Thursday, October 11, 2012 ******************************** WHAT HAPPENED *************************** We should have seen it coming but we were blind. So was our leadership. And we all know what happens when the blind lead the blind… * When Raffi said, “The Ottoman Empire is no place for Armenians; they have no respect for human life there,” we said, what the hell does he know? * When Roupen Sevag’s German fiancée visiting him in Istanbul said: “I don’t like these Turks,” he said: “You don’t know them, I do. Deep down they are nice folk. You’ll change your mind after you get to know them.” He was one of the first to be butchered. * When on the eve of the Genocide Zohrab warned: “This time they will massacre indiscriminately,” they said “Zohrab effendi is exaggerating.” Some left, among them Siamanto, but they found life abroad so alien that they returned only to be slaughtered. * When Oshagan said “Homeland,” he meant Istanbul. * It happened gradually. It didn’t fall on us like a thief in the night. It began fourteen centuries ago when their Prophet dehumanized all non-Muslims by classifying them as infidels. * It happened six hundred years ago when we surrendered our fate into their hands and said in effect: Henceforth we will serve you faithfully and obediently. You want our daughters? You can have them. Our sons? You can have them too. * It happened when Protestant missionaries taught us to sing “Onward Christian soldiers,” which they (Turks) assumed to be some kind of war chant and that we were in cahoots with the infidel West and were planning an invasion. * It happened when the rumor spread that Turkish girls in the Balkans were being crucified. A myriad other factors contributed to the final catastrophe, but again the accumulation of details was so gradual and we were so blind that we pretended to notice nothing. * We thought if the Great Powers of the West are on our side we had nothing to fear. We behaved with the arrogance and stupidity of people who assume to be invulnerable. * I am reminded of this arrogance and stupidity again whenever we of the Diaspora are called “aghber” by our own Bolshevik brothers and sisters in the Homeland. * An English traveler at the turn of the last century in Armenia: “What magnificent landscapes. What wretched people!” * Mart bidi ch’ellank! # Saturday, October 13, 2012 **************************************** ON DISAGREEMENT ******************************* At the root of all disagreement there is an unspoken line that says: “You are not smart enough or good enough to contradict what I say.” And at the root of all megalomania there is self-deception. All authority is suspect. * THE MORE THINGS CHANGE… ************************************** Muslims today treat infidels with the same ferocity that Catholics treated heretics in the Middle Ages. * BULLIES ********************** They invent a god so that they can speak in his name. In other words, their belief system is rooted in their need to bully the weak and defenseless with a clear conscience. * PERVERTS ************************ Religions, theology, Holy Scriptures, popes, imams, rabbis: these things interest me only in so far as they reveal the workings of the human mind or rather the perversities of the human brain. As for the nature of god and the next world: not only do I not believe a word they say but I am also offended by their shameless audacity in treating me as if I were a helpless retard in need of their charlatanism. # DEATH WISH ***************************** Divisions exist because people consent to be divided; and people consent to be divided even when it means digging their own graves. Freud’s death wish may also be defined as a universal and unconscious desire to commit collective suicide… or self-inflicted genocide. * ON BEING NEGATIVE ****************************** Two questions: When Socrates said, “Ignorance is the source of all evil,” was he being positive or negative? When the Scriptures say, “Truth shall set you free,” thus implying we are slaves of lies: would you call that a positive or negative assertion? * ON MAFIAS ***************************** Judge a tree by its fruit, an idea by its history, an ideology by its lies, a religion by its mafia and a mafia by its number of innocent victims. #

Wednesday, October 10, 2012 ************************************** DESTINY *********************** Who is in charge of our destiny? Surely not the regime in Yerevan which is a puppet of the Kremlin; and surely not our political parties in the Diaspora that (in the words of a friend) cannot even lead a dog to the nearest hydrant or catch a cold in a flu epidemic. Perhaps the right question in this context is not who is in charge of our destiny but do we have one? * We are taught to brag about our genius for survival. What we are not told is that the greatest challenge isn't surviving our enemies but our own leadership. * I quoted a friend above. I should have said a former friend. My former friends outnumber my present friends a hundred to one. * Last week I made a new friend. This week he made it abundantly clear that I will make him very happy on the day I drop dead. Easy come, easy go. #

