Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

[Eddo211]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

That s the point....know who you are dealing with and do not underestimate.

It is not about the Kabob.....it is to not hesitate to stick the Shish (the sword) in its place, anymore.

[hagopn]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

That s the point....know who you are dealing with and do not underestimate.

It is not about the Kabob.....it is to not hesitate to stick the Shish (the sword) in its place, anymore.

Then we're saying the same thing, brother.

[gegev]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

...
The blame for having limited options is not with Russia, Turkey, US, NATO, EU, Erdogan, Putin... it is with (some) Armenians ...

...

Slave mentality is their key characteristic

Despots most devoted proponents are their slaves.

[Haykakan]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

Hakob things are different in the present day world then they were before. Emigration to distant lands is not a big deal anymore its just a few hours away. Technology has changed the world we live in and i am not as confident about the demographic situation in Armenia as you seem to be. Sure there were and are and will be good Armenian leaders but who will they lead? Another important point which is overlooked in this discussion is the ever growing trend of Narcissism which is spreading like wildfire throughout the civilized world. I fear the combination of technology(making it easier to emigrate) and narcissism (making emigration a more acceptable decision) is a very big threat to our nation. We live in a rapidly changing world and what was applicable for thousands of years may no longer apply or perhaps applies in different ways. I agree that it is no accident that we Armenians have survived for so long but the world is not a constant and just because we survived till now does not mean we will always survive. My point is we need to address the issues as they change around us.

[hagopn]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

Haykakan (not Hakob, sorry), I have yet to express my views on demographics nor have I had a chance to express my level of confidence or lack thereof. If anything, the urgent tone that I write with should be indication that there is awareness of an alarming situation at hand.

As Gegev above rightly says, "A despot's most devoted proponents are slaves." I can add to that: "Despots know how to harvest slaves from formerly healthy populations." How do they do that? Start with Tiglath-Pileser's own confession from the 8th century b.c. on how to build an empire. The first method he recommended was to constantly keep his conquered sedentary subjects in a nomadic state. the second rule was to ensure there is no homogenous population in any given sector. The third rule for Tiglath-Pileser was to deny each culture "their own gods," essentially their own history and value systems. As you say, this process has accelerated due to technology, rapid transport and information systems, more frightening mass destruction (even the so-called "conventional") weaponry. No argument there.

How will we react to it?

In the past we Armenians ironically were a culture that abhorred central rule, and central governments cannot exist without slavish majority. We simply did not adjust to the despotic imperialist world that was building up around us, but we were a rooted culture, for which reason we still are around. However, my estimation is that we have retained less than 1 percent of our former presence. Armenians were a very large presence in the ancient world. Read Robert Ellis' "Armenian Origins of the Etruscans" to get a glimpse.

However, if the author Jean Markale and his instigated and immensely popular "Celtic culture" trend is of any indication, and if the resurgence of the "confederate mindset" ("privacy, individual sovereignty and so on) in almost all western countries but especially the US is of any indication, then the old Armenian spirit is making a comeback. Are we going to ride this, or are we going to sit like morons as we mostly did in the 19th and 20th centuries?

The Americans are slowly, very slowly, waking up, but are still losing the battle badly. Just look at the Iraq-Lybia-Syria-Egypt-Afghan etc.. fiasco. it's diplomatic, economic and moral suicide for them. One only has to read JohnTaylorGatto.com and find out the American version of it at the education level, that of "slave production". Oh, and if we are under the impression that the US political model of late is not that of despotism, you are living in Disneyland. By the way, Robert Blye, a poet and mythologer, when he described how "Americans are losing their maturity and are as a consequence losing their former political maturity and activism," he calls the main cause "The Disneyland culture." The "Sibling Society" is a book you should read. Something very similar to that is being done to Armenians currently, a tried and tested model of centralized Oligarchy with a pliant and stupefied population is being exported to target nations. It's not that difficult, actually. Good leaders are always few in number. You just create a situation where they will die as heroes, and then promote your own ambitious, petty and criminal lackeys. Once that's done, keep the lackeys on massive payroll with lots of IMF loans (CRBF loan, or "asset purchase", whatever) for which the population is liable, and they will happily do everything possible to keep the populations pliant.

The slavish behavioral trend is not by accident. The human mind needs examples, idols, inspiration, to aspire toward, and none of our educational systems ever teach statesmanship. That education is always reserved, in the imperialist setting, to a select few. Would the KGB or CIA have liked to allow for Armenians to cultivate cadre of statesmen? Probably not. As the matter of fact, I know dozens of assassinations that have targeted such potential leaders throughout our history. I recall the Movses Giorgizian example in recent history, for example.

Education of our own political past can improve the odds of creating such cadre.

[Haykakan]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

"In the past we Armenians ironically were a culture that abhorred central rule,"
This very trait which you look at in a positive light is the reason why we were not able to resist the imperialists then and now. By speaking to fellow Armenians now i can see that we have not learned from our mistakes. How do you intend to make a good country that can stand up to the giant imperial forces without some form of centralized leadership? Armenians are indeed doing well in this new age of narcissism yet what is left of their nation is crumbling to pieces.

[hagopn]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

All ancient, native, cultures, abhorred central rule. Only the artificial states that were constructed through conquest had central rule. The point is that Armenians grew into a nation, versus the Assyrians who conquered their empire and assimilated others through the methods I mention.

