Russian linguistic imperialism
Gintis Kaminskas
WELL, 14Ŋ hours later, after a day's work at the office and plenty more
around the house, I finally get to sit down at 22:30 half asleep and try to
write the detailed reply I promised at 8 am on this Monday morning! If it
doesn't make much sense I plead exhaustion.
OK, I've already commented on this paragraph: "The present
'Russian-speakers' who are currently permanent residents of the Baltic
states are legally resident in their respective states. They will remain so,
except for a few who choose of their own volition to leave. Circumstances
for linguistic change - language regulations, education, etc. - can be
legislated to a degree, but you cannot run around hitting people over the
head with Latvian dictionaries. It won't make them speak Latvian. If they
refuse to speak Latvian, they remain legal residents. They can't get
citizenship, but neither can you get them to leave without violating
international law and their human rights. Period." As I said this morning,
I fully agree and I envy you being there and being able to observe these
details at first hand on a daily basis.
I might plead guilty to SLIGHTLY oversimplifying the Soviet deportations.
Yes, they were aimed at a class and at opponents and potential opponents of
the Soviet system and not entirely at ethnic Balts, but the result was that
there victims were mostly Balts. And let's keep in mind what it was all
about. They had just crushed the sovereignty of the Baltic states and they
wanted to make sure it stayed that way by destroying their inteligentija.
You say, Peteri, that just because Russia has done nasty things since
Czarist times does not mean no one else does it. Quite, but look at the
imbalance in the reporting and world focus. The mass media and film
industry have focused 99% on Hitler and the Nazis and only 1% on Stalin and
the Soviet imperialists, so that Hitler and the Nazis are synonymous with
authoritarian régimes, not Stalin and the communists. Everybody says,
"Don't be a little Hitler", not "Don't be a little Stalin", they say
"Gestapo", not "KGB", they say "Auschwitz", not "Gulag" when they want to
make a rhetorical flourish.
You ask me why 'official language' means so much to me. Simply because,
without the legislative backing, it would be easier for Russian speakers to
keep on speaking Russian, and they would have less incentive to learn the
local language. I would think it's basic decency to learn the language of
the people you live among. Why are the white colonists in Africa so hated?
I think that treating African languages with contempt was one of the major
factors that shaped their contemptuous attitude to Africans in general. If
you learn a nation's language you learn to understand them, maybe admire and
love them, maybe want to become one of them. If you treat their language as
worthless rubbish chances are you will treat them as worthless rubbish too.
The example of the Irish language in Ireland is a classic lesson in what
happens if a foreign occupation goes on too long and the indigenous language
is treated with contempt for too long. Another 50 years and Latvija could
have ended up like Ireland. Even if it finally got independence, it would
be like giving independence to Kaliningrad oblast now: you would just get a
second Russian-speaking state (or 3rd if you want to count poor old
Belarus - another sad case).
Where we differ, Peteri, is when you say you find it quite understandable
that many locals find the idea of being _forced_ to speak Latvian ridiculous
and find it hard to learn the language. I cannot sympathise with them at
all, I'm afraid. Maybe it's partly because you're kinder than me. Or
because I'm further away. But I have no patience with people who are
unwilling to help themselves. It's in their own interest. It's not only in
Tonga that one enjoys oneself more by knowing the Tongan tongue. (Tonga is
a great place, by the way. Captain Cook's name for it was Friendly Island.)
Yes, the Latvian culture was not accessible to most Russians, but you know
why that was. Put one Russian with 9 Balts and the 9 Balts have to speak
Russian instead of their native language. So Balts preferred to socialise
in all-Balt groups - quite understandable. I guarantee the happiest and
most well-balanced Russians in the Baltic states were and still are those
who speak the local language. It stands to reason.
By the way, that social separation is a disaster waiting to happen too.
It's easier for people to get their passions stirred up to the point of
murder when they don't socialise with each other and think of "us" (clever,
clean, good) and "them (stupid, dirty, bad). I can't help thinking that's
partly why a certain number of Jews were able to side with the Russian
invaders in 1940 and why a certain number of Balts took revenge on them by
helping the Nazis do their dirty work. If both sides had known each other
better and talked to each other more the story of 1940-1944 could have been
rather different, rather less horrendous.
In Lithuanian they say "Kieno vezime sedi, to daina dainuok." (Literally,
"In whose wagon you sit, his song sing.") I can understand that there is
some unpleasantness, sometimes considerable unpleasantness, in trying to use
Latvian in stores in some places, but if Latvians don't insist, the
Russians' progress in learning Latvian will be very slow.
I worry to hear you say "But it is naīve and not even desirable to expect
that Latvia's major cities will become 'Latvian' (latviskas)." I disagree
strongly. I think Balts must look to other EU countries and say if
everybody speaks Swedish in Stockholm and Danish in Copenhagen, and that's
considered normal and no big deal, then Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have
got a right to expect all the people of Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn to speak
Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian, with no apologies required.
If you support the current language legislation - documents should be
in Latvian, translations should be paid for by the person needing them,
signs
should be monolingual, education should be shifted to Latvian, etc., then
it's not helpful to be too lenient to those who flout the law. The Balts
are not asking for anything unreasonable - if someone can't learn a language
in 10 years to make their own life more pleasant then they should be
ashamed.
>That expecting service in Russian means that they are subconsciously in the
>borderlands and part of Russia does not follow - not at all. Putin would
>like it to, I'm sure, but that's simply not the case. I know a number of
the >kind of rabid Russians you are referring to, but very few of them think
that >Latvia is or should be part of Russia. I can only think of one person
I've >talked to who would like this to be a part of Russia.
Not many residents of Memel (Klaipeda) thought it should be part of Germany
until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the long run
de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian dreams
of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you see
all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all forget
Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off everyone
will be - especially them!
Again we differ, in that I think any talk of Latvia being bilingual and
having close ties to Russia is "talking dirt". I agree, no need to
demonise them, and treat them as human and respect their rights by all
means, but imposing their language on the country they illegally colonised
is not their "right". Not in my view.
>If he's treated fairly - and he is - and his kids are educated in a free
>Latvia, chances are that despite his attitudes, his kids will be loyal
>Latvian citizens. If his kids were born after independence, they will
almost
>certainly be citizens, in which case it's far better for the government to
offer >their dad free language instruction than it is to keep telling him to
take his
>family back to 'russia,' when chances are he has friends, family, etc., who
>_are_ Latvian citizens. He might also be a doctor, and doctors are needed.
Full agreement here.
>a Scandinavian journalist trying to get me fired from my job because I
>seemed to him to be a right-wing fanatic.
Ha, ha. There are so many self-righteous Scandinavians around.
Yes, fighting Fascism was good, but Latvia should build new monuments.
Leaving the old ones in place strengthens Russians' feelings of
proprietorship.
Yes, Eugene Holman posts SOME good stuff, but I feel he is altogether too
trusting of the Russians and too ready to give them the benefit of the
doubt.
I can't accept the analogy of Latvia potentially treating Russians as Israel
treats the Palestinians. For starters, the tables are completely turned.
The Latvians would correspond to the Palestinians (indigenous, or at least
long-term residents) and the Russians would correspond to the Israelis
(Johnny-come-latelies).
>Latvian there is a phrase 'la'c'a pakalpojums,' a bear's favour
I like that (although it probably is a Slavic borrowing). Do you really
think Jon imagines all Russian speakers as criminal colonists? Let's ask
him. Jani, ko sac?
Regards,
Gintis Kaminskas
Eugene Holman
<kad...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> OK, I've already commented on this paragraph: "The present
> 'Russian-speakers' who are currently permanent residents of the Baltic
> states are legally resident in their respective states. They will remain so,
> except for a few who choose of their own volition to leave. Circumstances
> for linguistic change - language regulations, education, etc. - can be
> legislated to a degree, but you cannot run around hitting people over the
> head with Latvian dictionaries. It won't make them speak Latvian. If they
> refuse to speak Latvian, they remain legal residents. They can't get
> citizenship, but neither can you get them to leave without violating
> international law and their human rights. Period." As I said this morning,
> I fully agree and I envy you being there and being able to observe these
> details at first hand on a daily basis.
I certainly second that. The big picture is important, but it's the
day-to-day ground action that etches it.
> You say, Peteri, that just because Russia has done nasty things since
> Czarist times does not mean no one else does it. Quite, but look at the
> imbalance in the reporting and world focus. The mass media and film
> industry have focused 99% on Hitler and the Nazis and only 1% on Stalin and
> the Soviet imperialists, so that Hitler and the Nazis are synonymous with
> authoritarian régimes, not Stalin and the communists. Everybody says,
> "Don't be a little Hitler", not "Don't be a little Stalin", they say
> "Gestapo", not "KGB", they say "Auschwitz", not "Gulag" when they want to
> make a rhetorical flourish.
American treatment of Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua has not been
anything to write home about, either. Russia seems so bad because it's so
big and crude, and of course because the countries that we have a special
relationship with have suffered so much because of its behavior. As
imperialists states go, though, it has done much more harm to its own
ethnicity than it has to the countries that it has colonized. The Belgians
managed to kill about 5,000,000 Congans between 1890 and 1910, and since
you are wrting from Australia you know what happened to the Tasmanians and
Dyirbals. Speaking in terms of deaths/year Hitler was a much more effective
colonist than the Soviets ever were.
>
> You ask me why 'official language' means so much to me. Simply because,
> without the legislative backing, it would be easier for Russian speakers to
> keep on speaking Russian, and they would have less incentive to learn the
> local language. I would think it's basic decency to learn the language of
> the people you live among. Why are the white colonists in Africa so hated?
> I think that treating African languages with contempt was one of the major
> factors that shaped their contemptuous attitude to Africans in general. If
> you learn a nation's language you learn to understand them, maybe admire and
> love them, maybe want to become one of them. If you treat their language as
> worthless rubbish chances are you will treat them as worthless rubbish too.
I think the issue is more complex than that, even if I basically agree.
Russian is not just any language, it's one of the world's great
international languages, right up there with English, Gemran, Spanish, and
French. Latvian and Lithuanian seem as quaint and provincial to many
Russians as Dyirbal would to you - your family moved to Australia and
learned English, not the local aboriginal language which probably still has
a handful of speakers. This is not because the local lingo is so bad, but
rather because English is so important. Some of the Russian speakers I have
talked to in Tallinn say they would not mind learning English or French,
but tackling Estonian which only has 1,000,000 speakers, almost all of whom
know Russian better than they will ever learn Estonian seems a waste of the
limited time and mental resources people have to learn languages. I don't
agree with this standpoint any more than you do, but I understand it. For
us, Russian has a strong symbolic value as the language of a former
unwanted ruler, for them, Russian is the language of Tolstoy and
Dostoyevsky, about 30% of the world's scientific publications, and one that
you can speak from the Baltics to the Pacific, from the Arctic wastes to
the Caucasus and the Gobi desert.
>
> The example of the Irish language in Ireland is a classic lesson in what
> happens if a foreign occupation goes on too long and the indigenous language
> is treated with contempt for too long. Another 50 years and Latvija could
> have ended up like Ireland.
English is an even tougher language to compete with than Russian. I've
visited Ireland and spent some time in the Gaeltacht - the area of the
country where people receive generous subsidies to raise their kids as
Irish speakers. It's a nice gesture, but there is little you can do with
Irish except live in the Gaeltacht - Ireland's current economic boom is
very much a function of the fact that international companies found there a
large reservoir of educated native speakers of English in a country with
lower wage structure than the UK. The Balts love their languages too much
for them to be replaced any time in the near future, but they need to beef
up the number of speakers by several millions if maintaining them is not to
become impractical. I was in Tallinn last week helping my friends at a
translation bureau. Making and keeping up with the new terminology that is
needed for Estonian to function as an EU language is a daunting task, and
soon translators from languages from Estonian to languages ranging from
Portuguese to Greek to Danish to Polish will have to be trained. This takes
a lot of time and resources, and hand has some people wonder whether
Estonia might not use Gemran or English as its EU language...
> Even if it finally got independence, it would
> be like giving independence to Kaliningrad oblast now: you would just get a
> second Russian-speaking state (or 3rd if you want to count poor old
> Belarus - another sad case).
>
> Where we differ, Peteri, is when you say you find it quite understandable
> that many locals find the idea of being _forced_ to speak Latvian ridiculous
> and find it hard to learn the language. I cannot sympathise with them at
> all, I'm afraid. Maybe it's partly because you're kinder than me. Or
> because I'm further away. But I have no patience with people who are
> unwilling to help themselves. It's in their own interest. It's not only in
> Tonga that one enjoys oneself more by knowing the Tongan tongue. (Tonga is
> a great place, by the way. Captain Cook's name for it was Friendly Island.)
>
> Yes, the Latvian culture was not accessible to most Russians, but you know
> why that was. Put one Russian with 9 Balts and the 9 Balts have to speak
> Russian instead of their native language. So Balts preferred to socialise
> in all-Balt groups - quite understandable. I guarantee the happiest and
> most well-balanced Russians in the Baltic states were and still are those
> who speak the local language. It stands to reason.
The question is not as much one of accessibility as it is of interest.
Let's face it, most Russians think of Baltic cultures as limited and
provincial. They think of themselves as Kulturträger, and that Baltic
cultures have more to gain from them than they have to gain from Baltic
cultures. That is the same attitude that representatives of colonial
nations typically have about the countries that they colonize. Sad, but
understandable.
> >That expecting service in Russian means that they are subconsciously in the
> >borderlands and part of Russia does not follow - not at all.
On the other hand, American tourists going to Mexico expect to be served in
English, and Mexicans offering servives along the main tourists routes know
that it's good business sense to know English and be able to serve teir
customers in their own langauge. The reverse holds true o the other side of
the border: in Southern California it is not difficult to find service in
Spanish.
>
> Again we differ, in that I think any talk of Latvia being bilingual and
> having close ties to Russia is "talking dirt". I agree, no need to
> demonise them, and treat them as human and respect their rights by all
> means, but imposing their language on the country they illegally colonised
> is not their "right". Not in my view.
What about two generations from now? Russian is part of Latvian reality and
for the foreseeable future a substantial portion of its population - and
citizenry - will have Russian as its native language. A similar situation
was slved in Finland by making the country bilingual, with four types of
zones: Finnish, Finnish-majority, Swedish-majority, and Swedish. The
authroties in all parts of the country have to know both languages, and the
school system ensures that all Swedish speakers have a very good to perfect
command of Finnish, the majority langauge, and that most Finnish speakers
have a good to execellent knowledge of Swedish.
> proprietorship.
>
> Yes, Eugene Holman posts SOME good stuff, but I feel he is altogether too
> trusting of the Russians and too ready to give them the benefit of the
> doubt.
>
Thanks for the kind words. With respect to Russians I just want to
emphasize that many people who have Russian as their first language are not
Rusisans, and that the Russian language is not only a resource of Russia.
Like English, it has spread across a continent and become de-ethnicized. It
is and long has been one of the languages spoken in Latvia. How Latvia
deals with this reality in the future is an open question, but Latvian is
not doomed just because Rusisan has a place in its society.
Regards from bilingual Finland,
Eugene Holman
halm...@my-deja.com
Holman notes:
'I just want to emphasize that many people who have Russian as their
first language are not Rusisans,"
This is a historic event - for once I agree with him.
Best - - Henry
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Andrejs Makwitz
Sveiks, Peter
It's always a pleasure to read two articulate, intelligent, and reasonable
persons disagree in an articulate, intelligent, and reasonable manner. I hope
this dialogue will continue. However, I would like to quibble with one passage
of Gintis.
In article <nH1G4.4$d67....@news0.optus.net.au>, "Gintis Kaminskas"
<kad...@hotmail.com> writes:
>You say, Peteri, that just because Russia has done nasty things since
>Czarist times does not mean no one else does it. Quite, but look at the
>imbalance in the reporting and world focus. The mass media and film
>industry have focused 99% on Hitler and the Nazis and only 1% on Stalin and
>the Soviet imperialists, so that Hitler and the Nazis are synonymous with
>authoritarian régimes, not Stalin and the communists. Everybody says,
>"Don't be a little Hitler", not "Don't be a little Stalin", they say
>"Gestapo", not "KGB", they say "Auschwitz", not "Gulag" when they want to
>make a rhetorical flourish.
For the life of me I can not understand this need for one's boogie man to be
considered worse than the other's.
It is untrue that the ratio is 99% to 1. More like 70% to 30, maybe even 60%
to 40.
I know of no Western political figure who could get away with using the words
Stalin, KGB or Gulag in positive terms and get away with it. The figures that
are always cited doing so are fringe characters that have no more bearing on
the real world than the figures on the right who from time to time put their
feet in their mouths by trying to demonstrate the positive aspects of the Third
Reich. I am sure there were some. I am sure there were positives in Stalinists
times. I don't particularly want to hear about either. It is not that I deny
that they might have existed, but that is not what the two systems were about.
What the two systems were about was the total destruction of the human spirit
for the benefit of a chosen few.
I do not know how the lingo works down under, but I've yet to hear anyone in
the States commend someone as being Stalin like and mean that as a compliment.
I've yet to hear someone call the local police force KGB like and mean it as a
positive. I've yet to hear someone describe the local minimum security prison
as a Gulag and mean that it is a good place to be.
If we are indeed to influence world opinion and get our story across, the first
thing we need to do is to stop this mythical contest between who had it worse.
It does not matter who had it worse.
Sincerely,
Andrejs Makwitz
Maris Ozols
On Mon, 03 Apr 2000 14:14:43 GMT, "Gintis Kaminskas"
<kad...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Peteris
>
>WELL, 14½ hours later, after a day's work at the office and plenty more
>around the house, I finally get to sit down at 22:30 half asleep and try to
>write the detailed reply I promised at 8 am on this Monday morning! If it
>doesn't make much sense I plead exhaustion.
>
How on earth do these people find the time to write so much. Most of
my time on the net is spent on researching my volatile tech stocks!
>
>You say, Peteri, that just because Russia has done nasty things since
>Czarist times does not mean no one else does it. Quite, but look at the
>imbalance in the reporting and world focus. The mass media and film
>industry have focused 99% on Hitler and the Nazis and only 1% on Stalin and
>the Soviet imperialists, so that Hitler and the Nazis are synonymous with
>authoritarian régimes, not Stalin and the communists. Everybody says,
>"Don't be a little Hitler", not "Don't be a little Stalin", they say
>"Gestapo", not "KGB", they say "Auschwitz", not "Gulag" when they want to
>make a rhetorical flourish.
>
This is completely true. The West seem to be embarrassesd about having
to concede that theSoviets were just as bad. I suppose its baggage
from the allied front of the second world war
>
>By the way, that social separation is a disaster waiting to happen too.
>It's easier for people to get their passions stirred up to the point of
>murder when they don't socialise with each other and think of "us" (clever,
>clean, good) and "them (stupid, dirty, bad). I can't help thinking that's
>partly why a certain number of Jews were able to side with the Russian
>invaders in 1940 and why a certain number of Balts took revenge on them by
>helping the Nazis do their dirty work. If both sides had known each other
>better and talked to each other more the story of 1940-1944 could have been
>rather different, rather less horrendous.
>
I agree with you 100% on this one. The problem was partly that the
Jews considered themselves superior. And, yes, they remained aloof and
I think they were resentful that the Ulmanis regime (and maybe the
other Baltic governments as well) elevated ethnic Latvian/Balt
qualities above all others. On the other hand the Jew had about 4
political parties in pre-war Latvia - it's not good to form political
parties on ethnic grounds. Things are and were different in the West.
For instance, in the UK, the Jews do a lot to integrate into society.
It is absolutely essential for a society to be homogeneous (right
word?), if it is to be healthy. I do not support the development of
mini cultures on racial grounds in any country whether in the UK or in
the Baltic States or anywhere else, AFTER THE PEOPLE IN QUESTION HAVE
CHOSEN TO MOVE TO SUCH AREA.. The Asians in the UK are paying the
price as their kids reject the culture of their parents by voting with
their feet. As long as it's not followed by the demise of Indian
restaurants is fine by me.
>Not many residents of Memel (Klaipeda) thought it should be part of Germany
>until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the long run
>de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian dreams
>of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you see
>all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
>because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all forget
>Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off everyone
>will be - especially them!
Funny how all of the rabids have disappeared together. Almost like
Sauron's riders used to turn up in the Lord of the Rings and then
disappear again..
>
>Yes, fighting Fascism was good, but Latvia should build new monuments.
>Leaving the old ones in place strengthens Russians' feelings of
>proprietorship.
>
I think that Latvia should demolish the monuments that glorify the
victory over fascism and replace them with monuments that glorify the
victories over totalitarianism. That would help to heal the rifts but
would also remove the remaining icons for the communists.
> Do you really
>think Jon imagines all Russian speakers as criminal colonists? Let's ask
>him. Jani, ko sac?
>
No, no Ginti - "Jani, ko Tu saki?"
Maris
>Regards,
>
>Gintis Kaminskas
>
>
>
Perkons23
>emphasize that many people who have Russian as their first language are not
>Rusisans, and that the Russian language is not only a resource of Russia.
>Like English, it has spread across a continent and become de-ethnicized. It
>is and long has been one of the languages spoken in Latvia. How Latvia
>deals with this reality in the future is an open question, but Latvian is
>not doomed just because Rusisan has a place in its society.
>Regards from bilingual Finland,
>Eugene Holman
Regards from a functionally Russian-speaking region of Latvia, Eugene. Why
can’t you get it? I would love to answer Gintis’ fine missive, etc., but I have
work to do and can’t (thanks, Gintis, okay you ain’t no redneck and sorry), but
I can’t not answer you, Eugene.
I spent the day downtown, and purposefully tried to investigate the
non-citizenry as per these arguments. Result: if I could only be Jon Hill...
I found absolutely zero sympathy for this _polis_, no understanding, no
conception of what it means to live here – here meaning physical space,
Daugavpils, Latvia, Europe, or even an imaginary Russia.
I.e., I talked to a lot of people who haven’t learned one word of Latvian, do
not intend to learn one word of Latvian, do not give a fucking damn about
living in Latvia, do not have any plans to return to nowhere, do not plan to
live anywhere, do not think, do not care, do not, do not, do not. And that’s
it, Holman, ‘de-ethnicize’ it as you will.
And I am very sorry, Holman, but the people I talked to today – and these were
informal, friendly, off-the-cuff conversations – are exactly the people who
were disenfranchised. Their kiddies are Latvian citizens because of EU
pressure, and in case you haven’t noticed, many children receive their parents’
politics as a legacy and then modify or do not modify them. If daddy doesn’t
give a damn where he is or lives, the child may or may not find his place with
or without this parental nothingness.
What you disregard, Holman, is that most Latvians regardless of their personal
lives or beliefs _are_ here, and remarkably so. I.e., many relish Russian as
much as they do Latvian, they know something of their history, they _care_
about where they are. They’re here, this is Latvia, they hope to speak Latvian
here.
Russian is not at all ‘de-ethnicized’ in Latvia unless you are a politruk. All
Latvians are bilingual (except for most repatriated western Latvians, some
teens, and children). Most people from non-Russian 'Russian-speaking'
minorities I've met are trilingual. Many Russians are monolingual.
Latvians are discriminated against in Latvia, not Russians.
You want to dispense your homey advice, oh well gee o armchair Man of Reason,
let’s have regions that are bilingual, oh and how shall we determine them, well
by where there are Russians, yes, like in the national capital, and how did
they get there and whose are they and how do they think and oh let them vote
locally.
Holman, this is a country. I’m very sorry that you don’t see that, but most
Latvians do. Riga is _theirs_. It may be a Russian’s Riga, too, or a
Georgian’s, and no one will have a problem with that. But Riga does not belong
to people who have no idea where they are and don’t care where they are.
Your logic in the last twenty-four hours has pretty much declared the city I
live in and care about bilingual, i.e., Russian-speaking. This is something
you, Eugene Holman, can’t get: *bilingualism in Latvia is effective
monolingualism.* Latvians here were treated like dogs until 1991, and it is
still impossible to live normally here without Russian.
Goody, almost everyone speaks Russian. Tell that to a child who needs to tell
the doctor where it hurts, or talk to kids in the playground. Tell it to the
guy who said no when non-local non-Russian workers wanted to live in one
building in order to protect themselves. Tell it to the students at the
university who want to be educated in their own cultural environment.
You want regions, Eugene? This is Latvia, a region with a flag, a democratic
government, a language, a history, and a culture all its own. Multicultural,
yes, but *the homeland of Latvians.* It will hopefully develop as such until a
Latvian can speak Latvian all the way to before Pytalovo, a region stolen from
Latvia. Your beloved Russia stretches across stolen land across oodles of time
zones, and may it prosper and may its philes flock to it.
Anyone who does not want to participate in this _polis_ can (shut up or)
protest as they so please – it’s a democracy. The majority of citizens wants to
participate, and has no intention of declaring any geographical or social part
of it as non-participatory.
