More astrology at Cosmic Confidential Diary.
I get about 20 emails a day from the Washington Post. One just came in that informed me thus: Democrats and Republicans agree on something besides the sky being blue on a sunny day.
“Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose a Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they want on political campaigns, and most favor new limits on such spending, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
“Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court’s Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent ‘strongly’ opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits.
“The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent).”
Does anyone remember this bit? I know it’s been a really, really long time since it happened. Here’s how I reported it in Planet Waves on Jan. 22, less than one month ago:
“Last week’s solar eclipse in Capricorn conjunct Venus is showing some ramifications in the corporate/government realm covered by that sign. Thursday the Supreme Court issued a decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The 150-page decision, we’re being told, grants the rights of individuals to corporations, originating in the matter of whether companies can pour money, unfettered, into propaganda designed to sway an election. Previously, this was subject to campaign laws that kept such electioneering a few feet back from the election itself.”
By a few feet, I mean that some company you’ve never heard of, or which is owned by some company you’ve never heard of, used to not be able to come into your town or city and pound the airwaves the night before an election trying to get rid of your local congressional representative because he or she is against, say, the toxic pollution created by that company, in your town. We’re not supposed to be able to buy elections in the United States, though it’s long been a kind of boxing match of cash; this ruling takes the gloves off, and allows the use of weapons in the ring.
That’s the basic implication. No limits on campaign spending by companies, which is the only way to limit the lies. We need to be going the other direction, which is to remove all private funding for campaigns, and allocate a certain amount to each of the top candidates and keep the companies far, far away from this whole public ritual of elections; so the public has a say.
Okay so meanwhile — 80% of all Americans think this is bad. Impressive. I am not sure that people understand the other ramifications of this, such as actually having senators representing China instead of just, you know, all the credit card companies in Delaware, but it’s great that they think it’s bad; the news has a little ring of Venus conjunct Jupiter, which has been exact during the past 24 or so hours and is still ringing like a silver bell.
Take a look — it’s the green and the pink at 7+ Pisces, right above the horizon at 19+ Pisces. Note the position of the Sun. That’s the round yellow thing, with the number 28 next to it. That number 28 tells us that the Sun is in late Aquarius; late, because the highest that a planet can go is 29 degrees and 59 minutes, before turning over and entering the next sign, which in this case is Pisces.
It does this once per month; the condition is sometimes called void of course. This is a complex issue when contrasted with the Sun (we usually think of the Moon as being void of course, about twice a week), but let’s say that unusual things happen in the day or two before the Sun changes signs, and this works both personally and globally.
You keep an eye on your life, and I’ll keep an eye on the news.
Americans are a sorry ass bunch of lame slugs when it comes to politics; and if we persist in this, we will pay dearly.
Politics? You mean that tool people use to force *those other unenlightened people* to change? :-}
Addressing our own fears (those fears being the source of every evil in the world, I’ve come to believe) is the only act that will change anything. Most people don’t or won’t let themselves go (or go far enough) to that place behind fear where awareness and truth live. People don’t/won’t go there because the path to awareness will strip you of everything–and the Ego fights like a mad wo/man to prevent its own death.
If there was no trouble, there would be no awareness. Since we’re having a lot of troubles in this country right now, it seems we all need a big dose of awareness.
Fuck politics. That’s part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Carecare – “If every parent stood up, wrote, worked as hard as I do, change would happen. As Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Seriously, if I didn’t my own kids would shame me into it.”
Don’t despair. Change doesn’t always happen in the ways (or places or people) we’d like, but it happens.
I asked my sister once if she feels proud knowing that she’s raised such fine citizens as she has. “Proud?” she laughed, “I feel relieved!”
You are affecting change and in a big way: you’ve given the world four citizens with a social conscience. Don’t forget Ghandi, and know that your work is paying off.
We don’t want the same things. I want less government – not more. If you watched the news last night they reported that one of the big home insulation projects was stalled in the dept of labor for 7 months and in another agency for 3 months. Now watch, EEOC will have a go at it, as will EPA. Then fraud charges will launch and the whole thing will crash and burn. That is how government works. If you have ever applied for and been accepted for a government position, you know it takes a minimum of 6 months for them to check your arrest record and contact employers. That is the complaint of about half of the people writing to congress – we are throwing you bums out.
The other half of you want the government to take care of EVERYthing.
