Category Archives: International Affairs

Perhaps Thinking of Picking up the Pieces is the Only Option Left

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On February 10, 2023, Vijay Prashad of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research published an article in one of the few reliable English language sources of information, Consortium News, entitled “Making Taiwan the Ukraine of the East”.[1]

To those of us infected with Cassandra’s curse (disregarded precognition), it is clear that the United States Deep State, through the Democratic Party, it’s political puppet, and the corporate media, it’s propaganda arm, is determined to provoke a nuclear holocaust, which for some reason, it believes that it can win at a cost it deems reasonable, regardless of the price we as individuals will have to pay or its long term impact on our planet.  It does so through constant provocations we would never accept, including clear acts of war against both the Russian Federation and the Peoples’ Republic of China.  Witness, for example, the recently disclosed United States-Norwegian military attack on the Nord Stream pipelines and the United States targeting of missiles it supplies to the Ukraine against Russian positions. 

As this article makes clear, a similar campaign of intolerable provocation is being directed at the Peoples’ Republic of China in order to provoke it to assert its sovereignty over the province of Taiwan through the use of force, against which, the United States and its allies could then respond as they have in the Ukraine.  Or perhaps more blatantly and more directly in the hopes of ending the economic threats to a neoliberal world order premised on the fiat dollar’s supremacy.

That the positions under international law (an illusion at best most respected in its breach) are reversed in the two cases (the Ukraine and Taiwan) is irrelevant, as is logic and morals, and perhaps, most importantly, common sense.  The golden rule has no place in Deep State calculations and actions. 

The Deep State’s tools involved and their NATO counterparts are all too quickly leading us into disaster, and most American voters, with their eyes tightly shut, their ears safely plugged and their heads in the sand (if not in a darker and more olfactorily unpleasant orifice), appear unwilling, or perhaps, now that democracy is clearly just an illusion, unable to reverse the lemming-like trend towards planetary destruction.  Perhaps though, if the non-Anglo-nations of the Southern hemisphere can maintain our independence and exercise decent, independent judgment, we may survive to pick up the pieces, and learning from the Northern Hemisphere’s incredibly idiotic mistakes, perhaps avoid them in the future.
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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 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/.

[1] See link to the article at https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/09/making-taiwan-the-ukraine-of-the-east/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=32b91ed8-54a5-4708-809c-f23fb608c353.

Observations regarding the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of the Patriotic Union (a political party) versus the Colombian State

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Today, January 30, 2023, I am proud to be a Latin American, the place where, perhaps more than in any other part of the world, there is a supranational institution truly dedicated to the protection of the rights of our population and its members against the corruption, ineptitude and violence of the governments which, for centuries have managed our countries under the direction and in the service of foreign powers. The truth is that today, when hypocrisy and falsehood reign throughout of our planet but especially among those countries in the northern hemisphere which proclaim themselves exceptional and morally superior, perhaps only in Latin America is real progress being made in the great battle (perhaps started at the beginning of the French Revolution) to achieve respect for the dignity of the individual, the dignity of minorities and the dignity of those who are different or believe in ways different from those established by elitist traditions. Respect for the dignity inherent in a world at peace where the sovereignty, dignity and rights of others are respected.

A horrible injustice, the torture, murder, calumny and genocide perpetrated by prior Colombian governments against the Patriotic Union and other social, cultural, civic and political movements has been, at least acknowledged, and some blame has been somewhat assigned, albeit directed at a Colombian State that under its recently elected center-left government (the first in Colombia’s history), has initiated profound attempts to effect change. But real justice calls for external processes with respect to those foreign countries responsible for so many barbaric episodes in our continent (and elsewhere), and it calls for internal processes that really establish the responsibility of the specific individuals involved in these crimes and the responsibility of their families who enjoyed and continue to enjoy the benefits illegally stolen from their relatives’ victims and from the innocent Colombian people. Processes with real consequences, consequences similar to those imposed by the Nuremberg Tribunals after World War II, although those cases were almost entirely hypocritical, as were those who organized them but exempted themselves from answering for their own massive crimes against humanity, the “Allies” which were already planning similar crimes against billions of future victims through neoliberal economic policies enforced through neoconservative military and clandestine means.

