Shahan Araradian Posted July 31, 2007 Report Share Posted July 31, 2007 Shahan: if i remember you correctly, you once claimed to have royal blood in your veins. i think if YOUR HIGHNESS were to propose to HER HIGHNESS, the nation is sure to enter a new Golden Age under your rule! you make a dream couple! a marriage made in heaven. if you accept my suggestion, i am sure to run out of business and fall silent because i will have nothing to criticize. a case of 2 birds with a single pebble! Hey Ara, That wasn't me But I do recall someone pointing fingers at a guy with the screenname "phantom". I don't think I've got any royal blood in me, though, other than Հայկ նահապետ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted July 31, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2007 Tuesday, July 31, 2007 ***************************************** QUOTATIONS FROM RAFFI (HAGOP MELIK-HAGOPIAN: 1835-1888) **************************************************** ON OUR LEADERSHIP ****************************** “We don’t have an aristocracy. We have no elites and leaders. What we have are merchants and clergymen. Merchants are trash. As for the clergy: they have always been against individual freedom.” * ON FREEDOM *************************** Where there is oppression there will also be cowardice, ignorance, and sloth. A man needs freedom to discover the benefits of freedom.” * CHERCHEZ L’ARMENIEN ********************************** “Where Armenian blood flaws, look for an Armenian hatchet.” * ON LIES ****************************** “Self-deception is a one-eyed monster that sees only the positive and ignores the negative.” * ON TREASON *************************** “Our past is filled with countless instances of betrayal and treachery. Whenever we have been invaded by Persian, Greek, Arab, Seljuk, or Mongol armies, these armies have advanced under the command of an Armenian. Armenians have always fought side by side with the enemy against their own people.” * PORTRAIT OF AN ARMENIAN ****************************************** “Mutual intolerance, divisiveness, envy, betrayal, and a thousand other vices have built permanent nests in our hearts.” * ENEMIES *************************** “An Armenian’s worst enemies are not odars but Armenians.” * MORE ON LEADERSHIP **************************************** “Those who are responsible for our safety are themselves a gang of criminals.” # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takoush Posted July 31, 2007 Report Share Posted July 31, 2007 (edited) Alas, what some of our so called mediocre writers only do see what the Mega Great Cerebral man Raffi's criticizing his own kind; but does not seem to see and observe his mightier works. Btw; his greatest objectives, works of art and the constructive guidance to our people. Raffi did not just criticize incessantly his own kind like Ara is doing to his own kind; but Raffi's main objective in his writings was his map and guidance to our eternal freedom, to gain back our lands to have and behold our sacred lands again under the warm sun. Alas, alas some brains do not see or refuse to see the whole picture!!!! Edited July 31, 2007 by Anahid Takouhi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 1, 2007 Wednesday, August 01, 2007 ******************************************** MORE ON RAFFI ******************************** One reason I quoted Raffi yesterday is that I recognized myself in what he says. If you think you are better, obviously Raffi’s observations do not apply to you. But I would invite you to consider the remote possibility that you may only think or believe you are better because, in Raffi’s words, you have a highly developed sense of self-deception; or as Sartre says somewhere speaking of belief systems: “We may believe that we believe, but we don’t believe.” People don’t judge us by what we say we believe, especially if we say or imply we are better than they. On the contrary. People tend to be suspicious of self-satisfied holier-than-thou phonies. * Another reason I quoted Raffi is that I wanted to point out the fact that my ideas are not mine. They are to be found in our writers; the rest belong to world literature. I have consistently denied being an original writer. It has been said that there are only a limited number of ideas and all of them are to be found in the Bible or Plato. Everything else consists in deviations, expansions, and footnotes. * Paul Valéry once asked Einstein if he carried a notebook in which to jot down ideas as they occurred to him when he was not at his desk. Einstein explained that ideas didn’t come to him frequently enough to adopt that method of annotation and that he would consider himself very lucky if an idea came to him once every twenty or thirty years. * Finally, if Raffi’s remarks came to you as a shock, it may be because our ghazetajis and academics have conspired to hide the truth from us by harping constantly on Turks, massacres, and atrocities thus hoping to distract us from our real problems. If the Kingdom of God is within us, so are the fires of hell. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 Thursday, August 02, 2007 ******************************************* DEAD MAN WALKING **************************************************** A man is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Because he happens to be an Armenian, he thinks along the following lines: ‘Why should I believe what doctors say? They always see the negative and completely ignore the positive. There is nothing wrong with me. Every organ in my body is in great shape. So what if my pancreas is not perfect. Blood pressure normal, 20/20 vision, no cavities, strong heart, intestine in working order, brain good, liver ditto. To hell with my pancreas. Why should I believe what a lousy doctor says? Even when you trust them, there is no way you can verify what they say….’ Six months later he was buried. * As it was to be expected, my selection of Raffi quotations did not please everyone, especially the philistines grown fat on a steady diet of chauvinist crapola. Too negative, they said. So who is perfect, they demanded to know. One could probably make an equally long list of quotations from Raffi that stress the positive. As for the story with the man with terminal cancer who refuses to come to terms with reality: our reality is that we have survived for more than two thousand years and we are still going strong. * Maybe so. But what if most of us did not survive? Even more to the point: what if our best and brightest did not survive? So that we now find ourselves at the mercy of charlatans and rascals whose number one concern is number one and to hell with the nation. And what if these charlatans and rascals may not even be Armenians (according to one of our elder statesmen) but Turks parading, sermonizing, and speechifying in fluent Armenian? * Turks parading as Armenians in our midst? I don’t believe it. What I believe in is Ottomanized Armenians whose value system has been thoroughly perverted by six centuries of subservience. To me, an Ottomanized Armenian might as well be a dead man walking. * Turks parading as Armenians? No way. Armenians parading as Turks, that’s different. Maybe Pamuk and Akcam are Armenians. Call it wishful thinking. Has anyone ever made a study of their ancestry? And speaking of Nobel Prize winning novelists and dissident historians: where are ours? What has happened to our creative impetus, intellectual integrity, objectivity, and courage? Where are our intellectuals? Do we have them? Is there anyone who may be remotely compare to Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zohrab, Zarian, and Massikian? – writers who dared to speak their minds unafraid of repercussions. Writers who placed their integrity above their popularity and personal welfare. What if, in Massikian’s words, Armenian literature is no better than a cemetery? # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shahan Araradian Posted August 3, 2007 Report Share Posted August 3, 2007 Thursday, August 02, 2007 ******************************************* DEAD MAN WALKING **************************************************** A man is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Because he happens to be an Armenian, he thinks along the following lines: ‘Why should I believe what doctors say? They always see the negative and completely ignore the positive. There is nothing wrong with me. Every organ in my body is in great shape. So what if my pancreas is not perfect. Blood pressure normal, 20/20 vision, no cavities, strong heart, intestine in working order, brain good, liver ditto. To hell with my pancreas. Why should I believe what a lousy doctor says? Even when you trust them, there is no way you can verify what they say….’ Six months later he was buried. * As it was to be expected, my selection of Raffi quotations did not please everyone, especially the philistines grown fat on a steady diet of chauvinist crapola. Too negative, they said. So who is perfect, they demanded to know. One could probably make an equally long list of quotations from Raffi that stress the positive. As for the story with the man with terminal cancer who refuses to come to terms with reality: our reality is that we have survived for more than two thousand years and we are still going strong. * Maybe so. But what if most of us did not survive? Even more to the point: what if our best and brightest did not survive? So that we now find ourselves at the mercy of charlatans and rascals whose number one concern is number one and to hell with the nation. And what if these charlatans and rascals may not even be Armenians (according to one of our elder statesmen) but Turks parading, sermonizing, and speechifying in fluent Armenian? * Turks parading as Armenians in our midst? I don’t believe it. What I believe in is Ottomanized Armenians whose value system has been thoroughly perverted by six centuries of subservience. To me, an Ottomanized Armenian might as well be a dead man walking. * Turks parading as Armenians? No way. Armenians parading as Turks, that’s different. Maybe Pamuk and Akcam are Armenians. Call it wishful thinking. Has anyone ever made a study of their ancestry? And speaking of Nobel Prize winning novelists and dissident historians: where are ours? What has happened to our creative impetus, intellectual integrity, objectivity, and courage? Where are our intellectuals? Do we have them? Is there anyone who may be remotely compare to Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zohrab, Zarian, and Massikian? – writers who dared