Category Archives: Political

An Updated Lupine-Related Fable

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Dateline: The Caribbean, Nigeria, Palestine, the Ukraine, Iran, diverse states in the United States of America, etc., November, 2025:

There is a new version of the classic fable of the little shepherd boy who cried wolf. 

In the traditional version, a mischievous young shepherd enjoys agitating the populace with false warnings of an attack by wolves. 

The current version is more complex.

The little boy is replaced by a pompous, egocentric, cranky, cantankerous and unpredictable elder bully who enjoys leading others to believe, on the one hand, that he himself is a very dangerous wolf and thereby tormenting and bullying them into yield to his machinations but, concurrently, he also enjoys playing the role of a harbinger, one warning those who somehow or other believe in him that there’s a distinct probability of impending attacks by other “predators”. 

As in the case of the original little boy, the more recent episodes are, at best, misleading and, to some extent, designed in the hope of creating future realities woven from false narratives.  For a while the incoherently contradictory narratives seem to work. That is, until they no longer do so.  Eventually, they distract from real existential crises in which no one believes, having been habituated by the series of orchestrated fake crises.

Inadvertent self-fulfilling prophecies become fulfilled.

The names have been, while not eliminated, not disclosed in order to protect the guilty, protecting the guilty being the norm in our society. On the other hand, the illustration, well, cartoonish though it may be, it may in fact prove instructive.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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/.

Clara Eugenia López Obregón – Porque la apoyo para la presidencia de Colombia

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Introducción:

Este comentario, que trata con la precandidatura de la senadora y anterior alcaldesa de Bogotá, Clara Eugenia López Obregón, refleja mi opinión positiva sobre ella, posición que he tenido desde ya muchos años.  La verdad, posición que asumí desde que volví a Colombia en el 2007 después de una vida en los EE.UU.  Desde su participación en los debates presidenciales de 2014 he creído que ella era la mejor opción presidencial para Colombia y por muchas razones, aunque admiro mucho al presidente Petro y también a dos de los otros actuales precandidatos presidenciales del Pacto Histórico, Iván Cepeda y Carolina Corcho.

Clara parece especial por razones complicadas, incluso quizás incoherentes en ciertos aspectos.  De lo que entiendo, de joven, durante los años 70, fue amiga y quizás novia de Álvaro Uribe Vélez, era durante el tiempo cuando él entonces señor Uribe supuestamente era liberal.  El mismo Álvaro Uribe Vélez quien hoy en día es el mayor oponente de lo que ella ahora apoya, pero yo aspiro que, basado en ese pasado, las relaciones de ella con la derecha colombiana (odio las frases ultraderecha y ultra izquierda que solo son peyorativas) podrían ser positivas o por lo menos cordiales, aun habiendo sido ella por ya muchos años definitivamente de izquierda.  Creo que por su experiencia y forma de ser podría lograr una relación política cordial con quienes piensan diferente sin ser media tibia como el señor Fajardo o amarga como el senador Robledo y eso mucho necesitamos en Colombia para minimizar la polarización política, cívica y cultural en la cual nos encontramos.  Ademas, por su extensa trayectoria política, creo que tiene relaciones, si no siempre excelentes, por lo menos adecuadas, con muchos políticos tradicionales que sin denegar su asociación con brechas morales y éticas con respecto al abuso del poder para su propio beneficio, siguen esenciales para lograr reformas importantes, como lastimosamente ha descubierto (o debe haber descubierto) el Presidente Petro.  Lo anterior, en mi opinión, la hace la mejor candidata para lograr el éxito no solo en las próximas elecciones, ampliando en forma importante el anticipado “Frente Amplio”, pero en la gobernanza esencial que necesitaría lograr si su campaña fuera exitosa.  Pero, ademas de esos temas pragmáticos, creo que es la persona más preparada que tenemos en Colombia para enfrentar y resolver en forma positiva los numerosos retos que nos enfrentan.  A diferencia con otros precandidatos nobles y sinceros, Clara es multidimensional en su experiencia, conocimiento y enfoque.

Biografía

Entonces, echémosle una mirada, aunque superficial, a su trayectoria cívica y política.  Datos extensos y específicos al respecto no serán difíciles encontrar.  De acuerdo a Wikipedia, una fuente de poca confianza con respecto a muchas cosas pero, en este caso, pareciéndose neutral, ella quedó huérfana muy joven pero fue “adoptada política y familiarmente” por el líder político liberal Alfonso López Michelsen, presidente de Colombia entre 1974 y 1978 y el primo de su padre.  Ella estudió economía en la Universidad de Harvard y, posteriormente, se licenció en derecho en la Universidad de los Andes.  En la actualidad, es candidata a doctorado en derecho tributario y financiero en la Universidad de Salamanca. 

Durante su estadía en Harvard, se involucró activamente en protestas en contra de la incursión de los Estados Unidos en Vietnam e inicio un cambio filosófico desde sus raíces en el progresismo liberal hacia la izquierda, llegando a entender realidades sobre esa potencia del norte que por tanto tiempo nos ha dominado con desprecio, y que tanto daño nos ha hecho, algo que en los últimos días el señor Trump ha hecho más claro que nunca.  Por eso, a diferencia de mucha de la clase política en la cual nació, ella no ha vendido sus valores y su persona por los beneficios económicos personales con los cuales la oligarquía estadounidense compra la lealtad de tantos líderes en nuestro continente.

Regresó a Colombia en 1974 aceptando un cargo en la Secretaría Económica de la presidencia de Colombia, presidencia ocupada en ese tiempo por su mentor, el liberal Alfonso López Michelsen, movimiento en el cual inicialmente milito pero que abandonó en forma permanente en 1979, al parecer, reaccionando en forma muy inesperada con respecto a una disputa entre los expresidentes López Michelsen y Carlos Lleras Restrepo, irónicamente tomando el lado ideológico a favor de Lleras Restrepo y su pupilo Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento.  Por lo tanto, se inscribió en el Nuevo Liberalismo, movimiento fundado por Galán y el exalcalde de Neiva, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla.

Como militante en el Nuevo Liberalismo fue elegida concejal y eventualmente presidenta del concejo distrital en Bogotá, eso durante los años 80 y, posteriormente, fue elegida contralora distrital de Bogotá. En el Nuevo Liberalismo apoyó la candidatura presidencial de Carlos Galán en 1982 (no obstante la posición contraria de su anterior benefactor y mentor Alfonso López) pero en 1986 cambio su perspectiva y afiliación política, moviéndose más hacia la izquierda política y salió del Nuevo Liberalismo para afiliarse con la Unión Patriótica desde la cual, en oposición a la candidatura presidencial de Galán en 1986, apoyó a Jaime Pardo Leal quien quedó en tercer lugar en esa contienda antes de ser asesinado en 1987.  En 1988, por primero vez, se lanzó como candidata a la alcaldía de Bogotá bajo la bandera de la Unión Patriótica, elección que fue impactada en forma irónica por el secuestro del candidato que resultó exitoso, quizás por haber sido secuestrado y liberado, el candidato conservador y conocido periodista, Andrés Pastrana Arango, apoyado por su padre, el expresidente Misael Pastrana.

1990 fue un año desastroso para la izquierda colombiana y, en realidad, para toda Colombia.  Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, el candidato de la Unión Patriótica apoyado por Clara para la presidencia fue asesinado en abril de 1990, después del asesinato de Luis Carlos Galán en agosto de 1989 y antes del asesinato de Carlos Pizarro, también en abril de 1990.  Traumatizada políticamente, como se encontraba gran parte del país, Clara se alejó de la política por casi una década, dedicándose a la academia y respaldando a las ambiciones políticas de su esposo, Carlos Romero, como concejal.  En 2002 volvió a involucrarse en temas de gobernanza cuando fue nombrada Auditora General de Colombia por el entonces presidente, su viejo pretendiente, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, función que ejerció por tres años hasta que se vio obligada a denunciar ante la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Colombia la posible infiltración de organizaciones armadas ilegales de extrema derecha en el Estado Colombiano, eso después de que Salvatore Mancuso, el exjefe máximo de la Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, dio a conocer que al menos el 35% de los miembros del actual Congreso de la Republica eran aliados suyos. Esa denuncia de Clara dio inicio al proceso investigativo que adelantaría el supremo tribunal, y que derivaría en un proceso judicial que desató un escándalo político en Colombia conocido como la Parapolítica.

