Sometimes on a warm summer day, one can see a brightly colored balloon rising over the treetops, buffeted by the wind. Having stealthily slipped out of the hands of a sorrowful child below, the balloon rapidly loses itself in the vastness of the cloud-speckled sky, now completely disconnected from the tears it caused on the ground. To witness a speech by George Bush is a bit like watching that balloon. As he floats blithely along envisioning a fruitful Iraqi garden that needs a bit of pruning and weeding, down below stretches the smoking and festering ground zero created from his devastating ineptitude.
In the alternative universe in which George Bush dwells, a few lowly soldiers committed the degradations and perversions at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The systemic pervasiveness of an arrogant and brutal disregard for international law is not even on the radar screen. According to the Commander-in-Chief, Iraq will have complete sovereignty as of June 30. Never mind the ongoing presence of the American military and the global corporate profiteers over which that sovereignty will not extend. Bush describes Fallujah as now secured by an all-Iraqi security force, conveniently omitting that it has become a Taliban-like Islamic mini-state, complete with abeyahs required for women and floggings for selling alcohol. The war in Iraq continues to be characterized as the center of the War on Terror, with the opportune omission that it has in fact been a highly successful recruiting ground for terrorists and a magnifier of hatred for America across the globe. The useful confabulation of Iraq and 9/11 persists, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Completely ignored by Mr. Bush is the nationalist flavor of the Iraqi rebellion against an occupying American military mired in a security nightmare and the increasing resentment and distrust of the Iraqi people. Instead, all problems are derived from the "the enemy" or "the terrorists" who "hate our freedom". The presiding American administration in Bush's universe is unblemished by miscalculation or mistake.
Nonetheless, in spite of our White House Resident's preferred reality, a dark cloud is increasingly oppressing the nation. As it settles upon our shoulders, it reeks of impending failure, humiliation, and anxiety. The war is limping along, with ever-changing goals, increasing fatalities, and no end in sight. Gruesome reports of prison abuse have shaken our democratic republic, challenging both our credibility and our deepest sense of identity, while leaving a painful residue of shame. The most recent bombshell is that that Ahmed Chalabi and his entourage, while secretly in alliance with Iran, were feeding our neoconservative government false information about weapons of mass destruction in order to move us to overthrow Saddam and his Baathist regime. These revelations make a complete mockery of an ideologically rigid Bush administration, seen as inebriated by dreams of American hegemony while having been manipulated and suckered by a bunch of Iraqi exiles. There is truly a touch of Cosmic Irony at play when those who have duped and manipulated the masses about almost everything for the past three and half years, including the very reasons for going to war, are themselves now the victims of a colossal con job.
This gloomy, oppressive feeling now enshrouding the nation derives from the growing influence of the planet Saturn in both the US chart and Bush's chart. Since mid-March 2004, when Saturn turned direct and began its final journey back across the US and Bush's Sun, soon to be peaking in June 2004, the intractability of the morass in Iraq has become more and more obvious, and the humiliation of Abu Ghraib has only compounded the problem. Bush's support among the American people has already begun unraveling and will doubtlessly continue doing so, especially through June. The president's multitude of meetings with foreign leaders planned for that month is likely to go quite poorly, with scant assistance offered to our ailing Iraqi enterprise. In fact, June may well bring some kind of critical mass of failure that irrevocably stamps the Bush administration. The current vise can be expected to tighten to its maximum strength in the next thirty days, and reality in all its harshness will be inescapable.
Besides the transit of Saturn to the Bush and the US natal Sun positions, the tertiary progressions in the US chart for this period provide an indication of even greater stress than a normal Saturn transit might suggest. Tertiary progressions, according to Ron Davison's Technique of Prediction, are calculated by equating one day for each month in the life of the person whose chart is being considered. This contrasts with the usual one day equated to one year in the more common secondary progressions. By this method of calculation, tertiary progressed Saturn in the US chart moved to oppose the natal US Sun in 2003 and is now in square to its natal place, waxing until November 2004. This progression has never happened before in the US chart and nothing similar will happen again until Saturn reaches the last quarter square to the US Sun in a little under three centuries.
This sense of overwhelming events, profound obstacles, and the need for very cautious and carefully considered goals, as well as the need to compromise significantly, is the signature of Saturn. When this circumscribed and challenging framework is ignored, difficulties grow exponentially. Only a very sober, practical, and guarded agenda is appropriate. Because the Bush/neoconservative plan for Iraq was so grandiose and sweeping, based more on hope and a prayer than on careful planning, it was doomed to failure coming as it did during such a strongly Saturnine period.
