 Does anyone else think this "Girl Power" thing is sexist? At least they have women, and women of color, on the front page. You don't see that often. Photo of Wednesday's New York Times cover by Eric.
Finding Uncommon Ground in PoliticsDear Friend and Reader: The political nominating conventions have made for difficult watching. I must admit that I maxed out on the Republican National Convention (RNC) last week, and have only been sampling snippets of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), which climaxes Thursday night with the first major-party female candidate for president accepting her nomination.
One is a dystopia where everyone is threatened and everything is spinning out of control and terrorists are roaming every street. The other is a utopia where we're going to feed the poor, end racial inequality, rein in the banks, get some measure of gun control and remove corporate money out of politics. This is just one model of our divided, polarized society, inaccurate though it is. Last week's RNC was like a four-day advertisement for the police state, mass deportation, racism and the American Taliban, which for some reason still wants to ban reproductive rights for women. The party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt nominated an avowed racist and misogynist who's using the psychological and rhetorical tactics of Mussolini and Hitler. Do you know there's something called Godwin's Law, which in essence forbids comparisons to the Nazis in public discourse? The term is now included in the Oxford English Dictionary. If you make such a comparison, you forfeit the argument. So you're unlikely to see the necessary, accurate comparisons being made. It's OK to compare someone to George Wallace, the segregationist candidate for president in 1964. He and his goons did all the same things that we're seeing come out of the Trump campaign, but he did them in different times when the social immune system could stop him before he became the nominee. Today that immune system is severely weakened.
Remember, it was Trump who said he could shoot someone on a Manhattan street and his supporters would not care. It's true that we live in a society that holds violence as a positive association with the personality. The less you know who you are, the stronger that association is likely to be. Trump the Nightmare Landlord: Take Off the Front Door I am privy to one story from Trump's past as a New York City landlord. When he wanted to get rid of a tenant, such as an elderly person who was holding onto a valuable rent-controlled apartment, he had a simple tactic: remove the door to their apartment. Invariably feeling vulnerable in a space they could not secure, they would move out. This was cheaper than offering a buyout. The psychological insight and cruelty of this maneuver are equally chilling, particularly from someone threatening to deport all undocumented immigrants. He had other tactics as well, leading CNN Money to call him a "nightmare landlord" who would harass and torture his tenants into submission to his will. Trump's lawyers spend a lot of time in court. A recent investigation by USA Today found that "the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. They range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal defamation lawsuits." The USA Today report continued, "The sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump's courtroom entanglements." I've read he's even being sued by his former attorneys.
Last month, a child rape lawsuit was filed in federal court against Trump. The complaint, filed June 20, says that the woman bringing the suit was, at age 13, "subject to acts of rape, sexual misconduct, criminal sexual acts, sexual abuse, forcible touching, assault, battery, intentional and reckless infliction of emotional distress, duress, false imprisonment, and threats of death and/or serious bodily injury by the Defendants that took place at several parties during the summer months of 1994." Nobody in the mainstream media is paying attention to this; I have not heard it mentioned once. For this information you must go to alternative sources. In any past election cycle, this kind of lawsuit against a candidate would be a major issue. Remember, Pres. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sexual conduct with a consenting adult. And just last week, Roger Ailes resigned as the longtime head of Fox News, after sexual harassment allegations surfaced, including by former anchor Gretchen Carlson and current anchor Megyn Kelly. Commander of Making America Great Again We now know that Trump has no real intention of carrying out the duties of office. Thanks to a recent New York Times investigation, we know that he offered them wholesale to Ohio Gov. John Kasich when he offered him the vice presidency. Kasich would have run domestic and foreign policy, while Trump would have been in charge of "making America great again." Presumably he's offered the same deal to his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the most mainstream fundamentalist Christian Republican of the lot.
Nate Silver, the statistician of baseball and politics who publishes the FiveThirtyEight blog, this week had Clinton ahead of Trump by just 17 electoral votes. His model factors in all national polls, and he's proven to be accurate in the past. Silver wrote Thursday, "Trump's position in our polls-plus forecast, which adjusts for convention bounces, is almost unchanged over the past week; the model continues to give him about a 40 percent chance of winning the election, meaning that Clinton has a 60 percent chance. "Without adjusting for the convention bounce, however, the election is a dead heat. Our polls-only forecast, which doesn't account for the convention bounce, gives Clinton just a 53 percent chance of winning, and our now-cast -- which is more aggressive than the polls-only forecast and estimates what would happen in a hypothetical election held today -- has Trump as a 55 percent favorite." Part of the issue is that he's being taken seriously as a candidate by the media, despite all of this. To report what I've just written anywhere but on Comedy Central or HBO would be considered slanted journalism. As Stephen Colbert famously said, "Reality has a well known liberal bias." The problem that many liberals have with Hillary Clinton is that she's not one. She supported the Iraq war in a Senate floor speech that could have been written by Dick Cheney himself.
