THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE
88 Gridlocked In Latvia (7)

The decomposition of the Latvian people, the 80% or so, who are at or below the poverty line, is continuing apace.

One obvious example of the decomposition are the 150,000 (soon to reach 200,000) Latvians who are now speaking English as a result of emigration from Latvia. 200,000 unemployed are willing standbys for the next emigration airplane.

To learn English as one of Latvia’s official languages to facilitate Latvia’s integration in the European Union, however, does not seem a politically viable proposal—even if it will save Latvia. The leaders of the Latvian state have found it expedient to turn to jingoism or what I call zionacionalism. Zionationalists (there is more than one party) use neo-Christendom and the Latvian language as two foci for their political campaigns for populist votes. Unfortunately, the zionationalists misuse of these populist issues results in an ill affect on the populists and the nation.

How and what ill affect? By dismissing…..................

……………(To continue reading, please click the last link below)……..

These blogs tend to be a continuum of an idea or thought, which is why—if you are interested in what you read—you are encouraged to consider reading the previous blog and the blog hereafter.

If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/ 

You’ve reverted to misspelling your link, which means it doesn’t work.

The idea that English should be an official language is absurd, of course, but I wanted to see where this was going.

/P

The link to Blog 88 is http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/ 
Sorry for the error,
and thanks for pointing it out.

As to the other points??????????????????? jandžs????????

THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE
89 Gridlocked In Latvia (8)

How Latvians became linked to zionationalism requires an explanation. Before moving on, below is a sketch of how this blogger sees it.
         
The linking of the Latvian “Children of Johns” (Jāņu bērni) with the Jews, the Bogomils, the Humiliati, the Paulists, the Bosnian Church, the Cathars, the Waldensians, King Arthur’s Court, etc.* as of one ancient church is not fancy, but a past that has been forced (beaten, burnt, tortured, and the like) into submission by being forgot.

With the turning of the Children of Johns into heretics [the Latvians know them as “ch(ķ)eceri”; now children playing mean ghosts on Halloween Night], they were forced to convert from their beliefs (“hereticism”, of course!) and ways to new, uniform (very important), and harmless (also very important) creatures who served the princes submissively. Today, having gone through the meat grinder and after having been doctored with many promises of better days to come, the transformed heretic is still recognizable in the figure of the passive consumer buying every kind of necessary and unnecessary item at the shopping mall. The princes are part of government (it does not matter whether if is called a democracy, oligarchy, dictatorship, or what not) still, and corporations are turned into individuals impersonated by CEOs. Priests of the current version of westernized neo-religions (Christians, Muslims, Jews), are all trained now to provide psychological counseling, i.e., a means to try turn whatever inner unhappiness one feels with regard to the state of the world into passivity. The word is: Stay mum, take my advice as a “buy” signal, buy it, and move on………………………………….…….
…………(To continue reading, please click the last link below)……..

These blogs tend to be a continuum of an idea or thought, which is why—if you are interested in what you read—you are encouraged to consider reading the previous blog and the blog hereafter.

If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/ 

THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE
90 Gridlocked in Latvia (9)

When history is forgotten and replaced by a shallow myth, everyone who lends the myth a credulous ear puts one foot in the zionationalist camp. This is not to say that battles to overthrow the yoke of oppression cease to be heroic deeds or that shallow myths fail to mention them. Even so, the nation needs a history of sufficient depth of credibility to discover its bearings and not resort to tortured persuasions that do not persuade.

Unfortunately, Latvia ends the first decade of the 21st century as a nation absent a persuasive leadership. To have to listen to the leaders of Latvia insist that the priority of Latvia in 2010 is “providing employment” to those whom previous administrations of the government failed and are still failing is like telling the nation go dig another crater for a meteor or go and deforest your country. The current government of Latvia, in short, has not only no idea what to do with itself in the future but exists for no other reason that the people of Latvia have not yet given it a “not-vote”. One may think that the Latvian people are as much a crater in the ground their government.

Is perhaps the passivity of Latvia due to a myth of origins that is a crater, too?  It is a question worthy of attention.

…………(To continue reading, please click the last link below)……..

These blogs tend to be a continuum of an idea or thought, which is why—if you are interested in what you read—you are encouraged to consider reading the previous blog and the blog hereafter.