Gintis is quite right in suggesting that Latvian would be in the position of
Irish had the Soviet occupation continued. I’ve remarked before that another
twenty years would have resulted in Belarus. A loss of identity leads not only
to linguistic and political extinction, but to the loss of the possibility of
_polis_.
This is _polis_. No matter how bad it gets, its citizens are true. I know
fanatical Buddhists whose only care is nothing, but they nonetheless turn out
to vote against lax language laws.
If ‘Russian-speakers’ want to join, welcome. But you can hang out talking about
how questionably viable our languages in their smallness are and then suggest
‘compromises’ that would make them smaller. Sorry, Eugene, but it ain’t Irish.
In Latvia, it is a living language, it survived slaughter, and not a few of the
kids growing up and gamboling gleefully with their newfound freedom – like
those who are in a fantastic new anthology of young poets – don’t speak Russian
and don’t know what a ‘partorgs’ is.
What you fail to grasp – refuse to grasp – is that there are no troubles with
the non-citizens. Russia wants to make trouble. You say having so many
non-citizens makes Latvia vulnerable to manipulation. If the Kremlin stopped
trying to manipulate, and people like you stopped aiding and abetting the
manipulation, there would be no trouble at all.
There is no problem with the non-citizens because they’re not discriminated
against and because, unfortunately, they don’t care whether they’re citizens or
not, Eugene. Of all of the people I spoke to today, not one considered Russia
to be their country. They don’t have a country.
No one here wants ‘motor voters.’ People went through too much. I watched
people rejoice when they tore down the bilingual address plaques and replaced
them with monolingual ones.
Before the street signs in Riga were replaced, _students_ took blue paint and
painted over the Cyrillic parts of the signs, Eugene. They weren’t being mean,
they were making this their country again. They had been fed ‘bilingualism,’
i.e. Russian as a ‘de-ethnicized’ language from the Pacific to Oz as a veneer
for Russian - not Soviet, Eugene, Russian – imperialism. It came with
restrictions on information and severe restrictions on learning other languages
– I’ve met more than one person who ended up in Siberia simply because they
knew German.
Some Russians and quite a few of the other ‘Russian-speakers’ want to
participate in the building of _this_ nation, o nation-building enthusiast.
Every Reasonable Person here – regardless of ethnicity – knows a lot of people
who don’t have a country and act like it. People without a country should not
have citizenship. A citizenry that cares about their environment makes a far
more stabile country than your dumb dreams about the democratic possibilities
of Putin and sham bilingualism.
Regards,
/Peteris Cedrins
Gintis Kaminskas
news:38e91820...@news.dircon.co.uk...
> Gintis!
>
> How on earth do these people find the time to write so much. Most of
> my time on the net is spent on researching my volatile tech stocks!
Maris
I was up till 12:30 last night and out of bed at 5:30 am. Today is going to
be a re-run of yesterday. I'm still at home at 9 am sending these quick
notes, but soon I have to go to work and I won't be able to respond to you
and Andrejs until late tonight.
Anyway, I tried so hard to get right "Jani, ko Tu saki?" but lo and behold I
got it wrong. Is saki an exception? Isn't the pattern saukti - es saucu -
tu sauci - vińs sauc? Np wait, it's sacīt isn't it? Must be a different
pattern.
Anyway, you and Andrejs raise a lot of interesting points and I'll get back
to you tonight Oz time - I guess mid to late afternoon Tuesday European
time.
Regards
GK
Maris
>Regards,
>
>Gintis Kaminskas
>
>
>
>
> >
> >You say, Peteri, that just because Russia has done nasty things since
> >Czarist times does not mean no one else does it. Quite, but look at the
> >imbalance in the reporting and world focus. The mass media and film
> >industry have focused 99% on Hitler and the Nazis and only 1% on Stalin
and
> >the Soviet imperialists, so that Hitler and the Nazis are synonymous with
> >authoritarian régimes, not Stalin and the communists. Everybody says,
> >"Don't be a little Hitler", not "Don't be a little Stalin", they say
> >"Gestapo", not "KGB", they say "Auschwitz", not "Gulag" when they want to
> >make a rhetorical flourish.
> >
> This is completely true. The West seem to be embarrassesd about having
> to concede that theSoviets were just as bad. I suppose its baggage
> from the allied front of the second world war
>
> >
> >By the way, that social separation is a disaster waiting to happen too.
> >It's easier for people to get their passions stirred up to the point of
> >murder when they don't socialise with each other and think of "us"
(clever,
> >clean, good) and "them (stupid, dirty, bad). I can't help thinking
that's
> >partly why a certain number of Jews were able to side with the Russian
> >invaders in 1940 and why a certain number of Balts took revenge on them
by
> >helping the Nazis do their dirty work. If both sides had known each
other
> >better and talked to each other more the story of 1940-1944 could have
been
> >rather different, rather less horrendous.
> >
> I agree with you 100% on this one. The problem was partly that the
> Jews considered themselves superior. And, yes, they remained aloof and
> I think they were resentful that the Ulmanis regime (and maybe the
> other Baltic governments as well) elevated ethnic Latvian/Balt
> qualities above all others. On the other hand the Jew had about 4
> political parties in pre-war Latvia - it's not good to form political
> parties on ethnic grounds. Things are and were different in the West.
> For instance, in the UK, the Jews do a lot to integrate into society.
> It is absolutely essential for a society to be homogeneous (right
> word?), if it is to be healthy. I do not support the development of
> mini cultures on racial grounds in any country whether in the UK or in
> the Baltic States or anywhere else, AFTER THE PEOPLE IN QUESTION HAVE
> CHOSEN TO MOVE TO SUCH AREA.. The Asians in the UK are paying the
> price as their kids reject the culture of their parents by voting with
> their feet. As long as it's not followed by the demise of Indian
> restaurants is fine by me.
>
> >Not many residents of Memel (Klaipeda) thought it should be part of
Germany
> >until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the long
run
> >de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian
dreams
> >of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you
see
> >all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
> >because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all forget
> >Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off
everyone
> >will be - especially them!
>
> Funny how all of the rabids have disappeared together. Almost like
> Sauron's riders used to turn up in the Lord of the Rings and then
> disappear again..
>
> >
> >Yes, fighting Fascism was good, but Latvia should build new monuments.
> >Leaving the old ones in place strengthens Russians' feelings of
> >proprietorship.
> >
> I think that Latvia should demolish the monuments that glorify the
> victory over fascism and replace them with monuments that glorify the
> victories over totalitarianism. That would help to heal the rifts but
> would also remove the remaining icons for the communists.
>
> > Do you really
> >think Jon imagines all Russian speakers as criminal colonists? Let's ask
> >him. Jani, ko sac?
> >
>
WaRR
Gintis Kaminskas wrote in message ...
>Peteris
>
>Not many residents of Memel (Klaipeda) thought it should be part of Germany
>until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the long
run
>de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian dreams
>of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you
see
>all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
>because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all forget
>Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off
everyone
>will be - especially them!
>
>
>Gintis Kaminskas
Once again you moron. There are Poles in Wilno, not Polish speakers. The
same goes for Lithuanians in north eastern Poland, they are not lithuanian
language speakers but Lithuanians.
You dont see Poland claiming these Lithuanians as Poles do you ? Why is
Lithuania claiming Poles in Wilno as Lithuanians ?
Dont you think that if Poles in Wilno wanted to speak lithuanian they would
?
They are not speaking it because they dont want to, and you lithuanian
coward nazi like policies will not make anyone speak your pathetic mongol
language.
Get it though your commie brainwashed mongolian skull.
WaRR
halm...@my-deja.com
Germany
> >until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the
long
> run
> >de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian
dreams
> >of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did
you
> see
> >all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
> >because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all
forget
> >Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off
> everyone
> >will be - especially them!
> >
> >
> >Gintis Kaminskas
>
> Once again you moron. There are Poles in Wilno, not Polish speakers.
The
> same goes for Lithuanians in north eastern Poland, they are not
lithuanian
> language speakers but Lithuanians.
>
> You dont see Poland claiming these Lithuanians as Poles do you ? Why
is
> Lithuania claiming Poles in Wilno as Lithuanians ?
>
> Dont you think that if Poles in Wilno wanted to speak lithuanian they
would
> ?
> They are not speaking it because they dont want to, and you lithuanian
> coward nazi like policies will not make anyone speak your pathetic
mongol
> language.
>
> Get it though your commie brainwashed mongolian skull.
>
> WaRR
Here is poor warr again - presumably after another bad hair day. His
superiors, and there must be many, picked on him and his frustrations
mounted to unbearable levels. But now he is home and can again
become WaRR - the avenging knight of Poland. WaRR - the terrible,
he who will smite all enemies of Poand and return her to her former
glory - WaRR the magnificent.
So who is this scourge of the Lithuanians, the Jews and the
Ukrainians. Just
who is this most impressive and intimidating personage? Sadly it is
just poor
Pan Konrad Korzeniewski living in that most alluring Los Angeles. Much
more information could be developed - but that will do. This poor
incompetent
makes such a big deal about maintaining his anonymity yet doesn't have
the
brains to do it properly. Let us look at some of his stuff - simply
gleaned
from Dejacom:
1. Proof of his identity:
- - - - - - - -
>> Forum: misc.immigration.canada
>> Thread: Anyone coming to Vancouver?
>> Message 5 of 5
Save this thread
back to search results
Subject:Re: Anyone coming to Vancouver?
Date:11/08/1999
Author:WaRR <wa...@ojczyzna.org>
<< previous in search next >>
I will be moving to Vancouver from Los Angeles in 10
months. What I am interested in is how hard it
would be
for me to set up my own company. Do you have
any idea
what is the market like for
internet/extranet/intranet
services ? Im talking about setting up full
infrastructures, e-commerce, vpn etc.
Any info on this list would be appreciated.
Konrad
kko...@mediaone.net
Rajan G. Rao wrote in message
<382350E7...@intergate.bc.ca>...
>Hi all you potential immigrants,
>
>I recently immigrated to Vancouver, B.C. from
California.
>
>If any of you are planning to immigrate to
Vancouver in
the near future
>and need assistance in getting to know the
place or the
system or just
>want to meet for coffee/chat, feel free to
contact me
at (604) 734-7403
>or e-mail me at raj...@intergate.bc.ca. I am
looking
to make friends.
>
>--Rajan
- - -
Here the poor dork is trying to see if he can do better in Canada and
reveals
himself. All I had to do at that point is run a whois program and the
terrible
knight was revealed in his altogether.
In the past we have seen the tone of his posts in scb. Let us see how
he
reacts to the Jews:
- - - -
>> Forum: soc.culture.italian
>> Thread: US JEW officials declare war on
slavic race
>> Message 19 of 23
Save this thread
back to search results
Subject:Re: US JEW officials declare war on
slavic race
Date:03/27/1999
Author:WaRR <Wa...@OjczYznA.OrG>
<< previous in search next in search >>
>weaselboy wrote in message
<92260934...@news.remarQ.com>...
<jew propaganda deleted>
I just love kike weasels. They are so tough
that they
have to beg for money from the USA so they can
pay off
their torturers and build new prisons for
Palestinian
people.
Jews will always be pariahs of the world. For
once you
should think why the jews have been and are
hated
throughout the world. Every time I see a jew I
wanna
throw up.
Long live Polish and Serbian people.
White Pride.
WaRR
- - - -
And there are so many more posts - most are worse. Let me just show
that this
poor man has been frustrated for a long time:
......................................................................
From WaRR <kkor...@sundance.usd.edu
Subject: FUCK THOSE FUCKING JEWS
From: WaRR <kkor...@sundance.usd.edu>
Date: 1996/06/10
Message-Id: <31BCC6...@sundance.usd.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-Ascii
Organization: FUCK THOSE JEWS
Mime-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: soc.culture.polish
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (Win16; I)
backstabbing jewish motherfuckers. if you come
to Poland
once again we're gonna dust ur ass up the
chimney and
make your fucking children watch, then we will
fuck them
and burn those motherfuckers too.
Amen.
A most pleasant person you must admit!
So how does he deal with the Ukrainians?
- - - -
>> Forum: soc.culture.ukrainian
>> Thread: lies and more lies
>> Message 11 of 23
Save this thread
back to search results
Subject:lies and more lies
Date:05/26/1999
Author:WaRR <Wa...@OjczYznA.OrG>
<< previous in search next in search >>
bab...@my-deja.com wrote in message
<7ih87v$p3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>
>
>Ah....your word vs. Toronto, Harvard, etc.
Or, better
yet, the word of
>some Polish scholar vs. most of Western
academia. Tell
me, Lech, is
>Poland a major world academic powerhouse? Do
scholars
from around the
>world try to get jobs working in Poland? He
he...
>
>Babai
Well for sure there are more western scholars
working
and willing to work in Poland than in Ukraine.
You
ukrainians instead of blindly believing
"western
scholars" should read something of your own
(but first
you need to produce it). Unfortunately you are
so up the
russian ass that you have no idea what a
quality national feeling is.
There are pleanty of world reknown scholars in
Poland.
The only scholars in ukraine are from the KGB
school of
thought. If it wasnt for the money from the
West constantly being pumped in your shitty
economy
you'd all be dying by millions so instead of
changing
the facts and fabricating your "history" start
working on your whores, pimps, mafia, commies
and
whatever the hell you got there.
WaRR
Go home Pan Korzeniewski. We have seen enough and don't need
such scum as you in scb.
RPP
<kad...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Not many residents of Memel (Klaipeda) thought it should be part of Germany
>until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the long run
>de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian dreams
>of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you see
>all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
>because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all forget
>Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off everyone
>will be - especially them!
>
REally? They will be better for having lost their identity? We never
lose our identities, thats what you do voluntarily, whether its Poland
or Russia or when you were little German collaborators during WW2. The
fact is you DO have a lot to worry about, because we WILL have Wilno
back, sooner or later. It wont be by force, it will be a cultural
invasion. Lithuanian ciltue has proven it is no match for Polish,
thats why you are all crying and bitching about how we Polonized you,
but you forget, Polonization was more than voluntary for you. The
Poles in Wilno, through the elections have shown who they are, and
they are a foothold for the future.
WaRR
RPP wrote in message <38ea21dc...@news.netinc.ca>...
Germany
>>until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the long
run
>>de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian
dreams
>>of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you
see
>>all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
>>because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all forget
>>Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off
everyone
>>will be - especially them!
>>
>
>lose our identities, thats what you do voluntarily, whether its Poland
>or Russia or when you were little German collaborators during WW2. The
>fact is you DO have a lot to worry about, because we WILL have Wilno
>back, sooner or later. It wont be by force, it will be a cultural
>invasion. Lithuanian ciltue has proven it is no match for Polish,
>thats why you are all crying and bitching about how we Polonized you,
>but you forget, Polonization was more than voluntary for you. The
>Poles in Wilno, through the elections have shown who they are, and
>they are a foothold for the future.
They are frustrated because a nation of 2 million people surrounded by
tens of millions of other nationals is doomed. In 50 years time,
Lithuania's
culture will be seen only in museums by few bored tourists.
Their chronic inability to produce anything worthy is unbelievable. We
can all insult each other and Halminas/Kaminski crew can say whatever
they want, the truth is obvious to all, lithuanians are too few and too weak
to play any role in Europe. They are using nazi tactics and trying to
assimilate other nationals in order to increase their numbers but it is
already backfiring. In few years they already managed to make enemies
out of their former friends. Whether it would be Latvia, Poland or Russia,
lithuanians are not viewed as friends in those countries.
Only countries rich in culture with strong economies will be able to
survive in european melting post in 50 years time. Lithuania has
neither, never had any major cultural achievements and its economy
is going down the tubes.
Please tell me all about Hamburgases and Frieses, and Chipses or
Sandwitchases and their world reknown works. Please tell me all
about lithuanian GDP 3 times higher then european cummulative
GDP.
I am all ears :)
WaRR
jott...@my-deja.com
>
> For the life of me I can not understand this need for one's boogie
man to be
> considered worse than the other's.
> It is untrue that the ratio is 99% to 1. More like 70% to 30, maybe
even 60%
> to 40.
The ratio is probably even worse than Gintis suggested, Australia is
far less consumed with Nazi crimes than the US. It is also far more
concerned with Stalinist crimes than the US. Most Americans under the
age 30 do not even know what Gulag means. They all know about Auschwitz
and the Holocaust. Think about it, how many big Hollywood movies have
been made about Stalin's crimes? Compare this with the never ending
media attention to the Holocaust. People who deny Stalin's genocides
such as Deborah Lipstadt and Barbara Green hold high academic positions
in the US. No denier of the Holocaust other than Butz holds any
academic position in the US. In over a decade of existance the *Journal
of Holocaust and Genocide Studies* has had exactly one article on the
Ukrainian famine. That was its entire output on the crimes of Stalin.
The US media constantly mentions Lileikis and totally ignores Dusanski.
Indeed in the US the ratio of attention of Nazi crimes to Stalinist
crimes is probably at least 1000 to 1 if not more.
J. Otto Pohl
Gintis Kaminskas
news:20000403191410...@ng-md1.aol.com... many good things.
I have found the past couple of days in scb very productive and it makes me
glad to be alive in 2000, when despite other problems, we have the magic of
Internet to allow us to converse with intelligent people all around the
world on a daily basis.
I think Peteris' lucid posts have helped me to understand more about Latvia
(where the situation is rather different from Lithuania). I think the
highlight of this particular posting is this paragraph:
"What you fail to grasp [he was adressing EH]- refuse to grasp - is that
there are no troubles with
the non-citizens. Russia wants to make trouble. You say having so many
non-citizens makes Latvia
vulnerable to manipulation. If the Kremlin stopped trying to manipulate,
and people like you stopped
aiding and abetting the manipulation, there would be no trouble at all.
There is no problem with the non-citizens because they're not discriminated
against and because, unfortunately, they don't care whether
they're citizens or not, Eugene. Of all of the people I spoke to today, not
one considered Russia
to be their country. They don't have a country."
I can see that. People are people. They have their Mazlovian needs, and
many don't care who
caters to those needs nor how. I can just imagine them saying "What did
Russia ever do for us
since 1991, except cause trouble?" If Russia succeeds in stirring up
violence and mayhem, who
will suffer? Not the Muscovites, not the Petrogradniks, not EH in Helsinki,
not the pinko academics abroad like Chomsky.
"Latvian is not doomed just because Rusisan has a place in its society."
says Eugene Holman
from "bilingual Finland". Hardly valid to compare Finland and Latvia. For
starters, the bilingual legacy is from a lot longer ago than a decade, plus
it is from a civilised country that has no territorial ambitions.
> I spent the day downtown, and purposefully tried to investigate the
> non-citizenry ...
> I found absolutely zero sympathy for this _polis_, no understanding, no
> conception of what it means to live here - here meaning physical space,
> Daugavpils, Latvia, Europe, or even an imaginary Russia.
Classic alienation. Many of the immigrants abroad don't give a stuff what
country they are in, they just want a cushy life. Many of the Chinese who
come to Australia would rather be in USA. Australia's history and culture
(by which I mean "ethos", "way of life" is of very little interest to very
many of them). Just like many Indians had contempt for Fiji - they were
just using it.
> If daddy doesn't give a damn where he is or lives, the child may or may
not find his place with
> or without this parental nothingness.
You can't build a decent nation until all its citizens know the national
language. And before Eugene says "What about Switzerland and Belgium" -
yeah, what about them. No comparison. In both cases, the speakers of the
languages involved are indigenous, or at least have called the area home for
many centuries, not just a few decades.
> Latvians are bilingual (except for most repatriated western Latvians, some
> teens, and children). Most people from non-Russian 'Russian-speaking'
> minorities I've met are trilingual. Many Russians are monolingual.
That's what it's all about. When Eugene and the Russians say "let's have
bilingualism" they mean
"let's have all the Balts speaking Russian" - and who cares whether the
Russians are monolingual.
> You want regions, Eugene? This is Latvia, a region with a flag, a
democratic
> government, a language, a history, and a culture all its own.
Multicultural,
> yes, but *the homeland of Latvians.* It will hopefully develop as such
until a
> Latvian can speak Latvian all the way to before Pytalovo, a region stolen
from
> Latvia. Your beloved Russia stretches across stolen land across oodles of
time
> zones, and may it prosper and may its philes flock to it.
In one sense you are right, Peteri, but in a way you're being too generous.
Before Russian interference
started, Latvians were speaking their native language on their native soil.
Whereas all Russians east of the Urals Russians were living on colonised
territory and were causing the atrophy and erosion of local languages.
What is that line from Greek tragedy? "Anyone the gods wish to destroy they
first destroy ther mind?" Well, with the Russians, anyone they wanted to
destroy, they first destroyed their language. As easy as ABC. Once you
talk Russian and think Russian - who needs anything else?
> In Latvia, it is a living language, it survived slaughter, and not a few
of the
> kids growing up and gamboling gleefully with their newfound freedom - like
> those who are in a fantastic new anthology of young poets - don't speak
Russian
> and don't know what a 'partorgs' is.
That's why I envy you being over there. The youth was my joy when I was in
Lithuania last year.
My heart glowed to see these youngsters speaking their native language so
beautifully to their
heart's content, not being told they are inferior for doing so,
> - I've met more than one person who ended up in Siberia simply because
they
> knew German.
The sick asshole communist Russians even deported Esperantists and
philatelists!
> Every Reasonable Person here - regardless of ethnicity - knows a lot of
people
> who don't have a country and act like it. People without a country should
not
> have citizenship. A citizenry that cares about their environment makes a
far
> more stabile country than your dumb dreams about the democratic
possibilities
> of Putin and sham bilingualism.
By that, Peteri, I assume you mean that a language test is perfectly valid
as a requirement
for citizenship? Of course it is! Why wouldn't it be? It is everywhere
else in the world too.
Gotta go
Fight the good fight
Regards
Gintis
mba...@my-deja.com
"Gintis Kaminskas" <kad...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>In the long run
> de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian
dreams
> of reconquest.
I disagree.Russian imperialism does't need any excuses for aggression.
While de-russification is not a bad thing,it does't seriously affect
the propability of further problem with russian imperialism.
> And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you see
> all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
> because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius.
I protest against calling my counterparts "Polish speakers" instead
of "Poles",against their will.Ask them yourself who they are.So
far,they seem quite attached the their Polish nationality.(check the
voting results in Wilno region)
> The sooner they all forget
> Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off
everyone
> will be - especially them!
The sooner you will accept the fact you *could* have some lost Polish
identity the better for your developement as a human.
Michael
> Regards,
>
> Gintis Kaminskas
mba...@my-deja.com
le...@mail.neinc.ca (RPP) wrote:
[...]
>
> REally? They will be better for having lost their identity? We never
> lose our identities, thats what you do voluntarily, whether its Poland
> or Russia or when you were little German collaborators during WW2.
If empires like Germany or Russia tried and failed there is very small
chance that Lithuania will achieve it.It has no assests,no advantages
which would allow it.Quite the opposite-the advantages are in our hand.
(size,population,geographic position,political position,cultural
position,economical state,etc)
> The
> fact is you DO have a lot to worry about, because we WILL have Wilno
> back, sooner or later.
There is small possibility of achieving that in nearest time,but a very
big possibility in the longer run.
> It wont be by force, it will be a cultural
> invasion.
I think you have made a correct prediction.Willingly or not,our
goverment's soft national policy may prove strangely effective in doing
that.
> Lithuanian culture has proven it is no match for Polish,
> thats why you are all crying and bitching about how we Polonized you,
> but you forget, Polonization was more than voluntary for you.
If they would admit the truth,it would make their nationality and their
national activities look as futile and unimportant,with little "moral
background".
> The
> Poles in Wilno, through the elections have shown who they are, and
> they are a foothold for the future.
Exactly,a foothold for the future.
Michael
Andrejs Makwitz
>The ratio is probably even worse than Gintis suggested, Australia is
>far less consumed with Nazi crimes than the US. It is also far more
>concerned with Stalinist crimes than the US. Most Americans under the
>age 30 do not even know what Gulag means.
Most Americans under the age of thirty, or over the age of thirty for that
matter, could not tell you that Mexico is to the south of them and Canada to
the north. I fail to see what the fact that they do not know what Gulag means
proves.
> They all know about Auschwitz
>and the Holocaust. Think about it, how many big Hollywood movies have
>been made about Stalin's crimes? Compare this with the never ending
>media attention to the Holocaust.
The media has paid more attention to the size of Pamela Andersons implants than
they have to anything else. If you truely want a ratio of a 1000 to 1,
Hollywood has produced more movies, at that ratio, that deal with the average
18 year old's mating habits than they have of the Holocaust. Once again I fail
to see what this proves.
> People who deny Stalin's genocides
>such as Deborah Lipstadt and Barbara Green hold high academic positions
>in the US. No denier of the Holocaust other than Butz holds any
>academic position in the US.
