Venezuela: Ban the Media to Get Extra CoverageA ban on CNN? Sounds like a great idea, right? It is if you want to get the attention of the American media, when before you had next to none. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the successor to Hugo Chavez, accused the American network of inciting civil war in his country, and revoked their press credentials. In a live television broadcast Maduro warned, "Enough war propaganda, I won't accept war propaganda against Venezuela. If they don't rectify themselves, out of Venezuela, CNN, out."
The Mercury retrograde factor in this equation is that Pres. Marduro's intent in revoking CNN's press credentials was to get less news coverage. He may not have realized there was close to a media blackout in the U.S. until he started to mess with CNN, and then suddenly there was a story that everyone wanted to cover. You might call this the 'pissing into the wind' factor of Mercury retrograde. The Aquarius factor is that Mercury is stationing direct today in an exact conjunction to Mars in the Venezuela constitution chart. This is exposing and bringing an underlying hostility by the government toward its people. The Venezuelan protests began earlier in February, through an opposition movement led by Leopoldo Lopez and Henrique Capriles, who lost the presidential race to Maduro by a tiny margin last April. Harvard-educated Lopez is currently in jail for alleged terrorism charges, having turned himself in to the police in order to promote non-violent reform. Lopez has denied all charges of terrorism, saying in a speech to supporters, "I have nothing to hide. They want to jail Venezuelans who want peaceful, democratic change." Both sides are blaming each other for the violence that has erupted in the western state of Tachira and the country's capital, Caracas, where at least 11 people (13 by some counts) have reportedly died from gunshot wounds, including a 21-year-old beauty queen who was shot in the head last Tuesday. The protesters are demanding Maduro's resignation, claiming that the socialist government is responsible for high crime rates and shortages of basic products, like toilet paper and milk. Maduro, who was a close ally of former president Hugo Chavez, is calling the opposition movement a planned, U.S.-backed, fascist coup. Using the Dec. 20, 1999 chart for the start of the 'Bolivarian Revolution', when then-Pres. Hugo Chavez signed the current constitution of Venezuela, the question is: what in this chart resembles the social unrest, the unfair policies and the violence that are playing out? In mundane astrology, the first thing to do is to check the chart for images of what the chart is supposed to represent.
Mercury in the Venezuela constitution chart is at 13+ Sagittarius. Chiron, now in Pisces at 13+ degrees, is square this Mercury to the degree. It's as if the government is trying to think with a mental defect of some kind, or is under so much stress that it has no idea what to do. Though it's not fully there yet, transiting Neptune in Pisces is working its way into a square with natal Mercury, which seems to be warping the government's judgment even more. There is a self-delusion factor at work. These protests and their backlash have the feeling of the Uranus-Pluto square and the corresponding grand cross (see above article). These events are all happening at 13+ degrees, making a number of awkward aspects to Mercury as well. So this chart is less about violence and upheaval and more about the government's errors in judgment related to how it has handled things. Since these planets are not going anywhere soon, and since Mars is now working its way back into the picture, this may go on for a while. Notice also that the Venezuela constitution chart has many planets clustered in Sagittarius, including the Chiron-Pluto conjunction. While the millennium officially turned on Jan. 1, 2001, this chart for right before Y2K seems to be the more meaningful moment when we began the current millennium. The rare Chiron-Pluto conjunction, which was exact Dec. 30, 1999, is one indicator of that. As we've mentioned before, there is a collection of highly energized planets moving through Sagittarius (see the Sagittarius Mars Effect page for many more details about this). The group of planets includes Ixion (morals don't matter), Pholus (I cannot control myself) and an asteroid called Karma. Yet the biggest clues come from a conjunction of Quaoar (family patterns, society patterns) and Hylonome (grief over something that did not need to happen; processing any form of grief). It seems the government is so desperate to maintain its own power, it's willing to rip society apart. After publicly threatening CNN (and revoking their press credentials), Maduro relented, as long as the network plays by his rules. He told reporters in a press conference last Friday, "Cover it in a balanced way. When they call you and say report THIS, find a balance. A balance based on respect for Venezuelan laws. He who does not respect the laws will not be on Venezuelan airwaves." I guess he has different ideas about freedom of the press. It's not about a politician calling an editor and making an order. Apparently national media outlets have taken the warning seriously, as local news sources are keeping quiet on the subject. From the outside it looks like a government-enforced media blackout. Maduro claims that Venezuelan laws on news coverage protect citizens from being prompted toward anxiety or violence. If he thinks anyone believes that BS, he really does have a waterlogged brain. Media blackout or not, demonstrators are still pushing forward on the streets, with their new mantra of "he who tires, loses." Capriles and Lilian Tintori, the wife of Lopez, are urging protesters to keep up the fight for change in government with nonviolent marches. Uranus and Pluto are far from done with their work of disrupting and reshaping the world. When Mercury stations direct, watch for new information to emerge from Venezuela's unrest. 
