{"id":21656,"date":"2010-01-22T09:15:31","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T14:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=21656"},"modified":"2010-01-22T12:54:07","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T17:54:07","slug":"astrology-citizens-united-sec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/astrology-citizens-united-sec\/","title":{"rendered":"Aftershocks of the Capricorn Eclipse: A Legal Earthquake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader:<\/p>\n

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<\/em><\/a>. The 180-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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Planet<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Personally, I cannot think of a more significant issue for the Supreme Court to rule on, in our era of unmitigated corporate power. Here, we have one of the first landmarks in the Pluto in Capricorn era, a time when we know that the structure of society will change in many ways.<\/p>\n

The court held yesterday that corporations have the free speech rights of people. Yet if anything, corporations are superhumans, subject to no responsibilities of citizenship that would balance freedom on the scale that they typically exercise it.<\/p>\n

They do not have a natural lifespan, and can in effect live forever. They cannot be incarcerated, and holding them civilly liable for crimes or abuses of their rights verges on impossible (case in point, Bhopal). Any punishment is meaningless, as most in the position to commit atrocities have so much money that even a heavy a fine comes out of the petty cash fund. They can be as big as the state of Israel (or bigger), have an army and exist on five continents at a time. They have no lawful interest except for profit. They can employ a thousand attorneys. Their shareholders can come from many different countries. Their own power and structure shields the individuals involved from most forms of prosecution; it is rare that corporate officers are held accountable for the crimes committed by their companies. The corporate veil is that effective.<\/p>\n

This is an easy distinction, to see the difference between human rights and corporate rights. While many think there is a precedent for this, the original decision supposedly giving corporations the rights of people<\/a> was so flawed that the issue is right in Wikipedia where school kids can read about it on their iPhones. That famous case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad<\/em>, never took up the constitutional issue. Many in the legal community are fully aware of this, even to the extent that there is a law center devoted to dealing with it.<\/p>\n

Most people do not understand that \u2018corporatism’ is the true definition of fascism; that is, the merging corporate interests and entities with the state itself. This is the thing to beware of. What we have just witnessed is an example of the state granting greater rights to the corporations who are its creatures than to the natural sovereign citizens of the land — in this case, the power to influence elections to high office. In effect, the government has privatized elections and has sold out its own power: a typical move, consistent with the central bank existing as a private entity as well.<\/p>\n

I would say that Thursday’s decision in Citizens United<\/em> is an example of unequal protection under the law. Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, those who enjoy extraordinary rights must be held to extraordinary responsibilities. The problem in our moment of civilization is precisely that this alien race of entities thinks it has no responsibilities at all, in any meaningful sense of the concept.<\/p>\n

I’ll be back with a more detailed analysis of the chart and the issues in a coming edition.<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,
\n\"Eric
\nUpdates daily at Planet Waves<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and Cosmic Confidential Diary<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader: 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 180-page decision, we’re being told, grants the rights of individuals to corporations, originating in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21656"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}