Govt is meeting with opposition parties in the face of its (govtš) new minority status. From the comments on apollo:
araajs MG 34 16:55 20.Mar.
Pljineru Rumbulas mezhs gaida…

a411 16:59 20.Mar.
Jā ,jautājums ir tikai viens - vai ebreju komunisti ir gatavi nodot savus ideālus etniskās integritātes labā ?

I won’t claim that this is representative, but just seems scary that people would feel comfortable being this clearly anti-Semitic on a national comment board.

Hi Tom,  translation please. regards Karlis.

Just the same as what happened here in Bolton on saturday if anybody saw the bbc web news site near enough riots.

Karli- I doubt that something similar happened in Bolton.

What I wrote about was that a party (Tautas partija - TP) dropped out of our current govt coalition and that the govt/Prime Minister (Valdis Dombrovskis) is having discussions with the parties in opposition. Personally I find this quite responsible on his/their part. The article that I linked to was announcing that Dombrovskis would meet with PCTVL, which is commonly seen as a Russian party. The picture was/is of Jakovs Pliners, a member of Saeima from that party.

The first comment says : Rumbulas forest is waiting for Pliners. 
The reference is to the fact that Jews were taken from Riga and shot/killed in Rumbulas forest and Pliners is Jewish.

The second says: “Are the jewish communists willing to give up on their ideals of ethnic integration? ”

Tom, I believe the second one translates as “Are the Jewish communists willing to give up on their ideals in the name of ethnic integration?” the word “labā” at the end of the sentence adds that “in the name of, or for the good of” to the sentence. The implications of the post now fall into towards their “ideals” being at odds with ethnic integration in LV.

Scarier is the username on the first post “araajs MG34”, the MG34 being a common German heavy machine gun and Arājs really needing no clarification.
In addition to the concern of hearing views such as these being voiced at all, is the notion that many more in the greater population choose to downplay, rationalize or ignore the problem of bigotry which is prevalent in LV. Another example of “Tumsonība.”

Tom~ politkorrectum has not been established in Latvia…........

i worry about mafiosi

‘Russian Mafia’ Abroad Now 300,000 Strong, Journal Says
02 March 2010
By Paul Goble
VIENNA — After avoiding any use of the term “Russian mafia” in the last few years, law enforcement personnel in Europe and elsewhere are now speaking about it again, noting that it includes “up to 300,000 people” and dominates the criminal world in many countries around the world, according to a Moscow investigative journalist.
In Monday’s Versiya, Ruslan Gorevoy says law enforcement personnel in many countries — including Spain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, France, Mexico “and even the United States” — have been surprised by how “confidently” criminal groups consisting of people from the former Soviet Union now dominate their national criminal worlds.

Indeed, the Versiya report continues, the Russian groups, which include “up to 300,000 of our compatriots,” have succeeded in pushing aside local groups and establishing their own “spheres of influence” to the point that they no longer need to “clarify relations with the help of arms.”

Gorevoy describes some of the most notorious cases involving Russian organized criminal groups abroad before using interviews with Russian officials to suggest some more general conclusions. He recalls the discovery that drug traffickers were using submarines to move their product from South America to Mexico.

These submarines, he points out, “were purchased as scrap metal” from a Ukrainian firm that was involved in decommissioning Soviet diesel subs, then repapered in the Romania city of Konstanza before sailing across the Atlantic. While they were ultimately discovered, it is impossible to say how many tons of drugs they carried or even what the situation is today.

The U.S. Navy, he notes, has taken great pride in reporting its interdiction efforts in this regard, but knowing the abilities of Russian criminal groups, Gorvey continues, “it is possible” that such vessels may still be playing a role. The tone of his article suggests that he personally would not bet against these groups.

In Spain, he explains, Russian criminal groups control 90 percent of the drugs and illegal arms flows and were involved in the murder of Paddy Doyle, a leading Irish criminal who was operating there. His death and the ensuing trial led to the publication of numerous articles about Russian organized crime.

Russian officials have been dismissive of much of that coverage. Pavel Krasheninnikov, the head of the Duma’s legal affairs committee, told Gorevoy that “certain groups may have an ethnic character [there], but this still does not provide the foundation for claims about the presence of a specific national mafia of this or that country.”

Poland, Gorevoy continues, was “the first country of Europe into which organized crime from Russia began to penetrate,” pushing out — together with criminals from Ukraine and Belarus — Romanian and Albanian criminal organizations that had dominated the situation there before the Russians arrived.

The Polish police have not been able to “liquidate” Russian organized crime, and “according to certain data, at the present time” there are as many as 20,000 Russian criminals operating in that country, making it, in numerical terms at least, “the largest Russian criminal diaspora in the world.”

