notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: 101

Thursday, March 28, 2013
****************************************
WHEN I THOUGHT I KNEW
**************************************
When I thought I knew,
I didn’t!
*
State a problem clearly
and its solution will fall on your lap.
*
When it comes to solving our problems
we may well be just about
the dumbest people on earth.
*
In an anti-intellectual environment
to call someone an intellectual is the same
as identifying him as a mental masturbator,
a parasite, and a daydreamer
who knows nothing about real life.
An Armenian may identify himself as a professor
or an academic, but only a retard
will call himself an intellectual.
To those of my readers
who dismiss me as an intellectual
I therefore say, one does not have to be an intellectual,
a vodanavorji, or anything else for that matter
to recognize a jackass when he sees one.
*
To those who say “I know what I need to know,”
I say: Knowledge is not and cannot be a final product
but a work in progress.
#
Friday, March 29, 2013
************************************
WHAT IF OUR BETTERS
ARE OUR WORST?
**************************************
The problem with a drug addict
is not his addiction
but his refusal to kick the habit.
Likewise, our problem is not
the absence of solutions
but the rejection of all solutions,
one of them being solidarity.
*
Next time you hear someone parrot the line
“what we need is solutions,”
you may classify him
as a habitual and compulsive liar.
*
More often than not we are not deceived;
we consent to be deceived.
We are brought up to believe we are smart
to cover up our status as dupes of idiots.
*
We believe our “betters” to be la crčme de la crčme
when in fact they are la crčme de la scum.
#
Saturday, March 30, 2013
***************************************
ON CROOKS AND LIARS
*********************************
An honest man cannot solve the problems of a crook.
Neither can he solve the problems of a nation
run by crooks.
Which may explain why our literature
has failed to solve a single problem,
prevent a single death,
expose a single liar.
*
Between an unprofitable truth and profitable lies,
most men will choose lies.
This may explain why nationalist historians
outnumber the others a thousand to one.
*
To write about crooks and liars means
never to run out of things to say.
*
My ambition: to say things nobody says
and everybody thinks.
*
Like the last Ottoman sultans
who had a thousand concubines in their harems,
the average propagandist has a thousand lies.
You want proof?
Think the opposite of what a speechifier says
and you may see more sense there.
#

[bell-the-cat]

Re: elegy

The latest Ara Baliozian posts, dated 27th and 28th March.

The next most recent Ara Baliozian post was dated 20th February.

It seems that absolutely nothing at all of interest concerning Armenia or Armenians happened between the 21st February and the 26th March.

Well, nothing of interest that Ara Baliozian felt he had the courage and talent to write about.

[jgk3]

Re: elegy

The latest Ara Baliozian posts, dated 27th and 28th March.

The next most recent Ara Baliozian post was dated 20th February.

It seems that absolutely nothing at all of interest concerning Armenia or Armenians happened between the 21st February and the 26th March.

Well, nothing of interest that Ara Baliozian felt he had the courage and talent to write about.

I think Ara has a fan!

[TomServo]

Re: elegy

The latest Ara Baliozian posts, dated 27th and 28th March.

The next most recent Ara Baliozian post was dated 20th February.

It seems that absolutely nothing at all of interest concerning Armenia or Armenians happened between the 21st February and the 26th March.

Well, nothing of interest that Ara Baliozian felt he had the courage and talent to write about.

He was probably perplexed by the event since it didn't fit into his tired model of tidy binary distinctions such as "Ottomanism/Sovietism."

