Lee Hamilton the GOP's go-to guy: the October Surprise resurfaces

If you've so far managed to miss reading Robert Parry's recent Who to Trust on a Truth Commission? report, please find a few minutes to remedy your condition forthwith.

Pour yourself a cup of tea or pop open a bottle of whatever you like to pop open - this account details the Bush Sr-Reagan law-breakings from the 1980s and into the 90s with Iran, October Surprises, and Lee Hamilton as the GOP's favorite go-to guy for 'investigating' political scandals without ruffling a single important feather or changing the global and Washington power structures which even now think that they can get away with absolutely anything.

And as long as so very few people pay close attention to such reports as Mr. Parry's, things will remain as opaquely duplicitous and as heinously corrupt in the US government as they were yesterday, the day before, and the decade before that.

Discussed in the article is the Russian report on how Bush, William Casey, Reagan campaign staffers, and other Republicans, made secret deals with Iranian radicals to unseat a US president (Carter) which includes the often-alleged secret meeting in Paris, Oct 1980. Poppy Bush was there - let's ask him.

This report, requested from the Soviet government by Hamilton himself, but received in Washington - alas! - too late, goes completely against the mild conclusions of the October Surprise Task Force chaired by Mr. Hamilton, with its whitewash function a marvel of political cronyism and crime syndicate cover-up and, in my memory, matched only by Hamilton's stellar, stone-faced performance on the Warren Commission which was set up to obfuscate the truth about the JFK assassination. Of course, you may remember that back then, pardner Arlen Specter was hot on the trail of truth, too.

(Perhaps this is where I suggest using a pack of bloodhounds next time, fellas.)

So is Hamilton the GOP go-to guy? Well, he's had a lot of experience whitewashing their dirty hands and faces, I must give him that for his professional resume.

So if President Obama's CIA Director Leon Panetta continues to cite Lee Hamilton as the go-to guy for looking into Bush-Cheney administration crimes, we'll *know that Panetta is one of the establishment - the establishment of crooks that hide in plain sight in Washington DC, sporting their Tom Sawyer paint brushes and ready to astound us all with their less-than-half-hearted strivings to discover and reveal The Truth.

~:~

*Yes, we already know that Panetta is one of the establishment but sometimes my generous streak shines through in spite of all my disgust with Politics, that "organized system of hatreds." (partial quote from Henry B. Adams - and he should know.)

What Wilson said after creating the Fed

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve Bank into existence

"Unwittingly ruined"?

Now that's the part I must wonder about most when it comes to Mr. Wilson's role in the financial and political farce we Americans often call 'government.' If you wish, read Woodrow Wilson and the Invisible Empire for my notes on his natal chart and for another of his enlightening quotes about the US government.

Hindsight being perfect in the rear view mirror of life, I wish President Wilson could have remarked strongly upon the subject before he signed the Fed into law and then promptly run out of ink. But actually, since the presidency of Andrew Jackson the banking system has ruled our government, but it's taken slow increments to seal the totalitarian deal which was ratcheted up mightily in 2008.

And yes, the Founding Fathers were of the same mind - a select few rich men being top of the heap in perpetuity - so a plutocratic oligarchy of the rich we got and its becoming even more concentrated as they planned all along. This is one of the main reasons for the manufactured financial collapse of 2008 with massive public money 'bailouts' disguising the elite banking interests' unconscionable heist.

And the proof will be in the ultimate results of their whole crooked scheme.

Is right wing extremism in the US on the rise?

No, it doesn't require glue sniffing or kool-aid swigging to imagine the GOP's slowly forming strategy when McCain was so obviously past his prime in the 2008 presidential run and Republicans saw Barack Obama attracting millions of people with his orating abilities and winning personality.

Plus, the international banking houses signed on to the Obama brand to make matters less... Republican in Washington as the Democrats took a helm-manning turn so that the illusion of a two-party system in the US could be upheld in everyone's imaginations.

Is part of the GOP's hornet's nest strategy a revving up of right-wing extremist groups by playing on their gut reaction to having an African-American president in the previously all-white White House?

My mind wanders back to Nov 4, 2008 when Saturn's status quo based on tradition and Uranus' progressive attitudes and futuristic reforms were locked in a precise stand-off, known in Astrology as an opposition, as the antithetical planets fought one another across the Virgo/Pisces axis of the victim-savior archetypes.

Now most folks first assumed that change-lovin' Uranus won the election, but this reluctant astrologer suspected that Saturn was still very much in the game. And we've heard many times since Inauguration Day 2009 that Mr. Obama is more traditional than many people expected him to be...well, yuh! Critics of his economic plans say he's performing a superficial face-lift rather than instituting the deep reforms needed by a corrupt investment and banking system, the whole of which is rotten to the core.

