Armenaker Kamilion

2010-08-12T08:30:00.002-04:00

If the ideology whose outcome is the now obvious destruction of the middle-class is a vine that has its roots in early-mid 1970s New York City, then the vine's first vomit-flower was Ronald Reagan. Misguided, so-called "sensible" liberals will draw a distinction between Democrats and Republicans, even after that point, but the truth as I see it is that Bill Clinton and Barak Obama were far worse than Reagan, even Bush, in the sense that they fused corporate-stalinism with cutting-edge marketing to create the ur-charming, satanic minion politician. Americans continue to live in denial. What will it take to wake them up?

A reassessment.

2010-05-24T03:06:00.004-04:00

I haven't been posting for a good long time now, about a year. The truth is that I got sick and tired of the bullshit that is politics, and I stopped listening.

Ninety-nine percent of politicians are like the product of a gene-splicing experiment conducted by aliens that unites the instincts of maggots with the bodies of humans. That's why politicians can commit the same crimes over and over again, and still manage to get in front of the cameras and smile that characteristically repulsive smile. Their irresistible maggot's instinct drives them to continue to bore deeper and deeper into the shit-for-brains that watch television.

And, really, that is where true tragedy lies: The fact that people believe it. It's not so much the lies that politicians tell that is maddening, but the fact that people keep believing them. Why keep listening to the douche-bags? Why keep bearing witness to the general population's servile ignorance?

So I quit. And let me tell you, I don't feel like I've missed a thing. I really don't. Not a fucking thing. Even without actively pursuing politics, I've noticed through the bits and pieces of the news that float around in the air like anthrax spores and occasionally manage to besmirch my consciousness that nothing has changed. And I look up at the sky, and I thank the Lord for liberating me from the bondage of ascribing any value to politics.

I'm getting the urge to write again, but I don't want to write, think, or even hear about politics. Fuck politics. The only thing its good for is working me up into a nice, self-righteous rage or, occasionally, demoralizing me to the point that I start thinking that there is no future. Fuck that.

Of course, some will say that I am doing exactly what politicians want, withdrawing from the political process. The answer is, No, not really. In democratic societies, people are called on to be diligent in their monitoring of politicians in order to keep them honest. I already know that not a damn thing politicians do is honest.

"This Man Is Your Friend!"

2009-10-15T15:04:00.007-04:00

This poster was issued by the Allies during WWII. Just a short time later the US was preparing to Nuke our freedom-loving friend. I especially like the ALL CAPS, so just in case the observer is retarded, he'll still get the equation: "Da RUSSIAN likes da FREEDOM. He is FRIEND."

Lezginka: The story of a Caucasian War Dance.

2009-05-11T23:00:00.013-04:00

I've always had a fascination with Lezginka and spent many a thrilling hour going through all the Lezginka clips on You Tube. If you don't know, Lezginka is a Caucasian dance named after the Lezgis that is danced all over the Caucasus, by the Georgians, the Armenians, the Chechens (who aren't Turkic, in case you're wondering, and neither are the Lezgis, as 18 noun declensions will attest), and the many other cultures whose home is the Caucusus.

The curious thing about Lezginka is that there seems to be a war, fought in the comments sections, over whether it is an all male dance, or whether it is a dance that includes one or more women. Some maintain the former, some the latter, and others maintain that the Lezginka includes women, but that there is another all-male dance called the Mkhedruli ("military" in Georgian).

I think the answer is that it's all one dance that went through a historical change. It started out as an all-male war dance, like this:

Or, if you'd prefer a more real-life example, consider this clip of Chechens dancing in Moscow (Note the first dancer firing off his gun after he's done dancing):

There's no doubting that the above dances, whether you want to call them "Lezginka" or Mkhedruli, are all-male war dances. Aside from the fact that the participants are exclusively men, the male aesthetic of the dance is unmistakable. There are no curves in the Lezginka, only elbows and knees in a whirlwind of angles, balanced geometrically. The point isn't grace and fluid movements, but to combine the speed of a spinning-top with an as sudden and precise a break in motion as that of a whirling dagger nailing the apple on top of the beautiful assistant's head, so vulnerably and trustingly stand does she. It's a war dance, alright, the pure joy of complete control with a healthy dose of "hey, check ME out"-ism:

I think what happened was that, as time went on, women started jumping into the fray, or slam-pit, so to speak. I would venture to guess that this was a very, very late development because even today it is very conceivable for rivals over a woman to get into a fight if she dances with one of them and leaves the other alone. But, in any case, that the introduction of women into this dance is a new development is also evidenced by how thoroughly boring the woman's dance is compared to the man's: it is basically gliding in circles while making elegant gestures with the hands. The footwork, if any, is limited to imitation. Consider this, for example:

Here is an excellent collection of people dancing Lezginka in weddings as evidence for the above point and, of course, for sheer enjoyment:

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Note that the majority of dancers in these clips, and pretty much most of the clips on You Tube, are Chechens. There's no way to tell from their faces which part of the Caucusus they come from, of course, but you can tell because, erm, the titles say "Chechen." There are many Georgians there, too, but they are mostly performers putting on elaborate shows, and damn good ones, too. They really are very good Lezginka dancers:

Here is a Dagestani performance, at least according to the title. They may be Georgians, too, wearing Dagestani hats:

And that is the "evolutionary" curve that the Lezginka has gone through: it began as a war dance, women joined in, and then it became a spectacle for people to watch, vicariously enjoy, and clap for--bourgeois entertainment: the concert ends at 8 PM so you can get to work on time the next day. And that's generally the curve of culture from pre-modern to late modern. Savage and exhilarating in the beginning; beautiful-ish and civil toward the middle. Aesthetacization.

One more thing. There are lots and lots of Caucasians dancing Lezginka on You Tube, but pretty much no Armenians. There was only one clip I found with the title of Armenian Lezginka, and that was the Armenian Dance Ensemble. I'm not going to link to it because it is just so fucking horrible that its embarrassing. It's not that we don't dance Lezginka; I've seen plenty of people dancing Lezginka at weddings and dancing it very well. It's just that it is not the focus of our attention on You Tube, apparently. Most dancing that you see Armenians do on You Tube are shurjpars, with the whole clan joining in. Which means something, but that for a later time.

In any case, Armenian culture, I think, is more oriented toward music. And the aesthetacization of Lezginka is the perfect example of this. When Aram Khachaturian came along, Leziginka went high-brow. I like this version:

But what I want to leave you is the following clip. I've been trying to describe it for the last hour, but I just can't. I write paragraph after paragraph, but nothing seems to work. So I'll leave it up to you to interpret the music a short, fat guy sitting in the middle of his living room plays on his accordion wearing a wife-beater shirt. All I'll say is that he plays it in a way that brings out the hidden sadness of the song. Brilliant people always do look a little weird:

Aesthetatize. That is what we need to do.

2009-05-07T09:40:00.002-04:00

What I was trying to say, is that we need to aesthetatize our music. That's a spelling error, but a cultural correction. Typical of Glendale I might add.

Jewish Aryans: That's how fucked up we are.

2009-05-07T08:24:00.005-04:00

Conflicted yet?

So I'm watching this clip on You Tube:

(After Levon's speech, it's all downhill, like big time.)

And I'm thinking, "Jesus Christ, more village music!" Enough with the village music for Christ's sake! Zurnas and dohols. What, do I wake up to my ass braying every morning? No, I wake up to the goddamn 210 freeway, and it's loud. Let me tell you something: Village rituals does not for a culture make. You understand? Dancing in a circle at a wedding doesn't mean anything. How else can I put it? You look like a fucking idiot when you swing the handkerchief at the head of the line. All of that business is gone, gone, gone. You understand?

Yeah, the duduk is beautiful, but it's too late, way too late to enjoy it. We're 22nd century Armenians. Which means that we are way to late to the table: All the people that count have eaten and gone already; all we can do is look at the left-overs and drool. And NOT eat.

That's who we are. I'm sorry, but that is who we are. You do a Google image search for "Armenian" and all you get is dead people and patriarchs. What kind of a culture is that? Getting killed is something that you are proud of? That's something to celebrate? Fuck that. Kill them back! Ten times motherfucking over!

Anyway, I'm sitting and thinking about this, and I'm thinking who are we, Armenians. And the only conclusion that I reach is that we're Jewish Aryans.

I officially invite anybody else to come up with a better explanation.

Which reminds me... Why don't we get the NUCLEAR BOMB?

2009-05-05T13:13:00.004-04:00

There are Armenians all over Russia; there are Armenians all over America. Can't we find an A.Q. Khan-ian? That's all we need to do. The Azeris would shut the fuck up so fast, Ill-ham, that is to say, Swine Flu, (ill ham, get it?), would shut his trap faster than you can [edited for content].

And that is why I make this Declaration: MY FELLOW ARMENIANS: LET'S GET THE BOMB!

A.Q. all the way (why do these fuckers look so sad all the time?)

Kill them back. The Turks. (Wow. Nationalist Kool-Aid tastes Gooooood...)

2009-05-05T03:27:00.020-04:00

And let's take our lands back. I'm so sick and tired of them, these Turks. Let's just kill them. It's easy. You just pick up a machete and you chop your neighbor's head off.

No problem: It is machete + head = dead motherfucker.

Easy.

Let's do it.

I am personally going to skull-fuck every rapist of an Armenian girl. Nobody rapes an Armenian girl and gets away with it. I am, to be candid, pretty fucking sick of hearing about it.

You see this:

That was in the 1960's.

Nice sentiment. This is now: Kill them all. They've raped our women and taken our land. Really? I'll rape you back you motherfucker! Ten years, twenty years, a hundred years after. You'll pay!

Don't UN-hate a Turk, RE-hate a Turk. And HATE them over and over and over again.

And then the MI6 and the GRU and the NSA can have a field day... And then we'll fuck them, too, those retarded intelligence agencies that can't tell the difference between a bureaucratic mistake and a typo. Or maybe that's the same thing... Maybe the CIA can tell the difference, or maybe nobody can... (dot, dot, dot)

Or maybe you can just BITE people:

3:1 kill ratio. Why don't we just take over the whole place?

2009-05-02T05:34:00.006-04:00

In the Azeri war, Armenians killed three Azeris for every Armenian. People dying isn't something that I enjoy, but it is the way of the world, and, since it it is, why not go bat-shit crazy with war? That's what they want, isn't it?

Why don't we go all out and take Baku? Why don't we take Tiflis? Those Georgians posture so often, it makes me want to kick their asses. I mean, really.

What are we waiting for? Our soldiers are disciplined, our war strategy matches the best chess player's strategy, and we have the will.

We've seen death and lived with death for soooooooooooooooo long. The Russians fear Chechens. We EAT Chechens. WTF? Let's go from Baku to Tiflis. Let's go WARRIOR. We have it in us. Let's take over the whole place. Let's take Tiflis, let's take Baku.

Happy May Day Everybody!

2009-05-01T20:52:00.002-04:00

Philosophia H. Fucktardus: Indz inch?

2009-04-29T23:54:00.007-04:00

Indz inch?
What do I care?

Kez inch?
What do you care?

Gna ko gortzit hetevitz.
Go after your own work.

These are the Confuse-ian maxims of the people who live in Glendale, that strain of regressed human called Homo Fucktardicus.

Life to H. Fucktardici means finding a good job, buying a house, and raising a family. OK, fine. Except, then, life becomes the slowly rotting-in-the-meaningless-repetition of the jobs that they've found, the slowly-rotting-in-the-terrifyingly-empty-wide-spaces of the McMansions that they've bought, and the progressively chronic alienation of the members of the family that they've raised, as they watch helplessly. There are people who escape this, except they are like Mad Max persevering in the desert of a post-Apocalyptic world. And that's no way to live.

We Armenians are convinced that the path to a good life is having money. Sure, money helps--alot. But there has to be something more than money, and in Glendale there isn't. Live here for a while, and I guarantee you than you will start feeling like something is missing. What is missing is the life that fanatically enforced rules of behavior necessary for efficient production kills. They turn you into a machine, and in return they give you a house--except you have to take time off spending with family and friends to mainatain that house, and you, after years of working away from them, loose touch. That's the Glendale formula: Shut up and work! Shut up and eat! Shut up and Enjoy!

It's a big problem. Really. If only H. Fucktardici would admit that there is a problem. But they don't. They don't admit it because if they did it would be too overwhelming. They've been rotting in peace for so long that to now arrest the rotting-in-peace would be too difficult a task for them. It would be akin to having to take their after-work fat asses soaking in a comfortable bath of scented warm water and emersing them in an--ice bath. Just like kicking a heroin habit. Comfort is the answer in the absence of meaning for H. Fucktardicus.

Indeed, H. Fucktardici are junkies, except in a humiliatingly paradoxical sort of way. Because what they think makes them normal, living a comfortable life in a big house with all the luxuries that they need, is exactly what makes them abnormal, people who think that the purpose of life is comfortable oblivion extended for as long as it can be extended--and that is exactly what junkies think, except junkies are more honest: they do it directly and get a far better rush.

If you ever really want to know the true meaning of indz inch, talk to a junky. I've known junkies in my life, and I can tell you that they really, really, really don't give a damn. To them, there is only one purpose in life: the comfort of heroin, the regression to the womb. Nothing else matters. They could be sitting waiting to become the next sacrifice in an Aztec ritual where they pull your intestines out of your ass, tie it to a stick, and set it on fire, and the junkies wouldn't give a damn as long as they got to stay high.

There is only one other class of human that can match the complete indifference of junkies, and that is the class of bitter old men who've suffered enough. They, too, really don't give a damn. They, too, can look at a bloody car accident and get more caught up in the carnage than the tragedy, but not much more, because not even the carnage is so interesting to them. Maybe they'd say, "Oh, that's so sad," because that is what is expected of them, but then they'll turn around and walk away, back to the bed, back to comfort. Junkies and old, old men are respectively representatives of active and the passive hedonism in that sense. The only real difference between one type of Glendale resident and another type of Glendale resident.

Because Glendale is all about hedonism, which is alright in a sense, except in Glendale, among other things, there is a weird kind of liberal-democratic hedonism, which is to say hedonism that likes to, on top of everything else, enjoy itself through a hypocritical, pseudo-moral lense, even as it chants its mantra: indz inch? If you can believe that such a thing is possible: to assert your morality, even as you say that you don't give a damn. It is an amazing feat, so let me explain.

Saying I don't give a damn while at the same time saying I care about ethics clearly puts a person in a bind. The miraculous Glendalian philosophical feat in undoing this Gordian knot that lets Glendalians conquer, erm, "Asia"-in-the-form-of-a-McMansion is to explain it this way: By taking responsibility for putting myself in a state of witless, shitless, brainless state of comfort, I spare other people from the responsibility of putting me in a state of witless, shitless, brainless state of comfort.

See how that works? See how "I don't care" in the perverted logic of Glendale becomes the pinnacle of civilization and an act of courage? It's really rather amazing.

All of which is why the drug of choice for this indz inch culture isn't heroin, but Xanax and its relatives. Heroin, after all, takes some balls to do. You can't get your Armenian doctor, brimming with understanding and sympathy that they are, to prescribe you heroin, but you can get him to prescribe you Xanax. The way it works out in this American life, taking a drug that gives you a spiritual orgasm of pleasure isn't OK, but taking a drug that severs the sinew attaching your soul to the world, making you simply indifferent--without causing pleasure--is reasonable. With the former drug you'd be tempted to sit on ass and drool, but with the latter one, Xanax, you can continue to go to work.

And that is essentially what H. Fucktardicus is: A worker and a consumer of garbage, and a rather stupid, obedient one.

W.H.O. Alert: H. Fucktardicus spotted in Yerevan!

2009-04-28T02:14:00.016-04:00

Here's evidence of an Homo Fucktardicus apparently asking for the camera that just took a picture of him, but, obviously, not being very successful. Because, well, here's his picture:

Get profession you fucktard. What is this? Chauchesku? Jesus, what is it going to take for those who are professionally supposed to oppose us to get an account with Wal-Mart and have their slave-driving professionals deal with with this (our) bullshit?

I mean, seriously: when is the KGB, I mean GRU, going to sign-up with Wal-Mart?

Picture courtesy of Tzitzernak. Originally the picture is from an A1 article about hoodlums harassing Armenian Congress supporters, which I think means that the picture is really the courtesy of A1.

What I fear most in this life in Glendale.

2009-04-21T04:08:00.011-04:00

Earthquakes.

I've been through a few of them. The first (terrifying) time, I was at Glendale High School, and I literally saw the Earth wave with waves that you usually see in Water. The earthquake hit, and they brought us all out to the field, the football field. And then, there was another quake. And I saw, we all saw, nature turn on "her" head and the entire field of grass--there's no name for it--wave like as if it were water. Imagine what its like when you dip your finger in a glass of water, and imagine how it would look like as if it were a field of grass. Waves flowing across a football field.

Then the next time it was at Pasadena City College. And this was the--truly--horrifying experience, because it didn't involve nature, but--people: We were in class; I was a stupid Armenian hick in philosophy class, discussing philosophical issues. I think the class was about "Ethics." Yeah, right. Laugh your ass off.

But, then, an earthquake hit. If it were a movie, it would have hit right in the middle of a discussion about Plato's justified lies. Except it wasn't, and it hit right in the middle of an idiot expressing a completely idiotic thought, which is what 99% of what the American university experience is about. In other words, there was no beauty to to it. But, whatever.

Then the ground shook. Not in the way that you would expect it, however. It shook in long, slow waves. Long and slow, like a merciful lover. We all thought that we were going to die. I remember looking at the ring hanging at the end of a string, attached to the the pull-down projection screen, waving back and forth, real slowly. Back... and forth. I remember the look of panic in the teacher's face, and I remember all of us ducking under our desks, as if the gazillion pounds of concrete that would rain down on us would be stopped by by the one-inch thick surface our desks. Ridiculous. I remember looking at my classmates with that cowardly expression of an animal about to die. There was no courage there. There was no character there. It was just middle-class people shitting their pants. That was it. It was a very clear look at who we were, and who we were was scared shitless nobodies. But that's a different story.

I remember us leaving the classroom, and "calmly" exiting the building. And that is the truly horrifying part. People "calmly" exiting the building. Because, truth be told, nobody was "calm." Everybody was terrified. You had to make a choice at that moment about whether you were a frightened animal, willing to step over other animals, or whether you were a human being, trying to be calm. That's a tough choice. I made mine, and I don't want to again.

So, what I fear most in this life in Glendale is an earthquake. Not the mafia.

The mafia, or let's call it by its real name, the akhperutiun, does things for a reason, but an earthquake happens for--no--reason, whatsoever. An "akhper" will antagonize you for a reason, but an earthquake will happen for absolutely no reason. So, in that sense, there is something WAY tougher than the mafia in Glendale: Earthquakes.

Irrational death sentences. What does the akhperutiun have to compare to that?

Homo Fucktardicus Ground Zero

2009-04-13T15:25:00.006-04:00

Homo Fucktardicus Ground zero:

View Larger Map

Within less than a quarter of a mile there on the corner of Dryden and Pacific there must be about 5 Armenian grocery stores. One of them is connected to Armenian mafia money, I think, like King Market in Pasadena, rumored to be connected to good old depressed Serzh Sargsyan. I don't have any hard evidence for this, the former, except the fact that it is way, way too clean to be a real Glendale-based operation and the people who run the place are fat, overbearing, abusive, and totally spoiled degenerates.

For example, I was there the other day, and this fat guy (I know, I said "fat" already, but these people really are fat all around) drove up in a, surprise, surprise, Mercedes, and he started to talk to one of the girls who works there, on her break. She was sitting at a table, having a cup of coffee. She was pretty, but (/and?) she was poor, obviously, working as a cashier. She also wasn't in her twenties anymore, and the stress of being in that, erm, position, I could read from her face, mainly from her eyes.

I was parking the car right in front of the table she was sitting at (probably in violation of a Glendale city ordinance, the tables were set right in front of parking spaces, not that I care much about propriety, but, anyway), and she caught my eye, and held it, for far longer than a woman who is financially secure would. That's how I knew she was poor: she didn't like her job, she didn't like her life, and she was looking at me, a passerby, as a possible knight in shining armor. That's real life. Beyond all the happy hallucinations that television fills people's minds with, real life is sex, drugs, and poverty, meaning being somebody's bitch, and, oh, the night-time gnashing of teeth--but that's another story.

So this dick-head comes out of his Mercedes, holding his cell-phone in one hand and his car keys in the other hand, sporting a gold bracelet, jeans-with-leather shoes, designer shirt, primmed-up like a princess, and obviously an idiot, and starts talking to her. At first, the chatting seemed friendly. Like, Hi, is everything OK, is everything going well, and all that. But towards the end of the conversation the fat-ass dickhead started swinging his car keys and the woman in question started looking tense. Y'all know what I'm talking about. That's Homo Fucktardicus.

That is capitalism in action. The Russian 90's have been imported here, in Glendale, with all of the brutality that went on. If I had the courage, I would have taken the pen that I had in the glove compartment and stuck it right in the bully's eye.

Larry Summers gets a small part of what he deserves.

2009-04-09T17:29:00.002-04:00

Can't embed it, so visit the abc site here to Summers getting booed.

Why did Russians kill this man?

2009-04-08T02:34:00.012-04:00

Russians will pay for a long time for this. They killed him:

And let me repeat this: Why did Russians kill this man, and why did people like Kocharian and Sargsyan approve?

I'm not a Monte Melkonian fan. He said many things that are lies. But you can't murder people like that. I know his brother said that everything was un-suspicious. But I think the man was murdered.

I think the Russians killed him.

OK, so sue me. Nobody this cool dies a natural death.

Meet Homo Fucktardicus.

2009-04-03T21:06:00.013-04:00

According to wikipedia "[homo sapiens sapiens] have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving." Really? Wikipedia is very generous. You've got to know that they're English socialists, especially when you consider the 2004 US presidential elections when George still-figuring-out-the-opposable-thumb-thing Bush got elected.

But, whatever. It's not like I'm bitter about the entire American population electing idiots as presidents for the last thirty years starting with Ronald fucktard Reagan while laughing at everybody who disagrees... or anything like that. No, It's actually quite entertaining to see Reagan supporters from back when I was a kid all of a sudden start talking about the importance of government regulation. It's funny. These slime-bags, and I mean SLIME-BAGS, who used to talk about people pulling themselves up by the "boot-straps" are now eeking out a living on Medi-care and Medi-Cal (California, state-sponsored health insurance) that pays all of their fucking bills while they sit on their asses and wait for the inevitable to happen. They're all socialists now. Thirty years ago they were "entrepreneurs."

It's hilarious to watch big-time investors in the stock market loose 40% of all of their investments: "Big time" in their own heads, small time in their bank accounts. Nowadays they are all saying the same fucking thing: "A little regulation is a good thing." Really? I don't think so, assholes: why don't you pull yourselves up by your bootstraps? You rugged individualists want your diapers changed now? Fuck You!

And most of the people that I know personally who used to talk like that are, yes, Armenians--Glendale Armenians. Which brings me to the creature at hand: Homo Fucktardicus.

Homo Fucktardicus is a new mutation off of the Homo sapiens sapiens branch. Homo Fucktardicus branched off around the year 1984. Ignorant, but arrogant; wealthy through borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars and enslaving their very own kids to the responsibility of paying it back; authoritarians in the home, but really wage slaves at work--Homo Fucktardicus rules Glendale.

