Can the Corporations Ever be Corralled?

Among the archives at Daykeeper Journal, website of the late Maya del Mar, astrologer, I found this article which, though written in 2002, is even more relevant today. We are now just a year or so away from that key date mentioned in her last paragraph: 2020. The "democratic movement" has shifted towards the left in recent years, but the establishment, corporate Democrats will be loath to let go of the reins and allow such candidates as Bernie Sanders to take over. I suspect a few more years will still have to pass, after 2020, before the final exit of the corporate Democrat clan.

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.

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.

Internet -"it gradually turns out to be alright really." ( Did it?)

Douglas Adams:
1) Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.”

There are still a few of us around who are able to recall life before computers, and therefore before the internet. Heck, I can even remember life before television! Mass communication, in those days, came via newspapers and radio, and to a lesser extent via film and newsreels at the cinema.

This 1969 video, with prediction of the internet's arrival on our scenes and screens has proved to be near enough spot-on. Apart from one chuckle-worthy quote from the clip:

"What the wife selects on her console, will be paid for by the husband at his counterpart console."

It seems that back in 1969, in the USA, little wifeys were still, erm... beholden to their lords & masters.

What wasn't foreseen, at least in this video: spam, porn sites, viruses, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other varieties of social networking springing up even as I type.
From http://kottke.org/10/03/the-internet-in-1969

I remember the very first mention of computers reaching my ears - in 1966/7. I'd been working for a few months for a local Devonshire (England) 'bus company in their accounts office. One of the senior employees had been sent on a training course, on his return he regaled us with tales of the binary system leaving our brains limp and imaginations reeling. All we had to work with in those days were very basic mechanical adding machines, one step up from the abacus. Having, out of necessity, trained my non-mathematical brain to add long columns of figures in hotel ledgers, I often opted to "do it in my head" rather than tackle the awkward adder. None of us, back then, could have envisaged the amazing developments we've seen during ensuing decades - the good, the bad and the ugly of it all.

There's always a downside. Over roughly the same time span: from TV sets becoming commonplace, followed by computer development, to the present, corporate power has risen in tandem. Now multinational corporations own media, at least they do in the USA and have tentacles worldwide. TV has become a major arm of the corporations' mass brain-washing system. Oh, they'd been doing it before TV, but the opening up of mass communication made it so much easier!

It has been said that mass communication has been the most powerful invention of man, however, nuclear bombs and weaponry really hold that title. What would be more powerful, though, 20 million dead people or 20 million people doing whatever you tell them?

For ordinary souls such as I, and any who do not wish to divest ourselves completely of access to television, computer and internet, all we can do is remain aware of the potential weaponry in our living rooms. We can try to limit corporations' access to our own grey matter by choosing carefully what to read, watch and listen to. We must never forget possible sub-text and remember to keep in mind always this question: who is "paying the piper"?

"All in all it's just another brick in the wall"

The post's title, from Pink Floyd's rock opera "The Wall" is the only nod to Music Monday this week, it buzzed through my mind as I read an article online about the firing of a journalist.

I don't read any newspaper, don't watch any news or political shows on TV. News for me these days comes solely from the internet. For those who do still trust corporate newspapers to offer "fair and balanced" views, the news that democratic socialist journalist/columnist Harold Meyerson was recently fired from his regular Washington Post column by newspaper's owner Jeff Bezos aka CEO of internet giant Amazon should alert them to what's becoming common in mass media: getting rid of any who don't toe the corporatist line!
My 2013 post Robber-Baronitis mentions Jeff Bezos, by the way.

From Wikipedia

Harold Meyerson (born 1950) is an American journalist and opinion columnist. In 2009 The Atlantic Monthly named him one of "the most influential commentators in the nation" as part of their list "The Atlantic 50."

Life and career
Born in Los Angeles, Meyerson was educated in the Los Angeles public schools and at Columbia University. The son of long time leaders in California of the Socialist Party of America, he was active in the 1970s in the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee.

Meyerson is editor-at-large of The American Prospect and was an opinion columnist for the Washington Post from 2003 until 2015, when he was fired by the latter. He served as executive editor of the L.A. Weekly from 1989 through 2001, and continues to write about California politics in the Los Angeles Times. His articles on politics, labor, the economy, foreign policy, and American culture have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation, and New Statesman.......

