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as i see it - Pt. I


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#21 ara baliozian

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Posted 18 September 2001 - 06:13 AM

THE LINE
*********************
It happens all the time. A serial killer is arrested and friends, neighbor and coworkers come forward to say he can’t be the one; the police made a mistake; they knew him; he was so kind and considerate….And, after the trial and conviction (or confession), as he waits on death row, women fall in love with him and propose marriage. I once saw such a woman being interviewed on television. At first I didn’t know who she was and took her for a lawyer or an investigative reporter: she was young, attractive, intelligent, articulate. But gradually it became clear she had fallen in love with a savage serial killer of women and had married him shortly before his execution.
We all have childhood traumas and grievances. Speaking for myself, I could make a long list of them, beginning with the Turks, the Germans, the Greeks, not to say our own political leadership for its incompetence, lies, and cynical re-writing of history from which they emerge as the only good guys in a world of bloodthirsty savages and ruthless manipulators.
All losers have grievances against the world: the Negroes, the Jews, the Gypsies, the Irish, the Untouchables of India, the French against the Germans and vice versa….The Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Africa may be said to be veritable vipers’ knots of ethnic, tribal and family grievances, feuds and vendettas. And then there are the homosexuals, the lesbians, the perverts, all of whom have been or consider themselves to have been misunderstood and rejected; and let’s not forget the poor and the exploited…. But not all of them become serial killers or terrorists; though some do and always with the support of a few who are probably as unbalanced as they but are also too cowardly or calculating to turn into killers because somewhere along the line they have decided they have a better chance to survive and prosper as law-abiding citizens as opposed to making an exit with a bang. And this is exactly the line that separates the overwhelming majority of mankind from its lunatic fringe: the awareness that life with grievances is better than death without them.

#22 ara baliozian

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Posted 18 September 2001 - 10:02 AM

DOUBLE TALK
************************
"I don’t approve of what happened in New York!"
But if the U.S. is as bad as you say it is, why not?


"Let’s not retaliate. Let’s forgive. Because if we retaliate we will do to them what they have done to us, and then we will be as bad as they…."
But what if the terrorists stage another successful attack…and then another…. How much damage before these Christians convert to paganism and from paganism to barbarism? Because the number of genuine Christians is mighty few, and these few "may believe that they believe but they don’t believe" (Sartre).


"The American press is not objective."
Of course not. The American press is an expression of its ethos, interests, and power structure. The American press can never be as objective about American affairs as, say, the Patagonian or Hottentot press. But then, the same applies to any other press. We may have an objective press only on the day the Good Lord decides to venture into journalism, but even He will be accused of bias by the devil.
And the American press is free only in the sense that dissenting voices are allowed free expression.

DOUBLE TALK
************************
"I don’t approve of what happened in New York!"
But if the U.S. is as bad as you say it is, why not?


"Let’s not retaliate. Let’s forgive. Because if we retaliate we will do to them what they have done to us, and then we will be as bad as they…."
But what if the terrorists stage another successful attack…and then another…. How much damage before these Christians convert to paganism and from paganism to barbarism? Because the number of genuine Christians is mighty few, and these few "may believe that they believe but they don’t believe" (Sartre).


"The American press is not objective."
Of course not. The American press is an expression of its ethos, interests, and power structure. The American press can never be as objective about American affairs as, say, the Patagonian or Hottentot press. But then, the same applies to any other press. We may have an objective press only on the day the Good Lord decides to venture into journalism, but even He will be accused of bias by the devil.
And the American press is free only in the sense that dissenting voices are allowed free expression.

#23 ara baliozian

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Posted 19 September 2001 - 06:06 AM

REFLECTIONS
*************************
It never pays to argue with an infallible person. It’s worst than a waste of time. You have a better chance to make a dent into a cement wall by butting your head against it. Of course no one asserts to be infallible, except perhaps the Pope of Rome. But I have yet to meet an ideologue, a self-appointed pundit, a phony expert on any given subject, or an ordinary kibitzer with a "philosophy" (meaning a collection of hackneyed slogans and clichés) willing to admit error. Error in insignificant and meaningless things, yes. Error in important matters, never!

It all begins with the introduction of morality, right and wrong, truth and God into a political argument. That’s a signal of infallibility. And when there are two sides unwilling to admit error because they have right, truth, morality or God on their side, you will have irreconcilable differences that will eventually erupt into open conflict, war, and the massacre of the innocent. Perhaps humility or the ability to admit error should be seen as the greatest cardinal virtue.

