Monday, July 04, 2011

Maya del Mar on USA, Corporations, Planetary Cycles, the Future.

Among the archives at Daykeeper Journal, website of the late Maya del Mar, astrologer, I found a couple of her articles which, on this Independence Day are of particular interest. They were written nine years ago, in 2002, but are even more relevant today.

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

Corporations provide the matrix for our lives.

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?
She explains the cycles of the outer planets and the relevance of those current at the time of writing. She then goes 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.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2011/07/maya-del-mar-on-usa-corporations.html

Anonymous said...

GP: Interesting observations about the Jupiter/Saturn 20-year cycle. I personnally retain that at mid-point of that same cycle one had in 1991 the first Iraq war, in 2001 "9/11" and recently the "Arab spring", while Saturn and Jupiter were opposing each other, end March of this year exactly at 15 degr. Libra/Aries and (almost) by the end of next December 25, when Jupiter will go direct again. What's to be expected then? Besides a hopefully more happy Christmas for many as what was the case in recent years...

PS. Who thinks "democracy" implicitly thinks "rule of the Plebeians". Question: in which country have the Plebeians truly managed to rule? It appears that quasi - by - definition they are not capable of such a feat.

Twilight said...

Anonymous/Gian Paul ~~~

I like that Ms del Mar emphasised the element side of the Jupter/Saturn cycles - that's something I'd not appreciated before, and it fits events well.

I wouldn't dare predict what's coming next, or in December, GP.

If Ms del Mar is right, then we have a way to go before we "turn a corner" and things begin to improve - 2020. I might not even be here to see it! Best make the most of what we have here and now.

I don't think democracy means rule by plebs (or ordinary people). I think it means that ordinary people get to have a say in WHO rules, and HOW. The ordinary people pay, via taxes, other people of certain education, skills and experience to do the necessary for a country to prosper and remain peaceful.
Doesn't seem to work does it?
Why?
Greed!!!

Jefferson's Guardian said...

Good morning, Twilight! What a profound and prophetic message from the late Ms. del Mar. As someone who has followed, and spoken out against, the insidious nature of corporate-personhood for many years, I've discovered a groundswell, in just the past few months, of people all around the world who are coming to understand the dangers we face against this seemingly innocuous face of anti-democratic legalize. But make no mistake about it, the corporate-state -- spawned, fed, and sustained by this legal fiction -- is anything but harmless. The corporate message that has ensued now permeates almost every aspect of our culture now, to the point where, as Jane Anne Morris claims, we've been colonized in our minds.

Please make a point of reading Chris Hedges' Independence Day message. It's a sobering reminder of the very dangerous and seemingly unwinnable position we find ourselves in today. His message speaks loud-and-clear about how cultures and societies collapse. As a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he has seen it happen numerous times in various parts of the world. He sees the same patterns emerging here.

I hope this Independence Day creates the genesis of a new uprising against the ruling tyranny of our times -- the corporate-state -- and all that it represents. Based upon Ms. del Mar's timeline, and Mr. Hedges' astute understanding, the next nine-to-ten years appear to hold the key to whether we come out on the other side whole and with our democratic processes intact. I fear we face the same unanswered questions that a roomful of men in Philadelphia must have asked themselves back in 1776. What is at stake is just as high -- if not higher.

Anonymous said...

You are exactly confirming my point, T. Because of greed (and other sins, vainglory foremost - Hitler being an extreme, but many other leaders were/are quite similar in motivation, even "grand Charles De Gaule"), the Plebeians (note I write in capital letter as they are a normal part - major part of any society)can impossibly be ruling or have the judgment to elect whom would rule best. It's visibly not meant to work. Maya, the great circus of illusions etc.

The ultimate waste of energy therefore could be to complain at things (politically) not working. Some greater mechanisms (astrology knows quite a bit about that) certainly rule more than anyone usually dears to admit! GP

Twilight said...

Jefferson's Guardian ~~ Hi there!
Thanks for the link - hadn't read Hedge's latest. It's a depressing scene he paints, as usual he doesn't offer false optimism.

It's important that we don't all become TOO dispirited though. I like your hope for "a new genesis" of understanding by more and more ordinary people. Because things WILL change, maybe not soon, but they'll change one day, it's in the nature of things. If ordinary people have lost all hope, there'll be a dangerous vacuum to fill. We have to keep hoping, now and even when things get worse, as they surely will, before getting better.

Obama's slogan of HOPE holds good even though he himself has feet of clay....message good, messenger - not so much! ;-)

Twilight said...

Anonymous/Gian Paul ~~~

We broadly agree, yes. :-)
We do need to complain though, even if complaining changes nothing. Complaining keeps us awake and aware....until such times as change becomes possible, via those "greater mechanisms" you write of.

Anon and ever said...

I would say: Defying Corporations - Re-Defining Democracy, that needs a redefinition after quite a quarter of a century under heavy threats...

Twilight said...

Anon and Ever ~~ I guess so!
I thought as I prepared this post that the book reviewed is already almost 10 years old, and the essays it contains probably considerably older.

Someone ought to write a sequel. They probably have already, but without realising it. :-)