Yes, the Armenians did not adjust to the increasingly despotic and imperialist world around them, and, in hindsight, they might seem like imbeciles. But they were hardly that.

What they were, truly, is a people who had a civilized past that did not need central rule to sustain itself. It was self-sustaining without the need for conquest.

The Roman "Pax Romana" was a time for slow death, becauset the entire idea behind the economy of an empire is conquest and looting. When that ended, the empire began to disintegrate on its own ill-begotten weight.

The American model that the "Patriots" are trying to revive, the one that Jefferson was the main proponent for, is that of a CON-Federate model where the local autonomy is greater, which in turn give the individual greater sovereignty and political power.

You at the same time say that "slavery is bad," but yet you are upset because we didn't like central rule, which can only occur at the expense of the enslaved majority. Americans know this now very well.

Now, if you are more specific and say "we should have united under a strong termporary federation," we actually had done that a number of time in our history, quite successfully.

But, as imperialism increasing in power, frequency, competence, the more autonomous confederates nations and their states eroded under the pressure, external pressure.

[Haykakan]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

"But, as imperialism increasing in power, frequency, competence, the more autonomous confederates nations and their states eroded under the pressure, external pressure."
Yup you are making my point for me. I do not agree that a strong central government can only imply conquest. The lesson we should have taken home from our history is that we need to unite but this is not what is happening. Btw if you are referring to the tea party as the Patriots and comparing them to Jefferson you are way off because Sarah Palin aint no Thomas Jefferson and non of those guys know anything about international trade nor economics. That tea party needs to go to school and learn a bunch of stuff before it can claim to run anything let alone a nation. I do agree with some of the ideas these "patriots" have like demolishing the Fed and ending our imperial wars, and freedom to the people but these guys have made fools out of themselves so many times like preaching abstinence while your teenage daughter is having a baby. I do like some of the people there like Jessey Ventura but the vast majority of these "patriots" are ignorent flag waving baboons just like the vast majority of the general population.

[hagopn]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

I'm talking about the grass roots campaigners who do work to repeal laws that debilitate local autonomy. Jesse Ventura is a great example. I am not necessarily even evoking the xenophobia driven Tea Partiers (in an immigrant culture that had conquered and displaced the natives, no less) and that imbecile Palin when I talk about the Jeffersonians in the current government. It's funny to see the coopting of the Jeffersonian school by these folk.

"A strong central government only in times of war" were told the Romans, and they had elected Cato the Farmer. Then, the subsequent opportunists discovered that they can maintain their power and dictator status by making war a more permanent fixture in life and focus the entire society around the Army. Sound familiar? In essence, Central Rule will only benefit Big Criminal, because power corrupts, or, the corrupt seeks power and the opportunity to seize it.

That is ALL that will ever happen to states with central authorities that override local autonomy. I would advise that you ignore the Tea Party Red Herring and go to the source.

Also, I recommend you read the sources I gave.

And, yes, I will always agree that Armenians should have been more conscious of the dangers they collectively faced, but the age that we are talking about, these folks had inherited, once again, a culture that afforded them much personal and local freedom. In fact, these people even sometimes preferred a distant (and blind, and weak due to the distance in that era) "emperor" to a local dictator. Certainly we can see the flaws in such a political mindset, but we all secretly want to be our own sovereigns, do we not?

"Narcissism" is too easy to use to lay blame. The only alternative to narcissist is ultimately "good soldier" controlling the "good slave." In centralizd systems, there are really only 3 occupations: "Oligarch/Dictatorship", "Soldier", and "Slave. (Note that there is no such thing as a "single man dictating terms." It's always an oligarchy.)

[hagopn]

Re: Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?

Also, In don’t think you understand what I mean by the phrase “increasing frequency, influence, and power of imperialism”.

Empires in fact did not exist when the Armenian ethnos (or, to appease the ultra-left, the "various proto-Armenian ethnoi") was long ago formed, the even the idea of a “permanent and professional army” did not come to be until Akkad the First, who was a Semitic tribesman, which has a lot of significance which is a separate discussion that some good authors have written about. And what was that first ever professional army founded to do? Who financed and taxed for that army? The answer is obvious. The army was founded to conquer and control primarily trade routes. The conquests of the cities of Ebla and Mari, for example, are well recorded. Each municipality or city state they would conquer, they would install one of their trusted nomad chieftains as “king” who would still hold loyalty to the overall nomadic tribes, and so on. Armies, in fact, were thought of to enforce trade monopolies, and that has not changed one centimeter. That is the original idea behind empire, centralized state, professional army, which were new to that world, to the world overall.


China, for example, had an almost comical tradition of warfare before the advent of professional war consultants such as Sun Tzu and so on, and no permanent professional army until late into the "Warring States" era, a time when the "professional warrior/professional general" (essentially still a mercenary, not a state fixture) first became known as a resume item. It was all about pomp, symbolism, honor, and part of the war ethic was that you never commit genocide, never wipe out the competing clan, only subdue them. It almost sounds like a intra-family feud. The same thing is also recorded in pre-Semitic Sumer, Ebla/Syria/Armenia/Asia Minor and so on. No genocide. This indicates the possibility of overall memory of kinship and coexistence, sometimes cordial, sometimes not, but never genocidal.