to speak their minds unafraid of repercussions. Writers who placed their integrity above their popularity and personal welfare. What if, in Massikian’s words, Armenian literature is no better than a cemetery? # Ara, you are hallucinating as you get older. Who pays you to write articles that seek to demoralize Armenians? Either of two things are possible: 1) you are on the payroll of Turkish/Israeli intelligence -- knowingly or unknowingly; or 2) you are a quack I would put 75% of my money on #2. If you want to have any credibility, instead of speaking in general terms like "the Sultan still lives" (etc.) why don't you give some CONCRETE examples, NAMES, and DATES so that normal people can take you seriously. Otherwise, you're just throwing stuff out without backing up ANYTHING that you say! Clearly you are not a trained lawyer. What is your profession anyway? Or are you a part of the "ownership society"? Who pays your bills? You clearly aren't part of ANY Armenian community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted August 3, 2007 Report Share Posted August 3, 2007 Thursday, August 02, 2007 ******************************************* Where are our intellectuals? Do we have them? Is there anyone who may be remotely compare to Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zohrab, Zarian, and Massikian? – writers who dared to speak their minds unafraid of repercussions. Writers who placed their integrity above their popularity and personal welfare. What if, in Massikian’s words, Armenian literature is no better than a cemetery? ------------------------------------- I heard a biologist maintain that only the physical specifications are transmissible to heirs, not the qualities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2007 Friday, August 03, 2007 ******************************************** YOUNG TURKS, NAZIS, BOLSHEVIKS, AND NEOCONS ************************************************ If a critic stresses the negative and ignores the positive, it means he is a prejudiced and hostile witness whose testimony should be stricken from the record. If you think this is a fair statement, think again, because this type of sophistry runs the risk of explaining and justifying some of the worst villains in the history of mankind. * HITLER ******************** A German neighbor once said to me: “People forget the good things Hitler did for Germany. There was widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger everywhere. He created jobs. He cared for the people.” As Goebbels would say: “Ah, Gott in Himmelreich!” * STALIN ****************** If a Bolshevik were to read THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO today – assuming of course he knows how to read, which is assuming a great deal – he would say this about Solzhenitsyn: “He is too one-sided, prejudiced, and negative to be trustworthy. All he does is speak of concentration camps and completely ignores the rest of the Soviet Union and the fact that the people never had it so good.” * TALAAT ********************* The following is a quotation from the 1979 edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA entry on Talaat ***** (or as the BRITANNICA spells it, Talat Pasa): “A man of swift and penetrating intelligence and integrity…an idealist, forceful but never fanatical or vengeful.” * MCCARTHY *********************** According to such neocon American pundits and best-selling authors as Ann Coulter, Senator Joseph McCarthy was not a charlatan, a pathological liar, an alcoholic, and a paranoiac, who did more harm than good, but an authentic patriot and a role model. In her own words: “Soviet spies in government were not a figment of the right-wing conspiracy. McCarthy was not tilting at windmills. He was tilting at an authentic communist conspiracy that had been laughed off by the Democratic Party.” And speaking of neocon superpatriots: if you ever criticize any aspect of life in the United States in their presence, you will be told in no uncertain terms, “Love it or leave it.” # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2007 (edited) Saturday, August 04, 2007 ********************************************* ON THE NEED TO ASSERT SUPERIORITY **************************************************** They tell me I hate Armenians, the implication being that they love them. But I see very little love, or even tolerance, in what they say. They pretend to know more about Armenians than I do, which may indeed be true, for I have never asserted to know everything there is to know about Armenians. They pretend to understand Armenians better than I do too, which may also be true, for I have never asserted that my understanding is without limits. They speak of literature and ideas but they show very little appreciation or understanding of both, perhaps because they think the only good ideas are those with which they are in complete agreement. But ideas that are not part of a long dialogue – that is, assertion (or thesis), contradiction (antithesis) and synthesis – are not ideas but dogmas, that is, dead ends like Stalinism, fascism, American neo-conservatism, and our own Turcocentrism. These superior-type Armenians seem to have missed several fundamental principles about human nature, namely, the morally superior do not feel the need to assert