eat fish (reņģes), answered Ragana. It makes their armpits smell different from those of a minister and most journalists. They are poor people whose children are not encouraged by their schoolteachers to move ahead unless it is to move out of the country. Populists do not make lots of money unless they win the lottery.

But surely Andris Berzins will never give up being President-Elect of Latvia. If he did, then the prihvatization of Latvia could come to a stop and Latvia could go from a parliamentary democracy to a people’s democracy, that is to say, a populist democracy. It may even happen that the populists put a stop to the deforestation of Latvia. After all, the Latvians used to call their freedom fighters “forest brothers”.

I would like to see that happen, said Ra-gana, and began to recite a famous, but forgotten folksong. Because the song has been forgot, Ragana put it in her own words:

The potatoes are blooming.

Over the dense tree tops of Tahlava,

rides Ra-gana with glistening shears in her hands.

The linden and oak trees kiss the blades of the light

that bids them good night with so gentle a snip.



(To be continued.)