Saturday, December 30, 2006
The Bible Says
Love not this world, neither the things that are in the world. John 2:15. For heaven's sake where else do we find neighbors to love as also commanded in the same bible? Obviously, there is little love in our world because we have more passion for divinity than we have compassion for humanity. Poch Suzara
US 'Could be Going Bankrupt'
US 'could be going bankrupt'
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
(Filed: 14/07/2006)
The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.
A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.
Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.
According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.
The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.
Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.
"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."
Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.
The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.
Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."
The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.
Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."
Paul Ashworth, of Capital Economics, was more sanguine about the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. "For a start, the expected deterioration in the Federal budget owes more to rising per capita spending on health care than to changing demographics," he said.
"This can be contained if the political will is there. Similarly, the expected increase in social security spending can be controlled by reducing the growth rate of benefits. Expecting a fix now is probably asking too much of short-sighted politicians who have no incentives to do so. But a fix, or at least a succession of patches, will come when the problem becomes more pressing."
Comment: It looks like the terrorists in America are succeeding. It is frightening to realize, however, the terrorists are home-grown. These morons otherwise more know as Republicans and Democrats have been installed in our government since 50 years to destroy the United States of America. Poch Suzara
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
(Filed: 14/07/2006)
The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.
A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.
Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.
According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''.
The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.
Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.
"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."
Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.
The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.
Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."
The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.
Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."
Paul Ashworth, of Capital Economics, was more sanguine about the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. "For a start, the expected deterioration in the Federal budget owes more to rising per capita spending on health care than to changing demographics," he said.
"This can be contained if the political will is there. Similarly, the expected increase in social security spending can be controlled by reducing the growth rate of benefits. Expecting a fix now is probably asking too much of short-sighted politicians who have no incentives to do so. But a fix, or at least a succession of patches, will come when the problem becomes more pressing."
Comment: It looks like the terrorists in America are succeeding. It is frightening to realize, however, the terrorists are home-grown. These morons otherwise more know as Republicans and Democrats have been installed in our government since 50 years to destroy the United States of America. Poch Suzara
Western Civilization
The values of Western civilization have always been conceptually beautiful; except for the ugly historical fact that rich countries of the Western civilization always enjoyed the freedom to become richer; and poor countries of the Western civilization always enjoyed the democracy to become poorer. Poch Suzara
Watching The Economy Crumble
August, 2005 Good News! Soon You'll No Longer Need an Expensive College Education to Work in the US. Watching the Economy Crumble By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS. The US continues its descent into the Third World, but you would never know it from news reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ July payroll jobs release. The media gives a bare bones jobs report that is misleading. The public heard that 207,000 jobs were created in July. If not a reassuring figure, at least it is not a disturbing one. On the surface things look to be pretty much OK. It is when you look into the composition of these jobs that the concern arises. Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector. Here is the breakdown of the major categories: 30,000 food servers and bar tenders; 28,000 health care and social assistance: 12,000 real estate; 6,000 credit intermediation; 8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation; 50,000 retail trade; and 8,000 wholesale trade. (There were 7,000 construction jobs, most of which were filled by Mexicans immigrants.) Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart’s goods are made in China. Where are the jobs for the 65,000 engineers the US graduates each year? Where are the jobs for the physics, chemistry, and math majors? Who needs a university degree to wait tables and serve drinks, to build houses, to work as hospital orderlies, bus drivers, and sales clerks? In the 21st century job growth in the US economy has consistently reflected that of a Third World country--low productivity domestic services jobs. This goes on month after month and no one catches on--least of all the economists and the policymakers. Economists assume that every high productivity, high paying job that is shipped out of the country is a net gain for America. We are getting things cheaper, they say. Perhaps, for a while, until the dollar goes. What the cheaper goods argument overlooks are the reductions in the productivity and pay of employed Americans and in the manufacturing, technical, and scientific capability of the US economy. What is the point of higher education when the job opportunities in the economy do not require it? These questions are too difficult for economists, politicians, and newscasters. Instead, we hear that “last month the US economy created 207,000 jobs.” Television has an inexhaustible supply of optimistic economists. Last weekend CNN had John Rutledge (erroneously billed as the person who drafted President Reagan’s economic program) explaining that the strength of the US economy was “mom and pop businesses.” The college student with whom I was watching the program broke out laughing. What mom and pop businesses? Everything that used to be mom and pop businesses has been replaced with chains and discount retailers. Auto parts stores are chains, pharmacies are chains, restaurants are chains. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Lowes, have destroyed hardware stores, clothing stores, appliance stores, building supply stores, gardening shops, whatever--you name it. Just try starting a small business today. Most gasoline station/convenience stores seem to be the property of immigrant ethnic groups who acquired them with the aid of a taxpayer-financed US government loan. Today a mom and pop business is a cleaning service that employs Mexicans, a pool service, a lawn service, or a limo service. In recent years the US economy has been kept afloat by low interest rates. The low interest rates have fueled a real estate boom. As housing prices rise, people refinance their mortgages, take equity out of their homes and spend the money, thus keeping the consumer economy going. The massive American trade and budget deficits are covered by the willingness of Asian countries, principally Japan and China, to hold US government bonds and to continue to acquire ownership of America’s real assets in exchange for their penetration of US markets. This game will not go on forever. When it stops, what is left to drive the US economy?
Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yaoo.com
Dear Paul Craig Roberts: A great many thanks for your piece on WATCHING THE ECONOMY CRUMBLE I recently discovered in Google. Nowadays, it is next to impossible to find honest Americans dealing with so much American political lies and religious falsehoods. Either we just continue to kid ourselves or we just continue to believe that the USA will still be a superpower in the centuries to come. Perhaps, only with weapons of mass destruction, not weapons to install peace and goodwill to all men on this earth. Recently, I read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. It is first time I have come across an American historian so honest and truthful. I wish we had more and more Americans like you and like Howard Zinn. Please, dear Mr. Roberts, please keep up the good work and more power to you. It is precisely great men like you that may yet save the USA from totally falling apart as a nation as it is, indeed, crumbling for no reason at all except for local stupidity on the hand, and on the other hand for global insanity.
With your kind permission, I am publishing your WATCHING THE ECONOMY CRUMBLE in my blog. With all good wishes, Poch Suzara, Bertrand Russell Society, Philippines. (PERMISSION GRANTED Dec. 29,2006)
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Philippine-American War
Excerpt from A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn. Mindless and heartless Americans – read on:
“The fighting with the rebels began, McKinley said, when the insurrectos attacked American forces. But later, American soldiers testified that the United States had fired the first shot. After the war, an army officer speaking in Boston’s Faneuil Hall said his colonel had given him orders to provoke a conflict with the insurgents.”
“In February 1899, they rose in revolt against American rule, as they had rebelled several times against the Spanish. Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino leader, who had earlier been brought back from China by U.S. warships to lead soldiers against Spain, now became a leader of the insurrectos fighting the United States. He proposed Filipino independence within a U.S. protection, but this was rejected.
It took the United States three years to crush the rebellion, using 70,000 troops – four times as many as were landed in Cuba. It was a harsh war. For the Filipinos the death rate was enormous from battle casualties and from disease. . . .
William James, the Harvard philosopher, wrote a letter to the Boston Tanscript about “the cold pot grease of McKingley’s cant at the recent Boston banquet” and said the Philippines operation “reeked of the infernal adroitness of the great department store, which has reached perfect expertness in the art of killing silently, and with no public squalling or commotion, the neighboring small concerns.”
James was part of a movement of prominent American businessmen, politicians, and intellectuals who formed the Anti—Imperialist League in 1898 and carried on a long campaign to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism. It was an odd group (Andrew Carnegie belonged), including anti-labor aristocrats and scholars, united in a common moral courage at what was being done to the Filipino in the name of freedom. Whatever their differences on other matters, they would all agree with William James’s angry statement: “ God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippines Isles.” Poch Suzara
“The fighting with the rebels began, McKinley said, when the insurrectos attacked American forces. But later, American soldiers testified that the United States had fired the first shot. After the war, an army officer speaking in Boston’s Faneuil Hall said his colonel had given him orders to provoke a conflict with the insurgents.”
“In February 1899, they rose in revolt against American rule, as they had rebelled several times against the Spanish. Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino leader, who had earlier been brought back from China by U.S. warships to lead soldiers against Spain, now became a leader of the insurrectos fighting the United States. He proposed Filipino independence within a U.S. protection, but this was rejected.
It took the United States three years to crush the rebellion, using 70,000 troops – four times as many as were landed in Cuba. It was a harsh war. For the Filipinos the death rate was enormous from battle casualties and from disease. . . .
William James, the Harvard philosopher, wrote a letter to the Boston Tanscript about “the cold pot grease of McKingley’s cant at the recent Boston banquet” and said the Philippines operation “reeked of the infernal adroitness of the great department store, which has reached perfect expertness in the art of killing silently, and with no public squalling or commotion, the neighboring small concerns.”
James was part of a movement of prominent American businessmen, politicians, and intellectuals who formed the Anti—Imperialist League in 1898 and carried on a long campaign to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism. It was an odd group (Andrew Carnegie belonged), including anti-labor aristocrats and scholars, united in a common moral courage at what was being done to the Filipino in the name of freedom. Whatever their differences on other matters, they would all agree with William James’s angry statement: “ God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippines Isles.” Poch Suzara
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Necessary Evil
The trouble with the concept of necessary evil is that it is often more evil than it is necessary. Take for example, killing people. It is an evil. But killing people in God’s name is not necessary; it is stupidity as inspired by religious insanity. Poch Suzara
Biblical Laws of Rape
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her. Deuteronomy 22:28-29
What kind of a monster would command a rape victim marry her attacker? Answer: God. And to think that the Catholic Bishops of the Philippines, in this day and age, still insist that rape cases are mostly caused by women flaunting their bodies to men. Poch Suzara
What kind of a monster would command a rape victim marry her attacker? Answer: God. And to think that the Catholic Bishops of the Philippines, in this day and age, still insist that rape cases are mostly caused by women flaunting their bodies to men. Poch Suzara
Monday, December 04, 2006
Street children
Hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of street children exist under subhuman conditions in this only Christian country in Asia. They live off garbage and trash in the streets of our major cities. The religious morons continue to distribute the holy bible messages to these miserable pieces of humanity. As if the mothers and fathers of these street children ( who are also created in the image and likeness of God ) should still believe in the bible message that says on this earth God loves men, women and children and will provide for them. What a crock of biblical hogwash. In the meantime, we have religious clowns pretending to be economists who says that we can export some of our successful solutions to poverty, like the Gawad Kalinga of the Couples for Christ and Workers Cooperatives for contractual services like farm workers, security guards and retail workers. . . The Philippines should share its NGO solutions to the poverty problem with China.” As I have written before, WOW! Philippines. Poch Suzara
Terrible Sight To See
It is a terrible sight to see: - strong and healthy grown-up men and women falling on their knees praying to the Lord for the forgiveness of their sins and crimes. They take attention away from the Almighty who is also trying to listen to the prayers of hungry children, the weak and the poor, the sick and the dying, not to mention the mediocre victims of religious insanity in the Philippines.
In the meantime, in God’s kingdom is the power of love. In the devil’s kingdom is the power of hate. In man’s kingdom, however, is the power of timidity. Combined the three kingdoms together and they each add up to the kingdom of universal stupidity. Poch Suzara
The War Against Poverty
The trouble with the war against poverty is that there seems to be no end to it. Human misery is never defeated. In fact, thanks to the pretentious drama of the rich Filipinos waging a so-called war against poverty – poor people throughout the Philippines are multiplying and replenishing at the rate of almost two million babies a year. Thanks to Catholic teachings in our schools, such as: “blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
I said it before, I say it again: it is time, for the sake of the economy, and especially for the sake of social sanity, that we should, instead, wage a war not against poverty, but a war against the teachings that maintains the wealth, power, and glory of Christianity in the Philippines. Poch Suzara
The Formula
Here’s the best formula for human stupidity to last as long as infinity: always be satisfied with your opinion about anything. Always be proud of what you already know so dearly. Never change your mind. Do not bother to learn anything new. In other words, do not think! Do not read! Do not ask intelligent questions; just be contented with the stupid answers. Just continue to believe what your religious teachers frightened you to believe when you were a little boy or a little girl in school.Indeed, never mind intellectual honesty; just have faith in divinity. If, at your age today, you are still frightened by such sacred lies, then you might as well also admit that you are a religious as well as a superstitious - believer devoid of a precious mentality, if not bereft of human dignity. Poch Suzara
Courage
Courage is not needed in the struggle against non-existing entity like the one called Divine Grace. On the contrary, courage is precisely needed in the struggle to attain health and wealth and happiness, here and now, for the Human Race.Poch Suzara
Jesus Admonished
Sell all you have and distribute to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven. I ask: If what truly matters were only treasures in heaven, what do the poor gain from those who have given them? The misery of the poor is not due to the laws of nature. It is due to faith. Indeed, the silly faith that never ceases to preach: - blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. In the meantime, both the rich and the poor alike all want to go to heaven. Nobody, however, wants to die. Poch Suzara
Filipino Education
What is wrong with our teachers in school and our professors in college? Don’t these professionals recognize the most urgent problems of our country – food, energy, population explosion, the filth and poverty, resources, ecology, climate, the problem of the aged, the backwardness of our cities and provinces, the need for productive, rewarding work – can never be resolved with the same recycled prayers said daily by our politicians in government? The same cheap politicians, like Marcos and his cronies then, who stole the Philippine government away from the Filipino people?
