© Eso Antons Benjamins, aka Jaņdžs
THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE
95 The Story of Clever John and Crazy Jane (4)

An old Latvian story retold. For the original see
3.A.327.B.460. A.K. Bramanis Rīgas apg. LP,V,36 (3,1).

The Fourth Leg of the Journey. Having loaded up the wagon with gold, Clever John drove up to the main gate of the castle of King Great Ruler. Over the gate hung a large sign, where large letters spelled “Jersika”, i.e., a Latvian colloquialism for “Jerusalem”. This was the first kingdom of proto-Latvians that anyone has heard of. Six guards rolled their drums to summon the king. King Great Ruler himself came to the gate to greet Clever John. This time the King wore leather boots to his knees. The King’s eyes shone in anticipation.

When King Great Ruler saw the wagon full of gold, he called for his daughter princess Complete Satisfaction even before he greeted Clever John. But the King and Clever John waited in vain. A guard of the Jersika castle came running to say that Complete Satisfaction was delayed. King Great Ruler apologized to John for the inconvenience.

“Since you are Clever John, you surely know how these women are,” said the King. “But do not worry. You will meet her in bed. You will be no worse for the anticipation. Beside, the custom in Jersika is to celebrate the marriage ceremony without the bride present. It is thus that Complete Satisfaction builds up Anticipation for the lihgo she will enjoy with you in bed.”

The wedding ceremony is a great feast. Clever John invites his six brothers to attend. The whole day of the ninth day after “Johns Eve” passes in dancing and tournaments of strength and wit. Clever John’s brothers’ dance with Great Ruler’s other daughters all day long. The daughters appear to the brothers as having been met before, which is why no one is shy. Even the Mother of the Devil and King Great Ruler are seen dancing with each other and their guests.

Who would have ever imagined that bathing seven crickets in the sea would lead to such an awesome ceremony and an all day feast?

At last, evening comes, and it is time for Clever John to go lihgo.

King Great Ruler along with the Mother of the Devil lead Clever John to the bedroom, also known as the Lihgo room. When they come to the door of the room, they give Clever John some last minute advice: “The moment you go inside and by the light of the door see where the bed is, do not wait, but close the door and dive right into the divan. Your prize (the Latvians call it “dahvana”), Complete Satisfaction, is waiting for you. If you hesitate the princess may lose the heat of her desire for you.”

A servant of the King’s court opens the door of the Lihgo room. Clever John sees the divan and dives right into the bed. As the servant closes the door, everything goes pitch black around him.

No sooner is Clever John under the blankets than he begins to feel for the princess. With great anticipation, he feels something soft beside him. He feels the material of a night gown, finds the buttons, and… he feels! he fears! it is straw. Can this be true? “I wasted no time jumping into bed!” shouts Clever John to no one in particular. “You cannot blame me for being late! What the Devi…,” he shouts, but he does not finish the word, because the door of the room suddenly opens and a shaft of light discovers Clever John on all fours on the divan feeling up a straw doll.

Into the Lihgo room come servants with large candelabras of lit candles. Right behind them is Crazy Jane.

As soon as the servants leave and close the door behind them, Crazy Jane wastes no time and says what is on her mind: “What do you take me for, Clever John?” she screams. “Was I not the first woman who you proposed to? Do you really believe that some princess named Complete Satisfaction was here just waiting for you?”

For the first time in his life Clever John is speechless. “But, but…”, he begins, but cannot find other words.

Crazy Jane has been holding in her hands a pair of long leather boots. She throws the boots on the bed. “Put these on,” she commands. Clever John notices that Crazy Jane, too, wears boots.

Clever John does as he is ordered. He pulls on the boots. And the moment that the bottoms of his feet touch the bottoms of the boots, he feels himself seized by a big shake. His skin is transversed by pleasant shivers, and then he is seized by a heat wave that alternates with a cold wave. Crazy Jane has pulled off her night gown and with her boots still on has jumped into the bed and now lies beside Clever John.

From outside each door of the bedroom the chorus of the court of Jersika (Oh Jerusalem!) breaks out in Lihgo songs.

“Lih-go! Lih-go!” (Often the word “Lihgo” is sung as one yodelling in the mountains does it: “Lih-ih-go! Lih-ih-go!”) The voices of King Great Ruler and the Mother of the Devil are heard among the singers.

“Ai, Johnny, son of the Sun,
Lih-ih-go! Lih-ih-go!
Ai Janey, daughter of the Devil,
Lih-ih-go! Lih-ih-go!”

After the chorus is done, the trumpets sound the fanfare fanfare to Clever John and Crazy Jane. It sends shivers through every Latvian who has ever heard or not heard it before.

That is how they once celebrated Johns Eve in Jersika-Jerusalem of proto-Latvia.

This is where the story ends. Clever John and Crazy Jane live to this day in Jersika. It is the Latvian Jerusalem—though today few make the connection between the name Jersika with Jerusalem. One hears that Clever John still has his long boots on, and some people wonder how it is possible for him to keep them on for so long. There is an answer to this mystery, of course.

You see, Clever John and Crazy Jane have never yet climbed out of the bed, and this is why the soles of their boots never are worn down. It is not for nothing why Clever John is also known as the Father of the Dead.

(The end.)

Asterisk & Notes of Interest:
On material depravation in Latvia.
On the theme of “more-equal-than-others” see George Orwell's "Animal Farm".  
A recommended read: “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” by Emmanuel Goldstein (A book within a book from George Orwell's "1984".  
Of interest to me is this (news on the California elections to legalize Johns Grass) and this article (coca politics in Bolivia). The articles express some of my reasons for supporting the growing of Johns Grass in Latvia.
Interesting material relating to Johns;
A recommended site. 

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 –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. 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/

© Eso Antons Benjamins, aka Jaņdžs

THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE 
88 Gridlocked In Latvia (7)

The decomposition of the Latvian people, the 80% or so, who are at or below the poverty line, is continuing apace.

One obvious example of the decomposition are the 150,000 (soon to reach 200,000) Latvians who are now speaking English as a result of emigration from Latvia. 200,000 unemployed are willing standbys for the next emigration airplane.

To learn English as one of Latvia’s official languages to facilitate Latvia’s integration in the European Union, however, does not seem a politically viable proposal—even if it may help save Latvia. The leaders of the Latvian state have found it expedient to turn to jingoism or what I call zionacionalism. Zionationalists (there is more than one party) use neo-Christendom and the Latvian language as two foci for their political campaigns for populist votes. Unfortunately, the zionationalists misuse these populist issues cause negative effects on populists and the nation.

How and what ill affect? By dismissing arch-Christianity to which the forebears of today’s Latvians were born-to. By making public references to “Christianity” (implying that the party understands by it neo-Christianity and all is for it) and dismissing arch-Christianity as an antique by not knowing a thing about whence the Latvian Midsummer ritual known as Johns Eve (and Day).

Politicians impose on Latvia the idea that it is a homogeneity, whereas Latvia is a heteroginy. Heteroginy in Latvia does not begin as Milda Female and Lahchplehsis (Lāčplēsis) Male and this is all yee need to know. It begins in a mindset that wishes to impose on the personality of Latvia a one-piece furniture set. Thus, for example, Johns festival (really a Festival of Johns Children) is encouraged to become by the time it ends a celebration by drunks. Because zionationalists do not acknowledge that their policies encourage the Earth to become unipolar, the Children of Johns Festival becomes at best a day in the fields of grass. That is fine, but Latvia and its people could do better.

