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Remember the tense atmosphere for the duration of the drawn-out crisis of the Gulf oil spill last spring and summer? There was polarization — everyone blaming the other guy for the spill and the subsequent problems, deep sectionalizations among left and right over the future of energy vs. environment. And there was feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized — a widespread sentiment of anger at corporate CEOs and government bureaucrats who appeared arrogant and out-of-touch.
Then, after months of anguish, the crisis seemed to go away, at least from the headlines — BP at long last capped the gushing well, Washington promptly downplayed the environmental impact, and the American media speedily swopped their attention to the electoral horse-race.
But the sensations of polarization and feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized didn’t go away. Like the vast plumes of spilled oil that settled stealthily into crevices of the Gulf of Mexico, they were submerged into a toxic pool of collective resentment. Americans’ deepening dissatisfaction influenced the November election, when angry tea-partiers and disillusioned progressives took it out on the government by respectively voting for right-wing radicals and sullenly staying home.
They’re not going away next year, either. In fact, the oil-spill crisis was just a foretaste — personally and politically as well as astrologically — of what’s to come for the duration of 2011.
Two warnings regarding 2011
Expect America’s ever-deeper right-vs.-left political polarization to flare up furiously for the duration of the early spring of 2011 (mid-March through April). And from the summer on through the end of the year — in fact, all the way till the much-ballyhooed month of December, 2012 — look for the general sense of feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized with corporate and government power to sharpen and commence growingly spilling over in acts of defiance and rebelliousness that will arouse comparings to the Sixties.
That’s on the national level. But “as above, so below”: Most of us will be confronting these same forces of polarization and feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized in one area or another of our personal lives, as well. The mystery to navigating them — and to transforming them from anticipated disaster into unexpected boon — is to understand the archetypes behind them, which the astrological planets and signs involved signify.
To foresee accurately how they’ll show up in your personal life, an astrologer needs to thoroughly and closely question or examine how these planets “transit,” or pass over, your specific birthchart. But it’s also possible to predict in usual how they’ll play out on the national and world stage.
Polarization hits a peak
That springtime polarization will be represented by expansive, potentially greedy Jupiter in the fiery, ofttimes impulsive and self-centered sign of Aries — opposing cautious, potentially rigid Saturn in the airy, compassionate, but many times indecisive and passive sign of Libra. Politically, Aries here signifies the “red-state” right wing, while Libra is the “blue-state” left wing. Libra is a strong sign for Saturn — representing a determination to preserve a hard-won status quo of rights, peace, or similar Libra-related concern (such as the health-care reform) — but Jupiter’s opposition from Aries will be reinforced by that sign’s aggressive ruler, Mars, as well as the powerful presence of the Sun.
The Aries side’s strength is that it will come on strong and fast, but it is weakness will be that it has no staying power and won’t stay united in a mutual cause for long. The Libra side’s strength will be in listening to and seeking a mutual ground with the other, but unless it holds firm to tried-and-true principles, it is tendency to waver and compromise away too much will be it is undoing.
Frustration on the rise
The feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized that will sharpen in summer is represented by a planetary cycle well known amid astrologers for it is historic association with upheaval and revolution: the orbital fundamental interaction of Uranus, the topsy-turvily-spinning upsetter of conventional order, and Pluto, the tiny but potent planetoid that reminds us size is not always the measure of power. In the mid-1960s, the two came together in conjunction, beginning a new 127-year cycle of undermining the old “establishment” that will reach it is next key turning point in 2011-2012, when Uranus will move into Aries, a heap of 90 degrees away from Pluto in Capricorn.
This point in a planetary cycle is the “waxing square”, when, astrologers observe, that which was formerly latent and underground now makes itself in an open way manifest, like the sun breaching the horizon at dawn. People’s rising disillusionment, on both left and right, with the uttermost concentration of wealth and power in the elites of Wall Street and Washington (Pluto in Capricorn, the sign of dominance and control) will crest in overt acts of disobedience — a great deal of of which will be impulsive or even violent (Aries), others innovative or technologically based (Uranus).