Are you saying that Holocaust denial should be a course of study? If it is
ultimate balance that you are looking for why stop there? Let's add
creationisms to the biology curriculum and the flat earth theory to the
astronomy curriculum.
Instead of addressing what Lipstadt and Green have said regarding Stalin's
genocides we should simply put more Holocaust deniers in acedemic positions?
Sounds like a rather bassackwards way to redress a wrong.
>In over a decade of existance the *Journal
>of Holocaust and Genocide Studies* has had exactly one article on the
>Ukrainian famine. That was its entire output on the crimes of Stalin.
>The US media constantly mentions Lileikis and totally ignores Dusanski.
>Indeed in the US the ratio of attention of Nazi crimes to Stalinist
>crimes is probably at least 1000 to 1 if not more.
That's a very interesting interpretation. If the above is true, why is it that
right wing fanatics, David Duke and the like, traditionally out poll the left
wing fanatics, the late departed Gus Hall and the like? How about "fringe"
main stream figures like Ralph Nader vs. Pat Buchanan? If what you say is even
remotely true, 1000 to 1, then their public support should reflect that,
shouldn't it? If Ralph and Pat were our only two choices I would bet you 1000
to 1 that Pat would win.
The present political climate in the United States is such, that the majority
of candidates for public office have to deny that they are liberals, not even
socialists and heaven forbid that they be associated with communism, if they
want to be elected. This to you is proof of a bias in favor of Stalin?
Sincerely,
Andrejs Makwitz
halm...@my-deja.com
Andrejs sneers:
"Most Americans under the age of thirty, or over the age of thirty for
that matter, could not tell you that Mexico is to the south of them and
Canada to the north. I fail to see what the fact that they do not know
what Gulag means proves."
How blessed are the local peasants that you came to enlighten them
Andrejs!
Best - - Henry
Andrejs Makwitz
In article <8cdho6$lpp$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, halm...@my-deja.com writes:
>Andrejs sneers:
>
>"Most Americans under the age of thirty, or over the age of thirty for
>that matter, could not tell you that Mexico is to the south of them and
>Canada to the north. I fail to see what the fact that they do not know
>what Gulag means proves."
>
>How blessed are the local peasants that you came to enlighten them
>Andrejs!
I do what I can. I find it strange that that particular passage offend thee.
You've said as much yourself previously.
Was there anything else in my words to Mr. Pohl that offended thee? On second
thought, nevermind. At times debating with you is like boxing with a
quadriplegic. Not much of a challenge and unless you want to be ultimatly
cruel and whack the poor sod around the head a few times. He won't feel a
thing anyway.
This is probably one of those times.
Sincerely,
Andrejs Makwitz
halm...@my-deja.com
every little mercy from thee is gratefully accepted oh
enlightened one. As to any additional remarks - would I dare?
jott...@my-deja.com
>
> Most Americans under the age of thirty, or over the age of thirty for
that
> matter, could not tell you that Mexico is to the south of them and
Canada to
> the north. I fail to see what the fact that they do not know what
Gulag means
> proves.
No, most Americans do know where Mexico and Canada are relative to the
US. The point is that Americans are ignorant of Soviet crimes not
because they are stupid as you infer, but because they receive no
publicity. Nazi crimes recieve daily coverage despite the defeat of the
Axis was over 50 years ago.
>
> > They all know about Auschwitz
> >and the Holocaust. Think about it, how many big Hollywood movies have
> >been made about Stalin's crimes? Compare this with the never ending
> >media attention to the Holocaust.
>
> The media has paid more attention to the size of Pamela Andersons
implants than
> they have to anything else. If you truely want a ratio of a 1000 to
1,
> Hollywood has produced more movies, at that ratio, that deal with the
average
> 18 year old's mating habits than they have of the Holocaust. Once
again I fail
> to see what this proves.
It has to do with the unequal treatment of Hitler vs. Stalin. The fact
of the matter is that Stalin has been treated with kid gloves. He is in
fact still respected by certain segments of US academia.
>
> > People who deny Stalin's genocides
> >such as Deborah Lipstadt and Barbara Green hold high academic
positions
> >in the US. No denier of the Holocaust other than Butz holds any
> >academic position in the US.
>
> Are you saying that Holocaust denial should be a course of study? If
it is
> ultimate balance that you are looking for why stop there?
No I am saying that Stalinist deniers like Lipstadt and Green should be
removed from their academic posts and treated the same way Europeans
have dealt with Nazi revisionists.
Let's add
> creationisms to the biology curriculum and the flat earth theory to
the
> astronomy curriculum.
> Instead of addressing what Lipstadt and Green have said regarding
Stalin's
> genocides we should simply put more Holocaust deniers in acedemic
positions?
> Sounds like a rather bassackwards way to redress a wrong.
You totally misinterepted my comment. I believe Lipstadt and Green
should be treated the same way Germany treats David Irving and co. i.e.
as criminals guilty of spreading ethnic hatred.
This has nothing what so ever do with what I wrote. The fact of the
matter is that there are about 1000 articles, movies, and books
condemning Hitler's crimes against Jews produced in the US for every
one dealing with any of Stalin's crimes. To see just how obsessed the
US is with the Holocaust see Peter Novick's *The Holocaust in American
Life* (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1999).
J. Otto Pohl
> Sincerely,
> Andrejs Makwitz
Egils Evalds
>
>
> >
> > > They all know about Auschwitz
> > >and the Holocaust. Think about it, how many big Hollywood movies have
> > >been made about Stalin's crimes? Compare this with the never ending
> > >media attention to the Holocaust.
> >
> >
> of the matter is that Stalin has been treated with kid gloves. He is in
> fact still respected by certain segments of US academia.
>
> >
> > > People who deny Stalin's genocides
> > >such as Deborah Lipstadt and Barbara Green hold high academic
> positions
> > >in the US. No denier of the Holocaust other than Butz holds any
> > >academic position in the US.
> >
> > Are you saying that Holocaust denial should be a course of study? If
> it is
> > ultimate balance that you are looking for why stop there?
>
> No I am saying that Stalinist deniers like Lipstadt and Green should be
> removed from their academic posts and treated the same way Europeans
> have dealt with Nazi revisionists.
>
>
of the 30 million+ (and ONGOING) SUPERHolocaust !
Have a suggestion. Let's stop talking about Stalin, Checka - Kgb, etc.
Instead use the "understandable to Americans" language to put it in perspective:
Hitler = Holocaust ( 6 million ) Stalin = SUPERHOLOCAUST ( 30 million + )
Nazis - " - SuperNazis (commies) - " -
End of Nazi period = 1945 End of SuperNazi period - Ongoing
Restitution $ 95,000,000,000++ Restitution $ ---- ZERO -----
Remember what Uncle Adolf said : "Does anyone remember the Armenians?"
Will anyone remember the Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles,
Germans, Checks, Romanians, Bulgars, Tatars,
Ukranians, Checnians, etc, etc, etc. ?
They will not. They do not know. So please translate into a language
people have been raised on.
STALIN = SUPERHITLER Gulag = Super Concentration camp
KGB = Super Gestapo Commie = Super Nazi
30,000,000+ holocaust = Super Holocaust
90 % of my family was eliminated in 1941. In their memory, pls consider.
Egils Evalds
Igor Sagdeev
> teens, and children). Most people from non-Russian 'Russian-speaking'
> minorities I've met are trilingual. Many Russians are monolingual.
That is oftentimes true, Peteri. Somehow, when you know two languages, it's
easier to learn more.
Those who only know one, and not very well at that, you tend to expect
others to accomodate.
> they get there and whose are they and how do they think and oh let them
vote
> locally.
There's something I can't understand about this "local vote" thing. Why
can't those
who want to vote locally just go and apply for citizenship? There are no
"windows" any
more (those were really a problem, and, IMHO, a shame), and the language
requirements appear to be quite reasonable. Did you ever ask the "local
vote"
proponents why can't they do just that?
Mass naturalization would also quickly solve some other problems, such as
Russian schools,
language laws, etc. I don't see anything wrong with a keeping a
Russian-language school system
or somewhat relaxing the language law, but why would the "sufferers" expect
the Letts to promote
these things? It's the Russians' business to do this, and it shouldn't be
hard once they become voters.
It is indeed pathetic to see people who don't do anything to help themselves
complaining about
not being given everything without an effort.
Yours,
Igor
sia...@aol.com
jott...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Most Americans under the age of thirty, or over the age of thirty
for
> that
> > matter, could not tell you that Mexico is to the south of them and
> Canada to
> > the north. I fail to see what the fact that they do not know what
> Gulag means
> > proves.
>
> No, most Americans do know where Mexico and Canada are relative to the
> US. The point is that Americans are ignorant of Soviet crimes not
> because they are stupid as you infer, but because they receive no
> publicity. Nazi crimes recieve daily coverage despite the defeat of
the
> Axis was over 50 years ago.
>
There's another consideration. The US sent an entire generation of men
to Europe to fight Hitler and what he represented - not Stalin. The
American psyche has no notion of wrong when applied to the SU, and
primarily Stalin, during the 30's and 40's. Only in the 50's, after
Stalin, did the real red scare attitude begin. By then though, most of
the crimes had been committed and hidden.
The typical American understanding of Stalin and his crimes has
improved over the last 20 years(as it has in Russia). Will it be
described as a "holocaust" - no. Nor would I look at such a label as
some sort of acknowledgement. Getting at pat on the back and
hearing "Gee you really suffered" isn't what I'm looking for.
Vidas
johne...@my-deja.com
eev...@erols.com wrote:
> jott...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > >
> > > > They all know about Auschwitz
> > > >and the Holocaust. Think about it, how many big Hollywood movies
have
> > > >been made about Stalin's crimes? Compare this with the never
ending
> > > >media attention to the Holocaust.
> > >
> > >
> > It has to do with the unequal treatment of Hitler vs. Stalin. The
fact
> > of the matter is that Stalin has been treated with kid gloves. He
is in
> > fact still respected by certain segments of US academia.
Sveiki Egils,
Yes but you did not list the SUPER RESTITUTION:
$95,000,000,000 * 5 (at least) = $475,000,000,000.00
And since the US has established the legal precident of 'attaching'
international assets of criminals/criminal nations/criminal businesses..
The $400,000,000 dollars that the US executive branch last week sent to
the legal inheritor of the ussr, russia, as a 'loan' could have been
attached and have served as a meaningful down payment to the victims of
criminality - and not a reward *for* the criminals themselves.
Jon Hill
Eugene Holman
perk...@aol.com (Perkons23) wrote:
My position on this has long been: "Fuck the parents, get the kids". Even
if political attitudes tend to be handed down from parents to children,
the schoiol system and semeotic world in which they live ultimate
determine identity and loyalty. It is the job of the school system to
teach these kids Latvian, and the job of legislation like the language
laws to reinforce what they learn at school: this is Latvia, this is a
Latvian speaking country, you are not going to be able to function as a
normal person in this society if you do not have an excellent command of
Latvian.
Their parents, though, have human rights, too. One of them is the right
not to be ashamed of their deracinated Russian-speaking, post Soviet
identity. Russian in Latvia is not a symbol of Russia, it is, as you have
pointed out, part of the local reality that has to be accepted even if
certain aspects of its presence are unwelcome. As Igor wrote, the
responsibility for determining what is to be done with Russian in Latvia
is, ultimately, up for those who use it to decide. The easiest way to do
this is to take citizenship and work to draw up a national policy on the
status of it and other minority languages. Given Latvia's geography and
past, it is obvious that knowledge of Russian, like knowledge of English,
is a "god thing" for Latvia, and that the presence of a population that
speaks Russian natively it is more of a potential resource than a
potential source of problems.
>
> What you disregard, Holman, is that most Latvians regardless of their personal
> lives or beliefs _are_ here, and remarkably so. I.e., many relish Russian as
> much as they do Latvian, they know something of their history, they _care_
> about where they are. They’re here, this is Latvia, they hope to speak Latvian
> here.
I am fully aware of this, Petri. It's the old Russian as a useful tool
vs., Russian as the hated symbol of past oppression conumdrum.
>
> Russian is not at all ‘de-ethnicized’ in Latvia unless you are a politruk. All
> Latvians are bilingual (except for most repatriated western Latvians, some
> teens, and children). Most people from non-Russian 'Russian-speaking'
> minorities I've met are trilingual. Many Russians are monolingual.
>
> Latvians are discriminated against in Latvia, not Russians.
Only in the sense that speakers of small languages that do not "travel
well" are generally expected to know at least one international language,
while native speakers of international languages are not generally exected
to "lower" themselves to learning small ones. This is a variant of the old
"Speak English loudly and slowly enough, and the wogs will understand you"
colonialist mentality, but you can't really blame middle-aged Russian
speakers for having it. It's not a product of the Soviet system, rather
it's the type of arrogance seen every day when the American, Brit, German,
or Frenchman visiting the most out of the way places on the globe expect
to be served in their native language. Until recently, Russian speakers in
Latvia didn't learn the language there simply because they didn't have to.
>
> You want to dispense your homey advice, oh well gee o armchair Man of Reason,
> let’s have regions that are bilingual, oh and how shall we determine
them, well
> by where there are Russians, yes, like in the national capital, and how did
> they get there and whose are they and how do they think and oh let them vote
> locally.
As you yourself know, Latvia is bilingual de fact if not de jure. The main
issue is whether the interests of the population, the entire population,
are best served by allowing the status quo to persist, or whether some
legal recognition ought to be extended - even for a limited perios - to
the country's second most widely spoken language.
>
> Holman, this is a country. I’m very sorry that you don’t see that, but most
> Latvians do. Riga is _theirs_. It may be a Russian’s Riga, too, or a
> Georgian’s, and no one will have a problem with that. But Riga does not belong
> to people who have no idea where they are and don’t care where they are.
Petri, Riga is Latvian in the sense that it is the capital of their
country, but it has never in its histiry been a Latvian city: it's
basically northern German port city like Lübeck or Rostock which was
planned, built, and run by German merchants involved in the East-West
trade. There is, of course, a Latvian Riga now, but that is of more recent
origin and has a more tenuous identity than German Riga or Russian Riga. I
may be wrong on this, but I suspect that the most famous son of Riga is
Richard Wagner, hardly your typical Latvian. Your different Riga's
coexist, but both Riga and Tallinn only became locally Baltic during this
century, and their Baltic identities, although presently dynamic, have
been superimposed upon much older identities. One of those identties, one
arguably held by the largest component of its present population, is that
of "people who have no idea where they are and don’t care where they are".
I would hesitate to use the word 'belong' - that makes things sound too
permanent - but that is the identity of a good part of the inhabitants of
the city. For reasons we both understand, their sense of having no idea of
or care for where they are was aggravated by the total disappearance of
their language from public view a few years back.
>
> Your logic in the last twenty-four hours has pretty much declared the city I
> live in and care about bilingual, i.e., Russian-speaking. This is something
> you, Eugene Holman, can’t get: *bilingualism in Latvia is effective
> monolingualism.* Latvians here were treated like dogs until 1991, and it is
> still impossible to live normally here without Russian.
Bilngualism is never a stable situation. [I have to go, will continue.]
Gintis Kaminskas
> >
>
> The typical American understanding of Stalin and his crimes has
> improved over the last 20 years(as it has in Russia). Will it be
> described as a "holocaust" - no. Nor would I look at such a label as
> some sort of acknowledgement. Getting at pat on the back and
> hearing "Gee you really suffered" isn't what I'm looking for.
>
> Vidas
Vidai
I don't think that's what any of us are looking for. What I'm looking for
is to get the same respectful audience when I talk about communist
atrocities as do the Jews when they talk about the Holocaust. No one would
dare smirk and sneer at a Jew and say "Oh shut up about all that, no one
wants to hear it." the way they are constantly saying it to Balts.
Gintis
Gintis Kaminskas
news:8cebas$ifb$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> The $400,000,000 dollars that the US executive branch last week sent to
> the legal inheritor of the ussr, russia, as a 'loan' could have been
> attached and have served as a meaningful down payment to the victims of
> criminality - and not a reward *for* the criminals themselves.
>
> Jon Hill
Hear, hear, Jon. And helping the Baltic states would be a much better
investment for USA. The Baltic states are headed for EU membership,
productivity, efficiency and honest government. Where is Russia headed?
Gintis
Eugene Holman
<kad...@hotmail.com> wrote:
It's too late to call the score yet, but there are enough people in high
positions in Russia by now to understand that productivity, efficiency,
and honest government are the only salavation for the country that a
critical mass may yet be reached. In any case, you can only shoot yourself
in the foot so many times before you either lose your foot or learn to
shoot in some other direction The key sentences in the article below is:
"I believe that there is a more serious realization (in Moscow) of the
serious scale of human rights allegations that need to be investigated,"
Robinson said.
It looks like some elements in Russia have at least found the path up that
old learning curve.:
Source:
http://europe.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/04/04/russia.chechnya.01/index.html
For purposes of discussion and fair use only.
U.N. official calls for probe of human rights abuses in Chechnya
April 4, 2000
Web posted at: 4:22 p.m. EDT (2022 GMT)
In this story:
Robinson wants a panel of experts
Council of Europe to vote on Russia
Russia mourns troops, fighting continues
RELATED STORIES, SITES
From staff and wire reports
MOSCOW (CNN) -- The United Nations' top
human rights official on Tuesday urged Russia to set up an independent
panel to look into allegations of human rights abuses by both sides in
Russia's war with rebel fighters in Chechnya.
After returning from a three-day trip to the region, U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said she had heard numerous
reports of abuses by both
Russian troops and Chechen rebels and added there had to be a "day of
reckoning."
Her trip included a short visit to the Chechen capital, Grozny, which was
nearly leveled by months of bombardment by Russian troops.
"I was shocked and appalled by the harrowing accounts of the Chechen
civilians," Robinson said in a statement. "I listened to testimony of
summary executions, intimidation, looting by military personnel,
disproportionate use of force, attacks on civilians' convoys, rape and
other violations."
Robinson met with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and told him that
Russia, as the sovereign power in the region, bears responsibility for
protecting human rights in Chechnya.
Ivanov denied the abuse allegations and warned against using the human
rights issue "as a pretext for interference into Russia's domestic
affairs." But Robinson said Ivanov agreed to consider her request for an
independent investigation.
"I believe that there is a more serious realization (in Moscow) of the
serious scale of human rights allegations that need to be investigated,"
Robinson said.
She was to report her findings to a U.N. rights panel in Geneva later this
week.
Robinson wants a panel of experts
The panel that Robinson proposes would include legal experts,
representatives of human rights organizations as well as civilian and
military prosecutors.
There has been no official response from Russia. In the past, Russian
leaders have said they would not tolerate outside interference in what
they see as an internal war against terrorism. But CNN's Mike Hanna
reported from Moscow on Tuesday that sources have hinted in recent days
that an independent commission of inquiry might be considered.
Hanna reported that the Kremlin maintains it already has military
investigators in place, probing allegations of criminal activity by
soldiers.
Council of Europe to vote on Russia
The Council of Europe, Europe's top human rights group, may vote as early
as Thursday on whether to suspend Russia for the alleged human rights
abuses in Chechnya.
This would be a blow to the government of President-elect Vladimir Putin,
who has made it clear that he wants to improve Russia's relationship with
Western nations.
Robinson wanted to meet Putin, but the Russian leader declined, according
to Russian press reports. But Robinson said the Russian government agreed
to let Council of Europe officials work with Putin's human rights
commissioner for Chechnya.
The council's key demand has been that Russia allow foreign observers to
inspect the scenes of the alleged abuses.
Robinson said Russian officials barred her from visiting some areas in
Chechnya that she wanted to see, including Grozny's neighborhood of Aldy,
where Russian troops allegedly killed scores of civilians in early
February.
Russia took action against Chechnya after blaming rebels based in Grozny
for the invasion of the neighboring republic of Dagestan last summer.
Russia also blamed the rebels for a string of deadly apartment bombings in
Moscow and other Russian cities, an allegation the rebels denied.
Russia mourns troops, fighting continues
Dozens of Russian troops have been killed in rebel ambushes in the last
month, and warplanes are once again in the skies over the region, blasting
guerrilla positions in the mountainous south. ITAR-Tass news agency quoted
officials as saying 18 air raids took place over the last 24 hours.
"The situation in the region remains tense. There is no cause to relax or
to become calm. We need to be extremely careful," Tass quoted Interior
Minister Vladimir Rushailo as saying in Grozny.
In the Urals region of Perm, funerals were held Tuesday for 25 police
commandos killed in a rebel attack last week. Crowds filed through a
sports stadium to pay their last respects, and public buildings were
draped in black.
In all, 43 servicemen died in the attack.
Putin attended a separate funeral at Moscow's headquarters of the Federal
Security Service for three soldiers from the elite Alpha commando unit
that Putin once headed. The three dead officers had tried to rescue the
ambushed column but also became trapped and were killed.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
zaga...@stcc.mass.edu
> It looks like some elements in Russia have at least found the path
> up that old learning curve...
> In any case, you can only shoot yourself in the foot so many times
> before you either lose your foot or learn to shoot in some other
> direction The key sentences in the article below is:
> "I believe that there is a more serious realization (in Moscow) of
> the serious scale of human rights allegations that need to be
> investigated," Robinson said.
No, Eugene. The key sentence in the article you cited was:
> Robinson said Russian officials barred her from visiting some
> areas in Chechnya that she wanted to see, including Grozny's
> neighborhood of Aldy, where Russian troops allegedly killed
> scores of civilians in early February.
Eugene, as long as I have known you you have been saying, in essence,
that since Russia has never ever done anything right in the past,
Russia is bound to do the right thing real soon. You have consistently
argued that Centralized Bigness is Good, therefore the Russian Empire
is Good and we all should give Russia and its maximum leader a chance.
Let me repeat here again that it is not for us to give the Centralized
Bigness of Russia and its maximum leader a chance. It is for
Centralized Bigness and its maximum leader to give us a chance. It is
for Centralized Bigness to recognize that Centralized Bigness is not
consistent with Human Rights and therefore doomed forever to fail and
to cause nothing but misery and suffering.
Juris Zagarins
Eugene Holman
> Eugene Holman the Putin Advocate just keeps tooting his Putin horn:
>
> > It looks like some elements in Russia have at least found the path
> > up that old learning curve...
>
> > In any case, you can only shoot yourself in the foot so many times
> > before you either lose your foot or learn to shoot in some other
> > direction The key sentences in the article below is:
> > "I believe that there is a more serious realization (in Moscow) of
> > the serious scale of human rights allegations that need to be
> > investigated," Robinson said.
>
> No, Eugene. The key sentence in the article you cited was:
>
> > Robinson said Russian officials barred her from visiting some
> > areas in Chechnya that she wanted to see, including Grozny's
> > neighborhood of Aldy, where Russian troops allegedly killed
> > scores of civilians in early February.
>
> Eugene, as long as I have known you you have been saying, in essence,
> that since Russia has never ever done anything right in the past,
> Russia is bound to do the right thing real soon. You have consistently
> argued that Centralized Bigness is Good, therefore the Russian Empire
> is Good and we all should give Russia and its maximum leader a chance.
> Let me repeat here again that it is not for us to give the Centralized
> Bigness of Russia and its maximum leader a chance. It is for
> Centralized Bigness and its maximum leader to give us a chance. It is
> for Centralized Bigness to recognize that Centralized Bigness is not
> consistent with Human Rights and therefore doomed forever to fail and
> to cause nothing but misery and suffering.
>
Juris, for as long as I have been contributing to this group I have been
saying that Russia is too big and should be broken up, with the consent of
its citizens, of course, into smaller and more manageable states. Tghe
breakup should have happened in 1991, each year they hobble along
reinforces the idea that it there is something reasonable about a state of
that size and including so many peoples who would rather have their own
state. I still feel this way, and I know that developments in this
direction, not necessarily towards a full breakup, but certainly towards
increased decentralization and regionalism, have been and still are well
under way.
This tendency, which will allow at least the more vigorous local cultures
and nations a better chance to survive, is not in cointradiction with the
fact that certain areas of administration, commerce, and defense are no
longer feasible in today's world if done on a national basis. So, a kind
of bigness is also evolving, but it is the type of selective bigness that
we see in NATO, NAFTA, and the EU. In the West, selective bigness on the
one hand, and decentralization on the other, have been combined to provide
higher standards of living, sustained prospertity, and more overall
respect for human rights than has arguably ever been the case in human
history. Russia has not really learned how to sort out and deal with
bigness: it equates it with control over territory and iron fists, but it
is also beginning to learn that this is an early 19th century attitude
towards bigness which is increasingly expensive to maintain, but also
increasingly irrelevant in today's world.