Encontrándose ya estigmatizada por el “uribismo” decidió volver a involucrarse en la contienda electoral apoyando la nueva conglomeración política de izquierda, el Polo Democrático Alternativo, partido por el cual aspiró a la Cámara de Representantes en 2006, perdiendo curul por poco más de cien votos.  Por un tiempo después de esa campaña considero una nueva campaña para la alcaldía de Bogotá pero decidió  apoyar la candidatura de Samuel Moreno Rojas quien, como a tantos otros, la engaño por un tiempo con respecto a su falta de ética, algo demostrada por su rol en el denominado Carrusel de la contratación y que resulto en su destitución como alcalde.  Para Clara eso fue una gran decepción pero, a la vez, una gran oportunidad de aprendizaje. 

Como importante asesora en la campaña de Samuel Moreno Rojas Clara fue designada como Secretaria de Gobierno en la nueva administración municipal bogotana lo cual requirió que su esposo, Carlos Romero, renunciara a su escaño en el Concejo de Bogotá.  Como Secretaria de Gobierno, llego a denunciar el caso de “falsos positivos” en la supuesta guerra uribista en contra de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (las FARC) y otros movimientos insurgentes, caso en el cual, para recibir “comisiones” por cada insurgente “eliminado”, táctica sugerida por los gobiernos de George W. Bush y Barak Obama en los EE.UU., miembros de las fuerzas públicas colombianas capturaban a jóvenes inocentes, disfrazándolos de insurgentes para entregar sus cadáveres en cambio recompensas.  En específico, la investigación en la cual participo Clara trató con 19 jóvenes que figuraban desaparecidos y que fueron ingresados por el ejército a medicina legal en la ciudad de Ocaña, Norte de Santander, como muertos en combate.  El resultante escandalo a nivel nacional e internacional culminó con la destitución de 27 oficiales del ejército por su involucramiento en el asesinato de más de tres mil jóvenes inocentes en diversas regiones de Colombia.

Clara ocupó la Secretaría Distrital de Gobierno hasta el 10 de marzo de 2010, fecha en la que fue escogida como fórmula vicepresidencial de Gustavo Petro para las elecciones presidenciales de 2010 en las que alcanzaron más de un millón trescientos mil votos, pero no resultaron elegidos.  Tras la renuncia de Jaime Dussán Calderón a la presidencia del Polo Democrático, el Comité Ejecutivo del partido la proclamó unánimemente como nueva presidenta de esa colectividad, cargo que asumió en abril de 2010. Renuncio a ese cargo temporalmente en junio de 2011 porque, habiendo brotado el escándalo de la corrupción de la administración municipal y la resultante destitución de Samuel Moreno Rojas como alcalde, ella fue escogida el 8 de junio de 2011 por el entonces presidente de la Republica, Manuel Santos, para remplazar a Moreno como alcaldesa encargada, un reto que parecía desagradable e imposible y con desastrosas implicaciones para un futuro político.  Bogotá se encontraba política y económicamente ahogada, después de tres años, solo el 15% del presupuesto se había ejecutado y la confianza de los bogotanos en su gobierno era solo del 7%.  Pero Clara y su equipo lograron milagros.  Aunque solo se esperaba que mantuviera el cargo por solo tres meses, se amplió su periodo hasta el primero de enero de 2012 y su rendimiento fue inesperadamente excelente, tan productivo como el de Moreno había sido desastroso.  En su discurso de posesión prometió que defendería el patrimonio de los ciudadanos rechazando la privatización de la Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogotá ETB, pero también preservando para los ciudadanos en su conjunto los otros bienes distritales.  Dirigiéndose al escándalo del denominado carrusel de contratación municipal, prometió transparencia en la firma de contratos y licitaciones.​ De acuerdo a la encuesta Gallup, entro a su cargo en un ambiente de desconfianza total con una aprobación minúscula para salió de su cargo apoyada por el 76% de los ciudadanos, la más amplia aprobación registrada hasta entonces para la alcaldía de Bogotá.  Entre sus numerosos logros se destacaron el plan decenal de agua que por primera vez otorgó de manera gratuita el mínimo vital a las familias más pobres de la capital, el subsidio al transporte público para las personas con discapacidad y sus cuidadores y la expedición de decreto de participación incidente de los ciudadanos en la confección de los planes y programas del gobierno de la ciudad.  Cuando entro a su cargo, después de tres años solo se había ejecutado el 15% del presupuesto municipal autorizado, cuando lo entrego, se había ejecutado, en solo ocho meses, el 95%.[1]

Luego de su rol como salvadora de Bogotá, Clara volvió a las contiendas electorales primero, como la candidata del Polo Democrático para la presidencia de Colombia en las elecciones del 2014 donde obtuvo casi dos millones de votos y ocupó la cuarta posición, y luego, como candidata a la Alcaldía de Bogotá en representación del Polo Democrático, la Unión Patriótica y el Movimiento Alternativo Indígena y Social (MAIS).  

No fue exitosa en esa elección pero el 25 de abril de 2016, Clara fue designada por el presidente Juan Manuel Santos, a quien había apoyado en segunda, como Ministra de Trabajo, cargo que ocupó hasta el 5 de mayo de 2017 cuando renuncio para participar en las elecciones presidenciales de 2018.  Desde el 20 de julio de 2022 ha sido senadora de la Republica.  Además de lo anterior, ha sido profesora de la Universidad del Rosario y Universidad de los Andes.

De nuevo, precandidata a la presidencia

En 2025, Clara confirmó su precandidatura presidencial para las elecciones de 2026 postulándose a través de la coalición política “Unitarios” conformado por cerca de 15 partidos que se presenta como un complemento fraterno al Pacto Histórico.  La meta de su campaña es participar en la consulta del “Frente Amplio” en marzo de 2026. En esa consulta se enfrentarían precandidatos como Roy Barreras, Camilo Romero y la figura que finalmente designe el Pacto Histórico (probablemente o Carolina Corcho o Iván Cepeda), su objetivo siendo la continuación de la transformación iniciada por Gustavo Petro.

En lo personal, no soy miembro del partido político Colombia Humana o del nuevo partido unificado, el Pacto Histórico, aunque a ambos los he asesorado y creo en sus ideales.  No soy “petrista” aunque conozco y apoyo a Gustavo Petro porque esa frase huele demasiadamente al caudillismo en el cual ni él ni yo creemos.  Para mí, como analista político, me es importante ser independiente de organizaciones políticas donde la ética insiste que cada miembro debe acatar a las decisiones colectivas.  Estoy muy de acuerdo con las políticas que la administración actual ha propuesto y por las cuales ha luchado, aunque sin el éxito que merecen, pero me ha preocupado la falta de dirección política personal por parte del presidente, algo que me parece esencial en negociaciones directas con la oposición y hasta con aliados, roles que han asumido diversas personas en formas algo incoherentes.  No obstante esa observación, entiendo que dada la histórica corrupción de nuestros líderes políticos, burócratas, empresarios y medios de comunicación, lograr los cambios transcendentales requeridos para crear la sociedad justa, eficiente e igualitaria que merecemos los colombianos es un tema muy complicado y, en última instancia, parece requerir intervención ciudadana por medio de una nueva constituyente, algo con el cual el presidente Petro y Clara están de acuerdo.  Mi perspectiva con respecto a la constitución colombiana es mucho más drástica que la de ellos, algo sobre cual circulé hace un tiempo un artículo “Porque Colombia ha requerido un nuevo Constituyente desde el 1991”.  Yo creo que los defectos constitucionales son tan profundos que requieren una revisión total de la Constitución de 1991, una constitución larguísima, llena de promesas incumplibles e instituciones incoherentes y en la cual, en importantes partes, los sujetos no son los ciudadanos sino los partidos políticos.  Como ejemplo de lo último solo hay que entender que la prohibición a lo doble militancia les prohíbe a los supuestos representantes del Pueblo votar su conciencia, en vez, siendo legalmente forzados a votar como deciden sus partidos.  En base de lo último, las reformas esenciales propuestas por el actual gobierno para eliminar corrupción y lograr sistemas de salud, pensión, medicina, trabajo, tributo, etc., justos y eficientes han sido derrotadas.

No obstante esa perspectiva compartida sobre la necesidad de una reforma constitucional, no estoy de acuerdo con la manera en la cual Clara cree que se debe implementar una constituyente, eso siendo por medio de democracia directa utilizando tecnologías novedosas para coordinar los esfuerzos.  Pero eso es lo único con lo cual no estoy de acuerdo en las propuestas de Clara.  Me encantaria si fuera posible pero coordinar treinta millones de participantes me parece una tarea imposible, en especial cunado trata con temas tan complicados que requieren conocimiento supremamente complejo sobre derecho, teorías constitucionales, economía, política comparada e historia.

