as i see it - Pt. III

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

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

A liar exposed is a liar with a bloody nose.

He may go on lying but with less pleasure.

*

John V. Basmadjian: "The creative person is both

more primitive and more cultivated,

more destructive, and more constructive,

a lot madder and a lot saner,

than the average person."

*

Until recently I had three sets of enemies:

bosses, bishops, benefactors and their hirelings.

Now I have another:

freelance charlatans and hooligans

"whose greatest enemy is free speech" (Zarian)

and who "promote more ignorance than knowledge" (Baronian).

Since literature is unthinkable without free speech,

it follows that their idea of literature

is variations on "Yes im anoush hayastani,"

which happens to be a parody of Pushkin – and I say parody

because I want to avoid using the word plagiarism.

As for our dissidents:

they might as well be enemies of the people and non-persons.

Some of them, like Voskanian and Massikian,

have already acquired the status of abominable no-men.

*

Silencing dissent is a sure symptom

of fear – fear of defeat – fear of the coming catastrophe.

If Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini could speak today,

this would be their message.

*

When commissars use the expression

"enemy of the people" they mean of course

"enemy of commissars,"

and they identify themselves with the people,

but they are as different from decent Armenians

as Turks are from Armenians – and

I don't mean decent Turks….

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 30, 2003

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

According to Baronian:

"Even as we speak of progress

we go backwards,

and even as we speak of light

we spread darkness."

To those hungry for solutions, I say:

Practice what you preach.

If you are a man,

don't behave like an ass.

*

If the kingdom of God is within us,

so is the Empire of the Devil.

What’s not in us

is the wisdom to tell one from the other.

Which may explain such aberrations as

the ferocity of religious wars

and the murder of innocent civilians

in the name of Allah.

[ara baliozian]

A DREAM

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

Last night I had a dream.

An Armenian dream with a happy ending.

In this dream I had a serious talk with one of our hoodlums.

I told him in no uncertain terms

that he ought to be ashamed of himself.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" said I, and:

"You are a disgrace to your nation,

to your family, and to all decent Armenians.

Your racism, your anti-Semitisim,

your hooliganism and fanaticism,

in short your barbarism, alienates everyone

who comes into contact with you,

and when good Armenians are silenced,

the riffraff are bound to take over.

Is that what you want?

You think just because you have read a handful of books

you know better? You are as wise as

a jackass laden with books…."

This went on for a while.

At the end he thanked me and promised to mend his ways.

My last words to him:

"I am glad we had this talk.

I didn't think I had a chance to convince you

but I am glad I was wrong."

As I said, this was only a dream.

Real life is a different country.

Miracles don't happen there.

[ara baliozian]

Sartre's Stalinism was only a phase -- a phase that was shared by many other wise men of the West, including some of our own ablest leaders and intellectuals.

Sartre 's works cover many aspects of life and i think it is unfair to isolate only one and condemn his entire output.

As for Herzl and the other fellow: sorry, i don't know the other fellow; but i am familiar with Herzl's work and mission, which i consider a justified reaction to millennia of persecution, beginning with Pharaohnic times...

[axel]

I do not understand how true and honest intellectuals may have supported such a regime. In fact, some of its initial supporters distanced themselves from it when faced with its atrocious reality but Sartre never did. Worse, he justified it.

 

Stalinism was not but a "phase" in his life, it was its conclusion, the natural consequence of his atheist belief and philosophy.

 

Well, I am rather surprised you don't know "the other fellow" who happens to be the author of "La France Juive", french deputy and founder of an antisemitic party, and incidently, leader of the "anti-Dreyfusards".

 

[ February 01, 2003, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: axel ]

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, February 01, 2003

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

To prove that he was making it in Madrid,

Goya wrote to a friend in the provinces:

"I am beginning to have more powerful enemies

and more envious ones too."

*

"Brotherhood is a wonderful thing,"

writes Shahan Shahnour, "when it doesn't say,

be my brother or I'll kill you!"

And: "Money is everywhere,

especially where its presence is denied."

*

"You don't qualify as an Armenian writer

because you write in English,"

I have been informed on a number of occasions

by our ubiquitous pundits and expert taxonomists.

An Armenian writer?

Why would anyone in his right mind

would want to be an Armenian writer?

Being a writer is hard enough,

why complicate matters any further?

I have never met anyone who has said,

"It is my ambition to be an Armenian writer."

