Category Archives: Religion

Zionists and the Holocaust: The One with a Capital H as Well as the One Taking Place Today, a disturbing reflection

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This reflection is long overdue and deals with facts that have been in plain sight for a very long time but which have been obfuscated, distorting the terrible reality in which we find ourselves and thus, making real solutions to the problems we face unattainable.  However, the horrible deliberate slaughter we are experiencing in the Middle East, specifically in Palestine (Hedges, 2024, Al Jazeera, 2017), has brought the issue treated in this reflection to the forefront and, if the phrase “never again” is ever to attain the meaning ascribed to it (primarily as a slogan) following the Holocaust, it is essential that the concepts involved be fully and accurately examined.  The topic dealt with in this reflection deals with the sociopolitical phenomenon known as Zionism, a widely used term usually devoid of context which, to an extent, this reflection seeks to provide.  Not as a mere academic exercise but as a wakeup call and an existential warning, especially to the Jewish community which has been and continues to be used and abused by Zionists for their own nefarious purposes.

Zionism was originally a positive and important defensive reaction to European antisemitism seeking to encourage persecuted Jews worldwide to unite to aggressively defend their rights to equality and eventually, to establish a special refuge under Jewish control (Eichler, 2013).  Many places were considered, including Argentina, Brazil and Uganda but eventually, the Palestinian portion of the Ottoman Empire came to be especially coveted, although it had been inhabited for millennia by, among others, the descendants of  Jews who had refused to leave Palestine despite Roman persecution, most of whom had first been forcibly converted to Christianity and then to Islam.  Those descendants of the original Hebrew population form the core of today’s Palestinians, albeit intermixed with other nationalities and cultures including Arab migrants.

In its quest to wrest Palestine from its inhabitants (Al Jazeera, 2017), Zionism unfortunately morphed into a rabid subgroup within Judaism but which also included Christian fundamentalist.  The latter, although inherently anti-Semitic, see the establishment of a dominant Jewish state in Palestine as a prerequisite for Armageddon and then, the second coming of their messiah (Lewis, 2021) whom they refer to as Jesus the Christ, appellations which that individual never used, his name probably having been Yeshua ben Yosef.  Problematically, Zionists attempt to speak for all Jews despite being rejected and considered anathema by many (Glass, 1975) and, instead of reducing antisemitism, have increased it, in many cases actively promoting it in an effort to force recalcitrant Jews to come under their umbrella, especially with respect to securing a Jewish majority in Palestine (Dowty, 2008; Nicosia, 2008; Reinharz, 1985).  Indeed, Zionist tactics and strategies have come to mimic those of the German Nazis during the second war to end all wars, an irony of epic proportions.  In light of the foregoing, it is essential to understand that Zionism and Judaism are extremely far from synonymous.

Unintended consequences are not always bad things; sometimes they make us reexamine past assumptions and beliefs.  That is certainly the case with respect to the current genocide perpetrated by Israeli Zionists against Palestinians in the quest for ethnic cleansing (Hedges, 2024; Borrows-Freedman, 2024) and the support of such atrocities by all the major participants in the second war to end all wars, both Allies and Axis powers.  Atrocities involving Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing ongoing for over three quarters of a century (Al Jazeera (2017), in fact, since the end of the second war to end all wars, a war purportedly fought to eliminate state sponsored crimes of lesse humanidad, although, as in the case of most wars, the purported purpose was far from accurate.[1]  In light of that reality, it is past time to conduct an objective review of just what happened during the build up to the second war to end all wars, what really happened during that war and what happened immediately following the war, in order to determine why it occurred, who was to blame and just how widespread the evil was.  One question that has been asked but never answered with respect to that war’s immediate aftermath is why the atomic bombing of Japan was not considered genocide or the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps not considered a crime of lesse humanidad, such as the crimes with which leaders of the countries that lost that war were charged.[2]

The reality is that history has demonstrated that the Nuremburg trials and their Tokyo counterparts (Sellers, 2010; Buruma, 2023) were fraudulent travesties in large part orchestrated to divert attention from massively horrible war crimes committed by the victors, not just violations of human rights during the war but during the preceding centuries.  It is therefore no surprise that their high sounding promotion and promises of a better, more just world have proven profoundly empty and that tens of millions died in vain, among them, twenty-seven million Russians, as well as the victims of the Holocaust.  We celebrate the victims of that Holocaust, the one with the capital H, but dare not look into why it occurred or the role of Zionism in promoting it and turning Germany from a bastion of opportunity for Jews (Reinharz, 1985, chapters 3 and 4)[3], into their assassin, a question much more than just relevant in analyzing the nature of Zionism and its goals in light of the murderous nature of Zionism today (Rossinow, 2018), always noting that Zionism and Judaism are very far from synonymous.  Indeed, during the first half of the twentieth century as it is today, Zionism is the prime promoter of antisemitism. 

