Thursday, January 17, 2013 ************************************** PHOBIA ************************** Because I am against divisions and dividers on the grounds that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” I am identified by some readers as an enemy motivated by “self-hatred.” The true aim of these “critics” is not to expose contradictions or inconsistencies in what I say but to discharge verbal manure – in the words of one such critic from the Homeland: “You are full of shit, Baliozoglu!” * The fact is, our dividers divide us not because they think divisions are good for us or because they believe in unassailable or infallible dogmas but because that’s how they make a living. Divisions are their bread and butter in addition to being their sole source of power and prestige. To attack their source of income or to expose them as charlatans, as they see me doing is almost to condemn them to starvation. * If the “starving Armenian” is a cliché, fear of starvation must be a phobia shared by all dividers who must know they can’t fool all the people all the time and anyone who can think for himself will sooner or later identify them not as the saviors of the nation but as its gravediggers. # Friday, January 18, 2013 **************************************** EXTRAPOLATING ********************************** Our situation is not as bad as I have been describing it. It’s much worse! If for a hundred years after our genocide we have failed to develop a consensus, can we even dare to hope that some day jihadists will come to terms with infidel dogs? * We live in a world where everyone thinks everyone else has been brainwashed and is therefore subhuman and beyond salvation. In such an environment World War III, that is to say, universal genocide becomes inevitable. This is now as clear to me as daylight. What is the solution? There is none! * When the brainwashed meet the brainwashed there can be no dialogue, compromise, and consensus. And when Armenian meets Armenian – you may now draw your own conclusions. The verdict “mart bidi ch’ellank” applies to all mankind and by the time our superpatriots realize we are only a minor footnote in an unwritten text it will is too late. * In a sense, a man of faith who believes in the next world has already committed murder and suicide in the name of a dehumanized god that rules over a dehumanized mankind. * There is a 1952 French film titled NOUS SOMMES TOUS DES ASSASSINS (We are all assassins). If I remember correctly it dealt with the French Revolution on one level and World War II on another. I know now that it deals with the world in which we live. # Thursday, January 17, 2013 ************************************** PHOBIA ************************** Because I am against divisions and dividers on the grounds that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” I am identified by some readers as an enemy motivated by “self-hatred.” The true aim of these “critics” is not to expose contradictions or inconsistencies in what I say but to discharge verbal manure – in the words of one such critic from the Homeland: “You are full of shit, Baliozoglu!” * The fact is, our dividers divide us not because they think divisions are good for us or because they believe in unassailable or infallible dogmas but because that’s how they make a living. Divisions are their bread and butter in addition to being their sole source of power and prestige. To attack their source of income or to expose them as charlatans, as they see me doing is almost to condemn them to starvation. * If the “starving Armenian” is a cliché, fear of starvation must be a phobia shared by all dividers who must know they can’t fool all the people all the time and anyone who can think for himself will sooner or later identify them not as the saviors of the nation but as its gravediggers. # Friday, January 18, 2013 **************************************** EXTRAPOLATING ********************************** Our situation is not as bad as I have been describing it. It’s much worse! If for a hundred years after our genocide we have failed to develop a consensus, can we even dare to hope that some day jihadists will come to terms with infidel dogs? * We live in a world where everyone thinks everyone else has been brainwashed and is therefore subhuman and beyond salvation. In such an environment World War III, that is to say, universal genocide becomes inevitable. This is now as clear to me as daylight. What is the solution? There is none! * When the brainwashed meet the brainwashed there can be no dialogue, compromise, and consensus. And when Armenian meets Armenian – you may now draw your own conclusions. The verdict “mart bidi ch’ellank” applies to all mankind and by the time our superpatriots realize we are only a minor footnote in an unwritten text it will is too late. * In a sense, a man of faith who believes in the next world has already committed murder and suicide in the name of a dehumanized god that rules over a dehumanized mankind. * There is a 1952 French film titled NOUS SOMMES TOUS DES ASSASSINS (We are all assassins). If I remember correctly it dealt with the French Revolution on one level and World War II on another. I know now that it deals with the world in which we live. # Saturday, January 19, 2013 ***************************************** NOTES & COMMENTS ***************************** The shortest list in the world, that of Armenian statesmen. * The least quoted document in the world: the Armenian Constitution. Speaking for myself, I don’t even know if it has a single Amendment. * How many Armenians? Hard to say. What if most Armenians are ashamed to identify themselves as Armenian? * More often than not Armenian readers disagree less with my ideas and more with my right to think. * Where there is too much propaganda there will be too little free speech. * Silence reason and usher in insanity. Silence dissent and tyranny is sure to follow. * An Armenian is a white Negro to another Armenian. * Some of my readers want me to write about the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat and nightingales serenading the moon so that they can safely ignore me. * Two recent books of great photographs: KARSH: BEYOND THE CAMERA, Selected with an Introduction and Commentary by David Trevis, and KALOUST: RETROSPECTIVE (Toronto Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society). #