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  • Re: elegy

    Saturday, June 01, 2013
    ****************************************
    WHO’S WHO
    *************************
    “You are a disgrace to the nation!”
    Am I really?
    What about our oligarchs and kleptocrats
    whose greed is surpassed only by Wall Street CEOs
    who have been successful in convincing themselves
    and others that they are too big to fail?
    What about our brown-nosers
    who have not yet kissed an ass that didn’t smell like roses?
    What about our superpatriotic paranoiacs
    who see inauthentic or second-class
    or bastardized Armenians everywhere?
    What about our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
    whose sole contribution to our collective existence
    has been the introduction of meaningless dogmatic divisions
    that make us more vulnerable to so-called
    historic, economic, social, and cultural forces
    beyond our control?
    What about our crypto-Stalinist neo-commissars
    who miss the good old days?
    What about our dupes who believe everything they are told?
    Am I really a disgrace to the nation
    or those who dare to speak in its name?
    #
    WHEN I WAS YOUNG
    ******************************************
    When I was young I relied on the judgment of my elders.
    Now that I am old I can rely on no one but myself;
    and when I consider the long list of blunders
    that I have committed
    I have no choice but to conclude
    that I must just about the least reliable person on earth;
    and if you think those who are now in charge
    of our collective destiny are wiser than I am,
    all I can say is that we all entertain illusions
    that we hate to give up
    notwithstanding the evidence against them.
    *
    To put it differently:
    you are right not to trust my judgment
    but you have fewer reasons to trust
    the judgment of your “betters”
    because historic reality tells us
    in no uncertain terms
    they may well be the worst scum on earth.
    #
    DEATH WISH
    **************************
    Judge a man by his actions not his words.
    Judge an ideology or religion by its history
    not its sermons and speeches.
    It follows, if we were to judge a nation by its history
    we may have to conclude that
    Syrians don’t think they deserve to live,
    Armenians don’t think they deserve to be a nation,
    and Turks use the nationalist or Kemalist card
    the way a serial killer uses the insanity plea.
    Perhaps death wish plays a larger role
    in human affairs than we like to admit.
    Perhaps in politics what matters more
    than lust for power
    is the instinct to kill and die.
    If, that is, we base our conclusions on facts
    as opposed to speculation and propaganda.
    #

    Comment


    • Re: elegy

      Wednesday, June 05, 2013
      ***********************************
      Adultery should be condemned in all men
      except politicians on the grounds that
      the more they f*** women
      the less they will f*** the nation.
      *
      Anti-Semites always proceed from the
      erroneous historical assumption
      that xxxs are the only people on the planet
      who occupied a territory by force of arms
      and abused the rights of the natives.
      *
      My bad memories outnumber the good ones.
      Which is why I look forward to Alzheimer’s.
      *
      Descriptions of experiences are like shadow of shadows.
      When a friend’s mother died, I shared his grief.
      But when my mother died I wanted to die.
      *
      Democracy has also been defined as
      the tyranny of the masses.
      #
      IN BRIEF
      ***********************
      There are casualties of war as surely
      as there are casualties of peace
      and we are casualties of both.
      *
      After eating Turkish and Russian xxxx
      we are now asked to eat our own.
      *
      In case you don’t like blunt talk,
      allow me to inform you that
      no one is paying me
      to engage in diplomatic palaver.
      *
      To be a dupe of political propaganda means
      to be a moron who is brainwashed to believe
      he is smart.
      *
      Ever since I gave up on my fellow Armenians
      they have stopped disappointing me.
      *
      To be a born-again human being
      is more important than being a good Armenian.
      #
      PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
      ************************************************
      It must be obvious by now that
      when it comes to solving problems,
      politicians may not the best men for the job.
      One could even go further and say
      they may well be the worst.
      *
      An idiot will be more receptive to the words
      of a crook and a liar than to those of an honest witness.
      *
      Turks quote me: in the eyes of my critics,
      it follows I must be in cahoots
      with the Sultan, Talaat, and Kemal.
      *
      The mother tongue of both
      political and religious leaders
      is propaganda.
      *
      Theology is a systematic effort
      to understand and explain
      the unknown, the unknowable,
      and the incomprehensible.
      *
      If I knew how to solve problems,
      I would begin with my own.
      *
      Most so-called solutions are based
      on the general theory that
      one man’s hocus pocus
      may well be better
      than another's abracadabra.
      #
      FREE SPEECH,
      ARMENIAN STYLE
      ********************************
      Once when I dared to criticize
      one of our cultural organizations
      I was told by one of its hirelings:
      “Who the hell do you think you are?”
      He was not questioning my opinion.
      What he was questioning was my right to have one.
      In his view the function of someone in my position
      is to recycle propaganda.
      Only qualified people have a right to an opinion.
      *
      One does not bite the hand,
      or any other part of the anatomy,
      that lays the golden egg.
      *
      To rely too much on god
      is almost to surrender to the devil.
      *
      Nothing works as planned
      even when it works as planned.
      *
      Some of the worst things in life
      happen when you least expect them.
      *
      Your best friend may be your worst nightmare.
      It happens in the Bible.
      It happens in life.
      It happens among Armenians.
      It has happened to me.
      I am not questioning the validity of Armenian friendship.
      I am questioning my naiveté and status as a dupe.
      #