The tertiary progressed Saturn aspects in the US chart describe the larger context of 2003 and 2004 as a time when the US would run into severe difficulties due to overreach, hubris, and hunger for power. These lessons are explained by the natal position of US Saturn in the 10th house and square the US Sun. A 10th house Saturn can indicate a rise to great prominence and an intense striving for power, but also a tendency to exaggerated ambition and arrogance that then lead to some kind of failure or significant, humbling setback. Within the larger environment created by these tertiary progressions, the Saturn transit to the US Sun/Saturn square from October 2003 through June 2004 acts not only as an extremely challenging transit in and of itself, but it also triggers the severe difficulties of the two-year tertiary progressed Saturn aspects. Also acting as triggers to this Saturn/Saturn progression are tertiary progressed Mercury which will be conjunct tertiary progressed Saturn from June 1 to June 19 and tertiary progressed US Sun which will be conjunct tertiary progressed Saturn from October 14 to November 14, 2004. Thus, we can expect this entire two year period, and especially June, October, and early November 2004, to bring a crushing humiliation and failure to the US presidency (US Sun) and a significant loss to the prestige of the US in the world due to an ambitious power grab that refused to bend to the reality of global constraints (10th house Saturn). We can further expect a shift away from this trend increasingly after November 2004, as the tertiary progressed Saturn very slowly begins to separate from its square to natal Saturn.
Unfortunately, the disconnection from reality, evasiveness, and deceit of the administration are likely to continue until the 2005 Inauguration, indicated by the ongoing strength of Neptune - square the Inaugural Ascendant, quincunx Bush's Sun, and quincunx the US Sun. One can only hope that the clash between Saturn's increasingly harsh reality and Neptune's denial and avoidance of the facts on the ground don't lead to a completely dysfunctional government or a collective nervous breakdown within the administration.
Over the coming months, the difficult aspects in George Bush's chart run parallel with the most challenging aspects in the US chart. While Saturn crosses Bush's Sun in June, Saturn will also cross the US Sun and square the US Saturn. When Saturn squares Bush's Midheaven, semisquares his Mars beginning in September, and then moves to conjunct his Saturn in October, it will also conjunct the US Mercury and move very close to opposing US Pluto. When Neptune is quincunx Bush's Sun from July through November, it will also be quincunx the US Sun. Thus, the significant struggles and misfortunes indicated by these challenging aspects in the collective American psyche will be tied to Bush and his unsuccessful policies.
Interestingly, there are some other aspects that come to the American people during the fall months of 2004 that are not connected to George Bush, but are instead shared with John Kerry through his astrological chart. The most noteworthy is the transit of Uranus that will trine Kerry's Venus and the US Venus simultaneously from September through December 2004. Another way of looking at this is that the composite Venus in the US/Kerry composite chart will receive an opposition from Uranus during this period, especially during all of September and from November 10th through December 2004. This configuration suggests that Americans will associate Kerry with warm, caring, and positive feelings during the heat of the election campaign and its aftermath. His popularity among the electorate will clearly grow during this time. The first crossing of this aspect in late February and early March 2004 coincided with Kerry's smashing success in the later primaries that clinched his nomination.
In October, Jupiter will cross the US Midheaven, the Kerry/US composite Midheaven, and the Kerry Midheaven in rapid succession. During the final of these three transits, Jupiter will also simultaneously square the US Jupiter, thus attaching Americans' feelings of success, optimism, and hope to Kerry in late October 2004. It is noteworthy that Kerry's natal Jupiter is in exact opposition to the US Moon, which resonates with the people of America. This suggests that in general he will be able to restore hope and optimism to the citizens of this great nation.
The year 2004 will be long remembered as one of the most trying years in America's history. The War in Iraq that has been plagued by dishonesty and incompetence is likely to increasingly sour the electorate to the continued machinations of the Bush cabal in the Oval Office. Increasing economic difficulties may also surface in the coming months. From my calculations, it seems most probable that John Kerry will win the presidency in November, although his first year in office will not be an easy one. Cleaning up the devastation of four years of the reckless and ill-conceived policies of Bush's radical agenda will take a great deal of hard work.
