arabaliozian Posted August 18, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2012 Q/A**************************** Q: “Every Armenian writer I have read has something positive to say about us, except you. Why do you want to be so different?”A: “Why do you insist on a unanimous decision?”*For 600 years they were our role models. That indeed is our real tragedy!*In the ghetto where I was born and raised nobody ever quoted Naregatsi or Raffi, but everyone quoted Turkish sayings, like “Damla damla gueul olur,” (Drop by drop a lake is made), and “Chok ghareshterma, bokhou chekar” (Don’t stir things up too much, you may expose the crap). To which charge I am more than willing to plead guilty.*If you want a dealer in rose-jam, listen to our sermonizers and speechifiers. They are better at moronizing the nation in the name of patriotism.#Friday, August 17, 2012*********************************** TOO MANY CHIEFS NO INDIANS********************************** Wolves, lions, zebras, and ants: they know instinctively they have a better chance to survive as a group than as individuals. That’s because they have studied biology and they know all there is to know about the law of the jungle. Compared to them we might as well be functional illiterates and inbred morons; or jackasses destined to carry someone else’s load.*Civilized people execute their traitors and collaborators. How many of them have we executed so far?*In their own narratives our bosses, bishops, and benefactors are our saviors. We have been blessed with more saviors than traitors – or is it the other way around?*We swim in a sea of uncertainties. We have many narratives but not a single definition.*I don’t spin theories. I speak of historic reality.#Saturday, August 18, 2012************************************** OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN********************************************* Sartre is right: to believe that you believe doesn’t make you a believer. Likewise, to believe that you don’t believe doesn’t make you an atheist. The true atheist is he who, after saying God is merciful, engages in cannibalism; and I challenge you to name a single organized religion that has not persecuted heretics.*I don’t believe in believers or, for that matter, in non-believers. Even the most fanatic atheist is fully aware of the fact that he is and he has always been at the mercy of an invisible and incomprehensible power against which or Whom he is himself powerless.*I have given up arguing with believers. Protestants are better equipped to deal with Catholics, and Muslims are better equipped to deal with both. I don’t have a dog in their fight. And when it comes to God I have more questions than answers. *If God is great why did he create men whose most noteworthy contribution to civilization has been the slaughter of defenseless civilians?# Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Sunday, August 19, 2012 ************************************** CONFESSIONS OF A PLAGIARIST ********************************************* If no one writes as I do it’s not because I am an original writer, far from it. As a matter of fact, everything I say is a paraphrase, a quotation, or a variation on a theme stated by far better men than myself. Case in point: many years ago, I remember, speaking of a national benefactor one of our elder statesmen said to me: “As a product of the Ottoman Empire he is no better than a frustrated sultan.” * A few years later when I had to deal with the hirelings of this benefactor I remembered my elder statesman’s words and saw the truth in his theory. Once, again many years ago, when in the presence of an Armenian academic -- an honest man for a change -- when I said Armenians are smart, he came very close to losing his temper. * It took me a while to realize that far from being smart, most Armenians are damn fools. If Armenians like to assess themselves as smart it may be because no fool will ever identify himself as a fool, or a dupe as a dupe, or an idiot as an idiot. I will go further and say that when it comes to politics we fully qualify as inbred morons for the simple reason that for most of our collective existence we have allowed ourselves to be divided, oppressed, and occasionally massacred by relative morons. And for saying that I have been described as an ignoramus who hates himself and projects his hatred onto his fellow countrymen. There is some truth in that. * All analysis begins with self-analysis, in the same way that all propaganda is carefully tailored to flatter the ego of dupes. History provides us with so many examples! Even when they behaved like bloodthirsty barbarians Germans were brainwashed to believe they belonged to a superior race. The Soviets were brainwashed to believe they were the most progressive, and anyone who dared to question that absurd assertion was either shot in the neck or ended in the Gulag. The only reason I am still alive today is that, as a Canadian citizen I am beyond the jurisdiction of our pseudo-sultans and neo-commissars. # Monday, August 20, 2012 ************************************ PARAPHRASES ************************** Not everyone who speaks in the name of God is a messenger of God, and he who speaks in the name of Capital is a messenger of the Devil even when he builds cathedrals. * It is not at all unusual for a very smart Armenian to say some very dumb things. * Our spirit of contradiction is so highly developed that when a Turk disagrees with me I ascribe it to a distant Armenian in his family tree. * If you paraphrase Socrates be prepared to be judged by individuals who will behave like members of the jury that condemned him to death. * Christ is recrucified every day by Christians. (In case you haven’t guessed already, I am now paraphrasing Dostoevsky and Kazantzakis.) # Tuesday, August 21, 2012 ************************************** DECEIVERS ******************** The Pope may doubt his faith seven times a day (according to an old Italian proverb) but he will never admit it. He will go further and assert, in matter of faith he is never wrong. No one will ever say he is the proud offspring of former commissars or KGB agents for the same reason that no king will ever admit to being the offspring of ruthless killers and rapists, no priest will ever admit to being a child molester, and no democratically elected head of state will ever admit to being better at making promises than delivering them. The 1% has ruled by deception and continues to do so to this day because it can always count on the ignorance, stupidity, and cowardice of the 99% -- in case you thought I had a dog in that fight. # Wednesday, August 22, 2012 ************************************** WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG? ******************************************* When I was young I too had an opinion on every conceivable subject including subjects I knew nothing about. * As a child I thought, or rather was brought up to think, if the Pope of Rome, all his cardinals and bishops, and billions of Catholics believe in the existence of God, who am I to deny it? * As a teenager I thought if great leaders like Stalin and Mikoyan, and millions of Russians and great intellectuals like George Bernard Shaw are communists, who am I to side with blood-sucking capitalists? Besides, what have capitalists done for me, a slum-dweller, that I should side with them? * I know now that we live in a world where everybody is wrong and there is no such thing as an infallible belief system. It is the quintessence of evil to say I am right and everyone who thinks otherwise is wrong therefore my enemy, and it is my duty to be against him and when necessary to kill him because to kill in the name of God and Country is not a crime but a sacred duty. * I know now that if God exists He does not take sides. If He stood by and did nothing when His only son was crucified, why should He side with a nonentity like me? If God did not lift a finger to stop the massacre of millions of innocent civilians by bloodthirsty barbarians, can we really say He is always right? # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 Sunday, August 19, 2012 ************************************** CONFESSIONS OF A PLAGIARIST ********************************************* If no one writes as I do it’s not because I am an original writer, far from it. As a matter of fact, everything I say is a paraphrase, a quotation, or a variation on a theme stated by far better men than myself. Case in point: many years ago, I remember, speaking of a national benefactor one of our elder statesmen said to me: “As a product of the Ottoman Empire he is no better than a frustrated sultan.” * A few years later when I had to deal with the hirelings of this benefactor I remembered my elder statesman’s words and saw the truth in his theory. Once, again many years ago, when in the presence of an Armenian academic -- an honest man for a change -- when I said Armenians are smart, he came very close to losing his temper. * It took me a while to realize that far from being smart, most Armenians are damn fools. If Armenians like to assess themselves as smart it may be because no fool will ever identify himself as a fool, or a dupe as a dupe, or an idiot as an idiot. I will go further and say that when it comes to politics we fully qualify as inbred morons for the simple reason that for most of our collective existence we have allowed ourselves to be divided, oppressed, and occasionally massacred by relative morons. And for saying that I have been described as an ignoramus who hates himself and projects his hatred onto his fellow countrymen. There is some truth in that. * All analysis begins with self-analysis, in the same way that all propaganda is carefully tailored to flatter the ego of dupes. History provides us with so many examples! Even when they behaved like bloodthirsty barbarians Germans were brainwashed to believe they belonged to a superior race. The Soviets were brainwashed to believe they were the most progressive, and anyone who dared to question that absurd assertion was either shot in the neck or ended in the Gulag. The only reason I am still alive today is that, as a Canadian citizen I am beyond the jurisdiction of our pseudo-sultans and neo-commissars. # Monday, August 20, 2012 ************************************ PARAPHRASES ************************** Not everyone who speaks in the name of God is a messenger of God, and he who speaks in the name of Capital is a messenger of the Devil even when he builds cathedrals. * It is not at all unusual for a very smart Armenian to say some very dumb things. * Our spirit of contradiction is so highly developed that when a Turk disagrees with me I ascribe it to a distant Armenian in his family tree. * If you paraphrase Socrates be prepared to be judged by individuals who will behave like members of the jury that condemned him to death. * Christ is recrucified every day by Christians. (In case you haven’t guessed already, I am now paraphrasing Dostoevsky and Kazantzakis.) # Tuesday, August 21, 2012 ************************************** DECEIVERS ******************** The Pope may doubt his faith seven times a day (according to an old Italian proverb) but he will never admit it. He will go further and assert, in matter of faith he is never wrong. No one will ever say he is the proud offspring of former commissars or KGB agents for the same reason that no king will ever admit to being the offspring of ruthless killers and rapists, no priest will ever admit to being a child molester, and no democratically elected head of state will ever admit to being better at making promises than delivering them. The 1% has ruled by deception and continues to do so to this day because it can always count on the ignorance, stupidity, and cowardice of the 99% -- in case you thought I had a dog in that fight. # Wednesday, August 22, 2012 ************************************** WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG? ******************************************* When I was young I too had an opinion on every conceivable subject including subjects I knew nothing about. * As a child I thought, or rather was brought up to think, if the Pope of Rome, all his cardinals and bishops, and billions of Catholics believe in the existence of God, who am I to deny it? * As a teenager I thought if great leaders like Stalin and Mikoyan, and millions of Russians and great intellectuals like George Bernard Shaw are communists, who