The War Comes Home, Again

Note, as of press time, the Trump administration said it had backed down from all tariffs except those against China — the worst possible country to tax imports. At least half the stuff sold in Walmart and every other big box store is made in China. So a trade war would be ugly, and China is a significant potential military rival (but hopefully too smart to mix it up with the United States) — efc

Dear Friend and Reader:

We all remember the phrase, “three weeks to flatten the curve.” The lies of New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo told us that all we had to do was make personal sacrifices for just 21 days, slow the spread of what we now know was an AI-constructed “virus,” and life could get back to normal.

Then, lockdowns ensued, and nothing was normal for the next nine months, as people went to war with friends, neighbors and relatives over “masking” and “social distancing” and had to adapt to school districts and workplaces being closed. No part of life was left undisturbed.

This insanity persisted until society was ripped apart again by a government injection that was mandatory for many people to keep their jobs. So “three weeks to flatten the [nonexistent] curve” crushed society and became a two-year drama that was still playing out well into 2022.

Note that we were told all it would take was a little personal sacrifice and we could all have our lives back. And it is enraging that all of this was done with the full knowledge by society’s managers that what they were saying was happening could not happen. That’s a long story and some of you followed my work day by day. However, for a straightforward read that sums up the issues, this is my best article.

Please take it slow and write to me with your questions. I will respond in a podcast.

Operation COVID was nothing more or less than a war against the people. My epic lover and photography mentor (from my days in Paris) Paloma Todd was right when she said to me mournfully one day that the American government had run out of places to turn its cruelty, and would soon be turning it on its own people.

Societies and individuals resort to violence when they don’t know who they are. That’s the perfect feel-good non-solution that leaves people injured and feeling terrible. And it’s exactly what we are witnessing. What is concerning is that exposure to digital technology depletes self-awareness and undermines self-knowledge. Therefore, we can expect the world to grow more violent as people lose contact with themselves — and seek to “self-actualize” through rage, violence and aggression.

Blockading the Ports — of Our Friends

Remember that the dominant astrology is in Aries — the sign of war — and that Mars, the ruler of Aries, is in Cancer (the sign of home).

For the past two weeks, all we’ve been hearing about is a “trade war” — tariffs on imported goods and the stock and bond markets tanking as a result. Remember that Trump came to power promising to reduce inflation and protect the American people. Now, governments around the world are taxing American goods in retaliation for us taxing theirs. That will not boost sales of American products abroad.

We are again being told that we must endure some short-term pain for long-term gain. Note that a “trade war” is not symbolic. It’s the modern equivalent of blocking the enemy’s ports to starve their people. It’s not something you do to your friends.

The absurd claimed theory of the present trade war is that it will force the United States to restart manufacturing at home. However, next to none of what we use the most of — technology, for example — can be manufactured here. It’s too expensive and the skills do not exist. You could not make an iPhone in the United States. You could not get the highly skilled labor to build the devices for $17 an hour before taxes (probably less).

Further, nobody is going to make a massive, long-term investment in U.S. manufacturing when they know that the tariffs could be lifted just as randomly as they were imposed — or not.

If you think this is retaliatory against the misdeeds of China or Mexico, then you should dump your car at the junkyard and throw out all your stuff because thanks to free trade agreements, meaning trade without tariffs, you got it for a price you could afford.

The Absurdity of Isolationist Policy in the Digital Age

Analysts are spewing opinions in all directions, and few people know enough to understand them. The idea of isolationist trade policy is that it acts as a kind of discipline to make a country more independent. But in the digital age when everything is international or transnational or multinational, that’s absurd.

Further, any manufacturing that does come to the United States will be dominantly staffed by robotic and AI “labor.” This is not going to create jobs — something I say even as the federal government continues to fire thousands of people. Billions in federal funding are being cut from universities, which is stupid because if campuses do one thing, it’s pay a lot of people a decent salary.

Artists from other countries are canceling shows, further affecting local economies, since that’s what concerts support.