secrets

Thursday, October 4, 2012************************************** OPEN SECRETS**************************** On the day good Turks and good Armenians are allowed to form an alliance, all their differences will be resolved amicably and to their mutual advantage. *As for bad Turks and Armenians: all I can say about them is that they deserve one another. *Did I say good Turks and good Armenians? Make it, good half-Armenians and good half-Turks. Pure-blooded Armenians and Turks are a fiction of nationalist propaganda. They don’t exist. Very much like Americans, both Turks and Armenians have been thoroughly bastardized. Nothing wrong in that. On the contrary. Very much on the contrary! Bastardization promotes co-existence, peace, and prosperity. That’s an open secret. You want proof? Everybody wants to immigrate to America. Who in his right mind would want to move in the opposite direction?*Both good Turks and Armenians are today at the mercy of bad men who owe their position of eminence to big lies (the deification of Kemal) and fear (constant and endless talk of massacres). Nothing good can come from lies and fear. That’s another open secret.#Friday, October 05, 2012************************************* ECONOMICS 101****************************** Who understand economics? Not even economists. For every economist who says one thing there is another who says the opposite. Truman once said he would like to meet an economist with only one hand, because after each statement they make, they add “on the other hand.” *The favorite word of my professor of economics was “interdependence.” He used it in every other assertion he made. That’s because every factor in economics is dependent on another. *Corporations prosper only when the middle and lower classes can afford to buy their goods and services. The state is not a corporation whose priority is to balance books, show a profit, and to trim the fat by eliminating programs and decreasing spending. *Economics cannot be divorced from history. They are interdependent. FDR, like Obama, had to deal with depression and war. He increased the number of government programs. And it worked. Under Eisenhower (a Republican) the tax rate for the wealthy went up 91%. America survived as well as prospered. So did Europe with American help (the Marshall Plan). *Bush (II) was right when he said the wealthy don’t pay taxes because they have smart accountants who take advantage of loopholes and when they run out of them they hide their savings in offshore banks. (Does that ring a bell?)By contrast the middle and lower classes spend what they make and whenever money moves, a fraction of it goes to creating jobs and taxes. *Who understand economics? The answer is those who in the past confronted and were successful in solving the same problems that we confront today.#Saturday, October 06, 2012***************************************** WHAT’S IN A NAME?****************************** Iraklis (Greek), Hercules (English), Hercule (French), Ercole (Italian), Hergele (Turkish). Moral: One nation’s hero is another’s hoodlum.*In a book on Azerbaijan, I remember to have read once that General Antranik’s name is as well known to Azeris as Talaat is to us.*PRIDE AND PREJUDICE********************************* For everyone who brags “I am proud to have been a member of the Communist Party,” I should like to hear at least two who say “I am thoroughly ashamed to have been a member of a criminal gang.”* A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH**************************************** I once received the manuscript of a short story with a note that said: “Do you think I should encourage my son’s literary ambitions?” In my reply I said: "If your son is in need of encouragement, he cannot be a writer.” I had another hidden reason for saying that. Only a sadist would condemn an innocent boy to the fate of a perennial loser forever dependent on the charity of swine.#

