Ivar-
What is your proof that any of Pēteris students go to the misnamed victory monument on May 9? Of my Russian acquaintances, not a one goes.

Tom you need to stop misreading and thinking like a Petepoe: “What is your proof that any of Pēteris students go to the misnamed victory monument on May 9? Of my Russian acquaintances, not a one goes.

There is no proof required as my comment in itself implys that they would not be a factor just like your acquaintances are not a factor. I never claimed that any of Pēteris students go or ever went to any kind of a monument or Kremlin fostered event. You’re creating uncalled for assumptions.

Cheers, Ivars

Wow.

You’re creating uncalled for assumptions.

Pot. Meet Kettle.

Andrejs, hit. run. no time for much else

khe…How many posters over the years have debunked Ivars “Latvia Inc” model ? At least a half dozen ?

Turn on the way back machine and check if that pair of 40 year old speedos still fit - whatever makes your day. Such descriptions every year are a more reliable indicator of the arrival of springtime than any ground hog for sure.

Ambersun, for someone who claims to be a progressive, nee an “authentic” one - why do you continue to scream away in unilateral arguments ? Unilateralism is the realm of Dick Cheney and George Bush. You pick up their ideological ugly stick and whack away at people with relish.

The only poster who seems to constantly screech about Marx and Trotsky around these parts is you. Anyone who even read Marx or Trotsky isnt with us but against us in your curiously ignorant ethnocentric assaults. Your wordy appeals never really address anything.

As Tom pointed out, Marx doesnt post here but Mr LL does - or did if one is to take your word for him being long gone. Do you know, in fact, that he is long gone Ambersun ? Did he communicate that to you ? Plenty of posters here come and go - but you seem to know that he’s long gone ?

I appreciate your cut and paste about the “standard misreading” of Marx as an anti semite. I have to say that your linking that to the politics of Mr LL is irrelevant. They share zero context. I do appreciate your attempt to put the Mr LL question to bed in your cut and paste but I have to say that for me at least - your attempt to deflect the direct question is pathetic. I cant speak for anyone else but I feel you owe an answer to the question - what is your view as to Mr LL’s politics ?

As to disasters in religious leadership Ambersun - I’m with you there. Lithuania is a fiercely Catholic nation according to some - yet the Catholic Church fails in that status time and time again. I have no knowledge of the influence of the Lutheran Church in Latvia but I assume that your example with Ledyaev would lead me to believe that Ledyaev’s successes occur because the Lutheran Church fails. You’ll have to tell me.

So what needs to be done Ambersun ? If the primary religions arent providing the spiritual guidance that would otherwise make people like Ledyaev a bit player - should the government step in ? Should religious groups be legislatively segregated into recognized and unrecognized groups ? Are megachurches with hundreds of satellite churches inherently bad ? Please explain what you mean by “disaster of religious leadership”.

Vidas

Gosh, you’re right Ivar. Fun little rhetorical trick, that. I read this “That would solve part of the problem, as they would not be going to the victory monument, sponsored by Moscow. ” and stupidly assume that you mean that students do go to the monument. But, golly, you are right, technically that is not an assumption of that sentence. Nifty. Gotta remember that trick.

Aleksejs clearly did not know what he was reverant about.

Didn’t he? Please, do tell.

The burial at Brāļu kapi was not just for or against the Republic, as it was merely a pipe dream during WWI. For most Latvians the cause was merely having an independent Latvia and that is what most of them fought for.

I showed you photos of a) an ethnic Russian; b) a communist; c) those who died in Gulag. Some folks died in 1941; others in 1920 and Brāļu kapi was not “merely a pipe dream” at the time. You weasel your way through the history of Riflemen, but it doesn’t explain why the Red Army people are buried there. Here is a snippet from an article published in the now-defunct Nedela. With my bold, a la ambersun.

Savukārt Otrajā pasaules karā kritušo sarkanarmiešu kapu vietas veco strēlnieku nodalījumā un gar centrālo kapu zālienu likvidētas netiks, jo pati Brāļu kapu filozofija paredz, ka šādos kapos jāatdusas kara laukos kritušajiem karavīriem. Tāda nostāja bija arī kapu izveides posmā. Brāļu kapos joprojām neskartas ir Stučkas valdības armijas kaujinieku kapu kopiņas. Viņi atdusas līdzās Brīvības cīņu dalībniekiem. Vienīgā atšķirības zīme ir tā, ka uz Stučkas karavīru kapu plāksnēm nav krusta zīmes, kā tas ir uz Latvijas armijas cīnītāju atdusas vietām. Savukārt uz padomju karavīru piemiņas plāksnēm par atšķirības zīmi kalpos piecstaru zvaigzne.

But if it makes you feel better, contrary to all evidence presented, be my guest.

Er, would it make me a bad Russian if I had said that I never read Trotsky? Or Marx (except for his manisfesto of the communist party)? As to Ledyaev, the guy is a religious loon, much like his sect. He is as a reasonable as Vanags or Pujats.

