Cross posted from Planet Waves
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the 2012 Republican candidate for president: Mr. Handsome. Or he will be, if he can stay out of the sex scandal business.
But first, psychology class.
Dr. Wilhelm Reich, renowned as Freud's brightest student, and notably the one who rebelled against him with the most precision, said that politics was the very pinnacle of neurosis.
We have options for understanding the current state of politics, other than psychoanalytic. We can look at the election of Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate as a backlash against the failings of the Democrats, and Obama's seeming failure to live up to his campaign promises. Then again, Brown campaigned with a promise to be the 41st vote against health care reform in the minority rules Senate (where you need 60 votes to get anything done). So the public is pissed off that Obama and the Dems aren't doing enough; and the answer is to scramble the little that they have got done; which sounds more terrible twos than adolescent. The only reason I buy that analysis is the chart -- which I'll come to in a moment.
Let's get used to the fact that the Cornballs (Teabaggers) have stolen the concept of progressivism from the Democrats and the Independents and for that matter from Abbey Hoffman and Noam Chomsky. That's the way things go. Hippie, punk, nerd, goth, heroin addict and the American flag all find their way to the same Madison Ave.
But to find out who Mr. Handsome really is, all you had to do was listen to his victory speech. In particular, the part when he declares both of his daughters available. In the greatest moment of his life, as the man of the hour, on international television, he offers his daughters to...whomever.
With them, and their mother, standing right there.
Haha, just kidding and by the way one has a boyfriend. But for anyone who doubts that the Republicans are the official party of barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, you now have some compelling evidence of your own.
It is amazing how the guy whose qualifications for Senate include having a truck and posing nude in Cosmo can get elected by a landslide in a state where there are more universities than farms. You would think that in a moment when so many are so cynical about politics, the person who isn't really a politician -- Martha Coakley qualifies brilliantly -- might be the choice of those paying attention. She knows less about the Boston Red Socks than I do, which I thought was impossible -- especially if you live in Boston. You might think that because it was Ted Kennedy who worked for so many decades for health care reform, the voters of his state might want to honor that legacy and not guarantee his dream will be DOA the moment the Senate resumes session...fractured as that dream is, after last autumn's psychotic, manipulated session of Congress.
So how exactly did Mr. Handsome get elected? Well of course: he answered the mystical longing of the people. Very, very repressed people, whose sexual pain is so intense that it turns into what Dr. Reich called a mystical longing, which is then answered by a 'leader' offering nothing more than charisma (and a hidden agenda). The same way that Sarah Palin gets any attention at all. To say they are both porn stars would be partly accurate, but in general porn stars are harmless working folk who actually make a difference in people's lives. What we are looking at uses sex appeal as bait for another purpose.
Let's look at the chart, which is dripping with mystery, sex and confusion. Uranus on the 7th house cusp, particularly in Pisces, looks like a populist revolt. Uranus is the planet of revolt and Pisces is the sign of populism. Look at how precisely it aspects the 7th house cusp -- to the very degree, as if Coakley called her astrologer and asked her when to make the call, down to the minute. This placement suggests the USA pol scene is about to get turned upside down with the elegance of a shark scare on a hot day at the beach. Yet this is the revenge of the clueless; Tea Baggers Quantum Edition. Then the Moon -- the public -- is also in Pisces and is about to make a conjunction to Uranus. This would be a sweet chart if you're starting a movie; which may be what just we just started.
The fun has just begun (and in two months from today it will be throbbing). However, the Fishy Moon-Uranus conjunction is charming compared to other aspects of this chart, of which I will describe two.
For an image of the unbridled nihilistic narcissism inherent in this election and so much of American politics, culture and media, we can look right to Eris in the 8th house: the house not just of sex, but of the sex/death/money/power/secrets confluence. That special kind of sex; 'the sex you want', according to one of my mentors; in other words, despite all the potential madness and pitfall, we actually do seek our deepest erotic releases in the 8th. In other words, when you wonder why people tap their foot in a men's room, or, you know, risk it all as it were for sex, they are generally driven by the compulsion of the 8th. I am not generally in the role of outing people, but I do read charts. Would the secret young hunk please come forward?
Aries is on the cusp of that house and Eris, right there, points to Mars retrograde in Leo. Who would that be?
Aries there also represents the special kind of self-obsessed mental chaos of our era, where the streets are wandered by those lacking any concept who they are; or was it always this way; or is this part of our cultural myth: that we are the land of the lost, which is our excuse for letting everything slide. Whether or not you take Eris to be a vindictive, castaway outsider looking for revenge (apropos enough, in this case), Eris in Aries illustrates our massive collective identity crisis; the concept of identity flaking apart even as it updates its Facebook page.
Last, we have the Sun in Capricorn in the 5th house: the house of taking risks; of compulsive gambling; of more sex we think people just cannot help. The Capricorn involvement, however, looks like gambling with power. Not just anywhere in Capricorn, but in the last degree of Capricorn: void of course, or anaretic, depending on your lingo: a big lesson of some kind. This is the edgy part; this is the part about something 'about to come out'. (Feb. 2 we learn something about this guy, or this election -- mark your calendar.)
An hour later, and the Sun would be in Aquarius, which is a very different story. I don't have my Sabian symbols book handy, but that last degree of Cap is the one about the secret cabal of leaders who rule the world. And in Capricorn style, this looks kind of like ancient Rome.
Oh, that's where I recognize Mr. Handsome from.