When The Old Is New Again

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Seems like we’re going over things we’d thought long resolved to see if that’s how we want them to remain. There is wisdom in that, of course. Pluto’s retrograde will give us some needed time to sit with the most recent decisions regarding government’s role in our lives: what it has promoted, what it has allowed, what it has failed to provide. We’re just beginning that thrill ride, of course.

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The long-range transformative powers of Pluto are legion, and we can count on every scrap of our power structure to go through a process of assimilation before we’re done. The disparity of the voices in the national conversation is disorienting, though, just as it’s often hard to decide which historical era we’re reviewing, especially as it seems we’re reliving the worst of each.

Just the “re-do” agenda of the last weeks has been exhausting. The Trayvon case has shown us to be as conflicted over race, though not as overtly, as we were 151 years ago when the Civil War commenced. We’ve replaced slavery of a specific race with ghettoization of the whole working class to funnel good to the “Massah on the Hill.” Plutocracy is as hard-wired into our laws and banking system as it was when Teddy Roosevelt thundered against the corrupt captains of industry. And apparently — though you could knock me over with a feather — we’re as confused by the role of women in modern society as we were back in the ’50s, when only trash got knocked up but sometimes even nice girls forgot to hold that aspirin between their knees and ended up “in the family way.”

For the last few days the nation has been suffering yet another round of the Mommy Dialogues, perhaps necessary in the post-feminist ’70s but tedious and lethargic in 2012. Even the pundits brought to the table to discuss Dem strategist Hilary Rosen’s ill-advised commentary about Ann Romney look listless. But the GOP will not miss an opportunity to paint the Dems as vicious radicals ready to pounce on a decent family. With Romney soon to be declared their presumptive, even as the conservatives disdain Mitt as their candidate, they must admit that his lifestyle is exactly the one most coveted by his party, and his pretty wife the quintessential woman of their dreams.

It’s hard to get a grip on this level of disconnect against powerful women, as if we hadn’t seen Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton step up to bat in the last decades. It’s as if the Republicans have yanked us all back into an era so full of pretense and delusion that some of us are still suffering PTSD. You can catch up with it in AMC’s Mad Men, should you need a play book, but those of us who lived through it can only scratch our heads and ask, must we have this conversation yet again? Haven’t women come farther than trying to step on each other’s necks over the question of being either a bread winner or a bread maker?

It took about a nanosecond for Sarah Palin to step in, always eager to defend her territory as Mama Grizzly, and slam Dems for perpetuating a “war on women,” a move as opportunistic as when she carted newborn Trig around under her arm like a sack of flour to campaign for VP. And since the left is not the party treating women like potential barnyard stock or blatantly insulting their intelligence, Neanderthal-like, how did this assault on the female identity become theirs? I suspect the movement was born the moment it was verified that Obama had a twenty-point lead due to the Republican assault on women’s healthcare; hence Mitt’s turning to the Good Wife to deal with the ins and outs of female economic challenges.

The whole of Christendom then turned on unsuspecting Hilary Rosen, decrying her insensitivity. As usual, none of this outcry appropriately addressed Ms. Rosen’s comment about Mrs. Romney’s life experience. In case we need to confirm a bottom line, then, let’s do: this is a conversation about class — not gender roles, not mothering-styles, not working ambitions or moral equivalences among women. In the world of the Romneys, whose social status places them in the upper half-percent of the upper one percent, there is no financial struggle to justify Mitt’s confidence in his wife’s financial expertise.

Ann Romney has surely had her share of challenges, like any human being. No one raises five teenage boys without tearing out some hair, sits as mate at the side of an ambitious politician without stuffing down one’s own ego-needs, or deals with ongoing health challenges without agonizing over body limitations and mortality. All of this makes Mrs. Romney an admirable woman, but let’s be very clear: she is not one who’s had to live lean or make choices between feeding the kids or herself. If she is Mitt’s adviser on women’s economic needs, we’re all in trouble.

Obama was forced into the conversation almost immediately, lest Independent women felt slighted by the left. He and I agree that anyone who has raised one child, let alone five, is aware of the amount of work required, the kind that you can’t leave behind when you shut the office door. This is labor of the heart, shared by mothers everywhere. But let’s not kid ourselves that Ann Romney studies the latest data about latch-key kids or has agonized over her children’s future. I’m quite sure she has not experienced concerns over housing and clothing her children, over finding means for doctors’ appointments or time out of a breathless workday to help with homework; she hasn’t agonized over providing money for music lessons, for birthday presents, for food. And now, let’s be realistic and take gender out of this equation: this is the overwhelming burden of working class parents today, both women and men.

