insanity

Sunday, June 17, 2012
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THE SULTAN IS DEAD
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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
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QUESTION
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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
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NAPOLEON
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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
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INSANITY
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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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