Sunday, January 06, 2013 *********************************** WORK WITH ME *********************** “What motivates you to write as you do is self-hatred.” There is some truth in that; but hatred only of my former self when I was a dupe and believed everything I was told by my elders. * “How dare you blame the victims?” I blame them only in so far as they allow themselves to be victimized all over again by charlatans who speak in the name of God and Country but whose first and most important priority is their own powers and privileges. * “You are an enemy of the nation.” An enemy yes, but only of perennial losers who speak with a forked tongue and have consistently refused to learn from their blunders. An enemy to them certainly, but the best of friend to the ignorant, the oppressed, the dupe, and the slave who have been subservient to brutal tyrants for so many centuries that they can’t imagine what it means to be free. * “I believe nothing you say!” That’s because very much like me you were “educated” to place your trust on our dividers, that is to say gravediggers who pretend to be unaware of the fact that by dividing the community and the nation they carry on a policy initiated and implemented by sultans and commissars. * “Sometimes I have no idea what you blabber about endlessly.” I can give you arguments, cite historic precedents, quote an international array of pundits, intellectuals, philosophers, and even our own writers on our character as a people… I can do all that and more but what I cannot do is give you understanding. # Monday, January 07, 2013 ***************************************** REFLECTIONS ********************************** If I were to use a less rude and crude style of writing when dealing with our foibles and failures would I have a better chance of convincing some of my readers that they are brainwashed dupes? Maybe. I am not sure. But I am sure of one thing. It would be unspeakable arrogance on my part to think I can say something that hasn’t been said before by far better men than myself. * If I write the way I write it may be because deep inside somewhere I have given up. If 1500 years of literature failed to change a single iota in our collective existence what chance do I have? Think of what I write as another lamentation – the lamentation of an unbeliever or an atheist who believes in god but a god who is unknowable and incomprehensible and wants to stay that way. * I believe the best argument against the existence of god is organized religions. I know now that even if I were to speak with the tongue of angels and prophets I would make no difference because an Armenian is first and foremost an impenetrable wall. # Tuesday, January 08, 2013 *********************************** ARMENIANS AND JEWS *************************************** No one is beyond salvation. But my guess is if 1500 years of literature failed to save us, only a messiah may have a better chance. * I once heard an Armenian lady say: “I don’t care what everyone says. Jesus was not a Jew but an Armenian. They crucified him; we were the first to accept him.” * A Jewish friend once said to me: “You are lucky. Only Turks are after your ass. The whole world is after ours.” * As a young man Zarian had messianic ambitions. But in America they spread the rumor that he was a madman. In Armenia they silenced him. We did not crucify him. We buried him alive. * I once heard an Armenian Negro – that’s right: a black Armenian from Africa who spoke Armenian fluently say: “Jews have a superior mutual support system.” That’s common knowledge of course. It is also common knowledge that we speak about it all the time, but nobody does a damn thing. Talk is cheap. Actions may boomerang. * Suppose a bishop were to sermonize on unity, a member of the congregation would be justified in asking: “Would you consider resigning your position for the sake of unity?” * Some Armenians – especially Armenians from the Middle East – see Jews everywhere. By contrast I see Armenians everywhere. Officially there are no more than a dozen Armenian families where I live (population 500,000). But whenever I open the telephone book I see an Armenian on every page. * Our chief of police is an Armenian. For many years our orchestral conductor was also an Armenian. I once wrote him a letter asking if he would be willing to be interviewed – that’s when I contributed regularly to several weeklies. There was no reply. # Wednesday, January 09, 2013 ***************************************** THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW ***************************************** All dupes identify themselves as patriots and all idiots like to be called smart. And that’s exactly what propaganda does: it flatters as it moronizes. * I am not smart. I just deviated from the conventional and narrow path by a fraction of an inch and saw a different horizon. * An Armenian is another Armenian’s Turk. If all Turks were to disappear tomorrow, nothing would change. * If there are no atheists in foxholes it’s because in foxholes one becomes a target of the unpredictable, that is to say the Incomprehensible and the Unknowable, which is as good a definition of God as any. * If “taxation without representation is tyranny,” fund-raising without accounting is larceny. * The ambition of every sardine is to be a shark. * On the day I realized I could say what I think (as opposed to parroting a propaganda line) I felt as though I had discovered a new continent. * The only thing our political leaders have learned from history is how to create a new generation of dupes and idiots. #