 Hobo Supermans by Tim Davis. See larger version here.
Where are the strong, and who are the trusted?Dear Friend and Reader: Last week the new edition of Chronogram came in. That's the regional magazine I've written for every month since early 1996. Chronogram always has excellent covers which by design are unconnected to any specific article. But they are often timely comments. With one glance my jaw dropped: the artist had summed up the state of the nation in one image. It's called Hobo Supermans. The artist is Tim Davis. What's happening in this picture? It looks like the Supermans have given up. They're homeless and unemployed. There are two of them, which is odd. And they've lit their fire on the train tracks, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a train could come careening at any moment. Maybe they think they can stop it with their bare hands when it does, which it will, sooner or later. Since they're obviously just regular guys in costumes, that probably won't work too well.
He's the idea that someone is going to come from the sky and save us, which is so old the expression is in Latin: Deus Ex Machina. Basically, he's God in superhuman form, and somehow people find this reassuring. The concept is the American equivalent to some Nazi notion of the perfect man. By 1938, when Superman first went into print, the German race (as some thought of it at the time) was busy trying to purify itself with the help of gas chambers and crematoria. Now, in 2016, the guys shown in the photo have thrown it in. They're despondent, worn out and bored, even though there's plenty of work to do. They're not God -- they are us. They're our phony presidential candidates. They're one answer to Elvis Costello's question, "Where are the strong, and who are the trusted?" I understand the anger and alienation that has led many people to think that Superman has secured the Republican nomination. He's going to save the economy and seal the borders and get rid of the pesky Mexican criminals and work with the blacks who love him so much and clean up all the corruption in Washington and punish all those lying journalists and give us some fabulous health care and destroy Isis and we'll all get a bottle of fancy wine every week and the best pastries and turn the White House, and your house, into New Versailles. We, too, will be able to shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue and cherish women more than anyone, more than anyone. Believe me. Believe me. He knows people are pissed off or they wouldn't fall for this bullshit, so he plays into their anger and their ignorance. I saw a Trump campaign attack ad last night promising to go after everyone who contributed to the corrupt Clinton Foundation -- which failed to mention that Trump himself donated and exploited the Clintons. That's just what you do. He has offended and alienated everyone, but like my father says to his students, "I know you're not going to remember this because I said it five minutes ago."
Most Americans think that working hard entitles us to everything, and that having rights is a waiver from responsibility. Look where it's getting us. The missing piece is the personal one. It's the part about the significant work of becoming human. We have human bodies and human DNA and all that, but actually evolving into one's humanity is about the work of self-awareness and growth. This is challenging for people who admit that neither exist. It's about questioning one's assumptions, which requires becoming aware of them. There's also something about discernment: doing the work of deciding what is true and what is false; of deciding what is in accord with one's values, which means knowing what they are. Experiencing one's inner being, what some call spirituality, is perilous. Introspection takes courage, because you don’t know what you’ll find. The modern substitute is religiosity: that is, being a holy roller of some stripe or another. Seeking within yourself is a lot harder than deciding that abortion is wrong and thinking that makes one a superior person who has God's favor. Most of what religion encourages people to do is to play God and avoid the issue of death. In the United States, that means Jesus as Superman. We have another candidate who is coming off more like the average American, the working soccer mom, despite her having held high office and earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year, from selling books or brokering her political influence. Her Superwoman status is conferred by all that she's concealing about herself. One way or another, we’re about to find out what the Clinton Foundation is and what it’s really done. By the standards of those with old money, she's still a working stiff and scavenger, but by our standards, she's an aristocrat, fully qualified by having killed a lot -- and I do mean a lot -- of people. The anger that those supporting Trump feel is, in my view, a reaction to the disparity between what Clinton is presenting and what she's known to have been involved in. They know there's something off about her. It's just that the rebellion is the kind that would get you called out by your Boy Scout leader as inappropriate and immature.
Anyone who is partisan in this election is unlikely to be looking at their own candidate honestly, or for that matter, themselves. Clinton and Trump are part of the same corporatist system. They work the same mechanisms in many of the same ways. Both have made it work rather well -- for them. How you evaluate them psychologically would depend either on your gut instinct or your knowledge of psychology. It may also involve your perception of your parents. The United States and the world have a lot of problems right now. None of them are being addressed. Methane is bubbling up from the Arctic slush, lower Manhattan was recently flooded, refugees from American-sponsored wars are inundating the globe, and the planet is floating in space like a Roundup-tainted soap bubble of debt. Politically, we are holding an election with the infected wounds of many past traumas left unattended. We still live like maggots on the rotting corpse of slavery -- the plantation kind, or the iPhone factory kind. In fact our whole style of life would be impossible if not for slavery. We live oblivious to the genocide of the First People who inhabited the land we live on, which continues to this day at Standing Rock.