During Martial Law years, Marcos got to be a dictator. He was installed as our ruler. He was morally and financially supported by the military-industrial-university complex of the USA. Among the most prominent of his enemies were Max Soliven and Ninoy Aquino. Both jailed by Marcos, they nevertheless became famous for their anti-Marcos activities. To think that the enemies of Marcos were the same men and women who were products of the same system of education that Marcos himself enjoyed too during his academic years in the Philippines. The same system of education that is always maintained and sustained by the powers-that-be to keep our society stagnant under mediocrity rather than be developing with freedom under science and technology. Indeed, in this only Christian country in Asia, our leaders die not for love of country, but for love and faith in Jesus. The same Jesus who was born not in the Philippines, but supposedly born in a Jewish town in Israel some two thousand years ago that today is not even a Christian country. Poch Suzara
During Martial Law years, Marcos got to be a dictator. He was installed as our ruler. He was morally and financially supported by the military-industrial-university complex of the USA. Among the most prominent of his enemies were Max Soliven and Ninoy Aquino. Both jailed by Marcos, they nevertheless became famous for their anti-Marcos activities. To think that the enemies of Marcos were the same men and women who were products of the same system of education that Marcos himself enjoyed too during his academic years in the Philippines. The same system of education that is always maintained and sustained by the powers-that-be to keep our society stagnant under mediocrity rather than be developing with freedom under science and technology. Indeed, in this only Christian country in Asia, our leaders die not for love of country, but for love and faith in Jesus. The same Jesus who was born not in the Philippines, but supposedly born in a Jewish town in Israel some two thousand years ago that today is not even a Christian country. Poch Suzara
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Merry Christmas
For this Christmas, I invite my relatives to please give not our children toys that are deadly and destructive. Instead, we should give them values to read; especially provocative ideas and beliefs that are both lively and constructive. In this way, our children will all grow up to celebrate the birth of social sanity, and no longer be celebrating the birth anniversary of a Jewish baby supposedly born in a Jewish town in Israel some 2,000 years ago that today is not even a Christian country.
In fact, for this Christmas, I highly recommend that you all read a great book: - WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE by Bishop John Shelby Spong. He clearly explained how religion today is tearing itself apart externally as it collapses internally.
As an atheist, I greatly admire Bishop John Spong; especially for his intellectual courage. Indeed, he had the courage to openly admit: “I have no interest in a system of rewards and punishments. I do not see the purpose of life after death to be that of motivating behavior in the here and now. I can live without sense of heaven as a place of reward or hell as a place of punishment.” Poch Suzara
In fact, for this Christmas, I highly recommend that you all read a great book: - WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE by Bishop John Shelby Spong. He clearly explained how religion today is tearing itself apart externally as it collapses internally.
As an atheist, I greatly admire Bishop John Spong; especially for his intellectual courage. Indeed, he had the courage to openly admit: “I have no interest in a system of rewards and punishments. I do not see the purpose of life after death to be that of motivating behavior in the here and now. I can live without sense of heaven as a place of reward or hell as a place of punishment.” Poch Suzara
Atheistic Contribution
The greatest contribution to the cause of atheism any atheist can make is to declare himself an atheist; especially to the community of believers at large. Proudly and happily, I have made such a contribution. In fact, more than I care to count, I have often publicly declared to the world at large that, just like each and every one else, I too was born an atheist, and that I have no need to promise that one day, whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, I will die as an atheist too. Indeed, what beliefs could any one hold or what disbeliefs could any one embrace after death? Unless of course you are still silly enough to believe that a silly divinity has gifted you with a silly soul that will enjoy immortality as endless as the infinity of human stupidity? Poch Suzara
Blood Is Thicker Than Water
Blood is thicker than water. Not, however, in the Philippines. Not a single one of the blood relatives of Rizal, ( even up to this 21st century ) stood up to defend this great man’s high moral character as a Filipino, or stood up to defend his deep scientific intellect as an Asian. Just like all of my timid friends and relatives, they too have been duly frightened by the threats of hell-fire as taught to them to believe by the silly priesthood industry for the glory of social and political insanity in this God-forsaken country. Poch Suzara
A Korean Executive
Says he is very optimistic about the future of the Philippine economy because of the rich natural resources and beautiful tourism destinations.
For my part, I should wish to share that optimism with Min Byung-il, Korean professor and editor. However, in view of the same traditional stuff still taught to our children in our schools, colleges, and universities – that there is a better world to come after death – indeed, the teaching of silly, if not stupid theology – the Philippines in the modern world of science and technology will continue to remain in the backwaters of Asia especially in the race for growth as a people and maturity as a nation. Poch Suzara
For my part, I should wish to share that optimism with Min Byung-il, Korean professor and editor. However, in view of the same traditional stuff still taught to our children in our schools, colleges, and universities – that there is a better world to come after death – indeed, the teaching of silly, if not stupid theology – the Philippines in the modern world of science and technology will continue to remain in the backwaters of Asia especially in the race for growth as a people and maturity as a nation. Poch Suzara
Shuffling Ideas and Beliefs
Each time I shuffle ideas and beliefs, I can’t help but experience philosophical orgasm. Each time, however, I find myself shuffling a deck of cards playing poker with my highly educated Catholic friends, I feel like experiencing some sort of a mediocre spasm. Poch Suzara
Useless Prayer
Many people still pray. From infancy to senility they continue to believe in the power of prayer. Unfortunately, God - the Father, could not answer the prayer of God - the Son. Indeed, Jesus, crucified on the cross, prayed out loud: My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Well, why couldn’t Jesus as a God himself, answer His own prayer? Jesus was obviously just bragging to high heavens when He declared: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Poor Jesus, the Son of God, a bunch of superstitious primitives ( created in the image and likeness of His Father God ) managed to get Jesus crucified on a piece of wood? John 14:6. Poch Suzara
Jesus in Islam
Here’s a clear example of what most religious believers know not what exactly they are talking about: - “People have committed horrible atrocities in the name of Jesus Christ, from the inquisitions to the slaying of abortionists. However, it is my position that it is not possible to justify these actions from the teachings of Christ Himself. Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus teach that one should kill for the sake of the Gospel, the Kingdom of God, or to defend the honor of Jesus Himself.”
Please open your bible and read carefully the following verses. And if you still believe that such verses have ever inspired peace on earth and goodwill to all men, then my dear reader, what hopes have we for local peace under global tranquility as inspired by religious insanity?
Matt. 10:34-35 “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword,” “For I am come to set a
Man at variance against his father, and daughter against her mother.”
Luke 14:26 “ If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, and yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 19:27 “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them for me.”
Now please open the holy Koran. It clearly says that anybody who believes that Jesus was divine—as all real Catholics must—will spend eternity in hell (Koran 5:71-75; 19:30-38).
The Catholic Pope recently admitted that he has the highest respect for Islam. What a sanctimonious booboo. It is like admitting that he has the highest respect for what’s written in the Koran – the bible of Islam. A pontifical hogwash, I dare say! Poch Suzara
Please open your bible and read carefully the following verses. And if you still believe that such verses have ever inspired peace on earth and goodwill to all men, then my dear reader, what hopes have we for local peace under global tranquility as inspired by religious insanity?
Matt. 10:34-35 “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword,” “For I am come to set a
Man at variance against his father, and daughter against her mother.”
Luke 14:26 “ If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, and yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 19:27 “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them for me.”
Now please open the holy Koran. It clearly says that anybody who believes that Jesus was divine—as all real Catholics must—will spend eternity in hell (Koran 5:71-75; 19:30-38).
The Catholic Pope recently admitted that he has the highest respect for Islam. What a sanctimonious booboo. It is like admitting that he has the highest respect for what’s written in the Koran – the bible of Islam. A pontifical hogwash, I dare say! Poch Suzara
Our Newspaper Editors
They easily turn to lies and falsehoods according to the wishes of profiteering newspaper publishers because they fear losing their employment. They go against their own convictions and pervert the truth in order to sell more garbage for the readers to believe in as something sacred or trustworthy. They create spectacular fairy tales with their pens. Mostly recycled gimcrackery that continue to poison our sense of humanity. Indeed, the print media in the Philippines has more to do with the dead uniformity of beliefs than it should be about lively ideas flowing in and out of the free market of ideas. Poch Suzara
Exams for US Citizenship
It is the easiest of written and oral test. Any stupid boy of 10 can correctly answer all the mediocre questions asked by a US Immigration official before he can duly qualify you to become a naturalized citizen of the USA. As a matter of fact, it is not important to be a well-informed American citizen anywhere in America. What’s important, however, is to be a member of either the Republican party or the Democratic party – both as one and the same old political party that have remained always in power and in charge of the government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich in America. Poch Suzara
The History of the USA
Most Americans do not know that Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah use to be part of Mexico. During the Mexican-American war, we murdered Mexicans on their own soil and grabbed their land away from them to widen US territories. Indeed, we were neither happy nor contented with the land we grabbed away from the American Indians. We needed parts of Mexico too. Trouble is, most Americans are only familiar, if at all, with conservative history written by conservative American historians. Thereby depriving themselves of the real history of the United States and its people. Well, understandably, most Americans feel more at home with conservatism. Bertrand Russell said it: “None of the higher mental processes are required for conservatism.” In the meantime, poverty among Mexican people today is sad and pathetic. But if you refuse to see it from historical context, you will never appreciate the thought that the truth is always beautiful; but historical lies are always despicable. Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#
A Political Scientist
Here’s political scientist named Henry Kissinger, who once proudly declared: “With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears.” What a stupid thing to declare! Kissinger himself had the greatest admiration for another silly fellow named Herman Kahn, who wrote a book called, ON THERMONUCLEAR WAR, in which Kahn explained that “it was possible to have a nuclear war without total destruction of the world, that people should not be so frightened of it.” These misguided fools, like most stupid fools in charge of the US government, have successfully kept the USA backward in the movement for world peace and global harmony.
Here, however, are the words from Bertrand Russell, a real scientist, and the greatest among the 20th century philosophers and mathematicians. In his letter to the editor of New York Times in May 25,1955, he wrote:
“Sir, It has just come to my notice that in your issue of May 19 you say that I celebrate my birthday “by renewing his demand for a ban on hydrogen bomb”. This is not accurate. I consider that a ban on the hydrogen bomb would do very little since it would be disregarded in the event of a major war. What I demand is a more difficult thing: a ban on war. The world has to realize that, whatever agreements may be concluded, a serous war probably means the end of the human race. Is it worth it? Yours faithfully, Bertrand Russell. Poch Suzara
Here, however, are the words from Bertrand Russell, a real scientist, and the greatest among the 20th century philosophers and mathematicians. In his letter to the editor of New York Times in May 25,1955, he wrote:
“Sir, It has just come to my notice that in your issue of May 19 you say that I celebrate my birthday “by renewing his demand for a ban on hydrogen bomb”. This is not accurate. I consider that a ban on the hydrogen bomb would do very little since it would be disregarded in the event of a major war. What I demand is a more difficult thing: a ban on war. The world has to realize that, whatever agreements may be concluded, a serous war probably means the end of the human race. Is it worth it? Yours faithfully, Bertrand Russell. Poch Suzara
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Happy Turkey Day
It's that time of year to thank the Indians for teaching the Pilgrims how to survive in the New World and then breaking their treaties, stealing their land and slaughtering them.
