Posted by pancho from ? (204.120.48.4) on Friday, August 30, 2002 at 12:04PM :
...I hear Atour Golani is being put forward as the leader to end all leaders. It is suggested that this little fellow will lead us out of the wilderness and over a cliff...but what a cliff!
I spoke with the Sheriffs's outfit in Michigan that is trying to serve Atour with the summons. They try three times, then affix a notice to your door and tell a judge that they tried...it's a legal thing.
They've gone to his house twice...they'll make one last try. It seems the leader of the Assyrian nation is hiding behind his front door...unwilling to proceed...hoping to hide long enough to get past the statue of limitations on this thing.
Jeff accepted his...I accepted mine, even though I didn't have to...but the leader of this Nayshun is cowering behind his front door. That's okay.
Years and years ago when my son's brilliant but foolish step father died of a drug overdose...I moved to be near him and tried to get custody. I had a good case for lots of reasons...got a lawyer, the whole bit. But it was the seventies and dying of a drug overdose was no big thing..everyone was a hippy, everyone was un-hung up. The lawyers and the Social Worker decided among them that my son was okay enough..."come back when he gets really screwed up"...was their message. Wasn't their fault, they aren't set up for deciding subtleties. I wasn't about to wait either. My son had always wanted to come live with me...so I took him to New York and we hid out in Greenwich Village and Astoria, Queens for four years till things died down and his mother removed the cause for the arrest warrant. That was when I studied Art the best way...by copying the masters...Assyrian Masters. Everything was worked out. I tried the courts first...then did it myself.
Same here. The courts allow me to defend myself and sue those whom I believe have wronged me. I will try it their way. But I have another, and a far more effective means at my disposal. I am an artist...I can write, I can scuplt, I can paint. I will get an audience outside of this asylum we've made of Assyria. Atour Golani and the rest of them will wish one day they had never done such a stupid thing...they already do I am sure. But it isn't enough.
We will not be helped at all by these engineers and businesswomen and gas station and porn video store owners...they are full time workers, and only part-time Assyrian activists. They are conservative by nature and stupid by training...long and hard training. They will do none of the things we really need...can't afford to...might risk the mortgage...might make the boss angry...might lose customers. They want no attention...no notice anywhere...no limelight. They are content to do the little they do in between their real jobs...and will fight like hell to keep Assyria as backward and low down as they can...makes it easier on them.
Our only hope is with the Arts. Only there can we expect someone to take things on directly...to say and do what needs to be done...only there will there be less "fear" of what others will say or think of us...and if you are a pro, then your income will be linked to how well you do your ART...not your job at a company somewhere.
That's why I have to make a clear demonstration of what the artist can do to people as low down as these, who then can use their money to hire lawyers...break you so you can't...or hide behind their curtains to evade reponsibility for their stupidity and craven behavior. As much damage as the artist can do...that much more good could he do...if only we didn't have these worms standing in the way.
I have all sorts of things in mind...bas-reliefs...little pink sculptures...satire...books...and they can sue each time if they want...and give me more material. When someting as simple as a paragraph or a cartoon can unhinge an "activist"...we will all see just how powerful the Arts could be for our good...as we ignore them now, or turn them into a "job" whose product we insist on controlling because WE PAY YOU MONEY!
It's an education long overdue. We've missed out all along on the ONE way we could have made a difference all these years...instead we've encourged our most talented people to become doctors and accountants...as if they would ever put anything on the line for anyone.
It will be through the Arts, or not at all. Atour Golani will do nothing for us...he has no intention of doing anything for us. His purpose, like that of Jackie Bejan and John Nimrod is to enhance his own resume'...to get some feelgood time by weeping at a podium. If tears and wailing could get us a country we'd own half the world by now. But, if these things can only be got by hard work and intelligent dedication...we would be as poor in every way as we are now.
Thank God there has always been someone to take us in...after someone else kicked us out...where would we be, and what would we do, if our destiny was ever taken in hand by ourselves?
Just exactly where we are.
-- pancho
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