Was reading P’s blog about the current state of the Nation and some of the comments. Then on the way home this song comes up on the Ipod. The scary part is I think that Dimiters wrote this about 5 years ago. Which in comparison can be seen as the good old days.

Andrejs

Baigi gribas vecos laikus,
bezcerīgi lētu paiku,
kaut ko sarkanu kas plīvo,
čeku, kas zin kā tu dzīvo.

Baigi gribas lai kāds vajā,
Kremli, brašu zvaigzni tajā
siltu pižiku un čaju,
maija svētkos lētu haju.

Baigi gribas, baigi gribas
dzīvot, mirt aiz bezcerības.
]}x2

Baigi gribas mīlēt brāli,
sadzīvojot komunāli,
katram savu gāzes plīti,
diviem vienu kortelīti.

Baigi gribas algu cietu,
prēmijas un siltu vietu,
mazdārziņu dzeloņdrātīs,
sirdsapziņu vienās vātīs.

{[P]}x2

Baigi gribas kilogramu
suņa prieku un vēl bamu,
vēl subotņikus un šņabi -
dzert līdz muļķis Tu, kam labi.

Baigi gribas spēlēt čiku,
mūžam lamāt Ameriku,
baigi gribas sliktu dūšu,
dzīvi cietumā uz mūžu.

{[P]}x2

Baigi gribas goda rakstus,
jubilejās neļķu lakstus,
varoņzvaigznes bendēm krūtīs,
salūtus, ka izbirst rūtis.

Baigi gribas, baigi gribas
miličus, kas ielauž ribas,
komjauniešu melus visus,
Ļeņinus un sifilisus.

{[P]}x2

Baigi gribas dzīvot baigi -
tā lai līķa bāli vaigi,
peškas mūžīgi lai stučī,
šiškas uzpirktie lai ručī.

Baigi gribas, baigi gribas
dzīvot, mirt aiz bezcerības,
tikai nejust vairs to kaunu,
kad šo laiku sauc par jaunu.

Somehow I find it hard to believe that Kaspars Dimiters, who is an anti-modernist, anti-globalist, anti-Enlightenment Russian Orthodox religious wacko would write such a satirical text. I think he would find the Soviet system more sympathetic than the current, seemingly open society that tolerates another one of his fanatical “riding horsies” (as in jājamzirdziņš), gays. He is the son of Vija Artmane and responsible for making his late mother’s recent funeral into what many described as a balagāns.

I found his satire very amusing until I read the last two lines: “tikai nejust vairs to kaunu, kad so laiku sauc par jaunu”.
Andrejs notation says that Dimiters wrote this about 5 years ago. Is that when many looked back to the Soviet times as the “good old days”?  Can those last two lines be viewed as prophetic for today?  Surely NOT, but the words are very puzzling to me.  I feel he is criticizing or comparing Latvia today (or 5 years ago) with the Soviet era. Still, the irony and satire is very clever.
What do you think?

I don’t know what it is about Dimiters the artist, but his music always manages to touch me. The first thing I heard by him was Krusta Skola and I’ve been hooked since. And that’s saying a lot since I am a dyed in the wool agnostic. As I found out more and more about Dimiters the man, I liked him less and less. Frankly don’t have much use for him. And at the core of that is his attitude toward homosexuality which to me always boils down to an issue of civil rights. I just don’t understand how someone can see the world so clearly in all other areas, but be so blindingly and unabashedly wrong in this one.
Still the music remains. I guess I just have a weakness for sardonic songwriters.
From the same album, the title song Ai Latvija:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxp7-ubQnDs

Arija,

Its all subjective, but I don’t know if he is comparing Latvia of today with the Soviet era, so much as pointing out how bad things are in the present. I think the sentiment is similar to what the Who expressed in Won’t Get Fooled Again. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Here we are years after finally getting our freedom and we’ve fouled it up so badly that by comparison you can look at the bad old days with fondess. Also, I think that last line might be meant as a direct dig at New Era (Jaunais Laiks) which in 2003 was the ruling party.

