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  • Re: elegy

    ON POWER
    **************************************
    Men in a position of power need flattery
    as much as a starving man needs bread.
    Their intolerance and hatred of dissent
    is rooted in vanity and not
    in some kind of ideological opposition.
    They don’t give a damn about ideas and ideologies
    which they consider a waste of time.
    To them intellectuals are no better than children
    and ideas their invisible toys or
    verbal hallucinations or ghosts
    and they don’t believe in ghosts.
    Words are good only when they glorify
    and flatter their egos.
    In their own eyes power is a blessing from God.
    It follows, whatever they do
    bears God’s seal of approval.
    Hence degenerate rulers
    and moronic multimillionaires
    operating on the assumption
    they are the uncrowned kings of the community.
    *
    History is clear on this point.
    Power drives men mad.
    Power is not a blessing but a curse.
    At the turn of the last century
    in the Ottoman Empire the sultan
    had a thousand concubines
    and as many versifiers,
    among them Armenians,
    singing his praises.
    *
    Talaat was more enlightened.
    He counted among his friends
    several intellectuals
    among them our own Zohrab.
    But as soon as he acquired power
    he had Zohrab assassinated.
    Napoleon put it best when he said
    “A man with an idea is my enemy.”
    #
    MORE ON TURCOCENTRISM
    *********************************************
    Turcocentrism may also be defined
    as an ideology that says
    we are not the architects of our destiny.
    It follows, the only logical explanation
    of our misfortunes is: “xxxx happens.”
    *
    Consider earthquakes as a case in point.
    What we are not told is that
    according to experts
    “Earthquakes don’t kill people; buildings do.”
    *
    Nothing comes more naturally
    to a compulsive and habitual liar than
    to cover up and to lie.
    *
    The priority of all businessmen is profit.
    The more profit the better.
    Likewise, the priority of all politicians
    regardless of race, color and creed is power –
    the more power the merrier,
    even if it means the destruction of the nation.
    *
    Our dealers in chauvinist crapola
    expect us to believe
    what applies to all politicians
    does not apply to our own
    who rule and divide by the grace of God.
    #
    FOREIGNER
    ***********************
    To me, the ultimate odar (foreigner)
    is the Ottomanized and Sovietized Armenian.
    *
    ON SURVIVAL
    ********************
    We have survived – no one denies that –
    but survived as what?
    *
    PARADOX
    *************************
    Armenians who classify themselves as the best,
    sooner or later expose themselves as the worst.
    #
    “We are a people like any other people.”
    “Don’t flatter yourself.”
    #
    ZOHRAB & CHARENTS
    **********************************
    “We are a people like any other people.”
    “Don’t flatter yourself.
    Even our greatest intellectuals and poets,
    like Zohrab and Charents, were dupes
    of enemy propaganda.”
    “What would you have done in their place?”
    “Probably what they did and having done so
    I would deserve universal ridicule and contempt.”
    *
    SAROYAN
    *********************
    I will never forget the angry letter
    one of our elder statesmen sent me
    after reading one of my anti-Soviet tirades:
    “Saroyan loves the regime.
    You think you are smarter than Saroyan?”
    *
    GUILTY AS CHARGED
    *****************************
    You say I simplify complexities?
    What does propaganda do?
    What is propaganda if not the mother tongue
    of self-satisfied idiots and their dupes?
    *
    GUILTY AS CHARGED II
    *************************************
    “You repeat yourself.”
    “Not as often as our propagandists.”
    #

