1968: Oh my - 50 years ago - How Time Flies!

This special edition glossy magazine (knock-down price $14.99 - which I refuse to pay) was sitting in the rack at the supermarket check-out the other day. I asked husband to take a quick photo of it for me, it reminded me of an old blog post of mine, and I'm always happy to be able to pull out an old post, when its contents might have become new again, so saving further wear and tear on my typing fingers.



Previously posted in 2007 and 2011 - now ever so slightly edited.
3's a charm!

There have been some clear "tipping points" throughout the world's history. Whether we're presently living through another of these remains to be seen...it's starting to have that smell about it though. The thought was originally sparked by a reference to journalist Dahr Jamail, author of Beyond the Green Zone. I discovered that Dahr Jamail was born in 1968, into the atmosphere of tumult, unrest and change that year brought with it. From a book review (now disappeared) of Beyond the Green Zone:

"Soon after the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Jamail emptied his savings, bought a plane ticket to Iraq, and began writing about what he saw as an independent reporter from the war zone. His missives were sorely needed by those people looking for a side of the story not being told by the so-called embedded media and soon his stories were being published in multiple internet outlets, radio programs and even some newspapers....... the book is a riveting and clearly written piece of journalism that puts the pap most US residents consider as news to shame."

Without much astrological knowledge, it is possible to see astrology at work. Here's an example of how the qualities of a single year can be crystalised and reflected back many years later by some of those born within that time frame.

How about that year, 1968? Anything special about it? A synopsis of Mark Kurlansky's book 1968, The Year that Rocked the World threw some light on this.

"1968 was a year of political upheaval and protest around the world. In the U.S., there were the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the antiwar protests, the Chicago riot at the Democratic National Convention, and the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive was underway. Protests in France began the downfall of Charles de Gaulle's government. Soviet tanks rolled into Prague to quell the rebellion there. Mexico City police opened fire on university protesters. Mark Kurlansky documents these events and more that occurred in 1968, and examines the cultural forces that drew them altogether across the world."

An exceptional year! 1968 is described elsewhere as "a benchmark of unrest, tumult, and change."

Astrology tells us that those born during that time are bound to bear its imprint - some more clearly than others.

From a list of birthdays in 1968 , among the usual gaggle of actors, musicians, sportsmen, three names leapt off the screen: Mohammed Atta (said to have masterminded 9/11 attacks, and died in them), Timothy McVeigh, (the notorious Oklahoma City Bomber), and Ramzi Yousef (mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). The astrology of that tumultuous year had certainly left its imprint on those three characters, and in the worst possible way! Dahr Jamail, however, carries the positive side of the same imprint.

It's necessary, for a moment, to blank one's mind to the horror and tragedy that Atta, McVeigh and Yousef individually caused, and look at their motives. They each had what they saw as "a cause" which they sought to further. They chose the wrong route - a route of destruction and death. Dahr Jamail too has a cause, but in him it is manifested in a noble and more enlightened way. His "cause" is to let the public see the truth. He furthers it in a way dangerous only to himself. The causes of these four men spookily reflect qualities of the year of their birth, 1968, when numerous events, both tragic and noble occurred, all in pursuit of "causes".

Pluto's transit during 1968 took in 22 to 25 degrees Virgo, with Uranus retrograding from 29 to 25 Virgo then proceeding into Libra by October. Neptune started the year at 25 Scorpio and after some retrograde motion finished in December at 27 Scorpio.

All the outer planets, then, were in the last ten degrees of Virgo or Scorpio for most of the year, often within conjunction (same degree or near) and/or sextile (60*). In the summer months Saturn at between 21 and 25 Aries would have been inconjunct (150*) some of the outer planets.

I'm not going to attempt to interpret those configurations, except to describe the qualities of the three planets involved. Pluto is known as the planet of transformation (sometimes involving death). Uranus is planet of change and revolution. Saturn is planet of laws, rules, structure, representing the establishment and "status quo". Neptune is planet of illusion, delusion, and dreams. The fact that these astrologically powerful planets were so closely aligned during 1968 has to have a very significant connection to the world changing events happening then, as well as to the qualities born into some of the year's natives.

Conventionally Speaking

From
"Hot time in the old town of Philly in July?"
by: Dave Lindorff. The piece was also carried by The Smirking Chimp yesterday, with comments added.

SNIP:

If things go well for Sanders, and he even comes close in pledged delegates by winning handily in most of the remaining primaries, Clinton will be seen to be winning only based on having done exceedingly well only in the “front-loaded” southern states which neither she nor Sanders stand a chance of winning in the general election, making those delegates’ votes really marginal if not meaningless. At that point it would be fair, as the Sanders campaign plans to do, to press the unpledged so-called superdelegates -- party hacks, elected officials and big Democratic donors -- to reconsider earlier pre-primary pledges to back Clinton. If enough of those superdelegates were to follow calls to vote the way their states’ primary voters voted, it could tip the delegate balance to Sanders.

