Elections in Armenia

[Haykakan]

Re: Elections in Armenia

The GMO issue is a very interesting one because it brings togather unrelated issues like science, business, ethics. Scientificaly speaking we really do need to find ways to make food more efficient if we are to feed the growing populations of our planet. It is argued that the reason why we are able to feed the present day population is because of GMO foods which can grow in dry condition, resist disease, resist pests.. Some argue that to feed the growing population of tomorow we will need further developments in GMO inorder to avert starvation in the future. Now for the Business side of it. GMO=Monsento. Monsento has a monopoly on GMO and it is a business thus it is motivated by profits. It is a monopoly thus it has no incentive to improve the product it sells(people do not have a choice in buying GMO from another source). The research Monsento is motivated in conducting is on making their seeds able to grow in places other seeds cannot or to produce more yield then regular crops so it can sell more seeds. Monsento has no insentives to conduct much research on the safety of its products since this costs it extra money and time, brings no extra profits, and could turn up information rendering its products unmarketable. Monsento is huge business thus it can afford powerful lobbying interest groups to further its goals of increasing profits even if this action is against the good of the people and the nation or even the world. Ethics is a bit more complicated then one may think regarding this issue. Sure it is unethical to sell food that is unsafe to the public. Yes it is unethical to sue farmers because the GMO stuff got into their crop via wind or animals. Yes it is unethical to maintain a monopoly on our food because it causes huge inefficiancy. It is also unethical to let people starve when only GMO can feed them. There is not enough fertile land to support the growing population of humans even if modern farming techniques are used. Without GMO much of the Chinese and Indians and others would be starving now. Without GMO the future looks very dark as far as world food security goes. For humanity GMO is not a question of should we or shouldnt we use it, because we will starve without it. The question is how do we make it safe and efficiant. The answer to this is pretty easy but not so easy to impliment. It is easy because by simply converting the market structure from a monopoly to perfect competition or even monopolistic competion will solve all the issues we have with GMO foods. It is the nature of the monopoly market structure that is behind the bad things we know regarding GMO. This easy answer is not so easy to impliment because Monsento is able to take advantage of the corrupt political system in the USA and maintain its monopoly. Perfect competition and monopolistic competition are subject to market forces that will drive them to improve the safety of GMO foods while monopoly has no such insentive. I know this is off topic but i think this is an important issue and perhaps a new thread on GMO should be started.

[Sarkis86]

Re: Elections in Armenia

The GMO issue is a very interesting one because it brings togather unrelated issues like science, business, ethics. Scientificaly speaking we really do need to find ways to make food more efficient if we are to feed the growing populations of our planet. It is argued that the reason why we are able to feed the present day population is because of GMO foods which can grow in dry condition, resist disease, resist pests.. Some argue that to feed the growing population of tomorow we will need further developments in GMO inorder to avert starvation in the future. Now for the Business side of it. GMO=Monsento. Monsento has a monopoly on GMO and it is a business thus it is motivated by profits. It is a monopoly thus it has no incentive to improve the product it sells(people do not have a choice in buying GMO from another source). The research Monsento is motivated in conducting is on making their seeds able to grow in places other seeds cannot or to produce more yield then regular crops so it can sell more seeds. Monsento has no insentives to conduct much research on the safety of its products since this costs it extra money and time, brings no extra profits, and could turn up information rendering its products unmarketable. Monsento is huge business thus it can afford powerful lobbying interest groups to further its goals of increasing profits even if this action is against the good of the people and the nation or even the world. Ethics is a bit more complicated then one may think regarding this issue. Sure it is unethical to sell food that is unsafe to the public. Yes it is unethical to sue farmers because the GMO stuff got into their crop via wind or animals. Yes it is unethical to maintain a monopoly on our food because it causes huge inefficiancy. It is also unethical to let people starve when only GMO can feed them. There is not enough fertile land to support the growing population of humans even if modern farming techniques are used. Without GMO much of the Chinese and Indians and others would be starving now. Without GMO the future looks very dark as far as world food security goes. For humanity GMO is not a question of should we or shouldnt we use it, because we will starve without it. The question is how do we make it safe and efficiant. The answer to this is pretty easy but not so easy to impliment. It is easy because by simply converting the market structure from a monopoly to perfect competition or even monopolistic competion will solve all the issues we have with GMO foods. It is the nature of the monopoly market structure that is behind the bad things we know regarding GMO. This easy answer is not so easy to impliment because Monsento is able to take advantage of the corrupt political system in the USA and maintain its monopoly. Perfect competition and monopolistic competition are subject to market forces that will drive them to improve the safety of GMO foods while monopoly has no such insentive. I know this is off topic but i think this is an important issue and perhaps a new thread on GMO should be started.