I never much cared for Americans and Arabs perhaps because I prefer to think of individuals rather than nations. I may be in a position to form a more or less clear view of a person or someone I know, but how can I judge a nation when most of them are no better than abstractions to me? This much said however, let me add that the more I read anti-American propaganda the more I like Americans. But I regret to say I cannot say the same about the pro-Arab drivel I have been exposed to recently. As for their mullahs with the beards, turbans, Korans and machine guns: I find them positively repellent.

An Afghan on American TV: "When you hear the word Taliban, think of Nazis. When you hear the name Bin Laden, think of Hitler."

#24 ara baliozian

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Posted 19 September 2001 - 09:59 AM

BLUNDERS
***********************
To ignore reality by adopting a set of moral or political values as infallible has been the source of some of the most catastrophic blunders in the history of mankind.
It is the easiest thing in the world to pronounce pro- and con- views on any given subject – everyone does it. What is infinitely more difficult is to understand the workings of reality.
Instead of asking who is right and who wrong, we should learn to ask: Which action will succeed and which is destined to fail? To stress the importance of a metaphysical system and to ignore reality’s matrix is to choose the easy way out leading to ignorance, fanaticism and hatred.
Two thousand years ago the Jews were wrong to challenge the might of the Roman Empire and to reject Christ. But human nature is such that the greater the blunder the louder the voices defending it. Which is why you will never hear an Orthodox Jew saying the Jews would have been better off as Christians.
What if the Armenian revolutionaries at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire had been more skeptical about the verbal commitments of the West? Our revolutionaries will never admit a blunder, of course. What they will do instead is take the easier option of assuming the stance of the morally superior by condemning the double-talk of the West and the savagery of the Turks thus condemning themselves to learn nothing from history.
Obviously, the Americans committed a serious blunder by underestimated the Arabs and the Arabs committed another blunder by underestimating American wrath. Will they learn from their blunders? The destiny of mankind may depend on the right answer to that question.

#25 ara baliozian

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Posted 20 September 2001 - 06:23 AM

VARIETIES OF ANTI-AMERICANISM
********************************************
AMERICAN
Every American is critical of some aspect of America: the Conservatives because it’s too liberal; the Liberals because it’s not liberal enough; the Blacks because it’s racist; the skinheads because it’s not racist enough, and so on….

MARXIST
It consists in assembling all the negative aspects of American life and ignoring the positive.

PATHOLOGICAL
The kind that is rooted in America’s support of Israel and in that sense it might as well be a revival of Nazi-era anti-Semitism. Which is why I was not surprised in the least when I heard an Afghan say on American television: "If you hear the name Bin Laden, think of Hitler!"

#26 ara baliozian

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Posted 20 September 2001 - 11:35 PM

PARALLELS
***********************
When a nation loses a war it thinks it has suffered an injustice and reacts by creating a myth: It was not a defeat but a moral victory (remember that one?) or it was treason by a despised minority (Jews). Hitler was successful in convincing the rest of Germany that Germany had not really lost World War I and it was not only sure to win the next round of hostilities but also conquer the world. Hitler was a demagogue who saw evil in others but not in himself. On the contrary, he saw himself as a man of destiny, another Alexander the Great and Napoleon. He saw himself as an instrument of the gods straight out of Wagner’s operas.
The Arabs too are convinced they are the victims of an injustice perpetrated by the Jews and Americans. They cannot accept defeat even after losing five wars in as many decades. That’s because they have leaders who think of themselves as instruments of Allah and, armed with that conviction, they are willing to kill and die until they or their enemies are destroyed.
In the same way that Germany’s greatest enemy was neither Churchill nor Stalin or, for that matter, FDR, but Hitler, the greatest enemies of the Arab world today are neither the Jews nor the Americans, but its tribal demagogues.

#27 ara baliozian

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Posted 21 September 2001 - 06:07 AM

BRAVE NEW WORLD 2001
***********************************
The world is a dangerous place not because of its lunatics but because reasonable men cannot agree on their definition of lunacy.

We may have lasting peace on the day mullahs, rabbis and theologians come together and agree that their particular belief system is not the word of God but the words of little men, of sincere men, sometimes even good men, but who compared to God couldn’t even qualify as idiots, liars, and charlatans.

