as i see it - Pt. IV

[Shahan Araradian]

To Araradian:

i know now what your problem is:

you were born yesterday

and you were born with a very BIG MOUTH!/ara

Baliozian,

 

You can't answer my simple questions regarding you present some evidence for your fantasies about the Armenian community...

 

True that Armenians live in foreign lands in the West, where they are being constantly bombarded by the power elite (via corporate media they control) which seeks to create consumerism in the masses and a dumb and depoliticized workforce which is easy to get to work and to control. Does this mean that our Armenian communities are led by "charlatans" and "liars"? It only means that we are letting ourselves down. WE are our only leaders; not some "charlatans" or "liars" controlling us. WE are our leaders.

 

The Armenian's weakness throughout the ages (becoming apartment in the 10th century) has been in the third leg of the nation-state: military power. Command an army that is ready to obliterate an enemy threatening your livelihood and you have fulfilled one in three prerequisites to nation-hood. The other 2 are economy and human capital.

 

Be truthful to these 3 pillars of the nation-state and Armenia is golden.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Shahan Araradian

[Shahan Araradian]

Shahan Araradian posting in this thread is not much of an improvement considering he is a neo-Marxist.

LOL! So there is something wrong with being a Marxist? ... To believe that "the ultimate interests of workers best match those of humanity in general?"

 

And no, I am not a Luddite. Indeed, my employer is developing some of the most advanced artificial intelligence software in its class; and I am part of the team building this "living" entity.

 

Universal Artificial Intelligence (UAI) will open the doors to Marx's Fifth Stage of history: Communism.

 

And it is Capitalism (Marx's Fourth Stage) which is developing UAI. (I am in this industry, therefore I can see the future which most people -- who are outside this very small niche industry [just as very FEW people had access to computers in the early 60s] -- can't...)

 

This is the single technology that will most revolutionize the next 30 years: MORE than the PC and more than the Internet... Actually, it is a turning point in the evolution of the Earth and indeed the known portion of the universe (at least on par with the emergence of biological life on Earth): the emergence of NON-biological life.

 

A Sneak preview of the future: Upon capitalism's development of UAI -- the software of intelligence -- UAI will shortly thereafter be open-sourced. UAI forever changes the relationship between capitalist and worker, since UAI enables low- and fixed-cost universal labor automation. After a brief period of human population decline, human population will continue to explode. At this point either of two things are possible: (1) humanity saturates the Earth with its intelligence, then moves on to saturate the solar system, the nearby star system, the galaxy, and the entire universe (and in the process creating "God" or several gods), or (2) humanity destroys itself with its technology. The silence of the stars suggests #2 using probabilistic analysis.

 

What will further accelerate change is the availability of fixed-cost energy and molecular manufacturing & self-assembly (of which humans and other organisms are proof-of-concept of).

Edited August 14, 2007 by Shahan Araradian

[Louise]

LOL! So there is something wrong with being a Marxist? ... To believe that "the ultimate interests of workers best match those of humanity in general?"

-----------------------

 

In Faust by Goethe, Faust's selling his soul to the devil in return for power over the physical world, is also often interpreted as a metaphor for the adoption of industrial technology

[Shahan Araradian]

In Faust by Goethe, Faust's selling his soul to the devil in return for power over the physical world, is also often interpreted as a metaphor for the adoption of industrial technology

That's a good analogy (and you'll find that many of the capitalists of the U.S. are miserable to the core, and with few real friends); but that's fine. Once guys like Faust create UAI (for their short-sighted, near-term rewards), the world will have the enabling tool to create REAL communism.

 

An interesting documentary on U.S.-style capitalism (a "media-ocracy") is Orwell Rolls in His Grave.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Shahan Araradian

[ED]

And inevitably Human Nature will overcome any ism, be it Marxism. Imperialism, Socialism, Nazism, Communism, Artificial Intelligential-ism etc...

 

we are all first and foremost are governed by the rules of the nature. nothing is more powerful and equal!

 

your very young and naive to think otherwise, i know, Mr. Ara Baliozian knows, but you are yet to find out.

 

If I were to give advise to anyone, and including me first! I'd say, take it easy for a wile and take a deep breath.

 

life will pass very fast.

 

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

***********************************************

THE TWIN CONCEPTS OF

TURKISHNESS AND ARMENISHNESS

************************************************

A Turk who dares to mention the Armenian Genocide in Turkey is accused of insulting Turkishness; and an Armenian who says anything remotely critical about our collective existence is accused of insulting Armenishness. How can anyone insult an abstraction that is not even defined but used as an umbrella under which prosecutors and self-appointed commissars of culture feel authorized to assert their superior patriotism or morality and to hurl insults at their fellow countrymen?