PS If a Jew is writing something negative about Jews, does it make him antisemitic?

PPS And another question: what is the point of his book “On the Jewish Question”? According to wikipedia, at least, the book deals with religious vs. secular states and it is Marx’s answer to an essay by Bruno Bauer. If ambersun is so frustrated with nitpicking here on the forum, surely she would luuuuve to look at a bigger picture in the Marx essay instead of what Snore ripped out of it, no?

Just out of curiosity, I checked the Marx quote used in The Soviet Story:

“The classes and the races too weak to master the new conditions of life must give way… They must perish in the revolutionary holocaust”
- Karl Marx ( Marx People’s Paper, April 16, 1856, Journal of the History of Idea, 1981 )

I found Marx People’s Paper article, which was originally published in the New York Tribune. The article is about emigration and economics. The first part of the quote appears there, but the second one, about “the revolutionary holocaust” does not. In fact, the whole context of the first part of the quote is in a way evolutionary economics.

I don’t have access to Journal of the History of Idea to double check what is written there. It certainly seems that the quote a bit too young to use the word “Holocaust” in a way we use it today, i.e. murder of the Jews.

I did find something else, but it was penned by Engels and not Marx.

All the earlier history of Austria up to the present day is proof of this and 1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality — the Germans, Poles and Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary. All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm. For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary.

Published in “Neue Rheinische Merkur” on 13 January 1849. Then, of course, there’s a question what Engel was talking about, what events led him to write this passage and what was happening in Germany/Austria in 1848. The answer of course, a revolution. So in the whole context, the revolutionary world storm appear to mean that if a nation doesn’t stand up for itself, it is destroyed.

Another point, it seems strange to mention Poles in such a way only to discard them later as a Slavic trash, no? 

So the whole quote used in the Soviet Story sounds like it is ripped out of context and out of several sources to push a certain agenda forward. And in my view, the “documentary” discredits itself this way.

My young relative gets the Russian worldview from all the Russian newspapers and Russian TV in Latvia which are more available than Latvian.

I just got back from the Narvesen where I bought my e-talons. I saw a distribution of LV and RU newspapers and magazines. I counted and found more of the former than the latter. How do you come up with RU being more available? And, I understand that Panorama is the most popular news programme in Latvia.

Stats on TV viewing habits for the residents of Latvia for January as presented by TNS Latvia:

The most watched TV channel was LNT (13.2 percent), the second channel TV-3 (12.7), LTV-1(10), Pirmais Baltijas Kanals (the first Russian channel in the lineup) with 9 percent.

Most watched TV shows in January - LNT News on Sunday (Lettish) with average 13.8 percent. The second place: de facto (LTV- Lettish) with 11.2 percent. The third place: Neka Personiga (TV3, Lettish) with 11.1 percent.

The first Russian-language program that appears on the top 20 list of most watched shows is a movie on PBK and it takes 16th place.

Here’s the data on the most widely read publications in Latvia in 2009:

1. Ieva
2. Privata Dzive
3. Diena
4. Latvijas Avize
5. Ievas Stasti.

all in Lettish.

Hope this helps…

Zatlers: ir jāatsakās no revanša vēstures jautājumos

Zatlers is turning into a Russian.

“Everywhere I go, the more I see, the less I know.”

Mr. L.L. is alive, but inconsequential.  Marx is Not but lives on because of an obsession about what a young boy once read.  And after all is said and done, it’s about whatever happens to trip your own personal radar.

Regurgitations on a TGIF day!

Irena

Irena,
Bringing up Marx has little to do with Peteris, if he’s the “young boy” of your post.  I actually had Thom Hartmann and Jim Cramer on my mind.  I had been listening to Thom Hartmann on the radio during my daily walks when recently in the Chicago area and Hartmann summoned Marx out of his grave.  My b-in-law watches Cramer and I heard Cramer praise not just Marx but also Trotsky. 

Anyway, the point of ever referring to Peteris and his prideful announcement of his adolescent “red romance” and “trots for Trotsky” or whatever he wrote since I don’t have time to look for the exact quote and don’t need the “quote police” to come after me - I think you get the idea - was that plenty of young people before Peteris were taken in by the “propaganda” of Marx and then the romance with red and brown that was swirling about their heads.  Many died in Marx’s “revolutionary holocaust” (father of the term “holocaust, ” later taking on new and even more awful meanings, as in specifically The Holocaust, now returned to the original source) made real in many wars and much barbarity involving humankind, still not ending as Marx continues to inspire, including capitalist like Hartmann and Cramer.  The point of The Soviet Story was the linkage from Marx to Stalin and to Hitler.

