fear

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, October 16, 2008
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BELLS RINGING
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Albert Camus in the latest volume of his NOTEBOOKS: “Our literary society whose principle is second-rate spite, where offense takes the place of critical method.”
After reading Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: “I seriously consider the possibility of giving up.”
As a diarist Camus is disappointing. Unlike Gide and Jules Renard he makes no effort to be accessible. One entry simply reads: “The truth. The truth!” And another: “Thoughts of death.”
He quotes a French historian saying: “The Russians rotted before they were ripe.” And we were ripe 1500 years ago.
“Buddhism is atheism that became religion.”
I am reminded of Gandhi's observation that even atheists are believers because they believe the non-existence of God to be the Truth, and God is Truth.
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NOTES & COMMENTS
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We converted to Christianity as readily and passively as we converted to atheism under the Soviets.
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Historians study the past in the same way that psychologists study the unconscious. History as mankind's unconscious drives made visible. We are prisoners of our past as surely as a man is a prisoner of his unconscious drives.
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As in all fascist regimes, we have replaced intellectuals with propagandists. Hence the popularity of our Turcocentric ghazetajis.
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After we have seen and experienced what hatred does to people, we live as though hatred were the only answer.
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When they can't stand the heat, they drive you out of the kitchen.
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Friday, October 17, 2008
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FEAR
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To the faceless cowards who insult me anonymously and from a safe distance I say: One does not have to be a prophet to predict that your big mouth will be your undoing. And if you say, What about your big mouth? I will inform you that my undoing, if it comes, will have two sources, (one) being honest among phonies, and (two) writing for Armenians, which, in case you didn't know, happens to be a capital offense in our environment. You want proof? Read a text on the history of Armenian literature or the biography of any Armenian writer chosen at random. And if you are too lazy to do that, consider the fact that our history has been shaped by ruthless foreign tyrants and their collaborators among us. Allow me to remind you that two of the most notorious executioners of writers – Talaat and Stalin – earned their reputation with the full support and assistance of our traitors.
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Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to assert a superior brand of patriotism. And it goes without saying that he who has a high opinion of himself, will also have a correspondingly low opinion of his fellow men, so low in fact that he will assume none of them to be smart enough to see through him. A truly superior man does not feel the need to assert superiority. Only the inferior (“storin” or “varnots” in Armenian) do that to cover up their inferiority.
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In an environment where propagandists are rated above intellectuals, not only the intellectuals but also the people will be at the mercy of executioners. For more on this subject, read a text on our history, provided of course it is not written by a hireling.
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What are liars afraid of? The truth, of course, which they try to bury with their lies. But truth, which has a life all its own, refuses to remain buried forever. Its resurrection, which may happen in three or thirty three days or years, is inevitable. It is the awareness of this inevitability that liars fear.
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Saturday, October 18, 2008
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ON BIAS
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If you classify your fellow men as Black and White, or Muslim and Christian, or Turk and Armenian, you introduce bias. Think of them as human beings and you will be surprised what happens next. What I am saying has nothing to do with Christian or any other kind of morality. Turning the other is an alien concept to me. So is loving my enemy or forgiving those who trespass against me. True, I was brought up as a Christian but my ethics remain pagan. If someone slaps me, my first instinct is to want to kill him. I think of both Turks and Armenians as human beings because that's what they are, and I have discovered that some Armenians are more Turk than Armenian, and some Turks are more civilized than some Armenians.
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In a democratic environment a disagreement is just a disagreement. In a fascist environment a disagreement can be a capital offense or provoke verbal abuse.
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In a civilized environment, if you speak honestly, even those who disagree with you will respect you.
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I believe in the Turkish version of our past as much as I believe in our own. I question the honesty of Turkish politicians as much as I question the honesty of all politicians, including our own. Nothing can be more naïve and foolish than to say our enemies are pathological liars but we speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: fear

Sunday, October 19, 2008
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A WOMAN AFTER MY OWN HEART
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In the introduction to her biography of the celebrated Italian novelist, Elsa Morante, Lily Tuck writes: “A truth teller, she tended to say hurtful things...She detested any sort of artifice, posturing, falsehood, she detested the misuse of power.”
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THEY NEVER LEARN
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Some Armenians are so hedamenats and aboosh that they think one way of defending the national badiv is by insulting Turks, and they stubbornly refuse to see that not only Turks outnumber us, but when it comes to delivering profanities and insults, they are pros and we don't even qualify as rank amateurs beside them. To Armenians who are addicts of profanities and insults, I suggest they stick to insulting their fellow Armenians, because then they have a better chance to come out on top.
