Category Archives: Historical

Probabilities on the First Tuesday following the First Monday in November, 2026

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Reliable projections point to a blue wave on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November, 2026, perhaps a tsunami, but ….

Seriously ….

What are the chances that the current Trump administration will accept electoral defeat in an existential election, existential because if it loses it will have to face a hostile Congress with subpoena power and the power of the purse and, theoretically (albeit not practically) conviction power following impeachment?  What are the chances when it does not abide by any law, international, constitutional, federal, state or local?  After all, the only moral that counts is Donald Trump’s opinion[1].

Obviously, no matter the results next Tuesday, the presidential pardon power will shield the members of Mr. Trump’s administration and his family (or most of them, some may be thrown to the wolves) from federal criminal liability no matter what (as did the Biden administration), but that does not shield them from prosecution, incarceration or fines at the state and local level.  Then again, a compliant and subservient Supreme Court may well find a way to extend the scope of the pardon power or restrict the power of states and localities to work around it.  But “facts” in the hands of a real press can be dangerous things.  Of course, that assumes a “real press” rather than a subservient outlet for propaganda which hides even more than it distorts.  Still it’s a bit harder to muzzle a hostile Congress with its fingers holding tight to the federal purse.  Better to avoid the problem, but how?

Well, until the unstoppable force hit the unmovable wall in Brazil last week, the United States and Israel had conducted numerous successful experiments in electoral manipulation through the use of “bot” controlled social media spewing false information, algorithmic manipulation, control of electoral software and oodles of cash, indeed, manipulation of public transport seemed that it would be a great tool to assure proper results, at least until a pesky judicial system and idiots in the pro United States/Israeli camp screwed up and the elections were extended.  Still, all but one recent election was steered in the “right” direction, regardless of how voters actually voted and the methods designed and perfected by the “deep state”, now controlled by Trump & Company, can be very effective.  How effective in the United States, where it obviously seems they have been used by both branches of the uniparty since at least the 206 election, remains to be seen.  But it seems a pretty good bet that with an utterly ruthless administration in charge of the system, the polls and projections will once again prove to, amazingly, have been completely mistaken. 

So what if that constitutes a defacto coup d’état.

The sick thing is that such a likely defacto coup against the electorate is only possible (some would say likely), because the other branch of the AIPAC owned uniparty (i.e., the Democrats), when it was last in office, created precedents that their purported opponents can now use, not against them, but against us all. So, we really should at least ask ourselves: “Just how stupid have we been and how negligent in our duty as citizens that the foregoing is not only a possibility but a probability?”

As instructed by both branches of the uniparty as well as the unipress, we’ve voted in favor of purported “lesser evils” for so long that all we have is evil, plutocratic evil in a system where the purportedly sacred constitution is less useful than toilet paper (not to denigrate the immense value of toilet paper).  And we, the stupid, naïve, manipulable voters are to blame, not the army of straw people the uniparty shoves in our faces, i.e., the communists and socialists and Muslims and liberals and progressives and conservatives and libertarians and academics and blacks and Hispanics and racists, etc.

On the other hand, what choices have we had, each seemingly worse that the other in an endless cycle: Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump!!!  Of course, there were other candidates but our purportedly free unipress kept them safely hidden while urging us not to “waste our votes”.  “Move on, nothing here to see: Ross Perot, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Cornel West, etc., who the ‘Hell’ were they?”

And who de we have sitting in the wings, according to the latest “polls (assuming Mr. Trump ever relinquishes the presidency, after all, he and his billionaire friends are avidly paying for research into immortality, of the immoral variant):  Well, amazingly, Kamala Harris (if Hillary does not decide to run again); yuck!!!!; and J.D. Vance, or perhaps Marco Rubio, (yuck!!!).

So …. ¿Now what?

Somewhere an immense flock of happy chickens are coming home to roost, their feckless, errr, I mean fearless leader, cackling, suggesting we just lie back and enjoy it.  After all, civic obligations are pretty much of a drag.  Or, to put it another way, a bit more artfully, as recently departed Patrick Stewart once declaimed in his role as Locutos of Borg (perhaps paraphrasing Elliot Brandt): “Resistance is futile. Your life, as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service us.” 

Actually, it’s been that way for a while.

Which is not to discourage the reader (hopefully more than one) from following president Trump’s advice to “vote early and vote often”!
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

[1] Kanno-Youngs, Z., Pager, T., Rogers, K., & Sanger, D. E. (2026, January 8): “Trump lays out a vision of power restrained only by my own morality”. The New York Times. nytimes.com

Flávio Bolsonaro, a Perfect Partner for the Trump Family “Syndicate”

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So, no surprise that Flávio Bolsonaro, facing pre-election charges of corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion, successfully fled to the United States instead of facing the legal process in Brazil (as did the winner of Sunday’s elections, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva several years ago when he was falsely accused); all while the United States holds legal Venezuelan president Nicholas Madura and his wife prisoners after a kidnapping which violated all norms of international law.  I guess the severity of a crime is in the eyes of the beholder.  Especially in this era when law is an irrelevancy, domestically and internationally, and only power counts.

While not formally endorsing Flávio, the United States did everything it could to get him elected, as it did with its other “pet” candidates in Colombia, Peru, Honduras, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, etc. The collaboration spanned long-term institutional advice from the United States far-right to direct strategic involvement by Trump administration officials and political venture capitalists during the 2026 campaign cycle.

