September 17, 2004;
Election 2004 & Other Ruminationsby
Claudia Dikinis:I've gotten a lot of mail from Starcats readers and readers of Sally McDonald's Astroworld in recent days asking me to come forward with predictions for Election 2004. I am grateful for this and I thank you. I have been reluctant to write anything for nearly a year now for three reasons.First, it became an exercise in futility to write about the daily, weekly or monthly shock and awe of the Bush adminsitration's reformist/revisionist practices. Born of the three Saturn in Taurus -Uranus in Aquarius squares of 2000 and 2001, the unchecked Uranus side of the square won out. Unbridled, unconscious, and without shame, this most important of all the political energies launched a few fanatics on a course of reckless, extremist policy making which turns out to be the intellectual product of simple-minded throwbacks to the 1950's.
What I said in numerous articles from 2000 to 2003 summed up what we all knew to be true. We were and are in great trouble because of the Bush administration. My predictions of disaster in Iraq and how Karl Rove would thrive on dark and dirty machinations have been proven true. It didn't take the mind of a Nostradamus to work all that out. It was abundantly clear which way the tide would go. All you needed to do was1) examine the 1999 Fixed Grand Square Eclipse; the
Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Taurus in 2000 (also the
mega line up of transiting planets in that sign in May
2000/the USA's 6th house of the military); and2) the three Saturn-Uranus squares mentioned above:
Saturn=brittle. Uranus=disruptive. SNAP! (Visualize
THE TOWER card in the Tarot deck!)
Second, when
the United States invaded Iraq on March 18-19, 2003, I went into a long
depression that re-emerged again in
February 2004
at the death of my cat, Draggie, one of the three original Starcats. Draggie
sat on my feet when I coded the
original "html"
for the very first page that constituted Starcats.com in early February
1998. He was (and always will be) at the
heart of things
here.
Third, I got
tired of the hate mail. Since I'm not being paid a couple hundred grand
a year to write about this stuff or talk on TV
about it, I
couldn't come up with a sufficient reason to subject myself to it. Starcats
has always been "free." It's my gift to the
world. I figure
if anyone doesn't like the gift, hit the back button on your browser and
bug off. I don't want to hear about it.
Contrary to what
you might think, dear reader, I got as many hate letters from the so-called
"peaceful Left" as I did from the
vitriolic Right.
The Left lambasted me because it thought me "dark," "pessimistic" and "unspiritual."
That would be as if
politics and
the realm of "saturn" (earth) were actually compassionate and uplifting.
Politics isn't, and only a very few beings in
history have
really been transcendant, so let's move on.
Both the Right
and Left went into paroxysms over the article I did on Karl Rove. At this
juncture, the outing of CIA agent
Valerie Plame
In GOP hack Robert Novak's newspaper column (Fmr. Amb. Joe Wilson's wife),
the Swift Boat attacks on Kerry;
Zell Miller's
ugly McCarthyite speech at the GOP Convention; and Dick Cheney's intimating
that a vote for Kerry is a vote for
death and terror
should be enough to prove the point. That's Karl Rove's "vision" for America.
He is the orchestrator of the
aforementioned
and that's just some of his side work. That is true whether you're on the
Right and love Karly boy or on the Left
and think me
"grim." (See, Starcats' June 10, 2003, "In Defense of Mundane Astrology"
I know you're
hoping that I'll predict a victory for John Kerry on Nov 2. You will probably
be disappointed at discovering that I
don't see that
happening. GOP Right Wing extremists dominate the United States. The fanatic
wing of the GOP controls all
three branches
of the government. More and more extremist judges are being appointed to
the federal bench. All bets are off.
There are numerous
planetary patterns that show a deepening fissure in American politics both
in the short and the long term.
For now let's
look at:
1) Bush is coming upon the first hit of his Saturn return (26 Cancer),
a point that rolls over the USA's Mercury and
opposes the USA's Pluto.
Saturn opposite Pluto is probably the most savage and brutal alignment
of what we classically call "malefics." (The
conjunction and square aspects are also). You will recall that Saturn's
transiting opposition to Pluto from Gemini in
2001 led to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The attacks were the physical
manifestation of cosmic powers
locked inside the two planets. The dialogue between the two is dire. Saturn
is unyielding. Pluto is Shiva, the
destroyer. The more brittle the condition, the more violent the resistance
causing Pluto to act more lethally.
