Plus Ca Change, and All That
I have a confession to make, somewhat reluctantly: I’m starting to turn into a teabagger. It’s been a slow but inexorable process that forcibly began when then-Senator Obama completely capitulated on the FISA bill during the campaign, but as the health care debacle has unfolded, I’ve found that I practically need a spreadsheet to keep track of the baits and switches. Soothing words and promising appointments have been buried under an avalanche of same old, same old, to the point where I believe what this administration says even less than I believed the last, and that’s saying something.
Loathsome as Bush was, he did actually deliver for his voters and did what he said he would do, no matter how bonkers, something Obama seems constitutionally (I use that word facetiously, of course…) unable to do. It’s becoming increasingly unclear which President we’re now living under; not only has nothing changed, but on several important issues, Obama is doing the exact opposite of what he campaigned on, and as a result, the aberrant policies of the Bush years have become normalized. The wars continue unabated, the rich still escape any real taxation, and the Constitution, lying in tatters after eight years of shredding, has barely received even a little bit of scotch tape. What few “liberal” reforms, chiefly in areas of the environment and the rhetoric, are so vanishingly slight as to be undetectable, despite Dick Cheney’s protestations to the contrary.
Torture? Well, from now on it will be “limited.” Insane right-wingers serving as US Attorneys? Obama has, unlike any other President I can remember, kept all of them, even though we now know whatever sane and honest Republicans Bush had accidentally appointed had been purged by Bush in favor of craven, corrupt wingnuts. Rule of law? We all know now that sort of thing is just for the Little People; we need to look forward, not back, after all. Halliburton, Blackwater, and Goldman Sachs still suckle just as greedily at the federal teat, banks have gotten bigger and less accountable, and military spending continues to crowd out every other need uppity citizens might ineffectually squawk about. This is change?
Our “system,” such as it is, is nothing more than a corrupt and self-serving corporatocracy which serves its own ends, impervious to the childish whims of we, the people, as the Obama Administration shows us with depressing regularity. It turns out that the powers that be took one look at what Obama had proposed during his purportedly “people powered” campaign, and said, “Nix.” And Obama said, perhaps sheepishly, “Okay.” No percentage in opposition to these depredations short of 100 can turn this ship around anymore, and I guess we’re all just supposed to get used to it. Health care policy will continue to be decided by the “industry” that has been bleeding Americans dry and sending them to their deaths, banking policy is firmly in the hands of the people who looted and crashed the economy, foreign policy comes to us by fax from the military/industrial complex, tax policy from the upper .01% of “earners,” energy policy courtesy of Big Oil, and on and on. Ordinary citizens can vote until they’re blue in the face, and just like Dick Cheney, the Obama Administration says, “So?”
It was easy, back in the day, to blame the corruption and constitutional outrages that had been falling like rain for eight years on the Republicans and Cheney/Bush, and naively but hopefully send checks, attend rallies , and scream bloody murder to try to put a stop to it, which back in November, still seemed possible. We did that. And then we waited. And waited. Someone evidently explained to Obama that once in office, waiting around for $25 checks would be a thing of the past, if only he cast aside what the earlier checks were for, the really big money requiring much less tedious envelope-opening.
It turns out that Bush, perhaps the world’s most notorious liar, has something over Obama. Honesty. Who’d a thunk? I guess the only promises we can believe anymore are the scary ones.
wow, Tart, you seem very depressed but I have to say you are probably right on the money. Quite the headache this Obamania causes as you wake up, huh?
I was very skeptical about a single person or even small group being able to radically change a system from within. But what is going on is beyond my wildest (horror) dreams. You are right. Forget voting once and for all. Let’s open lots of beers, smoke herbs and tip. At least we are having fun in the process. A headache is what we get in either case….
“Depressed” is probably far too fervent a term for my feelings at this point. “Annoyed” is about as far as I ever get at my age. I’m not sure whether the herb and tipping are symptom or cause…
Next time you’re here or I’m there, I’m sure we’ll do both.
Perhaps the only solace in all of this is that while W did deliver the goods for industry and the rich, he stuck it to the fundies pretty hard. They were probably as instrumental in electing him as the progressives were for Obama, but he then went on to pretend to be religious while doing diddly for them on the abortion front.
