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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
17 An Arsenal of Ad Hominems

Ugly “art” is nothing new. After all, this will not be the first time that one has heard that “ugly is beautiful”. There are a number of theories why ugly art came to be and why it has became acceptable.

In-depth explanation of ugly art will demand a book. However, in a blog such as this it is perhaps excusable to occult, caleidescope, and abreviate complex issues by “jumping to conclusions”. Thus, I believe that for the most part, ugly art is related to the so-called Tourette's Syndrome, which through another mirror returns to us as an ad hominem.

Essentially ad hominem or, better, argumentum ad hominem is the logical fallacy of attempting to undermine a speaker's argument by attacking the speaker and not addressing the argument. To those who recognize the failure of logic in ad hominem arguments, the argument amounts to so much churning of air. This is why one attacked by ad hominem arguments is advised not to respond, because to respond means to fall into the trap of illogic, which may lead two or more persons not only into churning the air, but filling the air with vilifications advanced by negative self-exitation. It is a perfect illustration of  "negative freedom"  . Sometimes ad hominem slug fests a la ad hominem lead to blows and injuries.

A most curious ad hominem event occurred last Saturday with the reentry of Guntis Ulmanis, a former President of Latvia, into active political life by joining the party of oligarchs [a joint venture of The People’s (TP) and the First Party of Latvia (LPP)]. The entrenched “felt hats” have joined their forces and formed a new party, the All That’s Good for Latvia Party (VLL). Media sources reported that the public was as shocked by Ulmanis action as the media itself. No one had imagined such a possibility, given the former President’s harsh words against certain high positioned members of said parties.

One does not have to suffer from the Tourettes Syndrome and see and hear it expressed in shouted curses toward everyone who passes one by. The argument here is that Tourettes may manifest itself also as an attack ad hominem. Ad hominem attacks need not take the form of curses, but may projects themselves as ad hominem love strokes. If so, Guntis Ulmanis and his oligarch friends are stroking the public the best they know how. In short, they all are promising All That’s Good for Latvia to Latvians (excluding the Latvian Populists of course) with narry a chance that they will deliver.

Why is this blogger so negative? The reasons are several. Here are a few.

• 1. The oligarchs are not presenting themselves as “oligarchs”. They are presenting themselves as “uzņēmēji”, a Latvian word that straddles the meanings of such words or clusters of words as “enterprising people”, “business enterprises’, manufacturers, industrialists, “providers of jobs”, and above all the literal meaning of the word, i.e., ‘those who take on tasks’. The last is from the Latvian word “uzņemties”, to take on, to take responsibility for.

• 2. None of the oligarchs, and certainly not the former President, have suggested any specific direction Latvia ought to evolve toward in the future. Indeed, there is no vision of the future of Latvia other than a consumer culture and more indulgence of “negative freedom” (the word “negative” is of course never mentioned in oligarch parlance). The only direction that the All That’s Good for Latvia Party has heretofore proposed consists of

 a) deflating the currency (Shkhehle-Šķēle, TP);
 b) enlarging the Riga (RIX) airport (Shlesers, LPP);
 c) aimless economic “growth”; aimlessness (other than personal enrichment) is now as established as the favorite activity of oligarchs.
 d) While Guntis Ulmanis has spent his post-presidency years taking an active part in promoting Latvia’s hockey teams, he has no larger vision of the future than a world full of hockey. Perhaps he plans to back the Dvina-Dnepr River Canal Project, a project that may be compared to the project that built the Suez Canal. However, to realize such a project, one would have to tear down Latvia’s only hydroelectric dam on the Dvina.
 e) Maybe Ulmanis has a plan that will persuade Latvians to tearing down the Kheguma Hydroelectric Dam. It will re-expose Staburags (the Hornpost) that was submerged by the dam’s waters in the Soviet era. It may again be used as a symbol of fortitude. The oligarchs will propose a private nuclear power station to replace the dam, but suggest that the transition from hydro to nuclear be will be hid from the public eye by through the continued use of the name “Khegums”.

• 3. The oligarchs are for economic growth left entirely in their hands, which know no better path forward than the one advocated by American neo-liberals and their European allies, who have brought the world the present financial and economic crisis. Hail! ten years of the Afghan war, more wars on the horizon, more than a hundred years of dumbing down the Middle and Working classes, and raise hope that the future will never end the days of conspicuous consumption or Pop Culture.

It will not have escaped the reader’s attention that an argumentum ad hominem is being used also by this blogger. I present an example of what the Tourettes Syndrome looks like when the above mentioned “love strokes” (the Latvian “paiya” or “glasts”) I try to imitate.

My “love stroke” for the oligarchs leaves no marks of aggression. To the contrary, I wonder if the devaluation now will do what it perhaps could have done at the beginning of our “time of troubles”. I am not convinced that it is not better if left be.

The airport. RIX, in Riga is a wonderful place, especially taking into consideration that in eighty or so years the tectonic shifts of our planet will submerge it and all of Riga. A long-term thinker would have built the airport near Yelgava, which will not be submerged by the dunking to come. After the flooding is over, we may see no more than a few of Riga’s church smiles and the top floors of some hotels. Bauska may start planning now where to build the harbor for leisure boats.

As for the Daugava-Dniepr Canal Project, I would rather reclaim the railroad tracks and replace the old tracks with tracks suitable for carrying a tele-capsule-for-two. If such a modernized version of the railroad were in place today, I would be among its first users, since the Aloja-Riga railroad line is but some 14 km drive from my home, and I am spared driving 35 km to Valmiera to catch a bus. Of course, we leave our car at the junction station, and off to Riga we go. We are transported back home by the same tele-capsule-for-two (private ownership encouraged), but on the opposite rail.

It is not at all unprecedented to claim one’s vision of the future against a vision that does not exist. And it should not surprise you that I encourage you to consider and NOT-TO-VOTE. I wish everyone to NOT-VOTE, because it is only by exercising such methods that the long repressed (dumbed down) citizenry has an opportunity to radically change their community’s socio-ecologic direction, rewrite their Latvian Constitution, the Latvian Satversme, and, yes, become a real community at last.

The next to join the (anti) ad hominem movement will be America. So! Why not be a real Latvian and do it first: I-WILL-NOT-VOTE.

[Next blog, Sex and Johns Eve (2) continued.]


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
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10102126.stm
On the Meaning of Voting
http://www.strike-the-root.com/92/bylund/bylund1.html
British Government Attempts to Bracket the Constitution
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8681624.stml
Ground Zero for Thought
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/146989
Why Forced Positive Thinking Is A Lot Of Crock?
http://www.alternet.org/story/146940/barbara_ehrenreich%3A_why_forced_positive_thinking_is_a_total_crock?page=2  


If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com  or http://the-not-voter.blogspot.com