What I see is facsism at work – government telling business how to operate. Maybe Evan Bayh shook everyone up a little, but it will take a real stinker to wake everyone up. Supreme court might have helped it along. Why not a Chinaman for prez, eh? Or a Japanese gentleman? My cousin (Japanese) said that they would take over America without dropping a bomb 45 years ago. I was 13 first time I met her. Japan now has the number one economy in the world. China is number 2. The rest of us are just plunder.
Thanks CareCare, yeah four is a lot in kid numbers but you’re probably clear for Canada. They have a test on their website you can take; the EU is getting tougher by the hour and they don’t like Americans anyway. South/Central America….I dunno. Not with four kids. If you’re really serious, you could try the military, get stationed overseas and hang back at your duty station. I did that, and I was just a contractor, not a soldier.
America is not a country, America is a religion. What you see as apathy I see as religious fundamentalism. I wouldn’t say I have a particularly drainable brain but I do know one thing: if there is a We Are the World THREE, and Michael Jackson is still in it, I’m gonna have to move to Mars.
p.s. Len, you don’t strike me as either. But just in case you get fed up; please consider my permanent invitation to Mars.
bk,
Thanks for that. I have not lost the drive, I am just being realistic. If I thought I had to see every outcome for every letter I wrote of group I stood with I would have never continued but I don’t have to see the outcome. Instead I have to have faith that all these things I keep doing will change someone somewhere and maybe they will change someone and those people will change someone and eventually it will ripple (with the help of all of you here and others like us that continue to work for change) until finally, change WILL happen. If not for me, at least for my kids and their kids (if they have some) and all the kids everywhere. I work for all the children that have no voices and that do not vote; I try to BE their voice for change for their sake.
If every parent stood up, wrote, worked as hard as I do, change would happen. As Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Seriously, if I didn’t my own kids would shame me into it. ::::laughing:::: My oldest two daughters (the twins) will be 18 this year and already they can hardly wait to vote their consciences. One wants to be a filmmaker and make films to help the change happen and the other wants to be a teacher and artist to help the kids. The third daughter is not as sure of what she wants to do (she is only 15) but she also has a social conscience and my almost 8 year old boy gives all the time to kids less fortunate because he has a big heart. So if I change nothing else or no one else, at least I have given them the desire for and the seeds of change.
They have “smelled the coffee” for sure!
Ginblossom,
My husband and I would expat in a heartbeat with our four kids if we could afford to. He will have his masters in elementary education but I only have an associate degree so we don’t look good enough for most European countries. :::sigh:::
There are websites for expats and it is amazing how many well off people are quietly leaving the U S for foreign countries. America’s brain drain has been happening quietly but it is happening.
carecare7,
I couldn’t agree more with what you say, but you must not give up making the attempts to be heard and encouraging parents and others to participate in turning this period around. I suspect more people “hear” you than let on, but the discouragment people feel seems so overwhelming to them; they are afraid to believe that they could make a difference at this late date. (Remember, Neptune and chiron are conjunct the country’s Moon. . .the people!)
It is like an opiate, an escape from their responsibility to be involved. Afterall, they have lived all their lives without having to use their individual energy to prod the government, it has always done just fine without them.
Your words betray the futility you feel, and you could fall into this same lethergy if you believe you “can’t change anyone”. Keep trying to rouse those moms into supporting your group projects and activities. Maybe just one or two moms will be willing to help if you focus your persuasivness on them, then when you get one success, you will get another.
HazelF gave us a quote from Winston Churchill to the Oracle for today:
“. . . and courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
There now. . .THAT’S the spirit!
be
“Americans are a sorry ass bunch of lame slugs when it comes to politics; and if we persist in this, we will pay dearly.”
You have said it succinctly yet again. I have been writing congress, Obama, my local newspaper, national papers, blogs, FaceBook, Twitter, Myspace, chat and message boards and e-mailed and faxed more letters and I get NOTHING in the way of response from friends, family, my community, ANYONE. It is egregious that these people are so apathetic.
When asked why they don’t respond, they all cite burn out. They all say they don’t think anything will change. The forward momentum that got Obama elected has evaporated in the face of a congress that sits on their asses, collecting our tax money and getting excellent health care and bennies while we all lose more jobs, suffer more setbacks, go farther in the hole and corporate America and Wall Street rake in ever higher profits. In essence they tell me they feel helpless. When I tell them that they don’t have to be their eyes just glaze over. This is the result of four plus decades of self indulgence and instant gratification. The “me” generation at its finest.
