Saturday, March 1, 2008

Path dependent thinking

This week there were good news for the maire of Ventspils. After his imprisonment in March 13, 2007 this Latvian minigarch has suffered his calvary and he has been pretty vocal last week. Probably those were humanitarian considerations that made judges to ease his home arrest conditions and allowed him to relocate to his rancho in Puze (Ventspils region). Whatever humanitarian considerations of judges there were, I still do not understand Latvian president, general prosecutor and MP's - why the hell Mr Lembergs is still the Maire of Ventspils? Aye, the most widely used answer given by aforementined authorities is the presumption of his innocence until proven contrary. But for Gods sake, is it not possible to amend those parts of legislature that stipulate that the official who is imprisoned allegedly for serious crimes (misuse of his public office among them), is temporarily removed from his public office until the court verdict being read? After all it also challenges the principle of the law of the state and basıc pillars of democracy!!!

WHATTA HELL those Latvian officials think, that Lembergs has bought all the judicial system and would make a comeback, thus there is no need for his removal from maire of Ventspils office???? To me such wavering inactivity of Latvian officials is a full proof that, if they themselves are short of being involved into shady deals with Latvian minigarchic families, they still do not understand basic principles of European liberal democracy and are thus spitting into face of civil society.

Instead of temporarily removing ''the maire of Ventspils'' from his office the little ''big'' man from Ventspils is given a prime time in the Latvian public TV evening news to carry on with his demagoguery! Common, this man has his own newspaper (www.nra.lv), thus why should such a person be given a cuddly reception after all? In his prime time TV interview and numerous newspaper sketches A. Lembergs has been ranting about almost all members of the Latvian post-independent time political elite. Apart from his lambasting what else did I read from his interviews?

The mind of the ''Maire of Ventspıls'' is wickedly Machiavellian. It is not a problem per se, because the rest of the world countries have their Machiavellian politicanos. However, when other members of society construct the legal system that restrains Machiavellian politicians, then the liberal democracy should work fine. BUT the Latvian problem is that numerous Machiavellian minds (ill famous AAA team) constructed the system for their own enrichment, and throughout the post-independence period they have promoted Orwellian demagoguery telling the public that the system they have created after the independence is liberal democracy (remember Goerge Orwell's Ninety eighty four....war is peace & slavery is freedom)...

Fortunately there is free press and Latvian folks can travel outside the AAA fiefdom, thus starting to doubt whether the traditional discourse promoted by Machiavellian politicians is really true. Unfortunately, there are numerous elderly folks who never had a chance to compare living conditions with ones outsıde Latvia after independence in 1991. Because they simply had and very often still dont have means to travel further than their provincial town, thus they are forced to trust the same crooks over and over again...

The ''small big man from Ventspils'' came out with the idea last Friday (www.nra.lv) that participation of Latvian soldiers in foreign missions is a useless activity. He believes that such missions do not give any tangible results to Latvian soldiers and economy. Lembergs blames Latvian politicians for enriching only NATO member countries treasuries with foreign missions, because according to this demagogue Latvian army must buy German arms, the US vehicles, boots and uniforms...Very conveniently he forgets that experience of foreign missions is essentially important for operational readiness of the small Latvian army. Also Latvia does not produce arms&vehicles, and that also Latvian army uniforms are produced by Latvian prison inmates (perhaps he served his inprisonment in such posh conditions that he never met a inmate...). Mr Lemberg's way of thinking is populist and it is also an example of the kind of path dependent mindset exemplified also by his political buddies in Latvian parliament, government and business.

Thus, the legitimate question at the end of this piece still stands - for how long Latian civil society is ready to endure mockery of liberal democracy by a bunch of self-imposed tricksters??

P.S. Those of you reading in Latvian may find my contemplations in Diena.

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