It is also that time of the year to thank the African slaves who worked for free in America for some 250 years especially on states called California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Utah, etc that our American government grabbed away from the government of Mexico.
In the meantime, as Howard Zinn wrote in his: - People’s History of the United States: “We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources we coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to us in the form of terrorism… Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children … In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would try to stop us? Who would hate? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth the American people need to be hear.” Poch Suzara
It is also that time of the year to thank the African slaves who worked for free in America for some 250 years especially on states called California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Utah, etc that our American government grabbed away from the government of Mexico.
In the meantime, as Howard Zinn wrote in his: - People’s History of the United States: “We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources we coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to us in the form of terrorism… Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children … In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would try to stop us? Who would hate? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth the American people need to be hear.” Poch Suzara
Monday, November 20, 2006
The US Constitution
Imagine the contents of the US constitution to have included not only the life of the indigenous people and the African Americans, and also included, specially, the women and children. What would the United States of America be today where all American citizens enjoy equal opportunity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Indeed, the majority of the citizens of the USA have no economic power, and therefore they neither enjoy nor possess political power such as those of the rich minority in America?
Of course, under great pretense and drama, as in the Preamble to the Constitution, it is “we, the people” who wrote that document, and not the fifty-five wealthy elites, racists, white, chauvinists, slave-owners whose class interest required a strong central government. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Langdon, Gilman, Gorham, King, Johnson, Sherman, Patterson, Dayton, Morris, Butler, et al – the Founding fathers of America had nothing to do with the establishment of freedom and democracy for the rest throughout the continent. In fact, the people did not even know that the US constitution was being written. The establishment of the United States of America was more about the hidden promotion of plutocracy, if not the protection of oligarchy – the government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
In his People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn wrote: “That use of government for class purposes, to serve the needs of the wealthy and the powerful, has continued throughout American history, down to the present day. It is disguised by language that suggests all of us - rich and poor and middle class – have a common interest.” Poch Suzara
Of course, under great pretense and drama, as in the Preamble to the Constitution, it is “we, the people” who wrote that document, and not the fifty-five wealthy elites, racists, white, chauvinists, slave-owners whose class interest required a strong central government. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Langdon, Gilman, Gorham, King, Johnson, Sherman, Patterson, Dayton, Morris, Butler, et al – the Founding fathers of America had nothing to do with the establishment of freedom and democracy for the rest throughout the continent. In fact, the people did not even know that the US constitution was being written. The establishment of the United States of America was more about the hidden promotion of plutocracy, if not the protection of oligarchy – the government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
In his People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn wrote: “That use of government for class purposes, to serve the needs of the wealthy and the powerful, has continued throughout American history, down to the present day. It is disguised by language that suggests all of us - rich and poor and middle class – have a common interest.” Poch Suzara
The USA
There is not an iota of doubt that the United States of America has ruled the world during the past 100 years. And if you look at the state of our world – its poverty, misery, hunger, squalor, diseases, malnutrition, and the slum areas throughout the world – there is only the United States of America to blame. Indeed, America is a nation mostly populated by wealthy families - the greedy, the selfish, the stupid, and the insane. Not contented with the continent their families have, by conquest, stolen away from the Indigenous people, they must also own and control the rest of the natural resources of the world. The US military-industrial-university complex owns and controls such natural resources in foreign countries. For my part, I am utterly ashamed to be called American. As there is, however, only one race in this world, called the human race, I’d rather consider myself as one decent member of the human race. Poch Suzara
Sunday, November 19, 2006
John Blanchard
In his book entitled HAS SCIENCE GOT RID OF GOD, John Blanchard writes: “Atheism’s creed is clear and cruel: we began as a fluke, we live as a farce, and we end as fertilizer.”
Obviously, this religiously blind follower does not read the contents of his own holy bible: “Thou art dust and to dust shalt thou return.” Gen. 3:19. What could be more of a fluke, a farce, and fertilizer than it is to be a piece of dust? Indeed, we live on a planet so tiny in that one million planets the size of earth can fit inside the sun. And the sun itself also comparatively so small in that 500 of our suns can be easily swallowed in one gulp by a bigger star called “Betelguese.”
But Blanchard also writes: “Strictly speaking, nobody is an atheist.” What a poor sap this Blanchard! He has yet to go and visit hospitals. Mothers have not ceased delivering babies that are strictly born atheists each and every day of the years. In fact 3 atheist babies are born each and every single second of the day and night somewhere in the world.
For my part, I am happy and proud to be born an atheist. I do not believe in the existence of a supernatural being called “God.” And if such a God exists, I do not care to love, worship, or adore such a supernatural monster!
Frightened teachers taught me to believe in God when I was a little boy in school. I believe teachers who are themselves victims of fright can never teach the truth. In the meantime, it is not the business of science to get rid of non-existing Beings. Religion has already done more than enough to prove that God does not exist by hating other religions. I rest my case! Poch Suzara, chairman, High-School Dropout Association of the Philippines.
Obviously, this religiously blind follower does not read the contents of his own holy bible: “Thou art dust and to dust shalt thou return.” Gen. 3:19. What could be more of a fluke, a farce, and fertilizer than it is to be a piece of dust? Indeed, we live on a planet so tiny in that one million planets the size of earth can fit inside the sun. And the sun itself also comparatively so small in that 500 of our suns can be easily swallowed in one gulp by a bigger star called “Betelguese.”
But Blanchard also writes: “Strictly speaking, nobody is an atheist.” What a poor sap this Blanchard! He has yet to go and visit hospitals. Mothers have not ceased delivering babies that are strictly born atheists each and every day of the years. In fact 3 atheist babies are born each and every single second of the day and night somewhere in the world.
For my part, I am happy and proud to be born an atheist. I do not believe in the existence of a supernatural being called “God.” And if such a God exists, I do not care to love, worship, or adore such a supernatural monster!
Frightened teachers taught me to believe in God when I was a little boy in school. I believe teachers who are themselves victims of fright can never teach the truth. In the meantime, it is not the business of science to get rid of non-existing Beings. Religion has already done more than enough to prove that God does not exist by hating other religions. I rest my case! Poch Suzara, chairman, High-School Dropout Association of the Philippines.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Religious Enterprises
Mike Velarde is now a billionaire. Each and every week, a large crowd of El Shaddai followers have been buying, what Mike Velarde has been selling: Jesus. This has been going on since twenty years ago. Imagine the hundreds of billions more that is the worth of Manalo’s Iglesia Ni Cristo selling to its faithful followers the same Jesus since a hundred years ago. Now imagine the vast wealth and power of the Catholic Church in a wider and bigger control of religion in the Philippines selling the same Jesus to millions of Filipinos every single day since five hundred years ago. And to think that these religious enterprises are able to stay profitable and successful as a business by nurturing fear and by catering to human ignorance. Also by promising that better life to come after death with God in heaven. And to think further that even our frightened newspaper editors and frightened columnists have not ceased assisting these religious leaders make tons of money by selling Jesus in the Philippines - the only Christian country in Asia. Poch Suzara
God’s Existence
It’s a good thing God is omni-absent. Otherwise, if God were omni-present, He would obviously be such a totally useless God. Look at the perpetual state of our world with God producing and directing its terrible daily mess year in and year out. Forget free will. It arrived too late. After all, God created the world in the beginning and then created free will in the end. What a messy set of divine priorities. And to think that the frightened theologians have assured us that that God is not only All-knowing, but also all-powerful! Poch Suzara
God’s Holy Bible
How wonderful of God to have inspired authors to write the holy bible.
How dreadful of God, however, not to have also inspired readers to read the holy bible. Indeed, most believers, followers, worshippers, and defenders of the faith have no knowledge whatsoever about what’s written in the Old and in the New Testament. They are just told that the bible is the holy word of God and therefore there is no need to read the holy book. Just listen to the holy word of the holy priest and your next holy life in the hereafter is guaranteed in the eternal holy paradise. Poch Suzara
How dreadful of God, however, not to have also inspired readers to read the holy bible. Indeed, most believers, followers, worshippers, and defenders of the faith have no knowledge whatsoever about what’s written in the Old and in the New Testament. They are just told that the bible is the holy word of God and therefore there is no need to read the holy book. Just listen to the holy word of the holy priest and your next holy life in the hereafter is guaranteed in the eternal holy paradise. Poch Suzara
Taxes
Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” Tax monies are indeed needed to pay for the salaries of the US Armed Forces; especially for the US Marines. They continue to keep the Black African Americans and the indigenous peoples of America to play no part in the so-called white American civilized society. Poch Suzara
Sadly in the Philippines
Democracy is not our only failure. We, ourselves, are also the failures and indeed, the losers. We ignored to educate ourselves. We forgot to develop our minds and hearts when we made ourselves independent and sovereign. We thought there was power in democracy; but now it is obvious, there is only power in theocracy. Indeed, in this 21st century, the majority of poor Filipinos without jobs nor a future are still occupied enjoying the freedom to pray to God to “give us this day our daily bread.” While the rich Filipinos are enjoying the freedom to pray to God to “Lead us not into temptation.” What has been the result of all these wonderful prayers to God? Millions of Filipino children living under subhuman conditions in the streets of our major cities. And they are taught to believe that God is all so merciful, so loving and so wonderful. Poch Suzara
Robin Hood in Government
We are told that there are a few officials in our government who are not really all that evil because they are like Robin Hood: One who stole money from the rich and gave it to the poor. This is really corruption at its height because, in the first place, Robin Hood never run for government office; and, in the second place, Robin Hood never enriched himself by stealing from the rich. He gave all the loot to the poor. He never gave a cut of the loot for himself. Robin Hood died a poor man. He never left behind tons of monies in the bank for his stupid sons and stupid daughters to carry on human stupidity as the rich traditional way of life. Poch Suzara
Question Everything
A freethinker is a person who forms his or her own opinion about religion independent of tradition, authority, or established belief. A Freethinker rejects dogmas and creeds. Upon weighing the evidence of religious tenets put forth by others, he rejects the supernatural and rely more on logic, if not with mathematics.
This is all fine and dandy. I have met freethinkers, however, who could not entertain doubts about what the US government is doing with bombs, death, and destruction in foreign countries like in Iraq today. The US government there with bullets and bombs converting the Muslim theocracy into a Christian democracy for the sake of the growth and expansion of the American economy.
For my part, as a freethinker, I question everything. Be it religion and the church, politics and government. I also question education and the university. After all, there is no such animal as the finality in human affairs; or, for that matter, the last word in the scientific search of the truth. If we must evolve as freethinkers and as truth-seekers, we should not shy away from questioning not only our catechism, but also our liberalism, patriotism, capitalism, communism, terrorism or whatever isms there are existing that keep our world drunk with lies and deceits on the one hand, and, on the other hand, sick with illusions and delusions. Poch Suzara
This is all fine and dandy. I have met freethinkers, however, who could not entertain doubts about what the US government is doing with bombs, death, and destruction in foreign countries like in Iraq today. The US government there with bullets and bombs converting the Muslim theocracy into a Christian democracy for the sake of the growth and expansion of the American economy.
For my part, as a freethinker, I question everything. Be it religion and the church, politics and government. I also question education and the university. After all, there is no such animal as the finality in human affairs; or, for that matter, the last word in the scientific search of the truth. If we must evolve as freethinkers and as truth-seekers, we should not shy away from questioning not only our catechism, but also our liberalism, patriotism, capitalism, communism, terrorism or whatever isms there are existing that keep our world drunk with lies and deceits on the one hand, and, on the other hand, sick with illusions and delusions. Poch Suzara
Sam Harris
I truly enjoyed reading Sam Harris’ book – THE END OF FAITH. As a man devoid of faith myself I now am wondering what will happen to my own book soon to be published entitled: THE BEGINNING OF FAITH? It is mostly about, to begin with, how faith gave birth to human stupidity here, gave growth to human stupidity there, and gave development to human stupidity everywhere. And to think the freethinkers of this world have not stopped praising Sam Harris’ book – as if human stupidity were not anymore the very stuff comprising infinity under the inspiration of divinity. Poch Suzara
Thou Shalt Not Covet
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife is a silly command. What if it is your wife who covets the next door neighbor wife specially when her husband is in church praying to God for peace on earth and goodwill to all men? Poch Suzara
Religion and Music
We are told that music and religion are the same in that it brings all the joys, if not all the moral virtues to the heart it enters. This conclusion, I say, is nothing but pure gimcrackery. Music never killed any one. On the other hand, religion has inspired people not only to slaughter each other for the glory of God, but has even inspired nations to wage war against the other nations for the sake of spreading the Word of God. Poch Suzara
What BRAIN DRAIN Problem Have WE
There are more than 20 million Filipinos ( mostly Filipinas ) with college education who are working today as skilled laborers and professionals in more than 190 foreign countries. They could not be educated enough to be self-employed. They could not be educated enough to develop the agricultural enterprises. They could not be educated enough to exploit the trillion of dollars worth of natural resources, such as our mining products, to help the Philippines grow into a healthy society and develop into a wealthy nation, especially with the help of science and technology. Indeed, we could not even to be educated enough to seriously practice family planning and birth control measures to curtail the spread of poverty in this God-forsaken brain-drained country of ours.