If all nations that lost a war became terrorist camps populated by suicidal zealots life would be worse than death in the jungle.

Imagine a world in which everyone forgave evil-doers: lawyers would go out of business, the police would become obsolete, armies disbanded, jails emptied, courts of law deserted….

#28 ara baliozian

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Posted 21 September 2001 - 10:15 AM

They call the Americans and the Jews fascists because they have not experienced real fascism. It’s almost as if they were using the word fascism to exorcise their own brand of fascism. Imagine, if you can, stone-throwing teens and gun-toting monks in Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Franco’s Spain, or Mao’s China.

They speak of oppression even as they terrorize and kill -- as if terrorizing and massacring innocent women and children were morally superior to oppression.

We live in a bad, bad, bad world but I shiver to think what would happen to it if it fell into the hands of these suicidal fanatics.

Nietzsche once observed that a man with a loud voice is incapable of entertaining subtle thoughts. Likewise, a bloodthirsty fanatic cannot have a clear conception of justice, human rights and freedom.

#29 ara baliozian

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Posted 22 September 2001 - 06:26 AM

QUESTIONS
************************
How to explain Armenian anti-Americanism?
Bin Laden and his kind: what have they done for Armenians? -- except perhaps to inspire some of our misguided youth to engage in acts of terrorism and make headlines around the world thus besmirching our reputation as law-abiding citizens.
What has America done for us? It has welcomed a million of us and allowed us to reach the top in all fields of human endeavor in a single generation: Saroyan in literature, Deukmejian in politics, Bagdikian in dissent, Kirkoring in finance…and I could go on and on. It is no exaggeration to say that Americans have been kinder to us than we have been to ourselves.
I repeat: How to explain Armenian anti-Americanism?
Two thousand years ago the Romans classified us under "ambigua gens" – meaning, a people with unpredictable or unreliable loyalties. Our own Raffi put it more bluntly when he said "treason and betrayal are in our blood."
How would the Americans, Canadians, and the West in general classify us today?

#30 ara baliozian

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Posted 24 September 2001 - 05:53 AM

OVERHEARD
*************************
The West should negotiate with the Arabs.
Yes, but which ones?
The moderates? (the extremists will be alienated).
The extremists? (they will demand another holocaust).

Science fiction scenario:
The Arabs bring the West to its knees.
They become masters of the universe.
Then it will be the turn of the West to terrorize the Middle East.

The Arabs can afford to sacrifice a million or two terrorists a year.
Their birth-rate is such that they can afford to sustain such losses.
Has anyone ever calculated the damage a million terrorists can inflict?

Islam is a religion of peace.
The real criminals are not the terrorists but the mullahs who promise them seventy virgins in a fictional Muslim paradise. Organized religions are the source of all evil. As long as these mullahs are allowed to preach we shall have no peace.

#31 ara baliozian

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Posted 24 September 2001 - 10:24 AM

NOTES / COMMENTS
****************************
The longer you ignore reality the harder it will collapse on you.

I was brought up to believe the function of a writer was to entertain and amuse his audience. But I now think it makes more sense for a writer to entertain and amuse himself by insulting his audience.

An Arab on Canadian radio: "I came to Canada from Lebanon to live in peace and now I am being harassed for being an Arab." Please note that he did not say "My life is being threatened by Arab terrorists." After all, any one of us can end up as collateral damage to an Arab terrorist.

History may be said to be a beast that advances on feet made of blunders.

#32 ara baliozian

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Posted 25 September 2001 - 06:11 AM

BIG LIES
**********************
Honesty is a demanding enterprise and truth can be lethal.
"Of the gods we know nothing," said Socrates and because he was being honest he was condemned to death. If Socrates were alive today he would be called an atheist by some, an infidel dog by others, and a bad influence on the young by all.
You want to prosper? Recycle crap!
The truth is one, big lies many.
Clash of cultures means the clash of big lies.
To millions of believers the Pope is infallible;
to millions of other believers he is an infidel.
Gandhi said "I like Christ but I don’t like Christians."
What did he say about Mohammed and Muslims?
I can only guess.
Gandhi was an honest man too and he was assassinated by a Hindu.
Mankind condemns those who killed Socrates and Gandhi
but prefers to live in a world of big lies that legitimize their murder.

