"WE THE ......" ?

Among the archives at Daykeeper Journal, website of the late Maya del Mar, astrologer, are two of her essays which, though written 12 years ago, in 2002, are even more pertinent today.


In the first piece: Why Corporations Rule the Nation Ms del Mar began:

Corporations provide the matrix for our lives.

 photo by by Neil Whitelaw

Our lives are shaped and governed by corporations. The consumer culture, the sea in which we live, is run by corporate image-making, advertising, and media control. Corporate values become cultural values. Corporate politics become government politics. Every area of our lives is fashioned by the dominant corporate culture.

The corporate movement grows implacably, like a giant amoeba, and threatens to take over the world, and destroy it in the process. As it grows, it shuts out democracy and effective decision-making. It is no wonder that people have quit voting and quit paying attention to civic life. We feel disempowered—and in many ways we are.

How can astrology shed light on this growth of corporate power?

Maya explained the cycles of the outer planets and the relevance of those current at the time of writing. She then went on to look at the chart for the birth of the USA using 4 July 1776 at 5:10 PM, Philadelphia. Snips:

The United States has a lucky chart.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence chart (7-4-1776, 5:10 p.m., Philadelphia) is blessed with a grand earth trine, which means material success comes easily to this nation....................... We have the resources to enable us to develop models for harmonious, bountiful living.

However, this great gift of earth energy has been co-opted by corporations, and much of it transformed into toxins and garbage. The early idealistic political vision of Americans has been gradually subverted by the corporate bottom line of making profit for the corporation. Earth, tangible goods, is also the raw material of corporations.

The U.S. chart is also fortunate in having a Sagittarius Ascendant. This makes Jupiter the chart ruler, governing all U.S. expression of energy. Jupiter is the greater benefic, and shows good fortune and expansion. It is also especially associated with corporations (and old boys’ groups).

20-year Jupiter-Saturn cycles show the social-business character of our everyday lives.............................For most of this nation’s history, we have had Jupiter and Saturn joining every 20 years in earth signs.... This earth phase really went into full gear in 1842, as the Civil War was building up...... We have just experienced our last Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in earth signs for the next 600 years, in May of 2000. This one was at 23 Taurus. Taurus is the most fixed, determined, and possessive of the earth signs. It is loathe to let go. The last conjunction in Taurus was in 1881, which began the "gilded age," the time of millionaires, consolidations, mansions, and high living. Corporations came into their own then.

Now we are closing the long earth cycle with Taurus. Will corporations extend their power, as they have in the past? Will we, the people, look at their excesses and corruption, and decide to take charge of them again? Will we reclaim democracy? Or will it be that the 200-year earth period was the time for corporations to grow into ruling the world?—regardless of who and what gets hurt and destroyed?

This last Taurus conjunction in May 2000 ties in very nicely with the U.S. chart. It helps U.S. corporations move ahead with the steamroller effect until 2020, when we begin the air cycle in Aquarius. In the meantime we can begin to rebuild a democratic movement, and be ready to emerge with some sovereign infrastructure by 2020.

In the second piece, also from 2002, Maya del Mar reviews a book of essays: Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy ed. by Dean Ritz.
She writes:

We take corporations for granted. This is it. This is how life is. We let them define our entire culture, including our political scene, without really asking, "Hey, what’s going on?"

We also take them for granted as we try to fight them—regulation by regulation, harm by harm, in thousands of little battles. And still they grow more powerful. In fact, the first regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was established in 1887 at the behest of the railroads to reduce competition, and staffed by railroad people.

It wasn’t this way when the nation was founded. The rebellion against England was, in fact, against corporate charters given by the King to certain companies.

Those who won independence from England hated corporations as much as they hated the King.

The men of property who wrote the Constitution did not want the King’s unfair, oppressive competition. They determined to hold corporations in check. They chartered only a handful of corporations in the decades after independence, and when they did they severely limited a corporation’s powers, purpose, capitalization, and length of existence.

Here are the kinds of limitations that were once law in nearly every state:
Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled, but not exceeded.

Corporations’ licenses were revocable by state legislatures for any of a great number of reasons, including doing harm to the common good or general welfare.

The act of incorporation did not relieve management or stockholders of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.

As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents could be held criminally liable for breaking the law.

State (not federal) courts heard cases where corporations or their agents were accused of breaking the law or harming the public.

Directors of the corporation were required to come from among the stockholders.

Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.

Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as 20 years.

Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations.

Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out that specific purpose.

Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.

Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations.

State legislatures set the rates that corporations could charge for their products or services.

All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature.

However, gradually, as people forgot the original corporate excesses, the legislatures dropped their vigilance, and corporate power grew and grew, helped in large part by judges educated in the same law schools as were the corporate attorneys. Many states still have pieces of these laws on the books. However, corporations have established a group of attorneys whose job is to infiltrate states one by one and get these remnants inconspicuously wiped off the record—in the name of "modernizing corporate law statutes."

The coup d’etat occurred when in 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that corporations are "persons" under the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling gave corporations almost unprecedented "rights" to question almost any law applied to them and frustrated the ability of the people to direct corporate action in service of the public good. Nearly all of the cases brought under the 14th Amendment are corporate cases, not cases about the equal rights of people!

The question is, "Who’s in charge here?" Corporations are only legal fictions, created by law, controllable by law, and dissolvable by law. They have used cunning propaganda to make us forget that. And in the process we have forgotten democracy, and the sovereignty (imperfect as it is) of the people.

Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy is an extremely illuminating, provocative and helpful book, as well as being easy to read. I strongly recommend that we all read and use it, in our efforts to reclaim democracy.