Show me anyone who says that

and I will show you a masochist with a death wish.

An Armenian writer?

I'd rather be a plumber in the Sahara.

*

If you can hate,

you can also love

and vice versa.

But if you are full of crapola

you can neither vice nor versa.

That’s because crap

begets only crapola

and vice versa.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, February 02, 2003

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

A friend of mine once published an essay

and because he made sense

he was savaged by our charlatans.

As a result, he gave up writing.

When asked why, he replied:

"Armenians are hopeless.

It’s a waste of time writing for them."

No, Armenians are not hopeless

and writing is not a waste of time.

What’s hopeless is the type of Armenian

who by publishing an article

thinks he will educate the idiots,

convert the fanatics,

unite the partisans,

silence the charlatans,

solve our problems,

and convince the nation that

to survive as tolerant moderates

is better than to perish as intolerant extremists.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, February 03, 2003

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

People who are in the habit

of blaming all their problems on others,

don't, as a rule, ask themselves the question:

"Where did we go wrong?"

That’s because such people are never wrong;

and people who are never wrong, never learn.

*

Pity the nation whose leaders are infallible

or speak in the name of God.

*

I repeat myself?

So does history.

So do blundering leaders.

If I repeat myself I bore only

a handful of fools – because only fools

read a boring writer and having read him

feel the need to proclaim to the world that fact.

But when leaders are wrong,

thousands, sometimes even as many as a million and a half

innocent civilians may perish.

*

There are some people so consistently wrong

that if you think the opposite of what they say,

you can be sure to be on the right track.

*

I am grateful to my readers

for teaching me not to take myself seriously

and to take them even less seriously.

*

No one can be as arrogant as a loud-mouth nonentity

who speaks in the name of an authority figure

such as Stalin, Hitler, the Pope,

sometimes even the Good Lord Himself.

Take away his source of authority

and he collapses like a beached jelly fish.

[axel]

Dear Ara, what do you mean by "tolerant moderate"? I hope the following quote doesn't apply to such a person

 

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (Rev 3:15-16)

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, February 04, 2003

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

Sanity may also be defined as

the cunning with which one covers up

one’s own brand of insanity.

*

Silence born of apathy

is the most devastating and unanswerable critique.

On the day I run out of readers

I will run out of things to say.

Which is why I thank all my readers,

including the critics, whose verbal vandalism

continues to be my main source of stimulation.

*

Even the devil can quote the Scriptures in his favor,

it has been said. Likewise,

even the most transparent charlatan

can quote newspaper articles

that support his deranged view of reality.

*

If more or less normal, well-adjusted,

and law-abiding Turks and anti-Semites

can make the cold-blooded murder

of millions of innocent civilians disappear

from the annals of history,

imagine the miracles of revisionism

that a truly sick mind can perform!

[ara baliozian]

Dear Axel:

About Sartre:

His communism was an expression of his hatred of the French petit bourgeoisie

(from which he himself sprang) -- the same class of people that collaborated with Hitler and before that, was anti-Dreyfusard. Actually, he was more of a Marxist than a Stalinist. If memory serves he even wrote a book against Stalin titled THE GHOST OF STALIN.

[axel]

Dear Ara,

 

Well, the thing is I don't see any difference between stalinism, marxism, bolshevism, trotskysm, maoism or any other variant of socialism... and I put Engels, Bakounine, Tchernychevsky, Herzen, Lenin, Zinoviev et al. in the same category for their premises are the same, the underlying philosophy being that of Ivan's Grand Inquisitor.

 

And about the hatred towards the "petite bourgeoisie" as a motivation for Sartre's communism, should a true intellectual's position be induced by hatred or principle???

 

Why do you keep repeating the devil himself may quote the Holy Scriptures? satanism has more to do with materialistic marxism you seem so apologetic of than with any other philosophy. If you see flaws in one's arguments then point them out directly and do not use insinuation for this is the way the devil acts.

 

[ February 05, 2003, 04:49 AM: Message edited by: axel ]

[axel]

Socialism is an ideal for ants. Socialism denies the right of a human to exist as an individual. Socialism may only succeed by destroying man's conscience, hence the persecution of non-followers. Those who work towards enforcing this "ideal" upon humanity are either sick or full of contempt towards other humans. Materialism and socialism go hand in hand. Contemporary capitalism pursues the same goal as socialism, only with more sophisticated means, and that goal is bringing humanity back to bestiality.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

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

Shahan Shahnour: "Some questions are also answers.

