As an independent academic, researcher, political analyst and commentator, I have several observations concerning candidates for the 2024 presidential nomination.
First, as to the GOP, albeit only two of the four mentioned remain, I would rank candidates as follows on the basis of danger to humanity and world peace: most dangerous, Nicky Haley (a Biden clone and Deep State shill); then, Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy seemed the most interesting, notwithstanding his Hindu inspired Islamophobia and reminded me of Tulsi Gabbard in some respects, but, as in the case of DeSantis, he has acknowledged the inevitable and dropped out. There were other GOP candidates but they really had nothing to offer, indeed, as in the case of Haley, most were sponsored and paid for by pro-Biden, Deep State loyal Democratic Party related donors. Of course, ranked on the basis of lousy personality, pomposity, apparent ego and childishness, no one can touch “the” Donald. Haley refuses to abandon her quest but that may be a preplanned Deep State strategy to cause Mr. Trump to expend resources ahead of the real contest in November. Ms. Haley and the Deep State are as friendly as is Mr. Biden and the Deep State. Cozier than that one cannot get.
On the Democratic Party side, well, there is no side although two candidates Dean Phillips, a Biden clone who feels Biden is just too old and infirm, and Marianne Williamson, a talanted and interesting non-politician, are running. However, the ill named Democratic Party has refused to organize debates and the corporate media is doing all it can to cooperate by rendering everyone but Mr. Biden invisible. Still, Ms. Williamson bears consideration. On the worst to best basis therefore, Ms. Williamson seems best, followed by Mr. Phillips (as neutral, or neutered, as one can get), and then, in last place, the worst candidate from any party, movement, etc., perhaps ever, the eternal warmonger and merchant of personal greed and corruption, “Genocide Joe”, aka, Mr. Joseph Robinette Biden.
Independents and third party candidates are very interesting and provide the most intelligent, competent and honest candidates so, of course, they are carefully facing assassination by silence. For the record, and in their case, in no particular order given that they are all pretty good, I would rank the top three as follows: Cornel West, an Afro-American philosopher, academic, civil rights leader, political activist and pacifist as the best, although his campaign seems terminally hokey; then, his former running mate (she was at the top of the ticket, he was in the second spot), perpetual Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, who shares most of Mr. West’s political perspectives but is a Jewish woman, rather than an Afro-American male; and, perhaps most interesting but with a fatal flaw, the most recognized candidate among the independents (largely because of his family name), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He is, of course, the son of the late senator, attorney general and assassinated presidential candidate whose name he bears, and the nephew of the late, assassinated president, John F. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy shares many of Dr. West’s and Ms. Stein’s progressive perspectives but is apparently owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), not unexpected given the reality that his father was assassinated by a Palestinian, but still, his tolerance for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing pretty much neutralizes his many positive qualities for most people who might otherwise have been inclined to support him.
The real question is, of course, given realities associated with the United States electoral system as impacted by lax voting standards and requirements; interference by the legal and penal system as well as the intelligence agencies; interference by most of the owners of major Internet platforms; and, the utter lack of objectivity by the corporate press (most in favor of Democrats, no matter what, but one in favor of Republicans on the same basis), what difference do candidates make, or the will of the electorate for that matter???
Of course, as in 2016, all of us but especially the Deep State may be surprised. But I doubt it. They’ve learned their lesson. The one sure thing is that the best person running, the most ethical, most experienced, with the best judgment, hasn’t a chance.
