US : tribulations are only continuing...

US : tribulations are only continuing...

 

Whatever the election result, the tribulations for the US are only continuing. This election simply indicates another step in the grand scheme of its inner and outer re-evaluation as a nation (national spirit) and as a world power. It began in 2001, when Pluto crossed the US Sag Ascendant, blowing off that beautiful symbol of  the American dream, grounding it in the most literal, brutal way (Pluto-Saturn opposition). In a true Sag fashion, these twin towers were proudly reaching for the sky, continuously showing off to the world the pride and greatness of the Nation. When Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008, we all know what happened : the so-called financial crisis,  still only patched up, i.e. another blow to our collective hubris of unlimited growth, covering up deceit, fraud, economic horror, systemic and systematic, built-in,  unequality, betrayal of the values of the founding fathers, Western values in fact.   This drama is now unfolding in a three-some (at least) fashion :

1)The end of an era ?  It is Saturn this time  that crosses the US Ascendant, ending a 30-year cycle, even longer in fact since it started right with election of Ronald Reagan, in 1981. At that time, Saturn hit the Libran Saturn of the USA, sort of remembering that after the laxism/idealism (?)  of the Carter years, a good looking actor with a psycho-rigid chemist  "There is no other way" set the tone of an era, as Jeremy Rifkin sweepingly recalls :

The Reagan/Thatcher-led economic movement to privatize public goods and services by selling off telecommunications networks, radio frequencies, electricity generation and transmission grids, public transport, government-sponsored scientific research, postal services, rail lines, public lands, prospecting rights, water and sewage services and dozens of other activities that had long been considered public trusts, administered by government bodies marked the final surrender of public responsibility for overseeing the general welfare of society.
Deregulation and privatization spread quickly to other countries. The magnitude of the capitulation was breathtaking in scope and scale. Governments were hollowed out overnight, becoming empty shells, while vast power over the affairs of society shifted to the private sector. The public at large was stripped of its “collective” power as citizens and reduced to millions of autonomous agents forced to fend for themselves in a marketplace increasingly controlled by several hundred global corporations. The disempowerment came with lightning speed leaving little time for public reaction and even less time for public engagement in the process. There was virtually no widespread debates at the time, despite the breadth of the shift in power from the government to the private sector, leaving the public largely unaware and uninvolved although deeply affected by the consequences. ("The zero marginal cost society" p. 163-5)

It almost spans an entire Saturn/Pluto cycle (1982-2020) but as far a the US is concerned, with Saturn opposing natal Uranus, this 45-year cycle, hallmark a capitalism, is now coming to its mid-term critical point !

2) US identity in question : Pluto, now opposes the Cancer Sun of the US, hitting as if  from outside, the very identity of this big country wanting to play at the same time caring, but stern mother (Cancer with moon ruling planet in ice cold Uranus )  and tough father - carrying a big stick - (sun square Saturn)  to the entire world ?

3) What next ? What will there be to celebrate when in a few year's time, (exactly in 2023 but in orb in 2020-2026) Pluto crosses this time the US founding Pluto ? Returning to its placement of a quarter millennium ago - in 1776 - when it was founded ? The cartoonist Chappatte hits deftly at some of the tormenting and haunting issues.

martine keller 7/11/16