The pendulum swing of ‘progressive’ condemnation of disbelievers in their cause has run into another buffer over the backlash against banks closing accounts because they dislike the political views of a client. A highly critical No 10 has put in motion legislation to impose on banks free speech duties otherwise they could lose their licence.
Though the government is hardly blameless either in the arena of free speech following last year’s Cabinet Office rules banning speakers who have criticised government policy from addressing civil servants.
It has been a weird few years for free speech in the UK including the ‘coercive control of language’ element to the trans debate. Andrew Neil described it as “a new form of McCarthyism. In woke companies, as well as in media, public bodies, charities and academia, people are being fired, sidelined, marginalised or generally penalised because they won’t kowtow to the latest fashionable views.”
Is it the great bleeding heart of Neptune in Pisces which howls in pain over one slighted group being victimized (or not given centre stage) and demands the greater majority give up its rights to salve their wound?
There is a fanatical streak in Neptune – Joseph McCarthy had a Scorpio Sun trine Neptune with Neptune opposition Uranus. When McCarthyism got under way in the US, the SA North Node was conjunct the USA Pluto (opposition Mercury) which is more than prone to obsessive thinking and bullying debate. But laissez-faire UK has never much gone in for fads and fetishes where opinions were concerned (I don’t think).
Neptune in Pisces has not had an obviously outsize effect on the UK chart except at the start when it was conjunct the UK Pluto on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Neptune sextile Uranus in 2012/13. This is when David Cameron decided to hold the Brexit Referendum. (And because I am floundering around trying to find a pattern – the UK Pluto was activated years earlier in 1997 at Princess Diana’s death when the UK lost its wits in an outpouring of atypical national mourning. So the UK Pluto does have a powerful effect.) Along the way of the past few years tr Neptune has been sextile the UK Sun and Mars was well as trine the Midheaven, Moon and Neptune. With this year the Solar Arc Sun square the 2nd house financial Neptune, keyed up by the recent Lunar Eclipse which may explain the banking connection – and tr Uranus was also opposition that 2nd house Neptune earlier this year in the 18 degree spotlight.
I’m still no wiser about quite what has sparked up this supposedly liberal intolerance in the UK.
This year on the UK chart there is a deadlocked Solar Arc Pluto square the UK Sun which is waning now; and an approaching Solar Arc Saturn opposition the UK Uranus, exact in a few months – which will set up a conflict between the old versus the new, the forces of repression colliding with the forces for progress. Though in this topsy turvy situation with the ‘progressives’ turning totalitarian it’s tricky to see who is in which camp.
Tr Pluto in Aquarius trine the UK Uranus from early 2024 for two years might be expected to activate a robust free speech debate – and more so when Uranus moves into Gemini in 2025.
I faintly remember from philosophy lectures a concept about the social contract – that in a fair and decent society there should be a ring fence of freedom around every individual which extends only in so far as it does not impinge on the rights of others. With the emergence of identity politics, the loudest voices are clamouring for supremacy for their special interests at the expense of others who hold different views. They want society to be created in their image with non-believers banished into the desert as non-persons.
Against everything that Uranus holds dear. What is weirder is that it is a total contradiction of essence of diversity. Putting value on difference.
It may or may not be relevant that Farage’s Saturn is conjunct the UK’s Pluto and JK Rowling’s Mercury is in opposition. They tap into the UK’s cultural power issues.
Comments welcome.
A lot of America’s problems stem from a codified constitution. The right to bear arms, just being one of them.
Janice Turner in The Times today some interesting observations.
‘According to a teacher who works across a group of large secondary schools, the fashion for girls identifying as boys has peaked. Now Year 7s roll their eyes at pronoun-obsessed sixth formers, younger TikTokers see non-binary stars as silly, self-aggrandising and passé. “The girls who took up boys’ names because it was trendy — and wound up their parents — have moved on,” she says. “But the few who persist are very vulnerable.”
