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Sunday, January 08, 2012
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JACK S. AVANAKIAN
STRIKES AGAIN
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“I write all the time and
I never run out of things to say,”
one of our writers
(let’s call him Jack S. Avanakian)
once bragged to me.
“I can write about anything,” he went on.
“I can even write about not being able to write.”
Maybe so, I remember to have thought.
The question is, is what you write readable?
I for one have never heard anyone say.
“Last night I had some fun reading Jack S. Avanakian
and came across the following interesting line...”
Only the intellectually bankrupt brag.
*
One of the worst things that can happen to a man
is saying or even doing the wrong thing
with the conviction that it is the right thing.
And if you think that’s exactly my case,
allow me to remind you that
everything I say has been said before
by far better men than myself.
Originality is not one of my priorities.
My aim is to remind readers of things
they no longer remember or they prefer to forget.
Our educational system is designed to promote amnesia.
As a result we are a nation that suffers
from collective and self-induced
and departmentalized Alzheimer’s.
We have the memory of elephants
when it comes to what others have done to us,
but we pretend not to remember
what we have done to ourselves.
Which is where I come in.
#
Monday, January 09, 2012
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IF
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If the thing you need most is money,
prepare yourself to be exploited.
If what you need is understanding
prepare yourself to be misunderstood.
If you need respect,
prepare yourself to be insulted.
What we need and what we get
might as well be black and white.
*
I believe there is life after that.
I have no doubt about that.
It’s one of the very few certainties that I cherish.
Just because I die,
it doesn’t mean everybody else does.
Life goes on.
*
If they have jackasses as leaders,
even the smartest people on earth
will be defeated by the dumbest.
*
The greatest obstacle to progress
is the sensible man who says:
"You cannot change human nature.
Nobody listens. Nobody gives a damn.
You are wasting your time."
#
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
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THE MEANING OF PROPAGANDA
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“You don’t have to think,” propaganda tells us;
“I will do the thinking for you.
Because I can think and you can’t.
You are an ignoramus.
You are nothing.
You are what I tell you you are.”
*
It’s astonishing how many are taken in
by this line and willingly surrender
their most valuable possession
(the ability to think for themselves)
to megalomiacal and bloodthirsty charlatans.
*
By flattering our collective ego
(first nation this, first nation that,
God’s favourite, creative, progressive…)
propaganda dehumanizes us
by confiscating that which makes us human
by replacing “I think therefore I am” with
“I don’t think therefore I am a good Armenian.”
Instead of facts, propaganda gives us fiction;
instead of reality, fantasy;
instead of progress, paralysis and stagnation.
*
On the last page of Kafka’s TRIAL,
the central character
identified with the single letter K
is butchered “like a dog” and no one knows why.
Kafka doesn’t explain.
He provides no answers.
He didn’t have to.
K represent Germans, Spaniards, Russians, Jews, Armenians…
in short, 20th-century man
who was brainwashed and butchered in a ditch
for no reason at all.
That’s the real tragedy – our tragedy.
Not to die for a good cause
but to be butchered by anonymous executioners
working for faceless men
who operate on the assumption that
they know better because God is on their side.
*
Did I say God?
Make it the Devil!
There it is, the true meaning of propaganda:
“Speak in the name of God
and do the Devil’s work.”
#
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
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VARIATIONS ON A FAMILIAR TUNE
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An ideology or a religion should be judged
not by its dogmas and commandments
but by its propaganda:
the more propaganda the more lies.
The more systematic its indoctrination
or educational system
the more dishonest its assertions and certainties.
The more authority sources (holy scriptures and hierarchy)
the more fascist.
The more rituals the more mumbo jumbo.
The more monumental its architecture
the shakier its foundations
(remember the pyramids and
the construction of St. Peter’s in Rome).
The longer its history
the more uncertain its future.
*
If millions of Turks are brought up
to be proud of their identity,
then pride (not just theirs but all pride)
must be just about the phoniest means of achieving self-esteem.
I will go further and say,
where there is pride there must also be more reason for humility.
Where there is peace there must be a throne of blood.
The American Civil War is proof of the fact that
to defend democracy it is necessary to employ fascist means.
*
We are defined not by our assets
but by our liabilities – especially liabilities
that parade as assets.
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