As to our two sentence, both are important and, indeed, they complement
one another, exemplifying theory and potential as opposed to hands-on
practice. I think that the fact that Russia does not even question that
fact any more that the Chechen problem cannot be regarded as a strictly
internal affair, but necesarily has a human rights dimension with
international repercussions, is one of the most important developments in
this part of the world of the past fifteen years. I'm pleased that the
seeds were planted in Helsinki in 1975 as a concession, the so-called
fourth basket, that the Soviets made in the Final Act of the CSCE, and
that respect for human rights in the former USSR is associated with the
'Helsinki process' and 'Helsinki groups'. The Russian government is
riddled with people who take these issues seriously and view them from a
European perspective, even if the public, much like that in the Unoited
States, does not always have a clear view of these matters. This is the
result of evolution. Your sentence shows that despite the existence of
these government officials and a general attitude among the top decision
makers that respect for human rights is a "good thing", there are still
implementational problems, which is hardly a surprise. The government of
Texas regularly tells Amnesty International and the Pope to mind their
business everytime they protest over the execution of another prisoner.
Hardly anyone ever always gets it all right, and respect for human rights,
and the understanding that it overrides 'national pride' or 'soverignty'
is the result of evolution - it doesn't fall from the sky over night. In
this sense Russia is no longer shooting itself in the foot, even if it has
yet to learn how to shoot straight.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Andrejs Makwitz
>No, most Americans do know where Mexico and Canada are relative to the
>US. The point is that Americans are ignorant of Soviet crimes not
>because they are stupid as you infer, but because they receive no
>publicity. Nazi crimes recieve daily coverage despite the defeat of the
>Axis was over 50 years ago.
I've never infered that Americans are stupid. The fact that someone can
correctly identify who their neighbors to the north and south are is not
exactly what I would call proof of intelligence. America's ignorance has
nothing to do with the amount of news coverage that is devoted to a particular
subject. Americans are ignorant because they can afford to be.
>> The media has paid more attention to the size of Pamela Andersons
implants than
>> they have to anything else. If you truely want a ratio of a 1000 to
1,
>> Hollywood has produced more movies, at that ratio, that deal with the
average
>> 18 year old's mating habits than they have of the Holocaust. Once
again I fail
>> to see what this proves.
>It has to do with the unequal treatment of Hitler vs. Stalin. The fact
>of the matter is that Stalin has been treated with kid gloves. He is in
>fact still respected by certain segments of US academia.
Hollywood has very little to do with US academia.
>>
>> > People who deny Stalin's genocides
>> >such as Deborah Lipstadt and Barbara Green hold high academic
>positions
>> >in the US. No denier of the Holocaust other than Butz holds any
>> >academic position in the US.
>>
>> Are you saying that Holocaust denial should be a course of study? If
>it is
>> ultimate balance that you are looking for why stop there?
>
>No I am saying that Stalinist deniers like Lipstadt and Green should be
>removed from their academic posts and treated the same way Europeans
>have dealt with Nazi revisionists.
Works for me.
>Let's add
>> creationisms to the biology curriculum and the flat earth theory to
>the
>> astronomy curriculum.
>> Instead of addressing what Lipstadt and Green have said regarding
>Stalin's
>> genocides we should simply put more Holocaust deniers in acedemic
>positions?
>> Sounds like a rather bassackwards way to redress a wrong.
>
>You totally misinterepted my comment. I believe Lipstadt and Green
>should be treated the same way Germany treats David Irving and co. i.e.
>as criminals guilty of spreading ethnic hatred.
You'll have to forgive my misinterpretation, but nowhere in what you wrote...:
> People who deny Stalin's genocides
>such as Deborah Lipstadt and Barbara Green hold high academic positions
>in the US. No denier of the Holocaust other than Butz holds any
>academic position in the US.
... did you indicate that Butz should lose his academic position as well.
It has everything to do with what you wrote. If it is indeed at such a ratio,
I would hope that the reason for it would have been to prevent such crimes from
ever happening again. Since the majority of Americans are not Jews, I would
hope that the lesson would have been to prevent it from happening to anyone.
Americas "obsession" with the Holocaust has not achieved this. What makes you
think that an "obsession" with Stalinism will?
In other words, if America's "obsession" has still not prevented such figures
as David Duke from registering on the political radar, how will changing the
boogie man make any difference?
Furthermore, if it is indeed a 1000 to 1 ratio it should then be reflected in
the cultural ethos of the nation. The American Nazi Party enjoys roughly the
same amount of public support that the American Communist Party does. Should
your ratio not be reflected in the public support that each political sphere
enjoys? Because if it is not reflected in those two areas, I fail, even if
true, to see the significance of the existance of such a ratio.
Sincerely,
Andrejs Makwitz
Eugene Holman
certain aspects of its presence, like a wart, are unwelcomed by most
Latvians. As Igor wrote, the responsibility for determining what is to be
done with Russian in Latvia is, ultimately, up for those who use the
language in their everyday lives to decide. The easiest way to do this is
to take citizenship and work to draw up a national policy on the status of
it and other minority languages. Given Latvia's geography and past, it is
obvious that knowledge of Russian, like knowledge of English, is a "good
thing" for Latvia (even if only because it provides privileged access to
the moods and intentions of its unpredictable neighbor to the east), and
that the presence of a minority that speaks Russian natively it is more of
a potential resource than a potential source of problems.
>
> What you disregard, Holman, is that most Latvians regardless of their personal
> lives or beliefs _are_ here, and remarkably so. I.e., many relish Russian as
> much as they do Latvian, they know something of their history, they _care_
> about where they are. They’re here, this is Latvia, they hope to speak Latvian
> here.
I am fully aware of this, Petri. It's the old Russian as a useful tool
vs., Russian as the hated symbol of past oppression conumdrum. And I am
fully in sympathy with their desire to speak Latvian in Latvia. What you
have though, is the existence of the elements for the emergence of a new
ethnos, let's call them Latyshians. These are people born and raised in
Latvia and with a Latvian identity, but having Russian as their native
language. The Finland-Swedes serve as an analogue. The remnants of a
population mostly colonial in origin, the Finland-Swedes are part of the
ethnic landscape of Finland, not of Sweden. The school system reinforced
by the choices the society has made ensures that have a virtually native
command of Finnish, while attitudes and 'civility' ensure that they can
receive service and interact with the government in Swedish. De facto,
that's what you have in much of Latvia now, but it is regarded more as the
result of unfortunate events which took place many generations ago than as
a resouce to be worked with.
>
> Russian is not at all ‘de-ethnicized’ in Latvia unless you are a politruk. All
> Latvians are bilingual (except for most repatriated western Latvians, some
> teens, and children). Most people from non-Russian 'Russian-speaking'
> minorities I've met are trilingual. Many Russians are monolingual.
>
> Latvians are discriminated against in Latvia, not Russians.
Only in the sense that speakers of small languages that do not "travel
well" are generally expected to know at least one international language,
while native speakers of international languages are not generally exected
to "lower" themselves to learning small ones. This is a variant of the old
"Speak English loudly and slowly enough, and the wogs will understand you"
colonialist mentality, but you can't really blame middle-aged Russian
speakers for having it. It's not a product of the Soviet system, rather
it's the type of arrogance seen every day when the American, Brit, German,
or Frenchman visiting the most out of the way places on the globe expect
to be served in their native language. Until recently, Russian speakers in
Latvia didn't learn the language there simply because they didn't have to.
>
> You want to dispense your homey advice, oh well gee o armchair Man of Reason,
> let’s have regions that are bilingual, oh and how shall we determine
them, well
> by where there are Russians, yes, like in the national capital, and how did
> they get there and whose are they and how do they think and oh let them vote
> locally.
Latvia is bilingual de facto if not de jure. The main issue is whether the
interests of the population, the entire population, are best served by
allowing the status quo to persist, or whether some legal recognition
ought to be extended - even for a limited period and accompanied by
merciless campaigns to have Latvian taught to and used by everyone in the
country - to the language favored by about 40% of its population. Israel,
which close to a million people have Russian as their first language, is
quite effective at getting newcomers to learn Ivrit, an important symbol
of national identity.
>
> Holman, this is a country. I’m very sorry that you don’t see that, but most
> Latvians do. Riga is _theirs_. It may be a Russian’s Riga, too, or a
> Georgian’s, and no one will have a problem with that. But Riga does not belong
> to people who have no idea where they are and don’t care where they are.
Petri, Riga is Latvian in the sense that it is the capital of their
country, but it has never in its history been a Latvian city: it's
basically a northern German port city like Lübeck or Rostock which was
planned, built, and run by German merchants involved in the East-West
trade. There is, of course, a Latvian Riga now, but that is of more recent
origin and has a more tenuous identity than German Riga or Russian Riga. I
may be wrong on this, but I suspect that the most famous son of Riga is
Richard Wagner, hardly your typical Latvian. Your different Riga's
coexist, but both Riga and Tallinn only became locally Baltic during this
century, and their Baltic identities, although presently dynamic, have
been superimposed upon much older identities. One of those identities, one
arguably held by the largest component - about 70% - of its present
population, is that of "people who have no idea where they are and don’t
care where they are". I would hesitate to use the word 'belong' - that
makes things sound too
permanent - but that is the identity of a good part of the inhabitants of
the city. For reasons we both understand, their sense of having no idea of
or care for where they are was aggravated by the total disappearance of
their language from public view a few years back. This was, admittedly,
symbolically important for Latvian nationalism, but it certainly
contributes to the feeling of indifference and disorientation that you
mention among older-inhabitants.
>
> Your logic in the last twenty-four hours has pretty much declared the city I
> live in and care about bilingual, i.e., Russian-speaking. This is something
> you, Eugene Holman, can’t get: *bilingualism in Latvia is effective
> monolingualism.* Latvians here were treated like dogs until 1991, and it is
> still impossible to live normally here without Russian.
Bilngualism is never a stable situation, and there is an obvious
difference between de facto and de jure bilingualism. The fact that, to
quote you, "it is
still impossible to live normally here without Russian" just supports my
viewpoint. You are living in a bilingual environment but don't think that
this fact should be given legal recognition. That's fine, but the
consequence is the feeling of indifference and lethargy among people who
are there but somehow don't exist - the old "lishniy chelevek" motif so
important in Russian literature.
>
> Goody, almost everyone speaks Russian. Tell that to a child who needs to tell
> the doctor where it hurts, or talk to kids in the playground. Tell it to the
> guy who said no when non-local non-Russian workers wanted to live in one
> building in order to protect themselves. Tell it to the students at the
> university who want to be educated in their own cultural environment.
Just because everybody speaks Russian doesn't mean that they don't know or
prefer to use another language. Just about everyone in Finland under the
age of 50 knows English and Swedish, and, if addressed in one of those
langauges can respond in it. That doesn't make Finland any less Finnish,
or prevent people from being educated in their cultural environment, part
of which functions on the assumption a knnowledge of English and Swedish
(or of Finnish if one is a Finland Swede) is part of the cultural literacy
you can expect an inhabitant of this country to have.
>
> You want regions, Eugene? This is Latvia, a region with a flag, a democratic
> government, a language, a history, and a culture all its own. Multicultural,
> yes, but *the homeland of Latvians.* It will hopefully develop as such until a
> Latvian can speak Latvian all the way to before Pytalovo, a region stolen from
> Latvia. Your beloved Russia stretches across stolen land across oodles of time
> zones, and may it prosper and may its philes flock to it.
Please. Russia is not beloved to me. It has been a very sick country for a
very long time, but it has recently been showing some signs of
improvement. We can't recover the meat or the life to the pile of bones it
rests upon, but now is as good a time as we have had in generations to
give it some much needed dental work [wink], a manicure [wink], and
possibly a lobotomy. Getting rid of certain pernicious repeated behavior
traits by neutering it is also in order. Cutting off all of its fur as
well as its tail would leave it more vulnerable to its environment and
with nothing to cover its exposed ass [wink]. It might even be given a
good dose of laxitive and put on strict diet. One of those ankle bracelets
with a radio transmitter which enable the police to trace its movements at
all times might also be in order. It's hard to tell what would emerge from
such a regimen, but it would certainly be smaller, lighter, and less of a
threat to its environment.
>
> Anyone who does not want to participate in this _polis_ can (shut up or)
> protest as they so please – it’s a democracy. The majority of citizens
wants to
> participate, and has no intention of declaring any geographical or social part
> of it as non-participatory.
>
> Gintis is quite right in suggesting that Latvian would be in the position of
> Irish had the Soviet occupation continued. I’ve remarked before that another
> twenty years would have resulted in Belarus. A loss of identity leads not only
> to linguistic and political extinction, but to the loss of the possibility of
> _polis_.
>
> This is _polis_. No matter how bad it gets, its citizens are true. I know
> fanatical Buddhists whose only care is nothing, but they nonetheless turn out
> to vote against lax language laws.
>
> If ‘Russian-speakers’ want to join, welcome. But you can hang out
talking about
> how questionably viable our languages in their smallness are and then suggest
> ‘compromises’ that would make them smaller. Sorry, Eugene, but it ain’t Irish.
> In Latvia, it is a living language, it survived slaughter, and not a few
of the
> kids growing up and gamboling gleefully with their newfound freedom – like
> those who are in a fantastic new anthology of young poets – don’t speak
Russian
> and don’t know what a ‘partorgs’ is.
I'm basically in agreement with you here, it's just that we see different
strategies for helping Latvia to grow and prosper. According to a
sociobiologist firend of mine, a country needs to sustain a minimum
population of four million to be able to ensure the diversity of talents
and generate the amount of income that it takes to keep a modern,
developed country functioning and potentially prosperous. Something
similar seems to hold for a language, with anything less than - let's say
one and a half million - providing the society with services in its own
language - newspapers, locally produced television and motion pictures,
computer software, operating systems, keyboards, and fonts, translations
into and out of the language - becomes quite expensive. In a more
information-based society, these considerations are multiplied.
Accepting the existence of Russian, but insisting absolutely that all
children of Russian-speaking families become qualified speakers of Latvian
as a result of their interacton with the school system, is the best way to
enlarge the poll of Latvian speakers. If the Russian speakers just sulk
around in their mental lethargy and Weltschmerz, they'll pass these
attitudes down to the next generation, intermarry, and become all the more
isolated within Latvian society, indeed Russian will become an even more
central part of their identity since there will be nothing else. Taking
the opposite route, accepting that Rusisan is a part of society in at
least certain districts of Latvia, but ensuring that the national
curriculum has Latvian for non-speakers as a highest-priority national
goal, will make the children of Russian speakers bilingual by adolescence,
thus allowing them a better chance of eventually starting families with
other Latvian speakers and raising Latvian-speaking children.
Even though Latvian, with some 1,600,000 speakers worldwide is hardly an
endangered language, providing the services needed by such a small
language which will enable it to serve its body of speakers will become
increasingly expensive - think of the problem of inventing the terms
needed to name the more than 1,000,000 parts of a modern jet fighter, of
fully translating a computer operating system plus manual into Latvian
terms that are standardized and recognized, or of ensuring that there are
modern and comprehensive Latvian-Greek, Latvian-Portuguese,
Latvian-Finnish, Latvian-Hungarian etc. dictionaries and specialists
available when the country joins the EU. These projects are expensive and
require a considerable commitment of time and resources. Every effort
should be made to increase the pool of Latvian speakers, both native and
non-native. The same holds true for the other two Baltic languages. This
will require what I call the de-ethnicization of the language - a
diminution of its symbolic value as a sign of national identity - but it
will mean an increase in the number of people committed to its survival.
This, by the way, is happening with Finnish right now. It is no longer
unusual to meet Africans, Indians, Vietnamese, or Chinese people who speak
Finnish with native or near-native competence - one of the news anchors on
a Finnish TV channel is a black Finnish woman, and this has generated a
demand in places like Portugal and Greece for increased Finnish
instruction, radio broadcasts, computer software, and specialized
Finnish-language X, language X-Finish dictionaries of terminology.
>
> What you fail to grasp – refuse to grasp – is that there are no troubles with
> the non-citizens. Russia wants to make trouble. You say having so many
> non-citizens makes Latvia vulnerable to manipulation. If the Kremlin stopped
> trying to manipulate, and people like you stopped aiding and abetting the
> manipulation, there would be no trouble at all.
I don't see how I am 'aiding and abetting' the manipulation. I only call
attention to the fact, also focused on by the CSCE and the European Union,
that a country in which a third of the population pays taxes but lacks
both the franchise and citizenship has an unstable or at least potentially
unstable situation on its hands. Juris posted a translation today of an
article by Tatyana Chaladze, a Russian journalist of Georgian origin
living in Latvia, calling attention to the grass-roots organizational
activity amon Russian speakers, and hos it has intensified of late.
Insofar as her assessment of the situation is accurate, I see this as the
possible first ominous signs of the evolution of a distinct, and perhaps
inimical to Latvia, Russian expatriot identity among the motley group of
deracinated Russian spoeakers Latvia inherited after the collapse of the
USSR.
>
> There is no problem with the non-citizens because they’re not discriminated
> against and because, unfortunately, they don’t care whether they’re
citizens or
> not, Eugene.
If I live in a country, pay taxes, but do not have the vote, I am
discriminated against. If the fact that I don't have the vote is a
consequence of my lethargy or stupidity, I am still being discriminated
against because because a person can't help being lethargic or stupid.
Seriously, I don't see the Latvian situation in such simplistic terms, but
my reading and experience with the Latvian situation is that there are
problems and situations which could legitimately be called discrimination.
> Of all of the people I spoke to today, not one considered Russia
> to be their country. They don’t have a country.
Might it be that their country is Latvia? But that Latvians are reluctant
to accept them as Latvians if they, products and remnants of Soviet
Latvian culture, are not able to speak Latvian or have little regard for
traditional Latvian culture?
>
> No one here wants ‘motor voters.’ People went through too much. I watched
> people rejoice when they tore down the bilingual address plaques and replaced
> them with monolingual ones.
>
> Before the street signs in Riga were replaced, _students_ took blue paint and
> painted over the Cyrillic parts of the signs, Eugene. They weren’t being mean,
> they were making this their country again. They had been fed ‘bilingualism,’
> i.e. Russian as a ‘de-ethnicized’ language from the Pacific to Oz as a veneer
> for Russian - not Soviet, Eugene, Russian – imperialism. It came with
> restrictions on information and severe restrictions on learning other
languages
> – I’ve met more than one person who ended up in Siberia simply because they
> knew German.
>
> Some Russians and quite a few of the other ‘Russian-speakers’ want to
> participate in the building of _this_ nation, o nation-building enthusiast.
> Every Reasonable Person here – regardless of ethnicity – knows a lot of people
> who don’t have a country and act like it. People without a country should not
> have citizenship. A citizenry that cares about their environment makes a far
> more stabile country than your dumb dreams about the democratic possibilities
> of Putin and sham bilingualism.
>
Agreed. But what do you do with those folks left out in the cold, even if
they are too stupid to come in? Do you say "Well, freedom is also a
license to be stupid" or do you begin social engineering? from what you
write, it seems that there a noticeable body of people that just don't
give a damn. While others are busy planning and building, their lethargy
could assume uglier forms if the attitude among those already committed is
just "let the stupId fuckers freeze".
Regards,
Eugene Holman
jott...@my-deja.com
> I've never infered that Americans are stupid. The fact that someone
can
> correctly identify who their neighbors to the north and south are is
not
> exactly what I would call proof of intelligence. America's ignorance
has
> nothing to do with the amount of news coverage that is devoted to a
particular
> subject. Americans are ignorant because they can afford to be.
OK, but regardless the ignorance is selective. That means that
Americans can be educated. This is more than an academic question when
dealing with the Baltic states. The perception in the US of Balts as
Nazi collaborators combined with ignorance of Stalin's crimes has very
real foreign policy effects. If an accurate view of WWII in the Baltic
states was well known in the US, the three nations would already be in
NATO.
>
> You'll have to forgive my misinterpretation, but nowhere in what you
wrote...:
>
Sorry, you are right I was not as clear as I should have been.
> > People who deny Stalin's genocides
> >such as Deborah Lipstadt and Barbara Green hold high academic
positions
> >in the US. No denier of the Holocaust other than Butz holds any
> >academic position in the US.
>
> ... did you indicate that Butz should lose his academic position as
well.
>
No, I did not mention it. But yes he should also be removed. The policy
should be applied equally to all deniers of genocide. The current one-
sided treatment which has favored the USSR, greatly distorts US foreign
policy. We view Haider as a serious threat and ignore Putin's neo-
Stalinist onslaught against the people of Chechnya.
Neither communists or nazis in the US run on their WII record. They run
on current issues. The effect of the unequal coverage of Naziism vs.
Communism is seen in the policies of Republicans and Democrats. The US
has special Justice Department unit to root out and deport every
Eastern European who "collaborated" with the Germans. During the 1980s
this office openly collaborated with the KGB and accepted obviously
forged evidence to persecute naturalized citizens like Karl Linnas,
John Demjanjuk, and others. It is quite likely that a large number of
NKVD and MVD criminals who served under Stalin emigrated to the US in
the 70s and 80s. Yet, there has never been any effort to find and
prosecute these murderers. I already mentioned how the unequal coverage
totally distorts US foreign policy.
J. Otto Pohl
>
> Sincerely,
> Andrejs Makwitz
>
>
jott...@my-deja.com
> I don't think that's what any of us are looking for. What I'm
looking for
> is to get the same respectful audience when I talk about communist
> atrocities as do the Jews when they talk about the Holocaust. No one
would
> dare smirk and sneer at a Jew and say "Oh shut up about all that, no
one
> wants to hear it." the way they are constantly saying it to Balts.
>
> Gintis
>
>
Very well put. It is a simple and reasonable request. Unfortunately,
the intellectual establishment in the US is unlikely to ever honor it.
J. Otto Pohl
Andrejs Makwitz
>OK, but regardless the ignorance is selective. That means that
>Americans can be educated. This is more than an academic question when
>dealing with the Baltic states. The perception in the US of Balts as
>Nazi collaborators combined with ignorance of Stalin's crimes has very
>real foreign policy effects. If an accurate view of WWII in the Baltic
>states was well known in the US, the three nations would already be in
>NATO.
I couldn't agree more that the image of all Balts as Nazi collaborators is
false and overplayed. However, the best way to overcome that is not to demand
a bigger share of the American attention span pie, but to deal with the
elements that allow such a perception to exist and flourish. Then and only
then will you be able to have a real affect on the image that you present to
the American public.
As to NATO, an acurate view of WWII will have no bearing on the Baltics
membership. The only thing that will have a bearing is the curent
geo-political climate. If NATO needs the Baltics, the Baltics are in. If NATO
does not, no amount of sanctification will change that. NATO is not the
Salvation Army. They do not care about your moral fiber. They care about the
amount of firepower that you can bring to the fight.
>No, I did not mention it. But yes he should also be removed. The policy
>should be applied equally to all deniers of genocide. The current one-
>sided treatment which has favored the USSR, greatly distorts US foreign
>policy. We view Haider as a serious threat and ignore Putin's neo-
>Stalinist onslaught against the people of Chechnya.
In that case we should be spending more time bringing attention to Putin's
crimes instead of pointing out all of the time state department has spent
devoting to Haider. One has nothing to do with the other.
I highly doubt that the USA views Haider as a bigger or even an equal threat as
Putin. It has nothing to do with their respective political, overt or covert,
leanings. It has to do with the fact that the state department is more
concerned with what Russia can and will do than what Austria can and will do.
Sincerely,
Andrejs Makwitz
Maris Ozols
Holman) wrote:
>Source:
>http://europe.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/04/04/russia.chechnya.01/index.html
>For purposes of discussion and fair use only.
>U.N. official calls for probe of human rights abuses in Chechnya
>
>April 4, 2000
>Web posted at: 4:22 p.m. EDT (2022 GMT)
>
>Putin attended a separate funeral at Moscow's headquarters of the Federal
>Security Service for three soldiers from the elite Alpha commando unit
>that Putin once headed. The three dead officers had tried to rescue the
>ambushed column but also became trapped and were killed.
>
>The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Good to see that it was Alpha that took the hit. These are the same
criminals that attacked the unarmed civilians at Vilnius' television
tower back in January 1991. Looks like Putin might even have given the
order.
Maris
Maris Ozols
Holman) wrote:
>In article <8cf9oi$j3a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zaga...@stcc.mass.edu wrote:
>
>
>Juris, for as long as I have been contributing to this group I have been
>saying that Russia is too big and should be broken up, with the consent of
>its citizens, of course, into smaller and more manageable states. Tghe
>breakup should have happened in 1991, each year they hobble along
>reinforces the idea that it there is something reasonable about a state of
>that size and including so many peoples who would rather have their own
>state. I still feel this way, and I know that developments in this
>direction, not necessarily towards a full breakup, but certainly towards
>increased decentralization and regionalism, have been and still are well
>under way.
>
Looks like you don't follow the news, Eugene. Your hero Putin has said
that he intends to centralise more.
Maris
sia...@aol.com
Sure it's reasonable, but its not an issue that can be attributed
particularly to US intellectual establishment. Sensitivities in Europe
in my experience are considerably more significant.