‘For too long schools, misinformed by activist groups, have inadvertently funnelled troubled children towards transition when their role is to be a neutral space where, without pressure, they can figure out who they truly are.’
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teachers-need-help-against-gender-ideology-pk9bf6p2h
Thanks Marjorie, an interesting shift in the prevailing zeitgeist. If you look at the UK Equality and Human Rights Act, it is a bit of a minefield regarding discrimination and gender reassignment. It was passed on 1 October, 2010. What’s interesting astrologically is the Sun conjunct Saturn in Libra (7), square the Nodes in Capricorn, with Pluto close to the NN – and the UK Sun. Uranus 28 Pisces is conjunct Jupiter 27 Pisces – so there’s tr Neptune now, causing even more inflation and confusion. And adding a kind of “religious” element to this endless debate. I thought of Libra’s 7th house meanings of alliances, marriage, and open enemies, as well as those scales of justice representing the sign. The Sun/Saturn for the 2010 Act is conjunct the UK ascendant.
Of course people should be protected, but some of the extreme activism has been so aggressive it is creating a poisonous atmosphere. The few trans women I’ve known personally, through work and socially, were not activists since they had transitioned before this current era. They were all doing well in their chosen fields, and nobody really took any notice. Clearly, there will always be those who are hateful towards others, and they present a danger to everyone. I hope balance (heart of Libra?) can be found soon.
This is a fascinating and helpful discussion! Thank you all contributors!
Unfortunately, extreme “woke”ness and intolerance can veer into defamation, such as around the delicate issue of perceptions of racism.
As I white Canadian, I can hardly imagine what fellow citizens of colour have to endure and how it could understandably embitter some. A few years ago, I was working in a Government of Ontario office where staff took turns serving at an Information desk. My friend Natasha, who is Black, once quietly told me that some clients would come to the desk while she was sitting at it and address their questions to white or Asian staff standing behind her as if she wouldn’t know how to answer questions! Awful!
Yet obviously one form of racism doesn’t excuse other forms of racism. Today came a tragic report from my city (see: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-toronto-principal-bullied-over-false-charge-of-racism-dies-from-suicide). A very decent-sounding school principal who happened to be white killed himself because of: a) a patently false accusation of racism by the staff of KOJO Institute, a company hired by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to do training about diversity and inclusion and b) punishment by his own employer, the TDSB, on the basis of that accusation.
The school principal’s crime was to question the assertion that Canada was more racist than the United States. Ours is supposedly a democracy which believes in free speech so long as it doesn’t hurt others. Yet for this principal to admit that Canada’s isn’t perfect but disagree with the negative comparison to the U.S., he was repeatedly denigrated and humiliated as a “white supremacist” by “facilitators” who were unbelieveably disrespectful and unprofessional towards a person taking one of their sessions. Maybe the bullies were enacting revenge for racism they had endured at the hands of white people.
Yet this had a terrible mental toll on the accused man and the stress of his lawsuit against TDSB management finally caught up with him. (The TDSB started then dropped a lawsuit against KOJO Institute. After the principal’s death, I hope they revive the lawsuit.)
Canada shares Common Law with other English-speaking countries. I don’t know if KOJO’s accusation was public enough to constitute the basis for a civil suit or criminal charges for defamation but the accusation certainly harmed the principal’s reputation with his employer on the basis of a false statement. I truly hope there are repurcussions for the name-callers in this case because of what it led to and because there are manipulative false accusers of racism in Canada who undermine the combating of genuine racism.
Really sad to read about this incident, about a person who seem to be an altogether decent person, who challenged the consensus (which ironically at one time would have been seen as the liberal position).
We are in a period where accusation is good enough as proof of having a negative opinion or carried out a negative act, because we know that victims (or people who declare themselves victims) do not lie. Their “victimhood” deprives them of human malice and they are embued with the plenitude of truth.
They forget that pendulum’s swing back, as the planets go around their revolutions through the zodiac. And their triumph today will be the cause of much worse treatment in days to come.
