plu

Sunday, May 20, 2012
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P.L.U.
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“They are not P.L.U. (people like us).
They have no respect for the law.
They have ruined our image as a nation.”
“They” of course are Armenians from the former Soviet Union.
*
Armenian-Americans who speak in those terms
forget that in 1933 they staged
one of the most spectacular assassinations in American history
when a gang of fanatics butchered a bishop on Christmas eve
in a New York cathedral – an event and the trial that followed
that made a thousand headlines throughout the continent.
*
Most Americans may no longer remember this
but people who matter, high-placed individuals in Washington,
policy-makers, have a long memory
and have very illusions about their fellow men.
In their eyes, we are not P.L.U either.
*
Notwithstanding Saroyan, we are not cute.
If the Yanks are kindly disposed towards us
it may be because we speak too much of massacres
and they consider it their duty
to be on the side of innocent victims.
*
God did not create more Russians and Americans,
or for that matter Arabs and Turks.
There is a good reason why we are few:
cannibalism.
*
We either learn from our mistakes
or we develop a phobia of repeating them,
and fear is never a good policy.
#
Monday, May 21, 2012
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ENGINEERS OF DESTRUCTION
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Sermonizers remind us we are all sinners.
Speechifiers tell us we are not
as patriotic as we should be.
We are all sinners, granted, with one difference:
some of us don’t make a comfortable living
by exploiting someone else’s crucifixion.
In the eyes of God we are all fools.
But some of us don’t deliver sermons on wisdom.
If I knew how to pray I would say:
“Our Father, who art in heaven,
deliver us from our deliverers.”
#
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
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ON DISAGREEMENTS
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Men disagree because they are dupes
who believe they are too smart to be brainwashed.
Nationalists disagree because they believe
they are morally superior
even when they behave like the scum of the earth.
Wise men disagree because they rate self-interest
above truth which they believe to be
an invisible and unattainable abstraction.
In short, men disagree because
they are stupid, arrogant, and dishonest.
Which may suggest an “honest disagreement”
is an oxymoron
with emphasis on the last two syllables.
#
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
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ON HISTORIANS
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To understand history we must begin by understanding historians.
To what extend tribal loyalty and self-interest
color their values and worldview?
Why is it that the overwhelming majority of them
are subservient to the power structure within which they function?
If an independent body of experts
were to rate their integrity or objectivity,
how many of them would be classified as propagandists?
Why is it that the average dupe (or 99%)
treats them the way Italians treated Mussolini
(“Mussolini ha sempre ragione” = Mussolini is always right),
or Catholics treat the Pope,
or generally speaking, sheep treat their shepherd
whose ultimate aim is to deliver them to butchers?
The only plausible answer is that given by a lion tamer
when asked why he takes his lion to church every Sunday morning:
“He has to eat.”
#




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