Astroworld

This country is now in the midst of another historical moment of embarrassment As Andy Rooney so aptly put it recently, “The day that the world learned that American soldiers had tortured Iraqi prisoners belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country”. [1] The prisoner scandal has the potential to become for George W. Bush what Watergate was for Richard M. Nixon; his swan song. Astrologically, the parallels between the two scandals are there. Transiting Saturn will have made an exact conjunction to the USA’s natal Sun, just as it did nearly 30 years ago when President Nixon announced his resignation from office. However, an extra dimension has been added in for President Bush with the exact conjunction of transiting Saturn to his natal Sun (A fall from power or prestige due to overweening ambition) occurring only three days after Saturn exactly conjoins the USA’s natal Sun (The judgment of an individual for their failures). As the late important “Watergate” functionary Sam Dash put it when he summed up Nixon’s behavior before his resignation, “Nixon behaved like he was a sovereign who had the authority to act above the law, a president who brought us close to dictatorship.” [2] President Bush has the potential, if not the burning ambition, to surpass President Nixon in both of those capacities.

The fateful decision to turn Iraqi prisons, particularly Abu Ghraib prison, into living hell may have come about when transiting Saturn was stationary for over a week at the end of October 2003. During that period Saturn was only four minutes from an exact conjunction to the USA’s natal Sun (The creation of a cruel and inhuman system). It now seems clear that the criminal system of prisoner detention and interrogation in Iraq had been effectively installed by November of 2003 on specific orders from the highest level at the pentagon. As the Commander in Chief, how could President Bush not have known about these criminal orders?

The attempted cover-up of these despicable war crimes, by the mendacious and diddling Don Rumsfeld and his twisted crew of cowardly lackeys in the pentagon, the private contract companies and the intelligence community began to melt-down and unravel in January of 2004. This was during the period just before Pluto exactly opposed natal Mars (Torture, rape and murder) in the USA’s birth chart on January 26th. Shortly before this date, it had been ascertained by some of Rumsfeld’s boorish henchmen that several condemning photos of these brutal and inexcusable war crimes had gone “rogue”, and that this damning evidence now had the potential to go public.

By the time Uranus had exactly trined the USA’s natal Jupiter on April 24th (A large breaking story), some of the shocking photos from the prison scandal were indeed about to go public on CBS, much to the chagrin of the pentagon and against its expressed wishes. The initial story and a handful of photos from Abu Ghraib prison aired on 60 Minutes on Thursday, April 29th. The next day this deeply disturbing news along with several horrifying images exploded all over the world exactly when Jupiter conjoined the USA’s natal Uranus (Huge shock wave impacts multitudes).

The exact opposition of Pluto to the USA’s natal Mars (A fight for political survival) on May 24, 2004 coincided with the extraordinary broadcast of a blatant propaganda piece about the state of the failed Iraqi war that was delivered by a desperate President Bush from the National War College in PA. This same Pluto opposition (Setbacks from rash actions) also coincided with the bad news that the US military commander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, who was evidently present during some of the horrific prisoner interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison, was being recalled to the United States earlier than had been expected.

Forebodingly, slow-moving Pluto is not going to be traveling very far from its exact opposition to the USA’s natal Mars (The torturers and their victims). It will exactly conjoin natal Mars again on November 25, 2004. So, it is reasonable to expect a steady stream of bad news about the prisoner scandal and the occupation of Iraq to continue to surface between now and the November election.

Once transiting Saturn has exactly conjoined the USA’s natal Sun (Crisis, denial, pessimism, gloom and failure) on June 11th, the prisoner scandal will have come full circle from its putative beginning in late October of 2003. The Bush administration already knows that it is big trouble politically because of its diving poll numbers. The prisoner scandal and the failed war in Iraq have already been hugely damaging to President Bush’s reputation, and these two paramount issues have the potential to become a serious threat to the only chance that George W. Bush will ever have of being elected president of the United States.

Therefore, you can certainly expect the desperate Bush-Cheney gang of neocon warmongers and fearmongers to respond to their political woes by cranking up the volume of fear (Saturn and Pluto) in order to distract the American people from the prisoner scandal and the quagmire in Iraq. At this point in the election, this failed administration has no other viable option other than to exercise fear. Fear is the only policy that has worked successfully for them in the past, even though this craven policy is currently beginning to wear very thin.