Thank you, Marjorie and all here for this discussion. I am old enough to remember when woke was specifically an African American vernacular term. In our community being awake and/or woke was specifically about navigating our way through potentially violent racist terrain, whether on the job, or travelling or in education, etc. The mainstream use and rightwing abuse of this term is actually hurtful to trying to win everyday practical racial justice. In pointing this out I run the risk of being seen as having a hierarchical view of oppression. Which I don’t, but what I do have is an acute observation of how parts of one movement can be co-opted to prop up new and different demands from other groups.
Once upon a time in the US free speech was allowed only by white people and klansmen marched on the streets of Washington D.C among other places, often triggering massacres of Black citizens. Then the US entered a slightly more civilised period where free speech was allowed if it wasn’t unduly provocative. But then came the day when klansmen were once again allowed to march in towns and cities. And then the day came when the tea party burned effigies of President Barack Obama without real censure. In the US the line between free speech and violence can be paper thin.
Thank you as well for looking at McCarthyism because in those days of the 1950’s, race, gender, sexuality issues all got lumped together as part of a national political peril associated with communism. And this continues today with these issues being seen as emblematic of the Democratic Party which many Americans see as socialis (LOL).So there are clear parallels with current attempts to turn all dissension into either a great peril or a load of nonsense. Free speech, like political, cultural and economic power, has never been equally available. Can we stop ignoring the dangers of the dark web? Can we stop hurling insults at marginalised groups? Can we stop punching down on workers, refugees, migrants, the homeless, disabled, rape victims, children, single mums, etc and instead find ways to influence the decision makers, the real power brokers? We are all losing rights to protest, to vote, to control our reproduction while many corporations are making bumper profits and politicians are acting as pirates.
Authoritarianism is a real threat under Aquarius but my hope for Pluto in Aquarius is that our focus shifts to sharing, to building safer communities, to creating agendas that build connection and reconciliation.
I must admit I always found the USA approach to free speech alarming since it takes no account of infringing on other people’s rights. In all societies there need to be limits on freedom in order for the society to function.
But having said that there is a need to allow for a variance of views.
America seems to me to be going down a dark road at the moment and one can only hope Pluto clearing the Return may knock some civilized sense into lawmakers.
I think part of the problem in the USA is that those on the left don’t seem to have have a coherent vision of a better society apart from a competing ragbag of different interest groups based around race, sex, disability etc. None of them have a program to tackle the fundamental economic inequality in US society which is actually the big divide. It is hardly surprising that corporations are happy to endorse particular agendas in the left so long as they don’t threaten the bottom line. Thus plenty of mission statements endorsing ESG and training courses to staff telling them how to avoid unconscious bias etc because ultimately it costs them nothing. Just don’t be surprised if they dump you on the breadline if it looks like this quarters profits are not going to enable the management to cash in their share options. Moreover if things start to look sticky they can always play off one interest group against another. The worst thing about this situation is how US ideas have infected European and particularly British politics since the Thatcher era. It has been particularly corrosive on our public life.
@ Anita F,
You are right about Aquarius having a dark side. It can represent bigotry, racism, and xenophobia.
I certainly hope things don’t manifest in darker ways than what we’ve already had to endure here in the U.S.
I am a bit concerned about the Sun-Pluto conjunction at the mid-heavan in Aquarius that will be in place in January 2025. I just hope that aspect does not bring more authoritarianism for the U.S.
I try not think about it too much. I just remain hopeful that voters (women and young people in particular) will remain vigilant and determined to keep their rights.
When I look at charts that have that neptune uranus pile up in Capricorn (late millennials?)I think of these extreme left views. I suspect a lot of the key individual players have this signature, the planetary archetypes for both are so out of place in Cap. Sort of all come into its own with the sextile from transiting neptune and the trine from transiting uranus these last few years.
Uranus Neptune can be fanatical and sticks top its opinions even in the face of incontrovertible evidence their views are wrong.
