Open quotes:
The essence of the democratic surge of the 1960s was a general challenge to existing systems of authority, public and private. In one form or another, this challenge manifested itself in the family, the university, business, public and private associations, politics, the governmental bureaucracy, and the military services. People no longer felt the same compulsion to obey those whom they had previously considered – superior to themselves in age, rank, status, expertise, character, or talents. Within most organizations, discipline eased and differences in status became blurred.
Each group claimed its right to participate equally—and perhaps more than equally—in the decisions which affected itself. More precisely, in American society, authority had been commonly based on: organizational position, economic wealth, specialized expertise, legal competence, or electoral representativeness. Authority based on hierarchy, expertise, and wealth all, obviously, ran counter to the democratic and egalitarian temper of the times, and during the 1960s, all three came under heavy attack. In the university, students who lacked expertise, came to participate in the decision-making process on many important issues.
In the government, organizational hierarchy weakened, and organizational subordinates more readily acted to ignore, to criticize, or to defeat the wishes of their organizational superiors. In politics generally, the authority of wealth was challenged and successful efforts made to introduce reforms to expose and to limit its influence. Authority derived from legal and electoral sources did not necessarily run counter to the spirit of the times, but when it did, it too was challenged and restricted. The commandments of judges and the actions of legislatures were legitimate to the extent that they promoted, as they often did, egalitarian and participatory goals.
“Civil disobedience,” after all, was the claim to be morally right in disobeying a law which was morally wrong. It implied that the moral value of law-abiding behavior in a society depended upon what was in the laws, not on the procedural due pro- cess by which they were enacted. Finally, electoral legitimacy was, obviously, more congruent with the democratic surge, but even so, it too at times was questioned, as the value of “categorical” representativeness was elevated to challenge the principle of electoral representativeness.
The questioning of authority pervaded society. In politics, it manifested itself in a decline in public confidence and trust in political leaders and institutions, a reduction in the power and effectiveness of political institutions such as the political parties and presidency, a new importance for the “adversary” media and “critical” intelligentsia in public affairs, and a weakening of the coherence, purpose, and self-confidence of political leadership.
Close quotes.
— From The Crisis of Democracy — a 1975 ‘final report’ on the 1960s, by the Trilateral Commission (which actually exists). I have added paragraph breaks for readability.
..ha ha! This is excellence!
I’ve never laughed so hard..!
..I’m gonna go distill some ethanol right now, drink a little, and then go fill up my gas tank… but probably not drive, I’m not into that.. but I’m gonna laugh the whole time.. while I ignore the f’d up system… We are huge…
99 I think they call it… We’re there..
Love, and action..
Jere
Thanks rob,
If looked at over a period of time, there has been a pendulum swinging between belief systems. In the 40’s and 50’s the religious zealots (spirituality had not become a concept widely understood by the general public yet) were at one end of the swing and the scientific zealots were at the other. The middle class was mainly in the middle. In my part of the country to believe we descended from apes was considered sinful. Somehow over the years, the pendulum’s swing came to support a more scientific attitude toward creation, but now it appears to be swinging back the other way again. Hopefully, we are coming into an era where balance (yin-yang, religion-science) can be found through lowered defenses and better understanding.
The divisions among U.S. citizens have been addressed by a two-party system of government for many decades but as you point out, not all that well anymore. That system has outlived it’s usefulness and what will rise from these un-addressed issues will be new parties that do support the people’s concerns. It is only in embryo form now but the catalytic energy, as represented by the symbols of the planets Pluto, Neptune and Uranus are poised to begin the metamorphosis. The demand for change is represented by Uranus in Aries, the dissolution of resistance will be through Neptune in Pisces, and the decayed remains of useless structures will be dealt with by Pluto in Capricorn. The pot is boiling.
In the meantime, we have the internet – for now anyway – to provide a platform for the many voices of spirituality. Something for everybody. No doubt it is part of the big plan to unite people with those of like minds and hearts. The rabid right and the rabid left will in time give way to a less militant posture to include those of us who seek peace and love and enlightenment.
be
I can tell you as the editor of a spiritually-focused website that embraces politics that we lose a huge swath of the left BECAUSE OF our focus on spiritual themes.