moral superiority, and that the harder one tries to hide one’s inferiority, the more transparent one becomes. # Edited August 4, 2007 by ara baliozian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2007 I heard a biologist maintain that only the physical specifications are transmissible to heirs, not the qualities. The Bach family contradicts this theory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted August 4, 2007 Report Share Posted August 4, 2007 I heard a biologist maintain that only the physical specifications are transmissible to heirs, not the qualities. The Bach family contradicts this theory. ------------------------ Merci Ara ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2007 Sunday, August 05, 2007 ************************************** PROSPECTS AND PROJECTIONS ********************************************** We are a dysfunctional nation, make it, collection of tribes, ruled by mutually hostile gangs, who have brainwashed us to believe we are la crème de la crème, and the rest of the world the scum of the earth; and by the rest of the world I include anyone who has ever said anything remotely critical about us, from Yeghishe and Khorenatsi (5th century) to Zarian and Massikian (20th century). Do we have a future? I am not sure. If we do, will it be more of the same? Probably. What are the chances that we will see the light? Miracles happen. You see no light at the end of the tunnel? In our case, a light at the end of the tunnel would mean an oncoming train. In other words, no future? Not quite. I believe in Gandhi’s dictum that no one is beyond redemption. Do you really believe that? No, I don’t. Why are you saying it then? Sounds positive…and all that crap. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2007 Monday, August 06, 2007 *************************************** FAMOUS LAST WORDS ********************************** “Most people are bastards, and everything is bullshit.”* These are the last words of George Black, a member of the Canadian financial elite, who is said to have committed suicide. From now on whenever I enter an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet…Strike that! Forget I made the connection. Unfair to my fellow countrymen. Goethe’s famous last words: “More light!” What did he mean by that? Some think he wanted his servant to open the curtains of his bedroom window. Others think by “light” he meant reason or some such elevated metaphysical concept. If the second, it sounds so damn pretentious. I prefer Black’s last words. No ambivalence there. Down to earth. To the point. My style – rude, negative, nasty. ******************************************* FOOTNOTE *********************** Tom Bower, CONRAD & LADY BLACK: DANCING ON THE EDGE (London, 2006) page 20. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2007 Tuesday, August 07, 2007 ****************************************** QUESTIONS / ANSWERS ********************************** Why do you bother writing for idiots who insult you? Smart readers don’t need my two cents’ worth. They may even be ahead of me in the sense that they keep silent because they have resigned themselves to the fact that ours is a hopeless case and no amount of reasoning will change anyone’s mind. Either that or they don’t give a damn one way or the other. But there is another and more personal reason why I persevere: I too was an idiot when I was young and pretended to know better when all I did was recycle a propaganda line. But one can’t stay young forever. Sooner or later – and I hope, with my help, sooner rather than later -- they will have to outgrow their present stage and confront reality. How do you know they are not old enough? I don’t judge people by their chronological age. I judge them by their mental age. You see, the danger in propaganda is not that it misleads people but that it makes them stupid. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 8, 2007 Wednesday, August 08, 2007 ******************************************* CRAP AS NEWS ****************************** We read the following in IT’S NOT NEWS, IT’S FARK: HOW MASS MEDIA TRIES TO PASS OFF CRAP AS NEWS by Drew Curtis (Gotham Books, 278 pages, 2007): “Everyone claims to want real news, but no one really does.” That may be because people prefer fiction to fact, and illusion to reality. Our Armenian-American press today is controlled by political parties and big money, that is to say, it is thoroughly pro-establishment. Who speaks for the underdog? No one, perhaps because almost every other institution is busy collecting money for a noble cause. Every other day I get a letter printed on fancy stationery and fancier letterhead that ends with Comrade Panchoonie’s favorite punch line: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money). My guess is, for every underdog we have two fat top dogs in the charity business. Next time you read a headline that says so many thousand or even million dollars were collected for a good cause in the Homeland, try to find out, if you can, how much of it ended in deep pockets and how much went to charity. We collect money for myriad causes, except one: investigative reporting. And why? Because we prefer crap to news. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Thursday, August 09, 2007 ************************************** FREE PRESS, ARMENIAN STYLE ********************************************** You are of course free to say whatever you wish, provided you say nothing against God and capital -- make it, Capital and god – I mean benefactors and bishops – because, like everyone else, we are financially dependent on the generosity of our benefactors, and because bishops represent god on earth, and who would dare to criticize god? Besides, bishops, or rater their secretaries, provide us with a regular stream of press releases about their activities, projects, and recent developments dealing with the community, plus verbatim texts of sermons, in addition to buying advertising space for such things as Oriental rug sales, banquets, kefs, picnics, and so on and so forth. Get the picture? Criticizing them would be like biting the hand that lays the golden egg. As for our bosses: pretend they don’t exist. They are publicity shy anyway. Most Armenians don’t even know who they are. And remember, your job and mine depend on their say-so. One wrong word and we are out. Otherwise, as I said, you are free to say anything you want about the Genocide, provided of course you make it absolutely clear we had nothing to do with it, except for contributing victims. Perhaps I should also mention some subjects you had better avoid, subjects like solidarity, for instance. Solidarity is a subject best left to our editorialists, they know how to handle it. But just in case you are cornered or stumble into it, say we are all of it; it’s the opposition that’s against it. We are not the dividers, they are. We have always been for solidarity – 100%, body and soul. Same goes for all our other problems. Put the blame on the opposition. But otherwise, as I said, you must feel absolutely free to say whatever you wish, because ours is a free press, and we live in a democracy that considers free speech a fundamental human right…and all that crap. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2007 Friday, August 10, 2007 ********************************************* ABRACADABRA ****************************** Americans fought their bloodiest war in defense of solidarity. Have we shed a single drop of blood in defense of our own? If anything, we have done the exact opposite. Our tribal leaders and their dupes have killed one another to keep us divided. Does anyone know how many Armenians have been killed by fellow Armenians in the name of this or that dime-a-dozen ideology – make it, propaganda line – that has since been exposed as a Big Lie? To cover up the devastating consequences of their tribal policies, our dividers are fond of evoking historic, social, and cultural conditions and forces beyond their control, when all they have to do is take a good look at themselves in the mirror. I am beginning to suspect our favorite word is abracadabra, and our favorite mode of perception is self-assessment. We say, “We are smart. Abracadabra!” and lo and behold, we convince ourselves our single-digit IQ has performed a quantum leap to the stratosphere. We say, “We are nationalists. Abracadabra!” and we compound the felony by convincing ourselves we qualify. And when someone points out the fact that we are no better than a bunch of inbred tribal morons, we call him an enemy of the people, a traitor to the cause, and worse, a Turcophile! # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shahan Araradian Posted August 10, 2007 Report Share Posted August 10, 2007 Friday, August 10, 2007 ********************************************* ABRACADABRA ****************************** Americans fought their bloodiest war in defense of solidarity. Have we shed a single drop of blood in defense of our own? If anything, we have done the exact opposite. Our tribal leaders and their dupes have killed one another to keep us divided. Ara, what fantasies are you talking about now? Please cite some specific examples. How do our organizations keep us "divided"? Are you kidding me... Which organization are you a part of that you say this? Does anyone know how many Armenians have been killed by fellow Armenians in the name of this or that dime-a-dozen ideology – make it, propaganda line – that has since been exposed as a Big Lie? To cover up the devastating consequences of their tribal policies, our dividers are fond of evoking historic, social, and cultural conditions and forces beyond their control, when all they have to do is take a good look at themselves in the mirror. I am beginning to suspect our favorite word is abracadabra, and our favorite mode of perception is self-assessment. We say, “We are smart. Abracadabra!” and lo and behold, we convince ourselves our single-digit IQ has performed a quantum leap to the stratosphere. We say, “We are nationalists. Abracadabra!” and we compound the felony by convincing ourselves we qualify. And when someone points out the fact that we are no better than a bunch of inbred tribal morons, we call him an enemy of the people, a traitor to the cause, and worse, a Turcophile! # Do you live in some parallel universe? Get out of your mind, and give us some concrete facts from history that support your "claims." