It used to be that if a person in Congress hoped for a position such as a committee chair, he or she got it mainly through seniority and service. Within a couple of years, they started having to put money into the party coffers in order to get ahead, a topic studied mainly by Tom Ferguson. That just drove the whole system even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector (increasingly the financial sector).
This cycle resulted in a tremendous concentration of wealth, mainly in the top tenth of one percent of the population. Meanwhile, it opened a period of stagnation or even decline for the majority of the population. People got by, but by artificial means such as longer working hours, high rates of borrowing and debt, and reliance on asset inflation like the recent housing bubble. Pretty soon those working hours were much higher in the United States than in other industrial countries like Japan and various places in Europe. So there was a period of stagnation and decline for the majority alongside a period of sharp concentration of wealth. The political system began to dissolve.
Month: May 2012
[[A plaque from Achaemenid times depicting Artaxerxes II (404-359 BC ) and goddess Anahita, riding a lion – in the background is the clear depiction of the sun.]]
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Anahita is a Persian Moon Goddess whose following originated in Babylonia and later spread to Egypt. She is adorned in a golden scarf, gold earrings, and a jeweled crown. Legend has it that Her cloak is made from 32 otter skins that She had embroidered in gold.“Mighty Anahita with splendor will shine. Incarnated as a youthful divine. Full of charm her beauty she will display. Her hip with charming belt she will array. Straight-figured, she is as noble bride, Freeborn, herself in puckered dress will hide. Her cloak is all decorated with gold, With precious dress, Anahita we shall behold.” (Original poem based on Kashani’s Persian folk songs)
Anahita is described by the Zorastorians as an exceptionally tall and strong Goddess with a commanding appearance. She was the Divine energy for good that was believed to flow through the kings of Iran, and She protected them from their Northern invaders. She also has a war aspect. She is the Virgin Warrior Goddess who rides Her chariot across the skies; it is pulled by four white horses—wind, rain, cloud, and hail.
It has been said that Anahita has celestial fountains in Her stars which pour water onto the earth and make it fertile. In that respect, She is known as the guardian of human conception, fertility, and childbirth. She purifies both the womb and the sperm and is linked with Sacred sexuality and Divine union.
It is Yule 777 B.C. and somewhere on a beach by the Caspian Sea, a young Magi has been keeping a vigil. His solitary fire is the only light that can be seen for miles around; he recites the Aban Yasht”, the hymn to the angel goddess, Anahita. The Magi’s name is Zoraster. Besides the waves gently crashing against the shore, this is all that can be heard:
“Angel Goddess of all the waters upon the earth and the source of the cosmic ocean; she who drives a chariot pulled by four horses; your symbol is the eight-rayed star. You are the source of life, purifying the seed of all males and the wombs of all females, also cleansing the milk in the breasts of all mothers. Your connection with life, means warriors in battle prayed to you for survival and victory. A maid, fair of body, most strong, tall formed, high-girded, pure,…wearing a mantle fully embroidered with gold; ever holding the baresma (sacred plant) in your hand…you wear square golden earrings on your ears …a golden necklass around your beautiful neck…Upon your head…a golden crown, with a hundred stars, with eight rays…will fillets streaming down.
(Verses 126-128 of the Aban Yasht 5)
Maybe Logic: The Lives & Ideas Of Robert Anton Wilson (2003)
Gotta watch that later.
(Source: http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/)
Chomsky: The Jobs Aren’t Coming Back
For many people in the United States, there’s a pervasive sense of hopelessness, sometimes despair. I think it’s quite new in American history. And it has an objective basis.
In the 1930s, unemployed working people could anticipate that their jobs would come back. If you’re a worker in manufacturing today — the current level of unemployment there is approximately like the Depression — and current tendencies persist, those jobs aren’t going to come back.
Throughout history the connection between the snake and the feminine principle has been profound and intimate: from Eve to the Serpent Lady of Ashtoreth and Kadesh; from Ishtar, the Babylonian Lady of Vision to the Serpent Goddess of Crete; from Kebhut, the goddess of freshness who played a part in Egyptian funerary ceremonies to the asp that transported Cleopatra to the afterlife; from Greece’s ancient Earth Mother Gaea to the Golden Age’s Queen, Hera, and her step-daughter Athena, goddess of wisdom; from east to west, serpents have always tempted, personified, accompanied, awakened, transformed, and empowered women and goddesses.