I am proud to be a citizen of the newly evolving Colombia, although I am extremely embarrassed by the Colombian State of the past. And I personally deeply regret that I was not in Colombia during my formative years, working, as were the members of the Patriotic Union and other truly civic groups (many of whom paid with their lives), to attain the justice and common welfare that every Colombian deserves. Like so many other Colombians and Latin Americans, my family fled the violence orchestrated elsewhere, and I, as a six year old, became a member of the Latin Diaspora, only returning fifteen years ago after a life abroad.

We can do little to change the past, but we can learn from it, and as the Jews constantly urge (although unfortunately not through example), we can do everything possible to avoid the past’s mistakes. That, at least, seems to be what the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ decision and related orders directed at the Colombian State demand. In furtherance of such goals, all Colombians and all Latin Americans can join the Patriotic Union and the numerous other social, cultural, indigenous, Afro-descendant and related political movements, and with the many victims of our unjust (until now perpetual) conflicts, to finally begin to extinguish violence, to extinguish impunity, to extinguish inequity and inequality, to extinguish injustice and intolerance towards those with different perspectives, to hold those who govern us accountable for their corruption and ineptitude, and to assure that our supposed public servants (too many of whom believe that they are superior to those to whom their duty is really owed) come to understand what just what a “servant” is.

January 30, 2023: a day upon which to reflect and a day on which dedicate ourselves to creating the Colombia that we all deserve. A day to always remember. A day for understanding the complex emotions we should be feeling, a synthesis of pride, elation and joy, intractably intertwined with shame and remorse and dedicated to doing better in the future, much, much better.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé

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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 has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

None are so Blind, as They Who Refuse to See: … a rant of sorts …

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It seems like the “Mother” of all conspiracy theories, but Tucker Carlson’s article and television episode “The Deep State Removed Nixon, The Most Popular President Ever, to Cover up CIA’s Murder of JFK” smells accurate.

Conspiracy theories bloom like weeds when the information we’re provided lacks credibility and when information we ought to have is nowhere to be found.  Hiding facts is the hallmark of successful conspiracies, but loose ends seem to echo endlessly.  The argument that no definitive evidence has been judicially found to be accurate when the judiciary refuses to investigate, makes the echoes ring louder and louder and sometimes even frees bits of what would be evidence, but for the foregoing negative imprimatur, from the shadows.

Few events fit the foregoing description more than the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but strangely, those in the public arena who most claim to have loved him seem most willing to accept an official narrative reminiscent of Swiss cheese.  I lived through the event and played a role in a requiem mass for the assassinated president held in New York City’s Episcopal Cathedral, St. John the Divine, during that awful November in 1963.  I was also a young adult during the Watergate affair and, at the time, one of my law professors was former New York governor Mario Cuomo (Andrews’s father).  I recall being surprised at the time as the most ethical person I knew, then professor Cuomo, a Democrat, cast doubts in class on how the corporate media was handling the scandal.  I also recall how massively popular Richard Millhouse Nixon was before the corporate media and his political cronies orchestrated his destruction.   I recall that rather than being the right wing conservative that history, calcifying media accounts, has portrayed him to be, he was a real progressive in foreign affairs, attaining peace with both Russia and China, and that domestically, he championed progressive programs we have yet to attain, including universal health care, and a universal guaranteed income (which he referred to as a negative income tax), and that during his administration, cabinet level departments dealing with education and the environment were first introduced.  I also know, having lived through those times, that he was hated and feared by the Democratic Party, having politically “stolen the Deep South” and resented by members of his own party, the GOP, because he promoted people in his administration from outside the traditional channels of power.  Nixon certainly was not close to perfect and he was probably justifiably paranoid with racist and anti-Semitic residue, something from which most leading Democrats and Republicans at the time also suffered.  And he cursed and used bad language in private (as if that was unusual in politics).  But he was not close to the corrupt monster most people today are taught to despise, sort of a prequel to how a really unpleasant former president is treated today (perhaps more deservedly so).

