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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Thursday, July 05, 2012
    ******************************************
    SOMETHNG ROTTEN
    ******************************
    “There is something rotten in the State of Denmark.”
    That’s one way to sum up the central message of our literature
    from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe
    to Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zarian, and Massikian.
    *
    As for the contrary view,
    it goes something like this:
    “We are a people like any other people.
    There is nothing fundamentally wrong with us.
    But there is something horribly wrong with our scribblers
    who do nothing but xxxxx simply because
    their readers are too smart to be taken in by their bullxxxx.”
    *
    To which I can only say:
    “If you believe that, you will believe anything,
    including the Big Lie that
    our 1% 'ha sempre ragione”'(is always right),
    and we never had it so good
    because we are in the best of hands."
    *
    There is no limit to how blind our 99% can be
    and how effective our 1% has been
    in their systematic and organized effort
    to control our educational system
    and to brainwash our defenders of the faith.
    *
    FOOTNOTE
    ************************
    For more details see my
    DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS
    and Naregatsi’s LAMENTATIONS.
    *
    WARNING
    ***************
    No need to take everything I say literally
    or seriously, or as the last word on the subject,
    but only as a tiny piece in a vast mosaic or
    a single line in a long narrative.
    #
    Friday, July 06, 2012
    **********************************
    ON LOYALTY
    **************************
    The body language of some of my critics is so unfriendly
    that I have every reason to suspect
    if they and I had been citizens of the USSR
    they would have denounced me to the KGB –
    in the name of patriotism and loyalty to the regime, of course.
    Which is why I am suspicious of both patriotism and loyalty
    and I consider them not as assets but as liabilities.
    *
    ON BENEFACTORS
    ************************
    Great wealth and atheism might as well be synonymous.
    The fact that our benefactors build churches
    is proof only of the fact that they think they can bribe God –
    they can manipulate Him
    the way they manipulate their workers and hirelings.
    To me that’s worst than atheism – it is blasphemy.
    #
    Saturday, July 07, 2012
    ************************************
    DIARY
    **********************
    A line from a Polish movie:
    “The law is the law even when it is unjust.”
    *
    According to some observers,
    drone attacks create more terrorists.
    *
    As the West argues endlessly for or against intervention in Syria,
    al-Qaeda has decided unilaterally for intervention.
    My guess is, on the day al-Qaeda joins the dissenters in Russia and China,
    it may even enjoy American support.
    *
    If your favorite sport is the blame-game,
    don’t be surprised if you run into someone
    whose favorite sport is “blame the victim.”
    #

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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Sunday, July 01, 2012
    ************************************
    IF…
    ***********************
    If we cannot learn from our mistakes,
    who is going to teach us?
    Has anyone ever taught us anything?
    The Great Powers of the West?
    The only thing we can learn from them
    is double-talk and deception.
    Isn’t that what they did to us
    at the turn of the last century?
    They promised their support
    but when we needed them most
    they assumed the role of passive spectators.
    The Russian, our so-called Big Brothers?
    Don’t make me laugh!
    All they have done so far is
    purge our best and brightest thus reducing us
    to the status of perennial brown-nosers.
    The Yanks?
    They can’t even speak the G word
    because they are afraid to alienate the criminals.
    Turkish friendship means more to them
    than the slaughter of countless innocent civilians.
    And speaking of countless victims:
    Very probably they have themselves slaughtered as many,
    If not more of them, as their friends, the Turks.
    As for Turks themselves:
    give them half a chance and they will tear us to shreds,
    feast on our carcass,
    after which they will plead not guilty
    by reason of manifest destiny.
    Are we then condemned to remain
    cowardly nonentities without cojones?
    As if that weren’t bad enough,
    we like to make a spectacle of ourselves
    by bragging about our highly developed survival tactics.
    You call that survival?
    I call it dragging out a shameless existence.
    *
    Now you know why I will never be a popular Armenian writer.
    I am the bearer of bad tiding because
    I refuse to flatter, lie, misrepresent, and mislead.
