 Photo by Brendan McDermid.
Trigger WarningsDear Friend and Reader: The one item I don't remember including in any of my election coverage is that this is all happening in the midst of the Uranus-Eris conjunction, so anything is possible. Maybe I mentioned it somewhere. Uranus is the god of 'expect the unexpected': developments, revolutions, upsets, inventions, breakthroughs. We got one of those this week. There will be others. The most important ones are in your consciousness.
It represents transitions in every aspect of life. It's not merely about an election; more than anything, it describes the effects of our technological environment, the first of which is to destabilize self-relationship and, therefore, culture. By this I mean that the takeover of psyche and society by digital technology is, in a sense, making people forget who they are. Usually we remember who we are through conflict, and it would seem that we now have the perfect thing to inspire just that. What happened this week is the perfect motivation for a massive and sustained protest movement. So yeah, barring some strange and unforeseen circumstances, we will have Pres. Donald Trump. Go figure. I’ve been reading all kinds of analyses about how this happened: how someone who pays no income taxes and won't publish his tax returns and who wants to bring back stop-and-frisk and who said he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose any votes, got elected president. How someone who admitted to groping women, was accused of doing so, and was accused of rape, could become the nation's top law enforcement official. He will appoint the next one or more Supreme Court justices in his image. Remember that the election was close -- much closer than the infamous Kennedy versus Nixon race in 1960, called razor-thin at a 500,000-vote difference. This week, what looks like a landslide victory in the Electoral College (the sea of red on that map) was really based on a popular vote difference of under 300,000 votes. That's one-third of a percentage point difference, since about 100 million votes were cast. That's a statistical tie. It's not a mandate, but will be taken as one.
Yes, the people who were screaming about elitism (which means minority control) lost the majority of the actual vote, and will now control all three branches of government. The Supreme Court will likely be in conservative hands for yet another generation, and you can bet that the regressive agenda will start running the afternoon of Jan. 20, 2017. “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny,” James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 47. That was a warning; our government is designed to stop that, but it cannot, if all three branches of government are under the control of the same party, which they will be starting in 2017. So how did this happen? How did "unthinkable" Trump win? There's the "leaner" theory -- the Trump supporters who, when asked who they were voting for, would lean into one another's ears and say, because they didn't want to be called out and condescended to by those liberal elitists who oppose misogyny and homophobia. They were sick of safe zones and trigger warnings. As one writer claimed, Clinton voters "chose insulting the other side over trying to understand what motivated them." In the current thin-skinned environment, I could see someone proposing that. Americans are in love with being offended, and at being offended with other people being offended. It’s double the fun, or quadruple. The theory goes that Trump supporters, wanting a safe zone of their own, didn't give honest responses when called by pollsters, or hung up. Since Clinton won by a fifth of a point, and the polls have an error margin of about three points, that's a possibility.
Naomi Wolf, a well-regarded feminist author and journalist, told a Dutch newspaper, "This defeat was not about gender in my view at all. I believe Americans are tired of globalization that guts the middle class and that hands over decision-making to a small group of global elites. Also the drive to dilute the nationstate in the interest of globalization backfired." Then there's the "Obama betrayed the liberals" theory. Obama was elected in 2008 by a 10-million-vote margin, with record turnout of blacks and young people, and delivered very little. Banksters went free, existing wars escalated and new ones began, lots of people were deported and lots of pot growers busted. Liberals were so fed up they could not vote for Clinton. Add to that their perception that the primary was stolen by Clinton and her super-delegates. Many people feel Sanders could have beaten Trump, and a Sanders-Clinton ticket surely would have. Others described Trump winning as a kind of Reddit Revolution in that extreme elements got in their pickup trucks and voted: Red Pill misogynists, homophobes and wannabe KKK members. Oh, and the real KKK, whose official newspaper endorsed Trump, borrowed his "Make America Great Again" slogan as its headline. Does anyone even remember what the KKK is, besides them? White robes, grand wizards, cross burnings, lynchings? Another idea is that Trump is so gosh-darned terrific, everyone went for him: all those promises about waking up Wednesday morning in utopia. Or, he tapped into the deeper feelings of his base (meaning rage).
