LEARNING CURVE ON THE ECLIPTIC: radicals

Showing posts with label radicals. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Calling (the other) Saul

Some writers and commentators who lean right-ward politically used to offer it as A Bad Thing that former President Obama and once Wannabe President Hillary Clinton were, in their youth inspired and influenced by the views and writings of Saul Alinsky. From what I've gleaned about Alinsky's views, I see it as a great pity that Clinton and Obama weren't more deeply influenced by them than appeared to be the case.

When I read about US radicals of yesteryear: John Reed, Abbie Hoffman and Alinsky, I'm inwardly yelling, "Where are their counterparts now, when this country, soured by the greed of corporations, badly in need of a fresh direction, needs 'em?"

From Who2Biographies

Tough, pragmatic and a lover of humanity, Saul Alinsky pioneered a method of helping poor and working-class people organize themselves to improve their communities. Combining urban social theories he had learned at the University of Chicago with street smarts he had earned growing up in that city's Jewish ghetto, Alinsky first worked in prisons and as a juvenile delinquency researcher. Then, starting in crime-ridden Chicago neighborhoods in the late 1930s, he helped unions, churches and other social groups unite and win everything from jobs to streetlights and garbage collection. He would immerse himself in the neighborhood, listen to ordinary people's troubles and needs, assess where power lay, and empower previously divided groups to seek common goals by standing up to government and corporate machines. With financial backing from department-store heir Marshall Field III, he established the Industrial Areas Foundation, which helped him extend his work to several U.S. cities. He had little patience for militants, Communists or dreamy liberals, saying he was a community organizer because he believed in American democracy and because "I can't stand to see people pushed around."

The idea that Alinsky is a huge influence on the left, or has ever been so, is a myth of the right-wing media, a talking point for the masses who chatter in their sleep, a ploy to keep the country's armchair politicians busy and divided on yet another front, while those really in charge get on with filling their coffers.

Lordy lordy! If only former Democratic presidents had followed Alinsky's teachings there wouldn't be hungry children collecting sachets of tomato ketchup to take home, add water and make soup as something to eat when there's no food in the house; or families in bankruptcy due to a hospital bill, or without a family member because they couldn't afford to buy sufficient treatment and medication. Ye flippin' gods!!!!! This country can be as cold-hearted as any envisioned by Orwell or Bradbury.

Where are today's equivalent of US radicals of yesteryear: John Reed, Abbie Hoffman and Alinsky ?

A look at Saul Alinsky's natal chart. He was born in Chicago on 30 January 1909. I can find no time of birth for him so a 12 noon chart has to suffice. Rising sign and Moon degree will not be accurate.

Now here's a chart that fits like a glove! Sun and Mercury in intellectually-driven Aquarius; but more significant is rebellious, revolutionary Uranus tightly conjunct Venus, in pragmatic Capricorn.

Natal Sun sextiles business-like Saturn in go-getting Aries on one side and energetic Mars in expansive Sagittarius on the other.

Unless born in the very first minutes of 30 January Moon would have been in communicative Gemini, somewhere between 1 and 12 degrees, and quite likely in harmonious trine to his Aquarius Sun.

I'd say that little lot is a recipe for exactly what manifested in Saul Alinsky.

The following exchange came towards the end of an interview with Alinsky published in Playboy magazine in 1972 (link to its full content is now defunct).

PLAYBOY: You seem optimistic. But most radicals and some liberals have expressed fear that we're heading into a new era of repression and privacy invasion. Are their fears exaggerated, or is there a real danger of America becoming a police state?

ALINSKY: Of course there's that danger, as this whole national fetish for law and order indicates. But the thing to do isn't to succumb to despair and just sit in a corner wailing, but to go out and fight those fascist trends and build a mass constituency that will support progressive causes. Otherwise all your moaning about a police state will just be a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's one of the reasons I'm directing all my efforts today to organizing the middle class, because that's the arena where the future of this country will be decided. And I'm convinced that once the middle class recognizes its real enemy -- the megacorporations that control the country and pull the strings on puppets like Nixon and Connally -- it will mobilize as one of the most effective instruments for social change this country has ever known. And once mobilized, it will be natural for it to seek out allies among the other disenfranchised -- blacks, chicanos, poor whites.

It's to that cause I plan to devote the remaining years of my life. It won't be easy, but we can win. No matter how bad things may look at a given time, you can't ever give up. We're living in one of the most exciting periods of human history, when new hopes and dreams are crystallizing even as the old certainties and values are dissolving. It's a time of great danger, but also of tremendous potential. My own hopes and dreams still burn as brightly in 1972 as they did in 1942.

Saul Alinsky died a few months after the interview, on June 12, 1972. I can't help but wonder what would be his thoughts on our situation in 2017.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Radically Speaking

Re-airing an archived post from 2010, with corrections and additions to birth data used in my original post.

Socialism. In the USA nowadays this word ranks alongside colonoscopy as something citizens would least like to experience. The fact is though, socialism is nothing more than an attempt to re-balance a system which has become too heavily weighted on one side - the side of the powerful and wealthy. If a system remains in just balance there's never a need for socialism or any similar isms. Just as colonoscopy can, in the right circumstances, be A Good Thing, so can socialism.