Well, his Saturn in its own sign of staid Capricorn tells that tale niftily, I think, yet having expansive, optimistic, idealistic Jupiter nearby and within the first degree of Aquarius makes Obama quite a blend with an out-of-sign conjunction of the societal planets (Jupiter and Saturn) - he prefers to promote the best of past and future, if only obstacles would get out of his way.

Let's hope for his family's sake and for the health of our nation that his obstacles remain on the debating of policy and legislative sides without expressing upon a physical level. The July 21/22 Solar Eclipse is a doozy though, so we'll see how things proceed as 'systems and old methods fail; any blocks may be violently or tragically removed,' cautions Brady's Predictive Astrology. (The 11 South Eclipse at a crisis 29th degree (of Cancer) occurs on the 21st at 10:34 pm edt in Washington, DC.)

And no, President Obama is not the savior many Americans imagined him to be. Certainly no one person can clean up the Bush-Cheney mess in a few months or years, even assuming that Mr. Obama genuinely wishes to. (As you may know, I see the US presidential baton-passing as significant of a continuing one-world-government agenda that we-the-people are ordinarily not privy to. If you're a top o'the heap US president - you're one of them or you couldn't have made it to the top of the political mountain!)

But another interference from chaos-creating power elites in the course of our history would be debilitating and sad for us all at a time when we most need clarity and upright actions, not undermining tactics and psychosis.

Perhaps you may agree that what America does not need are emotionally manipulated, half-crazed hotheads whose anarchisms are instigated by those whose hold on political power has become too tenuous for their self-serving comfort.

You know, in America's 'Franklin' natal chart (see post below for a chart image), the Moon (the populace; the public; we-the-people) is at the 25th degree+ of Aquarius rather than the usual 'Sibly' chart's 26/27 AQ. You may be interested in the Sabian Symbol for '25AQ' in light of my understandably annoying remarks above on America's 'right wing' extremists controversy (symbol from Marc Edmund Jones)...

'25AQ': "A Butterfly with the Right Wing More Perfectly Formed"...UNIQUENESS...this degree's symbol speaks of man's capacity to overcome any handicap imposed on him....and of his underlying stamina or psychological integrity.

positive expression: a genius for turning deficiency into a real asset;

neg/unconscious/shadow side: unhappy and rebellious conceit.


Yes, well it would be conceit at the basis of prejudices of all kinds, wouldn't it? And September 2009 brings the world yet another brittle stand-off between the opposing forces of Saturn and Uranus as they bitterly battle on.

~:~

My post on America's Solar Return 2009 is published just below if you want to take a peek at America's 233rd birthday planets. jc

America's Solar Return 2009: happy 233rd!