Good (and bad news) from another source concerning this year’s federal election, the person who would have been the best presidential candidate (he once was, but was trounced), Dennis Kucinich, is running for the House of Representatives again, albeit this time, wisely, as an independent. Goooo Dennis!!! Gooo independents!!!! The bad news is that he is not running for president. The corporate press, of course, is doing all it can (again) to make him invisible so any help readers can provide to overcome that tactic would, I’m sure, be greatly appreciated. He was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s campaign manager but resigned when Mr. Kennedy’s anti-Palestinian bias led him to support Israeli atrocities. Good for him (Dennis, not Robert), his integrity, unlike that of most politicians, is neither for sale nor for lease. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
To an objective political observer, admittedly an endangered species as, among other things, he or she would need to have been either politically neutral or supportive of political movements with no chance of attaining or sharing in political power, January 6, 2021 was a reaction against a series of real insurrections that began more than four years earlier, insurrections which began during early November of 2016 when the leadership of the Democratic Party orchestrated a slow motion coup. A coup orchestrated in conjunction with most of the corporate media, the outgoing Obama administration, a large portion of the federal bureaucracy (especially the intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice), a significant portion of the judiciary at both state and federal levels and traditionalist members of the Republican Party (who vehemently opposed their party’s candidate). The insurrection, in large part involved a quest for autocratic power by political professionals tied to the military-industrial-intelligence complex but included many decent citizens who were terrified of the president-elect, both because of the successful media campaign against him as well as because of his “shoot-himself-in-the foot pomposity, belligerence and immaturity.
The insurrection was clear and obvious on January 20, 2017, inauguration day, when massive demonstrations against the new president were held in diverse parts of the country but especially in the capital, Washington, D.C., seeking to disorder the inauguration where the “protestors” swore to do everything in their power to disrupt the new administration, asserting that the new president was not their president. Unlike the events of January 6, 2021, those efforts were carefully coordinated, orchestrated, funded and organized with former attorney general Eric Holder as the point person. Mr. Holder had been charged by the outgoing president, Barak Obama, to lead a “civic” organization purportedly engaged in coordinating large scale, full time activities to “promote democracy”. As important as the Holder led organization was the attack on the new president launched by the Democratic Party in Congress and through the bureaucracy alleging that Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election had been due to illegal foreign interference by the Russian Federation. In the federal bureaucracy, the insurrection was stimulated through a series of continuing leaks of both classified information and rumors, most of which lacked serious merit. Finally, concurrently with the foregoing, an ongoing series of nationwide violent disturbances, including takeovers of government property were coordinated with the assistance of local elected officials, purportedly in protest of police abuse of power resulting in the deaths of a number of people who were apparently, but not always, involved in illegal activities.
Supporters of the newly elected president watched all of the foregoing in dismay, protesting the lack of related enforcement of applicable laws and, concurrently, the whole country was put through the spectacle in Congress and in the Justice Department referred to as Russiagate. The new president was accused of violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution because his long established businesses continued to operate and a number of his supporters were promptly indicted by a hostile Department of Justice as unregistered foreign agents under rules that apparently did not apply to his political opponents. They still don’t. Nor, apparently, does the emoluments clause.
During the 2020 electoral cycle, as evidenced in information that became public when Elon Musk acquired Twitter, all the major social media platforms, major portions of the federal bureaucracy (especially the intelligence agencies and Department of Justice), all conspired to obfuscate evidence unfavorable to the incumbent’s opponent in the presidential election and to promote disinformation unfavorable to the incumbent, as well as to deprive the incumbent of access to most major media, social as well as corporate. In addition, purportedly based on measures required to avoid the consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic, most states controlled by Democratic Party affiliated governors relaxed restrictions designed to avoid electoral fraud by expanding access to both receipt and return of electoral ballots through mass mailing without required voter requests, and enabling their return, not by voters but by third parties, something anathema worldwide in states that seek to promote electoral integrity and avoid a market in votes.
The result of the foregoing was that an important plurality of the electorate lost confidence in the electoral results, especially when a barrage of mail-in ballots, many harvested by third parties and subject to discrepancies involving dates and signature verification, arrived at the last instant changing the anticipated electoral results. The foregoing seemed especially egregious in elections in the State of Georgia were many residents of foreign states were encouraged to move their voting domicile to Georgia in order to permit them to vote there. While problematic the issue became acute when a runoff was required in elections to the Senate and it was suspected that voters who had already cast ballots in other states, moved their voting domicile and were allegedly permitted to vote in the second round of the elections, although they’d not been registered in the first round. Numerous complaints of voting irregularities and improprieties were lodged all over the country but, in stark contrast to the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, the vast majority of such complaints were dismissed on procedural grounds and few were in fact investigated, exacerbating the suspicion that the election had been “rigged”.