The strategic advisory pipeline from the United States operated on three distinct levels:

  • During the 2026 presidential campaign, two prominent United States State Department advisers—Darren Beattie (Senior Adviser for Western Hemisphere Affairs) and Ricardo Pita (Deputy Assistant Secretary)—actively led a strategic campaign aimed at restoring the Bolsonaro clan to power. According to investigative reports by journalists from The Business Standard and other outlets, these officials helped formulate tactical maneuvers to weaken President Lula da Silva, including successfully lobbying for 25% United States tariffs on Brazilian imports and advocating for the classification of Brazilian domestic criminal factions as foreign terrorist organizations to tilt electoral momentum in Flávio Bolsonaro’s favor.
  • In April 2026, the Rockbridge Network, a prominent United States conservative political venture capital fund co-founded by American tech investors and current United States Vice President Vance, drafted a highly confidential blueprint titled “Rockbridge Network Brasil”.  The group formally proposed creating a 23-member Technology Council—composed of 19 foreign business and political leaders—to directly advise Senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party presidential campaign.  The strategy aimed to provide financial backing to remodel Brazil’s right-wing political landscape, mirroring American conservative operations targeting the media, universities, and legislative strategy.
  • According to reporting by Agência Pública, United States strategists actively advised the Bolsonaro family on specific tactical playbooks, including: Deploying pre-emptive rhetoric to cast doubt on the legitimacy of electronic voting machines; relying heavily on alternative social media applications and coordinated digital ecosystems to orchestrate campaigns outside traditional media oversight; following the exact tactical blueprint utilized during the 2020 United States presidential election to reject concession, file immediate legal challenges, and push for the annulment of voting results when trailing in the count.

As to Flávio and his long standing criminal allegations.  They include the following:

  • The Banco Master Movie Financing Scheme.  The primary investigation centers on whether the Bolsonaro family misused funds or accepted bribes under the guise of movie production.  Favio is accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars from Daniel Vorcaro, the disgraced former owner of Banco Master, to finance an unreleased biographical film about his father (former President Jair Bolsonaro) titled “The Dark Horse”.  Leaked voice memos and text messages from May 2026 revealed Flávio asking Vorcaro for $26.8 million. Authorities allege the funds were intended to bankroll his political agenda and cover the expenses of his brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, rather than legitimate production.
  • The Social Security Pension Fraud & Money Laundering Scheme.  A separate, broader inquiry links Flávio to systemic fraud involving unauthorized deductions from elderly citizens’ pensions.  Prosecutors allege Flávio used sports betting platforms and shell corporations to launder fraudulent deductions taken from Brazil’s social security pension system.  Federal police discovered that Flávio held “master user” bank access to accounts belonging to Alcazar Holdings, a company tied to a lawyer accused of laundering over $1 billion through fraud.
  • The “Rachadinha Scheme.  Between 2004 and 2018, while Flávio Bolsonaro was serving as a state representative in the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ), he was accused of running a criminal organization that siphoned public funds by employing “ghost workers” and forcing legislative aides to return large portions of their government salaries back to the Bolsonaro family.  Flávio’s legislative office hired numerous individuals as aides who rarely, if ever, showed up for actual public service work (ghost employees). Some of these employees were even revealed to be relatives of notorious Rio paramilitary militia bosses.  Once those employees received their taxpayer-funded government salaries, they were forced to withdraw the cash or transfer up to 90% of their earnings back to the operation’s coordinator.  Fabrício Queiroz, a former police officer and longtime close friend of the Bolsonaro family, acted as Flávio’s driver and chief political aide. Brazil’s financial intelligence unit (COAF) flagged over 1.2 million reais ($220,000) in highly suspicious, rapid cash deposits moving through Queiroz’s bank account.  State prosecutors formally charged Flávio Bolsonaro in 2020 with embezzlement, money laundering, and misappropriation, alleging the diverted public funds were integrated into his personal wealth via a chocolate shop.  Siphoned cash was reportedly mixed into the daily revenue lines of a boutique franchise chocolate shop co-owned by Flávio in Rio de Janeiro to give the illicit funds a legitimate commercial appearance. Prosecutors alleged that Flávio routinely used large bags of undeclared cash to purchase luxury apartments in Copacabana and later a luxury mansion in Brasília, artificially simulating capital gains to clean the money. The suspicious financial trail also tracked thousands of dollars in direct checks written by Queiroz to Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro.

In late 2021, the original criminal case stalled. In a highly controversial legal victory for the Bolsonaro family, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ) and the Supreme Court invalidated the core financial evidence. The courts ruled that prosecutors improperly bypassed formal judicial authorizations when acquiring Flávio’s initial financial intelligence reports (COAF data), resulting in the official dismissal of the original “rachadinha” charges on technical, procedural grounds rather than an acquittal on the merits. However, the political and legal landscape has rapidly shifted following his recent defeat in the October 2026 presidential runoff election and escape, first to Argentina and then to the United States. Lawyers have petitioned federal prosecutors to officially bypass the previously tainted evidence and reopen investigations into the siphoned funds, citing fresh, independent evidence regarding hidden safety deposit boxes used by the family during the peak of the ALERJ scheme.

Based on the foregoing, it’s no wonder Flávio was obviously a perfect partner for the Trump administration and its allies in Brazil.  Plenty to hide, plenty to lose, and an escape hatch?  Essential.  The Trump relationship with the Bolsonaro “clan” dates back to Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 and 2022 campaigns. One of Jair’s other sons, former Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, made over 70 visits to the United States forming a close relationship with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and other conservative political architects like Jason Miller.  Now, it remains to be seen how the Trump and Bolsonaro families can find a way to mutually profit, given the failure of Flávio’s presidential aspirations.

The biggest loser or biggest winner from Flavio’s flight is probably his second stepmother, Jair’s third wife Michelle, a political power on her own in the right wing powerhouse Liberal Party, more so than any of the Bolsonaro brothers.  During the recent parliamentary elections she attained the highest vote ever for the Senate and has a huge personal following among evangelical Christians and among conservative women.  Flavio’s flight eliminates him as a political rival (their relationship was not smooth).  On the other hand, his cowardice when compared to current president Lula may well tarnish the entire Bolsonaro clan given that he is the third member to flee to the United States (although his father returned to face the justice system after two months).  Especially after he vowed to his followers not to do so and to remain in Brazil and prove his innocence.