I recall the foregoing today because Tucker Carlson, an extremely popular journalist in an age when most journalist are despised and mistrusted, has openly articulated in the above referenced article what many, many ordinary citizens have long suspected, both with respect to the assassination of JFK and the removal of RMN.  And based on my experience, something similar was involved in the failure of the Jimmy Carter presidency.  If true, if accurate, and those are big ifs, it would be devastating confirmation of what a fourth president, JFK’s predecessor, warned as he left office. 

Dwight David Eisenhower warned us to be beware of the military industrial complex, what we today know as the Deep State.  And if that’s true, and if the cancerous Deep State has metastasized onto the federal judiciary, as seems to be the case, then we find ourselves temporally entering portals that advise us to “Abandon All Hope”, as so many authors of dystopian literature have long warned.

All too soon, as many of us fear, the truth will not save us, nor will it set us free.  Not that it will have arrived too late, it’s always been there.  But, reminiscent of the curse suffered by the Trojan princess Cassandra many millennia ago, too many otherwise decent people just refused to listen.
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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 has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Political Reality Check as we Remember Martin Luther King, Jr., DD

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The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., DD, who we remember and honor today, would, I believe, be profoundly ashamed of us.  He believed in love and empathy, in equity and justice, and in peace.  Instead, we have polarization and perpetual war.  Instead of seeking to remove the chains that bind us, we proudly polish them, in the name of hypocrisy.  We revel in a non-existent democracy, and in non-existent liberty, our freedom of expression is censored so that opinions contrary to those necessary to maintain the hold of the few over the many will be silenced and reality distorted, as we are continuously bled of the little wealth the powerful still do not control.  And like good slaves, we are grateful that it isn’t worse, …  although it is much worse than we believe.

An example: We have become so used to fake scandals manufactured by the Deep State in order to tighten its grip on power that we are in a turmoil over the purported “privately held government records scandal” now impacting Deep State darling Joe Biden, reflexively, declining to think.  The reality is that some “government records”, including those classified as secret, top secret, etc., have always been retained by previous office holders and probably more so by members of the Deep State’s core, the intelligence community.  Of all the recent faux scandals, this may be the most stupid, and that applies to both its Trump and Biden aspects.  The Hillary Clinton aspect has been all but forgotten, as has that which dealt with Barak Obama. 

There are real scandals that should concern us rather than the continuous stream of invented scandals that keep deflecting us from realizing the real source of most of the world’s problems, the Deep State and its penchant for perpetual war in order to shift wealth to the worst among us, no matter what the price.  Those were scandals that mattered to Dr. King, who we purport to honor today as we destroy the legacy which he died to bequeath us.

The Deep State has us utterly polarized and consequently, paralyzed, as we are robbed, killed and maimed purportedly in the name of democracy, liberty and human rights.  Greater hypocrisy would seem impossible.  Wake up, but really, not like the somnambulant cancel culture puppets who do so much to divide us and to deflect us from resolving the issues that most harm us.

Without empathy we will never attain real equity, real equality, real justice, real peace, real democracy or real liberty.  Dr. King had a dream which the Deep State and its minions have turned into a nightmare.  Ridicule, calumny, destruction of historical monuments, hate and disrespect are not the tools that will lead us to the metaphorical mountain from which Dr. King saw the future we and our progeny deserve.

Something to ponder on this anniversary of Dr. King’s birth.
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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 has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on the Genesis of a Nebulous New Year

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The first day of 2023, a Sunday, dawned cloudy and foggy in a special city, one set high in the central range of the Colombian Andes, a city for some reason associated with the soul.  The word “nebulous” comes to mind, both for its climactic connotation and for the lack of clarity in which we find ourselves mired as a world.  The colonial “Western” empire formerly led by the United Kingdom and now by the United States has been in its “death throes” for a long time, kind of like a wealthy old relative on her deathbed, on her deathbed for several decades now, one who refuses to die and who seems insistent on wreaking as much havoc and chaos as possible before she leaves, if she ever leaves; one whose once beautiful body has been possessed by a selfish and bitterly jaded specter.  She just can’t help herself it seems, she has to own and control everything, and, except for a tiny few, to hold everyone in bondage.  Bondage which, in a more honest age, would be perceived as slavery.