Still, the talking heads continue to blather like we’ve got a red/blue cat fight going on. I heard one young pundit, a conservative stumping for the Romney camp, raging that women who make the choice of staying home shouldn’t be unfairly attacked, intimating that only cruel, anti-life Dem women would stoop so low. Choice? Really? That’s a word I keep hearing out of conservative mouths and it makes less and less sense each time. Being gay is not a choice, being poor is not a choice, and being able to stay home to take care of the kids is very rarely a choice.

Few of us have the option of staying home today, so tossing that emotional hand-grenade is going to let loose a lot of unresolved guilt, regret and envy, perhaps even fury in a nation politically conflicted over the needs of mothers and children. So why don’t we have THAT conversation, instead of pitting ourselves against each other in some anachronistic contest for social superiority?

I hear people protesting that this issue is simply a diversion from more important things, but I’d suggest that’s only in approach. The “working mom” topic is in the general vicinity of important but not quite on target, so let’s move over to the left an inch or so and find something valuable to thrash out. Let’s talk policy, let’s talk the social contract. Let’s talk about child care for working parents. Let’s discuss early childhood education and afternoon programs. Let’s talk about education, mentoring, child nutrition. Let’s talk about what a mother’s time is worth, why don’t we? Let’s take a closer look at the wage gap and pay equity, vital to families and particularly to single mothers. Let’s talk about the substance of the issues facing this nation, rather than table this conversation for another decade, unresolved.

The woman who resurrected this national conversation has children of her own. She is a lesbian mother of twins who stayed home when they were small, and obviously now works outside of the home, which means she works in both venues but gets credit for only one. We seem only intent on protecting the virtue of stay-at-home mothers in this argument, making no provision for those who juggle both roles as best they can. Shame on the Democrats in this tussle. We should have had Rosen’s back from the get-go.

With expected vitriol, the Catholic League has announced that Ms. Rosen is NOT a “real parent” because she hasn’t given birth. Well, pardon me, but none of the clergy who denounce her has given birth either, nor have they been — so they protest — tempted by the process, so they’ve got nothing to offer in this conversation. They need to put a sock in it. Besides, who do they think will be adopting all those babies they’re saving from the vicious feminazis? Most good Catholic families are using birth control to limit their own social and financial load.

Hilary Rosen has been thrown under the bus of a kind of political correctness I’d hoped not to see any more. Those who think this is a diversion from more important issues have missed the point, much as those who think this is about working moms vs. those who stay-at-home haven’t a large enough political vision to understand the stakes. Rosen has larger concerns for women and children than the Republican presumptive intends. She knows that as many as a third of all American high school kids drop out before graduation, guaranteeing them a life of poverty and want, and robbing the nation of their undeveloped talent. She’s aware that well over a quarter of all children are raised in single parent homes and that over 20% of kids live in families who report income under the federal poverty level. That’s a lot of human suffering and confusion, a black hole of need being ignored by an uncaring, uninvolved political machine. I wonder how much that information resonates in Ann Romney’s world view.

Still, the question isn’t what Hilary Rosen knows that Ann Romney doesn’t; the question is what will Mitt Romney and his party do to help the millions of women and kids who struggle for basic needs in this, the richest country in the world. I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars go into airing political news each day, but I’m pretty sure that having a national conversation that misses the whole freaking point is a waste of resources. It’s time we stopped avoiding real issues by spinning off into cultural nonsense and political posturing, and began to solve some of the challenges of this new century.

The children are waiting.

8 thoughts on “When The Old Is New Again”

  1. Jude,

    I’m so grateful that you clarified why Hilary Rosen was thrown under the bus. It is hard to sort the threads of why things like this happen but I always know that you will see through the tangle and find the real meaning.

    Astrology can do that too if you have the patience to translate the stories of the symbols in meaningful charts. Fe pointed out the Uranus square Pluto aspect that is the backdrop behind every incident that raises our hackles these days, and I’ve sorted out a couple of threads in the charts for when Pluto ingressed Capricorn and Uranus ingressed Aries that might interest you.

    In January 2008, Pluto entered Capricorn and he was conjunct Venus along with Jupiter. Ceres was at 12 Taurus 9 and forming a trine with Jupiter, Venus, Pluto. By the end of that year we had elected Barack Obama as our new president in this country, while the financial disaster was only beginning to be understood by the greater public.

    Fast forward to May 2010, when Uranus entered Aries. This time Jupiter was conjunct Uranus, the other player in the cardinal square. Venus was now opposite Pluto and Ceres was now conjunct Pluto. Same players; Jupiter, Venus Ceres, but circumstances as well as attitudes were changing. Venus was not only opposite Pluto and Ceres, she was sextile Mercury at 11 Taurus 51 (18 arc minutes from where Ceres was in the 2008 Pluto chart). This sextile of Venus and Mercury formed a Finger of God (Yod) with the Moon in Sagittarius as the point where the combined energy was released. The Moon represents the people and Sagittarius is the bigger picture, and, like Jupiter, it represents understanding.