Entonces, ¿por qué no los otros dos precandidatos que también mucho admiro?

Carolina Corcho es una brillante y ética persona con experiencia en temas cívicos y profundo conocimiento sobre el disfuncional sistema de salud colombiana pero carece de experiencia electoral y ejecutiva y todavía es algo unidimensional en su experticia.  Ademas, creo que para ella sería difícil interactuar en forma eficiente con fuerzas políticas y económicas opositoras a las reformas en las cuales ella, como Clara, como Iván Cepeda y como el presidente Petro creen.  Iván Cepeda ha sido entre los mejores legisladores de nuestro país con impecable trayectoria en la lucha contra la corrupción y por la paz, lo admiro enormemente y lo quiero.  Pero carece de experiencia administrativa y ejecutiva y el uribismo y sus aliados son sus enemigos mortales, lo odian aún más que odian al presidente Petro, entonces gobernar en forma exitosa sería difícil, quizás imposible.

Eso deja a Clara que lo tiene todo, la experiencia tanto electoral como administrativa habiendo sido ministra, alcaldesa y senadora, ella tiene los ideales que admiro, los cuales comparte con Carolina e Iván y con el presidente y, tiene la posibilidad de interactuar en forma positiva con diversas corrientes políticas para crear una coalición amplia capaz de implementar importantes reformas.  Como Carolina e Iván, es brillante y ética y progresista, pero con mayor capacidad de unirnos y de minimizar la polarización que tan horriblemente nos infecta. 

Por eso la apoyo.[1]

[1] Por la necesidad de circular esta reflexión en forma expedita, no se ha logrado revisarla en temas de estilo, etc., por lo cual se solicita disculpas.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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 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/.

[1] Datos obtenidos desde el artículo sobre Clara López disponible en Wikipedia (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_L%C3%B3pez) revisado el 18 de octubre de 2015.

Reflections on an Unremittingly Ludicrous Situation

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Republicans are absolutely correct, the Democratic Party is horrible but, then again, so are Democrats, the Republican Party is awful.  Interestingly, both are subservient to the same master and it is not the United States’ citizenry.

The second Trump administration is a disaster, domestically and internationally, but, in all honesty it’s not a worse disaster than the Biden administration, and, internationally, while terrible, it is no worse than the prior Obama and Clinton administrations which planted the seeds for so many of today’s problems (think of the Ukraine, and Libya and Syria and Yemen, etc.).  And of course, the administration of George W. Bush was as terrible and inept as any of them, although, in each case, “inept” is measured only with respect to how such administrations benefit United States citizens.  Each was highly apt as far as the billionaire class was concerned and with respect to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The sad part is that Mr. Trump’s inane behavior, rather than usher in a real independent and pro-United States administration comprised of people like former Congressman Dennis Kucinich or former Senator Jim Webb, real statesmen, it is very likely to usher in a new Democratic Party administration led by the Clintons and the Obamas and Pelosi, etc., also foreign owned, rather than one dedicated to world peace, domestic tranquility, prosperity and freedom from AIPAC domination.  Thus, the more things purportedly change, the more they stay the same and it is our fault, yours and mine, both individually and collectively, for being so consistently gullible.  Of course, things don’t quite stay the same as each subsequent administration becomes more vitriolic and more seriously abuses our civil liberties and constitutional rights, more thoroughly perverting and subverting the institutions and customs meant to preserve and protect us while the previous administration hypocritically laments the sad state of affairs.

For decades public opinion polls have shown that the United States electorate would prefer a political administration other than one controlled by either the Republican or Democratic parties but every election, thanks in large part to the AIPAC controlled corporate media, we are convinced that those are our only two choices and that voting for third parties or independents is merely wasting our votes, and that we thus have to vote for one of the two AIPAC owned political parties so that the other does not attain power.  Thus, rather than voting our conscience and with our intellect, we tend to vote from artificially induced fear.

The stupidity involved is incredible!  Albert Einstein would have described it as insane.  But it is constant and consistent and anyway, it’s probably already too late to change things since, as may well have occurred in the United States already and as is occurring in Europe west of the Caucuses, electoral manipulation through distortive news reporting and, when that is not enough, electoral manipulation through abuse of the judicial system (as recently occurred in Romania) or, as a last resort, through electoral fraud involving destruction of inconvenient ballots (as was apparently again the case today in Moldavia) and through manufacture of necessary ballots, or else, through the hacking of electronic voting equipment will prevent changes opposed by the alliance of Deep States that makes a mockery of even the illusion of democracy.

For decades, especially since Eric Arthur Blair (writing under the pen name George Orwell) in his dystopian epic 1984 (published in 1948) warned us, we have been completely manipulated, duped, and our intellect and ethics have been insulted.  We not only “should” know better, we in fact “do” know better, but somehow, that makes no difference.  The genocide against which we purportedly fought a world war has now become acceptable, although, the reality, when one examines history, is that genocide has always been acceptable, one need only note the celebrated instances of genocide in the Tanakh (Old Testament), e.g., Jericho, or much more recently, the genocide perpetrated against indigenous Americans by European colonists, the genocide in the Congo perpetrated by the Belgians, the genocide in India and Africa perpetrated by the British, the genocide in Armenia perpetrated by the Turks and the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the second war to end all wars, thus, the genocide engaged in by the Nazis was apparently only horrendous because the Nazis lacked sophisticated public relations such as those employed by Zionists and, of course, the Nazis lost a major war.

So, … we rush towards Armageddon, many Christion Zionists with open arms in the hope that Yešu the Nazarene will deem it prudent to return and reward slaughter and mayhem with his holy presence.  We rush towards Armageddon oblivious, polarized and incoherent but, apparently, blissfully so.  Or, perhaps, we’ll just blissfully remain enslaved to our betters who apparently deserve to use us as they will.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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 New York City Electorate and, Secondarily, on the Mayoral Candidacy of Zohran Mamdani

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Like Zohran Mamdani, but more like Albert Einstein, Noam Chomsky, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Pepe Mujica and many others, I define myself as a democratic socialist.  That is very different from authoritarian socialists, “social democrats” and very, very different from a supporters of the ill-named Democratic Party or of the GOP although, with respect to the latter two, I find the Democratic Party much more hypocritical, despicable and dangerous.  I am not a Trump or MAGA supporter, far from it, but nor am I afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Trump has many faults but all are shared by the most prominent Democrats, Democrats like war mongers Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden to name just a few, especially with respect to their primary allegiance to Israel, allegiance bought and paid for by AIPAC.  My primary regret with reference to Mr. Mamdani’s candidacy is that it is Messrs. Cuomo and Adams who are running as independents and Mr. Mamdani will be the candidate of the utterly corrupt Democratic Party, although its leadership has not only rejected him but is actively opposing him.  More than anything, New York City, New York State and the United States need new political alternatives whose loyalty is to the United States and its citizenry rather than to a foreign government (Israel) or to the billionaire caste (it’s more a caste than a class).  But no such luck.  At least not yet.

I find the article entitled “Debunking the Myths about Mamdani’s Candidacy” written by Stewart Lawrence and published on August 13, 2025 in Counterpunch (available at https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/13/debunking-the-myths-about-mamdanis-candidacy/) not only interesting, but reflective of a hopeful sign, i.e.,  that the young may prove significantly less naïve and less subject to media manipulation and much more cognitively competent and ethical than most of their elders, a bit strange given that my generation, the Baby Boomers, shared many of their values when we were their age. When purportedly, “the Times they were a ‘Changing”.  That is a double edged sword, though, as my generation permitted its idealism to be corrupted in a quest for financial security as soon as we became parents.  One wonders if that same affliction will also contaminate the best of Generation X and Generation Z, etc.

While I share some, perhaps many, perhaps even most of Mr. Mamdani’s values and beliefs, there are postures I feel are simplistically addressed by him.  For example, those dealing with issues like immigration and law enforcement which, while very important, are more complex than what he perceives.  And, I’m concerned that beneath it all, he’s a partisan Democrat who suffers from the obligatory Trump Derangement Syndrome and who, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“AOC”, a moniker I find presumptive) will, if he is elected (a near certainty, sell out his values in exchange for acceptance by the same old power brokers who have always controlled everything and that he will all too soon permit himself to serve as little more than a deceptive token.  A cynical view, I know, but one well earned.