      Comment


      • Re: elegy

        Saturday, June 08, 2013
        *************************************
        AS I SEE IT
        *********************************
        Some divide and conquer,
        others are divided, conquered,
        butchered and never learn.
        *
        One does not speak of ropes
        in the house of a hangman,
        neither does one speak of vegetarianism
        in the house of a butcher –
        which is what we do when we speak
        of genocide recognition to Turks and Yanks.
        *
        You want peace?
        Criminalize brainwashing.
        *
        We overestimate the value of what we know
        even when what we know is a big lie.
        *
        The aim of literature?
        To call an idiot an idiot.
        *
        We need solutions?
        A big lie!
        What we need is implementation.
        #
        POLITICS AND RELIGION
        ***************************************
        When I say I don’t believe in god
        I mean the god of rabbis, imams, and bishops
        (including the one in Rome).
        *
        Anyone who has had the patience and perseverance
        to read the final pages of EXODU
        and the first pages of LEVITICUS
        will be justified in suspecting that god
        is a control freak badly in need of a shrink.
        *
        The faith of rabbis, imams, and bishops
        has deep ties with power, prestige, and income.
        Take away one of these ties
        and you may end up holding an empty bag.
        *
        The difference between fascists
        and the ideology of our own political parties is that
        fascists criminalize free speech
        and our political parties silence dissent.
        The result is the same.
        *
        And now consider what they share in common:
        nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and anti-Semitism,
        namely “the three pillars of fascism.”
        *
        The secret ambition of all sermonizers and speechifiers
        is to brainwash you to believe
        you belong with the 1%
        even when you are the scum of the earth.
        I speak from experience.
        During World War II in Greece
        I was both stateless and homeless
        but I was “educated” to believe
        my god was the only true god.
        *
        I am not an atheist.
        I believe in the Unknown, the Unknowable,
        and the Incomprehensible
        because I believe Nothing cannot create Something.
        #
        MY MESSAGE
        ****************************
        If you are a reasonable man
        use your brain.
        If you are a patriotic Armenian
        stop saying ‘Yes, sir!” to our dividers
        and grave-diggers.
        If you are a good Christian
        stop hating your brother.
        If you are smart
        stop being a dupe.
        Remember, Jesus did not say
        the Kingdom of God is in the words
        of speechifiers and sermonizers
        but "within you."
        Remember also in a democratic environment
        leaders are not your masters but your servants.
        They don’t tell you what to think;
        you tell them what to do.
        #
        ARMENIANS IN BOOKS
        ********************************
        In her brilliant and erudite study of Nabokov – THE SECRET HISTORY OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV (New York, 2013) – Andrea Pitzer mentions and discusses Armenian refugees, massacres and genocide on a number of occasions. Among individual Armenians she quotes and discusses are Nina Berberova, an early admirer of Nabokov, herself a brilliant novelist and the author of a remarkable autobiography titled THE ITALICS ARE MINE; and Azat Oganesian, about whom she has this to say in her Acknowledgments: “Translators played a key role on my research. King among them is Azat Oganesian, my research assistant, who poured through and translated interminable numbers of articles I sent him from RUL, the Russian-language newspaper in Berlin, as well as making trips to various libraries on his own to help with this project.”
        #