The Baltics have other battles that have a chance of being winable.
Competing with the Holocaust for attention is not a winable battle.
Vidas
Vladimir Makarenko
Sorry to trouble your joy.
VM.
Maris Ozols wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Apr 2000 13:47:57 +0300, hol...@elo.helsinki.fi (Eugene
> Holman) wrote:
>
> >Source:
> >http://europe.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/04/04/russia.chechnya.01/index.html
> >For purposes of discussion and fair use only.
> >U.N. official calls for probe of human rights abuses in Chechnya
> >
> >April 4, 2000
> >Web posted at: 4:22 p.m. EDT (2022 GMT)
> >
> >Putin attended a separate funeral at Moscow's headquarters of the Federal
> >Security Service for three soldiers from the elite Alpha commando unit
> >that Putin once headed. The three dead officers had tried to rescue the
> >ambushed column but also became trapped and were killed.
> >
> >The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
>
Eugene Holman
> On Wed, 05 Apr 2000 16:24:54 +0300, hol...@elo.helsinki.fi (Eugene
> Holman) wrote:
>
> >In article <8cf9oi$j3a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zaga...@stcc.mass.edu wrote:
> >
> >
> >Juris, for as long as I have been contributing to this group I have been
> >saying that Russia is too big and should be broken up, with the consent of
> >its citizens, of course, into smaller and more manageable states. Tghe
> >breakup should have happened in 1991, each year they hobble along
> >reinforces the idea that it there is something reasonable about a state of
> >that size and including so many peoples who would rather have their own
> >state. I still feel this way, and I know that developments in this
> >direction, not necessarily towards a full breakup, but certainly towards
> >increased decentralization and regionalism, have been and still are well
> >under way.
> >
> Looks like you don't follow the news, Eugene. Your hero Putin has said
> that he intends to centralise more.
>
I do follow it and I don't see a contradiction. Regionalism is an
important fact of life in Russia. I have friends or colleagues who spend
lots of time in Karelia, the Komi republic, Moscow, and Novgorod, and I
myself visit St. Petersburg at least once a year. Many different and
sometimes even exciting things are happening as a consequence of local
initiatives. Local autonomy and, in the case of the St. Petersburg area,
EU money to improve the infrastructure between that city, Finland, and the
soon-to-be EU Baltics are quite in evidence. Putin, not my hero, but my
choice among a ticket containing Zyuganov, Zhiri, and several
non-electables, has talked of increasing centralism and increasing the
power of the center. This can be interpreted ominously, but in a state
that has shown itself too disorganized to ensure that civil servants and
pensions are paid on time, and too weak and corrupt to follow up reports
that money consigned to pay salary arrears has been stolen by the local
officials and used to buy luxury automobiles, a strengthening of state
power is not an altogether bad thing.
In Finland we recently witnessed a clash between local autonomy and
neo-centralization. During the last days of the USSR the authorities in
Vyborg (Viipuri) began a special visa-free regime allowing tourists to
visit Vyborg for short visits simply by purchasing an admission card at
the border. Most of the money for this card was used to renovate the
city's crumbling infrastructure, and it, as well as the flow of day
trippers from Finland have provided the city with a source of income that
has created jobs and has made a visible difference. The Russian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs recently decided that the program is illegal, and that
the visa-free regime has to be stopped immediately. They are, however,
going to create a system at the border which will allow day trippers to
receive visas on the spot, with the money going to Moscow, rather than to
Vyborg. This proposal raised quite a stink among botth the local
authorities and the chamber of commerce in Vyborg, and, as of now, a
tentative compromise was reached which will allow the present visa-free
regime to continue tentatively until May 2. There is talk that the problem
will eventually be resolved with the Ministry empowering certain Finnish
travel agencies to grant Russian visas for brief visits, thus ensuring
that the fee for the visa goes to Moscow, but the tourists and their money
to Vyborg.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Regards,
Eugene Holman
zaga...@stcc.mass.edu
> > >Juris, for as long as I have been contributing to this group
> > >I have been saying that Russia is too big and should be broken
> > >up, with the consent of its citizens, of course, into smaller
> > >and more manageable states.
> Putin, not my hero, but my choice among a ticket containing
> Zyuganov, Zhiri, and several non-electables, has talked of
> increasing centralism and increasing the power of the center.
> This can be interpreted ominously, but in a state that has shown
> itself too disorganized to ensure that civil servants and
> pensions are paid on time, and too weak and corrupt to follow
> up reports that money consigned to pay salary arrears has been
> stolen by the local officials and used to buy luxury automobiles,
> a strengthening of state power is not an altogether bad thing.
Putin may be too short to be a Messiah on a par with tall men like
Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler, but he does have the advantage of being
the choice of Berezovsky, Holman and Alexei II. Eugene says he wishes
to see a breakup of the Russian Federation (with the consent of all the
citizens of the Russian Federation), but meanwhile he sees Putin as the
man to ensure that pensions get paid on time. In the article by Tatyana
Chaladze which I quoted before, she also mentions the curious fact that
the meager pensions to which all people resident in Latvia are
entitled, whether Russian or Latvian, do get paid on time even without
the ministrations of Vladimir Putin, and yet the Russian consul in
Latvia is not ashamed to proclaim in public that Vladimir Putin is a
Messiah to Russians in all Russian lands. Do you think, Eugene, that
Vladimir Putin will ever publicly reprimand his consul for making such
a pronouncement? Or would that make him look like a pansy in the eyes
of his war-loving countrymen and thereby decrease the chances for ever
achieving the peaceable breakup the Russian Federation into smaller and
more manageable states?
Juris Zagarins
kalm...@my-deja.com
"Gintis Kaminskas" <kad...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> You ask me why 'official language' means so much to me. Simply
because,
> without the legislative backing, it would be easier for Russian
speakers to
> keep on speaking Russian, and they would have less incentive to learn
the
> local language. I would think it's basic decency to learn the
language of
> the people you live among. Why are the white colonists in Africa so
hated?
> I think that treating African languages with contempt was one of the
major
> factors that shaped their contemptuous attitude to Africans in
general. If
> you learn a nation's language you learn to understand them, maybe
admire and
> love them, maybe want to become one of them. If you treat their
language as
> worthless rubbish chances are you will treat them as worthless
rubbish too.
>
This discussion, like most discussions tend to do, has veered off
course from what is promised in the heading. Thats fine, but since I
am joining it belatedly, let me add, some of my own impressions re.
'Russian linguistic imperialism' because I saw it in action. During
the Russian occupation I visited Lithuania several times and Latvia
once. This means that in practice I was allowed a few days or weeks
in Vilnius and Riga. This was sufficient that a total of 4 times I
was berated in Vilnius for the crime of not speaking the 'human'
language of Tolstoy and Lenin. One might argue that the russians who
thus accosted me were not of the highest caliber, but that totally
misses the point. Yes, there were some more refined russians who
possibly even sincerely sympathised with the plight of the Baltics.
But they were a small, quite insignificant minority. The overwhelming
bulk of the population, not just the low grade workers, but up to the
level of engineers and managers (that is the group I met most often)
were of the opion that these were their countries and whatever local
population existed had better accomodate to their likes. This
absolutely included speaking russian and my lithuanian coleagues used
to make abject appologies that this particular lithuanian does not
speak it. I witnessed personally how in a company of 10 lithuanians
and 2 russians the language immediately became russian and left me
out.
But in Lithuania this problem still seemed to be manageable.
One could stay away from the russians, and on the social level the
segregation (in non-party circles) was essentially complete. This
was impossible in Riga. Riga in the Breshnev years was a provincial
crumbling, thoroughly Russian town. I walked its decaying streets
for three days and practically did not hear any latvian. Everybody
seemed to be Russian. The 36% of latvians who were supposed to be
there seemed to be invisible to an outsider. A latvian colleague
explained to me that this was because the latvians spoke softly and
the russians spoke at full voice. This did not much to cheer me.
It was just one more illustration of who felt to be the master
race in Riga.
> The example of the Irish language in Ireland is a classic lesson in
what
> happens if a foreign occupation goes on too long and the indigenous
language
> is treated with contempt for too long. Another 50 years and Latvija
could
> have ended up like Ireland.
That seems to me wildly optimistic. At that time it appeared to
me that Latvia was lost already. It was one of the most bleak
journeys of my life. By determination, stubborness plus a fortunate
miracle, the Latvians have managed to save their national identity.
They should be applauded, should receive every encouragement
and help in preserving it. Another misunderstanding stated above
is that Latvia would have ended up like Irelland. After all, Ireland
is still populated by the Irish, and what language they speak is their
choice. A Latvia populated predominantly by russians would just mean
that the latvians have been eradicated. Period. Lets not confuse
issues.
Kalmenas
Perkons23
Eugene Holman responded in detail to my post – his trademark ‘reasonableness’
as always bringing him to questionable conclusions… I’ll snip my way along:
[SECTION ONE]
>My position on this has long been: "Fuck the parents, get the kids". Even
>if political attitudes tend to be handed down from parents to children,
>the schoiol system and semeotic world in which they live ultimate
>determine identity and loyalty. It is the job of the school system to
>teach these kids Latvian, and the job of legislation like the language
>laws to reinforce what they learn at school: this is Latvia, this is a
>Latvian speaking country, you are not going to be able to function as a
>normal person in this society if you do not have an excellent command of
>Latvian.
Agreed – though I am not nearly as convinced as you are that the school system
and semiotic world in which one lives are such influential determining factors
regarding identity and loyalty, particularly here, nor am I overly optimistic
in the short term.
The Latvian government and Latvians certainly deserve some blame for this – the
current government (which btw is teetering, with S’ke’le’s popularity at an
all-time low and the Social Democrats about to force a no confidence vote) is
in full-scale retreat from its hasty and unpopular education reform plans
(extending the school year, collecting tuition, etc.), leaving most other
education reform in limbo. Almost a decade after the country’s transformation,
almost nothing’s been done.
Identity is complex, as difficult to influence by legislation, curriculum,
etc., as language is. You and many others advocate opening Latvian society up –
that is happening, to a degree, and will happen, but much of it will take time
and happen mostly of its own accord, ‘naturally.’ As I said, other than Jon
Hill, I haven’t encountered any Latvians who aren’t thrilled by a Russian (or
other non-Latvian) who is fluent in Latvian. One interesting change is that
Latvian teachers are far more willing to teach at Russian-language schools –
many used to be very unwilling, the atmosphere in them hardly welcoming.
On the other hand, a substantial degree of separation will be maintained –
again, naturally so. It’s quite common, for example, for Latvians to resent
Russian-speaking children in Latvian-language schools. This is not usually
prejudice but simply familiarity with the result: as many here will tell you,
one Russian kid in kindergarten and the entire kindergarten tends to speak
Russian. Part of this is a difference in mentality, one I’ve noted in previous
posts. But part of it is that kids have a right to be interested in their own
education, not in an integration project.
I know more than one secondary school teacher who has been asked by parents to
teach a Russian kid with very poor Latvian skills in Latvian. Laudable of the
parent, to be sure, and it would be terrific if the teacher hung out and hugged
the Russian kid, filling his head with the One Trewe and Tragicke History and
our Magical Tongue, but that means teaching not only the subject but the
language as well, possibly slowing down the entire class’s learning, and
investing more effort and time than the demeaning salary a teacher receives
pays for.
This is the kind of thing that the government can influence, obviously – perks
and bonuses for bilingual teachers, etc., ought to be the norm by now, and
education should be a priority.
Instead, in Daugavpils, Latvian-language schools continue to flout the law by
hiring teachers whose grasp of Latvian is questionable, and the Latvian kids
get to suffer (as do the teachers not from here – I’ve heard quite a few
stories about recent graduates from more Latvian areas of the country who come
to teach and can’t understand, say, a computer training course, because the
instructor is not fluent… or the instructor gets to speak Russian because a
teacher who has been warned to learn some Latvian for ten years has spitefully
refused to do so and feels no shame in insisting that the whole course be in
Russian, just for her.) (When I cite examples, btw, they are either
true-to-life or slightly changed to protect the, heh-heh, identity of the
culprits. These are things I encounter constantly, not hypotheticals.)
In my recent conversations with students in Riga, I heard several remarks
complaining about Russian-speakers holding the class back because of their
inadequate grasp of Latvian. Just as I want a pleasurable lard-buying
experience and so do it in Russian (and that’s because of the Russians’
frequent resentment, primarily – in the last year, btw, I can recall only two
occasions in this neighborhood where a non-Latvian has attempted to switch to
Latvian of their own accord once they noticed my difficulty with Russian, and
many distinctly abusive situations), students are interested in getting an
education, not participating in an integration experiment.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, it’s quite common for university students to
ask to be transferred into dorm rooms with Latvians. They share more than
language, obviously – as an example, I have very frequently experienced a dorm
full of Latvian students singing folk songs for hours, the words sung by heart.
I dare say also that ‘integra’cija’ has become something of a dubious word and
concept for many – i.e., a passing drunken Russian curses and spits, and
someone makes the remark ‘lu’k, te nu ir ta’ integra’cija.’ ("See, here’s that
integration.") I am not at all trying to say that all Russians curse and spit,
or that Latvians don’t drink, I’m simply trying to give you a dose of
on-the-ground attitudes, and they will be very slow to change, particularly if
the Russian-speakers’ attitudes don’t change. This is not a p.c. society, and I
hope it never becomes one.
By that I don’t mean that I don’t think it’s a good idea to invite a Russian to
listen in on some folk songs and translate a few for him, but Latvians don’t
often do that – they’re not the world’s most open people. Telling them to
integrate isn’t going to suddenly open them up, and the very fact that they
have to suffer what is here in Daugavpils an environment that is alien to them
means they want some time singing their songs, by themselves.
The Russian attitude is usually ‘let them sing their songs.’ I’d be curious to
know how many Russians attend the song festivals here and in Estonia, for
example – I don’t think it’s too many.
School can teach a lot of things, but home teaches far more. You have only to
look at what the severe problems in American schools are (I was a
writer/researcher in the field for a time in the US) to see what I mean. You
can teach Russians Latvian, but you can only survey Latvian culture – the
students didn’t learn their folk songs in any school.
Most Latvians feel a strong bond to their language and are connected to the
land – hardly anyone doesn’t have relatives in the country, and you can see
even Riga empty out for solstice. Most Russians don’t have that – they have
other things, sure (although I’ve yet to get one person telling me how we’re
trying to take away his Pushkin to quote Pushkin…), but with many Latvians of
diverse beliefs and lifestyles, their ‘Latvianism’ is well nigh instinctive.
That’s why there are still Latvian schools operating in the US, and why even
the most apolitical people I know went to join hands with the Lithuanians and
Estonians and did time on the barricades. Such a strong determination to
preserve and protect one’s culture _cannot_ be taught. You can teach history,
language, good citizenship, etc., but it will almost always be superficial
until substantial time has passed.
>Their parents, though, have human rights, too. One of them is the right
>not to be ashamed of their deracinated Russian-speaking, post Soviet
>identity. Russian in Latvia is not a symbol of Russia, it is, as you have
>pointed out, part of the local reality that has to be accepted even if
>certain aspects of its presence, like a wart, are unwelcomed by most
>Latvians. As Igor wrote, the responsibility for determining what is to be
>done with Russian in Latvia is, ultimately, up for those who use the
>language in their everyday lives to decide. The easiest way to do this is
>to take citizenship and work to draw up a national policy on the status of
>it and other minority languages. Given Latvia's geography and past, it is
>obvious that knowledge of Russian, like knowledge of English, is a "good
>thing" for Latvia (even if only because it provides privileged access to
>the moods and intentions of its unpredictable neighbor to the east), and
>that the presence of a minority that speaks Russian natively it is more of
>a potential resource than a potential source of problems.
I don’t think that freedom from shame is an internationally recognized human
right, Holman.
It’s terrible to guilt-trip a child who spills black currant juice. If the
child continues to spill black currant juice, and appears to be hurling his
black currant juice at the freshly repainted wall intentionally, however, and
the child is now quite old, the child has severe problems. Surely his parents
may have made mistakes raising the kid, and guilt-tripping him ain’t gonna
help, and these matters should be addressed and are being addressed, but once
the kid reaches maturity he has responsibilities and people who get hit by the
black currant juice have a right to insist that he stop and no one should be
surprised if others think the kid should be ashamed of himself. This is a
remarkable country because no one whacks the kid.
The walls are being painted the way the people who owned the house until it was
taken from them and flooded with undesirables want them to be painted. Okay,
let’s hang up the ‘undesirables’ part and welcome those who moved in under the
robbers’ regime if they want to obey the rules. They can even paint some walls.
But it remains a Latvian house with diverse rooms until the robbers’ kids
realize this and we all drop the distinction. No one is going to benefit by
informing the ex-undesirables that they can do as they please in the public
spaces.
Sorry, but someone who can’t count to ten and say ‘paldies,’ or refuses to do
so, ought to be ashamed. Such people are almost always _refusing_ to speak,
and their identity is a negative one. I don’t have any problem buying lard from
Russians too dumb to say it in Latvian, or from a nice person who says it
wrong. I do have a problem with being insulted, and it is exceedingly insulting
for a person living among Latvians to force them to speak in Russian. That is
my daily reality, and it _is_ a symbol of Russia here, a symbol of not having
any say in one’s own country, and for many the memory of never being able to
even complain about it.
Part of the reason your incessant use of ‘Russian-speakers’ at 40% of the pop.
is deceptive is that many of those Russian-speakers, especially those from
minorities (who understand what it is to be a minority, and not to be Russian),
speak Latvian, respect the culture, and have no problem with de jure
monolingualism. I know a lot of Russians, and most don’t object to Latvia’s
laws – even some of those who don’t speak Latvian well or at all. I don’t
choose my friends or acquaintances for their politics, either.
>Given Latvia's geography and past, it is
>obvious that knowledge of Russian, like knowledge of English, is a "good
>thing" for Latvia (even if only because it provides privileged access to
>the moods and intentions of its unpredictable neighbor to the east), and
>that the presence of a minority that speaks Russian natively it is more of
>a potential resource than a potential source of problems.
You go *way* too far with this. The primary threat to Latvia is Russia, and
Russia uses the Russian-speaking minorities as pawns in its imperialistic
foreign policy. It is likely to continue to do so.
The use of the Russian language won’t decline so much as to make the moods next
door inaudible. The people next door are very loud.
Until such a time as the Latvian language and culture have recovered
sufficiently to be indubitably considered healthy (i.e., when hardly anyone
doubts that Latvian is the primary language here, almost everyone knows it, and
that’s considered natural) – until then, the more Russian declines here, the
better.
>I am fully aware of this, Petri. It's the old Russian as a useful tool
>vs., Russian as the hated symbol of past oppression conumdrum. And I am
>fully in sympathy with their desire to speak Latvian in Latvia. What you
>have though, is the existence of the elements for the emergence of a new
>ethnos, let's call them Latyshians. These are people born and raised in
>Latvia and with a Latvian identity, but having Russian as their native
>language. The Finland-Swedes serve as an analogue. The remnants of a
>population mostly colonial in origin, the Finland-Swedes are part of the
>ethnic landscape of Finland, not of Sweden. The school system reinforced
>by the choices the society has made ensures that have a virtually native
>command of Finnish, while attitudes and 'civility' ensure that they can
>receive service and interact with the government in Swedish. De facto,
>that's what you have in much of Latvia now, but it is regarded more as the
>result of unfortunate events which took place many generations ago than as
>a resouce to be worked with.
It’s been some time since Sweden had imperial ambitions. Sweden has long been a
democracy. Sweden is sorry for every little thing it and everyone else ever did
or thought of doing, and its none too swift monarch will probably provide you
with a formal apology for whatever he may have done to you indirectly. Civility
is the key, and Sweden is an incomparably civil culture. It poses no threat to
Finland.
And, again, you say ‘past oppression’ as though it’s back there with the Swedes
coming to colonize Finland. It’s recent, the majority of Latvians remember it,
and they are reminded of it every time someone refuses to give them their lard
in Latvian or they pass the wall around the corner freshly daubed with hammers
and sickles and anti-Latvian slogans. This is a matter of daily life, not only
history.
Most people in the former USSR had quite enough of new ethnoi with homo
sovieticus, Holman. They distrust such things, and rightfully so.
> Russian is not at all ‘de-ethnicized’ in Latvia unless you are a politruk.
All
> Latvians are bilingual (except for most repatriated western Latvians, some
> teens, and children). Most people from non-Russian 'Russian-speaking'
> minorities I've met are trilingual. Many Russians are monolingual.
>
> Latvians are discriminated against in Latvia, not Russians.
>Only in the sense that speakers of small languages that do not "travel
>well" are generally expected to know at least one international language,
>while native speakers of international languages are not generally exected
>to "lower" themselves to learning small ones. This is a variant of the old
>"Speak English loudly and slowly enough, and the wogs will understand you"
>colonialist mentality, but you can't really blame middle-aged Russian
>speakers for having it. It's not a product of the Soviet system, rather
>it's the type of arrogance seen every day when the American, Brit, German,
>or Frenchman visiting the most out of the way places on the globe expect
>to be served in their native language. Until recently, Russian speakers in
>Latvia didn't learn the language there simply because they didn't have to.
Maybe I’m just not as nice and forgiving as you, Holman, or maybe I live in the
real world.
Who do you blame for what, then? "Well, Eugene, you know, people who won’t hire
black people and call them nasty names while pointing to the lynching tree,
they’re just being racist slobs, and you can’t really blame them…"
Your French, Germans, etc., are visiting out-of-the-way places. This is Latvia.
The near destruction of Latvian _is_ a result of the Soviet system, which
discouraged learning Latvian in its efforts to destroy this culture. People who
objected were shipped off.
Nonetheless, a person who was not a slob learned at least some Latvian, with
some exceptions.
You are always apologizing for people who are slobs, Holman, and now you’re
saying that it’s their human right to be slobs.
"A chambermaid shall rule the world," Lenin said, and most people around here
got quite tired of the many haughty and self-possessed monolingual
chambermaids.
>Latvia is bilingual de facto if not de jure. The main issue is whether the
>interests of the population, the entire population, are best served by
>allowing the status quo to persist, or whether some legal recognition
>ought to be extended - even for a limited period and accompanied by
>merciless campaigns to have Latvian taught to and used by everyone in the
>country - to the language favored by about 40% of its population.
You just wrote : "Until recently, Russian speakers in Latvia didn't learn the
language there simply because they didn't have to." Well, now they have to, and
in my experience that’s the only thing that will get many of these people to do
it. No one is hitting them over the head, but there’s no reason to create
stupidity reservations, either. You also wrote:
>It is the job of the school system to
>teach these kids Latvian, and the job of legislation like the language
>laws to reinforce what they learn at school: this is Latvia, this is a
>Latvian speaking country, you are not going to be able to function as a
>normal person in this society if you do not have an excellent command of
>Latvian.
That is best accomplished by resisting any and all attempts to dilute the
language and citizenship laws.
As far as
>The main issue is whether the
>interests of the population, the entire population, are best served by
>allowing the status quo to persist
-- that is not the issue for Latvians. The rights of the ‘entire population’
need to be respected, but, again, this is ‘the homeland of Latvians’ and ‘the
language in Latvia is Latvian,’ according to the constitution.
Latvia was brutally occupied and colonized. The interests of non-citizens are
***NOT*** as important as the interests of citizens.
If the non-citizen residents wish, they can join the body politic. A little
Latvian, a little history, and an oath is all it takes. Until those modest
effort are made, they can keep working and paying taxes and get benefits, but
they cannot expect to legislate issues which the people they oppressed care
about.
>Petri, Riga is Latvian in the sense that it is the capital of their
>country, but it has never in its history been a Latvian city: it's
>basically a northern German port city like Lübeck or Rostock which was
>planned, built, and run by German merchants involved in the East-West
>trade.
As I said, all great cities are cosmopolitan – Riga more than the other Baltic
cities (it was the third largest city in the Russian Empire, after Moscow and
St. Petersburg, for a time).
You’re basically correct in your history, though there was always a Latvian
minority in Riga – and ethnic Latvians did participate in its construction,
obviously. There were professions staffed exclusively by Latvians already in
the medieval period. It was the hub of a basically Latvian country. Many later
architects – and investors – were Latvian, and the ‘national romantic’ style of
architecture developed already under German rule. Riga _was_ Latvianized (I
mean linguistically and culturally) between the wars, and the same repainting
of the street signs took place after independence then as now.
>There is, of course, a Latvian Riga now, but that is of more recent
>origin and has a more tenuous identity than German Riga or Russian Riga.
I disagree. Culturally, most institutions are Latvian, and that’s not because
anyone’s shutting down Russian cultural institutions. Again, it’s because large
numbers of non-Latvians form a Lumpenproletariat that doesn’t care where it
lives.
In terms of care, it’s a Latvian city. Latvians have taken responsibility for
its architectural history – restoring the House of Black Heads (not "theirs"),
for example – and the city figures in Latvian imagination, literature, and art
as Latvian.
