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.
