{"id":23736,"date":"2010-03-22T14:42:20","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T19:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=23736"},"modified":"2010-03-22T15:00:17","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T20:00:17","slug":"the-american-public-a-theory-or-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/the-american-public-a-theory-or-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The American public: A theory or two"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
This is a repalcement of the HR bill passing, uptimed by 10 minutes. I got it wrong the first time, but the error does not significantly change the chart.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Part Two of a Few<\/strong>. One reader asked about why the American public was so divided on this. Part of that involves an indoctrination process — the media has not done a good job covering the issue; it’s been a propaganda war.<\/p>\n

The best coverage I saw was on the Daily Show. I agree that Olbermann and Maddow could have done a lot better breaking down the issue, though I saw a riveting special comment by Keith that blew the doors off of the issue. I’ll see if I can find it; I am sure it’s on his website: it was the one about visiting his father in the hospital.<\/p>\n

Is anyone familiar with the old Bob Dylan song, “Only Pawn in their Game”? Here’s the song on Lala.com<\/strong><\/a> (you get one play) and here’s the page on Bob’s site<\/a><\/strong> (you get part of the song and the authorized lyrics). Here’s the germane part, which describes the class warfare created by conning poor white folk into thinking they have it better than poor black folk, to the detriment of both:<\/p>\n

A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
\n\u201cYou got more than the blacks, don\u2019t complain.
\nYou\u2019re better than them, you been born with white skin,\u201d they explain.
\nAnd the Negro\u2019s name
\nIs used it is plain
\nFor the politician\u2019s gain
\nAs he rises to fame
\nAnd the poor white remains
\nOn the caboose of the train
\nBut it ain\u2019t him to blame
\nHe\u2019s only a pawn in their game.<\/em><\/p>\n

During the 2008 campaign the Republicans were raising hell about this idea that Obama was going to “spread the wealth around.” It really worked quite well, as far as it went: it was a fabulous fear tactic among the white poor. One day I heard my friend Dominick (of Dominick’s Cafe) talking to one of his older, conservative relatives who was upset about this. She was angry that the wealth was going to get spread around. He said to her: “Louise, you work in a hospital. You make $12 an hour. What are you worried about?” We both knew what it was.<\/p>\n

This issue was one of Dominick’s favorite talking points during the campaign. He was astonished that anyone would fall for such bullshit. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another time he was in the home of a relatively wealthy person who was having (another) flat-screen TV installed. A guy came over to do the work, and he, too, started in on the issue of how Obama was going to “spread the wealth around.” He was concerned (as was Louise), specifically, that his “wealth” would be spread around. So Dominick explained: “You’re here working on a Sunday installing a TV in someone else’s house for $75. It’s not your ‘wealth’ this is about.” This went on and on. Dominick is Virgo rising with Pluto in the ascendant. He was personally going to get Obama elected if he had to, and this was one of his obsessions. I heard this conversation over and over. It started to become funny in a dark way: these relatively poor people worried that something was be taken from them…or was it…something would be given to someone else? And who might that be?<\/p>\n

My father is a SUNY professor and has really good health coverage; I mean, the kind where you get the best heart surgeon at the best hospital and have your valve replaced. During the campaign he was outraged that other<\/em> people might get health insurance (it would bankrupt the country), while he has insurance paid for by the taxpayers<\/em>. I tried to get him to see over the teacup on this one, to admit a little hypocrisy; but he was adamant; it was so ridiculous. I am sure that he feels entitled to his health insurance because he got a Ph.D. and has a tenured job.<\/p>\n

We have a few schisms in the American psyche. I will cover two briefly. One is that we ‘think we’re rich’ here. And many, many Americans get really nervous when any resources are going to go to those lazy, er, minorities who allegedly don’t do anything or pay any taxes. What Bob’s song is about is how we get baited with race issues but the whole thing is a game to hold down everyone — economically.<\/p>\n

This feeds into why we think that it’s okay that the dudes from AIG or a big bank help tank the economy, then they get bailed out (the wealth gets spread around) and they still<\/em> get their multimillion dollar bonuses. This is paying reverence to the religion of theoretical capitalism; those guys up there get their bonuses, and therefore we might also some day get rich. If we object to their huge bonuses, then we are in principle rejecting the idea that we might get rich.<\/p>\n

Anyway, when I look for this theme in the chart, I see it in the Gemini Moon in the 8th house. The public is basically sold out. Divided. Freaked out. People don’t realize that they give nearly ALL their money in taxes. And get what? Let’s see, it costs $1 million a year to keep a soldier on the ground in Afghanistan. It’s worth it to protect us from those Muslims who are gonna bomb us tomorrow or the next day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part Two of a Few. One reader asked about why the American public was so divided on this. Part of that involves an indoctrination process — the media has not done a good job covering the issue; it’s been a propaganda war. The best coverage I saw was on the Daily Show. I agree that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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\/23736"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}