An avowed democratic socialist—according to Meyerson one of only "two" that he encounters during "daily rounds through the nation's capital," the other being Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — he is a vice-chair of the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America

Commenter "Sneed Urn" at Huffington Post wrote

His firing is not at all ironic. It is (most likely) in response to Sanders' rise and the growing realization among conservative rank and file that they have been duped. Keeping the balance of power tipped towards big money is the job of corporate owned media. Presenting "opposing" points of view is part of that process, to be able to claim objectivity with the actual intent to frame the range of what counts as progressive and what is "fringe".

Sanders has been able to overcome the "fringe" label. The media now has to help disenfranchise his supporters through other means. Limiting Sanders' exposure and always asserting the presumption that Clinton is the de facto nominee are the primary ways media works for corporate interest and against the people in the democratic race. This should not be a surprise.

Exactly!
(My highlights in both quotes)

This video is around a couple of months old, not much has changed in the meantime. Watch a comedian tell us how it really is.

TPP and All That

I've been avoiding writing anything about current acronym infested Trans-Pacific Partnership issues (TPPA abbreviated to TPP; TPA; TAA; ISDS...) until now. I've had a rough idea what it's all about, and that it's not, in general, or in specifics, "A Good Thing".

The House of Representatives, last Friday, narrowly voted for the most controversial element of the package of trade deals, that part of the package which allows President Obama to submit deals like the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership to Congress for a vote without amendments. That initial success is somewhat negated by House procedural rules that said a separate bill that included Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) - help for workers who lose jobs due to trade shifts - also had to pass. TAA was voted down, 302-126. House Republican leaders called for re-votes by today. Twisting of arms ensued, no doubt!

Public Citizen website has a straightforward piece about TPP in general.

This video (less than 3 mins. long) runs through important factors quickly and easily:

We have to be careful about who we read on this topic. I trust Elizabeth Warren:

Eric Zuesse at The Smirking Chimp website has written a set of very detailed pieces on this topic over the past few days. Read 'em and weep! Sunday's piece ended thus:

The fact that these ‘trade’ deals are being pushed right now, means that the people who are in power have concluded that, already, ‘the free world’ is so dictatorial, that the chances that their plan can now be imposed globally are about as good as is likely ever to be the case again. The time is ripe for them to establish a global corporate dictatorship. The political money this year will be flowing like never before.

His Monday piece is very long - I haven't read it all myself yet, but it promises to be ve-eery interesting:
The Origin and Broader Context of Obama’s ‘Trade’ Deals.

Any thoughts?

Cycles Will Be Cycles

Keeping in mind the previous post's main theme: fictional attempt to change history, in particular to prevent a corporate oligarchy from permanently establishing itself in the world, for generations to come. If a reliable time travel device were available today, to what point in American or UK/European history would seem to be the most useful stop-off point in the past? Which individual(s) would be the key to prevention of a headlong gallop into global corporate governance?

I don't know enough US political history to be able to answer that in respect of the USA. A simple, obvious but not complete, answer would be to travel back to 2009/2010 when the Citizens United case was being decided in the Supreme Court. Could time travellers influence a change that would reverse SCOTUS eventual decision?

In the UK I'd head for 1975 to try to stop Margaret Thatcher's rise in Conservative politics. With regard to Europe - I have no clue. Europe has always been a complex bag of tricks.

Alright...(fantasising): say SCOTUS decision on Citizens United had been reversed, due to time-travel related intervention. That would have moved us onto a new timeline. But, cycles must cycle on, nature decrees so, astrology records it. Life, whether individual, communal or global, moves in cycles - or spirals. Something else would take the place of the Citizens United decision, a few steps further ahead. Events themselves might be vulnerable to change by time travellers, but nature is highly unlikely to be vulnerable in the same way.

Imagine a stream or river flowing towards the sea. Something prevents it from following its established course; it doesn't suddenly begin flowing backwards, or simply stop in its tracks and become a stagnant lake, it carves out a different route for itself, to reach the same sea.

Fascinating, entertaining and distracting as time travel themes are in novels and films, tempting as it is to imagine there'd be a way to change things, in reality I doubt there would be. Most novelists and screenwriters hint at this. Detail might be changed, course would remain the same.

We, as a species and as a civilisation, warts an' all are probably at exactly the stage we're supposed to be right now, in our place on the developing spiral. The best we can hope for is a smooth and relatively painless transition from one stage of the spiral to the next, when it becomes time for that to happen. A reasonable aim for which to struggle now, I guess, would be to develop circumstances most likely to lead to smoother transition into natural changes.

"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.

GM Foods, Monsanto, Corporations - Oh My!