We have got to STOP SPENDING and VOTE THEM ALL OUT. Change by attrition might be the ONLY way things will ever get done. Yet I am dead sure Americans will NOT do either because they have gotten so greedy and unwilling to downsize their own lives and PAY ATTENTION that they just wallow in their victimhood and misery, wailing about the injustice of it all as they do nothing, nothing, nothing.
:::sigh::: Even as a communication coordinator and sometimes event planner and facilitator for three small homeschool groups, I felt he collective apathy of my own hometown parents. As I tried to create or pass on or coordinate opportunities for their kids to get together and do field trips and physical activity (two things homeschoolers need) I was met at every turn with a complete lack of even acknowledgement. They wouldn’t even say they didn’t want to go or do the things I was passing on (suggested by others in the group). If I can’t get 50 Moms to organize it is no wonder that we cannot get over 300 million Americans to organize for the very things they complain the most about.
I think Dr. Phil had it right; they must be getting some kind of payoff being the victim or they would stop doing it. I think the payoff is that people don’t have to THINK. Seems to me that most people are mentally lazy; they follow the path of least resistance. Civilizations in the past have fallen for just such laziness and internal corruption. You can quote me: America is on the way down and is unlikely to get back up in our lifetimes. As went Rome, Greece, Egypt, Britain and so many other “great civilizations,” so also go we. The worst part is, we have spread our disease around the world so that other countries want to be EXACTLY LIKE US.
Timothy Leary once believed that intelligence was increasing exponentially but I think he forgot that everything reaches critical mass at one time or another and intelligence seems to have reached critical mass and is in decline. We are dumbing down our children and our society; just watch evening television and it is glaringly apparent.
The robber barons learned from the first time: give the population just enough social programs to keep them from being too destitute in great numbers, dumb them down, and keep them in fear; therein lies the best way to maximize profit, power and control.
I try to be optimistic but in the face of things, it is a very uphill battle indeed. I cannot change anyone because they don’t want to be changed.
When I thought the gig might be up with the 2008 election, I left a relatively comfortable, successful life in Europe to be with my fellow Americans.
I’m not saying I’m optimistic.
I’m not saying I’m nationalistic.
I’m not claiming too much patriotism, tho I love the First Amendment and Turtle Island.
But I’m not deserting my country in a time of need.
Perhaps i’m a naive and feeble minded old man but i have not given up on the United States. This nation did, after all, participate in the the greatest, most pernicious crime against humanity for “four score and seven years” before giving up that economic crutch. We elected Nixon twice… Nixon! We kept loyal American citizens in concentration camps during World War Two. The majority of our 19th century citizens of European descent supported the extermination of the First Citizens of this continent. We brought nuclear weapons to the earth. We have done, supported or been complicit in all manner of horror. We have also cycled back to inspire hope for the entire world. The diastolic pressure may well be at its nadir now, once again, but the heart continues to beat.
Smell the coffee. Are you kidding? Since the Gulf War this country has been in a spiral of apocalyptic panic based on everything from the quatrains of Nostradamus to the Twin Towers to the numerology of George Bush. But I’ve had my own personal set of signs and wonders regarding when I would allow myself to freak out.
This was one of them.
During the last couple of Bush years, I kept fantasizing about going to the Canadian government and trying my luck as a refugee. I live in a fascist state, I would tell them. I and all my countrymen are all slaves of the military industrial complex pretending to be just about everything else and there is not one thing we can do about it.
But there was always something that made me stop and think, long enough to get sucked into the illusion that this was all very normal.
Not anymore. The next generation is going to be so indebted to the government they will be forced to vote and cooperate based on apparent “jobs” and apparent “healthcare” which will be offered only to a select protected few. Apparent “money” will be wicked away from us in all directions as if we are all large idiotic athletic socks, but you can bet that as national workforces blend into each other that the life energy of increasing legions are going to end up in the same pockets.
This is just the beginning. We are all Enron now.
Lately I’ve been thinking about trying Eastern Europe. Czechoslavakia, for example. Good looking people, the Czechs. The weather isn’t too bad. Even odds on whether they buy the fascism story though.
It will take a little time to smell this coffee. I’ve given up on people “responding.” Quote me: Americans are a sorry ass bunch of lame slugs when it comes to politics; and if we persist in this, we will pay dearly.
I certainly hope the poll will do more than report a statistic.
I wonder if there aren’t more than a few politicians who feel a bit bullied by what has happened to them because of Citizens United?
Or maybe they already know they’ve been outed.