this and that

Thursday, January 24, 2008
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FROGS
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Speaking of our revolutionaries, one of our elder statesmen once compared them to “frogs trying to rape an elephant.”
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Save the nation? Part the Red Sea? Change water to wine? Raise the brain-dead? I leave these things to better men than myself. I write. That’s the only thing I do because that’s what all writers, including our own, have always done. I write to express my thoughts and sentiments as honestly and objectively as I can. Let others do what they will with them.
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Where honesty and objectivity are equated with self-hatred and betrayal, free speech will be violated in the name of God and Country.
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To say my country, right or wrong, is less nationalism and more narcissism, and as such, less ideology and more pathology.
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Our pundits are more interested in settling old scores than in the welfare of the nation. Perhaps because, in Einstein’s words: “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.” Or, frogs cannot solve problems created by elephants.
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Instead of trying to solve problems created by others, let us begin with problems created by us, such as: respecting one another’s fundamental human right of free speech, engaging in dialogue, and developing a consensus. I wonder why is it that these problems are ignored by our “betters.” Is it because they don’t require any capital investment and no letters that end with their favorite mantra, “mi kich pogh…”
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Friday, January 25, 2008
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DEFINING FASCISM
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One reason why I write about our problems is that I don’t know much about Eskimo and Patagonian problems. As for Canadian problems: once, when I dared to say something on the subject, I was told to go back where I came from. That put an abrupt end to my career as a Canadian critic.
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We are all born fascists. But whenever we confront another fascist unwilling to relinquish his infallibility, we are given a chance to reconsider our political convictions.
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I once asked a Turcocentric pundit if he had read a single Armenian writers and he said he had not, after which he advised me to write more about Turkish atrocities. I didn’t ask him to define patriotism, but if I had, my guess is he would have said “hatred of Turks,” which may suggest there is more Ottomanism and less Armenianism in his worldview.
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Bad things happen to good people because when bad people do bad things to bad people, they don’t give a damn about collateral damage. That’s how Turks see the Genocide – as collateral damage, which is something that happens in every war, beginning with Homer’s ILIAD.
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We have a better chance to reach a consensus with the Turks if we tell them, we understand why they did what they did and we would like them to understand us when we say what they did was not right.
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Our bosses, bishops, and benefactors are convinced they are saying what must be said and doing what must be done, and they resent usurpers like me who try to muscle in their territory.
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It would be a mistake to underestimate the power of our hoodlums. They may seem to be a harmless and non-representative minority, but all they need to become a murderous majority is someone like Hitler and Stalin.
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“Hoodlumism in the name of patriotism,” is as good a definition of fascism as any.
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Saturday, January 26, 2008
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ALIEN TRASH
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You cannot tell people what to think and how to feel. You can only speak of your own thoughts and feelings and all the mud that is flung in your direction by dupes simply because you refuse to subscribe to their lies, which are not even theirs; or, as Zarian puts it: “even their trash is picked up from alien streets.”
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I cannot adapt. I cannot change colors like a chameleon. Call it an evolutionary failure. My kind may well be headed for extinction. That doesn’t mean I will exit in silence.
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To how many of my critics (if you will forgive the overstatement) I could say: When I was your age – and it makes no difference if you are nine or ninety – I too pretended to know and understand things that I didn’t, and succeeded only in making an ass of myself.
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No man can be said to be an authority on his fellow men, let alone himself, because most of our real self is buried in our subconscious. We can only speak of unverified and unverifiable theories and guesses.
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No need to contradict someone who lives in a world of illusions because reality will be his most effective and persistent contradictor.
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