as i see it - Pt. IV

ara baliozian · March 21, 2012

Sunday, March 18, 2012

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LA CRÈME DE LA CRÈME

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First, they lead us to massacre

after which they have trouble convincing the world

that the massacre took place and is not

a figment of our collective imagination;

after which they violate the human right of anyone

who dares to say anything remotely critical about them;

after which they expect us to believe

we never had it so good

because we are in the best of hands;

after which they enjoy the support of the community –

or at least a fraction of it.

*

When our “aghber”s in the Homeland call us aghber,

they expect us to believe they,

and by extension their own leadership,

subscribe to a superior brand of Armenianism

and butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths

or anywhere else for that matter.

*

If any one of our writers had survived

Talaat’s and Stalin’s bloodbath,

what would he have said about this gigantic hoax

perpetrated against the nation?

No need to use our imagination.

We already have the testimony of a witness for the prosecution –

an intellectual giant and a man of unimpeachable integrity:

Gostan Zarian – and I quote:

“Our political parties have been of no political use to us.

Their greatest enemy is free speech.”

#

Monday, March 19, 2012

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THE ARMENIAN WAY

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

The very same individuals who so far have succeeded only

in dividing the community now say

“Armenians are ungovernable.”

If you can blame others, why assume responsibility?

That’s the Armenian way.

The scandal is not that some Armenians,

who ought to know better,

make absurd assertions but that they are believed.

*

If I were to say for every truth

there are ten thousand lies,

there will always be a reader who will say

the right number is not 10,000 but 9,999 or 10,001.

I know this to be a fact because once upon a time

I was such a reader.

*

Some of my readers remind me of sharks

circling and waiting for traces of blood to appear in the water.

#

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

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REFLECTIONS

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

What I write may be described as a faint echo

of what for better men than I have said.

(For more on this subject

see my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS.)

*

A self-righteous Armenians can be as ruthless

as a bloodthirsty Turk.

(After writing this line I am reminded of Zarian’s dictum:

“An Armenian’s tongue can be sharper

than a Turk’s yataghan.”)

*

A smart Armenian?

I would like to meet one even if it means

revising all my favorite arguments.

*

If I appear as a perennial loser

it may be because I challenge those in authority

only with my reason,

whereas they can retaliate with the might

of Almighty God and capital --

make it Almighty Capital and god.

#

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

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IN PRAISE OF DOUBT

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

When a man says he has fathered eleven sons

and he is proud of all ten of them,

the question you want to ask is,

“What’s wrong with the eleventh?”

Likewise, when a man asserts his certainties,

you want to know more about his doubts.

The chances are such a man will pretend to have none.

Sultans, emperors, dictators, popes, imams, rabbis:

they are all men with certainties.

Reason is powerless against them.

Only time can prove them wrong.

Sometimes not even that.

The blunders and crimes of the papacy are endless.

And yet, it has lost none of its popularity and prestige

in the eyes of millions.

*

What an Armenian finds inconceivable

is the possibility of another Armenian

knowing something he doesn’t.

*

Friends tell me to block or delete annoying messages

posted by individuals who contribute nothing to a discussion.

If so far I have rejected their advice

it’s because I believe in free speech

which gives everyone an equal chance

to make an ass of himself in public.

*

One way to win an argument

is by being incomprehensible.

#

ara baliozian · March 24, 2012

Thursday, March 22, 2012

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JUST A THOUGHT

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

You would think that after more than a thousand years

of defeats, massacres, and subservience to alien tyrants,

our leaders would have enough sense to say,

“Let us give solidarity a try for a change –

we may have better luck that way.”

It must be obvious by now that propaganda moronizes

not only the people but also blinds the leadership.

*

A regime that terrorizes will view dissent

as a crime against humanity.

*

To see connections that have been carefully covered up:

that’s one of the functions of detectives and critics.

*

There is a familiar type of Armenian

who is cunning enough to know that

one way to have the last word

is to make himself so repellent that

anyone with the minimum sense of hygiene

will do his utmost to stay as far away from him as possible.

#

Friday, March 23, 2012

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NEOLOGISMS

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“santorum”: a byproduct of anal intercourse.

*

“To die on the job” or

“To take the Nelson Rockefeller option”:

death by orgasm.

*

POETRY

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

Marx’s “religion is the opium of the people”

is preceded by

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed,

the heart of a heatless world,

and the soul of a soulless condition.”

Now, that’s what I call real poetry!

*

DIALOGUE, ARMENIAN STYLE

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

Not all dialogues end in consensus by means of compromise.

Some end in death.

Case in point:

Shane to Wilson:

“I’ve heard about you.”

“What have you heard, Shane?”

“That you are a low-down Yankee liar.”

“Prove it.”

Another example will be found in

Hemingway’s long short story THE KILLERS.

#

Saturday, March 24, 2012

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OBSERVATIONS

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

From the persecution of heretics

to the massacre of defenseless civilians:

infallibility may be said to be the source of all violence.

*

Neither the sultan nor the pope

ever thought of himself as prone to error.

*

Where there are leaders and followers

there will be charlatans and dupes.

*

One could say that the role of god in history

has been to legitimize crimes against humanity.

Or, where god enters, the devil is sure to follow.

*

Religions are the greatest enemies of god.

*

If willingness to kill and die

in the name of an illusion or lie

is a sure symptom of insanity,

it follows our planet must be

the insane asylum of the solar system.

#

ara baliozian · March 28, 2012

Sunday, March 25, 2012

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

MEDITATIONS

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

A Canadian poetess on publishers:

“After you have been screwed in all possible ways

you run into someone who has read the KAMA SUTRA.”

This observation applies to so many situations in life.

Nay life itself for that matter, and more particularly

to dealing with fellow Armenians.

... *

It’s when you think you are too smart to be taken in

that you swallow the bait hook, line and sinker.

*

The world belongs to bullies, bullshitters, and brown-nosers.

The surest way of exposing your limitations

is by pretending to be better than you are.

*

All talk of reparations and annexation of historic lands

is no better than a Ponzi scheme. There is a Madoff in all our Panchoonies and Turcocentric ghazetajis.

Don’t get me wrong.

Mention of Hai Tahd scares the shit out of Turks.

But that’s all it does. All they have to do is take a shower

and they feel clean again.

*

The only way to be happy in this world

is to be deaf to silent screams.

*

When an old man falls in love

it’s never with an old woman but with a much younger one.

So much for the spiritual content of love.

*

Whenever I am tempted to take myself seriously

I can always rely on one of my Armenian readers

to bring me down to earth and to my senses.

To them I am eternally grateful.

#

Monday, March 26, 2012

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WARS

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

All wars are just wars against an unjust enemy.

... *

The sanctity of life?

Don’t make me laugh.

The very same people who are against abortion

are also for war.

*

The only way to keep your sanity in an insane world:

take nothing seriously beginning with yourself.

*

Is it His absence or presence

that I feel more intensely?

#

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

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FROM DUST TO DUST

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

All your life you try to do what’s right

and you end up doing what’s wrong.

That’s the only way to explain

the hemlock, the crucifixion, and the assassination –

Socrates, Christ, and Gandhi.

*

Every idea generates its own contradiction.

For every believer there will be a non-believer;

and to complicate matters even more,

some non-believers will parade as believers and vice versa.

*

Hitler was a man of vision

whose idea of heaven was hell

to Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and many others.

*

Where there is love there will be hatred.

For every positive there will be a negative

and the result will be zero or death or nothingness.

From dust to dust.

*

The world is full of idiots who think

(if you will forgive the overstatement)

they are smart enough to know what must be done

and they go right ahead and do it.

Think of our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire…

*

Philosophers and historians have tried to explain these paradoxes

and so far they have failed to reach a consensus –

very much like our own thinkers whose existence (like that of god) has so far eluded a universally valid proof.

*

What am I driving at?

I am not sure.

Perhaps this:

If you sit on your ass and do nothing

or if you choose to die for a noble cause,

nothing will change and the world will go on

as before and as it has always done.

*

An ant may impress another ant

but not a pedestrian.

#

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

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LET US REASON TOGETHER

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The 1% do not have to lie in order to deceive;

all they have to do is withhold the evidence.

First and foremost they are cover-up artists.

*

The greatest sin is allowing oneself

to be deceived, brainwashed, and systematically moronized.

*

The system is foolproof because

we are moronized with our own consent.

*

“Thou shalt not be deceived”

is not in the Decalogue because Moses was with the 1%.

*

The secret ambition of the 99% is to join the 1%.

It is this hope or ambition more than anything else

that keeps them in chains.

*

The 1% does not manufacture chains;

they hire the 99% for the job.

