words

June 20, 2010
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SKINHEADS ARE NOTBORN BUT MADE
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QUESTION: Who is a skinhead? Can you define him?

ANSWER: If you insult those who disagree with you, you qualify. It goes without saying that where there are skinheads, there will also be architects of a context within which skinheads thrive. Likewise, where there is racism, there will also be academics, historians, political and religious leaders and pundits who will equate patriotism with fascism.

Q: Do we have such a thing as a dominant idea today, and if we do, how would you define it?

A: Turcocentrism is our dominant idea and I would define it as the misconception that Turks are the source of all our misfortunes. It goes without saying that Turks deserve all the epithets we heap on them. It is equally true that we could heap the same number of epithets and then some on ourselves and our own leadership.

Q: Such as?

A: Incompetence, lack of self-reliance, ignorance of history, divisiveness, tribalism, intolerance, myopia bordering on blindness, inability to discriminate fact from propaganda, too much dependence on benefactors and charity and hardly any discernible effort on exposing and eliminating corruption.

Q: How do we combat these aberrations?

A: We begin by not silencing or insulting those who disagree with us.

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June 21, 2010
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READING GANDHI
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“We hold that the civilization that you support
to be the reverse of civilization.”
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“I am fighting against three opponents:
the British, the Indians, myself.”
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“Violence is a result of fear.
Dishonesty is fear.
Fearlessness is the key to Truth.”
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“God is neither in heaven, nor down below,
but in everyone.”
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This last quotation might as well be a paraphrase of
“The Kingdom of God is within you.”
But if the Kingdom of God is within us,
so is the Empire of the Devil.
How else to explain wars, massacres, and man's inhumanity to man?
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And speaking of fear:
I think of readers
who insult me anonymously
and from a safe distance.
What are they afraid of?
What else but being exposed for what they really are –
skinheads who have been brainwashed by liars.
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More often than not men look up to liars for moral guidance
and are more than willing to kill and die in the name of a lie.
How else to explain organized religions
and religious wars, persecutions, and intolerance?
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Primitive man was wiser and more civilized
when he believed in an unknown and unknowable Power
which was the source of all good as well as evil.
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June 22, 2010
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KIND WORDS
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“What have you really done for your country and fellow countrymen?” I am asked once in a while by readers who, as dupes of “men of action,” have been brought up to believe contemplation is a waste of time and those who engage in it no better than mental masturbators.
To them I say: Sometimes what we don't do can be as important as what we do.
Allow me therefore to tell you what I have not done:
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I have never said, as God's favorite people, we can do no wrong.
I have never spoken in the name of God (whom I believe to be incomprehensible) or Truth (which I believer to be unknowable).
I have at no time tried to legitimize our failings by saying we have none.
Neither have I covered up our contradictions of which we have many.
I have not treated my readers as dupes who will believe anything they are told.
I have never written a Panchoonie letter that ends with the line: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money).
I have not violated anyone's human rights by silencing him.
I have never said “Yes, sir!” to leaders whose number one concern is number one.
I have consistently refused to join the chorus of our Turcocentric ghazetajis and speechifiers in ascribing all our defeats and catastrophes to our enemies and phony friends.
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Have I accomplished anything?
I don't know.
What are my chances that some day I may succeed where far better men than myself have failed?
Probably next to none.
Why do I go on writing?
That is a question I ask myself every day and so far I have failed to come up with a remotely satisfactory answer.
Am I a useless member of the community?
If I am, I do not consider that to be entirely my own fault, but the fault of readers who believe action (even the wrong action) to be superior to contemplation.
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In a commentary in today's paper I read the following quotation by Al Capone: “You get much further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.”
If so far I have failed, it may be because I have used only kind words.
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June 23, 2010
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DANGEROUS WORDS
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If I were to name the two most dangerous words, they would have to be “I believe.”
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The wold is too ready to criticize and condemn Jews for the suffering they have inflicted on Palestinians during the last decades but less willing to criticize the world for the suffering that has inflicted on Jews during the last centuries, not to say millennia. I call this disparity a symptom not of anti-Zionism but of anti-Semitism – an 'ism” or a belief system as dangerous as any organized religion that has declared and fought wars, committed massacres, and murdered innocent civilians in the name of God or Truth.
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Speaking of religions with their holy books and monopolistic claims: I suggest they should be judged not by their intentions or principles but by their history. Theory is one thing, practice another. Ideologies like nationalism and communism may have good, even noble intentions, but their abuses have been such that even some of their most dedicated adherents had no choice but to reject them.
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As for capitalism: recent economic and political developments in America have made it abundantly clear that in practice, it means free enterprise for the poor and the unemployed, and socialism for the rich and chief executive officers.
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Organized religions like Christianity and Islam have not only behaved as though they had a license to kill not only the foreign infidel but also the domestic heretic. Consider the case of Catholics versus Protestants, or Shiites versus Sunnis...
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A belief system acts on the human brain like a potent drug or alcohol.
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And speaking of drugs and chief executive officers: Early this morning I heard on the radio that the tobacco industry has given up the claim that smoking is not addictive or that it does not cause cancer. We may now look forward to the day when the Pope of Rome will also give up his absurd claim of infallibility. But I for one am not holding my breath.
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