Our work is not over. Billions of our world's citizens continue to suffer in silence, unacknowledged by its leaders-- even in nations like China, India and the US.
Injustice, prejudice, lies have always accompanied mankind's journey through history and time.
In order to survive, at times it's easier to surrender to the powerful who usurp an individual's dignity.
In our age of transparency, we are seeing dramatic changes.
A year ago, we identified social media as the equalizer that helps the individual reclaim the human rights to which (s)he is entitled. A poor college student now has a powerful voice equal to any billionaire, a general or dictator. 1 to 1. We've seen it in the Middle East.
Yet the battle is not easy. Lives are sacrificed for the cause of justice, freedom and liberty. Families suffer.
But truth has endurance; truth always prevails as part of the natural order of our universe.
MLK's "We Shall Overcome" is my daily bread of inspiration.
I am so thankful for MLK and the countless who are nameless -- including our men and women in the military, who made the ultimate sacrifice so that I can safely exercise my freedom of speech, to pursue my human rights as an individual, just as the Creator intended, without fear.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Abraham Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address Very Relevant In Today's World
Presidents Day is a favorite day for me.
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is the guiding light that positioned the United States to emerge as a leader amongst nations after the Civil War. Like all great works, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address remains relevant for as long as humans are blessed to inhabit the earth.
The address was delivered in Washington, D.C. March 4, 1865.
"At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral [sic] address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissole [sic] the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
SOURCE: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_Second_Inaugural_Address
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is the guiding light that positioned the United States to emerge as a leader amongst nations after the Civil War. Like all great works, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address remains relevant for as long as humans are blessed to inhabit the earth.
The address was delivered in Washington, D.C. March 4, 1865.
"At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral [sic] address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissole [sic] the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
SOURCE: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_Second_Inaugural_Address
Friday, July 2, 2010
The Declaration of Independence: A view from a US citizen
No where in the history of mankind has a nation stood so tall as our United States of America.
On this day, as all Americans prepare to recognize The Declaration of Independence, it has come to the attention of Jose Rizal Online that there ought to be an Amendment to, moving forward, remove:
- , the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
... as the last of the "... Facts be submitted to a candid world" when our Founding Fathers severed ties with the tyranny of the King of Great Britain.
The spirit, timelessness and integrity of history's most sacred document remains unaffected when the above clauses are removed.
We all understand what our forefathers are conveying with, "He [the king]* has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers."
*- insertion by author of this original blog.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Deliverance For The Filipino Citizen
When the meaning of existence is pounded and held hostage by death repeatedly, your soul turns inside out. The intricate complexities of a man's life suddenly pulses with the grandest simplicity in the imperfect spirit's quest for survival.
So it is that a sense of being part of mankind's natural order begins to emerge in one's consciousness. It becomes apparent that one must either accept the emergent shift in one's worldly capacity or crumble in its grip.
Borne from this self-examination is the Jose Rizal Online endeavor to bring peace to the impoverished nation of my birth.
My spiritual journey is now aligned with my physical journey. What must be achieved is considerable but so would be its bounty.
Today, life in the islands remains steeped in the suffocating corruption inherent in society since the devastation inflicted by Catholic friars and their thugs. Local customs were destroyed, history, traditions burned in the name of a fearsome God.
The Filipino people were stripped of their human rights, their dignity, their culture.
Really, not much has changed for the Filipino people since the mid-1500's.
Each generation in the past 500 years has died while fervently praying for an unattainable salvation. When one generation dies, it is followed by another that repeats the mistaken belief that the Filipino people are somehow unworthy of life's blessings in the eyes of an angry God.
This punishing, low self-esteem has endured for five centuries.
To the present day, the Filipino citizen prays for redemption to the angry God of brutal conquistadores, of the Spanish Inquisition; church prayers still recited as if spoken by the unworthy (a label from conquerors who misused their own faith to subjugate our people).
What if the Filipino citizen, as Catholic mass is celebrated, instead prayed to a magnanimous, merciful and loving God for its deliverance?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)