Therefore, they are quite willing to justify a constant barrage of scary terror news (Pluto-Mars), even if they have to fabricate it. As I am writing this piece during the last week of May, it has just been announced in a stunning propaganda display by Attorney General John Ashcroft that federal officials have been picking up non-specific and totally unsubstantiated “credible intelligence” about an imminent terrorist attack by al Qaida somewhere inside the US sometime between now and the 2004 presidential election. To his credit, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge played-down Ashcroft’s totally unsubstantiated threats by refusing to raise the terror alert level.

That Ashcroft’s alleged ‘terror period’ also coincides with the period between Pluto’s two exact oppositions to the USA’s natal Mars (“A police state with rigid military controls”) [3] is troubling, but for another reason. Who would be the actual beneficiary of another terrorist attack or attacks inside the United States between now and the 2004 presidential election? Would it really be Osama’s al Qaida or some other ‘rogue’ terrorist network, or would it be plummeting-in-the-polls George Bush? President Bush’s pathetically low poll numbers prior to 911 skyrocketed after those tragic events. Everyone knows, even the terrorists, that Americans tend to rally around their president in a time of national crisis.

Perhaps the November election would have to be re-scheduled, if a series of small-scale terror events produced a significant amount of casualties? Or even more ominously, a large-scale ‘terrorist’ event could lead, as Condoleeza Rice has suggested, to the cancellation of the November election altogether. Could such an eventuality also lead to the loss of our freedom and rights because our government has been placed under martial law in order to prevent any further mass-casualty producing events?

Just such a frightening scenario was outlined in some detail by the former head of Central Command, retired general Tommy Franks, during an interview that appeared in the December 2003 issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine. [4] But I’ll be even more frank than Tommy was in his interview. What the good general was really talking about was a military dictatorship of the United States with Dick Cheney’s dummy, GW Bush, as the dictator.

So, then the real question becomes: Just how desperate is this “Fourth Reich of the Rich” to hold onto their usurped power? If you think that I am being unnecessarily alarming, then you might want to consider carefully the following statement made by the newly-selected President Bush to the top four congressional leaders from both houses on December 18, 2000: “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” [5] Now, the way that I read that threatening statement is that, with a very tight Mercury-Pluto conjunction so close to his Leo Ascendant (fearful with a strong urge for power, suspicious and secretive, and The need to communicate to the masses) and an almost as tight third house Moon-Jupiter conjunction (The tendency to play God, or to think that one is actually in two-way communication with God.) very close to his Nadir, this grandly deluded Skull & Bones dude wasn’t even close to half joking with the disconcerted congressmen.

Unfortunately for the vaunted ambitions of this deluded ‘dude’, Saturn will have made an exact conjunction to his natal Sun (loss of authority, power and prestige; defensiveness) on June 14, 2004. Thus begins the moment of truth for this hollow failure of a president: who failed to protect the US from the 911 attacks; who has failed to capture Usama bid Laden; who lied to congress and the American people about Saddam’s WMD in order to cynically manipulate support for the disastrous war in Iraq; who not only has failed to quell the terrorist threat from al Qaida and other terrorist networks around the world but also has increased the threat of terror exponentially; who has tossed America’s moral compass into a murky abyss, and who has turned our many good friends and allies around the world into harsh critics, or worse, of our aggressive, repressive and regressive foreign policies.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2004 Saturn will continue to hector this contemptuous and incompetent presidential poseur. The planet’s onerous influence on him will be preceded by an exact conjunction of Pluto to his true lunar south node (“A tarnished personal destiny”), [6] which will have occurred on June 22nd. A final exact conjunction of transiting Pluto to his true lunar south node will take place on November 2nd of this year, which is, of course, the same day that American voters may finally be allowed to elect their first president in eight years. On July 8, 2004 transiting Saturn will exactly square our fearful leader’s natal Moon (fear of exposure, depression, pessimism, gloom and dejection).