Still, for now, Mr. Mamdani is a breath of fresh air and much more importantly, those who are drawn to him, especially those among the young and among most of New York City’s Jewish population seem to have had the cobwebs removed from their eyes and their ears and their mouths reflecting a political awakening that may help lead us away from the Deep State’s perpetual wars and thus from the edge of the apocalyptic abyss. It may center us on the importance of spending our hard earned tax revenue on positive things, items like free universal health care, like free education for all at all levels, like affordable housing for all, like adequate nutrition for all, like all of the things, including the foregoing, available to Israeli and European citizens, who our government subsidizes. 

Wouldn’t that be something? 

Especially if the New York City electorate has really woken to the realities facing us, especially if they reflect not just a New York City phenomenon.  Especially if they can reject “woke” triumphalism and virtue shaming which, rather than draw others to their idealistic goals, just turns them off.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. 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/.

Alleged Genocide in Palestine, Jeffrey Epstein, Zionism, AIPAC, the Mossad and the Law of Unintended Consequences: A Plea Not to Conflate Judaism with Zionism

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August 2, 2025

“According to the current Trump administration, it seems that Jeffrey Epstein was apparently an optical illusion, especially with reference to any suspicion that Mr. Epstein was a close personal friend of any among the world’s most powerful people or that he was a critical asset of Israel’s Mossad.  ‘No honey pots here, move on.  The collective memory of the American people, indeed of people all over the world is mistaken.  It must be an Iranian mass hypnosis plot aided by Palestinian baby-eating, mass-raping terrorists.’  That too many people refuse to acknowledge the foregoing, including many deluded MAGA Trump supporters, is unfortunate and obviously involves blatant antisemitism.” 

Okay, no citations, the quote is a fabrication, but it’s a fabrication worthy of an answer to a ChatGPT open AI query.  And, there may be more than just a kernel of truth in the foregoing.  As a caveat, I am not a MAGA or Trump supporter but nor am I a supporter of Trump detractors aligned with the Democratic Party or the legacy media.  Nor am I blind, deaf and dumb.  A further acknowledgement: I consider myself a leftwing democratic socialist along the lines of Noam Chomsky, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, etc., and I acknowledge that the length of an article usually negatively impacts its readability and thus apologize ahead of time for the length of this one, but the subject matter seemed too important to condense further than it has been.   Because of this article’s length, I’m taking the strange step of quoting its concluding paragraph here.  Make of that what you will:  “While it is fair to insist that Zionist Israel should follow Nazi Germany into the dust bins of history, that the United States must rid itself of AIPAC controlled political parties and politicians and that the Mossad should go the way of the Gestapo, a repeat of the massive historical violations of human rights incident to antisemitism must never again be repeated or justified.”

There is an unfortunate and potentially dangerous resurgence in antisemitism as a result of non-traditional factors, one being the campaign by Zionists in Israel engaged in genocide and other crimes against humanity and violations of international law to conflate their political program with the far broader aspects of Judaism claiming that opposition to Zionism is anti-Semitic, per se.  Anti-Semitic under any circumstances, notwithstanding any objective verities.  Another is the enshrinement of such conflation in penal legislation which, in essence, makes criticism of Zionism or Israel, regardless of how justified, illegal.

The mass murder, rape and starvation of the Palestinian people by Israel has led to a broad reaction by people from every corner of the world against Israeli Zionism (including large numbers of traditional Jews, especially Orthodox Jews).  People all over the world (although less so in the United States) are revolted by the indiscriminate murder of women and children, the wholesale destruction of Palestinian hospitals, mosques, schools and homes, but also the justification of rape as a legitimate means of control and the murder of infants and children based on the fear of eventual retaliation.  That Israeli settlers are now also attacking Christian communities, burning Christian churches and seeking the expulsion of Christians as well as Muslims from the Levant will only make things worse as some within the somnambulant Christian community in the United States may suddenly wake up.  Unfortunately, that justifiable reaction may all too easily be used by racist anti-Semites to justify their long held hatred and fear of Jews in general.  Jews, who they claim, are bent on worldwide hegemony as evinced by the disproportionate power wielded by them in politics, the economy, the news media, the entertainment industry and in many other major industries claiming that, as evinced by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it is all based on a long term plot rather than on the natural consequences of meritocracy.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a document circulated during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century detailing a purported Zionist plot to attain world dominance but debunked as a forgery during the 1920s, although it has never stopped circulating in various variants and has been a cornerstone of twentieth century antisemitism.  Reference to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as forgeries rather than fabrications has resulted in confusion to some as, generally speaking, a forgery is understood to involve the existence of some predicate instrument that has been distorted with an inaccurate variant being passed off as genuine but, in either case, there is no doubt that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were used and continue to be used to justify anti-Semitic narratives.

As an indicia of the foregoing, Nicholas Joseph Fuentes (a right wing political pundit, activist and live streamer accused of promoting white supremacist, misogynistic and anti-Semitic views) recently released the following purported statistics concerning Zionist dominance in diverse fields of United States’ politics, education and commerce.  According to him and others who share his prejudices, purportedly ninety percent of donors to the Democratic Party are Jewish, over eighty-seven percent of the presidents of Ivy League universities are Jewish, all major talent agencies in the United States are “Jewish” run, half of the owners of NBA teams are Jewish (as is the NBA Commissioner) and, during the past four decades, all chairpersons of the Federal Reserve with the exception of Jerome Powell have been Jewish.  Finally, Mr. Fuentes claims that the majority of the members of the cabinets in the most recent United States presidential administrations have either been Jewish or had Jewish spouses.  Similar claims are made concerning the United Kingdom and diverse European countries.  In short, according to anti-Semites, Jews control most of the world’s financial institutions, most of the world’s news media, most of the world’s entertainment industry, most of the world’s major educational institutions, they control everything worth controlling, either directly or indirectly.  Of course, that ignores the existence of the Global South, of India and China and Russia and Iran and North Korea and Yemen, etc.  However, even respected political commentators like former Judge Andrew Napolitano have recently interacted with former government officials who claim that despite their miniscule percentage of the population in the United States, Zionists are an overwhelming majority of the government officials in charge of foreign affairs in both Republican and Democratic Party administrations and that both major United States political parties are wholly subservient to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which can make or break any member of the United States Congress through its access to massive donor wealth.  Respected political commentators like former Judge Napolitano, Tucker Carlson, Jeffrey Sacks and Noam Chomsky, as contrasted with Mr. Fuentes, are providing such information not in the context of traditional generalized antisemitism (indeed, Doctors Sacks and Chomsky are among the world’s most prominent and respected Jews) but rather, in response to the United States’ wholehearted support of Israel, no matter what, as illustrated by the financing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Israel’s overthrow of the government of Syria and Syria’s ongoing dismemberment and the ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon as well as the recent Israeli-American attacks on Iran, none of which positively impact United States’ interests.

Admittedly, today, much of the world (outside of the United States) is justifiably outraged by the United States-supported Israeli conduct criticized by Messrs. Sacks, Chomsky, Carlson, Napolitano and dozens of others.  But things are getting worse, not better.  According to available polling data Israelis in general have been utterly corrupted by the policies of their government and now wholeheartedly and bloodthirstily approve of their government actions which most credible specialists in international law characterize as crimes of lèse humanité comparable to the worst instances of violations of human rights in modern history.  Indeed, Zionist settlers are now doing their best to eliminate Christians from Israel as well as Muslims prompting a rebuke from Catholic Pope Leo XIV.

Apologists for Israel’s consistent violations of international law and basic human rights during more than three quarters of a century argue that Israel’s actions are existentially necessary for the survival of the Jewish race even though Judaism is neither a race nor a nationality and Zionism is not even a religion.  To a growing extent, such actions are resulting in the malediction common to self-fulfilling prophecies and such actions have had the opposite effect; in many instances, very unfairly so.  Zionist lies (as blatantly false as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) to the effect that Israel and Zionism act in the name of and for the benefit of all Jews are indeed resulting in increased antisemitism, especially as antisemitism is being legally defined, especially as it is being legally defined in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.  Defined, not as generalized hatred of Jews but as opposition, not to Judaism, but to Zionism.  It’s as though the infamous Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame) was an anti-Semite as well.