In the meantime, isn't it silly to believe that the so-called "BRAIN DRAIN" is such a difficult problem to solve in the Philippines? To begin with, what BRAIN DRAIN are you people talking about?
what brain have we in the schools, colleges, and universities more referred to as "teachers," and "professors?"
What brain have we in the churches and cathedrals more referred to as "priests, nuns, bishops, and cardinals?"
What brain have we in the courts of law more referred to as "lawyers and judges?"
What brain have we in the military more referred to as "generals and commodores?"
What brain have we in the government more referred to as "barangay captains, mayors, governors, congressmen, senators, vice-president, and president?"
Friday, November 10, 2006
Mathematics and Politics
“Mathematics,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.”
Nevertheless, I wish we had more mathematicians in government than we have politicians. Politicians always pretend to know what they are always talking about. They do not even know if the promises they made during the last election have already been delivered. They do know, however, that by making new promises, they will succeed winning in the upcoming election. And that is how stupid we all are in not knowing any better the kind of men that are installed to run our government. Poch Suzara
Nevertheless, I wish we had more mathematicians in government than we have politicians. Politicians always pretend to know what they are always talking about. They do not even know if the promises they made during the last election have already been delivered. They do know, however, that by making new promises, they will succeed winning in the upcoming election. And that is how stupid we all are in not knowing any better the kind of men that are installed to run our government. Poch Suzara
We Filipinos
If we could only begin accept the reality that God does not exist and therefore cannot provide – we Filipinos could begin to provide for ourselves and develop our own country not only to be the happiest and healthiest, but also to be the wealthiest country in Asia today. But then again, what do we really care about the sick condition of our country since we have been taught to believe that there is a better world to come after death with God in the next life? Meanwhile, death is only another filthy manifestation of the absurdity of human existence in the Philippines. Poch Suzara
Pinoys and Pinays
Millions of Pinoys without jobs and without a future are still in the habit of praying to God to “give us this day our daily bread.” In order to contribute also to the population explosion, millions of Pinays too pray daily to God to “lead us not into temptation.”
These are the same college-educated dummies who are more involved with corrupt politics married to corrupt religion that keep the Philippines rotten economically, rotten morally, and rotten socially. Consider the Philippines hopeless in a rotten foreign debt. And yet, it can afford to regularly conduct expensive military exercises together with the US Visiting Forces to be ready to fight its Asian neighbors, but more so to be prepared to kill fellow-Filipinos. Of course, we do not think of those who have already killed as Fellow-Filipinos struggling to survive in the provinces. We give them more dramatic description like “Islamic militants” or “communist insurgents.” Poch Suzara
These are the same college-educated dummies who are more involved with corrupt politics married to corrupt religion that keep the Philippines rotten economically, rotten morally, and rotten socially. Consider the Philippines hopeless in a rotten foreign debt. And yet, it can afford to regularly conduct expensive military exercises together with the US Visiting Forces to be ready to fight its Asian neighbors, but more so to be prepared to kill fellow-Filipinos. Of course, we do not think of those who have already killed as Fellow-Filipinos struggling to survive in the provinces. We give them more dramatic description like “Islamic militants” or “communist insurgents.” Poch Suzara
White Supremacy
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.
What a crock of biblical lies. If God so loved the world, he would not have begotten a white Son to inspire the US government especially the White House of President George W Bush to keep the world drunk with white supremacy. Poch Suzara
What a crock of biblical lies. If God so loved the world, he would not have begotten a white Son to inspire the US government especially the White House of President George W Bush to keep the world drunk with white supremacy. Poch Suzara
Change the World
No doubt, it is not possible to change the world. It is possible, however, to embarrass those gang of thugs, nay, homicidal maniacs who still have faith that foreign countries endowed with rich natural resources must be liberated for the sake of their freedom and democracy. Poch Suzara
Which God
I am told that: “We inhabit a universe vaster than human comprehension, older than human wanderings, more wondrous than human conception. And in the face of that, we do the natural thing. We ask questions and seek answers. That's not a denial of God. It is evidence of Him.”
I entirely agree. However, I ask: evidence of which God? There are so many of them, not to mention a goddess! In the meantime, the whole of mankind is still in its diapers sucking on a security lollipop called God. For my part, I thank God I am an atheist. Poch Suzara
I entirely agree. However, I ask: evidence of which God? There are so many of them, not to mention a goddess! In the meantime, the whole of mankind is still in its diapers sucking on a security lollipop called God. For my part, I thank God I am an atheist. Poch Suzara
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Believers in the USA
More than half of the American population believe Jesus is in heaven and that he will return to earth 50 years from now. This is a lesser tragedy. The greater tragedy, however, is that the candidates for the US Congress of both houses are derived mostly from these group of faithful believers in Jesus. They call themselves Republicans, or as the case may be - Democrats. Precisely the kind of people who need to believe. They do not care to find out or to know which is the exact opposite. Indeed, the kind of people who want a democracy, but do not care for the real values of liberty. Meanwhile, declare yourself liberated from theism and you could not land a job in the USA. Not even employed as a gofer in the White House. According to President George Bush senior, atheists are not patriots. Hell, they are not even citizens of the United States as America is one nation under God. Which God? Of course, the God known as the Almighty Dollar. Poch Suzara
White God
As a little boy at home and in school I was never taught to believe that God is black or brown or yellow or a red God. No, God is a white God. Jesus, the Son of God, is a white Son. Mary is the white Mother of God and Joseph the white husband of Mary. Even the inspired authors of the bible were all white men. As I alarmingly saw, however, how this world is getting more and more drunk with white supremacy, I slowly began to embrace the values of Atheism – its tranquility, its beauty, and its sanity. Poch Suzara
Jose Rizal
Think of it: If, just before he was executed by the order of Catholic Spanish friars, Rizal retracted from his series of attacks against the abuses of the church, Rizal could have been the first saint the Catholic Philippines ever canonized. After all, in the sainthood roster, virtually all of the saints of the church were first sinners, and then in the end found themselves kneeling down before the power of God, a.k.a. the Roman Catholic Church. For my part, after I am dead and I meet with God, this is what I will say: “God, when will you stop bragging about your supernatural power? Please go and visit the Philippines. Please God, see for yourself just exactly how, during these past five hundred years, Christianity has kept the Filipino mindless as a people still stuck under your divine wisdom; and has kept the Philippines heartless as a nation still stuck under your divine guidance.” In the meantime, we Filipinos could have been 500 years ahead of our time if it hadn't been for the Catholic Church dragging science and human dignity down the drain and executing our best thinkers by musketry like it did our Dr. Jose Rizal. A Filipino who wrote: “be careful, choose well, for this world is full of deceit, and deceivers” - cannot be anything but a great thinker. Rizal, indeed, was the greatest Filipino thinker. He had the courage to introduce social sanity in our society where the Catholic religion has only given birth to social stupidity. Poch Suzara
HISTORY
If we could only learn from history, it need not repeat itself. But since we do not even want to learn from the history of our own country, why should we want to learn from the history of the world? Before he died at the age of 98, struggling for human decency during most of long life, Bertrand Russell admonished: “One must care about the world one will never see.” Poch Suzara
Monday, November 06, 2006
What I love about America
In the present, I have the greatest love for all the cats and dogs in America. In a nuclear war, unfortunately, these house pets will all be reduced into cinders. And to think that no can accuse these animals of terrorism; or, for being a Republican or a Democrat creating not jobs for every American as the primary purpose of the US economy, but creating markets in foreign countries to buy “Made in America” weapons for war, death, and destruction. Only to prove that the USA is the one and only superpower among nations of the world.
Meanwhile, there is no greater crime than to scare mothers and fathers enough to send their sons off to war that need not be waged because there never was no real threat to begin with. To all you US soldiers fighting in Iraq today – you are all better off going home to your wives and children or to your mothers and fathers. Please stop fighting for and in behalf of the homicidal maniacs in charge of our government. It is no longer our government. It has already been stolen away from us – the American people – decades ago. Poch Suzara
Meanwhile, there is no greater crime than to scare mothers and fathers enough to send their sons off to war that need not be waged because there never was no real threat to begin with. To all you US soldiers fighting in Iraq today – you are all better off going home to your wives and children or to your mothers and fathers. Please stop fighting for and in behalf of the homicidal maniacs in charge of our government. It is no longer our government. It has already been stolen away from us – the American people – decades ago. Poch Suzara
Change for the Philippines
It has been suggested that the solution to the problems of our country is to change the Philippines and rename it the Republic of Maharlika. This suggestion, however, is so silly and childish. We have already changed the names of our streets. Nothing happened. In fact, our streets are as filthy and rotting as ever. Thanks to our reckless habits as drivers of imported motor vehicles. We have no respect for traffic rules and regulations that’s hardly enforced anyway. If there were hopes of redirecting the course of Philippines for growth and development as a nation, our women must first be spiritually educated. In this way, as well-informed and educated would-be mothers, they will produce children capable of mental growth and intellectual maturity, and therefore having children capable of developing as wholesome human beings of Asia.
Consider Poverty. It is a symptom. Slavery is the disease. Women in the Philippines are not enslaved because they are poor, they are poor because they are enslaved. Indeed, our women suffer the worse kind of slavery – the slavery of the mind and heart. The men behind the church and government continue to have authority over our women’s life dictating to them even as to what to do with their own reproductive system. Our women therefore produce babies without regard to moral or intellectual capacity as to what makes a family happy and united blessed with wanted, needed, and loved children. Thus, the 1.5 million babies born yearly in this country are mostly the product of sexual activity, if not pleasurable debauchery, and not the result of decent family planning or decent birth control measures, Therefore, instead of enhancing social sanity, we only have the cycle of slavery via the population explosion generating perpetual poverty.
In the meantime, after centuries of growing and developing, most Asian countries have already reached maturity. The Filipino, however, is still pretty much in its diapers. More in awe than ever with that infinite majesty more childishly known as the holy trinity. Indeed, this traditional business of loving white gods and white saints such as Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and loving other white bible characters such as Moses and David all have to be thrown out the window. Also, the business of believing that there is better white world to come after death in the hereafter is pure white hogwash. This is our country. The only country we have. Let us leave this country one day a better place than we found it. And if there is life with God in the hereafter, it should be our moral obligation to tell God that he should pay more attention to the dire social conditions of the Philippines - still poor and backward due to infantile beliefs in superstitious nonsense otherwise more popularly known as Judeo-Christian religion – the religion of the white race. Poch Suzara
Friday, November 03, 2006
Power of the US Government
If power of the US government were ever tamed, it could only mean peace not only in America, but peace in the world. The greatest contributor to the geo-political and military insanity worldwide has been and still is the US government. The same US government that has been hijacked away from the American people. Indeed, hijacked by the corporate criminals – the homicidal maniacs whose religion is called White Supremacy, and whose God is called the Almighty Dollar. Poch Suzara
War as Big Business
The U.S. government goes to war against foreign countries like in Iraq, and the US soldier faces adversaries with weapons or military technology that’s "Made in the USA." It was the same during the Vietnam War. The widening war on terrorism and accelerating weapons sales to coalition partners will only increase the likelihood of the boomerang effect that will continue to haunt us Americans at home and American citizens living abroad. Meanwhile, the weapons for the War against Terrorism like it was before called the War against Communism - have been and still are profitably “Made in the USA.”Indeed, God Bless America! Poch Suzara
Great Men of America
Jack Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X were tall and great leaders of the 20th century America. Each of these great men equally shared the same dream: To transform America into a real land of the free for African Americans; and, to transform America into a real home of the brave for all Americans. Under separate occasions, these great leaders were assassinated by homicidal maniacs working for the industrial-military-university complex. Indeed, the same complex that profits much from death and destruction. Its task is to inspire more hate and spread more violence everywhere to insure the growth and success of its war industry. Poch Suzara
First Refusal
In law, for the sake of fairness, and a matter of priority, there exist such a thing as the “right of the first refusal.”