Let me therefore get to the theme not too popular among populists thought it ought to be discussed in the media and other public places.

No doubt, if Latvia’s laws were to be written in English, Latvia needs to become a country that has to institute an education system with obligatory courses in three languages, re Latvian, Russian, and English. Given that the time for community rebuilding and reshaping was the time when the Soviet Union fell, a time when most Latvians already spoke Latvian and Russian, one could expect that a third language was unlikely to present a psychological block to students. It was to be expected that since the lingua franca of the Soviet Union was Russian, the new requirement would meet resistance among the Russian speaking population, which had developed psychological blocks against learning another language just as Americans have. The three-language society was unfortunately never publicly discussed; indeed, the rapid rise of zionacionalism encouraged just the reverse: it was obligatory to study Latvian, because the language of government was to be Latvian, even if logic put at risk the future of Latvia.

An expedient political tool for “urrah” (for Latvia!) enthusiasts, zionacionalism escaped rational analysis, perhaps because in the world at large it has certain political overtones that some prefer not touch upon and some use this to their advantage. If we think at it, we as practitioners of zionacionalism potentially face two outcomes, which in a paradoxical sense are one. Let us see.

One of the poles of zionationalism is exemplified by the state of Israel under Zionist leadership, whence the word “zionationalism”. Israel faces a rapid and catastrophic decomposition due to its refusal to become an integrated state. It needs a “victory” by way of a decisive war—if it is to survive with its zionationalist policies intact. This is why its influence over the U.S. government is so important.

Israel’s influence in the U.S., however, is not because of the presence of Jews in the U.S., but because the U.S. needs Israel as an anchor on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea to better effect its foreign policy. The U.S. has invested heavily not only in Israel, but in its own foreign policy aims, as we witness from the deposition of the Iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh  in 1953, to the war in Iraq (now moved to Afghanistan), and the renewed threat of war on Iran, which nation deposed the U.S supported Shah in a surprise revolution known as the Iranian revolution in 1979. A victory by the military forces of the West over those of Iran would likely secure the “victory” that the zionationalists of Israel seek. Given that the interests of Russia and China are to see Iran remain as much as possible an independent state, such a “victory” depends on the successful implementation of Western (the U.S. and NATO countries) foreign policy. The stakes for all interests concerned are high. Israeli zionationalists are betting on a U.S.-NATO victory.

Before we move on, a few words here on “zionationalism”. Though zionationalism, as we shall see, arose concurrently with the "apartheid" system in South Africa by racist whites in 1948, the same word was used to describe the political situation that was created by the Israelis between themselves and Palestinians.

Nevertheless, religious and ethnic apartheid is an Israeli invention, re: Arabs vs Jews, Muslims vs Jews, Palestinians vs Jews, disarmed Arabs vs armed Jews, Evil Muslim WMD possessors vs good Jewish WMD possessors, etc. Though apartheid is clearly exclusionary and makes the excluded the enemy or a potential enemy, and therefore has similarities with the Palestinian vs Jews situation, it does not quite fit the shoe of a Jew. The reason is because Jewishness in modern times evolved with two components, Jews as an ethnic entity and Jews as a religious community. At one time it was that only the religious community mattered.

[As this blogger has argued in previous blogs, the Jews, the Cathars, the Bogomils, the Bosnian Church, the Waldesians, the (proto-Latvian) Children of Johns share the same religious origins in arch-Christianity. In some ways the arch-Christians are the Europeans when Europe was still mostly wooded land. Neo-Christianity, with Catholicism its first institution, arises with the deforestation of Europe and increasing urbanization of the land. The vagrant holy man named John, is burnt (or other) and sent to heaven as Jesus.]

Zionism, drawing on the myth presented by the Bible and arguing that the Jews had their own ethnicity and religion, evolved into an international nationalist political movement that supported the establishment (indeed, “reestablishment’) of a Jewish state, which according to the myth existed in Israel. Israel is purported to have been a country in the geographical area known as Palestine.

The concretization of this myth (by all kinds of sleight of hands) made fiction real and the conquest of the “historical land”—Eretz-Israel—legitimate. Zionationalism pretended to sovereign rights for a certain group of survivors of the branch of arch-Christianity. Of course, by doing so, the Zionists brought upon the Jews (the other denominations of arch-Christianity having been forgot) the latent prejudices persisting in neo-Christianity in real time. The holocaust against the Jews and a near total forgetfulness of arch-Christianity was both the terrible and unfortunate result for heteridoxity.

Interestingly, the Latvians (currently of know-nothing mind) most probably originated in the arch-Christian Church of the Children of Johns. The true extent of this community is the entirety of Europe and beyond. However, one of the specific communities of this arch-Christian sect may be discerned in the 12th and 13th centuries in a kingdom known as Jersika. Jersika was then under the rule of a king named Visvaldis. Not much is known about this community and its geographical outlines are vague.

Be that as it may, out of the proto-Latvian mindset—after those who harbored it were defeated and their King Visvaldis was humiliated (by neo-Christian Bishop Albert of Riga)—there arose a zionationalism peculiar to Latvians.
Asterisk & Notes of Interest:
It is obvious that the mindset among the Latvian political elite at this time is not only gridlocked, but has turned to stone. These blogs are, for one, an attempt to loosen the rusted in screws with some naval jelly. Click here  to discover the meaning of the Overton Window, and here to see what purpose it serves.
On material depravation in Latvia.
On the theme of “more-equal-than-others” George Orwell's Animal Farm".
A recommended read: “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” by Emmanuel Goldstein (A book within a book from George Orwell's "1984".  
Of great interest to me is this and like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the growing of Johns Grass in Latvia.
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 –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/  

© Eso Antons Benjamins, a.k.a. Jaņdžs

NOT-VIOLENT TERROR
67 The Future of The Wuerzeltod (V)

With levitation so capably performed on the deck of their sinking ship, moreover with such surreal earnestness on the faces of the high-end lumpenproletariat preparing itself for next year’s elections, the disconnection from reality may seem only virtual. Nevertheless, it is no fake uprootedness such as nearby treetops may reflect in a pond. After all, all the presidents, current and former, wishing to prove that they are not completely out of touch with reality attended church together and listened to the Lutheran Archbishop transmit a message from high above.

To be uprooted may not be as severe a condition as being Wuertzeltod. This is why hope prevails that the disconnections (neglect of education, health care, desertification of the land by deforestation, etc.) have not yet overwhelmed the body with total paralysis. Perhaps Latvians may yet grow conscious of their condition and attempt to grow new roots.

If being ‘uprooted’ is a curable condition, then sinking new roots is also possible. All the same time, it is no longer a matter of the current government saying so. The government (if not its officialdom) is dead (with some administrative functions, like the cut off tail of a lizard, are still thrashing about). The survival of Latvia as a culture under the umbrage of the current leadership as if guarding the people’s sovereignty is no longer possible. It is now entirely up to the people and the nature of their populist sentiments. Whether there is sufficient charisma left among the ranks to prevent death of the community only the future will tell. One may, however, be skeptical, because while personal tragedies as expressed by an increasing number of suicides are on the rise, none yet express themselves as sacrifices for the community.

