For some reason unknown to me other than my gut instinct, I’ve been putting a distance between myself and American electoral politics. It hasn’t been exactly clear what I’ve been seeing, let alone understand with the ever-shifting trends of conservative public opinion about the current slate of challengers to President Obama.
As of this moment Newt Gingrich has overtaken Herman Cain, November’s front runner for the nomination, replacing him as polling highest among the current slate of Republican candidates. Cain’s popularity deflated with the revelation of a long-term affair and the alleged hush money he paid to keep it from his wife. For those of our readers who were too young or not around for American history during the mid-1990’s, Newt Gingrich is an asshole. Far from the primary days of George W. Bush, who ran against Al Gore on the platform of “compassionate conservative’, Mr. Gingrich prides himself on being a compassionless conservative.
He was instrumental in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, enabling too big to fail banks to underwrite and trade instruments that contributed to the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009. He wants to privatize Social Security, an idea whose time should end given the rapacity of Wall Street and big banks in general, and he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut when it comes to punishing the poor, especially poor women and children. While on the campaign trail, Gingrich proposed poor kids (mainly African-Americans) learn about job skills by working as janitors — mentored by parental peers if not parents themselves in the skills behind pushing a mop or cleaning a toilet.
With the help of conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, Newt helped build a firewall blocking the people who needed government assistance the most, and the corporate lobbyists who have berthed themselves on the perimeters of the Capitol Building with keys to gain access after-hours. After being disgraced by charges of ethics violations, he resigned from Congress, parlaying his post-congressional career into a money-making business entity.
This is a standard we find operating today by former politicians and their staff. Government and big business have been in bed together a long time in Washington. Newt followed an inevitable trajectory, building a career as a TV pundit, a lobbyist and “ideas man”. Out there again on the campaign trail as Newt “Recycled” Gingrich, what is it that makes someone who already has a track record of being the ultimate Washington insider so appealing for an anti-government, pro-states rights constituency like the Tea Party nation, the leading faction of the Republican Party? Unfortunately, the answer is too simple as Joan Walsh wrote this last weekend in Salon:
If Gingrich is nominated, it won’t be because of his ideological clarity – he’s Flip to Mitt Romney’s Flop. It will be because he’s seen as the most likely to bully and humiliate Barack Obama. And that’s what GOP politics has come down to today.”
Not to say it’s directly responsible, but with each passing day of the Occupy Movement’s growing resistance, their call to government accountability, and the current state of global financial instability, having one of the more blatantly heartless and corrupt politicians foisted up as a potential standard bearer would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. The current interest in Newt’s candidacy boils down to its potential as a wrestling format. They need somebody — anybody — who has the potential to sadistically defeat their nemesis, the Black President. And that’s the real problem, which is much deeper than party politics or racism.
In Erich Fromm’s “Escape from Freedom”, there are those who “escape to” freedom (positive freedom or authenticity) and those who “escape from” freedom (negative freedom). People escaping from freedom substitute individual authenticity through submission to an authoritarian system to eliminate their feelings of uncertainty. According to Fromm, there are three behavior types formed by those escaping from freedom in order to provide a kind of certainty during times of uncertainty: “the authoritarian, who wishes to gain control over other people in a bid to impose some kind of order on the world, and also wishes to submit to the control of some superior force which may come in the guise of a person or an abstract idea; there’s the destructive personality who wishes to destroy something it cannot bring under its control; and the conformist – people who unconsciously incorporate the normative beliefs and thought processes of their society and experience them as their own, avoiding genuine free thinking, which is likely to provoke anxiety.”
These types can sum up a large number of Tea Party members, and Newt fits neatly into the niche as a spokesman for the “from escapees”. As Nancy Waterman of Starlight News wrote: “With four planets in Gemini and an Aquarius Ascendant, Gingrich lives in the world of ideas, and is an inordinately successful orator and writer. However, his Sun (26Gemini02) is opposite the Moon (25Sagittarius10), together making a T-square with Neptune (29Virgo17), pushing Gingrich toward a lifetime of hyperbolic phrasing designed more to agitate than to inform rationally. He’s a destructive and self-destructive bombast, a perfect tool for puppet masters seeking to control that which seems to be tugging hard, tearing at their leash. He is the spokesman on behalf of “Freedom From…”, just like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Ann Coulter.