        Comment


        • Re: elegy

          Sunday, June 09, 2013
          ************************************
          MONKEY BUSINESS
          ******************************
          One does not have to be a prophet to engage in prophecy.
          All one has to do is adopt the past as one’s guide –
          that is to say, reality, facts, history as opposed to
          wishful thinking, illusions, and daydreams.
          *
          Raffi Hovannisian lost not because he did not enjoy majority support
          but because the oligarchs controlled the bureaucracy.
          We will rise against the oligarchs only
          after the Russians themselves do so.
          In the meantime all attempts at reform and revolution
          are doomed to failure. They are doomed to failure
          because we are essentially a nation of slaves.
          Raffi (not Hovannisian but Hagop Meliq-Hagopian)
          was absolutely right when he said
          “Treason and betrayal are in our blood.”
          So is subservience.
          In the Homeland we are subservient to the Kremlin;
          in the Diaspora to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors.
          *
          Our revolutionaries are not revolutionaries.
          They never were.
          They rose against the Sultan only when the Turks themselves did so
          and only when they relied on the verbal support of the West.
          There is an academic word for this kind of conduct,
          it’s called mimesis – in common parlance, monkey business.
          *
          We may have a better chance to understand ourselves
          if we study apes. The alternative approach is
          to place our trust and our destiny into the hands
          of bloodsuckers, speechifiers, and sermonizers,
          that is to say compulsive and habitual liars.
          *
          Speaking for myself, I would have more trust in an ape;
          at least an ape is less prone to engage
          in double-talk, deception, and betrayal.
          #
          IN PRAISE OF BEING FALLIBLE
          *******************************
          “You are not always right,” a reader informs me.
          To be always right has never been one of my ambitions.
          As a matter of fact, if I had a choice between being always right
          and being always wrong I would choose being wrong
          if only because being always right
          would place me in the same category
          as some of the worst charlatans, bullies, and mass killers
          in the history of mankind.
          *
          Even when dead wrong, however, I like to believe
          I never deliberately mislead my readers
          or exploit their limitations by recycling a propaganda line
          or speaking in defense of a power structure or regime.
          How many of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
          can say as much?
          *
          A good friend of mine once said to me:
          “I agree with you but I don’t say so in public
          because they may think you have brainwashed me.”
          But I am not in a position to brainwash anyone
          if only because I don’t write for children
          who cannot yet think for themselves.
          I write for adults who are free to reject what I say
          whenever they disagree with me.
          Neither do I subscribe to a specific ideology or belief system
          that happens to be my main source of income, prestige, or power.
          I operate more like a solitary voice in the wilderness and,
          in the words of Socrates,
          “My poverty is proof of my honesty.”
          #
          SITUATION / xxxxUATION
          ****************************************
          The higher a man rises
          the bigger the size of his blunders.
          How many dared to say to Stalin
          “You are wrong” and lived to tell the tale?
          Closer to home:
          How many have dared to say
          to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors,
          “By dividing the community
          you dig its grave”?
          *
          Infallible men are not born but made
          and what makes them are dupes, cowards, and “yes men”
          afraid to say the emperor has no clothes, no brain, and no balls.
          *
          In the USSR they said Stalin was wrong
          only after he dropped dead and was buried.
          “Bishops are men of God,” I was informed by a reader once.
          “You should speak of them with greater respect.”
          If bishops are men of God,
          bosses source of power and prestige,
          and benefactors sources of income,
          that only means our own mini-sultans and neo-commissars
          continue to live, rule, and scare the xxxx out of anyone
          who dares to question their wisdom, integrity, honesty,
          dedication, patriotism, infallibility, and statesmanship.
          “Mart bidi ch’ellank!”
          #
          THE HUMAN CONDITION
          ***********************************
          Honest men: do they exist?
          I am not sure.
          I would define an honest man as one
          who has not yet been exposed as a crook.
          *
          From Roman emperors to Ottoman sultans –
          mankind has been at the mercy of ruthless crooks
          and pathological liars.
          Has anything changed?
          *
          If Zohrab was taken in by Talaat
          and Stalin by Hitler,
          can anyone claim to be immune
          to propaganda?
          *
          If we are smart,
          why do we consent to be subservient
          to a political leader
          with the moral compass of an ape
          and the charisma of a robot?
          Are North Koreans, Syrians, Turks, Russians,
          and Latinos better off?
          What about Greeks and Italians?
          *
          What about the Swiss?
          Where would they be without the money
          of blood-sucking tax cheats?
          What about Canadians?
          Listen, I live in Canada and I read the papers.
          Don’t talk to me about honest men.
          I could go on…
          #