It is up to the people—for the first time since the kingdom of Jersika in 1209—if they will remember and then accept their roots in the community of the Children of Johns and allow a rediscovered consciousness to define them as a people again. To prevent a still-birth the people need to remember that their loss—if once it could be stated in terms of loss caused by outsiders—that now it is 1) due to visitations of violence from a virus that has become internalized, and is pretending to be as ‘natural’ a gene as ‘original sin’ once was; 2) this internalization of the ‘bad’ gene is going unrecognized due to upteen ‘positivism’ campaigns, not to mention a shortage of social critics and analysts; and 3) due to a failure to understand that internalized violence can only be purged with a cleansing violence, also known as ‘founding violence’.

No doubt, founding violence is problematic issue. Thinking the problem through with the head is one thing; working it out in real life is another. Thinking with the head will not in and of itself create new roots or if created cause them to take root. A charismatic element is needed. And, indeed, I have been pointing at this need sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, sometimes merely hinting at it since Blog 1. The need has been yeasting for a long time now, and it not only wants, but needs to break open for the sake of the survival of a vital tradition, overcome our disconnectedness from it, and survive as a people. If this does not occur, if the elite are permitted to dismiss populism yet again (they surely did it before 1918, and have been doing it ever since) with campaigns of ‘positivism’, and populist sentiments fail to send them on their way, then good bye Jersika, Baumaņu Kārlis, Rainis, sovereign state of Latvia, the pains and scars of 1941 and 1949, the People’s Front, and all that. As the saying goes, then “lyur, lyur, lyur”, the debt incurred by the government is not toward a better day, but for the bailing out of the Parex Bank and as Latvia’s burial fee.

The readers of “Not-Violent Terror” blogs ought to know that the charismatic element that this writer believes to be necessary is “death”. Of course, I am speaking of a not-violent death. This is why in the previous blog, I mentioned Socrates. Was his death a violent one? My answer is that violence by Socrates is imaginable only if we dare not or forbid ourselves to imagine a self-willed death in the service of the community. There is no charismatic other element sufficiently inspired to root and bond a community than death, i.e., self-sacrificial death. Socrates knew that, and it is not beyond our understanding.

In order to survive as a community Latvians need to rediscover not only not-violent terror, but the reasons for death. Death needs to be put in service of the will to live brought to us not only by Nature, but as the Nature of the nature of our psyche. As Michael Taussig, an anthropologist put it: “…it is useful to think of mimesis as the nature culture uses to create second nature, [but] the situation now is that this famous second nature is foundering and highly unstable.”* I am citing this passage, because to my understanding, second nature may refer to a second culture as well. In other words, if the first culture of humankind resembles that of the people from Fiero del Fuego in 1832, with absolute equality and no leadership as the prevailing cultural form, then what comes between it and our ‘advanced’ culture a la 2009 where banks control governments?

The answer is not in a five minute discussion. For one, such a discussion must remember that “Western civilization” willed itself to forget that the middle road could get us to “Most Advanced Civilization” status with no violence and with no ‘No-Future’ sign barring the road ahead. Why is Latvia so anxious to join this dead-end form of ‘Most Advanced Civilization’, when the latter has identified itself with war and violence to such an extraordinary degree?

The silence on this issue by the Latvian government, its Foreign Ministry in particular, is a practiced silence on behalf of a military system of defense. Does not a military force of European nations serve the EU (and Latvia) better than it being at the behest of NATO? One should think so. However, Latvians are consistently warned by the media that only NATO can protect us from Russia, the god-awful-giant-ever-gorging-Bear on the country’s eastern border. In other words, the Latvian public media is operating as much in a straight-jacket when it comes to thinking out loud than it was under any other regime of occupation.

Incidentally, this writer has no trouble in visualizing the Soviet Army oppressing Latvia. I know well the brutality of the Stalinist regime from way back into my childhood and the prevailing ‘atmosphere’ in civil society at that time and during war ensuing. At the same time, with the Soviet regime gone and with no threat from the Russian government today, Latvia could elbow for itself more room than the visionaries at Latvia’s Foreign Ministry can muster [with apologies to the Swedish Foreign Miister (2007)]. In the setting that has led to and currently envelops Latvia in a financial and economic crisis, the Foreign Ministry gives the appearance of being in the service of “a greater will” (no transparency whatsoever as whom it may be) and having no will of its own. Once again, the Latvian people are being sacrificed to the ‘Lord’ (an empty signifier) above.

Once more one ought to remember that the act of Adolfs Buķis, the Latvian who sacrificed his life in an attempt to free Latvia of corruption in 1993 in Riga, issued an implicit plea for Latvians to think, speak, and do not as their government. That happened seventeen years ago. Alas, we now see that this cannot be done in a space where all those inside it are unfree and the ‘savior’ sits on his hands in Heaven.


Asterisk & Notes of Interest:

*Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity, Routledge, 1993, p. 252.

On material depravation in Latvia.

On the theme of “more-equal-than-others”: Animal Farm

Of great interest to me this and like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the cultivation of Johns Grass in Latvia.

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 Latvians Online + Forum Home + Open Forum –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/

© Eso Antons Benjamins, a.k.a. Jaņdžs

NOT-VIOLENT TERROR
66 The Future of The Wuerzeltod (IV)

Whenever an Omega man (a rickshaw owner is a candidate for comparison) is ‘emerged’ (—it usually is not of his own doing, but a happenstance, therefore he is ‘emerged’/thrust forth), he overcompensates for his former lowest of social rankings and poverty by wishing to become a millionaire or in some other way reaching a status of equivalency with the high-end of society known as “old money”. There is a word in French for such emerged men and women: nouveau riche.

Sometimes some elements of the old nobility, though coming from a generally well educated class, make fun of the nouveau riche, thus letting everyone who has eyes to see see how arrogant and out of touch with reality some of the old class have become. Ideally though, the old nobility has close links (from way back when) with the temple, because the latter gains its wealth not for its high priest, but for the upkeep of the temple and for the high priest to redistribute a surplus of gifts as he sees it fit. One such person of ‘old nobility’ was Socrates, the Greek philosopher. While renowned as a philosopher, what is particularly striking is Socrates’ attitude toward and acceptance of death. He believed that by dying rather than trying to escape from a death sentence (which he received and had the opportunity to escape), he helped cement his society with greater bonds than can be done by mere law.

Sometimes however the nouveau riche emerges in such great numbers and accumulates such power in political circles (one way to gain equivalency with ‘old money’ is to overwhelm it by seizing control of politics) that they overwhelm both society and culture. That for the most part means the end of leadership of the old aristocracy (visualized in these blogs as a college of Johns) and its substitute with a pseudo democracy. The pseudo democracy is a ‘democracy’ that no longer exists among the common people, but operates among the nouveau riche or, as pointed out above, the heads of corporations. These millionaire upstarts, with a battalion of lawyers in tow, settle their differences ‘democratically’ in the court of law. While technology—originating in wealth making schemes—accelerates, the people of the land are neglected, deprived of a better education, and are ‘dumbed down’ (what an unpleasant but accurate phrase) to the function of laborers and consumers. At the same time, the ‘democracy’ now under control of the nouveau riche describes the peoples’ yearnings for justice and fair politics as populist. In countries like Latvia, words such as ‘populist’ and ‘populism’ are interpreted as synonyms of ‘harm’ and ‘harmful’ which harmful naming serves the interests of the nouveau riche “uzņēmēji”, i.e., producers, investors, anyone with a scheme to exploit nature and people at full throttle.