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Monday, April 01, 2013
*************************************
TWO QUESTIONS
***********************
Even after successive waves of Hamidian massacres
in the Ottoman Empire and Stalinist purges in the USSR,
Armenian writers like Siamanto and Totovents
couldn’t stand life in America
and returned to Istanbul and Yerevan respectively.
Now then, my question is:
How many of our writers now living in exile
have returned to their homeland after Independence?
Is it conceivable that there was more tolerance
and freedom under the bloody Sultan
and the iron rule of Stalin
than under our own oligarchs?
*
I am personally acquainted with an Armenian writer in exile
who is not allowed to visit his dying father in Yerevan.
My second question is:
Is it conceivable that our oligarchs
are more commissars and less Armenian?
Or more robots and less human beings?
#
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
*******************************************
ON LIFE, AFTERLIFE, AND
RELATED ATROCITIES
************************************************
On life after death:
the chances are we will return to wherever it was
that we came from before we were born.
But that may not be the end of the story…
*
Nationalism teaches us to have 20/20 vision
when it comes to our assets
and pretend to be deaf, blind and stupid
when it comes to our liabilities.
*
There is a natural tendency in all of us
to subscribe to dogmas whose sole intent
is to divide the community and to reject
what common sense, decency, logic, and self-interest dictate.
*
To contradict is a temptation an Armenian cannot resist.
*
When we rely too much on our understanding
we tend to forget or ignore the fact that,
that which is incomprehensible
may well be closer to the truth.
#
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
************************************
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
***************************************
We owe our dogmas and divisions
to individuals whose ultimate aim
is the destruction of the nation;
and if they are not aware of this
it’s because they have allowed themselves
to be moronized by their own propaganda.
*
We have bosses, bishops, and benefactors
by the dozen and dupes by the thousand
but not a single consensus seeker.
*
Nationalism also means
to believe nothing you are told
except flattery.
*
It took Turks 600 years to realize
sultans were up to no good.
It may take them a little longer to realize
Kemalism is a morally and politically bankrupt ideology.
*
If there is a god,
garbage collectors will go to heaven
and politicians to hell.
*
Where there is subservience there will also be
intimidation -- or bullies and cowards.
#
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
*****************************************
UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY
******************************************
We may understand why we hate our enemies
but we don’t always understand why they hate us.
*
If we have trouble understanding our enemies
it may be because we have been brainwashed
to believe we are lovable;
and we are lovable even when
we behave like repulsive apes;
and we are smart
even when we speak like inbred morons.
*
We like to believe
if our enemies hate us
it’s because there must be something
fundamentally wrong with them.
Turks are bloodthirsty savages.
In the eyes of Americans,
Muslim terrorists are ignorant fanatics.
*
Instead of examining our conscience
we blame others.
We use the lies of our propaganda
to reach a truth which is a bigger lie.
*
We forget that
we are not as cute as we think we are.
No one is.
To take propaganda seriously
means to moronize oneself.
*
Instead of wondering why
Americans hate Muslims,
Muslims should ask themselves
why do Sunnis butcher Shias and vice versa?
Instead of wondering why Turks hate Armenians,
we should ask ourselves
why does Armenian hate Armenian?
*
Why Muslim terrorists hate Americans unto death?
Why did Americans hate one another unto death
in their Civil War (in cosmic time, yesterday)?
#
Saturday, April 06, 2013
***************************************
ON CHARM
******************************
“Charm is xxxx!”
I hate the man who said that.
I should have said it first.
*
Death may be the end of the road for us
but the road itself is without end.
*
Robert Frost:
“And nothing to look backward to with pride
And nothing to look forward to with hope.”
Our history in two lines.
*
I am what my critics made me.
*
The 1% may be replaced but not toppled.
*
Beware of the man who is humble only before God.
*
Divide the enemy and the battle is half won.
Let the enemy divide us and the war is lost.
#
Saturday, April 06, 2013
*****************************************
MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR
**************************************
Unmask an Armenian and expose
a celebrity without recognition,
a king without a crown,
and a tyrant without power.
*
I remember once when I tried to arrange
an interview with a minor Armenian celebrity,
I was treated with such contempt that
I cancelled the interview without notice
and decided never to interview another Armenian again.
*
Success has this in common with power – it corrupts.
*
The offspring of survivors
I am myself a survivor:
my parents survived Turks;
I survived Armenians.
*
In the official version of our recent story,
the operation was a success but the patient died.
*
Recycled propaganda is verbal vomit.
#
Saturday, April 06, 2013
**********************************
WAR CRIMINALS
******************************
Who is crazier – the Second Amendment gun nut
or the unbalanced teenager or adult
who kills defenceless children?
Speaking for myself:
I don’t know.
Hard to say.
*
I suggest there is a mass murderer in all of us
waiting for the right combination of circumstances
to make an appearance.
*
Consider the frequency with which
law-abiding patriotic citizens that have committed
or cooperated in the commission
of atrocities, massacres, and genocide in the past.
How many of them surrendered
and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity?
What about political, military, and religious leaders
who legitimize and promote
intolerance, hatred, and war or mass murder?
Last but far from least:
How many popes, imams, and rabbis
have been identified as war criminals?
I am not casting aspersions,
just asking questions.
#

[bell-the-cat]

Re: elegy

*
Consider the frequency with which
law-abiding patriotic citizens that have committed
or cooperated in the commission
of atrocities, massacres, and genocide in the past.
How many of them surrendered
and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity?
What about political, military, and religious leaders
who legitimize and promote
intolerance, hatred, and war or mass murder?
Last but far from least:
How many popes, imams, and rabbis
have been identified as war criminals?
I am not casting aspersions,
just asking questions.
#

Consider the frequency with which
Ara Baliozian commits his thoughts.
How many of them get responses?
Very few.
How many of those responses get replies from Mr Baliozian?
None at all.
To legitimize and promote
discussion and progress - that would corrupt this personal blog of Ara's ramblings.
Last and far from least:
Complete silence reinforces Ara's opinion of himself as some philosopher in the wilderness, his wisdom unrecognised by all.
I am not casting aspersions,
just asking questions.