    #
    Monday, July 02, 2012
    *****************************************
    FROM A BIOGRAPHY OF SOCRATES
    AS TOLD BY HIS WIFE
    ********************************************
    Four words – that’s all I need to sum up his life:
    All talk -- no action.
    What did he talk about?
    I don’t know and I don’t want to know.
    I have too much respect for the law
    to meddle into matters that are none of my business.
    In the eyes of his friends he may be the wisest Athenian.
    I am not sure about that.
    What kind of wisdom is it
    that drives you to an early grave, may I ask?
    They say he was unjustly accused.
    Let them say what they want.
    I for one will not question the integrity of our justice system,
    which, as far as I am concerned,
    is the most advanced in the world.
    Sometimes I am asked if he was gay.
    I don’t think so.
    In his youth he was a passionate lover,
    but gradually he lost interest in sex.
    He preferred the company of men.
    That’s all I have to say on the subject.
    #
    Tuesday, July 03, 2012
    ***************************************
    Q/A
    **********************************
    “If you can’t change things,
    why even bother to speak of change?”
    Because if you don’t say the right thing
    you may end up kissing the wrong ass.
    There you have it:
    our millennial history in a nutshell.
    *
    Worth remembering:
    the so-called “Great Powers of the West,”
    Russians, Turks, and Yanks, among many others,
    are first and foremost their own worst enemies;
    and empires fall not because
    they can no longer defend their borders
    against a more powerful enemy
    but because of internal conflicts, decline, and generation.
    *
    To those who are brainwashed to think
    if better nations than us are divided,
    divisions must be an inevitable fact of life;
    therefore we must be on the right path.
    I ask: Who benefits from this line of thought?
    Only the corrupt and the incompetent.
    To which I can only say,
    if kissing ass is your aim in life,
    be my guest.
    #
    Wednesday, July 04, 2012
    ***********************************
    TOO BIG TO FAIL?
    *********************************
    There is not a single big truth
    but only many small truths
    and twice as many big lies.
    *
    Too big to fail?
    What nonsense!
    Empires rise and fall,
    and when they fall,
    people are liberated from the grip
    of bloodthirsty parasites.
    #




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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Thursday, June 28, 2012
    ********************************************
    IS JUSTICE BLIND?
    *****************************
    Justice may be blind but she has a sensitive nose
    and can smell the unwashed.
    Remember that next time you decide to take a wealthy man to court.
    *
    The wealthy are so used to having their asses kissed
    that they now expect you to also tell the world they smell like roses.
    And you will be surprised how many are more than willing
    to grab the opportunity.
    *
    A gentle reader writes: "If, as you say,
    Armenian literature is a dead end,
    why not give up writing?"
    I write for two totally non-literary reasons:
    To fight boredom and to acquire friends;
    and with every book I have published,
    I have acquired a new friend;
    also (alas!) two enemies.
    #
    Friday, June 29, 2012
    ********************************************
    ON –ISMS AND RELATED ATROCITIES
    ************************************************** ************There is God;
    there are men who represent Him on earth;
    and there are the unwashed
    whose sole option is to say “Yes, sir!”
    There you have it:
    as good a definition of Ottomanism and Armenianism as any.
    *
    What is Turcocentrism?
    Like all –isms it is a closed system of thought
    that legitimizes prejudice, intolerance, and hatred,
    *
    The aim of all –isms is to moronize.
    *
    The stated aim of patriotism is to promote love of Country
    (not necessarily fellow countrymen).
    Its unstated aim: to hate and kill the enemy.
    Which is what moronized Turks did to us.
    Which is also why they refuse – make it, they can’t –
    plead guilty as charged.
    *
    What is historicism?
    In my morning paper today
    I read the following quotation by Napoleon Bonaparte:
    “History is the version of past events
    that people decided to agree upon.”
    There you have it:
    as good a definition of historicism as any.
    *
    What is the true aim of literature?
    To unbrainwash the unwashed.
    #
    Saturday, June 30, 2012
    ************************************************** ***
    OBSERVATIONS
    ***********************************
    Can a writer who belongs to a failed nation by a success?