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump was still president of the United States and called for massive but peaceful protests, much the way the Democratic Party did in 2017, but also, to assure that protests did not get out of line, he urged that federal troops be deployed to protect the Capitol, an offer rejected by the Democratic Party leaders who controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the United States infiltration of political and civic movements by local, state and federal agents has become normal and the groups that organized the proposed protests for January 6 were thoroughly infiltrated, apparently not only by agents charged with gathering intelligence, but by agents provocateur who apparently participated in encouraging some of the protesters to invade the Capitol grounds in order to delay certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election by the Democratic Party controlled Senate while a member of the Republican Party still served as that bodies presiding officer. Apparently, some hoped that the vice president would order an investigation of the claims of electoral fraud and delay the certification but in that, they were very mistaken. A small group broke off from the massive protests and apparently, in many cases with the assistance of Capitol police, invaded the Capitol seeking to occupy it. Something not common but not unheard of either in other protests during the past century. To many of them, the Capitol represented the most appropriate site to engage in political protest, but some of them crossed the line and engaged in ludicrous activities as though they were souvenir shopping or engaging in photo sessions. There was some violence but the only serious violence was that taken by federal agents and police against the trespassers, in one case, involving what appeared to be the type of abusive taking of life which had led to the prior year’s Black Lives Matter protests. It is interesting to reflect on the purported terror the trespassers caused among the members of Congress present, members from both parties, members despised by most of the electorate with an approval rating at the time of only 20%. That approval rating is now even lower. Perhaps they have good cause to fear the electorate which, however, while disapproving heartily of Congress as a whole, keeps reelecting the same people in their own districts.
The consequences of the protests and trespass on January 6, 2021 were completely different than the reactions to myriad protests during the prior four years, many of which involved violence and takeover of government property on a long term basis, but few if any charges or prosecutions. Instead of investigating the allegations of electoral irregularities which led to the protests concerning the results of the 2020 elections, many of the protestors as well as the trespassers were charged with serious crimes, with many prosecuted, found guilty and, if they dared to fight the charges, sentenced to lengthy periods of incarceration. The fact that they honestly believed they were performing their duty to protect the Constitution was, despite constitutional guarantees and especially the provisions of the Declaration of Independence, deemed irrelevant. As was the comparison with the activities of the four prior years.
The last three years have done nothing to diminish the absence of faith in the legitimacy of the electoral system. Indeed, flagrant attempts to defeat democratic (small “d”) support for the ex-president have increased, with the full weight of the judicial system at both the state and federal level, both the penal and civil systems, weaponized to prevent the former president, who leads all the presidential polls, from returning to power; to prevent him from even appearing on presidential ballots. That, of course, reinforces rather than diminishes the certainty among those who believe that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen”, that they were right, and that those involved in the disturbances at the Capitol three years ago were brave patriots fighting to preserve, rather than to overthrow democracy.
Many believe (with cause) that the electoral systems in purported democracies all over the world are unreliable, and that includes many in the United States. They may well be right. They are probably right. Even if votes are actually counted accurately, as to which there is now serious doubt, manipulation by the corporate media, social media, the bureaucracy and the judicial system has become fairly obvious. That is a systemic problem in a system where selection of members of the judiciary is a thoroughly politicized process and where self-serving billionaires not only control all media, but own it, and have the technological tools to completely manipulate it.