I have a message for Southerners and Midwesterners: Donald Trump comes from my town. He's a New Yorker. He's been around for decades, and just about everyone here can see through his Tony Baloney. He may seem like an exciting new voice to you; around here, he's a swaggering, blustery real estate developer who lost a lot of money, and whose casinos stand boarded with plywood. In the actual Atlantic City, he's not Park Place or the Boardwalk. He's Baltic Avenue, rent $2. Speaking of money, USA Today's poll results described economic discontent as driving the vote for Trump. Many people feel worse off than they were eight years ago, and wanted a change. With the margin of victory being under 300,000 votes, it could have been all of them; any of them; electronic votes stolen, tipping certain states; or any other factor we know about or don't know about. What we do know is that it was close, and that a majority of people who voted chose someone other than the person who is set to take office, amidst great consternation. The past two days protests have erupted across the United States. (Mars moving into Aquarius Wednesday indicated public outrage with the outcome of the election.) I guess this was only news 16 years ago, in the Bush v. Gore days; now it's normal. The last time it happened, a Democrat won the vote tally and a Republican took office. Is this a coincidence or a pattern?
I know someone in Tennessee who is the only person in her large office who voted for Clinton, and she's regularly pushed to tears by her colleagues who think this is funny. A Trump supporter I know got an email Wednesday about community forums being set up around the country, where women, abuse survivors, Muslims, immigrants, lesbian and gay people and so forth, could express their concerns about what had happened, given Trump's various statements and commitments. He called the email hateful. Intelligent person, no irony: concern about being discriminated against is supposedly hateful. So now we're trading trigger warnings and safe zones for open season on protected groups? Is it now OK to be intentionally offensive, and not acceptable to be offended? Does anyone at all consider this humane, or rational, or in any way useful? In a twisted way, it is. Everything has a use, to someone. There is something called the pain body. It's a term from healing. If the pain body is overactive or takes over the psyche, which it can from repeated unhealed traumas, the only thing that validates the person is the pain of others. All they think can help their own agony is inflicting it on someone else. This is how people become abusers.
I'm wondering many things these days, some of them amusing, some not so much. For example, when is this supposed to get scary? What's the appropriate response? How does this country, so divided, choose its destiny? I'm friends with a fellow named C.T. Butler, author of Food Not Bombs, and a professional consensus trainer. He teaches people and companies how to use decision-by-agreement. He also does this with couples. Corporations are often led by a board of directors, which is subject to majority rule. In a couple there are two people, so you cannot have a majority. Decision-making between two parties must be by consensus; that is, by reaching an agreement. I know a dominatrix who proposes that in any couple, someone must be the boss. There must be a leader and a follower, which makes the master-slave relationship common in this genre seem organic and functional. Among willing parties, it might well be. But I don't think that half the United States should, or needs to, enslave the other half, ideologically or otherwise. C.T. explained to me the basic principle of consensus, which is agreeing on values first. Once two parties agree on the values, that is, on what's important and what the goal is, the way of getting to that goal is a much simpler conversation. You can always refer back to your underlying understanding.
Here's one of the more amusing bits I'm noticing. It would seem the Trump supporters are against things like globalization: the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), NAFTA and other trade agreements. That's funny -- all the freaky left-wing, liberal people they supposedly disagree with were out in the streets protesting that very issue starting in 1999. You have more in common with your adversaries than you may think. But we live in an age not only where compromise is taboo, but where it's considered acceptable to use people's flexibility against them. The tendency to be kind or fair is being weaponized against people. We need to remember that most voters did not vote for Trump. Indeed, most voters did not vote at all, and therefore a lot of our conversation is with them. This takes building relationships and cultivating involvement. That will take time, patience, growth and learning. It will require a long-term approach to many issues. People trying to educate others will quickly run into two problems: one is that context is gone. I've written about this before, though in the mentality cultivated by Twitter, it's difficult to get facts to relate to one another. If you want a real idea, you have to rub two facts together.
One thing it would help to understand is the false, hyperbolic polarization created by filtering everything through the media. Everything seems more extreme, louder and simpler than it really is as viewed through TV, or on the internet. No one side can complain about elitists in bubbles. We live in the age of listen to viewpoints that support what you believe and never question those viewpoints, either. This is also known in psychology as "confirmation bias." In order to get beyond the place where we are, many more people will need to be open to other viewpoints, and learn how to read, and listen, and respond thoughtfully. One last thought. There's a difference between "winning" an election and being right. There's also a difference between being right and someone else being wrong. This is going to take a lot of willingness -- and a lot of therapy. 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. Special Project 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.