Schoolteachers and priests are first and foremost

hirelings of the 1%.

*

All great assertions have direct references

to this self-evident truth –

from “The Kingdom of God is within you,”

to “You have nothing to lose but your chains.”

*

You don’t need middle-men to tell you

what’s what and who’s who.

*

The hidden message of “I think therefore I am” is:

To repeat someone else’s thought

is to abdicate one’s right to exist as a human being.

*

The best answer to the question:

“Who the hell do you think you are?” is

“You are full of shit, that’s who I am.”

#

ara baliozian · March 31, 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

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RESIGNATION

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

Writers from Khorenatsi to Naregatsi, and more recently from Abovian to Zarian wrote to save the nation -- until they realized no one can save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

*

When asked why I write, I say I write to kill time or I write because writing has become a habit. I doubt if I have changed anyone’s mind. If I have succeeded in anything it’s making enemies.

*

Reality holds all the cards. Compared to reality, arguments, even the best by the most competent philosophers, are no better than empty verbiage.

*

Some can read the writing on the wall; others prefer to behave like functional illiterates. To each his own.

*

We are born and we die. The same applies to tribes, nations, and empires. What goes on between birth and death we call life, and life consists in a series of hopes and disappointments, minor victories and major catastrophes.

*

When a man is on the wrong path, reality steps in; and reality is like a herd of elephants and we are no better than ants.

#

Friday, March 30, 2012

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ON TURCOCENTRISM

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

For 600 years Turks played a central role in our collective existence.

There is no reason why they should continue to do so.

As for Genocide Recognition:

it should be obvious by now even to the most naïve

that in politics and international diplomacy

“truth” and “lies” are relative terms.

We may have a far better chance to succeed

if we choose toe present a united front during presidential elections.

But if we continue to divide our votes more or less evenly

between Republican and Democratic candidates,

then we have as much chance of success

as a snowball in hell.

If our Turcocentric ghazetajis do not stress

or even mention this aspect of our struggle,

it’s not because they are not aware of it

but because they are propagandists of the establishment

and their real aim is not justice

but to cover up the corruption, incompetence, and divisiveness

of our leaders whose first and most important priority

is to maintain their own powers, privileges, and titles (“chairs”)

as opposed to serving the interests of the community.

By covering up the divide-and-rule tactics of our leaders

and by ignoring their violations of human rights –

among them that of free speech and dissent –

our panchoonies and ghazetajis have freely chosen to behave

like our former masters – sultans and commissars –

they are thus a greater obstacle to achieving genocide recognition

than the pro-Turkish block in Washington.

#

Saturday, March 31, 2012

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

IF…

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

If in crimes of passion it’s “cherchez la femme,”

in crimes against humanity it’s

faith and patriotism – two of the most sinister words

in any language.

*

If Naregatsi’s LAMENTATION has a moral it is this:

We are as guilty of the crimes committed against us

as the perpetrators.

*

If you are a writer and if you are objective

in your assessment of our present situation,

no need to promote yourself.

Your enemies will do that for you free of charge;

as for friends – assuming you have any –

you will discover that most of them

will pretend they have never heard of you.

*

Why is it so hard for an Armenian to speak the truth?

Is it because the truth is unspeakable?

Or is it because he has been so thoroughly brainwashed

as to equate truth with treason?

#

ara baliozian · April 4, 2012

Sunday, April 01, 2012

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ARE WE A GREAT NATION?

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

Some troubles fall on you when

... you least expect them

like a thief in the night.

The Genocide was not one of them.

A series of massacres had already taken place

making Turkish intentions abundantly clear.

Now then, what does that tell you

about our leadership

that clung to the absurd notion that

the Turks wouldn’t dare to finish the job

because the West wouldn’t allow it?

*

And now that the Obama administration

has refused to use the G word,

what are our prospects?

How many more millions of dollars

do we have to waste on politicians

to whom truth and honesty might as well be

words in an alien and incomprehensible tongue?

Do we give up?

No, of course not!

Instead we assign the job

to a dream-team of lawyers

willing to work pro bono,

and we concentrate all our efforts

on improving conditions in the Homeland

where, as I write, another genocide is taking place –

genocide by exodus.

*

Notwithstanding our propaganda,

we are not a great nation;

neither are we a people like any other people.

Once upon a time we were slaves;

we are now slaves of former slaves.

We have committed the worst blunders

that a nation can commit.

There is only one thing left for us to do now:

not to repeat the same blunders.

#

Monday, April 02, 2012

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GUILTY AS CHARGED

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

They Ottomanized us to the same degree that we Armenianized them (in the sense that they no longer look like mongrelized Mongols) with one important difference: whereas they borrowed the best from us, we assimilated the worst -- namely their contempt for human rights, intolerance of dissent, and subservience as the only proof of good citizenship -- a good Armenian is one who says “Yes, sir!” to his leaders.

Our tribal leaders may say all kinds of nasty thing about one another but that option is not open to the ignorant masses.

*

Don’t think of me as a witness who speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; but as someone who is reacting to an unbearable reality. You are free to agree or disagree with me. All I ask is that you take my testimony under consideration.

*

Once in a while a reader writes to express his agreement. But so far none of our leaders has gone as far as acknowledging my existence, which suggests I may well be on the right path.

*

All our great men – from Abovian to Zarian and from Khrimian Hairik to Komitas – were victims of our own brown-nosing mediocrities. I am not implying I too am great. All I am saying is that I am on their side. If that’s a crime against humanity, I gladly plead guilty as charged.

#

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

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

HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE

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

We are responsible for everything that happens to us – not when it happens (by which time it may be too late) but before, when we engaged in wishful thinking based on false assumptions – “Talaat is not like the Sultan,” “the West is one our side,” “the Russians are our big brothers.”

*

We are not the scum of the earth even if we have been treated as if we were not only by alien tyrants but also our own. What could be more cynical than equating patriotism with subservience to a gang of incompetent charlatans on the grounds that they know best what’s good for the nation?

*

Sartre said “Hell is other people.”

He is right.

Hell is other people even when they happen to be brothers.

In our case, especially!...

#

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

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

A LOSE/LOSE PROPOSITION

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

To be an Armenian writer means,

if you are wrong they will disagree with you;

and if you are right they will hate you.

*

COMPROMISE

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

If there is a word for compromise in Armenian

I wonder why it is seldom or never used.

*

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY

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

We slept with the enemy for 600 years –

600 long years during which

instead of making history

we acquired bad habits,

subservience being one of them.

Subservience to top dogs

even when they are s.o.b.s,

and contempt for underdogs

even when they are our brothers.

Subservience to bosses, bishops, and benefactors,

contempt for scribblers.

Subservience to lies,

contempt for the truth.

#

ara baliozian · April 7, 2012

Thursday, April 05, 2012

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C’EST LA VIE

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

We are seduced by a glance and a smile

and by the time we realize we have been taken in,

it’s too late – we find ourselves in a hole

with only one option: to dig deeper.

*

I once worked with a cute blonde

who didn’t say much and what she said

was more often than not a quotation from the movies.

In an interview, Updike once said Errol Flynn

had been a greater influence than Jesus.

*

How many of our deepest convictions are quotations of clichés

based on hearsay evidence by dupes and compulsive liars?

*

One man’s hero is another’s villain.

General Antranik is a hero to us

and a villain to Azeris who believe

he massacred innocent and defenseless civilians.

Who is right?

*

When there are two sides to a story,

the chances are both are wrong.

*

Which belief system is right and which wrong?

Does it matter when all belief systems

are manipulated by cunning operators

whose number one concern is number one?

#

Friday, April 06, 2012

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

ON SECOND THOUGHT

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

It is not ideas and belief systems that I criticize

but their propaganda.

It would be even more accurate to say that

I expose killers who feel justified to murder those

who disagree with them.

I attack speechifiers and sermonizers

who legitimize intolerance and hatred

in the name of God and love.

*

What is intolerance if not fear of truth?

What could be more absurd than opposing lies with bigger lies?

Isn’t that what popes, imams, and rabbis to?

Read the Old Testament and

count the number of murders, wars, and massacres.

Review the history of Islam.

Consider the abuses of nationalism

and the crimes committed in the name

of colonialism, communism, and the brotherhood of all men.

*

The real atheist is not he

who questions or doubts the existence of God.

The real atheist is he who kills in the name of God.

Who are the enemies of dissent?

if not killers who hide themselves behind pious platitudes

that convinces only dupes.

Isn’t it the quintessence of double-talk

to divide the community and the nation

and to ignore the Biblical injunction

“A house divided against itself cannot stand”?

And as if that weren’t enough,

to brag about our genius for survival.