Add to foregoing that the USA's Mercury of "the message" (24 Cancer) is
conjunct Bush's natal Saturn (26 Cancer)
and is in opposition to the USA's Pluto (27 Capricorn). This planetary
dialogue is one of utter disdain for what we
commonly refer to as "civilized." Pluto is savage. It (and the other outer
planets) care nothing for social convention.
Saturn, stern and punishing, shows itself as a crushing force when in confrontation
with light-hearted Mercury and
seething Pluto. This is a recipe for a political blood lust associated
with warmongering. The transiting Mars cycle is
the detonator. Both, Mars and Uranus (recently in dialogue across the Virgo-Pisces
axis) are explosive. With
Mercury, it's a "take no prisoners" propaganda blitz. Mars's position in
the "information" sign of Gemini in the
USA's 7th house is the resounding phrase: "You're either with us or against
us."
Karl Rove's tactics, for example, are a savage assault on truth and decency.
His style of undermining (Pluto) the
perceived enemy (Mars in the 7th house) by lies, rumors and innuendo hark
back to one of the core identifiers of
the Bush "presidency." Neptune of propaganda and scandal sits in the 10th
house of the 2001 Inauguration chart.
Sadly, Neptune is again in the 10th house of the Inauguration 2005 chart.
Using Koch houses, Neptune is
intercepted in the 10th drawing Chiron at 27 Capricorn onto the Midheaven
of the chart. The scandals become
more subtle (the interception) but the wounds will be crushingly (Chiron
opposite Saturn in the 4th) obvious.
The election contest then is blood sport between the Democrats, who abjure
anything dirtier than a wine glass, and
the Republicans who thrive on rolling in the gutter (Ann Coulter is a good
example of a gutter fighter). What passes
for civility and common sense in American society have become increasingly
more coarse and vulgar (Saturn-Pluto).
The election campaign seems more like gladitorial games than a grappling
with issues that confront us at the new
millennium.
2) John Kerry's decision to run for the presidency (official announcement)
on September 3, 2003, 10:15 am,
Charleston, SC, Asc: 22 Libra, has Mercury retrograde in the 12th house.
Mercury retrograde is tantamount to a
message that keeps getting revised and can't be heard (buried in the 12th
house) over the din of Right Wing
propaganda.
The Kerry "Announcement" Ascendant at 22 Libra will be hit by the October
13th Solar eclipse (21 Libra). This
eclipse will have an effect on the presidential debates during the run-up
to the election. John Kerry could be helped
if Bush slips and falls on his own tongue. Since eclipses are wild cards
and, like Uranus, are unpredictable by nature,
something dreadful such as the rising blood tide in Iraq, a terrorist attack
on our own soil, or an assassination
attempt on either Bush or Kerry could derail the process.
The Lunar Eclipse of October 27th (Moon 5 Taurus, Sun 5 Scorpio) directly
affects the military and centers around
Iraq but also refocuses the debate around Bush and Kerry's participation
(or lack of it in Bush's case) in the
Vietnam War.
The Saturn Return
of Nixon's resignation of the White House and the planetary patterns that
influenced it (and the Vietnam
War) 30 years
ago might well indicate that Bush gets the White House again this November
only to lose it as Nixon did during
his second term.
Whether Bush
finishes a second term or not, he is likely to be identified as the most
reviled president in American history. (At
this point,
greater minds than mine will ever be have already said that Bush is the
worst president in American history). His
administration
will unravel like a ball of yarn in a cat's paws. Bush himself will descend
a mental slippery slope while living in
seclusion and
paranoia. It's is what Richard Nixon did when the lid exploded off Watergate.
George Bush does
not have the strength and fortitude that characterized Richard Nixon's
generation. Nixon went bad, yes, but
he at least
started out as a humble man who worked hard. He developed his intelligence
by excelling in academics and by
cultivating
a naturally curious mind. He was the last Republican president to have
a social conscience. Nixon believed in helping the
poor. He believed
that tax dollars should be appropriated for social services to provide
for those less fortunate. By contrast, Ronald
Reagan's presidency
in the 1980's steered the GOP to the Right and into the "greed is good
era," of gilded age politics. Nixon
sacrificed reputation
for power. Bush sacrifices the very little he is on the alter of dirty
mammon.