    Comment


    • Re: elegy

      WHO IS A GOOD ARMENIAN?
      *******************************************
      Sartre: “It is the rich man who is virtuous
      and wants everyone else to be.
      His values are a defense if the status quo.”
      *
      Everyone is against dividers,
      but everyone seems to be for the status quo,
      especially if he belongs to the privileged classes –
      namely bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted hirelings and dupes.
      *
      Who is a good Armenian?
      “An Armenian who has Mt. Ararat in his heart,”
      -- whatever the hell that means.
      *
      I am not a Biblical scholar
      but the scholars I have consulted inform me
      the Bible does not mention “Mt. Ararat.”
      It says “mountains of Urartu,”
      of which there are about a thousand
      and most of them are not in Armenia.
      #
      CAREER MOVES
      *******************************
      For a good number of years
      my sole ambition in life
      was to be a brown-nosier.
      It took me quite a few years
      to realize it was a bad choice –
      and bad not on moral grounds
      but bad because
      the competition was too stiff.
      *
      MEMO
      TO MY PATRIOTIC READERS
      *********************************************
      The difference between you and me
      is that you like to brag
      and I don’t.
      #
      OUR LORDS AND MASTERS
      **************************************
      Some readers,
      among them former friends,
      disagree with me for an
      understandably compelling reason:
      they are financially dependent
      on the charity of swine.
      They may preach freedom
      but they are afraid
      not only of free speech
      but also of fellow Armenians
      who engage in it.
      *
      Our political and religious leaders
      are neither God’s nor people’s servants;
      they are our Lords and Masters.
      Deviate an inch
      and you are shish-kebab!
      #

      Comment


      • Re: elegy

        Originally posted by arabaliozian View Post
        Who is a good Armenian?
        “An Armenian who has Mt. Ararat in his heart,”
        -- whatever the hell that means.
        *
        the majority in Armenia and Karabakh are too busy struggling to make a living to have time to think about Ararat!

        Comment


        • Re: elegy

          Originally posted by lampron View Post
          the majority in Armenia and Karabakh are too busy struggling to make a living to have time to think about Ararat!
          (true) Armenians think of Ararat like their mother, father or child.
          Nothing to do whether rich or poor hungry or not.

          In the same way, immidiately after the earthquake, when Soviet grandee arrive to the earthquake zone the people's slogan was Karabagh is Armenian.

          You have very short memory.

          Truth can never be selective.

          .
          Politics is not about the pursuit of morality nor what's right or wrong
          Its about self interest at personal and national level often at odds with the above.
          Great politicians pursue the National interest and small politicians personal interests

          Comment


          • Re: elegy

            A SKETCH OF MY LIFE
            *************************************
            In my formative years
            I was carefully brought up to be a garbage can
            Of prejudices, lies, and propaganda.
            If I understand my fellow Armenians today
            it may be because once upon a time
            I was one of them
            and I refuse to pretend otherwise.
            *
            It was very late in life
            that I realized deep inside somewhere
            I harbored a human being.
            *
            I wasted most of my life
            trying to please individuals
            whom I now classify as somewhere between
            moral riffraff and the scum of the earth.
            *
            When I say I loathe dupes
            what I really mean is that
            I loathe the dupe in me.
            The only thing I am willing to brag about
            is the fact that in my childhood
            I experienced homelessness, destitution,
            war, and discrimination in an alien environment.
            *
            Did I survive?
            Who can really tell?
            I feel more like that English soldier
            on the battlefield who,
            when informed by his king that he was wounded,
            replied: “Nay, Sire, I am dead.”
            #
            RECYCLING
            **************************
            To live in oppression means to believe in things
            that you don’t and to trust the judgment of individuals
            with the morality of pimps.
            As a nation we have lived in oppression
            for so many centuries that
            we are no longer in a position to tell
            the difference between
            freedom and oppression.
            Hence the saying:
            “Once upon a time we were slaves;
            we are now slaves of former slaves.”
            Progress is our least important product.
            *
            One of the most useful tools
            in criminal investigations is to ask:
            “Who benefits?”
            Who benefits from our divisions?
            *
            “A bourgeois is a bourgeois
            regardless of nationality,” Lenin said.
            So is a divider, a charlatan, and a deceiver.
            *
            “You repeat yourself.”
            So do our dealers in chauvinist crapola.
            *
            I don’t write to achieve fame, fortune,
            and immortality.
            I write to share my understanding.
            #
            WHAT I BELIEVE
            ***********************************
            I believe in the Incomprehensible,
            the Unknowable and in the commandment
            “Thou shalt not bear false witness.
            As for “Thou shalt not kill”:
            I believe a system that has legitimized
            the burning of heretics and more recently
            war and massacre is an invention of the Devil.
            The rest is metaphysics, mumbo jumbo,
            propaganda, and taxation without representation.
            *
            My aim in life is not to achieve
            fame, fortune, and greatness
            but to be less dishonest.
            *
            As the offspring of perennial losers,
            I have a soft spot for all losers
            even when they are identified as the enemy.
            #
            TRASHLAND
            **********************
            If Gogol and Kafka were to come back to life and collaborate on a book about reality in present-day Armenia, the result would be Denis Donikian’s VIDURES or AGHPASTAN, in Ruzanna Vartanian’s excellent Armenian translation (403 pages, Yerevan, 2013).
            Aghpastan, literally Trashland, is a biting satire and a horror story written with withering wit that utilizes many genres and styles reminiscent of James Joyce.
            *
            During a walk two friends discover the corpse of a woman in a garbage dump, an obvious victim of foul play.
            “I know who she is,” one of them says. “I recognize her by her hair and the undamaged side of her face. We should go to the cops.”
            The other is outraged.
            “The cops! The cops? Can you picture me walking into a police station? Walking in is easy. The trick is coming out. And sometimes you never come out.”
            “But it is against the law not to report a murder. If we ignore this murder and another murder next day, what happens if you or I are the next victims? If you and I and everybody else ignores a murder we become a nation of amnesiacs at the mercy of others.”
            “Maybe so -- but what happens if we are detained by the police? And when I say detained I don’t mean for an hour or a day but for months. Think of my piglets: what happens to them?”
            The conclusion is obvious: “Aghpastan” has become a country that swims in crime, criminals, executioners, and their victims.
            *
            The book begins and ends with the same two words: “Der Voghormia” (Lord have mercy).
            #