A house in ruins may exist,

but can it survive?

#

Saturday, April 07, 2012

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ON MODERATION...

AMONG OTHER THINGS

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

If women are less warlike than men

it may be because they know how easily men are seduced by,

among other things, empty verbiage.

*

Greeks praised moderation above all other virtues,

and yet their history is an endless catalogue of wars –

and whenever they ran out of enemies,

they fought one another

until they were themselves defeated, conquered, and colonized

by Macedonians, Romans, and Turks – that’s what I call

a steady decline and degeneration of enemies.

So much for progress.

*

What about us?

Because our history is a nightmare

we like to modify it by nationalist propaganda –

that is to say, transparent lies.

*

If you ever get close to one of our so-called leaders,

you may be shocked to discover that

what he says publicly stands in direct contradiction

to what he says privately.

That’s another way of saying,

they are habitual compulsive liars.

When it comes to being brainwashed,

it takes one to know one…

and I bear scars to prove it.

#

ara baliozian · April 11, 2012

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

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GOD AND COUNTRY

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

We are a nation whose 99% has been thoroughly brainwashed

to fear and respect its 1% -- in the name of God and Country of course.

If it’s not the Sultan, it’s Stalin,

and if it’s not Stalin, it’s former KGB agents.

*

When we were children,

reality was what we saw at the movies,

not what we lived.

It is the same with most adults today:

propaganda is their only reality.

*

It is not at all unusual for a smart Armenian

to be a moral moron,

or for an academic to be a careerist creep.

*

If patriotism were a virtue,

it would improve men instead of making them willing to kill others

simply because they believe what he believes.

*

You cannot share your understanding with someone

who operates on the assumption that he already knows and understands

all he needs to know and understand

or someone who respects a wealthy rug merchant more

than a poor poet.

#

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

On several occasions I was successful in having something

... that I wanted very badly…with catastrophic results.

*

We are the offspring of a nation

that has spent most of its millennial existence

brown-nosing some of the worst scum on earth.

Now then, go ahead and speak to me of Armenian self-esteem.

*

It doesn’t take much to convince people

they are on the side of angels

and their enemies in cahoots with the devil.

*

From writers they demand instant solutions;

from sermonizers and speechifiers only clichés and platitudes

and after they have had their fill

they come back for more.

*

Some questions are better answered with another question.

Case in point:

when asked how many bosses, bishops, and benefactors I have known,

I say: “Why don’t you ask me

how many sultans I have known?”

*

Unlike Americans, we don’t have a silent majority;

what we have is a brainwashed or alienated majority.

#

Monday, April 09, 2012

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

CONFESSIONS

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

Crooks outnumber honest men among us

as well as the rest of the world.

Honesty has never been a profitable line of work.

When I consented to recycle propaganda – that is,

to lie and deceive my readers – I was paid minimum wage.

When I saw the light and realized I was on my way to the devil,

I became an abominable no-man.

*

I once had a friend who made a comfortable living

as a goussagtsagan (a partisan activist), oussouchits (schoolteacher),

and, to compound the felony even further,

the secretary of an archbishop.

He died of cancer.

I am not implying Armenians are carcinogenic agents,

or working for Armenians is to condemn oneself to an early grave.

I am just stating facts as I observed them.

Do with them what you will.

*

I have been a crook as well as an honest man,

and take my word for it, being honest is no picnic.

I foresee the day when I will write the following message:

“Dear friend: I have so few friends left that

if I lose you I will have none.”

Which reminds me of Garabents’s famous last words

as reported to me by a mutual acquaintance:

“I die alone.”

*

In case you were born yesterday and are not familiar with the name,

allow me to inform you that Hagop Garabents (also Jack Karapetian)

was a broadcaster for Voice of America

and a popular novelist who did his utmost to offend no one.

As far as I know he had no enemies

and he was the darling of the establishment.

Another one of his famous lines worth quoting is:

“Once upon a time we shed our blood for freedom.

We are now afraid of free speech.”

#

Sunday, April 08, 2012

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

LIARS

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

People never tell you what they really think.

They may avoid lying about little things

(“it’s raining,” “it’s 4:30 PM,” ”I am hungry”),

but in important matters,

as religion and politics,

or belief systems and ideologies,

they might as well be habitual and compulsive liars.

*

This is especially true of men with power.

It took the popes of Rome several centuries

to admit they had been wrong in their treatment of Galileo.

Neither the popes nor his cardinals and bishops

will ever admit they “doubt their faith seven times every day”

(according to an old Italian saying).

Marx said he was not a Marxist

thus admitting he did not think of himself

as the creator of an infallible belief system.

By contrast, Stalin behaved, very much like the popes of Rome,

as if he were infallible.

The difference between Marx and Stalin is that

Marx was powerless, unlike Stalin, who ruled an empire.

Moral: the greater the power, the bigger the lies.

*

We like to explain and justify our divisions and blunders

by saying “we are a people like any other people,”

“we all make mistakes,”

“there are divisions everywhere," and so on.

By that we mean, if popes, imams, and commissars lie and deceive,

why should we be different?

But I maintain there is a difference, and a big one,

between liars who deceiver other liars,

and liars who deceive victims

in order to deceive and victimize them all over again.

#

ara baliozian · April 14, 2012

Saturday, April 14, 2012

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

DUPES

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

“Idol-makers don’t believe in idols,”

says a Chinese proverb.

Something similar could be said of politicians.

Do politicians believe in their own propaganda?

I doubt it.

Did Hitler really believe Jews to belong to an inferior race?

Whenever it was pointed out to him

that one of his aides had Jewish blood, he would reply:

“If true, he will try twice as hard to prove his loyalty,”

or words to that effect.

Goering had a similar reaction: he would say,

“I decide who is and is not a Jew.”

A dupe, by contrast, is one who believes what he is told

even when what he is told is propaganda.

*

A politician’s primary concern is power,

not truth and ideas. He will say and do anything

that will legitimize and enhance his power.

The Pope may doubt his faith seven times a day,

but a dupe never.

A dupe is brainwashed to believe

“Mussolini ha sempre ragione”

(Mussolini is always right);

in the same way that a good Catholic

is brought up to believe the Pope is infallible,

and a patriotic Armenian is brainwashed to believe

a nationalist historian’s version of the past

is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

and anyone who does not share his convictions

is a pro-Turkish traitor.

There you have the roots of our

disagreements, divisions, decline, and degeneration.

#

Saturday, April 14, 2012

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

HISTORIANS

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

One of the best books on Armenian history

that I remember to have read many years ago

was by Armenian historian who was also

a Tashnak leader.

*

When asked what history’s verdict would be on him,

Churchill is said to have replied:

“That’s doesn’t worry me because I plan to write it.”

And he did.

And it was a best-seller.

And he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

*

Had Hitler won World War II,

MEIN KAMPF would have been one of the most widely translated

and used textbooks in schools.

*

Once when I published an interview with a Tashnak leader

(may the Good Lord have mercy on his soul),

a Ramgavar leader (ditto) wrote an angry letter to the editor

in which he exposed me as a dupe

and the Tashnak leader as a charlatan.

Whereupon the Tashnak leader,

in another letter to the editor,

dismissed the Ramgavar as a Stalinist stooge.

*

For an Armenian to believe an Armenian historian

is as bad as for a Turk to believe a Turkish historian.

*

Textbooks written by nationalist historians

might as well be conspiracies of liars.

*

Who takes nationalist historians seriously?

“All professions are conspiracies against the laity” (G.B. Shaw).

“There is a sucker born every day,” or is it every minute?

Writing textbooks is a racket like any other,

and having written one myself, I plead guilty as charged.

#

Saturday, April 14, 2012

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

INSANITY

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

What’s a plea of insanity to murderers,

patriotism is to political leaders.

Greed for power, never!

Love of God, Country or King, always!

*

In a democratic environment,

political leaders are classified as public servants.

In an authoritarian or anti-democratic regime

the men at the top behave as masters

and as if that weren’t preposterous enough,

they also claim to be infallible

for the simple reason that

they represent God on earth.

Dictators don’t claim to represent God because,

like Roman emperors, they classify themselves as gods.

You may now guess to which category

our own leaders belong.

*

Ajarian, the foremost expert on the Armenian language

used to say, “Who among us can claim to know

the Armenian language?”

The same could be said of Armenian history.

*

Even in a democracy our political leaders behave

like our masters who can do no wrong.

They can do no wrong even when they divide the community,

which amounts to saying,

even as they plot the destruction of the nation.

#

ara baliozian · April 18, 2012

Sunday, April 15, 2012

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

SEEING THINGS

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

Even after they systematically raped our daughters

and brainwashed our boys to kill and die

in their imperialist wars

we continued to be their “most faithful ethnic minority.”