    Symbols can have many meanings, but if we think of Jupiter as a symbol for understanding, and Venus as a symbol of values, and Ceres as a symbol of motherhood, we can track how the “people” (in this case the U.S. citizens) had dramatically changed their understanding of (among other things) values and motherhood in just a little over 2 years.

    I mentioned Ceres position in Taurus in 2008 and Mercury’s near-exact position in Taurus in 2010, because late last month Jupiter (understanding) passed over that same degree area, probably about the same time that Mitt Romney was learning about what women in the U.S. really want to discuss from his wife Ann. This degree in Taurus is square Pres. Obama’s natal Sun and represents a thorn in his side I’m sure. The Sagittarius Moon in the Uranus ingress chart was the same degree where the north node was last month.

    Not to complicate things but in the chart for when Neptune entered Pisces, Venus and Ceres (along with Chiron) were conjunct Neptune and sextile Pluto. As it happens, Jupiter was conjunct the Sun in Aries, and that Sun was conjunct Mars who was conjunct Uranus, and they all were square Pluto in Capricorn. (Granted they are wide but the Sun’s greater orb makes it an effective conjunction and square).

    In each of these three recent outer planet ingresses, Venus, Ceres and Jupiter have been involved in the evolutionary cardinal square and will no doubt be digging up more ancient unresolved conflicts to be dealt with. I believe the Neptune chart holds some suggestions for resolving these conflicts. All of these 3 charts were for the FIRST ingress into the respective signs, probably indicating the situations to be dealt with regarding the ingressing planet. The 2nd ingress charts tell a totally different story. Hopefully it will have a happy ending if we are willing to work together for resolution.
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  2. Because I couldn’t agree more that it’s time we stopped avoiding real issues by spinning off into cultural nonsense and political posturing. (That exhortation should apply to us too–we don’t for instance have to take the Right Wing bait every time Palin and company co-opt yet another of the Left’s talking points. Don’t feed the bears, people.) How then do we actually solve the challenges of this new century–beyond passionately reminding each other of the opposition’s moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy?

    Rob:

    You’re right in that its time for next steps. i think it begins at turning the capitalist society in at itself. That’s it will NOT be profitable to carry a Rush Limbaugh on the air and it will not be profitable to continue forcing GMO foods down our throats at the grocery aisle or in public school lunchrooms. That warehousing people (children included, if you include public schools) in prisons, projects or other state-run institutions will not be a sustainable model for this economy.

    We’re close to becoming a fully-functional indentured servant state. The banks as we know, play as much a part of this as the insurance and health industry. Your shelter, physical health and ability to make your way in a commerce society IS controlled. The tip of the pyramid in this, the ones that the rest of us are pulling along en masse have been in on this.

    Start leaching away at the products they sell. Don’t buy them. Buy locally for a start. Make your own shit if you won’t or can’t buy their shit. We have been programmed to WANT certain things that aren’t essential to our health and well-being, including what we put in our mouths and listen to and watch. This consumption “stimulus” is a prod to keep us hungry to fill the void. We could be a nation of hungry ghosts instead of a nation of spirit. It’s the emptiness that we’ve been sold. That’s the sickness we’ve owned for a long time.

    Watching the re-emergence of the “zombie memes” — old tired and dead fear demons from over half a century ago is yes, an entertainment on the same level of a Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. The fawning over the lives we can never have are contrasted sharply by the fears created that helped fuel the machine that created them.

    How do we actually solve the challenges of this new century? I think it’s about letting go of the false values that got us here and re-asserting the real values that we respect from deeper parts of ourselves.

    Our selves. That is something to be tried. I think we’re being pressured by peer and social pressures to be other than our selves. That rings true in relationships as well as in “lifestyles”. I’m not saying we should all give it up and move into communes, but we can begin by rejecting what does not authentically belong to us, rejecting everything that is being forced on us by a false set of values used to profit others at the top.

    I think women are at the center of this. Whenever this country has gone on a “witchhunt” it was at times of economic uncertainty, when the elephants were battling amongst themselves while us chickens on the ground ran for our lives. One of the major control factors governing “stability” during times like those and this one is to control female reproduction, which would dictate how many laborers you would have to produce more indentured servants to work your property. But again, I cite this as a symptom of the bigger problem already discussed earlier.