am I to side with blood-sucking capitalists? Besides, what have capitalists done for me, a slum-dweller, that I should side with them? * I know now that we live in a world where everybody is wrong and there is no such thing as an infallible belief system. It is the quintessence of evil to say I am right and everyone who thinks otherwise is wrong therefore my enemy, and it is my duty to be against him and when necessary to kill him because to kill in the name of God and Country is not a crime but a sacred duty. * I know now that if God exists He does not take sides. If He stood by and did nothing when His only son was crucified, why should He side with a nonentity like me? If God did not lift a finger to stop the massacre of millions of innocent civilians by bloodthirsty barbarians, can we really say He is always right? # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted August 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 Thursday, August 23, 2012 *************************************** OF DOGS AND FLEAS ********************************* Where there is abuse of power there will be victims. Where there are victims there will be victimizers. Where there are victimizers there will be dissent. Where there are fascists there will be violations of human rights. * Under Stalin we had Stalinists who were brainwashed to believe they were not fascists but patriots. Under Hitler we had pro-Nazi anti-Semites. And under Putin today we have Putinists. Even Talaat had his share of Armenian supporters, among them Zohrab, himself a highly sophisticated and brilliant intellectual, political leader, diplomat and writer. * Sometimes I am asked: What would you have done in their place? -- meaning Armenians in fascist regimes. My answer: I don’t know. Very probably I would have done what they did – i.e. taken the easy and safe way out: be a Nazi under Hitler, a Stalinists under Stalin, and so on. But having done so I wouldn’t expect future generations to look up to me as a hero or a role model or a lover of freedom and a defender of human rights, or a noble specimen of humanity. * The problem with fascists is that they dig their own graves with their own hands and expect the rest of the world to look up to them as morally superior. * I don’t spin theories. I speak of historic reality. If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas. # Friday, August 24, 2012 ************************************* “KILL A COMMIE FOR CHRIST” ****************************************** The aim of philosophy is to introduce meaning into a meaningless world. The aim of religion is to introduce cannibalism. Remember: no one has ever killed anyone in the name of Socrates or Spinoza. * What makes the 1% smart is greed. What makes the 99% dumb is cowardice. * The bloodthirsty disposition of the few and the cowardice of the many: there you have it – an abridged history of mankind. * Trying to make a good impression on others by pretending to be better than we are might as well be an admission of inferiority. # Saturday, August 25, 2012 ************************************* POLITICS 101 ************************* If a political leader cannot see the coming catastrophe, what is he good for? – besides making bombastic statements about past achievements? * We are so hungry for past achievements that we even brag about being the first nation in the 20th century to be targeted for genocide. Has anyone ever bragged about being run over by a truck? * Once upon a time I too was a patriot. I looked up to our leaders the way Turks look up today to Ataturk, the way the Soviets looked up to Stalin and Germans to Hitler. But I am no longer a child. * Propaganda explains nothing. Its sole aim is to convince and persuade by avoiding all explanations. * Nationalism is a game in which victory invariably goes to the strong, never to the just. * I am against chauvinism for two reasons: when we emphasize the positive in us and cover up the negative, we run the risk of deceiving ourselves. But when we do the same to others, we may make friends, and we need friends more than we need self-satisfied blind men who pretend to have 20/20 vision. * If our leaders could not see through the likes of Talaat, Stalin, Hitler, and more recently, Assad, they might as well have been blind, and “when the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch,” which is exactly where we are today – the ditch, compliments of our “betters.” # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted August 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2012 Sunday, August 26, 2012******************************************* CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-MORON************************************************ One of the worst things that can happen to a man is to be dependent on the charity of swine. If you have never been there, consider yourself the luckiest man on earth.*There is more hatred than love in what I write, or so I am told. To which I say, surely I can’t be the only game in town. There must be many others more favorably disposed towards our “betters.” Let them be the good cops to my bad cop.*For 600 years we were dependent on the charity of swine. We were even grateful and loyal to them. Even after they legally abducted, converted, and brainwashed our boys to kill and die in their imperialist wars; even after they raped our daughters and used them as concubines and whores, our gratitude and loyalty never wavered. On the eve of the Genocide they called us their “most loyal ethnic minority.” What did that get us, may I ask? So you still think if I am kinder to our swine they will have a better chance to see the light and change their ways?*If our “betters” go about their business with the shameless arrogance of bloodthirsty oppressors it may because they know something we don’t know, namely: if they control the educational system and the press they can convince even the dumbest people on earth to think they are the smartest. I speak from experience. Even as I went about committing some of my worst blunders, I did so with the awareness that as the offspring of the smartest nation on earth I could do no wrong.#Monday, August 27, 2012************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS***************************************As soon as I am tempted to take myself seriously one of my patriotic readers takes it upon himself to remind me that no one gives a damn about what I think or say. I am grateful to these readers. One of the worst things that can happen to an Armenian writer is to think that like the rest of mankind he deserves to live.*Even the smartest Armenian will speak like an idiot if he has been brainwashed as a child.*Love is like alcohol: after intoxication, hangover; after blissful harmony, ulcer; after heaven, hell.#Tuesday, August 28, 2012********************************** CHARLATANS*********************To see the invisible and to understand the incomprehensible: we all share that ambition, but somewhere along the line some of us give up and pretend to be satisfied with answers fabricated by charlatans – popes, imams, rabbis who, unable to convince one another, brainwash defenseless children in the name of education.*We have the rare gift of saying a great many things except that which must be said. *The brainwashed cannot speak for themselves.*Fascism cannot be defeated with arguments. It took a world war to defeat fascism and even then it was only a temporary victory. There are more fascist regimes today than there are democracies, and there are fascists even in democracies. They may not call themselves fascists but they are as fascist as the fascists under Mussolini who was said to be “always right” (“Mussolini ha sempre ragione”)very much like popes, imams, and rabbis.#Wednesday, August 29, 2012************************************** RATS****************** We now know something we didn’t know until last night: When “Mrs. 1%” fell sick “Mr. 1%” took good care of her. It follows, the 1% know how to take care of their own and make it look like they do this out of Christian charity and compassion.*Fascism may also be defined as the encounter of useful idiots with moral morons.*I have every reason to suspect communists of all nations now pray for a Republican victory because then the chances of a Russian-style revolution in America may be greatly improved.*Writes David Brooks in THE NEW YORK TIMES: “Romney attended Harvard, studying business, law, classics and philosophy, though intellectually his first love was always tax avoidance.”*One of my favorite cases of mixed metaphors goes something like this: “Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I’ll nip him in the bud.”# Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shun Posted August 29, 2012 Report Share Posted August 29, 2012 The 2nd Genocide against Armenians -- by the Armenian Government I commemorate today the 20th anniversary of the Genocide committed against the Armenian nation by the Armenian government and its collaborators in the Diaspora - the ARF, the Hamazkaine, the AGBU, the Armenian Assembly, the Ramkavar Party, and conspirators in the Armenian press around the globe. This new genocide by Armenia against Armenians bears the same footprints and is the continuation of the Genocide of Armenians in Turkey that started with the rounding, exile or assassination of Armenian writers, characterized by a conspiracy of state sanctioned national silence about the crime against humanity. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2012 Thursday, August 30, 2012 ************************************* BULLIES *********************** In any given group victims outnumber their bullies; and yet, bullies are allowed the freedom to victimize. * It took slaves and workers long centuries to unite against their masters and exploiters only to develop their own set of bullies – more tyrannical, more ruthless, more bloodthirsty. * Why did it take women thousands of years to assert their rights? Even as I write these lines today most women spend more time, money and energy to make themselves more desirable to their oppressors than to develop the kind of solidarity that will give them the strength to assert equality with men. * And finally, consider the 99% versus the 1%. In an enlightened society the 1% would probably be in jail; and yet, they are allowed the freedom to sermonize and speechify in the name of God and Country, or freedom and prosperity. * One may be justified in suspecting that what motivates most men and women is not common sense and decency or even self-interest but cowardice, greed, and ignorance. # Friday, August 31, 2012 ************************************* DECEPTION ************************ Don’t believe everything you are told. Believe even less everything you read. The aim of human communication is deception. This is not a personal prejudice but a universal truth. It has been said and repeated by far better men than myself, among them Socrates who went further and said people (including the 1%) use words with total unawareness of their meaning. * Turks don’t view the Genocide as a tragedy or a crime against humanity but as a military victory to celebrate and brag about among themselves. (“We taught them a lesson they’ll never forget!”) * Armenians don’t view treason and betrayal as a capital offense but as a necessary means for survival. To some degree we are all perverts and liars, and to say otherwise is the height of self-deception. * You think I enjoy being the bearer of bad tidings? I think of myself as an objective observer and an interpreter of reality. As for the world at large: the consensus seems to be: Let bygones be bygones. Concentrate on the future. What’s done is done and cannot be undone. * Asvadz medz eh! Not an original slogan, granted. But what’s the use of originality if it can fix nothing? # Saturday, September 01, 2012 ***************************************** CONFESSIONS OF A MEGALOMANIAC *************************************************** A megalomaniac with an inferiority complex. That’s me. I write for Armenians who hate to read because they know better. Armenians who brag about their highly developed instinct for survival even as they dig the nation’s grave. Whoever said “At the beginning was the word, at the end garbage,” sure knew what he was talking about. * Neither Khorenatsi nor Naregatsi, neither Raffi nor Zarian were successful in toppling the thick impenetrable wall that stands between our men of contemplation and our men of action – writers and politicians. * “Our political parties have been of no political use to us; their greatest enemy is free speech”(Zarian). * The average Armenian dupe is convinced nothing and no one can fool him, not even the combined cunning of seven Genoese (the smartest Italians, it has been said) seven Greeks, and seven Jews. And yet he is taken in by partisan slogans whose sole aim is to divide the nation. * To divide and rule. That’s enemy action. It follows, as night follows day, and as sunset follows sunrise, our partisan patriots are our enemies. Now then, go ahead and contradict that. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2012 Thursday, August 30, 2012 ************************************* BULLIES *********************** In any given group victims outnumber their bullies; and yet, bullies are allowed the freedom to victimize. * It took slaves and workers long centuries to unite against their masters and exploiters only to develop their own set of bullies – more tyrannical, more ruthless, more bloodthirsty. * Why did it take women thousands of years to assert their rights? Even as I write these lines today most women spend more time, money and energy to make themselves more desirable to their oppressors than to develop the kind of solidarity that will give them the strength to assert equality with men. * And finally, consider the 99% versus the 1%. In an enlightened society the 1% would probably be in jail; and yet, they are allowed the freedom to sermonize and speechify in the name of God and Country, or freedom and prosperity. * One may be justified in suspecting that what motivates most men and women is not common sense and decency or even self-interest but cowardice, greed, and ignorance. # Friday, August 31, 2012 ************************************* DECEPTION ************************ Don’t believe everything you are told. Believe even less everything you read. The aim of human communication is deception. This is not a personal prejudice but a universal truth. It has been said and repeated by far better men than myself, among them Socrates who went further and said people (including the 1%) use words with total unawareness of their meaning. * Turks don’t view the Genocide as a tragedy or a crime against humanity but as a military victory to celebrate and brag about among themselves. (“We taught them a lesson they’ll never forget!”) * Armenians don’t view treason and betrayal as a capital offense but as a necessary means for survival. To some degree we are all perverts and liars, and to say otherwise is the height of self-deception. * You think I enjoy being the bearer of bad tidings? I think of myself as an objective observer and an interpreter of reality. As for the world at large: the consensus seems to be: Let bygones be bygones. Concentrate on the future. What’s done is done and cannot be undone. * Asvadz medz eh! Not an original slogan, granted. But what’s the use of originality if it can fix nothing? # Saturday, September 01, 2012 ***************************************** CONFESSIONS OF A MEGALOMANIAC *************************************************** A megalomaniac with an inferiority complex. That’s me. I write for Armenians who hate to read because they know better. Armenians who brag about their highly developed instinct for survival even as they dig the nation’s grave. Whoever said “At the beginning was the word, at the end garbage,” sure knew what he was talking about. * Neither Khorenatsi nor Naregatsi, neither Raffi nor Zarian were successful in toppling the thick impenetrable wall that stands between our men of contemplation and our men of action – writers and politicians. * “Our political parties have been of no political use to us; their greatest enemy is free speech”(Zarian). * The average Armenian dupe is convinced nothing and no one can fool him, not even the combined cunning of seven Genoese (the smartest Italians, it has been said) seven Greeks, and seven Jews. And yet he is taken in by partisan slogans whose sole aim is to divide the nation. * To divide and rule. That’s enemy action. It follows, as night follows day, and as sunset follows sunrise, our partisan patriots are our enemies. Now then, go ahead and contradict that. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2012 Sunday, September 02, 2012 *********************************** SEMANTICS *********************** Freedom to a bully means the freedom to bully the weak and defenseless. Freedom to a racist means the freedom to view a fraction of his fellow men as inferior and himself as superior. To a capitalist it means the freedom to exploit. To a tyrant it means the freedom to oppress, enslave, and when necessary, to slaughter. * Until very recently, in my own lifetime as a matter of fact, “Anglo-Saxon democracy” in the Southern States freedom meant classifying “Jews, Catholics, and niggers” as alien, hostile, and undesirable minorities, that is to say, the scum of the earth. * It is not enough to say what must be said; you must also be careful to say it to the right person. In that sense, all our writers have been preaching to the deaf, dumb, and stupid. * Freedom is not the only word open to abuse however. All important words – truth, justice, equality, objectivity… among many others – can be easily perverted to mean the opposite of what they really mean. To a nationalist historian, objectivity means to cover up the negative and to emphasize the positive, and if there are no positives, to invent them. * To subscribe to an ideology or belief system means to abdicate one’s common sense and reason, and to accept a Big Lie as the Truth. Patriotism in our context means love of one’s country and hatred of one’s fellow countrymen beginning with those who dare to disagree with us. * And speaking of Catholics: An Irish priest to a little schoolgirl: “Tell me, daughter, what do you want to be when you grow up?” “A prostitute.” “What’s that you said?” “I said a prostitute, Father.” “Thank God for that. I thought you said a Protestant.” # Monday, September 03, 2012 **************************************** SEMANTICS (II) ***************************** Speaking of words and their meanings: When we speak of nationalism what we really mean is tribalism. In our context freedom means only the freedom to choose a foreign master. Patriotism means loyalty to a gang of partisans and “mi kich pogh” panchoonies. And what is our anti-Americanism if not disguised pro-Bolshevism? * When an Armenian says to another Armenian “I disagree with you,” what he really means is my brainwashers disagree with your brainwashers. Or, it is not we who disagree but our bosses and bishops. Which may suggest, even our disagreements are not our own; or to paraphrase Zarian, even our trash has not been picked up from our own backyard. * I know I am on the right path when what I think today stands in direct contradiction to what I was brought up to believe yesterday. * Zohrab is right: Subservience corrupts everything it touches, including the noblest virtues. When near in the end of his life Charents dared to speak of solidarity he was careful to hide his message in a poem so cunningly that only his most loyal friends could locate it, and – you guessed it – it was one of them who betrayed him to the authorities. # Tuesday, September 04, 2012 ****************************************** PROPAGANDA AND DISSENT ************************************** Don’t think of me as someone who knows better. Think of me as someone who provides a perspective that contradicts a propaganda line. * How to recognize a propaganda line? Easy! A propaganda line emanates from a power structure and all power structures rely on a class of individuals who make a more or less comfortable living by misleading the people: schoolteachers, priests, sermonizers, speechifiers, and the press. Another peculiarity of propaganda is that there will invariably be another propaganda line that contradicts it; and by contradiction I mean not only abstractions but facts. (Genocide? What genocide? It never happened. It’s a fiction of our imagination.) * All power structures have the means to silence dissent. By contrast dissent is powerless as well as solitary and unprofitable. Consider the case of our own dissenters. Most if not all of them were silenced, starved, ostracized, betrayed to the authorities or murdered in cold blood. * The Romans had a legal principle that said the surest way of identifying the guilty party is by asking “Who benefits by the crime?” Dissent is not and cannot be a crime (though more often than not it is treated as a capital offense) because there are no beneficiaries, only losers – namely, the dupes of propaganda and the dissenters themselves. * In America today there are two propaganda lines that contradict each other, and there are dissenters who say it is not politicians that control events but corporations. * In our own Homeland and Diaspora there is a propaganda line that says we never had it so good because we are in the best of hands, and there are dissenters who say our power structures are rotten and we are experiencing not one but two self-inflicted genocides: assimilation in the Diaspora and exodus in the Homeland. * Who is right and who wrong? Up to you to decide. And there you have another difference between propaganda and dissent: dissent gives you a choice. Propaganda does not. # Wednesday, September 05, 2012 ******************************************** BENEFUCKTORS ****************** I don't trust the judgment of the powerful and the rich. The greater the wealth, the emptier the suit. In an environment where benefactors are kings, only brown-nosers prosper. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2012 Thursday, September 06, 2012 ******************************************* THE TRUTH ************************** For ever opinion, theory, ideology, and belief system there is another that contradicts it. Communism versus capitalism. Theism versus atheism. Imperialism versus nationalism. Which is right? *We tend to think in terms of generalities, abstractions, and carefully selected facts – and that’s where we go wrong: in our selection of evidence. *What are the arguments for imperialism? For 600 years the Middle East lived in relative harmony. But after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire there followed a long series of internecine wars with no end in sight. Something similar happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. *What are the arguments against nationalism? Divisions tend to generate more divisions and internecine conflicts can be as bloody as imperialist wars (Syria being a present-day case in point). *What is the difference between communism and capitalism? As the old joke has it: Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it’s the other way around. Or, as they used to say in Poland: “Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.” *The truth is, there is no Truth, only Big lies and dupes. # Friday, September 07, 2012 *************************************** RECAPITULATING ******************************* The reason why I like to make the truth as unpalatable as I can is that only then our dupes may decide to emerge from the cesspool in which they have been swimming. *Very early in my career as a writer I realized the only way to survive in this business is to kiss ass and say it smells like roses. *I know now why as a child I was lied to about Armenians: the truth is too unspeakable. *As an adult I was promised minimum wage (actually less) provided I wrote and translated what I was told by mediocrities that operated on the assumption it is a writer’s duty to emphasize the positive and cover up the negative, that is to say, to lie and deceive. *When I finally decided to speak the truth, I was silenced and became an enemy of the people. On more than one occasion I have been accused of being a hireling of foreign powers including the regime in Ankara. *We are so addicted to lies that anything that does not flatter our collective ego is rejected as enemy action. *May the Lord have mercy on our soul – if there is a Lord and we have a soul # Saturday, September 08, 2012 ************************************** CHAUVINIST SLOGANS ***************************** Chauvinists are not born but made, and what makes them is systematic indoctrination at a vulnerable age. *What is the difference between an Armenian and a Turkish chauvinist? Only the identity of their brainwashers. In all other respects they might as well be Siamese. *Where there is chauvinism there will be deportations, wars and massacres. *“All men by nature desire to know” Aristotle tells us.He should have added, except chauvinists who prefer to wallow in their own cliches ignorance. *A chauvinist’s most important ideas revolve around slogans and recycled propaganda and his favorite two words are “Yes, sir!”