#33 ara baliozian

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Posted 25 September 2001 - 10:44 AM

ON TERRORISM
*************************
One reason I loathe terrorists is that, though I have done nothing to them,
I may end up as one of their victims.

We are told terrorists do what they do because they have been oppressed and victimized. So have I, but I have at no time terrorized anyone, perhaps because none of the preachers I was exposed to as a child promised me a phony paradise of a thousand and one delights if I became a killer.

People who sermonize about forgiveness, tolerance and understanding have, as a rule, very little to say on how to go about protecting innocent lives. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if, after a few more successful terrorist attack, these very same promoters of compassion turn into murderous maniacs.

A killer is a killer regardless of ideology.
I would go further and say that the nobler the ideology the more unforgivable the crime.
Because it means not only killing a fellow human being and a brother
but also debasing and corrupting a noble idea.

Terrorists are dupes of political leaders whose sole aim in life
is to assume power. The rest is propaganda – including
singling out America and Israel as the two sources of all evil.
War, conquest, slavery, oppression, massacre and genocide: they antedate the discovery of America and the existence of Israel.
There are no better or superior races.
All men are alike.
Give them have a chance and they will turn from slaves to the cruelest of slave-masters.

#34 ara baliozian

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Posted 26 September 2001 - 06:16 AM

DOUBLE-TALK / (PART I)
**********************************
"Bin Laden is an American creation. So is Saddam Hussein."
We all make mistakes except popes, bishops, ayatollahs, mullahs, demagogues and in general anyone who represents God or Allah on earth.

"I don’t hate all Jews, only Zionists and Israelis."
You must also hate the Jews who support Israel. That’s quite a few Jews….

"Even some Jews hate Jews."
Even Hitler didn’t hate all Jews. He actually preferred to deal with Germans with a touch of Jewish blood in them because he knew they will try harder to prove their loyalty. Would you call Hitler a semi-anti-Semite?

"I don’t hate Americans, only the American government."
The American government has three branches and countless agencies, such as the FBI, the CIA and the IRS (it’s all right to hate the IRS, by the way: all Americans do); the Pentagon, the army, the police, the judges who uphold the law, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the Congress, governors, mayors, advisers, lobbyists who represent powerful corporations, the stockholders without whom most corporations wouldn’t exist, registered Republicans and Democrats who vote for them…shall I go on?

"The American government is not accountable to the people."
As an Armenian I would be embarrassed to use that word in the presence of an American. I am sure there is an Armenian word for accountable but is it ever used in our press? What about the word in Arabic? When was the last time anyone dared to use that word in reference to Saddam ?

"You are a typical Americanized Armenian."
Only after being exposed to the nonsense dished out by Arabized Armenians.

#35 ara baliozian

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Posted 26 September 2001 - 10:04 AM

THE HUMAN CONDITION
*********************************
A reader contradicts me.
I explain my point from a different perspective.
He disagrees with me.
I disagree with him.
We disagree with each other.
This goes on for a while.
No sign of compromise.
This goes on for a while longer.
But I gradually begin to notice
that his arguments are becoming increasingly more untenable.
Then it happens.
He falls silent.
At which point I feel justified in assuming
I gave him something to think about
and that perhaps
he is now busy reassessing his initial position.
A few months go by.
The same issue is raised
and the same routine is resumed.
The same arguments and contradictions
are repeated as if for the first time.
That’s when I realize
I have been dealing
not with a reasonable being but a wall.
And that’s when I begin to question my sanity,
or rather, the insanity of Armenianism…
or is it the human condition?
null

#36 ara baliozian

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Posted 27 September 2001 - 05:52 AM

REFLECTIONS
****************************
Where there are more than one versions or interpretations of the past, there will also be freedom of thought. Where there is only one, there will be subservience, oppression and fear.

Our choice is seldom between good and evil but between the lesser of two evils.

The greater the lie, the more transparent the liar.

Whenever I think I have written an honest line, a reader takes it upon himself to call me a liar and an ignoramus. Whenever I am thoughtless enough to assume that exposing charlatans is a useful enterprise, I am torn to shreds by phony pundits parading as honest patriots.

The problem with liars is that they end up believing in their own lies and doubting the existence of honest men.

An oversized ego means an undersized brain.