The new rise of violent anarchists in Greece and other constituents of Europe, and the Web-wide exposure of state mysteries on Wikileaks, are harbingers of these trends — just as governments’ and financial institutions’ moves to squelch Wikileaks by reasonable means or foul portend the Pluto-in-Capricorn reaction. But the cycle can’t be stopped — too galore originative humans will find too some ways to permanently “subvert the dominant paradigm,” as the old bumper sticker puts it, and move the world’s culture closer to something like the “triple bottom line” economic reformers espouse, in which the environs and social equity (two values that gained their voice in the 1960s) are given equivalent decisionmaking weight with profit.
Choose your revolution
It may seem as though the oil-spill saga of 2010 — which played out as these two astrological formations, Jupiter opposite Saturn and Uranus square Pluto, firstborn begun moving into place — left no visible effect. Oil corporations carry on to drill greedily in the deepwater Gulf — and spill, even though with less publicity — after the brief moratorium the Democratic administration imposed raised so much Republican ire that it was lifted six weeks early. And the polarizing and discouraging and hindering challenges of 2011 could leave us sentiment — if we only read the headlines — as if not one thing is altering except to get worse.
But down in the little print, where person selections count and in the end add up to future headlines, we’ll each be confronting our own local versions of these challenges. We’ll have a great deal of personal prospects to choose the easy way of polarization — yelling and bullying on the one hand, caving in and tuning out on the other — or the hard way of listening to our opponents while making them sit down with us to hammer out real solutions. And we’ll choose to deal with our rising feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized with regards to loss of cash and lack of power either by lashing out in galore violent reaction, or by stepping out with galore bold innovation.
By making better choices, we just might turn 2011 around in time for 2012.
Arrogant Capital Washington Frustration American
Everyone knows that Washington is totally out of touch with the rest of the country. Now Kevin Phillips, whose bestselling books have prophesied the major watersheds of American party politics, tells us why. Washington – mired in bureaucracy, captured by the cash power of Wall Street, and overshadowed by 90,000 lobbyists, 60,000 lawyers, and the biggest concentration of special interests the world has ever seen – has become the albatross that Thomas Jefferson and our other Founding Fathers feared: a swollen capital city feeding off the country it will have to be governing. Throughout most of our history, the talent of American politics was that ballot revolutions each generation swept out failed particular spatial arrangements and devised new ones. Now that may no longer happen. Feared and even hated by a majority of the citizenry, “Permanent Washington” has dug in. Using history as a chilling warning, Kevin Phillips parallels the present atrophy to that of formerly mighty and arrogant capitals like Rome, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Unchecked, Washington will – like other great powers before it – lead the country to it is inevitable decline and fall. To work again, Washington must be purged and revitalized. In his distinctive blueprint for a political upheaval, Kevin Phillips puts Washington on detect by sounding a cry for prompt action, providing us a wide potpourri of remedies – some quasi-revolutionary, others more moderate, but all sure to be controversial.
From Publishers WeeklyDecrying the influence of political and financial elites, veteran pundit Phillips ( The Emerging Republican Majority ) here attempts to channel the dissatisfactions of the usual populace, as evinced on radio talk shows, into national reform. “Capitals rot first,” he declares, drawing briefly on such historical analogues as Hapsburg Spain and 18th-century Holland to buttress his argument that the current centers of American power, Washington and Wall Street, have sunk into decadence. Echoing recent critiques like Jonathan Rauch’s Demo sclerosis , he highlights a bipartisan help for the government status quo. While Phillips wisely focuses on governmental, not social reform, his generalization that conservatives blame cultural weakness while liberals underscore economic decline ignores the influence of more nuanced thinkers like Cornel West. Among Phillips’s better suggestions: move away from the two-party scheme by permitting referenda and giving careful consideration to proportional representation; raise taxes on the “really rich.” Some problems, like the mercenary culture of lobbyists, may be less amenable to remedy by policy than by moral suasion, but Phillips sets an agenda for debate. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library JournalPhillips’s original book, The Emerging Republican Majority (LJ 1015/69), was praised as the political bible of the Nixon era. He became a Republican pariah after The Politics of Rich and Poor (LJ 5/15/90) was hailed by the Democrats in the 1992 presidential campaign. That work was the original in a trilogy on the plight of innovative America. The second work, Boiling Point (LJ 3/15/93), documented the feeling of annoyance at being hindered or criticized of the middle class. Arrogant Capital offers solutions to “the beltway mentality” in Washington, D.C., and the greed of Wall Street. Abandoning hope of political reform through our two-party system, Phillips now favors direct democracy to prevent America’s decline. Though a heap of of his populist proposals are extreme, they is worthy of debate. His historical comprehend of patterns among former world powers (e.g., Spain, Holland, Britain) add substance to his fears. Our progressed Thomas Paine has written another readable volume that deserves widespread attention.