It’s still regarded as the sign of having a soft mind; faith is for weaklings; astrology is not proven; this kind of thing. It is almost a form of macho. Speaking of, our readership (and subscriber base) seems to remain 90% women, and we are about as dude-friendly as an astrology website can be without a football column.
In the media (generally run by an ‘intellectual’ lot) the horoscope column is accepted as a thing 1. for the funny pages at worst or 2. as ‘good writing’ on the other end of the spectrum (at best) and rarely AS what it is, a viable horoscope column (good info, useful in its own right). It has to come in under some exception rather than the rule itself (i.e, editor finds a relevant horoscope column).
What we think of as “the left” is not the only place that has eschewed discussion of the numinous or mystical. It’s all of academia; with rare exceptions, all of science; and most of politics does not want to deal with spiritual issues of any kind, though psychology is the most open because they have no choice (and the name of their science means ‘study of the soul’).
Recently another astrology writer terminated her relationship with Planet Waves on the accusation that I am too “new age” (without specifically saying what that meant, though my experience with A Course in Miracles and Alice Bailey’s Esoteric Astrology were the resume items that result in my failing the purity test).
The other side of this conversation is how the right wing abuses spiritual power and influence. It is inconsistent to preach the gospel of Jesus and then to wage war and execution, but that is the position most often taken by the religious right wing: Jesus + bombing people + lethal injection. Whatever you may think about warfare or capital punishment, they are inconsistent with Christian values at least as I understand the gospels. So, as far as I can see, the religious right wing’s use of spirituality is more akin to camouflage than it is to an actual expression for the love of existence.
What’s often left out of the larger conversation in these contexts is that religious right-wing coalitions were and are emboldened to carry out these regressive actions in part for an essential reason: there are no religious left-wing coalitions to match them.
The left ignored or spit on the faith community so long it successfully alienated potential allies there. And its still doing so. And on we go, fingering right-wing fundies for doing what we failed to do–engaging and including the spiritual narrative as part of the larger cultural narrative. Into that void stepped the opposition, with a message and a machine to front it, aiding the rise of another criminal class–this time on Wall Street.
The American left confused its desire that we should be a modern Euro-secular body politic with the belief that we actually are. It has proven to be a fatal error. I often see material here and on other ostensibly progressive-oriented websites culled from Alternet.org, for instance. That outlet was at best indifferent to spirituality of any type when I wrote pieces for it years ago. Today, it goes out of its way to sneer at all forms of spiritual belief, from the editorial desk on down. That kind of contempt reflects a profound spiritual illiteracy, one reflected in subtler hues across the progressive movement.
Just as the “99 %” are part of the economic equation that allowed the rise of the current moneyed monster, we are also part of the spiritual vacuum its fundy servant filled with medievally regressive thought.
be: Thank you. Nobody does Sibly (Sibley?) like you do. Please be so kind as to allow one other through line. The driving force behind Prohibition was a religious right-wing coalition, which had the presumed conceit (at that time) to speak for all American women. This coalition of religious extremists used their connections to congregations all over the United States to elect representatives and senators that would prohibit alcohol by Constitutional amendment. Time proved that it was not a truly grassroots movement, but a minority that knew how to work the system. More women were going out and drinking alcohol during prohibition than when it was legal. We now have another religious right-wing coalition that knows how to work the system (and absurdly claims to speak for women) trying to restrict reproductive rights, among other things.
Well, what I got from the comparison was that there was a square between Chiron and Pluto back then, much like the square we have today between Uranus and Pluto. It was a problem (Chiron) in the home/family then that brought about a demand for government to eradicate (Pluto) the problem and restore morality (Jupiter). Now the problem in the home/family is a dissatisfaction (Uranus) with government’s lack of control over it’s relationships with banking and big business. Seems banking and big business are the ones in control.
Uranus was about to enter Pisces then and we demanded the right to drink what we pleased. Now Neptune is about to enter Pisces. Now we can drink to our heart’s content or we can seek a better way to escape our unhappiness.
