For Peteris, who seems to love purple: http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=_tjnokXW-hQ&feature=related

You and I speak Latvian at home everyday and we speak a foreign language on the streets.

Nope. I speak Latvian in the streets, too, mostly. When not, it is not a “foreign” language but Russian, the language that has been the principal language in my city since it became a city. And after twenty years I can still barely speak it, which means that it is not much demanded of me. But that is my problem, not the problem of the residents of this city, most of whom never, ever spoke Latvian, not even before your beloved occupation.

/P

Peteris, the braveheart,

Why are you so quickly deleting your brilliant “free speech” postings ?

Ady, dearest, I didn’t delete anything. Forumadmin apparently did. Which sort of defeats some people’s ideas of there being untouchable illuminati here, eh?

/P

Oh, sorry. My screen capture software was not then activated, in order to catch your immortal evergreen. Bad luck.

Anita,
Not only is Anna Zigure “awesome” but so is her husband, Jukka Rislakki, author of THE CASE FOR LATVIA.  It was not exactly a book that got your enthusiastic 5 when I first recommended it.  Both Anna and Jukka make “balanced” cases for Latvia and inform the David Greene’s of the journalism world that there’s so much more to Latvians than “immigrant” Russians and so many better adjectives for Latvia than “tiny.”  Too bad you don’t pay attention.  The inconvenient truth is that too many Latvians are too tolerant - pathologicically - because they make unnecessary victims of themselves.  I don’t berate them to be even greater victims to accommodate the needs of “the Russian minority” but to stop being victims.  That’s love, honey, and not gratuitous “n”-word name-calling.

I don’t berate them to be even greater victims to accommodate the needs of “the Russian minority”...

Ungrammatical tenor aside, I will go back to what I said in the other thread. I am very sorry, Ambi, but minorities have rights. In fact, the Republic of Latvia was built upon that concept. All of the Baltic states were—in the case of Lithuania, the international community so-called even interfered rather egregiously before admitting the country to the League of Nations. Finland, by the way, is officially bilingual. You are trying to change the terms. If you can explain why and how, please do—but all I see is extreme, irrational and fascistic chauvinism that is contrary to the spirit and letter of the Republic of 18 November 1918.

If you think Latvia gets more Western by cultivating throwback 30s operetta fascism—I don’t think so, no. It’s at least as Soviet as anything any Russkie could pull, and usually more so.

As to accommodating needs—um, don’t you think this pass we have come to might rather reflect the failure to do that?

/P

ambersun - 25 August 2010 08:28 AM

Vidas,
It is you who seems to not understand what Prof AE has written.  After your shallow reading, you have erroneously concluded that “Some of his points seem to conflict rather directly with yours.”  They do not. Let me refer you to his website again http://web.me.com/ezergail/A._Ezergailis_on_Holocaust and in particular to http://web.me.com/ezergail/A._Ezergailis_on_Holocaust/from_Nazi_Soviet_disinf..html.

What does this have to do with your inability to address the posts of Mr LL, Bruno and sweet sweet Jazeps ? Like I posted before - do you feel your silence in the face of their “opinions” is tacit support or not ? Don’t freak out at me because you’re having a hard time posting while trying to hold the door that pushes forth a cascade of unpleasant skeletons.

And what about this section of Ezergailis’ website Ambersun ?

“Unfortunately - predictably, no doubt - Ezergailis has been attacked from the ethno-fringes, not just the book but the man.  One broadside comes from the ultra-nationalist Latvian right, largely found in the ranks of emigré communities in North America.  These non-scholarly assaults accuse Ezergailis of being a KGB agent out to heap unjust blame on Latvians for their role in killing or helping to kill Jews.  According to these detractors, Ezergailis has made criminals out of Latvian victims.”

Ambersun, your being a non scholarly spokesmodel for the ethno fringes - can you comment on this ?

I say I have him trumped ! I was proclaimed a communist at 10. A KGB agent at 16 and traitor to Lithuania at 18 when I attempted to visit.

You’re fighting a losing battle ambersun. You’re the dinosaur - not me.

Clean your own house first.

I dunno Ambersun. Maybe I’m making all this too difficult for you to digest… Let’s review.

Prof Ezergailis wrote:

Now, I think that everyone who writes about the Holocaust should fight the Nazi language…It seems that some of the writers have problem to distinguish propaganda from real Nazi intentions.

Ambersun - how do your posts fight the Nazi language ? How do your posts, not links to other peoples works but actual posts, distinguish propaganda from real Nazi intentions ?

Mr LL ? Bruno ? Could you start there please ? I look forward to your addressing their propaganda and intentions.

We can cover your intentions later.

Vidas,
Stop your superficial reading and reading your misunderstandings into what is actually written.  Stop taking a sentence out of context and creating your own meaning around it.

Once more, in Ezergailis’s own words:

” I think that everyone who writes about the Holocaust should fight the Nazi language. That task has not been accomplished for Eastern Europe. Stahlecker reports were secret documents and therefore in content and meaning they were different than the propaganda. It seems that some of the writers have problem to distinguish propaganda from real Nazi intentions. The word voluntary was one the words with which they were fishing for fools. My review of Weiss-Wendt’s book was expressly anti-Nazi. If some of the readers did not see it you have problem. My position about the Kaunas massacre is that it was street theater, a dramatic production staged by Stahlecker.  There is an overwhelming mass of evidence for it. The Western historians present it as a spontaneous uprising of the Lithuanian people. I don’t see what is disagreeable about unmasking the truth?  It was certainly worse for Nazis to stage the event. To argue that my presentation is morally suspect, as did Weiss-Wendt and somebody else is just silly, unbecoming a historian.
Please consult my web page, there is much more http://web.me.com/ezergail”

(bold mine)

But have you figured out Mr LL’s politics yet?