Andrejs

Andrejs

Now that you explained it, yes, I do believe he was taking a dig at Jaunais Laiks in his song and I understand the irony in his lyrics.  The video in your post Ai Latvija is so depressing.  He sees nothing positive at all in today’s Latvia.  Surely it cannot be so bleak.  People aren’t standing in bread lines like they did here during the Depression. Of course artists have to exaggerate to get their message across and I understand where is coming from but wallowing in gloom and doom just
makes the listeners more depressed and more unhappy with his life.  His Baigi Gribas was a song I could laugh with him about and still get his message. This one would drive me to suicide and that’s not art to me.

Surely it cannot be so bleak.

Though I have little patience for Kaspars Dimiters, who went over the edge for the nth time with the sideshow he shamelessly orchestrated around his mother’s funeral (I do love the demand that a statue of her be built where Lenin used to stand [Kaspariņš and wife {Līga, pictured here waging holy war against a Sodomite automobile} set up an account one can donate to even before they made the announcement {to Teļegraf—Russkies ain’t as evil as Letts in Kaspars’ eyes, most of the time}, with no oversight])...

How do you measure bleak? Bread lines were “normal” in the Great Depression (by the way, Krugman’s blog notes the arrival of the second Great Depression nearby), but Kaspars is talking about the last seventeen years, which didn’t consist of a depression—the Depression, with possibly prolonged deflation and double-digit unemployment, is only on its way… ETA March.

We had a transition, which was worse in many ways than the Great Depression was in most countries—industrial output collapsed in the course of a couple years, for example, wiping out whole industries permanently (not to mention whole fields, like science/R&D;). Latvia didn’t really reach pre-1991 GDP levels until just a few years ago.
 
Christopher Fons on Dubya’s night on the town in Rīga two years ago:

Latvia’s neoliberal theme park for foreign investors fashioned by
Washington Consensus policies has a dark side. The country has the
lowest labor productivity of all 25 EU nations. Moreover, it has
poorest labor safety record in the EU. Labor union rates are among the
lowest in the EU. This is matched by towering rates of alcoholism, with
men dying at 60, thus having returned to 19th century mortality levels.
HIV and drug-resistant TB also thrive. Pensioners live in abject
poverty. [Plus very high suicide rates. Eds.] Also, more Latvians have
fled Latvian poverty to “old Europe” since independence than Stalin
ever deported.

The last few years in Latvia have been boom years, not a Depression—the boom was, of course, a bubble, and a huge proportion of the population remained below the very low poverty line even as the bubble-blowers partied. And what do we have to show for our years of spectacular growth, other than massive debt we will redistribute to the poor and the middle class? Every myth the ruling class tried to sell us is bursting—not that most were buying anyway. An excerpt from Pauls Raudseps’ recent op-ed piece, “Igaunijas miljoni”:

Koalīcijas politiķi jau gadiem mēģina mums iestāstīt, ka vienīgais, kas igauņiem esot labāks nekā latviešiem, ir spēja veidot savu tēlu. Ar to acīmredzot domāts, ka viņi labāk prot citus apčakarēt, kas, koalīcijas politiķuprāt, vienmēr ir bijusi efektīvas politikas galvenā iemaņa. Ziemeļu kaimiņu smalkās pī–ar prasmes it kā izskaidroja gan to, ka Igaunija sāka sarunas par iestāšanos Eiropas Savienībā divus gadus pirms Latvijas, gan kaimiņzemes stabili augstākos rādītājus dažādos starptautiskos reitingos. Vēl nupat koalīcījas politiķi pat centās iestāstīt, ka ekonomika Igaunijā ir tikpat sliktā stāvoklī kā Latvijā.

Taču piektdienas vakarā pienāca ziņa, ka starp valstīm un starptautiskajām institūcijām, kuras palīdzēs Latvijai izrāpties no jau četrus gadus pie varas esošās koalīcijas izraktās bedres, būs arī Igaunijas Republika. Tās spēja aizdot mums simt miljonu eiro brīdī, kad Latvijas budžets ir uz kraha robežas, ir valdošās koalīcijas ekonomiskās politikas izgāšanās nepielūdzami objektīvs pierādījums.