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MART BIDI CH'ELLANK
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Whenever someone would recount a story about a fellow Armenian who had behaved badly, someone would say, “mart bidi ch'ellank!” meaning (freely translated) “once a jackass, always a jackass," or “we are a hopeless bunch!” I must have heard that line a thousand times, but never by those engaged in fund raising. These gentlemen know that if they flatter the dupes they plan to milk, they will be rewarded with more generous contributions. Hence the popular propaganda lines first nation this, first nation that, which may also be interpreted as first nation to be brainwashed and first nation to be taken in by foreign propaganda. As for the propaganda line that asserts we are just about the smartest people on earth, that was obviously designed to cover up the fact that we may well be be just about the dumbest.
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Monday, October 20, 2008
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ON SOLUTIONS
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Never ask for solutions to our problems because all solutions begin with honesty, and since no one has yet discovered a verbal formula that can convert a crook to an honest man, all talk of solutions is a waste of time.
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DEDICATION
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The dedication to my next book will read: “For my critics and detractors – my most faithful muses.”
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HEADLINES
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A headline in our paper reads: “Hour of death should be 'chosen by God' Pope says,” the implication being, the Pope can read God's mind like an open book.
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Another headline: “Anglicans owe Darwin apology, bishop says.” But how does one go about apologizing to a skeleton?
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GREED
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About the present financial crisis, I wonder how many CEOs said or thought “If things go wrong and the whole structure collapses, the government is bound to step in and fix it. We are too big to fail.”
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A CEO at a hearing: “I take full responsibility.” He also took home $240,000,000 we are told.
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ON REASON
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You can reason only with the reasonable. With the unreasonable you can only go down on your knees and beseech the assistance of the Holy Spirit, if, that is, you believe in that mumbo jumbo.
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ON LOVE
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Our religion teaches us to love our enemies. It says nothing about loving our fellow Armenians. Have I said that before? No matter. Some things are worth repeating.
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WORDS OF WISDOM
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Albert Einstein: “It's not that I am so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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EASIER SAID THAN DONE
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Speaking of Obama's favorite word: change means introducing new legislation, and “new laws,” according to an old German saying, “are followed by new tricks.”
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WHAT'S DONE IS DONE
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The very same readers who accuse me of living in the past whenever I quote an Armenian writer, never get tired of speaking or reading about the massacres in the Ottoman Empire.
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CANNIBALS
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When they bite me and I refuse to bite back, they resent it as if to say, “What's the matter, am I not good enough to be eaten?”
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ONE-UPMANSHIP
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The ease with which they assume to know better even when the subject under discussion is a new one to them.
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CONFESSION
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Speaking of dupes: in my youth when I heard a speechifier say something, I believed he meant it. And then I met some of them...
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PROGRESS
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Some of my readers are getting better at dishing out insults. With a little more effort, practice, and discipline they may be as good as Turks.
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AN OLD TRICK
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When the men at the top are corrupt, they emphasize the importance of patriotism, after which they stigmatize dissidents as unpatriotic.
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MEMO
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To those who recycle chauvinist crapola, I say, Leave it to the professionals of which we have more than our share. I assure you, they don't need your two cents' worth.
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SOPHISTS
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Those who want to get away with lies, rape, and murder, will tell you, these things existed since the beginning of time and no nation on earth is without them, in the same way that today they say corruption is universal and we might as well grin and bear it.
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
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QUESTIONS
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If they sling mud anonymously, is it because deep down somewhere they are ashamed of what they do?
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If our Turcocentric ghazetajis keep writing about Turks, is it because they have nothing good to say about their fellow Armenians?
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If we are proud of our multi-millionaires, shouldn't we be humble of our slum-dwellers?
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Is it humanly possible to ignore or forget the truth after hearing it?
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I may react to an honest disagreement but not to an insult. How does one react to an insult without going down into the gutter where the other has the advantage?
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ASSERTIONS
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No one can be as dangerous as a fool who is manipulated by another fool.
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If you say to a bunch of crooks, “Gentlemen, let's be honest!” don't expect a mass conversion.
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One cannot speak of vision where "the blind leads the blind."
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There is a big difference between “he thinks,” and “he thinks he thinks.” To think, to really think, means to go beyond the boundaries of the already thought.
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Who benefits when we cover up that which is negative? Surely not the victims. It follows, to cover up is to support and legitimize the victimizers among us.
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Some of the dumbest people I know are Armenians who think they are smarter than Turks.
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Communism has been defined as capitalism of the state, and capitalism as free enterprise for the poor.
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Cowardice in the Ottoman Empire among Turks – it's understandable.
But cowardice in America among fellow Armenians – it's not.
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