1001

Sunday, September 30, 2012************************************** 1001******************* We are a nation of a thousand and one Watergates and we are engaged in a collective and almost unanimous effort to cover them up in the name of patriotism. What follows is only one of them.*For a hundred years now we, Armenians of the Diaspora, have been demanding an apology from the Turks who not only have been stonewalling us but also calling us liars. Has anyone ever asked an apology from our former Bolsheviks in the Homeland who terrorized, oppressed, betrayed, exiled, and murdered fellow Armenians who refused to say “Yes, sir!” to the Kremlin? To add insult to injury, role models like Sylva Kaputikian openly declared to have been proud members of the Communist Party. And to think that these “authentic” Armenians call us, Armenians of the Diaspora, “trash.” If that’s what it takes to be an authentic or patriotic Armenian, I want no part of it. If that’s what living in the shadow of Mt Ararat does to Armenians, I say I will never set foot there. *So what if I will never qualify as a first-class citizen? So what if, in the words of a gentle reader from the Homeland, I am not better than “a piece of shit!” All I can say in my defense is that I have done my utmost to qualify as a human being. Can our patriotic brothers and sisters in the Homeland say as much? *To those who try to be authentic Armenians like the natives, I say: Get yourself another hobby because you will never make it. You will never rise above the status of “white niggers,” “trash,” and “shits.” Far better men than yourself have tried and failed miserably. For more on this subject read Zarian’s posthumously published NOTEBOOKS and DIARIES.#Monday, October 01, 2012************************************** IT TAKES ALL KINDS********************************** Patriotism and prostitution: in our environment they might as well be synonymous. I suspect the integrity of our patriots as I suspect the virginity of a bordello madam. *Speaking of madams: I remember to have read somewhere that the wealthiest woman in Turkey was a bordello madam by the name of Manoogian – an easy name to remember. *I once met an Armenian who knew everybody who was somebody in our communities. Privately he was full of venom about our “great” men; publicly he led an anonymous existence. What did he do for a living? I am not sure. But between the lines I gathered he was dependent on the charity of swine. *My father knew nobody and nobody was interested in what he thought. He too led an anonymous existence. His last job was that of a dishwasher in a Greek restaurant. *Once, when asked to deliver a speech, I said: “Writing is hard. Speaking is harder.” That’s when I did nothing but recycle chauvinist crapola in whatever I wrote. On another occasion when asked in the presence of an audience why I was not interested in encouraging the next generation of writes, I said: “We need readers, not writers.” You might say I belong to the haiku school of speechifying. *If I ever write another book – which I doubt I ever will – I have two tentative titles: “The Swan Song of a Jackass,” and “The Memoirs of an Anonymous Nobody.”#Wednesday, October 03, 2012************************************ BROTHERS********************************* A few years ago I lost several Armenian friends from Syria because I dared to disagree with them when they said Arabs are friendly people and they love Armenians.*Patriotism: not one of my favorite words perhaps because every Armenian has his own definition of the word whose aim is to divide the community into friends and enemies,The hidden source of this aberration Seems to be less political and more biological.*The world may be divided into friends and enemies and if you want to survive, you must kill. If you don’t kill you will be killed. Timing is of the essence. Do not procrastinate. Kill him as soon as you can. Kill him even if you don’t have a good enough reason to hate him. Kill him even if he is your brother.*I learn something every day, that’s how ignorant I am.#Wednesday, October 03, 2012******************************************* THE BEST REVENGE********************************** A French writer once said that if your wife runs away with a man, the best revenge is to let him keep her. You may call this turning the other cheek. I call it employing a lethal weapon with which to inflict maximum damage.*BIG LIES********************* No matter how big the lie, it will be believed by some. Kennedy was assassinated by the Mafia. Hitler was a Jew. Obama is a Muslim. The Russians are our big Brothers. The Serpent in the Garden of Eden was a CIA agent in disguise. There are superior and inferior races. God’s Chosen. Seventy-three virgins. Armenians are smart.*SHADES OF GRAY**************************** Our problems are as clear as black and white. If they seem more as shades of gray it’s because an entire class of academics, bureaucrats, hirelings, hangers-on, partisans and panchoonies have been brainwashed to believe their survival depends on convincing the 99% into thinking patriotism consists in being a dupe and thinking for oneself is pro-Turkish.#