[To be cont’d.]

[Cont’d.]

Alvis Hermanis, who is politically quite distant from the rabid Kaspariņš (and had to go on Russian TV to try to undo some of the damage Dimiters inspired) would also answer the question about how bleak it is quite simply. Refusing to attend the ceremony where he was to receive the Order of Three Stars, he declared Latvia morally bankrupt. “Latvieši nav izmantojuši to iespēju, kas viņiem tika dota pēdējo 15 gadu laikā. Viņi praktiski to ir saķēzījuši.”

There used to be more of a Left and Right divide when discussing the direction we’ve taken—in Dimiters’ case, I guess there still is (he’s extremely anti-American, Europhobic and anti-globalist… he mixes this with a desire for a “moderately authoritarian” neo-Ulmanist state that withdraws from NATO and the EU).

Laila Pakalniņa wrote an insightful piece in response to the popular petition asking Sweden to occupy us; she talks about the Greek rioters, as does Anne Applebaum at Slate:

But I’m guessing the problem runs even deeper: The fact is that political parties in general are weak everywhere, and democracy is therefore weak, too.

Which isn’t that surprising: After all, we are heading for a global recession, the causes of which may lie far away from Athens—or Paris or Cincinnati—and the solutions to which may not lie in the hands of local Greek, French, or Ohio politicians. Nobody much admires powerless leaders, and nobody much sees the point in voting for people who can’t do anything, anyway.

Hence the riots in Athens and, maybe, elsewhere soon: If you aren’t sure why you are unemployed, if you don’t have the political vocabulary to explain what’s wrong with your country’s economy, and if you don’t have leaders who seem able to fix it, then perhaps random violence seems a plausible response.

But what’s the Pilchardian pain threshold? (Debate on Kubliņš‘s article on the subject drew in Kaspariņš, by the way—people with constructive ideas upset him.)

Hermanis, from his essay “Latviešu dzeja”:

Manuprāt, divas galvenās rakstura īpašības latviešiem ir - apbrīnojama pielāgošanās spēja un apbrīnojami smalkā dvēseles struktūra.

Par pirmo. Mūsu izdzīvošanas instinkts ir izkopts un noslīpēts līdz perfektai pilnībai. To pierādīja arī nesenais kolektīvais eksperiments ar čurāšanu uz galvas. Izrādās, tikai dažiem tūkstošiem no visas tautas nostrādāja reflekss - atvērt lietussargu.

The eminent former diplomat Valdis Krastiņš:

Viss ap mums kļuvis netradicionāls – gan valdītāju klaji demonstrētā ignorance un demagoģija, gan iespējamie līdzekļi viņu patriekšanai. Laiks rādīs, ko izvēlēsies Latvijas tauta, lai neļautu sevi iedzīt neatgriezeniskā tumsā.

We will have to decide whether we want to go gentle into that good night.

Vysu lobu,
/P

That all sounds so pathetic Peter.  If Estonia is able to loan Latvia a hundred million euros to get it out of the ditch the “koalacija” dug them into these past four years then for sure Latvia is doing something wrong.  By “koalacija” I am reading Latvia’s ruling government, right? 
But if this is a global crisis what can one little nation do?  Aren’t we here in America in the same mess, if not worse?  All our warts are being exposed now and there are calls left and right for ways to get us back on our feet.  With all these lessons to be learned from past mistakes we should all look forward to a better life, here and in Latvia. It’s just a matter of when?

Last night I had time to read all the attachment links in your post, Peter and as diverse as they are the common thread I found is that people are called to action.  One article pretty much called us a nation of sheep; followers but not leaders.  The riots in Greece by the anarchist bunch were not actually given as examples, but one article did allude to the fact that when nothing gets done and the government appears helpless to change or correct the depressing situations, it leaves no other alternative but to take to the streets.  I just cannot imagine any situation in Latvia warranting such action.  Do you?
I enjoyed Hermanis’ article very much, looking at the situation from an artistic perspective.  I liked that one.
Thank you for that great post and all the supporting articles. I am glad Andrejs posted that Dimitera song which led to this good thread.

