Zionists and the Holocaust,

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

A disturbing reflection by Guillermo Calvo Mahé, April 30, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How sick is that?[i]

Sources and Suggested Readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[i]
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, an intermittent commentator on radio and television, and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Lavender Rose

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A single lavender rose, braving the snow, surviving despite the bitter cold, clinging tenaciously to life had invaded his dreams during a difficult night and its memory insistently clung to him after he woke, so much so that he immediately researched it meaning, something he did not frequently do as, while spiritual and curious, he had little faith in the symbolic interpretations of others, too many of whom seemed charlatans looking to exploit the gullible and naïve.  That morning, somewhat amused at himself and his foibles, he found himself among them.

The symbolic dream meanings for a lavender rose that he found that morning after brief and superficial research claimed that it represented a variant of innocent and instantaneous love, perhaps but not necessarily romantic, but he sensed that was not what it had meant in his dream.  In his dream, the lavender rose had been somewhat sentient and able to communicate indirectly, perhaps, emotively, initially fleeing from him as he tried to acquire it, the pot in which it had been planted falling and shattering and the flower portion disappearing.  But, as he had gathered the shards of the pot in which it had been planted and which had fallen, and the stalk and leaves and seeds with which it had been raised, it had, albeit damaged and with most of its petals lost, suddenly appeared and asked to return, promising to generate new buds.

Now that seemed symbolic and he wished, not for the first time, that he had the psychic gift or talent of mystic interpretation, or that he trusted in someone who did, which he did not.  Thus not only the lavender rose but the dream sequence in which he and she had met (it seemed feminine to him) remained an enigma.  An important enigma as it seemed important to discern the dream’s meaning, and perhaps, the role that lavender roses might someday play in his life, or in the lives of someone among those he loved.

He’d just have to wait and see, not only the usual occurrence in his life but perhaps of life in general, and perhaps that was its message.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, an intermittent commentator on radio and television, and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Gardening in Eden

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“Paradise; … boring???”

Well yes, but, … well, not at first no, but time was strange there, everything seemed endlessly repetitive.  Well, … at least until the end. 

Then boredom ceased being an issue.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, 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 Ides of March, 2024

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Once more, the ides of March approach, or really, a date in the modern calendar associated with the Roman concepts of ides, calends and nones (the Romans having had no concept of a seven day week until well after the start of the imperial period).  And with the approach of the somewhat imprecise ides in the month of March, Martius to the Romans (originally the first month of the Roman year, later relegated to the third month, as it is now for us), one special ides in March comes to mind.  The ides of March which since 44 b.c.e., has been associated with the assassination of Gaius Iulius Caesar by a group of Roman senators, to most of whom he had been both kind and forgiving, and which was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, possibly his illegitimate son.  

Caesar, as he has become known to history, was never a Roman emperor in the sense we’ve come to associate with that title.  At that time, the title was a battlefield honorific granted by Roman soldiers to outstanding military leaders in a given battle and represented by the award of a crown of woven grass.  Caesar had indeed been granted such an honor, but at the time of his murder, his title was “dictator”, an honorable elected position rather than the pejorative term it has become in modernity.  It was a title originally granted for a brief period during times of existential crisis and combined all aspects of governmental power in one person, but following expiration of that term, the former dictator was held to account for his actions and might well be condemned for them.  The Romans had no use for official impunity, as we do today with our various forms of “immunity” for official acts by government officials in the executive, judicial and legislative branches.  Unlike prior dictators, which had become more and more common and included older contemporaries of Caesar, including his uncle-in-law Gaius Marius, and Marius’ mortal enemy, Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, Caesar had been named dictator for life after having rejected the title of Rex (king).

Caesar was a complex and enigmatic figure, a genius on many levels and with respect to a broad range of talents, among them of course, politics and military matters, but also many areas involving non martial pursuits, and he was a populist like Marius, rather than a member of the aristocratic elite of the time, who referred to themselves as the “boni” (the good), much as they do today notwithstanding the reality that they disdained the populace, much as do today’s elites.  But born relatively poor, he did not hesitate to abuse his military commands to generate profits through the sale of captured populations into slavery, not an uncommon pursuit in antiquity (and his legal right as a proconsul).  Slavery then had nothing to do with one’s race.  His charisma was legendary, on a scale with that of Alexander the Great, or of Napoleon, or Charlemagne, and his success was translated, after a series of civil wars, into an empire by his grandnephew Octavius, whom he had adopted as his heir, and whom we know as Augustus.  Gaius Octavius Thurinus is considered the first emperor of Rome.  His official title, however, was “princeps civitatis and subsequently, prínceps senatus”, meaning first citizen and first senator respectively.  And of course, later, by his own request, “augustus”.

Gaius Iulius Caesar, whose father bore the same name, has been gone for 2,068 years.  I always wonder on the ides of March what the world might have been like, had he not been murdered by a crowd of cowardly (dozens attacked one man, alone and unarmed) and jealous political adversaries who Caesar had pardoned, jackals who considered themselves (or at least claimed to be) patriots. 

My apologies to jackals everywhere.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anu laughs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe they were, …

Somewhere.

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

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Transcendently Distasteful Realities

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After deep reflection and introspection, he finally concluded that he did not really believe in anyone, not even in himself.  As long as interests coincided, loyalty was a possibility albeit not a certainty, but once they clashed, regardless of shared interests, loyalty evaporated into hazy rationalizations.  And that made sense. 

That was logical.  No one was safely reliable.  No one could always be counted on.  Love made no difference, it was, by its nature, always potentially ephemeral and always frailly ethereal. And when dissipated, love all too frequently morphed into something very negative, something akin to hate or at best, disdain.

Disquieting?  Of course.  Sad? Terribly.  But to expect otherwise was to delude oneself, something most of us did frequently, indeed, almost always.  When we find reality discomfiting, we usually ignore it and delve into our own personal fantasies, … and not the fun kind.

There were people he could almost count on but he admitted to himself that “almost” was a positivist way of presenting a negative, and dangerously so.  And it applied to himself as much as to anyone, and not just with respect to others, it applied to him in his roles with himself as well.  How strange.

It applied to us as individuals but also to us as collectives which explained much of history, not the fake narrative Pablum we’re taught and force fed daily, but the reality of what’s been and why.

He wondered if this day, a day where realism seemed ascendant, was a very good day, or a very bad day, and the answer was a confusingly emphatic: “yes”!
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Hidden Metaphors, a soliloquous senryū in e minor flat

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You know, …

touching your toes isn’t all that challenging as long as you can still bend your knees. 

I think there’s a profoundly meaningful metaphor there,

…  somewhere.

_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

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

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

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

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

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

We humans are a creative bunch.

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

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Epiphanies on an Otherwise Sad Winters’ Day

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

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

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

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

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

What a trinity!!!!
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

January 28, 2024

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

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

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

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

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.