          Comment


          • Re: elegy

            Thursday, June 13, 2013
            **************************************
            DIALOGUE
            ***********************
            Dialogue: I am all for it;
            but not with a closed mind,
            or a self-righteous fanatic,
            or a member of the party
            (it makes no difference which party),
            or a bully who believes the word compromise
            is for the weak and the unprincipled:
            in short, an Armenian.
            *
            There is a type of reader –
            and I have had several of them myself –
            who begins by saying
            “I read everything you write,”
            and ends by saying
            “You are a disgrace to the nation.”
            *
            There are two schools of thought:
            the first says “We need critics,”
            and the second: “The only good critic is a dead critic.”
            Did I say two schools?
            Make it one.
            *
            I am a slow-learner.
            It took me many years to realize that
            you cannot argue against a propaganda line.
            #
            A NOTE ON OUR PARTISANS
            AND PANCHOONIES
            *********************************
            “We have played a key role
            in the preservation of our identity and culture
            in the Diaspora,” I heard one of our speechifiers saying.
            They brag a lot -- our partisans and panchoonies;
            they lie a lot too.
            I should like to hear at least one of them saying
            they have also alienated a few.
            *
            I once received a letter from one of our political parties
            that said in effect they will support me
            provided I first write a series of profiles of their leaders.
            In my reply I said that I was not qualified to do that job
            because I didn’t even know who their leaders were.
            I should have added,
            neither did I care to make their acquaintance.
            #
            AS I SEE IT
            *************************
            If you say “God is on my side,”
            God is sure to withdraw His support.
            *
            What is our unspoken policy towards writers?
            Treat them like xxxx
            until they come to terms with reality.
            *
            Nothing in life happens
            the way things happen in books and movies.
            *
            Being an Armenian is a rare privilege,
            or so I was brought up to believe,
            until I realized it is closer to being a nightmare.
            *
            All wars need Big Lies,
            so do all divisions.
            *
            We are a failed nation
            at the mercy of a failed regime
            run by former KGB agents.
            Enjoy!
            #

            Comment


            • Re: elegy

              Wednesday, June 19, 2013
              *************************************
              QUESTIONS WE NEVER ASK
              ***************************************
              Baronian and Odian:
              were they patriotic Armenians?
              What about Baruir Massikian
              when he saw more merit in a Cairo bordello
              than in our own institutions?
              What about Zarian when he said
              our political parties have been
              of no political use to us?
              Why is it that politicians,
              even when they are pathological liars
              and mass murderers
              like Hitler and Stalin identify themselves
              as great patriots?
              Why is it that we equate patriotism with blindness?
              A final question: What is the most frequently misunderstood
              and abused word in the world?
              *
              Moral: Next time you hear one of our speechifiers
              use that word, start counting your spoons.
              #
              POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE
              *************************************
              “To emphasize the positive is better,”
              I am reminded once in a while by concerned readers.
              To identify those who poison the well:
              if there is a positive way of doing that
              I am all ears.
              *
              ACADEMICS
              *********************
              Where there are academics
              there will be two schools of thought.
              Case in point:
              “Under capitalism man exploits man.
              Under communism it’s the other way around.”
              *
              Trust an academic’s judgment
              as much as you would trust
              the judgment of a religion or political leader
              who speaks in defense of his belief system or ideology –
              that is to say, his power, prestige, and source of income,
              not necessarily in that order.
              *
              SPEAKING FOR MYSELF
              *********************************
              To paraphrase Socrates again:
              No one will ever accuse me of speaking
              in defense of my source of income
              for the simple reason that
              it has never exceeded minimum wage.
              None of our national benefactors has ever said to me
              what one of them is quoted as having said
              to one of our distinguished educators and poets:
              “I hire and fire people like you every day.”
              #
              THEN AND NOW
              ****************************
              As a child I thought words meant what they said.
              I now suspect they mean the opposite.
              *
              What is justice?
              It depends on who is in charge of dispensing it.
              *
              I write as I do not because I know better
              but because I got tired of saying “Yes, sir!” to idiots.
              *
              To make a comfortable living
              by exploiting someone else’s crucifixion or massacre:
              What a racket!
              *
              There are two kinds of people:
              Armenians and odars and I feel alien
              in the company of both.
              #
              GUILTY
              **************************
              Unlike Turks we are not guilty
              of committing and covering up genocide.
              We are, however, guilty
              of placing our trust in a leadership so incompetent
              that, in the words of a friend,
              “cannot even lead a dog to the nearest fire hydrant
              or catch a flu bug in an epidemic.”
              *
              If incompetence were a crime against humanity
              how many of our leaders would escape hanging?
              #

