Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis

I met Jerry Lewis at his home in Beverly Hills, California in l967. He had already heard about me from my sister. Especially about my activism having been primarily responsible for setting up the Philippine branch of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in l964. We were then struggling against the Vietnam War in particular; and, against the concept of war as a way of settling international disputes in general.
Jerry’s greeting words to me: “Hi there, Poch – you poverty-stricken Filipino!” I retorted: “Hi there, Jerry – you rich-stricken Jew!” Jerry looked at my sister, laughingly said: “I like this brother of yours.” Jerry indeed, is a great comedian and, I must add, on and off the stage - a great man.
I salivated with envy as I was particularly impressed with him not because he was such a world famous Hollywood celebrity, but because of his huge personal library of great books. A few he himself had authored.
His son Gary of the Playboys, an equally famous singer and rock drummer (I am a jazz drummer myself) married my sister - Jinky. Sadly, it did not turn out to be a happy matrimony. After three years, it ended in a divorce. Both, however, have an only daughter – Sara. She is married now with two children – the first two great-grandkids of Jerry Lewis
Since 1966, every Labor Day, the Jerry Lewis Telethon has already raised more than a BILLION DOLLARS to fight and to find the cure for Muscular Dystrophy – a disorder of the skeletal muscles characterized by weakness.
Despite the existence of the American Medical Association, and the Food and Drug Administration, and its partner in business – the American Pharmaceutical industry that’s dearly protected by the Federal Trade Commission - there are more cases of Muscular Dystrophy victims in America today than ever before. Hopefully, the cure is just around the corner.
For my part, though I have neither ability nor the popularity to raise billions, I too, nevertheless have been fighting in my own little ways to find a cure of a disease of the worst kind. It continues to infect a great many people worldwide. It is called religion – born of fear and ignorance and superstition. Indeed, religion is what is keeping our world poor spiritually and backward scientifically. In America, a billion dollars can be raised for healing, but trillions of dollars are readily available for killing. Thanks to religion and its ability to spread more fear, ignorance, and superstition everywhere throughout the world.
In the meantime, Jerry Lewis continues his own fight to help financially find the cure for muscular dystrophy in America one day. I ardently wish him more power and success in his humanitarian works and dedication. Poch Suzara

Open Letter to the United Nations

OPEN LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS

Our world is wracked with malevolence and embroiled in violence not because of too little, but because of too much religion. Indeed, religion has always been and still is in the business of multiplying hate rather than be with the efforts of dividing peace and love and grace for the human race.

The Christians do not understand their own Bible. The Muslims do not understand their own Koran. In fact, if both believers took the trouble to read and understand each other’s holy book, they would learn that their scriptures are based upon older sources written by primitives who were more at home with horoscope but not the telescope or the microscope. Sacred books should be about dignity of the human community, and not about contrary beliefs that inspires enmity or hostility.

To those of us who have no religion, it is frightening to visualize that the Christians, the Muslims and the Jews can now, with nuclear weapons at their disposal, reduce our planet into a lunar landscape. A civilized way, no doubt, to solve at the same time, the problem of human population explosion with a bigger and wider and higher explosion.

Bertrand Russell wrote: “More than half of the population of the world is under-nourished, not because it need be, but because richer nations prefer killing each other than keeping poorer nations alive and helping them to achieve a higher standard of living.”

I said it before, I say it again: if we were all atheists we could learn to live together in peace with all men. I am myself proud of atheism because in the history of the mankind, there never was a war declared by atheists against other atheists. Indeed, as atheists, we know that humans are no different from the animals, except only by a little. We atheists, however, do not want to throw that little away. We hold on to our sense of common humanity. In the meantime, the preparations for religious war are only making poor people in poor countries become poorer.

It is time for religious believers to stop making a mockery of what human life should be. It is time to stop wasting precious resources against each other in purposeless hate and futile violence. Bertrand Russell said: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal, as a human being to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.”

Far worthier than the Muslim family or the Christian family or Jewish family or Hindu family or Buddhist family is, in fact, the precious human family whose continued existence is in doubt. It is time to love and appreciate the one and only real purpose to life, and that is, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, we must leave this world a little better than we found it, at least in the humanitarian sense, or there is little reason for our having lived.

Sincerely,
POCH SUZARA
Bertrand Russell Society, Philippines
poch.suzara@gmail.com
Feb. 25, 2006

Open Letter to Kofi Annan

Nov. 6, 2004
Kofi Annan
Secretary General
UNITED NATIONS
New York

OPEN LETTER TO KOFI ANNAN

Dear Mr. Kofi Annan,

I am most proud of you serving as the Secretary General of the United Nations that just celebrated its 59th year of existence. Congratulations. I sincerely thank you for your leadership and moral integrity through what continues to be a critical era of world history.

Indeed, the United Nations was founded as an instrument of peace, human rights and development. I would like to suggest that in order for the UN to attain its goals: - a world without poverty, without industry for hostility, without crimes against humanity - it should be able to reach out over and above governments and be rightfully supported by ordinary men and women from all over the world. I am suggesting that we all become citizens of the United Nations. The much needed resources for the U.N. can be willingly provided by the citizens of the U.N. I believe the General Assembly can empower you as Secretary General to appoint a small committee to explore this possibility.

In HAS MAN A FUTURE, Bertrand Russell wrote: “Law is a farce unless there is power to enforce it, and power to enforce international law against great states is impossible while each possess vast armaments. Great states have, at present, the privilege of killing members of other States whenever they feel so disposed, though this liberty is disguised as the heroic privilege of dying in defense of what is right and just. Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.”

Imagine 2 billion people supporting the UN with $10.00 each as annual citizenship dues of the UN. This would amount to $20 billion dollars a year. Enough I think for the UN to maintain not only its own Peace-Keeping Force, but to gradually expand to the point where the United Nations is in total control of all major weapons of war. It is hard to see any other way by which the human race can survive the weapons of mass extermination owned by an ever increasing number of countries. In the near future add another 2 billion people to make it 4 billion UN citizens, - $40 billions dollars a year. The UN would become the respected and effective enforcer of international law and an irresistible global force for peace and goodwill to all men and women and children. The protection of our natural world from unsustainable population growth could also be addressed. It is dramatic but true - The future of humankind is at stake.

We are in a new era of global community. We need a United Nations which has both the involvement and support of peoples throughout the world. We can make it come true if we, the ordinary men and women in our respective countries, can be made a legal part of the UN’s ultimate goals. We have sufficient resources to provide our fellow citizens with adequate food, education and health care. We have the will to treat our brothers and sisters with dignity and self-respect. But this cannot be accomplished by, or entrusted to, a small group of nations representing the interests and prejudices of a small percentage of the human race; it can only be achieved by the super citizens of the United Nations functioning as a world government.

Yours Faithfully,

POCH SUZARA
BERTRAND RUSSELL SOCIETY, PHIL.
8 Zipper Street, SLV,
Makati City, Philippines