Luckily for the Brazilian political right, President Lula is term limited from running in the 2030 presidential elections and has no viable successors visible and, of course, there is no telling what Donald Trump may do in the future.  He has already been urged to kidnap and remove President Lula by right wing Florida Congressman Carlos Giménez (a major Trump ally), as he did to president Maduro and his wife in Venezuela.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

Perspectives as of October 27, 2026 Concerning the Upcoming United States Congressional Elections

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The current probabilities, based on national polling aggregates and statistical models (using artificial intelligence as a research tool), with one week to go until the November 3, 2026 United States midterm Congressional elections, seem to project a significant “blue wave”, perhaps even a “blue tsunami”,  driven by slumping approval ratings for President Donald Trump and disapproval of his subordination of United States interests to Israel, especially with respect to the Pearl Harbor-like attack by the United States and Israel against Iran and United States support for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Lebanon.  The following synthesized breakdown of projections from major polling agencies, forecasters, and betting markets outlines the current expectations for both chambers.  However, a caveat, rather than an exact science, polling has been largely converted into a tool for manipulation of results and thus results have, in the recent past, been wildly inaccurate.

In the House of Representatives (the “House”), Republicans currently hold 218 seats, Democrats hold 212 with one independent and four vacancies.  Projections imply that after the November elections, Democrats will hold between 229 and 242 seats while Republicans will hold between 193 and 206.  In the Senate, Republicans currently hold 53 seats with an additional vote by Vice President Vance in the event of a tie and Democrats and their “independent” allies hold 47.  That is projected to change after the elections with Democrats expected to hold between 51 and 54 seats and Republicans between 49 and 51 but, in the event of a tie, once more Vice President Vance would cast the deciding vote.  There is, however, a significant wild card, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.  He is currently a Democrat but might well elect to caucus with or vote with the GOP.  There are also a number of Democratic Senators with deep ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (“AIPAC”) such as Democratic Party Senate leader Charles E. Schumer, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, Californians Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, Pennsylvania Democrats Bob Casey and John Fetterman, Montana’s Jon Tester, Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono and surprisingly, Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren (among others), who are may join Republican Senators in matters of importance to Israel, the same being true in the House[1].

The following are the latest projections by major forecasting organizations:

  • As of October 26, Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) projected a 55% probability that Democrats would take complete control of both chambers (a unified Congress), with a 24% chance that Republicans would retain the Senate while losing the House and just a 19% chance that Republicans would hold on to both.  The projected seat breakdown assumes that Democrats will win 238 seats in the House and 51 seats in the Senate.
  • As of October 23, the Cook Political Report projected that a majority of House will be controlled by Democrats, placing 214 seats as solid, likely, or leaning Democratic—meaning Democrats only need to capture 4 out of the 17 unallocated “Toss-Up” seats to take the gavel.  As to the Senate, it places 7 seats in the true “toss-pp” category: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas. To secure a 51-seat majority, Democrats must hold Michigan and successfully flip four of the remaining Republican-held states.
  • As of October 27, CBS News / YouGov Poll projected that Democrats would secure 229 seats in the House, an 11-seat buffer over the required 218 threshold.
  • As of October 27, PBS News / NPR / Marist Poll reflected a generic commanding 8-point lead (52% to 44%) among likely voters nationwide for Democrats in the upcoming elections. The poll highlighted strong enthusiasm indicators, with 71% of Democrats expressing high eagerness to vote compared to 61% of Republicans.
  • As of late October, the Polymarket & Kalshi Prediction Markets (a gaming platform) gave the Democratic Party a 91% to 92% chance of controlling the House and a 66% chance of capturing the Senate.

The foregoing may well be impacted on a personal level by the arrogance and lack of discursive objectivity of many Trump supporting Republicans in their interaction with potential voters who are not, “dyed in the wool” Trump supporters. I am among those who have been turned off by the hubris of Trump supporters, although, in all honesty, as an independent, I would never support any AIPAC backed candidate, whether Republican, Democratic, third party or independent.  Nonetheless, I am profoundly disappointed that so many United States voters who I respect and for whom I have profound affection, having studied with them or taught them, are among those who seem abysmally ignorant as to history, philosophy and international affairs and as to what communism, socialism or Islam really are, although they are totally convinced as to their expertise with respect to the foregoing.  It’s true that United States citizens have always tended to be unaware of a great deal outside the propaganda they are fed (and which I was also fed, and which, for a while, I taught) but they have become significantly more aggressive, counterintuitive and, in the long term (now heading towards the short term), bellicose in a counterproductive manner.  They seem trapped in echo chambers where they preach to each other as loudly and insistently as they can, disregarding contrary realities that they would need to understand in order to convince others, rather than to alienate them.  Perhaps given their current perspectives, that’s a good thing.

Many such people with whom I regularly associate and, outside of politics and religion, with whom I have a great deal in common, ironically consider themselves devout Christians while concurrently avowed capitalists, not realizing how incoherently inconsistent those positions are.  I am not a believer in the divinity of “Jesus” but am profoundly in favor of the doctrines which he is credited with espousing, doctrines such as “treating others as one would be treated”, acceptance of forgiveness and reformation as guiding principles and supporting the most disadvantaged among us, that, as contrasted with the intolerance and elitism favored by Saul of Tarsus who so thoroughly succeeded in distorting Jesus’ message.  I am a progressive democratic socialist, like Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Noam Chomsky, Salvador Allende, Clement Attlee, Olof Palme, Jawaharlal Nehru. Mohandas Gandhi, David Ben-Gurion, Willy Brandt, Eugene V. Debs, George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Helen Keller and now, Zohran Mamdani, and thus, abhor both the Republican and Democratic parties.