Currently Greece is in a similar situation as Latvia, except it has many more people and thus is able to expresses its unhappiness through greater social unrest. Furthermore, as one “anonymous” writer at another site put it (I hopeZeroHedge forgives me the steal): “Yes, the Greek public debt situation is unsustainable, but... if a country is idiotic (or captured, or likely both) enough to allow for the opportunity [it is old news].” Another “anonymous” observer writes: “…you can't live [in Greece] on the basic pension anymore. It was true for a long while, but now it's impossible…. Families largely make up for it—thankfully the social fabric is still largely intact in the sense that people feel obliged to cater to their own. But it's getting progressively harder for the average Yiannis (as in ‘average Joe’).”

We know that over the centuries Greek society has changed (like Latvian society) a number of times. First there was, so our history books tell us, “ur(very ancient)-ancient Greece”. This period goes back to the days before Homer, who sang a long poem to those ur-ancient times. Some researchers say that it may be that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey is sourced in the Baltic area, that is to say, north of present-day Greece. Then comes ancient Greece proper with Socrates, Plato, Thucydides, et al. Then there is the Greece of Byzantium home of Basil, the holy man, whose death so closely parallels that of Jesus that it served the writers of the New Testament as a prototype to the Jesus story. Basil’s executor, Alexius I Commenus was an Alpha male (and one of many princes) emerged from and subject to the high-end lumpenprolitariat (‘Commenus’ by another name?) of his time. Commenus stands out as a crossroads from a community and temple oriented culture to one that robbed the temple for personal ends. Following the destruction of Jerusalem (then located in Constantinople) and the elimination of the Church of the Children of Johns in 1204 as a religious-political force, [John] Basil was replaced with Jesus, who was removed to a nonexistent place trick-a-treated into existence with ‘Heaven’ its name and other sweets.

Jerusalem, too, was relocated first to any land some bishop decided on (Bishop Albert and Riga, for example), later pushed further away from its homeland to Palestine. Of course, the Church of the Children of Johns, known as the Eastern Church today, was forced to take on a Western character, because John, transformed into Jesus in Heaven, could not oppose the secular princes as former Johns could and did. All these changes in “Greek” history had their echoes in the territories of the Slavs and the Balts. After the Eastern Church of Johns was forced to take on a Western cast, that is, after it was taken over by Westerners and/or their influence, the Children of Johns happily “converted” to (actually were coerced to) the worship a figure far removed from realities of life on Earth.

It is telling that eight hundred years after the princes secularized the temple, we have liberal capitalism become a ‘religion’. Its progress is seen in how “it's getting progressively harder for the average Yiannis (as in ‘average Joe’)” to survive not only in Greece, but also in Latvia. The scam known as “globalization”, while it confuses the poor and uneducated folk it addresses with high idealism, actually spells ‘pauperization’ not only for Yiannis, but Jahnis, Jean, Johammed, John, Johan, Han, Huan, Xian, etc. If I may put it bluntly, all these populist names and their bearers have been turned into rich g[y]uano (bird droppings) for the corporate powers that own the governments of our time. This is also why the name Jānis—once the most popular male name in Latvia—may soon disappear from popular names lists. Indeed, Janis (John) no longer appears one of the top ten names for baby boys. Such forgetfulness is the consequence of a cultural demoralization. Such was not imaginable a half a century ago. This tells us of great changes happening and yet to come.


Asterisk & Notes of Interest:

On material depravation in Latvia.

On the theme of “more-equal-than-others”, see Animal Farm.
Of great interest to me this and like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the cultivation of Johns Grass in Latvia.

My most unappreciated work—so far, re “Tiresias’ Revenge”, my reinterpretation of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”. I believe that Sophocles had to hide the true meaning of his play for political reasons. It is apropos of the political situation in the world today, also in Latvia. The play may be found at blogs 40 through 47. Start from Blog 40.

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 Latvians Online + Forum Home + Open Forum –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/

© Eso Antons Benjamins, a.k.a. Jaņdžs

NOT-VIOLENT TERROR
65 The Future of The Wuerzeltod (III)

The Alpha and Beta (see below and click on “canids” for explanation of terms) were incensed when they heard. “Is this how our mothers manipulate our baby brothers?” cried one. “We cannot allow this. We must put a stop to it,” cried another. “This is boy abuse. She is turning her sons into Omegas,” cried a third. “For shame,” cried a fourth. ”“But how are we going to stop them?” asked a fifth.

“I know,” said the shaman.

“What, give the boy a man’s nipple?” cried one of the men and all laughed.

“No. But we can put a scare in the baby,” answered the shaman.

“You mean scare the boy not to suck milk? You must be kidding. How are we going to do that?” [Click link and go to Question 4 for an answer of what happens to breastfeeding after the baby is given the treatment described below.]

“It will be quick and fast.”

“Alright, what is it that you have in mind?”

The ‘idea man’ or shaman gathered the men around him and explained. Some men objected saying they believed that nature meant things to be this way. Others agreed with the shaman and said that it was worth a try. All Alpha men agreed with the shaman. So, they decided to do it.

This is how it came about that all the Alpha and Beta men who lived in their own “men’s quarters” gathered together and walked over to the women’s and children’s quarters. As they expected, a number of women were breast feeding their babies, some of them boys. Without saying a word, the men seized the baby boys from their mothers. The shaman took his obsidian knife and quick as a flash cut off the foreskin of the babies’ penises. The women and babies screamed, but that was it. There was nothing they could do. The deed was done.

When done, the shaman motioned for the men to hand the screaming babies back to their mothers. When the mothers put the babies to their breasts to calm them, they would not take the breast, but continued screaming.

The shaman told the women to take their screaming babies away, then explained to the remaining women that he and the men had done what they had done because they wished to make sure that the boys always knew what tribe they belonged to. No raiders from other tribes could now come and steal the boys and make them one of their own. The explanation was, of course, a lie, but it sounded plausible, and the mothers had to accept it. Actually, the mothers had no choice, because they were told to keep quiet on the pain of death.

In the modern world circumcision is assisted by anaesthetics, and the baby suffers little or no trauma. Today circumcision is indeed a ritual for the sake of differentiation. Yet in the past, when the men first cut off the baby boy’s foreskin, it was different. There were no anaesthetics. It was done in the “raw”. Needless to say, the operation caused the baby such pain that it had what we call an out of body experience. It happened involuntarily. At a young age, when the body of the child has not separated from the head, a circumcision—which necessarily comes as a total surprise—comes like a blinding flash of near intolerable pain. The pain separates one from one’s body. Even if the baby forgets the event, its sentient effects not only linger, but have life long side effects.

From the moment he is taken from his mother’s lap and circumcised, the boy knows that he cannot trust his mother to protect him. The mother is soon seen as too weak to protect him, even though he is too young to remember his circumcision consciously. In any event, from the moment that they are circumcised, baby boys become distrustful. If any appear to forget the experience, distrust can be quickly reawakened.* If trained recruiters are ready, they will quickly join the ‘brotherhood’ commanded by the Alpha male. In other words, circumcision facilitates excessive male bonding. Indeed, whenever the ‘brotherhood’—now fear-based—suspects a threat (and it may be the result of pure fantasy), it may initiate ‘preventive’ action and attack.

