President Valdis Zatlers of Latvia blames financial failure of Latvia on Latvian children. (in Latvian, alas!) A summary: Apollo news service reports that at an international conference on the subject of “The Education of Latvians in Finance at the Private Level”, the President of Latvia blamed Latvians as a people who are not able to handle money. The Apollo news service gives no hint that the President blamed either the current or previous Latvian governments for Latvia’s financial troubles, but suggested instead that children ought to be taught how to handle money. Link at http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/202975 Further commentary below.  

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The cherry trees and wild cherry (Ieva or Eva's Bloom) are blooming. And so are the populists, the dandilions.


I suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs or at the end of the blog as an integral part of my argument.

THE-NOT-VOTER
7 Save the Children of Latvia
[On the trail of Why “The-Not-Vote”.]

Sometimes someone writes a wonderful essay, says the right things, but when a reader is done, hh (he-her) would like to rewrite it their way. This happened to me recently after I read an insightful essay by Per Bylund “On the Meaning of Voting”. I give the relevant link below at “Asterisks & Other Readings”. What follows is my reset and some additions to Bylund’s arguments.

If one votes because one feels one has the responsibility to vote because hh is a responsible citizen, but at the same time votes not because hh likes any of the candidates, but because one is “a lesser evil”, this choice may be likened to a choice of either shooting one’s self in the foot or the head. Thus, a vote for a lesser evil means that one will shoot one’s self in the foot. An utterly cynical vote is to shoot one’s self in the head.

There is however a third choice: let the bullet fly at a target, the individual who set up the system, or if the individual has since died to let the bullet fly at the system itself. Let is imagine this third choice as a target and call it THE-NOT-VOTE. A shot at THE-NOT-VOTE and hitting it in the bull’s eye (re, getting the majority of voters to “not-vote”) results in loud bells ringing.

The voting systems the world over are at this time on the system, which we call “eager for the lesser evil system”. Nevertheless, we could also call it the “Vetoless voting system”. The system of voting that serves “liberal democracy” is surely a Vetoless voting system. When you vote at any of the voting events of the world today, you vote for liberal democracy as well. In short, you give the “liberal democracy system” the power to veto any other system. If you would rather not vote for liberal system, there is no choice today. You either become a nonvoter or shoot yourself in the foot. Some would call the latter to be practically the same as shooting one’s self in the head.

So, if you wish to take away from the present system its monopoly over violence, you must NOT-VOTE. You must shoot at the target, try to hit the bull’s eye, and set all the bells ringing. It will wake everyone up, and the system will be angrier than hell, but at least the people will have exercised their sovereign right to NOT-VOTE.

A traditional vote cast for the present system is an offensive act on behalf of the present system (yes, support for corruption including). Your vote for the present system allows the police in black masks to push peaceful demonstrators off the bridges at Bauska, Latvia, and the break-ins of the same at a late night hour into a journalist’s apartment to confiscate a personal computer. It allows for an assortment of intrusive acts with no validity if the system were truly a democracy, i.e., one that provided that the outcome of voting results is one of three, not just two choices.

Interestingly, a voting system that serves liberal democracy, the unisystem that rules the West today and will be ruling over it tomorrow (so it is presumed), has set itself up as an enemy of the people. The argument that one hears on the behalf of this system is that it is capitalist, thus oriented toward a self-regulating market economy, which for all its problems remains as Churchill is alleged to have said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947)

Churchill is quoted tirelessly, because his statement seconds the liberal democratic system in its self-regulating ways, and vetoes any defensive action by the people other than a vote for “a lesser evil”. In short, to vote today—whether the vote by on October 2 in Latvia or anywhere else—means, as Per Bylund  has it: “…the solicitation of violent services offering as only payment an anonymous statement of support for an unenforceable advertised political program”.
………………………………………………………..
The President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers, has hit upon a wonderful solution for the financial crisis in Latvia: teach the children how to save money. This is a fine idea, except that President Zatlers is asking the savings from those whose relatives (somewhere around 200,000) have left Latvia to work in other countries and send some of their savings home to support those relatives who have remained in Latvia. Re: Save the Children of Latvia

Asterisks & Other Readings
Compulsory voting in the EU Parliamentary elections
http://www.ceps.eu/files/book/1886.pdf
The abstentionist elephant
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8783/
Electronic polls
On the Meaning of Voting
http://www.strike-the-root.com/92/bylund/bylund1.html
Save the Children of Latvia
http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/202975

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 + Forum Home + Open Forum – The-Not-Voter. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com/