The Homo Fucktardicus ideology has conquered all. All over Glendale you can witness piss-ant wage slaves in their Mercedes Benzes. They're going to be paying for that car for at least the next ten years. You can see them talking on their cell-phones as if they are deciding the fate of the Asian continent, except they are telling their bosses that, yeah, they'll sacrifice a vacation day to mind the cash register at the store.

Indeed, I give you: Homo Fucktardicus. Armenian materialist idiots. People, as they say, that will crawl over their dead mother to fuck their sister.

Homo Fucktardicus: Damn you shit-heads to hell!

Sophia Loren.

2009-03-30T05:32:00.005-04:00

EDIT. I just removed two videos that were here. One was Cracker doing "Dr. Bernice" and the other was a montage of Karen Black clips. I asked myself: Does one need a philosophically sound excuse to see Sophia Loren in a corset? Hell, no!

Facebook Baby

2009-03-29T00:58:00.005-04:00

Ran into this photo today that I think expresses the internet saturation that some people are starting to feel. It is by Zina Saunders, and I think the point she makes in her essay about venture capitalists trying to monetize the internet is right on, especially when you look at sites like Facebook and the arrogant, greedy shits that came up with them. Anyway, here's to avoiding the dystopic future that might be in store for all of us along with the rest of the catastrophes lined up like black crows.

1974-opulos

2009-03-20T01:15:00.002-04:00

Here's a concert in Greece right after the fall of the Greek dictatorship, the one that got them into a war with Turkey over Cyprus.

It's 1974.

AIG Retention Bonuses Issue: A Smoke-Screen for the Theft of Billions.

2009-03-18T23:23:00.008-04:00

For the last few weeks I've been watching mainstream media so-called pundits foment righteous anger over the "nerve" of AIG execs demanding, and those in charge of overseeing how taxpayer money is spent giving them, millions in retention bonuses. The experience has been quite amazing, to say the least, because the mainstream media has never, ever, in my memory been so openly hostile toward Wall Street. Usually, they act as the Wall Street Propaganda Dissemination Department. For examples, the Exile broke a story about how craven the mainstream media is toward Wall Street about a week ago, and Jon Stewart picked up on it and took it further:

So, yeah, it's strange to watch the mainstream media start trashing Wall Street all of a sudden, but now it's clear why: The manufactured outrage is a smokescreen for something much, much worse. It is a magic trick, which, like most magic tricks, works through deception: The magician distracts you with his left hand slips a card in the deck with his right--and the card you picked "magically" appears on top of the deck.

In the same way, the media is getting you to focus your attention on AIG execs receiving retention bonuses of about $200 million, while AIG is giving about $175 BILLION to banks and financial institutions that it has already given the same amount to. The institutions in question are the usual suspects: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and so on.

The source of this claim, that the bonuses are serving as a smoke-screen for something much more egregious to take place is, to the best of my knowledge, Elitot Spitzer, in his March 17, 2009, article in Slate, "The real scandal at AIG."

But this story, already a Chilean earthquake, gets even more interesting. Dare I say, Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign as Governor of New York last year because he had been trying to prosecute AIG and scam-companies like it since 2002, for exactly the kinds of crimes--crimes--that have led to this crisis. He was silenced. And the silencing was a Wall Street conspiracy.

But, to go back to the beginning, Eliot Spitzer was writing about--strike that, prosecuting--Wall Street's dangerous and highly questionable players since, not a month before, not a year before, not two years before the collapse of Wall Street in September 2008, but since way back in 2002. Then, in 2004, he accused AIG of bid-rigging. Now, I don't have the slightest clue what bid-rigging is, but the fact that AIG and another company lost $38 billion in market capitalization in response to the accusation means that he knew what he was talking about: Wall Street cretens obviously took his accusation as a credible alarm.

Then, in February 14, 2008, he wrote an article in The Washington Post making explicit just how the Bush administration had stepped in to stop states from being able to stop the predatory lending practices that have brought us to this crisis. To quote a Nation article summarizing Spitzer's accusations against thte Bush administration:

[T]he [predatory lending] situation loomed so egregious that the attorneys general of all fifty states, both Democrats and Republicans, lodged suits against the worst predatory subprime lenders [...] The response was shocking, and not nearly wellpublicized enough: the Bush administration employed a little-used 1863 law to annul all state antipredatory-lending laws and, if that wasn't enough, to block states from enforcing their own consumer protection laws in suits against national banks. Thus, when Spitzer tried to open an investigation into discriminatory mortgage lending in New York, the administration actually filed a federal lawsuit to block it. These interventions were so extreme and so unprecedented that the attorneys general and the banking superintendents of all fifty states came together to oppose the rulings unanimously. But to no avail.

Three weeks later, Spitzer was forced to resign his post as the Governor of New York because of a sex-scandal.

Coincidence? I don't think so. Here is a podcast of an interview with Spitzer done by Greg Palast, probably the only real investigative journalist left in the US aside from Seymor Hersh. Here is Palast's article about Spitzer's resignation with other audio links, and here is a Nation article about it.

So, yeah, the same guy that Wall Street successfully conspired to have resign because of his willingness to prosecute its crimes is now saying that this hullabaloo over the retention bonuses, as justified as it is, is only serving as smokescreen for a theft that is 1000% as bad.

Women hate men.

2009-03-12T04:08:00.003-04:00

And men hate women.

The Stimulous Package: "Will it work?"

2009-02-19T05:24:00.012-05:00

That is the question that the media has been asking over and over again for the last month. Every time I turn on the news, or what passes for news, there's some obligatorily shrill-voiced actor playing the role of an anchorperson screaming, "Obama's Stimulus Package: Will it work? When we come back, our panel of experts will try to answer that question, and later we will talk to Republican Senator Pede Erast about whether the bill isn't really all about government spending. Stay with us."

Then the commercials come on. And, Christ Almighty, if anyone is wondering whether this country is on its way into the bowels of hell with the irresistible speed of an elephant on a luge, then all he has to do is take a close look at these ridiculous commercials. Without question, the most repulsive ones are the ones that use bright, pastel-ish colors to illustrate birds, and trees, and butterflies, and children, while the zen-like soundtrack of American Beauty plays in the background, a happy, hopeful harmony of soft bings and dings. It's a sunny day, the kids are running in the field, there's a young woman in appropriate east-coast blue-blood-wanna-be GAP attire, smiling; one of the kids blows into her palm and all these pretty petals go exploding into the air; and its all just beautiful, happy, and healthy, because, as the narrator assures you--the fucking coal companies are watching out for "your" environment.

Then there are the bank and investment-firm commercials, repeatedly reminding you of how "solid" they are, as if they fully expect the viewer to be so utterly clueless as to believe them. These banks telling people that they are somehow looking out for their families are, on the contrary, far more akin to a person who's just come-to after a terrorist bombing at a cafe--dumbstruck, shell-shocked, mumbling comforting nonsense--than they are like the sober, responsible, and alert group of professionals that they pretend to be. But then, a tweaker on a week-long binge would actually be confident that people believe him when he tells them that he's a jet fighter pilot. But then, again, there are a lot of people in this country who would believe him wholeheartedly and even ask for his autograph, because it is not every day that they meet a real jet fighter pilot. And that's the whole fucking problem, as we all know.

Once the length of time that psychologists have determined a middle-aged, drugged couple sitting on their couch can endure mindless commercials (a very, very long time) is mercifully over, the real torture begins: While commercials try to convince you that this or that product is good, a relatively honest venture, news programs take mind-fucking to a whole new level and try to convince you that the entire world is a certain way. They try to convince you that there is such a thing in the world as the "axis of evil"; that John McCaine's getting captured and tortured for years, after not being able to manage bombing women and children from thousands of feet in the air, makes him singularly fit to be the President; that during times of struggle and depression, Americans "pull together" instead of stomp one another to death on Black Friday as they make a mad dash to the electronics department. You know, bullshit.

And who better to administer these memory laxatives than a charismatic figure, say, Anderson Cooper for the girls, and Campbell Brown for the boys. Anderson Cooper's head, if you think about it, is a natural anomaly, but a serendipitous one if you are a cable news producer. It combines the unthreatening, wise silver hair of a sixty year old with the glowing and hairlessly smooth skin of an adolescent, and beaming out from that perfectly manicured head are a pair of bright blue eyes, at once penetrating and innocent, trusting and trustworthy. And if that weren't enough, his Steve McQueen-lite pose that he strikes right before going to commercial is just the kind of dickless macho that makes menopausal women fall in love: They don't know if they want to fuck him first and then cuddle him, or cuddle him first, then fuck him, then cuddle him again. Anderson Cooper is the consummate menopausal toy-boy. If someone shrank him down to dildo size and mass produced him, he'd be marketable in buy-2, get-1-free packages. "I've got one 'Dandy Andy' in the dresser, one in bathroom, and one in...the car!" They'd say to one another and giggle. "Get yours! Today!"

And so, Anderson Cooper says, "The Stimulous Package: The Obama camp says that it will create jobs, cut taxes for those who need them most, and invest in the infrastructure of communities all accross America. But will it stimulate the economy? Joining me now is [some bored looking guy from a center you've never heard of]. Thank you for coming on the show, Bill. Will it work?" Bill then repeats the same ambiguous bullshit du jour, saying, in essence, that the stimulus package might work, but then it might not work; it will do all these positive things, but "I'm not sure whether it will be stimulative." Right, "stimulative." If you think that word sounds strange, even after it has gotten repeated over and over again for the last month, it is probably because you're used to hearing the far more standard adjectival form, "stimulatory." Some talking head dropped that word "stimulative" a few weeks ago, and now every commentator has to use it, and every time they do, they get this cautious, almost scared, look on their faces because it is the first time that they've used it. But they screw up their courage and go through with it because they've looked it up in the dictionary, and, indeed, it is technically correct, and it will make them sound smart. Or maybe I'm hallucinating the whole thing.

In any case, if the question is whether the stimulus package will prove stimulatory, the answer is clear: NO. But that answer is neither entertaining, nor good for ratings, let alone stimulative to the career of an anchorperson. But that is the answer: It won't work. Nothing any politician is willing to do would work.

And the answer is "no" because the markets are saturated, manufacturing and its accompanying jobs have been moved overseas, the US has shifted from a savings economy to a credit economy, government regulation of pretty much everything has been sabotaged, Wall Street owns all of the important politicians (including Obama), vital government services have been privatized, and so on and on.

There isn't going to be a real recovery, and everything is going to get much worse. And most people don't want to hear about it.

Erdogan vs. Peres. A sea-change?

2009-01-31T03:35:00.004-05:00

I don't know what to say about this yet, except that it seems to be indicative of big changes. One obvious preliminary observation that can be made, though, is that, here, the Turkish PM is righteously railing against, there, the immorality of Israeli killings. He's right, of course, but the irony is so thick you could only cut it with a nuclear-powered jack-hammer:

Thanks Armen and Ani for catching this quickly.

Talk about feeling "Physically Bonded."

2009-01-24T04:40:00.002-05:00

Hah, hah, hah!

Rich people don't give a shit what your skin color is.

2009-01-20T21:27:00.005-05:00

After all the pontificating today, let us, Americans all, contiuiating in the traditions of our forefathers, continuiating in the rhetoric of said, aforementioned, forefathers, let us regurgitate, erm, I mean, affirm, this fact: Rich people don't give a shit what your skin color is. RICH people don't give a SHIT what your skin color is. What they care about is whether you're rich or poor. If you're rich, it's cool; if you're poor, they will continue to FUCK you in DA ASS.

They even had a preacher say some very stirring words today. He even mentioned the "yella" people. It was ridiculous, it was a lie, it was unbelievable.

Fuck, should'a voted for Nader.

UPDATE: Fuck it all to hell. (Stupid fucking idiots going "yay" for a corporate procession. And that is what Obama's limousine cavalcade was today, a corporate procession. Locke would not condone this. Locke is the philosopher behind the American Constitution, mind you. Come to think about it, American liberal humanism is not about the exploitation of labor. And the exploitation of labor is what America has been supporting, and for a very, very long time. So, yeah--Fuck You--and George Washington is on my side.)

If God existed, then there would be a song about the Pastrami sandwich that I just ate.

2009-01-11T06:44:00.007-05:00

It's Jesus time!

2009-01-05T03:45:00.004-05:00

Poor people: Put your ear right next to the speaker.

Rich people: Put it on Surround sound.

It's Jesus time!

Model.

2009-01-04T04:30:00.002-05:00

This is George Galloway skewering Norm Coleman in 2005-ish, when Coleman tried to scandalize Galloway.

Except Galloway skewered Coleman. And he wrote a book about it, too.

Mr. Galloway goes to Washington.

Now Coleman LOOSES his senator-ship. To Mr. Franken.

Bye, bye, Mr. Coleman. May you be yourself for the rest of your life.

Can't the seven talk like this?

European May '68?

2008-12-20T20:20:00.004-05:00

That's what Sarkozy told his ministers: “We don’t want a European May ’68 in the middle of Christmas.”

You won't know it from the mainstream media, but the Greek riots are going global. This is some serious shit. It's not like they're just torching cars and throwing molotov cocktails: About a thousand--yes, you read that correctly--schools and university departments have been occupied along with television and radio stations and riots and solidarity demonstrations have been held in Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, Bremen, London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Paris, Bern, Barcelona, Toledo, Madrid, Copenhagen, New York, Melbourne, Ljubljana (Slovenia), St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Oaxaca, Glasgow, Dublin, Malmo (Sweeden), as well as cities in Turkey, Croatia, Bulgaria, Poland, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Austria, New Zealand, Portugal, South Korea, and elsewhere.

And this is not just about the Alexandros Grigoropoulos. The protesters are calling themselves "the 600 Euro generation" because nobody can get a job that pays more than 600 Euros a month.

Obviously this news is huge. The fact that it has been completely blacked out in the mainstream media means that the powers that be know that there is a legitimate danger of the riots spreading to US cities. In this tense political and economic climate, what with unemployment skyrocketing past 10% (the 6% figure they give is total bullshit) and millions of jobs hovering over the abyss, the only way that they would be able to control mass riots in major cities would be to pull out the PATRIOT ACT and call everyone who hits the streets "terrorists" and throw them in jail.

Fasten your seat belts and get into crash position fellas. USS Titanic, meet Mr. Iceberg.

2:11 Elbow to the Face.

2008-12-18T06:34:00.004-05:00

Feast your eyes on this lovely spectacle.

Armenians and Greeks fighting over Jesus while the IDF tries to break it up. You couldn't make this up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEpZJnydbj8

(YouTube has disabled embedding for this clip, interestingly enough).

Letter from Gharabagh: About Hatspanian

2008-12-16T15:53:00.004-05:00

The letter translated below was published in Haykakan Zhamanak on December 5th [can't link because their servers seem to be down (or to have been downed, as the case may be)]. That the letter is from Ardzakh is not an incidental fact; it is central, because Kocharyan and his entire clan and entourage are from Ardzakh, of course, and for someone from that region to call for Hatspanian to be set free is saying something.

Hatspanian, a veteran of the war, is on a hunger strike--in prison. He was put there ostensibly because he revealed a plot to assassinate Serzh Sargsyan during an interview with Haykakan Zhamanak (translation here), a supremely good move on his part because, had the plot succeeded, Kocharyan's hand would have strengthened immeasurably: How many innocent people would have wound up in jail as "terrorists" is anybody's guess. I think it is important for all those who would like to see SS and RK disappear to know that assassinations are as much a thing of the past as political prisoners are.

If you want to read Hatspanian's account of 3/1, go here (pt. 1) and here (pt. 2).

Letter from Gharabagh
Sergey Poghossian
Kashatagh region
Goghtanik village

It was evening in early November, and we were watching Haylur, when suddenly my wife turned to me with a dumbstruck expression on her face just as she heard mentioned the name of Sarkiss Hatspanian, the benefactor and guardian of our family and its many members. Could Paruyr Hairikyan really be that treacherous and inhuman to declare Hatspanian a persona non grata, criticize him, and condemn him as a traitor? [You] government leaders, when I embarked on the road through Lachin from Ashtarak along with my 15 hungry and bare children, which one of you asked, "Where are you taking those pitiful children?"

We used to live in one of the lost villages of Kashatagh up until the year 2000, pining for a handful of daily flour. It was then that along came Ara Manukian and twice provided assistance to the entire village. Alas, the previous administration began harassing him and prohibited his help. But then Gurgen Melikyan and Sarkiss Hatspanian arrived and with God's grace helped us and continue to help us to this day. It was, indeed, no one other than Sarkiss Hatspanian who bought me a car and paid for it himself, so that I could earn two pennies in these mountains and not be crushed under the responsibility of taking care of 15 children. Because of Hatspanian, Kashatagh became a birthplace for me, and I began living for the sake of my children and my homeland. I appeal to the government of the Republic of Armenia: I am a man past 50, five of my children have served in the army, and two of them will be serving in the future--Please, set my dear Sarkiss Hatspanian free and condemn me for having 15 children, instead.

New Blog: Seven on Trial

2008-12-16T14:21:00.005-05:00

Here is the Guardian article on the Trial of the Seven, accused of trying to usurp power.

Here is A1+'s coverage of Ombudsman Armen Harutunian discussing the upcoming trial, including a video with a translated transcript. In classic Armenian fashion, Harutunian gets pissed-off at the reporters (at around minute 2) for constantly asking him to express an opinion about the trial, after he's just gotten done explaining that they have to go through the process and see what happens first.

And here is a new blog dedicated to covering the trial, called Seven on Trial. I wonder if Melissa Brown is the author.

My feeling is that they are going to be found guilty, then be given a pardon or reduced sentences: Sargsyan and Kocharyan need to showcase their "benevolence" while avoiding giving the west an excuse to scrutinize their administration. But we'll see what happens.

It's gonna rain.

2008-12-12T02:01:00.006-05:00

They've gone and done it now. It is Thursday night, and news came in a few hours ago that the car company bailout, or "brigde loan," has failed to reach cloture, or quick conclusion. The Senators that are responsible for this did what they did in order to attract foreign companies to their states with cheap, unorganized labor. They want to kill off labor-union power and turn the US into a third-world, cheap-labor, coolie shit-hole. And, man, was that a mistake.

The American work force has gotten wind of what is going on, and these lawmakers are going to pay for their complacency in front of labor. The mood in the country has become increasingly frustrated over the last 4-5 months, ever since the crash, and especially after average Americans witnessed the perverse $700 billion bailout for gamblers in expensive suits with white powder around their nostrils. Now they are being asked to believe that in spite of all that money that materialized out of nowhere, a measely $15 billion isn't being made available to the car companies that hire millions of them. The contrast between white-collar treatment and blue-collar treatment is too stark for them to ignore.

And it is--not--the so-called "liberals" that are going to do something about this discrepancy. It has always been the case that the liberals are urban, educated white collar types who kind of, sort of know "what is really going on," i.e. knew that there was no connection between Iraq and AlQaida and that sort of thing, but they don't have what it takes to really do something about it. It is true that liberals will talk the talk over a latte, but when it comes down to walking the walk, in the street, with a raised fist, they would much rather retreat to whatever comfortable, television-show-imitating "life" that their superiors have bestowed upon them in exchange for their loyalty.

No, it isn't the liberals that are "waking up," it is the red-state, blue-collar workers that are feeling that righteous anger in their bellies right about now. Now they are looking at the same familiar faces on television making the same retarded wise-cracks, but they don't sound funny anymore. The talking heads look like liars, the politicians' utter corruption is out in the open, and the utter indifference of government to the people it is supposed to serve feels like cold steel rod where their spinal cord is supposed to be--the illusion is over. They are starting to think that maybe it is time to do somehting. After all, it is beginning to look like they have no choice. Now, if they do mobilize, and I think that they are getting ready to, they are going to jam their manual-labor-hardened collective fist so far up the right-wing's ass, they'll be able to tickle the right's pituitary gland.

Tomorrow, it will be Friday, December the 12th. Keep your ears open for the first cracks of thunder.

The Democratic Demographic

2008-12-03T23:50:00.021-05:00

This is the smartest and most important truth I've heard about American politics in more-or-less 20 years (before that I was too young to recognize a political truth if it was strung around my neck and tied to a galloping horse):

What the Democrats lost in their base [i.e. unions], they gained in the form of a generalized tolerance that seeped unconsciously into the brains of a whole generation. They became more of a demographic than a political party united by common interests.

[Emphasis mine.]

The quote is from an article by Matt Taibbi who, along with Mark Ames and John Dolan (who's probably the real "Gary Brechter" at the exile), is a writer whom the future is going to recognize as an H.L. Mencken or Hunter Thompson of our era. And that is saying something.

I don't know if Taibbi's been reading academic journals and putting what he learns together with what he sees on the campaign trail and his good-instincts-in-general, or what, but when I read that sentence I had a rare "Holy fucking shit, he's totally right" moment. If you know where to look, there are ninufars-growing-in-slimy-ponds-loads of good ideas on the internet. But rarely is there an idea that unravels the corset covering the luscious truth with a more skillful pull of the string than this, which I repeat:

[The Democrats] became more of a demographic than a political party united by common interests.

Well, here's a story.

About a week before the elections, my sister and I went phone-banking (basically, calling people up and convincing them to vote for a candidate) for Obama, here in California that everyone knew would, and did, go to Obama. We walked into Democratic Party headquarters with high hopes and expectations, but different ones: She was expecting the people there to be joyously positive, and I was expecting them to be bored. My reasoning was that Obama already had California, so why would Dem HQ people be excited about volunteers for Cali? I went in with the hope that the phone-banking that was being done was for other states, like Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, you know, states that mattered in the swing sense.

Turns out, she was right. There was a buzz in the air, like something really, really BIG was about to happen. I was wrong, but the buzz didn't intoxicate me enough to forget that phone-banking for Obama at that point was pointless. So I got into a minor tiff with the guy who was organizing what all the volunteers were doing. I asked him what the point about calling people in California to tell them to vote for Obama was, and he told me not to worry about it: Proposition 8 is what we could phone-bank about. Proposition 8 was the one about homosexuals marrying.

I don't really care about who marries whom, so I was on his side, but I wasn't about to devote several hours of my day that could be spent in enjoyable conversation with my sister to convincing traditional people that ass-fucking is an OK human activity. Have you ever tried convincing your grandmother that your gay cousin, as much as she loves him, isn't performing unnatural acts that sin against everything that is proper in the world? Fuck that. In any case, compared to the fate of the human race, gay marriage is an issue the size of a termite fart, in my humble opinion, and, in the end, it turns out that I was right and he was wrong: phone-banking about Prop 8 turned out to be totally futile (and I wish him the best of luck while he freezes his ass off in Utah trying to make Mormons gay-friendly).

So the conversation with the gay guy at that point was about to escalate into a real argument, with me yelling at him to give me something that is worthwhile to spend time on, and him telling me that Prop 8 is worth the time, when in walks an ugly-looking Hindu nerd with eyeglasses that fit on his head like a bra fits on the head of the Dalai Lama--right away I knew I had found the man.