Not exactly an optimistic perspective as one starts a New Year but the old one has been so utterly controlled by evil, as though Saul of Tarsus, that evil quack, had correctly perceived the coming of an antichrist (even if his timing was a few millennia off).  The Deep State’s own Democratic Party, after more than fifteen years, has finally succeeded in goading the Russian Federation into a war with the Ukraine, that bedeviled and utterly corrupt land haunted by its Nazi past and neo-Nazi present but now firmly under Deep State control, a Deep State prepared to sacrifice the Ukrainian People and to expend the hard earned taxes paid by people in the nebulous West to assure that the world never progresses beyond its hegemony. It’s just too profitable a state of things to permit change as populists from both the left and the right wings of the political spectrum in the United States have discovered (the real left I mean, not that simulacrum that passes for the left in the Deep State’s Democratic Party and corporate media).  Odd that the utterly obnoxious and self-centered leader of the populist right is more honest and trustworthy (not that he’s honest or trustworthy, it’s a relative comparison) than the leader of the populist left, but naivety reigns there, which may be why it is not perceived as a real threat by the Deep State.  At least not yet.

Things are bad but, to an extent, pure evil has been forced into the light.  It is now clear that “democracy”, as a political reality not only does not exist but, in all probability, has never really existed.  What has passed for democracy during millennia has only been its convoluted verisimilitude specifically designed to assure that real democracy is never attained.  Then again, democracy is not synonymous with justice, or with equity, and it is certainly antagonistic to liberty and pluralism.  Apparently no political system we humans have tried has even been truly benign, although a few individual rulers may have briefly, from time to time, evaded systemic trends and governed both wisely and fairly.  However, in the end, self-defined “elites” always attain control and once attained, do everything they can to perpetuate themselves in power, corrupting all efforts to effect positive change, or else, “eliminating them” by means camouflaged as fair or else, just blatantly foul.

It should be clear that the current political paradigm is premised on a meld of electoral fraud and electoral manipulation through withholding accurate information, in place of which, fiction disguised as news is offered as gruel for the masses, of course spiked with propaganda disguised as information, and even spectator sports, used as means of misdirection emotions that might otherwise lead to addressing uncomfortable realities.

In that context, “nebulosity” seems a downright positive concept. 

Thinking about it, an air of nebulosity seems, at least to me, to pervade the all too accurate dystopian literature of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley (his French teacher at Eton) and Kurt Vonnegut.  It pervades Tolkien’s Mordor, into which we seem to be morphing.  However, nebulosity would seem to imply the possibility of an escape and I don’t recall that being the case in any but Tolkien’s novels.

What a negative manner in which to start 2023, but then again, we have the results of the recent purported elections in the United States as a catalyst.  The phrase “two wrongs don’t make a right” comes to mind, but United States voters are at best mired in a system designed as a quest for lesser evils (which, by definition, are always evil), never considering that evading evil is an option.

On the other hand, the global south may be waking and at least attempting to cast off the neoliberal chains which, through neoconservative pressure, have shackled it, seemingly forever.  Many Latin American countries are doing their best to veer to the left, although the Deep State’s own intelligence communities, freed of any restraints by the Biden administration, are waging a frequently successful rear guard action, most recently in Peru and Argentina, with fifth columns artfully planted in legislatures and judiciaries everywhere else.  Hell, that’s even true in the United States.

Which all makes for a probably all too interesting 2023.  “Interesting” in terms of the Chinese curse which wishes on its enemies “interesting times” in which to live.

And speaking of China, …. 

Well that’s a similar topic best left for another day.

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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 has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Call for a Real Liberal, a Real Progressive Political Movement in the United States

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As usual, the United States is embroiled in an armed conflict.  Since war is supposedly illegal, we no longer have them, we have police actions and special military operations and clandestine interventions, etc.  The latest, that one involving the Ukraine, is a bit different, a bit more Machiavellian.  The United States orchestrated it (with help from its NATO allies) and is financing it but is maintaining that it is not actively participating in it, other than through assuring and facilitating its continuance in order to weaken both the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, regardless of the cost in lives and infrastructure for the Ukrainians (the United States designated tools) and perhaps, in the near future, if its luck holds, the Taiwanese.  That nuclear holocaust is a risk is irrelevant.  The ends, apparently, justify the means, and narrative management will take care of all but the radioactive fallout.