Individuals like Krikor Zohrab and Roupen Sevak

persisted in believing that deep down

Turks were nice people who meant no harm to Armenians

and we could safely trust our collective destiny

into their hands.

If they had any doubts on that score

they did not share them with the people.

Even our political and intellectual leaders were dupes.

*

On more than one occasion

I have been told by angry readers:

“What did you expect them to do?

Urge the people to abandon their 'babenagan douner'

(ancestral homes)?”

Why not, may I ask, if the alternative was

wholesale massacre and deportation into the desert?

*

Once when I reviewed the memoirs of a Russian KGB agent

in which he stated that several of our political leaders

(among them Tashnaks) were KGB plants,

an insider berated me for blabbering about things

I knew nothing about and understood even less?

What if, he said, these so-called former KGB agents

could be of greater use to us?

Leave it to an Armenian to see things

that are not there.

#

Monday, April 16, 2012

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

WHAT I (DON’T) BELIEVE

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

Ideologies and religions – belief systems, in short –

claim to have found a path to truth or god;

and anyone who dares to disagree

must be classified as a heretic,

and as such, an enemy –

and an enemy not only of the belief system

but also of mankind.;

and based on that blatantly false assumption

they proceed to divide civilizations, societies,

empires, nations, and communities.

There you have the root of all evil,

beginning with intolerance, persecution,

and ultimately war and massacre.

*

I am not voicing a theory here.

I am simply stating facts available to anyone

who has eyes to see, ears to hear, and brains to think –

and not to think that he is thinking

but simply to say, if you add 2 to 2

what you get is neither 5 or 22 but 4.

*

If you believe god is one,

or three in one, or, for that matter, four in one –

why should that be a good enough reason

to torture and kill another

who believes the right numbers are five in one?

And yet…

*

The stated aim of all belief systems is to save mankind;

their unstated aim, however, is the destruction of the world.

*

Man is born in sin, we are told.

So are belief systems – born in arrogance

that leads to greed for power.

I don’t believe in belief systems.

#

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

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

STATUS QUO

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

A nation that has lived in darkness for a thousand years

will prefer to go on living in darkness for another thousand years

if the alternative is to see the light.

*

My aim is not to solve our problems

but to say and repeat the obvious

... when the obvious is ignored or forgotten.

*

My aim is not to provide answers to the most important questions

but to question the honesty of those who pretend to have them.

*

If I can place a small distance – even if it is a fraction of an inch –

between us and our certainties -- that is to say lies –

I shall consider my mission accomplished.

*

A religion of love will practice hatred;

and a religion of intolerance will practice intolerance.

A nation that brags about its high IQ

will be subservient to morons,

both foreign and domestic.

*

In the eyes of pragmatists,

daydreamers are contemptible jerks.

In the eyes of our leaders,

writers will be mental masturbators.

*

To solve a problem,

you must first acknowledge its existence.

You may now draw your own conclusions.

#

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

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

STATUS QUO (II)

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

We have many brilliant minds in all fields of human endeavor

but not a single brilliant idea.

Our ablest academics study the past (medievalism and massacrism)

but none of them seems to be interested in our present and future.

I wonder why.

Is it because somewhere very deep inside

they have given up on us?

Or is it because there is no money in it?

*

Our benefactors and panchoonies spend millions

building schools, churches, and community centers

as if raising wall mattered much more than promoting solidarity.

*

Solidarity with us is very much like Mark Twain’s weather.

Every speechifier and sermonizer loves to quote Charents’s final message

(“Oh! Armenian people, your salvation etc.”)

but nobody does a damn thing.

*

“Where there is no vision the people perish” –

and we are perishing in both the Homeland and Diaspora –

by exodus and alienation respectively,

both of which have clearly definable socio-economic reasons

that can be isolated, named, and prevented.

But no one seems to give a damn!

The very same activists who speak of patriotism during the day

turn into gravediggers under cover of darkness.

*

Solidarity is not a commodity you can buy on the marketplace.

Neither is it tax deductible.

Could that be one reason why it is not popular

with our bosses, bishops, and benefactors?

I am not casting aspersions, just wondering…

#

warning: if you ever receive an e-mail from me

asking for financial assistance, please ignore it.

It's not from me but a pirate from Somalia.

ara baliozian · April 25, 2012

Sunday, April 22, 2012

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

DOUBLE-TALK

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

All our great writers,

from Khorenatsi to Raffi,

and from Abovian to Zarian,

have been sources of embarrassment to our leaders

(in the sense that they have exposed their shortcomings)

who must now pretend to be on the side of our literature.

*

In the parable of the camel and the eye of the needle,

Jesus equates financial success with moral failure.

I am not implying our benefactors are liars and degenerates,

only suggesting that they too,

like the rest of us poor moprtals,

are not beyond engaging in occasional double-talk.

*

To love a harmless enemy – nothing easier.

To love an enemy who slashes burns, and rapes?

When asked that question, Tolstoy is said to have replied:

“Things like that don’t happen every day.”

I know better because I read my morning paper.

*

It is the mightiest of this world who take ideas seriously,

but only ideas that are against them.

*

Indifference is the best revenge.

#

Monday, April 23, 2012

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

DECLINE AND FALL

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

No one can be as ungodly as men who speak in His name –

and I am not thinking only of imams…

*

An adult who repeats what he was taught as a child:

that to me is one of the surest and most unmistakable symptoms of retardation.

*

Everything has been explained by far better men than myself.

What I have written so far might as well be footnotes to a footnote.

*

Even the mightiest empires decline and fall.

Even the most creative cultures stagnate and degenerate.

We call our degeneration survival and we brag about it.

*

If being against organized religions means

rejecting Gregorian chant, Bach’s Cantatas, Mozart’s REQUIEM,

Negro spirituals, and our sharagans,

then I am more Catholic than the Pope.

#

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

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

AN EXPLANATION

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

Turks say the Genocide never happened.

It’s a figment of our collective imagination.

Americans are afraid to use the G word.

What’s happening here?

To those who don’t understand, allow me to explain.

*

Both Turks and Americans are guilty of massacres.

Very probably they have killed an equal number of innocent civilians:

the first to preserve their empire,

the second to raise it.

As imperial powers they speak the language of top dogs

which might as well be incomprehensible to underdogs.

They have neither friends nor enemies, only interests.

Arguing with them is a waste of time.

They will never see the world as we see it.

We may be successful in convincing isolated voices

here and there, now and then,

but we don’t have enough money to convince the majority.

In politics and international diplomacy,

right and wrong might as well be irrelevant commodities.

*

There is only one way out of this impasse:

to vote as a block.

On the day American candidates realize

We have the power to make or break them,

we may have a better chance to be heard.

Until then we might as well be a voice in the wilderness.

*

The Jewish vote is a deciding factor in American politics

because Jews are better at presenting a united front.

I feel justified therefore in suggesting that

our leadership – our lord and masters,

or bosses, bishops and benefactors,

or the gang that can’t shoot straight …call them what you will –

are as guilty as denialists because

instead of uniting the community

they have polarized and paralized it.

Very much like Turks and Yanks

they have allowed their interests, or powers and privileges,

to speak louder than the interests of the nation.

That indeed is the root of our status as perennial losers.

*

Dostoevsky is right:

“You can’t imagine how powerful a single man can be.”

Or, for that matter, a single community or nation,

when it speaks with one voice.

#

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

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

DIARY

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

Two new books that I look forward to reading:

ANTON CHEKHOV: A BROTHER’S MEMOIR by Mikhail Chekhov, and

MEMORIES OF CHEKHOV: ACCOUNTS OF THE WRITER FROM HIS FAMILY, FRIENDS AND CONTEMPORARIES, edited by Peter Sekirin.

*

Watched a lovely French film titled SEQUINS in which one of the central characters is named Mrs. Melkonian whose son Ishkhan dies in a car accident.

*

My definition of hell: to be dependent on the charity of swine.

*

Obese people dig their own grave with a fork; writers with their pen.

*

In our environment patriotism is sometimes confused with shish-kebabism.

*

Brahms used prostitutes. In his old age Gandhi was obsessed with his sexuality and slept with naked teenagers to test his resistance to temptation.

*

Cats hate the water but love fish: hence their tolerance of man.

*

During World War II READER’S DIGEST rejected contributions by Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht.

*

Thomas Mann loved Walt Disney. So do I but I prefer Warner Brothers’ Bugs Bunny.

*

The disagreement of fools: depressing rather than irritating.

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

asking for financial assistance,

please ignore it.