I said to him that there was no point to phone-bank for Obama because he already had California and that, perhaps, the thing to do was to phone-bank for Russ Warner in Congressional district 26 who was running against a standard Republican body-snatched alien. And that is when the miracle happened: He took out the sheet that they had printed that had the script that phone-bankers were given to read, and he pointed to the last line: "And please remember to vote for Russ Warner for Congress." I looked at the area code, and sure enough it was the area code of district 26: I would be phone-banking for Russ Warner in district 26. Beatitude! End of potential buzz-killing argument.

So sis, who'd been watching with mild consternation my argument with the heathen get worked up to a potential fight--what with her 2-month old in the portable cradle next to us--breathed a sigh of relief, they gave us our phones and the list of people to call, and we sat down with our Obama-supporting fellow citizens to do some good in this world. My sister's strategy was different from mine. She would try to engage the people she called on a personal level; what I did was rifle through the talking points at break-neck speed, not caring what I ran over, getting the message across: "The election is in a few days, the place you are registered to vote is at such and such a place--Vote for Obama, Vote for Russ Warren." End of call.

We spent hours at that place, calling person after person, learning perhaps more than we needed to know about our fellow Obama supporters.

The people we called are a story unto themselves--a mix of really warm supporters and complete fucking assholes--but what struck me most were the people in our physical vicinity, the real people there at Democratic Headquarters. The first guy we noticed at HQ was the guy sitting next to my sister. He was an oldish, big, black guy who sat there for about 20 minutes at a time staring at the phone, pretending to be about to dial phone numbers. He very rarely dialed any numbers. What he would do was get up and go over to the snack table and grab himself something to eat. Then he would return to our table and start staring at the phone, again, while he munched on the snacks, pretending to be about to dial, but really dialing nobody but about 3-4 people the entire time. I wanted to get up and grab him by the collar and scream at his face, "Will you please stop acting like a fucking stereotype?"

Then there was the lady who came and sat down in front of us. I was, like I said, rifling away at the calls, one after the other, staring down at the phone and the list of number, but my sister was looking around her, checking out the atmosphere. I didn't give a shit about the atmosphere, or I did, marginally, as an anthropological curiosity, but sis was giving out signals that she would be willing to talk to other people. So she did. She got into a conversation with this woman who sat down in front of us, white woman in middle-age. As soon as she did, I got up and left to go smoke a cigarette--a still viable, if not rapidly dying, excuse to get out of a situation. I don't know what they talked about, but when I asked her about it afterwards, she mumbled something unmemorable.

The point is that on that phone-banking day there were many of "us," different people: A couple of Armos, a gay, a Hindu guy, a black guy, and a white woman. And, in spite of our differences, we felt somehow on the same side. And that is what the point behind this statement is:

[The Democrats] became more of a demographic than a political party united by common interests.

Something worth thinking about, something worth writing more about, but it's getting late.

Allright [sic]. Let's take a look at this picture again.

2008-12-01T10:38:00.013-05:00

I've been mulling this over. There is something that really bothers me about this picture of Samantha Power.

She's sitting on a box with a HOLE in it. We've established that. What that means is that she is being offered up as a spectacle. And she sat down for the portrait willingly, unless there is a person with a gun in his in the background... And, if there is a woman sitting down for a portrait on a box with a hole in it, then we can say she is showing her beauty. And if she is showing her beauty, then let us judge it.

Judgments:

#1 Her arms are too long.

#2 Her back is curved. It should be erect.

#3 Her legs come down into her heels like a nerd's. A woman who wants to get a man stirring would sit in her heels--as if--she feels insecure. Samantha Power sits in her heels as if she's a Professor trying to pose for a photograph.

#4 The skirt is too long. It looks like someone threw a rag on her legs. It drops down around the ankles, laboriously saying nothing about her thighs--ah her marvelous thighs, just around where the ehem is. What it should do is be short enough to want to invite one's hands. What it does do is say, "Hey, why don't we go through these lawbooks for another 8 hours?"

#5 Right around where her arms join the shoulders, there is another sag. A lover might want to caress that curve that would be heavenly otherwise, but not in this case. It is sad and depressing, and it precipitously drops down into the sag of her entire body.

#6 Her entire posture is un-enticing. Her boobs are sagging, when they should be perking up, saying, "Hello, sunshine!"

Here is beauty wanting to beautiful:

Silly, but what man out there would not like to, erm, bring her to her senses?

UPDATE: Yo ka yok ya-he (with a yerkaratsman nshan).

Power and Madness.

2008-12-01T09:22:00.017-05:00

This post is about Samantha Power. Take a look at this picture:

Look at her face. She looks like she wants to be Virginia Woolf.

In any case, look at the box. They have her sitting on a box with a hole in it, dressed in a very pretty dress.

Why do they have her sitting on a box with a hole in it?

I mean a A HOLE in it, for Christ's sake?

What the fuck is all this about?

(On the other hand, her expression, the very every-day non-attractiveness of it, and the blandness of the whole spectacle, the three crevices at the stomach, make her so wonderfully everyday, that I think I might blow an 800GB, 10GHz computer.)

Jinx, You Owe Me Zankou!

2008-11-30T11:44:00.019-05:00

I actually wondered for a second whether one of these retards isn't my cousin or someone I know:

I don't condone pot-smoking, because smoking pot makes one very, very stupid--as in drooling at the mouth stupid to the point that you don't remember what you were trying to say when you started the sentence... I mean that as a statement of fact and not as a moral lesson, or anything like that.

In any case, this is a very real piece of Armenian history, done by everyday Armenians.

Zankou, for those who don't live around here, is Zankou Chicken, a fast food franchise in the L.A. area started by an Armenian (who was murdered by a family member, if I remember correctly [actually, yes, I do remember correctly, now that I have looked it up]). It's good chicken, I must say. They have a potato-paste garlic sauce (a kind of starched-up aioli) that goes a long way in making a pita-wrapped piece of chicken breast heavenly, especially with the pickled vegetables and, of course, the pepperchinos.

And 818 is the area code for the Glendale area. It's a gang thing that these kids are picking up as an accoutrement. Another funny thing about the clip is is "bllik." "Bllick" is what you think it is, if what you're thinking is hard, although "bllick" does just as well refer to the soldier in his off-duty state, too--you know, relaxed.

I won't list the sordid details, but these are arevmtahays and parskahays fucking around. Because arevmtahays and parskahays have been around Glendale for ever.

Getting Trampled to Death vs. Attending a $20 Million Party.

2008-11-28T13:44:00.009-05:00

Some poor schmuck got trampled to death by Wal-Mart shoppers in Long Island this morning at 5 AM, when the doors were opened and the so-called "Blitz Line" rushed in. Emergency crews took the guy to the hospital, but witnesses said that he was clearly dead already at the store, which means that by the time the last lard-asses were stepping on him what they were actually stepping on was a dead piece of meat.

Of all the ways to go, I'd say getting trampled to death by frenzied Wal-Mart shoppers is probably one of the worst. It's wrong on so many different levels that dying at the tentacles of a snuggly positioned kandiru while it gets intimate with your prostate gland is probably preferable--it's at least more natural. Getting trampled to death by consumer crack-heads while they make a dash for DVD players that are 50% off--dying like that doesn't just amount to murder, it amounts to a condemnation of an entire way of life.

Notice the sick irony here: Those drooling herds of compulsive hoarders of plastic junk were trained enough to take what they wanted to the check out stand and pay for it, even though the force of their mad stampede was clearly great enough for them to have robbed the place in a riot if they'd wanted to--but they weren't civil enough to refrain from stomping someone to death on their way to their discounted Holy Grails. Modern Wal-Mart shoppers will obediently pay for their products, but they won't mind literally crushing another human being's trachea in the process.

I've seen riots with rioters a hundred times more in control of themselves than these animals. There is a shred of political purpose in riots which lends them an atmosphere a cut above that of a chicken feeding frenzy. Granted, rioters are pissed-off young men with the single-minded purpose of destroying what are the symbolic objects of their hatred, but even as they smash the world up around them, at the very least they keep an eye out for one another. These Wal-Mart animals, on the other hand, consider one another as the enemy. Rioters stick together; Wal-Mart shoppers compete against one another to buy the garbage that they should be boycotting. People like that will never gain control of their own destinies.

The man who died was a 34 year-old temporary maintenance worker. And that is what Wal-Mart does, of course, keeps people temporary so the fear of getting fired never leaves them and sets up permanent residence next to the fear of getting sick and having to die because they don't have the money to pay for treatment. The numerous other permanent residents of that psychological Abu Ghraib that workers are forced to endure are the fear of never making enough money to be able to get married, the fear of having kids get sick, and the fear of having your television companion be your sole companion for the rest of your miserable, dead-end, fucked-up life.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, "stars" were attending the most expensive party ever thrown. At least they were called "stars," because from what I was able to tell from the pictures they were mostly second-"tier" people that I've never heard about. The party reportedly cost anywhere from $20 to $40 million.

Dubai's Palm Jumeirah Island is the perfect symbol for what happens when backward desert nomads, the Sheikhs building the resort, suddenly get rich after they agree to repress their own people for the sake of Colonial England: namely, ridiculously over-the-top displays of wealth that seem the perfect settings for 70s disaster films.

Dubai, dubai...hmmm, reminds of something. Oh, yeah, Mumbai.

I don't know how close to 200 jihadists can be involved in an operation that shuts down an entire city without intelligence services from here to India hearing a peep about it, but the suggestion is that they were, erm, clueless. The only way to explain is to say that most of the boots on the ground, or cheap Nike knock-offs on the ground, as the case may be, didn't know where they were going to be deployed until the last minute. But, still, how is it that nobody noticed 200 some odd people loading on to a boat along with 200 some odd Kalishnikovs, grenades, RPGs, and bombs? Sound fishy.

UPDATE: "BLITZ LINE" Starts Here. Go to photos 9 and 11. New York Daily News sucks ass to begin with. Hope you pay your photographers a living wage, assholes.

Thanksgiving...

2008-11-27T20:30:00.002-05:00

Why do we celebrate this holiday?

Leave it up to religious-fanatic Calvinists to come up with a holiday dedicated to eating the most tasteless fowl on the planet--turkey. Couldn't they give thanks with kabob or something? Jesus Christ.

Economic Meltdown--Big Surprise!

2008-11-27T10:42:00.004-05:00

Have you been predicting the disaster that has been happening while complacent assholes have been laughing at your face?

Well, here is your comeuppance:

Feel free to jam it up their Republican asses.

In fact, Armenaker Kamilion is now issuing STFU certificates. That's right, every right-wing jack-off that has ever talked about things that he does not understand can now be officially told to--Shut the Fuck Up.

Yes, before you were shy about telling them to STFU, but now you can rest assured that you are actually correct: Right-wing blow-hards are just right-wing blow-hards.

You have official license from Armenaker Kamilion--there is no higher source--to tell those mother-fuckers to go Shut the Fucking Hell Up.

The Shit's going to hit fan so big time you can't even imagine it yet.

Obama #3--or #2B, to be more specific.

2008-11-27T08:23:00.015-05:00

I said "Fuck you" to Obama last time, and now I want to make clear which Obama I was saying "Fuck you" to.

There are, actually, three Obamas. I've said there are two Obamas, but, in fact, Obama #2 is two-partite. So, just to get our Obamas straight, let me list them:

There is Obama #1--He's the perceived Obama, Jesus Christ.

There is Obama #2--The real Obama. Except there are two real Obamas, so let's break this down.

There is Obama #2A: The Obama that has to do what he has to do. The Establishment Obama, the scripted Wall Street plant. The man who has to fit the suit that has already been tailored--meaning the man who would appoint as his Chief of staff Rahm Israel Emanuel: Israeli citizen, son of an Irgun terrorist, as in real terrorist with blood on his hands, and AIPAC ass licker. Good going, Mr. Change.

Then there is Obama #2B: He's the Obama that I support. He might even be a real socialist, a person who's hung out with "radicals," someone not a stranger to Malcolm X, someone who's "palled around with 'terrorists,'" someone who knows what real change is. An academic with nerdy jokes.

The "Fuck you" from the last post was directed at Obama #2B, because when I see someone I think I understand act like a fucking hypocrite, it annoys me. I wanted to make that clear. Standard neocons would never get a "fuck you" from me, because they are beneath me. That's right: the standard neocon is not worth insulting, because it would be like getting mad at a piece of charcoal.

Obama #2B, the real Obama, in my imagination, is someone I really do think I could have a beer with, except it wouldn't be a beer. So it pains me, it annoys me to no end, that he, Obama #2B, would act like such a fucking hypocrite.

Ergo, "Fuck you, Obama"--Obama #2B.

$800 billion more?

2008-11-25T12:07:00.003-05:00

What the fuck is going on here?

A couple of years ago, the government could NOT afford $8 billion to take care of kids without healthcare. Now, all of a sudden, there is $700 billion with $150 billion pork, and, on top it, another $800 billion to bail out these nothings of human beings.

I think these people take us all for idiots.

They've got what's coming to them.

Fuck you, Obama.

2008-11-25T01:07:00.004-05:00

You're appointing Summers to what now?

That's the last fucking straw: Lawrence Summers Director of National Economic Council.

It's over: This thing called Obama is OVER.

Go fuck yourself you Kenyan shit kicker. Go fuck yourself you goddamn pussy. Go fuck yourself you goddamned liar about what you are going to do. You're just another Wall Street plant.

The Obama Paradox

2008-11-24T15:43:00.005-05:00

Right-wing talking heads are right. The United States really is a center-right country.

If you've been following what the right-wing talking heads have been saying on mainstream news programs, then you know that they've been pushing the meme that "the US is still a center-right country." They started doing this immediately after Obama got elected, and true to their essentially robotic natures, they've churned out this meme Hostess Twinkie, conveyor-belt style nonstop ever since.

The thing is, though, this time, they're right. The so-called "left" has argued that Obama's election is, in itself, proof that the US is not a center-right country: "If the US is so center-right, then how come Obama got elected?" They'll ask, thinking they've just shut down the opposing argument. Well, here is the answer: Obama is a center-right politician. A President that appoints a Wall-Street millionaire as his Chief of Staff, arguably the second most powerful position in government, and a Barry Goldwater fan who helped pass NAFTA as Secretary of State is--not--a center-left President by any plastic-surgery strrrrrrretch of the imagination.

There are two Obamas: The real Obama, and the Obama as perceived by the incredibly naive public. This fact makes evaluating his election to the Presidency a bit complicated, because, even though the real Obama isn't going to do anything but nudge the country a bit to the left, the fact that the world thinks the US has voted for real change is something in itself. The American public has chosen what it thinks is change; on a certain level, it doesn't matter that it is wrong.

So the right-wing talking heads are right: America is still a center-right country...it just thinks its center-left. And thats the tragedy of the whole thing, or the tragicomedy, rather--as in you don't know whether to laugh or cry when you watch videos of Obama supporters going crazy after the election. Watching them, you'd think a revolution had happened, Bush had been tried and convicted, and a machine had been invented that sucks up all the pollution out of the environment and turns it into electricity and mountain-spring water. But, sadly, no: all that had happened was another Wall-Street-backed candidate winning the Presidency.

All the screaming and jumping up and down was just hysteria. This is the thing about Americans: They need to believe in something, in someone. Pretend to be the someone they need to believe in, and they'll believe. They won't even check to see whether you really are who you say you are. Why look a gift Obama in the mouth, after all? By the time November 4th rolled around, some 70 million Americans had convinced themselves that the political equivalent of the second coming was well nigh. The crazed enthusiasm that Obama supporters displayed on election night was so disproportionate to what had actually happened you got to wonder what the fuck is going on? (Although if you've been following politics, you've probably been wondering what the fuck is going on for 28 years already, and you have the psychology of a person who doesn't know whether breaking into a madhouse wouldn't actually really be breaking out of one.)

It's really heart-breakingly sad when you think about it. These people are so utterly downtrodden, feel so helpless, abused, and hopeless, that they'll convince themselves of the most ridiculously far-fetched fantasies just so they can go on. They lead empty, empty lives. This is what consumerism in a capitalist system turns people into. I remember a time when people would get up at 8, get to work by 9, and return from work at around 5:30. Now, everybody I know that works gets up at 7, and doesn't get back until--at least--7, and they work over the weekend, too. What the fuck kind of a life is that? And it's not only the need to pay the bills that drives them, but the sad fact that they don't really have any kind of a home life. There's just nothing to do except work. Once upon a time, there used to be these groups of people called "families." Now there are isolated individuals apportioned according to the number of television sets in their vicinity. And everybody is on something, usually alcohol.

And most people's jobs suck, too. Office Space wouldn't be as funny and popular if that were not the case. You don't even have to scratch the surface to get to the hostility that drives the series--the hostility is already there, on the surface. Except the perspective from which the shows are interpretable is the one that is aligned with the cool guy only, never the one aligned with the object of the hostility, like the asshole of the office or the boss. You're always looking at the office as if you were looking through the cool guy's eyes, seeing things that others don't, interpreting the world in an "intelligent," sober, and sophisticated manner, which is ironic, because the millions of assholes and bosses out there also look at the office from the perspective of the cool guy. Somebody's got to be mistaken, right? But, hey, that's America.

Obama might be able to push the country in a direction more aligned with Roosevelt's New Deal, but that is not going to make people's lives more meaningful. As a matter of fact, it was precisely the comfortable and secure lives that the New Deal afforded Americans that lulled them into the state of idiocy that allowed a maniac like George Bush to become President. And that is the Obama paradox. That was the Roosevelt paradox, too.

Meet the new paradox, same as the old paradox.

A society's culture is largely determined by its economy, by the means through which goods are exchanged. There have been times and places in human history when people have exchanged goods by exchanging gifts, by bartering, and by other means. Most of them have thought that the way they do business is natural, that things have always been the way they are used to things being--just like we do. But the fact of the matter is that capitalism is less that 300 years old, and there is nothing natural or permanent or fatalistic about it. We can change it if we want to. And we should, and not just because it periodically produces catastrophes like it has just started doing recently, and not just because instrumental intelligence and technology have advanced to the point where the enforcement of a global permanent state of emergency is possible, where permanent war and religious fanaticism have to be implemented to keep capitalism viable--as if each of those were not reason enough, as if FISA and the PATRIOT Act were not reason enough.

We should get rid of capitalism because of the effect that it is having on human culture, namely, fucking it up. Christian fundamentalists and their ideological brethren, the mollahs and Mormons, claim that the "social fabric" is being ripped apart by godlessness. The social fabric is being ripped apart, but it's not simple godlessness that is doing the ripping. It is capitalism. Capitalism produces godlessness; godlessness is a vacuum state. What, are we to believe that faith and religiosity are a matter of choice? That God died because people became lazy? No, God died because of capitalism. Religious people can yammer all they want, but that's a fact: God died because of capitalism, and that is, to put it ironically, a "blessing in disguise."

Objectively, life--the very cosmos--is meaningless. "Meaning" is, itself, is a human invention at the service of life. When God dies, one kind of meaning dies, and life becomes difficult: families fall apart, jobs become a bore, life itself becomes an intolerable protracted psychological torture session complete with middle-of-the-night cold-sweats and middle-of-the-freeway panic attacks, not to mention middle-of-the-workday silent moments when one's brain refuses to shut the fuck up.

The way that I look at it, to ask the question, "What is the meaning of life?" is to display the tell-tale symptom of a disease: the existential malaise, as it has been called, a thoroughly modern, which is to say capitalistic, disease.

Twenty, thirty years ago, the existential malaise was the intellectual's disease, and a slightly hip one at that. Woody Allen could wonder about the meaning of the universe, and his preoccupation with it would make him look smart. Today, the existential malaise is eating up American culture. People keep marveling at the number of fat Americans walking around in shorts, displaying their copious amounts of lard. Why do you think they're fat? When the ideology that controls and channels one's appetites withers away in the unmerciful atmosphere of naked capitalism, the appetites take over--people eat because eating is the only thing that gives them pleasure. That is why there are so many fat Americans. And fat people are going to be visiting your corner of the world, too, and soon.

The problem is that the psychological industry has wrapped-up the existential malaise in its own ideology, called it "depression," and come up with all kinds of drugs that its twin in the pharmaceutical industry produces as a cure. That's all bullshit. All you have to do is take a look at these signature American "diseases." If it isn't obesity, its anorexia or bulimia, the same problem, except in the inverse: people trying to gain control over their lives by exerting influence over the only thing they can, their bodies, because, indeed, life without meaning is like a ship without a rudder, and if your ship's got no rudder, then the only thing you have control over is the ship, so why not burn the whole fucker down and feel some real power in the process? And if it isn't anorexia or bulimia, then its that good old Attention Deficit Disorder. What is ADD, if not a kid having trouble focusing his attention because his parents haven't transfered to him those things that are worth focusing on, because they don't know what those things are, themselves?

More on this in a bit.

1975, 1974 if you count the drugs.

2008-11-24T02:27:00.006-05:00

They pulled this from you tube; I found this hunting on the 'net.

Enjoy.

SNL John Belushi/Joe Cocker

1974 AC/DC

Ayy mart, let's do Joe Cocker some justice: You Are So Beautiful:

Destroy This!

2008-11-24T01:09:00.005-05:00

Glendale? This jack-ass knows something about Glendale?

Please, visit this retardlican and finish his ridiculous comments about Glendale and Armenians.

He knows nothing about Glendale, and he knows nothing about Armenians. And that Kim Kardashian boz that he has on can go you know what. Armenians don't belly dance, asshole.

"My Armenian friends told me that they settled here because the Verdugo mountains reminded them of their "beloved" mountains of Armenia."

That's what he says. I'll teach you a lesson about beloved mountains. Me em dass sovoratsnelu kezi, srika. Ari, "beloved mountain" neri het enk khoselu. De Ari. Me em nant latsatsnelu.

Kill this idiot.

Finish this imbecile off:

Right Here.

Samantha Power

2008-11-23T03:40:00.004-05:00

How can I express how I love this woman?

I'll put up her address:

She got cut because she called Hillary Clinton a "monster."

Hillary Clinton is a monster.

Only the good die young...

Quest for the biggest asshole in the US.

2008-11-09T07:36:00.013-05:00

Figuratively speaking, of course: "asshole," meaning someone like Joe the Plumber, someone who whines about big government wanting to take his money and give it to someone else, when, it turns out, he's been on welfare twice in his life; someone who, when he is confronted about his welfare-queen past, says he's "paid it back" into the system--except he owes about $1,600 in back taxes. I could go on about Joe the Plumber, but you get the point: an "asshole" is the typical Republican blow-hard whose understanding of the world around him is so distorted that it allows his vanity to broadcast his ignorance on national TV, over and mercilessly over again--you know, sort of like an average hockey-mom who thinks she's qualified to be Vice President.

So I began my quest for the biggest asshole in the US by checking out the voting patterns of counties on a map. The map on Daily Kos, to be exact. If you click on a state on that map, it will zoom into the state and show you the breakdown of red/blue votes by county. Since I live in California, I began there. As in other places, the blue part of the state is along the coast and in and around major cities. Up in Humbolt there is a blue pocket, and south of LA is usually overwhelmingly red--except not this time. This time, the counties south of LA all went blue, save one--Orange County.