@ Louisa,
I’m an older early 1980s-born Millennial now in my quadragenerian years. It’s interesting that my generation was viewed as radically liberal by the older people back in the early 2000s because we were the ones supported Al Gore in the 2000 election l, we spoke out against and resisted Islamophobia after the September 11, 2001 attacks, we were against (and protested against) the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and we voted for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Today, however, the Generation Z people hardly consider us Millennials progressive. Even when I remind them of where we stood on the issues, the Generation Z people say we were just a bunch of “neoliberals” with only a superficial interest in making progress.
Also, I noticed that many Generation Z people don’t even like the word “liberal,” they see “liberalism” as a “talking the talk” but acquiescening to the oppressor at the end of the day.
As a result, many Generation Z social justice warriors insist on making a distinction between “liberals” and “progressives” (a label they prefer).
Anyway, I suppose every successor generation likes to think of themselves as being on the right side of things (I know we Millennials thought ourselves as being ahead of the Generation X people).
However, at the end of the day, pragmatism needs to prevail. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that many Generation Z progressives have rejected this notion. They seem to think that any negotiation or compromise on ideas they’re passionate about would mean complicity to the “oppressor.”
The “all or nothing” approach is seldom successful.
I suppose the classic example of how Enlightenment and Reason can end up with Intolerance and Terror is the French Revolution. It started with the ideals of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality and ended up with mass executions. Interestingly though the Revolution started off as an attempt to overthrow the concept of divinely ordained monarchy and religious orthodoxy the promotion of reason alone was not acceptable to the likes of Robespierre who established the Cult of the Supreme Being as the national religion of the new Republic. Perhaps significantly the Committee of Public Safety was dominated by individuals who thought reason was only a means to a higher end which was virtue. Tragically they thought this could be mandated by the state. Ultimately it was the attempt to impose this goal which led to so much bloodshed in France. Perhaps the lesson from this period is that neither individuals nor society can be progressed or perfected in this manner.
I was thinking about the French Revolution era, and also Pitt the Younger – partly because of the new Labour MP for Selby, Keir Mather, aged 25. Pitt was PM at 24. You can certainly see Robespierre’s (6 May 1758) Cult of the Supreme Being in his chart, Pluto, Jupiter, and MC in Sagittarius, Neptune and Mars conjunct in Leo. One year later, in May 1759 William Pitt was born. Pitt brought in the UK 1801 Union. Like the 1801 UK chart, he had Mars in Taurus, his Mars was square natal Neptune in Leo. Mars widely opposes Neptune for the UK. Both men had Saturn in Pisces.
Also, as a reaction to the French Revolution, Pitt cracked down on what had been regular Georgian riots and bouts of civil unrest. Although very few were able to vote, they still reacted strongly to political machinations. As did their robust, rude, and often vicious cartoons – the Georgian equivalent of social media perhaps, displayed in shop windows for everyone to see.
“The situation in France resulted in a range of measures passed in Britain during the 1790s that were designed to restrict political protest. This was a period of great repression in the country that has been described as Prime Minister William Pitt’s ‘Reign of Terror’. A series of legal measures were implemented to restrict the activities of political radicals, including the restriction of political meetings, the banning of allegedly treasonable publications and the extensive use of spies and informers. At the same time, large loyalist associations were formed throughout the country pledging allegiance to the Crown.” (bl.uk)
This era was also a Pluto in Aquarius time.
Very much an amateur here, but as both of you have pointed out, Pluto was in Aquarius during the bloodiest, most tyrannous part of the English Reformation, as well as the French Revolution. Neptune was sextile Pluto during the English Reformation and trine Pluto during the French Revolution.
The parallels are worrying, I can only hope there are other aspects I have’nt spotted which will mitigate against wholesale bloodshed.
Re the words “repression” and “progress”, I have come to think that the words “tradition” and “the future” might be more appropriate, albeit less emotive.