Introducing Fetus Funeral Guy When I was a kid I heard someone say that you should vote for president based on who the vice presidential candidate is. We now have Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is likely to be the next president of the United States. Donald Trump is vulnerable for many reasons. He's succeed in winning the electoral vote, but he comes into office with plenty of baggage: pending lawsuits, conflicts of interest, mafia ties, a dodgy campaign tied to the Russians and so forth.
He just seemed like the type: so rabidly into controlling women's bodies that he would be in favor of a fetus funeral law; you know, just like in A Handmaid's Tale. Well, little did I know that he had signed just such a law in May. Little did I know that these things existed outside of fiction. Here's an article from The Atlantic. So who is Mike Pence? We don't know his rising sign. But we know his Sun, some important planets and plenty else. There's a lot in this chart; what I offer today will be a preview (I'll cover it on Planet Waves FM on Tuesday). First of all, he has the Sun and Mercury in Gemini. He gleams and has a clever tongue that forks like that of a snake. He reminds me of a rattlesnake, actually: that's how much respect I have for him. There's a 50/50 chance he has his Moon in Gemini as well; if he's a morning birth it will be Gemini. Anyway this describes a clever speaker and fast thinker. He's also flawless at being a Gemini; that is, there being two, four or six of him, which he can shape-shift while you’re watching, but you don’t notice. He has Eris on the South Node. He's coming in with a lot of Eris, which looks like psychic chaos from other factors in the chart. He may have an old beef with the matriarchy, whatever that may be. Eris is met by Juno and Pallas on the North Node. You might call that the politicization of domestic matters. This guy is on a mission, and he has karma to burn.
Mars, proud and assertive in Leo, describes someone who is driven. Mars in any case needs to be well-regulated. Under the influence of Neptune, that's difficult, as anyone with the aspect knows, because Neptune can make anything -- even Saturn -- slip and slide. Pence has Venus and Mars in a conjunction in Leo, so both are square Neptune. This is just brilliantly delusional. He should be a director of bad porno films rather than a politician -- but he didn't ask me. With Venus and Mars square Neptune, one would likely be obsessed by a fantasy version of sex, and in denial of that fact at the same time. In his fantasy, sex is intriguing, extremely dangerous and of course subject to religious views. Pence has Saturn retrograde in Capricorn. That's about as much of a reference to the past as you can put into one chart. But I think Pence is someone of the future. I reckon that within eight to fourteen months, he will be our next president. -- Eric Francis Coppolino  
What That Was, and What Happens NextBy Amanda Painter What just happened in this country? In a phrase: Uranus conjunct Eris in Aries. The key phrase for Uranus is, "Expect the unexpected." And Eris? Well, she is known for taking feelings of being 'cast off' and using them to incite competition and chaos.
Expect the unexpected. Uranus conjunct Eris. We've experienced two exact contacts between Uranus and Eris so far this year. Before those two planets are done with their tete-a-tete, they'll conjoin once more in Aries, on March 17, 2017. So, the surprises are not done -- though with any luck, the next batch will swing things in a more creative, productive, humane direction to counter what's been happening in this election year. I'm not making any predictions; just holding space for the idea that even the worst upsets can inspire and engender a wave of energy and action to rebalance what has gone askew. After all, with each new day we get new opportunities and new astrology to help us make sense of things and move forward. And this week, we get three of the so-called personal planets changing sign. On one level, this indicates shifts in thinking, in how we receive and relate, and in how we take action toward what we want. Here's what's going on astrologically: Continue reading → 
Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now!Today on Planet Waves' Pacifica Radio-affiliate program Democracy Now!, hosts Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh spend a significant portion of the program speaking with former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald about Donald Trump's election win. Among the topics Greenwald addresses are the failed policies of the Democratic party; the possibility that Sen. Bernie Sanders would have been a stronger candidate; and the possibility that Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich could all be part of Trump's Cabinet.