    Cioran, Ionesco, Adamov, Nabokov:
    if they are respected names today
    it’s because they gave up their homeland and their mother tongue
    and adopted French or English as their medium.
    *
    In order to survive, our crème de la crème
    had no choice but to kiss the ass of our crème de la scum.
    Zarian.
    *
    In my dealings with our Turcocentric scholars and ghazetajis
    I have noticed that their greatest enemy is not the Turk
    but an Armenian who dares to question their methods,
    doubt their efficacy, question their messianism,
    and expose their true intent
    which is not justice but covering up
    the cowardice, dishonesty, and incompetence
    of our ruling classes.
    *
    To be powerless may not be a crime
    but it is treated as if it were a capital offense.
    #

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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Sunday, June 24, 2012
    ****************************************
    RECAPPING
    ********************
    Belief systems are useful in so far as they expose
    the fallacies of other belief systems,
    but dangerous when they assert orthodoxy or monopoly.
    Marxism was useful in so far as it exposed the fallacies
    of feudalism and capitalism but dead wrong
    when it legitimized crimes against humanity.
    Something similar could be said of Christianity and Islam
    whose innocent victims are without number.
    *
    We have no choice but to come to terms with the fact that
    what we know, what we can know,
    is only a tiny fraction of what we don’t know.
    Metaphysical systems may allow us to travel from A to B,
    sometimes even from C to D,
    but we will never make it to XYZ.
    *
    All belief systems are like the Tower of Babel:
    sooner or later they will collapse
    like the World Trade Center on 9/11.
    #
    Monday, June 25, 2012
    ************************************
    FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
    ********************************
    Propaganda is invisible to the brainwashed.
    *
    Dissent is a crime only in a state
    whose legislators are criminals.
    *
    In the NEW YORKER (June 18, 2012) I read:
    “Greeks invented democracy;
    they invented tragedy too.
    The problem is that in recent years
    they haven’t invented much of anything.”
    What about us?
    What’s our next “first”?
    What if we have run out of them?
    *
    I may not know better
    but I may see something you cannot see.
    #
    Tuesday, June 26, 2012
    *********************************
    COMMENTS
    ****************************
    Everything I say is guesswork.
    I leave truth to our imams, commissars, and their dupes.
    *
    For more than a thousand years
    the ancient Greeks believed in non-existent gods
    and built magnificent temples in their honor.
    Which may suggest that a god doesn’t need to exist
    in order to be believed and worshipped?
    *
    We emphasize the importance of good manners to our children;
    also the necessity to murder the enemy in time of war.
    #
    Wednesday, June 27, 2012
    ************************************
    SLOGANS
    **************************
    “Black is beautiful.”
    “Armenians are smart.”
    “xxxs are the Chosen People.”
    These assessments have as much validity or objectivity
    as their contradictions.
    *
    Slogans maybe defined as lies
    with political ambitions.
    “Separate but equal.”
    “Russians are our Big Brothers.”
    *
    My favorite slogans are the ones
    that are contradicted by other slogans:
    “All men are brothers.”
    “Homo homini lupus”
    (Man is wolf to other men).
    #

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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Thursday, June 21, 2012
    ***********************************
    COFFEE
    ************************
    Is coffee good for you?
    Yes. No. Maybe. No one knows.
    There are, it seems, a thousand ingredients in coffee.
    How many of them are good and how many bad?
    Remains to be seen.
    Who would have thought such a simple question
    would have so many complicated answers?
    But there are more complications
    that have nothing to do with coffee itself.
    Those who say coffee is bad
    also say that coffee drinkers are prone to acquire other
    bad habits – such as smoking, drinking, and a sedentary life.
    So that even after determining the nature
    of the thousand ingredients it may be necessary to factor in
    personality traits.
    *
    Is nationalism good or bad?
    Is democracy better than monarchy?
    Do angels and demons exist?
    What about God and the Devil?
    Is there life after death?
    Was there life before birth?
    *
    When asked what he thought of Armenians,
    George Bernard Shaw is quoted as having said –
    I am now paraphrasing:
    “Armenians are a great people
    provided they are periodically massacred.”
