Posted by panch from pool0370.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.211.115) on Saturday, June 15, 2002 at 8:32PM :
All this deleting and banning serves a very useful purpose...especially when it is aimed at those who ask questions no one can coherently answer or who merely rattle the cages of some of us out there in Diapers.
I claim that we have no enemies except for ourselves. That being told so often how we were kept down and slaughtered in the Mideast we have come here with the same mindset, indeed we insist on celebrating these losses and murders, even to the point of gilding them where we can and embellishing upon them.
Here in the West we ourselves are dumbfounded at what a poor figure we strike, the spectacle we make of ourselves, and so we come to believe that we MUST have enemies, and very clever and devious ones at that because we can see no one, or imagine anyone whose interest in which it might be to "attack" us. What do we have, and who would want it or needs it?
To convince us all that we are indeed our own enemies it is necessary to make more clear and obvious the various ways we go about hurting and stymying ourselves and each other...how we have enshrined mediocrity, almost built it into our community, demanding such a low and peculiar level of performance in categories we can in no way compete so long as we behave in the ways we do. And so we must remain hidden from the world, away from the action, from the decision makers who affect our lives...here in well regulated forums and clubs that in no way reflect the world we and everyone else lives in. We have no "street smarts".
At our forum all are welcome and they can say as they please. Yet we have very few of the ones who write so passionately and furiously in these other places. Aside from no wanting to support "me" by coming over there, or to a debate, or to a show...people are afraid they will have no one to protect them....no moderator they can call to who can be counted on to keep the place polite and well mannered and pretty much irrelevant too.
If these people believe as strongly as they seem to, you would think they would leap at the challenge of testing themselves and their beliefs. While I can discuss with any ten of them...ten of them must feel they would be no match, and rather than have it proven to them, they claim they aren't interested in rude debate, or attacking...things they regularly do to each other where they are.
The real reason they stay away is that we can dispense with pretentions pretty easily at our joint and don't need anyone to enforce any kind of a code...I always said that intelligent, vigorous, passionate and well read and thoughtful people could be counted upon to eventually settle in and get to work...always leaving room for that newcomer or an outburst from some veteran. This is the stuff of life and it matures people much faster than trying to contain them and enforce behavior, as if they were children...and indeed they will never grow up that way.
Do any of you doubt that these same discussions will go on forever? Next year and the next what, if anything, will be resolved or can be, or is supposed to be? Who wants to settle something for once and all so they can get to work...anyone? At our place we can actually put things behind us, these other places are constatly playing the same loop over and over.
So...why don't I stay at my own place if it's so hot? because that wouldn't serve the need very well. I go everywhere to engage anyone...I don't care if it's in an alley or a boardroom...I don't care if I'll be thrown out or shot at. Seems to me we need those kinds of Assyrians and Chaldeans if we are to make a showing for ourselves out there in the real world.
By insisting on going everywhere and repeatedly trying again each time I am thrown out, or posts removed by people who don't speak English...I display the kind of determination I am talking about...as I show us what this other kind of Assyrian is...and how his ills and weakness comes only from the ways in which he insists on conducting his affairs in private...where it is safe and he can be protected.
That kind of Assyrian will not be able to take much more strain in his "cause" than sitting where he is. And doing nothing active and positive simply means that he relegates himself to an irrelevant position...he is of no use for anything.
I can show all of this best when our readers see how incapable these people are, how this policy of protecting them from their own shortcomings really insures that they will remain weak and impotent the rest of their lives.
It's as if you wanted to be strong, have big muscles, so you sat in a chair all day and talked about it because otherwise you might strain yourself or drop a weight on your foot. This keeps you week physically but also stunts your intellect for you learn to call a tree a mouse and be satisfied for there is no one by to correct you or challenge you.
The brain too needs exercise, needs challenges. In times past I ranged the forums taking on all comers...it was good training. To sit in one spot knowing pretty much what to expect and what is allowed gives these people the illusion that they are ready for anything, that they are warriors and historians and patriots just because they say so...and in Aprim's case this makes sense for he says he is Assyrian on the same basis..."because I know I am".
I know I am too...but I also am not Christian and my god Ashur expects me to do something for his people and their condition in the world today...and for that, I have to be able to deal with anything at any time. You guys give me practise...I could do the same for you, but apparently you are tortured enough, traumatized enough, insecure enough...for you, being Assyrian is a sort of hiding place, an old folks home where you don't need to ever be seriously challenged again...as if you retired because you have already done so much and worked so hard.
This is not the way to anything but more loss...and we can't afford much more.
-- panch
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