At any event, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, AIPAC’s control over the Democratic Party’s current and anticipated leadership means that even if Democratic Party candidates overwhelm their Republican opponents by historic margins, nothing is likely to change except for the political affiliation of the victims of lawfare.  That is so despite widespread voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party’s current leadership or with the control exercised by AIPAC over the Democratic (as well as Republican) Party.  Oddly, it is GOP dissidents who have become disenchanted by the Trump administration’s betrayal of his purported America First and antiwar pledges who espouse the most progressive, anti-AIPAC messaging.  People like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Joe Kent, Senator Rand Paul, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada, Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and especially, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie.  It’s ironic that GOP dissidents and democratic socialists in the Democratic Party both seem to believe that the changes they view as existentially necessary have to be accomplished through internal reform of their respective political parties rather than through an alliance between them given that they have so much more in common with each other than they do with the AIPAC controlled traditionalist in their current parties.  But that’s how politics has functioned ever since the presidential election of 1860 in the United States, in the United States where democracy is quasi-legally defined as a bipartisan dictatorship through legally favored duopoly.  Thus, the likelihood following the Congressional elections is, as is usual in United States politics, that the more things change, the more they either stay the same or become even worse.

Don’t forget to vote and, as president Trump privately urges, vote early and vote often.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026 (except for the image which is the property of the New Republic); all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

[1] In the current Congress, 247 Democrats and 268 Republicans in the House have direct financial support from AIPAC on record. Almost the entire current Senate has accepted pro-Israel PAC backing. The upcoming Congress will see a minor decline due to retirements and targeted general election dropouts where candidates have refused AIPAC alignment as a litmus test.

Omens: Perdiccas, Phílippos and Aléxandros, the Argeads

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Somewhere, perhaps, a man whose proper name is Aléxandros Argead, walks and dreams strange dreams.  He is strong, brilliant and ambitious but also very confused.  He is an amnesiac. He believes that Aléxandros Argead is his name because it is inscribed on a rectangular metallic tag with rounded edges he wore on a ball chain around his neck but he does not know where he was born or where he was raised, although his dreams seem to provide impossible hints.  His oldest memories, all too recent, involve waking, somewhat injured, on a battlefield near the city of Al-Hillah in Iraq along the Euphrates River, approximately 85 kilometers (53 miles) south of Baghdad; the sole survivor of some sort of major military conflict.  He was the only survivor and thus had no one he could ask what it was about or on whose side he fought.  But he was somehow certain that the “Americans” were not his friends.  Fortunately, a certain amount of currency was strewn nearby and he’d collected it, all of it, somehow aware that it would prove important. 

It does.  Eventually.  Although perhaps eventually has not yet made its appearance.

So, what does he look like?  Well, his body is athletic and muscular and he is a little less than five feet seven inches tall, with what had once been a fair skin bronzed by prolonged exposure to the outdoors into a naturally ruddy, sun-flushed complexion.  His hair is thick, golden and swept upward from his forehead in a distinct, lion-like “anastole” style. His face has sharp features, including a prominent forehead, a short, strong chin, and a slight, characteristic tilt of his head toward his left shoulder. Most striking are his intense, deep-set eyes that carry a sharp, melting gaze which creates an impression of vulnerability but also, of commanding power.

He is, unbeknownst to himself, of a line founded over twenty seven centuries ago, one that over twenty-three centuries ago was thought to have become extinct, one founded by a certain Perdiccas from the ancient Greek city-state of Argos who was, in turn, descended from a certain Temenus, purportedly a great-great-grandson of Heracles.  Temenus was at one time king in Argos.  Perdicass, however, along with his two older brothers, Gauanes and Aeropus, had a fate further to the north in what was to become known as Macedon.  Of course, being aware of nothing, Aléxandros Argead knew nothing concerning the foregoing, and perhaps he never had.  Perhaps he never would.  According to history, every member of the Argead family had been assassinated by a certain Cassander, son of Antipater, millennia ago.  Seemingly as is frequently the case, historians were mistaken.

So, for a bit of context, context for us if not for Aléxandros Argead. 

According to the earliest and most widely accepted historical traditions from Herodotus and Thucydides, Perdiccas was the founder of what came to be known as the Argead dynasty, hence Aléxandros’ surname.  Purportedly, at least according to legends of which Aléxandros was unaware, perhaps because of his apparent amnesia, or perhaps because his family history had been lost in the mists of time as his ancestors first escaped from their jealous enemies, enemies who had purportedly been faithful followers, and then hid, hid for millennia, but sought to keep their family history somehow alive while hidden, although after several centuries, history had been conflated with myth, and the term myth attributed to actual facts.

Perdiccas had eventually attained power to the north of Argos, to the north of Greece, through a legendary journey of exile, labor, and a prophetic omen as famously recorded in Herodotus’s The Histories.  According to what passed for history at the time (and may or may not have been accurate), Perdiccas and his two older brothers, Gauanes and Aeropus, were born and, for a time, lived in the Greek city-state of Argos, claiming descent, however, from the mythical hero Heracles who was born in Thebes.  But that was not the most unlikely of the many legends that surround this particular family.