/P

Peteris,
I can only wonder what motivates you - we know you’re passive/aggressive about grammar mistakes as you perceive them from your self-appointed language police perch but either be consistent in the corrections, including your own and the pets, or just lay off.  Everyone knows that you will never correct Mikus, even if the Vidiot begs you to, as you won’t the others of the cabal but watch out courlander. 

My problem with your “mistakes” is on a higher level, the problem of communicating clearly and truthfully, with or without grammar issues.  Without bringing up past issues I’ve already addressed with your method of conveying selective information and selectively conveying, let’s just deal the most recent “mistake,” your latest gem of deception.  You are a professional translator and not stupid and that makes you very dangerous when you choose to play stupid with words and meanings as in the following:  “Finland, by the way, is officially bilingual.”  First, you must be losing your edge in that heat but we’ve been there, so drop the “by the way” since not only did you “by the way” us before on Findland, but I thought that I and Jukka Rislakki (had you ever bothered to read the Finn on his “bilingual” Finland) had discredited that stupid “bilingual” example and discarded that stupid argument used by Russians in Latvia (and Aleks here on LOL). 

You can turn to page 58 of THE CASE FOR LATVIA (google books http://books.google.com/books?id=f6bDXmbPRAEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+case+for+Latvia&source=bl&ots=bXPVOW1nrh&sig=_5ZgvJ-q3zHwi_TW2nYgQT7yf0w&hl=en&ei=OIl2TIGjIcK78gbHiIHiBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f;=false) and read from a Finn, Jukka Rislakki, all about “official bilingualism” in Finland.  And, Peteris, just cut the misinformation crap with your facility with “language.”

It’s not Mr LL’s politics that need to be figured out since they are quite clear but rather yours since why would you bring up that “disinformation” about Finland.  Do you think that Anna Zigure, former Latvian diplomat in Finland and wife of Jukka Rislakki, would ever throw out a statement like that?

I thought that I and Jukka Rislakki (had you ever bothered to read the Finn on his “bilingual” Finland) had discredited that stupid “bilingual” example and discarded that stupid argument used by Russians in Latvia (and Aleks here on LOL).

Put up or shut up, amberdawg. Please cut and paste any passage of anything I have ever written where I advocate the Finland’s bilingual example…. Otherwise, you, madame President are just nothing but a lady full of hot air….

Constructive dialogues have long since departed this forum and destructive monologues I can do without, but Ambersun’s need to elude answering tough questions by deluding herself and others is really bugging me. It must the cabal’s influence. It obviously can’t be a flaw in her reasoning.

On 9/11 I expect David Greene to write for NPR and The New York Times his “balanced” article about the “struggles” of “the minority Muslims” in the US.”

On 9/11 that’s exactly what I would expect. Most sane people in a democratic society would expect the same. Pick up a major newspaper any where right now and I am sure you will find stories about the plans for the mosque at ground zero. Some are pro. Some are con. Some indifferent, but almost all at least pay lip service to balance and an attempt to present a complete picture.
Your need to massage the message (something you continually accuse anyone who disagrees with you of doing) is far too transparent. You (since you accuse others of this) are about as Marxist as any poster I’ve ever seen on the internet. Ever.

Andrejs, baddist scurvy cabalist

Fixed italics.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129333023&ft=1&f=1004
I have read it.

Sergei Zavyalov, 26-year-old
To become a citizen, he would have to pass a language exam. He said he’s never had much interest and is determined to leave Estonia — in part, he says, because Estonians still treat him as if he were an “occupier” of their country. As he put it, “We don’t feel much love toward each other.”

Rosa Ivanova, 68-year-old
“I tried to pass the exam,” she said. “I studied, but every time, I didn’t have enough points. It is a humiliating procedure.” Finally, two years ago, she said, the government pressured the city to fire her as headmistress. She agreed to take a 30 percent pay cut and a demotion. Her pension is the only thing keeping her here.”If I were 20 years younger, I would leave at once,” she said. “Believe me. I would leave for my Russia.”

So that? What’s so tragical here? May I dare to ask why the young possible smuggler (or, successful Canadian lawyer, alternatively), and the old lady/comrade deserve to be Estonian citizens?

Here below are some excerpts from an old INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (The Hague) judgement:

Naturalization is not a matter to be taken lightly. To seek and to obtain it is not something that happens frequently in the life of a human being. It involves his breaking of a bond of allegiance and his establishment of a new bond of allegiance. It may have farreaching consequences and involve profound changes in the destiny of the individual who obtains it. It concerns him personally, and to consider it only from the point of view of its repercussions with regard to his property would be to misunderstand its profound significance. In order to appraise its international effect, it is impossible to disregard the circumstances in which it was conferred, the serious character which attaches to it, the real and effective, and not merely the verbal preference of the individual seeking it for the country which grants it to him.

At the time of his naturalization does [...] appear to have been more closely attached by his tradition, his establishment, his interests, his activities, his family ties, his intentions for the near future to [...] than to any other State ?

The essential facts appear with sufficient clarity from the record.

Indeed.