Like so many people the world over, I am appalled at the increase in prices and reduction in portions of most of the quotidian things we purchase, something that impacts most of us.  But some, those responsible for inflation, it impacts not at all.  And it has a cause, the idiotic United States practice of imposing economic sanctions that boomerang back on its own nationals, an illustration of biting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.  We are urged to accept the related suffering so that those our government opposes will suffer as well, which of course, only results in spiraling suffering for most of us.

So many of our problems have the same roots.  Take increased polarization and incivility, and the loss of liberty, and the explosion in censorship, not only through governmental means and through governmental allies in Big Tech, but now in our own, interpersonal social interactions.  I am a member of several sports oriented social media sites where those who criticize their team’s management are ordered by other fans to shut up, leave, or are personally ridiculed.  In one case, a person is infuriated by my use of the word “opine”.  And I am tempted to retaliate.  It would be easy for a great many reasons, but so far, I’ve, for the most part, refrained.  But the emotional reaction is there, and if I give in, they would win. 

And that is happening to so many of us that our survival as a species seems miraculous.  Perhaps to miraculous to continue.  Intolerance has been cultivated among us by those who preach the importance of tolerance but whose actions utterly belie their suggestions, if such strongly phrased demands can be deemed “suggestions”.  Our history is erased, destroyed or distorted.  Not that our history is in any sense accurate, but the elimination of its indicia does nothing to correct it, and worse, that with which the “purportedly woke cancel culture” warriors would replace it is at least as inaccurate.  Truth has become even more a victim than reasonable prices.

Manipulation of the means through which we communicate is largely responsible, at least in the form of the tool with which we are bludgeoned.  Democracy in the United States, perhaps everywhere, is non-existent, as are reliable elections, either because of purported gerrymandering or vote rigging or false polling or false reporting or even worse, non-reporting of essential facts.  But even if it did exist and function, it would not guarantee equity or justice or even decency.  After all, the greatest arch villain of the last century, one manufactured by government propaganda, the corporate media and historians, was purportedly “democratically” elected. 

The only solution to our current suicidal dystopia would require a massive change in our attitudes, in our goals, in our hearts and in our souls.  We would need to embrace that which a poor Nazarene preacher once urged but which we criticize as “communist” or “socialist”, with no idea what those concepts involve, or how unattainable they are, or how infrequently their underlying values are espoused, except, perhaps, at Christmas or Easter, or sometimes, albeit rarely, in religious services.  But those services, at least among Christians, mostly focus on the opposite, the maliciously bitter doctrines superimposed on those of the humble Nazarene by the pernicious Saul of Tarsus, a precursor for those who today seek to stifle our most benign, generous and joyous instincts.

Perhaps, fortunately for our planet, solar system, galaxy and universe, it may be that an Armageddon manufactured by our Deep State is about to arrive.  We’ve manipulated the Russians into a war which we are actively promoting and are doing our best to do the same with the Chinese and the Iranians, and as written above, that disfunctionality is affecting even our passive participation in sports, and certainly our politics. 

One wonders at the stupidity involved, and grieves at the destruction of all that is good and beautiful and promising that will disappear with all that is putrid and vile.  Equality attained at last.  And one even dares to hope that, if by sharing our perspectives in a friendly manner, in a respectful manner, “one heart at a time”, the disaster can be averted.  But this morning, it certainly doesn’t look that way, not while the very worst among us revel in their power and restrain no impediment to its retention, regardless of the price.

After all, they’ve grown used to most of us paying the price while they celebrate what they perceive of as benefits; short term though they will in all probability prove to be.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.