    So much for the usefulness of answers
    provided by great intellects.
    #
    Saturday, June 23, 2012
    ************************************
    POWER
    ********************
    Where there is power,
    there will be criminals.
    My guess is – and it’s only a guess
    because there are no statistics:
    the criminal rate on Wall Street, the Kremlin, and the Vatican
    are about the same.
    *
    Speak truth to power?
    What nonsense!
    Power knows already.
    The challenge – the real challenge -- is
    convincing the 99%,
    which amounts to saying
    unbrainwashing the brainwashed.
    #
    Saturday, June 23, 2012
    ***************************************
    SCENARIO
    **************************
    Cosmologists tell us planets, stars, and galaxies are born and die.
    In a billion years or so the earth will be incinerated by the sun
    and our solar system and eventually our galaxy (the Milky Way)
    will enter a black hole and emerge as a new galaxy
    with its own stars, solar system, and planets.
    Perhaps this has happened many times before
    and it is happening elsewhere even as I write.
    Perhaps in the next cycle the Ottoman Empire will be
    an Armenian Empire and we will do to them
    what they did to us.
    I for one wouldn’t be surprised if in another cycle
    Hitler dies of inanition in an Israeli concentration camp
    and Stalin freezes to death in a Siberian gulag.
    And these things may happen immediately after we die,
    because to die means to enter a timeless realm
    wherein a fraction of a second is as long as a billion years.
    You don’t believe me?
    Too good to be true?
    Listen to a cosmologist and see how much of what
    he says, assumes or supposes rings true
    and how much like pure fantasy.
    *
    If God exists He must be just.
    And when I speak of divine justice
    I mean the kind of justice beside which
    human justice is as nothing!
    #



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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Sunday, June 17, 2012
    *************************************
    THE SULTAN IS DEAD
    *******************************
    People change.
    Nations change.
    Consider the Chinese:
    from communists to capitalists in a single generation.
    Consider the Mongols:
    who is afraid of them today?
    Consider the Yanks:
    from happy-go-lucky under Eisenhower and “I Love Lucy”
    to the post-Vietnam, Watergate, and “All in the Family” generation.
    *
    What about us?
    We too have changed – but only two words in our national anthem
    (from “Tshvar ander" to “azad angakh”).
    What else?
    I don’t know.
    You tell me!
    I am all ears.
    If our 99% are taken in by our 1%
    it may be because they want to be taken in.
    They demand to be duped.
    They beg to be duped.
    They are grateful to their deceivers.
    The Sultan is dead.
    Long live Putin!
    #
    Monday, June 18, 2012
    ****************************************
    QUESTION
    ************************
    Reality is a jungle
    and we are as backward and naïve as jungle tribes.
    Our friends have been our worst enemies
    and our flatterers our most dangerous liars.
    For every truth we have invented a Big Lie.
    *
    Zohrab trusted Talaat.
    Mikoyan trusted Stalin.
    Gulbenkian left only 5% of his wealth to us,
    and who can blame him?
    *
    Raffi is right.
    We don’t have an aristocracy.
    We don’t have elites.
    Even our best and brightest were taken in by riffraff.
    If I see the dark side of things
    it’s because I have earned the right.
    *
    Because I refuse to flatter your ego,
    am I then your enemy?
    #Tuesday, June 19, 2012
    **************************************
    NAPOLEON
    ********************
    Napoleon Bonaparte:
    I suspect at least one of his contemporaries saying:
    “With a name like that he will never amount to anything!”
    *
    No more wars?
    Only if you eradicate the Big Lies of the 1%
    and the idiocy of the 99%.
    *
    You can argue against half-truths
    but not against Big Lies.
    *
    I have been exposed to so much Armenian venom
    that I have every reason to suspect
    among ten Armenians
    nine are sure to be Turks.
    #
    Wednesday, June 20, 2012
    ***************************************
    INSANITY
    ************************
    The aim of all propaganda is to assert superiority:
    my god, or king, or nation, or race (blood)
    is better than yours.
    *
    Propaganda cannot be outlawed
    because everyone practices it.
