Globalization can only go so far before everything goes to shit. All civilizations go through the same stages before they collapse and break up into smaller groups. — Camille Bordas, The State of Nature

We know from history that empires are born and die. But, somehow, unless it happened in the distant past, it’s hard for us to see.

It shouldn’t be. If you believe in Natural Law, it stands to reason that countries begin and end just like everything else.

Pluto, a.k.a. Dr Decay, is the planet astrologers watch if they’re tracking the breakdown/ renewal cycle, whether in a person, a cat, a business or a world power.

Pluto time

In this column, we’ve been looking at Pluto’s slow, dramatic advance in the chart of the USA (for example, here and here), as it reconfigures America’s global status.

But another world power is getting an even more direct hit: Saudi Arabia. That country’s chart has a planetary cluster in Capricorn that’s been feeling the Plutonian heat for a year now.  

Pluto was conjunct the kingdom’s Saturn and quincunx natal Pluto in November 2017 during the palace coup that first got international observers seriously worried about Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). In 2020, Pluto and Saturn, both at once, will be right on top of its Sun. ⁽¹⁾

I am reminded of how, back in the 1970s, Liz Greene shocked her fellow astrologers by suggesting that the Soviet Union would soon no longer be a union. She had noticed that Pluto would be hitting the USSR’s Sun in 1988-89.

Right now, a similar conjunction is nipping at the heels of the House of Saud. Pluto targets obsolete matter, a fitting description of a feudal monarchy in a post-millennial world.

The 2020 transits threatening Uncle Sam will also visit the oil-rich sheiks.⁽²⁾

Dirty secrets

Up until a month ago, the American public had not given much thought to the Saudi war machine’s atrocities in Yemen. There wasn’t much concern about the high-flying business contracts between the kingdom and the Trump family.

But when the ruthless young prince created an international crisis with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, all sorts of dirty secrets started splashing around the media.

Among them: First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner’s real estate deals with the petrogarchs.

Slender Man

Kushner has always reminded me of the online character Slender Man, lurking elegantly and poisonously in the shadows, muted to the point of inaudibility.

(This posture was hilariously parodied by circumstances in September, in a video that went viral. Locked out of a government building, Kushner remained on the threshold, silent as the tomb, waiting awkwardly for security to rescue him, while journalists peppered him with questions.)

Vaudeville show

In the dramatis personae of the Trump vaudeville show, Jared came off as the exact opposite of loudmouths like Giuliani (where’s he been, by the way? Did cooler heads prevail, and lock him in his room?). Jared has epitomized the silent-partner faction of Trump’s consiglieri, as opposed to the pit-bull faction.

The pit-bull type is obviously closer to Trump’s heart. Donaldo even went so far as to personally coach Brett Kavanaugh in creative bullying for his confirmation hearing, after which the hyperventilating frat bro cranked it up to eleven.

Eminences gris

Giuliani clearly enjoyed his moment in the headlines, spraying his personal brand around like cheap cologne. His gaffes were a goldmine for late-night comics. But we should really be paying more attention to the other group, the eminences gris: the silent faction of Trump enablers, there in the background, watching and waiting.

They are quiet because they can afford to be.

All societies reckon one day or another with when the powerful make an alliance with the mad. — Anonymous

This faction includes the patrician Wall Street crowd; deep-pocket party donors and kingmakers; CEOs planning for their great-grandsons’ estates. It includes the members of the Federalist Society, who handpicked the last several GOP Supreme Court justices. It includes think-tank plutocrats smart enough to know how to keep up the appearances of a democracy.

Trump taint

What keeps Kushner apart from the true elites is his membership in the Trump family. On the face of it, this is a plus, in that he can’t be fired (unlike a wife, Trump can’t divorce him.) (Unless Ivanka does first).

But the taint of Trump separates Jared from the true power forces. Among the shadowy aristocrats, Trump is despised. They will dump him the minute he ceases to be useful to them.