It’s not the puppet who is dangerous, but those who pull the strings. Right now it’s obvious on whose side the right wing is on. A President who wants bi-partisanship until it hurts, a White House weakened by too many players who’ve had a hand in allowing big money interests free reign, and a Supreme Court that gave corporations personhood may possibly be the last straw. Ultimately what we need to happen will have to come from “outside”: the Occupy Movement and a groundswell of popular uprising questioning the status quo and the business-as-usual of big money in politics. This is just to fight out of the political quagmire we’re currently in, and it seems to be the only backhoe we’ve got. We need that backhoe to build a moat to protect this frail democracy from becoming a 21st century Weimar Republic and its aftermath.
Perhaps I have just answered the question as to why I have put myself at a distance from present-day electoral politics. It’s not about electing a leader, an idea, or even hope. These are irrelevant. It’s not about elections at all. It’s about something that the current electoral system cannot provide. It’s about battling the nothing that has replaced leadership. That gap needs to be filled.
::::warning, huge generalizations ahead…take with a grain of salt:::::
No one (so far as I have read) has remembered Newtie’s Plan back in the 90’s for putting tons of welfare kids into orphanages. See how quickly even the smart ones forget his anti-children agenda?
First he wanted more (privately owned and run which means “for profit) orphanages so welfare parents find their children ripped from them and placed there and when that didn’t go over well, now he wants poor kids to clean floors and toilets (read: CHEAP serf labor). Nice guy, eh? Just at a time when so many of us are feeling like our kids and grandkids are getting the total shaft after decades of “me-me-me” from their parents and grandparents.
We have been an anti-child, adult-centric country for so long we don’t even remember Newtie’s horrible plans for poor children. Mary Eberstadt was sooo right after all.
This guy may be useful for the universe’s plan but unless someone screams “the emperor is against our children” who knows what will happen. Oh wait, no one hears those kinds of screams; only the screams from older VOTERS (who believe “I got mine who cares about you”) because they have more money than the parents and more time to vote and complain. Parents are too busy trying to keep the roof over their heads or trying to keep up with the Joneses or both.
So who speaks for the children? They have no voice because they don’t vote or contribute to campaigns. In our Calvinistic belief structures about work=godliness, children are not godly because they don’t work and generate incomes and taxes.
Therefore they are not of value.
The whole paradigm disgusts me. Newt disgusts me. The folks who will do ANYTHING to denigrate and remove “The Black President” disgust me. We have to change. We have to be better than this.
::::end of generalizations-filled rant::::::
Thank you, Brendan, for apologizing to the eagles. :>)
Fascinating and sobering analysis, Fe – interpreted through the eyes of the brilliant Eric Fromm. Well put, Len “The Newter is using the same strategy Nixon used, betting that people will forget his past and respond to his doctrine of fear instead”. Unfortunately people are all too ready to vote for corrupt/incompetent/philandering assholes in their bid to “escape from freedom”. Italy had the ghastly Berlusconi for over 17 years (and there’s always the risk that that reptile will be back..). Loved your post, Be!
For sure, he’s a bad boy. No wonder either, his Jupiter opposes the U.S. Sibly Pluto; he knows who and how to get rich from his position and connections in Washington.
be
Be:
I saw your post at Starlight’s and did not quite get who you were responding to, but I am glad to know it’s all about Mr. Gingrich: someone whose politics, diatribes and beliefs should get soundly discredited and buried in the basements of history.
There, there Fe, it’s all part of the cosmic plan. The Universe is just using Newt, and frankly, the tea partiers too. Let me explain.
This year’s U.S. Solar Return (using Sibly chart) had a prominent yod (Finger of God) aspect, fueled by the sextile between Pluto (unconscious energy) and Chiron (raising awareness) who was conjunct Neptune (illusion). The active part of the yod, the planet which all three planets were quincunx, was Mercury.
In the U.S. Solar Return chart Mercury was at 5 Leo 34 and Newt’s natal Pluto is at 5 Leo 41.
In addition, the Moon in the U.S. Solar Return chart, representing ‘the people’ was at 9 Virgo (selectivity) and opposes that chart’s conjunction of Chiron (wounded) and Neptune (not for real), giving us a clue regarding the directives for this solar return yod.