              Comment


              • Re: elegy

                Thursday, June 20, 2013
                **************************************
                DEMOCRACY
                *****************************
                In my formative years I don’t remember anyone
                remotely interested in explaining to me
                the difference between democracy and fascism;
                and I am no longer surprised when a reader demands to know
                what’s so great about democracy.
                *
                When those in power forget they are servants of the people,
                abuse of power and fascism become inevitable.
                *
                Knowledge is power, we are told.
                What we are not told is that individual knowledge
                is powerless against collective ignorance.
                *
                I don’t hate my enemies as much as I hate myself
                for allowing them to intimidate me.
                *
                Not to be able to read between the lines
                is also a symptom of illiteracy.
                #
                EASIER SAID THAN DONE
                ***************************************
                We are a nation of dreamers – make it daydreamers.
                We brag about being survivors
                even as we are experiencing two “white” genocides
                (exodus and assimilation).
                *
                “The xxxs survived,” an elder statesman once informed me,
                “because of their Book. We need such a book and I am writing it.”
                He sent me a few fragments
                which I could not finish reading.
                *
                To explain their financial bankruptcy
                a Mekhitarist monk once said to me:
                “We were deceived.”
                They were deceiver because they were promised great wealth.
                All they had to do, they were told,
                was liquidate their assets and invest the cash in the stock market.
                Blinded by greed it never even occurred to them to suspect
                their financial advisers were a criminal gang.
                *
                I once wrote a short story that began with the words:
                “When I first read a Sherlock Holmes story,
                I wanted to be a detective.
                When I first heard a Rossini overture
                I decided to be a composer.
                When I saw Marlon Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT
                I wanted to be an actor.
                When I read Casanova’s MEMOIRS….”
                *
                What happened to my daydreams?
                Who and what am I today?
                The answer: Not just a scribbler but an Armenian scribbler,
                that is to say, the lowest form of animal life.
                #
                THINGS TO REMEMBER
                ***********************************
                Mankind: a collection of nobodies
                at the mercy of misguided fools.
                *
                Learn to read between the lines –
                that’s where the money is.
                *
                Success is a trap.
                Failure a challenge.
                Treat a success story as you would treat a warning.
                *
                Decisions are based on what is known and predictable;
                but it is the unknown, the unknowable and the unpredictable
                that conspire to bite your ass.
                *
                To be lucky means to knock on the wrong door
                and to have the right man answer it.
                To be unlucky means to rely on luck.
                *
                A Turkish scholar once informed me
                that as an Armenian I was in no position to be objective
                about a great man like Talaat.
                *
                The central function of politics is
                to brainwash fools to believe they are smart.
                #

