- \n
![\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/fe-logo-13-feb-09-250-px1.jpg?resize=250%2C133&ssl=1\" "\\"Fe")
<\/dt>\n- <\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
Such were the days of growing up in the 60s and 70s in Puritan-founded America with Catholic parents. So powerful was the message against the use of marijuana that it was made an emblem of criminal social decline. Its very presence made you suspect. Fast-forward thirty years later, guided by behavior that kept all manner of subversive smoking under wraps, it was a revelation\u0412\u00a0for me to read my favorite local political columnist in the SF Chronicle, Carla Marinucci writing about the growing movement to legalize marijuana,<\/a> and from surprising quarters of support.<\/p>\n
Leading conservatives like former Secretary of State George Shultz and the late economist Milton Friedman years ago called for legalization and a change in the strategy in the war on drugs. This year mainstream pundits like Fox News’ Glenn Beck and CNN’s Jack Cafferty have publicly questioned the billions spent each year fighting the endless war against drugs and to suggest it now makes more financial and social sense to tax and regulate marijuana.<\/p>\n
“It’s a combination of all these things coming together at once and producing that ‘aha’ moment,” said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, who for years has monitored the wavering political winds on the subject. He says so much has changed in recent months that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, it looks possible.”<\/p>\n
“If you’d asked me 10 years ago – or three years ago – I would have said it will be a long, slow slog,” he said. “And now, it looks like it might happen faster than any of us believed.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It was bound to come. We were just indoors for too long to realize the day was breaking. The economy and just plain common sense are starting to weigh in on our decisions. Marijuana is a lucrative cash crop that could bring in revenue to states suffering under\u0412\u00a0the larger\u0412\u00a0recession affecting the entire country.\u0412\u00a0The cost of incarceration for petty crimes like pot possession weigh down law enforcement from the streets to the prisons, and the taxpayers are footing the bill for each inmate\u0412\u00a0at a whopping (for my state) $65k per capita per year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Decriminalizing pot, taxing it like alcohol and making it a cash crop just makes sense. When George Schulz, Ronald Reagan’s former Secretary of State comes to the conclusion that instead of criminalizing, legalizing and regulating marijuana was a more prudent use of national security dollars, something has shifted.\u0412\u00a0\u0412\u00a0What happened the last thirty years to allow us to witness this cultural turnabout? You may even ask, what has happened the last six months?<\/p>\n
In Richard Tarnas’ Cosmos and Psyche<\/a> and\u0412\u00a0its chapter\u0412\u00a0“Epochs of Revolution,”<\/em> the Sixties was an era of immense social change and revolution spurred by Uranus and Pluto in alignment. Those of us born during or lived through it can attest. As Eric mentions in his piece, “Born in the Sixties,”<\/a> there was\u0412\u00a0planetary activity\u0412\u00a0going on in the sky\u0412\u00a0with\u0412\u00a0Uranus and Pluto\u0412\u00a0that opened\u0412\u00a0our self-awareness to an extent that it\u0412\u00a0was not just a personal event.<\/p>\n
Uranus-Pluto alignments\u0412\u00a0are game-changers on a global scale.\u0412\u00a0 With an alignment of these two planets with Chiron, Neptune and Saturn, there was a brief period in American life that experienced a freedom and audacity large enough\u0412\u00a0to engrave an entire\u0412\u00a0cultural and generational\u0412\u00a0mindset.\u0412\u00a0It made\u0412\u00a0life and policy changes and forced a conservative response, which we see today.<\/p>\n
The Sixties have been referred to as more than a mere reference or a trend. It was a\u0412\u00a0period embedded in our history that brought the civil rights movement to full fruit, birthed the anti-war movement, nurtured the women’s movement, opened the sexual revolution with a blast, and laid down the foundations of the environmental movement.<\/p>\n
Its no wonder what happened in the Sixties\u0412\u00a0made alot of people vested in controlling the world and its resources quite anxious. A lot was at stake to keep up a racial and gender inequality and divide, and to continue a\u0412\u00a0Cold War and its proxies\u0412\u00a0because of\u0412\u00a0war’s\u0412\u00a0profitability in chemical and biological weapons, nuclear energy, and of course, oil.<\/p>\n
How appropriate then that its when Uranus-Pluto,\u0412\u00a0also known as\u0412\u00a0Prometheus-Bacchus, are\u0412\u00a0in alignment,\u0412\u00a0in this case a square, that the rules are changing and fun and\u0412\u00a0maybe even\u0412\u00a0healing\u0412\u00a0is possible. Prometheus, the Awakener and Bacchus, the Bringer of Pleasure, are hefty boys to invite to a party. For an America mired in a recession caused by years of corporatism, risky investments, and expensive military adventures gone astray,\u0412\u00a0healthy awareness and fun may be exactly what the doctor ordered.<\/p>\n
Marinucci’s article also suggests something we know about Uranus-Pluto alignments: their affects can be felt\u0412\u00a0a few\u0412\u00a0years prior to their actually being exact, and we have seven Uranus-Pluto squares approaching, two in 2012, two in 2013 and 2015, and a final one in 2015.\u0412\u00a0\u0412\u00a0It seems today in 2009 we’re watching the thunderclouds form on the horizon. The revolution is\u0412\u00a0turning around and\u0412\u00a0coming home.<\/p>\n
As ground-breaking as the Sixties were, there was a bit of a safety rail, perhaps too much, with Saturn preventing us from breaking completely free.\u0412\u00a0 The next Uranus-Pluto\u0412\u00a0squares starting in 2012 will have nothing to impede it. This is an opportunity to work collectively and creatively with the tools we’ve got to fight for what we want, getting rid of the stuff –\u0412\u00a0attitudes and inhibitions preventing us from being as free, creative, open, loving and compassionate\u0412\u00a0a people and a\u0412\u00a0planet as possible. Not just the spliff, but the entire party.\u0412\u00a0 All the other stuff, save the baby with the bathwater, let’s flush\u0412\u00a0away. Its 2009 and the sky is going to support us. Let’s get it started.<\/p>\n
Yours & truly,<\/p>\n
Fe Bongolan<\/strong>
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Friend and Reader: I had my first near brush with breaking the law when my mother forced me to flush my bag of shake-weed she found rifling through my luggage while I was home from school\u0412\u00a0for Christmas break. Regardless of whether police were present or not, marijuana laws and taboos\u0412\u00a0against it were present enough … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,1788,1288,52,1289,911,1287,1286],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}