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.  

Full or 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/ or to this bloggers main site at http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/ 

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”.
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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/  

Full or partial entries of my blogs may be found at Latvians Online + 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/  or to this bloggers main site at http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/  


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
6 The Importance of The-Not-Vote (Cont.)


Even as Mick Hume wrote his pre-election blog essay "The abstentionist elephant in the room"  at “Spiked”, a site about English politics, Latvian politics (elitely handled by government and Latvian media hacks) waddles (a sort of balancing act) toward October 2, the election day on which Latvian voters are supposed to discharge their pent up rage against a corrupt government in a NO CHOICE orgasm on the behalf of a dysfunctional government.


That the government has well earned the contempt of the public for its corruption and inability to carry through a reform of itself (the so-called ‘structural reforms’) is a fact. It was worse than a sad day though when the Latvian media became anti-populist in its political orientation. Such an orientation is best illustrated by the endless flow of anti-populist references embedded in off-hand negative references to “populism”. Such an orientation is also observable in the media shows known as “What Is Happening in Latvia?” (Kas notiek Latvijā?), where Mr. Domburs, the host of the show—now seemingly for an eternity—interviews government officials, ministers, party officials, NGO chairpersons, and an assortment of “politologues” about everything under the sun, but what is happening in Latvia.


One such elitely irrelevant “Mr. Domburs Show” (as the show ought to be more properly called) occurred last night as the host interrogated a half a dozen economists and bankers on the subject "Whether the economy in Latvia has reached its low point". Those who understand Latvian can judge for themselves the irresolute (vapidly inconclusive chatter) offered, while the catastrophe of unemployment thrust on top of an already dire economic condition known as mass poverty marches on unnoticed by the show.
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What appears to be an illegal intrusion by the Latvian Security Police (Drošības Policija) into a highly respected journalist’s apartment [the intrusion into the apartment of Ilze Nagle, an investigative journalist of the Latvian TV program known as “De Facto”, occurred on the evening the intrusion was approved by a Latvian procurator, but before it was approved by the Court; the Court approved the intrusion post-fact, that is, the following morning] is being followed by Juris Kaža at his blog site, re here. I suspect that Mr. Kaža will have lots more to write on the subject.
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I invite the readers’ special attention to the interview with Seymore Hersh at "Other Readings" link below.
..........................................................
For blogs on the subject of THE-NOT-VOTER, please see blogs below. The links below are worth viewing or reading.


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
One country, two systems
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8667871.stm
Bill Moyers last interview. The Populist Moment
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch2.html
Why Kennedy was assassinated?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lewrockwell-show/2010/05/13/150-why-was-jfk-murdered/
What is a nice Latvian boy like you doing in Afghanistan?
New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh on what’s happening in Afghanistan.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-troops-executing-prisoners-in-afghanistan-journalist-says.html


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/  

We suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs as an integral part of our argument.


THE-NOT-VOTER
5 Reneging On Democracy

If of 1000 eligible voters, 500 vote (for whatever party), but 500 do not vote, then 50% of eligible voters have expressed—as the laws stand now—a disinterest in the state. As long as the voter is not formally identified by an electronic mark on h-h (his-her) ID papers, the 500 not-voters are anonymous and are collectively referred to as nonvoters. More accurately, they are abstentionists or even better—not-voters.

If the 500 nonvoters did not vote because the government in their opinion is so corrupt that in the name of good government h-h have no choice but to not-vote, their just reasons stands to be unjustly accused of disinterest in the state and government—because there is no mechanism that allows h-h to cast a not-vote. THIS IS WHY IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT WE SEE THE INSTITUTION OF A NOT-VOTE.

If the not-vote is formally recognized as a legitimate vote (and why should it not be?), then of the 1000 eligible voters, 500 will have voted for the government, but 500 will have cast not-votes for the government. Therefore, the result will be hung elections and 2nd elections will need to take place. Because a 100% accuracy of 500 vs 500 votes is unlikely, lawmakers and statisticians can work out the percentage of “error” that is allowed and will allow the elections to stand. Of course, those of the 1000 who did not vote and chose to remain nonvoters, risk a penalty. For example, a life-time 4x not-vote will cause one automatically to lose citizenship, which will effect, say, whether one is or is not eligible for a pension and certain expensive health care.

