friends

Thursday, April 14, 2011
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FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
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If we define friends as those who agree with us,
and enemies as those who disagree,
we shall have to conclude that
some of our best friends are Turks,
and some of our worst enemies are Armenians.
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Our greatest enemy is not the Turk
but free speech.
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Where free speech is the enemy
there will always be men at the top
who pretend to know better.
They may not be historians, economists, or philosophers,
but they will pretend their understanding
of history, economy, and philosophy to be superior
to anyone else’s, and there will always be others
willing to agree with them.
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Even mighty empires are afraid of words.
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Tyrants rule by inspiring fear in others
but they are themselves afraid of words.
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In undemocratic environments
men are ruled by cowardly fools.
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Friday, April 15, 2011
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THREE QUESTIONS,
THREE ANSWERS,
& TWO MORALS
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If the Americans refuse to recognize the reality of our genocide,
what are our chances of some day convincing the Turks to do so?
My guess is:
1 in 1,5 million.
*
If Americans who like to identify themselves
as champions of democracy, free speech and human rights
are afraid to use the “g” word,
what are our chances that some day
in the near or distant future
the Turks will include that word
in their dictionaries, encyclopedias, and textbooks?
This time I will let you do the guessing.
*
Third question:
What do Americans stand to lose in this context?
A friend in the Middle East?
What about Turks themselves?
What do they stand to lose?
The obvious answer is:
billions in reparations (money they don’t have)
and an important fraction of their real estate
which they stole from us 600 years ago
as, more recently,
Yanks stole America from the Indians,
“fair and square.”
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At the turn of the last century,
our revolutionaries promised freedom and historic Armenia
but delivered death and pestilence.
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Moral I:
If you make a promise you can’t deliver
your credibility is bound to sink lower
than a snake’s belly full of buckshot.
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Moral II:
You fooled me once, shame on you.
You fooled me twice, shame on me.
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You find what I say depressing?
Don’t blame me.
Blame reality.
I deal in facts, not fiction.
If you prefer fiction,
read romances with happy endings.
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Saturday, April 16, 2011
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IS GOD A FASCIST?
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Who hates writers?
Fascists.
Where fascists enter
writers are silenced.
If you don’t believe me
it may be because you suffer from amnesia.
I suggest you refresh your memory
by reading a book on fascism
or a history of our literature.
*
In both the Ottoman Empire under Talaat
and the USSR under Stalin
our writers were the first victims.
And if you say,
“So you dare to think of yourself as a writer?”
I will reply:
“I don’t speak as a writer.
I speak as a witness
who refuses to be a dupe
and to recycle the propaganda
of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
who speak in the name of God and capital
(make it, Capital and god);
and I speak as I do
because I refuse to believe God is a fascist.
Fascists are afraid of free speech
because they want everyone to believe
they are infallible and
they hate to be exposed as frauds.
God, by contrast, is afraid of nothing.
This may suggest that God,
unlike the god of popes, imams, and rabbis,
is neither a fascist nor a fraud,
and because I say so
it doesn’t necessarily follow
that I am in league with the Devil.
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