For reasons lost to history, Perdiccas and his brothers, Gauanes and Aeropus, were exiled from Argos, most probably for reasons having to do with disputes concerning royal succession.  After being exiled from Argos, the brothers traveled through Illyria to the Macedonian town of Lebaea.  There, for a time, they worked as shepherds of sorts for a local king.  Not a major king by any means.  In those days, almost any independent ruler of a territory, even one the size of a town, tended to proclaim himself a pasireu (petty king).  In this case, it involved a pasireu rather than a basileus (more substantial king).  Indeed, the king’s own wife baked bread for the royal household including its servants and those who herded livestock.  According to an unlikely legend, whenever the queen baked bread, the loaf meant for Perdiccas miraculously doubled in size.  Disturbed by the consistent anomaly the queen discussed it with her husband who viewed it as an omen from the gods that Perdiccas was destined for greatness. Fearing this sign, the king ordered the brothers to leave his territory immediately.  The brothers agreed, after all, their stay in Lebaea was not meant to be permanent, they were of royal stock and probably meant to somehow or other reclaim their birthrights, so they readily agreed to leave, asking only for the wages they had earned.  The king however, for some stupid reason, reneged on his obligation to pay them, supposedly mockingly pointed to a patch of sunlight shining through the chimney and told them that was all they would get. Surprising the king and his wife as well as his brothers, Perdiccas accepted the offer, symbolically scraping the sunlight into the fold of his garment. Abruptly, shortly after the brothers departure, the king, not a total idiot, realized that the acceptance by Perdiccass and his symbolic act of gathering up the sunlight symbolized claiming the land itself and he sent riders to kill them.  However, again according to improbable legend, a sacred river flooded to protect the brothers, allowing them to escape.  Perdiccas and his brothers settled near Mount Vermion in a fertile area known as the Gardens of Midas. Using this location as a secure base, Perdiccas’ charisma and legendary heritage allowed him to unite the local Macedonian tribes and he led his new people eastward into the plains, conquering the surrounding territories and eventually founding the city of Aigai (modern Vergina in the Northern Greek region still known as Macedonia), which became the first royal capital of the Argead kingdom. 

Because of their origin in Argos, the lineage founded by the brothers became known as the Argead dynasty and it ruled the ancient kingdom of Macedon from its founding around 700 before the Common Era until 310 of that epoch.  While the house ruled Macedonia for seven centuries, it was only towards the end under Phílippos II and his second son, Aléxandros III, that the Argead dynasty rose from a peripheral northern kingdom to a global superpower unifying Greece, dismantling the Persian Empire and extending as far as Western India. The dynasty seemingly ended shortly after Aléxandros III’s’ death as a result of the power struggles of his generals (the Diadochi), culminating in the murder of his young son, Aléxandros IV, in 310 BC.  However, ignored by history was the reality that Aléxandros III was not the only heir of the Argeads, nor, perhaps, was Aléxandros IV the only surviving offspring of Aléxandros III.

Which brings us to Aléxandros Argead, the one who thought that he knew his name but little else.  Concerning his personal past or his likely future neither we nor he know anything and, of his present, only the foregoing (as to which he was, at the moment, unaware).  But the world needs heroes today, today perhaps more than ever, and perhaps his appearance near the city of Al-Hillah is, like so many other things in his family’s past, an omen.

From deep within the deepest pit in Hades, a furious Cassander looks on.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

Reflexiones sobre reflexiones

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«Ve’betarayin yehon qadmayin ve’qadmayin betarayin» («הָרִאשׁוֹנִים יִהְיוּ אַחֲרוֹנִים וְהָאַחֲרוֹנִים – רִאשׁוֹנִים» en hebreo); la primera frase estaba en arameo.  «Los primeros serán los últimos y los últimos serán los primeros», según se dice, eso proclamó Jesús —o más exactamente, Yešu—. Pero ¿qué hay de los que están entre esos dos polos? ¿Existirá una relación inversa en toda la escala? ¿Y qué decir de los que ocupan el centro: los insípidos, los tibios o casi fríos, aquellos que, buscando mantener abiertas todas las opciones, se niegan a tomar partido? ¿Dónde se situarán y cuándo?

Por supuesto, están los hipócritas, los mentirosos, los manipuladores; aquellos que adoptan una postura sin intención alguna de actuar en consecuencia y que, de hecho, a menudo actúan de manera totalmente opuesta a lo que dicen defender. Suelen congregarse en la política, el derecho, el periodismo y entre el clero.

Hay quienes consideran que los que están en el medio son los peores de todos: los cobardes, los cómplices. Claro que en ese punto intermedio hay diversas variantes, y tal vez distintos olores. La ambivalencia. ¿En qué se diferencia de la indecisión? ¿O de la apatía? ¿Y cuál podría ser la relación entre la apatía y lo patético?

Hay quienes afirman que «es mejor haber amado y perdido que no nunca haber amado». ¿Cómo se traduce esto conceptualmente en el caso de quienes expresan su opinión y resultan estar equivocados, frente a aquellos que, por miedo a equivocarse, nunca opinan?

¿Dónde te situarías tú?

Es solo una pregunta.

Se atribuye a Albert Einstein la siguiente frase: «El mundo es un lugar peligroso para vivir, no por causa de los malvados, sino por aquellos que no hacen nada al respecto».

Me pregunto qué diría Yešu.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; todos derechos reservados.  Permiso para compartir con atribución.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé es escritor, comentarista, analista político y académico residente en la República de Colombia. Aspira ser poeta y filósofo empírico y a veces se lo cree.  Hasta el 2017 coordinaba los programas de Ciencia Política, Gobierno y Relaciones Internacionales de la Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. En la actualidad, participa en entrevistas radiales y televisadas, foros, seminarios y congresos cívicos tabto en Colombia como en el exterior y edita y publica la revista virtual, The Inannite Review disponible en Substack.com/.  Tiene títulos académicos en ciencias políticas (del Citadel, la universidad militar de la Carolina del Sur), derecho (de la St. John’s University en la ciudad de Nueva York), estudios jurídicos internacionales (de la facultad posgrado de derecho de la New York University) y estudios posgrado de lingüística y traducción (del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de la Florida).  Sin embargo, también es fascinado por la mitología, la religión, la física, la astronomía y las matemáticas, especialmente en lo relacionado con lo cuántico y la cosmogonía.  Puede ser contactado en guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com y gran parte de su escritura está disponible a través de su blog en https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on Reflecting

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“Ve’betarayin yehon qadmayin ve’qadmayin betarayin” (“הָרִאשׁוֹנִים יִהְיוּ אַחֲרוֹנִים וְהָאַחֲרוֹנִים – רִאשׁוֹנִים” in Hebrew), the first was in Aramaic. 

