Johns Eve, June 23, 2011



Johns grasses



The Latvian politologues, a term suggesting political expertise, but in fact being a term applied by hosts of news shows to anyone he-she pleases to so elevate. Judging from the stuff that Latvian politologues say and opine, most of them have some education in the art of politics. However, none of them has heard (at least not in Latvia) of the word “populism” as a term that plays a significant role in the politics of just about every country but Latvia.

This matter of the “populists” and “populism” being a word beyond ken is another matter that causes Latvia to distinguish itself as an exception among nations.

If the government in North Korea is sometimes thought of in terms of being brutish and nasty, and those damn landlocked Afghanistan’s are unbeatable because of their populist notions of themselves, and add those commie populists who brought on the Soviet Revolution, and the poor and unemployed Germans following the First World War with their load of reparations to pay, and one soon comes to the Latvian notion that the word “populist” is not mentionable as having any sense of meaning, except contemptible.

Such notions concerning Populism pervade the Latvian establishment from the President down to every talking head on television. Apparently no Latvian politician when engaged in protecting his moral image through self-gratification can see in his dreams any other woman than a breasty half naked Dame Liberty with raised sword leading the rabble into battle against “talking heads” of Latvia. Populism is, in short, an unmentionable mentionable, a synonym for protecting the existing political system from politics.



Little Jane



As I suggested in several preceding blogs, the Latvian President-Elect ought to refuse to accept his election as the next President of Latvia by parliamentary Saeima (a Senate sort of), which the incumbent President (in office until July 7) has suggested be dismissed (for any number of anti-State acts) through a public Referendum to be held on July 23.

I have also suggested that such a refusal by the President Elect is desirable, because it is likely to have the effects of a religious revival, i.e., it will bring Latvians another step closer to the re-founding of their nation. I stated that in spite of the legitimacy of Latvia as a state, there are certain questions that refuse to go away. One of these questions (because it is being treated as if there can be no such question) is why the Latvian government—ever since the declaration of Latvia as a State in 1918—has tilted center-right?

Making the Johns crown (vainags)

What is so right about center-right and so wrong with Populism?

There is a bevy of scholars, writers and teachers, whose contributions to political theory challenge the one sidedness of Latvian politologues and politicians. Here is a quote from Chantal Mouffe, a professor at University of Westminster: “The legitimacy of modern liberal democracy is grounded on the idea of popular sovereignty, and those who believe that it can be discarded are profoundly mistaken.” http://www.cccb.org/rcs_gene/mouffe.pdf

Apparently, Latvian politicians, politologues, and the media believe that “populism” is a word that can be discarded. A Latvian right center government has constituted the government of Latvia all the years of Latvian independence, except of course during the time Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union. Moreover, the center-right—given that it has a mindset perpetually locked onto an Earth created in its image, re monopolar or a half a ball makes a ball—will always raise the question: “Hey, what about those popular sovereigns, err, those populists?”

In spite of questions, for most of Latvian politicos and ruling classes Populism remains something of a synonym for shit (sūds), which is why one may not hope that the President Elect Andris Berzins will voluntarily surrender his crown (bestowed on him by what the Populists call “oligarchs” and a partidocratic Saeima) of the Latvian presidency.

One of my unkind comments about Latvian oligarchs is that “oligarchs screw oligarchs”. Of course, oligarchs, i.e.—the system of liberal democracies in which individual rights have been secured by corporations—will likely prevail and maintain the democratic deficit in Latvia as it has for all these years. After all, it is private property over popular sovereignty, halleluiah!

In short, why should the President Elect not stick with the screws of the ship of state turning the ship in a perpetual center-right circle? Was the wheel not turned center-right from day one? Moreover, who can prove that the soft coup d’etad of “53+” was indeed a coup? It is unlikely that it can be proven in a juridical sense.

A son of Johns

However, the history of liberal democracy in Latvia tells a different story. Indeed, one may draw a parallel between de facto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto segregation in America after the Civil War (1861-1865) with regard to black people, which war allegedly freed them from slavery, but, alas, only in a de jure sense. Racial segregation in the United States de facto ended only a century later.

One has only to listen to the anti-populist, anti-popular sovereignty statements from Latvian government officials and the news media to know that the Latvian people constitute a segregated element, the Latvian democratic deficit.