It's probably from a pirate in Somalia.

ara baliozian · April 28, 2012

Thursday, April 26, 2012

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

TRUTH IS ONE,

LIES MANY

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

Where power enters, lies are sure to follow.

*

We all praise knowledge and understanding

but prefer to practice ignorance and misunderstanding.

*

An ideology of brotherhood is used to sow murderous enmity,

and a religion of love and compassion is exploited

to legitimize intolerance, hatred, and massacre.

*

What are wars and revolutions –

revolutions that replace czars with commissars,

and kings with dictators – if not gigantic movements

based on ignorance and misunderstanding?

*

We praise Greek contributions to world civilization

and we forget that the real Greece is not represented by Socrates

but by those who condemned him to death.

Philosophers may praise Socrates

but the average man in the street prefers to behave

like a member of his jury and an executioner.

*

Notwithstanding the countless crimes committed by religious leaders,

we – the majority at any rate – continue to take their dogmas seriously.

*

Is God one or many?

We don’t know.

Nobody does.

But we do know that reality is numberless.

*

When two men confront each other

and both say “I am right, you are wrong,”

the chances are both are not just wrong but dead wrong.

*

He who speaks does not know

and he who is silent is ignorant.

*

At the beginning was the word,

at the end garbage?

What difference does it make if the purpose of words

is to hide meaning?

#

Saturday, April 28, 2012

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

WHAT IF?

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

What if “our betters” are in fact our worst?

*

If I am right, why is it that so many are against me?

And if I am wrong, why is it that so many are with me?

Wrong questions.

In our context, or placed in a historic context,

right or wrong might as well be irrelevant.

To be or not to be: that indeed is the right question..

*

The 99% are losers because they are disorganized, leaderless, and divided.

Workers of the world have failed to unite

because they have been divided by lies

(among them nationalism) devised by the 1%.

*

We have failed to unite because survival is our main concern.

To be on the safe side we have been willing to say “Yes, sir!”

to any power structure that promised to be on our side.

In the USSR we were more Bolshevik than the Russians.

In the Ottoman Empire even our best and brightest

were more Ottoman than Turks.

Consider the ease with which Armenians in America are Americanized.

*

We lament our martyrs with total unawareness of the fact that

they are “ours” – in the sense that they are victims

of our own ignorance, blindness, and fanaticism.

You don’t believe me?

Read Naregatsi’s LAMENTATIONS (in which he portrays himself

as “an abusive contradicter ever active in satanic inventions”

(or lies, for short).

Read Zarian (“Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another”).

Read Raffi (“Where Armenian blood flows, search for the Armenian hatchet.”)

If our literature has a central message, this is it:

Our martyrs are our victims.

#

Saturday, April 28, 2012

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

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS

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

Write a page.

Keep the best line,

discard the rest.

*

Dissatisfied with what you have written?

Delete the first and last paragraphs. (Chekhov).

*

Dissatisfied with the final sentence?

Italicize a word in it. (Kenneth Tynan)

*

Your selection of words

is more important than your ideas. (Paul Valery)

*

On the subject of ideas: there are no new ones.

We are all in the business of recycling what has been said before

by far better men than ourselves.

*

Originality is an illusion.

Clarity is your most important asset.

*

Please note that none of the above is mine.

I have cited only the sources that I remember.

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

asking for financial assistance,

please ignore it.

It's probably from a pirate in Somalia.

ara baliozian · May 2, 2012

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

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

FOSSILS

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

Where literature is controlled and free speech suppressed

propaganda becomes the only mode of perceiving reality.

Where everyone thinks alike (thinks? wrong verb)

no one thinks.

To say “yes, sir!” is not to think.

*

We have become a nation (wrong noun) of non-thinking simpletons

who believe they are not just smart

but seven times smarter than Jews.

*

I repeat myself?

Where lies are repeated seventy-seven times,

I see nothing wrong in repeating myself seven times.

*

Everything I have been saying has been said before

by far better men than myself?

If they behave like Panchoonies,

why shouldn’t I recycle Odian seven times?

*

What do Jesus, Marx, and Freud have in common?

They were teachers (rabbis) who didn’t believe in rabbis.

To use Toynbee’s terminology:

they were teachers who rejected fossils;

unlike us who are zombies at the mercy of fossils.

#

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

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

SAROYAN AND I

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

I envy Saroyan – no, not his fame and fortune –

but because nobody ever told him to write like Saroyan.

*

Saroyan wrote to entertain his American audience.

I write to torment my Armenian audience –

assuming of course I have one.

*

Saroyan was Armenian.

So am i.

beyond that I doubt if we share anything else in common.

*

As for Michael Arlen – both Father and Son –

they might as well be from an alien planet.

#

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

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

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE

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

We are not a divided nation;

we are a broken nation.

Being divided with us cannot be said to be

a bad habit or even an incurable addiction

but a character trait,

and character is destiny.

If you think I am being negative, think again.

If what I say is true,

truth is bound to set us free –

free from all the lies that have kept us divided

and continue to divide us today

with no end in sight.

#

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

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

DARK AGES

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

Christianity has been described as a religion

that allows a class of men –

from popes to televangelists –

to make a comfortable living

by exploiting someone else’s crucifixion.

Something similar could be said

of our Turcocentric ghazetajis and scholars

who write about massacres.

Some day historians will name our past –

from the beginning to the present and foreseeable future –

our Dark Ages.

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

asking for financial assistance,

please ignore it.

It's probably from a pirate in Somalia.

ara baliozian · May 5, 2012

Thursday, May 03, 2012

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

GARBAGE CAN

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

The average Catholic trusts the Pope much more

than his critics, among them Catholic theologians

who dare to question the dogma of papal infallibility. ,

The average German trusted Hitler;

the average Russian trusted Stalin;

the average Italian trusted Mussolini.

The average Greek of the 5th century BC

believed Socrates to be a criminal

guilty of a capital offense.

Closer to home, the average Armenian –

and by average I mean anyone who has not yet mastered

the art of thinking for himself,

is convinced it is his patriotic duty to trust the judgment

of bosses, bishops, and benefactors

and to question the integrity of dissenters

who may well be agents of the

CIA, the KGB, the Grey Wolves, or the Mossad

(I now speak from personal experience).

When it comes to ideas,

the average man – regardless of race, color, and creed –

is not so much a moron as a garbage can.

#

Saturday, May 05, 2012

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

A CAPITAL OFFENSE

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

We don’t know much about the Greek jury

that condemned Socrates to death,

but we do know that they were members

of a civilized, enlightened, and progressive community

who believed in false gods,

which happens to be the charge

they brought against Socrates.

*

Gods have always been and continue to

be the business – make it, the racket – of the 1%,

namely popes, imams, rabbis, among others –

who if they had their way,

they would gladly condemn one another to death.

And they would be right to do so.

*

Moral: Those who pretend to be our “betters”

may well be our worst.

#

Saturday, May 05, 2012

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

THIS AND THAT

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

There is no end to the tricks

that the 1% plays on the 99%.

When they say peace

they mean prepare for war.

When they say communism

they mean the capitalism of the state.

When they speak of brotherhood

they mean the Cain-and-Abel variant.

*

My aim in life:

to give the bastards insomnia

even if the insomnia lasts no more

than a fraction of a second.

*

In writing being irresistible is better

than being reasonable.

As for being both:

that would be like issuing invitations

to your own execution.

*

If you don’t know where to begin,

begin in the middle or even the end.

If what you say makes sense

it doesn’t matter where you begin.

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

asking for financial assistance,

please ignore it.

It's probably from a pirate in Somalia.

ara baliozian · May 9, 2012

Sunday, May 06, 2012

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

RELIGION & LITERATURE

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

If god is in everything we know and see,

where is the devil?

*

Religion is a business like any other

and far more profitable than most.

That's why for every writer we have,

we have a hundred priests.

*

When a religion of love legitimizes

intolerance, hatred, and ultimately war and massacre,

it becomes an instrument of the devil.

*

The greatest argument against religion

is other religions.

*

Contemporary Armenian literature

may be summed up in two sentences:

(one) it says many things except that which must be said, and

(two) it takes money more seriously than ideas.

*

If the kingdom of god is within us,

is the empire of the devil around us?

#

Monday, May 07, 2012

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

LIES

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

All belief systems are big lies

because they pretend to provide answers to questions

that are unanswerable.

*

When is a question unanswerable?

When the answers are contradictions

that cannot be resolved.

*

Once when I quoted Erasmus of Rotterdam

in one of my commentaries

I was told I was being “vicious.”

*

To how many of my fellow Armenians I could say

what Tolstoy once said to a fellow passenger on a train:

“As long as there are people like you

we will have wars and massacres.”