    *
    When a transgression enjoys universal approval
    it ceases to be a transgression.
    *
    Anything that places a distance between reality and us
    leads to insanity.
    *
    The real danger in propaganda is not that
    it legitimizes prejudice, intolerance, and lies
    but that it leads to collective insanity.
    *
    Germans under Hitler experienced collective insanity
    as surely as the Chinese under Mao,
    Italians under Mussolini,
    Soviets under Stalin…
    and in general, all people
    under authoritarian or undemocratic rulers.
    *
    Propaganda and sanity are mutually exclusive concepts.
    *
    Religious wars in Europe
    (one of which lasted a hundred years)
    may be seen as eruptions of collective insanity.
    *
    Moral: If it makes you feel good,
    take a second look,
    and if you see nothing wrong, take a third look…
    and a fourth... until you unmask the deception.
    #



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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Thursday, June 14, 2012
    *******************************************
    MEMORANDA
    ************************
    Historians are first and foremost
    propagandists of state-sponsored lies.
    With them presumption of guilt or innocence comes first,
    selection of evidence after.
    *
    Writing is easy.
    Deleting – that’s where creativity and originality move in.
    *
    To know when to shut up:
    birthplace of all masterpieces.
    *
    All organized religions have failed.
    If they continue to have followers
    it's because any meaning,
    even when meaningless,
    is better than no meaning.
    *
    Strong convictions are the surest symptoms
    of weak minds.
    #
    Friday, June 15, 2012
    *********************************
    IDIOTS
    ********************
    Canadians and Americans appear to be obsessed
    with their unemployment rates,
    not to say corruption and incompetence in high places.
    I have been watching Armenian news on TV
    for more than ten years now
    and I don’t remember a single mention
    of unemployment, corruption, and incompetence.
    All I see is a bunch of bureaucrats or “suits”
    (also identified as “kheyars,” meaning cucumbers)
    in official ceremonies,
    children and teenagers singing and dancing,
    and the rich variety of delicacies served at banquets.
    Idiots!
    *
    Turks are so busy being proud of their Turkishness
    that they pretend to be offended
    when massacres are mentioned.
    And we are so proud of our Armenishness
    that we consider unemployment, corruption, and incompetence
    alien concept not worth mentioning.
    Idiots!
    *
    We are not so much a divided nation
    as a broken one – a broken one, moreover,
    that refuses to mend itself
    though it has all the means to do so.
    Idiots!
    #
    Saturday, June 16, 2012
    *********************************
    DZOUR NESDINK,
    SHIDAG KHOSSINK
    **************************************************
    Burma has its San Suu Kyi,
    Tibet its Dalai Lama,
    Tunisia its Buazizi,
    Egypt its Muslim Brotherhood,
    and once upon a time we had Khrimian Hairik
    who dared to say No to the Czar.
    Whom do we have today?
    Only empty suits, brown-nosing wheeler-dealers,
    and gutless nonentities whose #1 concern is #1.
    This is true not only of the Homeland
    but also the Diaspora.
    That’s what a thousand years of subservience has done to us.
    We lament our million-and-half every year on April 24.
    We should lament our loss of manhood every day.
    #

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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Sunday, June 10, 2012
    *************************************
    OBSERVATIONS
    *****************************
    A man who kills in the name of God
    worships the Devil.
    *
    You are not brainwashed for your own good;
    you are brainwashed to better serve their interests.
    *
    Failure is the key to success,
    and success on one level
    may spell ruin in another.
    *
    Tell me what is it that you want more than anything else
    and I will tell you, if you get it, you will be disappointed.
    *
    Too big to fail or too insignificant to survive? – like kings…
    #
    Monday, June 11, 2012
    ************************************
    MORE OBSERVATIONS
    ********************************
    If I were a wealthy man
    I would be surrounded by brown-nosers.
    Ah! the privileges of poverty!
    *
    “If you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger!”
    That indeed is the philosophy of all authoritarian rulers.
    Did I say philosophy?
    Make it philomoronism.
    *
    The destiny of all organizations
    is to become a mafia.