Though the following link explains that based on their characteristics men can be grouped into three main categories: Alpha, Beta, and Omega males, I would like to add a fourth—‘canids’. (When reading this link, please give especial attention to the section discussing canids, although perhaps a better—more neutral—name for the circumcised males is ‘Cetas').  Made apprehensive of their mothers, Cetas tend to switch their trust and loyalty to the Alpha male, who becomes their lord not only in secular matters, but replaces Allness and becomes ‘Lord God’ of their imagination.**

The males of proto-Latvian Jersiks were probably not circumcised if it is true that at the time of Bishop Alberts attack on King Visvaldis, the king and the Children of Johns deferred to the Sun not only as a word synonymous with mother, but addressed the Sun as the object that best represented time as transcendent divinity. We may wish to remember that for proto-Latvians the word ‘God’ (‘Dievs’) did not exist, because they equated God with Visums, re Allness, Visums being reflected in the name of the Jersik king: Visvaldis, ruler over Allness.

The question therefore is, whence comes the word ‘Dievs’ (in our times, the closest word to it is the feminine ‘Diva’, Goddess, and, of course, the masculine ‘Dios’), God? The best etymology that I can discover is that Dievs evolved out of the Latvian word ‘dot’, to give. Another word deriving from ‘dot’ is ‘deva’, meaning a contribution or portion, from which the word ‘dahvana’, gift. Yet another is ‘dien(eht)’, to live out my days, to serve, as in ‘dieneht armiyah’, to serve (my days) in the army. If I were to say that you and I are “Visuma deva”, I would be saying that we are contributions or gifts from out of Visums, Allness. Similarly, the Sun is such a gift, too, whence the ‘deva’ or ‘dahvana’, a contribution, a gift, a portion of the Sun is ‘diena’, day, the light of day. A word that combines both ‘diena’ (day) and ‘dahvana’ (gift) is the old Latvian word (presently no longer used) ‘dievaine’ or ‘dievaines’, holy day, holy days, days separated out from ordinary day, ‘diena’. If we follow the above recipe for the evolution of the word, ‘Dievs’ (God) should be pronounced ‘Diens’. The reason why ‘n’ has been replaced by ‘v’ should not prevent us from accepting the recepe, because it may be explained by an intrusion of a colloquialism or another dialect. For example, words such as ‘dien-vids’ (today meaning ‘south’, but literally standing for ‘day-middle’) or perhaps David, the latter a compound of day + vid (day + middle, a space, also ‘a flash’, as in the Latvian word ‘pavideht’, to make a mark before disappearing). In short, ‘Dievs’ like the word ‘God’ is an empty signifier waiting to be filled with meanings that may be stuck to it by way of charisma or violence.

So, why is it that the post-Jersika proto-Latvians abandoned the Sun and replaced her with the male gender, which bid the Sun step aside and make place for God? I believe the answer can be discovered if we analyze the phrase Glaesa del Dios. Today the phrase is interpreted by neo-Christians as meaning the light or aura of God. However, if we remember that the word ‘Dios’ (God, Dievs) has its origin in the word ‘day’ (‘diena’ in Latvian), we may also translate the phrase as “aura of day”, i.e., light of day, light of the Sun.

It should suffice to say that the Sun was driven out of our forebears by violent acts. The violence induced an out of the body experience, as a result of which the men of Jersika became Omegas to the Alpha and Beta knights in Riga, and were forced by them to worship ‘God’. ‘God’ is—as pointed out above—in and of itself meaningless, empty, but its very meaninglessness allowed the violent ones to fill it with meaning.

The meaning chosen for the ‘empty’ word was ‘lord’, and the lord (lords actually) made laws that made and kept Bishop Albert and the knights wealthy. The hidden agenda of neo-Christianity is, if you will, to put a stop to gift giving among the natives and control the economy by forcing the natives to labor on behalf of the secular princes it serves.


Asterisk & Notes of Interest:

*Similar negative effects may be achieved with “christening” at an early age. The fact that a stranger lays his/her hands on the baby boy is sufficient proof to the baby that his mother has betrayed his trust in her.

** The same may be accomplished in other ways. As the link to the circumcision ritual shows, women can be ‘persuaded’ to show-mime happiness over circumcision of their sons, what with coercion having happened a long time ago and now internalized and become a habit and rote ritual. See Michael Taussig, “Mimesis and Alterity”, p. 85, Routledge: “For this sacred violence exists in two quite contrary ways. On the one hand the women and children, forming the ‘audience,’ have to pretend—to mime—on pain of death that what they are witness to are real gods and not their kinsmen acting as gods. In this way the public secret essential to mystical authority is preserved. On the other hand is the violence associated with the demasking of the gods that the male initiates are forced to witness in the privacy of the men’s house. Through the violence of demasking fused with laughter, the power of the mimetic faculty as a socially constitutive force is thereby transferred from the older to the younger men, the duped becomes one with the dupers….” For the entire context of this quote click here . The question that always remains is if the dupes remain dupes and the dupers dupe without ever awakening to the consequences. My bet is on the “no”—sacrifice is never eliminated.

On material depravation  in Latvia.
On the theme of “more-equal-than-others” re Orwel's AnimalFarm. 

Of great interest to me this and like articles like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the cultivation of Johns Grass in Latvia.

Favored serendipitous click or “chronal mirage” on the internet. I was searching for a relationship between the burning of Jersika and heretics in Lanquedoc, France. You must read the text at near the end of the scroll, re image of “The Burning of St. Joan”, Monday, September 03, 2007, to get the point.


My most explicit statement as to the results that come from a failure to sacrifice, re “Tiresias’ Revenge”, my reinterpretation of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”. I believe that Sophocles had to hide the true meaning of his play for political reasons. It is apropos of the political situation in the world today, also in Latvia. The play may be found at blogs 40 through 47. Start from Blog 40.

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 –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/

© Eso Antons Benjamins, a.k.a. Jaņdžs

NOT-VIOLENT TERROR

64 The Future of The Wuerzeltod (II)

A friendrecently asked: “Why do we always end up in a two-tiered society?”


My answer is simple and straight forward.

We have destroyed and disappeared the wood.

The wood—ever since the creation of humankind—has been humankind’s first line of defense with regard to human freedom and liberty.

The wood is the home of democracy. So-called democracy of the urban environment, the city, is nothing but utopian thinking in retrospect. Human beings did not become democrats in the process of social evolution, but they were born democrats, and democracy is because it began in the wood.

The wood and the individual tree stand as a shield against exploitation. Both the wood and the individual tree in the wood is the physical object that enables man and woman to defend themselves against any attackers of their democratic privilege.

Both now and in the long ago, many men became rich, wealthy, and ‘important’ by cutting down the wood. It was not always thought as an act of terrorists. To the contrary, it was often believed to be a creative act by pioneers (http://www.fiddleheadsbarandgrill.com/pdf/darlingtour.pdf ) and ‘smart generals’, as, for example, when the Roman General Varus lost three legions to the freedom loving Germanic tribes. The strategy of the men of the wood was a simple one, they attacked the Romans from out of the Teutoburg wood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutoburg_Forest and then ran back into the wood to hide in the marshes and swamps there. After their defeat, the Romans always cut the wood about them when encamping or building a fort; and no number of brave and heroic wood dwellers could then dislodge or defeat the disciplined ranks of the Roman urbanites.