Very few people realize that during the first war to end all wars, the vast majority of Jews everywhere in the world were pro-German, including those in Germany, Russia and the United States, and that Zionists, betraying the majority of Jews everywhere, were tasked by the British with orchestrating the defeat of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria Hungary and Turkey) by goading the United States into entering the war on behalf of the Triple Entente (the United Kingdom, France and for a time Russia) in exchange for the land occupied for millennia by Palestinians (Cornelius, 2005; Stein, 1961).  That was done and was the main reason that Germany, devastated in the post war “peace”, turned on its patriotic Jews, i.e., because Zionists claimed to have acted on behalf of Jews worldwide, without, of course, having the right to make that claim. 

That such Zionists actions would lead to a massive increase in antisemitism was not only understood by Zionist leaders but was an important goal as they hoped that the extremely talented and productive Jewish community in Germany would be forced to immigrate to Palestine.  That the costs of that massive and vituperous increase in antisemitism would be horrendous was irrelevant as, is the case of today’s genocide in Palestine, the ends, any ends at all, justified the means.  However, German Jews were not as easy to manipulate as Zionists hoped so in 1933, well before the Holocaust, the one with the capital H, the World Zionist Organization, again acting in the name of all Jews, formally declared war on Germany, economic war to be sure, and organized a worldwide embargo on trade with Germany much as the United States has done this millennium with numerous countries, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea, and increasingly with Russia and China.  The Zionist hope was that Germany would overreact and thus, that its Jewish population would either emigrate to Palestine voluntarily or be expelled.  Zionists actually facilitated such emigration in collaboration with Adolf Hitler, on amicable terms, by negotiating what became known as the Transfer Agreement.  All of the foregoing is clearly documented for anyone interested in the truth.  See for example, “The Transfer Agreement and the Boycott Fever, 1933” (Walensky, 1987), a study published by someone with profound antizionist sentiments, to be sure, and thus attacked as unreliable, although, while its opinions and conclusions may be unsettling, even troubling to many, the facts are impeccable and are also documented by Jewish sources well-disposed towards Zionism (see Weiss, 1998).

The foregoing information is shared, not to justify the Holocaust, or to deny it, but to illustrate the nature of Zionism, an abomination to true Judaism, one willing to sacrifice anyone and anything in order to attain its delusional dreams of power and dominion.  Domination not only over all Palestinians (or at least any that survived) but also of all Arabs and all Muslims, all in a sick parody of the Nazis final solution to the Jewish problem, the latter, a solution in large part crafted with the help of hypocritical Zionists themselves.  Given that Zionists were willing to risk the death of six million Jews in order to appropriate the Palestinian homeland, their actions today putting the world at risk of nuclear holocaust ought not to shock or surprise us.

Most Zionists have always believed that genocide is an acceptable tool, taking the cue from the numerous instances in Hebrew history where it was used against their opponents, purportedly under divine command (Lemos, 2023).  The examples are legion (most contained in the Torah) starting with the exodus from Egypt, the annihilation of Jericho, etc. Many have been cited by current Israeli leaders, including Israel’s prime minister, foreign minister and minister of defense as examples to follow with reference to the Palestinian people, more than 24,000 of whom, as of the date of this reflection (April 30, 2024), have been massacred by the Israeli Defense Forces, the vast majority of them defenseless women and children, many in obvious cold blood with the location of mass graves now a normal occurrence.  Events celebrated in festive dancing and songs not only by Israeli soldiers, but more disturbingly, by Israeli children.

The so-called law of unintended consequences all too frequently results in terrible disasters and one might take the position that the horrible experiences involving antisemitism during the last century involved that phenomenon, but that would be a mistake.  The consequences of Zionism were foreseen, intentional and lasting, impacting millions of people every day.  The crux of this reflection is that today’s Zionist conduct, to the detriment of Jewish interests as well as to that of Zionism’s opponents, is not new.  And perhaps, as an aside, to note how ironic it is that the three branches of the Abrahamic religion, Judaism, Christianity and Islam seem to have adopted the fratricide of Abel by Cain as their guiding principle.