But it would be a mistake to focus only on Poland or Eastern European countries like Romania and Hungary, where the Russian criminal presence is large. Over the last decade, the Russian mafia has reached around the world, including Australia ,where it has been involved in electronic crime, Singapore, London and various countries in the Western hemisphere.

Interpol, the international police agency, does not maintain the kind of files that allow for an even approximate assessment of the number of Russian criminals operating abroad. But last year, the National Prosecutor of Italy concluded that there are “up to 300,000” criminals from Russia operating in other countries.

One of the largest or at least most profitable activities of Russian criminals abroad, the Italians said, is money laundering, with the Russian mafia “laundering” funds in the United States, Marianas and Guam. In addition, they added, Russian criminals are charging Mexican drug lords 30 percent for laundering drug profits from sales in the United States.

In Italy itself, prosecutors reported, “representatives of the Russian mafia in 2008 formed an alliance with local [criminal groups, including the Cosa Nostra]” and took under joint control “practically 100 percent of the agricultural enterprises of Italy and at the same time practically all shippers, both international and domestic.”

The German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reports, citing sources official and otherwise, that there are approximately 160,000 Russian criminals in Europe, compared to 70,000 of Italian origin, 40,000 of American background and 37,000 from Asian countries. The Russians have corrupted at least some officials in order to cover their tracks, the paper said

The Munich paper’s Rudolph Himelli said that “Russian mafiosi are better organized and permit themselves to commit the boldest crimes, remaining in practice unpunished,” crimes that are “of a completely different order of magnitude than those committed by Turkish immigrants or criminals from countries in Eastern Europe,” including illegal arms sales to Lib

Int- Thanks. I do struggle.

Peter - I am not at all sure what political correctness has to do with suggesting that Pliners should be taken to Rumbula or implying that either Jews are communists or communists are Jews. Of course either combination is possible, but the relevance to Dombrovskis talking to a political party kinda shoots by me.

And the russian mafia article is relevant because?

Tom asked:

And the russian mafia article is relevant because?

Because it’s not Latvians.  It’s never Latvians.  Latvians are just fine.  It’s always the Russians. 

That’s why.

Tom, as to your original question about scariness - to me, internet-based anti-Semitism, racism, homophobic comments somehow seem to come out uglier and coarser in Latvian - but that’s because it’s not a language I ever associated with stupidity and hatred.  I guess I was lucky in my “choice” of family.  I’ve learned since that it was around in trimda as well.

But look at any widely-based English-language internet site that has comments re. current events.  All of that hatred and more.  You even mention “Obama” - just step back!  Anonymity lets out the ugliness.

Excuse me everyone but would anybody care to tell me what, where, or who trimda is? regards Karlis.

can anybody help me translate a german e-mail into english?

Karli, you asked the same question about the meaning of “trimda” in the thread 16. martā—Par Latviju!

I answered you there.

Anita - as I said, I don’t claim that it is representative.

Tom - regarding any kind of anonymous web chat comments:

Back in Chicago I could go into any tavern, sit down at the bar to have a scotch and soon enough some guy next to me would start spouting the most inane and incredible things about aliens, Hitler, Jungle Jim Rivera and Liberace. His drunken blithering might seem scary at first, until you realize it is just drunken blithering. Today, this same guy and millions like him have PC’s and express the same kinds of nonsense around the world. Perhaps even more, because you can drink more at home.

Of course, stupidity is not only driven by alcohol. For some, it comes naturally. My guess is that some express the kind of opinions you refer to simply to get your attention. They want to scare you. They want to upset you and many others. Its their only way to make a mark in this world. I’m sure that the guy who wrote this comment would get great satisfaction to know that someone has started a chat thread about his comment on another website.  Some people like to break windows to get attention. Others write anonymous comments

I only get worried when they start organising into groups and start to acquire power. Nothing like that is happening here. Latvia, like everywhere else in the world (except maybe China, Iran, etc) has an open Internet and you can be as stupid as you want as often as you want in as many places as you can.

Ojar - generally I agree, but the comments (especially in national/general portals like Diena, apollo) can suggest the things that people whisper about and believe but are afraid to say in public. Witness the things being posted about Meierovica. There is so very much unsubstantiated shadow. Even here (LOL) we have had a non-anonymous poster make shadowy comments about Čigane and then refuse to give them real shape by identifying the real incident(s) that lead to the belief.

If I were to read the comments about Meierovica seriously (as some will, if they are not actively countered), I would believe in turn that the dibinātāji are jews, homosexuals, communists, closet Sorosieši etc. These kind of things need to be taken seriously. I am sure that there are people capable of doing a quantitative discourse analysis of the comments and looking for patterns that should be countered publicly, even if not overtly.

Full disclosure here - my wife is one of the Meierovica founders and this is her/our first real foray into being a real public person. I am concerned. Not afraid, because it is too important.