Given that we live in the IT age, and statistics has replaced the absolutism of a simplistic ON vs OFF and YES vs NO vote—an instrument which makes the Constitution an absolutist document—the time has come to institute a NOT-VOTE. The Latvians (the country of my birth) and the world at large are certainly in a great need of it.

How is a not-vote to be instituted in a state and nation (actually all modern states and nations), where the Constitution allows for no replacement of itself? This is a problem that must be solved. Because why would one not want to change or rework the Constitution that has outgrown its usefulness or its usefulness has been compromised by its capture by an autocratic power?

As stated earlier, the IT age makes it possible for this difficulty to be resolved. If you have a voter’s card imbedded in your mobile phone or home computer, your ID, besides for being a pro-vote, nonvote, and not-vote would also register the voting public’s instant reaction on a visual graph to all questions of importance to the society as a whole. If the percentage registered a 70-80% unity on a question, the issue would be automatically put to a formal referendum (in effect a seconding) that would then be put to a formal vote 3 or 4 months later.

The problem in Latvia is how to enable a disabled Constitution. The disabling of the Latvian Constitution has been brought about by an insufficient accounting for the nature of home sapiens and a stretch too far for the ideal that not always corresponds to the situation at hand. At the present time there is no law that allows the voters to unseat the government in toto, elect an authoritarian power for an interim period (which ought to include a thorough review of the Constitution), and then return to direct elections again. We all know that it is possible to legislate for adjustments, rather than go straight toward an abstraction called “progress”, the result of which may be a great success, but also a great disaster.

The only way that this blogger sees how such a Constitutional change may be brought about with mental rather than physical exercise is by way of the NOT-VOTE. Absent its institutionalization, the not-vote has to find itself by doing it, not-voting. The percentage of not-voters ought to ring bells. Today the bells would “ring”, as they used to say in the old days, “the phone off the hook.”

By letting the people know and understand that a not-vote, if organized, is effective political action, a not-violent act, the voters may, for a period (perhaps the seven years foreseen by the Weimar Constitution) empower an authoritarian government. It would be followed by a government subject to popular vote for a seven year term 3x perhaps. Then the Latvian uncle Kārlis Ulmanis would again look over the nation’s shoulders and offer some advice.

THIS IS WHY IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT THERE BE A NOT-VOTE.

………………………………………….
The snubbing by the Saeima of Dainis Īvāns—one of the spirits of Tautas Fronte (The People’s Front), the mover and shaker of “The Singing Revolution” two decades ago—as one to address the Latvian Saeima on the 4th of May was a telling act. The 4th of May is the date when Latvia formally declared the renewal of its independence from the Soviet Union. It has not gone unnoticed that by its act Saeima told the people that Īvāns represents few it knows or it cares what they think about Latvia’s future. It knows better.
This audacious snub occurs at a time of profound crisis, one that involves the economy, finance, jobs, a roof over the head, bread on the table, and not least education. Perhaps as many as 200,000 have left Latvia for what seems a better existence, a job, almost any job. Latvians are the optimists of Europe, because if Europe betrays them by failing to find the authority to unite Europe and help Latvia write a new Constitution, there will not be Latvians long left except as residents of any administrative district.

Things have arrived to this nub because of, for one, the atrocious IMF rules. Such once were known as “bulls”, divinely inspired directives that overrode any other way or constitution, democracy including. Of course the Saeima is doing all that it is doing as a saint, except a not-vote will let it know that the people dispute its self-ratings. In short, it is time for parliamentary democracy to be replaced by direct democracy. But it can only be instituted through the intervention of an authoritarian government.

With a Parliamentary system of government and a largely disempowered president at its helm (the Weimar Constitution acting as inspiration to the concoction), the cores of parties under control of oligarchs and corporations with rights of individuals, the partidocracy sees the world through eyes all its own. Latvia as a community limps forward under the charisma of irresolution come by a severe infection with Conspicuous Consumption, even as it leaves 250,000 of its 2.3 million inhabitants sans citizenship.

Yes, I understand the problem brought by demographic death spiral to a language and a community worth its name. However, a refusal to look the problem in the eye does not make it better. A government that sulks is hurting all of the inhabitants of the country. How does a voter discomfit a government enough to get it moving? This is where the “not-voting” citizen comes in.