Kaspars Dimiters is always provocative, at least.

One Dave commented on the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman’s endorsement of Edward Hugh’s views thusly: “Poor tiny Latvia. Forced to replace a failed ideology with a failing one.” (Antons Benjamiņš at the same blog: “The second time it is not only the hero of the tragedy who dies, but everyone. That is to say, Latvia is on the way of becoming a ‘no country left’ country. The only hope on the horizon is that the winter solstice is past and the sun is ascending. On the other hand, even the Sun can be cruel. Time will tell how it all ends.”)

Edward Hugh, who thinks the Latvian bailout is a bad mistake and explains why he thinks so in detail here has added a post with his colleague Claus Vistesen’s thoughts. NB: these thoughts all run contrary to official Latvian thought and I’m not endorsing them (and I withdrew some cash to buy some milk and bread, not to destabilize the national currency, please don’t arrest me—the standard caveat these days…)

But if this is a global crisis what can one little nation do?  Aren’t we here in America in the same mess, if not worse?

Even a global crisis is different in different countries (it was during the Great Depression, too) and as Hugh says in response to a similar comment: 

But to move from saying that countries like the UK, and the US, and Spain etc, are all going to have problems to saying that it doesn’t matter what Latvia does (an interesting type of fatalism this) since everyone is in a mess, so we will be in good company.

The problem is that Latvia is still a lot poorer than the US, Spain and the UK, so my guess is that the pain component will be commensurately higher.

I mean, even if the US, the UK and Spain have problems I still think there are things that people in Latvia can do to make their future a bit brighter, and I think it is better to do these things well, rather than badly.

I often have trouble explaining to some Western friends what the difference is—I talk about corruption or fiscal insanity or political filth, and they naturally think of the same in their countries. It’s hard to convince somebody how rotten Latvia is when Illinois has given the world Rod Blagojevich, for example. No matter how dirty things get and despite occasional spectacular failures, the US continues to function, though—you believe you should get a fair trial, you believe you can change (“change we can believe in,” la la) and despite the inertia of being a gigantic empire drugged out on an unsustainable way of life it pronounces sacred, the political system tends to work much of the time. When it doesn’t, you feel wronged. Not a few people were shocked by Blagojevich’s gall, for instance. Do you think many would be shocked in Latvia? We weren’t shocked by Tiesāšanās kā ķēķis—judges didn’t even restrain their fury at having their ethics questioned.

As to relative poverty—yes, there’s poverty in the US, but schoolteachers working overtime are generally not eking out an existence at the cusp of sustenance level, for example. Retired professors aren’t trying to make ends meet with pensions of couple of hundred dollars a month. Even virulently anti-socialist America has a graduated income tax. I doubt if any US state has a 21% sales tax on food.

With all these lessons to be learned from past mistakes we should all look forward to a better life, here and in Latvia. It’s just a matter of when?

That’s what people were told, and that’s why I think the succinct comment about being “forced to replace a failed ideology with a failing one” hits the nail on the head. People with a common sense understanding that you cannot base an entire economy on nothing—“service”—were told to shut up. Our (many) governments had some clear principles now and then, like “agriculture will not be a priority.” A lot of this is/was shared by our Central/Eastern European neighbors and isn’t specifically Latvian to be sure, but our malaise is also our own.

Inguna Sudraba, the Auditor General (one of the few officials in this country who is respected) recently observed that “Latvians have no common goal and no pride in their country.”

That is not entirely true, and I endorse Laila Pakalniņa’s response to the “please occupy us” petition (she also has an incisive article on the Government’s fresh determination to destroy Latvian culture)—but it is true of the apathetic and/or nihilistic majority.

There’s no real need to throw Molotov cocktails at cops, if there ever is—we had the chance to vote to give ourselves the power to get rid of the gang, on August 2nd, and only 40,16% of the voters turned out—as Delfi just put it in their summary of the year, “apliecinot, ka lielākā daļa tautas ir mierā ar pastāvošo iekārtu.”