Will the Bush
administration, if it secures a second term go down just like Nixon? Well,
something fairly close to that scenario
seems likely.
As Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself; it rhymes." Planetary
cycles reveal to us the rhymes of
history.
From what I've
analyzed in numerous charts (and assimilated from my reading), I postulate
that Kerry will win the popular vote
by a narrow
margin (a narrower margin than Al Gore's in 2000) and that Bush will win
via the electoral college.
This, of course,
will be another fraudulent electoral win but this time it appears Bush
will not have Nino Scalia on the U.S.
Supreme Court
to rescue him from those evil-doer Democrats.
The Bushies will
take a swing state or two (or three!) and use the close voter margins as
challenges to "recounts." Imagine the
irony.
I gravely suspect
that there will be election machine rigging (Diebold electronic voting
machines are owned by a Right Wing
Republican in
Ohio who has sworn "to do whatever it takes to re-elect [what, he was elected??]
George Bush). JEB is already
busy purging
voter rolls in Florida (again) and Johns-Hopkins University has already
proved that Diebold voting machines can
be hacked by
high school students. I think we'll see brute force used at the polls by
way of intimdation and beatings may be the
order of the
day in some districts across the country.
This scenario sounds more like a CIA set up in Nicaragua or Argentina than a U.S. election, but that's what we've come to.
Election 2004
is another "practice session" for how far the Right Wing can push the United
States towards the creation of a
"Christian constitutional
dictatorship." If that sounds weird, or like an oxymoron, just think about
"compassionate
conservatism."
The concept is so mind bogglingly Orwellian as to give one a migraine.
The Right Wing
propaganda machine has been perfected and the past four years have provided
enough time for the Right to
plant sleeper
cells in all 18 swing states for voter intimidation.
Assessing the
upcoming election astrologically means letting go of the idea that this
is "politics as usual." The above-mentioned
planetary themes
that spell out a rebirth of fascism means viewing current politics through
a different lens.
The rise of reactionary fascism in the United States is coupled with a Christian fundamentalist "true believer" obsession:
Pluto transiting Sagittarius; Uranus's past transit through "one-world,
one-mind" Aquarius; and its current mutual
reception from Pisces to frenzied Neptune in Aquarius. A glimpse at transiting
Pluto's opposition to the USA's
blood thirsty Mars in Gemini (the enemy within and without: Castor &
Pollux/Cain & Abel) forming a t-square to
the USA's Neptune in Virgo (purity of the nationalistic/puritanical vision)
is chilling. It is no wonder that the
paranoid Right Wing finds an antichrist under every rock.
The re-emergent "purity of the puritanical vision" was ripe to explode long before September 11th.
America's need
for an enemy/antichrist "out there" has been made manifest via the genocide
of the American Indian; the
demonizing of
the "Liberals;" the Joe McCarthy era of "Are you now or have you ever been
a communist?" The hunting and
savaging of
President Clinton; the internment of the Japanese in camps in the USA during
WWII; Abu Ghraib prison torture in
Iraq and Guantanamo
Bay; the ongoing "culture wars" where gays, blacks, women's rights, immigration,
religion and stem cell
research are
used to whip the uninformed and terrified into a froth of reptilian brain
reactionism.
Conditions as
they now exist in the USA reveal many of the earmarks of a country ripe
for dictatorship. There is deep fear. A
deep existential
anxiety. These fears are fed by the Bush Administration's constant fanning
of the flames of religion, smarmy
patriotism,
anti-intellectualism, culture war, class war, and other related forms of
demagoguery.
The consequences
are that frightened people inhabiting the "Red States" vote their own economic
and social suicide by
swallowing the
apocalyptic pronouncements of Falwell and Cheney. The GOP extorts votes
from the distressed then loots the
treasury by
transfering the country's wealth to the upper one percent of the country.
That was the plan all along.