theology

Thursday, September 27, 2012 ***************************************** THEOLOGY *************************** If God exists, why does He go out of His way to make Himself inaccessible and incomprehensible? If Truth is One, what is it that drives us to invent ten thousand lies? If the Kingdom of God is within us, where is the Empire of the Devil? * “If I cannot answer the most important question, am I not fooling the reader?” Chekhov said. I suspect if we ever have the Answer – which may or may not happen in our lifetime – we will say, But of course! What else? I should have guessed. I had eyes but couldn’t see, ears but couldn’t hear, and a brain but couldn’t think. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 ********************************************* EASY QUESTIONS / OBVIOUS ANSWERS ********************************************* With religious leaders like popes, imams, and rabbis, who needs religion? With Scriptures like the Bible and the Koran that legitimize divisions, intolerance, the persecution of heretics, and the murder of infidels, who needs Scriptures? With monarchs like the Romanovs in Russia, the VIII Henrys in England, and the French Louis who came by the dozen, who needs kings? With bloodthirsty dictators like Hitler and Stalin, who needs dictators? * Speaking of blood: In the Ottoman Empire it was a capital offense to spill the blood of a present or future sultan, so they adopted a different method to eliminate the competition: they strangled all potential usurpers with a silk cord. (And they say Turks are dumb!) * With scary presidential candidates like Romney and Ryan who needs presidents? Gore Vidal may have been right when he said America will be better off without its politicians. To the question, who will run the country, he replied: “Swiss hotel managers.” With historians who cover up the criminal conduct and incompetence of the regime in power, who needs schoolteachers who recycle propaganda? * I am not just asking question: I am predicting the shape of things to come. Neither am I a prophet: I just use my common sense and the lessons of the past. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 *********************************** IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST **************************************** Let’s cut the crap, shall we? Let’s leave rhetoric to our speechifiers infatuated with the sound of their own voice; and let’s leave pious sentiments to our sermonizers whose favorite mode of communication is to say the opposite of what they really think and feel. * I see Armenians as perennial losers and victims whose secret ambition in life is to victimize, and since they can’t victimize others, they victimize their own. As dupes they can’t stand anyone who refuses to be a dupe. As products of millennial oppression by bloodthirsty tyrants they see nothing morally questionable in brainwashing the weak, oppressing the defenseless, and in deceiving the ignorant and the naïve. That’s as far as their conception of patriotism goes. * I know what I am saying. I have been in the belly of the beast and I have dealt with some of our best and brightest. I am not here to flatter our collective colossal ego or to pretend to love you as a brother. Neither am I here to assert my superior brand of Armenianism, whatever the hell that may mean. I leave that to our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their dupes, flunkeys, and hirelings. * Whenever I am told to be kinder to my readers, I reply: A nation that managed to survive the Turk’s yataghan can survive the opinions of a minor scribbler who is here today and will be gone tomorrow. * Abraham Lincoln once said: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” I have tried that method not once or twice but many times. It doesn’t work. I have had better luck with Turks. #

deception

Sunday, September 23, 2012 *************************************** DECEPTION (IV) ************************ For 600 years we hated the Turks and we had every right to do so for what they did and kept doing to us, but we deceived them into thinking we loved them and we did such a good job of it that they named us their most loyal millet (ethnic minority). * For 60 years we also hated the “onion-head” Russians but again we pretended to love them by calling them our “big brothers.” We went further. Much further. We betrayed and surrendered our ablest men to their murderers. * And now that we have no one to deceive we deceive one another and we do such an excellent job of it that most Armenians in the Diaspora believe when native Armenians call them “aghber” they don’t mean “white trash,” but “brother.” * We have become such habitual and expert liars that we believe in our own lies. Now you know why our 1% divides the 99% and gets away with it. They say they divide us because they are men of principle and gentlemen do not compromise on principles. The fact is they divide us out of fear. Fear of what we might do to them when we uncover the truth. After all, far more civilized and progressive nations than us have beheaded, executed, and assassinated their kings. The only reason we have done nothing of the kind so far is that we have been duped into thinking our leaders are not our enemies but our heroes and saviors. * Armenians of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your dividers and gravediggers.. # Monday, September 24, 2012 ************************************* CHEZOKS ********************** One of our elder statesmen (may God have mercy on his soul, if there is a God and he had a soul) once wrote a book in which he blamed all our problems on chezoks (non-partisan Armenians). “They are neither hot nor cold,” said he. “They are neither for nor against anything. They don’t care. They are useless, aimless, and purposeless. They exist but they do not live… they are a dead weight…” and so on and so forth. You may have noticed that when our speechifiers get going, nothing can stopping them. Zarian knew what he was talking about when he said “An Armenian’s tongue is sharper than a Turk’s yataghan.” * In my review of the book I said something to the effect that our dividers were the real source of all our problems, not chezoks. In his angry telephone call our statesman said, among other things: “I thought you were on our side.” “I am on nobody’s side,” was my answer, “if only because I have done no harm.” * My father was a chezok not because he didn’t care but because he lost everything twice and I mean that literally: first time in 1915 during World War I in Turkey, second time in 1941 during World War II in Greece. As a result he spent all his time trying to make a living and provide for his family in alien and hostile environments. He died in his fifties and he looked ninety. He may not have been a great Armenian but he was an honest man. I wish I could say the same of our Ottomanized, Levantinized, Americanized, and Sovietized fellow countrymen who parade as first-class Armenians and expect the rest of us to look up to them as role models. # Tuesday, September 25, 2012 ******************************************** BROTHERS ************************ There are truth-seekers and there are propagandists. The aim of propagandists is power. The aim of truth-seekers is exposing lies. * Propaganda has produced such monsters as the Nazi who believed to belong to a superior race; the Jew who believed to be God’s Chosen; the English sahib who saw himself as a civilizing agent; the child-molesting Catholic priest; and closer to home, the Armenian patriot with “Ararat in his heart” who views a fraction of his fellow Armenians as “white trash.” In America propaganda has produced the KKK and legitimized racism; in Russia the Big Brother (in the Orwellian sense of the words) and the commissar. By contrast truth-seekers have been solitary underdogs and victims of propagandists. Gandhi in India, Martin Luther King in America (both assassinated), Solzhenitsyn in Russia, Socrates in 5th-century BC Greece and Jesus in 1st-century Palestine. * How to identify a propagandist? Easy! A propagandist is a member of an organized group with a clearly defined agenda which pretends to be on the side of truth but on closer inspection reveals itself to be Big Lie. If you are a member of such a group, look out brother, you may well be on your way to the Devil. * I read the following quotation in my morning paper today: “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” Lao Tzu. # Wednesday, September 26, 2012 ********************************************* WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE ******************************************** Do you really want to know why I write the way I write? I will tell you. I write the way I write in defense of all Armenians who were insulted and abused in the name of this or that brand of patriotism of which there are as many as there are Armenians. * A Bolshevik’s patriotism, for instance, means not only love of homeland but also loyalty to the memory of Stalin. A nationalist’s patriotism bears all the earmarks of racism and fascism. * I write in defense of all writers who were betrayed, silenced, exiled, butchered, or shot. I write to remind our Turcocentric ghazetajis and their dupes that it is wrong to gauge an Armenian’s patriotism by the degree of hatred he harbors against Turks. I write to say that I have nothing but contempt for the kind of Armenian who after perpetuating our problems tells me, “We need solutions, not critics.” My message to them is: “If you really need solutions, hang yourself!” * I have no illusions about myself and my fellow Armenians. I am fully aware of the fact that I have as much influence on Armenian affairs as a grain of sand on the Saharan desert. But I write to set the record straight. #