*“My country, right or wrong!” “My love of my country is good. My enemy’s love for his country is bad.” “If you don’t have Ararat in your heart you are no better than a piece of sh*t," (or so I was informed the other day by one of my gentle readers). “Forget your mother but do not forget your mother tongue.”And to think that there are actually self-assessed smart people who take this kind of nonsense seriously.*The Jesuits --masters of indoctrination--had a slogan of their own: “Give me a child and I will raise him to believe anything!” And so it is. *To speak truth to stupid is to dig your own grave. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shun Posted September 10, 2012 Report Share Posted September 10, 2012 (edited) Hi Ara, I recently read somewhere in your notes a remark on Oshakan and his tarnishing of Kostan Zarian’s literature, which you found intolerable. Also, your assessment of the Oshakans’ desire to be the “alpha males” in the Armenian literary reality. I had a few thoughts and recollections on this issue which I wanted to share with you. This issue partly concerns me for the reason that the Armenian reality to an overwhelming extent rejects and ostracizes all writers who do not produce “literature” that is nothing but nationalist propaganda. Let me go back to the roots of the above controversy. In 1909 when Marinetti produced his first manifesto of futurism, a young Armenian writer in Istanbul, named Hrand Nazariantz, published a booklet on Marinetti and the movement he was to begin. Nazariants was generally branded a “mediocre” poet and eventually he was banned from the Armenian literary consciousness. Another writer, this time Eastern Armenian, namely Kara Dervish, who was engulfed with the Russian wing of the futurist movement, was also banned from the Armenian literary consciousness. These writers possibly did not make into any anthology of Armenian literature, and talking about them practically became a taboo. Both faced similar attitudes that your, Vahe Avetian’s, and my literatures did. They are judged and ostracized after being deprived of their context, including the politico-geographic context. A hundred years hence, the Armenian reality has made little progress. It bans from its midst any attempt for novelty, any attempt that subverts tradition, any attempt that is critical of its prejudices that have been inculcated in it through centuries of conditioning on the anvil of slavery (Ottoman, Russian, Judeo-Christian) and the hammer of clergy—and its modern-day manifestations, i.e. academic fat-asses, party apparatchiks and their gazetaji propagandists. Nazariants, Zarian, and Oshakan new each other. Oshakan didn’t tolerate Nazariantz from the very beginning. Zarian was ambivalent about him, but when Mehian was founded, Nazariants became the first scapegoat of the so called “purge” of Armenian literature that Oshakan started then, apparently with the collusion of Zarian. It seems to me that Zarian was jealous of Nazariants. Nothing unusual, given the fact that most writers have always been narcissistic people throughout the globe. Nazariants was widely involved with the futurist movement and had many foreign writer friends, particularly in Italy, of which Zarian was jealous, and he underhandedly encouraged Oshakan to choose Nazariants as his first scapegoat. Little did he know that one day Oshakan is going to choose him as his victim. Nazariants left to Italy in 1913 after marrying an Italian woman and apparently he did not write anything in Armenian after that. He was bitter of the treatment that he received from Oshakan and for Zarian apparently setting it all up. After banning Nazariants from the scene, Zarian became, and he deliberately spent the rest of his life becoming, the “alpha intellectual” of the Armenian reality, one, who in the image of Nazariants whom he sacrificed to national oblivion and self-imposed eternal exile, the “alpha internationalist” writer of Armenian reality. Oshakan hated Zarian’s manners, his constant travels throughout the world, his inundating the Armenian press with interviews, when he could not even afford to rent a donkey to move around in Jerusalem, and almost everyone ignored him. He was ostracized by much of the Armenian community worldwide. But more importantly though, he did not tolerate Zarian’s “pictoriographic” literature, that had also affinity with a trend of enchanting with words, utilizing word-magic. This was perhaps inherited from Nazariants and perhaps through a brand of futurism itself which Nazariantz represented. This I see indeed an issue. Circa 1910, the Armenian literature in Istanbul was infested with this virus. Many of our best writers, including Zardarian, were not immune to this. Literature became unnecessarily laden with the detailed depiction of imagery, picture, environment. [Just a note here, you will perhaps find not a single picture (except in the opening para) in my about 1,000 page trilogy—of which the 1st is out. I am utterly disgusted with the picturesque and the “beautiful.”—that is this so-called “soul” of hypocrites, who are possessed by it.] And Zarian’s literature is also infested with this virus, particularly the earlier works. On this account, Oshakan’s criticism is not baseless. And yes, Oshakan, the Western Armenian refugee who lived among the Turks most of his early life, was a nationalist. But who wouldn’t be after experiencing a genocide on his skin. He could not tolerate Zarian’s “internatonalism,” which he considered fake. In regards to his attempt (the son Oshakan also) to become the “alpha male” in our reality, that’s an astute Freudian remark, perhaps well-founded also. But the above facts I hope would shed light on the background of the issue and his treatment of Zarian. Armen Melikian http://www.JourneyToVirginland.com Edited September 10, 2012 by shun Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2012 Wednesday, September 12, 2012 ******************************************* IF ************** What do you gain if in your effort to be positive you cover up the negative? * What do you gain if you replace greed for money (capitalism) with greed for power (communism) if the number of victims (the poor and the powerless) remains constant? * History does not repeat itself; it’s human nature that stays the same. * Propaganda makes a critic’s job easy by telling him where the bodies are buried. * First nation to adopt Christianity in the 4th century; first nation to adopt atheism in the 20th. * A man’s wisdom may also be judged by the number of fools he counts as his enemies. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2012 Saturday, September 15, 2012 ***************************************** ON IDEOLOGIES & RELIGIONS ******************************************* Sooner or later all ideologies and religions develop a power structure; and where power enters murder is sure to follow – not to say war and massacre. * Religions may benefit individuals here and there, now and then but societies, never! * Religions have been and continue to be as dangerous as biological and nuclear weapons. * Freedom of religion means license to brainwash. # Friday, September 14, 2012 ****************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS ************************************ There are two ways of being popular in an environment dominated by charlatans and dupes: by inventing new lies and by recycling old ones. * I don’t write for dupes. I write for readers who almost think as I do. * Who takes Armenian writers seriously? Not even Armenian writers. Speaking for myself, I have nothing but contempt for writers who write about many things – from the Middle Ages to massacres – but carefully avoid our present problems. * If everybody loved to play the same instrument we wouldn’t have an orchestra. * An Armenian reader may agree with me on one or two points, but three points? – that would be like a minor miracle. # Saturday, September 15, 2012 ************************************* GUILTY AS CHARGED ******************************** Benefactors write checks, build schools and community centers; bishops sermonized in the name God; bosses speechify in the name of Country and Mount Ararat; and after leading a more or less comfortable life they die in bed. By contrast, successive generations of our writers have been reduced to the status of beggars, silenced, exiled, and murdered. Why? Simply because they refused to engage in deception and to mislead the community into thinking they never had it so good because they are in the best of hands. And because I write as I do I have been called a Turk, an enemy of the people, and a shit. * When in his eighties Zarian died in Yerevan after sustaining injuries in a fall, he was sure he had been pushed and murdered by agents of the State. * When Baruir Massikian, a brilliant playwright, short story write and essayist, who was also a successful lawyer, was visited in his deathbed by a delegation of Panchoonies parading as concerned community leaders asked him to leave his wealth to the Armenian Educational Foundation, he said he’d much rather leave it to whores in a Cairo bordello. * You may see me as a pessimist and a dealer in gloom and doom. I see myself as an honest witness who refuses to commit perjury. If that’s a crime, I am more than willing to plead guilty as charged, # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2012 Sunday, September 16, 2012************************************ SUNDAY SERMON***************************** Empires are not born but made, and what makes them is vision, without which, the Bible tells us, “the people perish.” *We have perished not because the land allotted to us was stony, the climate harsh, and our neighbors bloodthirsty,but because our leadership was without vision. *Empires have risen from the most unlikely places – even from deserts and islands. I am not an imperialist. I say these things to point out the fact that our nationalist historians are first and foremost propagandists whose sole aim in life is to mislead us into thinking we have nothing to worry about because our “betters” are noble and selfless specimens of humanity as opposed to being the scum of the earth. *You don’t believe me? Listen to Zarian: “Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.” And even more to the point: “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” *Like empires, cannibals are not born but made and what makes them are leaders who place their own powers and privileges above the interests of the community and the nation.#Monday, September 17, 2012****************************************** A READER WRITES****************************** “You repeat yourself. You write too much. You have too many opinions. You are on too many forums.” *That’s because I have about a dozen readers half of whom either believe nothing I say or do not trust my judgment even when I say the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.To the rest I am old news because I say nothing that is new or original; I simply repeat, quote, or paraphrase better men than myself (to which charge I plead guilty as charged). *It follows I may or may not have one reader who may profit from what I say. My ambition in life is to have at least two readers before I die. On the day that happens I may consider making myself more useful in some other line of work, such as planting potatoes or bird-watching.#Tuesday, September 18, 2012************************************ WRONG QUESTIONS****************************** Do I have more enemies than friends? Wrong question. The right question is: Am I saying what must be said? *Do our fanatics outnumber our moderates? What about our dupes? Do they outnumber those who can think for themselves? Corrupt, incompetent or dishonest leaders: do they outnumber the honest ones? Do our dividers outnumber those who are of the opposite disposition? *If the alienated and assimilated outnumber those who “have Ararat in their hearts,” who is to blame? Speaking as an alienated Armenian who stays away from community centers, churches, and political parties: I hate all propagandists regardless of nationality so much so that I’d much rather deal with an honest Turk than a dishonest Armenian. I will go further and say I consider all honest men my brothers and all charlatans and crooks as my enemies. *Do our brainwashed dupes outnumber those who refuse to surrender their hearts and minds to partisans and panchoonies? To ask the right questions is the beginning of all wisdom.