                Comment


                • Re: elegy

                  Wednesday, June 26, 2013
                  **********************************
                  ON EDUCATION
                  ************************
                  Those who control our educational system
                  do so not because they support learning
                  but because they want to cover up
                  the nefarious role they have played
                  in our decline as a nation.
                  They are as hungry for knowledge and understanding
                  as sultans and commissars.
                  *
                  I share my understanding;
                  they share their propaganda.
                  They identify themselves as patriots
                  and me as a traitor.
                  *
                  Q: Can someone with the moral compass of an ape
                  and the charisma of a robot win a democratic election?
                  A: Yes, of course!
                  Q: Where?
                  A: Armenia.
                  *
                  If you don’t know where to begin,
                  the end is as good a place as any.
                  #
                  SNAFULAND
                  ***************************
                  What does the Homeland share with the Diaspora?
                  In both dissidents are rejected and brown-nosers prosper.
                  *
                  Consider what happened to Greeks and xxxs
                  after they rejected Socrates and Jesus respectively.
                  A nation that rejects its critics digs its own grave.
                  Nothing new in that.
                  Americans have a word for it:
                  Snafu, meaning “Situation Normal All F***ed up.”
                  *
                  Far from being the best and the brightest,
                  ruling classes are more representative
                  of the lowest common denominator.
                  *
                  Individuals may learn
                  but mankind as a whole – judging
                  by the number of present conflicts, wars, and related atrocities –
                  seems to be immune to instruction.
                  We are all citizens of Snafuland.
                  #
                  PLUTOCRACY
                  ********************************
                  Success, real success, means total and uncompromising contempt
                  for success as defined by failures.
                  *
                  Overheard on the radio early this morning:
                  “From a market economy we have become a market society.
                  In California today if you don’t like your prison cell
                  you can get hotel-style accommodations for $90 a day.”
                  *
                  Which one of our political bosses today
                  is not a millionaire or the hireling of one?
                  What happened to the generation of
                  Nikol Aghbalian, Rouben Der Minassian,
                  Ohandjanian, Vratsian, Aharonian?
                  How could they vanish without leaving a trace?
                  #
                  AM I RIGHT OR WRONG?
                  **************************************
                  Or rather: Am I moving in the right or wrong direction?
                  I suspect I am moving in the right direction
                  when I think the opposite of what I was taught as a child.
                  Allow me to explain.
                  When the educational system of a nation
                  (also known as its brainwashing apparatus)
                  agrees with its political system
                  (that claims to have a single aim in life,
                  namely, the welfare of the people)
                  I have no choice but to agree with Hamlet’s verdict –
                  there must be “something rotten in the State of Denmark.”
                  *
                  MEN AND WOMEN
                  *************************
                  The Fall of Man and to fall in love:
                  in both instances the main characters are
                  a man and a woman; or, in the words of Anonymous,
                  an old wise man who is never or very seldom wrong:
                  “Men and women, women and men: it will never work.”
                  #

                  Comment


                  • Re: elegy

                    Thursday, June 27, 2013

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

                    FROM THE DIARY OF A NOBODY

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

                    My ambition, my real ambition in life

                    is to introduce humor in hell.

                    *

                    Armenians have a legal mind:

                    they never ask a question whose answer they don’t already know.

                    An Armenian in search of wisdom is like a Greek bearing gifts.

                    *

                    Confronted by total annihilation men may learn to co-exist.

                    As for Armenians: I am not sure about them.

                    After all, every rule must have its exceptions.

                    *

                    I was asked once to translate the diary

                    of an unknown and unpublished writer on the grounds that

                    “he could be another Shakespeare.”

                    *

                    On another occasion I was asked to translate a poem

                    on the grounds that after reading it

                    a friend of the family had said:

                    “This should be translated!”

                    #

                    IF

                    *********

                    If you say Turks are the scum of the earth,

                    I ask: What’s the difference between them

                    and the rest of the world?

                    *

                    If you say there is nothing wrong

                    in hating a bad writer who spreads lies,

                    I ask: What about incompetent leaders

                    who lead the nation to genocide?

                    *

                    Why does the average smart Armenian

                    allow himself to be brainwashed by charlatans?

                    The obvious answer must be:

                    Because it allows him to live in a fantasy world wherein

                    (a) Armenians are the good guys,

                    (b) They are God’s chosen, and

                    (c) their military defeats are moral victories.