…Except for the court appointments, I hasten to add. The fundies will be getting payoffs over time, and since Obama has chosen centrism as his watchword for the courts, I grow painedly resigned. Now Stevens is about to tip over, and I have every expectation Obama won’t be putting up a Brennan or Marshall. Remember, Souter is now considered a “liberal.”
Yep, he did leave us a lot of debris there. I really shudder to think who Obama will nominate for Stevens’ slot.
I hear Bork’s still available; that’d be “bipartisan.”
Barney Frank was optimistic 8 months ago, but a little worried:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrmaLlxY28&feature=related
Great, and prescient words from ol’ Barney. I wonder if CHNN could get him in for an interview today….
Hag, your post and Obama are making it increasingly hard for me to hold off my judgment until Obama has been president one year. I’m still going to, but I’m starting to waver.
What the hell is Obama going to respond to, if not criticism? Right now, all he seems to care about are the addled opinions of Chuck Grassley, the Dick, and the rest. I’d say it’s high time us normal people started popping off. Keeping quiet doesn’t seem to be paying off, to say the very least.
I’d bet he is paying too much attention to polls. Totally agree about popping off. Withholding overall judgment doesn’t mean withholding criticism or remaining quiet.
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Obama’s duplicity is a squirrely flurry to draw a bead on. From what I have gathered there are two sets of ‘books’ (of facts). First there is The Narrative we all are familiar with, although it contains a couple of lapses (or ‘omissions’) which are usually overlooked. Such as, how did he move ‘up’ (into ‘POTUS contention’) so abruptly — wasn’t he elected Senator in 2006, serving only 2 years? — seeming to ‘leapfrog’ many more-senior names (like Hillary) to be – al a’ka-zam – standing there as ‘leading contender.’ Conventional punditry attributes his manifestation to a ‘powerful’ momentum built of zealous youth well organized (which sounds almost a contradiction in terms right there itself). Heck, other Dem candidates had ‘organization,’ too, even the least of them — Kucinich, let’s say, (my personal favorite). Simply saying that: I never witnessed among Dem’s the unanimity for Obama in a way I could sense that matched what later they delivered for him at the polls in the election. There was a ‘coming together’ after the Dem Convention, sure, but that too, the nomination, seemed suspiciously pat in contrast to the helter-skelter candidate ‘popping corn’ during the primary season — I mean, weren’t there at least 8 candidates on stage in each debate production? As the winnowing went on, (and my Dennis K was categorically shut out, unfairly), my own feelings became, rather single-mindedly, ABC (anyone but Clinton); which is NOT being for anyone. However, it was touching and I was moved to see Obama ‘beat the odds’ and succeed. The happy result, and hope glossing over, still sort of begs some questions: Where’d he come from? Wha’d he do?
Anyway … on the other hand, a second book (of facts) offers a different perspective if not Narrative. The most of what I know of these is contained in a Report, below. These came too late (to my knowledge) to act on, meaning post-election, dribs and drabs ‘leaking out’ during December, Jan., and Feb. As much sketchy Narrative as I can see in it is threaded and twisted through Chicago politics and includes players such as Hastert, Blagoyevic, Rahm Emanuel, Jan Schakowsky, Durbin, maybe Jesse Jackson’s (Rev. and Jr.), late-comer Patrick Fitzgerald, and some I can’t recall offhand and all being more influential than Richard Daley Jr. (Plus, I think Hillary’s childhood was in Chicago.) There just is something suspicious about it, an incest or inner circle or operatives’ club or something clandestine, convened in Illinois, that I can’t quite put my finger on. As if to stand Haldemann on his head ‘they’ decided at some juncture that it was playing in Peoria and to take it on the road and play it everywhere. Whatever the definition of ‘it’ is.