A reading of the sources and suggested readings below makes the foregoing absolutely clear and it is the author’s hope that readers, disturbed by what is alleged in this reflection, will read, digest and analyze them.  Many are available on line.  The author has reached the conclusion that with the help of Zionists leaders, millions of Jews were the victims of genocide during the first half of the twentieth century.  Readers may reach other conclusions.  Nonetheless, it seems ironically clear that Zionism, which was a reaction to the crimes against many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jews, the victims of antisemitism throughout Europe during the past two millennia, have used the promotion of antisemitism as the most successful tool in their arsenal.  An arsenal not really meant to protect the Jewish people but to consolidate power among a select group within Judaism, to steal their neighbor’s land, and to murder millions directly and indirectly through manipulation of Zionist allies in the United States and ironically, in Europe.  Europe, where antisemitism was prevalent for millennia while the Islamic world, including Palestine, was the only place where Jews, as people of the book, were provided refuge and a modicum of opportunity.

How sick is that?[i]

Sources and Suggested Readings

Adams, Charles (2000): When in the Course of Human Events; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Md.

Al Jazeera (2017): “The Nakba did not start or end in 1948: Key facts and figures on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine; Al Jazeera Media Network, May 23, 2017, Doha, Qatar, available at https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948

Author not provided (2009-2024): “Walter Rothschild and the Balfour Declaration”; The Rothschild Archive, London, available at https://www.rothschildarchive.org/family/family_interests/walter_rothschild_and_the_balfour_declaration.

Borrows-Freedman, Nora (2024): “News highlights for week 29 of Israel’s genocide in Gaza”, The Electronic Intifada, April 26, 2024, available at https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/news-highlights-week-29-israels-genocide-gaza.

Buruma, Ian (2023): “What the Tokyo Trial Reveals About Empire, Memory, and Judgment”; The New Yorker, October 16, 2023; New York City, available at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/judgment-at-tokyo-world-war-ii-on-trial-and-the-making-of-modern-asia-gary-j-bass-book-review.

Cornelius, John (2005): “The Hidden History of the Balfour Declaration”; Washington Report, November 2005, pages 44-50; The Balfour Project, Edinburgh available at https://balfourproject.org/hidden-history-of-the-balfour-declaration/.

Dowty, Alan (2008): Israel/Palestine; Polity, Cambridge.

Eichler, William (2023): “Herzl’s Troubled Dream: The Origins of Zionism”; History Today, Volume 73 Issue 6 June 2023; London, available at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/herzls-troubled-dream-origins-zionism.

Glass, Charles (1975): “Jews against Zion: Israeli Jewish Anti-Zionism”; Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1975 – Winter, 1976), pp. 56-81; Taylor & Francis, Ltd., Milton Par, UK, available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2307/2535683.

Hedges, Chris (2024): “Sermon for Gaza”; The Chris Hedges Report, Substack, San Francisco, available at https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/sermon-for-gaza?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=lwzkv&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR17pfnFGuZ3ZGP2Wj1guX2k6qrWN7AgI2LGQIMYO_Dr4UHnalHMWjZlI-c_aem_AbTSxFZAxB4Cvr3pniwm4uG2VMyuWQezq8E6yMdrVCyx8IXi5tmu9TSj10nkcpHNvZvfRRfUhDozw_2HR5hQ-3cv&triedRedirect=true.

Henderson, Dean (2024): “The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families”, a five part series; Global Research, January 23, 2024, Montreal, available at https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-federal-reserve-cartel-the-eight-families/25080.

Lemos, T.M. (2023): “Chapter 6, Genocide in Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish Sources”, pp. 185 – 208, The Cambridge World History of Genocide, Part II – The Ancient World; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Lewis, Donald M. (2021). A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century; Inter Varsity Press, Lisle, Il. 

Murray, Craig (2024): “Worse than You Can Imagine”; Consortium News, April 26, 2024, Arlington, Va., available at https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/26/craig-murray-worse-than-you-can-imagine/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=ab6bdf76-7c5d-4a0f-9d4f-479c7df1a70b.

Nachmani, Amikam (2005): Great Power Discord in Palestine: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine 1945-46; Routledge, Oxfordshire.

Nicosia, Francis R (1985): The Third Reich and the Palestine Question. 2013 reprinting, Transaction Publishers; London.