    *
    Where there is power
    the devil is sure to be in charge.
    *
    It took mankind many centuries to conclude that
    kings don’t rule by the will of God.
    It may take many more centuries for mankind to realize that
    men who speak in the name of God
    engage in charlatanism.
    *
    Believers have doubts as surely as
    skeptics thirst for certainties.
    Is there life after death?
    Nobody knows.
    Speaking for myself,
    I think the universe is too complex and magnificent
    piece of machinery
    to end with a whimper.
    But that may well be wishful thinking on my part.
    #
    Tuesday, June 12, 2012
    ***********************************
    THEORIES & FACTS
    ******************************
    If you define patriotism as love of homeland,
    how do you define homeland?
    Speaking for myself I would define it
    as anywhere I am allowed to work and make a living.
    If thousands of Armenians have emigrated to Turkey,
    does that mean Turkey is now their homeland?
    A good question for which I don’t have an easy answer.
    I only know that when
    facts contradict theories,
    you discard the theories and keep the facts.
    Next question:
    Is Armenia our homeland
    if it’s at the mercy of former KGB agents
    and Bolshevik mafias?
    Another good question.
    Speaking for myself,
    I would have a better chance to survive in Turkey.
    #
    Wednesday, June 13, 2012
    ************************************
    EMPTY VERBIAGE
    *****************************
    To speak of Turks and Armenians
    is to engage in fiction.
    There are no Turks and Armenians.
    There are only mongrelized Mongols
    and bastardized Armenians.
    The rest is nationalist propaganda
    and all talk of “pure blood” is fascist nonsense.
    #

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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Thursday, June 07, 2012
    ****************************************
    ASSETS & LIABILITIES
    **************************************
    A failed nation is defined as one
    ... that has not been successful in reconciling
    its internal factions.
    It follows, notwithstanding our many assets
    (high IQ, progressive, adaptable, first nation this, first nation that)
    we are a failed nation
    very much like Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, and Syria.
    *
    What’s the use of being smart
    if we are too stupid to reach a consensus?
    What the hell is the use of doing a thousand things
    if we cannot do that which must be done?
    And when I say “we” I mean not only our leaders
    but also those who support them.
    If our leaders divide us
    it’s because we allow them to do so.
    We are as responsible as they are.
    *
    Sooner or later all internal divisions
    lead to massacre – both “red” and “white.”
    And speaking of massacre,
    you may have noticed that
    when I made a short list of our assets,
    I included our genocide
    (“first nation to experience genocide in the 20th century"),
    which of course is not an asset but a liability
    and the worst failure that a nation can experience.
    # Friday, June 08, 2012
    ************************************************** ******
    COMMENTS
    ***************************
    To say philosophy is useless is to imply
    philomoronism is a superior discipline.
    *
    The only reason the number of my blunders
    has been going down steadily is that
    so is the variety and frequency of my activities.
    The dead don’t make mistakes.
    As for the frequency and variety of my written comments:
    more often than not what I do is speak in defense of Socrates
    and against the jury that condemned him to death.
    *
    If you want to get ahead in our environment
    study the art of kissing ass.
    You need no other qualifications.
    *
    The greatest source of error is self-assessed infallibility.
    #
    Saturday, June 09, 2012
    **************************************
    ON THE 1%
    *************************
    We are told the 1% create jobs.
    What we are not told is where would the 1% be
    without the blood and sweat of the 99%?
    And even important:
    who would wipe their asses
    when they are too young and too old?
    *
    ON BEING PREDICTABLE
    ***************************************
    If I am predictable
    it’s because I am consistently against
    recycling propaganda,
    promoting subservience,
    and legitimizing prejudice.
    If being unpredictable means
    adopting the opposite disposition,
    I solemnly swear here and now
    never to be unpredictable.
    *
    ON WOMEN
    **************************
    The worst thing I can say about women is that
    they are like men.
    #




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  • arabaliozian
    replied
    Re: elegy

    Sunday, June 3, 2012
    ***************************************
    IF I AM WRONG…
    *********************************
    If I am wrong,
    why so many are with me?
