Paranoia strikes deep

Buffalo Springfield once sang:

Paranoia strikes deep.
Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you're always afraid.
Step out of line, the MAN come and take you away.

In Latvia it isn't the man, but Linda Murniece, the lady Minister of the Interior, who has, wittingly or unwittingly (wits are a little short among Latvian politicians) taken a number of steps to put a chill on peaceful public dissent. The latest is having Latvia's Security Police, a kind of KGB-Very Lite (there is no Gulag, they don't pull out people's fingernails) investigate who has been circulating appeals for a peaceful gathering in Riga's Old Town on November 13 to protest additional cuts in public spending that the anonymous authors assume will occur by then. Unlike appeals circulated ahead of the January 13 riot which, well, openly called for a riot (a far more destructive one than actually happened, those anonymous instigators urged people to bring Molotov cocktails, none were used), the current appeal is simply for a gathering to express grievances. Sounds like democracy and free speech to me. It is also a timely call, a kind of viral marketing of the idea that by November, there may be another round of budget cuts reducing formerly tax-supported education, medical care and pensions to a defacto pay-as-you learn/heal/and save before you get old system.

It is more than two months until November 13, leaving plenty of time for NGOs and civic groups to organize and to help the police prevent or limit any violence (let's have no illusions, people are angry about what the previous fuckwit governments have done or failed to do as the economic crisis approached). What the government and Ms. Murniece have done is to turn loose the dogs of intimidation (the Security Police have a wonderful record of arresting people for their speech, it's what got this blog started almost a year ago) in a clear attempt to put a chill on any calls for public, anti-government gatherings. The government showed its attitude when it sent a riot squad to disperse demonstrators blocking bridges near Bauska to protest the reorganization of the local hospital, closing maternity services and drastically reducing emergency care. The message sent by the robocops, who might have been a little rough with some angry demonstrators, including some older women, was that the politicians in Riga feel threatened by any spontaneous public activity and will threaten back, rather than discuss the issues (Minister of Health Baiba Rozentale, at the center of the clusterfuck surrounding the reform/defacto switch to pay-as-you heal medicine, did later go to Bauska and had a heated discussion with a crowd of local people. Good for her on that count).

There is absolutely nothing illegal about anonymously suggesting that there should be a nationwide rally on November 13. The anonymity could, in a twist of black humor, be the result of earlier intimidation of dissent by the Security Police. In other words, send the Security Police to find those that the Security Police has intimidated into "better safe than sorry" forms of expression. Latvia is not Iran or some tinpot African dictatorship yet, but it will be unless people stand up and say they will not be intimidated.

I URGE EVERYONE TO GATHER ON NOVEMBER 13 IN THE DOM SQUARE IN RIGA AND NEAR THE SAEIMA BUILDING -- IN THE NAME OF FREE SPEECH, IF FOR NO OTHER REASON. And I am not anonymous.