Nicosia, Francis R. (2008): Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Reinharz, Jehuda (1985): Chaim Weizmann, the Making of a Statesman, chapters 3 and 4, Brandeis University Press; Waltham, Ma.

Rossinow, Doug (2018): “The Dark Roots of AIPAC, ‘America’s Pro-Israel Lobby’”; The Washington Post,March 6, 2018, Wahington, DC.

Segev, Tom (1994): The seventh million: the Israelis and the Holocaust; Hill and Wang, New York City.

Sellers, Kirsten (2010): “Imperfect Justice at Nuremberg and Tokyo”; European Journal of International Law, Volume 21, Issue 4, November 2010, pp. 1085–1102; Oxford University Press, Oxford,  available at https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article/21/4/1085/418156.

Stein, Leonard Jacques (1961): The Balfour Declaration; Vallentine, Mitchell, London; (1983 edition) Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Teveth, Shabtai (1985): Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War. Oxford University Press; Oxford.

Walendy, Udo (1987): “The Transfer Agreement and the Boycott Fever, 1933”; Historical Facts Number 26, Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, available at https://www.scribd.com/document/590331276/TheTransfer-Agreement-And-The-Boycott-Fever-Of-1933-UdoWalendy. Weiss, Yf’aat (1998): “The Transfer Agreement and the Boycott Movement: A Jewish Dilemma on the Eve of the Holocaust”; Yad Vashem Studies Vol. XXVI, Jerusalem 1998, pp 129-172, available at https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203231.pdf

[1] The American Civil War is an obvious example.  The claim that it was fought to eliminate the scourge of African slavery is obviously untrue, witness President Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address and the fact that slavery continued in numerous Union states throughout that war, but continues to be taught and stressed as a fact.  In truth, Abraham Lincoln was a rabid racist who felt Africans were inferior, should never attain political rights in the United States and indeed, should all be shipped out of its jurisdiction, preferably to Liberia or Panama, as he felt that Africans and whites could never, and should never, live together.  See, e.g., Adams, 2000.

[2] Those objectives are critical but beyond the scope of this reflection and indeed, as it has been for over three quarters of a century, much of the required research seems impossible given existing legal prohibitions on research and expression, and the relentless classification of essential information as top secret. One wonders why?  But even if the information were readily available, the required report would be beyond the scope of even detailed treatise, requiring the free exchange of diverse opinions to untangle the incredible web deliberately woven to obfuscate the truth we need to know.  Thus, of course, the scope of this brief reflection is much more limited, but perhaps, nonetheless essential.

[3] Most Russian and German Jews supported the Germans, as did much of the largely anti-British Irish.  Indeed, the other principle Central Power, the Ottoman Empire was also supported by most of the Jews and indeed, both David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Tzvi volunteered for the Turkish Army and, when they were rejected, moved to the US and tried to recruit Jews to set up a Jewish unit in the Turkish army, see Teveth, 1985, pp. 25, 26.

[i]
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, an intermittent commentator on radio and television, and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Strange (but Continuing) Divine Colloquy: Some suspect bipolarity (but they’d be wrong)

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Anu, a primal deity antithetical to Yahweh (some call him An), still has at least some followers, although perhaps, they’d fit comfortably in an antique telephone booth.  Well, antique thousands of years after Anu lost favor (the latter observation is frequently made by Yahweh).  Still, Anu, Anshar’s son, seemingly enjoys toying with Yahweh, enjoys taunting him, especially since he taunts him from within Yahweh’s mind, a place even Yahweh cannot reach or erase (as he has erased so many other things). 

What an awesome sort of hiding place.  Yahweh knows that Anu is somewhere in his mind but his mind is so convoluted and filled with fantasies, contradictions and psychological complexes that it’s impossible to find anything there.  It frustrates Yahweh constantly and causes him almost as many migraine headaches as do the constant prayers of his subjects.  Damned whiners!  Well, most of them are damned anyway.  Predestination.

“Damned”, thunders Yahweh, as another unsolicited message escapes from deep within his restless and feckless ethosphere:

“So, …” taunts Anu, “you’ve seemingly come a long way from your metal working days Yah (a sort of nickname Anu uses to annoy Yahweh), but back then you were pretty much a straight arrow, albeit with a metal head.  A “metal-head”.  Get it!!!   Wow.  But look at you now.  A long time since your “Yaldabaoth” days.  Or even your days as one of my cousin El’s 70 club, albeit a pretty junior member of that exalted group.”