Again, I’m not saying there’s not a "Russian Riga" or shouldn’t be – some of
the Orthodox and particularly the Old Believers’ churches are among the jewels,
for example, and there are hoary Russian institutions as well – but even mass
events like the song festivals, etc., are Latvian, not Russian – Russians are
welcome to participate and will, but the flavor is Latvian, as the celebration
of the city’s 800th birthday will be.
>I
>may be wrong on this, but I suspect that the most famous son of Riga is
>Richard Wagner, hardly your typical Latvian.
That’s like saying Dracula is Romania’s favorite son – not a comment on the
composer, love the stuff (as someone said of Debussy, brilliant music _sans
choucroute_, but I’ll take the Sauerkraut to hear Tristan and Parsifal any day)
– to Latvians, Riga is the birthplace or adopted city of many famous and
seminal figures, which is what I mean when I say that to Latvians it is part of
_their_ culture.
Aleksandrs C’aks, for example, the first great urban poet here, is for me and
many Latvians one of the main creators of the city as an imaginal space. The
street running past the station (frequented by prostitutes… very appropriately,
since he might best be described as the Latvian Baudelaire) has been named
after him, the oldest part still Marijas iela as when he wrote of it, renamed
in the late eighties, the Suvorov removed. (I once ran into a babushka looking
for an address there: ‘Zinayu, zinayu, C’aks, eta Suvorov po latishski…’ :-)
Anyway, Wagner wasn’t born there, he lived and conducted there briefly, running
from unpleasantness and creditors as always, and some of his work premiered
there (as did, btw, Sibelius’ ‘Finlandia,’ the politics of its music not
possible in Helsinki at the time, I believe).
Of world-famous sons, Eisenstein of _Battleship Potemkin_ would probably be the
most famous. His father was the architect of some of the fantastic buildings
along Alberta iela, btw.
>Your different Riga's
>coexist, but both Riga and Tallinn only became locally Baltic during this
>century, and their Baltic identities, although presently dynamic, have
>been superimposed upon much older identities.
Agreed – though its social and cultural importance to Latvians is older.
Montréal, which some could have argued was an English city only thirty years
ago, is a Québécois city now. It has a substantial English-speaking minority,
but the Anglos have been marginalized.
I don’t have any problem with that kind of change as long as rights are
respected. Granted, it’s terrific that there’s a very high quality Russian
theater. Latvians go to it, too. (Recently, all of the Latvian theaters donated
one day’s proceeds to the Bolshoi in Moscow, btw.) The more Russian cultural
institutions there are, the better – the more culture anyone has, the more they
respect other cultures.
But, yes, it’s the capital of Latvia. It has and will have all the trappings of
a capital, and is and will be the center of Latvian cultural life. It’s not
going to be the center of Russian cultural life – the center of local Russian
culture, sure, but Russians have Russia.
>One of those identities, one
>arguably held by the largest component - about 70% - of its present
>population, is that of "people who have no idea where they are and don’t
>care where they are".
70% would be way off in terms of these types. Many prewar Russians have a
stable Latvianoid identity (not because of integration but because of
Latvianization neither you, I, nor Brussels would now approve of, and the fact
that Latvia tereated minorities well), many from minorities happily identify
politically with the Latvian republic, and there _is_ integration taking place.
I would hesitate to use the word 'belong' - that
>makes things sound too
>permanent - but that is the identity of a good part of the inhabitants of
>the city. For reasons we both understand, their sense of having no idea of
>or care for where they are was aggravated by the total disappearance of
>their language from public view a few years back. This was, admittedly,
>symbolically important for Latvian nationalism, but it certainly
>contributes to the feeling of indifference and disorientation that you
>mention among older-inhabitants.
It was and is symbolically important not only for Latvian nationalism, but for
them, too. Ît didn’t give them a sense of having no idea where they were – that
kind of sickness they had under the Soviets – but informed them that they were
in Latvia.
And I will again remind you that the first language law was adopted when even
Russian soldiers could vote.
>> Tell that to a child who needs to tell
>> the doctor where it hurts, or talk to kids in the playground. Tell it to the
>> guy who said no when non-local non-Russian workers wanted to live in one
>> building in order to protect themselves. Tell it to the students at the
>> university who want to be educated in their own cultural environment.
>Just because everybody speaks Russian doesn't mean that they don't know or
>prefer to use another language. Just about everyone in Finland under the
>age of 50 knows English and Swedish, and, if addressed in one of those
>langauges can respond in it.
Again, almost all Latvians know Russian. Many Russians do not know Latvian.
That’s the issue, and that is the daily reality.
Latvians’ right to work, shop, and live normally in Latvia is more important
than anyone’s right to be a slob.
If a child who grew up in a Latvian-speaking household and therefore does not
yet speak Russian well cannot receive medical care in his native tongue in his
own country, that is a problem.
Not a few younger people no longer learn Russian. I know a few. They would
rather learn Western languages. Part of that is perhaps a dislike for the
occupiers’ tongue, yes. I find that far more justifiable than the act of a
Russian learning English and not Latvian when they live here, which you find so
understandable. I, and many others, see that as an affront. It’s proof that the
person disrespects the culture of the country in which they live. In other
words, the person is a slob.
>Please. Russia is not beloved to me. It has been a very sick country for a
>very long time, but it has recently been showing some signs of
>improvement.
Contemplating the Groznyy skyline again?
>If I live in a country, pay taxes, but do not have the vote, I am
>discriminated against. If the fact that I don't have the vote is a
>consequence of my lethargy or stupidity, I am still being discriminated
>against because because a person can't help being lethargic or stupid.
>Seriously, I don't see the Latvian situation in such simplistic terms, but
>my reading and experience with the Latvian situation is that there are
>problems and situations which could legitimately be called discrimination.
If you cannot drive a car or regularly drink yourself silly when trying, and
are not given a driver’s license, are you being discriminated against?
Citizenship is not a right.
I was just reading about a canton in Switzerland where everyone wishing to
begin the arduous process of becoming a Swiss citizen – after their prolonged
residency, some of them _born_ in Switzerland, which has not been recently
occupied – is included in a folder mailed to the homes of local voters complete
with the applicants’ family photographs, personal history, income details, and
hobbies. Almost all were voted down, and won’t be Swiss citizens (and that’s
still the local level, their applications not yet in Bern).
I’m no fan of motor voters, as I said. I consider American politics a pathetic
sham, and believe Jefferson to be rolling in his grave.
I am constantly amazed at the level of educated participation in Latvian
politics, at the frequent bursts of idealism and an interest in real insight.
Sure, Latvian politics are not a dreamboat, as Makwitz and I discussed
elsewhere. But issues like the proposed library, the intricacies of the
language law, entry into the EU, etc., are often discussed quite knowledgeably
and ardently by people whose socioeconomic position would often put them in an
apathetic or pocketbook-only category elsewhere. This is called national
consciousness. It’s important.
>Agreed. But what do you do with those folks left out in the cold, even if
>they are too stupid to come in? Do you say "Well, freedom is also a
>license to be stupid" or do you begin social engineering? from what you
>write, it seems that there a noticeable body of people that just don't
>give a damn. While others are busy planning and building, their lethargy
>could assume uglier forms if the attitude among those already committed is
>just "let the stupId fuckers freeze".
As you started this post – the focus is on the kids. Freedom won’t last very
long if it includes a stupidity license, especially not with the fragile
demographics and friendly neighbor Latvia has.
The thing is, your slobs are not freezing. They’re simply excluded from
citizenship until they meet certain simple requirements. You may find local
Russian political activities ominous, but they’re minor. There wasn’t a single
major demonstration against disenfranchisement, and even the Interfront
activities – when they had the Soviets to back them – attracted few. What
demonstrations there are primarily staffed by the same geriatric dinosaurs.
Perkons23
[SECTION TWO (Reply to Holman)]
You also conveniently ignore the fact that a portion of non-citizens (and of
citizens) _is_ inimical to this republic.
If someone is freezing, they can come in, and you know that. Instead, 9000
signatures have been collected demanding the right for non-citizens to vote in
local elections – they’re going to attempt to take the issue to European
institutions. (Note that it was _far_ easier to collect signatures on the
obscure issue against dividing up Latvenergo, apparently, than it was on this).
I may soon have to fulfill my promise of actively working against such a
possibility.
I want to end this on the note that you don’t pay nearly enough attention to
the historical realities, which you seem to treat as ancient history and not
the present.
I’ve already said that I believe in respecting human rights (and I believe that
the rights of ‘Russian-speakers’ have been respected, and remarkably so).
People here were fed all of these rosy ideas about everyone getting along and
nationality not mattering while this nationality and many of its people were
being clobbered by the people of that culture, if not nationality. Even with
the same phrases you use – about the percentage of scientific texts in Russian,
how international of a language it is, etc. To most here – including many
academics less gung-ho about russification than your friend in Tallinn – it was
the language of the Captive Mind (I’m rereading Milosz’s work), forced upon
them.
I find it kind of far-fetched for you to constantly paint people with a
conquerors’ mentality as sinless dummies.
As has been pointed out before, regardless of whether they wanted to russify
the place, they did. You keep trying to look at the ‘good’ things about
Russian, but a major cultural loss here was of the linguistic environment –
part of that organic identity and sense of place that makes Latvians Latvian.
Yeah, there are a lot of Latvians who are hardly different from Ivan Déraciné,
and yet this is _polis_, as I said. If people cared only about their
pocketbooks, there wouldn’t be so much support for building the extremely
expensive library.
_Dienas Bizness_ collected signatures against the proposed library tax (to be
added to the electric bill according to consumption, for both individuals and
companies), and you’re talking about how expensive the maintenance of a small
language is. A valid issue, but hardly the main one. A few Russians are
wandering around Daugavpils collecting signatures against the library, too. But
the papers are full of letters from starving pensioners supporting the library
and willing to pay, and hardly anyone questions the need to build it, only the
financing mechanism.
A country is not a business. Prosperity is important, but so is the environment
(natural, also; Eurofarming will almost certainly have a severe negative impact
on biodiversity here, and it’s become an issue).
As our fine president said in her Christmas speech, let’s all work and put the
past behind us, but Latvia is not a transit corridor. It is a country with an
ancient culture and tragic history.
It _is_ up to the ‘Russian-speakers’ to join the titular culture (even as they
keep their own), which in turn should make room for them. It is making room for
them.
I don’t like your sense of slobs’ rights or the dumbing down of the body
politic. I think you know perfectly well that few here would have trouble with
bilingualism if that was what it was. It wasn’t, isn’t, and wouldn’t be.
There already was a veneer of ‘bilingualism’ here under the Soviets, as I keep
pointing out. As a result, the Latvian language was being pushed out of the
public sphere. In the last years of the _stagnatsiya_, even the veneer was
starting to peel – monolingual street signs began to appear here in Daugavpils,
for example.
Again, I want to draw attention to the idea of ‘the homeland of the Latvians.’
Forgive my national romanticism, Holman, but that is partly the imaginal body
of the body politic. It can be a gloomy body, overdone – one begins to get the
impression that we’ll be hanging out flags of mourning every other day as new
days of infamy are added to the calendar by parliament.
But, again, it also involves respect for the space imaginal and physical. Not a
few of the students I recently met in Riga can walk you through the city and
tell you heaps of stuff about its history and architecture. That’s what makes
it theirs. I’m not at all trying to say that it isn’t anyone else’s, but the
people out chaining themselves to trees when they’re chopped down to build
parking lots are almost all Latvians.
Perhaps part of this is because Latvian culture has not been very inclusive,
out of necessity. But, living here, I’m not too sure how much of that has an
impact.
The head of Aldaris (the Pripps-Hartwall brewery) is a Russian who speaks
Latvian with a hilarious accent but is extremely popular and has been invited
into things like the committee that awards the Order of Three Stars, Latvia’s
only medal. Mavriks Vulfsons, a Jew, was for years the most popular person in
Latvia according to magazine polls. I’ve never seen any Russian who speaks
Latvian get ostracized in any way.
I’ve also met prewar Russians who kept the ‘s’ suffix and their Latvian skills
in exile. When I speak of Latvianoids with a stable identity identified with
Latvia, the Old Believers are good example – many don’t speak Latvian, and they
had a schism partly related to the older members’ support for Latvian statehood
in its nationalist form, but by and large they are supportive of the republic.
As I’ve said, most non-Russian minorities I’ve encountered are… and many
Russians are.
Note also that a huge portion of ethnic Russians _are_ Latvian citizens, and
yet the support for slobs’ rights is minimal. Many Russians go ahead and vote
for the ‘Latvian’ parties. Others vote for Communists who announce that they
will never speak Latvian, that the parliament is populated by ‘Papuans,’ and
that independence is always harmful to Riga (quotes from the city councilman
who replaced Tatyana Zhdanoka). If that’s who they want to vote for, they will
be marginalized and deserve to be.
It’s extremely debatable whether simply identifying with a country ‘cause it’s
where you derive your lucre and it don’t do nothin’ bad to you leads to a
functioning society in the long term.
Look at Canada – it’s a terrific society, in my opinion far superior to the
United States socially – but, still, about half the population of Québec wants
out while most of the ROC ("the Rest of Canada," as some call it) has something
of an identity crisis. Multiculturalism has been enshrined for decades and
immigration is welcomed, but there is a growing backlash against the loss of a
Canadian identity in the ROC.
Québec has strict language laws and is not threatened by a neighboring
imperialist power – or not physically. Culturally, however, many Québécois feel
threatened, and this in an environment that has long not had any of the nasty
dynamics present in Latvia. Its minorities and indigenous peoples apparently
feel threatened by the Québécois, so that an apparently drunken Parizeau could
say that immigrants cost them their country when the last referendum was lost
by a razor-thin margin (and then be forced to say au revoir).
Sure, there’s a degree of unpleasant ethnocentricity, even in civilized Québec.
The separatists are now scrambling to be more inclusive of the minorities who
voted against them (although it is almost certainly too late, and Quebec will
probably never become independent).
But a good argument can be made that the ubi bene, ubi patria crowd is not
conducive to a healthy body politic, just as multinationals are not conducive
to the sorts of business practices that benefit a community.
You always get to pointing out how small the Latvian linguistic body is, how
expensive it will be to maintain, etc. One of the things you rarely seem to see
is that it is too small to coexist with a Russian-language culture that is not
respectful of it.
There’s an expense debate going on in Brussels – whether the EU can afford to
translate stuff into the many new tongues that will shortly be joining it, and
whether it shouldn’t simply move to English as a working language. The small
countries, like Denmark, will fight this, of course (and France, obviously!).
Language is viewed differently in small countries than it is by speakers of
imperial languages – you know that. Like biodiversity, linguistic diversity
contains mysteries we would not like to lose.
It is also part of the environment. Latvians want – need – the public space
here to be Latvian, in terms of signage, for example. Old _lozungs_: "me’s
gribam bu’t kungi mu’su dzimtaja’ zeme’" – "we want to be masters in our native
land." Without background and history, that sound like a horrible phrase,
doesn’t it, ethnocentric as all hell. But you know that it is the cry of a
people that spent centuries being oppressed, abused, and victimized. Free
Latvians have never victimized anyone.
Unlike in Québec, that oppression – or really only its instruments – has only
recently been officially lifted – and one would think that my remark about it
still not being possible to live normally in Latvia without Russian would not
just go to prove your point about de facto bilingualism.
The fact is that this country was occupied and colonized, and a serious attempt
was made to emasculate its culture and destroy its language. That remains the
root of the issue.
Latvia still has a substantial number of persons (even among Latvians) who want
to deny this. As long as non-citizens refuse to see this – and Russia refuses
to see this – there will be problems. The problems won’t go away if your
‘freezing’ folks are given voting rights in a transit corridor or told they can
go on behaving as though they are in an ugly hallway.
Please note also that the only reason this country is independent – and not
part of the _bardak_ next door – is Latvian national consciousness. Sure, open
it up, make it welcoming. Many non-Latvians supported independence – hats off!
But certainly almost all of those non-Latvians who supported independence
recognized that this country was occupied and wronged, that this is Latvia,
that they had nothing to fear from it.
Nothing is gained by giving any political power to those who don’t understand
these things. Much would be lost.
Regards,
/Peteris Cedrins
Andrejs Makwitz
The highest compliment I can think of giving someone is if I read what they
wrote and have the compeling urge to give up writting forever because I could
never possibly match it. You're making me consider it. A little.
Great, great, prose.
Sincerely,
Makvics
zaga...@mail.stcc.mass.edu
Juris Zagarins
Perkons23
Kalmenas gets us back on track (and thanks be given to the Blessed Gods, as the
my-holocaust-is-bigger-than-your-holocaust-and-nobody-will-listen-to-me-in
-the-‘intellectual-establishment’ argument almost made me long for Jon Boy’s
traditional flailing at imaginary rooskies…)
>One might argue that the russians who
>thus accosted me were not of the highest caliber, but that totally
>misses the point. Yes, there were some more refined russians who
>possibly even sincerely sympathised with the plight of the Baltics.
>But they were a small, quite insignificant minority. The overwhelming
>bulk of the population, not just the low grade workers, but up to the
>level of engineers and managers (that is the group I met most often)
>were of the opion that these were their countries and whatever local
>population existed had better accomodate to their likes. This
>absolutely included speaking russian and my lithuanian coleagues used
>to make abject appologies that this particular lithuanian does not
>speak it. I witnessed personally how in a company of 10 lithuanians
>and 2 russians the language immediately became russian and left me
>out.
Yup.
Engineers, etc., were often in thrall of the security services, besides which,
their work often if not usually involved obeying the Party. After the miserable
structure collapsed, so did their jobs, in many cases. Why I shovel salt into
the Lone Ranger's and Zagarins’ lament for Soviet science. A close friend of
mine worked in an engineering bureau, and it had the distinction of having its
very own in-house KGB office. Later, after independence, we went to watch a
demonstration of motley creatures carrying LSSR flags, and there were not a few
of her former colleagues in the ranks wailing about exploiters bringing in
overseas bananas (my favorite quote from the event, yelled into a megaphone).
_Now_, it’s damn difficult to take a person seriously as an intellectual or
academic if they can’t speak Latvian, for I think obvious reasons. I was
recently accosted by a surgeon who informed me that all Americans are
uncultured and uneducated. The man spoke not a single word of Latvian, and is a
(Russian) poet to boot.
Not a few Lithuanians (and ‘Russian-speakers’ from Lithuania) have blamed
Latvians for being too compromising in social situations, so it’s interesting
to hear you say that two Russians turned a conversation Russian in Lithuania.
Maybe the difference is that it only takes one to turn the tongue here.
Any blame on Balts for social interaction, of course, can most easily be laid
only from within, in retrospect, which is why too much of this ‘Latvians are a
closed culture’ crap from outsiders seems misplaced.
In reality, at least part of the reason Latvians speak quietly was not only
their ancient Teutonic training but the totalitarian system that was in place.
Few would dare suggest that a Russian speak Latvian. If they did, they could
get into serious trouble, not to mention feel that they could. Some who
suggested teaching non-Latvians settling here Latvian during the ‘national
Communist’ thaw were sent to very cold places indeed.
One shouldn’t forget, too – and I often wonder how aware Holman is of this –
that large numbers of Latvians were under a pall of fear made very real by
their parents’ deportations, which then made the family suspect.
I know one person who sneered during Marxism class and therefore had her mother
called to the distant boarding school – a deportee – to be told ‘apples don’t
fall very far from the tree.’
Another friend of mine, in grade school, wrote a ‘what did I do over Ja’n’i’
essay which ended with a solstice quote from his grandfather – ‘Latvians won’t
die out.’ The teacher read the essay in front of the class, and upon reaching
that sentence noted insidiously that ‘thinking in some families has gone very
far indeed…’ In grade school! Again, his mother was a former deportee, among
his many reasons for fear.
On the other hand, most people are _not_ dense, and simple social interaction
is where a Russian most certainly knew that he was in an occupied country. I
wonder if in Holman’s newly declared shame-free society the one Russian for
whom the conversation constantly turns to his language gets free self-esteem,
too.
>But in Lithuania this problem still seemed to be manageable.
>One could stay away from the russians, and on the social level the
>segregation (in non-party circles) was essentially complete. This
>was impossible in Riga. Riga in the Breshnev years was a provincial
>crumbling, thoroughly Russian town. I walked its decaying streets
>for three days and practically did not hear any latvian. Everybody
>seemed to be Russian. The 36% of latvians who were supposed to be
>there seemed to be invisible to an outsider. A latvian colleague
>explained to me that this was because the latvians spoke softly and
>the russians spoke at full voice. This did not much to cheer me.
>It was just one more illustration of who felt to be the master
>race in Riga.
Holman, take note.
>That seems to me wildly optimistic. At that time it appeared to
>me that Latvia was lost already. It was one of the most bleak
>journeys of my life.
Well, come visit! Next week, even this culturally raped and thoroughly
russified town of Daugavpils will host kids from all over the countryside who
have submitted their literary endeavors to young established poets and the
chosen ones arrive expenses paid for workshops. They’re free, they’re happy,
they’re breathing life into the language, they have magazines and anthologies,
and they are a _new_ generation, numerically astounding – a recent anthology
featured ‘twenty-one from the twenty-first-century,’ most around eighteen years
old – they are qualitatively very promising – they’ve formed groups – they do
very atypical things for this fine old land like hold poetry readings in the
meat pavilion in Riga’s central market… and yet they have a sense of
continuity, unlike many young poets in the West; i.e., they read.
In an introduction to _Luna_, the new poetry magazine edited by Ja’nis
Elsbergs, Ja’nis tries to look at the different generations involved, and comes
up with:
Born 1956-1966 – the last generation from the Soviet period.
Born 1967-1978 – the generation of the transition period, ‘one foot in the
Soviet period – they all know Russian, understand the subtexts and humor of
that period – and the other foot in independence.’
Born 1979+ – ‘the precocious, energetic, and unexpected bunch’ –
‘***some know Russian very poorly, but that doesn’t mean they don’t study
languages… their identity is connected to contemporary Latvia’s, not to foreign
powers.***’
[*** for Holman… giving you a good idea of that consciousness, buddy….]
It is interesting to note that Elsbergs says that the members of the very
youngest generation ‘mean a lot to each other,’ – that their poetry is woven
with quotations from each other and forms a sort of group discourse, which
cannot be said of the older ‘young’ poets.
Riga has a Russian side, of course, but the feel of the cosmopolitan city is
more Latvian every time I head down-river.
By determination, stubborness plus a fortunate
>miracle, the Latvians have managed to save their national identity.
>They should be applauded, should receive every encouragement
>and help in preserving it.
Bravo!
>Another misunderstanding stated above
>is that Latvia would have ended up like Irelland. After all, Ireland
>is still populated by the Irish, and what language they speak is their
>choice. A Latvia populated predominantly by russians would just mean
>that the latvians have been eradicated. Period. Lets not confuse
>issues.
That would take us to very deep questions, where I for one would like to go.
I once asked – and never saw an answer – does anyone know of a fascinating book
about the Native Americans on Cape Cod and their fairly recent attempts to
prove in court that they are a continuous tribe? It dealt with such questions
(what is an ethnicity and culture, if its ‘consciousness is raised,’ what are
the effects of ‘consciousness-raising,’ etc.) very interestingly, e.g., at the
trial, a teacher was told that ‘these people wouldn’t know what they were if
you hadn’t told them,’ etc. I read parts at a friend’s house and would like to
have it.
In many anti-colonial independence movements, the colonists’ language has
actually functioned as a blessing (and, yes, Holman, the Russian language in
Latvia is supercalifragilisticexpialidotious because the Latvian nationalists
were able to talk to the Russian democrats, without whose support independence
would probably never have come)…
You also point to a paradox, Kalmenas, which is that the Baltic independence
movement(s), regarded by many as ‘fascistic’ in Russia and by some as nastily
ethnocentric in the West, have brought into being the most stabile and advanced
democracies anywhere in the FSU, and not looking bad against the satellites,
either.
Regards,
/Peteris Cedrins
Maris Ozols
<mal...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>Looks like another anti -russian bullshit. Putin *never* was a head of "Alpha".
>
>Sorry to trouble your joy.
>
>VM.
>
>Maris Ozols wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 05 Apr 2000 13:47:57 +0300, hol...@elo.helsinki.fi (Eugene
>> Holman) wrote:
>>
>> >Source:
>> >http://europe.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/04/04/russia.chechnya.01/index.html
>> >For purposes of discussion and fair use only.
>> >U.N. official calls for probe of human rights abuses in Chechnya
>> >
>> >April 4, 2000
>> >Web posted at: 4:22 p.m. EDT (2022 GMT)
>> >
>> >Putin attended a separate funeral at Moscow's headquarters of the Federal
>> >Security Service for three soldiers from the elite Alpha commando unit
>> >that Putin once headed. The three dead officers had tried to rescue the
>> >ambushed column but also became trapped and were killed.