The issue of a downward spiral involving geese and ganders is now very concerning. If Mr. Trump regains power, what happens next? The bureaucracy is so thoroughly entrenched, as is the judiciary, that attempts to reform them would require massive dismissals, something that the courts could easily obstruct for at least four years. Calling for a new constitutional convention may be an answer, but the specter of declaration of a state of insurrection, martial law and the emergence of a permanent, formal dictatorship seems all too likely. The former may be the case regardless of who wins given that another election deemed stolen may well lead to a real insurrection, and as Abraham Lincoln taught us, the only way to deal with real insurrections is through an autocratic dictatorship. Not that we’re all that far from such a situation now.
Donald Trump is not the cause of the foregoing problems, although he may well be a catalyst. It is hard to understand, given his personality and mannerisms, how so many voters support him, but they do. And, as in the case of so many who vote for Democratic Party candidates although they loath them and their policies, many Trump supporters support him, I strongly suspect, because they loath the party of perpetual war, ever increasing defense and intelligence budgets, foreign intervention and polarizing woke policies, the Democratic Party. And because in both cases, although other options exist (in this electoral cycle, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West come to mind), they are frozen out of the quest for power by the corporate media and the duopolous dictatorship under which we’ve lived all of our lives.
As an aside, one wonders how those who celebrate the 4th of July can feel so opposed to political insurrections by citizens who honestly believe in the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence celebrated on such date. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, believed that such reactions were healthy and ought to take place at least every twenty years. While to me that seems extreme, given our current polarization and the extent to which our civil and political liberties are being curtailed, I acknowledge that populist reactions from both the left and right wings of the political spectrum appear to have reached a boiling point. Given this sad state of affairs, one obvious to those of us who live abroad but apparently invisible to too many of those who live in the United States, the future certainly bodes ill for the United States, but as far as most of the world is concerned, that may not be a bad thing.
Things on which to reflect, seven plus years after the start of the successful Democratic Party insurrection of 2017. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
The concept of democracy in conjunction with governance seems a sacred cow, unfortunately, a dysfunctional sacred cow given that the concept of democracy is neither understood nor respected and that what is required for the constitutionally guaranteed “public welfare” is efficient, transparent and honest governance with the capacity for long range planning and for providing its constituents with the opportunity to fully realize their capabilities and to lead peaceful, comfortable, happy and fulfilled lives. That is certainly not what exists anywhere today. Rather, we have self-perpetuating systems built on pillars of omnipresent corruption implemented through corrupt mass media and administered by corrupt entrenched bureaucracies. Human rights, as the long-term Israeli genocide in Palestine supported by the United States and NATO makes clear, are mere delusions.
There are two principal poles for what is considered democratic governance, presidential systems with legislatures elected for fixed terms, and parliamentary systems which meld legislative and executive functions for variable terms, the exact length depending on how well the executive, which stems from the legislature, and the legislature are able to function collaboratively. The latter is both more democratic and more coherent, but has its own internecine flaws. In addition, there are forms of governments that require voters to participate (or else), generally in uniparty Communist systems, the most successful being those in the Peoples Republics of China and Vietnam, but according to the western press at least, they apply serious restrictions on personal liberty.
Looking at the most efficient governments, those most able to function strategically as well as tactically, it appears that long term executive leadership is essential, leadership such as that demonstrated in Germany during the long chancellorship of Angela Merkel and in the Russian Federation during the Putin era and the aforementioned Chinese and Vietnamese systems. Of course, corrupt and inept long term leadership, such as that in Egypt, is awful. Trusting that a majority of the people make the best electoral decisions has proven a fallacy, largely because the “people” are not free to select candidates, that function in reality being effected through a partisan filtering system controlled by purported elites and now, imposed in countries like the United States through blatant judicial manipulation as well. In addition, the resulting disinterest results in lack of participation so no candidate is likely to ever receive more than 50% of the eligible vote, the quintessential aspect of democracy.
