Matching our civic voice to our economic muscle
Matching our Civic Voice to our
Economic Muscle
Varant Melkonian
Chairman and CEO Closet World, Inc.
Robert H. Setrakian
Managing Director The Helios Group
We have, as a community of Americans of Armenian heritage, done great things.
We have survived genocide, crossed the ocean, and settled here on America's shores.
With the blessings of American liberty and opportunity, first, second, third, fourth, and now even fifth generation Armenians have prospered and contributed to nearly every sphere of American life: business, medicine, education, and the arts.
Our level of achievement is matched only by our ambition to accomplish, strive, and succeed at all we set our minds to. Few can match us.
We have also made our voice heard loud and clear in the civic arena, but not yet, we must admit, at a level truly commensurate with our community's social and financial success.
It's true that we have, through decades of hard work, earned a reputation as the powerful "Armenian lobby," tackling some of the toughest interests in Washington. We have organized ourselves effectively in Washington, DC and as a far-reaching public policy network.
Each November, we are courted for our votes and campaign support.
But, as we saw in April, even after all we have accomplished, we are still a community that can be crossed. A constituency that can be sacrificed to foreign and financial pressures.
Why? Read More. . .
In the Stands, or on the Field?
By Aram Suren Hamparian
I wanted to share with you a thought about a tendency I’ve seen in corners of the Armenian American community and to invite you to share your comments.
There is, you may have noticed, resistance among some Armenian Americans to organizing with others toward shared goals. This likely exists for a variety of reasons, some cultural, others personal. It could be that this tendency has roots in our long experience as subjects of foreign rule, not as citizens free to shape our own destinies.
This resistance takes on its most virulent form in the habit of some folks –particularly in online settings– to drive discussions down to the level of the lowest common denominator, which is a particularly fatalist brand of world-weary cynicism.
These are typically bright folks. People who have the intellectual capacity to grasp basic even complex realities. They could, if they wanted, very likely get involved themselves by, in Teddy Roosevelt’s words, entering the arena:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
But, for whatever reason, they lack the will, vision, or energy. Perhaps they don’t have faith that they can make any impact. So, rather than actually trying to contribute something, they end up fostering an atmosphere of hopelessness, essentially trying to drag everyone down to their level of fatalism.
To be fair, it is rather easy and even fun at times to be cynical. To call everyone a crook, a liar, or a fool. To sit in the stands and describe the weaknesses of the players on the field. It’s also serves as a sort of permission-slip to sit on the sidelines and complain, rather than summoning the courage to go to the front lines (where everyone takes their share of punches). Read more. . .
Gateway to Power
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| For more information on the Capital Gateway Program, contact garo@anca.org |
By Aram Suren Hamparian
As the ANCA Endowment Telethon approaches, we are, along with early donations from across the country, also receiving hundreds of very thoughtful suggestions about how we can better serve our community and our common cause.
A consistent theme of this feedback, in recent weeks and also for the past several years, has been that our success as a community hinges in great measure on having more Armenian Americans working inside the American political system, where the real policy decisions are made.
We’ve taken this advice to heart.
And produced real results.
Our Capital Gateway Program – funded by donations to the ANCA Endowment – provides a platform for a new generation of talented, young Armenian Americans to start careers in government, politics, international affairs, and the media. Read More. . .
The ANCA Endowment Fund is a 501c(3) charitable organization.
To donate the ANCA Endowment Fund, visit:
http://www.2009telethon.org/donate.php
or mail your check to:
ANCA Endowment Fund Telethon
104 N. Belmont Ave Suite 305, Glendale, CA 91205.
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