With the US Solar Return 2009 marking America's 233rd birthday, I've been reading quite a bit of the history of those early times to get myself revved up for this US Solar Return 2009 post. One result of my delving? See this blog's sidebar for a new link to Revolutionary War Archives' info on the 'American Revolution: 1st shot fired.' Now this post is a bit on the complex side since I often consult the so-called 'Sibly' natal chart (5:10 pm lmt) as the US birth chart, and the 'Franklin' chart (2:21 pm lmt, or 2:22 pm if you prefer; I often use it for 'secret service/agencies' issues with spying Scorpio rising) which is based on the time shown on the Independence Hall clock behind Ben Franklin on our 100-dollar bill. (Sychronistically perhaps, flip the chart to 2:21 or 2:22 am and you get Uranus 8Gem55 rising precisely, but that only muddies the "which natal chart for the US?" issue even more.) The difference between the two natal charts - one a symbolic chart involving London and astrologer Ebenezer Sibly, the other a teasing clue from astrologer Ben Franklin (who was something of a prankster in life) with the aid of the designer/s of the 20-dollar bill - results in a Solar Return alteration for the moment the Sun returns to its natal degree and minute. (Sibly Sun 13Can19; Franklin Sun 13Can13.) Using the 5:10 pm Sibly chart results in a Solar Return on July 5, 2009 at 12:58:40 am (edt) when set for the White House; the 2:21 pm Franklin chart gives a Solar Return for July 4, 2009 a 10:09:41 pm (edt) which is also set for the White House as you see in the charts' images above. Obviously the planetary signs/degrees remain basically the same in both Return charts (Moon's degrees showing the most difference because Luna moves most quickly) but the Angles (Asc/Desc; Mc/Ic) and other house cusps are different thereby placing planets in various houses between the SR charts. Chart-ruler changes as well from Aquarius' Saturn (co-ruler Uranus) to Aries' Mars, so their applying aspects are notated on the charts (click to enlarge.) 2009's SR based on the Franklin chart (natal Asc 8Sco27) has 11AQ34 rising so we always check which natal house is rising in a SR chart to see what issues (departments of life) are on the immediate menu as the Return period begins. In this case, it's the natal 3rd house of Communications, Lower Mind, Siblings, and Neighborhoods. In the Franklin natal chart (see below) Pluto 27Cap33 Rx and South Node (SN) 6AQ36 are posited in 3rd house bringing up transformational issues, plutonian controls, and past (unconscious) behaviors (SN) we'd do well to move beyond since this qualifies as neuroses that no longer bring the results wanted in current circumstances. First natal planet to rise in the SR 2009 is the 4th house Moon 25AQ28 (the people; the public; 4th house = domestic and security concerns; real estate; mining; inheritance.) 2009's SR based on the Sibly chart (natal Asc 12Sag13) has 18Ari09 rising which brings up natal 4th house (same concerns and issues as mentioned in last bit) but with natal Chiron 20Ari08 which indicates our 'inherited wound' in the pioneering and me-first departments...maybe that's one reason why America has always been gung-ho about such things. Chiron represents the unhealable wound and the blindspot, but ultimately its location may become the strongest point in any chart. After Chiron, the next natal planet to rise is Uranus 8Gem55 in 6th house of the Sibly chart, but just below the Descendant (see below.) In the last couple of years transiting asteroid Midas has been triggering America's natal Uranus, planet of disruption, rebellion, and reform. This hook-up describes just one of the facets we're dealing with in the financial sector (although I often tend to yell at Midas as the greedy gold-hoarder he is - Midas now direct 8Gem28....or rather his archetypal representative is.) A "natal echo" worth mentioning is that both SR charts show a Mercury/Pluto opposition, an aspect of busy minds always trying to consolidate and crystallize the abundant ideas within the frame of reference; there's deep curiosity about other people's secrets and their ways of thinking; corruption undermines existing circumstances; complex, incisive minds have to constantly regenerate thought patterns to facilitate proper interactions with others. (Alan Oken's Complete Astrology.) Now on the Sibly SR chart, you see marked the US Secondary Mars Rx upon the Desc of this SR ruled by Mars in Taurus in 2nd house of Earning Ability, Self-Worth, and Values. Mars is the first SR planet to rise in the Sibly SR chart as Pres. Obama continues the perpetual wars begun by Bush-Cheney...the wars that are keeping the American people from affording their own health care reforms and other needs. My intuition told me a few years ago that high unemployment rates in the US are meant to stimulate sign-ups and recruitments for wars and more wars - what do you think? Tellingly, we see that the Franklin SR chart has '1Sag' at Mc, the Goal Point of the chart...'1Sag': "A Grand Army of the Republic Campfire." That upheavals and concerns about 2/8 axis issues of Money, Credit, Corporate Profits, Insurance, Military Spending, Values, etc. will be on the US menu for the extent of the SR 2009 is obvious and we don't need a horoscope to tell us this, do we? Noted on both charts is a transiting midpoint of interest esp since the two planets - one of the past, one of the future - were in opposition on Nov 4, 2008 and will be continuing to affect US natal Mars off and on by forming a Mutable T-Square pattern with natal Mars as apex...this indicates an over-taxing of the nervous system and disruptive to the thought processes; a Mutable apex Mars shows a restless scattering of energies, diffusion, disorganization, and inconsistencies which must be directed by good planning. Finish a job before starting the next or nothing may get done! Here's the midpoint picture which the T-Square creates... Saturn/Uranus = natal Mars 21Gem+: challenges leading to a fight; upheavals through calamity or rebellion; an act of violence; accident or injury; a forced release from tensions; deprivation of freedom. Sun (the leader) is in the (Franklin) 5th house of Risk-Taking and Creativity, yet has just left the 6th house of Health, Work, and Service (and also of Servants, including military forces, police, etc.) The Sun in a Solar Return obviously highlights the issues and events of that house, and in the Sibly version of the SR, Sun is in 4th house conjunct Ic, indicating much activity at the start of the 2009 SR year...Independence Day will be a busy affair in more ways than one. The sextile (60 degr) of opportunity from Saturn 16Vir53/54 has been aiding the Sun in its work, but Saturn is moving ahead in Virgo and its sextiling rays will soon pass beyond the US natal Sun. Health care reform may pass with it (Virgo = health; Saturn = laws), for as the president has said, the reform must happen this year - or it won't. In both charts Solar Return Moon is in Sagittarius, sign of the seeker and the foreigner, so we may expect many changes (Mutable sign) in the areas of moving, relocating, long-distance travels, and re-education. The Sibly SR emphasizes the education/travel facet of this Moon since Sag is the natural sign of the 9th house. The Franklin chart has a 10th house SR Moon which emphasizes needs for recognition, opportunities for publicity, a greater need for emotional control as feelings are publicly on display; personal or family issues may come out into the open with this very public Moon; chances for career advancement tend to come from one's important associations, and errors tend to be more noticed with a 10th house SR Moon. Well, I hope you can click to enlarge the charts for readability, for this post is wumping me out (and Merlin is on TV now!) I'm fairly tuckered and must complete my remarks asap, if you will be so accommodating. Midpoint pictures should be discussed at the least, so stay tuned during the upcoming week. Here are dual images of the Sibly (upper on right) and Franklin (lower on left) natal charts for the USA so you may compare their differences and check them with the Solar Return 2009 chart/s which may be read separately as "natal chart for a year" yet ultimately should be read in tandem with the natal charts from which they are calculated. Expert astrologer Ed Kohout wrote an article which includes a list of all the known US natal charts, their creators, and more here if you'd like the list of possibilities. And check out his site when you have time to peruse at will...once there, click Mundane for political stuff including America's Masonic roots and the Fixed Star Grand Cross underpinning the US natal chart. ~:~