“The first shall be last and the last shall be first” Jesus, more accurately Yešu, is reported to have declaimed.  But, what about those in between?  Will there be an inverse relationship all the way through?  And what of those in the middle, the bland, the lukewarm or almost cool, those who, seeking to keep all options open, refuse to take a stand.  Where will they stand and when?

Of course, there are the hypocrites, the liars, the manipulators, those who take a stand with no intention of acting on it, indeed, who frequently act in a manner totally opposed to that they claim to espouse.  They tend to congregate in politics, and law, and journalism, and among the clergy.

There are those who feel that those in the middle are the worst of all, the cowardly, the enablers.  Of course, there are a number of flavors in the middle, and perhaps odors.  Ambivalence. How different is it than indecision?  Or apathy?  And what might the relationship between apathy and pathetic be?

There are those who assert that “it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”.  How does that translate in the context of those who opine and turn out to have been wrong versus those, who, fearing to be wrong, never opine at all?

Where would you place yourself? 

Just asking.

Albert Einstein is credited with saying: “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

I wonder what Yešu would say?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

Very Brief Reflections on the 2026 BRICS Summit Held in Bharat Mandapam in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India on the 12th and 13th of September

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During September 12th and 13th of this year I had the privilege of participating in a brief forum conducted by India’s NewsX World on the 2026 BRICS Summit, as it was taking place, and of interacting with senior military, judicial and diplomatic personnel from various countries, including the Peoples’ Republic of China, The Union of South Africa and, of course the Republic of India.  It was a very rewarding experience.  The following are some of my observations on the summit, and its results.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi did a masterful job of balancing diverse interests and perspectives including those of three countries in active military confrontations, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, as well as beautifully dealing with endemic border friction between the host country, India, which currently holds the presidency of the BRICS, and the Peoples’ Republic of China which will assume the presidency during 2027.  It seemed that Mr. Modi and Chinese President Xi were carefully laying the groundwork for strategic continuity among the BRICS community, a very welcome attitude. 

The Unanimous Joint Resolution addressed numerous critical issues, including many down to earth pragmatic projects that touch the everyday lives of their citizens in areas involving health, livelihood, culture and human rights.  There had been concerns that the increased membership of the BRICS, now comprising eleven full members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the UAE; alongside ten partner nations, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, would render consensus unlikely and consensus is required because, unlike the European Union or the United Nations, unanimity is the rule, sovereignty and equality being a pillar of the group.  Of course, there was another possibility, that a forum more democratic and inclusive than that provided by the United Nations Security Council could, even if with divergent interests and goals, through compromise, consensus and real diplomacy among equals, attain social, political and economic objectives that have alluded older and more structured institutions, institutions where oligarchical constraints limit productive long term solutions.  Seemingly, at least for now, the latter succeeded thanks to the collaborative efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

On the issue of dedolarization, the Indian perspective prevailed, perhaps because the European Union’s experience with the Euro has made BRICS members unwilling to follow suit, sovereignty in the European Union having become passé at best, but also because of two other important factors: first, India’s unwillingness to antagonize the United States, something with which a number of other members and partner nations concur, especially Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and now Bolivia; and secondly, because the BRICS countries have developed and are in the process of expanding fiscal solutions to the abuse of the United States dollar as the principal international means of exchange.  Chief among such emerging modalities are BRICS Pay, central bank digital currency proposals and, bilateral agreements such as those in place between the Russian Federation and the Peoples’ Republic of China as well as Iran and, the New Development Bank.

  • BRICS Pay is a collaborative cross-border payment system developed by the BRICS economic bloc to facilitate transactions using local national currencies while bypassing the U.S. dollar and Western-dominated networks like SWIFT.  BRICS Pay functions as a cloud-based connector linking national payment systems (such as Brazil’s Pix or China’s CIPS) enabling retail (QR code-based) and business to business transactions directly in member currencies, removing the need for a U.S. dollar intermediary.
  • Central bank digital currency proposals, under the leadership of India, seek to connect central bank digital currencies for smoother, dollar-independent cross-border tourism and trade settlements using blockchain technologies.  The plan focuses on connecting existing national fast payment systems and sovereign digital currencies rather than creating a new single currency union. The initiative builds on the 2025 Rio de Janeiro declaration which encouraged efficient and interoperable cross-border payment mechanisms within the bloc in order to lower transaction fees and bypass multiple intermediary banks for businesses, exporters, and travelers.
  • The BRICS New Development Bank already provides an alternative (albeit limited by capital constraints) for emerging and developing economies to the abusive controls imposed on loans through the United States controlled World Bank and International Monetary Fund.  It aims to fund infrastructure and sustainable development across emerging economies, positioning its future around local currency financing, digital asset integration and expanded cooperation among diverse economic states of development.  To date, the New Development Bank has provided alternative financing options for development projects across the Global South, having funded close to 100 projects totaling over $32 billion.  It is currently primarily funded by the Peoples’ Republic of China but new members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could, should they chose to do so, vastly increase its current capitalization.  An interesting indirect aspect of the existence and potential evolution of the New Development Bank may be the leverage it provides the BRICS with respect to making control over the World Bank and International Monetary Fund more democratic and their operations less intrusive, one of the goals set forth in the Joint Resolution.

Other very pragmatic proposals I found intriguing include the BRICS Global Value Chains Action Plan 2026–2030, an invoice discounting mechanism for trade finance; a dedicated micro, small, and medium enterprise digital platform launched by India during 2026 to connect users with access to knowledge, finance, and international markets; and, a micro, small, and medium enterprise cooperation portal and a startup innovation fund.  However. to me, the most important aspect was the call to resurrect international law, virtually assassinated by Israel and the United States, and to reform major international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund which have never met the needs of the vast majority of the world’s population (almost half of which resides in BRICS member nations), but have instead, represented oligarchic interests interested in looting the less developed world and maintaining traditional privileges. 