America is far
from the "New Jerusalem" envisaged by the pilgrims when they drummed up
the Mayflower Compact or at the
time the founding
fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The
country has a dark side that the
somnambulant
electorate would rather not face. Hence, the constant focus on externals,
the hype of "optimism," the derision of
the poor, and
obsession with the fiction of "our blessed way of life." It is as if our
excesses can be equated with the goodness of
Jesus on credit
card binge.
The "blessedness"
of our way of life (Ari Fleischer) will not spare us from old age and death.
It will not save us from a world
gone mad with
fanatics and warmongers.
The Greek gods
themselves could not triumph over death and often declined, or were powerless,
to assist humans who
remained stuck
with their own bad luck. By contrast, the world embraced "salvation" through
the New Testament --A Good
Daddy who sacrificed
his Dionysius-like son so that our sins could be washed clean. If we're
"good," there is hope of
resurrection
from the dead. These factors, and the rescuing of widows, divorced women
and children, were major selling points
for early Christianity.
Christianity's
(Neptune) archetypes, and the Barbarians (terrorists) at the gates of Rome,
overtook the Empire. Uranus in
Pisces is a
cosmic/religious reversion revolution. Uranus's transiting square to the
USA's natal Uranus in intellectual/rational
Gemini is involved
in a struggle between rational, scientific advance (stem cell research,
anyone?) and an anti-intellectualism
that favors
religious reform that leads us toward the disaster of more closely merging
church with state.
Keep in mind
that we're still under the planet rays of the Uranus Return of the formation
of the Nazi Party, created on February
24, 1920, 7:29
pm CET -1:00, Munich, Germany, Asc: 24 Virgo, which conjoins the USA's
Neptune.
The Uranus Return
of the Party's founding occurred on April 18, 2003, 4:29 pm, CEDT -2:00,
Munich, Germany, Asc 28
Aquarius. The
Ascendant conjoined the USA's Natal Moon. Uranus is in very early Pisces
is in mutual reception with
anti-intellectual
Neptune in Aquarius -- the one-world/one-mind sign. What we have going
on now is an international nervous
breakdown.
The USA is not
immune to collective psychosis. It is in the throes of one. Pluto's transit
through the USA's first house (identity)
shows its dark
side. It so terrifies the nation that it would rather stay alseep than
admit that its pious fictions, hallmark greeting
card patriotism
and surpressed psychic contents have ushered in a plutonic decline and
fall of the American Empire. Pluto,
Mars, Neptune
and Uranus (whether transiting or studied in their natal positions in the
USA's chart) have America lurching in
blood lust to
vanquish every terrorist "antichrist" by smoking them (Neptune) out of
their caves (Pluto and Saturn). That,
unfortunately,
extends to any American citizen who disagrees with George Bush and Dick
Cheney.
The USA's Sun
progressed to zero degrees of Pisces on October 29th, and therefore becomes
supersenitized to the
Uranus-Neptune
mutual reception just four days before the presidential election of November
2nd. (See Election 2004
Headquarters
for lots of Chart Data
Suffice it to
say, that America is playing out long planetary cycles where this presidential
election (and the next one in 2008) are
part of a global
contest for power and struggles between those who want to wield it. Globalism
is fueling a world revolt of the
poor and oppressed
(Arabs, among other groups) against a tiny minority that posseses the bulk
of the planet's resources. As the
philosopher
Hegel said, it's always been a battle between the haves and the have-nots.
He further said that he had always been
astounded that
the many could be convinced to sacrifice themselves for the very few so
that they (the rich) could have it easy.
We are on the
threshold of a world struggle that marches straight up to the USA's Pluto
Return in 2022. New religions, new
politics, and
a terrible Jihad will define at least the first half of the 21st Century.
The Inauguration chart of 2005 (you'll find it in
Election 2004
Headquarters) tells the tale of the USA's next presidential administration.
If Bush wins, he's a wounded creature
for as long
as his presidency can prevail over scandal and indictment. If Kerry wins,
he will be crippled by the catastrophe Bush
leaves behind
in Iraq. He will also be hounded by the fanatic Right Wing of the GOP who
will make what they did to Bill Clinton
look like kindergarten.
This is what I see. This is what I read in the sky.
Starcats -- September 17, 2004.