Orange County has proven that its ass-holery has achieved such zen-like perfection that not even the thought of being governed by a wrinkled old bag full of Post-traumatic stress disorder and his crazed-by-ambition, airheaded side-kick could dispel it. Which brings up the question, What the fuck is the matter with Orange County? The Answer: Oliver Cromwell, like I wrote about. Which brings up a second question: Is the biggest asshole to be found in Orange County? The answer is No: In order to find out who the biggest asshole in the US is, we need to locate the county with the highest concentration of assholes. Orange county, despite its display of miraculous lack of insight, still went 47% for Obama; that is merely a half-strength concentration. In order to locate the kind of walking-argument-for-nuclear-annihilation type of asshole, we need to locate concentrations beyond 90%; only in such a petri dish can the noxious bacterium that we are looking for grow; a county with an asshole concentration rate of below 90% is too susceptible to sanity.

Orange County is a big clue in the quest, however, because like a gigantic, arrow-shaped, demographic turd, Orange County points in the direction of the state we're looking for: Oklahoma. Orange County is the bastion of narcissism-piled-on-top-of-ignorance that it is because it is populated by people whose ancestors came from Oklahoma and, before that, from Oliver Cromwell W.A.S.P. country in Scotland. The connection is the Dust Bowl, and, irony of all ironies, the Great Depression. When the Dust Bowl hit, these people moved to the Orange groves of Orange County, California, to work like the Mexicans that they so like to rail against today. These hypocrites used to be lefties--as in real, communist left, not the limp-wristed liberals so common nowadays--during the Great Depression. Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, The Grapes of Wrath are their legacy. They swung right, however, when desegregation and civil rights became an issue, and right-wing politicians have been playing them like the banjo from Deliverance ever since.

Oklahoma, it turns out, is today the reddest of all states. It went 66-34 in favor of McCaine. No state beats that record. To boot, there is not one county in all of Oklahoma that went for Obama--not one. No state beats that record, either. Even Wyoming that went 65-33 for McCaine had two counties go for Obama. The county we're looking for must be here, then. But where?

Mouse through the counties on the map, and you'll see that the nearer you get to the Texas panhandle, the closer the asshole concentration gets to that magic 90% level. In Beaver County, in the northwest of Oklahoma, a whopping 89% of the population voted for McCaine. But the county we're looking for is, not in Oklahoma, but adjacent to its border: Ochiltree County, Texas, a dry county named after a village in Scotland (surprise, surprise), where the county's Events Calender has "partly cloudy" as the event for November 11-14, and where--92%--of the people voted for McCaine. It's hard to believe. Could it be that they voted for McCaine so uniformly because they all make more than $200,000 a year and don't want to pay higher taxes under Obama? Well, no. According to the 2000 census, 1.9% of the population was making more than $150,000, and the median income for households was $38,013.

The only possible explanation for their suicidal voting is that they're rabid racists. They think people from West Asia, aka the "Middle East," are about to plant a nuclear bomb in their nowhere county, and they can't bring themselves to vote for a "nigger." They're all assholes, then. But the question is, Who is the biggest asshole in this county with a majority of assholes already of surprisingly large proportions? Interesting question. One way to answer it is to ask, What could happen to Joe the Plumber to make him an even bigger asshole than he already is? Give him a tazer gun and the authority "to protect and to serve," as they say here in Cali; in other words, make him a cop. That would skyrocket his asshole rating on the Asshole Index to right about 3465 Asshole Units, head and shoulders above anybody else in the US, perhaps even the planet.

Which brings our quest to the Ochiltree Sheriff's Department. Here, the sheriff is on local radio talking about a scam that's been going on in Ochiltree. The good residents have been getting checks for thousands of dollars from "Mary Jo Smith" along with a congratulatory letter asking them to send back $2,000 to speed up the "processing." I don't know whether Mr. Sheriff is fear-mongering the way Republicans typically do or the residents of Ochiltree are really so uniformly-stupid-as-they-are-uniformly-Republican as to fall for this scam in epidemic proportions, but the depth of the ignorance in the county is palpable in the interview. As Mr. Sheriff says, the victims tend to part with their money through MoneyGram--because MoneyGram is available in Wal-Mart stores. He also says, with a resentful tone, that "if you win something, the IRS has got their hand out before you collect your winnings. I'll guarantee you that!"

Right, Mr. Sheriff. Like I'm sure you are in an intellectual position to guarantee an entire host of truths that people living in cities, outside of dead-end small towns are too never-shot-a-moose naive to understand. For example, Real America, when picking a President, asks, Well, sure he's a Harvard law professor who gave up a cush corporate job to organize in the poorest communities of Chicago, thereby demonstrating his true commitment to America, but has been tortured for seven years? In deciding on the qualifications of a Vice President, Real America asks, Of course he's been a senator for decades and is the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but can he see Russia from his house?

Incidentally, the scams Mr. Sheriff is probably talking about is 419 scams out of Nigeria, and he is either exaggerating what happens in these scams, or he just doesn't understand them, because he describes the scams incorrectly. People bait these scammers, and the results are entertaining.

In any case, Mr. Sheriff, how about big city blue states like California and New York stop spending their hard-earned dollars on your welfare? Because you know that big city blue states pay about $1.20 for your 80 cents of taxes, and the difference goes from these big-city blue states to pay for your roads, bridges, schools, and white welfare queens like Joe the Plumber. I'm sick of paying for the welfare of stupid white red-state ideological bottom feeders who turn around and vote against the country's interests because they are too stupid to know even that that letters they get from Barrister William Holden Witherspoon announcing $20 million inheritances are a scam. How about you pull yourselves up by your boot straps and build your own infrastructure? Maybe you could do it with your chain gangs. The only things you produce are cow farts, 40-something military retirees living on government pensions, and trailer parks where no 15-year-old girl is left behind the abortion issue (and I'm being generous with the syntax there).

No shit.

2008-11-06T23:41:00.001-05:00

The New York Times writes about the reality of what went on between Georgia and Russia.

In Celebration.

2008-11-05T15:47:00.008-05:00

This is a song sung to a woman. I especially like the hand touching the hard rock part: it can inspire some serious virtuoso singing...

"Not by pennies, dimes, nor quarters,
But by happy sons and daughters."

That's what the Obama victory is about, no?

Killing people.

2008-11-05T08:51:00.001-05:00

Woooooo Hoooooooooooooo!

2008-11-05T06:31:00.003-05:00

Obama is President. It's been a long, long time.

(I'm not a believer, but) Please Jesus, make his body-guards triple, and keep him safe.

Speaking of Sarkozy

2008-11-02T15:03:00.012-05:00

Translation:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please excuse my tardiness, but I just got done with doing shots of Stoly with Mr. Putin...

"Any questions?

"What the fuck, life goes on, right?"

It gets better:

Yes, he's drunk. Big time.

"All topics: Chechnya, journalists, the rights of homosexuals..."

It made me laugh.

But it made me kind of alarmed, too. Ya see, this fucker's gotta go, also.

Seriously.

Comedy 2008

2008-11-02T11:39:00.018-05:00

Sarah Palin was thrilled about the Nicolas Sarkozy call.

Say you're running as VP on the US Presidential ticket, and one day you get a call. Oh My God: It's the President of France. How clueless do you have to be to accept a call from "Sarkozy," four days before the elections, for him to tell you that he likes killing animals from a helicopter, how wonderful your biography by Hustler (a publisher of pornography) productions was, called "Nailin Pailin," and how his wife wrote a song about you called "Lipstick on a Pig"?

How clueless do you have to be?

Once it is beyond obvious that its not Sarkozy, long, long after it is obvious, she asks the perps for their specific call letters for the radio station. Too bad they are calling from Canada: That's CKOI in Montreal. Vengeance is a dish best served inside your country's sovereign borders. Except this time, it's not. So go fuck yourself, Palin, they're calling from Canada.

This whole McInsane election is so fucking lame, why don't we revisit this:

More 1974

2008-10-31T01:55:00.018-04:00

You can't get any more 1974 than Gordon Lightfoot, I don't think. Ah, what is the answer to this mystery that is 1974?

Some of you may be wondering why I keep putting up stuff from 1974. Well, the reason is that I think something happened in 1974, some earth's-destiny-changing event, like Aramazd going up against Ahriman in a battle that would decide the fate of the cosmos. I'm not kidding. I don't exactly know what happened, but I think Nixon had something to do with it, but, say, a rabid dog running down the street might have just as well been the cosmos-redirecting event, too--nobody really knows. But the point is that something unusual happened in 1974, and that is why I am a bit fascinated by it. If you've ever read Philip Dick's VALIS you know what I'm talking about.

If you haven't read the books, then here's what I'm talking about. (And, by the way, I don't necessarily see the world the way Dick did in that book, but I certainly dig[g] the way he soldiered through it). Life is a monolith, a thing, an ontological fact. Life is an inexplicable something. If you took this monolith, this thing, and you put it up in front of Confucius, Socrates, and all the philosophers from then until now, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and, yes, Derrida, and you asked them to try to explain it, to understand it, to say just what is it, they would come up with an answer, a characteristic answer. Would the answer have anything to do with the thing, the monolith? Why, no. But it would be a characteristically human answer. The answer would explain not the monolith, but it would speak volumes about humans. See where I'm coming from?

(And, by the way, saying that Being is an a priori concept that we humans bring to the world, a la Kant, still doesn't explain why things are a priori.) What is this thing? What is being? Explain it.

In 1974, human answers were happening. People were coming up with answers, with art, in a way that hasn't happened since then, for 34 years. I don't know why. The monolith stays the monolith, but the human attempt to explain it intensifies periodically.

That was 1974. And it is happening again this year.

UPDATE: While I was writing this post, something started itching in the back of my mind, like right around where the cerebral cortex meets medulla at the spine, if it does...well, you know what I mean. So I scratched the itch, that is, paid attention to it, and I remembered that Something Happened, Joseph Heller's book, was published in 1974.

If I remember correctly, standing in front of a door and being simultaneously horrified, terrified, and enraptured by the idea of opening it was the matrix that the story grew out of. Here is Wiki's bullshit take on it. Kurt Vonnegut had a lot more interesting things to say about the book. Here they shoot the shit about things.

Clarification about Dashnaks.

2008-10-30T09:40:00.002-04:00

Someone, an anonymous person, sent me an email that impugned that I was a Dashnak hater. I don't hate the Dashnaks; I just don't agree with them. I want to clarify what I think about them.

I am 3rd generation Dashnak. My family is mostly Dashnaks, and it always has been. My grandparents were card-carrying members of the Dashnak party. They held Dashnak posts. I'm not kidding or exaggerating about this, mind you. They really were.

So, understand, if I criticize the Dashnaks, I criticize them as one who comes from a Dashnak background. You see, the Dashnaks, back in the day, were a very viable party. They did a lot for Armenians. They built schools, they built churches, they spread awareness about Armenian issues.

Sometime, around the mid 70s, the Dashnak leadership decided to go, um, let's say, Franco, on everybody's ass--as in fascistic. That's when the problems started. That's when about half of my family and the Dashnaks parted ways. I am with the side that broke with the Dashnaks. I think that they are approaching the Armenian reality from an entirely wrong direction. I criticize them, I don't agree with them, and I think that they should either change or end.

But let me make one thing clear: The Dashnaks are no "baby killers." The Dashnaks that I know don't send rape and death threats. That's not what they are about. So, for the record, the Dashnaks are an obsolete, bureaucratic bunch of repeaters of early 20th century national socialist boilerplate, but they are no "baby killers."

If you want a real crazy Marxist-Anarchist, that would be Armenaker Kamilion.

Hatspanian kicks some Dashnak ass.

2008-10-29T08:02:00.012-04:00

[Photo by Onnik Krikorian]

Impudent, interruptative (there isn't such a word) Dashnak, versus literate ass-kicker, Hatspanian.

One of the many interesting things about this debate is that they are both Western Armenians, judging by their--very slight--accents. In any case, the highlight of the clip is how Hatspanian pwns the Dashnak towards the end.

Full disclosure: Probably, the most traffic that my site has gotten from a post is from my translation of Hatspanian's account of March 1st.

One more thing: notice that the camera favors the Dashnak (guy on the left side of screen [but on the right side of the ideology])

(Thanks to Tzitzernak for picking up on this and translating key parts of the discussion. Tzitzernak always picks up on all the interesting stories, really.)

"Misses" Palin

2008-10-26T17:15:00.001-04:00

Russian-American art students?

Lessons from the US.

2008-10-26T00:19:00.004-04:00

We're constantly hearing about how Armenia, a "third world country," has a serious problem with voter fraud. Well, here are some lessons from the US in how to perpetrate voter fraud that Serj might want to pay attention to:

Voter fraud does happen in the US, it is real, and it is going to happen on Nov. 4th. So, two things:

1. Stop pretending that the US is the democratic standard that all nations should be measured against: The US is a voter-fraud shit-hole that is rapidly becoming a second-world country.

2. Go here.

Update: They nixed the last link to the segment I linked to on You Tube. I've got a new link up to the same segment. Hope it stays there.

Double "Hmmmm..."

2008-10-22T03:41:00.005-04:00

Nikol Pashinian is back, sort of. He gave an interview to RFE/RL about a week ago, or at least October the 16th is when the interview was released. The English RFE article about it is here. The Armenian audio is here, and here are the Armenian transcript and its translation into English.

Hmmm...

2008-10-22T03:16:00.001-04:00

2008-10-17T07:55:00.003-04:00

I'm not a believer, but I love Armenian church music. I've been hunting around for YouTube clips of good music, and I came across Hovig's Ter Voghormia, or God Have Mercy:

He never goes off key.

Beautiful.

1973 - Martik and Googoosh

2008-10-12T11:41:00.004-04:00

There are a bunch of Martik songs in the Googoosh repertoire. Here he shows up in hairy person. Go, Martik!

(Ignore that 9821 ad.)

1974 - Piss Factory

2008-10-12T09:09:00.001-04:00

This song was banned in 1974. 1974...

1974

2008-10-11T11:26:00.001-04:00

The beginning to the end of the war.

Young Republicans

2008-10-09T02:55:00.036-04:00

Have you ever come across a Republican guy who just can't stfu?

The thing is, if you actually picked up, say, a book on English grammar, and you bashed their heads in with it, you'd have to face a murder trial.

Here is another robot: the one for Norm Coleman, a most repulsive Republican Senator from Minnesota who only won his seat because his Democratic and extremely respected and supported opponent named Paul Wellstone--died in a mysterious plane crash with his family.

To put it charitably, Coleman soundly defeated a dead man.

Here is Coleman's talking minion, today:

Notice the propensity for repetition that these trained, formicidae-level Republican propagandists have. In any case, Norm Coleman, of winning a dead opponent fame, is, nowadays, running against Al Franken. If you know Al Franken from Saturday Night Live, then you know how unusual is this contest for the Senate seat in Minnesota. Here is an example:

Yeah, the candidate's wife talking about being an alky in his own, Franken's--campaign ad. Could people like John McCain's heroin-addicted wife (the perfect example of the rich nut-case that I wrote about, btw) ever come out like this? I don't think so. They'd just smile aloofly and seem unapproachable, like Cindy McCaine did at the second Presidential debate.

In any case, Norm Coleman, an insect trying to pretend it is human, tried to destroy George Galloway, the anti-war ass-kicker of the Arab district in England, one who's held his views for 30 years (long before Christopher Hitchens, etc.) and the one who got kicked out of parliament because of his opposition to the war in Iraq. Little would one expect that a British MP would have to answer to a Senator in the US. But he was asked to, and he did, probably against the expectations of the one(s) doing the asking. He kicked Coleman's ass up-and-down and called him a sissy, and here is the video:

[Go to minute 6 if you want to skip over the boring bureaucratic bullshit from Coleman.]

Watching Coleman get pummeled by Galloway, a former professional boxer, is a pleasure, per se, in and of itself. Galloway made money writing a book about it. (Too bad Carl Levin, someone who's been on Biden's side, a little, had to be there, next to a worm like Coleman.)

One more, just to irritate the Republicans:

"No British government would have bombed West Belfast and said that it was actually targeting the IRA who lived there. That's an actual event, never mind the hypothetical about Scotland developing weapons."

"...Israel is the only country in the Middle East which actually does have Nuclear Weapons, and hundreds of them... My point is that Israel is in not in any danger at all!"

Palin, the Bully.

2008-10-04T06:32:00.008-04:00

The Bully with the smile and the toss of her head.

There is a wealth of precious Palin You Tube videos. This is one of my favorites:

"Who are hurtin' because the economy is hurtin'"

"Whatever we can do. Whatever Todd and I can do, in, in, realizing whatever their [red state poor] challenges in that state are, as we [the Palin family] can relate to them and connect to them and promise them that we won't let them down in the administration--I wanna get back to Michigan and I wanna try."

She wants the chance to convince the red-state poor to vote for Wall Street.

What a self-sacrificin' reader of all and any newspapers.

You can't make this shit up.

Consumer Demand

2008-10-01T01:35:00.006-04:00

It is rarely mentioned, but the single-most important factor that drives the economy is demand. Deflation takes place when demand drops, and that is what happened during the Great Depression. Perhaps the reason it is not mentioned is that to do so would be to let the public know that its buying habits rule the world, which might put ideas in their head, ideas like boycotting.

Demand has gone through a mutation in the United States. You can confirm this through a visit to the supermarket--or B-52 hangars loaded with useless crap in all colors near you, same thing. Here are a few examples. The other day I went to the supermarket to buy a pen, just one pen. I went over to the stationary department and started looking. And looking. And looking. It was hard to believe: it was impossible to find just one pen. There were packages of ten pens, or four pens, or three pens, but a single pen for sale did not exist in that supermarket. Was it because the producers couldn't conceive of a person needing only one pen? No, they were making too many of them and needed to force consumers to buy more than what they need. Agglomeration appeals to the reptilian brain of the American consumer, anyway.

I went to get some laundry detergent, the kind that doesn't have any perfume added to it. Again, it couldn't be done. You can get detergent with an allergen fighter added to it, but you can't get a detergent that doesn't have that cloying chemical perfume added to--in the first place. Marketing rules state that products should always be "with" something and "30% More!" Marketing tactics and advertising play on the average American's psychology. To sell things nowadays takes playing on people's most primitive instincts, utilizing their greed and fear against them, to get them to stuff that last extra hot dog down their throat, squeeze it down into that millimeter of space left in their processed-meat-filled stomachs.

Once I was in a department store looking at washing machines. I was looking them over quickly; I wanted to get it over with and leave, get out of that overly bright whorehouse filled with wild-eyed customers groping around for the best products at the cheapest prices while the same soundtrack that they'd heard since the 1970s glorified their values and infused the meaninglessness of it all with deluges of sentimental emotion: "And it seems to me, that you lived your life like a candle in the wind/ never knowing who to turn to, when the rain set in." I don't know how many times I've heard that lugubrious couplet walking into a grocery store, all about a boy's identification with Marilyn Monroe, an emotionally intense one, which is why it's strange that its a staple of the soundtrack played for people buying chewing gum, or making a left turn onto a freeway, or eating Kung-Pao chicken at a moderately priced restaurant. All pop songs are as ubiquitous in everyday American life as they are melodramatic. They have to be; they have to be so melodramatic as to be able to overwhelm the mundane, like heroin or crack.

In any case, it was going relatively smoothly in that environment of noisome sweetness. I was evaluating and rejecting each whore/washing machine at a good pace, until I came upon this one washing machine that broke my rhythm. Everything was normal about it: top loaded, average-sized motor, large capacity, and so on. But when my eyes fell on the instrument panel, something seemed wrong, something that, in the beginning, produced a barely conscious feeling of irritation in me that blew into a conscious anxiety when I suddenly realized that I had been staring the panel for a good few minutes, perplexed. Perplexed, I thought, What could be perplexing about a stupid washing machine?

I began very deliberately reading the labels of the switches and dials, looking for the culprit causing the confusion, and I found it: it was the load-size dial. It read: "Small, Average, Medium, Large." Apparently, my mind had unconsciously picked up on the "Average, Medium" measures of the scale and gotten stuck on them, trying to determine just what the difference between average and medium is. Because there really isn't one. Don't we mean by "medium height," for example, that height which occurs most frequently and is, therefore, "average"? The only possible, remotely logical explanation is that the manufacturers were thinking about the difference between median and mean. Perhaps autistic people doing their laundry might know and distinguish between the most frequently occurring load size in the United States from the mean load size (i.e., the load sizes of all 100 million households in US added up then divided by 100 million), but I'd say the average person doing his or her laundry doesn't give even a medium-sized flying fuck about that question.

Having noticed this one ridiculous marketing gimmick, I wondered if there were others. And, yes, there it is was: the chime signaling the end of the wash cycle had an on-off switch. You see, if you are like the average person and are lulled to sleep by the sound of a 50 pound motor churning 40 gallons of water back and forth and, therefore, like to sleep next to your washing machine, you have the option of turning the chime off so it doesn't suddenly startle you awake at the end of the cycle. It's like a little bell signaling to terrified captives in a high-rise that Godzilla has now stopped breathing fire into their faces. And, imagine: You can turn this bell on and off--how convenient for "you."

Because "you" is what these marketing campaigns are all about. In their effort to get people to buy shit that they don't need, marketers have striven to convince "you" that, yes, indeed, the entire world does revolve around "you," and so especially does the corporation that they work for. Really? About me? Do they mean that the CEO of their corporation regularly gets up at the end of meetings with share-holders and says, "Well, we took a 50% cut in our profits this quarter, but that's OK because we made life more comfortable for Armen." You want to meet me in the back seat because you "really love" me, do you? Vulgar people, these marketers.

And if it is not about "you," it's "simple." The whole thing started with one or another ibuprofen peddler, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, NSAID as they call it, that turns your stomach into a mini-Hiroshima. The ad that they aired was, "Little, Yellow, Different." Three words to characterize a product. "Keep it simple, stupid," the ad did. "K.I.S.S." was a rule formulated in a way that stupid people could remember, encouraging them to make their adds as stupid as possible, and it worked. After that, commercials started talking about how "simple" their products were: simple cellphone accounts, simple banking, simple food, simple life. Life wasn't about complications, but about simplicity; it was about falling in love with a product the way you fell in love when you were 12. Simple. In other words, if the commercial was about, say, picking a bank, then the decision to do so did not involve wondering what the dozens of PhD economists that the bank had hired to find out in what elaborate ways it can take advantage of "you," the center of the universe, no, it was about a "simple" realization that everything is OK, nothing to doubt, nothing to be weary about--like banks and their dealings.

Simple.

More later. I'm calling it a night.

It's all Oliver Cromwell's Fault. Pt. 3

2008-09-29T12:08:00.013-04:00

Oliver Cromwell was a part of the gentry: neither a peasant, nor a royal--just middle class. He subscribed to the values of the middle class and fought for them, above all for equality, the making-the-same of all people that continues today. At one point, he lost his land, and it is a question what effect that loss had on his demand for equality; from a psychological perspective, it must have intensified it.

It wasn't simply a matter of politics for him. As a Puritan, he believed in the Doctrine of Total Depravity, according to which man is so totally depraved that he is simply incapable of choosing good; on the contrary, he thought, man can not choose good, but--god has to predestine man to salvation. So when Oliver Cromwell looked at King Charles, he saw someone who thinks he is better than the rest, someone who thinks himself above others.