Twice the political system has reached a point where it has put the state of Latvia in a flower pot. The excuse the first time around was that the authoritarian rule of Karlis Ulmanis was ended prematurely (the Weimar Constitution allows the President seven years in office) by the infamous Hitler-Ribentrop pact. Though officially such a seven year Presidency is not something that is part of the Latvian Constitution, its association with the Weimar Constitution gives Kārlis Ulmanis a legitimacy by an undertow of associations.

However, what is the legitimacy of the Saeima twenty years into the renewed republic of Latvia worth, when the forces that enabled its re-emergence from Soviet occupation are become of nuisance value to it? The populist spirit behind the People’s Front no longer interests the Saeima. In fact, it is obvious that it is rather in the way.

If most of the people who are not-voters at this time by way of opinions expressed, perhaps their breath will be better spent on a march to Riga to express NOT-VOTER sentiments. Such an event could reawaken the populist spirit that wants a vision of economic development that points not toward yesterday, but takes into account the likely circumstances of tomorrow and acts.

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
One country, two systems
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8667871.stm
Bill Moyers last interview. The Populist Moment
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch2.html
Eso's Chronicles, the beginnings of my blogs
http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/

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/  

We suggest you look at the links imbedded in these blogs as an integral part of our argument.


THE-NOT-VOTER
4 Democracy Unleashed

A disunited leadership almost always steps into a ditch instead of finding a path across what seem insurmountable mountains. Once the leaders fall into the ditch, the natives spear them and have a cookout. Indeed, this is what justice looks like; unfortunately, it leaves the people who followed the leaders at a loss of what to do next.

In the mind of this blogger, the situation of Latvians under the present leadership has them marching under the banner of “Salvation is just around the corner!” However, the first corner they came to turned to the right, but it did not turn out to be the right right turn. So, they turned left, but discovered that a left turn from a right turn still leaves them on the right side of the center, which is why they turned left again, which took them back to the center.

So, should the Latvian leadership move left once more to be sure that they are in fact where they began? The Latvian PM  recently confirmed that Latvians were now indeed where they began twenty years ago.

The latter is the direction taken by the political party known as “The Tuned Center Party”, re Saskaņas Centrs. Having first taken a right turn—something that all Latvian political parties did when they broke loose from the very left Soviet Union—the party, feeling that it was different for all that, turned left. This still left it a left-right party. So they took another left. This put them in a neutral-center position, which is where they started from. So they have now taken further steps to the left. Which makes everyone ask: So, just where is it that “The Tuned Center-Left Party” is really at?

To answer the question, we must first find out why the party, now back where it started from, is tilting center-left.

For one, “The Tuned Center Party” has promised that given the financial and economic crisis caused by the right wing parties through excessive borrowing (which process allowed them to briefly feel they were on the road of perpetual wealth), it would not reduce the pensioners’ pensions come what may. This declaration leaves one to imagine that the party will reduce child support instead. A Latvian mother with four children who now receives Ls 32 ($64) total monthly support may receive even less and, thus, accelerate the demographic death spiral of Latvia’s population, while the pensioners or elderly will perhaps not freeze in the winter and live a little longer.

Such political positioning leaves “The Tuned Center-Left Party” now technically to the center-left and hoping to receive a majority of pensioner’s votes.

Meanwhile, the center-right parties have confirmed that they are not only looking Westward, but may renege (in a move that is implicitly oppositionary to the West) on the IMF (International Monetary Fund) loan. To put it in plain English: “Shkehle and Shlesers [literally “Slice” and “Turnkey”, the first a former PM, the latter Vicemayor of Riga] are convinced that for the sake of economic development of Latvia it is essential to attract investors, and to better utilize the aid from the European Union Fund [lit. transl.; ?European Central Bank? (ECB)]. The goal according the two leaders should be to earn (money) and not cut the budget.” Blogger’s translation. Technically speaking, this ought to get these two “business” candidates the vote of everyone who does not wish to see the budget cut for health, retirement, childcare, etc.

Recently this blogger received an email from “Embassy in USA” (Latvian Embassy; with an email rather than a website address imbedded). It sends the following with regard to the upcoming elections: “Good day! With regard to the election of the 10th Saeima, it will be appreciated if [citizens] will recommend to [to their respective Latvian] organizations (?) an “October 2” working group [whose goal it will be?] reaching the maximum participation of citizens in the elections of the 10th Saeima and, if possible, to declare [citizen] readiness to participate, within time constraints, in said group”. Blogger’s translation; see original at * asterisk below.

The letter is politically neutral. However, there is at least one important reason for abstaining from “October 2”.