In a third part, I have some separate ‘facts’ of my own making, but certainly not book-length. Only two. One is a candid comment by Michele Obama’s brother, as he was televised for a Sports story as the Oregon State basketball coach. He confided that Obama had pulled him aside at a family get-together, tete ‘a tete on the Q T, “this was before he was elected Senator,” Michele’s brother said, “even before he told us he was going to run,” (that’s my verbatim, now I paraphrase), ‘and he [Obama] asked me if I had any hidden background skeletons or criminal entanglements, and I told him no, and he said good, that he was thinking of something [of high visibility] and I should be on perfect behavior, squeaky clean, not even a traffic ticket.’ Which indicates to me that Obama was ‘in on’ some kind of ‘arrangements’ featuring him, his future, as early as perhaps 8 years before being elected president. Maybe even earlier; maybe a little later.
Two: I looked at Obama’s astrology chart. Sun in Leo, Moon in early Gemini. I think the consensus says he has Pisces Ascendant — I hold suspended judgment on that.
The Gemini Moon is slightly slippery, mercurial. Hence: duplicitous. A stripe of split personality, Jekyll and Hyde. Well, just simply a white mother and black father shows it (dualism) in a way.
I have invested only brief minutes looking at his chart, but as I get back to it I am going to most study his Gemini Moon element.
Now, finally, here’s what I started out to share. By this most credible (only take my word for it) Wayne Madsen report (‘WMR’), Obama was a CIA ‘junior agent’ for a few years and ‘assignments.’ That much is certain; then perhaps some could argue whether or not, or how much he was witting in his involvement, (or naive).
So the sense is that Obama possibly perhaps may have been ‘brought along’ and ‘handled,’ ‘positioned,’ ‘groomed’ for where he is or as some ‘standby’ on reserve in a bureaucratic slot, (with who-knows-what ‘compromise’), starting as far back as 30 years ago when he was in college. (I, too, was ‘propositioned’ or ‘recruited’ by the CIA when I was in [NameOfPrestigious] college, and then it took me twenty years to realize that’s who it was that had ‘hit on’ me. … a story for another time …)
Wow, Meremark… I shudder to think Obama could have been so completely concocted, but there is certainly no doubt he’s conflicted. I generally thought that putting forth amiable dunces to serve the Interests was a Republican thing, while Democrats just started caving once in office.
It is odd that Israel seems to be the one area of policy that has switched, at least on the surface.
Wow… I’ll have to read that again later, Meremark, in order to digest it fully.
However, as to Obama’s chart. He has an Aquarius ascendant, putting that Gemini moon in his 4th house.
http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Obama%2C_Barack
I also have a Gemini moon, but in the 3rd house, and it gave me pause about him, too, knowing too well how easily he could just talk and maybe not really do anything.
Besides, I thought we’d had just a bit too much Leo energy for the past 16 years (Clinton/Sun, Bush/Asc), and that we really needed some Gemini energy for a change, but as a Sun sign, not the Moon!
Blessed be, Karen M, rep re senting in the Astro mumbo jumbo.
I hold back much words of horoscopic things I see, left unsaid, where I’m ‘out in public’ like this. No one asks to hear it.
Such is the Primary Tenet of astrologer Ethics: No advertising, no self-promoting, no soliciting of clients. In ALL cases the Practitioner of Antiquity’s Art is to attend and wait upon the Querent arriving, and there may be niceties and small talk exchanged but NO (Artist) prompting, until the Inquiry of its own self volition ASKS the question to be measured and considered in the Art. And the First Consideration is of the time at which the question is voiced, and of the auspices and auguries in that moment at that Time, and the Time at which the Question is asked contains the ‘answer’ to the question; in some (primal) sense, the Time at which the question is asked is more important than the content of the question.
I 1
Estant assis de nuict secret estude,
Seul reposé fus la selle d’airain;
Flambe exigue sortant de solitude
Feit proferer qui n’est à croire en vain.
I 2
La verge en main mise au milieu des branches,
De l’onde il moulle le limbe & le pied,
Vn peur & voix fremissent par les manches,
Splendeur diuine, le diuin pres s’assied.
The divine is nearby.
I don’t do much ‘reading’ of the Natal Chart. It is static. Innate and unchanging of the individual. For instance, in Obama’s natal chart I may make note of the Moon being close (5 days) before New Moon. and yes, in the IVth House and Sun on the Descendant. The Moon’s Nodes in late Leo/Aquarius indicates that the New Moon (coming) is a partial eclipse of the Sun, and the following Full Moon (Aug.26,’61) is a total eclipse of the Moon.
