big lies

Sunday, June 27, 2009
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BARE-FACED BIG LIES
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“God's chosen people.”
“Superior race.”
“The Cradle of Civilization.”
Do you know who popularized the idea of Armenia being the cradle of civilization? A hard-up odar alcoholic academic who got himself a fat check from an Armenian foundation and hoped to get another.
“God's chosen people”?
Chosen for what, may I ask? To be scattered, insulted, abused, and periodically slaughtered by, among others, the self-assessed “superior race” of Aryans?
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Flattery, especially self-flattery, needs no proof. And if you tell a dumb person he is smart, he will not ask you to prove it.
“It is written”?
All that means is that some megalomaniacal idiot confused his illusions with the voice of God. It happens all the time. The inspired loud-mouth charismatic charlatan is a routine occurrence in history and its latest manifestation is the televangelist in the “Land of Liberty,” where one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind was fought in defense of slavery.
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What I find incomprehensible is not that some readers disagree with what I say but that they don't disagree with the state and direction of our collective existence. They are eager to question the words of a scribbler but not the actions and policies of those who are in charge of our communities and the nation. Figure that one out, if you can.
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Monday, June 29, 2009
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ONE DAMN THING AFTER ANOTHER
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In their efforts to advance a new thesis, some odar academics – those we like to quote – have made such extravagant claims on our behalf that even some Armenian scholars (among them Sirarpie der Nersessian) have rejected them as unjustified, unverified, and erroneous.
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Our bruised egos are so hungry for flattery that sometimes we take a disguised insult as a compliment. Case in point: “It takes seven Jews to fool an Armenian.” Translated into ordinary parlance, this simply means: “If you think Jews are bad, I've got news for you: Armenians are seven times worse!”
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There is a big difference between being God's children and being the dupes of charlatans who speak in the name of God.
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If history is “an unending dialogue between the present and the past” (E.H. Carr, WHAT IS HISTORY?), what has been our contribution to this dialogue beside victims?
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Everything that I say today stands in direct contradiction to an early conviction which was instilled in me by individuals with a narrow and dogmatic agenda that distorted reality and perverted my judgment.
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We like to brag about our genius for survival. The irony here is that those who did the actual surviving did not brag about it. I know because I grew up surrounded by them.
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The sad truth is, those who do the most harm to their fellow men are the least aware of it.
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If there is a god, he must be a thirsty one.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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REFLECTIONS
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Man is at his most creative in his invention of lies.
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The biggest lies are half-truths.
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If you speak against those who speak in the name of God,
they will accuse you of speaking in the name of the Devil.
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To be brainwashed means not to question the honesty and wisdom of your abusers.
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A nationalist historian writes about his nation and its enemies.
A historian writes about the past and the conflicting interests of nations.
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Nothing offends me more than being insulted by a fool who has been brainwashed to believe he is smart.
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If you don't have an agenda, everyone with an agenda will be against you.
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Self-esteem is not a reliable index of worth, in the same way that dogmatism is not an index of certainty.
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It is a universally shared human weakness to prefer flattery to criticism, but it is a dangerous addiction to prefer lies to truth.
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To those who accuse me of having a very low opinion of my fellow Armenians, I can only say, nobody really gives a damn what I or anyone else thinks. What matters, what really matters, is whether or not I can tell the difference between fact and fiction.
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