Since Pluto was in Aquarius when the Council of Trent met I think it is fair to say that each Reformation begets is own Counter Reformation. Similarly the French Revolution generated Conservative reactionary measures in England and elsewhere in Europe. Each side ends up as a sort of a mirror image of its opponents, often using very similar techniques to achieve its ends.
Good point. There’s hope then.
Mind you, William Pitt the Younger, the PM in England 1783 – 1801 though a Tory, considered himself a Whig, ie a Liberal. There was no such thing as Conservative back then.
Would this also explain the repressive Israeli behavior towards the Palestinians?
Thanks!
Also of interest re the French Revolution and liberal intolerance is the decriminalisation of homosexuality at the time of the Revolution. However, despite being legal, things weren’t quite so straightforward. Are they ever?! The role of the French media then is interesting to think about, in light of so much division around current trans debates, Twitter frenzies, women’s rights and so on. Women’s rights at that time did not progress very much at all, despite activists such as Olympe de Gouges, and her Declaration of the Rights of Women (1791). Her Sun in Taurus, 17, squares Jupiter 20 Aquarius and Uranus 17 Aquarius (7 May 1748). The ‘Equality’ part of the Revolution seemed hard to achieve in reality.
“In 1791 the Constituent Assembly of France promulgated a new penal code abolishing the criminalization of “sodomy.” Although same-sex relations between adults have never been illegal in France, at least since 1791, police surveillance of same-sex activity continued throughout the revolutionary period and after. Three Parisian police chiefs of the nineteenth century wrote memoirs that betray an obsession with the suspected connection between criminality and sexual deviancy: Louis Canler, Félix Carlier, and Gustave Macé. As the figure of the “invert” took shape in the medical literature, the growth of a mass circulation press amplified the threats posed by homosexuality to social order in the popular imagination. Popular conceptions of the dangers posed by “inverts” were shaped by the reporting of homosexual scandals.”
(academic.oup.com)
Two telco’s in New Zealand stated on Twitter we do not want terf customers..meaning women who think women also have rights. They stuck by their statement. Never mind that one Telco which took over from the Post Office, has customers there for fifty years who defend their own rights as women. They lost customers.
Marjorie perhaps also have a look at how the Emergencies Act In Canada was implemented to add to this mix.
The extrajudicial ability to freeze and confiscate bank accounts and credit cards was enabled by the Act. The banks themselves acted as agents for the government. After act was lifted, the government finagled the ability to carry it forward.
The order requires financial institutions—including banks, credit unions, co-ops, loan companies, trusts, and even cryptocurrency wallets—to stop “providing any financial or related services” to anyone associated with the protests (a “designated person”). This has resulted in frozen accounts, stranded money and canceled credit cards.
@ Ava,
I agree with you. There is indeed a significant difference between classical liberalism (an ideology I often align with) and far-left extremism.
The same can be said about traditional conservatism vs. alt-right and far-right extremism.
I have noticed that while classical liberals (I would include myself in this category) appear more fixated on actual public policies that could improve society (like healthcare reform, social safety-net programs, environmental conservation initiatives, etc.), those who self-identify as “progressive” and to a lesser extent “woke” (although, many progressives find the term disparaging), appear to focus more on amplifying social and cultural issues pertaining to ethnicity, race, gender, sexual identity, and intersectionality.
While I tend to think any form of social progress should be welcomed, I don’t think demonizing those who don’t strictly adhere to a far-left ideological rulebook is conductive to any cause.
I am bewildered by the liberal splashing about of the term “far left” with regard to Trans stuff. Trans seems to me to be Peak Individual, My Rights to do What I Want When I Want and Damn Everybody Else. Being Left Wing has always seemed to me to be about the Collective, not Individual Rights. So Trans stuff seems to me to be fuelled by far-right libertarian ideology, even as the Far Right speak out so very strongly against it.
That’s why the whole world seems so very topsy-turvy to me, nothing is clear, everything is muddled, opaque, who or what is driving what? My mind turns to the likes of Cambridge Analytica, masters of manipulation.