            Comment


            • Re: elegy

              REFLECTIONS
              **********************************
              A single priest may brainwash
              as many as a thousand children,
              but a thousand bishops cannot convert
              a single imam.
              All victimizers are experts at least in one field:
              in their choice of victims.
              *
              If you are an adult,
              you know something about history,
              and you are a nationalist,
              you may safely declare yourself
              a public nuisance and a retard.
              *
              If we were to judge a religion by its history,
              who would dare to brag about
              being a religious person?
              *
              I have never said none of our
              bosses, bishops, and benefactors is an honest man.
              What I have said is that
              I never had the pleasure of meeting one.
              #
              MASTERS & SLAVES
              ********************************
              As the offspring of perennial losers,
              I tend to divide my fellow men
              into masters and slaves,
              or top dogs and underdogs.
              *
              I fear and respect top dogs
              and I have as much respect for underdogs
              as I have for myself, which is none.
              That’s why my respect
              for our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
              knows no bound.
              Sometimes I even go as far as classifying them
              as architects of our collective destiny,
              when in fact they have as much power
              as a sardine in a pool of sharks;
              and when speechify and sermonize
              in the name of God and Country
              what they really mean is
              the KGB and the CIA.
              *
              HOW TO RECOGNIZE
              A RIGGED ELECTION
              **************************************
              If the winner is an enemy agent,
              he has the charisma of a robot
              and the eyes of a reptile, it’s rigged.
              #
              JUNKIES
              ****************************
              Notwithstanding the fact that
              our writers have been consistently misunderstood,
              rejected, starved, even betrayed
              and murdered in cold blood,
              there are boys and girls today
              whose ambition is to be a writer.
              There is a reasonable explanation
              for this strange phenomenon:
              ignorance of history.
              *
              The official version of our past
              has been bowdlerized so drastically that
              if reality and our school texts ever met
              they wouldn’t recognize each other.
              *
              We have this in common with Turks:
              we are junkies of state propaganda.
              There are well-established academics today
              (not all of them Turks)
              who believe Talaat was a great statesman.
              *
              Talaat’s arrogance was such that
              he dared to parade in the streets of Berlin
              as if he were a universally respected royalty in exile.
              Until reality caught up with him,
              as it caught up with us
              in successive waves of massacres
              whose message we
              (or rather our leadership)
              chose to ignore.
              *
              The problem with compulsive and habitual liars is that
              they end up believing in their lies.
              #
              MEMO TO A CRITIC
              **********************************
              My aim in life is to understand reality.
              Your aim, if I understand it correctly,
              is to assert some kind of superiority
              motivated by patriotism,
              which is also the aim
              of all speechifiers, sermonizers,
              and propagandists, who at
              least get paid for their work,
              *
              You may have noticed by now
              that I have a handful of favorite themes
              on which I compose endless variations.
              To those who accuse me of repeating myself
              I plead guilty as charged.
              My aim is not to achieve immortality
              or even earn minimum wage,
              but to speak of reality as I see it
              and not as I am told to see it
              by someone who may or may not be
              a compulsive liar, a child molester,
              or an inbred moron.
              *
              The trouble with Christianity
              as an organized religion is that
              99% of Christians were brainwashed as children.
              The same applies to all organized religions:
              they are organized to lie, deceive
              and when necessary to kill and die
              in defense of a god who has no need
              of their protection.
              *
              We need to talk!
              #