Meanwhile, if they do not do that, Philadelphia, the site of the July Democratic Convention beginning on July 25, could be a scene of chaos and mayhem reminiscent of the 1968 convention in Chicago, which featured riots both on the convention floor and in the streets of Chicago, as masses of peace activists and backers of anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy protested the railroading of pro-war candidate Hubert Humphrey. A similar thing could easily develop in Philadelphia if Sanders backers feel that their candidate and they themselves are being robbed by party leaders of a victory they feel they’ve won.

After reading the full piece, pulling out my 20th and 21st century ephemerides I checked to see whether any astrological similarities stood out for dates of 1968 and 2016 Democratic Conventions. The only similarity, degree-wise, I noted were degrees close to 24 Aries.

In late August 1968, time of the Democratic convention, Saturn was at 25 Aries, in July 2016 Uranus will be at 24 Aries.

In August 1968 Saturn at 25 Aries and and Neptune in Scorpio were in scratchy quincunx aspect, and Uranus and Pluto at 28 and 22 Virgo formed quincunxes to Saturn also.

In 2016 Uranus from 24 Aries will make an uncomfortable quincunx to Mars in Scorpio, while Jupiter from 21 Virgo will also be in quincunx aspect to Uranus.

Dang! Eyes and brain have crossed in trying to compare these placements via ephemerides - may as well post a chart for middle date of both conventions, set for 12 noon.

28 August 1968 Chicago

26 July 2016 Philadelphia

Well, just from the chart formations, visually, I'd say 2016's convention ain't gonna be a lot like that of 1968!

This is interesting though! In 2016 Uranus (the rebel, the unexpected) at the apex of a Yod involving 2 quincux aspects from Jupiter (excess, expansion) and Mars (energy, aggression) in sextile. In 1968 Saturn (law, status quo, the establishment) was at the apex of a Yod involving sextile of Neptune and a group of Virgo planets including Uranus.

I'd like to think that whereas 1968's concentrated and drastic events didn't, in the end, move much away from the status quo and establishment rule represented by Saturn; in 2016, with Uranus at the apex of a Yod, perhaps non-establishment, and mild revolutionary events might filter out more of the status quo, and filter in something new, even something mildly revolutionary.

Any thoughts?

Dramatically Speaking.......... of Mad Men, MLK, 1968. & Another Anniversary, A Niner!

Mad Men is the only TV drama we currently follow "live" (as against on DVD). We caught up on the first four seasons via DVD, then went "live" last year, with attendant frustration caused by plentiful commercial breaks. Mad Men, though we're mildly hooked on it, really is no more than a polished time-warp of a soap opera. It does try, and sometimes succeeds, in being a bit of an arty-farty soap opera, using barely hidden metaphor and crafty insider references, which simple-minded dum-dums like me have to discover later from reviews.

Action of classic soap operas, at least those with which I was familiar in the UK (Coronation Street, everyday story of working class folk in the north of England; Eastenders, everyday story of working class folk in London's East End; Emmerdale Farm an everyday story of country folk in Yorkshire for example) took place in the present day. Real world disasters and dramatic events had to be factored in in retrospect, if at all. Mad Men, an everyday story of advertising folk in New York is set in the 1960s. In Season 6, now showing, the year is 1968.....yes THAT dark and dreadful year for the USA! Matthew Wiener and his writers have the luxury of hindsight - long distance hindsight at that. They now are aware of how those dramas and tragedies of 1968 fit in to the pattern of action in ensuing years and decades. That fact is a good thing in some ways because, after all we're watching fiction, not fact; in other ways though, treatment of such events as the murder of Martin Luther King is necessarily going to be affected by "what we know now". It's something akin to revisionist history, I guess. Revisionist historians know how the story ended, those playing their parts during events in question didn't. Key factor!

Sunday's episode of Mad Men had MLK's murder as its set piece. I cannot say how true to life or how skewed the depiction of reactions of the Mad Men gang were. I was living in the UK at the time, in a small apartment, no TV, only a portable radio whose batteries blacked out regularly, and I seldom bought newspapers. My only source of news from the USA was from chat at the office with my boss or visitors from other departments. I have no memory at all of the reporting of MLK's murder, whereas I do still recall where I was when JFK was shot around five years earlier. I asked my husband if he could recall where he was when MLK was shot - he couldn't, but like me he had clear memories of where he was when JFK died.

