Saturday, June 01, 2013 **************************************** WHO’S WHO ************************* “You are a disgrace to the nation!” Am I really? What about our oligarchs and kleptocrats whose greed is surpassed only by Wall Street CEOs who have been successful in convincing themselves and others that they are too big to fail? What about our brown-nosers who have not yet kissed an ass that didn’t smell like roses? What about our superpatriotic paranoiacs who see inauthentic or second-class or bastardized Armenians everywhere? What about our bosses, bishops, and benefactors whose sole contribution to our collective existence has been the introduction of meaningless dogmatic divisions that make us more vulnerable to so-called historic, economic, social, and cultural forces beyond our control? What about our crypto-Stalinist neo-commissars who miss the good old days? What about our dupes who believe everything they are told? Am I really a disgrace to the nation or those who dare to speak in its name? # WHEN I WAS YOUNG ****************************************** When I was young I relied on the judgment of my elders. Now that I am old I can rely on no one but myself; and when I consider the long list of blunders that I have committed I have no choice but to conclude that I must just about the least reliable person on earth; and if you think those who are now in charge of our collective destiny are wiser than I am, all I can say is that we all entertain illusions that we hate to give up notwithstanding the evidence against them. * To put it differently: you are right not to trust my judgment but you have fewer reasons to trust the judgment of your “betters” because historic reality tells us in no uncertain terms they may well be the worst scum on earth. # DEATH WISH ************************** Judge a man by his actions not his words. Judge an ideology or religion by its history not its sermons and speeches. It follows, if we were to judge a nation by its history we may have to conclude that Syrians don’t think they deserve to live, Armenians don’t think they deserve to be a nation, and Turks use the nationalist or Kemalist card the way a serial killer uses the insanity plea. Perhaps death wish plays a larger role in human affairs than we like to admit. Perhaps in politics what matters more than lust for power is the instinct to kill and die. If, that is, we base our conclusions on facts as opposed to speculation and propaganda. #