Annoyed, Yahweh responds to the conversation in what would have been his head, had he one:  “Shut up!!!   Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!!  And, anyway, you don’t exist, at least not any longer.  Who worships you now???”

Anu laughs, although not with real mirth, rather in a sort of teasing parody:  “Well, yeah, you’ve been pretty thorough wiping out the old gang but regardless of whether or not anyone else remembers me, I’m in your head.  Always have been, always will be.” 

“Always, always will be” Anu snickers in a sort of sing song, repeating himself.  “And I know, even if most others have forgotten, that you and Yaldabaoth are one and the same.  Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth!!!!  I like that name even more than Yah!”

“Damned agnostics!!!” responds Yahweh.  “And when I say ‘damned’, they’re damned and they stay damned, damn it!!!!”

Anu laughs.

“Shut up!!!” shouts Yahweh, although an observer might wonder at whom he was shouting.  “Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!”

“So” says Anu, “I hear that all those old propaganda texts you had written for your exaltation are being taken apart by humans who claim that they’re obviously incoherent and, … well …, full of male bovine feces.  And that trend seems to be resonating as their fallacies become more and more clear.  You may be joining us sooner than you think and I’m pretty sure you’ll not find your welcome all that satisfying.”

Red in the face (or he would have been, had he a face) and sneezing thunder, Yahweh petulantly replies, full of contrived confidence but in a manner reminiscent of recently deceased Tommy Smothers: “Oh yeah!!!!”  He then launches into a sort of diatribe, although at whom, an observer would not know (although some might venture a guess):

“My faithful followers, and they are legion, especially in the United States and Palestine, errr, I mean Israel, will never, ever, ever, ever change their minds about me, no matter what facts say.  Facts can’t really speak you know, and they’re easily buried in metaphorically ineffable mysticism where contradictions don’t matter, in fact, they’re cool.  Contradictions make me even more credible. … Or else!”

Anu was the father of Enlil, grandfather of Nanna and great-grandfather of Inanna, also, the great-great grandfather of Bilgamesh whose name Yahweh’s followers and others had perverted to “Gilgamesh”.  They enjoyed perversions, many perversions, myriad perversions, albeit usually they enjoyed them subtly, and quickly and loudly denied and attributed them to their victims if discovered.  They were good at that.  They had an awesome example. 

Lately Anu has been reading a book (a quaint habit he’d picked up millennia ago), a book by someone named Neil Gaiman, a book about a battle between elder divinities seeking to return to prominence and a new group of divine wannabees.  It reminded Anu of the sort of successful revolt Yahweh had managed to orchestrate when he overthrew his dad, the Canaanite god El, and along with him a great many of the other divinities native to what humans had taken to calling the Middle East (although cardinal directions make no sense, being spherical).  Yahweh had tried to wipe out all other divinities and had, to an extent, appeared to succeed, but the Hindus at least had defied him and many others, including Anu, had merely gone into seclusion.  And others had confused him.  And now, a growing number of humans were rejecting the concept of any divinities at all.  Not good that, thought Anu, finding himself uncomfortably in agreement with Yahweh.

Anu wondered on whose side that fellow Gaiman was.  Evidently his book had been perverted by an outfit called, of all things, Amazon, which had sort of converted Gaiman’s book into an audiovisual format.  That made Anu think of Yahweh and his adherents.  They loved to pervert things.  He wondered if they were involved with that Amazon project.  “Could be” he reflected.  “Could be.” 

That Gaiman fellow had some interesting ideas in his book on how to revive dormant deities.  Anu was studying it to see if he could somehow emulate some of the characters involved.  Of course, that would be difficult from his current habitat in Yahweh’s mind.  Yahweh was too paranoid to sleep.  Anu would have to find some way to provoke and trick him.  If only Bilgamesh were around.  Or Inanna, or any of the old gang.

Maybe they were, …

Somewhere.

If only he could contact a friendly trickster deity like that Anansi Gaiman seemed to worship.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Creative Bunch: Hopefully, divinity does not find that offensive

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After almost two decades I’m rereading Daniel C. Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon which seeks to explore the conceptual evolution of religion in general, tying it into, among other things, memetics (a concept that fascinates me).  I find that rereading something after a long period of time, time during which one is changing, learning new things and reevaluating others, one frequently gleans very different meanings from those one originally perceived.

That is an experience in progress which, to date, has proven interesting.  Religion and spirituality fascinate me, as do attitudes towards both, and despite a life-long quest for answers, I’ve only turned up more and more questions, but fascinating questions which keep me interested in my quest.