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2007 Saturday, August 11, 2007 **************************************** AN HONEST ARMENIAN *************************************** The first time I met an honest Armenian I thought he was nuts. I grew up in a ghetto inhabited by refugees whose central concern was survival in an alien environment in time of war – not exactly conditions favorable to the abstractions of literature and philosophy. To a hungry man, it has been said, a loaf of bread and a pair of boots are more important than the complete works of Plato and Shakespeare. Those who could read, read AZAD OR, an Armenian language daily whose fourth (and last page) consisted of obituaries, announcements, and advertisements. As for books: I grew up in a house with a single book, a dilapidated elementary school anthology. It was at the age of thirteen and in Italy that I discovered the world of books and met Vahé Esmerian, a cousin twice or thrice removed. He spoke of Dostoevsky (whose GAMBLER I had just read) and Alishan, the greatest Mekhitarist scholar and poet (“a mental masturbator”), Marx, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and many others. My first reaction to what he was saying was confusion, disorientation, and astonishment. If he is right, I thought, everyone else I had met until then must be wrong. If he is honest, everyone else must be either a dupe or a charlatan. Was that possible? I could not make up my mind. But I sensed that in his presence, the world became a less incomprehensible place and life ceased to be one damn thing after another. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2007 To Araradian: i know now what your problem is: you were born yesterday and you were born with a very BIG MOUTH!/ara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2007 (edited) deleted version Edited August 12, 2007 by ara baliozian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2007 Sunday, August 12, 2007 ******************************************** WHEN IN A HOLE… ******************************* Garbage must be disposed, mediocrity rejected, fear of reality exposed. A community that fails in these endeavors is doomed. A singer sings to entertain, a comedian delivers lines that generate laughter, but a writer writes even when what he says neither entertain nor amuse his readers. The function of criticism (and all literature is criticism) is to expose contradictions, to say in effect, when you are in a hole, stop digging. Socrates was condemned to death because he exposed the ignorance of his fellow Athenians, and his fellow Athenians, the very same Athenians at the apex of their Golden Age (5th century BC) retaliated by silencing him permanently. Because Athenians were too vain and arrogant to face facts and admit their failings, they entered a long period of decline and disintegration never to rise again. They were conquered by such upstart barbarians as Macedonians, Romans, and Turks. A thousand years after Socrates, two of our greatest historians, Khorenatsi and Yeghishe (5th century AD) warned their fellow Armenians they were on the path of self-destruction, and they too were ignored; and what happened to the Greeks, happened to us. Now then, go ahead, rationalize, prevaricate, and deceive yourself all you want by blaming our defeats, tragedies, and present problems on historic, geographic, and social conditions beyond our control. Go ahead and continue to dig… # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted August 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2007 Monday, August 13, 2007 ********************************************* WHAT I THINK I UNDERSTAND ******************************************** Khorenatsi (5t century), Naregatsi (10th century) and Raffi (19th century), three of our greatest writers, agree on one important point, namely: our failures are extensions of our own failings. But if we are to believe our self-appointed pundits and ghazetajis, there is nothing wrong with us and we have nothing to worry about because we are good hands. * If you want to understand the past, begin with the present. If you want to understand others, begin with yourself. * Mediocrities achieve excellence only in their merciless persecution of anyone who dares to surpass them. * The worst thing that can happen to a speechifier is to believe in his own rhetoric. * A nation that trusts its dividers signs its own death warrant. * If Khorenatsi, Naregatsi, and Raffi were alive today, they would be ruthlessly and promptly silenced. And why? Because to defend the lies of our charlatans is more important than the truths of our great writers. # Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anonymouse Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 I see Ara Baliozian is still kicking and posting more than ever! Good indeed. Shahan Araradian posting in this thread is not much of an improvement considering he is a neo-Marxist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louise Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 I see Ara Baliozian is still kicking and posting more than ever! Good indeed. Shahan Araradian posting in this thread is not much of an improvement considering he is a neo-Marxist. --------------------- It is very good to discuss. From discussion the light shoots out ! Louise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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