Martin Luther King's pool of blood is a reminder of what happens when a social message starts to come across, and it derailed the actual post-Civil War reconstruction. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were in no way repented for. The long attack on American peace activists is barely acknowledged. Watergate was never honestly addressed on the moral level, or the structural level of the president having too much power. Most people still think it was a two-bit burglary, as its apologists still describe it. The misunderstood events of Sept. 11, 2001, are bleeding out our life force, and the false wars it was used to propagate are only getting worse. The United States has been at war in and around Iraq for 26 years -- nearly three times longer than the seemingly endless Vietnam War and six times longer than we were involved in World War II. I'm 52 years old; that's half my lifetime. But those global problems are made of individual problems. By that I mean our personal, private problems, which add up to our collective social problems. How we deal with one is how we're likely to deal with the other. There is a reason people refuse to see or refuse to challenge these situations, and that's because they're in pain and carrying forms of the same infections internally. If you're still suffering from the abuse inflicted on you as a child, it's nearly impossible to rise above that self-image and psychic state and challenge the political system. If your parents still run your life, as internal archetypes or as actual overlords, you're not situated to challenge authority in any other form. If you don't get along with your partners, you're not in a position to be advancing the cause of world peace and probably will not even care.
We might add addiction to being entertained and expecting everyone to do everything for us, uncompensated. The problem is that this is a normal state of mind, and state of affairs. And in that normal state we are subject to the kind of political infection we're now experiencing -- and paralyzed to do anything about it. This paralysis deserves a closer look. It's often called many other things, it's excused and it's rarely acknowledged for what it is. It may seem like we're too damned busy to take care of ourselves, much less the world, but I don't believe it. I've worked with too many people in their 20s through their 60s whose lives are still run by some phantom of their parents, even if their parents are now bones in a crypt. Using denial as a means of dealing with all of this is like paying off debts with credit cards. And one might ask: what are we gonna do? What can we do? Maybe we can have an honest conversation. Or go back to watching Game of Thrones. I hear there's gonna be a hot new rape scene in the next episode. Sin cera,  Additional coverage of 2016 election by Eric Francis Of God, Country and Internet -- June 9 Donald Trump's Astrology -- Aug. 4 Hillary Clinton's Astrology -- Aug. 11 How the Hell is This Even Happening? -- Sept. 29 Here Beside the Rising Tide -- Oct. 14 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: Jonathan McCarthy. Astrology Editor: Amanda Painter. Astrology Fact Checker: Len Wallick. Copy Editor and Fact Checker: Jessica Keet. Eric's Assistant: Gale Jazylo. Client Services: Amy Elliott. Media Consultant: Andrew Ellis Marshall McLuhan. Music Director: Daniel Sternstein. Additional Research, Writing and Opinions: Amy Jacobs, Cindy Ragusa and Carol van Strum.
Look Under the Lid, Let Out the SurpriseBy Amanda Painter If you have any puzzles, mysteries or proposals on your plate today, you should be in the perfect frame of mind to dig deep, investigate and scrutinize it until you are satisfied. But what if that puzzle or mystery is something about yourself -- specifically something regarding certain of your beliefs?
And given how high emotions are running already this election season, and the way so many people are doubling-down on what they believe to be 'true' -- regardless of facts, context or their own past stances on similar issues -- don't be surprised if your next political conversation is a catalyst for that release. Not everyone is comfortable with intense or highly focused self-expression, however, including their own…or especially their own. If that sounds like you, I'd definitely encourage you to see the process as one of exploration and even relief or liberation, rather than as any kind of threat to whatever neat, tidy package you've constructed for your self-image. We're all works of progress, remember. No shame in that. In fact, when you allow yourself to be moved and 'let it out' (whatever 'it' may be for you), you begin to get clearer on your deeper values. Those moments are practically arrows that point you to your core bottom line, your ethics, your essential humanity. True, sometimes those arrows also point to shadow material, baggage or sore spots that still need some TLC, understanding, unpacking and illumination. Again, nothing wrong with that -- it's all part of healing and growing. Those triggers can be incredible teachers when we're able to hold space for them. Continue reading →   "Gerald really doesn't have any hobbies...please re-elect Gerald. PLEASE." Charlyn Daugherty's plaintive call to action, to save her sanity. Image: video still. Link to video.