*

It never ceases to amaze me – the unbelievable arrogance, ease and speed with which an Armenian hooligan or skinhead assumes to be an infallible judge of Armenishness, point a finger at you, and hiss, “Admit it, you work for Ankara!”

*

When they can’t stand on their own two feet, they invoke Armenishness, or even God and Country, in the hope these mighty abstractions will fill their darkness with light and their brand of paranoia and insanity with reason.

*

Below four recent anonymous comments on my writings:

“I spit on you,”

“Everything you say is garbage,”

“You make me puke,”

“What you write is sh**!”

*

In their defense of Armenishness, some of my gentle readers do not hesitate to expose their Turkishness as defined by Turkish prosecutors who, in their efforts to defend Turkish culture and identity, do not hesitate to adopt fascist means – that is to say, to behave like barbarians.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

*************************************************

WONDERS NEVER CEASE

***********************************

At one time or another I have been accused of working for Ankara, the KGB, the CIA, the Mossad, the ARF, and the ADL. On several occasions I have also been accused of living in an ivory tower. Suspicious buggers, these Armenians. In the 20th century alone they were taken in by some of the worst crooks in the history of mankind – among them, Talaat, Hitler, and Stalin – but they are now suspicious of a harmless scribbler whose sole ambition in life is to be an honest and impartial witness. The truth is, I was born and raised in a Greek slum and I now live in a Canadian slum; and as far as I know, ivory towers don’t grow in slums; and even a retard wouldn’t consider risking his life working for less than minimum wage for half-a-dozen international spy agencies.

*

Now I know why the children of famous Armenian writers share a common preference for living as far away from Armenian community centers as possible.

*

The trouble with having a sharp tongue is that sooner or later you end up by stabbing yourself.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, August 16, 2007

**************************************

HOW TO BE A BETTER ARMENIAN

*************************************************

If you think you are a better Armenian, think of it only as a possibility rather than a certainty. Most of our problems would be solved if we were to adopt a less dogmatic stance.

*

The very best way to prove your superiority as an Armenian is by being more tolerant of your fellow men, including Armenians.

*

Whenever you disagree with a fellow Armenian, remind yourself that Armenians have disagreed with one another since time immemorial and the chances are they will continue to do so as long as they exist.

*

If you think those who disagree with you are lesser men, perhaps even Turks in disguise, consider the possibility that what you think of them, they think of you.

*

Above all, never use the Genocide as a license with which to verbally assault and abuse others, be they Armenians or Turks. In this connection, Saroyan may indeed be right: we should speak of Turks and massacres not with self-righteous outrage but with sorrow, and sorrow for both the victims as well as their victimizers. Why victimizers? Because they are either human beings like us (in which case they must bear a heavy burden on their conscience) or animals (in which case, they have shed all traces of that most valuable of all human attributes: their humanity).

#

 

[ED]

Thank you Ara.!

 

 

[ara baliozian]

Friday, August 17, 2007

******************************************

THE SIMPLICITIES OF THE SIMPLE-MINDED

*****************************************************

The simple-minded simplify, and when they speak of patriotism or the homeland, they ignore the fact that they are not speaking of a single entity but of several and sometimes mutually exclusive concepts. Consider the word homeland, as a case in point: does it refer to (a) the real estate (mountains, lakes, rivers, valleys), ( the regime, © the people, (d) the culture? If the regime is corrupt, do we support it or oppose it? If the people have adopted a passive stance (as a result of centuries of subservience to ruthless alien tyrants) do we accept their subservience as an inevitable fact of life or do we expose it as a symptom of Pavlovian conditioning? If such alien excrescences as American materialism, Ottoman authoritarianism, and Soviet contempt for fundamental human rights have contaminated our culture and traditional values, do we pretend our identity and values have not been perverted? I remember one of our patriotic dupes saying: “Even if 1% of the money we send there finds its way to those who need it, we have done some good.” But what if the 99% that goes into the wrong pockets reinforces and prolongs a regime of kleptocrats and bloodsuckers? What if by helping 1% of the population we prolong the misery of the 99%?

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, August 18, 2007

******************************************

ON BEING A PROUD ARMENIAN

*********************************************

What’s wrong with being a humble Armenian? To each his own, of course. Speaking for myself, I prefer humility to pride.

*

If you had a choice between dealing with a proud Frenchman or Russian or Greek, and a humble one, which would you choose?