Now, and for many years, Dr King's death has become such a key event in our consciousness, everyone, not only African Americans have seen and appreciated the full weight and worth of his teachings and speeches. So, if Mad Men did portray its characters' reactions differently from how they would truly have been, or if the writers felt uncertain, then it's easily understandable. In this episode there was hushed shock at a radio announcement during an advertising executives' gala dinner. There were people wondering next day whether offices should be closed as a mark of respect. The couple of fairly newly added African American cast members were shown, accurately I'm sure, in states of numb shock and despair. One secretary responded warmly to her female boss's hug, while another seemed coldly unable to respond to a similar show of condolence. In another scene lead character, Don Draper, took his son to the cinema to see Planet of the Apes as a distraction from the sadness of events that day. The now almost iconic final scene of that movie (y'all know it) added even more pathos for we viewers in 2013 than it would have in 1968: All the time it was... we finally really did it. [screaming] YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! (camera pans to reveal the half-destroyed Statue of Liberty sticking out of the sand).

What I craved immediately the episode drew to a close was to see Across the Universe again. I remembered the very same day in 1968 being a part of that movie too, but in a different context, and using songs written by those (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison) with personal knowledge of the dramatic 1960s years. So, as husband never refuses a chance to hear Beatles music, we watched our DVD once more. This is one scene from the film and aftermath of that fateful day in 1968:




Actors: Martin Luther (singing) and Jim Sturgess




POSTSCRIPT

Today, 30 April = 9th anniversary of the day Himself and I married in 2004, back in the UK. The civil ceremony was held in a room at the Town Hall of the coastal town where I then lived, and was streamed over the internet. My husband's family members, in the USA, were able to watch the proceedings over breakfast at 8am, in the UK it was 2pm. Just him, me, car driver and photographer who acted as our witnesses, that was the cast. No grand wedding, none of the usual fal-de-ral (never did go for any of that, even in my youth). The music I chose made up for other lack of grandeur:

Thanks for 9 lovely years....and counting, Anyjazz!

REFLECTIONS of 1968

There have been some clear "tipping points" throughout the world's history. Whether we're presently living through another of these remains to be seen....it's starting to have that smell about it though. Yesterday's guest post by Gian Paul reminded me of one year that has since become known as a "tipping point", and led me to dig around in the 2007 archives for a post about the year 1968. It was originally sparked by a reference to journalist Dahr Jamail, author of Beyond the Green Zone. I discovered that Dahr Jamail was born in 1968, into the atmosphere of tumult, unrest and change that year brought with it. From a book review (now disappeared) of Beyond the Green Zone:

"Soon after the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Jamail emptied his savings, bought a plane ticket to Iraq, and began writing about what he saw as an independent reporter from the war zone. His missives were sorely needed by those people looking for a side of the story not being told by the so-called embedded media and soon his stories were being published in multiple internet outlets, radio programs and even some newspapers....... the book is a riveting and clearly written piece of journalism that puts the pap most US residents consider as news to shame."

A re-airing the rest of my 2007 post:

Without much astrological knowledge, it is possible to see astrology at work. Here's an example of how the qualities of a single year can be crystalised and reflected back many years later by some of those born within that time frame.

How about that year, 1968? Anything special about it? A synopsis of Mark Kurlansky's book 1968, The Year that Rocked the World threw some light on this.

"1968 was a year of political upheaval and protest around the world. In the U.S., there were the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the antiwar protests, the Chicago riot at the Democratic National Convention, and the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive was underway. Protests in France began the downfall of Charles de Gaulle's government. Soviet tanks rolled into Prague to quell the rebellion there. Mexico City police opened fire on university protesters. Mark Kurlansky documents these events and more that occurred in 1968, and examines the cultural forces that drew them altogether across the world."

An exceptional year! 1968 is described elsewhere as "a benchmark of unrest, tumult, and change."

Astrology tells us that those born during that time are bound to bear its imprint - some more clearly than others.

From a list of birthdays in 1968 , among the usual gaggle of actors, musicians, sportsmen, three names leapt off the screen: Mohammed Atta (said to have masterminded 9/11 attacks, and died in them), Timothy McVeigh, (the notorious Oklahoma City Bomber), and Ramzi Yousef (mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). The astrology of that tumultuous year had certainly left its imprint on those three characters, and in the worst possible way! Dahr Jamail, however, carries the positive side of the same imprint.

It's necessary, for a moment, to blank one's mind to the horror and tragedy that Atta, McVeigh and Yousef individually caused, and look at their motives. They each had what they saw as "a cause" which they sought to further. They chose the wrong route - a route of destruction and death. Dahr Jamail too has a cause, but in him it is manifested in a noble and more enlightened way. His "cause" is to let the public see the truth. He furthers it in a way dangerous only to himself. The causes of these four men spookily reflect qualities of the year of their birth, 1968, when numerous events, both tragic and noble occurred, all in pursuit of "causes".