In global affairs, however, when it comes to a government deciding to bomb other governments, the US government has “the right of the first refusal.” The US government loves war. It loves death and destruction, especially in foreign countries; and if need be, death and destruction right in American cities to justify the declaration of war against other countries in order to please the homicidal maniacs in charge of running the US government. Poch Suzara
In global affairs, however, when it comes to a government deciding to bomb other governments, the US government has “the right of the first refusal.” The US government loves war. It loves death and destruction, especially in foreign countries; and if need be, death and destruction right in American cities to justify the declaration of war against other countries in order to please the homicidal maniacs in charge of running the US government. Poch Suzara
Freethinkers
Freethinkers have the impression that stupidity in its infinity can only found in the subject of divinity. They refuse to freely think that stupidity can also be found in every other branch of knowledge, except perhaps in mathematics. Take, for instance, history. I have met freethinkers who take for granted that America is the greatest and wealthiest nation in the world in that people from all over the world want to migrate to America – the land of the free and a home of the brave; and, indeed, God’s country where the pot of gold is always boiling.
Ask, however, the indigenous peoples and the African Americans in America if they will agree with you. As a matter of historical fact, The United States of America was founded and established on two holocausts, that of the indigenous people slaughtered and their land grabbed away from them, and the millions of African people captured and enslaved and robbed of their time and energy to labor for free on such stolen properties eventually called the United States of America. Poch Suzara
Ask, however, the indigenous peoples and the African Americans in America if they will agree with you. As a matter of historical fact, The United States of America was founded and established on two holocausts, that of the indigenous people slaughtered and their land grabbed away from them, and the millions of African people captured and enslaved and robbed of their time and energy to labor for free on such stolen properties eventually called the United States of America. Poch Suzara
American Values
It is a sad reflection of American values when the majority of American citizens do not object to countless billions of dollars spent on strategic air missile defense system that may or not work and even more billions spent on studies that examine why they fail in protecting us from an enemy – who may or may not exist. Yet, many college-educated Americans vehemently object to a study of reparations – something that could specifically identity the injustices heaped upon Black Americans as slaves in these United States for more than 250 years and its after effects for more than 130 years.
In the meantime, the dumbstruck in America, especially those ignorant of what exactly the US government is doing to foreign countries like in Iraq in the present, or in Vietnam in the past, asked: “What has America done to deserve a 9/11? Poch Suzara
In the meantime, the dumbstruck in America, especially those ignorant of what exactly the US government is doing to foreign countries like in Iraq in the present, or in Vietnam in the past, asked: “What has America done to deserve a 9/11? Poch Suzara
Revenge
More than 3,000,000 people, especially women and children, not to mention old men and old women were killed in the Vietnam War. Killed by the French colonizers, then the Japanese invaders, and then the American intruders. After some 30 years of bloody fighting for love of country and love of fellow-citizens, the Vietnamese people finally defeated and threw all invaders, colonizers, and intruders out of Vietnamese soil.
After the Vietnamese people cleaned up the mess created by long years of war, did the Vietnamese government ever called for revenge? To liberate and to start bombing France, Japan, and the United States of America responsible for death and destruction in Vietnam? As a matter of fact, the Vietnamese people are among the most decent and most civilized people on this earth. As an American citizen, I salute the Vietnamese people. They have much to teach the world on how to live as a nation with self-respect and dignity right in their own land and why a people must work for love of country and must work for the sake of its own good future.
In the meantime, intellectual pigmies continue to ask: What has America done to deserve 9/11? They have yet to ask a deeper question: what has Vietnam done to deserve the death and destruction by the US Air Force – bombing not only their farms and schools and hospitals but also destroying Vietnamese cities day after day for years? Indeed, more “Made in America” bombs were dropped in Vietnam than during the entire Second World War bombings in Europe and Southeast Asia put together. It is the same American horror happening today in Iraq while we Americans continue to insist that America is God’s country. Poch Suzara
After the Vietnamese people cleaned up the mess created by long years of war, did the Vietnamese government ever called for revenge? To liberate and to start bombing France, Japan, and the United States of America responsible for death and destruction in Vietnam? As a matter of fact, the Vietnamese people are among the most decent and most civilized people on this earth. As an American citizen, I salute the Vietnamese people. They have much to teach the world on how to live as a nation with self-respect and dignity right in their own land and why a people must work for love of country and must work for the sake of its own good future.
In the meantime, intellectual pigmies continue to ask: What has America done to deserve 9/11? They have yet to ask a deeper question: what has Vietnam done to deserve the death and destruction by the US Air Force – bombing not only their farms and schools and hospitals but also destroying Vietnamese cities day after day for years? Indeed, more “Made in America” bombs were dropped in Vietnam than during the entire Second World War bombings in Europe and Southeast Asia put together. It is the same American horror happening today in Iraq while we Americans continue to insist that America is God’s country. Poch Suzara
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Open Letter To President Bush
Dear Mr. President
Wars in the past have been waged to end all wars – to make the world “safe for democracy.” Nothing happened except the seeds of hatred and violence only replanted for future wars. In this century of modern weapons for wholesale slaughter, the choice is either Man stops the future of war or war stops the future of Man.
In the past, many people of Vietnam, especially women and children, were killed over nothing. In the present, many people of Iraq, especially women and children, are killed over nothing. Yesterday, it was called war against Communism. Today, it is called war against Terrorism. What’s the difference? Communism and Terrorism are both the black sheep children of Capitalism! Indeed, thanks to Capitalism rich nations get richer, and poor nations get poorer. Meanwhile, If war must be declared against terror, why not fight those terrorists hiding not in Iraq or elsewhere under a periscope, but only those more deadly ones found under a microscope?
The United Nations should help Iraq solve its own problems. The Iraqis should choose for themselves the kind of government that suits them. Iraqis don’t want a Christian democracy. They want a Muslim theocracy. So leave them alone to grow up to confront the evils of their own religion. We too, in America, must also grow up to confront the evils of our own religion. Indeed, no other belief has spread more terror to humanity than the belief that religion comes from divinity. The Christians, Jews, and the Muslims have not ceased hating and cutting each other’s throat in God’s name. Meanwhile, the US government is wasting billions of dollars yearly for its military growth and expansion. To prevent not future violence and degradation, but only to frighten other nations into getting more involved in the welter of organized hatreds and threats of mutual extermination. North Korea recently proved that a nuclear bomb is easy to make and exciting to test. North Korea is now a new member of the family of nuclear-armed States. In the years to come, other nations will also manufacture their own weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, the United Nations and its Peacekeeping Forces have yet to dismiss the paradoxical theory that nations can only remain alive and united by preparing to bomb each other.
Sir, as the head of our government, perhaps you could, instead, look into the injustices of freedom and the tragedy of democracy in American history. Your high office should fully support the already established commission to examine the institution of slavery, and subsequently the racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of that discrimination on living African-Americans. Millions of slaves involved may all be dead; however, legal persons remain alive, particularly governments and corporations including universities that benefited from slavery. Despite the passage of time, these beneficiaries of slavery are still among us and should face legal complicity. The US government and other institutions benefited from crimes against humanity. They should be held responsible for damages. The reparation due to Black Americans is not about charity. It is about justice and social sanity. It is about freedom and democracy. It is about human dignity.
I refer you to Raymond A. Winbush’s, editor of: SHOULD AMERICA PAY? Quote: - “Black Africa sacrificed 40 to 100 million men, women, and children to the slave trade; 15 to 25 million survived. Indeed, there is little recorded in human history to compare with the sheer horror of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Human beings were chained together, and then piled on top of each other, where they had to lie and sleep in their own waste as well as that of the person next to them for weeks on end. A vicious cycle of disease ensued as African people huddled together crying, screaming, vomiting, and defecating uncontrollably. Along this human chain of misery, some were dead and some alive, the waft of rotting bodies adding to the stench. There was no escape from disease. The captives suffered from dysentery, diarrhea, eye infections, malaria, malnutrition, scurvy, worms, yaws, and typhoid fever. Slaves also suffered from friction sores, ulcers, injuries and wounds resulting from accidents, fights, and whippings . . . The longer the journey, the more the human cargo was to die in route. One can only imagine the state of mental health for those trapped in this living nightmare. Panic, anxiety, hysteria prevailed. Pure rage alternated with a deep collective depression, manifesting in mutiny and onboard rebellions. For various reasons – too much cargo, too little food, to eliminate evidence of being a slave ship African people were oftentimes thrown out by the crew into shark-infested waters. Long line of chained captives sometimes jumped overboard together, committing group suicide, and mothers threw their babies overboard. The three hundred years of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade amounted to a system of death and destruction beyond human comprehension and convention unparalleled in the annals of history. Imagine, if not already separated, families were torn apart – husbands from wives, children from their parents and siblings. It was common practice for them to be sold to different plantations in different states, never to be reunited again…It destroyed the lives of millions of innocent black Africans.” Unquote. Of course, nobody called this evil “capitalism.” Instead, everybody called it “freedom and democracy.”
Mr. President, please stop wasting our precious tax dollars to promote the evils of hate and poverty. Your foreign policies are only giving birth to more terrorism to haunt us in the future. The budget for the US military should be reduced considerably for humanitarian purposes. Such as for education and health programs for the African-Americans and millions of other Americans, specially the senior citizens with social security income surviving from hand to mouth existence. The U.S. military adventures overseas contribute nothing to our national security or prosperity or even to global sanity. Bertrand Russell wrote: “You can bomb the world into pieces, but you can’t bomb the world into peace.” Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has manufactured, sold, exported, or given away armaments worth more than a trillion dollars to foreign countries. The Philippines as one recipient country of such armaments got energized not with the science of life and reconstruction, but only with the religion of death and destruction. Meanwhile, for the sake of the Philippine-American friendship, most Filipinos living in hate and in poverty continue to justify the killings of fellow-Filipinos with weapons “Made in America.”
Sir, please give world peace a chance. Please retool and transform our destructive war economy into a constructive peace economy. As the president of the most powerful nation in the world, you can make the sanity and the beauty of peace shine not only throughout the world but also make it brilliantly visible in the hearts and minds of every Black, White, Yellow, Brown, and Red American. As a consequence, we, the American people, should and must be able to utter these words without shame: - “In America, we have justice for all. In America, no one is deprived of life, liberty, security and prosperity. Indeed, in America, without exception, we all enjoy the colorful norms of human dignity.
Yours faithfully
Poch Suzara
Bertrand Russell Society, Philippines
San Lorenzo Village, Makati City
October 22, 2006
Wars in the past have been waged to end all wars – to make the world “safe for democracy.” Nothing happened except the seeds of hatred and violence only replanted for future wars. In this century of modern weapons for wholesale slaughter, the choice is either Man stops the future of war or war stops the future of Man.
In the past, many people of Vietnam, especially women and children, were killed over nothing. In the present, many people of Iraq, especially women and children, are killed over nothing. Yesterday, it was called war against Communism. Today, it is called war against Terrorism. What’s the difference? Communism and Terrorism are both the black sheep children of Capitalism! Indeed, thanks to Capitalism rich nations get richer, and poor nations get poorer. Meanwhile, If war must be declared against terror, why not fight those terrorists hiding not in Iraq or elsewhere under a periscope, but only those more deadly ones found under a microscope?
The United Nations should help Iraq solve its own problems. The Iraqis should choose for themselves the kind of government that suits them. Iraqis don’t want a Christian democracy. They want a Muslim theocracy. So leave them alone to grow up to confront the evils of their own religion. We too, in America, must also grow up to confront the evils of our own religion. Indeed, no other belief has spread more terror to humanity than the belief that religion comes from divinity. The Christians, Jews, and the Muslims have not ceased hating and cutting each other’s throat in God’s name. Meanwhile, the US government is wasting billions of dollars yearly for its military growth and expansion. To prevent not future violence and degradation, but only to frighten other nations into getting more involved in the welter of organized hatreds and threats of mutual extermination. North Korea recently proved that a nuclear bomb is easy to make and exciting to test. North Korea is now a new member of the family of nuclear-armed States. In the years to come, other nations will also manufacture their own weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, the United Nations and its Peacekeeping Forces have yet to dismiss the paradoxical theory that nations can only remain alive and united by preparing to bomb each other.
