Saturday, November 12, 2016

Saturday and Sundry Thoughts (on a word, an election and a result).

After voting on Tuesday we had a few errands to do, including a visit to our doctor's office to change the date of a routine twice-yearly appointment for yours truly. I had to wait a while for attention as the clerk was busy with other enquirers; while waiting my eye travelled to the decorative wooden sign above the appointments desk window. In decorative script on a brown wooden plaque, the word TETELESTI, and in small faded script beneath, what appeared to be a Bible reference (John... something something). Illustration shows a similar sign in less ornate script.

This sign had caught my eye many times during previous visits to the office, but I could never remember the word long enough to look up its meaning after reaching home and Google. This time, I stood in front of the sign for long enough to engrave its spelling in memory.

I discovered that the word Tetelesti is translated: “It is Finished!”

See HERE
In John 19, verse 30, Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished.” In English it may be three words, but in Greek, it’s one word - Tetelesti. When Jesus died on the cross, there were some things that were completed, for the word means paid in full, completed, summed up in essence.
I guess the doctor, his predecessor or one of his staff had placed the sign above the appointments desk window as a rather strange way of saying "That's it, yer good for now - need another appointment?" Alternatively implicit in the word also is: "Paid in full." Maybe a polite hint that as well as being an appointments window, this is the window where one pays the piper...I mean doctor. For a heretic like me, though, this oblique hint might as well have been stated in Swahili!

After my long day's journey into election night, and the shock result, the word on that sign and its meaning (outside of the Biblical) came to mind again. The election was finished. The people will, over coming years, pay for their choices.

In the online babble that has followed, one might come to the conclusion that the USA is finished also! Most writers have, as my Dad would have said, "gone off the deep end". There's a list of "celebrities" who've declared that they will "leave the USA if Trump becomes president" in several places online. (Don't let the doors hit you on the arse on your way out, I mumble!) I tell my British self that it's just typical American/USA exaggeration, paranoia and hyperbole. Thankfully I have found a few calmer voices offering points worth noting. The following comments or excerpts from comments at Naked Capitalism (link in sidebar) on Thursday, for instance:

fresno dan (10 Nov 11 32am)
........I really didn’t think Trump could win the presidency, but at least in getting rid of Hillary, Trump is also causing a re-evaluation that is much more critical and open to reality than I thought possible so soon.
Will the dem establishment (i.e., the Clinton foundation) rebound?
I can only hope this is the end of both the conventional dem and repubs….

Tom (10 Nov 10.11am)
I agree that Trump represents a risk.
In terms of what happens when he encounters obstacles/obstructions, I would say look back on what just happened.
Trump almost single-handedly closed the biggest political deal on the planet after successfully facing down opposition of almost incomprehensible magnitude from every quarter — political, media, corporate, Wall Street etc.
If that doesn’t represent one of the most determined accomplishments by anyone in recent history, I don’t know what does.
At the risk of being overly dramatic, Trump took on the world all by himself — and he won.
Same commenter,
Tom at 10.44am)
I was mainly talking about Trump’s accomplishment as a remarkable example of sheer willpower and determination.
As to what happens next, yes, it could get ugly.
However, if he follows through on:
1) Normalizing relations with Russia
2) Reducing military misadventures around the world
3) Killing TPP
and
4) Implementing an infrastructure program
then I think we will already be light years ahead of where we are right now.

fresno dan (10Nov 9.20am)
The Source of our Rage: The Ruling Elite Is Protected from the Consequences of its Dominance Charles Hugh Smith.

Always like Charles Hugh Smith’s links to FRED graphs that irrefutably show the downward slide – uh, I didn’t say that right. I enjoy his use of data to show the point that it is pretty easy to understand why our politics is collapsing – most people are in fact getting poorer. And a very few are getting much richer.
Trump is the beginning of the collapse. I doubt Trump will be very successful at rebuilding, but he is a necessary precursor.

IMHO the repubs are even more “politically correct” than the dems ever were.
Poor Hillary got in a situation where the first repub in history unabashedly said that the country is not great (as opposed to temporary economic difficulties) and had to had to carry the awkward phrase “America never stopped being great”
Just like Nixon had to be the one to go to China, Trump had to be the repub to say this place isn’t so great. – – what with Bush as president and another in the offing.
Trump won’t be able to fix it, but like they say in 12 step programs, the first step is admitting you have a problem. And if Trump fails, Trump opens the resulting brawl to a much wider debate than we have had going on 50 years. Maybe even its NOT JUST a bigger pie inanity we hear so often, but who has been getting to cut the pie???? And maybe the person with the knife isn’t just some nice official (NPL – national pie league referee) who is always scrupulously fair and gives everybody the precise meritocratic earned slice of pie
Remember – Trump at least started the first step: got rid of the Bush and Clinton dynasties….