*

When does pride end and arrogance begin? I don’t know. I hope you do, because arrogance or hubris is universally acknowledged not as an asset but as a liability.

*

Is god proud of the fact that he created the universe? As a matter of fact, he is so humble that even the Pope of Rome doubts his existence seven times every day, or so Italians are fond of saying.

*

When an Armenian identifies himself as a proud Armenian, how much of it is reality speaking and how much illusion? We all have illusions, of course – most of them about ourselves. But the older we grow, the more illusions we shed. Perhaps absence of illusions would be another definition of wisdom.

*

Speaking of god and the universe, I read the following quotation by Christopher Morley in today’s paper: “My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.”

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, August 19, 2007

**************************************

OREOS

******************

Some of my readers think if a writer does not parrot their views, his license to use a pen should be revoked. The only reason it isn’t, there is no agency authorized to do so. To which I say, thank god for that! Let them miss the good old days under Stalin when to express a dissenting view meant a bullet in the neck. And to think that these readers classify themselves as good Armenians. They may think like fascist butchers but they assess themselves as dedicated patriots. The other day I was accused of calling one of my readers a racist. Did I? I am not sure. One should never call a fool a racist. I know what I am saying because I had an Armenian education and I was brought up as a fool and a racist. I even wrote a racist book – my opus one – and when a Canadian critic called me a racist in his review I was so taken aback that I dismissed the charge as perverse. Can a victim of racism be a racist? As the offspring of perennial victims, is it not my human right to despise and even hate victimizers? But if I hate my victimizers, in what way am I different from them? If I think of Turks the way Turks thought of us, am I not like some of my readers who would gladly see me silenced permanently if possible? If the only reason I don’t exterminate Turks today is that I don’t have the power to do so, am I not an oreo – Armenian on the outside, Turk on the inside?

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Monday, August 20, 2007

***********************************************

MEMO: FOR THE SUGGESTION BOX

*****************************************************************

We do the right thing when we mourn our victims. But we do the wrong thing when we mourn only our victims. We should mourn for all victims, including Turkish victims.

Mourn for the enemy? No other civilized nation does that, why should we?

That’s no excuse. Let’s be as daring and progressive as we were in the 4th century. We did not wait then for the rest of the world to civilize itself. We showed them the way. It was the rest of the world that followed our example by converting to Christianity, a religion that speaks of God as our Father. Which means we, all of mankind, including infidels, are brothers and sisters. There are no infidels in the eyes of the Lord, only prodigal sons who sooner or later are destined to return to the fold.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

wrong version Edited August 21, 2007 by ara baliozian

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

***************************************

ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON

****************************************************

Moderates have a far better chance to develop a consensus than their counterparts. If consensus has so far eluded us it’s because we have been at the mercy of tribal bottom-feeders and incurable dunderheads who, even as they speechify on survival, plot our downfall. This much said, I don’t expect our bottom-feeding dunderheads to acknowledge this fundamental and self-evident fact.

*

Cui bono? – Who benefits? The old question asked by Roman lawyers is as good today as it was two thousand years ago. If the speaker is the beneficiary of what he says, the chances are excellent that he is either a liar or a dupe.

*

War is hell? So is peace. You want proof? Visit an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

*********************************************

QUESTIONS I ASK MYSELF

**************************************

Whenever an Armenian feels like slaying dragons, he visits an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet and verbally assaults anyone who disagrees with him, and makes it sound as if an Armenian disagreeing with a fellow Armenian were an outrageous scandal and an unheard of thing rather than business as usual.

*

Why do dogs fight?

For the same reason that Armenians do.

*

Why do Armenians fight?

That’s a question for our Armenologists.

*

How come dog fighting is against the law but war is not?

That’s a question for our pundits.

*

It has been said that an Armenian will extend a helping hand when you are down, and when you are up he will send you right back into the gutter with a kick. True or false?

True. I have met both kinds. There are no statistics but I would guess the kickers outnumber their counterparts.

*

Why is it that some Armenians get more worked up about a scribbler’s opinions than about what’s being done to them by frauds parading as men of god and statesmen of vision?

Because they have either assessed themselves as men of god or statesmen of vision. Either that or they are the offspring of bishops or former commissars.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, August 23, 2007

***************************************

QUESTIONS / ANSWERS

****************************************

You don’t always reply to your critics. Why not?

I don’t always read them.

Why don’t you?

One reason, they are unreadable.

What’s another?

A diarrhea of words and a constipation of ideas – to put it as elegantly as I can.

That’s what they say about your stuff…or words to that effect.