>> >
>> >The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
>>
>> Good to see that it was Alpha that took the hit. These are the same
>> criminals that attacked the unarmed civilians at Vilnius' television
>> tower back in January 1991. Looks like Putin might even have given the
>> order.
>>
>> Maris
>
Don't blame me (or maybe you weren't), blame CNN. My comment was
'tongue in cheek'. I didn't particularly believe the info about
Putin. On the other hand, to be anti Putin is to be anti cold
calculating KGB man rather than anti Russian, I think. Russian doesn't
do itself any favours, though, as the punch-up at the Council of
Europe meeting today showed.
Maris
Perkons23
I just finished reading everything Toronto’s _Globe and Mail_ has had to write
about Putin in the last few months, and find things like tonight’s "unless you
know something they don’t know" about our friend Vovochka to be vile ooze from
someone who has watched too many Eurovision contests and mistrusts his own
eyes. Perhaps he should mistrust them, since he apparently doesn’t see very
well. Since I already made fun of Eugene’s quoting foreign ministers’
post-coronation announcements, and he didn’t get the drift but came back with
Baltic leaders welcoming Putin’s election, it’s hard to tell where Holman is at
with his Putin delusions. Really hard. Look, even Tonto abandoned him.
I can say that Canada’s best English-language newspaper does not share Holman’s
enthusiasm at all, neither in its news, commentary, or editorials. Instead, it
translates Russian sources which basically see Putin as a sick amoral poor kid
from a Leningrad courtyard who feels that being called a _kozyol_ by one of the
Chechen leaders makes the leveling of Groznyy justifiable, because that was
what one did in that type of courtyard. The Russian writing the article points
out that Putin resorts to _fenya_ often and naturally ("whoever offends us
won’t live three days") and concludes: "Psychiatry recognizes a condition known
as moral idiocy. Every time Mr. Putin opens his mouth in public, he confirms
this diagnosis for himself." [Andrei Piontkovsky, Director of the Centre for
Strategic Research, Moscow, in the Globe and Mail, March 25, 2000].
But Piontkovsky also concludes – re the _kozyol_ remark: "Turning Grozny into
Dresden or Hiroshima is, in Mr. Putin’s understanding, a perfectly suitable
response to being insulted that way. Mr. Blair will never understand what Mr.
Putin was trying to say. It’s not a translation problem; it’s just that he has
no grasp of the world that shaped Mr. Putin’s character."
This is _exactly_ the impression Putin gave me and everyone I know from the
moment he first appeared on TV. I have a very limited knowledge of Russian, but
have spent enough time on the periphery of the former Russian Empire to
recognize a Russian moral idiot when I see one. Holman, who knows Russian and
claims some familiarity with it, ought to be better than Tony Blair in
recognizing what sort of creature Putin is.
It is interesting also to see how Holman dismisses Yavlinsky out of hand. Look
at the vote Yavlinsky got in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Those who vote for
Yavlinsky are the people who supported and aided the dismantling of the Soviet
Union. As far as I’m concerned – and most democrats in Russia are concerned –
those are the only politically normal people in the country.
The rest of the Globe and Mail’s articles, with only a few exceptions, are
ominous. A student re voting for Putin: "Why should I vote for a police state?"
Holman can go on about how wonderful it is that Latvians know Russian and so be
able to hear the rumblings next door. I can assure you, Holman, that they are
heard. Most _Russians_ I know here are horrified by this man and what he has
done and is doing. When I went to a meeting in Riga before the election, and
said I’d send someone an e-mail on Monday, the entire room answered. "Monday is
Putin. There will be no Monday," and remarks to that effect. Humor, Holman.
Very dark humor.
Ja’nis Peters, poet, former chairman of the Writers’ Union, and for a decade
Latvia’s representative and then ambassador in Moscow, a man known for his
kindly attitudes toward Russia and knowledge of its politics, announced on TV
that the democrats are gone, dead, or murdered, basically.
What you write re Putin, Holman, is UTTERLY REPUGNANT to everyone in this group
except the fine virtual men who like to write about what Russia might do about
uppety Balts. It is unconscionable, and Kaminskas’ anatomical references are
fully in order.
There is no waiting to see what a man will be when he rides into his filthy
throne through genocide gleefully spattered across TV screens by criminals as a
positive feature, a man who even as ‘acting president’ takes steps to control
the media, militarize the society, and rekindle the worst and most dangerous
emotions in the Russian imperialist psyche.
Regards,
/Peteris Cedrins
johne...@my-deja.com
> > > >I have been saying that Russia is too big and should be broken
> > > >up, with the consent of its citizens, of course, into smaller
> > > >and more manageable states.
and
> more manageable states?
>
> Juris Zagarins
Well Zagarins ....
If you keep yanking off those dishevelled Holman glad rags.... I don't
know that we would be all that appreciative.
The thought of a tutu-less Holman brings with it its own, rather
distasteful, disencentives.
Jon Hill
Gintis Kaminskas
news:20000406195221...@ng-md1.aol.com... many good things. I
doffs me lid, Peteri.
Holman has troubled me for some time. He appears to be reasonable at
times, but then he blows it all by letting slip little throw away lines like
saying there was "blame on both sides" for the slaughter in Chechnya.
The kindest interpretation I can put on this is that he is just (whether
subconsciously or with malice aforethought) shortening his focus to the past
decade and conveniently forgetting that a couple of hundred years ago the
Chechens were running their own show and had every right to keep doing so
without Russian interference. I think this is what Holman can't grasp,
despite his human rights posturing and championing of indigenes. Eugene,
wake up! The Chechens are the indigenes of their area, just as the Balts
are of ours,
and we have every right to DEMAND and EXPECT the same respect of our
sovereignty as enjoyed by several much smaller European countries, not to
mention micro-states on Pacific attols. Stop telling us Balts to "get real"
and acknowledge some sort of Russian sphere of influence. We'll never do
that. If we had done that 10 years ago Garbageoff would have fobbed us off
with some sort of shitty "avtonomija" which would mean nothing in effect,
because russication would have continued.
> Putin is a sick amoral poor kid
> from a Leningrad courtyard who feels that being called a _kozyol_ by one
of the
> Chechen leaders makes the leveling of Groznyy justifiable, because that
was
> what one did in that type of courtyard. The Russian writing the article
points
> out that Putin resorts to _fenya_ often and naturally ("whoever offends us
> won't live three days") and concludes: "Psychiatry recognizes a condition
known
> as moral idiocy. Every time Mr. Putin opens his mouth in public, he
confirms
> this diagnosis for himself." [Andrei Piontkovsky, Director of the Centre
for
> Strategic Research, Moscow, in the Globe and Mail, March 25, 2000].
Hear hear. Why doesn't TIME magazine and the New York Times admit this?
Are some people so bereft of common sense that they can't figure out what
sort of person you must have to be to rise to the top of the KGB? Think
about it: absolutely without conscience or remorse, totally ruthless,
totally steeped in an atheistic and primitive-savage-throwback "the end
justifies the means" mentality.
> But Piontkovsky also concludes - re the _kozyol_ remark: "Turning Grozny
into
> Dresden or Hiroshima is, in Mr. Putin's understanding, a perfectly
suitable
> response to being insulted that way. Mr. Blair will never understand what
Mr.
> Putin was trying to say. It's not a translation problem; it's just that he
has
> no grasp of the world that shaped Mr. Putin's character."
Another gem! Right on!
> What you write re Putin, Holman, is UTTERLY REPUGNANT to everyone in this
group
> except the fine virtual men who like to write about what Russia might do
about
> uppety Balts. It is unconscionable, and Kaminskas' anatomical references
are
> fully in order.
Merci beaucoup. I do try to save it for when I really mean it!
> There is no waiting to see what a man will be when he rides into his
filthy
> throne through genocide gleefully spattered across TV screens by criminals
as a
> positive feature, a man who even as 'acting president' takes steps to
control
> the media, militarize the society, and rekindle the worst and most
dangerous
> emotions in the Russian imperialist psyche.
Take a bow, Peteris Cedrins. Well done!
Yours in Baltic solidarity
Gintis Kaminskas
Eugene Holman
<kad...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Perkons23" <perk...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20000406195221...@ng-md1.aol.com... many good things. I
> doffs me lid, Peteri.
>
> Holman has troubled me for some time. He appears to be reasonable at
> times, but then he blows it all by letting slip little throw away lines like
> saying there was "blame on both sides" for the slaughter in Chechnya.
The Balts showed the world quite clearly that there are dignified and
productive strategies by which small nations can seize windows of
opportunity to regain their independence. The Chechens, sadly, are in the
process of committing national suicide which is being accelerated by
Russia's willingness to use genocidal force in the name of national
unity. We all agree that Russia is making a horrible mistake, and it has
now been put on probabtion by the Council of Europe. On the other hand, we
have to understand that the international community appreciates the status
quo and does not, per se, frown on the use of violence to contain
separatist movements or revisions of borders: Northern Ireland, the Basque
conflict, the Falklands war, and the Kosovo crisis are all recent examples
to show that Russia at this point in time can count on some degree of
understanding from the international community for what it is doing in
Chechnya. Or, to put it a different way, holding hands, singing songs, and
candle-light vigils gain international sympathy can essentially shame a
colonial power into losing its grip; guerilla war in which a few thousand
fanatical diehards are pitted against one of the largest and meanest
armies in the world is going to produce nothing but more bodies.
> The kindest interpretation I can put on this is that he is just (whether
> subconsciously or with malice aforethought) shortening his focus to the past
> decade and conveniently forgetting that a couple of hundred years ago the
> Chechens were running their own show and had every right to keep doing so
> without Russian interference. I think this is what Holman can't grasp,
> despite his human rights posturing and championing of indigenes. Eugene,
> wake up! The Chechens are the indigenes of their area, just as the Balts
> are of ours,
> and we have every right to DEMAND and EXPECT the same respect of our
> sovereignty as enjoyed by several much smaller European countries, not to
> mention micro-states on Pacific attols. Stop telling us Balts to "get real"
> and acknowledge some sort of Russian sphere of influence. We'll never do
> that. If we had done that 10 years ago Garbageoff
I disagree with your interpretation but I admire the pun.
> would have fobbed us off
> with some sort of shitty "avtonomija" which would mean nothing in effect,
> because russication would have continued.
I know that the Chechens were running their own show and that they, like
many kindred people in the area and elsewhere, are the victims of Russian
colonialization. I also hope that I live long enough to see them
functioning as an independent nation again.
>
> > Putin is a sick amoral poor kid
> > from a Leningrad courtyard who feels that being called a _kozyol_ by one
> of the
> > Chechen leaders makes the leveling of Groznyy justifiable, because that
> was
> > what one did in that type of courtyard. The Russian writing the article
> points
> > out that Putin resorts to _fenya_ often and naturally ("whoever offends us
> > won't live three days") and concludes: "Psychiatry recognizes a condition
> known
> > as moral idiocy. Every time Mr. Putin opens his mouth in public, he
> confirms
> > this diagnosis for himself." [Andrei Piontkovsky, Director of the Centre
> for
> > Strategic Research, Moscow, in the Globe and Mail, March 25, 2000].
>
> Hear hear. Why doesn't TIME magazine and the New York Times admit this?
> Are some people so bereft of common sense that they can't figure out what
> sort of person you must have to be to rise to the top of the KGB? Think
> about it: absolutely without conscience or remorse, totally ruthless,
> totally steeped in an atheistic and primitive-savage-throwback "the end
> justifies the means" mentality.
The Americans recently elected a president with previsely the same type of
background, and now they are considering electing his son, governor of a
state that executes people for crimes committed when they were minors, to
high office. And they recently had a retired mediocrity of a movie star as
well as man, every second word of whose seems to have a deletable
expletive, as their leader, not to mention a guy who likes to have his
wick serviced while discussing business over the telephone. Russians have
no monopoly on moral idiocy, and moral idiots sometimes make good - or at
least effective - leaders.
>
> > But Piontkovsky also concludes - re the _kozyol_ remark: "Turning Grozny
> into
> > Dresden or Hiroshima is, in Mr. Putin's understanding, a perfectly
> suitable
> > response to being insulted that way. Mr. Blair will never understand what
> Mr.
> > Putin was trying to say. It's not a translation problem; it's just that he
> has
> > no grasp of the world that shaped Mr. Putin's character."
>
> Another gem! Right on!
>
> > What you write re Putin, Holman, is UTTERLY REPUGNANT to everyone in this
> group
All the more reason for writing about him. You work on the presumption
that he's a son-of-a-bitch, I'm willing to admit that he very well might
be and probably is, but would like to scrutinize him closely before
drawing a final conclusion. On another level, there are our different
perceptions of Russian leadership and of Russia. This is evident in our
very different perceptions of the stature of Mikhail Gorbachev as a
leader, and of the role he played in the disintegration of the USSR. We've
been through this before and agreed to disagree.
I don't know how many times you have visited Russia, Gintis, but I've been
there more than twenty times since 1970. I've seen the changes, both in
the USSR and in the Russia of today, and most of what I have seen has been
change for the better and it never could have taken place withoiut the
foundation laid by Gorbachov. Even border crossings, once dodgy, scary,
and usually unfriendly, are now no more traumatic than the border crossing
for any other European country. Although I am not pro-Russian, I am most
emphatically not anti-Russian. I would like to see Russia make the
contribution to European and world civilization that I know it has the
human resources to make. Mr. Putin is the man the Russians elected as the
person they thought most capable of overseeing the job. He made dealing
with the Chechen problem his first priority, did essentially what the
nation wanted him to do, and was awarded the presidency for that. Now he
is taking flak from the international community. How he and the Russian
people will deal with the problem now that Russia has been told that what
it is doing there is totally unacceptable to the community with which it
has worked so hard to be accepted by, will show us whether he really is a
son-of-bitch, or a person capable of continuing to lead Russia along the
path that will eventually make it a more "normal" country. I hasten to
add, that on a different and less murderous level, we see similar crises
and conflicts every time a prisoner is executed (no longer done in Russia,
btw.) in the United States, something which makes successful political
careers while evoking protests from the international human rights
community.
> > except the fine virtual men who like to write about what Russia might do
> about
> > uppety Balts. It is unconscionable, and Kaminskas' anatomical references
> are
> > fully in order.
>
> Merci beaucoup. I do try to save it for when I really mean it!
>
Decisions Putin makes within the next few weeks will decide what Russia
wants to do with itself. One way or the other, they are going to affect
the Baltics more than they affect Australia. So, Putin-watching, however
repugnant, should be a popular indoor sport in this group.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Perkons23
Quote of the Day: "It is more advantageous for Russian truck drivers to
transport freight through the theoretically hostile Baltics than through
brotherly Belarus." – A Belarussian newspaper, quoted in an article in today’s
_Diena_ by Yuri Svirko, which takes a look at the theoretically non-existent
border between two villages bearing ironical names: Lukashenki in Belarus, and
Drozdy in [a part of] Russia [stolen from Belarus].
To those Belarussians not driven away from this Group by Mr. Aluminum’s
manifest friendliness toward Lithuania’s neighbors, I’d like to say that I –
and I think not a few others – appreciate your continued efforts to keep us
informed about what’s going down in Belarus. _Down_, indeed. And thanks to
everyone, including Henry, for the recent reports on Lithuanian politics (I
wonder if Latvian politics are as confusing to outsiders as yours are…) –
Offhandedly and in part confirming Holman regarding the privileged information
available here re what’s is happening in Russia’s former vassal states, I can
say that there is a remarkable amount of stuff in the Latvian news about
Belarus’ tragedy, Russia’s sinister activities in Georgia (its sponsorship of
the conflict in Abkhazia and other machinations to ensure that Georgia does not
leave the fold – to quote a commentator, ‘a lot of people in the Russian
establishment may grudgingly accept the loss of the Baltic states, but will
_never_ accept the loss of Georgia’), Ukrainian language policy, and other
goings-on in the former Empire. Unlike Holman, I do not think that this is
cause for thanking linguistic imperialists, but rather see it as profound
sympathy for and understanding of the different conditions that prevail in
similarly raped cultures emerging from the yoke.
I thoroughly support your pleas for Baltic unity, Ginti, and hope that those of
you in Yule Land won’t forget who held your hands. The ins and outs of
Fenno-Ugric otherness and what to many here looks like an Estonian attempt to
disassociate itself from its less successful brethren have been covered a lot,
too.
I don’t share Jon’s jubilation about the Council of Europe’s slap. The slap is
of course more than deserved and should have come far earlier and been far
harder, but I will tell you that I got shivers up my spine and so did some
others I talked to today, seeing and reading the news. There is an awful lot of
sentiment in Russia for spitting in the West’s face regardless of how much
money the West hands them. Russia has much enjoyed going to the Council of
Europe to ululate about Pol-Potism in the Baltic states. The Russian Foreign
Ministry has been ominously taciturn since the slap, and not a few Russians are
murmuring about "appropriate responses." It is far better to have the Russians
spitting in Brussels, where they can be told that that their views are not
shared, than it is to hear things like Selezhnov’s ‘the West has forgotten who
it is dealing with." The West has forgotten, or pipes diplomatic muzak for such
as Holman, and an isolated Russia, no longer at the West’s teat, is _extremely_
dangerous.
The trouble was and is that the West simply has no leverage on this issue, as
Joschka Fischer admitted. Were Russia a responsible country, it might care
about the money or about having input in the Council. A few in Russia care, I’m
sure, but the bottom line is that Russia is not a responsible country, neither
to the West’s opinion nor to its own people. The Putin momentum that Holman so
marvels at can easily take it to hell in a jiffy. You have only to look at what
happened among its brothers the Serbs to see what’s possible – and irrational –
in the Russian future. And Serbia has a _stronger_ democratic streak than
Russia, I suspect.
Jon Hill, schlepping his semiautomatic across occupied Indian territory, can
take delight in what now looks like the serious possibility that Russia will be
isolated, isolate itself, and turn nasty. I see it as very scary.
Today’s paper didn’t cover the event as thoroughly as it might have, since the
Latvian cabinet now appears to be headed for a definite fall, and that took up
the headlines. Even if it doesn’t fall, there is nonetheless a serious shakeup
already underway. The P.M. requested the resignation of the Minister of the
Economy (Makarovs, of TB/LNNK, who after many attempts finally offed Naglis,
the head of the Privatization Agency, whom S’k’e’le yesterday reinstated), and
then left for a vacation till Monday. TB/LNNK, which has been rocking the boat
for some time, has apparently decided to try to topple it. Even if S’k’e’le
does go, however, the current coalition remains the most logical and the
likeliest. Speculation on a possible new P.M.? Li’bane, the young – and female!
-- star of LC.
Regards,
/Peteris Cedrins
Perkons23
Btw, the Latvian representatives' votes on taking away Russia's Council voting
rights: Boriss Cile'vic's -- no (he believes all leverage would be lost); Juris
Sinka -- yes.
Best,
/Peteris Cedrins
Eugene Holman
perk...@aol.com (Perkons23) wrote:
> Btw, the Latvian representatives' votes on taking away Russia's Council voting
> rights: Boriss Cile'vic's -- no (he believes all leverage would be lost);
Good point. Part of the process of making Russia a more "normal" country
has been getting it involved in supranatrional structures. In 1939, when
Russia sneak-attacked Finland, it was unceremoniously kicked out of the
League of Nations. It preferred, like Nazi Germany, to continue making war
rather than allow the international community to interfere with its act.
Monitoring Russian behavior during the next few weeks will reveal once and
for all whether the country is committed to the path of reform, or whether
it is the bardak headed by a son-of-bitch that everyone here seems
convinced that it is.
Juris
> Sinka -- yes.
>
Cile'vics - carrot
Sinka - stick
Good policy.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Vladimir Makarenko
Maris Ozols wrote:
I don't blame you - I don't blame the CNN- I remember their reports from Kosovo,
btw, they told that " 100,000 Albanian men are feared to be missed" - I want a hard
copy and
a forensic proof - isn't it more than half of year enough? Correct me but for the
Allies to come up with proves for the Nazi Trial it was needed much less time. Maybe
there no proves?
> My comment was
> 'tongue in cheek'.
I appreciate this - this is rare case on the Net.
> I didn't particularly believe the info about
> Putin. On the other hand, to be anti Putin is to be anti cold
> calculating KGB man rather than anti Russian, I think. Russian doesn't
> do itself any favours, though, as the punch-up at the Council of
> Europe meeting today showed.
>
The base line is you hate him.
Now - have you ever heard about CIA's "Pheonix" program? Was there ANY person
punished for throwing innocent people from HP?
And why in the hell we Russians have to care about what the Council of Europe Thinks?
You bombed to stone age small country, (how do you feel about the Gypsy who , under
NATO supervision got completely *genocidied* in Kosovo? )
>
> Maris
Hope you sleep well.
VM.
Gintis Kaminskas
news:38EEA6B3...@bellatlantic.net... a load of crap not worth
repeating.
Hey, Macaronico, why don't you bugger off back to soc.culture.russia?
Meanwhile, this is what I wrote to a young fellow:
Yes, I hate the waste of lives and resources caused by war, but I'm sorry,
the blame is entirely on the Russians. If the Chechens could get
independence without bloodshed, I'm sure they would prefer that too. I
understand why you say "It doesn't really matter who rules there, it isn't
going to change my life. " You say that because you are suffering from
information overload and you have to save your emotional energy for the
problems that are most relevant to you. But I think we need to resist the
temptation of simplifying and pigeon-holing. You have the right idea when
you say you need to think about it some more. That's excellent - keep an
open mind. You don't have to decide today or tomorrow. We all re-evaluate
our judgements as new evidence comes to hand. That's what these discussion
groups are good for.
Regards
Gintis
Vladimir Makarenko
$150?
Sucker.
You can hate anything - you can not be out off your skin.
VM.
Gintis Kaminskas
Zhirinovskij, wrote in message news:38EEB4F8...@bellatlantic.net...
> As I told you - you are looser, how much you making $/hr? I guess less
than $150?
> Sucker. You can hate anything - you can not be out off your skin.
> VM.
"Looser", am I? If you make more than 150 roubles an hour it would be
because you sell drugs.
And what does "out off [sic!] one's skin" mean? Is that a quaint Russian
expression. Like, "Gee, the potatoes sure taste better than the dirt."?
Vladimir Makarenko
VM.
Maris Ozols
>
>
>Maris Ozols wrote:
>
>> Don't blame me (or maybe you weren't), blame CNN.
>
>I don't blame you - I don't blame the CNN- I remember their reports from Kosovo,
>btw, they told that " 100,000 Albanian men are feared to be missed" - I want a hard
>copy and
>a forensic proof - isn't it more than half of year enough? Correct me but for the
>Allies to come up with proves for the Nazi Trial it was needed much less time. Maybe
>there no proves?
>
Whatever the proof, Russia's reluctance to allow observers and before
that, journalists, into specific areas of Chechenya reeks of cover-up.
>> I didn't particularly believe the info about
>> Putin. On the other hand, to be anti Putin is to be anti cold
>> calculating KGB man rather than anti Russian, I think. Russian doesn't
>> do itself any favours, though, as the punch-up at the Council of
>> Europe meeting today showed.
>>
>
>The base line is you hate him.
I think 'hate' is a bit too emotive. I certainly don't have a high
opinion of him. He does not exhibit the qualities of a statesman,
whether it be in his use of the unqualified language of the yob or his
offensive slur in refusing to meet Mary Robinson. He seems to
personify the Russian inferiority complex.
>
>Now - have you ever heard about CIA's "Pheonix" program? Was there ANY person
>punished for throwing innocent people from HP?
Sorry what's HP - Hewlett Packard, sauce? Lieutenant Calley was
punished for his part in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Is that
relevant?
>And why in the hell we Russians have to care about what the Council of Europe Thinks?
The Council of Europe is not NATO and encompasses different countries.
Russia should care because it wants to be a member of this club. If
you want to be a member you have to observe the rules.
>You bombed to stone age small country, (how do you feel about the Gypsy who , under
>NATO supervision got completely *genocidied* in Kosovo? )
>
Rather exaggerated fiction don't you think?
>
>>
>> Maris
>
>Hope you sleep well.
Can't think why my sleeping habits would interest you. Hope you're not
having fantasies about me :-)
Maris
>
>VM.
>
Perkons23
Fruits:
>The first priority of a president and government is to defend the
>territorial integrity of the country. The Latvian army would throw in
>everything it had to squelch a movement to separate Daugavpils from Latvia,
>and the majority of the Latvian population as well as the international
>community would be supportive of its efforts. Or not?
This dropping is again redolent of absurdity, Eugene Holman, and I think you
know that.