    These penthouse dwellers aren’t done. But neither are we. Maybe it can begin by unyoking ourselves of the burden of profit and start profiting ourselves. Local, individual invention and cooperation will be key. We’ve got Uranus in a fire sign squaring off against Pluto in Capricorn. That combination over the centuries always sees results that shake out the foundations of the pyramid. And just think, Pluto in Aquarius is not too far ahead.

  3. Damn you Ronald Reagan! Damn you end of the cold war!….That’s when the average citizen stopped mattering in America and the corporate power elite bro-pact was put into full effect. American domestic policy is a sad thing to observe from a foreigner’s perspective. I rue the day that Canada ultimately chooses to fully emulate “Big Brother”….but I have the creeping sense that that IS Canada’s future. American domestic policy is not the same cyclops as it’s foreign policy twin – but just as scary. The reason why American domestic policy is so frothy is precisely the same reason America is what it is – what I like to call the “American Santa Claus Syndrome”. It’s side effects are truly funny/scary: 1) Delusional belief in their leaders. 2) The need to believe that their leaders have interests other than profit margin in their agendas. 3) The actual belief that somehow this corporate-based structure will eventually start to toss coins from the Palatine Hill, like Nero. 4) The belief that Santa & His American Elves (“tm”) will prioritize wishes fairly and equitably according to the pulse of the people and not twist the “naughty/nice” thing conveniently – (unless of course, they’re on windfall end of things….which somehow makes it okay). Having it both ways IS the American Way! Same power elite have become no better or worse than the Kardashians or any other useless celebrities that hog your media space with their true waste of air-time, completely insincere and bogus platforms. And the American media machine keeps suckering up to this arrangement and who knows why…………….?! This is why I can’t suffer any American news media whatsoever! The covert xenophobia and blustering agendas, coupled with the glibbest public figures EVER makes me want to puke! I understand fully why Eric said this: “If you don’t have a much wider spiritual perspective, that can drive you insane. Investigative reporting nearly drove me insane, which is why I stopped doing it as a career.” I understand him fully – but oh, what a shame…..

    ….The more voices of sanity that enter the game, the more hope there is for the 99%! Baby steps are urgently needed!

  4. Wow, regarding the Comment: “the opposition’s moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy”. This holier-than-thou attitude is really scary, apart from the appalling oversimplification and drastic mischaracterization of “THE OPPOSITION”. Huh? Exactly who are T-H-E-Y…those moral cretins….

    Right/Left, Red/Blue, Democrat/Republican, Black/White…no shades of grey, no ambiguities in a cast of billions. No worries, mate. New boss same as the old boss.

    In this incredibly diverse, ever-changing and problematical world, people are awakening to the nature of a dualistic con game of people being PLAYED OFF against each other in reductionist oppositional strategies that only benefit the Controllers of this Game…Whoeever and Whereever THEY Really Be. I doubt THEY are of one mind, either.

  5. Lots packed into every sentence as always, including this: ” the whole of Christendom came down…” the tone on the right wing radio I listen to as often as I can stand was slimingly anti-Semitic about this fracas, on top of everything else. Kind of shooting themselves in the foot there with all their coded references to “the media” and “intellectuals.”
    One thing is I don’t even think it’s class anymore; it’s just money, having it or not. Havient fully thought this out but I’m feeling like Romney vs kardashian is just coke vs Pepsi. No classes, just a gaggle of family dynasties running different pieces of the world, and then there’s us.

  6. Wrong. The question is not, what will Mitt Romney and his party do to help struggling women and children in the US? Because it should be quite clear by now to virtually everyone reading these missives that the afore-mentioned will do little to nothing to help that demographic–if not outright punish them.

    The real question is, how will those who want progressive policy advanced in these realms employ the levers of political and social power to achieve that goal? And if that’s the pertinent question, wouldn’t a more relevant approach involve discussion and modeling of concrete, practical strategies at electoral, social, and cultural levels to effect actual change? In, yes, this forum, and everywhere ostensibly progressive minds congregate?

    It seems unlikely that most readers taking in these dispatches from the culture war front are unaware of the battle being fought, or the stakes involved. And presumably a good number of us will vote our conscience accordingly this fall. But outside of that four-year lever-pulling ritual, I’m curious to hear what others in the PW community have done or can imagine doing to shift the regressive tide in America. Because I couldn’t agree more that it’s time we stopped avoiding real issues by spinning off into cultural nonsense and political posturing. (That exhortation should apply to us too–we don’t for instance have to take the Right Wing bait every time Palin and company co-opt yet another of the Left’s talking points. Don’t feed the bears, people.) How then do we actually solve the challenges of this new century–beyond passionately reminding each other of the opposition’s moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy?

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