The article by Pepe Escobar accessible through the following link shared below provides other interesting (although perhaps less optimistic) perspectives on what was a very important and well attended summit: https://geopoliticsprime.substack.com/p/history-on-a-roll-brics-yemen-hormuz?r=lwzkv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. It is worth reading.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

Nihilistic Pessimism

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Lugubriously lethargic lassitude is the art form the legacy media has perfected on behalf of its masters to keep us from realizing what has happened to the world we hoped to leave as a legacy for our descendants, the world we thought we’d be able to glimpse and, at times enjoy, the world we were promised if we would just work hard and behave.

It is the hopeless state that assails us when we seek to exercise our political duties and go to the polls with no real choice at all, all the available candidates having already been bought and paid for with our money but certainly not for our benefit.

It is the residue we’re left with when those who own and control us abuse us, and we’re left without recourse in the face of their immune impunity.

It is our reaction when we are forced to realize that Jeffrey Epsteins rule our world through their bought and paid for proxies and that we can, at best, sit and watch as children are abused and Palestinians are slaughtered for fun and profit, hoping that the vision of German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came” will not apply to us, at least not in the near future.

It is what being inside a societal black hole’s event horizon feels like for those not among the Chosen.  It is what being aware feels like in the Dystopia we live in, one where we sometimes envy those blissfully unaware among us, those who make it possible.  It is what we feel when we’ve come to realize that the metaphorical sign atop the gates of mythic Hell joyfully proclaiming the death of hope already apply to us.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. 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 (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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 Wisdom Attributed to Socrates and on the Wisdom of Chauncey Gardiner

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“I neither know nor think that I know”[1]

The last part of my education, long after I’d attained degrees in political science, law and international legal studies, involved, in part, linguistics and, to my surprise, it vastly enhanced my grasp of the other disciplines I’d studied, as well as of communication in general, as though I’d previously been intellectually two dimensional but after grasping essential aspects of linguistics, I’d attained the ability to perceive and to express myself in three or four. That led me to understand how Noam Chomsky had managed to attain such profound wisdom concerning both society and human nature although, perhaps, not with respect to all of his associates.

Something similar had occurred to me many decades earlier when, towards the end of my initial degree in law, I’d taken an elective course in jurisprudence, a course which should really have been a mandatory first semester course.  Especially meaningful in that course was the section on Hohfeldian Terminology, a system of eight fundamental legal concepts created by American jurist Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld in 1913 to clarify ambiguous legal language, obviously an aspect of linguistics applied to law[2].  It is probably not very familiar to practicing attorneys today, although it should be.

Earlier in life I’d regretted not having studied higher mathematics as the little exposure I’d had in college to the field had led me to believe that most of us were largely blind, deaf and dumb with respect to the reality surrounding us.  For some reason, however, philosophy did not impacted me in the same manner, probably because it is so premise driven; i.e., given a premise accepted as accurate, logic leads to conclusions that seem brilliant but which usually have little to do with reality.  Indeed, the most important thing I learned of practical value while studying philosophy was that when predicted conclusions did not reflect reality, the premises were usually at fault.

I am now the sum of diverse currents having made many, many mistakes and learned from some of them, perhaps having gained at least a trace of wisdom in the process, especially, a willingness to accept that there is a great deal I don’t know and the ability to sometimes discern what it is that I don’t know.  Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that an open mind is a wonderful thing but ought never to be confused with an absence of opinions and beliefs, all of which should be continuously put to the test; perhaps the test I learned from philosophy: if the expected results prove inaccurate, the drawing board needs to be revisited rather than ignored through a plethora of excuses.

Interestingly, the latter concept seems anathema in politics were an open mind is considered an indicia of the absence of principles, a trait popularly referred to as “waffling”.  Hence, a politician willing to reconsider his or her positions in light of experience is looked down upon as untrustworthy, something which does a lot to explain where we find ourselves: easily manipulated and unwilling to accept reality, even when it smacks us in the face. 

As opposed to politicians, great mathematicians and physicists are constantly testing their premises, something that seems a corollary to David Hume’s belief that absolute truth may be impossible to prove but that what he referred to as “conventions”, tools we use in lieu of truth for practical purposes, i.e., because they seem to work (until they cease to be reliable, at which point they are discarded), were good enough in the short term[3].

Socrates taught by feigning ignorance and pretending to seek knowledge from those he taught, among them Aristocles, who we know by his nickname, Plato.  Or perhaps, Socrates really did have an open mind and was misinterpreted, kind of like the character Chauncey Gardiner so well played by the late, great, Peter Sellers in the film, Being There.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. 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 (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.

[1] Plato. (1997): Apology (H. Tarrant, Trans.) in J. M. Cooper (Ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Stephanus p. 21d). Hackett Publishing.

[2] Cullison, Alan D.: (1967): “A Review of Hohfeld’s Fundamental Legal Concepts”, 16 Clev.-Marshall L. Rev. 559; Cleveland, available at https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2997&context=clevstlrev.

[3] Hume, David (1739–40; 2009 publication): A Treatise of Human Nature; Edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

On An Ethics for Non-State Popular Responsive Violence

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I apparently wrote the following in 2012, revisited it on June 1, 2017 for some reason, and am again revisiting it.  Today is the 27th day of August, 2026.  The time spanned is interesting but, perhaps even more, so is the relevance.  The protagonists are, I assume, Citadel classmates, some of whose names have been changed to protect the guilty:

We were supposed to play softball against a group of local VMI alumni but the day which had started out under a bright golden sun set in a field of robin’s egg blue had made a drastic turn about ten minutes before game time and we’d retired to a local Irish pub where we’d had a dart tournament of sorts instead.  After we’d split a few pitchers, a few of us wound up, a bit tipsy in the basement bar at Mike’s house.

We’d shot the shit for quite a while, getting a bit more buzzed as we watched Sunday afternoon football, then finding ourselves in that twilight waiting for the Sunday night game, buzzed enough to take on the world’s problems, … again.  We’d all been political science or history majors but most of us had gravitated towards the business world after a sojourn exploring rice paddies of Southeast Asia.