[lampron]

Re: elegy

Unmask an Armenian and expose
a celebrity without recognition,
a king without a crown,
and a tyrant without power.
*

This is a good summary - I hope even Ara's critics will see there is truth in that paragraph!

Probably the ambition of many Armenians ruled by the ottomans was to become a sultan or at least a mini-sultan. We forget that for hundreds of years it was the ottoman sultans and their autocratic ways that influenced the lives and thoughts of millions of Armenians in Anatolia

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Saturday, April 13, 2013

*************************************

SERMON

**************************

In what way am I morally superior

to a cold-blooded killer if I harbor a killer within me?

In what way are Americans morally superior to Muslims

if they (Americans) have killed more Muslims

than Muslims have killed Americans?

In what way Muslims are morally superior to Americans

if the only reason they have killed fewer Americans

is military inferiority?

*

Closer to home:

we have been so busy exposing Turkish criminal conduct

that our own moral status has become an alien dimension.

As Zarian would say: “Danger, danger, danger!”

*

There is only one way to feel morally superior

and that is (to echo Saroyan) by feeling sorry

for the morally inferior.

*

The Scriptures tell us there is no difference

between an adulterer and a man

who lusts after another’s wife.

Likewise there is no difference between a killer

and a man who preaches hatred and revenge

which he identifies as justice.

*

Perhaps what I have been trying to say here is

we all swim in the same sh**!

#

Saturday, April 13, 2013

***********************************

THEOLOGY

**********************

The aim of human speech

is to say one thing

and do the opposite:

to say God is love and truth

and to worship lies and the Devil;

to say “Thou shalt not kill”

and to go to war;

to call Diasporan Armenians “aghber” (trash)

and to behave like trash.

Theologians and sermonizers are familiar with this phenomenon

but prefer not to speak about it.

*

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

********************************

As soon as the Kremlin realizes

the present regime in Yerevan to be a liability,

it will replace it with another.

Will anything change?

It remains to be seen.

“No one gives up power without a bloody fight,”

Hegel tells us.

Is he right?

We may have an answer soon.

*

DOES POWER CORRUPT?

*********************************

Power does not corrupt.

It only exposes the corruption

that was already there.

*

AMERICA AND ARMENIA

***********************************

Unhappy is the nation

whose two most important sources of education are

TV ads and state propaganda.

#

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

*********************************

In life nothing works as planned.

An honest autobiography would be

a long list of disappointments.

*

My first book was a best-seller.

My second book was banned.

That’s when I knew I was on the right track.

*

We adopt a belief system because we are told

all the others don’t make sense.

*

If you write in defense of dupes,

deceivers will conspire against you.

#

REMEMBER!

****************************

Patriotism is the favored word of tyrants.

*

Political parties need honest men

as surely as religions need saints.

*

“A man of principle is a majority of one.”

#

Saturday, April 13, 2013

**************************************

SITUATION / SH*TUATION

*************************************

In the eyes of the world

our regime in Yerevan has lost its virginity.

The people are against it.

But even if replaced

nothing will change.

*

Believe nothing you are told.

There are no good guys in politics.

Power prostitutes.

*

Some of our greatest brains

praised Lenin and Stalin.

Even our best and brightest are no better

than a bunch of dupes.

*

Where there is too much talk

of freedom and independence,

oppression is sure to follow.

*

Throughout our millennial history

foreign tyrants have always relied

on their Armenian collaborators

to moronize the people.

#

TURCOCENTRISM REVISITED

*******************************************

In Turcocentric circles I am know only as someone

whom Turks like to quote.

All I can say in my defense is that

the Devil too can quote the Scriptures.

Does that mean the Good Lord is pro-Devil?

*

I gladly admit to being not a Turcocentric

but an Armenocentric writer.

So were Baronian and Odian;

or for that matter Zarian and Massikian;

and before them Naregatsi

who in his LAMENTATION blames no one

but himself for his many failings and transgressions.

*

A human being is not a lump of clay

at the mercy of forces beyond his control.

The Turks did not recreate us in their own image.

We consented to be recreated.

That is worth repeating and emphasizing.

We are what we have become

because we chose freely to be who we are.

The rest is propaganda

and our favorite sport: the blame game.

#

DIARY

********************

“I enjoy reading you.”

I am less interested in your enjoyment

and more in your torment.

I don’t write to entertain.

Flattery is as irrelevant to me

as the words of a brainless critics or dupe

who believes what he is told

especially what he is told

flatters his ego.

*

In Deirdre Bair’s SAUL STEINBERG: A BIOGRAPHY

I am informed that if you are depressed

you can go to the nearest emergency

and ask to see a shrink.

This may be common knowledge but it’s news to me.

