Saturday, June 08, 2013 ************************************* AS I SEE IT ********************************* Some divide and conquer, others are divided, conquered, butchered and never learn. * One does not speak of ropes in the house of a hangman, neither does one speak of vegetarianism in the house of a butcher – which is what we do when we speak of genocide recognition to Turks and Yanks. * You want peace? Criminalize brainwashing. * We overestimate the value of what we know even when what we know is a big lie. * The aim of literature? To call an idiot an idiot. * We need solutions? A big lie! What we need is implementation. # POLITICS AND RELIGION *************************************** When I say I don’t believe in god I mean the god of rabbis, imams, and bishops (including the one in Rome). * Anyone who has had the patience and perseverance to read the final pages of EXODU and the first pages of LEVITICUS will be justified in suspecting that god is a control freak badly in need of a shrink. * The faith of rabbis, imams, and bishops has deep ties with power, prestige, and income. Take away one of these ties and you may end up holding an empty bag. * The difference between fascists and the ideology of our own political parties is that fascists criminalize free speech and our political parties silence dissent. The result is the same. * And now consider what they share in common: nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and anti-Semitism, namely “the three pillars of fascism.” * The secret ambition of all sermonizers and speechifiers is to brainwash you to believe you belong with the 1% even when you are the scum of the earth. I speak from experience. During World War II in Greece I was both stateless and homeless but I was “educated” to believe my god was the only true god. * I am not an atheist. I believe in the Unknown, the Unknowable, and the Incomprehensible because I believe Nothing cannot create Something. # MY MESSAGE **************************** If you are a reasonable man use your brain. If you are a patriotic Armenian stop saying ‘Yes, sir!” to our dividers and grave-diggers. If you are a good Christian stop hating your brother. If you are smart stop being a dupe. Remember, Jesus did not say the Kingdom of God is in the words of speechifiers and sermonizers but "within you." Remember also in a democratic environment leaders are not your masters but your servants. They don’t tell you what to think; you tell them what to do. # ARMENIANS IN BOOKS ******************************** In her brilliant and erudite study of Nabokov – THE SECRET HISTORY OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV (New York, 2013) – Andrea Pitzer mentions and discusses Armenian refugees, massacres and genocide on a number of occasions. Among individual Armenians she quotes and discusses are Nina Berberova, an early admirer of Nabokov, herself a brilliant novelist and the author of a remarkable autobiography titled THE ITALICS ARE MINE; and Azat Oganesian, about whom she has this to say in her Acknowledgments: “Translators played a key role on my research. King among them is Azat Oganesian, my research assistant, who poured through and translated interminable numbers of articles I sent him from RUL, the Russian-language newspaper in Berlin, as well as making trips to various libraries on his own to help with this project.” #