By this time the prisoner scandal will have grown to an even more critical mass during the exact square of Saturn by transit to the USA’s natal Saturn (critical developments, political difficulties and losses) also having occurred on June 22nd. Then on July 18th, transiting Saturn exactly squares the president’s natal Jupiter (numerous failures highlighted, increasing pessimism, feelings of inadequacy, the increasing inability to cope with the future). On September 9th, shortly after the Republican National Convention in NYC (August 30 – September 2), an exact transit of Saturn from Bush’s twelfth house will square his natal Midheaven (loss of power and prestige). If I were this president, then around this time I would be thinking seriously about my impending retirement to ‘el rancho viejo’ in Crawford, Texas.

But Saturn’s heavyweight buffeting of Bush doesn’t end there. The ringed planet’s 2004 finale begins for him with a double-bill thriller as it exactly conjoins his natal Saturn in the twelfth house (a major life crisis, a tragic ending, despairing over one’s failures) on October 8th and then again on its exact retrograde return on December 8, 2004. Oucheroo, that’s two dreaded Saturn returns in the house of self-undoing happening on both sides of the November election. That’s gotta hurt! Could this imperious son of a Bush with his imperial intentions, once again, lose his bid for actual election to the presidency of the United States? Barring a neoconservative ‘October-style Surprise’, which could come in the form of a stage-managed terrorist event inside of the United States at a suitable critical juncture in the USA’s natal chart somewhere between now and November 2, 2004, the answer is an emphatic, “You can bet on it!”.

However, the USA and the rest of the world won’t be completely out of the woods until this lame-duck administration has given up its power during the January 2005 inauguration. The period of time between the election and the inauguration is when things could get really dicey. On December 23, 2004 transiting Pluto will make an exact square to the USA’s natal Neptune (“controls over centers of political power”) [7], The USA’s natal Neptune happens to be very closely conjoined to its natal Midheaven (“spies who undermine the national security”). [8] Unfortunately, we can only speculate as to when Pluto will exactly square the USA’s Midheaven (“destructive self-centered terrorist
actions”). [9] But you get the picture. The Bush administration may not go quietly into history.

References and Notes
1. Andy Rooney, CBS News, 60 Minutes, Commentary, Sunday 5/31/04

2. Sam Dash, NPR, All things Considered, Commentary, D. Schorr, 5/31/04.

3. Michael Munkasey, Midpoints: Unleashing the Power of the Planets, ACS, 1991, p..244.

4. Marvin R. Shanken and General Tommy Franks, Ret., “An Exclusive Interview with America’s Top General In The War on Terrorism”, in Cigar Aficionado, December 2003, pp. 86-90.

5. Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, The White House,
and the Education of Paul O’Neill, Simon & Schuster, 2004, p. 8

6. Michael Munkasey, ibid. p.350

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid

9. Ibid

Sources for Astrological Interpretations

R.C. Davidson, The Technique of Prediction, 1971.

Reinhold Ebertin, The Combination of Stellar Influences, AFA, 1972.

Reinhold Ebertin, Transits, AFA, 1971.

Robert Hand, Planets in Transit, Para Research, 1976.

Jeff Mayo, The Planets and Human Behaviour, Fowler, 1972.

Michael Munkasey, Midpoints: Unleashing the Power of the Planets,
ACS Publications, 1991.

Sue Tompkins, Aspects in Astrology: A Comprehensive Guide To
Interpretation, Element, 1989.

Sources for Birth Charts

1.The sources for the birth chart for the USA are, in order of lineage, Manley
Palmer Hall, Dane Rhudhyar, Larry Ely, and my own rectifications.

2.The source for President Bush’s birth chart is the same source that The
Mountain Astrologer has used in their past issues.

USA CHART USED
July 4, 1776, 4:44.30pm, Philadelphia, PA

Biographical and Contact Information

Larry Shea is a researcher, writer, astrologer and political analyst who lives in Maine, USA. He holds a BDIC degree in “The History and Science of Astrology” from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He has been studying, practicing, teaching and writing about astrology since 1970. He is the author of a scientific theory of the twelve signs of the tropical zodiac, entitled: The Earth’s Orbital Cycle; The scientific Basis for The Twelve Signs of the Tropical Zodiac, Geocosmic Magazine, Vol. 20, Winter 1995/1996.

He can be contacted at sheainvestigates2@yahoo.com.
P.O. Box 357
Caribou, ME 04736
(207) 493-7898