Thank goodness Donald Trump was eliminated to make the foregoing possible, after all, it’s a project started during the Clinton administration and implemented by the good old troika of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden (with an assist by Hunter).

So, how is the foregoing feasible, you know, with the United Nations Charter, the United States Constitution, etc.?  Well, well-orchestrated political dynamics in and through the United States certainly help.  There’s the purportedly defensive “North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, now morphed into a world-wide neoliberal enforcement organ predicated on “Mafian” principles; there’s the European Union, NATO’s echo chamber; and of course, there’s the  United States’ bipartisan dictatorship.

Let me explain the latter. 

There are two major political parties in the United States which, between them, split almost all political offices and posts at every level.  One, the Democratic Party, has under the leadership of a certain Nancy Pelosi, with the assistance of a certain Chuck Schumer, become monolithic in its voting patterns (except for two recalcitrant senators, one from West Virginia and one from Colorado, considered pariahs and traitors).  The other is a strange collection of feuding caucuses under divers, would be leaders, who find it difficult to govern.  Not a bad thing as Will Rogers, a noted political comedian from the first half of the twentieth century once noted when he explained that “no one’s life or property was safe while Congress was in session”.  Oddly, he was a Democrat and once described that political party in terms that now apply to its principle opponent.

Until fairly recently, interestingly enough, both parties were controlled by the same people, whose artfully planted moles in the federal bureaucracy shielded their interests from any populist threats.  Somehow that managed to briefly change in 2016, making formal and informal structural changes in the electoral system necessary in order to preserve democracy’s innocuousness.  After all, democracy’s supposed to be just for show.  The control by the unorganized but highly disciplined state within a state that some of us refer to as the Deep State was shaken, perhaps bent a bit but not broken, and it is now firmly back in place.  Thanks to an artfully crafted, controlled and managed “pandemic”.  A curse for many but a blessing for the privileged few who rule us.

But, what does the foregoing mean? 

Well, to all appearances, it means that ideology free monolithic autocracy and pragmatism have triumphed over principles, equity, democracy and liberty, nasty things the latter, every one.  Monolithic autocracy, is maintained, sustained and fueled by the hate, disdain and polarization which the Deep State, now a memeplex all its own, loves.  It sets us against each other domestically by gender, by race, by nationality, by sexual orientation, by religious beliefs and then does all it can to absolutely silence dissent through censorship, censorship directly by our government (all three branches) as well as through its allies in Internet technologies and platforms, and through abuse of the criminal justice system to attack political enemies, all while loudly accusing everyone else of doing exactly what it is it is in fact doing (the foregoing phrase kind of reminds us of the famous observation, “that depends on what the meaning of “is”, is).  There is a problem though.  Today, only the Democratic Party is sticking to the script, although a number of traditionalist Republicans keep trying to bring the good old GOP back into line.  But fortunately for the Deep State, at least right now, the Democratic Party controls all of the federal political branches (although how legitimate that control is and how it was attained is questioned by all too many potential voters; but that is irrelevant).

To the delight of the Deep State, that “Democratic” Party applies Deep State principles and tactics internationally, as well as domestically, seeking economic and political control by planting conflict everywhere which permits perpetual sowing of the profits of perpetual war, albeit in the name of peace, democracy and liberty.  And admittedly, those profits are not meant to be shared, at least not broadly.

To opponents of violence as a means of conflict resolution, to those to whom equity, truth and justice are somehow relevant, GOP traditionalists are not much better than Democrats, but at least the GOP is not monolithic, there is internal dissent expressed in actual congressional debates and non-uniformity of votes, with a wing led by Rand Paul that demands de-escalation of external conflicts and freedom of belief and speech at home, opposed to GOP traditionalists like the Cheneys and the Bushes.  And there are civic leaders like Tulsi Gabbard, an awesome statesperson, except for her Islamophobia, but she at least thinks for herself and is not owned by the billionaire class.  In truth, there are viable political leaders everywhere, in third parties and among those who refuse to be part of political parties (which have become the self-serving sectarians James Madison promised in the Federalist Papers would not evolve.  The anti-Federalists, unfortunately for us, were right on almost every point, as history has shown). 