I hadn’t been paying all that much attention, truth be told, I might have been snoozing, until a bit of acrimony crept into our discussions.

Bill had once explained his theory of legitimized violence to me in the context of what he referred to as our reverse Robin Hood socioeconomic system.  “Since impunity is rampant”, he’d said, “new mechanisms need to evolve to create and police social justice and that, at least in a state of transition, must involve successful challenges to the state monopoly on legitimate use of violence.  The bad guys now own all major states and most if not all minor states so the conditions that led to the implicit decision to surrender personalized use of violence no longer exist.  But unlimited violence won’t work either.”

He was off on a similar vein again, this time, trying to put terrorism into some kind of ethical context.  I think most of us acknowledged the problem but few saw terrorism as the answer.  So Woody, I think, asked Bill if he had any kind of workable solution.

“Terrorism has no boundaries so while in the short term, it provides a kind of superficially reactive sense of justice, it in fact adds to injustice” Bill explained.  “There is no accepted terrorist ethic, if there were, then it wouldn’t really be ‘terrorism’, it would be something else.

“Like what” Woody had asked?  He and Bill, for the time being, seemingly engaged in a somewhat too serious albeit hypothetical soliloquy.  Bill’s vocabulary was a bit too sophisticated for a lot of people but you get used to it after a few decades.

“We’d need to invent a new term I guess” Bill had replied, “but first we’d need to carefully consider what applicable parameters could maximize effectiveness while minimizing harm to the innocent, and in the context of the kind of class-based abuse that we have, determining who is innocent is a fundamental problem.” 

“Suppose”, he’d continued “a financier manipulates the law to cheat a million people of their retirement savings but because he then has so much money, he buys protection, not only from prosecution or even civil legal claims, but buys enough security to assure his personal welfare can’t be threatened.  Then suppose a victim, in order to exact some kind of compensation, kills the man’s brother; an innocent person who did not benefit directly from the financier’s wrongdoing.  Does that involve terrorism?  Does that involve justice?  Or suppose the victims hire someone to bomb a facility owned by the financier, one undoubtedly insured, and a number of employees and customers are injured there.  Does that involve terrorism?  Does that involve justice?  Probably not, in either case.  But what else can victims do?  How can they make the costs of wrongful conduct so high that despite the unwillingness of the state to see justice done, such conduct will be made too risky?”

“That’s the million dollar question” Chuck chimed in (so he wasn’t asleep after all).  Woody poked him, laughing. “Remember when questions were cheaper?  Groucho Marx and the $64,000 question?”

“You mean Karl Marx don’t you” grumbled Frank.  Frank was a completely honest guy but a dyed in the wool Republican for whom the state could do no wrong.

Bill glanced at his friends, worried that perhaps he was being a bit too open.  They’d all studied political science together decades before but the others had wandered into different fields.  He had too but after his divorce he’d returned to academia and a very different world view.  Still, while they frequently disagreed, there was a lot of respect shared so he opened up.  “Cute, guys, if only this wasn’t so serious.  Desperate people take desperate actions, and way too much of the world is full of desperate people.  A bit of ethical guidance could save a lot of lives.

“Ethics?  Terrorist ethics, you’ve got to be kidding” chided Frank.

“Well financiers’ ethics sure aren’t about to make a surprise appearance” responded Bill.  “The fact is, an analogy to ethical and legal norms involving the concept of self-defense might alleviate the collateral damage.  Maybe there is a basis for resort to violence that can at least be tied to standards so that suffering by the innocent can be minimized, but it’s a tough call.  One argument I’ve heard involves concentric zones of responsibility-benefit with the victimizers in the middle, kind of like bulls’ eyes, and the purely innocent on the outside.

Huh (from several of the people present)?

“Well” answered Bill, the innermost circle has those most directly responsible with each next circle including a proximate prioritization of blame or responsibility. It’s a nexus based chain.  Let me give you an example.  The person responsible is in the central circle, following circles might include that person’s accomplices, then that person’s guards, then people who benefit directly from that persons improper actions, then persons who benefit indirectly.  After a series of circles like that you arrive at the mass of people who have no links.  Only action involving the latter would be pure terrorism while only action against the person responsible would be fully justified.  As one gets further away from the center, justification decreases while the label of terrorism becomes more apt.  Of course, defining who merits occupying the center is the rub.

Woody thought for a bit and then asked, “Well; how does that affect tax payers?  Many of us support activities that might be considered culpable while others don’t, but we all have to pay them.

Bill seemed prepared for the question and replied fairly quickly “The problem there involves the ability to implement the ethical paradigm.  How to tell which taxpayers are more blameworthy and which are more innocent, and even harder, how to act separately in such a general context.  Obviously the supporters of the policies that are blameworthy are less innocent than the opponents, but the group is too homogenous to differentiate.”

“Tom, you’re the lawyer” said Chuck.  “I know law and ethics have all too little in common, but what do you think of Bill’s observations?”

Tom kind of grinned.  “That depends on whether he can pay the legal fees.  I’m pretty sure he’ll be needing a lawyer, soon.”

“Fuck all of you” shouted Frank, apparently a bit more buzzed than the rest.  “And God bless America.”

Realizing he may have talked a bit more openly than was healthy in the current climate, Bill glanced at his watch and exclaimed “Where the Hell has the time gone, we need to do this again sometime but as for me, I’m out ‘a here.”

Most of the others agreed, called for their tabs and got up, all except for Frank and Tom, who decided they needed to talk a bit more.

“Shit” Bill whispered to Woody as he left, “I forgot just what Frank has been doing during the past few years”.

“You can’t be serious Bill” Woody whispered back.

“Then why are we whispering” observed Bill?  “Why are we whispering?”
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2012; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) 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. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. 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 (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, 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, cosmology 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/.