If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/ 

Please stop. It is getting absurd.

jandžs - I care and respond because it concerns me that someone might stumble on this forum and think that you, in some way, represent a real strain in LV thought. You do not. Your posts are absurd, internally and externally inconsistent and lacking any real grounding in the reality off of your little temple territory.

THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE
91 Gridlocked in Latvia (10)

The future of Latvia is unknown. At the present the country is adrift. The country exists, but turns like a falling leaf caught by no current of air. Perhaps this is the result of Latvia’s leadership having run to capitalism for succor. It advised them to follow the Chicago, Georgetown, and Harvard economists’ advice and sign up for economic shock therapy. It worked. The hammer hit the pin and it bounced to the bell, but then—as things are wont to do at the circus—it as quickly fell back and resulted in a double shock.

The government of Latvia is putting up quite a show how to create a disaster, except it hurts to watch. It hurts in the real. Even the few oligarchs are complaining—though they are much the cause of the disaster.

The drift of Latvia comes without the pleasures of playing casino on an old fashioned riverboat. Unfortunately, the boat drifted onto a sandbank, and the players……………………………..

…………(To continue reading, please click the last link below)……..

These blogs tend to be a continuum of an idea or thought, which is why—if you are interested in what you read—you are encouraged to consider reading the previous blog and the blog hereafter.

If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/ 

See Blog 91: the not-unthinkable.
Should we replace elections with cloned politicians?
http://www.globalchange.com/Cloning/

See blogs 1-91, the unthinking.

peter, why is the use of English as an official language absurd ?  you don,t half talk a lot of waffle !! Why have you not complained about being forced to learn Russian under communist rule ? The use of the Russian language has been forced on Latvians for many years, why should they have to speak Russian at all ?

THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE
92 A Story about Clever John and Crazy Jane

An old Latvian story retold. For the original see
3.A.327.B.460. A.K. Bramanis Rīgas apg. LP,V,36 (3,1).

Introduction. Once upon a time there were seven brothers. The seventh brother, the one who was the youngest, was the cleverest. This is why his brothers called him Clever John.

Even while he was still very young, Clever John called his brothers together and said to them: “You know, guys, I know where there lives a mother with seven daughters. These are going to be our brides. Still, do not get married until I grow up.”

The brothers of Clever John thought it over and agreed to wait. After all, one could have fun while waiting. The village had many young women, and few were shy.

The time went, and it did not seem so very long before Clever John grew up. He then called his brothers together once more and said to them: “Guys, the Summer Solstice Festival, Johns Day, will be here day after tomorrow. You know how important this day is. There will be a big to do as all wait for the Sun to rise. We all know what will happen if She does not rise. Anyway, there will be a huge crowd and a big ball at the Waysiders Inn on Johns Eve. The seven daughters that will be our brides will also be there. Now let us saddle our horses and off we ride.”

“Nice idea, Clever John,” answered his brothers, but where will we find seven horses. We don’t even have one. We ourselves pull the plow.”

“No problem,” answered Clever John. “Go catch me seven crickets and I will fix it.”

The brothers looked at each other as if to say “Just listen to this, guy”. On the other hand, Clever John had done many clever things in the past, and perhaps this was going to be another one of those times. So, they went and caught seven crickets, stuffed them in a sack, and brought them to Clever John.

The first leg of the journey. Clever John looked into the sack, counted seven crickets, and invited his brothers to follow him to the sea.

(To read more, please click on the last link below.)

These blogs tend to be a continuum of an idea or thought, which is why—if you are interested in what you read—you are encouraged to consider reading the previous blog and the blog hereafter.

Partial entries of my blogs may be found at LatviansOnline http://latviansonline.com/forum/ + Forum Home + Open Forum –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/

I recommend you listen and see the links in the sequence set below
before you link to read the story at Blog 91 above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxIroakIXto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g50iAWTJF3M&feature=related
Incidentally, the story leads to the marriage of Clever John to
one of the daughters of the Sun, re Saules meita.

Sorry for the delayed response, Kārli; I don’t venture into this thread very often (I have to be in a certain mood to appreciate Jaņdžs’ absurdist monologues).

peter, why is the use of English as an official language absurd ? you don,t half talk a lot of waffle !!