The tragedy for democracy and the wood began with the arrival of agriculture. Up to that time, human beings made their dwellings by clearing out a piece of land in the forest. The cleared land was used to grow various edible roots, berry bushes, and fruit trees, while the wood and its marshes were used as hunting and fishing grounds.

With the arrival of agriculture, which brought with it taxation (of grain) and hording by the boyars (originally probably ‘bully boys’). who built fortifications for their hoard. The fortifications used a large amount of lumber. In turn, this resulted in the clearance of sizeable areas of the forest. When some people of the wood found it convenient to build their dwellings along the outer edge of the wall of the boyars’ castles-forts, there arose the first towns and cities. Worse, there arose conceit among the “city” dwellers against the people of the wood and farmers. The conceit was most likely based on the ‘superiority’ of violence that the city people could bring to bear against the dwellers of the wood.

The cutting of forests continues to our day, We now call this cutting of trees “desertification”, because we can clearly see that we are not only destroying trees, but have created a whole culture of extreme resource exploitation along with it.

This brings us back to the question that opens this blog: “Why do we have a two-tiered society?”

Answer: Because we no longer have people dwelling in the wood. We no longer are protected by the wood. We can no longer ambush the Roman legions from behind trees. Our wood huts along the wall of the fort have become numbered cubicles in an “urban environment”. A modern American folk song called “Little Boxes” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2lGkEU4Xs&feature=related describes the situation well.

Speaking only for myself, I consider myself “terrorized” by all those who have terrorized the wood to extinction. In order to protect my interest in freedom and democracy, I have purchased a few hectares for myself in Latvia and have built there a “temple” dedicated to the wood. The centerpiece of the temple is not a God or Goddess, but the trunk of an oak tree with sawn off limbs. The “tree” stands on a concrete platform that has been built over the foundations of what used to be an old cowbarn and a hayloft.

This brings me to the literary critic, philosopher, and essayist Walter Benjamin. I am particularly interested in Walter Benjamin’s thought, because very possibly he helps to explain the thought processes of our forebears (and of course my own).

Writes Benjamin: “If the theory is correct that feeling is not located in the head …but, rather, in the place where we see it, then we are, in looking at our beloved, too [in this instance the wood and trees], outside ourselves.”

In other words, we experience our experience of the object in a sentient manner, as it beings outside ourselves. When we see a tree that commands our attention, we do not look at it as an actor may, with our head and conscious selves studying the tree in every detail, but as if the tree were that instant become a part of us. Such an entry of our self into the wood’s or tree’s self allows us to see he tree as copy of our selves. [I owe this latter insight to Michael Taussig’s book, re “Mimesis and Alterity”.] This is why sometimes the sawing down of a tree affects us with emotions that make us want to scream murder!

It is thus that we sacralize, make holy, a place, where the oak tree grows (or grew), and, in turn, the tree and its place sacralizes us.

While a mutual blessing may occur every time that I (we) and the tree meet (as when it grows in my yard), the communal ritual of sacralization (with the whole community participating) generally occurs on the basis of a local tradition, among Latvians, specifically, on Johns Eve.

In Latvia, Johns’ Eve is the time when a man presents himself to himself and the community with an oak leaf wreath on his head, a symbol of strength, endurance, greening, and life giving. In the instance of the oak tree, its fruit are the acorns that feed bird and beast. The woman appears with an oak leaf crown on her head as well (flowers are for medicinal tea and fulfill the sentiments of modern city dwellers), and both man and woman wear loafers (pastalas) made of linden tree bark made pliable after having been soaked in water.

To break meaning down further, the oak speaks for mindfulness as if it were a hat, while the linden speaks for being in touch with Earth. When the linden is in bloom, she is visited by thousands of bees; and if the bees think not with their heads, but are sentient in their being, then the linden tree, bees, and humans together create an aura within a special sound space. Latvians call this sound “sann-eht”. This ‘sann’ sound may only be heard properly when we are standing under a blooming linden filled with bees and with you and me present. So, if one wishes to hear how the linden, its flowers, the bees, and we sann together, you and I have to go there, where we will meet in the here and now.

In the wood we are all equal. You cannot use a mashinegun in the wood against me, but have only a spear or a sword. That puts us one on one. Your chances are as good as mine, but no better. However, when the rich destroyed the wood to build themselves a castle, they created for themselves a clear field of fire.

We can rebuild this planet and recreate an un-tiered (egalitarian) society when and if we start using our brain to create ways to live in the wood again. Presently, it is still a movement toward the city, yet the computer makes the city unnecessary--at least as far as communication and education is concerned. Factories need not be so large as to consume a landscape. We dont need cars. We do need a good monorail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorail system , bycycle paths, and a way to quickly attach a bicycle to the rail.

We also have to reinterpret history. That is why I have turned to Anatoly Fomenko as my orienter and guide in history. The current and popular version of history destroys our (my) sense of sentience regarding events by removing the events further into the background than they really are.


As recently as the 17th century, daily life was still enveloped by the wood. The machine, the great distancer of reality (television and the chainsaw being best examples), was not yet. Jesus on the cross (replacing Jesus thrown into a fire pit on the Hippodrome (11th or 12th centuries) in Constantinople did not yet fill the imaginary space with a phantasm better fit for the consumption of an urban dweller. Death by burning was a more sentient experience, the last victim of the Inquisition being Giordano Bruno in 1600, but the imaginary suffering of Jesus is made to appear more immediate.

In short, the current version of history (re: 2012 years since the birth of Jesus) denies, certainly handicaps Walter Benjamin’s theorizing and relevance. Propaganda takes precedence over sentience. The linden tree may as well be a linden in Unter den Linden http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/483493-4/1__007 c. Berlin, WW2.


Asterisks; Notes of Interest:

On  material depravation in Latvia.

On the theme of “more-equal-than-others” Animal Farm.

An eyeball view of Latvia (and its forests) company map; satellite. While some sources claim that Latvia is 47% covered by forests, none of it is old growth forest. The Latvian news media provides little coverage of the rapid pace of deforestation. Anecdotal evidence of deforestation in progress from a neighbor: “There were fewer mushrooms this fall than last year. Forests we used to visit are gone.”

Google software to tell effects of deforestation.

Of great interest to me this and like articles like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the cultivation of Johns Grass in Latvia.

Favored serendipitous click or “chronal mirage” on the internet. I was searching for a relationship between the burning of Jersika and heretics in Lanquedoc, France. You must read the text at near the end of the scroll, re image of “The Burning of St. Joan”, Monday, September 03, 2007, to get the point.

My most unappreciated work—so far, re “Tiresias’ Revenge”, my reinterpretation of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”. I believe that Sophocles had to hide the true meaning of his play for political reasons. It is apropos of the political situation in the world today, also in Latvia. The play may be found at blogs 40 through 47. Start from Blog 40.