How things will look when the crisis really sets in, in the spring—we shall see. But I suspect that the coalition will actually get stronger, inviting the “moderate” “Russian party” in.

Vysu lobu,
/P

The comment on replacing a failed ideology with a failing one is right on target. For more on this, see
http://californiawriter.blogspot.com/2008/12/larry-summers-is-whats-wrong-with.html

It is a great irony of history: the Marxist-Leninist system collapsed, and that brought down the entire Soviet Empire, satellites and all, and even those countries with an anti-Soviet Communist regime (Yugo & Albania). leaving essentially a China that had officially abandoned Marxist economics and South Korea, which is a total basket case with nukes, maybe. And just at the same time, the West, with the US as usual leading the way, had gone back to the economics of Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. (Parhaps that’s not quite just to Sumner, who at least opposed the war with Spain and the American occupation of the Philippines, and would surely have opposed the current megablunder in Iraq). To the folks just crawling out from under the rubble of a half century or four score years (depending on where they were) of the Soviet pseudo-economy, this triumphalist neoliberalism presented itself as the only alternative to the horror show in which they had been living. So they found themselves sucked into an economy of global predation. Many of them wanted to become once again normal European nations, just as the lucky European nations (those never in the Soviet orbit) were adopting a doctrine that could be nothing other than ruinous to those who wanted to join them.

If the snollygosters who now hold most public offices in Latvia could be replaced by responsible pols, there would still be the enormous task of constructing a doctrine that provided worthy goals and reasonable hope. The Russophiles are not all wrong in their diagnosis, although the treatment they recommend is fatal to patients. The West currently has no answers. Where can we turn? Is anyone in LV thinking outside the box?

Stephen

“Ar kaujas saucieniem uz lūpām…”

Štokijs, the trade unions, and numerous NGOs have called for a demonstration to demand the dissolution of Parliament on January 13th—in Dom Square and not at the Iron Bridge…

(January 13th was the beginning of the 1905 Revolution in the Baltic provinces. The actual events on that day, when troops fired on protesting workers by the Daugava—after a soldier had been shot—have most often been thoroughly distorted by competing myths, as with so much of our history. Akuraters’ poem promising revenge and the murder of the Czar, “With battle cries upon our lips”—also a well-known song—was composed in the immediate aftermath of the bloodbath.)

Vysu lobu,
/P

Aicinājums Latvijas tautai.

/P

Here are Daudze’s quite predictable gurglings on the evils of this coming Tuesday—stability über alles!

The comments include this list of what this coalition’s stability has wrought:

Koalīcijas (TP;LPP/LC;ZZS;TB/LNNK) darbības rezultāti (sausais atlikums):