If the foregoing is accurate, then perhaps we need to consider how to implement a meritocratic rather than democratic method of selecting our leadership on a long term basis, but a method subject to earlier democratic revocation for misfeasance or malfeasance and with significant personal penalties in the case of any such revocation. It could, for example, involve, in the first instance, a selection process embodying the philosophy of the original Electoral College in the United States, with a democratic revocatory process exercised both periodically, say every five years, or on the spot if invoked by a significant portion of the electorate dissatisfied with the results of the incumbent leader. Electoral participation by the citizenry would, as it was in ancient Athens, be a duty and not a right, with serious consequences for shirking it or exercising it in a corrupt manner (e.g., selling or renting it). It smells a bit too much like the fascist ideal of an overall, all-powerful leader, except for the revocatory mechanisms but those make all the difference. Admittedly, the concept needs to be polished a bit with a check and balance mechanism such as a negative legislature, an elected body charged with political control functions and the ability to veto executive decrees (which would replace traditional legislative functions), but not responsible for enacting legislation. A multi cameral negative legislature would be best, one chamber being selected democratically, one based on pluralistic concepts and one selected meritocratically based on expertise in diverse areas but all three chambers voting as one. Of course, an independent judiciary would be essential, but not one charged with constitutional control or review, as would an independent body controlling the electoral system, perhaps a body selected by the legislature. The most serious penalties under the penal system would be reserved for violation of political and judicial duties, pretty much the way it is today in the People’s Republic of China.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it is a saying reflective of a great deal of common sense but one that does not apply to our current models of governance.
Something to at least consider, although implementation in the face of the entrenched and ruthless deep state makes any kind of real reform improbable. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Charles Dickens’ “a Christmas Carol” has, since it was first portrayed on the stage and screen, resonated with very diverse segments of our population although now, more realistic Carols seem to focus on a new verse, one appended to the beginning of “the Twelve Days of Christmas”, one that starts six months earlier than the older verses and deals with “… myriad merchants a’ selling ….” So perhaps that older resonance is a bit dulled and in need of refreshing.
Perhaps a bit of reflection might help, a bit of introspection as the solstice skims by us and echoes of pagan Yule and Roman Saturnalia regale us with mirth to go along with the myrrh purportedly provided to an ostensibly special infant born in Palestine long before Zionists sought to destroy that part of the world; well, destroy it, then absorb it, and then turn it into an exclusive Palestinians-free paradise. One might be excused for wondering what use a newborn would have for myrrh, a fragrant gum resin obtained from certain trees and used, especially in the Near East, in perfumery, medicines, and incense, but, what the heck; … so the story goes and the gift of myrrh is not its least credible aspect.
Soooo, … let’s reflect away to the tune of “Jingle Bells”, or perhaps, the Jose Feliciano version of “Feliz Navidad”:
On an individual basis, the Christmas season is delightful, at least for people blessed with positive familial harmonics supplemented by ties of easily accessible meaningful friendship, but it is deeply depressing for those not so set apart. The latter group concerns me deeply because it is comprised of the forgotten and of those who for one reason or other, never seemed to matter. Those with whom the Nazarene, whose birthday so many purportedly celebrate during this season, would be most concerned, assuming he existed and was as beneficently described rather than the angry Pauline version. Of course, while in the modern “Western” world the season focuses on the Nazarene, the season’s traditions are primordial and have been, in many cases, usurped through manufactured syncretism with far older and more complex cultures, cultures which in some cases have refused amalgamation.
Perhaps the foregoing might serve as a thought bandied about among the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas future, a thought we might all want to take into account and perhaps, about which we might even consider doing something positive. And if so, why limit it to this particular season?
Bah humbug!!!! I wonder what exactly, using linguistic analysis and perhaps philology that is meant to mean. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
The solstices which take place in the arbitrarily denominated months of June and December (at least in what is commonly referred to, for inexplicable reasons given the nature of directions, as “western” culture) generate complex emotional vortexes, emotive textures woven of delight and depression, both inter and intra-personally.
Topographically, in the northern hemisphere, the December solstice marks the end of lengthening nights and the beginning of longer days, in the south, the opposite is true. The inverse occurs in each north-south hemisphere in June. But what happens right on the equator?