Clinton has connections to the investment banks, to Monsanto, to Walmart, and to everything else that liberals claim they cannot stand. But in my view this makes her a wholly unremarkable political candidate. She is just your average Republicrat. In past elections, all of these facts, including her pro-war and pro-bank stance, would give her credibility. Today, many on the left recognize Clinton as an establishment conservative, with the exception of one issue: women's reproductive rights. It has not helped her that Bernie Sanders did unexpectedly well offering what seemed to be an authentic liberal agenda, talking about redistribution of wealth by taxing the ultra rich, 'trust busting' huge corporations, funding public higher education and providing real healthcare. He got close to half of the pledged Democratic delegates, who have been expressing their anger at this week's convention. Sanders may have pushed Clinton to the left a little, but he also revealed that many, many Democrats and Independents want someone who is neither bankster nor warlord. Sexism is Contributing to the Problem It's not helping much that Clinton is a woman, either. Young women don't support her to the degree that older women do. If you're curious about a possible explanation, you may read this analysis in The Washington Post.
I just know how women tend to be treated by society; they are rarely taken as seriously as men are, even by other women. This is not being spoken of openly. The problem is being treated as if it does not exist. Many women are proud that Hillary has come this far as a woman, but are not accounting for those who despise this fact. (This is similar to how much of the anger directed at Barack Obama has been about little other than the fact that he's black, but as an inherently racist country it's not appropriate to bring this up.) Conversely, Trump seems to dominate the news cycle, and I don't think this is merely his salesmanship. Mainstream news media are, with very rare exceptions, biased against women. Given that Clinton is an actual qualified candidate and Trump is both unqualified and disqualified, the imbalance in coverage is ridiculous. (It's also ridiculous that Trump got so much more television coverage than Sanders, which is likely to have impacted the Democratic primary process.) But I don't think this is what's really going on. I don't think this is why we have someone so absurd as Trump doing so well. My take is that the problem is rage, which is being expressed violently. That rage is not merely coming from Trump or any other politician. It's coming from people who are genuinely in pain and anguish. It's coming from people who feel left behind by a changing society, and left out of the supposed economic recovery.
Rage is coming from people who were already only marginally literate being driven deeper into tribal consciousness (in the form of mass rage) by the impact of the internet. People who feel powerless are angry, and they are looking to Trump for an answer. This has nothing to do with Trump; he just knows a good marketing opportunity when he sees one. His campaign is powered by pre-existing pain and frustration (including sexual frustration), and it's validated by the hatred and fear that he himself is stoking violently. This raises the age-old question: what do people without the guns do about the people with the guns? On this matter, I would value your thoughts. I'll take them up on next week's Planet Waves FM. Lovingly,  Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday and Thursday evening in Kingston, New York, by Planet Waves, Inc. Core community membership: $197/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Designer: Lizanne Webb. Finance: Victoria Pomante. Astrology Editor: Amanda Painter. Astrology Fact Checker: Len Wallick. Copy Editor and Fact Checker: Jessica Keet. Eric's Assistant: Cortney Britton. Client Services: Amy Elliott. Media Consultant: Andrew Marshall McLuhan. Research, Writing and Editing: In addition to those listed above, Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Fe Bongolan, Kelly Janes, Amanda Moreno and Carol van Strum.
 Our crew in Columbus, OH. Can you feel the explosion?
Photo by Harold German Bustamante.
In Ohio, An Exploration Of CommunityBy Amy E. Jacobs | Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Third night, 2am, Columbus, OH. 30+ cars lining the streets of a suburban neighborhood. Sleeping bags on every inch of floor space in the house of a supporter gracious enough to offer us a place to stay. Guitar music filtering in from the backyard. A group of organizers huddled over laptops at the kitchen table. Oh yeah, and a movie star thrown in the mix as well. Read more...  Does the Door Say 'Push' or 'Pull'? By Amanda Painter How have you been doing with getting, or expressing, what you want since around June 9? Have you been able to take the lead in any effective ways to move toward your goals or desires? I ask because June 9 was when Mercury in Taurus opposed retrograde Mars in Scorpio, highlighting the question, 'what do I want?' The realms of physical or sexual pleasure and health, material possessions or financial stability might have been a particular focus.
