notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
**********************************
NOTES / COMMENTS
************************************************** ****
Moral superiority, especially the self-anointed kind, is such a cheap commodity that even the penniless can afford it. Even primitive Brazilian jungle tribes have myths whose sole aim is to assert their moral superiority. May I confess that I am so tired of being a morally superior loser that my secret ambition now is to be a morally inferior winner.
*
Only the brain-dead think they know and understand all they need to know and understand. Self-satisfaction is a tomb.
*
The brain-dead cannot think. They can only say “yes, sir!” to the unthinking.
*
Every civilized and progressive nation has a set of laws whose sole aim is to protect the people from their leaders. Since we never had such laws, most abuses of power in our institutions and bureaucracies have gone unexposed, and when exposed, unpunished. I tremble to think what will happen on the day the average patriotic Armenian discovers this fact.
*
You cannot argue with somebody who thinks you are nobody.
*
There are many forms of cowardice, surely one of the worst must be fear of free speech.
*
Every Armenian is infatuated with the aroma of his own b.s.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
**********************************
THE ARMENIAN PRESENCE
************************************************** ****
In the last five books that I checked out from the library, I have run into Armenians in all of them.
*
In NATASHA & OTHER STORIES by David Bezmozgis (New York, 2004) there is a student identified as an “Armenian” and named Arnan (probably Arman).
*
In Ted Sorensen's political memoirs, COUNSELOR (New York, 2008), the Armenian mentioned and discussed is Anastas Mikoyan.
*
In Edmund Wilson's LITERARY ESSAYS & REVIEWS OF THE 1930s & 1940s (New York, 2007) there are two pieces on Saroyan, one of which is a review of THE ADVENTURES OF WESLEY JACKSON and the other a long overview of Saroyan's works, where we are told Saroyan was more influenced by Hemingway and less by Sherwood Anderson.
*
In VENICE: PURE CITY (London, 2009) by the prolific Peter Ackroyd we read about the Armenian island of San Lazzaro, “Where Byron travelled to learn the Armenian language as a way of exercising his mind among the more sensual pleasures of Venice.” The next sentence reads: “There as a colony of Turkish merchants, established as the Fondaco dei Turchi, where a school for the teaching of Arabic was maintained.”
*
In THE RICHNESS OF LIFE: THE ESSENTIAL STEPHEN JAY COULD (New York, 2006) the Armenian is George E. Boyajian, a biologist at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a study “on ammonite suture lines.”
Elsewhere Gould speaks of “our cursed tribal tendency to factionalize, fight, and then, so often in righteous certainty, to define our opponents as vermin and try to expunge either their doctrines (by censorship and fire) or their very being (genocide).”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, December 17, 2009
**********************************
REVOLUTIONS
************************************************** ****
When a revolution succeeds, the revolutionaries turn against one another and engage in cannibalism. This is what happened with the French and Russian revolutions.
When a revolution fails, it becomes a footnote.
But when a revolution results in genocide, it traumatizes the brain so severely that reality becomes a blur, and the line that separates fact from illusion is obliterated.
*
The study of history deals not only with what others have done to us, but also with what we have done to ourselves. To emphasize one at the expense of the other is to distort our perception of reality.
*
Our history is not just a catalog of crimes committed against us by others, it is also a much longer catalog of miscalculations and blunders committed by us.
*
God does not extend His support to those who don't support one another.
*
The first step in all solutions to our problems: To approach a new idea with an open mind.
*
The greatest truths are also the simplest.
*
I repeat myself?
Why shouldn't I?
TV commercials repeat themselves all the time.
And it works.
It must!
If it didn't, they wouldn't waste millions on them.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Friday, December 18, 2009
**********************************
POWER & MONEY
************************************************** ****
Nothing can be more deceptive and dangerous than to believe the religion and history taught in schools. If Americans, Armenians, Turks, and any other nationality you care to mention were not duped as children into believing what they are taught to believe, they would no longer be loyal, that is to say subservient, subjects of their rulers. Which means, they would refuse to pay taxes (which is something they would like to do in any case) and even more important, in time of war, they would do their utmost to avoid being conscripted. All rulers know this and none of them would even consider changing things even if it means continuing to legitimize ignorance, prejudice, lies, hatred, wars, and massacres.
That is why to speak the truth in a world of liars and dupes is considered a capital offense. That is also why to seek wisdom means to provoke persecution, exile, execution, and assassination.
On the day mankind sees the light, we will have only one God and one history, as opposed to ten thousand lies.
If mankind prefers to live in darkness, it may be because the exercise of power has always been more enticing than knowledge and understanding.
It is amazing the things people do for money. Even more amazing is the things they do for power. And power is like money in that one can never have enough of it.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Saturday, December 19, 2009
**********************************
SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE
************************************************** ****
My greatest blunders were committed with total unawareness.
So much so that it didn't even occur to me to question their moral validity.
That doesn't make me feel less guilty today.
If anything, the opposite is the case.
I know now that I cannot plead not guilty
by reason of ignorance of the law.
Jung is right: unawareness is the greatest sin.
*
Lies have a propensity to generate more lies.
It is not at all unusual for a single Big Lie
to kill six million truths
and as many innocent lives with a clear conscience.
*
To be unable to read between the lines
is also a form of illiteracy.
*
To say or think “i am smart,”
is the surest symptom of arrested development,
and in some cases,
advanced moronism.
*
The hardest thing to master in the art of writing
is the art of deleting.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, December 20, 2009
**********************************
LIES
*****************************
Lies. I was brought up on lies - lies spoken in the name of patriotism and self-esteem, but lies all the same.
I was told being an Armenian was a rare privilege.
I went into the world thinking the world owed me something - respect, sympathy, apology, admiration.
I soon discovered the world had no time or interest in taking notice of my existence. The world didn't give a damn about me.
The world didn't even know who Armenians were.
That's when I began to understand why some smart Armenians changed their names and assimilated.
Others preferred to stay away from their fellow countrymen.
Still others of mixed parentage hid their Armenian fraction.
What the hell was going on here?
Was the world full of ignoramuses and traitors?
It took me a while to realize that the world was what it has always been; and that I was the ignorant one in thinking there was something special in being an Armenian.
I know now that we are a people like any other people or we would be if we didn't try so damn hard to appear better or superior.
One could even say that, what makes some of us inferior is thirst for superiority.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Monday, December 21, 2009
**********************************
ACADEMICS
*****************************
Never judge a nation by its history as written by its own historians. A Turk who believes in Turkish historians is as much of a dupe as an Armenian who believes in Armenian historians.
All historians write with a bias, and I don't just mean nationalist, racist, or religious bias. Case in point: in a recent edition of the ENCYCLPAEDIA BRITANNICA the entry on Talaat, as written by a Turcophile historian, mentions only one violent death, Talaat's own by an Armenian assassin.
How to explain this outrage? Very easily:
(one) the historian treated the Turks as useful political allies of his own nation;
(two) there are many more potential buyers of the Encyclopedia in Turkey than in Armenia;
(three) since academics these days are a dime-a-dozen and the competition is fierce, they are willing to write anything for thirty pieces of silver.
I am not saying this particular academic is a bad man and a shameless liar willing to prostitute his discipline and expertise. I am saying, we live in a world with the moral standards of a bordello, and Armenians are no better (see below).
It is to be noted that this particular academic cannot plead ignorance of the Armenian genocide in view of the fact that in one of his first books on Turkey he mentions and discusses the Genocide in some detail. My guess is, that's when the Turks invited him to Turkey, gave him the red-carpet treatment, and made him see the light. They did the same thing to Toynbee with the same result, but not quite. Though he became a Turcophile, Toynbee never denied the Armenian genocide, but he did deny the republication of his book on the Genocide.
And speaking of red-carpet treatment, and this time by Reds: A prominent Tashnak leader was once invited to Yerevan by the Soviets and returned to America a chic Bolshevik. Whenever I would publish an anti-Soviet commentary in our weeklies, he would write me poison-pen letters and call me nasty names.
#

