tell me!

Sunday, March 20, 2011
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TELL ME SOMETHING
I DON’T KNOW
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You don’t like criticism and dissent?
Get over it.
Get used to it.
Get real.
Even God has His share of critics and dissenters.
You prefer yes-men?
May I remind you that all power structures,
including the most corrupt and criminal,
rely on yes-men.
Hitler and Stalin had them.
So did Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame.
Massacres and genocides are unthinkable without them.
And if, like every Tom, Dickhead and Harry,
you say you prefer those who are with you
to those who are against you,
may I ask in what way are you different
from the rest of mankind?
Tell me something I don’t know.
So what else is new?
What matters is not on whose side we are
but how we define good and evil.
When asked to define good and evil,
an African tribal chieftain
is quoted by C.G. Jung to have replied:
“When I steal my enemy’s wives, it’s good.
When he steals mine, it’s bad!”
If, on the other hand, you say
you prefer patriots to traitors,
consider what happened to German patriots
when Hitler lost World War II,
and what will happen to Gadhafi and his henchmen
after his regime collapses.
Today’s patriot may be tomorrow’s traitor
and today’s dissenter may be tomorrow’s hero
and role model. And if you think
you are never wrong in your judgment of your fellow men,
I say, every misguided fool thinks so too.
#
Monday, March 21, 2011
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SELF-DECEPTION
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“My people love me!”
declared Gadhafi the other day
even as he was slaughtering a fraction of them.
Did he believe in his own lie?
The more relevant question is:
Can power and honesty coexist?
*
If Gadhafi is a compulsive liar,
what about popes, imams, and rabbis?
What could be more absurd than to say,
all political and religious leaders lie except our own?
*
Because truth is beyond men’s reach,
they will believe in a thousand lies
even after these lies have been exposed.
*
Mine is not a David-and-Goliath confrontation
but rather that of a horse-fly and a horse – make it,
a jackass.
#
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
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ON ARMENIAN ANTI-ARMENIANISM
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All our problems have solutions.
If we pretend otherwise
it’s because we have no use for them.
What we want,
what we need more than anything else is revenge.
It’s understandable.
What motivates a nation
that has been degraded, abused, and slaughtered
throughout most of its historic existence
is not reason but thirst for blood.
What drives us is not what’s good for us
but what’s bad for our enemies --
beginning with Armenians who disagree with us.
If only because these Armenians,
unlike our real enemies,
are within reach, defenseless,
and in no position to retaliate.
*
Armenian anti-Armenianism:
not exactly an original insight that one.
Granted.
Rather, it’s an idea as old as Khorenatsi and Yeghishé
(historians of the 5th century).
According to Zarian, a more recent witness:
“Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.”
And in case you ascribe that view
to an isolated and non-representative intellectual,
allow me to quote the lyrics of a popular song:
“One Armenian eats one chicken,
Two Armenians eat two chickens,
Three Armenians eat each other.”
*
As for our political parties
whose job it is to solve our problems:
all they do is legitimize dogmatism, intolerance,
and ultimately cannibalism.
After which they voice one of their favorite mantras:
“What we need is not criticism but solutions.”
And if you believe that,
you’ll believe anything!
#
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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“YOU REPEAT YOURSELF”
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We all do.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Why single me out?
Am I saying something you don’t want to hear?
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
“Of the gods we know nothing!”
I wonder why is it that the charge of repetition
is never leveled against propagandists
who repeat not ideas – because they have none –
but slogans, clichés, inanities, and lies.
What drives them?
A thirst for justice?
What about the injustice of violating someone’s free speech?
*
Nothing works as planned.
They must have known this.
Why else did they have a Plan B only for themselves?
Their heart was in the right place?
What about their brain?
Where was their brain?
Out to lunch?
#