*

I remember once when asked by a French friend

if I have ever been analyzed

I said something to the effect that

analysis is for the bourgeoisie

and that as a perennial slum-dweller

it has never even occurred to me

to visit a shrink.

I was astonished when he informed me that

in France analysis is available to everyone

free of charge.

*

Perhaps deep inside somewhere

I continue to be a subject of the Ottoman Empire

where the insane were treated like criminals.

#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, April 14, 2013
*********************************
ON WAR AND PEACE
*************************************
There are no just wars.
A war in which innocent civilians die cannot be said to be just.
*
Countless wars have been fought since the beginning of time
and in all of them there were winners and losers.
*
No nation on earth can assert military invincibility or,
for that matter, moral superiority.
Only Americans believe in their own moral superiority
only Muslims believe in theirs, and so on...
*
If Americans and xxxs were to behave like Turks did
at the turn of the last century
the world would witness a series of genocides
on several continents.
*
Muslims may think they are invincible
because they have Allah and oil on their side,
in the same way that we (Armenians) thought
we had the might of the Great Powers of Europe,
plus God and the justice of our cause
(freedom from oppression) on our side.
It didn’t do us any good.
It was all an empty illusion.
*
All political leaders (including Kemal, Arafat, and our own)
are first and foremost baloney artists.
They may successfully brainwash their dupes
but they cannot fool reality.
*
If so far Americans and xxxs have not behaved like Turks
it may be because there is a difference between the autocratic East
and the democratic West.
*
If Muslims want to coexist with their enemies
they have no choice but to reject their undemocratic ways
and realize that the concept of fundamental human rights
is not an invention of the corrupt and decadent West.
But even if it were, that does not make Muslims
more progressive, civilized, and just in the eyes of the world.
*
Our choice is seldom between good and evil
but between bad and worse;
and sometimes even between worse and worst.
#
Hegel’s famous last words:
“No one understood me except one,
and even he didn’t understand me.”
#
The Nazis believed God to be on their side.
So do jihadists today.
The God of fanatics is the Devil.
#
ON MODERATION
*******************************
“Moderation in all things,” Greeks said
even as they condemned Socrates to death.
*
For every believer there is a non-believer.
Who is right?
Neither.
Who is wrong? Both.
*
Trust your friend but respect your enemy.
*
Modify your assertions with their contradictions.
That may not be the best way to live
but it is the only way to survive.
#
REFLECTIONS
*********************************
My real education began on the day I realized
I was a brainwashed dupe and a self-satisfied idiot.
*
Words and reality (like ideas and God)
move in two different dimensions that like parallel lines
never meet (except in eternity).
*
Scientists tell us space has an end.
What does this end look like?
Is there some kind of invisible wall?
What’s on the other side of the wall?
*
God is not a being, Thomas Aquinas tells us,
but “being itself.”
Whatever the hell does that mean?
*
Plato put it best when he said
reality is like fire and words only shadows.
*
It is to be noted that after having a mystical experience
Aquinas gave up writing and said something to the effect that
all writing was no better than verbal trash.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Saturday, April 20, 2013
******************************************
BROTHERS
**************************
If you go against the dominant mindset of your time,
you can’t go wrong.
You may be a perennial reject
but the chances are you will be closer to the truth
than the crowd.
*
At the turn of the last century
Turks thought the fewer Armenians the better.
During World War II Germans had a similar disposition
towards xxxs.
Remember the American slogan:
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
*
One reason Americans did not exterminate Negroes is that
Negroes played a key role in their economy.
Closer to home: our own attitude
towards our critics and dissidents:
the fewer the better but none is best.
(I speak from experience.)
*
All genocides begin in the hearts of men
and we are no exception.
Now then, go right ahead and assert moral superiority.
#
NOTES & COMMENTS
*******************************
Using profanities in an argument
is like raising your voice to strengthen your position.
It works only if your adversary is intimidated by noise.
*
I no longer search for the company of good men.
If I can recognize and avoid the proximity of cold-blooded killers
I am satisfied.
*
To those who accuse me of seeing only the dark side of our reality,
I say: We have a long-standing literary tradition
that prefers fiction to fact.
Mine is a balancing act.
*
To lose a false friend is like defeating a dangerous enemy.
*
In the world of scholarship as in life
the most valuable asset is a readiness
to renounce a cherished idea.
#
NOTES / COMMENTS
************************************
Individuals may admit their failings
but nations never!
All nations are habitual and compulsive liars.
This is as true of Americans as it is of Russians;
as true of Turks as it is of Armenians.
*
We like to say we had a Golden Age
when the West was wallowing in its Dark Ages.
The question we avoid asking is:
Who is responsible for frittering away our heritage?
*
A new revolution or regime opens the path
to a new class of mediocrities, opportunists,
and bureaucrats – sharks for short.
More often than not the difference
between the old and the new is in name only.
Scratch the label and expose the scum of the earth.
#