On the lighter side, a quote in the book I’m re-reading attributed to American actor Emo Philips both made me laugh and provided insight into our human nature.  It deals with someone, a very young true believer, obviously a true believer with a sense of humor and a complex capacity for rationalization. 

As a child this particular true believer kept praying to god for a bicycle, a prayer that was repeatedly ignored.  Eventually, however, reflecting on the suggestion that “god helps those who help themselves” and rationalizing that “we are the instruments through which god works”, the young true believer stole a bike and then, concurrently, thanked god and asked him for forgiveness for the various sins involved, i.e., not only coveting his neighbor’s property but also satisfying that urge by making the property his own; perhaps not legally or ethically, but practically.  A third sin, blasphemy, may or may not have been applicable. 

We humans are a creative bunch.

Hopefully, Divinity, assuming it exists, has a sense of humor.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Epiphanies on an Otherwise Sad Winters’ Day

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As in the case of Yeshua ben Yosef, or perhaps ben Miriam, Muhammad ibn Abdallah, a Quraysh of the Hashim clan, would, I believe, have been a friend, a respected friend, perhaps a beloved friend, although in neither case would I have been a worshipper of their visions of the Divine. 

I would have had profound discussions with both, I would have grieved with them for the follies of those who ruled mankind, both in the name of the Divine or in their own names. 

I would gladly have shared their suffering and their sacrifices, but I believe I would have remained true to myself as well, and in that, I sense no contradictions. 

The same, of course, would apply to Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas clan. 

I find it meaningful that each appeared amongst us about half a millennium apart. 

What a trinity!!!!
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

January 28, 2024

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Evil sits secure on its myriad thrones
smirking at the futile efforts
of its opponents;

hypocrisy reigns supreme
resting on pillars of popular naiveté,
as it almost always has.

The innocent are slaughtered
while the guilty rest secure in their impunity
laughing at all the ruckus.

And the gods?
Their minds on other things
ignore it all.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on the Christmas Season, … 2023

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Charles Dickens’ “a Christmas Carol” has, since it was first portrayed on the stage and screen, resonated with very diverse segments of our population although now, more realistic Carols seem to focus on a new verse, one appended to the beginning of “the Twelve Days of Christmas”, one that starts six months earlier than the older verses and deals with “… myriad merchants a’ selling ….” So perhaps that older resonance is a bit dulled and in need of refreshing. 

Perhaps a bit of reflection might help, a bit of introspection as the solstice skims by us and echoes of pagan Yule and Roman Saturnalia regale us with mirth to go along with the myrrh purportedly provided to an ostensibly special infant born in Palestine long before Zionists sought to destroy that part of the world; well, destroy it, then absorb it, and then turn it into an exclusive Palestinians-free paradise.   One might be excused for wondering what use a newborn would have for myrrh, a fragrant gum resin obtained from certain trees and used, especially in the Near East, in perfumery, medicines, and incense, but, what the heck; … so the story goes and the gift of myrrh is not its least credible aspect.

Soooo, … let’s reflect away to the tune of “Jingle Bells”, or perhaps, the Jose Feliciano version of “Feliz Navidad”:

On an individual basis, the Christmas season is delightful, at least for people blessed with positive familial harmonics supplemented by ties of easily accessible meaningful friendship, but it is deeply depressing for those not so set apart.  The latter group concerns me deeply because it is comprised of the forgotten and of those who for one reason or other, never seemed to matter.  Those with whom the Nazarene, whose birthday so many purportedly celebrate during this season, would be most concerned, assuming he existed and was as beneficently described rather than the angry Pauline version.  Of course, while in the modern “Western” world the season focuses on the Nazarene, the season’s traditions are primordial and have been, in many cases, usurped through manufactured syncretism with far older and more complex cultures, cultures which in some cases have refused amalgamation.

Perhaps the foregoing might serve as a thought bandied about among the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas future, a thought we might all want to take into account and perhaps, about which we might even consider doing something positive.  And if so, why limit it to this particular season?

Bah humbug!!!!  I wonder what exactly, using linguistic analysis and perhaps philology that is meant to mean.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

On Equatorial Solstices and Balancing Harmonics

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The solstices which take place in the arbitrarily denominated months of June and December (at least in what is commonly referred to, for inexplicable reasons given the nature of directions, as “western” culture) generate complex emotional vortexes, emotive textures woven of delight and depression, both inter and intra-personally.  