[ArmSurvival]

Re: elegy

Kind of a late reply but...

It is undeniable that certain Salonicans of hebraic origin played key roles in the Young Turk movement and that, in general, the interests of Armenians and j ews in Turkey diverged sharply in terms of their respective self-interests or nationalisms

Thank you, this was my main point. However, I want to take the next rational step, which is to delve into their involvement and their motives, which most people are not willing to do for one reason or another.

This does not mean that the Young Turk organization was controlled by a bloc of hebraic leaders to serve exclusively Zionist ends and that the non-hebraic majority were simply unwitting puppets being used for this purpose. The fundamental goal of the Young Turks was to save Turkey for the Turks, and in this they were served by Karasso and the other dönmeh who had significant roles in the CUP. In terms of carrying the day for Zionism, they did not, no matter what their private feelings might have been.

If we look at the events in hindsight, it worked right in the favor of the Zionists. When the Zionists realized in the early 20th century that the Ottoman Sultan would not sell them Palestine (Rothschild among others had offered to buy it for an extremely large sum), they began to work against the Ottoman Empire. And as is the usual tactic among Zionists, they infiltrated the society from within, clandestinely. Do you honestly think it was mere coincidence that just months after the Ottomans fell, the Zionists received a mandate over Palestine?

And the goal of the Young Turks, as you said, was to save Turkey for the Turks. However, it was the J ewish members of the Young Turk party like Carasso who were the original advocates and most aggressive endorsers of Turkification policies throughout the Ottoman Empire. They started the experiment in the Balkans, which was the most vulnerable region in terms of creating ethno-nationalist conflict, which was sure to create opposing national doctrines from the many ethnic groups in the Balkans and elsewhere. It was even a J ewish professor who conceived and developed the idea of Pan-Turkism to begin with! Why would a J ewish guy in Europe be concerned about Turkic nationalism unless it served some kind of larger interest? It is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that J ews have played a significant role in both the creation and implementation of Pan-Turkist policies.