    And if I am right,
    why so many are against me?
    *
    The brainwashed will never be with me
    for the simple reason that they believe – as I did –
    everything they are told by priests, schoolteachers, and scoutmasters.
    I remember as a teenager
    when I first met someone who spoke as I do today
    I dismissed him as a megalomaniacal eccentric
    on the verge of insanity.
    *
    The politically ambitious will never agree with me either
    because in an authoritarian environment
    they know instinctively there is no future in dissent
    which they equate with treason.
    They believe to be – or rather, they are brainwashed to believe
    they stand for God and Country
    and anyone who is against them
    must be on the side of the Devil and the enemy.
    *
    In politics instinct speaks louder than reason.
    That’s the only way to explain the success of dictators like Hitler,
    or for that matter, our own speechifiers and charlatans
    who pretend to be right
    even when they are criminally and catastrophically wrong.
    #Monday, June 04, 2012
    ***********************************
    LAMENTATION VII
    ***********************************
    “Where many other nations perished, we survived!’ – implying,
    we must be doing something right.
    What exactly did we do right?
    We allowed them to legally rape our daughters and kidnap our sons.
    We survived, yes, but at what cost?
    That’s a question we don’t like to ask
    perhaps because the answer is too depressing.
    *
    We survived – if that’s what you want to call it –
    only to die by the million –
    and I am not just talking about massacres now.
    What’s done is done.
    Let bygones be bygones.
    The question we must ask at this point is:
    In what way the conditions of our survival
    radically altered our character as a nation?
    What if we survived only to be subservient to alien commissars
    and our own agha babas?
    *
    We praise freedom even as we bury it.
    We speak of independence even as we go down on our knees
    in fear of our own executioners.
    If that’s survival, I want not part of it.
    *
    No need to lament our dead
    when it is the living that are in need of our tears.
    #
    Tuesday, June 05, 2012
    ***************************************
    ON GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
    **************************************
    The Turks refuse to recognize the Genocide
    for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that
    they are brainwashed to believe
    they belong to a great and noble race of men
    known as the Turanic race
    (known only to them and no one else
    and invented by Kemal, who like all dictators ,
    felt fully qualified to rewrite not only history
    and the laws of the land but also biology).
    It follows, the descendants of such a noble race
    are “incapable of committing atrocities” (Erdogan).
    *
    Turks know that the dead cannot testify
    and the survivors are living proof of the fact
    there was no extermination or a plan to exterminate
    (which is how genocide is defined).
    *
    They also know if they plead guilty as charged
    they stand to lose not only face
    but also billions in reparations
    as well as vast tracts of land.
    *
    Last but not least, they know that truth may be on our side
    but the world is on theirs because all imperial powers
    as well as nations with imperial ambitions,
    including the most civilized and progressive,
    have at one time or another committed
    unspeakable crimes against defenseless civilians.
    *
    All this is known not only to the Turkish leadership
    but also our own Turcocentric academics and ghazetajis
    whose central concern is neither justice
    nor documenting crimes against humanity
    but covering up the incompetence and blunders
    of our own leadership.
    #
    Wednesday, June 06, 2012
    ****************************************
    CONTRADICTIONS
    *****************************
    You cannot reason with the brainwashed.
    Neither can you reason with an imam, rabbi, or bishop.
    What does that mean in practical terms?
    Simply this:
    if you are accused of murder one
    (cold-blooded and premeditated)
    and you are innocent,
    at the end you will be found guilty.
    *
    Where others see men of God,
    I see cold-blooded killers.
    *
    Instead of brainwashing children,
    religious leaders should engage with one another
    and reach a consensus
    beginning with the following three assertions:
    (i) all dogmas are inherently wrong;
    (ii) the will of God is an unknown quantity; and
    (iii) to doubt is more human than to be certain.
    *
    At the root of all wars and massacres
    you will find certainties that are not only false
    but also criminally and catastrophically absurd.
    *
    After asserting all men are brothers,
    they choose to behave like Cain.
    Contradictions?
    What contradictions?
    #




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