Perhaps a bit of confusion as to what all the fuss is about. Or perhaps the solstices are at their most unique, most special and most profound on the equator, especially if one were to set one foot in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern, something possible in southern Colombia and in the other twelve countries which the equator bisects (Ecuador, Brazil, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, the Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati). The so called Coriolis Effect based on the consequences of the earth’s rotation, makes storms swirl clockwise in the southern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, thus, physically, unlike the arbitrary denominations of east and west as static points, or the arbitrary temporal division into months of varying lengths, the concepts of “north” and “south” have actual physical consequences. But what happens at the equator, especially during the solstices?
One would think the equator would be the site of special ceremonies during the two annual solstices in each country through which it passes. There are, of course, myriad festivals related to the two solstices almost everywhere (other than on the equator itself). Think, of course, of Christmas, originally celebrated on or about the exact date of the solstice until Pope Gregory XIII shifted dates around and the law of unintended consequences extracted astronomical significance from that festival. Of course, like east and west and calendar months, the placement of the Christmas season in December was completely arbitrary, counterintuitive and incoherent given available evidence, apparently seeking primarily to obscure the date theretofore assigned to the Zoroastrian god Mithras (born of a virgin on December 25) and perhaps the Roman festival of Saturnalia as well as a plethora of “pagan” solstice related festivals (whatever “pagan” means). Like the foregoing, other solstice related festivals are generally focused on climactic consequences in one of the two north-south hemispheres. In Ecuador for example, Inti Raymi (the Fiesta del Sol) has been long celebrated on June 21 to the south of the equator rather than exactly along the border, that exactitude being infinitesimal and difficult to set with exactitude, other than through, for example, striding it. The Inti Raymi was a traditional religious ceremony of the Inca Empire in honor of the god Inti (Quechua for sun), the most venerated deity in the Inca religion. It was declared a festival of “intangible cultural heritage” on June 29, 2016, and it is still celebrated throughout the formerly Incan Andean region due to its association with indigenous cosmogony and with the bounty provided by the Pacha Mama (a Gaia-like indigenous deity popular in the Andes).
Oddly, festivals set exactly adjacent to both sides of the equator during the solstices do not appear to exist, at least not formally, which is surprising. It would seem a perfect trajectory and day, perhaps a perfect instant, for reflection and introspection, for seeking a perfect balance, for merging the negative and the positive, the ying and the yang, for celebrating the similarities in things that seem opposed. To acknowledge the harmonics possible in polarization and how they can generate dialectic evolution. An instant to pray for peace and harmony.
Which, perhaps, explains the dearth of related ceremonies. The military industrial complex which rules us all the way that Tolkien’s “one ring” ruled the rest would never permit such a festival.
Still, if that impediment could somehow be overcome, what about a semi-annual ceremony along the equator, once for each solstice, where a line of people one person wide, alternating men and women perhaps, is formed along the entire land portion of the equator, with every participant straddling the equator and holding hands with those before and after them, all assembled several minutes before the solstice and disbanded several minutes afterward to assure coincidence with the instant of the solstice, all focusing during that time on a world at peace, one where all opinions respected, one seeking continuing evolution towards harmonious unity and perfection.
Wouldn’t that be something? Perhaps it’s something to consider. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Alabaster and indigo, or is it, … “or” indigo. Negative entropy blues, anyway.
It’s said, albeit in an all too unreliable source, that “for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven”. Perhaps there’s a bit of truth there. Perhaps not.
It’s approaching the Ides of December in an odd-numbered year, a year preceding one in which February will be a day longer. An illusion of course, as are all months in a solar year. But, at any rate, it’s at least a metaphorical season, a season for memories as another galactic solstice approaches.
A season for melancholy and nostalgia, for yule logs and the revels of Saturnalia and little drummer boys not yet blasted to shreds; a season for wistful bagpipes and for sanguine guitars, Arabic music melding with Keltic. A season for reflecting on the pasts we’ve lived and on those we might have lived, for good or ill. A season for introspection and for reflection on feelings of love we’ve shared and for speculation on loves we should have shared but let slip away, and perhaps, for regretting some that might best have been avoided.