“October 2” will not include not-voters, that is to say, it will not include people who would like to vote but will not vote because there are no Parliamentary parties worth the vote. Not-voters are not nonvoters. Not-voters are voters with no one to vote for. They are smart enough to figure out what the above mentioned “Slice” and “Turnkey” and “The Tuned Center Party” are saying or not saying, and that they are likely to do the same as they did before: when in office ignore the voters.

“October 2” does is (or soon will be) a pro-parliamentary government group that excludes not-voters, citizens who will not-vote for parliamentary government on the sacred principle that there is never a government system, whether it is all-pro-democratic or not, because to every movement to the right (and a one-of-a-kind government is such), there is also a movement in the opposite direction. Of course, it is unlikely that not-voters will always be 50:50 with pro-voters, or 33:66 with pro-voters and nonvoters as 2nd and 3rd parties. The percentage of not-voters will swing from a minority to a majority with the performance of the government, i.e., how much care the government has taken to be egalitarian on the egalitarian or populist side of the parliamentary system.

If in some places of the world a minority of 2% of a nation’s inhabitants own 50% or more of the nation’s resources and wealth, then not-voters are likely to be 98%, with pro-voters only 2%. However, in the voting system of today, which includes activists in “October 2”, egalitarianism has a built-in swing in favor of the “princely” parliamentarians who form the establishment at least since the Magna Carta in England. Revolutionary at its time, the parliamentary system has essentially imitated the democracy established by the Magna Carta and leaves it to the elites. If today’s elites are no longer “princes”, they are oligarchs and corporations-with-the-rights-of-individuals that oligarchs own. Such a built-in millennia long prejudice automatically excludes “heretics”, “pagans”, and now also “Christians”. [See comments of former Latvian FM and member of Saeima Janis Jurkans on religion in Latvia here or at asterisk ** below.]

Parliamentary democracy in Latvia does not allow a direct democracy, that is, a government elected by the electors directly. It disallows the state a governmental infrastructure that differs from a parliamentary system. Moreover, the present Constitution makes itself a dictatorship and provides no tools with which to replace it with a direct democracy or any other governmental infrastructure, say, one where a government elected by direct elections for twenty years is followed by five years of an authoritarian government. The last would come into being to set things of the previous twenty years aright or fine-tune them.

This blogger believes that it is time we begin to imagine that we live in times that end parliamentary government and transit to a government elected by the voters directly. This is a good time to switch the gears and excit a corrupt parliamentary government for an authoritarian government for, say, the next five years. The authoritarian government would be responsible for calling together a Constitutional Convention.

The circumstances that encourage voters to do original research are rife. The people are near 98% not-voters (in this bloggers opinion)—whatever the “October 2” group may think. In short, “October 2” will not unleash an epic pro-voter surge as establishmentarians think, but are likely to soon become self-conscious of being an exclusionary group.

Asterisks & Other
* “Labdien! 10. Saeimas vēlēšanas sakarā, ir vēlams savā tuvākajā centrā nekavējoties ieteikt organizācijām kopīgi attīstīt ārkārtēju "2. oktobra" darba grupu ar mērķi sasniegt maksimālo apkārtnes pilsoņu līdzdalību 10. Saeimas vēlēšanās un, ja iespējams, brīvprātīgi pieteikt savu gatavību līdzdarboties darba grupā iespēju robežās.”
** - Jūs taču piederat pie Pujata baznīcas. - Es piederēju,.. bet vairs nepiederu un negribu piederēt. Šlesers ir nopircis gan baznīcu, gan pujatus. Baznīca tautai ir nozagta, tā vairs nav autoritāte, kādai tai vajadzētu būt. Komunistu laikos mācītājus neredzēja sēžam partiju kongresos un slavējam partiju vadoņus. Tagad es dzirdu, ka luterāņu baznīca grib pārdod savus īpašumus, lai samaksātu algu mācītājiem. Man tas šķiet noziedzīgi. Ja kāda draudze nespēj uzturēt baznīcu, tad tā draudzei nav vajadzīga.
Compulsory voting in the EU Parliamentary elections.
Electronicpolls 
Will Latvian IT experts discover how to solve electronic voting fraud?
Just a question. Is your answer Yes, No?
http://www.physorg.com/news191779395.html
Bill Moyers last interview. The Populist Moment
Jurkāns intervija, LA 


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/