Topographically, in the northern hemisphere, the December solstice marks the end of lengthening nights and the beginning of longer days, in the south, the opposite is true.  The inverse occurs in each north-south hemisphere in June.  But what happens right on the equator? 

Perhaps a bit of confusion as to what all the fuss is about.  Or perhaps the solstices are at their most unique, most special and most profound on the equator, especially if one were to set one foot in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern, something possible in southern Colombia and in the other twelve countries which the equator bisects (Ecuador, Brazil, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, the Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati).  The so called Coriolis Effect based on the consequences of the earth’s rotation, makes storms swirl clockwise in the southern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, thus, physically, unlike the arbitrary denominations of east and west as static points, or the arbitrary temporal division into months of varying lengths, the concepts of “north” and “south” have actual physical consequences.  But what happens at the equator, especially during the solstices? 

One would think the equator would be the site of special ceremonies during the two annual solstices in each country through which it passes.  There are, of course, myriad festivals related to the two solstices almost everywhere (other than on the equator itself).  Think, of course, of Christmas, originally celebrated on or about the exact date of the solstice until Pope Gregory XIII shifted dates around and the law of unintended consequences extracted astronomical significance from that festival.  Of course, like east and west and calendar months, the placement of the Christmas season in December was completely arbitrary, counterintuitive and incoherent given available evidence, apparently seeking primarily to obscure the date theretofore assigned to the Zoroastrian god Mithras (born of a virgin on December 25) and perhaps the Roman festival of Saturnalia as well as a plethora of “pagan” solstice related festivals (whatever “pagan” means).  Like the foregoing, other solstice related festivals are generally focused on climactic consequences in one of the two north-south hemispheres.  In Ecuador for example, Inti Raymi (the Fiesta del Sol) has been long celebrated on June 21 to the south of the equator rather than exactly along the border, that exactitude being infinitesimal and difficult to set with exactitude, other than through, for example, striding it.  The Inti Raymi was a traditional religious ceremony of the Inca Empire in honor of the god Inti (Quechua for sun), the most venerated deity in the Inca religion.  It was declared a festival of “intangible cultural heritage” on June 29, 2016, and it is still celebrated throughout the formerly Incan Andean region due to its association with indigenous cosmogony and with the bounty provided by the Pacha Mama (a Gaia-like indigenous deity popular in the Andes). 

Oddly, festivals set exactly adjacent to both sides of the equator during the solstices do not appear to exist, at least not formally, which is surprising.  It would seem a perfect trajectory and day, perhaps a perfect instant, for reflection and introspection, for seeking a perfect balance, for merging the negative and the positive, the ying and the yang, for celebrating the similarities in things that seem opposed.  To acknowledge the harmonics possible in polarization and how they can generate dialectic evolution.  An instant to pray for peace and harmony.

Which, perhaps, explains the dearth of related ceremonies.  The military industrial complex which rules us all the way that Tolkien’s “one ring” ruled the rest would never permit such a festival.

Still, if that impediment could somehow be overcome, what about a semi-annual ceremony along the equator, once for each solstice, where a line of people one person wide, alternating men and women perhaps, is formed along the entire land portion of the equator, with every participant straddling the equator and holding hands with those before and after them, all assembled several minutes before the solstice and disbanded several minutes afterward to assure coincidence with the instant of the solstice, all focusing during that time on a world at peace, one where all opinions respected, one seeking continuing evolution towards harmonious unity and perfection.

Wouldn’t that be something?  Perhaps it’s something to consider.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Beautiful Day in the Central Range of the Colombian Andes, As the World Burns

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It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday in the city in the sky.  The one set among snow clad peaks and thermal springs near an adjacent volcano or two and the remnants of several glaciers.  The one set atop the central range of the Colombian Andes in the midst of a sea of mountains dressed in diverse verdant shades.  It seems summery although in the Northern Hemisphere, the part of our planet in which this part of Colombia is set, it is late autumn, just short of winter.  But then, this close to the equator, seasons tend to meld and shift and be measured in hours rather than months.

The world seems as bad as it’s been since the second war to end all wars a bit over three quarters of a century ago, all the lessons it purportedly taught at best unlearned but more they were probably just fictitious attempts at justifying unjustifiable terminal follies.  Again.  After all, the second war to end all wars took place less than two decades after the first war to end all wars ended.  And wars?  Well, they’re just fine, in fact, perhaps healthier than ever.