A season, perhaps, for discarding enmities and hatreds, although that’s all too often much too hard to do. A season for remembering friends who’ve passed beyond the veil and for regretting the time not found to spend with them. Perhaps a season for wondering whether there’s a state of unity that might make everything worthwhile (if, in fact, “for everything there [really] is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”) or, a season for lamenting that the purported prince of Peace was an illusion.
Introspective reflection is as dangerous as it is beneficent. Perhaps more so.
Reflections are all too often more bitter than sweet. So many regrets, so many mistakes, so many paths not taken. So many twists and turns into obscure shadows, flashing echoes drawing us further and further into a dark abyss where terror dwells as others, thundering, warn us away. Cherished memories more and more quickly fading; more and more tarnished with each passing day as things in which we once took pride turn out to all too often have been mere delusions.
Here and there, barely noticed and all too often ignored, unexpected rainbows play with fireflies and tiny birds buzz in place sipping sweet nectar from flowers blooming in myriad tones and hues. Clouds form shifting tapestries on azure fields above swirling waves of peaks changing from greens to greys then from blues to purples and, every once in a while, tipped with gleaming cones of winter’s bright white; peaks interspersed with golden fields and silvered river valleys, all doing their best to ignore intrusive asphalt roads and cement cities. Transient monuments to imagined triumphs slowly but surely returning to the dust from whence, like us, they came.
The Ides of December are upon us, … again. Then the solstice will arrive, winter in half the globe, summer in the rest. Cycles continue. Divergent rites of passage form myriad wakes woven into strange tapestries by disinterested fates, one a crone, another a mother and the third barely a lass. All the while, Alekto, Megaera and Tisiphone, the Eumenides, curious but patient, continue to watch, certain that all things, good or ill, will come to those who wait.
Or so, the ubiquitous “they”, say.
Alabaster and indigo, or is it, … “or” indigo. Negative entropy blues, … anyway. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
If this is not the most beautiful song ever, there are none more beautiful: Don McLean’s Vincent, an Ode to Van Gogh. More beautiful as poetry than as music and, set to prose it might read like this:
Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and gray, look out on a summer’s day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils, catch the breeze and the winter chills in colors on the snowy, linen land.
Now, I understand what you tried to say to me and how you suffered for your sanity, and how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they did not know how; perhaps they’ll listen now.
Starry, starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue; colors changing hue, morning fields of amber grain, weathered faces lined in pain are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.
Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me, how you suffered for your sanity, how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they did not know how, perhaps they’ll listen now.
For they could not love you, but still your love was true and when no hope was left inside on that starry, starry night, you took your life as lovers often do. But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
Starry, starry night, portraits hung in empty halls, frameless heads on nameless walls with eyes that watch the world and can’t forget, like the strangers that you’ve met; the ragged men in ragged clothes, the silver thorn of bloody rose lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me, how you suffered for your sanity, how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they’re not listening still, perhaps they never will. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday in the city in the sky. The one set among snow clad peaks and thermal springs near an adjacent volcano or two and the remnants of several glaciers. The one set atop the central range of the Colombian Andes in the midst of a sea of mountains dressed in diverse verdant shades. It seems summery although in the Northern Hemisphere, the part of our planet in which this part of Colombia is set, it is late autumn, just short of winter. But then, this close to the equator, seasons tend to meld and shift and be measured in hours rather than months.
The world seems as bad as it’s been since the second war to end all wars a bit over three quarters of a century ago, all the lessons it purportedly taught at best unlearned but more they were probably just fictitious attempts at justifying unjustifiable terminal follies. Again. After all, the second war to end all wars took place less than two decades after the first war to end all wars ended. And wars? Well, they’re just fine, in fact, perhaps healthier than ever.