The digital era has arrived with the flow of ideas and goods across borders; we might ask why from a spiritual perspective this is happening — apart from any pretense at political or economic policy.

Induced by digital conditions, the world is in a massive identity crisis, and this is often met by violence — of both people and countries.

Another War on the Home Front

Also, it’s not foreign countries that have been beating the United States in a trade war as I hear plenty of my neighbors growling about.

For the past 50 years, nearly all American manufacturing has been outsourced to countries where labor costs a tiny fraction of American work — and then the stuff comes back to us people cheap. I recently bought three excellent webcams and stands for my next-level video projects for less than $100 each. I am not a victim of this.

And when it comes to necessities, cheap is still costly to people living on a thin margin.

So this whole thing is yet another war on the people. We have already experienced approximately 25% inflation since 2019. That means the same money is worth 25% less than it was before Operation COVID.

All these market pundits and CEOs and whatnot saying that the tariffs “may” lead to inflation are mere anesthesia. If you tax everything coming into the country, whether from Canada, China, Switzerland and everyplace else, that’s going to raise prices. And then China slapping a 104% tariff on American imports means that American companies will sell less.

However, this is not the only war. Unmarked vans and plain-clothes officers have been capturing and deporting Spanish-speaking people since late January.

This is no subtle terrorism. Anyone who knows history knows that the roundups always start small, then they expand. We can no longer plead American exceptionalism to avoid worrying about who’s next. (Next seems to be throwing out people with green cards and stripping people of the legal American citizenship they have earned.)

This is sold by calling them criminals — and people believe this. The naïveté of the American people is astounding.

The Inauguration Chart is Active

I made several open predictions last year. One was that the new administration — whoever it was — would act quickly upon taking office; that turned out to be all those same-day executive orders. Remember this is the first administration in U.S. history to take office with a conjunction of the Sun and Pluto in the inaugural chart — a representation of technocratic power if there ever was one.

Another was that we would see things this spring that we had never seen before, by which I mean outrageous things. These would increase in intensity through the spring and into the summer. (This is all the Aries activity I’ve covered in the new Starcast.)

Another was that there would be some kind of massive shift in the pattern in approximately November. I don’t know in which direction; that’s about when the progressed Sun in the inauguration chart catches up to Pluto. It would seem to be some kind of peak or culmination. (This is predictive astrology 101.)

All the Aries astrology I’ve been describing incessantly for the past six months points to exactly what we’re seeing happen in the United States.

However, there is a lot of thunder between now and then. All of the events I’m listing happen only rarely; none are routine year-to-year kind of events. Remember that Neptune has just entered Aries for the first time since 1861.

And There’s More — More Than Ever

There will be two conjunctions of Chiron and Eris; Saturn enters Aries; Jupiter enters Cancer; and Uranus enters Gemini. In addition to retrogrades of Mercury, Venus and Mars that straddle two signs (and the recent ingress of Pluto into Aquarius), consider that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all change signs

There are aspects involved — for example, Jupiter in Cancer makes a 90-degree aspect to Neptune.

We have never experienced so much astrology so fast. This can be exciting and it can be destabilizing. But remember, astrology speaks in symbols and symbols stand for something else.

Please allow me to quote the father and the son. Long ago, Marshall McLuhan wrote:

Knowledge of the way media work as environments. Let’s sum up as: only digital people believe they can catch an AI digital sequence someone claimed was a virus.

Do You Think About This Much?

Decades later, his son Eric wrote something about that:

Except for seeing the effects that we still don’t connect to it. That’s how it always is. We’re experiencing the effects, we’re getting worked over, we’re thrown into the crisis, we are destabilized and manipulated — and looking right at the problem — and yet few admit that’s what it can possibly be.

And this has been going on for nearly two centuries.

With love,

Your faithful astrologer,

PS — Most people don’t know the difference between the budget deficit, the trade deficit and the national debt. Do you?