And I also think that the Trans situation has proved very useful in deflecting the attention of the young in particular away from more pressing Collective issues, Climate Change being top of that list. Whatever happened to the school climate strikes? Gone!
Do you know any trans people?
I have four friends with trans kids and recently spent an afternoon with a young trans woman, providing an outstanding performance at her job as a tour guide. Had she not told us she was trans when she knew she was safe with us, we never would have known.
My sense of most trans people is that they just want the opportunity live their own best life without being demonized as “the other” to be damned for whatever convenient political or religious reason.
Please show some compassion for people born into the wrong body just trying to live their lives and achieve some level of happiness at no one else’s expense.
Bravo! I think this over-focus on a very small minority group is quite disturbing. There are many trans people just wanting to live their lives whereas people claiming to be liberal seem to parrot and repeat the kind of headlines that the Daily Mail. Stop making this into something it’s not. Humanity first.
Yes, I do know trans people, am a lefty/liberal and have spent much of my life campaigning for women’s and gay rights. The “trans community”, or at least some more recent and extremist purported members of it, would perhaps do well to stop targeting women and women’s rights, in that case, which has been a notable and changed feature of the last few years from the old days of a small minority of transsexuals, who are often, it must be said, also targeted by the new members who are frankly not doing them any favours at all. It’s not ‘disturbing’ at all that people have noticed (I know a great many left wing women who did so years before the Daily Mail) and are saying “hang on a minute, we need to talk about this”; it’s disturbing that so many supposedly liberal people are enabling it, and failing to question what needs questioning, including some truly regressive and sexist ideas which are being imposed, without discussion or consent, with those questioning unfairly demonised, often lied about, some ousted and bullied from their jobs. (And nobody is literally “born in the wrong body.” Some people feel they are, and there are a number of reasons for this.) I’ve no doubt you’re well intentioned and think you’re being ‘kind’; but the road to hell, as we know, is often paved that way, and in truth there is some behaviour from some transactivists going on which is a great deal more than unkind- including physical threats- and needs calling out; let’s just say there are often people in our widely diverse society who are in truth more vulnerable than those who shout the loudest and are currently elevated for fashionable views, while others are left behind and often not listened to at all.
@ Chris Romero
The term “woke” has been attached to progressives by the right-wing, so most do indeed find it disparaging. Like you though, I consider myself liberal which I definitely delineate from the far-left. As an aside, I’m also a mature student in university right now and I’m often older than some of my professors. These last two years since the pandemic started to wind down have brought a sea-change in terms of teaching compared to pre-pandemic lectures. I’m often left stunned by their ignorance as most of them have never had a job outside of academia and have no idea of how the real world works. The faculty, along with their 18-yr old counterparts all seemingly live in a Twitter-cloud, preach sanctimonious tirades about abuses of power (despite the fact that many of them are wealthy, highly educated, and have tenure that allows for legacy admissions and nepotism for relatives), and are completely disabused from any awareness of their participation in current divisions. It’s all so surreal. Anyway, enough venting, I’ll leave it there, but that book I mentioned is a really helpful read (and it’s only 160pgs)
A lot of activists today are self righteous brainwashed bullies
I blame the Brexit debacle. That those who ‘won’ by a paper thin majority are unwilling to see that the method by which they gained that result was flawed. The only way they think they can keep control of the narrative is to drown out all dissent and others have jumped on the same bandwagon. The polarisation is currently pointed up by the several oppositions being activated at the moment: Mars in Virgo opp. Saturn at 6 deg. Pisces, Sun 29 Cancer opp. Pluto in final deg Capricorn, plus the Nodes moving into Aries and Libra thereby activating their rulers, Mars and Venus. Maybe the lesson is indeed learning to accept that there will always be differences and not agreeing does not make the other person ‘wrong’. It’s a tough thing to accept if you are desperate for certainty.