Still, … as individuals here and there, life plows on, life: full of interpersonal challenges and triumphs, its own interpersonal beauty and mystique artfully masking our own errors and mistakes.
The Global South (which ironically includes Russia and China and Iran but definitely not the Ukraine) seems to be making headway in its quest for liberation from the constant abuse, humiliation and looting that flows from the North. But not without severe challenges as the Global North has no intention of brooking what it considers insolence by lesser species. By people almost but not quite human.
Notwithstanding the hypocritical “woke”, condescension still rules.
Still, … there is a scent of a different sort of future and lingering echoes seem to wonder whether such future will be better or just filled with shadows from the past, and whether the images we’ll see in our future mirrors will reflect who we’ve been, or we claim to have been, or who we wish we had been, or who we’d like to be, or who we’ve been forced to become. Hopefully the images that stare back at us will not be too much like those of those who for so long have oppressed so many. Wishful thinking, I know, but “if our reach does not exceed our grasp, then what’s a heaven for”, as Robert Browning wrote. But then, he was a poet, not a politician, a journalist or a historian (the illusory professions).
Omnipresent, dystopia seems to rule. We seem to be a people in transition, greedily tearing down the past without any agreement on what will replace the corrupt social institutions that have been decaying, putrefied for millennia. Decaying but refusing to die. That confuses and polarizes us as we’re manipulated by the worst among us, the Northern hegemonic wannabe leaders who refuse to let go and definitely decline to share, but who still exercise almost total control. Yet, “almost” is an optimistic harbinger, a qualifier that hints at possible changes, perhaps even beneficent changes.
Who can tell?
But we can hope.
Especially on a beautiful sunny Saturday in early December, one in which at least some of us are safely ensconced among some of those we most love, … at least for the day.
The carnage, genocide and ethnic cleansing underway in Palestine by the worst cultural descendants of the tribe which, after looting Egypt, went on to plunder and murder every man woman and child in ancient Jericho, continues unabated despite popular condemnation in the Global South and even, among an enlightened minority in Europe, the United States and even Israel, although, from here in the heights of the Andes, as in the United States and Europe, to some, that all seems very far away. Far enough away so that the screams of pain and dying gasps and mourning and lamentations are barely audible and thus, perhaps, at least for them, can be sanitized and washed away.
Or at least shouted down and obfuscated through carefully crafted rhetoric, with reckoning postponed, if not for ever, at least for another day.
After all, who mourns for ancient Jericho today? _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Another strange Thanksgiving Day is on the horizon. They’ve all been strange though.
It’s always been a day in which descendants of European colonists enjoy gorging themselves in banquets and eventually, watching football games, but one in which indigenous people in North America reflect on how their generosity was repaid with ethnic cleansing and genocide.
North American indigenous people can probably empathize with Muslims who sheltered and protected Jewish people for over a millennium but were then rewarded with the theft of Palestine and, of course, with ethnic cleansing and genocide as well.
Thanksgiving Day will probably be remembered this year by indigenous people everywhere, remembered but not celebrated. Indigenous people whose lands were stolen and who were subjected to ethnic cleaning and genocide, a day like Columbus Day. One in which to reflect on the hypocrisy inherent in colonialism, whether in the Americas, in Africa or in the Middle East.
Today, this year, 2023, it’s a day on which to reflect on the hypocrisy associated with the phrase “never again” and with other days remembering holocausts. Holocausts as ancient as Jericho and as new as the one during World War II. Or the one that has been occurring in Palestine since 1948. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Nostalgia for primordial places to which we can’t return; for long lost times. For things that might have stood but never were; for lost loves and loves that might have been.
Echoes from long lost places in our souls for which we mourn.
Wind and rocks and waves. Trees and cliffs, flowers and blades of grass. Willows o’ the-wisp. Omnipresent nowheres lying in wait.
Ubiquitously melancholic whispers yearning wistfully for a home that never was. _______
Guillermo Calvo Mahé 