*

What is patriotism if not the propaganda of individuals

who pretend to be our “betters”

but who are in fact our worst.

#

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

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

WE ARE WHAT OUR ENEMIES MADE US

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

When Einstein said he did not believe in the god of the Jews

he was told to go back where he came from.

*

Most Christians are Christian because

they were brainwashed as children.

The same could be said

of Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.

*

I was born and raised as a Catholic

and my greatest enemies were neither Jews nor Muslims

but Protestants, in the same way that a Sunni’s greatest enemies

are Shias and vice versa.

*

Popes, imams, and rabbis are not just liars

but enemies of mankind.

*

The astonishing ease with which idiots assume to know better

or to be better on the grounds that

their god is the only true god.

*

When Socrates said “of the gods we know nothing,”

he relied on his reason.

When Hegel, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Shaw, Russell, Sartre,

and many other celebrated thinkers rejected the Bible

as the word of god, they did so only after they saw the light

and were born again as human beings.

*

Gandhi: “I am not superstitious. I am a super-atheist.”

#

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

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

MORE ON CROOKS

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

If our panchoonies had a credo,

its first line would read:

“I believe in the power of money

to solve all our problems,”

and its last line – you guessed:

“Mi kich pogh…”

*

A headline in my morning paper reads:

“Porn-importing bishop defrocked by Vatican.”

*

Never underestimate the power of crooks.

They have been in the business since the beginning of time –

remember the Serpent in the Garden –

and they are still going strong.

*

How many of our kings have been beheaded or assassinated?

What does that tell you about our character as a nation?

*

If you think you know all you need to know,

it only means you have reached a dead end.

*

When it comes to belief systems,

you will have a better chance to be on the right path

if you think against the majority.

#

Friday, May 18, 2012

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

In a police state the police,

like the Vatican, is never wrong.

*

I committed my worst blunders

when I thought I could do no wrong.

*

If you try to be lovable

you will end up hating yourself.

*

I acquired my worst enemies

when I tried to be popular.

*

Among Armenians a “former friend” means

a mortal enemy.

*

Where would poetry, and the arts in general,

including philosophy be without women?

Even Socrates was willing to concede that

he owed his status as philosopher

to an incompatible wife.

#

Saturday, May 19, 2012

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

ARMENIANS & TURKS

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

Nothing can be as ephemeral

as the distance that separates my faith

from someone else’s superstition

and vice versa.

*

In politics and history the rule is,

your truth is my lie

and vice versa.

*

Speaking as an Armenian,

one of the most incomprehensible things about Turks

is the fact that they are human beings

like the rest of us.

The only thing that separates us

is our respective educational systems.

Which amounts to saying,

as children we were brainwashed by individuals

whose belief systems are superstitions.

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

asking for financial assistance,

please ignore it.

It's probably from a pirate in Somalia.

ara baliozian · May 23, 2012

Sunday, May 20, 2012

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

P.L.U.

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

“They are not P.L.U. (people like us).

They have no respect for the law.

They have ruined our image as a nation.”

“They” of course are Armenians from the former Soviet Union.

*

Armenian-Americans who speak in those terms

forget that in 1933 they staged

one of the most spectacular assassinations in American history

when a gang of fanatics butchered a bishop on Christmas eve

in a New York cathedral – an event and the trial that followed

that made a thousand headlines throughout the continent.

*

Most Americans may no longer remember this

but people who matter, high-placed individuals in Washington,

policy-makers, have a long memory

and have very illusions about their fellow men.

In their eyes, we are not P.L.U either.

*

Notwithstanding Saroyan, we are not cute.

If the Yanks are kindly disposed towards us

it may be because we speak too much of massacres

and they consider it their duty

to be on the side of innocent victims.

*

God did not create more Russians and Americans,

or for that matter Arabs and Turks.

There is a good reason why we are few:

cannibalism.

*

We either learn from our mistakes

or we develop a phobia of repeating them,

and fear is never a good policy.

#

Monday, May 21, 2012

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

ENGINEERS OF DESTRUCTION

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

Sermonizers remind us we are all sinners.

Speechifiers tell us we are not

as patriotic as we should be.

We are all sinners, granted, with one difference:

some of us don’t make a comfortable living

by exploiting someone else’s crucifixion.

In the eyes of God we are all fools.

But some of us don’t deliver sermons on wisdom.

If I knew how to pray I would say:

“Our Father, who art in heaven,

deliver us from our deliverers.”

#

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

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

ON DISAGREEMENTS

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

Men disagree because they are dupes

who believe they are too smart to be brainwashed.

Nationalists disagree because they believe

they are morally superior

even when they behave like the scum of the earth.

Wise men disagree because they rate self-interest

above truth which they believe to be

an invisible and unattainable abstraction.

In short, men disagree because

they are stupid, arrogant, and dishonest.

Which may suggest an “honest disagreement”

is an oxymoron

with emphasis on the last two syllables.

#

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

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

ON HISTORIANS

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

To understand history we must begin by understanding historians.

To what extend tribal loyalty and self-interest

color their values and worldview?

Why is it that the overwhelming majority of them

are subservient to the power structure within which they function?

If an independent body of experts

were to rate their integrity or objectivity,

how many of them would be classified as propagandists?

Why is it that the average dupe (or 99%)

treats them the way Italians treated Mussolini

(“Mussolini ha sempre ragione” = Mussolini is always right),

or Catholics treat the Pope,

or generally speaking, sheep treat their shepherd

whose ultimate aim is to deliver them to butchers?

The only plausible answer is that given by a lion tamer

when asked why he takes his lion to church every Sunday morning:

“He has to eat.”

#

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ara baliozian · May 26, 2012

Thursday, May 24, 2012

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

ON THE 1%

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

The 1% have been in the business of deceiving the 99%

for such a long time that they think

it is their human right to do so.

*

If anyone had suggested to Sultan Abdulhamid II

that the Empire could no longer afford 1000 concubines in his harem

but only 750 or even 900, my guess is

the Sultan would have demanded the man’s head on a platter.

This may well be one reason why Kemal is now thought of

as a great statesman as opposed to a promiscuous alcoholic.

*

Some scholars have asserted that Louis XIV

never said “L’etat c’est moi.”

He didn’t have to.

Judging by the way he lived, he had no doubt on that score.

*

The 1% of small nations can commit big blunders

as surely as big nations can commit bigger ones.

*

The 99% have been duped for such a long time that

they consider being duped as an inevitable fact of life,

like death and taxes.

*

An eminent physician once asserted that

he had scientific proof of the fact that

death is not inevitable

and immortality is attainable here on earth.

He died a wealthy man.

#

Friday, May 25, 2012

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

SUMMING UP (XIV)

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

What divides us is not truth but propaganda.

*

If genocide cannot unite us, what can?

Surely not a million

or, for that matter, a million and a half

sermons, speeches, editorials, and lamentations.

*

Behind every propaganda line there is a big lie,

and behind every big lie

there is a cunning operator whose ultimate aim

is not liberty, equality, and fraternity

but cannibalism.

*

In so far as they divide mankind,

rabbis, imams, and bishops preach not the word of God

but that of the Devil.

*

As long as they deny the Genocide

and as long as we remain divided

we speak not as men but as parrots.

*

The aim of all propaganda is

to paralyze the mind and to abolish thinking.

*

Think of propaganda as another dirty trick

that the 1% plays on the 99%.

#

Saturday, May 26, 2012

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

PARAPHRASES & ASSERTIONS

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

I write for Armenians,

therefore my life has been a waste of time.

*

When a speechifier speaks of freedom,

he means slavery;

and when a sermonizer speaks of God,

he means the Devil.

*

I believe in one God

who is Unknown and Unknowable.

*

It is not my ambition to speak the truth,

only to advance in its direction.

*

Where the 1% are divided,

so will the 99%.

Where there are dividers,

there will be dupes.

*

To sum up the ideas of Baronian, Odian, and Massikian:

Ours is a leadership of morons and their brown-nosers.

*

If you can’t convince a hundred,

then sow seeds of doubt in just one.

#

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ara baliozian · May 30, 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

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

…AMONG OTHER THINGS

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

As a child I believed everyone who was older

and pretended to know better.

When asked for solutions I am in the habit of saying “Honesty!”

Perhaps henceforth I should expand that to “Grow up!”

*

When dealing with compulsive liars

it is always safer to assume the opposite of what they say.

*

Belief systems in themselves may be harmless.

Men who assert monopoly on truth:

the hangman’s noose is too good for them.

*

In his memoirs, Frank Langella quotes Laurence Olivier

saying the following about Vivien Leigh:

“You know, she was a nymphomaniac!

And I’m a premature ejaculator!