Two blog friends and regular commenters have given me a heads up on issues involving GMO - genetically modified organisms - in the food chain: GM crops. I've been aware of, but not especially motivated to write about the topic before now. I realised that GM foods form simply another tentacle of unfettered corporatism, this tentacle has Monsanto at its heart. I prefer to criticise and rant about corporatism, the oligarchy and capitalism as a whole, rather than focus on any of the many separate tentacles of this fatal disease. Perhaps I've been too blasé in this case, so have done some research.

It has to be kept in mind that while corporate conduct - Monsanto's conduct in particular - has been, and continues to be despicable, as most corporate conduct is, that is not the whole story.

However unwelcome genetic modification of crops may be to people in the USA and Europe, all relatively privileged people, there are hungry people elsewhere, starving people....there are some here in the US too. If elements of Monsanto's high-handed objectionable work can provide any relief for starving humanity somewhere on the planet, it'd be wrong to dismiss their efforts outright. Millions of starving people will increase, in time, to billions struggling to survive. If Monsanto would concentrate their efforts towards staving off just that eventuality, more people might be prepared to support them.

All genetic engineering isn't bad. Modifications can change plants and animals in a number of ways: modified corn produced to resist a certain weed killer is not the same as rice reprogrammed to contain more vitamin A. Two sides of the coin: beneficial/risky.

The fact that GM crops have been engineered to withstand high application rates of toxic chemicals is an attendant problem, as well as the fact that any new gene used to make fruit ripen more quickly would be likely to reduce its nutrient value....and flavour.

Most GM crops require, or allow, more pesticides and herbicides to survive, and so embed themselves in food; some of it washes off to pollute groundwater and streams, then kills off fish, affecting birds, killing insects the birds eat, and so on. Many GM crops produce sterile seeds, robbing farmers of opportunities to renew their crops as farmers have done for centuries, forcing them to buy a new store of seeds. Follow the money -again!

A current concern in the USA is that foods containing GM ingredients should be clearly labelled as such. That's a reasonable step to take, but whether it would make enough difference to cause Monsanto to change its ways is another matter.

Once again, it's balance that is missing. If corporations were better regulated Monsanto's activities and results of same, would be subject to closer scrutiny and limitation. I feel that it's more important to put stronger focus at the core of the wrong: the corporations and unfettered capitalism.

There are numerous photographs of protesters from US and Europe marching against Monsanto and GM foods - an example shown earlier in this post. Numerous photographs of marchers against fracking, Keystone XL oil pipeline, and other tentacles of unfettered corporation disease are also online. If all those protesters were to combine their strength, along with those who support The Green Party, Justice Party, socialists, anti-war and other left wing groups, there might be an outside chance of making a lasting and more powerful impression....and at the at the very least of waking more sleepers to join them. They are few, we are many. ...or would be if we would all wake up and work TOGETHER instead of splintering into diverse groups!

A Non-astrological Rant

Last night we watched a DVD of an old British movie I'm Alright Jack, one of many films from the 1950s produced and directed by the Boulting Brothers.

Back then the British film industry was just beginning to find its metaphorical feet, after World War 2. The Boultings gave us many a satirical look at life. In I'm Alright Jack, a brilliantly funny depiction of both the excesses of trade unionism and the corruptness of the captains of industry, messages in the story are still appropriate today, even more so actually, in the USA.

Corrupt corporations have taken the place of corrupt bosses from the aristocracy and upper classes. Trades unions, though, have been de-fanged by conservative governments, leaving "the people" - ordinary people - without recourse to right the wrongs perpetrated upon them.

I found myself feeling angry when my husband muttered - "That was exactly the problem - trades unions! " I had to put him right in no uncertain fashion.

What other avenue did and do we "the people" have? What power do ordinary people now hold? None except for their votes at election time, and they can be manipulated by the power of money. I found myself envying the folk of the 1950s when ordinary people found their strength in the union movement. They took things too far though, and it led to their downfall at the hands of the dreadful Margaret Thatcher in Britain, and conservative administrations in the USA.

The unions were the only tool "the people" had. Now we don't have any tool at all. This makes me both sad and angry. In the USA, even more than in Britain, "the people" need to reclaim their power in order to de-fang the corporations. But how?

Ian Carmichael, one of the stars of "I'm Alright Jack" died a few days ago. RIP. He was probably the only remaining cast member still with us from a wondrously talented group including Terry Thomas, Peter Sellers, Richard Attenbrough, Margaret Rutherford, Irene Handl and.......ah... Liz Fraser is still alive I think.