Actually, King Charles did think that, and so did the royalty and nobility. What did the richest and most powerful of England have in common with stinking peasants with bad teeth who had a tendency to lie all the time? All they were good for were their pretty young virgins, and the droit du seigneur, the right of the lord to sleep with a virgin on her wedding night, guaranteed them that. As for the virgins and their husbands, what were they going to do, call the police? Some say this Right of the First Night is a historical myth; I say calling it a historical myth is the upper class trying to re-write its most egregious and direct uses of power out of history, because that historical fact certainly has the power to induce resentment against the rich and powerful even today.

Oliver Cromwell, the Protestant soldiers of the New Model Army, who'd sing hymns before battle, and the Parliament, the political counterweight to the King's will, all saw this and the thousand and one other uses and abuses of the middle-class that the upper class made, and it made them resentful; for their part, King Charles, the royalty, and the Catholic Church looked at them as the ignorant rabble, uneducated, incapable of interpreting the bible, prone to hallucination, and altogether like children.

They were both right, but Cromwell had more might.

Cromwell killed Charles I and neutered his son, Charles II, and he set up a "just" government. He wiped out scores of Irish Catholics (do we call it a "genocide," or was it just a "massacre"?), and they closed down The Globe. Shakespeare was a bad influence on the people, you see. Verily I say unto you that, looking back, we can see whence Ayatollah Khomeini got his inspiration. No dancing, no drinking, no painting, no having fun; just Jesus. Although, to be fair, and balanced, you can do anything that you want in Iran today, just as long as the mollah gets his pay.

The same ideology that was born between the Protestant and Catholic wars in 17th century England is the same ideology that conquered the United States.

It's very simple. The people who got on boats and came to America were the very same Calvinists. Their ideology is the dominant one in the United States of America. It is true that people came to the US from different countries, but their minds were taken over. All of them. Even the Mexicans today are being converted to Protestantism. Mexican Protestants...

That's whom you're dealing with my taxi-driver friend: Oliver Cromwell Protestants.

War.

2008-09-29T00:51:00.002-04:00

1500-1799
1800-1899
1900-1944
1945-1989
1990-2002
2003-NOW

Notice the date range gets shorter as time goes on.

It's all Oliver Cromwell's fault. Pt. II.

2008-09-27T07:44:00.003-04:00

Come to think of it, this series deserves a subtitle: Armenian Anthropology 101: Know who's fucking with you: The English. (We'll get to the Russians in good time, don't worry).

So look at King Charles's portrait in the post below. Look at his clothes: a combination of silk, cotton, wool, and velvet. Not bad for the 17th century. The crown is shown just behind his left hand: The sign of power. But, most importantly, look at his left hand. It is resting on something right around the elbow. His left wrist is relaxed, can afford to casually hang down, because his left elbow is being supported by something. That something is the hilt of his sword. You can't really see it, the hilt of his sword, but that, in itself, is a point: He doesn't show off his power, he suggests it.

Let that be a lesson to us who live in the current age: King Charles's portrait tells us that He has the power to kill. The left wrist can casually hang, because the right arm can reach over and draw the sword, and--eviscerate. And he really could do that.

He lived in an extraordinary age, just like we do. He leaned Catholic, and lost. Except Catholic and Protestant are religious interpretations with a history far more interesting than what they write in the textbooks. Take the Hussites, for example, and the first guns.

It's all Oliver Cromwell's fault.

2008-09-25T11:08:00.004-04:00

There are in the world today these people called the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. If you're living in Southern California, they would be the annoying racist assholes that question your right to breathe. We deal with them every day, and we might as well find out who they are.

Where to start? Let's see. OK.

It all goes back to King Charles the first.

But let me back-track a bit. The other day I called a cab, a taxi. Taxis and their significance are different in the east coast as opposed to the west coast. For one thing, in the east coast, you hail a cab; on the west coast you have to call them. But there are many other differences between the coasts. All of that for later, maybe.

The cab company I dialed is owned by an Armenian. Not quite an "oligarch," but he certainly gets everything he can out his cabbies, who, in my case, was, predictably, an Armenian, too. It was around rush hour, and we got stuck in traffic, right around the 210's Lake exit. We were talking the whole way.

He was a cool guy; we talked about many things on the way. It turned out that he was supporting a wife and two children on his "salary," driving a cab from anywhere between 12-18 hours every day. He said that he's been in the US for six years. He brought his family over three years ago. His English was horrible; we spoke in Armenian. He seemed very clean cut: he didn't look like he drank or smoked much, just moderately. He was around my age, his mid-late 30's, and he seemed like he was devoted to his family, his kids. Family is what he lived for, and family life was sustaining him. I suggested that he get one of those cassette-tape language instruction courses in English; he thought that was a good idea.

So we are driving and talking, driving and talking. Everything is normal, until he bursts out:

"Black people and Mexicans, I get along with, but white people, they are totally racist jerks. The other day, there was a white guy in my cab, and he asked me, 'Why are you here?' And I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'Why are you in my country?' And I said, 'What the fuck do mean 'Your country'? This is the land of Indians. You killed them. This is not 'your country' and if you fuck with me, I'll kick your fucking ass.'"

Which brings us to Oliver Cromwell.

We go back a few hundred years. Charles the First, 1636:

More later.

Brilliant senatorial rhetoric...

2008-09-24T16:36:00.012-04:00

The metaphors just keep coming.

"I'm not going to get stampeded into rubber stamping this proposal." Yeah, so to speak.

It's all Bull. Shit. As it were.

Chuck Schumer did ask a good question, though, that Paulson ultimately and clearly did not answer: Why can't they take $150 billion right now and wait for the legislators to reassess in a couple of months? It's not like they are going to spend the $700 billion all at once. Why can't they wait? Wait until the Senate reconvenes and decides whether the other $550 BILLION is necessary? No answer. Just a bunch of horseshit (so to speak).

After watching two hours of this (I couldn't stomach any more), I had the distinct impression that the entire thing was theater: It was as if the senators had gotten together with Paulson and rehearsed what they were going to say. In particular, Chris Dodd is a shit. I don't care that he's a democrat--he's a shit: clearly a Wall Street stooge. Among other reasons, he's a shit for humiliating the head of the S.E.C., gratuitously chiding him for a late report, as if the chairman of the S.E.C. types and delivers commission reports, himself. Yeah, right. And Sarah Palin is the most competent foreign policy expert in the history of the United States.

And Paulson... I don't know. How can he be described? A shifty latent homosexual with an oral fixation that approaches finance like a football game. What with him constantly tonguing his lips wrung into an "O" every two seconds? It was disgusting watching that creep. It was disgusting watching all of those creeps. Hell, politics is just disgusting creeps altogether.

Who "They" Are.

2008-08-23T22:30:00.004-04:00

Someone said that I was being conspiracy-minded when I used the word "they." So lets set the record straight: "They" are economic elites who are either:

1) dependent on drugs, or
2) mad (as in clinically insane), and
2) messianic (as in they believe in a, or should I say "the," messiah and are expecting him to arrive, probably even preparing for it).

Absolute power doesn't merely corrupt, it drives insane. Who but the most powerful has enough time on his hands to notice the meaninglessness of life? The most powerful go insane because after all their desires are satisfied, they are left without desires. And life without desire is life in hell.

Fear of death is actually the fear of life without desire. Can you imagine what it would be like if everybody did what you told them to? What would be left to conquer after that? Pretty soon you'd start sticking golden needles through your maidservants' nipples, or flat out play games with people's lives just to watch them suffer.

And while the cultures of ancient Egypt and Rome, pre-modern as they were, had the capability of incorporating behavior like that, how else can modern, liberal-humanist culture, with its million and one assumptions about what man is, see this behavior but as stark raving mad, or, more accurately, clinically, through the discourse of psychology, as "sadism."

That's why most rich people are perpetually on medication, either on tranquilizers or opiates--often on both.

But some of them need more than just drugs to relieve the despair; they need to feel that life has a purpose and that they personally have a role in it. Thus is messianism born in them; messianism, the desperate mad wish to, not only have a world that has meaning, but one where the meaning congeals into flesh and blood and manifests itself bodily right there in front of their eyes--as the Messiah--after which manifestation the world blows up and all is over, all of their suffering is over. A desperate thing, this messianism. A suicidal wish.

Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter. While we're at it, there is a conspiracy far more menacing, far more thorough, and far more undetectable than these conspiracies of interests seeking power could ever be, and that is the conspiracy of reason. That's how it is.

Obama picks Biden.

2008-08-23T05:17:00.017-04:00

The attack on Georgia, who dunnit and why, McInsane, Suck-ass Willy, ... That's entertainment!

But here is the latest: Obama picks Biden as VP. A couple of sites with good coverage you may want to bookmark if you haven't done so already: This is where I go to for American politics, not that I endorse what they say, and not that I disagree--just good, clean, information, most of the time, from middle-class humanists:

Obama & Biden.
TPM

Biden is who will be President after they assassinate Obama, let me be clear. "They" at the very least think that assassinating Obama is an option. You know, considering Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy, and Malcolm X, all assassinated within 5 years, and with no other assassinations before or after for decades and decades--of course Obama is a target.

Payqar: The Diaspora Must Decide. Part 3.

2008-08-05T23:34:00.011-04:00

The author brings out the Howitzer in this part of the essay, making it much more interesting (and entertaining, from a rhetorical standpoint) than the last part. He gives the ARF a good whooping that it no doubt richly deserves, but I'm not sure whether he is being fair about his judgment that the ARF had never engaged in genocide recognition issues up until 1988.

Note: If the people of Armenia are being supported by money sent from outside; and if that money is being spent on buying goods sold by monopolies inside Armenia being protected by the corrupt government; then it follows that the monopolies will strive to keep the Armenian people cut-off from the rest of the market for their material gain. I.e. For Kocharian and Sargsyan and company, it is good that the people can only buy from them with the money that is not being produced by their leadership. In a word: Parasites.

Payqar: "It is time for the diaspora to decide which path it will take."
Published July 25th, 2008.
Part 3

As it turned out, the meeting [between Sargsyan and Turkish representatives] did not vindicate [Sargsyan]. Turkey made the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border contingent upon Armenia's relinquishment of all territorial claims to Gharabagh and Western Armenia, in spite of the fact that Western Armenia in this regard means the Kars-Ardahan region.

Armenia's domestic and foreign policy has been made to fail in the last ten years.

The power of the diaspora has either been used for the wrong purpose or, to put it in different terms, been opportunistically used for the strengthening of the government--not for the advancement of the country. Gharabagh was not re-settled; aside from the center of Yerevan, the outlying districts and surrounding towns have remained neglected, and we won't even get into the state of the villages.

Migration out of the country has not stopped. The people of Armenia have been surviving on money sent from outside of the country. Every year, 1.5 to 2 billion US dollars enter the country from Armenian citizens working abroad who have already established permanent residence there. The ones receiving the money are all consumers. The small number of people who are allowed to import goods from abroad sell those goods to these consumers and pocket the 2 billion dollars. The profits [from these sails] are not invested in Armenia for its advancement, but sent abroad again to be used for the improvement of their [the few's] businesses. Poverty, the emigration of the majority of village youth seeking work, fed-up by injustice and lawlessness, the flight out of the people--these all mirror the country's economic and political state.

The falsification of the last elections (the May 2007 parliamentary and February 2008 presidential) brought the people's frustration to a head. The political and economic crisis, the step-by-step retreat from the type of solution of the Gharabagh issue that would be suitable for us, the failure of R. Kocharian's foreign policy (with which he sought to use genocide recognition to place Turkey under "pressure," open the borders, and solve the Gharabagh conflict), all of these were the suggestions of the ARF as well, in exchange for which the ARF promised to help Kocharian in every way to use and abuse the diaspora for the benefit of the strengthening of his government.

The ARF tries to present itself in Armenia as the lord and master of the diaspora and its representative, a claim that, to put it mildly, does not correspond with reality. In an interview given to Aravot, Vahan Hovhannisian said, "To whom should we abandon the diaspora?" (http://new.aravot.am/am/articles /politics /41717/view). It is due to this fantasy that the ARF jumps from branch to branch in its political life; opportunism has become the principle of its political life. Perhaps in 1914-15 in Western Armenia, the ARF likewise imagined itself the representative of the people; consequently, an entire people were wiped out along with their country. And to this day, the ARF has failed to give the story its woven the recognition that it deserves and has neglected to approach its history critically, and those who have tried to take a critical approach have been subjected to the most fierce blackmail and commensurate punishment by the ARF. What can be done? If it is the lord and master of the people, then it will do whatever it wants, and it won't have to take responsibility for anything.

And if the government thinks that the ARF is the master of the diaspora, it is badly mistaken, [and badly mistaken] while trying to develop its relations with its diaspora. And that is exactly the reason it has been to this day unable to enter into a meaningful, foundational relationship with the diaspora. The five hundred year history of reality is clear evidence to the effect that it has not been the ARF that has taken care of the diaspora or kept its Armenian identity; in reality, the opposite has been true. From the moment that the ARF entered the diaspora, it did nothing but cause splits and betray the best Armenian sons to the intelligence ministries of other countries. It was one of the ARF's "brilliant works" to split the diocese of the Iranian Armenians off from Edjmiatzin and connect it to the one in Antelias, Lebanon, sparing no effort in the process.

The ARF began demonstrating its political ignorance from the moment of its inception: as an ally of the terrorist SRs [Socialist Revolutionary Party], it opposed [first] the Tsar, then the Bolsheviks; as an ally of the Young Turks, it opposed the Sultan, then the Young Turks, and, when in need of the Young Turks' help again, the Bolsheviks.

After being denied leadership of the first Republic of Armenia, the ARF, up until 1988, instead of dedicating its energies to the question of genocide recognition, devoted itself solely to the fight against Soviet Armenia. During WWII, the Armenians of France fought against fascism, against Hitler; the ARF, on the other hand, joined the fascists to liberate Soviet Armenia. In 1988, when the Armenians of the same Soviet Armenia began calling for independence, the ARF labeled them traitors and called the idea of separating from the Soviet Union idiocy. It called Levon Ter-Petrossian a traitor because he has not made genocide recognition a fundamental part of his foreign policy or has abandoned it to forgetfulness. At that time they were in agreement with Turkey's becoming a member of the European Union. After they came to power (during R. Kocharian's presidency), they made genocide recognition and Turkey's not entering the EU the core of their foreign policy. They were against the creation of "The Commission of Historians for the Study of Genocide Evidence," but now they are trying to justify Serzh Sargsyan's announcement about [the Armenian government's] agreement with the establishment of a genocide commission with logic-free commentary and the refusal to offer a specific policy position.

What must the diaspora do?

(to be continued)

Payqar: The Diaspora Must Decide. Part 2.

2008-08-03T20:51:00.004-04:00

Here, the author discusses Kocharian's relationship to the ARF and the considerations that went into his decision to make genocide recognition a part of his foreign policy. A few points that are made are a bit ambiguous, but I'm hoping they'll clear-up during the course of the rest of the article.

Payqar: "It is time for the diaspora to decide which path it will take."
Published July 25th, 2008.
Part 2

In any case, Serzh Sargsyan, himself, is honest in the position that he has taken; the liars are those who have changed the cards and are now pushing him to take a path that runs contrary to R. Kocharian's foreign policy [1]. But that was useful only to those who pushed R. Kocharian in exactly the opposite direction: they made the issue of genocide recognition a fundamental part of Armenia's foreign policy, which has already started running low and become ineffective.

Neither his agreement with Turkey's joining the European Union, nor the announcements that he made at Moscow could have been positions arrived at independently and without the approval of the [Armenian Revolutionary] Federation. The ARF's [reaction] to S. Sargsyan's announcements has been through the same maneuver, familiar to us, that it has always used: to take the mistake in its totality and hang it around the neck of another, in this case Serzh Sargsyan, and, by doing so, hide its own participation in the matter and present itself in front of the Armenian people as innocent.

The ARF practiced the same politics during the presidency of Levon Ter-Petrossian; what happened with the help of Kocharian's government, however, deserves its own critique in another article; let us just note here that when R. Kocharian, as a representative of the ARF (a fact that the ARF and Kocharian, both, hide), took over the government of Armenia, he gave the ARF powerful abilities in the domestic and foreign spheres of government, so that, on the ARF's request, he made the recognition of the Genocide and the issue of Turkey's exclusion from the European Union a fundamental part of the country's foreign policy--fully expecting, of course, the ARF's thorough assistance in directing the Diaspora's economic power, in particular, toward Armenia, thereby strengthening his own position.

It must be said that R. Kocharian has clearly and without equivocation explained this situation as answer to Levon Ter-Petrossian.

Levon Ter-Petrossian: "In 1997, when I asked Prime Minister Kocharian to lead the National Armenia-Diaspora Relationship Development Council, he refused and cited the absence of the issue of Genocide recognition in the Council's agenda as the reason for his refusal. When in the presence of the head of the Armenia pan-Armenian fund, Manushak Petrossian, I asked for a justification of his point of view, Kocharian verbatim said the following: "I don't know what a genocide is, but I am certain that it is a necessary thing for the Diaspora. If we include this issue, it will excite the Diaspora, and it will financially help Armenia even more. Moreover, if Armenia officially demands Genocide recognition, Turkey will give-in and open the Armenian-Turkish border within a year. Aside from that, it will take a more neutral stance with regard to the effort to normalize the Gharabagh conflict and will no longer avidly support Azerbaijan's position."

In other words, the genocide question as, not a principle, but a means for profit--directing the Diaspora's internal power toward Armenia, in order to strengthen the position of the government.

And following that principle (of swindler's), R. Kocharian (who doesn't know what a genocide is), after being elected President, raised the genocide issue from the dais of the UN and turned it into a fundamental part of his foreign policy. But to this day Turkey has neither opened its border, nor quit the Gharabagh issue, and Armenia remains locked within its borders, while the Gharabagh question has become even more complicated, to detriment of Armenia.

1. The contrast is between Sargsyan's openness to the idea of establishing a commission to study the genocide (ostensibly for the sake of the opening of the border, as was discussed in Part 1 of this article) and Kocharian's making genocide recognition an integral part of his foreign policy. Ambiguous referents and the lack of context render the rest of this paragraph a bit confusing, though, to my mind.

Payqar: The Diaspora Must Decide. Part 1.

2008-08-02T21:54:00.008-04:00

Here's a translation of an article addressed to the Diaspora.

Payqar: "It is time for the diaspora to decide which path it will take."
Published July 25th, 2008.
Part 1.

Government officials and political parties who like to say black is white do so to justify, not Serzh Sargsyan, but themselves, because they, themselves, are his advisers.

Serzh Sargsyan's announcement made in Moscow and his recollection and clarification of it in his presidential newspaper statement leave no room for anything more to be said about the issue. To represent that crystal-clear announcement as anything else would at the very least be political underhandedness.

Serzh Sargsyan said the following, verbatim:

"The second issue that I would like to talk about is Turkish-Armenian relations. Our stance with regard to this question is clear: the border between neighboring nations should not be closed in the 21st century. Regional cooperation can become the best means for the establishment of a lasting presence.

The Turkish side has suggested that a commission be formed with the task of investigating the historical evidence. We are not opposed to the creation of such a commission, if, first, the border between our nations is opened; otherwise, it could become a means for prolonging and taking advantage of the question for years.

I am of a mind to take new steps to stimulate Armenian-Turkish relations. In all probability, I will invite Abdullah Gul, the President of Turkey, to Yerevan to watch together the soccer game between the Armenian and Turkish teams."

First, Serzh Sargsyan, himself, knows that Turkey will take advantage of that situation and draw the matter out for years. Second, if that commission is to be established after the border is opened, then why is it even necessary to establish it? But things are not what they are being made to seem: The establishment of the commission is the precondition to the opening of the border. Turkey must have a guarantee that, after the border is opened, the commission will commence with its work and conclude with advantageous results for itself--Turkey; otherwise, why should Turkey open its border? Why did it not open its border in the last ten years? Isn't it the case that, up until that time, Armenia had set no preconditions to the question of the establishment of Armenian-Turkish relations?

Serzh Sargsyan let his approval be know to the European parliament in as early as 2007: "We are not apposed to the inclusion of Turkey in the European Union." Serzh Sargsyan's opinions had long since been prepared and placed on the agenda, however. It was a part of his presidential elections tour. It is not by accident that PACE dealt more leniently than was called for with the present government and its ties to the events of March 1st. The polistical sale had already been made, and the promises had already been given.

Serzh Sargsyan started trying to make himself acceptable to the European Union after 2006. It was not for naught that during the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007 he sold in the international market USD $331,666 in order to introduce himself and let his future policies be known (US Department of Justice/ http://en.zhamanak.com /article/803/).

Penelope's Treacherous Suitors Shall Be Defeated

2008-07-17T17:47:00.010-04:00

On August 1st, tell Kocharian and Sargsyan: "The Sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world."

I was recently thinking about Pashinian's The Opposite Side of the World [1] and noting to myself how the series of sometimes strange, sometimes redemptive, sometimes horrifying encounters that it comprises resemble those of Homer's Odysseus. Then I noticed a second and a third parallel. Odysseus returns to his Ithaca after a twenty-year absence to find that his wife, Penelope, is being hounded by two suitors who want to take his place. Ter-Petrossian formed the Gharabagh Committee in 1988, twenty years ago, and he literally fought a war against Azerbaijan, just like Odysseus who fought a war against Troy.

Since Penelope is the queen of Ithaca, whoever convinces her to declare Odysseus dead and marry him will become the king of Ithaca, which is, of course, their main motivation. There are two main suitors, or proci, Antinous and Eurymachus, just like Yerevan's "suitors" are two, Kocharyan and Sargsyan. There are many other minor suitors as well, just like there are many mafia Dons in Armenia. The two main defenders of Ithaca are Odysseus and his son, Telemachus; Yerevan's defenders are Levon Ter-Petrossian and Nikol Pashinian, at least that his how I see it and have seen it in this blog. Too boot, the suitors plot to kill Telemachus, just like Kocharyan and Sargsyan have ordered the NSS to kill Pashinian.

That makes seven coincidences so far, I think. But those are nothing compared what I stumbled upon while looking deeper into the matter. Homer says that, upon arrival at Ithaca, Oddyseus notices Venus, the Morning Star, on the horizon at dawn. He also says that the night before the suitors are massacred there is a new moon and that on the day of the massacre there is a total eclipse of the sun... I know what you're thinking; I was thinking the same thing: Could it be that a total eclipse of the sun is due to take place on August 1st? And could it be that on August 1st there will be a new moon? Yes.

On August 1st, there will be a total eclipse of the Sun.

On August 1st, there will be a new moon in Armenia.

As for Odysseus's spotting Venus on the horizon upon arrival, the question is, What could be considered Ter-Petrossian's "arrival" on the Armenian political scene in the last six months? It is not an easy question, and I'm not sure whether it has a clear answer. What is clear, however, is that Venus became the Morning Star this year on February the 1st, and it remained the Morning Star throughout the elections, the sit-ins, and the March 1st and 2nd incidents. If you observed the horizon at dawn on any of those days, you would have seen bright Venus. Personally, I set the date of Ter-Petrossian's "arrival" on February 24th, the day the CEC declared Sargsyan the winner of the elections, and Ter-Petrossian stepped up to the microphone and told the participants of the sit-ins, "The CEC's announcement has no bearing on our struggle; the struggle continues." Pashinian says of this moment: "I consider this to have been the people's movement's most important stage. Here, the movement underwent awe-striking metamorphoses."