John Reed, Abbie Hoffman, Saul Alinsky, Emma Goldman have all been featured in this blog in the past (relevant posts can be found by clicking on "socialism" in the Label Cloud in the sidebar) they embraced socialism as an ideal. They, surely, were influenced by the writings of an earlier group of radicals originating in Germany: Moses Hess, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.The driving force behind all these radically minded individuals was a wish to correct imbalance and injustices heaped upon ordinary working people by the ruling and wealthy classes - whether these were in the form of royalty, dictators, land owners, wealthy capitalist employers or religious leaders.

In the 19th century, as the industrial revolution got underway, there was much injustice and imbalance around! Of course, there had been just as much of it before then. As far back as history has been written, the ordinary man in the street or man in the field has been treated badly by those "above him". Serfdom in mediaeval times in Britain and Europe was much the same as African-American slavery in effect. As centuries trundled on, philosophy and radical thought began to trickle down......

Moses Hess, the eldest of today's featured trio to some extent influenced both Engels and Marx. He was born in Bonn on 21 January 1812, to Jewish Orthodox parents, soon drawn to philosophy and particularly philosophical socialism. Hess played a prominent role in transforming Hegelian theory by conceiving of man as the initiator of history rather than as a mere observer. He was reluctant to base all human destiny on economic causes and class struggle, and he came to see the struggle of races, or nationalities, as the prime factor of past history. He was responsible for converting Engels to Communism, and he introduced Marx to social and economic problems.

Friedrich Engels (on right in photograph) was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen (now Wuppertal), Germany. His father had interests in textile mills in England. Already active in radical causes when he met Karl Marx in 1842, Engels was soon influenced by this man who he saw as a more original thinker than himself.

During the 1840s Engels spent a period working as a manager at one of his father's mills in the north of England. Shocked by the conditions working people were forced to live in, he wrote his first prominent work, "The Condition of the Working Class in England" published in 1844. For anyone who has no knowledge of working class life in 19th century Britain, there's an extract from Engel's writing on the Dante-esque scenes of Old Manchester at this website. In 1847 Marx was asked to write a document proclaiming the principles of communism; Engels collaborated and helped write the now famous Communist Manifesto. In 1850 Engels returned to England to run the factory of which he was now part owner. During this time he also provided assistance to the then poverty stricken Karl Marx who had been driven from Brussels for his revolutionary activity.

Karl Marx (on left in photograph above) was born to Jewish parents in Trier, Germany, on 5 May 1818. He studied law and at some point was introduced to the writings of G.W.F Hegel. Marx was especially impressed by Hegel's theory that a thing or thought could not be separated from its opposite. For example, the slave could not exist without the master, and vice versa. Hegel argued that unity would eventually be achieved by the equalizing of all opposites, by means of the dialectic (logical progression) of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This was Hegel's theory of the evolving process of history.

Marx met Moses Hess, a radical who called himself a socialist, and began attending socialist meetings organized by Hess. Members of the group told Marx of the sufferings being endured by the German working-class and explained how they believed that only socialism could bring this to an end. Marx had become a close friend of Friedrich Engels, who had just finished writing a book about the lives of the industrial workers in England. Engels shared Marx's views on capitalism and after their first meeting Engels wrote that there was virtually "complete agreement in all theoretical fields". Marx and Engels decided to work together. It was a good partnership, whereas Marx was at his best when dealing with difficult abstract concepts, Engels had the ability to write for a mass audience.

A look at the natal charts of these three German radicals. Maybe there'll be an interesting link between them. Birth data for all 3 (now updated/corrected) taken from Astrodatabank. Times of birth may or may not have been rounded up, for all are "on the hour".

Moses Hess born 21 January 1812 in Bonn, Germany at 5.00 pm.

Friedrich Engels born 28 November 1820 in Barmen (now Wuppertal), Germany, at 9.00 pm.

Karl Marx born 5 May 1818 in Trier, Germany, at 2.00 am.

The planet most astrologers would expect to see prominent in such charts as these is Uranus - the rebel, the avant garde, the anti-status quo planet, and/or its sign of rulership, Aquarius. The two younger men were born with Uranus conjunct Neptune, as were all of their generation (illusion, delusion, creativity) in Sagittarius - sign of the philosopher. In the case of Hess, his Sun was (just) in Aquarius, with Uranus in Scorpio, in harmonious trine to Mars and Pluto.

In Engel's case, as well as being conjunct Neptune, Uranus is also conjunct two peronal planets: Mercury (communication "to a mass audience") and Mars (drive & energy)and in the same expansive Sagittarian cluster as natal Sun (self).

Part of the reason Engels and Marx got on so well is likely reflected in the placements of their natal Moons : in Virgo for Engels, in trine to Karl Marx's Moon/Sun in Taurus.

If the time of birth for Karl Marx is accurate, then Aquarius rising defines him. His ascendant degree is in harmonious sextile to Uranus, Aquarius's modern ruler. Taurus Sun conjunct Moon is something of a surprise - but what it does signify is a determined and stubborn nature. Mercury, next door in its home sign of Gemini would lighten and loosen things quite a lot, at least in his communication style, while still retaining an inner entrenched position.

Many other chart factors could be taken as significant individually, but here I'm mainly interested to discover whether any link exists between the three charts.