Interesting observations Haykakan. I would argue against some of the statements you made about GMOs and the perceived inadequacies of natural/traditional seeds and farming (I believe that scientific claims vary depending on who's funding the scientist), but like you said that is a topic for a different thread.

I merely wanted to highlight two things regarding Armenian politics with the GMO post. Firstly that despite the doom-and-gloom status the foreign-funded "opposition" media always ascribes to Armenia and despite the fact that they try to label the Armenian government as "corrupt and incompetent", the Armenian government is succeeding where the western governments which criticize Armenia have failed miserably. (I'd find it amusing if the Armenian government founded and funded an entity called americanow or radio free america in Washington, D.C. and it produced sensationalized reports on this institutionalized corruption/oligarchy in the USA and tried to incite civilians to protest and riot.)

Secondly, I wanted to reiterate the fact that even Armenia's best-intentioned "reformers" and "activists" who may only have noble goals such as stopping pollution, preventing deforestation, weeding out corruption and waste, battling non-combat deaths in the Armenian military, are in the end mainly used as tools of pressure on Yerevan by foreign governments. Not a single opposition media source mentioned Armenia banning GMOs, and not a single organization in the Diaspora or Armenia commented on the issue or offered the Armenian government praise or support in any way, shape or form. This serves to remind us all that we need to question whether not-so-nice hidden forces are trying to use or encourage any activism we may take part in to advance their own interests. As they say "beware of Greeks bearing gifts" (or foreign governments bearing funding, support and media coverage to your activism) because you never know when it's a Trojan horse.

I know many members of this forum are above intelligent and they follow issues like these, but a majority of the people are probably clueless, which is sad because food security is essential to the long term survival of the Armenian state, a true strategic priority on par with maintaining demographics. They just parrot "Երկիրը երկիր չէ" (basically meaning Armenia isn't a real country). The article Collective Destructionism does an excellent job covering this sad reality http://theriseofrussia.blogspot.com/...-armenias.html

[Federate]

Re: Elections in Armenia

Hayrikian blaming Russia... lol.

[Haykakan]

Re: Elections in Armenia

Yeh right Russia wants to assasinate a guy who cant get 1% of the vote LOL. I agree with everything you say in this post Sarkis but you must keep in mind that even todays levelof human population is unnatural and cannot be sustained with traditional methods. The human population will continue to skyrocket thus we need now and will need later new technological and scientific breakthroughs to feed people. GMO does not have to be a bad thing, which i do agree with you that it is today. Simply changing market structure will change it from being bad to being good. Perhaps this can be tried in Armenia and done the right way! That would indeed be something to be proud of.

[Lernakan]

Re: Elections in Armenia

-I can't think of any other scenario. It is almost impossible that it was a random act of violence because: a) Armenia is actually a very, very safe country apart from political and "business" violence and petty pickpockets; and b) political figures don't get shot by coincidence....

I agree with your assessment Sarkis jan but one other option I can think of is azerbaijan. There have been instances in the past when certain individuals were bought by azeri "intelligence" services. Just think of the woman who left a bomb in Hotel Erebuni several years ago which luckily didn't go off. It was later revealed that she got the orders from azeri secret services, or the man who got caught for trying to assassinate Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan and there have been a couple more instances like these.
The question is what would azerbaijan gain from this? Perhaps they just wanted to cast a dirty light on the Armenian elections (in anticipation of the criticism they are going to receive later this year with their elections), or maybe they were hoping the people would come out against the government after this? Lets not forget what they did after the safarov affair, employing an uzbek to go to Armenia and try to convince the Armenian secret service to help him carry out a bomb attack in Baku. They thought the Armenians would fall for this trap, so the azeri's could use this instance to discredit the Armenian authorities. All I'm saying is, if they went that far just to be able to discredit the Armenian authorities before the international community than perhaps they might also have a hand in this.