In the US, "You had leading neocon intellectuals and establishment Republicans and then the sort of establishment liberal pundits all in agreement that Trump was this grave evil, constantly praising each other and citing each other in this endless echo feedback chamber. And so, the people who were supporting Brexit and the people who were supporting Trump weren't really ever heard from; they were just talked about in very contemptuous tones." Greenwald continues, "And what you have as a result are these decades of trends that we began by talking about, that Senator Sanders described, in which tens of millions of people have been trampled on by these policies of Western institutions of authority, who are essentially invisible and ignored. And the more you ignore them and the more you scorn them and the more you tell them that their grievances are invalid, the more they're going to be susceptible to scapegoating, the more their bigotry will be inflamed, and the more they'll want to destroy the systems and the institutions that they believe are responsible for their suffering." Greenwald therefore describes another important lesson of the Uranus-Eris conjunction: to notice what and who is cast-off, pushed to the shadows, not invited to the party. Without the willingness to notice our own exclusionary tendencies and to hear those who feel excluded early on, we set ourselves up to have our eyes opened in extreme ways in this environment. Yet, that can also include empowering actions like Native American tribes from all over protecting water and sacred land from an oil pipeline. It's time to envision other positive ways to manifest this astrology.   Jim LeJames (L) and Samuel James, holding an unidentified calico. Photo by Mark Fleming for DownEast.
Meow Mixes By Amanda Painter Feeling a little traumatized or just plain exhausted from the stress of this week? Two things the internet is great at (besides misinformation and echo chambers), is sharing music and cat videos. The Kitty Critic project has brought those elements together in what one person described as combining "the earnest intimacy of NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts with the satirical wit of The Daily Show... plus cats." It's a web series in which musicians local to the Portland, Maine, area perform in their fans' homes for their fans' cats. A profile last year in DownEast Magazine described the obliviousness of the cats to the musicians as part of the show's "genius": "The show is in part a commentary on the complex relationship between performers and audiences. James, who's been playing professionally for almost a decade, recalls one bar gig where most of the patrons sat with their backs facing him, watching a Patriots game on the far side of the room. Kitty Critic asks whether music still retains its power when it's performed for a ostile or indifferent listener." "And what could be more indifferent than a cat?" James asks. Philosophizing aside, the music is good, the cats are sweet, and the series was created for more than just a laugh by director and accomplished blues musician Samuel James, cameraman Jon Reece and tongue-in-cheek host Jim LeJames. Kitty Critic is also a proud sponsor of the Homeless Animal Rescue Team, an adoption center and shelter for cats.  This Week on Planet Waves FM Your Election Special Edition of Planet Waves FM Dear Friend and Reader: As promised, this week I have a special extended edition of Planet Waves FM. I included an extra hour in case you need that much more relief from cable or network news the next day or so.
In the last hour of the program, I hang out with Jon McCarthy, CFO and artist in residence here at Planet Waves [the advertising segment is included with the program and also has its own player, right below the regular show]. Starting from the idea of social narratives, we contemplate how advertising impacts culture, and how it's used politically. I play two segments of a talk by Amherst College Prof. Sut Jhally, founder of the Media Education Foundation. His theory is that advertising drives all of the most important narratives of our society, and that by driving consumerism, it's also driving environmental destruction. The documentary these segments come from is called Advertising and the End of the World. We will be back soon with more from Jhally. Then Jon and I listen to a series of political ads, some local, others national, and one of the most famous in history, and assess them using the 'cultural narrative' approach. Thanks to Amy Elliott and Lizanne Webb for selecting ads, and Amy for choosing the segments from Advertising and the End of the World. Thank you to our customers, subscribers and members and my clients, who make this program possible. As mentioned elsewhere, I'll be available much of tomorrow into the evening on my personal Facebook page. We're also hosting a discussion on the Planet Waves main page. Vote early and often! 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. Short Monthly Horoscope for November 2016, #1125 | By Eric Francis
        2016-17 Scorpio Birthday Reading Illuminate the Year with Your Scorpio Reading In less than a week, on Nov. 14, the Moon in Taurus will oppose the Sun in late Scorpio for a Full Moon. What will it show you? That remains to be seen. But what you don't have to wait for is the first two segments of your 2016-17 Scorpio Birthday Reading. Eric recorded the two audio segments last weekend -- which means those portions are ready for instant access when you order the full reading for $24.97. That price also includes a forthcoming video tarot reading for this next solar year. When the tarot reading publishes, the price will increase again, so don't wait too long. If you're on the fence (or you're new to Eric's audio-video readings), you can listen to a short, complimentary audio preview here. Note: Eric designs these readings to work for anyone with a Scorpio Sun, Moon or rising sign -- and they make a beautiful, practical, inspirational gift -- one that's transformative in the best possible Scorpionic sense.     
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