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 –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/

© Eso Antons Benjamins, a.k.a. Jaņdžs

NOT-VIOLENT TERROR
63 The Future of The Wuerzeltod (I)

When Bishop Albert sent his knights to burn and destroys Jersika, he was hoping not only to destroy a kingdom, but to disembody proto-Latvians who were its inhabitants by burning their idols. If he were to succeed in his endeavor, the exercise would not kill so many people as make those not killed “Wuerzeltod”. Wuerzeltod means, in this setting, a people become spiritually-psychologically dead to their roots, an uprooted people in their own garden. That is how a people can keep their language, but the language loses much of its spirit, which is replaced by, let us say, a foreign object.

Without their idols (cultural objects instilled over the centuries with memories of traditions, which had the power to heal the soul every time some defeat, including illness, visited the people) the Jersiks would be unable to re-embody their bodies with their former spiritual selves. In effect, Bishop Albert hoped to make the Jersiks obedient to him and other lords in Riga. Under Riga’s tutelage [Riga, the new para-normal Jerusalem] the defeated and humiliated Jersiks would be denied the right to repossess their former and own spirits. They would be remade as neo-Christians, i.e., post-Jersika Jersiks become Wuerzeltod to their old spirit as well as spirits.

The burnt idols of Jersika were replaced by various neo-Christian saints, all of who implicitly and explicitly denied their predecessors, the itinerant Johns, existence. Denied, too, were the shamans-healers (dziednieki, literally sing-healers), priests, and all that was sacred to those who—through struggles of many millennia—had created their own vision of Jerusalem*. The Jersiks and all people about were caused to pray to a chronal mirage sent by Rome. The mirage was of the head of a man enveloped by a circle, a halo laid down by goldleaf, which gave it a para-normal appearance. But whereas the Jersiks would have called the icon the head of John (Jānis), Son of the Sun, the man from Rome, the Pope, called it Jesus Christ, Son of God. No doubt, the Wuerzeltod, that is to say, the body with little or no memory of its past, transferred its need for a spirit to Jesus. The process of transference was made easier through many para-psychological tricks, violence being its primary tool. Because Jesus himself had been one of the Johns and was killed by the Brotherbund of Rome, John was reembodied in Jesus by violent conversion, which was then glued to the communal memory through the demand of continuous confession and a written history that never was. Since the art of writing and the art of printing belonged to the powers that be, the Brotherbund was able to force the graft to grow roots.

Given such a background, we now must move forward in our reconstruction of the Latvian myth as it might have moved forward had the making of myth not been forbidden to proto-Latvians. We must return to John Visvaldis, King of Jersika, and ask: Why had the Jersiks followed this leader? What was his magic attraction?

If the Children of Johns in King John Visvaldis’ keep had followed their “John Awesome” [Visvaldis = (literally) Ruler Over Allness, an Allness that is an equivalence not of ‘all’ (viss), but Visums (Allness)], they most likely did so in deference to the not-violent terror the King inspired. Such an inspiration from the King came by way of the King’s forebears, all of who had ended their life at a ripe old age, but which age was ended by way of what the Cathars called the endura. When the Cathar perfecti or priests felt that their hour had come, they called for their descendant-to-be to offer them consolamentum (literally to consol them), after which they no longer took food. The offering of consolamentum was also a form of oath-taking by the one who offered it, that is, he-she swore to uphold not-violent rule in the same manner than the one who was taking the consolance and was departing. When a perfecti died, he transferred to his-her descendant(s) great charismatic authority. Similar practices were in existence among most of the heredici—including (we surmise) the Children of Johns of Jersika.

The neo-Christian brethren were able to destroy the old bonds of loyalty among the Children of Johns because they were in effect aliens. They were not of the culture of Johns, but belonged to what in our own day is known as capitalist culture, a culture that enriches its adherents and not the temple. In due course, the para-normal sheen of gold on the halo of the icon is scraped off and converted to coin.

To be awesome is to inspire no ordinary respect, but to be inspired by terror, not-violent terror. Even if appearing fearless before death may not be all that it seems (all are apprehensive before it), it, nevertheless, has enough traction-terror to prevent a community of which John(s) are the leaders from dissolving into Wuerzeltodness—rootlesness.

King John Visvaldis was the root, stem, and branch of the Children of Johns. We might say, that the Jersiks, the Children of Johns, were the leaves of the tree trunk that represented the king. Neither leaves could be without the trunk, nor the trunk could be without the leaves. Ideally speaking, if a storm felled a tree, the roots would send forth new shoots, and the kingdom, the stem (or the Donjon, Don-Jon, who stands for ‘John of Johns’) would have another go at sprouting and growing into a tree peopled by a society of leaves.

At the same time that not-violent terror created, bonded, and maintained a society, no one who was of it ever forgot that both individuals and society are not immortal. Before immortality immortalized itself upon society with such violence as overcame the Jersiks and has become commonplace in our day, mortality was accepted as a reality of the Great Being itself. This is why a seed was and remains such a wonder. It flies to the winds of fate, and fate finds it another place to root or not. Meanwhile, King John Visvaldis held the community of the Children of Johns together whether the community was in situ or in motion, travelling.


Asterisk & Notes of Interest:

*Jerusalem = Yaroslav. The meaning of this name is hid behind a thick veil, but it becomes easier to decipher if we split the word into yaro + slav. Yaro is somehow related to ‘year’, which may reflect a tradition of an ancient annual sacrifice ritual. In Latvian the word ‘yehrs’ (jērs) means lamb. For ‘slav’ see here and read under Ethnonyms until you come to the theory that the name may once have meant worshippers. In my interpretation the name stands for ‘the lamb of peace’ sacrificed at an ancient ritual invoking peace. Thus, the name ‘Jersika’ in Latvian may once have meant “the land of peace”.

On material depravation material depravation  in Latvia.


On the theme of “more-equal-than-others”, re Animal Farm.
An eyeball view of Latvia (and its forests) company map; satellite map. While some sources claim that Latvia is 47% covered by forests, none of it is old growth forest. The Latvian news media provides little coverage of the rapid pace of deforestation. Anecdotal evidence of deforestation in progress from a neighbor: “There were fewer mushrooms this fall than last year. Forests we used to visit are gone.”

Google software to tell effects of deforestation deforestation. 

Of great interest to me this and like articles this and like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the growing of Johns Grass in Latvia.

Favored serendipidous click or “chronal mirage” on the internet. I was searching for a relationship between the burning of Jersika and heretics in Lanquedoc, France. You must read the text at near the end of the scroll, re image of “The Burning of St. Joan”, Monday, September 03, 2007, to get the point. 

My most unappreciated work—so far, re “Tiresias’ Revenge”, my reinterpretation of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”. I believe that Sophocles had to hide the true meaning of his play for political reasons. It is apropos of the political situation in the world today, also in Latvia. The play may be found at Blogs 40 through 47. Start read with Blog 40.