I note the Mercury opposite Jupiter, (gullible, over-generous judgment of others’ character, inspiring orator himself — with this Leo, flattery will get you everywhere).
I note the Venus ‘better placed’ than the Mars, (a lover, not a fighter — see his ‘Friday date nights’ with Michele).
I note Uranus approaching the N.Node in late Leo. This is worrisome, there comes a pivotal life event (age 23) which is an ‘accident’ and fulfills later (age 43). Yet, overall, some ‘split-second sense’ or perhaps ‘apparition’ (guardian angel, luckiness) hovers nearby at all ages, lifelong — in the VIIth House, so somewhat it is marriage partner Michele, (and somewhat it is ‘instant enemy’ who is envious). There is more to this.
I note Neptune most elevated in the chart, in the IXth House. Kinda square the Sun but I might not mention that, it could be worse (if it were more exact, or Neptune approaching). Still, there it is, so perhaps he senses that people doubt or disbelieve him (without justification) or think he is deceiving them (more than he actually is or means to). There are (Scorpio) shades of Teddy Roosevelt in this aspect.
Last and MOST I note Jupiter and Saturn approaching conjunct, in the XIIth House. This is dark and devilish; this is ‘secret spy’ territory and ‘power’ in a holding ‘behind his back,’ (if he’s doing the holding, it’s a Big Stick; if someone else is doing the holding, they’ve got him in an armlock). The conjunction never quite fulfills, but with that much gravitas ‘close’ is good enough. Bad things happen by it, perhaps the worst of all going on right now, onset at being elected and culminating 2 months before his birthday 2012 — Mars (progressing) square Saturn (progressed, then natal).
Reading the natal chart is (for me) rather limited — there’re only so many synonyms which can be ascribed for the ‘dozen’ material points of interest, (I don’t do Pluto — it’s not a planet). It seems to me that most astrologers go (or get) beyond the limitations by introducing more and more ‘material points of interest’ (such as asteroids or midpoints or what-have-you), and much of it seems to me quite specious.
I delve into reading chart progressions. For me, a chart comes alive in the dynamic of the points of interest moving.
For example, Obama’s Sun (spirit) ‘changed’ (progressed) from being Leo to being Virgo at age 18, and in 2 years (2011) ‘he’ changes from being Virgo to being Libra, (until if age 78, then Scorpio). Such are the ‘phases’ of his life.
As another example, we can note that his progressed Moon exactly crossed his Ascendant (natal) on election night. So I ‘rectify’ charts, and by that aspect alone — prog.Moon conjunct Ascendant on election, (although there are more), I say that birthtime is correct and true, (19:24 or whatever it is, I forget, on that chart you link to, Karen M).
In the classical reading of his natal chart, one might hardly think that he’d marry a Capricorn, (Michele Jan.17). But notice that her Sun conjuncts his Saturn, and that underscores my emphasizing his Jupiter-Saturn in the XIIth House being very forceful if not central in his chart. It’s quite a subtlety. Such is the issue (Jupiter-Saturn) when the subject is the POTUS. … and vice versa.
I may continue this after I have slept awhile … zzzzzzz
Hmmmm. A president who has worked for the CIA? So, what else is new? We never thought he was in politics to “serve his fellow man” now did we?
Good article hag, and little that I could argue with. It is sad that the American desire to rule the world keeps us from just enjoying life on this earth and leaving others alone to do their own thing.
Oh well, it is what it is.
As that ex-Nazi patiently explained, “Of course the people don’t want war….”
Hi there! Thought I’d stop being one of those ‘lurkers’ you fret about and let you know I’m enjoying your site. Lovely place. Hope you don’t mind me sipping my drink in the dark table at the back?
Coincidentally, I just wrote a letter to Obama yesterday (while finally unsubscribing from his donation list and fairy dust emails – he really must think there is no end to the gullibility of the hope dopes). It contained your sentiments exactly, though written with far less panache.