Still, … as individuals here and there, life plows on, life: full of interpersonal challenges and triumphs, its own interpersonal beauty and mystique artfully masking our own errors and mistakes.

The Global South (which ironically includes Russia and China and Iran but definitely not the Ukraine) seems to be making headway in its quest for liberation from the constant abuse, humiliation and looting that flows from the North.  But not without severe challenges as the Global North has no intention of brooking what it considers insolence by lesser species.  By people almost but not quite human. 

Notwithstanding the hypocritical “woke”, condescension still rules. 

Still, … there is a scent of a different sort of future and lingering echoes seem to wonder whether such future will be better or just filled with shadows from the past, and whether the images we’ll see in our future mirrors will reflect who we’ve been, or we claim to have been, or who we wish we had been, or who we’d like to be, or who we’ve been forced to become.  Hopefully the images that stare back at us will not be too much like those of those who for so long have oppressed so many.  Wishful thinking, I know, but “if our reach does not exceed our grasp, then what’s a heaven for”, as Robert Browning wrote.  But then, he was a poet, not a politician, a journalist or a historian (the illusory professions).

Omnipresent, dystopia seems to rule.  We seem to be a people in transition, greedily tearing down the past without any agreement on what will replace the corrupt social institutions that have been decaying, putrefied for millennia.  Decaying but refusing to die.  That confuses and polarizes us as we’re manipulated by the worst among us, the Northern hegemonic wannabe leaders who refuse to let go and definitely decline to share, but who still exercise almost total control.  Yet, “almost” is an optimistic harbinger, a qualifier that hints at possible changes, perhaps even beneficent changes.

Who can tell? 

But we can hope. 

Especially on a beautiful sunny Saturday in early December, one in which at least some of us are safely ensconced among some of those we most love, … at least for the day. 

The carnage, genocide and ethnic cleansing underway in Palestine by the worst cultural descendants of the tribe which, after looting Egypt, went on to plunder and murder every man woman and child in ancient Jericho, continues unabated despite popular condemnation in the Global South and even, among an enlightened minority in Europe, the United States and even Israel, although, from here in the heights of the Andes, as in the United States and Europe, to some, that all seems very far away.  Far enough away so that the screams of pain and dying gasps and mourning and lamentations are barely audible and thus, perhaps, at least for them, can be sanitized and washed away.

Or at least shouted down and obfuscated through carefully crafted rhetoric, with reckoning postponed, if not for ever, at least for another day.   

After all, who mourns for ancient Jericho today?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on Thanksgiving Day, 1621 – 2023

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Another strange Thanksgiving Day is on the horizon.  They’ve all been strange though.

It’s always been a day in which descendants of European colonists enjoy gorging themselves in banquets and eventually, watching football games, but one in which indigenous people in North America reflect on how their generosity was repaid with ethnic cleansing and genocide.

North American indigenous people can probably empathize with Muslims who sheltered and protected Jewish people for over a millennium but were then rewarded with the theft of Palestine and, of course, with ethnic cleansing and genocide as well.

Thanksgiving Day will probably be remembered this year by indigenous people everywhere, remembered but not celebrated.  Indigenous people whose lands were stolen and who were subjected to ethnic cleaning and genocide, a day like Columbus Day.  One in which to reflect on the hypocrisy inherent in colonialism, whether in the Americas, in Africa or in the Middle East.

Today, this year, 2023, it’s a day on which to reflect on the hypocrisy associated with the phrase “never again” and with other days remembering holocausts.  Holocausts as ancient as Jericho and as new as the one during World War II.  Or the one that has been occurring in Palestine since 1948.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Not in our Name

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Israel, the land of nine million Eichmanns who can’t grasp that Palestinians rightly feel for them the emotions that survivors of the Holocaust felt for the worst of the Nazis, and that those feelings are spreading to people all over the world, but especially in the Global South.  And that those feelings are not expressions of antisemitism but of disgust with Israeli genocide, mass murder and ruthless ethnic cleansing.

Too many people of Jewish descent respond to criticism of the new holocaust, the one perpetrated by Israel on Palestinians, by asserting that only Jews can understand the justification for what are to others obviously crimes of lesse humanidad, but how would they answer a Nazi sympathizer who made a similar claim to a Jew, that not being a German Nazi, a Jew could never understand the justifications for what the Nazis did. 

Too many people of Jewish descent may feel that way but far from all as a resounding echo answers loudly from far and near: “not in our name!”
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; 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 is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  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).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.