The worst intolerance is from the remainers who wanted to overturn a democratic vote. They tend also to go along with the trans orthodoxy and identity politics.
So you are wrong.
Foreigners really don’t understand this country.
Really? That is nonsense. I would have thought identity politics was the complete antithesis of remainers. Foreigners can often be more accurate as outsiders at seeing the truth.
@Kersten: “So you are wrong” : precisely my point! We don’t further the debate by accusing others of being wrong. We first have to accept that everyone thinks they are right before we can address the real issues. I don’t agree with you but that doesn’t mean you are wrong. Really! P.S. I am not foreign just no longer living in the UK.
Am I write in thinking the UK’s 1801 Chart has its Moon Quintile Uranus. With the Sun/Moon midpoint on the Nodes? That is quite unique! Surely we have the potential to be incredibly creative and a balanced country. Or do I have my calculations incorrect – again!
There appears to be a particular issue with commercial companies now trying to impose their corporate policies on such things as sexual identity onto their customers. This has impacted people other than Farage as recent articles in the media have pointed out. It is a particular problem with the financial system as the move away from cash as the main medium of exchange means a bank account is pretty much essential to be able to participate in society. Depriving someone of access to that facility is pretty much like cutting off their water supply. The latter is actually prohibited under U.K. law. I suspect banks may end up facing similar restrictions.
I am not sure what is triggering the process astrologically. I suppose it maybe a generational influence. Pluto in Scorpio is not shy about wielding power in subtle and sometimes insidious ways. Destructive self righteousness is probably a feature that one might associate with Pluto in Sagittarius. People under these influences have entered companies and institutions while Pluto in Capricorn so they may be starting to modify how they behaves. This would have a particularly profound influence on banking with Uranus in Taurus. Neptune in Pisces would tend to promote the dissolution of their former modus operandi and perhaps encourage delusional and even underhand behaviour.. It is all a bit worrying as Pluto moves into Aquarius and Neptune into Aries. When that process happened in the reign of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Queen Mary tolerance was not exactly to the fore.
The 1960’s was an explosion of talking new ideas and freedom. Looking back it was a great time to be young and explore, without gang warfare. Scroll on sixty years and we are now being supressed again. It feels like a New Religion, which is Neptune and Pisces. Everything a gang is putting forward has their own demigod, to be admired and held up as the new saviour of our society. I freely admit that I am depressed now. I can’t remember a time, when you turn on, tune in or read online, only to be confronted with activists becoming more and more violent, contentious and determined to promote their tribal gang, as right, not only right, but the only way. Which means, like Marjorie has written, the majority of us are seen as wrong on a daily basis.
UK’s great gift to the world is creativity. Science, the arts, engineering, design and so on. Ruler Venus in the 5th. That Nadine Dorries was our culture minister under the fat criminal is enough of a paradigm of our dreadful decline imo, not to mention the obvious unmitigated disaster of Brexit.
Well,when you’ll find actual Nazi sympathizers in your Government and a person earnestly believing in early 20th century racial theories as a Speaker because of a “social contract” that has prevented Liberal press calling out racism and general harrassment, this all seems pretty trivial.
Except, maybe, in the UK’s case, having a codified Constitution, that would save you guys from a lot of embarrassment.
Astrology aside, I really wish we could start to differentiate between liberal politics and progressive/woke politics. For anyone’s who’s interested, Susan Neiman, a philosopher with the Einstein Forum in Germany wrote a book called “The Left is Not Woke” which does a really good job at detailing the three primary differences between the two: Universalism vs Tribalism, Justice vs Power, and progress vs reactionary victimhood. Even if you don’t read the book, another way to look at it (using astrology) is: Universalism vs Uranus in Aries, Justice vs Pluto in Capricorn, Progress vs Neptune in Pisces.
(Apologies, Marjorie for interrupting this forum for a paid message 😉 Now back to your regularly scheduled programming )
Thank you Ava for mentioning Susan Neiman and her book. Really helpful