Saturn-Pluto Square II: 'We, The People' vs. Plutocracy

2.1.10


Right near the second exact peak of the Saturn-Pluto square (Sun Jan 31), we Americans received news that our Supreme Court will now allow corporations to buy elections.

Okay, that's not exactly how the delivered decision reads. It merely permits corporate money to be poured without limit into campaign ads, that's all.

So if, say, the First Bank of the Galaxy doesn't like Senator Jane Doe's vocal support for a financial reform package—one that might defend the average (under-informed) consumer from the greed machine—the First Bank can simply buy up as much media time as its bank-rolled coffers will afford and attack her credibility. And banks and other large corporations can afford a lot, surely more than any single individual or non-profit interest group has access to. Somehow, I don't believe this is what the founders of the U.S. had in mind when they sought to escape the 'taxation without representation' corruption of Mother England. (And somehow this is not the issue the Tea Partiers are up in arms about?)

When a nation's values are more aligned with safeguarding the 'free-speech rights' of a corporate entity (which, following this judicial precedent, means a corporation is now essentially a 'person' and may be entitled to other such legal rights of personhood) than ensuring its actual people have health care, something fishy is going on. (And when did it become okay for a supposedly non-partisan Supreme Court Justice to shake his head in partisan disapproval during a president's State of the Union?)

In my Nov 09 article on this square, I summarized the present conflict between Saturn and Pluto as 'the unfairness factor'… so I'm hardly surprised it was this astro-aspect I immediately thought of, when I caught the headline declaring our latest plutocratic [note the etymological root] drifts are to be constitutionally protected. That article is peppered with phrases which ring prescient in the context of this latest news: 'entrenched inequalities, hidden motives and crooked dealings'; 'the decay of justice'; 'the seemingly undefeatable purveyors of institutionalized corruption'.

With Saturn-Pluto hard aspects always comes a stark confrontation with the dark forces behind our structures of authority. With Pluto presently in Capricorn, we're witnessing the power-hungry throes of cunning corporate capitalists seeking to bolster and consolidate their rule… for they can sense, as well as you and I can, the growing dissatisfaction of the people (the actual people, I mean) pushing back against them, and they'll need to become slyer, in both rhetoric and reach, to weather this transformation. If, that is, they can weather it.

I believe there's a limited window of opportunity (say, until May-June, when Jupiter and Uranus come together to challenge to Saturn and Pluto) within which a genuine, calm-headed justice can be struck, reasonably integrating the needs of the larger populace with the goals of the plutocrats, before we enter more explosive terrain. What is demanded of the justice-seekers is, first and foremost, a brave persistence of intelligent dialogue—a refusal to be assuaged by hollow edicts inconsistent with what's actually happening, to end the critiques prematurely, or to devolve into hatemongering talking-points that immediately discredit the cause with their childish tone. This is what Saturn in Libra does best. Pluto in Capricorn, desperate to preserve its dominance, will try almost anything in resistance to Saturn… and the more rationally Saturn responds, the more obvious Pluto's dirtiest grabs for power will appear.

This holds true for each of us individually as well, since Saturn-and-Pluto's square affects our personal lives, too. We are caught (on various sides of the issue, depending on our situation) between (1) what occurs when ambitious goals are voraciously chased at all costs and (2) the need to consider other individuals, issues or extenuating circumstances within the larger (and inescapable) context of interpersonal interactivity. We may be the ambitious ones ourselves, becoming angrier or more despotic when faced with the need for further negotiation, collaboration, or pro-and-con forethought. We may be the 'stepped-on' ones, feeling powerless next to towering institutions or imposing characters and increasingly resentful of their seeming disregard of our viewpoints. Or we may contain pieces of both personalities within us, leaving us to debate whether to plow ahead or rethink the collateral effects of our aspirations.

Again, it's Saturn in Libra who's got the advantage: The agreements we responsibly toil over, going back and forth in small movements and gradual concessions, are the ones that will sustain us for the long haul. If it takes some extra time and effort now, the secure foundation it'll provide later will prove well worth it.

That doesn't mean, of course, we ignore Pluto in Capricorn. (It's never a good idea to ignore Pluto.) Shameful though it may be, we must confess our mixed feelings about conceding power and ambition to moderating compromises. Acknowledge our hunger for victory, wealth and success, and it cannot operate unconsciously. Then, when we filter it through modesty-maker Saturn's lens, it becomes balanced with the other considerations.