Not a good matchup!”

Elsewhere he quotes an unidentified actress

saying the following about Anthony Quinn:

“I made a picture with Tony, he was a complete pig.

An animal. A rude, dumb peasant.

I will never forgive myself for letting him f*ck me.”

#

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

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

THE UNSTATED REASON

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

For every stated reason there is an unstated one.

The stated reason for World War I was

“the war to end all wars.”

The stated reason of our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire,

love of freedom.

The unstated reason: If the Great Powers of the West are on our side,

we can’t lose.

The stated reason of Hai Tahd or Genocide Recognition:

truth and justice.

The unstated reason: history is on our side.

But if history teaches us anything it’s that

it doesn’t choose sides;

and for every one of our historians and diplomats

Turks can produce ten or twenty of them

who are superior liars because they are the offspring of an empire

and they have been in the business of deception and propaganda

much longer than we have.

We may have the world’s sympathy

but not its justice,

assuming of course there is justice in this world,

which is as good as assuming we will have no more wars,

or if the West is on our side we can’t lose,

or if our struggle is for freedom and justice

sooner or later victory will be ours;

and if you believe that,

you will believe anything!

#

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

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

OBSERVATIONS

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

Ignorance is less absence of knowledge

and more a conscious and premeditated decision not to know.

*

The 1% create jobs

and the 99% create the 1%.

*

When a belief system acquires a million followers

it ceases to be an abstraction

and it acquires the solidity of a stone wall.

*

You cannot reason with a man

who takes money more seriously than ideas.

*

Kingsley Amis: “If you can't annoy somebody with what you write,

I think there is little point in writing.”

*

There is a type of philistine for whom the word culture

is almost synonymous with cuisine.

*

If shish-kebab-and-pilaf Armenians were to read

a single Armenian book every year,

Armenian literature would enjoy another renaissance.

*

Cicero defines freedom as “participation in power.”

If we are free, ours is the freedom

of ants, birds, and herbivores –

free to be stepped on, shot at, and devoured.

#

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

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

THEOLOGY

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

Christ was not crucified to save mankind.

Look around you.

Does anyone look saved?

Do you feel saved?

Christ was crucified for two very pragmatic reasons:

he refused to be

(one) a dupe to rabbis and

(two)a slave to Romans.

The rest is theology.

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

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ara baliozian · June 2, 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Our eyes are not equipped to see everything.

Our brain perceives only a fraction reality.

Comprehension deals with fractions, not wholes.

*

If only we could doubt when we are sure!

*

Perhaps sanity consists in coming to terms

with your own brand of insanity.

*

The source of all self-inflicted misery:

the need to love and be loved.

#

Friday, June 01, 2012

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

SMART ARMENIANS

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

There is no limit to how dumb a smart Armenian can be.

Because I was brainwashed to believe Armenians are smart,

I thought I was being smart even I behaved like an inbred moron.

*

“A good man is hard to find,”

reads the title of a famous American short story.

What about a good Armenian?

In case you didn’t know, they exist;

I have met one or two of them myself.

*

In a commentary in this morning’s paper

I read that American intellectuals

have been seduced by big money

(Wall Street, lobbyists, Obama).

My first thought as an Armenian:

So what else is new?

*

I would like to read a history of philosophy

that is as accessible to laymen as

“There is nothing new under the sun,”

“My poverty is proof of my honesty,”

“I think therefore I am,”

“Workers of the world unite,

you have nothing to lose but your chains,”

“Hell is other people.”

#

Saturday, June 02, 2012

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

REFLECTIONS

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

Take yourself seriously and no one else will.

*

If a billion people believe in one thing

and another billion in another,

the chances are neither side is right.

*

Prejudice speaks louder than reason

even when it whispers.

*

Tip O’Neill on Clinton: “Women go wet.”

*

Carl Sandburg: “The past is a bucket of ashes.”

*

I QUOTE FROM MEMORY

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

“The function of a jury is to decide

which side has the better lawyer.”

*

“Science is our only source of knowledge.

Metaphysics is empty verbiage.”

*

“Metaphysical systems are more vulnerable to boredom

than to disproof.”

*

“…as desirable as someone else’s wife.”

*

“He is such a nobody that

when he goes out of a room

it feels as though someone came in.”

*

“When you are young,

you pull up your own pants

and go wherever you want to go.

But when you are old

someone else pulls up your pants

and takes you where you don’t want to go.”

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

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please ignore it.

It's probably from a pirate in Somalia.

ara baliozian · June 6, 2012

Sunday, June 3, 2012

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

IF I AM WRONG…

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

If I am wrong,

why so many are with me?

And if I am right,

why so many are against me?

*

The brainwashed will never be with me

for the simple reason that they believe – as I did –

everything they are told by priests, schoolteachers, and scoutmasters.

I remember as a teenager

when I first met someone who spoke as I do today

I dismissed him as a megalomaniacal eccentric

on the verge of insanity.

*

The politically ambitious will never agree with me either

because in an authoritarian environment

they know instinctively there is no future in dissent

which they equate with treason.

They believe to be – or rather, they are brainwashed to believe

they stand for God and Country

and anyone who is against them

must be on the side of the Devil and the enemy.

*

In politics instinct speaks louder than reason.

That’s the only way to explain the success of dictators like Hitler,

or for that matter, our own speechifiers and charlatans

who pretend to be right

even when they are criminally and catastrophically wrong.

#Monday, June 04, 2012

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

LAMENTATION VII

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

“Where many other nations perished, we survived!’ – implying,

we must be doing something right.

What exactly did we do right?

We allowed them to legally rape our daughters and kidnap our sons.

We survived, yes, but at what cost?

That’s a question we don’t like to ask

perhaps because the answer is too depressing.

*

We survived – if that’s what you want to call it –

only to die by the million –

and I am not just talking about massacres now.

What’s done is done.

Let bygones be bygones.

The question we must ask at this point is:

In what way the conditions of our survival

radically altered our character as a nation?

What if we survived only to be subservient to alien commissars

and our own agha babas?

*

We praise freedom even as we bury it.

We speak of independence even as we go down on our knees

in fear of our own executioners.

If that’s survival, I want not part of it.

*

No need to lament our dead

when it is the living that are in need of our tears.

#

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

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

ON GENOCIDE RECOGNITION

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

The Turks refuse to recognize the Genocide

for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that

they are brainwashed to believe

they belong to a great and noble race of men

known as the Turanic race

(known only to them and no one else

and invented by Kemal, who like all dictators ,

felt fully qualified to rewrite not only history

and the laws of the land but also biology).

It follows, the descendants of such a noble race

are “incapable of committing atrocities” (Erdogan).

*

Turks know that the dead cannot testify

and the survivors are living proof of the fact

there was no extermination or a plan to exterminate

(which is how genocide is defined).

*

They also know if they plead guilty as charged

they stand to lose not only face

but also billions in reparations

as well as vast tracts of land.

*

Last but not least, they know that truth may be on our side

but the world is on theirs because all imperial powers

as well as nations with imperial ambitions,

including the most civilized and progressive,

have at one time or another committed

unspeakable crimes against defenseless civilians.

*

All this is known not only to the Turkish leadership

but also our own Turcocentric academics and ghazetajis

whose central concern is neither justice

nor documenting crimes against humanity

but covering up the incompetence and blunders

of our own leadership.

#

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

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

CONTRADICTIONS

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

You cannot reason with the brainwashed.

Neither can you reason with an imam, rabbi, or bishop.

What does that mean in practical terms?

Simply this:

if you are accused of murder one

(cold-blooded and premeditated)

and you are innocent,

at the end you will be found guilty.

*

Where others see men of God,

I see cold-blooded killers.

*

Instead of brainwashing children,

religious leaders should engage with one another

and reach a consensus

beginning with the following three assertions:

(i) all dogmas are inherently wrong;

(ii) the will of God is an unknown quantity; and

(iii) to doubt is more human than to be certain.

*

At the root of all wars and massacres

you will find certainties that are not only false

but also criminally and catastrophically absurd.

*

After asserting all men are brothers,

they choose to behave like Cain.

Contradictions?

What contradictions?

#

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ara baliozian · June 9, 2012

Thursday, June 07, 2012

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

ASSETS & LIABILITIES

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

A failed nation is defined as one

... that has not been successful in reconciling

its internal factions.

It follows, notwithstanding our many assets

(high IQ, progressive, adaptable, first nation this, first nation that)

we are a failed nation

very much like Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, and Syria.

*

What’s the use of being smart

if we are too stupid to reach a consensus?

What the hell is the use of doing a thousand things

if we cannot do that which must be done?

And when I say “we” I mean not only our leaders

but also those who support them.