I am one who doesn't believe in coincidences being more than what they are--coincidences. But I have to admit that the sheer number of coincidences involved in this case stopped me in my tracks for a second and made me wonder. That is when I noticed the most important connection between Odysseus's and Pashinian's journeys: What gives them the will and the determination to persevere against all odds is a simple longing for their rightful home. Indeed, may all those who consider their rightful home a free and independent Armenia, governed under the rule of law, and free from treacherous parasites, may these true heirs of Armenia have the iron will and unwavering determination of Odysseus, and may they prevail against Armenia's treacherous suitors Kocharian and Sargsyan--on August 1st.

P.S. I did a little search on the internet to see whether anyone else had noticed these coincidences between Odysseus and Pashinian, and--unsurprisingly, by now--I came across yet another coincidence: an open letter addressed to Nalbandian reminding him of the journey of Odysseus and signed by a woman named--Penelope.

P.P.S. Remembering Pashinian's declaration not long ago that he is going to come above-ground in a short while, one wonders whether his Journey shouldn't be coming to a close within a week.

1. Tzitzernak is translating Pashinian's Journey to the Opposite Side of the World. I'm indexing the entries here, what I haven't indexed you can find on Tzitzernak's blog.

Up on Khosq.

The Fate of Infantile Dictators

2008-07-17T11:59:00.014-04:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth; I'm just in the middle of a move from Philly back to Glendale. I'll start posting regularly again once I get settled-in, which is taking a while because of several different silly things, like me ordering the "To" and "From" addresses to the boxes that I've shipped incorrectly; consequently, a good number of the boxes are being shipped part way to California, then being sent back to Philly by busy USPS people who don't notice the "To" on the address labels. Every once in a while, the stars align, and a chain of postmen read the labels correctly, and I get the box; it's sort of like a pinball machine.

In the meantime, lots of exciting things have been happening in Armenia. Most important is the perpetual sit-in that started on the 4th of July. The culmination of the sit-in will arrive on August 1st. Pashinian has been sending out hand-written notes addressed to the people. He has called for 1 million people to show up on August 1st to give the Kocharian/Sargsyan clan 24 hours to leave:

Pashinian announced--months ago--that there was going to be just such a call for One Million People, 24 Hours, and now here it is. Before I get to that, though, I also want to mention another exciting change that has taken place--the birth and perpetual presence of a native, grass-roots youth movement. Below is a video of a mock soccer game between the political prisoners and the police organized by the Hima! Youth Movement, one of many other activities organized by them. The game's referee is supposed to be John Prescott, who gives Gagik Jahangirian a yellow card for no good reason. The girls interviewed in the video are the daughters of political prisoners, themselves. They make the point that the youth movement is one that they, the youth, created, in and of their own accord.

The reporter points out that most of them turned political on March 1st. That's not surprising. If you go back to the first entry on this blog, you'll see that it was posted only a few days after March 1st. Like many Armenians, I, too, decided enough is enough on that date. Kocharian and Sargsyan made a big mistake when they decided to shoot into the crowd. But, in a sense, they had no choice. There is a certain, mythic, air of inevitability about the Opposition movement that has been slowly developing for ten years now. It seems destined to succeed, somehow. It turns every act that the criminal government commits into a mistake. Everything that they do to weaken the movement, whether it be jailing activists, occupying Freedom Plaza, or changing the laws in their favor, becomes yet another piece of damning evidence against the Kocharian clan in the people's eyes, and, consequently, strengthens the movement.

That Kocharyan can't admit this is a sign of his infantility, the kind that overtakes petty dictators who come to confuse the backing of the US, Russia, or China with real power emanating from themselves. A case in point is Chauchesku. Chauchesku, too, thought foreign backing made him invincible. Chauchesku, too, was faced with the same type of irresistible opposition. Chauchesku, too, was wrong. Here is a clip of his last speech, during which the people he thought he ruled with an iron fist began openly, loudly, and undeniably booing him in his face. The stunned look on Chauchesku's face with his lower jaw hanging down to his ankles is truly a sight to behold. Enjoy:

Needless to say, he was executed only days after this speech. The video of his execution along with his impotent railings after the death sentence is read is available for downloading on the internet, if you want to watch it. I'm not going to upload it and put it up because I don't like the fact that they shot his wife along with him and because it is not clear whether the execution reflected the will of the people or the will of the generals, although there is little doubt that the Romanian people would have torn him limb from limb had they been able to get their hands on him. But if you want evidence of how possible it is, indeed, for dictators to receive their just comeuppance, go check out the clip.

No doubt Kocharian and Sargsyan think that controlling the people is simply a matter of galka dzekel [tightening bolts], but it is just that predictable more-of-the-same attitude that they have, that fixation on a limited number of tactics, that is going to be their undoing. In "One million citizens, 24 hours," published in Payqar in May, Pashinian explains the theory behind the concept that they are now putting into practice with the August 1st, one million citizens, 24 hours campaign; in other words, he says exactly what the Opposition is planning and explains why. He also points out that the Opposition had announced from Freedom Plaza on--March 1st--that the number of Armenian citizens that would be participating in the gathering on the coming--Sunday, March the 2nd--would be one million. For reasons that Pashinian explains, Kocharian and Sargsyan could not afford then and cannot afford on August 1st to allow such a public display of unity and solidarity against them; hence, the attack on March 1st. In this article, he also states that, if on March 1st the Opposition had decided to go ahead with a real, violent coup, they would have easily won. This doesn't mean that a violent coup is what they have planned for August 1st, however. The mere presence of one million people will be enough for Kocharian and Sargsyan to have to clear out. Will they?

Asking this question has led me to a remarkable coincidence that deserves its own post. I'll put that up shortly. In the meantime, let me say that I personally believe that the Opposition will make Kocharian and Sargsyan, those treacherous suitors of Armenia, and the rest of their criminal clan answer for the misery that they have caused. I don't want to see them executed, however; I want to see them be sentenced to life in prison in order to see whether Kocharian will act honorably and commit suicide like the man that he thinks he is, or whether he'll resign himself to the life of an ignoble prison putz.

Hand-written note from Nikol Pashinian

2008-07-02T20:05:00.004-04:00

A new note from Nikol Pashinian:

"Dear People: Our struggle cannot be thwarted; our victory is inevitable. Therefore: Struggle, struggle until the end."

The note reads: "Citizen of the Republic of Armenia: The future of Armenia depends on one person, and that person is--you..."

It is signed by Nikol Pashinian.

Serzh Sargsyan: Middle managers gone Wild!

2008-06-29T00:02:00.014-04:00

[Update: This is a heavily revised and expanded version of what was originally a paragraph-long insult. I felt that, since I took the time to subject Sargsyan's image to my own, personal, conceptual Abu-Ghraib, I should take the time to explain why I did it. In the course of working out my thoughts about Sargsyan, I came to feel the same pity for him that he professes feeling for people who don't like him. If I were to describe concisely what the following is about, I would say it is a chronicle of that journey from contempt, toward contempt and pity, or maybe like an empathetic revulsion evinced from witnessing the death throes of a foot-long, three-eyed, yellow maggot-centipede.]

Sargsyan must be on some kind of medication. It's not so much that he would attempt to deceive people with interviews conducted by visibly terrorized reporters asking other people's questions; that's bad enough in itself, but predictable when it comes to would-be dictators; what is truly noteworthy about Sargsyan, on account of its being a sign of some kind of mild retardation, is that he evidently believes his lies are convincing. He's like a tone-deaf singer who thinks he's Frank Sinatra. His contemptible giggle at the question, "Are you Kocharian's plaything?" is as revealing as his final answer: "I don't really understand the point of that question"; in other words, he is so not Kocharian's plaything, that that logical step that any observer would take doesn't even occur to him. The elephant in the room is practically sitting on him, and Svengali Serzh thinks asking "Elephant? What elephant?" will magnetically pull the right thought into the people's focus and give free reign to his virtuoso fingers to play with them as he wishes.

But sitting in that chair whose back-side rises above his head makes him look like a little kid, an impression that is reinforced by his chubby cheeks. And this is no coincidence; it's one of those utterly strange, but not uncommon, cases where despite a host of bald-faced lies told in an interview, the liars body language and the attending circumstances clearly tell the truth. Just like the "Leader of the Free World" was caught cleaning his water glass on the jacket-tip of an interview attendent, Sargsyan literally looks like a child faithfully carrying out the instructions of Father Putin.

Corporate Stalinism produces incompetents in Russia just like it does in the West. This is a topic for another time, but it is worth noting that these "Presidents" are horrifying, not because they project power, but because, upon their election, one realizes with utter alarm that, in order for them to have gotten elected, so many important things must have gone wrong that it must mean that the system, as bad as it was, is now broken, really broken, and that even that noblesse oblige is gone--because the nobles are gone--and in their place are bureaucrats, middle managers, and accountants that have finally stumbled upon the loophole they've always dreamt about, which they will now proceed to exploit with regard to absolutely nothing.

They look like sophisticated versions of department store managers because they are sophisticated versions of department store managers.

Another salient characteristic of the interview, for example, is Sargsyan's slow (and rather dull) speech. Stately speeches are made with pauses, so he can ascribe some of his perpetual halting way of speaking to that, but, unfortunately for him, it is obvious that far beyond a stylistic choice, his having to concentrate on what he is saying is the result of two things: one, remembering the answers that he has memorized and, two, translating them from Russian to Armenian before opening his mouth. That motionless lower jaw that is characteristic of people who are primarily Russian speakers is ubiquitous throughout the interview for that reason--he's thinking in Russian.

And he keeps repeating the idea that he is "pained" by this or that, by people who hate his guts, by the events of March 1st, and so on and so forth. We're supposed to believe that this Gollum with his precious ring suffers bouts of morally infused regret about the imperfection of man, that the pathos erupts from the depths of his being when he witnesses hundreds of thousands of people calling him what he is--midget murderer--that the emotion washes over him, and at the end of it all you can find him nightly dropping to his knees, begging Our Heavenly Father to forgive his critics because they know not what they do. As the pictures show, however, his complete lack of real affect, absent to the degree that he could join a colony of androids without any of them noticing, belies the fact that the KGB has pulled the soul straight out of his body like a dentist extracts a tooth, leaving only a gaping hole.

Woe is you, Sargsyan, you pathetic little man. You're too honest to lie well, and too corrupt to tell the truth. Consequently, every day you wake up to the same terrible realization: Today, once again, someone will call you "President," and you will feel sorry for them, first, and then immediately feel far sorrier for you. Sad, sad little man.

That Dance...

2008-06-27T00:25:00.014-04:00

The video is about an Armenian girl contemplating attracting attention by dressing provocatively. Her father thinks that would be indecent. He says don't dance that dance. She says I may.

But why she says what she says has more than one reason. She's very manipulative. She's very womanly, very hypnotic, and maybe a little bit stupid, because she can afford to be.

All of her subtle charms, all of the messages that she sends, her nazni motions are more than enough to get what she wants. If only men notice...

Pashinian: Untitled, Part A

2008-06-25T19:49:00.006-04:00

Pashinian addresses the Zionist Conspiracy.

Pashinian: Untitled, Part A.
June 25, 2008

I have not witnessed it personally, but I've heard often that Armenian public television likes to show cadres attending our gatherings at Freedom Plaza among whom the Israeli national flag is waving, waving even on the platform. I cannot deny it, such things did take place. During the same day, the flags of France, the US, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, the EU, and, if I'm not mistaken, Poland and Lebanon were flown as well.

Who were the people who brought those flags to Freedom Plaza, and why? Those flags were brought by Armenian citizens who have relatives living in those countries. Those relatives had phoned-in and said that they were throwing their lot in with the people's movement. That is what those flags symbolized. It was a resident of Zeitoun that had brought the flag of Israel to the Plaza, whose son, in order to free himself from the harassment and corruption of the police, has permanently moved to Israel. But this is not the essential matter; the essential matter is why does Haylur constantly show the cadres with the Israeli flag? The reason is clear: To prove that our people's movement is a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. Truth be told, I've never taken such theories seriously, even if such talk of others [foreigners] has taken place. But even if dark and treacherous zionist forces do exist, then, as a member of the central staff of the people's movement, I am declaring right now that no foreign power--whatever its identity: Soros, zionism, I don't what--cannot govern us, lead us, or sponsor us, because that is what we have decided, that is what the first President Levon Ter-Petrossian has decided, because his jealousy regarding Armenia's independence is a story on to itself. We don't hide the fact that in our struggle we need the sponsorship of only one power--the Armenian people. Let us turn, however, to those who terrify the Armenian people with "zionist" conspiracies. I seem to recall that [the Sargsyan/Kocharian camp] did not show any signs of distress when Armenia's Jewish community announced its support for Serzh Sargsyan in the 2008 elections and the following period; in that case, why did those who are terrified by the "zionist" conspiracy not make any noise? To tell the truth, I feel a bit bad about having to deal with this issue, but I cannot--not--acknowledge that xenophobia is the only weapon of the awkward, criminal, and ignorant leadership. Leaders that stupefy, control, and lead to destruction their nations are wont to wave the flag of the Hebrew nations in front of their people's faces, like the toreador's red cape. And the animals at Haylur have decided to take our people for animals and govern them through reflex conditioning. And if the national flag of Israel does not suit the rulers of the Armenian Republic, then let them sever their diplomatic ties with Israel and dedicate funds from the national budget to erect a commemorative obelisk to Hitler that "eternally remembers" him.

The scam identified by Bruce Tasker is unfolding.

2008-06-17T16:48:00.020-04:00

What Bruce Tasker has had to say for a few years now is coming to pass: Kocharian's and Sargsyan's master plan is to come to an agreement with Azerbaijan over the Gharabagh issue whereby Armenia agrees to clear out of the surrounding territories, and Azerbaijan agrees to pay for the refugees moving to a new area and starting a new life. This is all pretty simple stuff; just go to the Azeri administrative divisions map and see for yourself how Armenia is in control of pretty much all of the regions around Gharabagh. The tens of thousands of civilians whom the Armenian authorities have located in those regions in recent years will have to move when the agreement is signed, and Armenia will be calling on the Azeri government to pay for the resettlement. That is step one.

This is step two. The money that the Azeri government pays for the refugees is going to go to paying for Yerevan apartments (and infrastructure that the residents will use) that the Kocharian clan has been building--and building with aid money (Millenium Fund, World Bank, the usual suspects) that it pays to "foreign" companies that are supposedly "investing" in Armenia, but, in fact, are people like, say, Kocharian's cousins starting construction businesses in Russia, getting contracts in Armenia, and starting building in Yerevan. Again, Once Kocharian and Sargsyan get the compensation money from Azerbaijan, they'll move the refugees into these apartments in Yerevan, and pay their own clansmen for them. And that is how Kocharian, Sargsyan, and their Gharabagh clan are going to wind up with the money intended for refugees: indirectly, through the apartments. So there are actually three steps.

1. They built the apartments using front companies.
2. They are on the verge of signing an agreement with Azerbaijan that will displace refugees and oblige Azerbaijan to compensate for the displacement.
3. They will move the refugees into the apartments and pocket the money from Azerbaijan.

That is the scam that Bruce Tasker has identified, and a scam it surely is. And the amount of money involved here is about $3-4,000,000,000 dollars. Consider that average Armenians live on anywhere from $100 to $400 a month. The average income of the people living in the regions surrounding Gharabagh is, I don't know, realistically speaking--air--nothing. I would be surprised if they made $20 a month. The water they get from the well, the fruit they pick from the trees, and the house, well, what the house is worth is strictly the physical comforts it affords, strictly its use-value, nothing else. If you want to feel better about the real estate bubble bursting in the US, go to a war buffer-zone: Electricity is something your parents told you about when you pointed to this strange thing they said is called a "lightbulb," and the only running water is in the river. And the winters are cold. Twenty dollars goes a long, long way in places like buffer zones.

And these are the people that Kocharian and Sargsyan are stealing $4 billion dollars from--and possibly much more. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what utterly shameless reptiles these two are? Their lizard eyes shifting, their crocodile teeth tearing into the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, swallowing whole and slobbering, just so Sargsyan has something to back-up his otherwise lamely executed swagger at Monte Carlo.

Pashinian talks about how Sargsyan wanted to show people in Armenia what a stud he is by talking to Aliyev at the NATO summit in Bucharest, but ended up embarrassing himself and the European delegates with him when the Azeris said that there is no "subject or purpose" to the talks. The Armenian side then had to deny that they had ever made a request for talks. What an incompetent ass this man Sargsyan is. He then chased after Aliyev to St. Petersburg to try to beg a moment from him, because what is his dignity (and Armenia's, in parentheses) worth next to the opportunity to swagger at Monte Carlo?

I'll let Bruce Tasker point out the unfolding evidence for the reasoned prediction that he has made and has been trying to get people to acknowledge for a long time now. Recent events are fast proving him right. Below is a clip from an e-mail that he sent me. He is quoting this article from RFE/RL, written by Elizabeth Fuller. The text in bold is direct evidence for the verity of step 2 of the scam: compensation from Azerbaijan for internally displaced persons.

Elizabeth writes: “Sargsyan’s approach differed slightly from that of his predecessor, Robert Kocharian, in terms of unspecified "nuances." Then Elizabeth refers to a fundamentally important point that “The written text of the Madrid Proposals has not been made public” Followed by the standard Minsk Group line: “These principles include the phased redeployment of Armenian troops from Azerbaijani territories around Nagorno-Karabakh, with special modalities for Kelbacar and Lachin”(No reference to civilian displacements) . And importantly, today Bryza adds that: " International financial assistance would be made available for de-mining, reconstruction, resettlement of internally displaced persons in the formerly occupied territories and the war-affected regions of Nagorno-Karabakh."

Then the article quotes Bryza as saying: “withdrawal will not happen unless the Armenian side feels it has secured from Azerbaijan a concession of comparable magnitude. Similarly, Bryza continued, on the Azerbaijani side there is a political risk to giving to Armenia what Armenia needs to agree to give back the territories”.

Bruce Tasker is not optimistic about whether Kocharian/Sargsyan's plans will be thwarted and whether Armenians will get the just government that they deserve. I am hoping that LTP, Pashinian, and the Opposition will do the right thing.

UPDATE: See here for a .pdf of Arpineh Galfayan's essay about Tasker's work in Tesaket, the journal of the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, based in--Armenia.

UPDATE: Someone put this article up on Khosq.

By the way, the link to Bruce Tasker's website is on the right, like always.

Pashinian: Sargsyan vs. Aliyev -- a screw-up.

2008-06-14T07:26:00.005-04:00

I wrote about the Armenian-Azerbaijan situation a few days ago. In this article published in Paykar on the 11th of June, Pashinian discusses Sargsyan's meeting with Aliyev.

Nikol Pashinian, Untitled.

I followed the Serzh Sargsyan-Ilham Aliyev meeting with great consternation through the media, awaiting news of the the inevitable scandal. The awaited news, however, was not announced in the daily reports, which means that the scandal has not taken place; moreover, pictures were published of Serzh and Ilham lost in smiles at one another like long-lost brothers who have chanced to meet on the street.

And why was I awaiting a scandal? If you remember his mid-March online question and answer blog, Serzh Sargsyan announced that he is going to confront Ilham Aliyev during his very first meeting with him: If he, meaning Ilham, thinks that the resolution of Mountainous Gharabagh is going to take place at the UN according to the arguments put forth by Azerbaijan, meaning according to Azerbaijan's principle of Azerbaijani national sovereignty, then he, meaning Serzh, doesn't have anything to talk to him about, meaning Aliyev. In making this announcement, Serzh was thinking that he was going to meet with Aliyev at the beginning of April, sometime during the NATO Summit at Bucharest. But the meeting never took place because Aliyev refrained from meeting Serzh and in this way forced the other leaders as well as Serzh to ask for a meeting with him [Aliyev. Italics mine for clarity]. I did not make a mistake in counting Serzh among the ranks of the leaders doing the asking, because a meeting with Aliyev was the only way that Serzh could have proven himself as a legitimate ruler of Armenia in front of the international community. Aliyev could not have been ignorant of the fact that, in agreeing to this meeting, he would be rendering an important service to Serzh, and, naturally, [Aliyev] could not have gone through with it without making the power of his position known, which he did at Bucharest to score definite political points, which he did at Moscow. No one noticed in Armenia that he made an announcement about the Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting during the Foreign Minister's trip to Moscow. Nalbandian had gone to Moscow to ask the Russians to persuade Ilham to meet with Serzh at St. Petersburg and not change his mind at the last minute. And Ilham, at the Russian Federation, exacted a heavy price for his agreement to meet with Serzh. RF President Dmitri Medvedev not only heaped praises upon him, his Azerbaijani counterpart, but he is getting ready to visit Baku in early July. It is understandable that under these conditions, Serzh Sargsyan could not remember what to say to Ilham; isn't it true that politics is the art of the possible [1]? It is simply not a good thing that during his very first visit with the President of Azerbaijan, he is found in a situation that the petitioners surrounding him consider to be, in a word: fuflo [2].

1. Otto von Bismarck said this; he is remembered for unifying Germany.
2. Fuflo is, I think, Russian slang for "screwing up." If someone knows for sure, please let me know.

Armenia's Global Context: Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine

2008-06-14T05:46:00.002-04:00

I've had a crush on Naomi Klein ever since her No Logo and the Seattle protests in the late 90s. She gets better all the time.

Here is her interview with John Cusack, which bears on Armenian issues.

Pashinian Stub at Wiki.

2008-06-11T19:26:00.004-04:00

Nikol Pashinian's stub is up at Wikipedia, at the suggestion of an anonymous poster. All concerned should check up on it once in a while to make sure it doesn't get vandalized and, of course, change it as you see fit. I couldn't include all the details that are called for in such an entry because, frankly, Pashinian is more up-and-coming than one who is an establishment type; consequently, there isn't much to be found out about his history on the 'net, or, at least, I couldn't find very much.

So if anybody out there knows of sources that provide details about Pashinian, like, say, where he went to school and what he studied, basic things like that (and up to more sophisticated facts), please either include them yourself or let me know and I will.

The Opposition and War with Azerbaijan in Context

2008-06-06T05:42:00.037-04:00

Pashinian's interview below was published on March 3rd. Much of the original was about his account of what happened on the 1st, an account that he reproduces and adds to in his detailed "Analytical essay" that I've translated (you can access all six parts by checking under the April tab on the right); I'm therefore not going to translate that part of the interview, but the rest of it, where Pashinian talks about the relationship between the Gharabagh issue and the current government's efforts to hang on to power.

With the sit-ins scheduled to begin again on June 20th, I have decided to revisit the possibility that Sargsyan and Kocharyan might attempt to rekindle the war in order to be able to declare a period of martial law that, as Pashinian points out, could "legally" last as long as 6 months--even a year.

I want to know how likely it is that such a war will break out and, if it does, what it might mean in the context of the global geopolitical struggles being waged today, twenty some odd years after the breakup of the Soviet Union and neck deep into Haliburton Stalinism. Two related bits of news in particular make me think that such a war is a distinct possibility, even though Pashinian says he thinks Russia and the west won't let Kocharyan and Sargsyan go that far. The first is a Eurasianet quote of Rudolf Perina, US envoy to Armenia, addressing in a very ambiguous way the possibility of the US's coming to see anti-Azerbaijani fighters in Gharabagh as terrorists:

EurasiaNet: How does official Washington regard the idea of dispatching US trainers to Azerbaijan for fighting terrorists in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Perina: I know the notion "terrorism" has been used in a wide sense. By "terrorism," the US means specific problems, for instance, [terrorist] organizations and persons supporting these organizations. We know very well what we mean by "terrorism".