Note to Readers: Monsanto Watch is being spun off as its own publication. If you would like to receive mailings Friday afternoon that include Monsanto coverage and other environmental news, please sign up here. There is additional environmental coverage of the New Mexico radiation leak at this link, please click and scroll down. USDA Finds GMO Seeds Offer No Great Advantages A report released last week by the USDA finds using GMO crops does not always produce greater yield and "high farmer use of a popular herbicide [glyphosate] on GMO crops is a cause for ongoing concern.” What's significant here is not that any of this is news, but that the government is admitting it.
"We are not characterizing them (GMO crops) as bad or good. We are just providing information," said Michael Livingston, a government agricultural economist and one of the authors of the report, prepared by the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS). The ERS researchers said over the first 15 years of commercial use, GMO seeds have not been shown to definitively increase yield potentials, and "in fact, the yields of herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant seeds may be occasionally lower than the yields of conventional varieties," the ERS report states. Herbicide use on GMO corn is rising, the report states. Herbicide use on GMO corn increased from around 1.5 pounds per planted acre in 2001 to more than 2.0 pounds per planted acre in 2010. Over-reliance on glyphosate has translated to an increase in weed resistance, which makes crop production much harder. Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, and its use has contributed to the glyphosate resistance seen in 14 weed species and biotypes in the United States, according to ERS. Perhaps the most significant result of the study is that several researchers found "no significant differences" between the net returns to farmers who use GMO herbicide-tolerant seeds and those who use non-GMO seeds. So, the next logical question is: why use GMO seeds? Let's hope someone in the USDA can reason this out, then persuade everyone in the federal government -- from the president on down -- to stop backing Monsanto and its ilk. NY, MD and FL Try Again for GMO Labeling Bills Three more states are moving towards mandatory GMO labeling, in whole or part, after previously failing to pass one. Last month, a Florida senator filed a mandatory GMO labeling initiative, and next month, New York and Maryland will be holding public hearings on GMO labeling bills.
New York's bill would require mandatory labeling on all food with GMO ingredients, while Maryland's would only require it for specific raw foods and packaged foods that are partially or entirely produced from GMO ingredients. Last year, a New York GMO bill died late in the session. Bills are back in both the Senate and the Assembly, and will get hearings in both chambers, probably in late March. Maryland's bill is scheduled for a hearing on March 11. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Monsanto and other biotechs are sweating over the growing movement among states for mandatory labeling, which would make it virtually impossible for them to deny that a product contains GMOs. They would prefer a federal, voluntary law to preempt the states, and have partnered with 28 food and agricultural organizations to persuade Congress to draft it. In 2013, nearly half of all U.S. states had introduced bills requiring labeling or prohibiting genetically engineered foods, according to the Center for Food Safety. To unsubscribe, click here e Wiki | Friends | Editors | Contact Us Copyright © 2014 by Planet Waves, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Other copyrights may apply. Some images used under Fair Use or Share Alike attribution. |