When I’m ’round for my next G&T (or 2 or 3) maybe I’ll post a couple of observations on Meremark’s theme.
In the meantime – do you think Minka Myrnoff might be one of your Latvian lurkers?
Ah, thanks for de-lurking; new faces always make the party more interesting. I’ve been deleting, unread, everything I get from Obama for months; reading the crap just makes my head hurt. Maybe it’s time to unsubscribe; it would be the less passive passive/aggressive thing to do.
(I’m pretty sure Myrna isn’t Latvian….)
Please do comment more on Meremark’s theme; I’ve been thinking about it today but because of my pesky day job didn’t get time to post back in more depth.
Well there was more rambling rumble supposed to connect an astrologer’s view with everyone else’s view of Obama. But I spiked it all. Maybe save it for later, on a slow day.
Meanwhile, I thought some footnotes about Wayne Madsen Report .COM (‘WMR’) were in order, considering the length and look of his work I put here.
Starting with that he used to be an NSA operative or agent (it’s uncertain). His bio is at his website. His website is 7 or 8 years deep. And nearly flawless — no corrections, no retractions, no false defamation charges. (Once, Barbara Bush threatened to sue him for false reporting or something, and he counter-threatened to counter-sue for harassment, and Babs folded like a sheet and dropped flat.) (Today WM reports the Thailand police (paramilitaries) have jammed Thai access to WMR website, following his report naming names dates and places of US State Dept persons escorting US congresspersons on pedophile ‘junkets’ in and around Thailand, over a 20-some year record of it.)
Someone mentioned the excess of details reported. Sometime in school I memorized the names of the 50 states and capitals; perhaps you did the same. Well, now we’re older and wiser, so we can step it up a notch. Expand our envelopes, if you will. So: memorize the names and capitals of the 280 (is that right?) UN member states. And the serving head-of-state. And predecessor. And date of transition. And date of ‘independence’ and date of UN entry for each member state. Land area. Population. Principle economy. Political context. et cetera et cetera et cetera.
That’s what it is like reading Madsen’s daily reports. He’s a speed-typing walking wikipedia of world intrigues and relations and interconnections. (Related in today’s Thailand internet choke, it was reported that Israeli-partisan agents from somewhere (probably Mossad and CIA) are editing in many false and diluted Wikipedia entries, certain ones unflattering of Israel — that is to say, Wikipedia is suffering cyber attack of history revisionists.) Madsen seems to carry the entire matrix of world facts in his mind, seeing the connections, remembering incidental names of persons and companies in cases he investigated 20 years ago or more. It seems that most of his material is supplied by whistleblowers inside CIA or NSA leaking to Madsen to publish because he is so trustworthy. It’s not sure because he never says who his source is, or if he does say, e.g. “a military Army source,” it is possibly a misdirection and the truth is it’s a Navy source.
The smoke and mirrors get thick quick, just as an example of the genre:
Or, you may think none of this is of interest or affects you. Then something like this comes along:
And without much argument you might begin to consider that everything you know, that you read in the newspaper, that you saw on TV, anytime during the last 60 years, is WRONG. It’s almost no wonder 3 out of 4 Americans can’t find Iraq on a map. Nevermind Vietnam.
Keeping up with Madsen requires a readiness to rethink everything you thought before today, (about Obama, for instance). Probably you recognize the writer of the above piece: yes, that Richard Clark. Did you ever notice that most of the writers who tell the most incomprehensibly vast (yet documented) conspiracy explanations and who make the strongest case with the most credible evidence for charging USGovt and Pentagon and CIA persons with Crimes Against Humanity, war crimes, murder, vile corruptions and worse, always seem to be writers who used to be ‘on the inside’ and have first-hand eye-witness knowledge, like maybe they know something they’re trying to tell us?
Madsen says he’d like to follow in Jack Anderson’s footsteps. He’s already outdone him. He is Anderson, Sy Hersh, I.F. Stone, George Seldes, Evans AND Novak, the Alsops, and Halberstam and all of the best, Herb Caen, Studs Terkel, Mike Royko, Phillip Berrigan, et al., all rolled into one, with a dash of William Randolph Hearst thrown in for good measure. Plus, none of them had associations from having worked in the NSA/CIA, and none of them had the internet, and none of them were their own publisher.