The “propagandistic” calls to “revolution” and to create a some mortal’s vision of utopia were very appealing, especially to the young and idealistic, you know this, since these were the days before the existence of “propaganda” and The Holocaust.  That’s sarcastic.  Young people were particularly vulnerable to the “romance” of revolution that promised to bring so much when then was often so little, all should know that.  Many were horribly misled, some to the extreme right and others to the extreme left, including plenty of Latvians, but died before they had the benefit of our wisdom about the old right and the old left.  Also, it’s difficult to become part of revolutionary cult-thinking, bands of brothers in arms, etc and then leave those of your group without feeling that you will be betraying them, no matter how failed the idea — or admit that you have betrayed yourself.

That’s why I’ve asked that hind-sight-smart males on LOL who pretend they would have managed so much better in those old times with swirling and luring political promises surrounding them, to get real.  The example of Peteris is that he still found “romance” in red in the calm and privilege of his western freedom so many years after Marx’s “revolutionary holocaust” made real in so many different, shocking manifestations.  Next time they’ll get it right, right?  And that’s why Marx is still so dangerous since intelligent people still cherry-pick their way through Marx to see the “romance” while ignoring that trail of ghastly, bloody red that follows him.  He’s been so many things to so many different people, including the antisemites—some would say, like himself.  Marx, Stalin, Hitler.  The link to the article of eminent historians opining about what exactly Marx’s “antisemtic words” meant shows how some people just continue getting the benefit of the doubt as “utopians” despite their rawly bigoted words and ferociously bloody warmongering. No one dares volunteer that they were a former-Nazi reading Mein Kampf (even in adolescence) god forbid, but much easier to say that you had a turn with the Commie Party, quit after “learning about” Stalin’s crimes, of course, from Krushchev not any Latvian, with children free to wear hammer/sickle t-shirts but never swastika,  like the Royal Brit idiot stupidly did.  So much for the “propaganda” of the Soviet Story and never needing to watch Glenn Beck, so politically incorrect.  Why waste time when we can focus instead on Mr L.L
. 
The daily world surrounding me has Thom Hartmann and Jim Cramer on the airways cherry-picking a Marx they do not want to know as a bloody, nasty antisemite.  It would be more valuable to spend time with the actual writings of Marx before so many think they can see the “propaganda” in Snore’s “Soviet Story.”

Dear ambi,

Once again, you decided to ignore the evidence. I absolutely agree with you that the Soviet Story tries to connect Marx to Stalin, to Hitler, but it appears to fail miserably.

Let’s just take one word as an example. The word that Snore translated as “holocaust” of the revolutionary holocaust. As I had mentioned earlier (you’ve been too busy to address that issue in your rant, dear ambi), the quote doesn’t match the original source. Notice, please, I’m not saying Marx hadn’t said those things. I’m saying that a reference to an article written by Marx produced no results to satisfy a curious reader about origins of claims made. Well, a kind of result. A partial quote.

Plus a cut and paste from an article written by Engels with a slight mistranslation. Who would have figured that an ellipsis could actually mean a completely different source of information.

I provided the English translation of the passage in question only to hear another rant from ambi. In the original German, you see, the word that somehow got translated into “holocaust” is Weltsturm, i.e. world storm. Someone told me “turmoil” is a more fitting translation.

Incidentally, Marx also penned a letter to Abe Lincoln congratulating him on his re-election. The evil racist, anti-semite Marx says in part:

While the workingmen, the true political powers of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic, while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master, they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

It is interesting that Marx, who apparently argued for extinction of weak peoples, points out such common sense things. It sounds like Marx’s point was you either evolve with progress or stay behind and eventually die out. It doesn’t sound like the holocaust to me, ambi. Does it to you?

Or we could make a link from Marx to Lincoln?

No one dares volunteer that they were a former-Nazi reading Mein Kampf (even in adolescence) god forbid, but much easier to say that you had a turn with the Commie Party…

I volunteer! I first read Mein Kampf at age twelve, long (how orexic time is!) before I read Trotsky, and I don’t feel much the worse for having read either. How daring of me? No, sorry—what kind of crap is this? If you think you can get some fatal infection from reading—go back to the backwater you belong in, eh? Nah, occupied Injun territory is so much nicer!

To Ivars re the Bolshies. If you honestly believe that those who fought on Stuchka’s side (sorry, no diacritics on this computer) were fighting for Latvia when they were quite explicitly fighting against it, great. A fascinating opinion. Instead of mouthing weird talking points, you would have to face a few unpleasant things in explaining how that could be possibly be, no? I mean—in that case it would be pretty difficult for anybody to fight against Latvia at all. Which could well be. Anyone with any ideology whatsoever could fight in this territory for some idea of freedom, but all that would ever matter is their blood?

Lately, I think this particular discourse is a waste of time. A pathetic luxury some of you have. Bang a nice comic book Latvia you can play with. Drink some green beer and drop some coins in the IRA box, put some ribbons on a car and earn Courlander’s ire, and so on.

Meanwhile Riga Mortis and Latvia collapses (and yet another day in the real world… oh the headlines), and you have such a remote connection to the reality that… never mind. I have nothing to say to you.

/P