              Comment


              • Re: elegy

                Originally posted by arabaliozian View Post
                The only thing I am willing to brag about
                is the fact that in my childhood
                I experienced homelessness, destitution,
                war, and discrimination in an alien environment.
                *
                Did I survive?
                Who can really tell?
                I feel more like that English soldier
                on the battlefield who,
                when informed by his king that he was wounded,
                replied: “Nay, Sire, I am dead.”
                #
                #

                there are those (especially those who live comfortably)
                who are interested in your survival because that reinforces their own self-importance
                "I am a survivor", meaning "I'm special"
                but they are not interested in your suffering or of others through the centuries

                Comment


                • Re: elegy

                  RANDOM THOUGHTS

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

                  After moronizing its own people America

                  is now engaged in moronizing the world.

                  *

                  Describe someone objectively

                  and deep inside somewhere

                  one of his defensive walls is bound to collapse.

                  *

                  Most of my critics are not idiots

                  but they appear to enjoy acting the part.

                  *

                  More often than not

                  when I try to solve a problem

                  I succeed only in compounding it.

                  *

                  My piano teacher taught me

                  the only way to learn a piece marked presto

                  is by playing it lento.

                  *

                  One way to be brilliant is

                  by writing a hundred different versions

                  of the same line and choosing the best.

                  #

                  MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE CONCEPTS

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

                  A wolf and a vegetarian diet.

                  A closed mind and dialogue.

                  An Armenian and a Turk.

                  An Armenian and an Armenian.

                  *

                  What I write is free –

                  like cheese in a mousetrap.

                  *

                  American saying: “90% of everything is crap.”

                  Armenian translation: “99%.”

                  #

                  NOTES & COMMENTS

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

                  If the world were a room,

                  the U.S. would be the elephant in it.

                  *

                  If you assume to be right

                  you are automatically disqualified to engage in dialogue.

                  *

                  A liar’s best friend is another liar.

                  *

                  A snake’s ideal food is another snake.

                  *

                  Thirst for knowledge and thirst for blood

                  are mutually exclusive concepts.

                  *

                  A dupe cannot have an open mind.

                  *

                  When the Nazis said “Gott mit uns”

                  they meant of course the Devil.

                  *

                  I repeat myself?

                  What about our sermonizers, speechifiers,

                  and Turcocentric fanatics?

                  *

                  All corrupt regimes need enemies.

                  Hatred is a glue and all politicians need scapegoats.