They don’t mean it. If they meant it they wouldn’t read me. I think they read me because they find me irresistible. And they find me irresistible because I speak about them.

They say the only reason they read and criticize you is that they don’t want young readers to be taken in by your anti-Armenian tirades.

What have I done to deserve such dedicated and selfless specimens of humanity?

You don’t believe them?

I have every reason to suspect they don’t believe it themselves.

Some say you are motivated by bitterness, rage, and disappointment because you have been neglected and ignored by your fellow Armenians.

Nothing new in that. It has been the fate of our writers to be ignored and neglected, sometimes even silenced, starved, and betrayed by their fellow Armenians.

Betrayed? What do you mean betrayed?

I meant betrayed to the enemy. Both Talaat’s and Stalin’s victims, two generations of our ablest writers, were betrayed by their fellow Armenians.

There are those who say you flatter yourself if you think you qualify as a writer.

In the eyes of commissars of culture no writer ever does; and judging by the number of readers who keep telling me what and how to write, we have become a nation whose commissars outnumber its writers. I said nation. Strike that. Make it, collection of tribes.

Any concluding remarks or advice for your critics?

Critics: I wish I had them.

What would you call them?

Kibitzers would be a euphemism.

Okay, any final words?

Whenever they feel the urge to read and comment on my things, they should slice a watermelon.

Slice a watermelon? Is that what you sad? But why?

They tell me it’s a good substitute for slaughter, and slaughter is never too far from an Armenian’s mind.

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

Friday, August 24, 2007

**********************************************

SELF-ANALYSIS

*****************************

We don’t know who we are. We may know what others think of us. We may even know what we think of ourselves. But that doesn’t even cover the tip of the iceberg – only a fraction of its shadow. Freud, Jung, Adler & Co. may disagree on many things, but they are unanimous on this point. We are full of contradictions. There is a Jekyll and Hyde in all of us. We rule over a kingdom that is terra incognita.

*

I can tell how good an Armenian is by the frequency with which he uses the words “Yes, sir!” If an Armenian disagrees with me on one thing, such as the placement of commas or semicolons, he is bound to disagree with me on many other things. An Armenian who disagrees with me might as well be a Turk, and the only good Turk is a dead Turk. If you dare to disagree with me on this point, I shall have no choice but to accuse you of insulting the nation.

*

In life, questions outnumber answers. Case in point: If they are bloodthirsty savages, why did they wait for 600 years to slaughter us?

*

In a commentary in our local daily today I read: “Even superpowers need friends.” Judging by the number of our internecine squabbles and tsunamis in a teacup, we behave as though we were invincible giants among gutless midgets. Heroes among zeroes. A Hercules among yellow-bellies! Hercules -- Iraklis in Greek, Hergele in Turkish -- hergele (with a lower case “h”) also means an oversized hoodlum in Turkish. Transplant a hero and you get a zero. Another symptom of the Jekyll/Hyde syndrome.

*

The shortest list in the world? Wars we have won.

#

[Louise]

Friday, August 24, 2007

**********************************************

*

The shortest list in the world? Wars we have won.

#

---------------------------------------

 

Should we envy Napoleon Bonaparte ?

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, August 25, 2007

****************************************

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

*********************************************

If I were to say I am better than you, not only you wouldn’t believe me, you would also be justified to dismiss me as a self-satisfied ass. Remember that next time you think of performing your first-nation-this and first-nation-that routine to an odar.

*

We fought a war against the Persians and their elephants in defense of our faith? That’s 1500 years ago. Since then we have learned to adapt and compromise. Under the Soviets we were the first nation to convert to atheism. How about that? Another first for us!

*

Armenianism and objectivity seem to be mutually exclusive concepts. Whenever I make an honest effort to deliver an objective assessment, I am assailed by a chorus of screaming Apaches on the warpath, followed by a contingent of yataghan-brandishing Janissaries.

*

May I remind those who use the word philosophy as if it were synonymous with mental masturbation, that the alternative to philosophy is philo-inbred-moronism.

*

What’s the use of having two or three answers to every question if they are all wrong or so full of holes that they convince no one?

*

I am accused of being consistently negative. Once upon a time I knew many stories that ended with “three apples fell from heaven,” and “they lived happily ever after,” but I have forgotten them all. My repertoire now consists of only one or two Nasredin Hoja stories that I have already told more than once. The best I can do today is this: Shortly before he died at the age of 91, Sibelius said: “All the doctors who wanted to forbid me to smoke and to drink are dead.”

