Sunday, June 09, 2013 ************************************ MONKEY BUSINESS ****************************** One does not have to be a prophet to engage in prophecy. All one has to do is adopt the past as one’s guide – that is to say, reality, facts, history as opposed to wishful thinking, illusions, and daydreams. * Raffi Hovannisian lost not because he did not enjoy majority support but because the oligarchs controlled the bureaucracy. We will rise against the oligarchs only after the Russians themselves do so. In the meantime all attempts at reform and revolution are doomed to failure. They are doomed to failure because we are essentially a nation of slaves. Raffi (not Hovannisian but Hagop Meliq-Hagopian) was absolutely right when he said “Treason and betrayal are in our blood.” So is subservience. In the Homeland we are subservient to the Kremlin; in the Diaspora to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. * Our revolutionaries are not revolutionaries. They never were. They rose against the Sultan only when the Turks themselves did so and only when they relied on the verbal support of the West. There is an academic word for this kind of conduct, it’s called mimesis – in common parlance, monkey business. * We may have a better chance to understand ourselves if we study apes. The alternative approach is to place our trust and our destiny into the hands of bloodsuckers, speechifiers, and sermonizers, that is to say compulsive and habitual liars. * Speaking for myself, I would have more trust in an ape; at least an ape is less prone to engage in double-talk, deception, and betrayal. # IN PRAISE OF BEING FALLIBLE ******************************* “You are not always right,” a reader informs me. To be always right has never been one of my ambitions. As a matter of fact, if I had a choice between being always right and being always wrong I would choose being wrong if only because being always right would place me in the same category as some of the worst charlatans, bullies, and mass killers in the history of mankind. * Even when dead wrong, however, I like to believe I never deliberately mislead my readers or exploit their limitations by recycling a propaganda line or speaking in defense of a power structure or regime. How many of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors can say as much? * A good friend of mine once said to me: “I agree with you but I don’t say so in public because they may think you have brainwashed me.” But I am not in a position to brainwash anyone if only because I don’t write for children who cannot yet think for themselves. I write for adults who are free to reject what I say whenever they disagree with me. Neither do I subscribe to a specific ideology or belief system that happens to be my main source of income, prestige, or power. I operate more like a solitary voice in the wilderness and, in the words of Socrates, “My poverty is proof of my honesty.” # SITUATION / SHITUATION **************************************** The higher a man rises the bigger the size of his blunders. How many dared to say to Stalin “You are wrong” and lived to tell the tale? Closer to home: How many have dared to say to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors, “By dividing the community you dig its grave”? * Infallible men are not born but made and what makes them are dupes, cowards, and “yes men” afraid to say the emperor has no clothes, no brain, and no balls. * In the USSR they said Stalin was wrong only after he dropped dead and was buried. “Bishops are men of God,” I was informed by a reader once. “You should speak of them with greater respect.” If bishops are men of God, bosses source of power and prestige, and benefactors sources of income, that only means our own mini-sultans and neo-commissars continue to live, rule, and scare the shit out of anyone who dares to question their wisdom, integrity, honesty, dedication, patriotism, infallibility, and statesmanship. “Mart bidi ch’ellank!” # THE HUMAN CONDITION *********************************** Honest men: do they exist? I am not sure. I would define an honest man as one who has not yet been exposed as a crook. * From Roman emperors to Ottoman sultans – mankind has been at the mercy of ruthless crooks and pathological liars. Has anything changed? * If Zohrab was taken in by Talaat and Stalin by Hitler, can anyone claim to be immune to propaganda? * If we are smart, why do we consent to be subservient to a political leader with the moral compass of an ape and the charisma of a robot? Are North Koreans, Syrians, Turks, Russians, and Latinos better off? What about Greeks and Italians? * What about the Swiss? Where would they be without the money of blood-sucking tax cheats? What about Canadians? Listen, I live in Canada and I read the papers. Don’t talk to me about honest men. I could go on… #