#Wednesday, September 19, 2012**************************************** ON BEING WRONG****************************** So what if I am wrong? Far better men than myself have been wrong. Think of Zohrab who saved Talaat’s life by risking his own. Think of our revolutionaries who on the eve of the Genocide challenged the Turks to massacre us. Think of Charents who allowed himself to be brainwashed by the Bolsheviks. Consider the case of Sylva Gaboudikyan of “Forget your mother” fame, who after the collapse of the Soviet Union declared “I am proud to have been a member of the Communist Party!” *If I am wrong I can be corrected. And I have been, many times. I am corrected even when I am right. When was the last time anyone dared to correct any one of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors? *You have nothing to fear from someone willing to admit his fallibility, and everything to fear from someone who speaks in the name of God, Country, and the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat.# Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2012 Saturday, September 22, 2012 **************************************** OBSERVATIONS *********************** After telling us the Bible is the word of God and “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” they divide a house that is already divided between believers and non-believers. * You say it’s impossible and I say doing what must be done creates its own energy and cunning. * Even as they blabber endlessly about Turks and massacres they tell me I am being negative. * Romney’s problem: a big mouth and a bigger foot. # Saturday, September 22, 2012 *************************************** ON POSTERITY & RELATED ATROCITIES ************************************ Posterity? I am not sure about posterity. You and I may well be our only posterity. * Depression? I have been depressed most of my life and I consider it an integral part of the human condition. Unlike most Americans I don’t think happiness or well-being to be a patriotic duty. I have never been near a shrink, nor taken a single pill. Only the occasional drink. * Homeland? I can’t imagine anyone not loving its mountains and rivers, lakes, valleys, and forests. Neither can I imagine anyone not hating the former KGB agents and commissars who are now in charge of it. Call it treason if you like. I call it rejection of all crypto-fascist propaganda. I call it refusal to be the dupe of thieving charlatans, and in that I am with the majority – namely all those who have voted with their feet and live abroad or they define homeland as anywhere on earth where they are allowed to work and provide for their families. # Saturday, September 22, 2012 *************************************** ON STUPIDITY ********************** Be aware of stupidity for it is the source of all evil. * The problem with hatred is that it tends to metastasize. Hatred of the enemy turns brother against brother. * More often than not our choice is not between good and evil but between the lesser of two evils. * Details are important especially the ones you miss or refuse to see. * “In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, Owner of the Day of Judgment.” I quote from memory. I paraphrase. If wrong ascribe it to Alzheimer’s, not to blasphemy. * It is hatred of the infidel that turns Shia against Sunni and Assad against his ownpeople. * From the lyrics of a popular Armenian song: “An Armenian loves to eat (oudel) and he eats to hate (adel).” * He who is blinded by hatred believes he has 20/20 vision and God is on his side. * “I am not here to bring peace but a sword. If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” If you can’t guess who said that, I suggest you read the Scriptures. * And now let us pray! “Our Father Who art in Heaven…” # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2012 Sunday, September 23, 2012 *************************************** DECEPTION (IV) ************************ For 600 years we hated the Turks and we had every right to do so for what they did and kept doing to us, but we deceived them into thinking we loved them and we did such a good job of it that they named us their most loyal millet (ethnic minority). * For 60 years we also hated the “onion-head” Russians but again we pretended to love them by calling them our “big brothers.” We went further. Much further. We betrayed and surrendered our ablest men to their murderers. * And now that we have no one to deceive we deceive one another and we do such an excellent job of it that most Armenians in the Diaspora believe when native Armenians call them “aghber” they don’t mean “white trash,” but “brother.” * We have become such habitual and expert liars that we believe in our own lies. Now you know why our 1% divides the 99% and gets away with it. They say they divide us because they are men of principle and gentlemen do not compromise on principles. The fact is they divide us out of fear. Fear of what we might do to them when we uncover the truth. After all, far more civilized and progressive nations than us have beheaded, executed, and assassinated their kings. The only reason we have done nothing of the kind so far is that we have been duped into thinking our leaders are not our enemies but our heroes and saviors. * Armenians of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your dividers and gravediggers.. # Monday, September 24, 2012 ************************************* CHEZOKS ********************** One of our elder statesmen (may God have mercy on his soul, if there is a God and he had a soul) once wrote a book in which he blamed all our problems on chezoks (non-partisan Armenians). “They are neither hot nor cold,” said he. “They are neither for nor against anything. They don’t care. They are useless, aimless, and purposeless. They exist but they do not live… they are a dead weight…” and so on and so forth. You may have noticed that when our speechifiers get going, nothing can stopping them. Zarian knew what he was talking about when he said “An Armenian’s tongue is sharper than a Turk’s yataghan.” * In my review of the book I said something to the effect that our dividers were the real source of all our problems, not chezoks. In his angry telephone call our statesman said, among other things: “I thought you were on our side.” “I am on nobody’s side,” was my answer, “if only because I have done no harm.” * My father was a chezok not because he didn’t care but because he lost everything twice and I mean that literally: first time in 1915 during World War I in Turkey, second time in 1941 during World War II in Greece. As a result he spent all his time trying to make a living and provide for his family in alien and hostile environments. He died in his fifties and he looked ninety. He may not have been a great Armenian but he was an honest man. I wish I could say the same of our Ottomanized, Levantinized, Americanized, and Sovietized fellow countrymen who parade as first-class Armenians and expect the rest of us to look up to them as role models. # Tuesday, September 25, 2012 ******************************************** BROTHERS ************************ There are truth-seekers and there are propagandists. The aim of propagandists is power. The aim of truth-seekers is exposing lies. * Propaganda has produced such monsters as the Nazi who believed to belong to a superior race; the Jew who believed to be God’s Chosen; the English sahib who saw himself as a civilizing agent; the child-molesting Catholic priest; and closer to home, the Armenian patriot with “Ararat in his heart” who views a fraction of his fellow Armenians as “white trash.” In America propaganda has produced the KKK and legitimized racism; in Russia the Big Brother (in the Orwellian sense of the words) and the commissar. By contrast truth-seekers have been solitary underdogs and victims of propagandists. Gandhi in India, Martin Luther King in America (both assassinated), Solzhenitsyn in Russia, Socrates in 5th-century BC Greece and Jesus in 1st-century Palestine. * How to identify a propagandist? Easy! A propagandist is a member of an organized group with a clearly defined agenda which pretends to be on the side of truth but on closer inspection reveals itself to be Big Lie. If you are a member of such a group, look out brother, you may well be on your way to the Devil. * I read the following quotation in my morning paper today: “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” Lao Tzu. # Wednesday, September 26, 2012 ********************************************* WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE ******************************************** Do you really want to know why I write the way I write? I will tell you. I write the way I write in defense of all Armenians who were insulted and abused in the name of this or that brand of patriotism of which there are as many as there are Armenians. * A Bolshevik’s patriotism, for instance, means not only love of homeland but also loyalty to the memory of Stalin. A nationalist’s patriotism bears all the earmarks of racism and fascism. * I write in defense of all writers who were betrayed, silenced, exiled, butchered, or shot. I write to remind our Turcocentric ghazetajis and their dupes that it is wrong to gauge an Armenian’s patriotism by the degree of hatred he harbors against Turks. I write to say that I have nothing but contempt for the kind of Armenian who after perpetuating our problems tells me, “We need solutions, not critics.” My message to them is: “If you really need solutions, hang yourself!” * I have no illusions about myself and my fellow Armenians. I am fully aware of the fact that I have as much influence on Armenian affairs as a grain of sand on the Saharan desert. But I write to set the record straight. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted September 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2012 Thursday, September 27, 2012 ***************************************** THEOLOGY *************************** If God exists, why does He go out of His way to make Himself inaccessible and incomprehensible? If Truth is One, what is it that drives us to invent ten thousand lies? If the Kingdom of God is within us, where is the Empire of the Devil? * “If I cannot answer the most important question, am I not fooling the reader?” Chekhov said. I suspect if we ever have the Answer – which may or may not happen in our lifetime – we will say, But of course! What else? I should have guessed. I had eyes but couldn’t see, ears but couldn’t hear, and a brain but couldn’t think. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 ********************************************* EASY QUESTIONS / OBVIOUS ANSWERS ********************************************* With religious leaders like popes, imams, and rabbis, who needs religion? With Scriptures like the Bible and the Koran that legitimize divisions, intolerance, the persecution of heretics, and the murder of infidels, who needs Scriptures? With monarchs like the Romanovs in Russia, the VIII Henrys in England, and the French Louis who came by the dozen, who needs kings? With bloodthirsty dictators like Hitler and Stalin, who needs dictators? * Speaking of blood: In the Ottoman Empire it was a capital offense to spill the blood of a present or future sultan, so they adopted a different method to eliminate the competition: they strangled all potential usurpers with a silk cord. (And they say Turks are dumb!) * With scary presidential candidates like Romney and Ryan who needs presidents? Gore Vidal may have been right when he said America will be better off without its politicians. To the question, who will run the country, he replied: “Swiss hotel managers.” With historians who cover up the criminal conduct and incompetence of the regime in power, who needs schoolteachers who recycle propaganda? * I am not just asking question: I am predicting the shape of things to come. Neither am I a prophet: I just use my common sense and the lessons of the past. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 *********************************** IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST **************************************** Let’s cut the crap, shall we? Let’s leave rhetoric to our speechifiers infatuated with the sound of their own voice; and let’s leave pious sentiments to our sermonizers whose favorite mode of communication is to say the opposite of what they really think and feel. * I see Armenians as perennial losers and victims whose secret ambition in life is to victimize, and since they can’t victimize others, they victimize their own. As dupes they can’t stand anyone who refuses to be a dupe. As products of millennial oppression by bloodthirsty tyrants they see nothing morally questionable in brainwashing the weak, oppressing the defenseless, and in deceiving the ignorant and the naïve. That’s as far as their conception of patriotism goes. * I know what I am saying. I have been in the belly of the beast and I have dealt with some of our best and brightest. I am not here to flatter our collective colossal ego or to pretend to love you as a brother. Neither am I here to assert my superior brand of Armenianism, whatever the hell that may mean. I leave that to our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their dupes, flunkeys, and hirelings. * Whenever I am told to be kinder to my readers, I reply: A nation that managed to survive the Turk’s yataghan can survive the opinions of a minor scribbler who is here today and will be gone tomorrow. * Abraham Lincoln once said: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” I have tried that method not once or twice but many times. It doesn’t work. I have had better luck with Turks. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2012 Sunday, September 30, 2012************************************** 1001******************* We are a nation of a thousand and one Watergates and we are engaged in a collective and almost unanimous effort to cover them up in the name of patriotism. What follows is only one of them.*For a hundred years now we, Armenians of the Diaspora, have been demanding an apology from the Turks who not only have been stonewalling us but also calling us liars. Has anyone ever asked an apology from our former Bolsheviks in the Homeland who terrorized, oppressed, betrayed, exiled, and murdered fellow Armenians who refused to say “Yes, sir!” to the Kremlin? To add insult to injury, role models like Sylva Kaputikian openly declared to have been proud members of the Communist Party. And to think that these “authentic” Armenians call us, Armenians of the Diaspora, “trash.” If that’s what it takes to be an authentic or patriotic Armenian, I want no part of it. If that’s what living in the shadow of Mt Ararat does to Armenians, I say I will never set foot there. *So what if I will never qualify as a first-class citizen? So what if, in the words of a gentle reader from the Homeland, I am not better than “a piece of shit!” All I can say in my defense is that I have done my utmost to qualify as a human being. Can our patriotic brothers and sisters in the Homeland say as much? *To those who try to be authentic Armenians like the natives, I say: Get yourself another hobby because you will never make it. You will never rise above the status of “white niggers,” “trash,” and “shits.” Far better men than yourself have tried and failed miserably. For more on this subject read Zarian’s posthumously published NOTEBOOKS and DIARIES.#Monday, October 01, 2012************************************** IT TAKES ALL KINDS********************************** Patriotism and prostitution: in our environment they might as well be synonymous. I suspect the integrity of our patriots as I suspect the virginity of a bordello madam. *Speaking of madams: I remember to have read somewhere that the wealthiest woman in Turkey was a bordello madam by the name of Manoogian – an easy name to remember. *I once met an Armenian who knew everybody who was somebody in our communities. Privately he was full of venom about our “great” men; publicly he led an anonymous existence. What did he do for a living? I am not sure. But between the lines I gathered he was dependent on the charity of swine. *My father knew nobody and nobody was interested in what he thought. He too led an anonymous existence. His last job was that of a dishwasher in a Greek restaurant. *Once, when asked to deliver a speech, I said: “Writing is hard. Speaking is harder.” That’s when I did nothing but recycle chauvinist crapola in whatever I wrote. On another occasion when asked in the presence of an audience why I was not interested in encouraging the next generation of writes, I said: “We need readers, not writers.” You might say I belong to the haiku school of speechifying. *If I ever write another book – which I doubt I ever will – I have two tentative titles: “The Swan Song of a Jackass,” and “The Memoirs of an Anonymous Nobody.”#Wednesday, October 03, 2012************************************ BROTHERS********************************* A few years ago I lost several Armenian friends from Syria because I dared to disagree with them when they said Arabs are friendly people and they love Armenians.*Patriotism: not one of my favorite words perhaps because every Armenian has his own definition of the word whose aim is to divide the community into friends and enemies,The hidden source of this aberration Seems to be less political and more biological.*The world may be divided into friends and enemies and if you want to survive, you must kill. If you don’t kill you will be killed. Timing is of the essence. Do not procrastinate. Kill him as soon as you can. Kill him even if you don’t have a good enough reason to hate him. Kill him even if he is your brother.*I learn something every day, that’s how ignorant I am.#Wednesday, October 03, 2012******************************************* THE BEST REVENGE********************************** A French writer once said that if your wife runs away with a man, the best revenge is to let him keep her. You may call this turning the other cheek. I call it employing a lethal weapon with which to inflict maximum damage.*BIG LIES********************* No matter how big the lie, it will be believed by some. Kennedy was assassinated by the Mafia. Hitler was a Jew. Obama is a Muslim. The Russians are our big Brothers. The Serpent in the Garden of Eden was a CIA agent in disguise. There are superior and inferior races. God’s Chosen. Seventy-three virgins. Armenians are smart.*SHADES OF GRAY**************************** Our problems are as clear as black and white. If they seem more as shades of gray it’s because an entire class of academics, bureaucrats, hirelings, hangers-on, partisans and panchoonies have been brainwashed to believe their survival depends on convincing the 99% into thinking patriotism consists in being a dupe and thinking for oneself is pro-Turkish.# Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2012 Thursday, October 4, 2012************************************** OPEN SECRETS**************************** On the day good Turks and good Armenians are allowed to form an alliance, all their differences will be resolved amicably and to their mutual advantage. *As for bad Turks and Armenians: all I can say about them is that they deserve one another. *Did I say good Turks and good Armenians? Make it, good half-Armenians and good half-Turks. Pure-blooded Armenians and Turks are a fiction of nationalist propaganda. They don’t exist. Very much like Americans, both Turks and Armenians have been thoroughly bastardized. Nothing wrong in that. On the contrary. Very much on the contrary! Bastardization promotes co-existence, peace, and prosperity. That’s an open secret. You want proof? Everybody wants to immigrate to America. Who in his right mind would want to move in the opposite direction?*Both good Turks and Armenians are today at the mercy of bad men who owe their position of eminence to big lies (the deification of Kemal) and fear (constant and endless talk of massacres). Nothing good can come from lies and fear. That’s another open secret.#Friday, October 05, 2012************************************* ECONOMICS 101****************************** Who understand economics? Not even economists. For every economist who says one thing there is another who says the opposite. Truman once said he would like to meet an economist with only one hand, because after each statement they make, they add “on the other hand.” *The favorite word of my professor of economics was “interdependence.” He used it in every other assertion he made. That’s because every factor in economics is dependent on another. *Corporations prosper only when the middle and lower classes can afford to buy their goods and services. The state is not a corporation whose priority is to balance books, show a profit, and to trim the fat by eliminating programs and decreasing spending. *Economics cannot be divorced from history. They are interdependent. FDR, like Obama, had to deal with depression and war. He increased the number of government programs. And it worked. Under Eisenhower (a Republican) the tax rate for the wealthy went up 91%. America survived as well as prospered. So did Europe with American help (the Marshall Plan). *Bush (II) was right when he said the wealthy don’t pay taxes because they have smart accountants who take advantage of loopholes and when they run out of them they hide their savings in offshore banks. (Does that ring a bell?)By contrast the middle and lower classes spend what they make and whenever money moves, a fraction of it goes to creating jobs and taxes. *Who understand economics? The answer is those who in the past confronted and were successful in solving the same problems that we confront today.#Saturday, October 06, 2012***************************************** WHAT’S IN A NAME?****************************** Iraklis (Greek), Hercules (English), Hercule (French), Ercole (Italian), Hergele (Turkish). Moral: One nation’s hero is another’s hoodlum.*In a book on Azerbaijan, I remember to have read once that General Antranik’s name is as well known to Azeris as Talaat is to us.*PRIDE AND PREJUDICE********************************* For everyone who brags “I am proud to have been a member of the Communist Party,” I should like to hear at least two who say “I am thoroughly ashamed to have been a member of a criminal gang.”* A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH**************************************** I once received the manuscript of a short story with a note that said: “Do you think I should encourage my son’s literary ambitions?” In my reply I said: "If your son is in need of encouragement, he cannot be a writer.” I had another hidden reason for saying that. Only a sadist would condemn an innocent boy to the fate of a perennial loser forever dependent on the charity of swine.# Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 Wednesday, October 10, 2012 ************************************** DESTINY *********************** Who is in charge of our destiny? Surely not the regime in Yerevan which is a puppet of the Kremlin; and surely not our political parties in the Diaspora that (in the words of a friend) cannot even lead a dog to the nearest hydrant or catch a cold in a flu epidemic. Perhaps the right question in this context is not who is in charge of our destiny but do we have one? * We are taught to brag about our genius for survival. What we are not told is that the greatest challenge isn't surviving our enemies but our own leadership. * I quoted a friend above. I should have said a former friend. My former friends outnumber my present friends a hundred to one. * Last week I made a new friend. This week he made it abundantly clear that I will make him very happy on the day I drop dead. Easy come, easy go. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2012 Thursday, October 11, 2012 ******************************** WHAT HAPPENED *************************** We should have seen it coming but we were blind. So was our leadership. And we all know what happens when the blind lead the blind… * When Raffi said, “The Ottoman Empire is no place for Armenians; they have no respect for human life there,” we said, what the hell does he know? * When Roupen Sevag’s German fiancée visiting him in Istanbul said: “I don’t like these Turks,” he said: “You don’t know them, I do. Deep down they are nice folk. You’ll change your mind after you get to know them.” He was one of the first to be butchered. * When on the eve of the Genocide Zohrab warned: “This time they will massacre indiscriminately,” they said “Zohrab effendi is exaggerating.” Some left, among them Siamanto, but they found life abroad so alien that they returned only to be slaughtered. * When Oshagan said “Homeland,” he meant Istanbul. * It happened gradually. It didn’t fall on us like a thief in the night. It began fourteen centuries ago when their Prophet dehumanized all non-Muslims by classifying them as infidels. * It happened six hundred years ago when we surrendered our fate into their hands and said in effect: Henceforth we will serve you faithfully and obediently. You want our daughters? You can have them. Our sons? You can have them too. * It happened when Protestant missionaries taught us to sing “Onward Christian soldiers,” which they (Turks) assumed to be some kind of war chant and that we were in cahoots with the infidel West and were planning an invasion. * It happened when the rumor spread that Turkish girls in the Balkans were being crucified. A myriad other factors contributed to the final catastrophe, but again the accumulation of details was so gradual and we were so blind that we pretended to notice nothing. * We thought if the Great Powers of the West are on our side we had nothing to fear. We behaved with the arrogance and stupidity of people who assume to be invulnerable. * I am reminded of this arrogance and stupidity again whenever we of the Diaspora are called “aghber” by our own Bolshevik brothers and sisters in the Homeland. * An English traveler at the turn of the last century in Armenia: “What magnificent landscapes. What wretched people!” * Mart bidi ch’ellank! # Saturday, October 13, 2012 **************************************** ON DISAGREEMENT ******************************* At the root of all disagreement there is an unspoken line that says: “You are not smart enough or good enough to contradict what I say.” And at the root of all megalomania there is self-deception. All authority is suspect. * THE MORE THINGS CHANGE… ************************************** Muslims today treat infidels with the same ferocity that Catholics treated heretics in the Middle Ages. * BULLIES ********************** They invent a god so that they can speak in his name. In other words, their belief system is rooted in their need to bully the weak and defenseless with a clear conscience. * PERVERTS ************************ Religions, theology, Holy Scriptures, popes, imams, rabbis: these things interest me only in so far as they reveal the workings of the human mind or rather the perversities of the human brain. As for the nature of god and the next world: not only do I not believe a word they say but I am also offended by their shameless audacity in treating me as if I were a helpless retard in need of their charlatanism. # DEATH WISH ***************************** Divisions exist because people consent to be divided; and people consent to be divided even when it means digging their own graves. Freud’s death wish may also be defined as a universal and unconscious desire to commit collective suicide… or self-inflicted genocide. * ON BEING NEGATIVE ****************************** Two questions: When Socrates said, “Ignorance is the source of all evil,” was he being positive or negative? When the Scriptures say, “Truth shall set you free,” thus implying we are slaves of lies: would you call that a positive or negative assertion? * ON MAFIAS ***************************** Judge a tree by its fruit, an idea by its history, an ideology by its lies, a religion by its mafia and a mafia by its number of innocent victims. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 Sunday, October 14, 2012 ************************************** OBSERVASTIONS *********************************** When everything works as planned something is bound to go wrong. * My conscience is clear only when I speak against my own interests. * We have many answers but not the Answer, and all our answers add up to no more than 1% of reality. * Our understanding of god is based on hearsay evidence. * Subservience and freedom are mutually exclusive concepts. * After Socrates and Jesus the world doesn’t need new ideas, only reminders. * Hell is an invention of bullies. * Capitalism: What’s mine is mine even if most of it I stole from you. * Where there are innocent victims there will also be a mafia. # Monday, October 15, 2012 ********************************************* MO YAN SPEAKS *********************************** Speaking of his fellow Chinese, Mo Yan (this year’s Nobel Prize winner in literature) says somewhere (I am quoting from memory): “Once upon a time they were innocent, then they became fanatics, after which they were afraid of their own shadows, finally they settled on being evil.” And I reflect on the celebrated words of Confucius: “When you see a good man, emulate him. When you see a bad man, examine your own heart.” * “Is democracy possible in Syria?” asks a pundit in my morning paper. His answer: “It seems improbable.” * Is democracy possible in Armenia? Next question: Is democracy possible in the Diaspora? What have we learned after a century of life in America? Our political and cultural institutions function as if all talk of human rights and free speech were utopian or anti-Armenian concepts. Sultanism is so ingrained in our collective existence that we see nothing questionable or suspect in being at the mercy of bosses, bishops, and benefactors who behave as if they had never heard of democracy. Mart bidi ch’ellank! # Wednesday, October 17, 2012 **************************************** J.S. BACH & THE BEATLES ************************************* In their own time the Beatles were more popular than Bach. They may still be for all I know. It is unbelievable to what extent most men live and die with total unawareness of their own possibilities. * LOSERS ************** My defeats outnumber my victories 99 to 1, perhaps even 999 to a fraction of 1. In that sense I represent my nation more faithfully than our great men most of whom, if not all, achieved their greatness by eliminating the competition. * KILLERS *********************** A serial killer is a serial killer even if a jury renders a verdict of not guilty. And if you say human justice may not be perfect but it works, may I remind you that for a good number of years, even decades, men like Mao, Stalin, and Hitler enjoyed the reputation of great statesmen and not as dangerous serial killers or psychopaths. In the eyes of his fellow countrymen even Genghis Khan is seen to this day as a titan among men. # Wednesday, October 17, 2012 ***************************************** Sunday, October 14, 2012 ************************************** OBSERVASTIONS *********************************** When everything works as planned something is bound to go wrong. * My conscience is clear only when I speak against my own interests. * We have many answers but not the Answer, and all our answers add up to no more than 1% of reality. * Our understanding of god is based on hearsay evidence. * Subservience and freedom are mutually exclusive concepts. * After Socrates and Jesus the world doesn’t need new ideas, only reminders. * Hell is an invention of bullies. * Capitalism: What’s mine is mine even if most of it I stole from you. * Where there are innocent victims there will also be a mafia. # Monday, October 15, 2012 ********************************************* MO YAN SPEAKS *********************************** Speaking of his fellow Chinese, Mo Yan (this year’s Nobel Prize winner in literature) says somewhere (I am quoting from memory): “Once upon a time they were innocent, then they became fanatics, after which they were afraid of their own shadows, finally they settled on being evil.” And I reflect on the celebrated words of Confucius: “When you see a good man, emulate him. When you see a bad man, examine your own heart.” * “Is democracy possible in Syria?” asks a pundit in my morning paper. His answer: “It seems improbable.” * Is democracy possible in Armenia? Next question: Is democracy possible in the Diaspora? What have we learned after a century of life in America? Our political and cultural institutions function as if all talk of human rights and free speech were utopian or anti-Armenian concepts. Sultanism is so ingrained in our collective existence that we see nothing questionable or suspect in being at the mercy of bosses, bishops, and benefactors who behave as if they had never heard of democracy. Mart bidi ch’ellank! # Wednesday, October 17, 2012 **************************************** J.S. BACH & THE BEATLES ************************************* In their own time the Beatles were more popular than Bach. They may still be for all I know. It is unbelievable to what extent most men live and die with total unawareness of their own possibilities. * LOSERS ************** My defeats outnumber my victories 99 to 1, perhaps even 999 to a fraction of 1. In that sense I represent my nation more faithfully than our great men most of whom, if not all, achieved their greatness by eliminating the competition. * KILLERS *********************** A serial killer is a serial killer even if a jury renders a verdict of not guilty. And if you say human justice may not be perfect but it works, may I remind you that for a good number of years, even decades, men like Mao, Stalin, and Hitler enjoyed the reputation of great statesmen and not as dangerous serial killers or psychopaths. In the eyes of his fellow countrymen even Genghis Khan is seen to this day as a titan among men. # Wednesday, October 17, 2012 ***************************************** LET US REASON TOGETHER ************************************** A Canadian prime minister (Jean Chretien) is quoted as having said: “I like to stand up to Americans. It’s popular.” We like to hate Turks. That’s popular too. But it’s wrong! What have we accomplished after a hundred years of hatred? We can’t even convince Americans to support our side. Hating is a waste of time, Hating nations is worse! We should hate not nations but murderers and liars regardless of nationality. There are honest Turks as surely as there are dishonest Armenians. It is wrong to confuse a nation with its regime. Regimes are ephemeral and transitory stages in a nation’s life. Neither should we confuse loyalty or subservience to a regime with patriotism. Hatred may take us from A to B but it is understand that can go all the way to XYZ. Hating is easy; understanding much harder. When it comes to politics or any other discipline for that matter, the easy answer is not always the right one. In the writings of our Turcocentric ghazetajis and readers who enjoy reading them I see nothing but militant malice. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 Thursday, October 18, 2012*************************************** A CONTRADICTION**************************** “The Kingdom of God is within you.”*“Our Father Who art in Heaven.”#EITHER/OR*********************** Someday everything will make sense. Either that or we will be beyond caring.#HOW TO RECOGNIZE A CHARLATAN******************************************** Two ways:(One) A charlatan has more answers than questions; and he has answers even to questions that have no answer.(Two) If the facts are not on his side he will invent some that are.#ANOTHER EITHER/OR************************************** We either believe the testimony of our writers or our ruling classes whose every word is contaminated by propaganda, that is to say a Big Lie.#IF…**************** If you lose an argument it doesn’t necessarily mean you were wrong. It only means your opponent had a better lawyer.#SIZE MATTERS************************** Among sharks, a barracuda has a better chance to survive than a sardine.#Saturday, October 20, 2012************************************ SOLUTIONS**************************** Solutions don’t fall from heaven like manna. Solutions are hard work. But when we speak of solutions we think of the abracadabra variant whereby you deliver the right verbal formula and the problem vanishes like a puff of smoke. *For 1700 years our religion has been teaching us to love our enemies; and for 1500 years our writers, beginning with Khorenatsi and Yeghishe (two historians of the Golden Age) have been emphasizing the central role that solidarity plays in the life of a nation. I therefore feel justified in concluding that anyone who says “We don’t need critics, we need solutions!” should be classified as a habitual and compulsive liar who is out to deceive not only others but also and above all himself. *Solutions? As a nation we are like the proverbial peasant who seated on his jackass searches for his jackass. And if you say, you can’t teach love of Turks to Armenians who hate Armenians, all I can say is: “You can say that again, brother!”