Sir, as the head of our government, perhaps you could, instead, look into the injustices of freedom and the tragedy of democracy in American history. Your high office should fully support the already established commission to examine the institution of slavery, and subsequently the racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of that discrimination on living African-Americans. Millions of slaves involved may all be dead; however, legal persons remain alive, particularly governments and corporations including universities that benefited from slavery. Despite the passage of time, these beneficiaries of slavery are still among us and should face legal complicity. The US government and other institutions benefited from crimes against humanity. They should be held responsible for damages. The reparation due to Black Americans is not about charity. It is about justice and social sanity. It is about freedom and democracy. It is about human dignity.
I refer you to Raymond A. Winbush’s, editor of: SHOULD AMERICA PAY? Quote: - “Black Africa sacrificed 40 to 100 million men, women, and children to the slave trade; 15 to 25 million survived. Indeed, there is little recorded in human history to compare with the sheer horror of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Human beings were chained together, and then piled on top of each other, where they had to lie and sleep in their own waste as well as that of the person next to them for weeks on end. A vicious cycle of disease ensued as African people huddled together crying, screaming, vomiting, and defecating uncontrollably. Along this human chain of misery, some were dead and some alive, the waft of rotting bodies adding to the stench. There was no escape from disease. The captives suffered from dysentery, diarrhea, eye infections, malaria, malnutrition, scurvy, worms, yaws, and typhoid fever. Slaves also suffered from friction sores, ulcers, injuries and wounds resulting from accidents, fights, and whippings . . . The longer the journey, the more the human cargo was to die in route. One can only imagine the state of mental health for those trapped in this living nightmare. Panic, anxiety, hysteria prevailed. Pure rage alternated with a deep collective depression, manifesting in mutiny and onboard rebellions. For various reasons – too much cargo, too little food, to eliminate evidence of being a slave ship African people were oftentimes thrown out by the crew into shark-infested waters. Long line of chained captives sometimes jumped overboard together, committing group suicide, and mothers threw their babies overboard. The three hundred years of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade amounted to a system of death and destruction beyond human comprehension and convention unparalleled in the annals of history. Imagine, if not already separated, families were torn apart – husbands from wives, children from their parents and siblings. It was common practice for them to be sold to different plantations in different states, never to be reunited again…It destroyed the lives of millions of innocent black Africans.” Unquote. Of course, nobody called this evil “capitalism.” Instead, everybody called it “freedom and democracy.”
Mr. President, please stop wasting our precious tax dollars to promote the evils of hate and poverty. Your foreign policies are only giving birth to more terrorism to haunt us in the future. The budget for the US military should be reduced considerably for humanitarian purposes. Such as for education and health programs for the African-Americans and millions of other Americans, specially the senior citizens with social security income surviving from hand to mouth existence. The U.S. military adventures overseas contribute nothing to our national security or prosperity or even to global sanity. Bertrand Russell wrote: “You can bomb the world into pieces, but you can’t bomb the world into peace.” Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has manufactured, sold, exported, or given away armaments worth more than a trillion dollars to foreign countries. The Philippines as one recipient country of such armaments got energized not with the science of life and reconstruction, but only with the religion of death and destruction. Meanwhile, for the sake of the Philippine-American friendship, most Filipinos living in hate and in poverty continue to justify the killings of fellow-Filipinos with weapons “Made in America.”
Sir, please give world peace a chance. Please retool and transform our destructive war economy into a constructive peace economy. As the president of the most powerful nation in the world, you can make the sanity and the beauty of peace shine not only throughout the world but also make it brilliantly visible in the hearts and minds of every Black, White, Yellow, Brown, and Red American. As a consequence, we, the American people, should and must be able to utter these words without shame: - “In America, we have justice for all. In America, no one is deprived of life, liberty, security and prosperity. Indeed, in America, without exception, we all enjoy the colorful norms of human dignity.
Yours faithfully
Poch Suzara
Bertrand Russell Society, Philippines
San Lorenzo Village, Makati City
October 22, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Pandora's Box
Was Pandora’s Box opened when Pope John Paul 11 issued a sweeping apology on March 12, 2000, for the errors of the Roman Catholic Church during the previous two thousand years, acknowledging intolerance and injustice towards Jews, women, indigenous peoples, immigrants, and the poor? What about in 1993 when the United States apologized for the participation by its military and diplomats in the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893? The United States also apologized for the internment of Japanese American citizens in Arizona during World War 11? What about in 1999, Australia acknowledged the “most blemished chapter in our national history,” and expressed its “deep and sincere regret that indigenous Australians suffered injustices under the practices of past generations, and for the hurt and trauma that many indigenous people continue to feel?
Since some 40 years already, why it is that calls by African Americans for apology and repayment for the years of unpaid labor as slaves and underpaid labor for generations and continuing to this day have been pushed aside? Yet, the reaction of most white Americans is that there was nothing beastly or inhuman when the United States legalized slavery from 1619 to 1865 which was followed by another century of legalized racial discrimination! What white historical nonsense is this? We have yet to ask: What would the United States Constitution look like if it had been drafted to meet the needs of the enslaved Africans and their descendants?
Consider African nations are given loans by Western governments, banks, and international institutions, with no recognition that the wealth that allows the latter to make those loans is partly built on wealth removed from the former during centuries of slavery and colonialism. Indeed, African labor and looted African wealth built strong Western economies. Look at Africa as a continent today! Look are its people – specially its women and children!
Slavery was not romantic; it was evil, ferocious, brutal, and corrupting in all aspects. Within a period of 350 years, it was developed in its greatest degree of degradation in the United States of America responsible for the greatest crime in world history - the Tansatlantic Slave Trade.
For further information, please read one of the greatest books published in the history of book publishing: SHOULD AMERICA PAY? edited by Raymond A. Winbush, Ph.D. Poch Suzara
Since some 40 years already, why it is that calls by African Americans for apology and repayment for the years of unpaid labor as slaves and underpaid labor for generations and continuing to this day have been pushed aside? Yet, the reaction of most white Americans is that there was nothing beastly or inhuman when the United States legalized slavery from 1619 to 1865 which was followed by another century of legalized racial discrimination! What white historical nonsense is this? We have yet to ask: What would the United States Constitution look like if it had been drafted to meet the needs of the enslaved Africans and their descendants?
Consider African nations are given loans by Western governments, banks, and international institutions, with no recognition that the wealth that allows the latter to make those loans is partly built on wealth removed from the former during centuries of slavery and colonialism. Indeed, African labor and looted African wealth built strong Western economies. Look at Africa as a continent today! Look are its people – specially its women and children!
Slavery was not romantic; it was evil, ferocious, brutal, and corrupting in all aspects. Within a period of 350 years, it was developed in its greatest degree of degradation in the United States of America responsible for the greatest crime in world history - the Tansatlantic Slave Trade.
For further information, please read one of the greatest books published in the history of book publishing: SHOULD AMERICA PAY? edited by Raymond A. Winbush, Ph.D. Poch Suzara
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Nicole
She said: “There is no justice in the Philippines, and it’s the reason criminals are running the place.” The victim of rape by a US Marine while fellow-Marines cheered him at his job, Nicole further said: “The justice department is the top criminal.”
It seems Nicole’s team of prosecutors in court are more on the side of the rapist than on the victim. ( See Manila Standard Today ( Oct. 11, 2006 ).
For my part, I have the greatest respect and admiration for Nicole. What a rarity of a Filipina. She is so courageous and so principled. If only more Filipinos had a mother like a Nicole; had a wife like a Nicole; had a sister like a Nicole; had a daughter like a Nicole; had a niece like a Nicole, and indeed had a teacher in school like a Nicole – the Philippines would be the most decent and the most developed country in Asia today.And to think that most Filipinos, specially those with college education in this country have other more important values and beliefs. Such as in this God-forsaken country, these college educated dummies would rather be waiting for the Second coming of Jesus Christ, if not looking forward to a better life to come in the hereafter after death in the Kingdom of God. Poch Suzara
It seems Nicole’s team of prosecutors in court are more on the side of the rapist than on the victim. ( See Manila Standard Today ( Oct. 11, 2006 ).
For my part, I have the greatest respect and admiration for Nicole. What a rarity of a Filipina. She is so courageous and so principled. If only more Filipinos had a mother like a Nicole; had a wife like a Nicole; had a sister like a Nicole; had a daughter like a Nicole; had a niece like a Nicole, and indeed had a teacher in school like a Nicole – the Philippines would be the most decent and the most developed country in Asia today.And to think that most Filipinos, specially those with college education in this country have other more important values and beliefs. Such as in this God-forsaken country, these college educated dummies would rather be waiting for the Second coming of Jesus Christ, if not looking forward to a better life to come in the hereafter after death in the Kingdom of God. Poch Suzara
Slavery in America
It’s an American horror based upon historical facts. White slave owners created wealth using Black slaves, who were, of course, forbidden from creating any wealth themselves. The economic differential that resulted from slavery continues today. Slaves, for the most part, were forbidden from establishing stable families, and the legacy from that deprivation is still seen in African American communities today. . . How does one calculate the cost of inner-city ghettos, of poor education, of the stigma of perceived racial inferiority? The severity of slavery’s injury is far more profound than any cash transfer will be able to reverse.
To my Black American friends, both living and dead, who received no justice for being captured, enslaved, colonized, and discriminated against, your struggles and sufferings will never be forgotten. As a white Asian-American myself, I will never cease to remind my white American friends and relatives of these historical American horror. Poch Suzara
To my Black American friends, both living and dead, who received no justice for being captured, enslaved, colonized, and discriminated against, your struggles and sufferings will never be forgotten. As a white Asian-American myself, I will never cease to remind my white American friends and relatives of these historical American horror. Poch Suzara
Capitalism
In 1919, twenty years after the invention of the automobile, there were 108 automobile manufacturers in the United States. Ten years later the number had whittled down to the 44 U.S. auto companies. By the end of the fifties it had dropped to 8, and then down to 2 U.S. car makers. Today, the stocks of the biggest and the only 2 American car makers are owned mostly by foreigners. That is the beauty of Capitalism according the U.S. government and its guidelines for the car manufacturing industry. In other words, never mind the jobs lost as long as somebody, anybody, even those who are not American citizens make tons of money.
For further information, please read Michael Moore’s DUDE, WHERE'S MY COUNTRY?
Poch Suzara
For further information, please read Michael Moore’s DUDE, WHERE'S MY COUNTRY?
Poch Suzara
The Bible and Astronomy
The bible was written at a time when people believed that the sun moved around a flat earth, and that the earth was located at the center of the universe.
The science of astronomy discovered that earth is round, and it is just one mote of dust, an insignificant particle floating aimlessly in space. The earth is just one of the 400 million planets and stars that comprise the Milky Way galaxy of which is just one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies existing in space and in time called the Cosmos.
It is time to throw your holy bible out the window. It was written by inspired authors who were neither useful nor truthful. Only fearful and dreadful and faithful. Poch Suzara
The science of astronomy discovered that earth is round, and it is just one mote of dust, an insignificant particle floating aimlessly in space. The earth is just one of the 400 million planets and stars that comprise the Milky Way galaxy of which is just one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies existing in space and in time called the Cosmos.
It is time to throw your holy bible out the window. It was written by inspired authors who were neither useful nor truthful. Only fearful and dreadful and faithful. Poch Suzara
Existence
Existence is all that there is. We must take existence as a starting point. We cannot step outside of existence. There is nothing outside or beyond existence. We cannot step outside time or space or step outside the universe. We are in it. It is not possible to know of anything that lives outside of existence. We cannot start with a God and then deduce existence. We know nothing of God as God is unknowable. We must first start with what we know, and deduce existence from the already existing universe. In the ultimate analysis, we can only conclude that there is no God to have created existence since existence has already been around way before God entered into the messy picture. Poch Suzara
Peace On Earth
The highest ambition of a Christian is not to go to heaven, but to expect the non-Christians to go to hell. Indeed, if peace on earth and goodwill to all men were to become a reality one day, men must begin to realize that organized religions have always been a disgrace, and not a grace to the whole of the human race. In the ultimate analysis, for the sake of peace in this world, far more precious than the freedom of religion is freedom from religion. Poch Suzara
Security for the Insecurity
The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from being abusive to any one, especially young people. I was myself abused in school as a little boy both physically and emotionally. I found it then hard to accept the beauty of Christian values and beliefs. Happily, I managed to escape. I ended up to be a high-school dropout. I came to the conclusion that it is not only unproductive, but utterly destructive for religion to provide believers with emotional security after having been frightened to believe with the emotional insecurity that it creates.
