notes/comments

Sunday, June 29, 2008
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ON COMMISSARS AND RELATED ATROCITITIES
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The following notes and comments contain coarse language and mature subject matter. Parental guidance is advised.
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When I speak in the name of common decency and use my common sense, they call it philosophy, and they think the aim of philosophy is to confuse and mislead law-abiding, tax-paying, and patriotic citizens like themselves. They seem to be unaware of the fact that philosophy is a Greek word that simply means love of wisdom, and the alternative to philosophy is therefore philomoronism.
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Our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century and myself today share similar ambitions: we are both like frogs trying to rape an elephant. The elephant in their case was an empire. In my case it is the lies of propaganda. And of the two, it is hard to say which is the mightier adversary. But then, if I lose, I have only wasted my time. No harm done. Not a single innocent civilian will be lost, and forever after I will not condemn myself to play the blame-game.
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Whenever I am asked a question, more often than not it is not an honest question but a loaded one, or in legal parlance, a leading one, which in a court of law would be immediately followed by the triad, “Objection,” “Sustained,” “Withdrawn.”
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Dishonesty comes so naturally to us that even in our search for knowledge and understanding we manipulate reality in such a way as to certify our illusions. So that, if I were to quote the celebrated dictum “Truth shall set you free,” one of our ubiquitous Jack S. Avanakians is sure to stand on his hind legs and bray: “So you think you know the truth?” -- meaning of course “You arrogant s.o.b!” My usual answer to that leading question is: “No, I don't know the truth. Only God (if He exists) knows the truth. But I can recognize a lie when I hear one; and I can also recognize a self-appointed commissar of culture when I see one.”
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It must be painfully frustrating, perhaps even humiliating to our commissars that we live in a democratic America rather than in a totalitarian USSR, where they would not only be free to cross-examine their victims but also put a bullet in their brain. Unmask these dealers in patriotic slogans and expose an executioner.
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Monday, June 30, 2008
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DELISH!
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Anything that's worth saying is worth repeating. I, for one, never get tired of rereading and quoting the delicious lines that follow, if only to remind myself what I am against. Enjoy!
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From a popular Armenian song:
“One Armenian eats one chicken,
Two Armenians eat two chickens,
Three Armenians eat each other.”
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Gostan Zarian: “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.”
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Anonymous mantra:
“Mart bidi ch'ellank.”
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Yeghishé (5th-century historian): “Solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones.”
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Shahan Shahnour: “The enemy is not theTurk but us.”
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THE PROBLEM
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“The problem of who speaks for the Armenians is still acute,” writes Charles King in his THE GHOST OF FREEDOM: A HISTORY OF THE CAUCASUS (page 11). That may be because our chiefs outnumber our Indians.
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CONFESSION
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Some of my gentle readers tell me I disappoint them whenever I fail to come up with a new or original or creative idea that will save the nation and usher in a new Renaissance or Golden Age. I am flattered of course that they think me capable of performing such a miracle. I am afraid I shall have to disappoint them again by admitting that I am nothing but an overworked and underpaid shit-disturber, and if their desire is to see the nation saved, they should get themselves a messiah, which should not be difficult because Armenian messiahs are a dime a dozen.
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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
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SITUATION / SHITUATION
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Those who know how to think for themselves probably see me as someone who is doing his best to emulate them. It is those who cannot think for themselves that resent me and would like to see me silenced, and if possible, massacred; and they are my most faithful readers. If I ever become a best-selling author, I will owe it to them.
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I don't write against my critics and detractors. I write against myself when young, naïve, ignorant, brainwashed, self-satisfied, and a loud-mouth smart-ass know-it-all.
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My sole aim in life now is to be readable. As long as they read me, I have them by the short hair. As for saving the nation: the nation and I swim in the same soup. We are both dependent on the charity of swine. On the day I save myself, saving the nation will be the number one item on my agenda.
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Whenever a reader makes a specific demand on me, I am tempted to ask: “And how would you like your pizza – with or without anchovies?”
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If an Armenian disagrees with you, he will not say “I disagree with you.” He will call you a fool, an idiot, and a pro-Turkish bastard who should be tarred, feathered, and driven out of town on a jackass. The trouble with us is not that we don't know how to agree with one another but that we don't even know how to disagree.
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We like to explain the massacres as politically motivated actions. But what if they are also expressions of visceral hatred, the kind that I seem to provoke in some of my readers, and vice versa?
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Wednesday, July 2, 2008
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SECRET PLEASURES
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We all have our secret pleasures.
One of mine is needling windbags.
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In order to reach XYZ
we must begin with ABC
and we haven't yet begun.
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If in crime it's cherchez la femme
in political blunders it's cherchez the dividers.
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Why do you think a small island in Europe
was successful in colonizing an Asiatic subcontinent?
Simply because the English were united and the Indians divided.
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The Holocaust may be traced back to what happened 2000 years ago when the Jewish leaders divided the people into those who believed Jesus to be the Messiah and those who believed him to be a blasphemer.
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Nations are divided by leaders who cannot reconcile their differences because they speak in the name of God. When God enters in an argument, the Devil is sure to follow.
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Theology: the science of the Unknown and the Unknowable.
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For many centuries we were subservient to foreign despots from sultans to commissars. Today we are subservient to the lies of our own propaganda. Vicious circle or downward spiral?
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