politics

[arabaliozian]

Re: politics

ON UNDERSTANDING
*********************************
Understanding is a work in progress.
*
When I thought I understood
all I needed to understand
I understood nothing.
*
God understands everything
because He is everything.
*
A united tribe doesn’t have to fight
a divided empire; all it has to do is wait.
*
Calling a military defeat a moral victory
is worst than a lie, it is propaganda.
*
An honest man’s options
in a crooked world are limited:
if it’s not the hemlock it’s the cross.
*
I try to understand and explain
war and massacre in a world where
everyone is an expert on the subject.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: politics

NOTES / COMMENTS / Nothing will expose American double-talk more effectively than a Trump victory.*Men of faith are not our enemies. Men with closed minds are.*Men who read only one book and believe everything in it are potential serial killers.*It is not easy for a man or woman to be objective about the opposite sex. A limited number of experiences cannot do justice to an unlimited number of data.*One’s source of income defines one’s identity. If an Armenian’s source of income is Turkish, he will identify himself as a Turk.* Youth is a time for blunders. Old age, ditto.#

[arabaliozian]

Re: politics

UNDERSTANDING THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE / In what follows I will make an honest effort to understand and explain the Genocide provided we agree that to explain is not to justify.*Turks adopted and implemented a policy of systematic and total extermination in 1915 because for the fist time in their historic existence they were confronted with the possibility of their own extinction by foreign (the Great Powers and Russia) and domestic enemies (Greeks, Armenians, Kurds). *Surrounded on all sides by killers, they killed in self-defense. * If this is not the right explanation, I like to believe it may be a step (or an inch) in the direct direction. But perhaps I am flattering myself.#

[arabaliozian]

Re: politics

THIS & THAT / The higher they climb the more of their backside they expose. The story of all empires from the Roman to the Ottoman and the American.*With everything I write I make a new enemy. I consider that a move in the right direction.*What Armenians say about Turks is true. What Armenians don’t say about Armenians: that’s different.*Gide in his JOURNALS: What do the dreams of blind men look like?*Tolstoy to Chekhov: “You xxxxxd a great deal when you were young? (in Gorky’s REMINISCENCES.)#

[arabaliozian]

Re: politics

SOLUTIONS / When we say we don’t need critics, we need solutions, what we really mean by solutions is verbal formulas like abracadabra. *We are like the drunk driver who after killing a pedestrian says to the judge: “Your Honor, I plead not guilty on the grounds that so far mankind has failed to discover a solution to the problem of alcoholism.”*So far mankind has failed to discover a formula that will end rape, murder and war too. Does that mean we should continue to trust our collective destiny into the hands of incompetent mediocrities who place their own interests above the interests if the nation?*What is astonishing is that we see nothing questionable in teaching this type of reasoning to our children in schools who then proceed to voice the slogan, “We don’t need critics, we need solutions.”*I am reminded of Gandhi who refused to visit America because he sensed he could not teach non-violence to a nation of gunslingers. And he was right.#

[arabaliozian]

Re: politics

Ludwig Wittgenstein:
"The limits of my language
mean the limits of my world."
*
It follows, to silence or ignore writers
means limiting our options,
and with them, our chances to survive
and to achieve excellence,
*
To survive in the jungle,
you need all your faculties.
#

[arabaliozian]

POLITICS
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When Gandhi, Einstein, and Thomas Mann
were offered the presidency of India, Israel, and East Germany respectively,
they said, no thanks.
Which reminds me of Plato's dictum that
those who seek power are the least qualified to handle it.
That to me might as well be the most convincing explanation
as to why world history is an endless catalog of lies, disasters, and tragedies.
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