#ENEMIES*************************** The question we should ask is not “Why do they hate us?” but “What have we done to deserve so many of them?” *If might is right, it follows, absence of might is wrong, and if not a crime against humanity, an invitation to it.*Today I know something I didn’t know yesterday: It is not our enemies who divide us (in order to rule us); it is we who divide ourselves to be closer to the sultan and commissar, and in the Diaspora, to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors.There is only one way to make it in our environment: to be a brown-noser. *I will never forget the contempt and anger in the voice of one of our elder statesmen (who was also the hireling of a benefactor), when he said to me: “Just who the hell do you think you are?”*An old lady once said to me: “When I write to the President of the United States, I get a reply. But when I write to an Armenian, I am ignored.” It was this same old lady who, after reading one of my comments against the dangers of assimilation, asked me: “What’s wrong with assimilation?” I don’t remember my exact answer then, but my answer today would be: “For some Armenians, assimilation would be a step in the right direction.”# Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2012 Wednesday, October 24, 2012 ********************************** Sunday, October 21, 2012 **************************************** LITERATURE AND POLITICS ************************************** There are several giants in our literature; only midgets in politics. As for Byzantine emperors of Armenian descent one of whom achieved “Napoleonic” stature (according to Edward Gibbon in his DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE) they served exclusively Greek interests even when it meant adopting and implementing an anti-Armenian foreign policy. * And if you were to drop names like Gulbenkian, Saroyan, Mamoulian, Khachatourian and Mikoyan: I will say that all these gentlemen were born, raised, and operated in non-Armenian environments. * If so far this aspect of our collective existence has been carefully covered up it may be because we continue to be at the mercy of unprincipled and ruthless mediocrities whose greatest enemy is excellence. # A QUESTION IN THE SEARCH OF AN ANSWER ******************************************** What have we learned from our millennial history? To say or imply that our history, including our genocide (both “red” and “white”), is a result of conditions and forces beyond our control is nothing but a transparent effort to place ourselves outside history; to say in effect: we had nothing to do with our blunders and misfortunes. It was all someone else’s fault. * Who profits by this line of reasoning? Who else but our own leadership whose sole aim in life is to cover up the fact that far from being our "betters," they are our worst. * To say or imply that we have no control over our destiny as a nation is to advocate a passive stance, and worse, much worse: it is to say that the only way to survive in the kind of world we live in is to say “Yes, sir!” to those in power even when they happen to be the lowest scum on earth. Isn’t that what we did for 600 years in the Ottoman Empire and for more than 60 years in the Soviet Union – two of the worst criminal power structures in the history of mankind? * The real horror is not in men like Talaat and Stalin; the real horror is in the millions who trusted them. Zohrab, one of the smartest Armenians that ever lived, trusting his life into the hands of his future murderers. Mikoyan carrying out all orders faithfully always in fear of his own life, sleeping with a revolver under his pillow. * I ask again: What have we learned from history except to assume a passive stance not only to alien tyrants but also our own scumbags. # IF I WERE A DICTATOR ***************************************** If I were a dictator (which will never happen because I don’t have a single politically ambitious bone in my body) I would begin by saying the days of “1001 churches” in the same city are over as surely as horses and sabers in modern warfare. * I am all for a single community center (make it, shish-kebab and pilaf joint) instead of two, if only because our different religious, political and cultural factions would have a better chance to discover that they are not much different from one another and Armenian solidarity may not be as utopian a concept as it is generally thought to be by our dividers (make it, diggers of our collective grave). * Why two archbishops and two cathedrals in New York City if one will save us millions in salaries alone (one of these cathedrals, I am told by an insider, employs as many as 83 individuals). * A church is called "a house of God” and as far as I know God has at no time demanded that we provide Him with four of them (Anteliassagan, Etchmiadznagan, Catholic, and Protestant) in the same city . * Something similar could be said of our press. Instead of a dozen trashy weeklies, we could have a single professionally managed and edited publication. * Instead of a hundred charitable institutions we could have one supervised by a non-partisan and preferably odar auditing firm… * But why go on with this exercise in futility if none of these reforms will ever be implemented by our partisans and panchoonies? # THE RICH & THE SUPER-RICH ******************************************* OBAMA & ROMNEY ******************************** HONEST MEN & CROOKS **************************************** Honest men will employ only honest means to get rich. By contrast, crooks will employ both honest as well as dishonest means. That is why, Plato tells us, crooks will always be richer than honest men. # ON BEING POSITIVE ********************************** When not urged to be positive I am accused of being consistently negative. How do we define positive and negative? Is speaking the truth positive or negative? Is being objective negative? Is flattering the ego of contemptible men with money or power positive? Is saying “Yes, sir!” out of fear positive? These are not easy questions to answer for individuals whose collective existence has been at the mercy of bloodthirsty and ruthless tyrants for more than a thousand years. * When Zarian said “Our political parties have been of no political use to us,” was he being negative? When speaking of one of our national benefactors an archbishop once said to me: “The only reason he likes building schools and community centers is to see his name on walls,” was he being negative? * Our history, the history I was taught as a child and the history we teach our children today is more fiction than fact. As recently as yesterday when I said “Our greatest writers from Abovian to Zarian were shabbily treated and silenced by our own wheeler-dealers,” a reader pointed out to me that times have changed and we now have more freedom than at any other time in history. If true, the question we must ask is, what the hell happened to our literature? Why is it that we no longer have writers of Abovian’s and Zarian’s stature and character? Why is it that today even the Turks are ahead of us in literature? Have we finally come to realize that no one in his right mind would adopt Armenian literature as a career? A final question: Is exposing stupidity, ignorance, and filth positive or negative? # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arabaliozian Posted October 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2012 Thursday, October 25, 2012 ****************************************** DEGREES OF AWARENESS ************************************* We may see many things but we cannot see everything and more often than not what we don’t see is what we should have seen. * If you want to know more about someone, ask his enemies. The same applies to nations. * Truth is nobody’s friends and everyone’s enemy. * When dissidents ascribe criminal conduct to the leadership alone, they lie. They lie in so far as they reduce the people to the status of automata programmed to behave with the same degree of awareness as ants, sheep, or a pack of wolves. * Even the most backward and primitive man cannot be said to be on the same level as a beast whose conduct is dictated by instinct alone. * Our dividers are as guilty as hell. No doubt about that. But so are their dupes, whose IQ operates on two levels: when it comes to judging their enemies, they behave as if they had 20/20 vision. But when it comes to examining their conscience, they become deaf, dumb and stupid. * A headline in my morning paper reads: “Women hold just 20% of world’s power.” I have every reason to suspect in our case it’s less than 0, 0001%. # ON THE ART OF WRITING ************************************ The less art the better. * Editing consists in deleting. If you provide the key, no need to describe the contents of a room. * Unless you are another Tolstoyevsky, be more like Chekhov. Stick to writing short stories. The shorter the better. * When asked about the tempo of a song, a French composer (may have been Gabriel Fauré) is quoted as having said: “If the singer is bad, the faster the better.” * So many mediocrities achieve celebrity these days that the challenge is to remain anonymous. * Don’t make the mistake of adopting a single pseudonym like Oshagan and Siamanto because your readers (assuming you have any) will forget you even when you are alive and kicking ass. * Leave preaching to preachers – they get paid for it. To be an Armenian writer in this day and age means to be an unemployed and unemployable misfit in a land devoid of all benefits and entitlements. * Never underestimate your readers’ ignorance and contempt for knowledge. I have met elder statesmen who in a sane environment would be classified as inbred morons. * Be prepared to be insulted and dismissed as a bullshitter by bullshitters like Romney and Ryan. * A nation needs dupes more than it needs dissidents. This is as true of Turks, Russians, and Yanks as it is of Armenians – especially Armenians. * And now let us pray! # Saturday, October 27, 2012 **************************************** BROTHERS ************************ The other day a gentle reader pointed out to me that Armenians who have were born, raised, and lived in alien environments for more than a century and a half could hardly qualify as Armenian. Some truth in that. * In America we have been Americanized in less than a century, in France Frenchified, in the Balkans Balkanized, in many other countries assimilated to the point of extinction, and last but not least, in the Ottoman Empire we were Ottomanized. (on occasion I am myself been called “Baliozoghlu” and identified as “a piece of shit” by my brothers in the Homeland). * Who is an authentic Armenian? Does he exist? Not an easy question to answer. If you say, surely Armenians born and raised in the shadow of Mt. Ararat may indeed qualify as authentic Armenians, may I be allowed to point out they too have been to some extent Russified, Sovietized, alienated, and dehumanized as thoroughly as the rest of us. * And now, let us rise from abstractions to facts (as our Marxist brothers used to say). Let us consider their authenticity in the light of historic reality. Whereas in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 our intellectuals were betrayed by a single Armenian, in the USSR two generations of our ablest men in all fields of human endeavor were betrayed and shot by our own Stalinist leadership – the very same characters, may I add, who are now in charge of our destiny as a nation. * When post-World War II Armenians immigrated to Armenia, they were called “aghber” (trash) by these very same authentic Armenians, and lived (very much like themselves) in constant fear of betrayal. * Which is why I feel justified in saying nothing can be as misleading as judging a man by his birthplace? A man should be judged not by his country of origin but, in the words of a wise American, by “the content of his character.” The rest is propaganda. # Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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