Judaism is not synonymous with Zionism and many of the most vociferous critics of Zionist crimes of lèse-humanité are, as indicated above, in fact Jews, especially orthodox Jews.  And even if Mr. Fuentes’ statistics or the more credible information presented in interviews conducted by Messrs. Napolitano and Tucker, especially those observations that have involved renowned political economist Jeffrey Sacks, bear any resemblance to reality, that does not mean that meritocracy rather than a grand conspiracy is not the reason for that statistical anomaly.  But wouldn’t it be a strange and ironic twist of fate, even an indicia of divine justice in the face of millennia of antisemitism, if whoever was responsible for concocting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in fact provided a blueprint for the evolution of meaningful Jewish and Zionist power far in excess of that which the miniscule number of Jews, compared to Christians, Muslims, etc., would appear to represent if statistics rather than merit were the measuring stick?

Now the Trump administration’s Jeffrey Epstein fiasco is adding to the problem. 

It has been credibly alleged by former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe and other credible witnesses that Mr. Epstein was an agent of Israel’s infamous Mossad and that his sexual predation was a tool designed specifically by the Mossad to compromise important political, economic and social leaders, especially the most wealthy and powerful among them, in order to provide Israel with leverage against them.  Prior to his latest election, Mr. Trump had promised to make public all available information concerning Mr. Epstein’s activities, especially including a purported list of his “clients” but he has totally backtracked on that promise and while the corporate media and Mr. Trump’s political opponents insist that Mr. Trump’s change in attitude is based on compromising information specifically concerning him that would come to light in the event that the Epstein files were made public, there are a plethora of unconfirmable rumors to the effect that instead of the foregoing, Israel has somehow or other convinced the Trump Administration that the promised public release of information would not only tarnish numerous elites in politics, finance, entertainment, the news media, etc., but that such disclosure would also implicate numerous United States intelligence agencies and leaders and thus, would have a negative impact on United States intelligence sources and methods, impacting “national security”.  Unfortunately (unfortunately for the Trump administration as well as Israel), it seems way too many cats are out of the bag including unverifiable claims that it was the Israeli Mossad that was responsible for the assassination of President Trump’s predecessor, John F. Kennedy and perhaps even for the destruction of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. 

President Trump’s defense of Israeli interests in the Epstein affair, if accurate, is proving personally catastrophic to him.  As indicated above, his numerous opponents, especially in the corporate media and, of course, the Democratic Party, are using Mr. Trump’s refusal to release materials in the possession of the United States Department of Justice and intelligence agencies as proof that he, like Mr. Jeffries, is a pedophile and seemingly was the only person of public interest with whom Mr. Epstein “partied”.  That distraction is being massively played up, according to some, to keep attention off of Mr. Epstein’s Israeli intelligence connection and his decades’ long successful generation of salacious materials useful to the Zionist cause.  Still, related information keeps leaking out and as often as not, the sources are non-Zionist Jews.  Unfortunately for Jews in general, Israel’s impunity with respect to the ongoing genocide in Palestine is making such otherwise unverifiable claims concerning Mossad activities all too credible, especially to people all too prepared to think the worst of Jews but, more troublingly, to a large number of people who are not congenital anti-Semites.

Just when things were going Israel’s way in Syria and Lebanon and Palestine and Iran and in all the Middle Eastern dictatorships and in all the NATO countries, this had to happen!  Apparently justice is just too difficult to keep bought and traces of truth, albeit mixed with wild conspiracy theories, continue to leak out no matter how much censorship is imposed.  As an unfortunate consequence, the Law of Unintended Consequences, a close relative to Murphy’s Law, may well be seeding the ground for a very unfortunate revival of real antisemitism.  Something against which honorable critics of Zionist atrocities and of manipulation of the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Middle East dictatorships must guard, especially by repeatedly pointing out that non-Zionist Jews are leading the criticism of the massive Israeli abuses involved.

While it is fair to insist that Zionist Israel should follow Nazi Germany into the dust bins of history, that the United States must rid itself of AIPAC controlled political parties and politicians and that the Mossad should go the way of the Gestapo, a repeat of the massive historical violations of human rights incident to antisemitism must never again be repeated or justified.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. 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/.

Reflexiones sobre la decisión en el juicio contra el expresidente Álvaro Uribe Vélez

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28 de julio, 2025, Manizales

La justicia colombiana ha encontrado culpable de delitos penales a quien ha sido el hombre más poderoso del país, el ex presidente Álvaro Uribe Vélez. La decisión me sorprendió porque la justicia en Colombia tradicionalmente ha ignorado abusos del poder por parte de su clase dirigente pero, a la vez, la decisión duele porque, por correcta que sea, muy probable es que nos dividirá aún más como pueblo. 

Un víctima de la injusticia tan común en Colombia, mi amigo Luis Fernando Rosas Londoño, un hombre talentoso, inteligente y honrado quien fue injustamente privado de sus derechos políticos y de su libertad, lleva tiempo rogándoles a los dirigentes políticos de nuestros partidos que para sanarnos como pueblo, para realmente lograr la paz, necesitamos una amnistía general, algo que, irónicamente, entiendo fue rechazado por el ex presidente Uribe. Luis Fernando no lo propone por su propio beneficio.  Lo hace teniendo en cuenta las personas inocentes que han sido castigados en procesos jurídicos injustos y, a la vez, entendiendo que con tantos pecados por todos lados de nuestra política, se necesita “reformatear nuestro disco duro” e iniciar de nuevo.

No obstante lo anterior, reconozco que aunque el concepto de un perdon general es importante para re-direccionarnos hacia un futuro más civil y más decente, la corrupción, sea política, económica, académica o militar, etcétera, la corrupción que infecta a nuestra sociedad en forma tan profunda se tiene que minimizar, entendiéndose que acabar con ella es improbable, si no imposible; entendiendo que en un sistema político funcional, la violación de responsabilidades públicas tiene que ser el mayor delito con los castigos más serios.

Entonces, en este instante, nos encontramos en una situación, a la vez tan positiva como amarga. Una situación probablemente sin solución.  No estoy feliz que el expresidente Uribe se haya encontrado culpable de violar leyes esenciales para el funcionamiento de nuestro sistema legal, pero estoy aún más triste que él nos ha puesto en la situación en la cual nos encontramos, que él ha violado sus más sagrados juramentos.  Y me entristece profundamente que, en toda probabilidad, el expresidente Uribe insistirá, o en forma directa o indirecta, que sus seguidores rechacen la decisión en su contra no obstante el impacto que tenga esa reacción con respecto al bienestar popular.  Espero que, en forma directa o indirecta, el expresidente Uribe insistirá en que sus seguidores organicen protestas y manifestaciones masivas en las cuales la violencia será probable.

Claro que es posible que si el expresidente es tan noble como creen sus seguidores, pondrá el bienestar de nuestro pueblo por encima de sus intereses personales.  Él podría, sin admitir o negar las acusaciones en su contra (que ahora son sentencia), aceptarlas y pedirles a sus seguidores que también acepten la decisión jurídica existente.  Y quizás, para minimizar la polarización, si el presidente Gustavo Petro también es tan noble como creen sus seguidores, él podría otorgarle al ex presidente Uribe clemencia en forma de un perdon ejecutivo, no en forma de algún tipo de negocio extrajudicial, pero como una ofrenda de paz para todos los colombianos en la cual, las horribles brechas entre nosotros se puedan realmente empezar a sanar y la desconfianza que nos ha dividido por tanto tiempo impidiendo las reformas esenciales en nuestras políticas públicas que urgentemente necesitamos, se pueda remplazar con un espíritu de colaboración.

No veo lo último probable pero hoy, por medio de nuestras reacciones con respecto a este juicio, se podría crear una oportunidad casi única para reconocer que los colombianos todos somos hermanos, no obstante nuestras diferencias de opinión, y que ya es tiempo que rechacemos el ejemplo mítico de Caín y Abel en favor del ejemplo de ese antiguo nazareno que tantos colombianos supuestamente aman.

Ya pronto veremos que va a ocurrir. 

Temo que será lo peor pero, a la vez, aspiro que en eso yo esté equivocado.  Yo salí de Colombia, como tantos otros, a los seis años, salí no en forma voluntaria pero por una decisión de mis padres basada en la violencia en la cual se encontraba nuestro país.  Pero nunca olvidé que yo era y siempre seré colombiano, y que desde ese país hacia el norte que tanto daño nos ha hecho, me era muy difícil entender cómo, en un pueblo como el nuestro, un pueblo lleno de lo mejor que puede brindar la naturaleza, nos encontrábamos tan infelices el uno contra el otro.  Y que muchos de los mejores ciudadanos nuestros, los más educados y los más nobles, huían en un flujo permanente hacia el norte donde eran despreciados e insultados, doctores trabajando como meseros.