                  #

                  Comment


                  • Re: elegy

                    ON POPULARITY
                    ******************************
                    Popularity is overrated.
                    Neither Socrates nor Jesus was popular.
                    Bach was neglected for a hundred years.
                    Kafka was known only to a handful
                    of close friends.
                    Hegel’s last famous words:
                    “No one understood me except one,
                    and even he didn’t understand me.”
                    My guess is Elvis and the Beatles
                    made more money in a year than
                    Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms combined
                    throughout their lifetime.
                    *
                    Have I said this before?
                    No matter.
                    Some things are worth repeating.
                    #
                    HOW TO BE OBJETIVE
                    ***********************************
                    The only way to be objective
                    is to see oneself through alien eyes.
                    The alternative is to view Catholics
                    through the eyes of the Pope,
                    the Soviets through the eyes of Stalin,
                    and the Chinese through the eye of Mao
                    on the grounds that these gentlemen know better.
                    *
                    One of the most important rules in dialogue:
                    neither side is allowed to say “Yes, sir!”
                    *
                    Ideas like “All men are created equal,”
                    should be judged by their history
                    and not by their intentions.
                    *
                    Archie Bunker is dead,
                    long live the Tea Party!
                    #

                    ON LAWYERS
                    & RELATED ATROCITIES
                    ************************************
                    Where lawyers prosper, justice suffers.
                    The function of a jury, it has been said,
                    is to decide which side had the more competent
                    legal representation.
                    *
                    Where advertisers prosper,
                    the line that separates fact from illusion
                    will be blurred.
                    *
                    Where there is great wealth,
                    there will also be crooks.
                    Plato’s explanation for this phenomenon:
                    unlike honest men who will employ only honest means,
                    crooks will employ honest as well as dishonest means.
                    *
                    We live in a land of bankers, investment brokers,
                    public relations men, advertisers and lawyers.
                    It follows, we are in deep sh*t.
                    #
                    BOOK REVIEW
                    ***********************
                    130 TALISMANS. By Kardash Onnig.
                    Foreword by Alexander Boccialini Shundi.
                    Illustrated. 2013. Published by Baraka
                    (P.O. Box 145, Stanfordville, NY 12581).
                    **************************************
                    Are talismans, also known as “charms,” objects with mystical powers over evil or mumbo jumbo? My reason tells me they belong to the mumbo jumbo department of life, but my subconscious sings a different tune.
                    After a black cat crosses my path, I feel better if I find a penny on the sidewalk. Accuse me of being superstitious and I will deny it. Figure that one out if you can.
                    This illustrated booklet of 130 talismans is the latest opus by our Renaissance man of arts and letters, Onnig Kardash. Each talisman costs $400.00. If they weren’t beyond my income bracket I would love to buy a dozen of them (one for each room in the house) and forever after feel less vulnerable.
                    (For more information write to Transformer @gmail.com).
                    #

                    Comment


                    • Re: elegy

                      DECEPTION (I)
                      ***************************
                      Everything that needs to be said has been said. The role of our propaganda today is to deceive us into thinking everything that needs to be done is being done when in fact nothing is being done.
                      *
                      DECEPTION (II)
                      In our official version of the story the Genocide was inevitable. Which raises the question: if our leaders cannot foresee the inevitable, what are they good for besides raising funds?
                      *
                      OVERHEARD
                      ***********************
                      “Make friends when you don’t need them.”
                      *
                      “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.”
                      #
                      TWO OBSERVATIONS
                      ********************************
                      If a closed mind makes you happy, by all means, follow your bliss. Only be warned. A fool’s happiness is a house without foundations.
                      *
                      In the eyes of some I am a self-hating Armenian because I refuse to rely on the support of men who could be useful to me –bosses, bishops, benefactors, their hirelings, hangers on and dupes. They fail to see the obvious: if I am against these gentlemen it is out of self-respect, and I suggest self-respect and self-hatred are mutually exclusive concepts.
                      #
                      ON THE ORIGINS
                      OF PATRIOTISM
                      *********************************
                      If I had a choice between visiting Venice or Paris and the ugly little Greek slum where I was born and raised, I would choose the slum but I can’t because it’s no longer there – it was reduced to rubble by the Germans during World War II.
                      *
                      My doubts outnumber my certainties a thousand to one. I am one of those who feel guilty even when they say the right thing and do what must be done.
                      *
                      Judge an underdog by what he would do if he were a top dog.
                      #

                      Comment

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