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, August 26, 2007

*************************************

ANTI-SEMITISM AND US

**********************************************

Anti-Semites are everywhere, including Armenians, and yes, including Jews. Once in a while we are reminded that Talaat was part Jewish, the implication being that it is the Jew in him that must be held responsible for the Genocide (a theory that would be more than welcome to the perps). My own sources tell me Talaat was part Armenian. So was the Red Sultan. What does that prove? Only one thing, that all men are brothers, like Cain and Abel. They may preach brotherhood but they prefer to practice Cain-Abelism, sometimes even cannibalism; and what is cannibalism if not another form of assimilation and recycling? It is wrong to assign guilt to races and nations because it may alienate potential allies, supporters, and friends, who come in all sizes and shapes, also races, colors and creeds – including Jews, Turks, and fantastic as this may seem, Armenians.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Monday, August 27, 2007

**********************************************

A RULE WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS

*******************************************

The louder they speechify on patriotism the phonier they are. All rules have exceptions, except this one. You want proof? I’ll give you two: Adolf (Deutschland ueber alles) Hitler, Iosif (Patriotic War) Stalin, and King Kong.

*

CURSES

***********************

Do you want to curse an Armenian and you can’t come up with a good one that does justice to the situation? How about this? “May your son (or daughter) be a writer,” or “May s/he be educated enough to think for herself/himself.” Or “May s/he rate honesty as the queen of virtues and the king of assets!” These may not sound like curses, but take my word for it, they are the kind of beauties you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

*

HAVE YOU HEARD THIS ONE?

******************************************

A guy gets splattered by a passing bird, looks up and says, “For the rich you sing.”

*

SPEAKING OF DUMPING

***********************************

The easiest way to assert superiority is to dump on your betters. Only one drawback: it never works; it may even backfire.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

******************************************

HITLER AND I

******************************

“Hitler was a Jew,” a reader writes; “his passport says so.” Maybe so am I. On more than one occasion I have stated that on a good day I can trace my ancestry all the way back to my father. I am told some Armenians are so eager to identify themselves as pure-blooded Armenians that they trace their ancestry all the way back to the Mamikonians (of Chinese descent) and Bagratunis (Jewish). No one chooses his nationality. You and I could just as easily have been born on the other side of the mountain or river. Not that I give a damn one way or the other. Races, colors, creeds, nations and tribes – I consider them all bad news. Identify yourself with one of them and you inherit nothing but grief, feuds, and enemies, some among your own kind. If you were to try settling scores with all of them, you would either end up as a serial killer or a victim – the quintessential “esh nahadag” (jackass martyr). In that sense, national identity is not an asset but a liability, a burden, and a curse. The pure-blooded Armenian is as much a myth as the pure-blooded Turk, Greek, American, or Gypsy. Anyone who says otherwise is out to manipulate you to do his dirty work for him – just like the neocons in Washington today. And speaking of jackasses and our own Jack S. Avanakians who speechify and editorialize on nationalism and unsettled scores: I read the following apposite quotation from Konrad Lorentz in our paper this morning: “The long sought missing link between animals and really humane beings is ourselves.” A final note on Hitler’s passport: I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be a fake, just like Lord Byron’s pen in the museum of San Lazzaro.

#

 

[Louise]

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

******************************************

HITLER AND I

****************************“Hitler was a Jew,” a reader writes; “his passport says so.” Maybe so am I.

------------------------------

 

The blood is not important . But the spirit. Adopted children, by Turks, are sometimes more

Turks than Turks. That's the education. You told about the family J S Bach. It may have been

a question of education. Though I went to French school, my parents gave me the love of

"Armenia", where they had never been. But they knew the language, the culture, the history,

and the passion fot studies.

 

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

********************************************

THE SECRET OF MY POPULARITY

*****************************************************

Peter de Vries: “Everybody hates me because I’m so universally liked.”

*

“If you think you can do better, why don’t you get involved in community affairs?” I am told once in a while.

Because in an authoritarian environment yes-man have a better chance to be influential than critics. Stalin did not invite Solzhenitsyn to the Kremlin; he bundled him off to the Gulag.

*

Deep down somewhere we all want to know what’s wrong with us. We may not like it when we are told, we may even hate those who take it upon themselves to tell us, but we want to know because our ego is our most valuable possession.

*

Nothing can be as menacing to those who live in a world of illusions than talk of reality.

*

We pretend to be against denialists but we engage in denialism when it comes to our failings, of which we have our share. To say otherwise is to speak as an idiot.

*

An idiot holding forth on patriotism or any other noble-sounding ism is still an idiot.

#