scumbags

June 27, 2010
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SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO
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When men in a position of power and responsibility
promise one thing and deliver the opposite,
I call that much worse than incompetence,
I call it criminal conduct.
When our revolutionaries promised
freedom, independence and our historic lands
and they delivered
massacres, starvation, pestilence, and dispersion,
and having done so they now say
none of it was their fault
and they are believed by dupes,
I call that much worse than
b.s., lies, and charlatanism;
I call it the quintessence of evil.
*
I love books that expose b.s.
One such book that I enjoyed recently is
Laura Penny's
YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US:
THE TRUTH ABOUT BULLSHIT.
In this morning's paper
I read that Laura Penny has published another book titled
MORE MONEY THAN BRAINS:
WHY SCHOOL SUCKS,
COLLEGE IS CRAP
AND IDIOTS THINK THEY'RE RIGHT.
I have something to look forward to.
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June 28, 2010
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THE KING IS DEAD,
LONG LIVE THE KING!
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Prophets and reformers may change the world
but they cannot change human nature.
What have the major religions really changed?
The 20th century has seen more revolutions, wars, and massacres
than at any other time in history.
That's because human nature tends to adapt,
that is to say, to lower
the noblest ideas and ideals
to its own level, namely the gutter.
*
I suspect the honesty and integrity of men
who subscribe to a belief system
simply because as children
they were educated (that is, brainwashed)
to trust and respect their elders.
I am not saying
all Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Marxists are dupes.
I am saying most of them are.
Exceptions exist.
But I don't speak of exceptions.
I speak of rules.
*
Reformers may change the power structure
but not human nature.
And changing the power structure means
replacing one set of rascals with another.
You gain nothing by replacing one sultan
with many mini-sultans,
or one czar with many commissars,
and many commissars
with many more crypto- or neo-commissars.
#
June 29, 2010
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SELF-ANALYSIS
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Confucius: “If you see a good man, emulate him.
If you see a bad man, examine your own heart.”
*
If you want to know what's wrong with us,
Naregatsi tells us, examine your conscience.
Exposing and naming your own sins
is more important than
bitching endlessly about your enemies.
In that sense, Naregatsi, like so many of our writers
from Khorenatsi to Zarian,
may be said to have been a dissident.
*
You want to know why I write the way I write?
To keep alive the voice of dissent in our media.
*
If revolution is organized and armed dissent,
I may be said to be an unarmed and solitary revolutionary.
Which is why I feel justified in maintaining
I am not silenced by the offspring of revolutionaries
who dared to challenge the might of an empire,
but by empty suits whose greatest enemy
is neither the Turk nor the Russian,
but their own fear of being exposed as cowards.
#
June 30, 2010
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ON OUR MEDIA
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Freedom of the press will not turn bad writers into good ones.
Granted. It may, however, de-emphasize Turcocentrism,
which shamelessly exploits our emotions
and distracts us from focusing on our present problems
of which we have many.
*
SCUMBAGS (I)
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A capitalist makes money at other people's expense
and to combat his guilt, he builds churches
and by doing so he compounds his felony
by making the blasphemous assumption that
God can be bribed by scumbags.
*
A MATTER OF CHOICE
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The world or reality provides evidence
for contradictory belief systems.
As a result, both a believer and non-believer
will find all the evidence they need
to justify their choice of credo
and to accuse the other of siding with the devil.
Our convictions are not based in reality
but on our perception of it
and our choice of evidence.
*
SCUMBAGS (II)
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There is a type of scumbag
who thinks the only way to prove he is right
and the other wrong
is by going down into the gutter
on the assumption that a decent man
will refuse to follow him there.
But then he runs the risk
of running into a scumbag like me
who can take it as well as dish it out.
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