One way to read this is that whatever desires and goals you came face-to-face with in early June are speaking to you again. However, the encounter may feel less like looking at your reflection in a glass door, and more like trying to push that door open. If you've been clear with yourself, it might be obvious which side of the door to push on, for example. Or it could be like noticing whether the little sign says 'push' or 'pull', rather than throwing all your weight into the opposite action and getting frustrated. Are you finding yourself in a situation that feels rather like tugging when it would work better to lean in, or shoving when the door will only open if you open your hand and place it on the handle to draw it towards you? If so, how are you reacting? It's possible to let pride and ego -- or a sense that you're entitled to things being easy, obvious and 'your way' -- get in the way. That could lead to frustration, including physical retaliation that backfires. Who hasn't slammed a door or hit an object when frustrated, only to have it bounce back at you, break or hurt your hand -- or hurt the person next to you -- at least once? When you're frustrated or your pride is hurt, you're more likely to take it out on others verbally and emotionally if you can't find a more creative way to discharge it. On the other hand, if you can see the absurdity of trying to push a door that should be pulled (or vice versa), it's also possible to allow a more childlike and playful response. Everybody has gotten a door wrong at least once, and it can be really funny. They say laughter is the best medicine, and particularly with cases of pride and ego, it's true. A little compassion for yourself if you feel like you've 'gotten it wrong' or can't seem to figure out how to articulate what you really want and how to get there may help, too. Especially if you feel like you've been 'getting it wrong' for a very long time when you try to express your desires. In fact, stepping away from the door metaphor more completely, having Mercury in Leo really can emphasize compassion and letting it take the lead if you're questioning how to get closer to those desires you recently identified.
Noted astrologer Robert Hand mentions that Mercury square Mars can show up as the need to defend one's ideas or beliefs against someone as if it's a 'life or death' situation, which it is not. Though your ego might feel like it is. And if you're feeling frustrated in your pursuit of your desires -- especially if that frustration has some history and is closer to rage -- and you've been trying to repress it, there's a much greater chance that it could come out as irritability, aggressive hostility or even as a physical accident. Finding some constructive way to express your frustration is key. Can you shift from pride to playfulness to make the vulnerability of your desires less scary? Can you be honest about the ways you perhaps have not been straightforward about what you want, offer yourself a little compassion for that, and take a more articulate lead in how you express your desires? If that feels like a leap, maybe try a little exercise or productive physical exertion to blow off some steam, and see if your thinking clears. Saturday at 2:18 pm EDT (18:18 UTC) Mercury will leave Leo and enter Virgo. That should bolster your common sense; and if you've gotten to the root of any frustration via productive or playful action, you'll be in a great place to use it. When Mars re-enters Sagittarius on Aug. 2 at 1:49 pm EDT (17:49 UTC), bringing desire into the land of beliefs and religion, that common sense will prove especially handy.   Soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama gets some retirement advice for the couple of years he and Michelle plan to remain in Washington DC after his term ends, while Joe Biden polishes his sunglasses collection. Don't miss the sly reference to "Song of the South" from John Boehner, and its subversively implied commentary on Republican racism, or Boehner reprising his infamous role as cigarette pusher.
Summertime (or Retirement) and the Livin' Is Easy By Amanda Painter You may have already seen this brilliant video, in which Barack Obama mocks his upcoming 'retirement' from the US Presidency, shortly after it was aired at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April 30. (You can also see it here, with some footage of the dinner.) If not, it's quite a treat -- proving once again that our current POTUS has a fine sense of humor and some humility. The November elections are drawing near -- though not nearly fast enough, given what a complete circus the campaign season has become (complete with terrifying clowns, political contortionists and more than a few elephants in the room). Obama still has work to do, no matter how focused people are on November, or how chill and ready for 'retirement' he seems in the video. Given that he's a Leo (born Aug. 4, 1961), that might suit him just fine. You'll rarely see him roar or jump through a flaming hoop (wait, at this point, all of US politics is looking like a flaming hoop…), but one gets the sense that this 'leadership' thing comes to him quite naturally.  Double Edition of Planet Waves FM 1: The Astrology of August, and Why I Got Out of Politics 2: Robert Schmidt Discusses the Inventor of Western Astrology Dear Planet Waves Listener: This week we have something that's got a touch of history to it: an interview with Robert Schmidt of Project Hindsight [play episode here], who last week announced that he had discovered the inventor of Greek astrology, which means Western astrology.
