The crowd was well-pumped, thanks to the Olympics earlier in the summer. When the games in London were over, Americans looked around hungrily for another garishly lit mega-spectator sport to dive into. In late August Mars slipped into Scorpio (until October 6th), whose egoic aspect excels at high-stakes strategizing, manipulation, character assassination and back-stabbing. The stage was set for the bloated orgy of mendacity that is the US presidential election season.
When the transits spiked at the Autumnal Equinox, bringing crescendos of popular feeling (Uranus in Aries) and bloodshed in the halls of power (Pluto in Capricorn), Americans clicked into gear for the next round of photo ops, sound bites, gaffes and gotchas. All paid for with breathtaking gobs of money, disbursed to cajole, seduce and compel. (In the Sibly of the USA, Mercury [media] opposes Pluto [manipulation] in the 2nd house of money. For details, see Pluto and the Media.)
Elsewhere on Earth
The American mass media has been breathlessly covering each ludicrously artificial moment, leaving no airtime to devote to anything else going on in the world. But over the past few weeks the Uranus-Pluto square has been active everywhere on Earth. Ignited by September’s more quickly moving planets, the Cardinal transit has continued to spark calls for liberation (Uranus) in the face of stubbornly ruthless old guards (Pluto) all over the globe.
War-ravaged Syria and South Sudan continue to epitomize the showdowns between citizenry and despot. During the transit-packed Equinoctial period the controlling forces intensified their repression (Pluto), while new rebellions arose elsewhere (Uranus). In Hong Kong, protests against Beijing’s compulsory “patriotism classes” filled streets that haven’t seen demonstrations like this since Tiananmen Square. In India, a political cartoonist whose drawings mocked the government was incarcerated on a charge of sedition. In Vietnam three bloggers writing about human rights abuses were found guilty of “propaganda against the state.” In Russia, the government made cultural martyrs out of the punk band Pussy Riot by throwing the gals in jail, after which Yoko Ono presented them with the Lennon-Ono Grant for Peace — a ceremony that took place just a few hours before Uranus and Pluto reached their September 18th exactitude.
US news coverage of these developments was hard to find. Our intrepid investigative reporters were otherwise occupied, trying to get to the bottom of the rumor that a pizza would cost 17 cents more under Obama than under Romney.
Unmentionables
Even where domestic issues are concerned, conventional wisdom tells us that during an American election year politicians cannot be expected to talk on the record about anything that could in any way alienate potential voters. Our prospective leaders won’t touch gun control with a ten-foot pole. They won’t propose any real changes to the tax code (though cosmetic changes get oodles of air time). They won’t bring up the war in Afghanistan, which according to a recent report will have cost us financially struggling taxpayers a whopping $641 billion by 2013.1 And it is widely agreed that it makes no political sense for candidates to make a move against global warming right now, despite warnings from ever-increasing numbers of scientists that we are approaching an ecological point of no return. Could there be any clearer proof of the success of Pluto (slow decay) in Capricorn (conventions of leadership) than the fact that contenders for our highest office are disallowed from mentioning the fate of the Earth?
Apathy has replaced genuine engagement for many of the Americans who follow these hideously cynical quadrennial telethons. It is sobering to think of the contrast between now and two centuries ago, when the right to cast a vote was cherished so deeply that some of our ancestors considered it worth dying for.
Saturn in Scorpio
The global vibration will make a significant shift this month2 as Saturn enters Scorpio on the fifth of October, to stay for 2½ years. Since the planetary ruler of Scorpio is Pluto, that’s the wing of the Cardinal square that will ratchet up in intensity. Watch for an undercurrent of attraction-repulsion energy.
When used without consciousness, Saturn in Scorpio brings out of the woodwork domination-submission dynamics and obsessions of every stripe. Raw power is released when something breaks down, and raw power compels our attention. At issue are topics that interest us not despite their dark vibration but because of it. It is with this ambivalent intensity that many Americans are glued to their TV sets as Saturn in Scorpio introduces the penultimate frenzies of the presidential campaigns.
Screen shot from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
As the hype heats up over the weeks ahead, many Americans may tune into the election coverage more out of morbid curiosity than out of healthy interest. But consuming media hokum without the proper perspective is dangerous to both mind and spirit. When we let our critical thinking lapse into passivity in front of the TV, a listless cynicism remains even after we turn off the set.
There are those who propose that the deadly alienation more and more Americans are feeling from the electoral process has come about by design. That is, that the electorate’s faith in the system has been killed off deliberately, by stealth and strategy, with expensively honed psychological techniques (US Mercury – Pluto opposition). Certainly this theory passes the qui bono test. Voter apathy is a boon for the powers-that-be: the more people are turned off, the fewer will go to the polls. The folks who inhabit that razor-thin slice of society who benefit from the system as it is (Pluto) tend to be inconvenienced by democratic elections (Uranus), which only serve to throw X-factors into the works.
Watching with Eyes Open
But these last fevered weeks of the campaign are pregnant with learning for those who see what’s going on. We know we can’t simply dismiss societal dysfunctions. As the transits heat up throughout October, we might as well settle into our ringside seats at what is, when we think about it, a uniquely riveting spectacle: cultural institutions in the throes of devolution. The key is to maintain a moral distance while we watch.
This is one of the lessons inherent in the Jupiter station (moral values) on October 4th. With our perspective intact, we can count on being not only educated but entertained. We might imagine we were watching an expensively staged play about the fall of Rome.
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Notes
1 With commendable understatement, one of its authors, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, declared, “This is an incredible amount of money to have spent with so few controls, so few plans, so little auditing and almost no credible measures of effectiveness.” In cities across the USA anti-war demonstrations are planned for October 6th, to mark the eleventh anniversary of the invasion. This is the day Mars (war) crosses into Sagittarius (crusades).
2 Pay especial attention on October 4-5 when Saturn conjoins Mercury, and October 24th – 29th when its conjunction with the Sun has the power of the Full Moon behind it.