Federal elections in the United States (now a dysfunctional mess as promoters of electoral fraud in the name of “democracy” obliterate traditional norms) are set to take place in a few weeks.  Elections that impact men, women and children everywhere, most of whom cannot participate as they are not United States citizens.  I wonder what would happen if they could?  How might all of the people in all of the countries that the United States has fragmented and looted, … purportedly for their own good (or at least that’s the story), usually under Democratic Party led administrations (think WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Yemen and now the Ukraine but that’s barely the tip of the iceberg) vote?  But they can’t, at least not unless they have managed to enter the United States and surreptitiously usurp the franchise, … and vote for the Democratic Party.

The foregoing makes United States voters committed to peace and equity morally responsible for selecting world leaders who really believe in peace and in sane environmental policies and in sustainable economics and in equity and in real justice.  A daunting task at which we too often fail because our choices are drastically limited to those of whom the Deep State approves.  As to those who do not come up to Deep Sate standards, well, not that he was great, or even decent, but look at what happened and is happening to Donald Trump, whose main crime is that he does not believe in perpetual war and dared to suggest dismantling NATO and bringing troops back from overseas.  Look at what happened to Tulsi Gabbard, the star of the Democratic Party’s presidential debates until the rules were changed to exclude her.  Look at what happened to Dennis Kucinich, gerrymandered out of a congressional district by his own party (the Democrats, who with crocodile tears now constantly scream against gerrymandering, at least any gerrymandering that is not their own).

All of this is possible only because, notwithstanding the famous “First Amendment”, the United States does not have (and really, never has had) a legitimate free press but rather, only purported journalists tasked with spewing mind-controlling narrative on a 24/7 basis.  There are, of course, miniscule exceptions, exceptions like the imprisoned Julian Assange and those who look up to him, but there are less and less of those as more and more realize on which side their bread is buttered, or how dangerous it is to actually investigate and honestly share findings.

So, … as elections once again approach, we, the electorate, find ourselves confused, bored, disillusioned and disinterested, anticipating results we feel are preordained.  Except of course, for dedicated and either well compensated or deluded Deep State activists, some of whom, like lemmings, vote in blocks regardless of how often they have been deceived.  But then, that’s what polarization is for.

Going into these imminent elections, we are once again unprepared for alternatives, either because they have been prevented from evolving or because the corporate press and social media moguls have obfuscated them.  At best, once more, we can vote against greater evils, although they are difficult to identify.  If only Tulsi Gabbard could run for everything, but alas, she’s not running for anything, although she has endorsed a few candidates.  Still, perhaps by recently resigning from the Democratic Party (but not joining the GOP), she has provided a sort of benchmark for our personal electoral decisions.

Too many of the most decent among us will refuse to participate in what they see as a charade but that may well perpetuate the Deep State’s hold on power, and that, in turn, may well accelerate the day on which our political decisions will no longer have any relevance, as the universe may at last find itself rid of the infection posed by our species, decisions which will no longer be relevant as our, and many innocent species, will no longer inhabit this sphere we call home.  Is that a depressing or hopeful thought?  I guess that depends on one’s attitude towards being rebooted.

Not that there isn’t hope for a peaceful world.  One where equity and justice prevail; where truth is relevant and where we are each not only free, but empowered to attain or full potential.  But that requires a great awakening and a rejection of those who currently enforce de facto, if not de jure slavery over so many, either in a pretty velvet casing or through brute force.  Rejection of those dedicated to ruling us through polarization and perpetual war.  Rejection of those who hoard the world’s resources forcing hundreds of millions to live in abject poverty and to die or be maimed in meaningless conflicts.

There is a saying that it is always darkest before the dawn and it is pretty dark right now.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

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

Some Observations and Reflections as we Once Again Head to the Polls in an Existential Election

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I am not and never have been a supporter of former president Donald J. Trump but I’ve defended him against the myriad false and misleading accusations to which he’s been subjected.  I also recognize the current witch hunt against denominated “Election Deniers” for what it is.  That’s because as a dual United States Colombian citizen, I have the benefit of a somewhat broader historical perspective. 