Examples: Is poetry edible? Are Armenians lovable?"

There are also questions without an answer:

"What do you say to a scumbag

who asserts moral superiority?"

When asked why I waste my time writing for Armenians,

my standard answer is: "I wish I knew."

Are Armenians lovable?

"I have many friends among the Armenians,"

Shaw once said. "But the only way to keep them

healthy and strong is to have them exterminated

every once in a while."

I think he meant to say massacred.

No need to massacre them,

Zarian would say, because they

"survive by cannibalizing one another."

[ara baliozian]

what divides us as a nation, what divides mankind as a species is intolerance and extremism. Biblical quotations can be twisted to mean all things to all men.

[axel]

Dear Ara,

 

Intolerance and extremism are rather vague concepts that may easily be twisted in order to discredit any views or opinions that go against the mainstream. Solzhenitsyn himself may have been portrayed as an extremist by the soviet regime. These notions are in fact quite relative and thus almost meaningless.

 

Some believe destroying peoples' identities is a way to achieve unity of mankind. People opposing such a perspective are deemed "extremists" by its proponents. But if such a unity requires enforcing a common denominator subculture upon all peoples, thereby abolishing what constitutes the richness of humanity, it is not worth it. That is not to say I am against unity. But achieving unity should not require negating the essence of Man, his faith, his culture and his traditions. I believe in the message of Christ, not in that of Marx.

 

This is quite true However, I wasn't attempting to twist anything here. If one embraces an ideal, one has to embrace it fully, not moderately. What we should aim for is Love and Compassion, not just "tolerance" which most of the time may be equated with indifference.

[THOTH]

quote:

---

Originally posted by axel:

... "tolerance" which most of the time may be equated with indifference.

---

Let's hear it for all the indifferent people in the world! Wish there were more of them....LOL

 

[ February 05, 2003, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: THOTH ]

[ara baliozian]

dear friend:

all belief systems and believers are not alike.

Stalin killed millions -- 25 million at least.

How many did Trotsky kill?

And if we judge Christianity by its crimes,

we should arrest and hang all Chistians?

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, February 06, 2003

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

Honesty is not a luxury accessible only to very few

but a privilege accessible to all.

Margaritas ante porcos.

*

Whenever a reader flatters me

I prepare myself to be insulted

and I am seldom disappointed.

*

After a disagreement with a fellow Armenian

I find myself agreeing with the wise man who said:

"I never liked my own species."

*

"I am proud to be an Armenian," he says,

after which he behaves like a Turk.

*

When you can’s refute an argument,

kick the man.

If it works with jackasses,

it may work with you too….

[axel]

The crimes of "Christianity" are a negation of the precepts of Christianism whereas the crimes of socialism are justified by its principles. Socialism is intrinsically inhumane.

[nairi]

I think you're missing the point Axel. Then again, since you seem to know everything and everyone, including the way the devil acts (!), who am I to say anything?

 

Thoth,

[THOTH]

quote:

---

Originally posted by axel:

Materialism and socialism go hand in hand. Contemporary capitalism pursues the same goal as socialism, only with more sophisticated means, and that goal is bringing humanity back to bestiality.

---

Couple of comments Axel. First if you don't like socialism and you don't like capitalism - what are you advocating? Bring back the monarchy? I don't get it....

 

In another post you call socialism unhuman. But aren't you one of the ones who says that human's are effectively evil? So perhaps you are telling us that socialism is a good thing. (I'm no socialist BTW - per se)

 

And are you so sure that we are different from "beasts"? Again - not sure if we are devolving or improving in your eyes. Perhaps beasts are honest and straightforward - no games or such...don't know...

[axel]

Sasun, do not mistake social democracy (Sweden's political system) for socialism as an ideology.

 

Nairi, I never pretended to know everyting nor everyone. Where did you get that from?

 

Thoth, I will answer you tomorrow but could you rephrase your second paragraph?

[nairi]

Like I said, who am I to say anything?

[Sasun]

Axel, what do you mean socialism is inhumane?

There are different types of socialism, the one in Sweden is different from the Soviet type of socialism. I would agree that the latter was inhumane but not the first one. If socialism means no homeless people, free education, free hospitals and similar things at the expense of high taxes then it is good. If any degree of socialism is imposed on people at the expense of individual freedom then its bad.