At the Crossroads: An Astrologer Looks at These Turbulent Times by Jessica J. Murray

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The polls tell us that Mr. Romney’s strongest support is among low-income white men and high-income white men. In other words: the pissed-off jobless dude and the boss-man who outsourced his job. Go figure.

Similarly counter-intuitive are the political preferences of Tea Party enthusiasts, who detest reckless spending and the government — the same government their candidate is spending recklessly to join.

There is nothing subtle about Uranus  — governor of the shocking and outrageous – when up against Pluto – the planet that pushes things to extremes, the better to expose their toxicity. The shenanigans that have characterized American politics this summer have been as blatant as a slugfest in the schoolyard. One can only imagine how crazy things will get in 2014-15, when the Uranus-Pluto square meets up with the natal square in the chart of the USA (whose Sun-Saturn reside at the 13th and 14th degrees respectively) to form a Grand Cross.

In a country considered by most of its citizens to be the greatest democracy in the world, the electoral system took another step into dark parody in recent weeks with the passing of a new rash of voting restrictions. Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania have now joined the game of exclusion, coming up with polling-station tricks reminiscent of the Jim Crow South. The I.D. requirements to be demanded of elderly, black, poor and student voters are intended, of course, to keep the voices of the have-nots from being counted.

In a way, it is almost refreshing to see the voting process manipulated with such crude blatancy; given the carpet of deniability that covers the far more all-encompassing chicanery at the root of the whole system. The more profound skullduggery, perpetrated by the kingmaker class and maintained by their cohorts in the media, is that there are appreciable differences between the two ruling parties.

Were Americans to turn off their TVs and instead carefully consider their candidates’ policies, they would notice that Democrats and Republicans alike support keeping the financial industry from being regulated. Both advocate for “free trade”. Each has sung the praises of corporate bailouts and would push for more of them if their man wins. Moreover, for all the hay made by the Obama camp out of Romney’s secret tax returns, the two parties are equally committed to reducing rich people’s taxes.

Obama’s tax plan (price tag: $150 billion) would give a one-year tax cut of $20,130, on average, to the top 1 % income earners.  Romney’s ($210 billion) would give those same aristocrats $70,790. As journalist David Sirota puts it, the dispute is over a tax code that would give each of those households the equivalent of the annual salary of one butler (Obama’s plan) or three butlers (Romney’s plan).

Perhaps the qualitative difference between these scenarios strikes you as less than staggering. In previous essays I have called America’s red-vs-blue charade “pretend politics”. I have suggested that there is a deliberate campaign at work here, on the part of the public opinion manipulators, to rivet voters’ attention upon personalities andPeople Magazine-style details, and away from the facts.

Facts such as, to take one at random: Not one of the Wall Street swindlers who gamed the global economy within an inch of its life has seen jail time