For example, the events surrounding the 2020 federal elections that crystalized in the protests turned violent on January 6, 2020, as well as the ensuing government reaction have an analog in recent Colombian history.  Current Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, was, in his youth, part of an insurgency (unfortunately armed) against the theft of the 1972 presidential election in Colombia by a coalition of the two traditional parties, an insurgency known as the M-19, a movement that was not a communist conspiracy, as described by its detractors, but one whose goal was to protect both democracy and liberty.  The insurgency soon lost its focus and egregious acts against the innocent public resulted but eventually, a positive although very slow healing process ensued, culminating first in a new constitution, and eventually, in Colombia’s recent presidential elections where for the first time in its history, a progressive movement emerged victorious.

The United States is currently experiencing a similar crisis.  While it is probably impossible to determine that electoral fraud in 2020 was enough to impact the electoral results, there is little doubt that, as in every federal election in United States history, some fraud occurred, and that the electoral mechanisms introduced in 2020 purportedly due to necessities imposed by the apparent Covid 19 crisis (a crisis now deemed by many as artificial at best), mechanisms such as mass mailing of electoral ballots and acceptance of completed ballots through intermediaries, facilitated the process for vote harvesting and the buying and selling of electoral ballots.  At least some credible allegations of electoral fraud were raised but as in the case in Colombia in 1972, they were neither seriously investigated by responsible government agencies nor prosecuted, leading a large segment of the electorate to question the election’s legitimacy.  The refusal to investigate the allegations and instead, to investigate and in too many cases, to prosecute those who made them (either in judicial proceedings or through Congressional hearings designed to impact future elections) have led to the complete polarization of the United States electorate at levels threatening domestic tranquility.

Insurgencies are usually the result of justice blatantly denied leading to a loss of faith in all governing institutions deemed responsible for the repression of democracy and liberty (two very different things).  That sometimes, although fairly rarely, leads to popular reaction, something detractors refer to as “populism”.  Populism is neither a right wing nor a left wing phenomenon and examples in recent United States history include the ill-led Sanders revolution (which flopped) and the Tea Party revolution (which succeeded until it was stamped out).  It is thus a phenomenon which occurs when a significant segment in any given society rejects constitutional institutions designed to hamstring democracy and decide to really “throw the rascals out”, although all too frequently without having reflected on with whom or what they’ll be replaced. 

It may be that populism is the only thing that can save the world in which we find ourselves, today although hopefully (as is the current case in Colombia), with a well thought out and planned alternative ready for implementation.  The traditional parties in the United States are leading the world deeper and deeper into a dystopic disaster and need to be replaced. Not all options are viable and many are worse than the “disease” they need to eradicate (kind of like the Covid 19 vaccines seem to be), but some options are indeed viable and additional options can be crafted by men and women of good will who want to maximize debate while minimizing polarization, and to find common ground for solutions while acknowledging that, where consensus cannot be attained, in a democracy, there are things which are beyond the legitimate control of government.  That minds and hearts are not changed by ridicule, censorship and false narratives (at least not in the long term), but that long term solutions are desperately needed if our species is to survive.

While it is losing respect and influence everywhere, the United States is still powerful enough militarily and through control of mechanisms of international finance (with ill conceived, unfair and illegal economic sanctions) to create havoc almost everywhere.  Thus United States politics impacts people everywhere and its elections are of universal import.  Indeed, it would seem normal and justifiable for people all over the world to seek to impact the elections in a would-be hegemon (what after the 2016 elections was hypocritically referred to as foreign meddling), given that the results of such lections are likely to impact their own future, and even, their survival.  Once again, as seems to happen at least every other year, existential United States elections are again at play.  Once again, we are again about to go to the polls without viable options, but at least some fundamental things are clear:

  • One political party and the traditionalist remnants of the other are totally controlled by the state within the state many of us refer to as the Deep State (unelected bureaucrats, corporate news media, intelligence agencies, billionaire technocrats, etc.) and are dedicated to perpetual war in quest of worldwide political and economic dominance for the benefit of a tiny few, albeit claiming to merely be seeking racial and gender justice and recognition of human rights, purported rights they themselves violate constantly. 
  • The other is comprised of confused and angry populists who know in their hearts that the “system” is not their friend and who seek solutions mainly in what they mistakenly recall as a better past. 