1.lielākā gada inflācija Eiropas Savienībā - 2007-2008.g.
2. zemākās algas Eiropā
3. pensijas zem iztikas minimuma - līdz šodienai
4. milzīgas algas valsts institūcijās un uzņēmumos savējiem - (silti, vai ne?)
5. no Latvijas uz ārvalstīm bēgošie iedzīvotāji
6. negodīgu parlamenta vēlēšanu organizēšana finansējot it kā no “trešām personām” (Tautas partija, 2006.g.)
7. prezidenta -“pateicību” aplokšņu saņēmēja izraudzīšana zoodārzā un tā apstiprināšana negodīgi ievēlētā parlamentā (2007.g.)
8. dzimumlocekļa imitējošā žesta demonstrēšana tautai no parlamentam piederošās ēkas (loga) prezidenta vēlēšanu dienā, ko veica “Tautas partijas” vadošais deputāts (2007.g.)
9. kopīgi biznesa projekti ar KGB virsniekiem (hokejs, gāzes stacija) – 2006-2008.g.
10. atteikšanās no tiesībām uz 2 % valsts teritorijas (2007.g.) pretī nesaņemot neko pirms tam izmainot Konstitucionālās tiesas sastāvu (Satversmes tiesu)
11. mēginājumi politizēt valsts drošības institūciju kontroli -2006-2007.g.
12.naudas atmazgāšanas likuma pieņemšana (MUTATIS MUTANDIS) – 2008.g.
13.korumpētie tiesneši,
14.dzivokļu izdalīsana savējiem (Mottes lieta)
15. reģionu finansēšana pēc partejiskās piederības - (atkal savējiem)
16.nulles deklarācijas neieviešana
17.progresīvā nodokļa neieviešana
18.dividenžu neaplikšana ar nodokļiem, tai skaitā algu izmaksāšana ar dividendēm (SIA)
19.spekulatīvo darījumu ar nekustamo īpašumu neaplikšana ar nodokli
20. cenzūras ieviešana pat pārkāpjot Konstitūciju (horizontālo taimkodu bojājumi)
21. prihvatizācijas process
22. personas, kas apsūdzēta smagos kriminālnoziegumos (Lembergs) nominēšana premjerministra amatam (ZZS). – 2006-2007.g.
23.deputātu uzpirkšana, lai amatā ievēlētu lielāko kretīnu –
Kurš no viņiem lielāks kretīns? Amatā jāliek LIELĀKO KRETĪNU!
JŪRMALGEITA – PAŅĒMA…UN UZMETA (krievu valodā).
24. Demokrātijas apkarošana aicinot nepiedalīties likumīgos valsts organizētos referendumos no valsts augstākajām amatpersonām (parlamenta vadītājs, premjers).
25. Demokrātijas apkarošana samazinot referenduma potenciālo dalībnieku skaitu pielietojot varas resursus:
26. Latvija ir pēdējā vietā Eiropas Savienībā pēc iedzīvotāju veselības stāvokļa parametriem.
27. Amnestijas likuma virzīšana, lai glābtu no cietuma vēl nenotiesātos par kukuļošanu, krāpšanu, dienesta pilnvaru pārsniegšanu, nodokļu nemaksāšanu (2008.g.).
28. Valsts un pašvaldības naudas pārspīlētā novirzīšana vienai privātbankai (Parex) līdz pat 2009.g.
29. Valsts tēla graušana (Nothing special, Bloomberg TV) – 2008.g.
30. Sausais atlikums: valsts novešana līdz maksātnespējai (2008.g.nov.-2009.g.marts)
31. Kredītu ņemšana bez plāna kā tos atdot, pat bez plāna kā tos izmantot. Kredītu apjoms: 7,5 mlrd EUR, kas ir viena gada budžets (2008.decembris).
32. Algu neizmaksāšana pilnā apmērā un izmaksu aizkavēšanās valsts pārvaldes institūcijās (2009.g. janvāris)

It’d be so nice to huddle together in adversity, emulating Godmanis’ penguins—but the unity our leaders are calling for is a crock. There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that this coalition—whether it changes the faces in the Cabinet or not—is suddenly going to act in the interests of this nation. I’ll take half a year’s vacuum over two more years of misrule any day—years this gang could doubtless use to fortify its stability.

I realize that Štokenbergs’ party is seeking publicity and, ultimately, power—that’s what all politicians do… that’s what they’re supposed to do, and dissing them as in “oh, they just want to be in power instead” is inane. I’m disappointed that SCP is organizing this and that Štokijs is often at the fore—they could have worked out a common strategy with PS, at least. Even so, numerous NGOs are participating and many individuals are treating it as a demonstration that transcends party politics.

Here is an online petition asking the President to dissolve Parliament.  

Vysu lobu,
/P

PC or anyone else -
Can you comment on http://www.domkalve.info ?  Who/what is it?

Paldies,
V.

Sorry, V.—dunno.

Here is a little twist on tomorrow’s demonstration (which I’ll hopefully not be too ill to attend)—

“Policisti gatavojas izteikt neuzticību Saeimai.”

Demonstrating amongst the others, the police will also help keep order—important considering the rumors of possible violence, which seem suspiciously like a sleazy neo-Soviet attempt to scare people away and discredit the growing opposition movement.

20 000 people are now expected—perhaps more, since the “moderate” “Russian party” just changed its mind and joined in. That is too many for Dom Square, and I wish they’d move it to the riverside (more appropriate for the 13th January echoes anyhow).

/P