Will 2010 be Annus Horribilis for the USA?

It's traditional for astrologers to make predictions at the start of a new year, but now we have a Russian academic, a Professor Igor Panarin, getting in on the act.

In a Wall Street Journal article by Andrew Osborn (read it HERE) we are told that the good professor expects that in mid-2010 the United States will disintegrate, eventually becoming four separate countries. He puts a 55%-45% likelihood on his prediction - which is, if you think about it no prediction at all. I could say "I predict that in April 2010 alien beings from another galaxy will make contact with Earth, it's a 55% to 45% chance!" That would be just as valid as the prof's visions.

I've borrowed the professor's USA map. Passing readers can see what the future, Panarin-style might hold for them.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

The Professor doesn't detail exactly how he comes to this conclusion. I wonder if he's a closet astrologer. 2010 has been pinpointed by several astrologers as a "bad year", but hardly bad enough for the complete disintegration of the USA. The professor might have carried more credibility had he stated that his prediction could occur, say, "within the next 50 years" - but 2010? No. Too soon.

Do Russians do irony? I suspect they do.

Professor Panarin is looking for some quick, cheap publicity, in my opinion. Many in Russia would gloat over the thought of his prediction coming true, it will stir up interest, enough perhaps for a soon to be written book?

Here's an astrologer's take on the 2010 situation from Astrobarry at his blog dated 25 November 2008, HERE :

Extract

Meanwhile, by the middle of 2010, Uranus finds his way to the Pisces-Aries cusp… crossing over it while under the sway of his square with Pluto, a mega-astro-affair that stays within 5-degree orb through 2017. And as if that weren't enough, Jupiter also ends up in Aries by mid-2010—just in time to add extra electrifying energy to the Saturn-Uranus-Pluto t-square.

The exaggerated effect of Jupiter conjunct Uranus near the Aries Point (the first degree of Aries, and the beginning of a new zodiac cycle) is like the turbo-charged icing on the cake that ensures 2010 will be a memorable year. The addition of Jupiter, an expansive presence, to Uranus's side of the delicate Saturn-Uranus balance can't help but tip the scales away from Saturn-in-Libra's steady moderating influence…and toward the sudden, irrational, explosive 'power to the people' movement birthed by Uranus in Aries. Jupiter also boosts Uranus's liberating ferocity in his square-off with Pluto, fueling the fire of its 'war of independence' against the overlords of global capitalism that seek to keep the underclasses in their place.

2010 might well manifest as Annus Horribilis for some - especially for the USA's Fat Cats Inc., but for the rank and file of us, it'll likely pass much like any other year. There'll a few lightning strikes, a lot of hot air, both natural and man-made, the Sun will continue to rise and the Moon make her monthly cycles. To borrow from T.S. Eliot, who borrowed from English 14th century female mystic Julian of Norwich: "All will be well, and all manner of things will be well".

(Note: Annus Horribilis = Horrible Year. It is derived from the Latin phrase 'annus mirabilis' - year of wonders (or miracles). Recorded since the mid 1980's but brought into popular use after Queen Elizabeth II used it to describe 1992 - the year that the marriages of her two sons Charles and Andrew broke down and Windsor Castle caught fire.)