I find it hard to believe that a movement that would not have been possible without J ewish and Donmeh capital, and was thus controlled by J ews and Donmehs for the most part, and whose very core ideology was conceived by a J ewish professor, cannot be attributed to J ews in the same way we attribute blame to Turks, Kurds, and Germans. Why do J ews get a free pass? If you say they are powerful and we shouldn’t pick fights with powerful people, then I would agree, which is why I don’t publicly talk about this topic myself. However, if your reason for not attributing the crimes to those guilty persons of J ewish origin is because you have a favorable slant towards J ews, then I am in complete opposition to you. The noticeable pro-J ewish sentiment among many Armenians explains why the J ewish involvement has not been studied more thoroughly. Let’s put J ews on the same pedestal as Turks, Kurds, and Germans, in order to study their involvement, their crimes, and their motives. That’s all I’m advocating here.

And we shouldn't implicate all the hebraic people of good conscience in the suffering of Armenians by throwing stereotypic labels around, especially in consideration of those who have distinguished themselves in defending the historic interests of Armenians in so many invaluable ways and will continue to do so if we give them half a chance.

I’m not implicating “Hebraic people of good conscience”. I’m implicating Hebraic people of bad conscience. By your logic, we shouldn’t hold Turks or Germans responsible since there are a small number of intellectuals from both countries that adamantly endorse the Armenian viewpoint.

While I share Armenian resentment of the ongoing alliance between Turkey and Israel in quashing the truth of the Armenian Genocide, it's a big mistake to turn history into a grotesque caricature of itself by saying "Talaat", the hideous overseer of the Genocide, was a Hriah, based on a dubious remark by the flaky mercenary adventurer Rafael de Nogales who wasn't even sure of his own identifty and probably had Armenian blood on his sword, especially when no responsible scholarship suggests anything of the kind. The dönmeh Salonicans offered their services to a much larger Turkish nationalism for the benefits that offered them, both personal and cultural. But to suggest that they were the ones whose supposed Zionist motivations were the indispensable factor leading to the Armenian Genocide is dangerously irresponsible.

Forget Nogales for a moment. The word from numerous journalists and historians who dealt personally with the Young Turks is that the party was mostly run by J ews. We also have these same people who claim that the activities of the Young Turks were financed by J ewish and Donmeh capital. We also know the three reasons for the Ottoman downfall were Pan-Turkism which was created by the J ew Vambery, and its implementation throughout the empire courtesy of Carasso and his J ewish buddies, and the entrance by the Ottoman Empire into WWI, which was encouraged and advocated by these same J ewish figures within the Young Turk party. We also know that Zionist J ews received a mandate over Palestine even before the Ottoman Empire crumbled. So how can you claim that such an organized sequence of events, which had heavily documented J ewish involvement at all levels and greatly benefitted Zionism, was not organized by J ewish Zionists? Your theory attributes all these events to mere coincidence.

as a scribbler i trust writers more than politicians.
obviously, as a man with political ambitions, you place your trust mire in our wheeler-dealers, dupes, and fools.

Its interesting that you would think I have political ambitions. I wonder what I have written to give you that impression. The truth is, I have no connections with any Armenian political parties.

we were massacred not because people like me (i assume you mean Baronian, Odian, among others, who made fun of our revolutionaries) but because our "leaders" were taken in by the empty verbiage of the West.

Our leaders at the time were telling us to resist. I think thats a pretty well-established fact, but correct me if I'm wrong. They were “taken in by the empty verbiage of the West” because they had no support from their own people. Ottoman-Armenians themselves had no will to resist. For someone who usually references Armenian writers, why don’t you pay more attention to Baronian, who documented the depravities and mental sicknesses of the typical Ottoman Armenian?

[Diranakir]

Re: elegy

ArmSurvival: Welcome back late or not. You have been an excellent opponent and I've learned a lot I didn't know about the CUP because of your challenges. It's been a real eye-opener, I assure you. But I still have a problem with your approach and your tone about J ews and question your sweeping interpretations of history. So let me get down to a couple of brass tacks:

You say that numerous journalists and historians say the Young Turks were run and financed by the J ews. Can you give me one quote from a legitimate historian (not a journalist) who says that in so many words? You say that the J ewish members of the CUP leadership were responsible for Turkey's entry into WWI. Do you have any historical evidence that there was a split within the party along J ewish non-J ewish lines about entering the war? Or is this just connecting dots to suit one's preconceived ideas? I would really appreciate the facts, if you have them.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Tuesday, December 22, 2009
**********************************
BIG EGOS & SMALL DIC*S
*****************************
An Armenian knows better not because he is wiser, older, more experienced, or more widely read, but because he assumes his fellow Armenians to be dumber than he is.
*
To how many of my fellow Armenians I could say, “With Armenians like you, who needs sultans and commissars?”
*
No matter how hard I try I cannot pretend to be a proud Armenian. Proud of what, may I ask? A thousands years of subservience to scum? – and I don't just mean foreign scum.
*
Jacques Chirac: “Sumo wrestling is a fine art, which is not always the case with political combat.”
*
Life has a way of cutting down to size anyone whose assessment of himself exceeds his real worth.
*
The reason why some men have big egos is that (according to Freud, Jung, and Adler, who agree on nothing but agree on this) they have small dic*s.
#