The people who hate Trump the most are the people who have been running Washington for decades. It’s not so much that they’re bothered by his corruption – they’re bothered by his inability to prettify and mask it….He has broken all the rules of their world, in terms of who gets to be in power, and what you have to do to get it.   – Glenn Greenwald

Shameful history

Thanks to astrological timing, Uncle Sam’s Saudi Arabia policy will be remembered as one of Trump’s messes.

But the shameful history between Washington and Riyadh is by no means limited to the current administration. For decades, a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach has protected the sacrosanct alliance between the USA — a country that advertises itself as the world’s greatest democracy — and Saudi Arabia, an unapologetic oligarchy with one of the world’s most abominable records of human rights abuses.

The hypocrisies involved are so glaring, it’s a wonder that Big Oil and its handmaidens on Capital Hill have managed to avoid media scrutiny for so long.

9/11

Amazingly, even when it was discovered, in 2001, that the majority of the WTC hijackers were Saudi, blame did not to attach to the kingdom. If ever there was a moment when you’d have expected the alliance to explode, it was then — with the American populace in a frenzy of vengeance, casting around for a target. But somehow the Washington PR machine managed to divert the public’s attention away from the Saudis. The alliance remained secure.

Now, however, it looks like the Teflon shield protecting that sweet marriage has started to crumble. With this world-altering transit breathing down his country’s neck, MBS overplayed his hand.

The resulting scandal has had all the ingredients of a Plutonian farce: a muckraking reporter, a gory murder, a series of bumbling cover-ups.

So much for the Capricornian penchant for cool-headed secrecy.

The Great Pumpkin

As for the US side of the alliance, we’re dealing here with a particular kind of stupid: one that doesn’t do secrecy.

All agree that the Great Pumpkin in the White House has broken with the tradition of discretion and caution in American foreign policy. But contrary to what his fans maintain, it’s not because of honesty (“telling it like it is”).

It’s because he has no impulse control, and he doesn’t grasp how causality works.

With his offstage handlers doubtless sweating with anxiety, Trump went in front of the cameras in late October and blithely explained to the public that it was in America’s best interests to look the other way as regards the Khashoggi murder, so as not to jeopardize the fabulous, tremendous armaments deal we had with the Saudis, and all the [insert ever-changing inflated number] beautiful jobs he had created thereby.

Gentleman’s agreement

Oops. Up until now, a gentlemen’s agreement had prevailed among the corporate media to avoid calling attention to the capitalistic motives behind these abominations, and to the Pentagon’s role in them.

The grisly assassination at the Saudi consulate has changed this, as it has changed coverage of the war in Yemen. The American media has started to broach the question of where all those weapons come from, that have been killing thousands of Yemini civilians, largely children.⁽³⁾  The war is being revealed for what it is: the worst humanitarian disaster in the 21st Century.

At this writing, Washington has joined the U.K. in calling for peace talks. Exploiting MBS’ current vulnerability, they are angling for a quid pro quo:  If the prince can be persuaded to back off in Yemen, he’ll keep the crown on his head and “American interests” get to retain their leverage in the region.

But as the scandal widens, the stink of complicity is starting to reach beyond foreign policy. Ordinary Americans are learning more every day about the tight links between their world and that of the sheiks, links that may even endanger their own retirement funds.

The closer Pluto gets to the sensitive points in the US and Saudi charts, the more rot will be exposed.

Notes

1) Discussed in detail in my lecture on the 2020 transits (February 2018), an MP3 of which is available from the San Francisco Astrological Society.

2) But there’s a hint here of a Plutonian rebirth, rising out of the ashes. Bin Salman has glimpsed the future enough to steer the country to solar and wind power. The kingdom has just invested billions of dollars in renewable energy.

3) The suffering extends beyond direct battle casualties. According to UNICEF, every ten minutes, a Yemeni child under the age of five dies from severe acute malnourishment or preventable diseases.