Desde lejos era fácil percibir que unidos, aunque con diferencias en temas de creencias y opiniones, seriamos entre los pueblos más exitosos del mundo.  En parte, para ayudar a lograr eso, fue que siempre quise volver a mi patria, algo que logré en el 2007, ese año tan especial en el cual nuestro pueblo, en masivas manifestaciones, demostró que estaba harto con nuestros eternos conflictos internos.  Al volver, tuve el privilegio de trabajar por una década en la Universidad Autónoma de Manizales con estudiantes de diversas perspectivas políticas, pero unidos en el respeto por sus diferencias mientras dedicados a superarlas para lograr el bienestar común, estudiantes enamorados con su pueblo, estudiantes que ya están ascendiendo las laderas de las responsabilidades políticas y en la gran mayoría de los casos, haciéndolo en forma ética y eficiente.  Esos ex estudiantes míos y otros jóvenes que he conocido me hacen pensar que la Colombia que merecemos no solo es posible sino probable, probable si evitamos seguir enmarañados en las mallas del pasado. 

Hoy, haremos importantes decisiones, quizás existenciales, como individuos pero también como pueblo.  El desastre del juicio en el cual se encuentra el expresidente Uribe no es ocasión para sentirnos o vencedores o vencidos, no es ocasión para ser felices o sentirnos heridos.  Es una ocasión excepcional para reflexionar y mirar hacia el futuro, recordando la regla de oro: tratando a los demás como quisiéramos que otros nos trataran.  Entonces, como tantas veces decimos en ocasiones más positivas, “que viva Colombia” y “que vivan los colombianos”, … todos.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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 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 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/.

The Great Shell Game: Illusion and Delusion — “Pick a Card, Any Card”

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On July 21, 2005, Patrick Lawrence wrote a commentary concerning Gaza, income inequality, Israel and politics entitled “Sun Valley vs. Queensbridge”.  It was published in Consortium News, one of the very few still reliable independent sources of information (Volume 30, Number 202 —Tuesday, July 22, 2025).  To a great extent the article dealt with the cataclysmic victory of Zohran Mamdani in the recent New York City Democratic Party mayoral primary, apparently as unexpected as the purported victory of the mythic David over the equally mythic Goliath over three millennia ago.  The article brought to mind, at least for me, how deluded, confused and manipulated most of the United States’ electorate has always been and the panic which the awakening of even a portion of that electorate is generating among the corrupt elite who has maintained us politically and economically enslaved since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.  A sign I for one view as positive.

To many of my friends, especially among well-educated and intelligent fundamentalist Christians (as well as to many among some of my Jewish friends), Mr. Mamdani poses an existential threat because he is a vocal critic of the abuses of what passes for capitalism (but is in reality kleptocracy) as well as because he vocally opposes the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people orchestrated by American and Israeli Zionists.  He is thus, in their perception, a “communist” anti-Semite.  Those “buzz” terms are essential in order to deflect from factual analysis of his beliefs, beliefs which coincide with the premises underlying the economic and civic philosophy of the “messiah” who my Christian friends claim to worship and adore.  Ironic, but that pavlovian reaction had been carefully crafted using behaviorist psychology long before B.F. Skinner invented that art form.  It is essential in order to secure the counterintuitive support of decent people for indecent realities and for policies that are clearly against their own interests, policies such as universal healthcare and universal education at all levels and a real social safety net, something artfully crafted by the kleptocrats who rule us.

The foregoing has led me to reflect on the strange distortion of terminology that the kleptocratic corporate media has imposed on us.  For example: “antisemitism” now means opposition to mass murder, torture, rape as a political tool, ethnic cleansing, organized mass theft and genocide.  And “communism”?  Well, that now apparently means daring to support mercy, equity, meritocracy, economic justice and the golden rule, but especially, the economic doctrines espoused by that certain Palestinian who, two millennia ago, taught that hoarded wealth was the surest route to perdition.  You may well have heard some of the sayings attributed to him in the Christian gospels, “that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a hoarder of wealth to enter into the kingdom of heaven” and promising that “the meek shall inherit the earth”.  Evidently horrible ideas.

Mr. Lawrence´s article, for some reason, also made me reflect on another hysterical current campaign, one again attributable to the kleptocratic elites who control us, in this case, through their so called Democratic Party (the kleptocracy of course controls both the Democratic and Republican parties).  In this ancillary campaign, massively hypocritical outrage is being expressed at the association of Jeffrey Epstein which took place prior to 2003[1] with Donald Trump, ignoring Mr. Epstein’s similar association with myriads of Democratic Party heroes.  It seems designed specifically to distract from the real scandal associated with the late Mr. Epstein, that being his role as an agent of the Israeli Mossad in which he used and abused under age men and women to obtain compromising material on leaders in politics, industry, commerce, etc., all apparently in order to blackmail them into supporting Israeli goals, a role which led to the deaths of thousands of Americans and millions of innocent people in the Middle East and elsewhere through perpetual wars whose primary goal has been the implementation of the Zionist final solution to the Palestinian problem and the creation of the “Greater Israel” to which Zionists aspire.  Indeed, the Democratic Party’s orchestrated outrage seems designed to deflect consideration of related, recently declassified information concerning probable Mossad involvement in the assassination of United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (ironically a Democratic Party hero) as well as concerning likely Mossad involvement with the destruction of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  That same campaign, of course, also deflects attention from the genocide that has been perpetrated on the Palestinian people by Israel during the past seventy-five years, genocide affected with the full cooperation of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany as well as with the tacit assistance of the Middle East dictatorships such countries established and maintained following the Second World War.  You know, the war purportedly fought to eliminate the threats to human rights posed by the Nazis and their allies.

Not that Mr. Trump does not deserve serious criticism but, that the foregoing criticism is directed at his amorous misadventures during the past century rather than his current support for Zionist genocide or his increasingly incoherent international economic policies or the betrayal of his promises not to perpetuate the cycle of endless wars and foreign military interventions in which the United States has been engaged during the past century, is not only ludicrous, but is blatantly malevolent.  Then again, the Democratic Party is at least as guilty as Mr. Trump with respect to much of the foregoing so, … birds of a feather, … in every respect.

Caveat: 

  • I am not a fan of Mr. Trump, who, for personal reasons, I dislike. 
  • I am not a believer in any organized religion and find the Abrahamic religions especially disturbing and, inter se, incoherent.  Especially given that of the three Abrahamic branches, Islam is the most reviled while being the closest to both of the others.  Indeed, it is the bridge between them. 
  • I am bitterly opposed to most political parties, both in the United States and abroad, finding that they are the embodiment of the “factionalism” rather than statesmanship that, in the Federalist Papers, James Madison promised would not occur. 
  • As a historian, I am not a respecter of the collection of fallacies peddled to all of us as history but designed, not to elucidate, but to keep us deluded. 

As I write this I am completing my seventy-ninth year on our planet, most of them depressed by how consistently we devolve into the people we would least like to see staring back at us from our mirrors.  Nonetheless, it seems that hope is not yet altogether extinguished, especially when people like Mr. Mamdani continue to appear from time to time, although admittedly, usually only briefly and all too often all to quickly converted into that against which they once railed.

But, back to Mr. Mamdani who has become the focus of hate, fear and despair from followers of Mr. Trump and especially from traditionalists in the Democratic Party.  He is, at least for now, perhaps a sign that, paraphrasing the articulate albeit hypocritical Abraham Lincoln:

“Perhaps the kleptocracy cannot fool all of us all of the time.”

Fortunately for the kleptocracy, because he is a naturalized rather than native born United States citizen, Mr. Mamdani can never become president.  But, then again, perhaps sometime soon, someone who shares his values will appear on the national stage and, unlike Mr. Trump, will not so quickly betray the principles he promised to sustain.
_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. 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] Mr. Trump purportedly ended his fifteen-year friendship with Mr. Epstein that year, barring him from Mar o Lago because of an incident involving unwanted advances towards the fourteen-year-old daughter of another of Mr. Trump’s acquaintances.

The Ides of July, 2025, an All Too Personal Introspection

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The Kalends and Nones have passed and now the Ides have arrived.  In a week, I’ll start the last voyage around our star, Sol, of the eighth decade of my life on Terra.  A lot has been crammed into those almost seventy-nine years, much of it difficult, some unpleasant, too much perfidious, but I’ve seem to have somehow managed to cope with it all and, a great deal has been undeservedly positive, amazingly so.