In your article we learn that Newt is a Gemini, ruled by Mercury, and his own Mercury is conjunct his Uranus, the ruler of his chart, and both planets are in Gemini. ( see his chart at http://starlightnews.com/wordpress/2011/12/primary-follies/ ) They are near the opposition point to the partially eclipsed Sun in Sagittarius just a few weeks ago, so his chart ruler and the ruler of his Sun were in opposition to the eclipse.
Now Newton has felt obliged to run this race I believe, because of the U.S. solar return-yod-focal-point Mercury conjunct his unconscious natal Pluto. This natal Pluto is sextile his natal Uranus (also unconscious) which is conjunct his very conscious natal Mercury in Gemini. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Enter the total lunar eclipse at 18 Gemini 11. Newt’s Saturn is at 17 Gemini 22, and now his career, his reputation and his responsibilities are, despite the shadow, fully highlighted. The Universe has given Newt his marching orders. Unfortunately, Saturn rules Newt’s 12th house.
What’s more, Uranus turning direct at the time of the lunar eclipse is only one degree away from an exact opposition to his natal Neptune at 29+ Virgo, the sign of service, the planet of delusion.
The Universe and it’s plan for evolution needs Newt. We should not question why.
However, the moon’s transiting south node will reach 5 degrees of Gemini, to conjunct his unconscious Uranus and the solar return Mercury next Spring.. This should abruptly release him from his valiant crusade, but if not, the south node will remain in that degree for 9 weeks. This should provide enough time for the delusional Repubs and Newt himself to get the message. The south node says let it go Newt.
Around the same time, Venus will perform her famous occultation of the Sun in Gemini, which will be emphasizing values, and it’s just in time for Newt’s birthday. God and the Universe sometimes work in mysterious ways, so keep the faith Fe.
be
Len:
I think racism is used as a dividing line, used as a weapon in a global class war. We’re still observing the language of the puppets, invoking fear, distrust and hatred, which is not unsimilar to the propaganda used in the rise of the National Socialist Party of Germanyin the 1930s.
This is where Fromm’s work comes from. Thanks, eric, for the pathway to this.
Sooo, would he blow it out his ass ‘cuz he’s full of himself? 😉 Newt is the consummate politician, which seems to make him absolutely the slimiest, most misogynistic one in the bunch to me. The ‘anti’ leader if you will, the puppet who talks a good line.
I saw a photo comparison of Callista to the Martian women in “Mars Attacks” online and it was pretty much spot on. In the avian sense, she would be a Harpy Eagle, which fits in so many ways and is certainly an insult to said eagles everywhere of course.
Fe:
Thank you, your invocation of Erich Fromm is very pertinent. Even more welcome is your revelation of what everybody knows but does not say, the antipathy towards President Obama is pure and simple racism more than anything else. The Newter is using the same strategy Nixon used, betting that people will forget his past and respond to his doctrine of fear instead. We shall see. Not long ago, many people presumed Governor Perry (someone who shares a natal Full Moon with Newtmeister) to be the odds-on Republican nominee, and look what happened. We have not yet seen the end of this dismal diversion, which, you so aptly characterize as something that would be funny if it were not for the tragic reality.
Brendan:
Newt will just blow stuff out of his ass. He’s used to doing that. Then he won’t apologize for flip-flopping on what he just said. With him, you don’t need a debate moderator. You’d need a cross-examining DA.
Callista looks like a Bird-Person. Kind of like a blonde raptor.
Second thought: maybe they’re both aliens? That might explain an awful lot. Time to decompress for the day… 🙂
Just once I’d like to be a debate moderator and ask Newt about why he had to resign the Speakership and leave Congress?
I understand from his narcissistic self, that he now declares he’s redeemed himself, that what happened then does not apply now. Twaddle, pure twaddle. He’s a legend in his own mind, and no one else’s.
I’m with you Fe, but while I’ve not completely sworn off the electoral process yet, he’s one of the reasons that make me feel positively nauseous whenever he speaks. I guess we’ll just have to slap him down again.
Oh, and Callista’s an alien. Also. Too.
Hear, Hear, Fe!
And it- that gap – all comes home to here, here. Indeed we must fill that gap with something of a different nature than that which has come before.
Excellent write/read. Thank you.