                    *

                    Am I saying anything you don’t already know?

                    *

                    Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the USSR:

                    they remind me of myself as a child

                    when I respected no one

                    and feared everyone.

                    #

                    IT BEARS REPEATING

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

                    They call me negative

                    because my favorite subject is not massacres.

                    *

                    Everything I say to my fellow Armenians,

                    American, French, English, German, and Russian writers

                    have said about their fellow countrymen.

                    *

                    Mankind has been and continues to be

                    at the mercy of hoodlums –

                    Goebbels not Goethe,

                    Hitler not Hesse,

                    Richard III not Shakespeare,

                    Stalin not Solzhenitsyn.

                    *

                    In the eyes of their contemporaries

                    neither Socrates nor Jesus were successes.

                    I wonder how many Greek mothers

                    were overheard saying to their sons,

                    “Behave! Do you want to end up like Socrates?”

                    And xxxish mothers…

                    *

                    Never speak kindly of yourself:

                    no one will believe you.

                    *

                    Why do I write as I do?

                    The answer must be:

                    Because I am no longer dependent

                    on the charity of swine.

                    #

                    Comment


                    • Re: elegy

                      Sunday, June 30, 2013

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

                      STATUS QUO

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

                      All dupes are brainwashed to trust the judgment

                      of their superiors even when their superiors

                      happen to be the worst scum on earth.

                      *

                      The world is at the mercy of bloodthirsty cannibals

                      who like to parade as peace-loving vegetarians.

                      *

                      Genocides come in all sizes, shapes and colors,

                      including red, blue and orange.

                      *

                      The fist thing tyrants do is confiscate the idea of patriotism

                      and call everyone who opposes them unpatriotic.

                      *

                      Once oppressed always an oppressor.

                      Once a dupe always a brainwasher.

                      You take it when you have no choice.

                      You dish it out the first chance you get.

                      #

                      FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

                      When asked which side you support,

                      always say (to quote a good friend of mine)

                      “I am with the good guys.”

                      *

                      Nobody ever warned me that

                      the right path may also lead to a dead end.

                      *

                      I write therefore I learn.

                      *

                      Every belief or ideological system produces

                      its share of academics.

                      Grub is better than no grub.

                      *

                      I write to share my anger.

                      *

                      Bishops, imams, and rabbis:

                      you either believe in all of them or none.

                      To choose one and reject the others amounts to say

                      “I refuse to think for myself;

                      I prefer to be a dupe of propaganda.”

                      #

                      YOU WANT A FRIEND?

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

                      It has been said that it takes five generations

                      to produce an English gentleman.

                      It took more than two thousand years

                      to produce the average Armenian wheeler-dealer

                      and his dupes…

                      You may now draw your own conclusions.

                      *

                      Armenian identity is like a layer cake

                      whose bottom layer is shrouded in mystery

                      and whose top layer is more Ottoman and Soviet

                      than Armenian.

                      *

                      For 1500 years our writers –

                      from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe (5th century AD)

                      to our own days (Zarian and Massikian)

                      have exposed the corruption and incompetence

                      of our political and religious wheeler-dealers

                      with the result that they are more corrupt,

                      incompetent and divided than

                      at any other time in our history.

                      What does that tell you

                      about Armenian contempt

                      for selfless intellectual labor?

                      *

                      As they say in Washington:

                      “You want a friend? Get a dog!”

                      #

                      NOTES AND COMMENTS

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

                      A dupe is a dupe regardless of nationality, ideology and religion.

                      Kemal’s dupe and Stalin’s dupe might as well be twins.

                      Now then, go ahead and say Armenians are smarter than Turks.

                      *

                      Our history in a nutshell:

                      We owe our misfortunes to enemy action –

                      beginning with the enemy within.

                      *

                      Worth remembering:

                      All orthodoxies, heresies and divisions in general

                      are conceived by the 1%.

                      *

                      I have lost many friends

                      but I have never lost a single enemy.

                      *

                      All belief systems have a ready answer for every possible question,

                      a plausible explanation for every objection,

                      and a counter-argument for every argument –

                      just like Jehovah’s Witnesses.

                      #

                      Comment

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