Update: You'll find the midpoint pictures for both US Solar Return 2009 charts posted at Jude's Threshold where you'll see that one of the SR charts has only one picture and the other has several! jc

When Political Astrology posts go missing: Litvinenko

Because its Links List includes posts on the poisoning of Russian spy and defector Alexander Litvinenko (including some natal and mundane Astrology of the matter), I'm republishing SO'W's mysteriously invisible posts in an attempt to foil article-eating trolls and gremlins of any and all persuasions.

Pardon please, if many of the article links contained therein are no longer live for I've tried to rewrite these entries to reflect various sites discontinuing their articles' availability. As yet I've not been completely successful, but my astrological comments should still be available, even though these posts are otherwise invisible without such shouts-out as this.

And if you do want some Astrology concerning Litvinenko, be sure to check out Putin and the poisoned spy.

Is 2010 Ousting Time for the US Congress?

Well, it should be.

As I always complain: 99.9% of them are in it together with their fraternity of the ruling class taking precedence in every department over the American people and over our nation's sovereignty.

Actually, I'm not fully certain of the motives of the remaining .1%, now that I think about it. Are you?

It's time to retire the old saw about the American people being fed up with congress members - except for their own. Even if the subject's poll numbers are accurate, we must get over our "but our rep/senator is dandy - it's the other ones that are corrupt" beliefs which play into Washington's class warfare script perfectly and help keep we-the-people divided, conquered, and completely ineffectual where our own interests are concerned.

Is Larry Summers Obama's Cheney?

Did Germany's Angela Merkel manage to straighten out President Obama's faulty financial thinking during her visit to Washington?

A view from Germany seems to be that President Obama is making economic mistakes galore - is financial ideologue Larry Summers Obama's Cheney?

See 3d photo from space of Russian volcano erupting

With transiting Saturn now returned to '17 Virgo' I wasn't surprised that a rerun of Krakatoa was shown this week on PBS but now this amazing must-see photo has been taken from the ISS:

Space Weather News for June 26, 2009

VOLCANIC VISTAS: On June 12th, astronauts onboard the International Space Station watched in amazement as Russia's Sarychev Peak volcano erupted directly beneath their spacecraft. The rare photo they took is a must-see.

An enormous sulfur dioxide plume from the eruption is now circumnavigating the globe at northern latitudes, producing spectacular sunsets for international air travelers.

Today's edition of SpaceWeather News features 3D photos of the eruption from space, satellite movies of the sulfur dioxide plume, and a Mars-like view of the volcanic cloud over the Canadian Arctic. #

Krakatoa's 2nd eruption came on August 27, 1883, and 1/3 of the earth's inhabitants heard it! The tsunami it caused you don't want to know about as most of the Indonesian island disappeared under the waves.

Saturn on August 27, 1883 was at '10 Gemini' along with Pluto (1:13) and Chiron (3:32); in Virgo were Sun (3Vir+), Uranus, and Mercury. Watery Neptune was Rx at '22 Taurus', an earth sign, and Mars 2Can+ was conjoined by the Moon.

So as far as '17 Virgo' goes, Mercury and Uranus would have been the last planetary culprits to trigger the "Volcano in Eruption" degree of the Sabian Symbols. This is certainly not conclusive for timing volcanic explosions by Astrology, I'm just noting the '17 Virgo' degree's volcanic symbolism along with Saturn's representation of Earth, soil, tectonic plates, rocks, and other geological factors.

"A Volcano in Eruption"...EXPLOSION...

positive: creative passion as a rejection of superficiality and a genius for ordering of self;

negative/unconscious/shadow side: petulance and tantrums. (Marc Edmund Jones,The Sabian Symbols in Astrology.)

Dane Rudhyar in his An Astrological Mandala gives the Keynote of this degree as:

The explosive energy of long-repressed contents of the subconscious.