Chiron was in early Aries on the U.S. Sibly cusp of the 4th house of family squaring transiting Pluto in Cancer along with the U.S. Sibly’s 7th house natal Venus and Jupiter. Venus rules the U.S. 10th house of government and reputation and Jupiter rules the 1st house of self identity. As Pluto transited these natal planets our reputation and identity and partnerships were legally cemented to crime and the underworld. The American family suffered through a consciousness-raising period as Chiron moved through that 4th house square.
Now Uranus is at the U.S. Sibly cusp of the 4th house of family and squares transiting Pluto (crime and transformation) in Capricorn moving through the U.S. 1st house opposite natal Venus and Jupiter. Once again the home and family is experiencing consciousness raising; this time through a T-square of Pluto in the house of self-identity opposite the natal planets in the house of partnership that represent our country’s identity and it’s government and reputation. It’s time to clean up and heal our sense of self and restore balance between business and government, and create a new reputation as well. Uranus can do that through revolution and through the ballot box.
Astrology is a wonderful teacher but so is history.
be
the first i heard of the Trilateral Commission was in a speaking tour in the lead up to the G8 meetings in Calgary in the summer of 2002 (and the corresponding ‘Take The Capital’ mass protests in Ottawa). … the G8 had been borne out of the TC
it’s interesting they ntoe “a new importance for the “adversary” media and “critical” intelligentsia in public affairs, and a weakening of the coherence, purpose, and self-confidence of political leadership.” but give no mention (well at least in this excerpt) of the importance of political grassroots organizing…
here’s a little bit from a recent article talking about Obama, Occupy and 1968:
open quotes:
“At some point, movements must take on some form, some identifiable agenda,” [Jesse] Jackson tells me later. “At some point, water must become ice.”
The most savvy and hard-nosed of the prime movers agree, and think that moment is coming soon. “My take has always been that this movement must move in the shape of an octopus,” says Premo. “The head of the octopus moves forward with a solid critical analysis of our economic and political system, but the octopus has eight tentacles, which can begin to gain concessions. There were organizations within the civil-rights movement that had the demands that allowed everything that was accomplished to be accomplished. The SCLC, CORE, SNCC, all the organizations within that movement had specific goals. And that’s the moment we’re in now, when we’ll probably see our SCLC, our CORE, our SNCC emerge.”
:close quotes
source: http://nymag.com/news/politics/occupy-wall-street-2011-12/ (8-page article)
be: You are so good, thank you for being so quick on the draw.
aword: Thank you. When is that time indeed. Do you think the Trilaterals would still fit in the desks if we sent them back to grammar school? How much did they get paid to write that, anyway? It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
Len you are on to something. Just checked the birthchart for Prohibition which I looked up during the time the PBS series of the same name was first aired on October 2. That date would be January 16, 1920, DC of course, and the law was effective at 12 AM.
Pluto was at 6 Cancer 22 rx, just opposite where it is right now
Uranus was at 29 Aquarius 39, just over a degree from where Neptune is right now
Saturn was at 11 Virgo 09 rx and Mars was at 23 Libra 35 whereas Mars is now at 8+ Virgo and Saturn is at 25+ Libra
Venus was trine Jupiter but in fire signs and now they are trine in earth signs.
Chiron was at 2 Aries then and Uranus is at 0 Aries now
Venus was at 14 Sagittarius 1 and today the Moon’s north node is at 14 Sagittarius 15
Oh, and Mars was square the Sun.
Looks to me like whatever was in the air then is in the air now. Deja vu all over again.
be
Yes, thank you Eric.
“The questioning of authority pervaded society.” And when is that time when it should not?
I agree Len, the Trilateral Commission suffered/s selective listening. Something to do with their perceived authority, no doubt.
Thank you, Eric. The phenomenon described did not come out of thin air. In the United States, there was a little thing called Prohibition, that, along with the Great Depression “manifested itself in a decline in public confidence and trust in political leaders and institutions.” Woody Guthrie, anyone? Also, civil disobedience goes back to at least Henry David Thoreau, who, it seems, the Trilateral Commission missed reading altogether.