What Is Possible -- and What We Must Understand By Amanda Painter This time of year, I am beyond grateful that I do not own a television: on the rare times I happen to see a political ad, I think I can feel a part of my soul dying. Or at least, screaming. The vast majority of political ads are a form of toxic waste. As presented in the media, politics is a form of superhuman magic. In reality, it's largely a technical exercise: budgets, regulations, complaints, paperwork, dealing with constituents and noisy trucks. It's rare that a candidate is honest about the real work of politics, instead presenting themselves as saviors. In doing so, they tend to focus on issues that get people fired up in order to manipulate them. Enter Gerald Daugherty: an actual county commissioner in Travis County, Texas, seeking re-election. I had to Google whether his ad was for a real candidate or just a parody -- the dead-pan looks of desperation from Daugherty's wife, as she suffers through his interminable monologues around the house about transportation policy, are the stuff Saturday Night Live dreams are made of. Do yourself a favor and watch it. Then, as another reminder about why races beyond the one for President matter, check out this spot produced by Joss Whedon's PAC (yes, that's right, the guy who created cult-faves "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Firefly," among other gems). Even decent Presidents can be rendered significantly ineffectual if Congress is stuffed full of radical stonewallers who take government hostage at every chance with the equivalent of a legislative temper-tantrum -- as we've seen in recent years. As Whedon's brilliant cast demonstrates, a private company could not function with, and would not tolerate, an employee who pulled the equivalent stunts. Most of us won't have the opportunity to vote for Gerald on Nov. 8, but most of us can choose not to send the toddlers back to Congress.  This Week on Planet Waves FM The Nature of the Beast Dear Friend and Listener: Do you have a feeling that something strange is lurking behind all the mudslinging in the presidential election? I thought so.
We also visit the protest at Standing Rock, about the Dakota Access Pipeline, with some help from Democracy Now! I explain the purpose of protests, as explained to me by Michael Frisch, one of my American Studies professors at SUNY Buffalo. To go with this program, I've selected the one and only Bjork, who has her Sun, Moon and rising sign in Scorpio. View her chart here. I reference the first-ever publication by WikiLeaks, video of an incident that took place in Iraq in 2007. Thanks for tuning in. And thank you to our subscribers, members, customers and my clients, who make this program possible every week. If you would like to sign up, please do so here. I'm offering Planet Waves journals or astrology self-study kits for people who sign up or renew early. With love,  Your Monthly Horoscopes -- and our Publishing Schedule Notes Your extended monthly horoscope for November was published on Thursday, Oct. 27. We published your extended monthly horoscope for October on Thursday, Sept. 22. We published the Moonshine horoscope for the Libra New Moon, by Len Wallick, on Thursday, Sept. 29. Your Moonshine horoscope for the Aries Full Moon was published Thursday, Oct. 13. Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign. Moonshine Horoscope for Scorpio New Moon #1124 | By Len Wallick
        2016-17 Scorpio Birthday Reading Discover Your Inner Hidden Gem The true calling card of Scorpio is its transformative ability: to bring shadow to the light, integrate it, and alchemize it into an expression of much higher vibration: creativity, passion, fearlessness, courage and the ability to heal deep wounds. That's a gem of a superpower when you learn how to use it well. In a world that desperately needs these life-affirming qualities, your 2016-17 Scorpio Birthday Reading will help you to zero in on your gifts -- including personal power tools masquerading as 'difficulties'. "I re-listened a few times for the deeper nuance and messaging -- a good thing because I discovered so many 'hidden gems' throughout the reading! This was definitely a worthwhile investment in money and time. Thank you!" -- Dee McCrorey You can still secure the best price we offer, for yourself or as a gift -- $19.97 for two segments of audio astrology and a video tarot reading, all of which you can experience as many times as you like. But the price will be increasing soon, and then will increase again when the audio segments publish (the tarot video will be released a little later, but is included in your purchase). If you're new to Eric's readings or would like to review your past year and his accuracy, you're invited to listen to last year's reading here, as a gift from Planet Waves.     
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