Pluto's transit during 1968 took in 22 to 25 degrees Virgo, with Uranus retrograding from 29 to 25 Virgo then proceeding into Libra by October. Neptune started the year at 25 Scorpio and after some retrograde motion finished in December at 27 Scorpio.

All the outer planets, then, were in the last ten degrees of Virgo or Scorpio for most of the year, often within conjunction (same degree or near) and/or sextile (60*). In the summer months Saturn at between 21 and 25 Aries would have been inconjunct (150*) some of the outer planets.

I'm not going to attempt to interpret those configurations, except to describe the qualities of the three planets involved. Pluto is known as the planet of transformation (sometimes involving death). Uranus is planet of change and revolution. Saturn is planet of laws, rules, structure, representing the establishment and "status quo". Neptune is planet of illusion, delusion, and dreams. The fact that these astrologically powerful planets were so closely aligned during 1968 has to have a very significant connection to the world changing events happening then, as well as to the qualities born into some of the year's natives.

Born 1968 - "The Year That Rocked the World"

Without much astrological knowledge, it is possible to see astrology at work. Here's an example of how the qualities of a single year can be crystalised and reflected back many years later by some of those born within that time frame. What led me off on this tack was a blog entry at How This Old Brit Sees It , on 3 November. It featured a book "Beyond the Green Zone" , the author, an independent journalist, Dahr Jamail.

I set off on a goosechase across Google looking for the birth data of this brave journalist. I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, but did discover that Dahr Jamail was born in Houston, Texas in 1968.

How about that year, 1968? Anything special about it? A synopsis of Mark Kurlansky's book "1968, The Year that Rocked the World" threw some light on this.

"1968 was a year of political upheaval and protest around the world. In the U.S., there were the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the antiwar protests, the Chicago riot at the Democratic National Convention, and the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive was underway. Protests in France began the downfall of Charles de Gaulle's government. Soviet tanks rolled into Prague to quell the rebellion there. Mexico City police opened fire on university protesters. Mark Kurlansky documents these events and more that occurred in 1968, and examines the cultural forces that drew them altogether across the world."

Wow! An exceptional year! 1968 is described elsewhere as "a benchmark of unrest, tumult, and change." Astrology tells us that those born during that time are bound to bear its imprint - some more clearly than others.

From a list of birthdays in 1968 , I noted the usual gaggle of actors, musicians, sportsmen, but three names leapt off the screen - Mohammed Atta (said to have masterminded 9/11 attacks, and died in them), Timothy McVeigh, (the notorious Oklahoma City Bomber), and Ramzi Yousef (mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). The astrology of that tumultuous year had certainly left its imprint on those three characters, and in the worst possible way! Dahr Jamail, however, carries the positive side of the same imprint.

It's necessary, for a moment, to blank one's mind to the horror and tragedy that Atta, McVeigh and Yousef individually caused, and look at their motives. They each had what they saw as "a cause" which they sought to further. They chose the wrong route - a route of destruction and death. Dahr Jamail too has a cause, but in him it is manifested in a noble and more enlightened way. His "cause" is to let the public see the truth, he furthers it in a way, dangerous only to himself. The causes of these four men spookily reflect qualities of the year of their birth, 1968, when numerous events, both tragic and noble occurred, all in pursuit of "causes".

Pluto's transit during 1968 took in 22 to 25 degrees Virgo, with Uranus retrograding from 29 to 25 Virgo then proceeding into Libra by October. Neptune started the year at 25 Scorpio and after some retrograde motion finished in December at 27 Scorpio.

All the outer planets, then, were in the last ten degrees of Virgo or Scorpio for most of the year, often within conjunction (same degree or near) and/or sextile (60*). In the summer months Saturn at between 21 and 25 Aries would have been inconjunct (150*) all three of three outer planets.

I'm not going to attempt to interpret those configurations, except to describe the qualities of the three planets involved. Pluto is the planet of transformation (sometimes involving death), Uranus planet of change and revolution, Saturn planet of laws, rules, structure, representing the establishment and "status quo", and Neptune planet of illusion, delusion, and dreams. The fact that these astrologically powerful planets were so closely aligned during that time has to have a very significant connection to those world changing events, and to the qualities born into some of the year's natives.

Dahr Jamail was born into 1968's atmosphere of tumult, unrest and change. Without his date of birth it's impossible to examine his personal astrology. From what I've seen of his work on-line, he has much talent and great courage.

From ZNet's review of his book "Beyond the Green Zone":


"Soon after the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Jamail emptied his savings, bought a plane ticket to Iraq, and began writing about what he saw as an independent reporter from the war zone. His missives were sorely needed by those people looking for a side of the story not being told by the so-called embedded media and soon his stories were being published in multiple internet outlets, radio programs and even some newspapers....... the book is a riveting and clearly written piece of journalism that puts the pap most US residents consider as news to shame."