Begin maybe with integrity, not only territorial integrity. You are comparing a
diverse region of a small country (historically part of Latvia, where much of
the population was wiped out first by the genocide that followed upon the
Soviet invasion, then by the genocide that followed upon the Nazi invasion of
the then Soviet Union, and again by the Soviets’ return, and then illegally
colonized by illegitimate Soviet power) with the territory of a nation that
could not possibly be called a historical part of Russia, ceased to be at war
with this imperial power only briefly under totalitarian conditions and after
repression by very nearly every instrument at the disposal of a criminal state,
and would never be called a part of Russia by a majority of the population
historically entitled to it. There are countless other differences – Latvia is
not a federation, Chechnya seceded from Russia before the Russian constitution
forbidding secession, to which it never acceded, was adopted…
Russia in its present borders is not a ‘country’ in any useful sense. I don’t
know what the ‘first’ priority of a president is, but surely _a_ priority is
responsible rule, including responsibility towards its minorities and
toleration of dissent. One could draw a _very remote_ comparison between Kosovo
and Daugavpils, but never between Chechnya and Daugavpils. If one did want too
draw a comparison with Kosovo, the differences would immediately be glaring:
the human rights of ‘Russian-speakers,’ who are by no means a monolithic ethnic
group (something you also know, Holman, but the importance of which disappears
when convenient for you) are *not* being violated, something on which everyone
can agree except the Russian Duma, which is ill-informed and hostile to Latvia.
The majority of Daugavpils residents, and the majority of Daugavpils’
‘Russian-speaking’ residents, and the majority of Daugavpils’ ethnically
Russian residents, are citizens of the Republic of Latvia. Outside the city, in
the region of which Daugavpils is the center, those percentages are even
higher.
The Latvian army has never squelched anyone or anything except perhaps a forest
fire or two, unless you count the War of Liberation to be ‘squelching’
something.
There _were_ rumblings about autonomy and independence among a disgruntled
Soviet few, as there were in Narva (the Estonian city whose demographic
situation and history is similar to Daugavpils’), and these things were dealt
with by dialogue, in a civilized manner.
Why do you incessantly try to equate small, victimized, colonized nations with
the huge, aggressive empires that colonized them? Oh, it’s only another ‘if,’
you didn’t mean it that way, etc. – but then why must you persist in so often
using comparisons and metaphors that are offensive?
Unlike Russia, Latvia – and the other two Baltic states – have no separatist
movements. They certainly do have regions that in a brutal, hypocritical, and
morally bankrupt ‘country’ like Russia could sprout separatist movements –
Lithuania in its Polish-speaking areas, Estonia and Latvia in primarily
Russian-speaking areas – but the Baltic states are tolerant democracies in
which even non-citizens enjoy what you call the luxury of human rights.
Would the Latvian army move to squelch a separatist movement? I don’t know.
Probably, yes, they would draw their cap pistols, figure out how to drive their
two recently donated ancient tanks, roll through streets of Daugavpils and stop
at a respectful distance from the crowd of screaming babushki armed with
sickles and rakes. But the point is that unlike Russia, Latvia adheres to and
would adhere to the principles of the supranational organizations to which it
belongs. It would not declare the nastiest of the babushki bandits and then
level Daugavpils (I don’t think it _could_ level Daugavpils, anyhow; unless
things have changed, the air force had two planes, biplanes, I think, and one
of them, ‘the Little Bee Mara’ I think it was called, crashed, while the other
was mostly grounded for lack of fuel – there are helicopters now, used for
rescue operations and helping Sweden keep out desperate Kurds, as far as I
know).
I’m not particularly enjoying the conversation in a couple of threads where
some are discussing a numbers game in a possible Russo-Baltic war. In the event
of Russian aggression, the Baltic states would probably be crushed in a matter
of days, if they even fought. I do not think that is in doubt. I do not think
it likely that the West could offer any military help of any consequence even
if it made up its mind to. In the very unlikely event that it did, the ‘help’
would probably take the form of bombing Baltic cities after their occupation,
as in Zagarins’ scenario. The Iron Curtain would go up again, to be sure, but
the Balts could kiss not only their countries and identity but also their asses
goodbye.
The which is another reason to support what’s left of democracy in Russia, be
vocal about our history and recent accomplishments, enter the E.U. A.S.A.P. and
drop the darker, divisive rhetoric and russophobic attitudes that win no points
with anyone except negative ones with those few understanding supporters we so
very badly need in Russia. We needed them in ’91, and we need them now.
If you want to play a numbers game, look at the percentages of the population
we lost in the two world wars and try to guess what would be left after another
one. The situation now, while scary, is nowhere near war, and the consequences
of one are unthinkable, particularly for Balts. It’s nonsense to say that
Russia will fight because it’s in their blood. War is in the blood of most of
the world. The Vikings are happily fishing the fjords, the children of
Himmler’s men are yodeling away and counting out marks to their parents’
victims, and Napoleon’s descendants are admiring beauty and eating frogs’ legs.
Regards,
/Peteris Cedrins
Perkons23
the Balts could kiss not only their countries and identity but also their butts
goodbye.
The which is another reason to support what’s left of democracy in Russia, be
vocal about our history and recent accomplishments, enter the E.U. A.S.A.P. and
drop the darker, divisive rhetoric and russophobic attitudes that win no points
with anyone except negative ones with those few understanding supporters we so
very badly need in Russia. We needed them in ’91, and we need them now.
If you want to play a numbers game, look at the percentages of the population
we lost in the two world wars and try to guess what would be left after another
one. The situation now, while scary, is nowhere near war, and the consequences
of war are unthinkable, particularly for Balts. It’s nonsense to say that
Russia will fight because it’s in their blood. War is in the blood of most of
the world. The Vikings are happily fishing the fjords, the children of
Himmler’s men are yodeling away and counting out marks to their parents’
victims, and Napoleon’s descendants are admiring beauty and eating frogs’ legs.
Yummy.
Regards,
/Peteris Cedrins
Gintis Kaminskas
Arschloch.
GK
*****
"Vladimir Makarenko" <mal...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:38EF5F51...@bellatlantic.net...
Vladimir Makarenko
Maris Ozols wrote:
> >On Sat, 08 Apr 2000 03:24:34 GMT, Vladimir Makarenko <mal...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Maris Ozols wrote:
> >
> >> Don't blame me (or maybe you weren't), blame CNN.
> >
> >I don't blame you - I don't blame the CNN- I remember their reports from Kosovo,
> >btw, they told that " 100,000 Albanian men are feared to be missed" - I want a hard
> >copy and
> >a forensic proof - isn't it more than half of year enough? Correct me but for the
> >Allies to come up with proves for the Nazi Trial it was needed much less time. Maybe
> >there no proves?
> >
>
> Whatever the proof, Russia's reluctance to allow observers and before
> that, journalists, into specific areas of Chechenya reeks of cover-up.
>
Observers? Or rather prosecutors? They would mostly come from Europe and the US and thus
would not be objective. The head of observers in Kosovo, rabid supporter of
the invasion was the same person who watched human rights in Salvador during Reagan years
and found nothing wrong with wiping out whole villages by the government troops
(particularly by infamous "Alkatraz" batallion, again trained by US instructors).
Journalists - the same story- Babitsky who is working for radiostation funded by the US
Congress and set up by CIA for psychological war? Or that wife of Rubin - sweet couple -
one was lying about tens of thousands dead Albanians on behalf of the State Department,
another on behalf of CNN.
Or we also have this poor German guy, who lost all senses and got caught - because Russia
forcefully exposed this falcification.
I also wonder why Europe never asked Turkey to accept observers, or Britain - didn't
Britain lost the North Ireland case in Strasburg and gave no damn about it?
>
> >> I didn't particularly believe the info about
> >> Putin. On the other hand, to be anti Putin is to be anti cold
> >> calculating KGB man rather than anti Russian, I think. Russian doesn't
> >> do itself any favours, though, as the punch-up at the Council of
> >> Europe meeting today showed.
> >>
> >
> >The base line is you hate him.
>
> I think 'hate' is a bit too emotive. I certainly don't have a high
> opinion of him. He does not exhibit the qualities of a statesman,
> whether it be in his use of the unqualified language of the yob or his
> offensive slur in refusing to meet Mary Robinson. He seems to
> personify the Russian inferiority complex.
>
Nobody can tell anything about Putin as a stateman so far - as to language:
when you got on your hands indiscriminate terrorist bombings anybody can
lose a nerve.
I don't know why he refused to see Mary Robinson, or what he said, but
what the reason to see a person who by default is a part of propaganda scam.
"Russian inferiority complex"? Forget it - it's a fairy tale, professed by some idle
part of Russian intellegentsia and Western "sovietologists" (did they change the name?).
There is no doubt that there are crimes commited by Russian troops in Chechnya, but
the West (following its interests) argues that this *policy* then it is not, and just
consequence
of the general decay of law enforcement during the Eltsin years. I wonder how would all
these
allerged mass executions could go on if a commander of elite regiment got arrested on a
single
report of murder of a Chechen civilian?
> >
> >Now - have you ever heard about CIA's "Pheonix" program? Was there ANY person
> >punished for throwing innocent people from HP?
>
> Sorry what's HP - Hewlett Packard, sauce?
Sorry, slip - it's HC or in normal laguage - helicopter. Hewlett Packard sucks, but can
be used as a shelter when market is nervous. HP source sucks for sure.
> Lieutenant Calley was
> punished for his part in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Is that
> relevant?
>
No. Lt. Calley spent in prison only four years for killing the whole village.
At least Soviet captain who was responsible for killing 11 Afgan civilians served 8 years.
The program is the most shadow part of the Vietnam war and very unpopular with American
memories of the war. It was started by CIA as a program to find out VietCong
supporters and connections in villages in S. Vietnam. It resulted in indiscriminate savage
murders
of tens of thousands. There were Congress hearings on that.
>
> >And why in the hell we Russians have to care about what the Council of Europe Thinks?
>
> The Council of Europe is not NATO and encompasses different countries.
> Russia should care because it wants to be a member of this club. If
> you want to be a member you have to observe the rules.
>
Yes, to observe the rules is a good idea, but as we all could see just recently Europeans
were not held back by their own rules when it comes to their objectives - NATO gave no
shit to step over it's own charter to invade Yugs.
>
> >You bombed to stone age small country, (how do you feel about the Gypsy who , under
> >NATO supervision got completely *genocidied* in Kosovo? )
> >
> Rather exaggerated fiction don't you think?
>
Not according to real life data - this week I read in NYT that most (like 70 %) of Gypsy
left
Albania. The rest must (my guess) be staying in Serbs dominated anclaves. So, there is Mary
Robinson when it comes to Gypsies?
>
> >
> >>
> >> Maris
> >
> >Hope you sleep well.
> Can't think why my sleeping habits would interest you. Hope you're not
> having fantasies about me :-)
>
> Maris
>
Well, good sleep always helps. As to fantasies - I rather dream NASDAQ would repeat
this week acrobatics - it helped ,hmm..., A LOT.
VM.
Vladimir Makarenko
Gintis Kaminskas wrote:
> I would be if I kept replying to you.
You are. Thus you proved the point.
VM.
Holman Eugene C
>From: perk...@aol.com (Perkons23)
>Subject: Separatism, Holman, Frogs' Legs
>Date: 08 Apr 2000 19:23:45 GMT
>Eugene Holman, Purveyor of Putinist Wisdom, continues to let fall his
>Poisonous
>Fruits:
>>The first priority of a president and government is to defend the
>>territorial integrity of the country. The Latvian army would throw in
>>everything it had to squelch a movement to separate Daugavpils from Latvia,
>>and the majority of the Latvian population as well as the international
>>community would be supportive of its efforts. Or not?
>This dropping is again redolent of absurdity, Eugene Holman, and I think you
>know that.
No, it is most certainly *not* an absurdity. Presidents and governments are
committed to maintain the territorial integrity of their countries, and the
international community is generally supportive of their efforts to maintain
it. Look at what happened when Argentina made a grab for the Falklands (
Malvinas).
>Why do you incessantly try to equate small, victimized, colonized nations
with>the huge, aggressive empires that colonized them? Oh, it’s only
another ‘if,’>you didn’t mean it that way, etc. – but then why must you
persist in so often>using comparisons and metaphors that are offensive?
The equations are functionally and synchronically valid, even if the history
and quantitative aspects are different. Latvia is not a federation, but
there was some half-serious talk of Daugavpils and Narva, supported by
a certain country to the east, going their own way back in 1991-92 when the
local Russian speakers were not at all sure what kind of country Latvia was
going to become. These movements were squelched by a combination of dialogue
and civility, but they could have gone the other way. Since Latvia and
Estonia have already lost some 5% of their pre-war territory to Russia due
to bordr adjustments unilaterally made by Moscow, I doubt if either country
would have just allowed yet another 5% or so to be gobbled up.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Maris Ozols
<mal...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
Sorry Vladimir, tjhere are only so many hours in the day and so I
can't answer all the points . I just wanted to make some further
points about Putin.
>
>
>Maris Ozols wrote:
>
>>
>> >> I didn't particularly believe the info about
>> >> Putin. On the other hand, to be anti Putin is to be anti cold
>> >> calculating KGB man rather than anti Russian, I think. Russian doesn't
>> >> do itself any favours, though, as the punch-up at the Council of
>> >> Europe meeting today showed.
>> >>
>> >
>> >The base line is you hate him.
>>
>> I think 'hate' is a bit too emotive. I certainly don't have a high
>> opinion of him. He does not exhibit the qualities of a statesman,
>> whether it be in his use of the unqualified language of the yob or his
>> offensive slur in refusing to meet Mary Robinson. He seems to
>> personify the Russian inferiority complex.
>>
>
>Nobody can tell anything about Putin as a stateman so far - as to language:
>when you got on your hands indiscriminate terrorist bombings anybody can
>lose a nerve.
>I don't know why he refused to see Mary Robinson, or what he said, but
>what the reason to see a person who by default is a part of propaganda scam.
>
When I wrote the original post I was unaware of last Thursday's
Izvestija article, critical of Putin. OK they weren't criticising his
Chechenya policies but nevertheless. I thought the comment "Resurface
because the election is over" was brilliant given that he was fooling
about on a submarine (following his other heroic exploits with
aeroplanes, skiing etc.). For those who didn't follow the story, the
thrust was that he should start applying himself to solving the
serious problems of the country. Then today, I read (In the UK Sunday
Independent - "Putin dismays reformers by backing tainted St
Petersburg boss") that he appears to be giving his support to the
incumbent governor of St Petersburg, Vladimir Yakovlev, the choice of
the oligarchs and who has reduced St Petersburg to the "crime capital
of Russia", rather than the more credible Valentina Matviyenko. Still,
I suppose politics is dangerous for women in St Petersburg, as Galina
Starovoitova proved. Anyway, it all bodes badly..
>> >> Maris
>> >
>> >Hope you sleep well.
>> Can't think why my sleeping habits would interest you. Hope you're not
>> having fantasies about me :-)
>>
>> Maris
>>
>
>Well, good sleep always helps. As to fantasies - I rather dream NASDAQ would repeat
>this week acrobatics - it helped ,hmm..., A LOT.
>
>VM.
>
I don't mind it repeating its acrobatics as long as someone lets me
know a day early. Fortunately, we were saved the fallout in the UK
what with the Stock Exchange being down for 8 hours. There were plenty
of those who suspected a conspiracy. When you say it helped a LOT,
what do you mean? Did you buy back in at the bottom?
Right, got to get back to the bulletin boards now before turning in
shortly.
>
Maris
Vladimir Makarenko
Maris Ozols wrote:
On Sun, 09 Apr 2000 02:02:21 GMT, Vladimir Makarenko
<mal...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
Sorry Vladimir, tjhere are only so many hours in the day and so I
can't answer all the points . I just wanted to make some further
points about Putin.
>
>
>Maris Ozols wrote:
>
>>
>> >> I didn't particularly believe the info about
>> >> Putin. On the other hand, to be anti Putin is to be anti cold
>> >> calculating KGB man rather than anti Russian, I think. Russian doesn't
>> >> do itself any favours, though, as the punch-up at the Council of
>> >> Europe meeting today showed.
>> >>
>> >
>> >The base line is you hate him.
>>
>> I think 'hate' is a bit too emotive. I certainly don't have a high
>> opinion of him. He does not exhibit the qualities of a statesman,
>> whether it be in his use of the unqualified language of the yob or his
>> offensive slur in refusing to meet Mary Robinson. He seems to
>> personify the Russian inferiority complex.
>>
>
>Nobody can tell anything about Putin as a stateman so far - as to language:
>when you got on your hands indiscriminate terrorist bombings anybody can
>lose a nerve.
>I don't know why he refused to see Mary Robinson, or what he said, but
>what the reason to see a person who by default is a part of propaganda scam.
>
When I wrote the original post I was unaware of last Thursday's
Izvestija article, critical of Putin. OK they weren't criticising his
Chechenya policies but nevertheless. I thought the comment "Resurface
because the election is over" was brilliant given that he was fooling
about on a submarine (following his other heroic exploits with
aeroplanes, skiing etc.). For those who didn't follow the story, the
thrust was that he should start applying himself to solving the
serious problems of the country. Then today, I read (In the UK Sunday
Independent - "Putin dismays reformers by backing tainted St
Petersburg boss") that he appears to be giving his support to the
incumbent governor of St Petersburg, Vladimir Yakovlev, the choice of
the oligarchs and who has reduced St Petersburg to the "crime capital
of Russia", rather than the more credible Valentina Matviyenko. Still,
I suppose politics is dangerous for women in St Petersburg, as Galina
Starovoitova proved. Anyway, it all bodes badly..
I am completely confused over Putin - I am waiting for news.
The only hope which comes - he cannot be worse than Eltsin.
>> >> Maris
>> >
>> >Hope you sleep well.
>> Can't think why my sleeping habits would interest you. Hope you're not
>> having fantasies about me :-)
>>
>> Maris
>>
>
>Well, good sleep always helps. As to fantasies - I rather dream NASDAQ would repeat
>this week acrobatics - it helped ,hmm..., A LOT.
>
>VM.
>
I don't mind it repeating its acrobatics as long as someone lets me
know a day early. Fortunately, we were saved the fallout in the UK
what with the Stock Exchange being down for 8 hours. There were plenty
of those who suspected a conspiracy. When you say it helped a LOT,
what do you mean? Did you buy back in at the bottom?
1. Conspiracy - the article in the New York Post portrayed Morgan and others who stepped in the bottom and saved the market as heroes - I am skeptical: e.g. JDSU was at 82 - almost 50% of its all times high (153+), and today it's 121+ - the Big guys got more than 30% profit in two days!!!
2. I quit the market at about -110 of NASDAQ and stepped back when NASDAQ
got back around from the low - 350. God, I couldn't believe such profit
is possible.
I have mixed feelings - *at least * some of the money came from ignorant
people who lost their savings of life. But partially I ripped off the Big
guys.
3. Watch closely PMC Sierra (PMCS) - this week they announce earnings.
4. Many people expect tomorrow the market will try the low. If you going to buy - do it in the second part of the day. If market is shaky wait till tuesday noon.
Right, got to get back to the bulletin boards now before turning in
shortly.
Be careful - BB are not trustful, just recently it was exposed that many of them are used to heat up the penny stocks.
VM.
VM.
>
Maris
zaga...@mail.stcc.mass.edu
> The only hope which comes - he cannot be worse than Eltsin.
There were many Germans who thought that Hitler could not be worse than von
Hindenburg.
Juris Zagarins
Maris Ozols
that a bloodbath is expected on the LSE tomorrow. The feeling on the
BBs is that the newcomers will now give up and sell up with
predictable consequences. I agree that you have to watch out for
rampers on the BBs but there is also a lot of camaraderie and concern
for the firsttimers. The Sunday papers were full of articles about the
government setting up bodies to search out ramping and to prosecute
the villains. Apart from that, the common enemy is the guys in braces
(or suspenders in US parlance). Yes, you are right a lot of
greenhorns apparently were cleaned out last week but they have also
caused a lot of the volatility we're seeing. I'm a holder of Baltimore
(on the UK SE). On NASDAQ today they went up to $95 and down to about
$75. I don't need that kind of movement. If I could monitor the
markets it would be fine but they've taken away my internet access at
work, me being a contractor and not a permie (computer industry).
BTW My favourite BB in the UK is Hemscott, the stuff of legends and a
suberb example of English black humour in adversity
(infoex.hemscott.com/infoex.htm).
Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
Maris
Vladimir Makarenko
Maris Ozols wrote:
> Totally off topic I know but anyway. NASDAQ's 258 fall tonight means
> that a bloodbath is expected on the LSE tomorrow. The feeling on the
> BBs is that the newcomers will now give up and sell up with
> predictable consequences. I agree that you have to watch out for
> rampers on the BBs but there is also a lot of camaraderie and concern
> for the firsttimers. The Sunday papers were full of articles about the
> government setting up bodies to search out ramping and to prosecute
> the villains. Apart from that, the common enemy is the guys in braces
> (or suspenders in US parlance). Yes, you are right a lot of
> greenhorns apparently were cleaned out last week but they have also
> caused a lot of the volatility we're seeing. I'm a holder of Baltimore
> (on the UK SE). On NASDAQ today they went up to $95 and down to about
> $75. I don't need that kind of movement.
Why don't you put protective stops?
> If I could monitor the
> markets it would be fine but they've taken away my internet access at
> work, me being a contractor and not a permie (computer industry).
> BTW My favourite BB in the UK is Hemscott, the stuff of legends and a
> suberb example of English black humour in adversity
> (infoex.hemscott.com/infoex.htm).
There are many sources on the Net, and after some research I found that BB and newsgroups
information is not *always* trustful. I am receiving (not that I asked) one penny stock
newsletter which argues to buy one or another shit stock.I watched them - it's a scam.
BTW, there are websites which provides information on bubble stocks (and websites).
If you can to buy "On Line Inevestor" magazine you can find them there, or make a search on
the net.
>
> Let's hope for a better tomorrow!
>
Tomorrow's script was written last Tuesday, I hope. Last Tuesday ,as I heard, the drop was
caused by fear that all the people who lost on margin the day before would get a call. So,
around 10 a.m. then margin calls came to ring, mob got scared that they would be not covered
and result in major sell off. After all it turned out that most of the calls was covered with
cash. Market proved to be strong, but I short all the positions on Friday's highs because mob
loves to repeat. The thing to watch - if Naz hit below 4000 again. Than you can scale it to
last week (using today drop vs. last Monday) drop and figure out at what price to enter.
Funny, I just watched tonight "Wall Street" on HBO - I wonder is it coincidence?
Basically, would I've been long term investor I could not be bothered less by recent ups and
downs.
But, looking at my paycheck after what I made last week makes me laugh and continue to play.
The market is doomed to go up - it's another question why. But the chorus of analysts who are
doomsdaying the dot coms are right I think, so I am putting bet on fiber optic and wireless
leaders.
Btw, you could like to check the dream portfolio of Morgan Stanley (cnbs site - Friday news).
As I remember it includes: SDLI, JDSU, PMCS, ORCL, and few more.
VM.
Vladimir Makarenko
zaga...@mail.stcc.mass.edu wrote:
> Vladimir Makarenko wrote of V.Putin:
>
> > The only hope which comes - he cannot be worse than Eltsin.
>
> There were many Germans who thought that Hitler could not be worse than von
> Hindenburg.
>
> Juris Zagarins
>
If you cannot change the reality you can only hope.
VM.
zaga...@mail.stcc.mass.edu
> If you cannot change the reality you can only hope.
You can always hope to change the reality.
Juris Zagarins
Joseph Kurmanavicius
WaRR <wa...@ojczyzna.org> wrote in message
news:XcaG4.3805$JE2....@typhoon.we.rr.com...
>
> Gintis Kaminskas wrote in message ...
> >Peteris
> >
> >Not many residents of Memel (Klaipeda) thought it should be part of
Germany
> >until Hitler started putting the suggestion in their heads. In the long
> run
> >de-russification of the Baltic states is a good deterrent to Russian
dreams
> >of reconquest. And Lithuania has the Poles to worry about too. Did you
> see
> >all the maniacs and their rabid talk about Vilnius on scb lately? All
> >because there are Polish speakers in Vilnius. The sooner they all forget
> >Polish and rediscover their lost Lithuanian identity the better off
> everyone
> >will be - especially them!
> >
> >>Regards,
> >
> >Gintis Kaminskas
>
>
>
>
> Once again you moron. There are Poles in Wilno, not Polish speakers. The
> same goes for Lithuanians in north eastern Poland, they are not lithuanian
> language speakers but Lithuanians.
>
> You dont see Poland claiming these Lithuanians as Poles do you ? Why is
> Lithuania claiming Poles in Wilno as Lithuanians ?
>
> Dont you think that if Poles in Wilno wanted to speak lithuanian they
would
> ?
> They are not speaking it because they dont want to, and you lithuanian
> coward nazi like policies will not make anyone speak your pathetic mongol
> language.
>
>
> Get it though your commie brainwashed mongolian skull.
>
>
>
> WaRR
>
Poslka Fucker!
Juyx