It appears, at least to others, that I’m unusually healthy for someone almost seventy-nine years old, unusually active with unusual stamina.  I still play tennis and when I do (three times a week), it’s for at least two hours, sometimes followed by an hour’s walk.  And my hair, though streaked with silver is both plentiful and still dark.  After a long life in the United States, I’m back where I started, in a celestial city high in the central range of the Colombian Andes, living on the tenth floor of a large and comfortable apartment only a few miles from where I first entered this world.  Still, slowly and intermittently, strange aches are making an appearance and, in addition, strange observations are occurring to me such as that “Jack Bunny” (or perhaps “Bugs Benny”) would be a fusion of Jack Benny and Bugs Bunny, and would make an awesome character: as “frugal” as he was witty and droll while concurrently being penurious and ever so lightly pernicious.  I confess that I loved them both although those who remember them tend to be fewer every year.

I’ve succeeded in many things, many of them unexpected.  I’ve taught American History and Problems of American Democracy, among many other things, to citizens of the United States, observing to myself the irony involved in that being done by someone who started life as a young boy from Manizales and that, as a serious historian and researcher, I’ve found that, more often than not, what I taught as a young historian was utterly false.  Indeed, while many feel we’ve recently entered the post truth era, to me, it seems that we as a people have been there since we invented language.  Not something of which I am proud although I’m proud to now understand that history has little to do with reality but a great deal to do with ever-present propaganda, and that “news” reporting has a lot to do with that.  It’s not for nothing that journalism’s most prestigious awards are named after Joseph Pulitzer, an entrepreneur who felt that fiction, presented as news, was an extremely profitable art form and, in that, he was not the first.  Not by far.  Especially in the Anglo-Saxon mythos bequeathed to the United States by the United Kingdom.

Since the early 1970’s I’ve been focused on issues involving the blatant hypocrisy with respect to the two “world” wars of the twentieth century and the related so called “cold war”, as well as on the myriad invasions of foreign countries by the United States to enforce a colonialist economic system deceptively labeled capitalism, amazed at to how easy it’s always been in systems falsely labeled as “democracies” to deceive the populace into accepting what should be unacceptable.  Today, that is especially obvious as the purported victims of the Nazi “Holocaust” engage in a holocaust of their own, one against the Palestinian people, a holocaust fully supported by the United States, the United Kingdom and their NATO allies, a “project involving attempts to implement the Zionist goal of a “Greater Israel” throughout the Middle East and I have consequently come to suspect that too many of the lives lost on every side of most of the conflicts since the dawn of the twentieth century in one way or another involve that hideous Zionist project.  As a young man I was horrified by the Nazi Holocaust and reflected a great deal on what I would have done to protect its victims, had I been born a few decades earlier than my birth in 1946.  After a good deal of reflection I naively concluded that it would have been my ethical and moral responsibility to have done everything in my power to save as many of the victims as possible.  Well now that responsibility is squarely on my shoulders, on our collective shoulders but, no matter how hard those of us who seek justice, equity and peace try, our efforts are nullified by the worst among us and I am coming to understand how the German people, previously among the most moral, ethical and socially conscious people in Europe, indeed, the ones who most fairly treated Europe’s Jews, so permitted the perversion of their values.  It seems, as the old refrain goes, “the more things change the more they stay the same”.  What a depressing realization.  Perhaps that realization is what metaphorically led the Hebrew Archangel Hêl él (inappropriately identified with the Roman god Lucifer) to futilely rebel against the vicious YHWH.

In addition to history I’ve taught comparative mythologies and comparative religions, comparative politics, comparative political systems and comparative constitutions; I’ve also taught democratic theory, international law, human rights law, constitutional law and the history of political ideas.  And I’ve written and lectured as a political analyst and commentator about United States and Colombian politics and about international affairs, about justice and injustice and about the futility of the antithesis of Kant’s perpetual peace.  For a while, I practiced law in New York and then in Florida, admittedly not all that successfully, and I’ve engaged in political consulting devising unusual solutions to mundane problems.  Notwithstanding the foregoing, I’ve not really succeeded in those things that most mattered to me, in my personal relations, although, during the past five years I seem to have finally experienced domestic bliss.  Hopefully, this time is the charm.  I’ve lived with too many women, too many of whom I’ve hurt although, in at least a few instances, failed relationships have matured into warm friendships.  And, in at least one case, a special relationship has lasted for more than six decades.

Professionally I’ve enjoyed impressive successes and devastating failures although in neither case were the results deserved, not really.  I started my professional career after graduating from both the Eastern Military Academy (where I also taught) and the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, firmly convinced that our government was beneficent and that the sacrifices it demanded of our best and brightest were really for the common good in a quest for justice, equity and peace.  Unfortunately, as I eventually discovered, I could not have been more wrong.  I found that out when, being true to the honor systems in which I’d been raised, I sought to expose government corruption only to find that corruption is the rule and that it does not take kindly to being exposed.  

You know, naiveté, when it impacts others, is as much a problem as is corruption.  Still, on reflection, my setbacks are the things that most improved me as a human being, the experiences that evoked wisdom and growth and an understanding of the reality in which we live and brought me closer to becoming the person I always hoped I would be: a person focused on others, on justice and equity and fair play, on compassion rather than on conspicuous consumption (although the gravitational well of conspicuous consumption still exercises a strong draw on my fantasies).  In those fantasies I’d be immensely wealthy but dedicated to philanthropy, to providing shelter and food for the homeless, education and healthcare for all, and the opportunity for everyone to attain everything of which they are capable, I would manage to assure a world free of violence and to minimize suffering, although I would still live more than just comfortably.  I wonder how many of today’s greediest billionaires once shared similar fantasies.

In reality though, my greatest fantasy has always been to return to the past and to correct my errors, albeit a return preserving everything I’ve ever learned.  Not at all likely.  An unrealizable chance to have been a better son and a better brother and a better husband and a better father and a better friend and a better teacher and a better lawyer, but not to have been quite so naïve or so trusting, or, with women, not to have so often been so cavalier.  Still, I seem to have learned from my mistakes and while still far from the person I’d like to see looking back at me in the mirror, I’m now perhaps the best version of myself that I’ve ever been, and that’s something not all of us achieve as the years grow heavier on our shoulders.

I’ve written quite a bit during the past two decades since the demise of my marriage to the mother of my three sons and among the things I’ve written is that, if there’s a karmic afterlife along Abrahamic lines, something in which I do not believe, then in order to attain a paradisiacal afterlife, two things would seem necessary (and perhaps only two things), two things somehow echoing a portion of what has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer: first, to have forgiven everyone who has wronged me or caused me harm, intentionally or not, and second, to have received sincere forgiveness from everyone who I’ve harmed in any way, intentionally or not.  Unfortunately, I fear I would fail in both respects.  Most of us, unfortunately, would which is why, if a heaven and hell exist, heaven would be tiny and hell enormous.

My atonement for such failure, in another nightmarish fantasy, would be to be left as the final guardian of the omniverse, to live on and on, alone, incorporating everything that ever was or ever would be, reliving it from the perspective of every being that had ever been or ever would be, over and over again, but absolutely alone, the only remnant of everything that had ever been or would ever be, but without the capacity to attain insanity.  To become infinitely bored and alone.  Totally and completely alone.

Yuck!

I sometimes speculate that, if the evil Abrahamic deity in fact existed, something I cannot believe, an experience similar to the afterlife I’ve just described had turned it into the vicious deity reflected in the Tanakh, the one against whom Hêl él rebelled, the one who revels in genocide and demands ritual castration of its male followers and seems to enjoy deceit and trickery and the blood of sacrificed animals and murdered human beings as well.  And if that were the case, I wonder how it escaped the punishment that turned it into what it became, speculating that perhaps the creation in which we find ourselves is just its nightmarish fantasy.  But then I wonder if it’s all my own nightmarish fantasy and I wonder if perhaps I’m not already serving my sentence as the final guardian of the omniverse.

I think not.  I certainly hope not.

I believe that I still have quite a while to live.  That’s something I’ve promised my much younger wife, my very special wife, my wife who seems the embodiment of everything positive, a source of beneficence to everyone with whom she comes into contact, the woman who somehow or other found me and seems determined to love me and even to admire me. To trust me and to have faith in me.  And that has made me a better person than I’ve ever been before even if it’s a lot to even try live up to.

What a strange life my life has been.  Like Pablo Neruda’s, although not as nobly, my life has been much too full and with quite a bit of time still apparently left.  Which leads me to wonder just who and what I am and what my purpose in having lived has been, and what purposes still remain to be fulfilled.