The ambiguity of the answer makes it that much more creepy. I came across this article while looking into the background of Rudolf Perina, who, it turns out, has more neocon connections than Liberace had rhinestones: educated at the University of Chicago the same time Wolfowitz was there and Leo Strauss's and Milton Friedman's influence were rife, wrote his doctoral dissertation/hagiography on anti-Soviet Prague Spring dissident authors, entered government service to check Soviet power in East Europe around the same time that Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz became aids to Senator Henry Jackson, anti-Soviet paranoiac. (I wrote about Perina in a comment on Onnik Krikorian's site about a year ago. [Thanks to Onnik for finding it].)

Rudolf Perina served in Serbia (or thereabouts) right up to when war broke out in the 90s. His expertise is in Turkish/Christian regions that are under threat of war and where NATO/US have an interest. Note that it was under his watch that the US provoked the Serbs into attacking Kosovar Albanians by arming and funding the KLA and having them attack the Serbs and do things like commit mass rapes; once the Serbs had had enough and started fighting back, the US (and the usual suspects) concocted the story of Serbian genocide and used it as an excuse to bomb the Serbs back to the stone-age, for "humanitarian" reasons. That's what Perina specializes in. Pennington's (US Embassy charge d'affairs) credentials are, unsurprisingly, quite similar.

Clearly, these people's background is bad enough already. Coupled with Perina's innuendos about terrorism and Armenia, their task seems to be ensuring--for reasons very different from Kocharian's--that his martial-law scenario becomes a reality, one that neatly fits into the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), i.e., the horrendous mess that is Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second bit of news that fits in with this line of thinking is the recently recurring story about PKK presence in Gharabagh and Azeri presence in Turkey, near its border with Iraqi-Kurdistan. The long-term goal of all of this internationalizing of the Iraq war seems to be US/NATO expansion into Russia--through a war fought by proxies on both sides. Just in case it is not clear, I am talking about a new Vietnam. Vietnam being a proxy war between China and the US, a second war between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be the same thing: a proxy war between the US/NATO and Russia. About the only thing that Armenia has on its side is that the formation of loyalties and interests of the parties involved is so thoroughly byzantine that it would outdo a Philip Dick novel.

Will the US and NATO actually try forcing their way into Russia? US foreign policy experts, such as Brzezinski, are on record saying that the US should expand its influence into Eurasia and Central Asia; the PNAC calls for such unabashedly imperial expansion; Iraq was an important Russian ally in West Asia; and the color revolutions as well as Kosovo represent nothing less than a track record of the US doing so. The real question is whether anything can slow them down or stop them. Indeed, they have to take things one step at a time and solve their Iraqi mess first (or at least those US interests that want stability do, anyway; the neocons, for their part, don't care: they have a philosophical commitment to war as a means of controlling the public and keeping it psychologically "fit"). In this regard, what happens in Iraqi-Kurdistan, and Iraq and Afghanistan in general, is of extreme importance to Armenia.

It is in this context that I put the entire conflict between the Opposition and Sargsyan/Kocharian. Many people think that in this conflict, between US/NATO and Russia, Ter-Petrossian is some kind of an agent of the former. That is (most likely) not the case, although the fact that they are both struggling against the same force might make it seem like they have the same essential interests. This, however, is the decisive consideration in my decision to support Ter-Petrossian: Ter-Petrossian wants to kick Russian-backed Kocharian and Sargsyan out of Armenia--not for the sake of the US, but for the sake of real Armenian independence, which, in practical terms, means Armenians gaining control over their own ministry of intelligence (called the National-Security Service), the nervous system of the independence of any nation. As Pashinian has pointed out numerous times, Armenia's NSS today is a veritable hive of KGB-era spies looking out for the interests of an out-of-control mafia-esque network that is fiddling with the trigger of a new war, a war that could have consequences far, far beyond Sargsyan's and Kocharyan's puny lives.

In the final analysis, I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that Ter-Petrossian is working for US/NATO interests, but I have seen plenty of evidence that the Kocharian-Sargsyan network is thoroughly corrupt, out of control, and under the influence of Russia; therefore, if the Opposition prevails, there is a chance that Ter-Petrossian will prove through his deeds to be loyal to Armenia, but if the Opposition fails, we will never get to find out whether Armenia could have gained real independence, and Armenians will continue to languish under tyranny. The choice is clear: the Opposition might bring independence; the status quo will definitely bring more tyranny.

Unfortunately, there are many people who harbor a bizarre kind of personal hatred against Ter-Petrossian. They refer to him by his first name, as if he were a personal acquaintance of theirs, and treat him as if he were a used-car salesman that has sold them a lemon (I suspect that ARF propaganda from 1996 is at the root of this attitude). These same people don't harbor such feelings toward Pashinian, however, and Pashinian has said and done things that have proven to me that he is a natural at the game. Maybe Pashinian is the one destined to pull Armenia back from the brink of catastrophe, after all.

Pashinian: War with Azerbaijan.

Q. News arrived only yesterday that quite a tense situation obtains at the border between Gharabagh and Azerbaijan. In your opinion, what do those actions mean: Does an immediate threat of war exist?

A. Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sargsyan know very well that the minute the tanks leave the streets of Yerevan they will no longer be in power. The state of emergency declared by [Kocharian] is illegal, because the Constitution clearly states that the legal regime [1] in a state of emergency is governed by laws, whereas Robert Kocharian has defined a legal regime through his executive order, meaning that the legal regime, the censorship, the closure of newspapers, and all of the rest of the restrictions are illegal. Robert Kocharian's state of emergency cannot last very long; it has been slated for 20 days. In order for him to be able to keep his tank regime going, a state of emergency is indispensable to Robert Kocharian, and declaring martial law is conducive to having that. And I think that is one of Kocharian's scenarios: provoking clashes on the border which will make it possible to establish legally sanctioned martial law in Armenia that can last six months, a year. That would make it possible for him to continue acting as President, because Presidential elections are not held during periods of martial law and the sitting president continues in that capacity. I think that this is one of Robert Kocharian's spare scenarios.

Q. Immediately after the border clashes, NATO's special representative, Robert Simions, said that he is ready to facilitate the treaty upon the re-establishment of peace along the Armenia-Azerbaijan [2] border. Do you think that could prove a barrier to the realization of that scenario of Robert Kocharian's?

A. I am not able to comment on that at the present time, but I think that NATO, Russia, and the entire international community all understand that Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharian are capable of taking the most extreme measures for the sake of staying in power, and I think that Russia and the west will not permit war to be provoked in the region just so one or two people can stay in power.

[...]

[Pashinian:] We all need to understand that, today, the people consider the arrest of Gagik Jhangirian as direct evidence of Serzh Sargsyan's and Robert Kocharyan's having been the authors of October 27th.

[...]

Q. There are credible reports that the NSS [3] has received orders from the highest levels of government to, not arrest you, but to eliminate you physically and make it look like an armed confrontation. What do you have to say about this?

A. I want to say that I have never had a weapon or carried one, I'm not armed right now, and I am not planning on arming myself. I have, in effect, gone underground not to escape arrest, but because I believe I bear a distinct responsibility for the future course of the movement, and the impetus to go underground has come from [the desire] to make a modest contribution to the future organization of the movement. As far as being armed is concerned, as I've already said, I have never had a weapon in my life, I am not armed right now, and I don't plan on arming myself. I am armed only with civil resolve: struggle, struggle until the end.

1. The rules that come into effect during a state of emergency.
2. The interviewer must mean the Gharabagh-Azerbaijan border.
3. National Security Service

June 20th.

2008-06-05T03:28:00.003-04:00

.

History happening:

June 20th.

The Opposition gathering at Freedom Plaza.

.

Davit K.: Getting out from under the KGB's boot.

2008-06-01T02:01:00.012-04:00

Generally speaking, this piece seems more ambiguous than Pashinian's articles, although whether the ambiguity is strictly the result of ambiguous referents and not-explicit connections between ideas, and so on, or whether it is the result of my not having a good background on the topic of the KGB in Armenia, I can't say. Probably a bit of both. In any case, the article does relate several good bits of information on the topic, and it is, ultimately, a public call to release the names of pre-independence KGB agents residing in Armenia, which makes it a historical document.

Update: Thanks to nazarian for clearing up the mystery regarding "Totafelov": It was really "Totapelov," or throwing something off.

Davit K.: Getting out from under the KGB's boot.

The opportunity lost by the governments of the 90s that was perhaps the gravest concerns the fact that the political will necessary to revealing the identities of the Soviet KGB agents living among us and operating in the shadows never manifested itself.

Had it been taken, that action, which met with success in other--especially Baltic--countries, would have cleansed our public, and the most important positions in the nation would not have been entrusted to the minions of foreign intelligence agencies. The NSS [National Security Service] of independent Armenia would not have become the spiritual successor of the KGB, but would have been formed anew and founded on national values and interests. And the methods that it puts into practice would have likewise not become beri-like [2]. And after the publication of their names, the very agents of the KGB, themselves, would have felt a great weight being lifted off their shoulders and would not have become the victims of blackmail and compromise that they remain to this day. Victims and slaves--as much of the leaders of Armenia as they are of foreign intelligence agencies.

In accordance with the same considerations, I do not welcome the fact that the same governments of the 90s made wide use of the services of the former Communist Party's nomenklatura [3]. That practice engendered people like Constitution-transgressor Gagik Harutiunian, Christianly plunderer Khosrov Harutiunian... And I'm not talking about the various and sundry little helpers of the helper in the parktoms and shurjkoms [4]. And, by the way, those who sought positions from the leadership of the PNM [5] used to inspire contempt, during their informal meetings and in their surroundings, toward the PNM and the values it espoused. And that violent barking continues to this day--except, now, overtly. People like that serve with the mentality of a slave whatever government; today, they have become the criminal government's reliable crutch.

Honorable Levon Ter-Petrossian, after you prove victorious in this, our, just war and re-establish freedom, I recommend that with one of your first executive orders you order the disclosure of the names of all pre-independence KGB agents residing in Armenia. I believe that that does not in any way endanger the safety of our country or the current operations of the NSS.

P.S. Among the ranks of those working with the KGB, the upper class of the traditional ARF occupies its own unique position. I suggest to the self-stimulating [6] Hrand Markarian that, instead of inventing stories and vulgarly lying about the national movement's [supposed] resorting to foreign powers, he get out of his biotsitoz-like [7] state and familiarize himself with the biographies of operatives of the modern ARF. It is not possible to respect the ideals of the ARF's rank-and-file and fail to remember the undeniable fact that, in the 90s, the ARF was an organization being governed from other shores [8].

[1] The author uses the Russian "sabog": boot, jackboot.
[2] բերիական, beriakan. I'm guessing "beri" is a reference to a person. If someone knows what the author means by this word, please let me know.
[3] The nomenklatura were a bureaucratic elite that basically ran the Soviet Union through their exclusive power of appointing people to various posts. A patron-client system obtained among them, and the higher-ups could pretty much do anything they wanted, short of crossing their patrons.
[4] In the USSR, the partkoms were the lower-level committees directly subordinate to higher-level committees and ultimately the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Partkom simply means "party committee." Shurjkom substitutes the Armenian word "shurj" for what I think is the Russian raikom, or district committee.
[5] Levon Ter-Petrossian's Pan Armenian National Movement, active between 1989 and 1998.
[6] In his article below, Pashinian says Hrand Markarian looked like he was on the recreational drug ecstasy during the ARF General Conference.
[7] բիոցիտոզային, biotsitozain. I'm inclined to think that this word is either Russian slang or contains a typo. I haven't a clue what it could possibly mean, except through context. It's also possible that it's a Turkish word.
[8] The ARF's connections to the CIA are a documented fact established by historians, although the author of this piece doesn't, of course, mention the US and might be thinking about other countries.

Nikol Pashinian

2008-05-31T02:21:00.007-04:00

I've been away, but now I'm back. This article by Pashinian is simply called "Nikol Pashinian." He must have left it untitled. Comrade Hrand from the ARF plays a leading role.

Nikol Pashinian

The Third Republic's first narcotics baron Hrand Markarian had perhaps sampled the concoction called "Euphoria" [1] before his speech at the ARF's General Convention, or at least that is the impression he made on us with his speech made during the opening of the conference. But, of course, it cannot be ruled out that the euphoria was of a spontaneous, sui generis, origin, especially since it took place during a 6-hour period.

Comrade [2] Hrand has good reason for [experiencing] spontaneous euphoria. A considerable portion of his clientele has been relocated to the Presidential seating area, meaning his business is going to grow. But there are other reasons [for the euphoria], too: March 1st's blood bargain turned out well, and the Aghvan-Levon-Davit trio's gold-rich vein that is in his hands remained unharmed. Ever since the day that Robert Kocharian's backer Kuku carelessly harassed the ARF-member Poghos Poghosian, comrade Hrand knows full well how "unclaimed" corpses turn-up for sale. He is still a little jumpy today because the bargain is not yet complete. But what is it that comrade Hrand [himself] says? He says that the national movement is the expression of another conspiracy. What I have to say about this is that, all in all, it was a few months ago that a document bearing Serzh Sargsyan's signature was published in our paper, [a document] in which Serzh Sargsyan accuses comrade Hrand and his friends of having ties with foreign intelligence agencies [3]. But why stray from the matter: How many US citizens, Europeans, and foreigners in general are to be found in the bureau headed by comrade Hrand, or even in the GC [ARF General Convention], itself? What right do they have involving themselves in political activities in the Republic of Armenia, and whom do they represent? And why hasn't comrade Hrand noticed who it was that expressed his thanks to a leader of a foreign country "for the help that he evidenced during the pre-election and post-election periods"? [4]

Talking about foreign conspiracies is a necessary thing, though: otherwise, how can opening fire on one's own people be explained or be justified? Alas, they weren't one's own people, but foreign conspirators, and they, too, were armed with "kontry-kontry" missiles [5]; didn't Rob [6] say that there was an atomic bomb in Khachatur Sukyasian's pocket? What else does comrade Hrand say? The financial sources of the national movement seem suspicious to him. One can't blame him; he knows three sources available for [financing] political activity: narco-business, rackets, and international conspiracies. Given his mastery of the first two markets, he knows that the national movement is not being funded by them. The third "market" he knows, partially, meaning that for him there exist in that field of knowledge one or two lacunae; hence [for him], this means that the national movement is being funded by those very lacunae [i.e., sources he is ignorant of and that exist in the shadows for him].

For the sake of those who don't know, let me say that this is called logic: induction and deduction. There is no secret involved here. Why, what are brains for? What else does comrade Hrand say? Terrible spectacles of street warfare appear to him--simply terrifying. ARF-er Dro's body is veritably turning over in his grave; he cannot stand such sights. It is much more suited to his tastes when you simply enter someone's house with a few people and pop him right there, or wait for him in the vestibule [7]. Comrade Hrand is flabbergasted: why did Levon Ter-Petrossian name generals? Comrade Hrand doesn't like talking about generals. It is much more convenient to hit Vazgen, to throw it around Vano's neck (the failed national program of 1995). Of course, we don't have the subtle palate of comrade Hrand or his leadership. We simplemindedly say whatever comes into our minds, whereas some go about their business with a Perso-Azerbaijani slyness. And it is delightful to see these people who have appeared on the arena due to a change in circumstances scream about how indispensable it is that the "guilty criminals" be punished.

P.S. It seems that the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan has chosen for himself the role of a clown. If you pay attention, you'll notice that all of his speeches are composed of 14 ideas. The speeches differ [only] in their orderings and sequencings of these ideas. If he mentions one idea first in this speech, then it becomes idea number 8 in the next speech, idea number 8 becomes number thirteen, and so on. As an ardent supporter of a prosperous [new] era, I want to call Mr. Sargsyan's attention to yet another idea, and I hope that it merits becoming idea number 15 in his idea list. The idea is the following: "And in particular in any case it is apparent that." Clearly, this idea would have embellished the program of the coalition's leadership.

1. I'm guessing he's referring to the recreational drug called "Ecstacy" in the US.
2. ARF-ers often call one another "friend," or comrade. Pashinian is playing off of this.
3. Here and elsewhere, Pashinian uses the phrase "special services," but I've decided to use the phrase more commonly used in American English "intelligence agencies" because, based on his descriptions in his writings of what the "special services" do, it is pretty obvious that they perform functions that are similar to intelligence agencies like the FBI and CIA (back before the Pentagon started taking them over, anyway), although I'm not sure whether "special services" doesn't combine the domestic and foreign specializations that the FBI and CIA are very territorial about.
4. I'm pretty sure that would be Kocharian thanking Putin. Pashinian wrote an article about it not long ago.
5. Meaning Inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). I think Pashinian is making fun of Kocharian's Russian/Gharabagh accent and illiteracy when it comes to speaking in Armenian, something Kocharian, by his own admission, is not very good at. I've paralleled in English what Pashinian does in Armenian, which is to render the word "country" with a Russian accent. Kocharian, apparently, at some point, called ICBM's "country-country" missiles, and he did so with a Russian bumpkin's accent, "kontry-kontry."
6. "Rob" is Kocharian's nickname, one he doesn't like, judging by the fact that his bodyguards once beat a man to death for calling him "Private Rob." The man's name was Poghos Poghosian, he was a Georgian citizen, and he was beaten to death on September 25th, 2001, at "Aragast" coffee house. See here.
7. "Podyetz" in Russian.

Pashinian: One Million Citizens, 24 Hours.

2008-05-14T00:33:00.007-04:00

In this essay, among other things, like outlining a clear plan, Pashinian makes a crucial distinction between the presence of a majority in society and the public acknowledgement of that majority's existence. That split is the focus of the game.

Pashinian: One Million Citizens, 24 Hours.

The national movement led by the first President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrossian, truly has such a large number of committed adherents that in political science it is acceptable to characterize them as a "critical mass." What can be said of this? It is probably not the best phrase, especially with regard to its application to our movement, but unfortunately a better one has not yet been found.

With this in mind, I will use the formulation "decisive majority" to include in the concept the majority character of the people, who are in a position in the country to take over the government or, more correctly, to decide the government's fate. Accordingly, the movement led by Levon Ter-Petrossian was already a decisive majority even before the Presidential elections, but after the events following February 19th and especially after the criminal acts realized by the government on March 1st, the number of committed adherents to the national movement grew by at least 2.5 times. Being a decisive majority is an indespensible--but not sufficient--precondition for the realization of a change in government; it is important, too, that that majority be able to "manifest" itself, to show itself and manifest its will and determination, because the crimial government, having no majority whatsoever, compensates for that lack by using the police and military. The institutions of violence [military, etc.] are used with the intention of preventing the decisive majority from making its presence known; moving against this, the decisive majority's pursuit shatters the military's and police force's will to serve the government because, you will agree, it is not possible to endlessly arrest, judge, and God forbid, massacre [the people]. These kinds of things happen under tyrannous governments, because in the case of Democratic countries, the decisive civilian majority is able to make its presence palpable through simple government elections. The government falsified the results of the 2008 elections. The national movement led by Levon Ter-Petrossian was confident that it had the decisive civilian majority in Armenia. But that majority was not allowed to come onto the scene and loudly voice its presence through voting--it had to find another way of making its presence known.

That way was found: Peaceful, round-the-clock sit-ins at Freedom Plaza. It must be noted that the sit-ins necessarily could not have lasted one or two days, because it is not possible to gather the decisive majority together in one place in one day, and even if it were possible, a one day gathering can be seen as a sudden flare-up, and its coming to a close, as the end. Thus began the mobilization of the decisive civilian majority of the R.A. [Republic of Armenia] on February 21st, 2008. This was a big risk for Ter-Petrossian's team because, just as the government had done everything that it could to prevent a decisive majority from forming around the First President, so it was doing everything it could to prevent this majority from coming out and making its presence known at Freedom Plaza. Moreover, Sargsyan tried to prove that the decisive civilian majority of the R.A. was on his side. It was for this reason that, on February 26th, Serge Sargsyan organized a gathering at Republic Square, a gathering which, as is well known, became a humiliating defeat for the acting government. Through the use of different levers, the people who had been brought to Republic Square [by the Kocharian/Sargsyan camp to "support" Sargsyan] moved to Freedom Square and began chanting "Levon!" and "Serzhik, out of here!" Four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand to 500,000 people participated in the gathering on that day. This constituted a powerful blow to the criminalocracy, but the Kocharian-Sargsyan pair was not preparing to yield. Serzh Sargsyan began working on forming a coalition, winning Arthur Baghdassarian and Vahan Hovhannisian over to his side and trying to create an immitation decisive majority for himself in this way. The grass-roots movement was ready for the progression of events in such a direction, and it was announced from Freedom square that the number of Armenian citizens that would be participating in the gathering on the coming Sunday, March the 2nd, would be one million. This gathering was to decisively settle the question of the decisive majority's "showing itself," and the criminalocracy had but one solution: the violent solution. I am not going to mention the illegality of the the actions of the government on that day, first, because much has been said about that, and because it is outside our topic. I find it fitting to mention, instead, the issue that Hrand Ter-Abrahamian has discussed in one of his articles. The latter justly notes that, had the people resorted to a counter attack and had a revolt broken out, the issue of the government would have very quickly been settled: that is to say, the criminalocratic pair would have been removed from power. This, of course, is an unambiguous truth, and the question may well arise, Why, then, did it not take place? Mainly because of the fundamental reason that, in that case, we would have had not tens, but hundreds, if not thousands, of losses. Such a thing could not possibly have been allowed. And, generally speaking, the question that day was not victory (whom were we going to defeat, if the people standing before us were Armenian citizens like ourselves?) but the avoidance of defeat, and for that reason, on that day, there could have been talk of only self-defense. Returning to the main narrative, let me emphasize that the main purpose of all of the government's actions was but one: to deny the decisive civilian majority formed around Levon Ter-Petrossian the ability to make its presence known and to announce itself, to degenerate its total unity. Not only the events of March 1st, but those preceding it, were in pursuit of this goal: a State of Emergency, the effective shutting-down of newspapers, mass arrests, terror, changes in the law, and the dissemination of misinformation. The unprecedented lengths of these actions eloquently demonstrated that a similarly unprecedented civilian majority has gathered around Levon Ter-Petrossian. And the purpose of the government was to get the civilian members of that majority to either withdraw their membership, to refrain from coming out publicly as members, or to deny them the ability to [do so].

Naturally, the issues concerning the national movement directly contradict the issues that the government has put before it. In the general scheme of things, the tasks that Ter-Petrossian's team has before it have not changed after March 1st: to show that the decisive civilian majority gathered around the first President continues to be, that it can show itself, and that it remains as resolute and diligent as before. The events following March 1st, whose culmination was the procession of April 24th, demonstrated that this is a wholly realizable matter and that the repressive measures taken by the government have yielded no positive results for them. There is no doubt that all that would be required for hundreds of thousands of people to show-up at Freedom square--tomorrow, even--would be a call put forth by Levon Ter-Petrossian, Stepan Demirdjian, Aram Zaveni Sargsian, and other political leaders. But there is [also] no doubt that an equal number of R.A. citizens who are ready to answer that call, under conditions of an information blockade, will not even hear it. Perhaps many people who consider themselves supporters of the national movement might not be able to make the decision to show-up at Freedom Plaza due to caution and uncertainty. There are many people who are under the spell of "Haylur" [television news] and are in need of real news and information.