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 LatviansOnline + Forum Home + Open Forum –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschroniclnes.blogspot.com/  

© Eso Antons Benjamins

NOT-VIOLENT TERROR
60 The People of Johns (IV)

The proto-Latvians of Jersika—let us remind ourselves that Jersika may be colloquial Latvian for Jerusalem—were so to speak disassembled by the neo-Christian church under the leadership of bishop Albert, who was doing the disassembling and plundering in the name of any number of pauperized and not so pauperized princes of the West. As Caterina Bruschi writes in her book concerning the Crusade against Lanquedoc: “…the Crusaders, …effectively were leading a military campaign against the southern nobility….” (p. 184) In Livonia (yet to be), they were converting, robbing, killing, and instilling fear among the natives to last for centuries as per the following excerpt from Bruschi’s work:

“…on the Sunday in the Lent, in the evening, the aforesaid Bernard of Rival—detained for a long time and still held in prison in leg-irons, because he was found to have confessed less that fully—was found wounded in the head. And he acknowledged before me, Aton, the aforesaid notary… that he had hit and wounded himself in the head, wishing to die, and wanting to kill himself.” (p. 189)

After the proto-Latvians disappeared from the stage of history, pure chance took over the lives of the people who remained. We get an occasional low visibility glimpse of them in later chronicles. However, the center stage, to borrow a comparison from Marx, belongs to the upper caste lumpenproletariat, for the most part Germanic invaders. The native Latvian lumpenprolitariat of those days is the shadowy half of a glass globe, the lower part always touching the ground.

Among the first politically explicit and self-assertive signs of Latvians occurs in 1873 with the publication of Karlis Baumanis book of songs called “Lihgo”. The name and cover design of John (priest) officiating at an altar has an explicitly religious message. The book is named after the refrain (“lihgo”) of Johns songs, thus giving the book a celebratory and sacred significance. The tsar’s police confiscated the books and burnt them immediately upon publication. Only a few copies remain today. But the cover design and content give evidence of the direction the poet and his supporters hoped in their mind’s eye Latvians would take.

Not only did the book not reach its intended audience, but those of the consciousness raising movement who tilted toward the arch-Christian past were—under pressure of the neo-Christians—soon replaced. The neo-Christians had in their favour the fact that Latvian peasants had learned how to read by having only the Bible to read from. Thus, helped by woodcuts from Luther’s Illustrated Bible such as Samson cut by one of Cranach’s students and like this painting by Cranach himself, the Latvian country people created a “folk tale” that never was. In any event, such pictures served as prototypes for the Latvian Lachplesis, the image of the “new” neo-Christian Latvian.

Though Lachplehsis image remains in use—the commix-like statue of the hero in the niche of the Latvian Saeima building being proof—his charismatic days came to an end with WW2 and the second subjection (1945; the first in 1940) of Latvia by the Soviet Union. With the Soviet occupation of Latvia there came the 3rd version of the Latvian people: Latvian Sovieticus. Today, as suggested in blog 58, we are experiencing the 4th reincarnation of Latvians, but this time we are emerging as Latvians of the post-Latvian era.

Of course, the people of Latvia call themselves Latvians still, and they are still the majority of people in Latvia. Nevertheless, the Latvian population, due to low birth rates—caused by an absence of self-employment that can be provided only by jobs at the micro economic level—is in a demographic death spiral. A significant number of Latvians, especially the young, wish to leave Latvia. Economic emigrants number about 30,000 this year alone. Most of the emigrants and the majority of Latvians who remain behind believe that the country was “stolen” from them by their own lawmakers. And well they may think so. There is no evidence that the Latvian government understands that relative independence comes only by way of a micro economy. The government overemphasizes corporate macro economy, because that is where most of the money in an “envelope” comes from.

Whether the people of Latvia can recapture the country without some radical action is doubtful. Radicalizing the post-Soviet man/woman into a post-Latvian Latvian implies changes that even if it promises to bring “change for the better” (to quote Rainis, one of the few Socialists Latvians have made peace with) and the change is not violent, change cannot be guaranteed because of the spiritual and material desert it has to be built on. (The chainsaws are buzzing all around my country home as I write, as farmers in debt to the banks try to forestall bankruptcy.) If in King Visvaldis days his congregation went into the vast forests, today Latvia’s green treasure is fast disappearing accompanied by an orchestra of chainsaws.

Twenty years have passed since the reestablishment of the state of Latvia, and for twenty years the euphoria that greeted the downfall of the Soviet Union has served to prop up the “dreamtime” that served so well high end “job seekers” who used the people’s dreams to infiltrate the highest levels of government. Not all in the government are of equal blame in the failure of the state of course. Some have participated in elections driven by an honest desire to reestablish Latvia as a prosperous and just nation. However, the moral tone of those leading the nation is like that of President of Latvia, Zatlers, who deftly left out of his Independence Day speech (on the 18th of November) the word “sacrifice”. The absence of any mention of “sacrifice”—as far as I know unnoted by the media—illustrates the rhetorical nature of post-Soviet Latvia.

With reality replaced by virtual reality, it should be no surprise why the collapse of Latvia continues to be of little concern of its government. The “soft war”—now being waged by Swedish banks against the Latvian government in order to pressure it to squeeze water out of the stone that is left to the Latvian people—is being obliged by the Latvian government. All that the people hear from their government is that this is the “normal” state of being, legalized by a nonexistent European Constitution and sanctified by fait accompli of their own partidocracy. Never mind that the demographic death spiral differs from bloody casualties in a war of bullets in name only. In real terms, the year 2009 differs from 1949 and 1941 in name, not in its consequences.

I have been recommending that the “soft war” being waged against the Latvian people needs to be answered by raising the level of Latvian wit. One of the ways that Latvians may respond is by legalizing Johns grass, then inviting the Swedes to “come on over” and enjoy a steamy cup of Johns milk tea in the Latvian countryside. It is one way to rebuild the capital of the people that has been “legally” stolen from them. Johns Grass may even pull the country out of the demographic  death spiral, because for once it is micro, not macro economy that will be served.

Less it is said that by being unfriendly to Swedish banks, I am unfriendly to the Swedish people, let me remind the reader that all peoples’ of the West, the Swedes including, have for some time been looking at reality through the filters of newspapers, radio, television, movies, advertising, and not least their governments. This is one reason why first-hand knowledge of reality among Swedes and in the West has become so abstracted that such an abstraction is presumed unexceptional. For anyone to presume that to capture Latvia for the European Union by promoting “cheap” bank loans to later suck the country dry by pretending innocence is simply not acceptable to a sovereign people—even if they discover-awaken to the crime after the fact.

If the Latvian people have their excuses, the Swedes have fewer. The latter have indeed allowed themselves to become so abstracted by their media as to fantasize that they were helping Latvians escape poverty by yoking them to slavery of debt? Like it or not, the Swedes, too, must bear responsibility for the actions of their banks and of their moral inertia and torpor when it comes to understanding material realities.


Asterisk & Notes of Interest:

An interesting poll. Information on emigration figures .

On the theme of “more-equal-than-others” Orwellsfable.

An eyeball view of Latvia (and its forests) companymap ; satellite While some sources claim that Latvia is 47% covered by forests, none of it is old growth forest. The Latvian news media provides little coverage of the rapid pace of deforestation. Anecdotal evidence of deforestation in progress from a neighbor: “There were fewer mushrooms this fall than last year. Forests we used to visit are gone.”

If we substitute the word “trees” for “gold” and make them synonymous, then obviously “trees” come to stand for the “gold” of Latvia. If we then read Ayn Rand’s words from her book “Atlas Shrugged”, but substitute “gold” with “tree”, Rand takes us to a very interesting conclusion: “Whenever destroyers destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’” My thanks to site and author here.

Of great interest to me: X. The article at this link pretty well presents my reasons for supporting the growing of Johns Grass to facilitate the tourist industry in the Latvian countryside.

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 –
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