Posted by pancho from adsl-64-165-199-142.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (64.165.199.142) on Thursday, February 21, 2002 at 2:21PM :
In Reply to: Re: Got A Bad Feeling... posted by Gandhi from spider-mtc-ti012.proxy.aol.com (64.12.101.152) on Thursday, February 21, 2002 at 6:57AM :
I was corrected the other day in conversation as I kept refering to us as the "community"... by someone saying, "WHAT community"?
It's true. We are a rats nest of jealousies and back stabbings, and rumors and each trying to trip up the other. A nest of vipers comes closer to the truth.
What goal? I don't really know except that we are not supposed to let any one of us rise above the rest of us...whatever that means. It's okay for us all to be shoved down...but "down there", NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO RISE ABOVE THE OTHERS...EVEN IF HER OR HIS GOAL IS TO LIFT JUST HIM OR HERSELF, OR THE ENTIRE GROUP...didn't mean to cap that.
Someone told me that God said to an Assyrian that he could have anything he wished for...but his neighbor would get twice as much. The Assyrian thought about it a bit, then said..."Blind me in one eye".
John Nimrod, Jackie Bejan, Carlo Gangrene even Atour Golani don't really work for "us" as they keep saying they do. They USE us, use the distinction they think being Assyrian gives them...the small "power base" the fact that you don't have to raise much more than the funds to buy your own ticket to a conference...to be a leader for us...even when we tell you not to speak in our name.
They think I'm just awfully clever and up to the same tricks, that I figured out how to make a love of Assyria "PAY"... because I GET MONEY from Assyrians, while they have to keep doling it out or no one would give them the time of day. They're pissed because I GET MONEY from Assyrians, and on top of that, I get praised by Assyrians for GETTING MONEY out of them, and on top of that the White Man praises me too and newspapers write nice things about my sculpture, and I can actually write and get articles published in magazines, and get on TV where I can say things that are true and actual, not verbose and overblown...and in a pinch I can even sing through my nose and wiggle my ass at a woman with a bad hair day in a Mercedes.
If this persists, they think, I become more important than they are. For instance...what if I mobilize Assyrians in San Jose now to install the Shumirum Monument in San Jose? And what if it turns out to be no big deal...what if I don't need the Mayor's approval and the Supervisors' approval and the Treasurer and the Comptroller and Dog Catcher and Police and what if I don't need to have lunch with a host of politicians and administrators...what if all I have to do is answer the questions the Arts Council put to Jackie long ago and get a site approved? And what if Assyrians in San Jose turn out in favor of the monument and we get the thing approved and installed in no time at all?
Will that now place Jackie on the same level as John Nimrod? Will she now have to write the city of San Jose and derail the thing because it isn't coming in under HER watch, with all of HER contacts...under HER aegis!
I don't know. Stay tuned and we'll see.
-- pancho
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