In short, it is necessary to make it possible for these people to fully participate in the grass-roots movement, a job that up until March 1st was carried-out by Levon Ter-Petrossian's campaign teams, which up until March 1st and especially after March 1st were the target of fierce attacks. Regardless, as time went on, the campaign teams were [destined] to loose the principle governing their activities. Accordingly, under the present circumastances, the national movement has new organizational issues that it needs to deal with, issues that I have addressed in one of the previous essays that dealt with assembly groups, the network of oral information dispersal, the propagation and dispersal of DVDs, and other such questions.

And in spite of the fact that I believe that the youth is going to have a decisive role in these activities, the 2nd National Congress needs to stimulate the future development of this process that is moving along quite well. There are important things to do in Yerevan and, especially, in the provinces.

That which is related to the process of the national movement making its presence public as the decisive majority needs to be wed to the March 2nd--that is to say, the one-million strong--assembly. Of course, different assemblies and types of actions can take place before then. But the change in government, the destruction of the rule of criminals and thieves, and the final and decisive victory must take place in that very assembly, which will take place as "One Million People, 24 Hours." That is to say that one million people need to gather at Freedom Plaza and declare as the decisive civil majority of the R.A. that they are giving the government 24 hours--to leave. But in order to be able to organize such an assembly, it is necessary to have a clear mobilization network, a network whose progress and final form need to be the focus of our daily attention. Struggle, struggle, until the end.

Pashinian: The Oppositte Side of the World.

2008-05-13T05:56:00.006-04:00

Tzitzernak is translating a rather special Pashinian piece that is coming out in installments in Paykar!. Jones no longer fellow Pashinian fans:

(Updated as the translations are posted)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14

I'm on a bit of an odyssey myself to the oppositte coast of America, to good old Glendale, as a matter of fact, and don't have as much time at my disposal, so I'm glad Tzitzernak picked-up on this piece.

Pashinian: The KGB has lost. Pt. 5.

2008-05-10T00:55:00.007-04:00

This is the final part of Pashinian's essay where, among other things, he drops the bombshell that he is going to come out of the underground any day now.

Pashinian: The KGB has lost, the KGB must be torn down. Pt. 5.

Cheap provocations

It is, of course, not possible to talk about the activities of the NSS during this period without mentioning the things it did during the gatherings at Freedom Plaza after February the 21st. As you know, two NSS agents engaging in acts of provocation were discovered at Freedom Square. They had been wired [i.e., were wearing secret microphones]. What were they doing at Freedom Square? They were planting things underneath the tents, planting weapons, grenades, and cocktail molotovs in the surrounding area. And they were carrying out "ideological work" with regard to the participants. Let's say that they would get into a regular conversation with one of the groups participating in the gathering, and at the opportune moment begin talking. Let's say that they would say things like, "No, bro. This won't work. These last few days, us standing at Opera [same as Freedom Square] has accomplished zip. You have to use force with this kind of people. Isn't it so?" Doubtless, several people would be found that would agree and say, Yeah, that's right. This would be recorded at the NSS. Let's say that, then, the provocateur would say something like, "The right way to go about this is to occupy the Presidential Building and the television station. We need to arm ourselves. Isn't that right?" Naturally, a conversation would start where ideas would be bandied about; those ideas would be recorded at the NSS, put into the form of a montage, and serve the purposes of the criminal act newly resurrected from the dead: As if the gathering's participants were preparing an armed assault, preparing a take-over of the television station, and so on. But, like I said, the KGB network has become so demoralized that its plans, the fiery speeches of its "intellectuals," and its "Haylur's" repulsive [television] coverage no longer had any effect on anybody, and on March 1st the criminalocracy was forced to remove its mask of piety and reveal its hideous, freakish face and uncover its criminal, immoral being.

Conclusion

I cannot posit that every NSS member countenanced the illegality, the immorality, and the betrayal of that which is good for the country's security. But if there are exceptions, then those are just that, exceptions, and as such guarantee the criminal nature of the network. Ultimately, today's NSS is a network whose criminal nature knows no limits. The evidence for this is the airing of [the image of] the chained national hero, Sasoon Mikaelian, on television. There is no base act that cannot be expected from that network. There is no base act that I've been told they might carry out to which I've responded, They wouldn't do that. Everything and anything can be expected from this network. And I wasn't a bit surprised to find out that to get me to surrender, they told my kids that they had the ability to kidnap them, and neither is the same in the least bit surprising to those who have that notorious fiend's, Dzerzhinski's, picture hanging from their walls. By the way, I would like to make a few observations about my present situation. Let it not be a kind of faintheartedness, but I want to honestly state that I don't like it when they say that I am in hiding. A man in hiding does not publish articles in newspapers, and publish them so intensively.

There are many people in Armenia who, in spite of being in their houses at night, visit their workplaces and even appear on live television, yet, nevertheless, lead hidden lives throughout. But I am generally underground today for two trivial reasons. First, I could not, like many of my friends, hand myself in to the NSS, because that would have been akin to surrendering to a kind of slavery. They weren't able to arrest me during those days, and now they cannot find me. And, truth be told, it gives me pleasure to know how nervous and agitated that makes them. And now about what I am preparing to do. When it becomes clear to all that the criminalocracy has not been able to accomplish the simple task of uncovering my whereabouts, I will have completed this stage of my work. A short while after the publication of this article [1], I am going to cut short my living underground, come out into the open, walk in the central district of my beloved Yerevan, smile at my beloved sisters and brothers, and I am going to continually struggle, struggle until the end.

P.S. At the beginning of this year, about 200 Republic of Mountainous Gharabagh NSS members were brought to Armenia who would show up to work every day at central headquarters and the territorial offices of the NSS. The Gharbagh NSS members did not have any concrete work to do--they were there to monitor their Armenian coworkers.

1. The article was published in Paykar! on April 28th.

NPR lies and Socialism.

2008-05-08T19:47:00.005-04:00

Nazarian posted a video produced by NPR about the ideas of Hernando de Soto, economist exraordinaire. De Soto argues that the absence of property rights and corruption are the reasons why "developing" countries, kind of like Armenia, are poor. This is obfuscation: he is reversing cause and effect: the corruption and lack of property rights are the effect of poverty, not the cause. And the ultimate cause of the poverty is unbridled capitalism.

I see this kind of obfuscation all the time, and it makes me want to reach through the screen and choke the liar expressing it, especially when it is disseminated through NPR. NPR, once upon a time, really was a National Public Radio, but for the last ten years or so, it has been nothing but a particularly pernicious propaganda outlet for the sly re-education of precisely the kind of college-educated, middle-class, latte-drinking liberals that the right likes to rail about.

When the right wing is talking to its supporters, it demonizes urban professionals as pretentious nobodies.

When the right wing is talking to urban professionals, it speaks through NPR, because, truth be told, the right really is trying to spread its radical, anti-enlightenment ideas to those among the "latte-drinkers" that are too distracted to notice.

So I've decided to address this treachery on the part of NPR and get down to the heart of a typical example of the false, partisan arguments that it broadcasts.

There are two components to every lie: the hidden false logic, and the way that the lie is told: logic and rhetoric. I am going to address the false logic, but the rhetoric definitely merits looking into: the way the scenes are set up, the music, the voice of the narrator, the nauseatingly thick praise of de Soto at the beginning to make de Soto the ass look like de Soto the prince, the contrast between "we" westerners and the earth-plowing coloreds of the "developing" world... The list goes on and on. All of that, the rhetoric, for another time. Let's dig into the logic of the argument.

Basically, de Soto is one apologist in the long line of apologists for capitalism starting, in our epoch, from Keynes, to Sachs, and now, him.

They write some batty paper explaining the rote inequalities and crises that capitalism produces as the fault of this or that scapegoat, like, for example, distance from the center, racial immaturity, corruption, and so on. Then some hireling PhD reads their batty paper, reports to his ruling elite bosses, and all of a sudden de Soto is a "celebrated" economist, the smartest guy since, erm, Alan Greenspan, don't you know.

It's all bullshit.

De Soto says that corruption is to blame for capitalism not working miracles in "developing" countries. What he is covering-up is that capitalism is the cause of the corruption. In a system where the rich necessarily get richer and the poor necessarily get poorer, the word "corruption" is nothing but the word that the rich use to entertain the poor's notion of ethicality. "Corruption" is "inequality" with ethics mixed in.

Who would say that Kocharian and Sargsyan and their cronies are not capitalists? They have the money and they have the power: meaning, they have capital. They are using that money and power (capital) to get more money and power (capital). That's capitalism. It's that obvious.

There is as much ethics in capitalism as there is ethics in mathematics. If you call Kocahrian "corrupt," then what you are doing is saying that his enjoyment of capitalism is going beyond a certain ethical limit.

Admit it.

Historically, this tendency for people to go beyond the ethical limit has been checked by the regulation of the economy. The state has said to the capitalists: you can't privately own the water supply of the country, you can't own the electricity, the roads, or any other vital resource a human being needs to live and work. That is what socialism really is: state regulation of the excesses of capitalism, the only thing standing between the people and the Kocharians of the world.

But all of that disappeared with, generally speaking, the (predictable) economic crisis of the 70s, infantile voters, and the monster named Reagan that they gave birth to, who started a trend of deregulation the hag mother of which was the banking deregulation of 1996: the--real--cause of the housing/mortgage crisis that is threatening the welfare of the entire world today.

And none of this is accidental, mind you. This is why de Soto is a lying crony. Those who do have capital don't want any competition. They make sure that the working class--read, erstwhile middle-class--remains ignorant, without capital, and at the mercy of the hate it has for the scapegoats that are put on the television for it to blame for its misery: homosexuals, "liberals," Mexicans, and, in Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrossian.

The poor people of Peru, or of Egypt, or of Armenia are poor because they have no capital and nothing to invest. All they can do is to go out and work for someone who does have capital and make enough to pay the bills and get by, if they're lucky. And they never make enough to be able to save, and even if they manage to save, inflation makes sure that their savings end up meaning nothing. That's not accidental.

Applied to Armenia, de Soto's bogus argument would be that Kocharian and Sargsyan corrupted the system that would have worked otherwise. But the real question is: Who corrupted Kocharian and Sargsyan? Who? The answer is the World Bank, the IMF, and the Millenium Fund that sent billions of dollars of--unmonitored--money in their direction. These institutions are happy to loan money to--read, buy Armenian children's lives from--Kocharian and Sargsyan, because on top of everything else, they get deregulation of state services in Armenia. That's not accidental, either.

The truth is the exact opposite of what de Soto says: Developing countries aren't poor because their corrupt local governments keep them like that, no. Developing countries are poor because rapacious--global--capital corrupts local governments, then hides behind the people it has corrupted and gives the microphone to useful idiots like de Soto to spread his personal confusion far and wide.

And that's how we all became slaves.

Pashinian: The KGB has lost. Pt. 4

2008-05-07T21:06:00.002-04:00

Here, Pashinian describes the NSS's various--I'd even say "pornographic"--defeats and demonstrates why they were inevitable.

Pashinian: The KGB has lost, the KGB must be torn down. Pt. 4.

The Crisis of the KGB

I noted above that the KGB has not noticed the fact of Armenia's independence--a sad fact for the KGB. They have not noticed yet another, for-them-sad fact: that their cult's previous Soviet KGB underwent a humiliating defeat in its global struggle, and the proof for that is the collapse of the USSR, which created it, the KGB. And today, KGB members do not want to accept that the collapse of the USSR was not the result of foreign activity in the country, but the result of the activities of the KGB. This decayed system had become the people's enemy and the main obstacle barring their progress.

One would think that the the non-existence of an acceptance of this fact would, naturally, help the country's NSS inadvertently become covered by gangrene and suffer humiliating defeats. And that is exactly what happened. The higher-ups of the NSS began using its "growing influence" for their own personal prosperity. What happened was that the KGB clique fervently achieved its independence and began sticking its nose in different business markets. The one who blew the whistle on this situation most ardently was the NSS's former assistant to the chief, Gregory Harutiunyan, who, as it turned out, was engaged in banana "contraband." This fact became known to the public after Robert Kocharian relieved him from his post as assistant to the chief of the NSS. Yet those people are mistaken who think that the cause of Harutiunyan's firing was his occupation with banana "contraband." Kocharian always knew about that business and decided to fire Harutiunyan only when Harutiunyan began cheating them. Two circumstances speak to the truth of this conjecture: first, they did not put Harutiunyan on trial after firing him, which means that they wanted to keep things quiet; and, second, Harutiunian, while assistant to the head of the NSS, was involved in the construction of buildings on Buzand Street through his firm, "Griar," which fact means that engaging in the business of the assistant to the head is an acceptable thing for Robert Kocharian, because "Griar" had for many years explicitly developed its activities, and the name of the firm had been fashioned out of the name of the head of the NSS at that time: Gr[i]gory Arutziunyan. All of the assistants of the head of the NSS are in one way or another involved in business and are millionaires. And it should be recognized that, in this sense, Gorik Hakobian is the one most pitiable. Between us, inside the walls of the network, they call him "dodzig," the consummate Leonid Ilych Brezhnev, whom they have appointed to that post to keep it occupied and prevent internal quarrels from arising over it.

The vice [in the context of what the NSS should actually be up to] of business has seriously spread throughout the NSS. The heads of the territorial organizations stand guard [1] over different businesses and objectives. Of course, not everyone can partake of the "harvest," and, as with the general public, so with the members of the NSS, among whom the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. One would think that under these circumstances, the network would become entirely demoralized and suffer humiliating defeats. And the criminal activities incited against Murad Bojolian, the lawyer Vahe Grigorian, and the former head of the FM [Foreign Ministry of Armenia] Alexander Arzumanian, who turned the NSS into a universal laughingstock, became the occasions for just those types of humiliating defeats. But these were just the flowers, the big defeats were to come later [2].

On an Autumn day in 2007, it became clear that the special services of Azerbaijan had infiltrated the Foreign Ministry of Armenia's [computer] network and "pulled" all of the information stored there: the archives, diplomatic memos, secret files, and even personal e-mails. We can put it down in writing now that Armenia's diplomatic corps does not have one secret that Azerbaijan does not know. The newspapers found out about this only accidentally, and one must not fail to mention that other slave-monitoring institutions [3] have met with the same fate, because it is hardly likely that they would have had better protection than that provided for the Foreign Ministry's network--and the organization in charge of this protection is the NSS. To date, no one has been held responsible for this disgrace at the NSS, because Robert Kocharian knows well that he has devoted the NSS to the struggle against the Opposition or, more correctly, Levon Ter-Petrossian, and the resources available for the struggle against Azerbaijan have waned.

It has been the NSS's ironic fate, however, to have had to bear defeat in its struggle against Levon Ter-Petrossian as well. The purpose of the titanic efforts made by the NSS was to keep Levon Ter-Petrossian from once again assuming the leadership of Armenia, keep him from gathering together the Opposition, and keep him from creating a grassroots movement involving all of the people--they couldn't do it. It turns out that the agents of influence planted in the various parties, blackmail, and the "treatments" given to activists did not mitigate the course of events. And if we put into this context the events of March 1st and the repression that followed them, then they, by their very essence, remind one of the KGB putsch that took place in the USSR in 1990 that turned into the the swan song of the KGB. There is no doubt that the KGB conspiracy in Armenia will merit the same fate, and in this case, exactly, we need to proceed with caution so that we don't steer our country, the Republic of Armenia, towards an impasse and issues that can not be resolved. And everything is going in just that direction.

1. "«կռիշ» են կանգնում." I'm guessing two things: that this is Gharabagh slang, and that it means "stand guard"?
2. Pashinian is being a bad boy here.
3. Meaning other Armenian ministries and institutions during Kocharian/Sargsyan.

Pashinian: The KGB has lost. Pt. 3

2008-05-06T17:06:00.013-04:00

Pashinian describes the NSS/KGB's carrot-and-stick method of controlling people and the role of the appearance of a certain "Eyes Wide Shut" type of a club in Armenia. Note well that Pashinian is bringing into the conversation important changes in sexual practice that a portion of the Armenian upper-middle class is adopting, namely, wife-swapping. Sexuality is, of course, a big part of life, but whether KGB or Victorian England ways of alleviating its repression's hardships are--desirable--is a very big question. In any case, the very possible brutality of this way of living is palpable: the women have the role of commodities; as for the men, obviously they are not free enough not to have to use others as a means to an end.

Pashinian: The KGB has lost, the KGB must be torn down. Pt. 3

The country's elite weighed down on my heart

Before we continue with the story of the degradation of the NSS [the National Security Services, which is sort of like the FBI (inerior intelligence) vs. the CIA (exterior intelligence) and generally like the Interior Ministry of any given country], let us note yet another Serzhokocharianic method of using special operations for their own pursuits. [When they got into power] Serzh and Kocharian quickly found out that it is possible to gain a serious political trump card by investigating people's pasts and personal lives. They quickly understood that this potential source of power of the special operations was not being exploited. And so, they began using it. It turns out that during the Soviet period, an entire portion of the country's scientific, cultural, and political elite was not able to escape the malfeasant guilt of becoming KGB agents. Those people--academics, famous actors, cherished painters and singers, political leaders--have [outed] their friends, relatives, and famous contemporaries [as Enemies of the People] in official documents, and if these documents ever become public, they will immediately become nothings. The documents are kept in the archives of the KGB, and the master of those archives is the Serzh Sargsyan, the President of the RA. Consequently, the resolution of the question of their fate is in his hands. The criminalocratic pair uses this tool expertly and thereby gains a reliable bolster for itself in public political life. Those "famous intellectuals," scientists, and artists who have earned their reputations through their cooperation with the KGB's pursuit of "Enemies of the People," [today] lend their covert or explicit support to the criminalocracy during critical moments and sing the praises of the "Great Leaders" in their public speeches. They, of course, do not disclose the fact that the "intellectuals" who support Kocharian and Sargsyan are all KGB agents, but their numbers and the assistance that they lend to the government is sufficient to produce an agreeable intellectual climate. I have already spoken about president of the NAS [Nation Academy of Sciences] Radik Martirosyan's KGB past in a previous publication. Before becoming the president of the NAS, he was the rector of YSU [Yerevan State University]. Imagine how many people he could have thrown into Serzh's bottomless pit, stopping at nothing; isn't it true, after all, that he is motivated by a deadly fear? But in order that Radik Martirosyan's case not appear singular, I will now discuss yet another subject, because that which he allowed himself to do under Serzh Sargsyan's immediate guidance is the most base act of them all. I am speaking about Fadey Sargsyan, the former president of the NAS, about whom our television stations are showing films that depict him as a supreme human being. This supreme human being--around the time of the disarranged 1998 elections, when Karen Demirjian had victoriously returned to political life and become a terror to Robert Kocharian's career, Serzh Sargsyan had Fadey Sargsyan wear a wire [electronic eavesdropping equipment] and sent him to meet with presidential candidate Karen Demirchian. Karen Demirchian naturally received his "friend," "comrade in arms," and neighbor and had an honest discussion with him about his political and future plans, without at all suspecting that Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sargsyan were directly listening to his discussion and that Fadey Sargsyan was, not conversing with him, but--interviewing him using a list of questions prepared by Serzh Sargsyan. It must be assumed that these kinds of conversations were carried out on a regular basis, but, to be honest, I am aware of only one such case. And there you have it: "Great Deeds."

But in public political life there are also young people that have not had connections to the KGB. How should they be treated? [Pashinian is asking this question from Kocharian/Sargsyan's point of view]. Their lives should be put under the microscope. If their lives contain nothing that is compromising, then it is necessary to dig into the life-histories of their relatives and find something that is compromising. Of course, compromising facts of a sexual nature have always been considered to be the best ones. People sometimes have unusual inclinations: One likes to have sex with men, while being a man, himself; another betrays his wife, has a lover, or spends time with prostitutes; a third's wife is unfaithful to him; a fourth visits suspicious clubs with his own wife. Naturally, the National Security Service must spend time investigating these matters, preparing relevant dossiers, and securing them with "video-materials."

In other words, if someone is gay, the NSS must take photographs of him, photograph the sexual act. This is not an easy thing to do, you understand, and requires physical access, technical equipment, and detailed plans of operations and their realization. And our country's National Security has carried out numerous such operations. If you have been surprised by any given politician's sudden reversal of position, betrayal, don't be: It means that that politician or his relatives have engaged in one or another kind of shady dealings or have unusual sexual preferences. People are wont to explain the "sale" of our political functionaries through the money factor. What can be said about this? Money does play a decisive role in all this, but, in order to put the person in the mood to be sold for money, they first present him with the compromising fact. This is logical, because, after taking the money, the person in question might decide to change his mind; it is, therefore, necessary to have something on him. And, on the other hand, the mere operation to put someone in a compromised situation renders "the victim" hostile toward "the client," which is an unacceptable situation. This is the famous biscuit and whip [the carrot and the stick] method. And, incidentally, notice how well Serzh Sargsyan's favorite word--"customer"--fits the situation described. And now, as a summary of this chapter, let me tell the story of a government functionary and his family, a story of events that have been essential in the internal progress of the country.

It turns out that there is a club in Armenia that married couples go to, meaning--the husband goes there with his wife. Numerous other couples go there as well, and the point of [going to the] club is to swap partners. In other words, the members of the club hand their wives over to others for a few hours, and they, themselves, choose another woman. After this club gathering, they go home again as a loving married couple. There are similar such clubs in numerous other countries, and it is natural the NSS would not fail to notice the appearance of one in our country and, especially, the political figures turning up there. And while some cannot understand the meaning of recent events and the political bobbings up-and-down, everything is extremely clear: The NSS has the relevant photographs.

Incidently, during the compilations of shared lists undertaken by political parties here and in nearby governments, the NSS factor is taken into consideration--how it has a dossier on this or that individual. The thicker the dossier, the more suitable the given person is considered to be for working as a deputy in Parliament. Of course, if it is possible to have people like that in the Opposition, then that is considered a big success. In general, the NSS expends enormous resources and time in the effort to secretly listen to the conversations of the Opposition, plant operatives around them, and realize other such operations. But Armenian KGB agents have remained on the level of the eighties, and it is not difficult for serious people to notice and predict their operations, operatives, and provocateurs.

Six-part television interview with Pashinian.

2008-05-01T21:25:00.006-04:00

I just came across this recently uploaded, February 18th (2008) television interview with Pashinian, with the interviewer asking the standard ridiculous questions and Pashinian demolishing them one by one:

Parts: one two three four five six

Compare that with this two-part interview with Kocharian from 1998, where Kocharian says he's going to be taking Armenian lessons if he becomes President, muses on the pleasure of punishment, and generally behaves almost exactly like the crude, limited, KGB minion who cares nothing about Armenia that Pashinian and Ter-Petrossian have described him as. His body language--the way he sits sinking in the chair with his legs apart, the way his chin thrusts forward and lower lip curves maliciously in a sneer, the way his eyes keep shifting like those of a violent criminal trying to come up with a lie--is literally revulsive.

Parts: one two