–William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From BooklistHave you had sufficient of D.C.’s vultures feeding off the corpse of the body politic? Then you’re part of the crowd, variously polled at among two-thirds and four-fifths of the people, disgusted by permanent Washington and it is venal lawyer-lobbyist-politician fixers. Veteran pol watcher Phillips examines the decaying beast and it is parasites while he lards the anger theme with blood-boiling stats. Better, he goes deeper than talk-show outrage and essays his own version of the problems. For the most percentage he explicates issues in the air nowadays–the “spectronic” (electronic speculation) economy, uncontrollable federal spending, and a sclerotic constitutional framework. The last debility cuts reform at the knees, as Phillips’ numberless anecdotes reveal; in the hope, vain or not, of reviving the tradition of electoral “revolutions,” such as Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s, and FDR’s, Phillips concludes with a ten-point reform agenda. To limber up the political system, he proposes redrawing state boundaries and moving some federal bureaucracies to Denver. Author’s tour ought to capitalize on his ordinary Boiling Point. Gilbert Taylor
Arrogant Capital Washington Frustration American Photo
Arrogant Capital Washington Frustration American Pic
Arrogant Capital Washington Frustration American Image
Arrogant Capital Washington Frustration American Image
Most helpful client reviews
12 of 13 humans found the following review helpful.
 History is repeating itself, regrettably !
By A
This has to be one of the best books on contemporary politics. Kevin Phillips did extensive exploration into the historical pattern of rise and subsequent decline of great powers and found uncanny matching to where America is today. However, he did suggest 10 solutions that hopefully would arrest the decline of this nation and hoped those would be carried out in the 90s (this book was written in 94). Guess what ? None of his 10 solutions was imposed even to the slightest degree. If anything the troubles he brought up in the book have become even more severe in the past decade.
The decline of this nation is now inevitable. There is no need to shed tears over it, though. It happened to Rome, Greece, Spain, and most not so long ago Britain. To think we may someways escape was in all likelihood wishful thinking to get started with but the failure to take positive action to even to undertake to slow the decline just makes the uttermost fate that much more sure !
11 of 13 humans found the following review helpful.
One of the best political books on this topic I have read
By A
I am a political science major at Oregon State University. I had to read this book for a class and was enjoyably suprised at how well written and interesting this book is. The author gives a earsplitting and clear call to arms for the American people to modify our government. The comparings to other world empires hit very close to the present day US. His proposals for change are interesting and well thought out. I reccomend this book to any individual who is fed up with Washington and the power of interest groups, financial groups, and lobbyists.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
 Required reading for a democracy.
By gbramstedt@igc.apc.org
As usual, full of information, knowledge, and insight… This is my 3rd Phillips book and would rate 5 stars except for a great deal of big ommissions. While pointing out the drain on our democracy of “entitlements”, lawyers & litigation, duplication in govt… he wholly omits the financial and social costs of our massive military expenditures. Also, while pointing out perceived flaws home ownership as “sopping up big amounts of capital therefore made unavailable for industrial renewal” he misses the huge piles of capital in corporate coffers and private holdings looking for higher and higher rates of return, not in “industrial renewal” but more ofttimes in the “spectronics” he illustrates. Still, Phillips does fine work, one of the few conservatives that speaks with a straight tongue.
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