For my part, I would rather have a developing mind clearly answerable to the here and the now. I have no need of a mediocre soul vaguely answerable later to some one vague called a God existing way out there. I’d rather stand with self-respect and look at my life here and now in this world.Poch Suzara
For my part, I would rather have a developing mind clearly answerable to the here and the now. I have no need of a mediocre soul vaguely answerable later to some one vague called a God existing way out there. I’d rather stand with self-respect and look at my life here and now in this world.Poch Suzara
Reality
Philip K Dick wrote: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” How true. However, here is a ticklish problem: Science admits with all humility and honesty that it understands only 1 per cent of what actually constitutes reality. So, when it comes to reality, what is there really to believe? Poch Suzara
The Truth
The un-examined truth is not worth believing. In fact, in the ultimate analysis, there is no such thing as the truth. There is only the search of the truth. It is man’s greatest and most noble of professions.
Bertrand Russell said it all: “Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. Poch Suzara
Bertrand Russell said it all: “Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. Poch Suzara
Freed Slaves
When it finally freed the slaves, the United States provided no meaningful compensation to the former slaves for the value of their labor, nor did it provide them with the economic assets needed to compete with the white community in the marketplace. It stand to reason that the transfer of wealth from those who benefited to those who still suffer because their ancestors were oppressed is the only way for a meaningful reconciliation. Indeed, until America’s white ruling class accepts the fact that the book never closes on massive unredressed social wrongs, we Americans can never claim that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Moreover, America can have no future as one people.
For further information, please read Randall Robinson’s recent book The Debt: What America Owes the Blacks – the enslavement of Blacks in America from 1619 to 1865 was “far and away the most heinous human rights crime visited upon any group of people in the world over the last five hundred years." He has explained in detail why we must look at the claims of the descendants of slaves as a form of property. Poch Suzara
For further information, please read Randall Robinson’s recent book The Debt: What America Owes the Blacks – the enslavement of Blacks in America from 1619 to 1865 was “far and away the most heinous human rights crime visited upon any group of people in the world over the last five hundred years." He has explained in detail why we must look at the claims of the descendants of slaves as a form of property. Poch Suzara
Sunday, October 08, 2006
To My Black American friends
As an Asian white American I stand by you in your struggles for the reparations due you as African Americans. This is a gigantic struggle. Please count me in as one individual in this part of the world rooting for you. I am totally on your side. I can hardly wait for the day when Black Americans will have tremendously decreased evils on American soil not with bombs, death and destruction, but with the power of logic, legal, and historical arguments advancing the brotherhood of man under peace on earth and goodwill to all men.
According to reputable American economists, the sum due for unpaid labor to the Black Americans by white Americans comes to about $1.7 TRILLION DOLLARS. A pittance comparatively.
Consider the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission meeting in Accra, Ghana, in 1993. Attorneys, economists, and social scientists issued the Accra Declaration, which calculated that enslavement, colonization, the appropriation of land, extraction of raw materials and mining minerals, for example, diamond, gold, silver, oil, mahogany, cocoa, etc, out of Africa by Europe and the United States cost the African continent $777 TRILLION DOLLARS. Poch Suzara
According to reputable American economists, the sum due for unpaid labor to the Black Americans by white Americans comes to about $1.7 TRILLION DOLLARS. A pittance comparatively.
Consider the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission meeting in Accra, Ghana, in 1993. Attorneys, economists, and social scientists issued the Accra Declaration, which calculated that enslavement, colonization, the appropriation of land, extraction of raw materials and mining minerals, for example, diamond, gold, silver, oil, mahogany, cocoa, etc, out of Africa by Europe and the United States cost the African continent $777 TRILLION DOLLARS. Poch Suzara
Belief Growing Obsolete
Terrence Mckenna wrote: "What blinds us, or makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness that our beliefs have grown obsolete and should be put aside.... This is I think much of the problem of the modern dilemma: Direct experience has been discounted, and in its place all kinds of belief systems have been erected.... If you believe something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite; which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of committing yourself to this belief." Now look for example at our committed belief on how great a man was Thomas Jefferson. The man who symbolizes freedom and liberty for all. As one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, he actually owned well over 100 slaves and freed only a handful at the time of his death – his own children. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson had sex with a slave girl and had sired several children. A man of enormous power and wealth had sex with his slave black servant Sally Hemings. She was fifteen years old. In most civilized societies, this is called rape. How is that for a committed belief? Care to believe the opposite? Poch Suzara
Rita Rudner
“Someday,” said Rita Rudner, “I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That’s how rich I want to be.” See Manila Standard Today ( Sept. 27, 2006 ).
My dear Rita, you don’t have to be rich to lose your self-respect and sense of dignity. It is the easiest thing to do. Besides, why do you want to emulate the lives of our rich Ivy League-educated dummies in the US Senate? Considering from among them will most likely be, again, the next president of the USA. Poch Suzara
My dear Rita, you don’t have to be rich to lose your self-respect and sense of dignity. It is the easiest thing to do. Besides, why do you want to emulate the lives of our rich Ivy League-educated dummies in the US Senate? Considering from among them will most likely be, again, the next president of the USA. Poch Suzara
Organized Religions
Organized religions provide the peace for the troubles in our world that they themselves create. They then make sure that peace is not long lasting. It is in this way that the Christians, Muslims, and Jews have always been indoctrinated to hate and to kill each other. In the meantime, the munition makers are in it for the money. Indeed, big profits are made in war and in the aftermath especially as the seeds for future wars are planted especially by those in the military-industrial-university complex.Poch Suzara
War
A Kikiyu proverb goes: “It is they who have not died in war, that start it.” Indeed, the rich munition makers in control of the stupid politicians in the government of rich countries are among those who are never killed in any war. In fact, they grow to become not only livelier but also richer. Poch Suzara
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Open Letter To Americans
When President Bush attacked Iraq in 1991, claiming that he was acting to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, a group of native Americans in Oregon distributed this biting and ironic thought-provoking Open Letter:
“Dear President Bush. Please send your assistance in freeing our small nation from occupation. This foreign force occupied our lands to steal our rich resources. They used biological warfare and deceit, killing thousands of elders, children and women in the process. As they overwhelmed our land, they deposed our leaders and people of our government, and in its place, they installed their own government system that yet today control our daily lives in many ways. As in your own words, the occupation and overthrow of one small nation . . . is one too many. Sincerely, An American Indian.”
For further reading, I highly recommend Howard Zinn’s: The People’s History of the United States. It is closer to the truth version of American history. It includes all sides of the story. Left and right. Front and back. Top and below. Triumph and tragedy. Joy and pain. Successes and failures. Rich and poor. White Americans and Black Africans. The native Indians and the Asian-Latin Americans. Masters and slaves. The victorious and defeated in war. The conquered and the conqueror. Indeed, not only his story, but also her story of American history. Poch Suzara
American Presidents
In 1947, Truman ordered 74,000 tons of military equipment to the right-wing government in Athens, including artillery, dive bombers, and stock of napalm. Weapons for death and destruction manufactured and stockpiled in the United States since World War 2.
In 1971 Nixon ordered the US Air Force to drop 800,000 tons of bombs on Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Weapons for death and destruction worth in the Billions of Dollars.
When the Vietnam war ended, Jimmy Carter declined to give aid to Vietnam for reconstruction, despite the fact that the land had been devastated by American bombing. Asked about this at a press meeting, Carter replied that there was no special obligation on the United States to do this because “the destruction was mutual.” As if the United States did not have to cross half the globe with an enormous fleet of bombers and 2 million American soldiers, and after eight years of mission not accomplished, left a tiny nation with over three million dead and its land in ruins.
Bill Clinton continued to supply arms to nations all over the world. While he enjoyed converting the Oval Office into his Oral Office with the consent of a tuti frutie employee in the White House.
By the way, this is the same White House constructed in 1792 that required the influx of African slaves to lay its foundation. The same Africans in slavery and poverty that enriched not only the treasury of the US government at the local, state, and federal levels, but also responsible for the wealth and privilege of quite a few powerful US corporations that manufacture weapons for war, death and destruction in foreign countries.
As the Commander in chief of the US military, President George W Bush has nuclear subs at his disposal. These subs are loaded to the hatches with nuclear warheads that can be targeted to within a centimeter of Osama Bin Ladin’s nose. And yet, with all of that sophisticated technology, the US government, since 2001, could not, with any precision, find Osama Bin Ladin hiding in the mountain caves of Afghanistan for his so-called crime against the destruction of the World Trade Center. And to think that this is the same Osama Bin Ladin who had millions of dollars deposited in various banks in the United States.
The social critic, H. L. Mencken, wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” By frightening the American people to the attention of certain governments like Iraq, Iran, Korea, Cuba, or by inventing or exaggerating how dangerous these governments are – the failures of the US government itself could remain hidden or un-exposed. In the meantime, I ask: what value has the utility of freedom if lies and other falsehoods were more politically useful than the simple truth? Poch Suzara
In 1971 Nixon ordered the US Air Force to drop 800,000 tons of bombs on Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Weapons for death and destruction worth in the Billions of Dollars.
When the Vietnam war ended, Jimmy Carter declined to give aid to Vietnam for reconstruction, despite the fact that the land had been devastated by American bombing. Asked about this at a press meeting, Carter replied that there was no special obligation on the United States to do this because “the destruction was mutual.” As if the United States did not have to cross half the globe with an enormous fleet of bombers and 2 million American soldiers, and after eight years of mission not accomplished, left a tiny nation with over three million dead and its land in ruins.
Bill Clinton continued to supply arms to nations all over the world. While he enjoyed converting the Oval Office into his Oral Office with the consent of a tuti frutie employee in the White House.
By the way, this is the same White House constructed in 1792 that required the influx of African slaves to lay its foundation. The same Africans in slavery and poverty that enriched not only the treasury of the US government at the local, state, and federal levels, but also responsible for the wealth and privilege of quite a few powerful US corporations that manufacture weapons for war, death and destruction in foreign countries.
As the Commander in chief of the US military, President George W Bush has nuclear subs at his disposal. These subs are loaded to the hatches with nuclear warheads that can be targeted to within a centimeter of Osama Bin Ladin’s nose. And yet, with all of that sophisticated technology, the US government, since 2001, could not, with any precision, find Osama Bin Ladin hiding in the mountain caves of Afghanistan for his so-called crime against the destruction of the World Trade Center. And to think that this is the same Osama Bin Ladin who had millions of dollars deposited in various banks in the United States.
The social critic, H. L. Mencken, wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” By frightening the American people to the attention of certain governments like Iraq, Iran, Korea, Cuba, or by inventing or exaggerating how dangerous these governments are – the failures of the US government itself could remain hidden or un-exposed. In the meantime, I ask: what value has the utility of freedom if lies and other falsehoods were more politically useful than the simple truth? Poch Suzara
Insane
Ignots Pistachio wrote: "If you want to know if you're insane, ask yourself if you have an unwavering belief, one that you could never disavow no matter what. If you answered yes, then you're insane.”
Bertrand Russell himself did recognize that we all have a little corner of insanity inside our brain. For my part, I too am insane. I have an unwavering belief that the greatest threat to the peace of the world is the U.S. government. Look how our high government officials have unwavering beliefs too. Look how they continue to believe that freedom and democracy can be installed in foreign countries such as Vietnam in the past and Iraq in the present with bombs, death, and destruction! Poch Suzara
Old and New Beliefs
Edward O Wilson said, "Old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false." For my part, I would worry more about new beliefs especially as it is patently false. For example, the new beliefs of U.S. Congress that there is now much room for humanitarian pursuits as a priority of the US government not only in foreign countries, but also in American soil itself with regards to the plight of the native American Indians and the reparations due the Black Americans in this century. Poch Suzara
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Prayer
I am told that prayer is not an occasional impulse to which we respond when we are in trouble. It is a lifetime attitude. Prayer is our steering wheel, not our spare tire.
I ask: if God does not listen to the prayers of the dying and the dead, why should God listen to the prayers of the living?