P.S. I like reading your posts, keep up the good work!

[Federate]

Re: Elections in Armenia

Very interesting take Lernakan and welcome back to posting!

Moments after Hayrikian was shot:

[Lernakan]

Re: Elections in Armenia

Very interesting take Lernakan and welcome back to posting!

Thanks for the welcome yeghpayr!

[Vahram]

Re: Elections in Armenia

Just think of the woman who left a bomb in Hotel Erebuni several years ago which luckily didn't go off. It was later revealed that she got the orders from azeri secret services, or the man who got caught for trying to assassinate Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan and there have been a couple more instances like these.

Just a few days ago the British embassy in Armenia made an off comment about our elections. Perfect timing with this hit, I would not put it pasted them to have multi countries involved in sync. This is only good for two people, the guy that got shot and the outsiders who are going to use this and milk it to the last drop.

[Sarkis86]

Re: Elections in Armenia

I agree with your assessment Sarkis jan but one other option I can think of is azerbaijan. There have been instances in the past when certain individuals were bought by azeri "intelligence" services. Just think of the woman who left a bomb in Hotel Erebuni several years ago which luckily didn't go off. It was later revealed that she got the orders from azeri secret services, or the man who got caught for trying to assassinate Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan and there have been a couple more instances like these.
The question is what would azerbaijan gain from this? Perhaps they just wanted to cast a dirty light on the Armenian elections (in anticipation of the criticism they are going to receive later this year with their elections), or maybe they were hoping the people would come out against the government after this? Lets not forget what they did after the safarov affair, employing an uzbek to go to Armenia and try to convince the Armenian secret service to help him carry out a bomb attack in Baku. They thought the Armenians would fall for this trap, so the azeri's could use this instance to discredit the Armenian authorities. All I'm saying is, if they went that far just to be able to discredit the Armenian authorities before the international community than perhaps they might also have a hand in this.

P.S. I like reading your posts, keep up the good work!

Thank you for the compliment and support Lernakan. I appreciate it!

Excellent point. I was being too-narrowly focused in thinking that the organizers of this attack on Hayrikyan had to be either Armenians, Russians or Americans. I had not thought of azeris/turks, even though they had a lot to gain from the situation.

I agree your assessment completely, azerbaijan would benefit from unrest in Armenia and the negative press against us in the international arena. I am sure Armenia's NSS will look into any azeri/turkish connections to this shooting. I recall the Uzbek and Hotel cases, as well as a few cases the Armenian government publicized of the azeri's trying to send agents into Armenia. I've heard Armenian concerns that azeri agents might get in posing as Iranian tourists (possibly from the Iranian-azeri community), or through bribing Armenian citizens in former Soviet counties; or bribing non-Armenian tourists from the CIS. There was also a case during the Kocharyan era of an Armenian from "istanbul" who was jailed for spying for turkey.

The threat from the azeris and turks remains, they'd love nothing more than another upheaval in Armenia. We can never let our guard down, and we can never allow foreign intrigues to stir up unrest in Armenia.

[Sarkis86]

Re: Elections in Armenia

Just a few days ago the British embassy in Armenia made an off comment about our elections. Perfect timing with this hit, I would not put it pasted them to have multi countries involved in sync. This is only good for two people, the guy that got shot and the outsiders who are going to use this and milk it to the last drop.

I despise the british embassy in Yerevan.

-The former b*tch ambassador Thora Abbott-Watt openly stated in Armenia that the fact of the Armenian Genocide occurring was an open debate among historians.

-Artur Baghdasaryan was caught by the Armenian NSS in 2007 secretly discussing plan with the British Ambassador about organizing a forceful regime change in Armenia.

-Look at how little they respect Armenia, experimental husband-wife ambassadorships just aren't done in the diplomatic world http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...h-embassy.html

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against English, Welsh, Scotish or Irish individuals, and I respect British culture and contributions to civilization. But from the days of the Crimean War (when they literally fought to kick the Russians out of Western Armenia and ensured the Genocide took place 50 years later) until today Britain has been the leading anti-Armenian power in Europe. I see anything emanating from the British Embassy in Yerevan as a threat.

And the sad part is there are dozens and dozens of nations that Britain has damaged as badly as it has Armenia.