If our leaders divide us

it’s because we allow them to do so.

We are as responsible as they are.

*

Sooner or later all internal divisions

lead to massacre – both “red” and “white.”

And speaking of massacre,

you may have noticed that

when I made a short list of our assets,

I included our genocide

(“first nation to experience genocide in the 20th century"),

which of course is not an asset but a liability

and the worst failure that a nation can experience.

# Friday, June 08, 2012

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

COMMENTS

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

To say philosophy is useless is to imply

philomoronism is a superior discipline.

*

The only reason the number of my blunders

has been going down steadily is that

so is the variety and frequency of my activities.

The dead don’t make mistakes.

As for the frequency and variety of my written comments:

more often than not what I do is speak in defense of Socrates

and against the jury that condemned him to death.

*

If you want to get ahead in our environment

study the art of kissing ass.

You need no other qualifications.

*

The greatest source of error is self-assessed infallibility.

#

Saturday, June 09, 2012

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

ON THE 1%

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

We are told the 1% create jobs.

What we are not told is where would the 1% be

without the blood and sweat of the 99%?

And even important:

who would wipe their asses

when they are too young and too old?

*

ON BEING PREDICTABLE

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

If I am predictable

it’s because I am consistently against

recycling propaganda,

promoting subservience,

and legitimizing prejudice.

If being unpredictable means

adopting the opposite disposition,

I solemnly swear here and now

never to be unpredictable.

*

ON WOMEN

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

The worst thing I can say about women is that

they are like men.

#

Warning: If you ever receive an e-mail from me

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ara baliozian · June 13, 2012

Sunday, June 10, 2012

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

OBSERVATIONS

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

A man who kills in the name of God

worships the Devil.

*

You are not brainwashed for your own good;

you are brainwashed to better serve their interests.

*

Failure is the key to success,

and success on one level

may spell ruin in another.

*

Tell me what is it that you want more than anything else

and I will tell you, if you get it, you will be disappointed.

*

Too big to fail or too insignificant to survive? – like kings…

#

Monday, June 11, 2012

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

MORE OBSERVATIONS

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

If I were a wealthy man

I would be surrounded by brown-nosers.

Ah! the privileges of poverty!

*

“If you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger!”

That indeed is the philosophy of all authoritarian rulers.

Did I say philosophy?

Make it philomoronism.

*

The destiny of all organizations

is to become a mafia.

*

Where there is power

the devil is sure to be in charge.

*

It took mankind many centuries to conclude that

kings don’t rule by the will of God.

It may take many more centuries for mankind to realize that

men who speak in the name of God

engage in charlatanism.

*

Believers have doubts as surely as

skeptics thirst for certainties.

Is there life after death?

Nobody knows.

Speaking for myself,

I think the universe is too complex and magnificent

piece of machinery

to end with a whimper.

But that may well be wishful thinking on my part.

#

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

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

THEORIES & FACTS

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

If you define patriotism as love of homeland,

how do you define homeland?

Speaking for myself I would define it

as anywhere I am allowed to work and make a living.

If thousands of Armenians have emigrated to Turkey,

does that mean Turkey is now their homeland?

A good question for which I don’t have an easy answer.

I only know that when

facts contradict theories,

you discard the theories and keep the facts.

Next question:

Is Armenia our homeland

if it’s at the mercy of former KGB agents

and Bolshevik mafias?

Another good question.

Speaking for myself,

I would have a better chance to survive in Turkey.

#

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

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

EMPTY VERBIAGE

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

To speak of Turks and Armenians

is to engage in fiction.

There are no Turks and Armenians.

There are only mongrelized Mongols

and bastardized Armenians.

The rest is nationalist propaganda

and all talk of “pure blood” is fascist nonsense.

#

ara baliozian · June 16, 2012

Thursday, June 14, 2012

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

MEMORANDA

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

Historians are first and foremost

propagandists of state-sponsored lies.

With them presumption of guilt or innocence comes first,

selection of evidence after.

*

Writing is easy.

Deleting – that’s where creativity and originality move in.

*

To know when to shut up:

birthplace of all masterpieces.

*

All organized religions have failed.

If they continue to have followers

it's because any meaning,

even when meaningless,

is better than no meaning.

*

Strong convictions are the surest symptoms

of weak minds.

#

Friday, June 15, 2012

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

IDIOTS

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

Canadians and Americans appear to be obsessed

with their unemployment rates,

not to say corruption and incompetence in high places.

I have been watching Armenian news on TV

for more than ten years now

and I don’t remember a single mention

of unemployment, corruption, and incompetence.

All I see is a bunch of bureaucrats or “suits”

(also identified as “kheyars,” meaning cucumbers)

in official ceremonies,

children and teenagers singing and dancing,

and the rich variety of delicacies served at banquets.

Idiots!

*

Turks are so busy being proud of their Turkishness

that they pretend to be offended

when massacres are mentioned.

And we are so proud of our Armenishness

that we consider unemployment, corruption, and incompetence

alien concept not worth mentioning.

Idiots!

*

We are not so much a divided nation

as a broken one – a broken one, moreover,

that refuses to mend itself

though it has all the means to do so.

Idiots!

#

Saturday, June 16, 2012

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

DZOUR NESDINK,

SHIDAG KHOSSINK

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

Burma has its San Suu Kyi,

Tibet its Dalai Lama,

Tunisia its Buazizi,

Egypt its Muslim Brotherhood,

and once upon a time we had Khrimian Hairik

who dared to say No to the Czar.

Whom do we have today?

Only empty suits, brown-nosing wheeler-dealers,

and gutless nonentities whose #1 concern is #1.

This is true not only of the Homeland

but also the Diaspora.

That’s what a thousand years of subservience has done to us.

We lament our million-and-half every year on April 24.

We should lament our loss of manhood every day.

#

ara baliozian · June 20, 2012

Sunday, June 17, 2012

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

THE SULTAN IS DEAD

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

People change.

Nations change.

Consider the Chinese:

from communists to capitalists in a single generation.

Consider the Mongols:

who is afraid of them today?

Consider the Yanks:

from happy-go-lucky under Eisenhower and “I Love Lucy”

to the post-Vietnam, Watergate, and “All in the Family” generation.

*

What about us?

We too have changed – but only two words in our national anthem

(from “Tshvar ander" to “azad angakh”).

What else?

I don’t know.

You tell me!

I am all ears.

If our 99% are taken in by our 1%

it may be because they want to be taken in.

They demand to be duped.

They beg to be duped.

They are grateful to their deceivers.

The Sultan is dead.

Long live Putin!

#

Monday, June 18, 2012

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

QUESTION

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

Reality is a jungle

and we are as backward and naïve as jungle tribes.

Our friends have been our worst enemies

and our flatterers our most dangerous liars.

For every truth we have invented a Big Lie.

*

Zohrab trusted Talaat.

Mikoyan trusted Stalin.

Gulbenkian left only 5% of his wealth to us,

and who can blame him?

*

Raffi is right.

We don’t have an aristocracy.

We don’t have elites.

Even our best and brightest were taken in by riffraff.

If I see the dark side of things

it’s because I have earned the right.

*

Because I refuse to flatter your ego,

am I then your enemy?

#Tuesday, June 19, 2012

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

NAPOLEON

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

Napoleon Bonaparte:

I suspect at least one of his contemporaries saying:

“With a name like that he will never amount to anything!”

*

No more wars?

Only if you eradicate the Big Lies of the 1%

and the idiocy of the 99%.

*

You can argue against half-truths

but not against Big Lies.

*

I have been exposed to so much Armenian venom

that I have every reason to suspect

among ten Armenians

nine are sure to be Turks.

#

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

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

INSANITY

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

The aim of all propaganda is to assert superiority:

my god, or king, or nation, or race (blood)

is better than yours.

*

Propaganda cannot be outlawed

because everyone practices it.

*

When a transgression enjoys universal approval

it ceases to be a transgression.

*

Anything that places a distance between reality and us

leads to insanity.

*

The real danger in propaganda is not that

it legitimizes prejudice, intolerance, and lies

but that it leads to collective insanity.

*

Germans under Hitler experienced collective insanity

as surely as the Chinese under Mao,

Italians under Mussolini,

Soviets under Stalin…

and in general, all people

under authoritarian or undemocratic rulers.

*

Propaganda and sanity are mutually exclusive concepts.

*

Religious wars in Europe

(one of which lasted a hundred years)

may be seen as eruptions of collective insanity.

*

Moral: If it makes you feel good,

take a second look,

and if you see nothing wrong, take a third look…

and a fourth... until you unmask the deception.

#

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as i see it - Pt. IV

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