Eventually as his collaborators Robert Hand and Robert Zoller went in their own directions, Hindsight under Schmidt's leadership stuck exclusively to Greek astrology, starting with documents from the 4th century BCE. Those include something called the Thema Mundi, which we discuss in the interview. Through extensive reading and translation of the literature, Schmidt deduced that there were both founders and a founding era, and his research all points to a Greek mathematician and astronomer named Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 390 - c. 337 BCE) as the leading founder. In this week's regular edition [play episode here], I look at the current astrology -- Ceres in Taurus and Vesta in Cancer; and then open up the astrology of August, covering the Mars ingress into Sagittarius, Mars conjunct Saturn, the Leo New Moon and Jupiter opposite Chiron. This is a juicy astrology discussion, with lots about Ceres, Vesta and Chiron. In the second segment, I talk about why I got out of politics as a full-time vocation in the spring of 1986: the reason being, politics is all about lying, and I could not do that for a living. I begin with a recap of Dr. Wilhelm Reich's theory of politics (the 'mystical longing answered in the authoritarian leader'). Then I get into the story of a campaign I managed for the SUNY Buffalo student government, and what happened as a result. It is, in part, the story of my first Chiron square -- a morality tale for sure. If you want to comment on the Schmidt interview, I suggest you do so on the Planet Waves page associated with the show (free registration required) or my Facebook page. With love, Planet Waves TV: Sun in Leo and the Grand Fire Trine
In this week’s Planet Waves TV, Eric describes the transition we’ve made from a grand water trine to a grand fire trine. This week Mercury and the Moon in Leo make aspects to planets in Aries and Sagittarius -- a significant shift away from the murky watery energy of recent weeks and months. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Find Some BALANCE: Your 2016 Midyear Readings No two 12-sign Midyear Readings from Planet Waves are exactly alike. Yet they all have something important in common: customers find exactly what they need to hear in them at exactly the right moment. We live in tumultuous times, but also exceedingly rich ones, for those who can see the potential. Balance: the 2016 Midyear Reading is Eric's upcoming offering to help you find breathing room in your life, sure to inspire you like this listener, named Elizabeth, was:
"How can his readings, written for the many, be so uncannily true for me? He somehow puts into the perfect words my unexpressed but very much felt awareness that my life purpose is not something separate from who I essentially am, but integral, essential -- my creativity and I are (ideally) one seamless expression. "Because he's so accurate, so spot on in his portrayal of my life right now, I know I can trust and be inspired by the guidance, the tools for living and growing he also offers as part of the reading -- I see my life, and my available resources, with greater clarity; I see how I might move forward, be bolder about my choices, experiment more, develop bigger ideas, manifest and embody the best, the creative aspect of myself. "He's an exceptional astrologer, and I have experienced real, tangible benefits from the mid-year readings -- I'm not 'there' yet, but the fact that I'm even on the journey is very much thanks to Eric's skill and intuition: timely, specific, mind-expanding analysis and advice." -- Elizabeth Eric is here to help you recognize the possibilities that a time of exceedingly fast change opens up, and help you find the inner resources to make the most of our moment. You can pre-order all 12 signs of BALANCE: the 2016 Midyear Reading for only $57 -- an incredible value for the degree of inspiration, motivation, peace of mind and integrative potential that awaits you.  Your Monthly Horoscopes -- and our Publishing Schedule Notes We've published your extended monthly horoscope for August below in this issue. Your extended monthly horoscope for July was published Thursday, June 23. We published your Moonshine horoscope for the Capricorn Full Moon, by Len Wallick, on Thursday, July 14. Len's Moonshine Horoscope for the Cancer New Moon was published Thursday, June 30. Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign. Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August, 2016, #1110 | By Eric Francis
     Photo by John Wilkinson / Cape Town. Live it. Love it.
"What an amazing reading! I do believe that Eric upped the ante on his reading skills." -- Dee McCrorey Actively creating one's life can be challenging. If you or anyone you love with a Leo Sun, Leo rising or a Leo Moon could use a nudge in the right direction -- or some deeper insights into current questions -- please consider giving them (or yourself) the 2016-17 Leo Birthday Reading as a gift .
This blend of audio and video, astrology and tarot like a motivational immersion experience, but at a fraction of the cost of a workshop. The current price is $24.97, and the price will increase when Eric publishes the well-respected reading. Get your life purring along with one of the best possible forms of empowerment available, allowing you to take the lead in your life while knowing you have support. Pre-order your Leo Reading today.        
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