Not great options, but the reality is that one party is willing to risk the survival of humanity, and the other is not.  A crude choice, … at least for now.  A third alternative is one being crafted by an interesting albeit imperfect stateswoman, a former United States Congresswoman who concurrently served as a lieutenant colonel in the Hawaiian National Guard but who abhors war.  However, she has neither a political party’s backing nor an organized political movement fielding candidates in the next election, although there are a few candidates she is supporting, without regard to their current political affiliations.  Her name is Tulsi Gabbard and she recently resigned as a member of the Democratic Party, recognizing it for what it was become.  It may be that her recommendations and endorsements are worth considering.

Most of us want very similar things.  A world without war.  Economic and personal security.  The ability to successfully raise and protect our families.  Access to real justice with respect to resolution of interpersonal and international conflicts.  Freedom to think and to express ourselves however we want free of censorship of any kind and free from those who insist that we think and believe as they do, even if we are wrong (it may well be that only by being free to make mistakes will we ever be able to be experienced enough to find correct solutions).  A world free of international organizations like NATO whose goal is to dominate others through military force, and to force conflict on societies whose people derive no benefits from the ensuing mayhem (e.g., the Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Palestine, etc.).  A country that spends its citizens’ hard earned money for education, healthcare, infrastructure and a social safety net rather than on foreign military bases and a bloated defense industry.  What seems clear is that the political party than now controls all political branches of government at the federal level and which has turned the federal bureaucracy into an Americanized version of the Gestapo is an unmitigated disaster in every respect and should be consigned to the dust heaps of history, and that were it possible, its leaders and elected officials should somehow be barred from ever again participating in political leadership, or indeed, leadership of any kind. 

This is not an endorsement of the GOP but rather a rejection of the Democratic Party and a plea for consideration of new alternative political options.  Your survival depends on the evolution of new viable alternatives and unfortunately we are no longer dealing with a long term solution but rather, with one which requires immediate action.

Please consider the foregoing when you go to the polls in a few weeks.  Please also consider sharing the foregoing observations.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

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

Refractions on a Day in Early Fall

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Today dawned beautiful here in the city in the sky, nestled at the feet of the Cumanday in the central range of the Colombian Andes, although, as I have for the past few days, I awoke with trepidation, undefinable but perhaps due to world events and the horrible state of my adopted (and now somewhat abandoned) homeland to the North.  A land and a people I also love profoundly. 

Colombia seems embarked on a renaissance, a period of enlightenment and perhaps, even enlightened governance.  A great deal of its polarization has evaporated, almost overnight, a sign of hope to the world, which in its Northern Hemisphere, seems engulfed in hate, animosity and belligerent competition.

I live in both worlds though, and as in the case of apples, the bad negatively impacts the healthy.

So, despite the beautiful dawn, shadows of the dark clouds that blight the land where my sons, distant and silent, reside, impact even the brightest days in this renascent paradise.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

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

Dark and Dystopian Observations, Reflections and Introspection as Autumn Approaches, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Observations on the Passing of Mikhail Gorbachev

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He was a courageous and creative humanitarian, ironically the product of a justifiably paranoid regime, a man whose vision for a just world, where individual and collective interests might be reconciled, was thwarted by the power mad egoists who rule us in the so-called West. 

As Yeshua ben Miriam is reported to have observed, “a prophet has no honor in his own home”, and so, he is all too frequently blamed in Russia for the misery occasioned by his successor, Boris Yeltsin, who virtually sold Russia to Western backed gangsters, a prelude to our modern, post-truth world.  But some of us who were both alive and alert at the time know the truth: he almost singlehandedly ended the age of the Iron Curtain and the first Cold War. 

Unfortunately, he naively felt that leaders in the United States, Germany and NATO shared his vision, and he and Russia were promptly betrayed.  Something from which the Chinese and the current Russian leadership appear to have learned.

It may be a long time before a conciliator of his stature appears on the world stage at an opportune moment, a long time we perhaps no longer have.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2022; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

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