#37 ara baliozian

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Posted 27 September 2001 - 10:44 AM

MORE REFLECTIONS
************************
As a human being,
I don’t mind admitting that I am often inconsistent and wrong,
also uninformed and prejudiced.
You have nothing to fear from me.
Fear instead those who are never wrong:
mullahs and their blind followers;
propagandists and their dupes;
demagogues and their brown-nosing subjects.

In everything I write
I try to promote tolerance, understanding,
justice, respect for fundamental human rights,
and dedication to principles.
I may live in the dark
but my words extol the light.
I try to do good without expecting anything in return,
including immortality and heavenly bliss.
You may not know it,
but you and I are soldiers in the same army.

Someone recently compared me
to a surgeon who cuts deeper
and scoops out too much gray matter.
But the historic reality is,
all of our intellectuals put together
haven’t had the effect of a single mosquito bite.

An American poetess:
"As soon as you think you have been screwed in every possible way,
you come across a publisher who has read the KAMA SUTRA."

When decent men keep silent
the loud-mouth charlatans are bound to be
the dominant voices.
The battle between charlatanism and honesty is everyone’s battle;
it is a never-ending battle;
and it is as old as mankind.

>

#38 ara baliozian

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Posted 28 September 2001 - 06:22 AM

THE OLD BLIND HORSE
**************************
If I say: What I think is right and what a Turk thinks is wrong, and vice versa, if a Turk says, What I think is right and what an Armenian thinks is wrong, then we (both Turks and Armenians) think not as human beings but as nationalists.
If we ask: What motivated the Armenians and the Turks to behave as they did, and if we answer: The Armenians were motivated by love of freedom and respect for fundamental human rights and the Turks by savagery; and if the Turks answer: The Armenians were motivated by disloyalty and treason and the Turks by self-defense, then again we (both Turks and Armenians) think not as human beings but as members of a nation, namely as nationalists, and nationalism, as we know by now, is the source of all conflicts between nations.
Next question: If Armenian political leaders at the turn of the century were motivated by love of freedom and respect for fundamental human rights, why is it that they have no tolerance for free speech and dissent and they have silenced our ablest post-genocide writers?
All political leaders say they are motivated by altruism and justice and everything else that is noble in man, but does anyone believe them? Why should we think that our own politicians are the exception to that rule? Even Martin Luther, who was not a politician but a religious reformer said: "God uses lust to impel men to marriage, ambition to office, avarice to earning, and fear to faith. God led me like an old blind horse."
When an Armenian thinks as an Armenian and a Turk thinks as a Turk they think not as human beings but as dupes of old blind horses.

P.S. Am I denying the reality of the Genocide? No! Only questioning the honesty of all politicians and attempting to explain why is it that two opposing parties (be they Turks and Armenians or for that matter representatives of any other nation, tribe, ideology, and political party and their counterparts) find it extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to develop a consensus.

#39 Juggernaut

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Posted 04 October 2001 - 04:19 AM

Man, you got alot of free time on your hands

#40 ara baliozian

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Posted 05 October 2001 - 10:30 AM

SIX OF ONE
*************************

1.
Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat, bin Laden and the Taliban: I see more than echoes and parallels here: I see the same mentality in action; the same ruthless despotism; the same murderous fanaticism; and the same visceral contempt of infidel dogs. And in the same way that to this day the Turks have their apologists, the Muslim fanatics have theirs: the first driven by a misguided love of the Orient, the second by ignorance and hatred of the West.

2.
The difference between Western dissidents and critics of the West and Muslim fanatics and terrorists is that the first are driven by love and want to see the West improved, the second are driven by blind hatred and want to see the West destroyed.


HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER
***********************************
If you can put the blame on others, why assume any responsibility for your own blunders?

Where do terrorists and their victims or targets get their version of history? From their political leaders, of course; and as everyone knows by now, the aim of politics is neither truth nor objective judgment but power. Result? Two increasingly divergent views of the past that are driven by prejudice, fear and hatred – two versions that are more akin to lies than to truth.

There is a type of Armenian who in the proximity of his fellow Armenians turns into a Turk.

Anonymous: "After all, none of us is human." Probably a variation of the old saying: "Homo homini lupus" = Man is wolf to other men. (Armenian translation: An Armenian is a Turk to another Armenian). This will come as a surprise only to those who don sheep’s clothing hoping thus not to be recognized for what they really are.




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