fund-raisers

Thursday, November 18, 2010
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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When I hear a lie I instinctively guess the truth that contradicts it.
The more outrageous the lie, the more obvious the truth.
One reason I never run out of things to say
is the fact that we swim in an ocean of lies.
*
Asked to define art and its function in society,
a Brazilian painter is quoted as having said:
“I don't know. All I know is this:
art is art, or it's sh*t.”
*
One of our elder statesmen
once mentioned a distant cousin of his in Paris
who had slept with Brigitte Bardot,
implying we Armenians have another thing to brag about.
*
What if the universe, as we know it,
is only a short footnote on the main text of existence?
*
I don't believe in prophetic dreams.
But I do believe that on some subconscious level
we may grasp the meaning of our past and where it's taking us.
*
By dying we return to our pre-born state.
We continue to exist as atoms but not as consciousness.
*
Wealth enslaves man as surely as poverty.
*
One nation's dream may be another's nightmare.
*
Some of the most offensive e-mails I have received
are from academics – men with degrees in degradation.
*
It takes less than 25 years (or a single generation)
to Americanize an Armenian.
Now imagine what 600 years (or 24 generations)
in the Ottoman Empire may have done to us!
What if the Genocide is only a small fraction of the total damage?
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Friday, November 19, 2010
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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When asked why he robs banks,
a gangster is quoted as having said:
“Because that's where the money is.”
If you were to ask one of our fund-raisers
or Turcocnetric ghazetajis
why he speaks of reparations,
my guess is, he will give you the same answer.
*
When a reader insults me anonymously
I know I have hit paydirt and I dig deeper.
Intolerance is my favorite muse.
*
We are told our problems are not ours but the world's.
It is our duty therefore to educate and reform the rest of mankind,
beginning with Turks.
To which I can only repeat the words of the Duke of Wellington:
“If you believe that, you will be anything!”
*
You don't agree with me?
Our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
don't always agree with one another either.
Why should we?
*
If as an Armenian writer you can go on speaking
after you have been silenced
and surviving after you have been starved,
you have earned the right to repeat
Jimmy Cagney's famous last words in WHITE HEAT:
“Top of the world, ma!”
*
I like to quote famous men,
including gangsters and imperialist warmongers,
to underline the fact that not everything I say
springs from my own narrow and biased view of reality.
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Saturday, November 20, 2010
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SUMMING UP (II)
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What I really write about when I write about Armenians is the human condition.
Why do men behave as they do?
Why do they believe and think as they do?
What are the hidden forces that shape their character and motivate their actions?
*
Nazis in Germany, Bolsheviks in the USSR, Fascists in Italy and Spain, proud Yanks in America who believe America to be “the land of the brave and the free”:
I maintain they are all dupes of state propaganda.
In “Rule Brittania” Brits sing “An Englishman cannot be a slave.”
And Armenians, who have been slaves for most of their historic existence, think by replacing the words “teshvar, ander”* in their national anthem with “azad, angakh”** they cease to be slaves.
*
I believe the function of propaganda is to enslave men, and the function of literature is to liberate them by exposing lies and illusions.
Everything I write has a single unspoken message: “If you want to be free, become aware of your present dehumanized condition of subservience.”
If you allow others to shape your thoughts, you cease to be who you really are and become a parrot; and parrots can say and repeat only two words, “Yes, master!”
God (if He exists) does not enslave men, men do, especially men who speak in the name of God – make it, especially men who lie in the name of God.
*
Once upon a time our betters were sultans and commissars, which amounts to saying, our betters were the worst scum on earth. And if you believe this is no longer the case, you will believe anything!
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(*) “Miserable, without a master.”
(**) “Free, independent.”
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