English is official in the UK and co-official in Ireland and Malta. That’s it. If making it an official language would somehow “facilitate Latvia’s integration in the European Union,” I’m sure others would have done so by now. Next, define “official.” Declaring a language official—in Latvia’s case, a “state language”—has effects based on policy, not simply sticking a label on a language. Irish is co-official in Ireland; that doesn’t make Irish healthy, for example.

Latvia has one official language, Latvian. This despite the fact that over a third of the population is Russophone. The status of Latvian has been an issue for Latvians for well over a century. The first language legislation of the restored Republic was passed even before the occupation ended. You can compare Catalonia, Québec, Flanders, Lithuania, Estonia, etc. to see how language policy is often politically at the fore.

Should everybody learn English? Great—but you don’t need official status for that. Sweden, for example, has a high rate of English proficiency, to the point where many read in English even for pleasure. That doesn’t/didn’t require making English official. I’ve met a few recent immigrants there with poor Swedish skills, and it’s quite easy to get by—but they have to learn Swedish.

So, effects—(1) First, define what’s meant by “official.” Here’s the text of the current Latvian law (.pdf). (2) Consider what you would change to make English “official”—people dealing with the public would be required to know English? Get real. We have a shortage of nurses already, for example. (3) How can you justify making English official, when the native tongue of more than a third of the population is classified as “foreign”? (4) The Constitution was amended to make Latvian the official language, making this quite difficult to change—part of the point being that even if the political winds blow the wrong way this autumn, it would be quite difficult to make Russian co-official. Amending the Satversme to make English co-official would be just as difficult. I think a lot of people would smirk and wonder what the point is, like me.

Why have you not complained about being forced to learn Russian under communist rule ?

I haven’t? Excuse me, Kārli, but you haven’t been a member of this forum very long. I’ve written about language issues for years, here and elsewhere.

Soviet rule ended a couple of decades ago.

The use of the Russian language has been forced on Latvians for many years, why should they have to speak Russian at all ?

What do you mean by “have to”? The tables have turned; asymmetrical bilingualism among younger people is now in the other direction, with most young Russians knowing Latvian and many young Latvians having poor Russian skills.

Most people—including most Lettophones, by the way—think knowing Russian is important. Why? Because it’s the mother tongue of many people here, particularly in urban areas. Because it’s widely spoken between Kaliningrad and Baku, not only among Russians but among Belarusians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Lithuanians, Tatars, etc.; it may no longer be one of the world’s dominant tongues, but we live next to Russia and it dwarfs us. We do a lot of business with it. It’s been significant historically and culturally for a very long time; even the founding father of Latvian philology wrote in Russian. Valdemārs, the spiritual father of the Latvian Awakening invoked by Ivars, was a Russophile.

If by “have to” you mean “why should I have to speak Russian at the shop,” as I had to do this morning, not that it’s especially painful—well, Russian is a major language and Latvian is a minor language, I live in a town where about eight out of ten people are native Russian speakers, and language shift doesn’t take place overnight. It’s been taking place with remarkable rapidity, though; in most of Latvia, one hardly ever encounters language difficulties any longer. And please don’t forget that a big, very big contributor to those difficulties is the disinclination of Latvians to speak Latvian with people who aren’t Lettophones.

Are there still a lot of nasty Russkies who don’t like speaking Latvian? Da. As far as I can tell, they’re far outnumbered by people who struggle to learn Latvian, people who really don’t care because the main thing in language is communication and it’s no skin off most Latvians’ teeth to speak Russian (indeed, I know many Latvians who love to speak Russian), and people weary of bad attitudes.

And—English? It will never threaten Latvian like Russian does, ‘cause there are few native speakers here and the likelihood of there ever being many is quite low. Nonetheless, English is a prime mover of the globalization most small nations—and even some larger ones, like the French—are opposed to. The Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators on Gotland and like institutions are partly motivated out of a desire by people who love smaller languages to learn each other’s languages instead of using English as the intermediary. Under the Soviets, even Lithuanian books were sometimes translated through a Russian filter. I don’t want to go back to such a twisted remove. I would give a thumbs up to Latgallian being given official status long before I ever agreed to promote English, which unlike Russian really is a foreign language.

And then there’s Jaņdžs with his poor Latvian skills and love for weird Russian imperialist “theory” bad-mouthing the national language.

Vysu lobu,
/P