It is the ruinous shame of the Pulitzer Prize committee that they haven’t cast an Investigative Journalist winner trophy in bronze, with Madsen’s name on it, awarded him and permanently retired the competition, with no other nominations evermore.
There are many upstarted strong writers on the internet, producing valuable stuff revealing scandals and exposes and crimes and corruption, such as Greenwald and digby and firedoglake and Brock’s MediaMatters and Scahill, or like Hartmann and Maddow and Olberman and Jon Stewart forgawdsake, and if any ONE of them would simply lend a hand and a little bit of promotional publicity, to frontpage Madsen’s material or direct popular attention to his website, I swear, he’d have so many subscribers he could finally afford some staff and assistants, help support his colleagues, train interns, and nearly single-handedly put constitutional Free Press-quality back in the Fourth Estate. And smash the Establishment.
But, damn, folks try to read his stuff but he is playing above the rim. And white folks can’t jump.
Any big city daily could take almost any one day’s Madsen Report item, assign 3 reporters for 3 months to look into it, flesh out the details, put in the background context, add graphics, run it as a 30,000-word 5-part series … and win a Pulitzer for it. Of course, certain of Madsen’s stories would crash a newspaper’s stock price, get the entire editorial board and management fired, and fined, and the publisher imprisoned, but so what. Circulation would quadruple.
Already about half of Congress subscribes and reads Madsen, or has a dedicated staffer assigned to monitor the website. It is astonishing what is there in the free portion. And it is unbelievable what is in the subscriber area and archives.
I’ve been reading WMR about 6 years, I guess. If I hadn’t followed along as it grew I’d probably give up, too daunting, trying to get in the know. I don’t know what to recommend for others. Just give him a regular daily read for awhile and see what you think. Try to be open to rethinking everything you thought before.
Occasionally Madsen makes public appearances, even in Oregon. I went to meet him. I asked and he answered his birthdate, time, and place. After his talk, seven of us sat with him a couple of hours over drinks and dinner, chatting and meeting minds. I tried to make an impression by asking for details of a story he reported, and I did it, I stumped him. (Name the “16 Texas oilmen and wives” (quoting the AP) who were joyriding onboard the US Navy submarine off Hawaii that criminally sank the Japanese training trawler and killed the 9 students, in the early months of the prez Dubya debacle. Wayne said, “I forgot about that. I’ll check on it.” I suspect Bush Sr. & Babs coulda been onboard, or equivalent names of ghastly disrepute and dimension … I mean, who do you know who can order up a Navy submarine for a joyride, celebrating Dubya being in The Fright House? Think about it.)
And in all these things, the information you can’t tell from true from false: think about it. Turn it over in your mind. Put the pieces together for yourself. Use common sense, knowing the motives in human nature are always the same, rich or poor, dumb or smart, here or there, and as old as time immemorial and astrology.
Combined with Madsen’s lengthy detailed report I put in this thread, with some surprising contents, I have tried to add here some way or sense that everyone could “consider the source.” I’ve talked with him, I’ve seen his astrology chart, I trust him and believe his words, but that’s just me. You’all have to decide for yourselves. It’s important in processing information, when we “think about it,” to be sure to “consider the source.”
And now, just for fun, to end on a typical Madsen note, here’s a short detailed report and why haven’t you heard any of this in the mainstream press? For petesake, somebody give Greenwald a clue; I’ve emailed him repeatedly but he don’t know me and I can’t seem to get him to blink wink or nod … sorta like a blind horse I saw once
Thank you, Hag, for your toleration. a tip of my libation: to your health!
Well, I’m hopping directly over to have a look-see at the Madsen’s site. (BTW, Richard Clarke has an “e” at the end of his name….) I’m always digging around for new sources here at CHNN. Anyone who can stare down Barbara Bush has my eternal admiration and awe.
Mostra de calcul al coeficient de mutare termic pentru ferestre oscilante, usi glisante si vitrare.
http://www.gradunion.cam.ac.uk/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=18645