Prayers, indeed, are like magic formulas, mumbled over and over again, with the advertiser’s faith in the law of reiteration. Think of it: if prayer works with the power of God, it should only be said but once, and not to be repeated day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium.
In the meantime, you define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you believe that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God. Poch Suzara
I ask: if God does not listen to the prayers of the dying and the dead, why should God listen to the prayers of the living?
Prayers, indeed, are like magic formulas, mumbled over and over again, with the advertiser’s faith in the law of reiteration. Think of it: if prayer works with the power of God, it should only be said but once, and not to be repeated day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium.
In the meantime, you define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you believe that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God. Poch Suzara
The Guardian of Freedom
The greatest guardian of freedom has always been the diffusion of knowledge. The dumbstruck in governments, especially in the US government, however, still believe that freedom can only be installed, protected, and defended and promoted by the power of the military. Bertrand Russell wrote: “Freedoms cannot effectively be said to exist if they protect only occasional differences about matters which are of small importance.” Poch Suzara
All Men
All men are created equal; unfortunately, equal only in mediocrity as a source of pride especially equal as well in the belief that ignorance is bliss. Poch Suzara
Filipino Lawyers
Top criminal lawyers of the Philippines are very religious too. The statue of Baby Jesus is displayed inside their law office. Well, why not? If the judge himself has religious icons displayed inside his court room, and criminals during trial in court may carry with them the holy bible or the rosary or the little statue of Mama Mary, why not top lawyers also to pray to baby Jesus to be on their side? And to think that in no other school, except in law school, that the the art of cross-examination is taught; specially to ferret out the truth.
In the meantime, there remains of the necessity of cross examining the causes of evil keeping us Filipinos frightened as a people and keeping the Philippines misguided as a nation. As a high school expelled student, I have yet to hear from any of our top lawyer with guts or gumption to publicly declare that the only way to remedy the traditional ills of our sick society is to get rid of CHRISTIANITY out of our country.
Indeed, to be replaced with nothing but the beauty of science and the power of technology. It simply means in our schools, colleges, and universities - no more childish prayer; no more infantile theology. No more God Bless you hogwash! Poch Suzara
Frightened of Atheism
Atheism frightens most men not because they have no taste to disbelieve in a God, but because they have no taste to be a thinker, especially to be a courageous freethinker. Indeed, it is not possible to be an atheist if one does not develop the habit of the scientific way of thinking. Or, simply, if one refuses to learn to question everything. Poch Suzara
Existence
Millions of years before my birth, I was a nothing. I had no existence. Millions of years after my death, I will be a nothing again. I will have no existence. Now I am told that there is life after death. Of course, there is life after death - the life of my dear loved-ones. I will leave them behind until they too will eventually join with me to rest in peace forever in nothing, over nothing, and for nothing. Really, how could we enjoy a hereafter when none of us ever enjoyed a herebefore?
But then again, there is the First Law, the conservation law. It says that while energy can never be created or destroyed it can only be transformed from one form to another. For my part, I should leave alone the conservation law. Let her decide what she wants to do with our un-bundled energy after death that was once a bundled up energy called - life.
In the meantime, each and every unfolding reality contains not only the seed of its own destruction, but also the embryo of a new reality that will replace it. I think the best we all should do is to face reality courageously – there is no one at the helm on this earth. We are all in charge for our own destinies. Poch Suzara
But then again, there is the First Law, the conservation law. It says that while energy can never be created or destroyed it can only be transformed from one form to another. For my part, I should leave alone the conservation law. Let her decide what she wants to do with our un-bundled energy after death that was once a bundled up energy called - life.
In the meantime, each and every unfolding reality contains not only the seed of its own destruction, but also the embryo of a new reality that will replace it. I think the best we all should do is to face reality courageously – there is no one at the helm on this earth. We are all in charge for our own destinies. Poch Suzara
Love From God
Love makes much for peace on earth and goodwill to all men. I ask: where is love from God that I am told is a loving God? In fact, where is God in our mad world filled with cruelties and hate and violence and war? What keeps Him hiding like the timid atheists always hiding inside the dark closet?
Now my devout friends and relatives tell me that my end is near, and that before it is too late, I should renounce my atheism and repent and make my peace with God. Yes, I should be happy to do so. However, before I proceed, I need to know first if God himself had already smoked the peace-pipe with the devil?
In the meantime, please open your bible. It clearly reads: The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward. Eccl. 9:5 Poch Suzara
Now my devout friends and relatives tell me that my end is near, and that before it is too late, I should renounce my atheism and repent and make my peace with God. Yes, I should be happy to do so. However, before I proceed, I need to know first if God himself had already smoked the peace-pipe with the devil?
In the meantime, please open your bible. It clearly reads: The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward. Eccl. 9:5 Poch Suzara
Knowledge
Knowledge that is not based on scientific observation, but only deduced from some sacred writings or concocted from some wild theological imagination – is knowledge that is not only thoughtless, not only mindless, not only groundless, not only senseless. It is knowledge that’s shamelessly useless and therefore utterly worthless. Poch Suzara
Temple of God
I am told that God created my body; it is a temple of God. How wonderful! What’s not wonderful, however, are the other tiny creatures living inside my body that God created too. They are called germs, bacteria, and viruses. There are about 20 billion of them trying to kill me and eventually will succeed to do so. And to think that those little creatures existing inside human vital organs and blood streams are all at war against the other as they probably hate each other too. In the process, however, sooner or later, whether we like it or not, whether we have free will or not, these little nasty monsters together will decree not only our own death, but will also decree their own extinction. I suppose in God’s name too, if not for His glory in heaven.
In the meantime, our 60 to 70 or 80 years of existence on this erth in relation to God’s eternal existence in heaven, we live, comparatively, but for a split of a second long. As if that were enough time for any of us to be put on trial by the Supreme Being for our petty crimes and silly sins. Poch Suzara
In the meantime, our 60 to 70 or 80 years of existence on this erth in relation to God’s eternal existence in heaven, we live, comparatively, but for a split of a second long. As if that were enough time for any of us to be put on trial by the Supreme Being for our petty crimes and silly sins. Poch Suzara
Great Religions
Except perhaps for Buddhism, all the great religions of the world hate each other and would rather be at war than enjoy peace, love, and respect for each other. If we were all atheists, chances are better for each and every one of us to achieve health and wealth and happiness in this world.
In the meantime, since even God knows not when, there never was a belief that has done humanity in this world more damage intellectually than the childish belief in the existence of a sick and insane divinity. Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#
Terrorism
Sending a powerful message fit the definition of terrorism. Who therefore could be more terroristic than the religious teachers who frightens innocent children to believe in God because if not, they will be punished forever burning in hell? I should know. I was once such a terrorized child myself in grade school at De La Salle University run by the Christian Brothers. They certainly scared me to death to have faith in a lot of religious nonsense. Fortunately for me, however, I was expelled in high school for asking far too many questions. Much to my very pleasant surprise however, I learned eventually through self-study that the whole basis of the subject of philosophy that gave birth to her daughters - the sciences is based on questions asked and not on the answers found. Indeed, even up to this 21st century, terrorism comes not from intelligent questions, but only from the stupid answers! Poch Suzara
Something to Think About
I suppose men and women, especially with college education, love to think about some things sometimes. For my part, I was expelled out of high-school because I never denied myself the joy to think about a lot of things all the time. I still do love to think in my old age. Poch Suzara
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Nicole versus the US Marines
We are told that the job of the US Marines is to defend those who are unable to defend themselves.
The least the US Marines could do while visiting the Philippines is to defend women like Nicole from being raped by fellow-Marines.
Isn’t it enough that the US Marines are here to train Filipino soldiers to be more efficient at killing fellow human beings? In the meantime, must they also carry the impression that women of the Philippines are not worthy of love and respect or a decent treatment?
To Nicole: as an American citizen living in the Philippines, I have every wish that you will succeed putting in jail those cowards in US military uniform who raped you. And even if they did not rape you, for treating you like a piece of garbage, they deserve to be thrown out of this country. Poch Suzara
The least the US Marines could do while visiting the Philippines is to defend women like Nicole from being raped by fellow-Marines.
Isn’t it enough that the US Marines are here to train Filipino soldiers to be more efficient at killing fellow human beings? In the meantime, must they also carry the impression that women of the Philippines are not worthy of love and respect or a decent treatment?
To Nicole: as an American citizen living in the Philippines, I have every wish that you will succeed putting in jail those cowards in US military uniform who raped you. And even if they did not rape you, for treating you like a piece of garbage, they deserve to be thrown out of this country. Poch Suzara
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
American Political Parties
The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are one and the same old Party. They do not matter except during election. Michael Moore described it as the “Greed Party.” It supports the one and only real religion of America. It’s called Capitalism.
If we truly wish to see the inside of the American economic bubble, we must first puncture it. Each time our president declares happily that “our economy is sound,” he does not acknowledge that it is not at all sound for the 50 to 60 million fellow-Americans who are struggling to survive, although it may be moderately sound for many in the middle class, and extremely sound for the riches 1 per cent of the nation who own 40 per cent of the nation’s wealth. Imagine 40 per cent of 13 Trillion dollars – the GNP of the US annually.
In the meantime, it is not the poor, but the rich who pretty much determine who will be the President of the nation. He is the political leader who says, “let’s have more of the same.” A candidate for president like a Ralph Nader of the Green party never makes it to the White House precisely because he says, “let’s change; let’s have no more of the same rotten politics. Let’s make the world safe for freedom and democracy not with hate and war, but with love and goodwill to all men.” What about the average voter? Well, he has the impression that he plays an important political role casting his ballot as a Republican or, as the case may be, as a Democrat. He votes for his favorite presidential candidate. What he does not know, however, is that it does not matter who wins the election because, to begin with, the two presidential candidates ( hardly a third or a fourth candidate ) have already been picked by the rich and the powerful for ordinary voters to choose from. Normally, the one with the greatest popularity in the achievement of mediocrity or has received more money always makes it to the White House. As an American citizen, I have yet to hear a newly-elected president of the USA proclaim at his inaugural address: “Let us stop all this political-industrial-military-university complex nonsense. For once, let’s begin to really work for world peace. Let’s start right here inside the American home.” Poch Suzara
If we truly wish to see the inside of the American economic bubble, we must first puncture it. Each time our president declares happily that “our economy is sound,” he does not acknowledge that it is not at all sound for the 50 to 60 million fellow-Americans who are struggling to survive, although it may be moderately sound for many in the middle class, and extremely sound for the riches 1 per cent of the nation who own 40 per cent of the nation’s wealth. Imagine 40 per cent of 13 Trillion dollars – the GNP of the US annually.
In the meantime, it is not the poor, but the rich who pretty much determine who will be the President of the nation. He is the political leader who says, “let’s have more of the same.” A candidate for president like a Ralph Nader of the Green party never makes it to the White House precisely because he says, “let’s change; let’s have no more of the same rotten politics. Let’s make the world safe for freedom and democracy not with hate and war, but with love and goodwill to all men.” What about the average voter? Well, he has the impression that he plays an important political role casting his ballot as a Republican or, as the case may be, as a Democrat. He votes for his favorite presidential candidate. What he does not know, however, is that it does not matter who wins the election because, to begin with, the two presidential candidates ( hardly a third or a fourth candidate ) have already been picked by the rich and the powerful for ordinary voters to choose from. Normally, the one with the greatest popularity in the achievement of mediocrity or has received more money always makes it to the White House. As an American citizen, I have yet to hear a newly-elected president of the USA proclaim at his inaugural address: “Let us stop all this political-industrial-military-university complex nonsense. For once, let’s begin to really work for world peace. Let’s start right here inside the American home.” Poch Suzara
Capitalism
The economic system which we know as capitalism, or free enterprise, functions admirably, but only if it enhances the beauty of liberty and the sanity of democracy.
Unfortunately, capitalism, especially in America only promotes depravity and corruptibility and stupidity as it functions quite effectively in derailing the American family. Consider 99 per cent of American children. Fathers do not know their children as much as the children do not know their own fathers. How can either know the other since they do not even know what “knowing” means? Poch Suzara
Unfortunately, capitalism, especially in America only promotes depravity and corruptibility and stupidity as it functions quite effectively in derailing the American family. Consider 99 per cent of American children. Fathers do not know their children as much as the children do not know their own fathers. How can either know the other since they do not even know what “knowing” means? Poch Suzara
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