Anyway, ….

Seventy-eight bottles of beer on the wall, seventy eight bottles of beer … and still counting.  As a seventy-ninth bottle seems about to arrive.
_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. 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/.

If Only “the Times Were Really A’ Changing”

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On June 28, 2025, Christian Paz published an article on Vox.com entitled “The Democratic Party is ripe for a takeover”.  Apparently, the primary victory of Zohran Mamdani is the catalyst, or the symptom, or something.  Except for the author’s apparent Trump derangement syndrome in which the Democratic Party’s sole goal should be to confront Mr. Trump, a situation historically reminiscent of the old Whig party’s focus on opposing Andrew Jackson, the article posits interesting possibilities, although possibilities in which I don’t believe or rather, possibilities I don’t believe are likely.

It is a positive that at least in the city of New York so many voters are apparently rejecting the calcified and corrupt leadership of the Democratic Party, a leadership without real ideals other than the attainment and maintenance of power in order to syphon off the country’s wealth to fund perpetual wars in a quest for hegemony, albeit under the control of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).  But the Democratic Party is so tainted by historical sins and so cancer ridden with corruption that a Tea Party-like revolution ought not to save it, even if it could.  The dust bins of history have been all too empty for too much time.  Rather, as an apparent majority of the United States electorate frequently acknowledges (although it never does anything about it), what real liberals and real progressives and real leftists trapped in the quicksand that characterizes the Democratic Party need is a new political party of their own, one independent from AIPAC, the Deep State, the billionaire class and the forever war quest for hegemony that characterizes both the Democratic Party and most of the GOP.  A political party that really prioritizes the needs and aspirations of its members, the reality being that the United States political system is a factionalist collective rather than a grouping of altruistic political movements concerned with the common good and the general welfare.

The current Democratic Party, at least since 1992, has been reactive rather than proactive, with faux political goals and slogans echoed by a captive corporate press successfully enough to delude the more noble elements of its membership.  It went from GOP lite in the Clinton era, to a political hodgepodge during the Obama era more thoroughly controlled by the Deep State (an informal coalition comprised of unelected bureaucrats and judges) than is the GOP, amazing as that may seem.  And today, its principle goal is to oppose Donald Trump, no matter what he does, unless it aligns with AIPAC goals, but then again, AIPAC virtually owns both the Democratic and Republican parties.  And if opposition to Mr. Trump by any means, legal or not, has become the Democratic Party’s fixation, it is failing in that goal.  Failing dismally, and floundering.

That echoes what happened to the Whigs with respect to their hatred of Andrew Jackson during the mid-nineteenth century, when irate voters with specifically defined goals and ideals abandoned both the Whigs and the Democrats to found the Republican Party, although it too was eventually taken over by the values it was created to reject. 

The GOP too, like the Andrew Jackson controlled Democratic Party of the same mid-nineteenth century, has shifted its axis and threatens to splinter into various segments: one deemed traditionalist which tends to echo the current Democratic Party’s devotion to the Deep State and opposition to Mr. Trump;  a wing that seems to worship President Trump the way Democrats once worshipped President Jackson; and a libertarian wing that rejects forever wars, foreign intervention and the abandonment of the liberty purportedly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.  That libertarian wing would also do well to strike out on its own as an independent political party guided by real ideals and real goals, while the traditionalist wing should just meld with the current leadership of the Democratic Party, a leadership seemingly in conflict with a substantial number of younger Democrats who, according to Mr. Paz (cool name, it means peace in Spanish) seem to be rebelling.

The electorate in general appears to be angry and dissatisfied but has been manipulated and confused by false news and the false narrative that masquerades as history so that its ability to make electoral decisions has become nonexistent.  We have been led to confuse the essential political concepts of democracy, liberty and pluralism because confusing them was essential for the small elite who rule us to attain and maintain political and economic power, not quite bleeding us dry, rather, like intelligent vampires, they understand that their victims, those who provide their sustenance, must be maintained at least barely alive.  Barely alive but without realizing their condition or who is to blame, being led to believe that they actually have a voice in their own affairs through a system that sort of smells like a meld of the adversative concepts of democracy, liberty and pluralism, a useful illusion.  A system that argues that peace can only be attained through perpetual war and prosperity through the diversion of taxpayers assets to defense contractors and their cronies.  That Christian values are now premised on acceptance of genocide and ethnic cleansing as well as capital punishment.  Somewhere, George Orwell weeps.

Democracy is the rule of a majority (more than 50%), not a plurality, and it does not guarantee that decisions will be correct, or just or equitable.  Liberty is a diametrically opposed concept that insists that no matter what a majority decides, or even what everybody else decides, every individual has sovereign and autonomous inherent rights that cannot be curtailed.  And pluralism?  That too is an antidemocratic concept but one involving the right of collectives to be different and to have a say in their affairs notwithstanding majoritarian opinions.  All three of those contradictory concepts are desirable so constitutions, in part, or at least in theory, exist to reconcile and prioritize them into some sort of workable political and legal system.  Unfortunately, like the quest for a unified field theory in physics, it has always been a utopian ideal distorted and manipulated by elites, except that physicists by and large tend to acknowledge that their goal has not been attained, while most of the electorate everywhere in our planet believes that the particular political systems through which they are ruled are really theirs and that their leaders have their best interests at heart, after all, in most countries, it was purportedly that electorate who selected them.

That is certainly true in the United States and has been true for most of its history.  For most of its history, the United States political system has seemed like a duopoly (a two party dictatorship) but rather, has always been a vehicle for the concentration of wealth and power by an elite few, today, not even an elite few in the United States but sixteen families that effectively rule the world and are responsible for almost all of the world’s poverty and for all of the world’s war and for all of the world’s disparity.

With reference to the surprise victory of Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic Party’s recent New York City mayoral primary, many Democratic Party leaders as well as most people who identify with the GOP are suffering AIPAC sponsored apoplexy because Mr. Mamdani is a Muslim with parental roots in Africa and opposes Zionism and genocide and ethnic cleansing and champions the working class and the downtrodden masses described in Emma Lazarus’ poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty and thus, he must be a godless communist, although he identifies as a democratic socialist as did Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, and as does Noam Chomsky today.  And the opposition of the moneyed classes to Mr. Mamdani led by AIPAC may well result in his defeat in the general election, whether by the opponents he just defeated running as independents or even by a Republican if the GOP proves Machiavellian enough to select a moderate candidate.  And perhaps the politics as usual crowd in both the Democratic Party and the GOP who Mr. Mamdani’s success has mortified have “nothing to fear but fear itself”.  But it seems to me a positive sign that in the city that boasts the largest Jewish population of any city in the world, a significant portion of that religious group (it’s not really an ethnicity and certainly not a race) may have taken up the antizionist slogan “not in our names” and rejected the distortion of Judaism marketed by AIPAC and its Israeli masters and voted their consciences and in favor of real classical Judaic values and traditions which, perhaps ironically, it is Mr. Mamdani who represents.  Or perhaps it’s not ironic.  The reality is that no religion is closer to real classical Judaism in all respects (except perhaps in the respect that it renders to that certain Jewish Nazarene), than is Islam.

Because of the foregoing, according to Mr. Paz and other optimists, it sort of smells a bit like the “times may be a’ changing”, at least in the desperate Democratic Party, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. 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/.

Thoughts on an Equinox in the Year 2025

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At 5:01 a.m., EST, today, the 20th of March in the year 2025, all hemispheres on our planet experienced one of the two annual equinoxes.  One would hope today’s would involve an instant of harmony and balance but, … not so. 

Genocide, murder, ethnic cleansing and hypocrisy reign thanks to the monsters who inhabit Israel and to their enablers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France as well as among the diverse Middle Eastern dictatorships: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, etc. 

It is instead an instant during a multiyear period when evil reigns and when, as Leo Durocher once noted, nice guys finish last, although, among world leaders, nice guys are a rare breed, as rare as are decent men and women.

As was the case when the Nazis ruled in Germany, most decent people, at least in North America and Europe, are deluded.  They’re like ostriches with their heads in the sand or like the three simians who believe that as long as they can avoid hearing, seeing, or talking about the evil in which they’re immersed, they’re safe. 

Those in the Global South, more sensitized by their experience with the colonialist North, look on enraged and ashamed but impotent as the phrase “never again” morphs into “as usual”. 

Sad thoughts on a lonely planet spinning along in a multiverse where justice and equity are irrelevant.
_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; 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. 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/.