as i see it

[Guest arabaliozian]

MY AIM IN LIFE***************************Some of my readers inform me that I am a pessimist, probably because I have a grim view of our present reality. Others tell me I am an optimist, probably because they think I write hoping I can make a difference or change things. These contradictory reactions confirm my own view of myself as someone who thinks as a pessimist but works as an optimist. As for changing things: to entertain such a hope (make it, illusion) would not be so much optimism as megalomania bordering on insanity. The only thing I want to accomplish is to give insomnia to our charlatans and bloodsuckers, and I shall consider my mission accomplished even if the insomnia lasts no more than a fraction of a second.Wednesday, July 31, 2002*******************************Other people means other experiences, perspectives and views. To demand total agreement might as well be synonymous with tyranny and fascism.*No one is in a position to assert that he has no Jewish blood in his veins or that his/her children are not part Jewish. Remember, even Saroyan’s wife was successful in fooling him to think that she was not Jewish. To hate Jews, to hate oneself, and to hate mankind might as well be synonymous too. To those who say that the DNA or the chemical composition of the blood is not as important as character and intellectual or spiritual content, I say: subtract Christianity, Islam, Marxism, psychoanalysis and modernism from man’s spiritual/intellectual heritage, and what have you left?*A reasonable man may be corrected, but not a pervert; and political perversion is a much more fertile field of perversion than sexuality.* It’s astonishing how easily a man will convince himself that he knows everything he needs to know even when he knows next to nothing and the little he knows is against his own best interest.*I don’t always read and  respond to my critics based on the old political principle that you don’t kill a man who is committing suicide.Thursday, August 01, 2002********************************Trying to abolish war and massacre is like trying to abolish original sin: it can’t be done. What can be done, however, is detecting signs of the coming catastrophe and minimizing the damage. Competent leadership may be said to consist in this, and incompetent leadership consists in the opposite disposition, namely,  in ignoring reality and adopting no preventive measures – or being driven not by reason but by wishful thinking. How successful was our leadership at the turn of the centuryin foreseeing the massacres in the Ottoman Empire? The answer to this question is another question: How successful is our leadership today in preventing the white massacres? (exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora).LATER****************************To say that a story with a happy ending is better than a story with a sad ending, or comedy is a superior genre than tragedy, is nonsense. Likewise, to say that optimists are better people than pessimists, or, for that matter, brown-nosers are morally superior than critics, is empty verbiage. The world is big enough to accommodate all kinds, including fools who speak not because they have something to say but because they have to say something.*The average Armenian is carefully indoctrinated by our educational system to be a spin doctor and a cover-up artist on the grounds that it is anti-Armenian to exhibit our dirty linen in public. Result: our crooks go about their business unmolested.The average Armenian knows that if caught shoplifting, even if the item is worth pennies – he may be arrested and punished; but he demands that our crooks remain unexposed. We are expected to believe that a corrupt boss or bishop has a legal option that is not available to ordinary mortals: he may plead not guilty on grounds of Armenianism.  Or, in the words of one of my readers: "A fornicating bishop who embezzles millions is also a man of God." *War is declared by optimists. It is the same with all human confrontations: at the beginning, ignorance and optimism; at the end, tragedy but not always wisdom. The question that I ask myself again and again is: If the Genocide cannot teach us, what can?