Saturday, September 22, 2012 **************************************** OBSERVATIONS *********************** After telling us the Bible is the word of God and “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” they divide a house that is already divided between believers and non-believers. * You say it’s impossible and I say doing what must be done creates its own energy and cunning. * Even as they blabber endlessly about Turks and massacres they tell me I am being negative. * Romney’s problem: a big mouth and a bigger foot. # Saturday, September 22, 2012 *************************************** ON POSTERITY & RELATED ATROCITIES ************************************ Posterity? I am not sure about posterity. You and I may well be our only posterity. * Depression? I have been depressed most of my life and I consider it an integral part of the human condition. Unlike most Americans I don’t think happiness or well-being to be a patriotic duty. I have never been near a shrink, nor taken a single pill. Only the occasional drink. * Homeland? I can’t imagine anyone not loving its mountains and rivers, lakes, valleys, and forests. Neither can I imagine anyone not hating the former KGB agents and commissars who are now in charge of it. Call it treason if you like. I call it rejection of all crypto-fascist propaganda. I call it refusal to be the dupe of thieving charlatans, and in that I am with the majority – namely all those who have voted with their feet and live abroad or they define homeland as anywhere on earth where they are allowed to work and provide for their families. # Saturday, September 22, 2012 *************************************** ON STUPIDITY ********************** Be aware of stupidity for it is the source of all evil. * The problem with hatred is that it tends to metastasize. Hatred of the enemy turns brother against brother. * More often than not our choice is not between good and evil but between the lesser of two evils. * Details are important especially the ones you miss or refuse to see. * “In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, Owner of the Day of Judgment.” I quote from memory. I paraphrase. If wrong ascribe it to Alzheimer’s, not to blasphemy. * It is hatred of the infidel that turns Shia against Sunni and Assad against his ownpeople. * From the lyrics of a popular Armenian song: “An Armenian loves to eat (oudel) and he eats to hate (adel).” * He who is blinded by hatred believes he has 20/20 vision and God is on his side. * “I am not here to bring peace but a sword. If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” If you can’t guess who said that, I suggest you read the Scriptures. * And now let us pray! “Our Father Who art in Heaven…” #