Vatch (10 Nov 10.12 am)

It’s great that Clinton lost, and it’s a disaster that Trump won.
The Democratic party insiders who torpedoed the Sanders candidacy are responsible for this catastrophe.

This thought (from the above quote)"...he [Trump] is a necessary precursor" is key to remaining sane and healthy during coming months. If Trump's reign quickly turns out to be as bad as many are expecting, Democrats and others will be energised to attack, protest, make trouble. These Trump years are, if he's as bad as most expect, the necessary catalyst for big leftward swing in both 2018 mid-terms and the 2020 General.

If still puzzling over "how could this happen?" this exchange yesterday at Naked Capitalism:
grayslady. November 11,3:46 pm
Once Bernie was out of the race, I was convinced Trump would win. There were so many indicators of a Trump victory. This was the year of the anti-establishment candidate–not out of pique, but out of real desperation by millions of Americans. The press (and the Hillary surrogates) tried to shame potential Trump voters as racists and bigots, and Bernie’s voters as anti-capitalists, all the while forgetting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Faced with the choice of unaffordable health care or being called a socialist, thousands of people suddenly found themselves saying, Yeah, I’d rather be a live socialist than a dead capitalist. On the Trump side, he never denigrated blue collar workers, who would be quite content with a decent-paying factory job instead of a white collar high tech job, so they were willing to give him a pass on being politically incorrect. These are very basic issues that polls can’t capture and that newspapers chose to ignore. There were many other indicators, but,again, they couldn’t neatly be placed into the categories that pollsters seem to favor.
Reply ↓

Iowan X. November 11, 6:52 pm

I think you hit the nail on the head. This was a “change” election–they always are after a two-term run by an incumbent in either party–and Hillary was by far the weaker D candidate. The Super-Delegates did not do their jobs. I got an email today from Allen Grayson, saying he did a poll at the end of the campaign, Bernie v. Trump, and it was 56-44 Bernie. That sounds right to me.

Pollyanna-ish, I tried not to give up hope, yet, that Trump as Prez would not be as horrendous as Trump as candidate. His reported cabinet choices soon silenced Pollyanna. Whatever else he does, though, he will be unlikely to get us, and much of the world, into a war with Russia. That, for starters, is not to be sniffed at! I came into this world within months of the start of an horrendous bloody World War, I'd like to leave it (whenever I have to) in a peace that was hard fought for, at great cost to so many.

8 comments:

JD said...

"The Source of our Rage: The Ruling Elite Is Protected from the Consequences of its Dominance Charles Hugh Smith."
That quote in your post reminded me that it has happened before. In 1945 the establishment/elite were shocked to see the 'common' people give Churchill a bloody nose by electing Attlee's Labour government. There followed a revolution with the creation of the 'welfare state' and then a long period of prosperity lasting maybe 25 or 30 years. Then it began to slowly disintegrate.
Both Brexit and Trump's victory are just echoes of that 1945 'revolt of the masses'
And so the cycle continues, we might get it right this time :)

mike said...

It's incredulous that Trump's win is being pondered with the usual suspects being the media, polling, vote-draining by independent voters, etc. Simple reason is that Trump received the most electoral college votes...duh. Republican turnout was higher, as always, usually outnumbering the Dems and other by 50%. The preliminary count of voters indicates that about half of registered voters didn't vote:
"While election officials are still tabulating ballots, the 126 million votes already counted means about 55% of voting age citizens cast ballots this year. That measure of turnout is the lowest in a presidential election since 1996, when 53.5% of voting-age citizens turned out."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/index.html

Everyone had their reason(s) for voting their choice or not voting at all, but the consequences of this election are upon all American citizens and has global impact now and for the future of this planet. Not only does a Trump presidency alarm me, but I'm probably most alarmed to know that about half of those that voted share his agenda, therefore have no qualms with Trump's ethics. Quite an eye-opener into the darker side of American society!

Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp in Washington DC" is underway and he seems to be replacing that swamp with raw sewage. Have you seen the names of his chosen?! Unbelievable! Trump is selecting from the choicest of the elite deplorables! There would be such an outcry, if Hillary were to make those same selections. Tsk, tsk.

Sometimes a near-death experience is necessary to appreciate life. It seems that Trump is about to take us way beyond water-boarding, as he promised.

I've mentioned several times that the next president, now known to be Trump, would take us on a portentous path either by dereliction of duties or by outer challenges. This leads us to the 2020 astrological conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn to Pluto, while Pluto opposes the Sibly USA's natal Pluto, then Jupiter and Saturn conjunct in very early Aquarius. Some serious business lies ahead...buckle-up darlings.

Twilight said...

JD ~ There's a faint echo of the Churchill to Atlee change, yes. The fact that Churchill had been the right man for the job in wartime, but entirely the wrong choice for picking up the pieces and re-building was well understood by the voters - who deserve much praise for their insight, back then. In Brexit and Trumpery the people's voices have come through - and very unexpectedly. The unexpectedness of both, coming one after the other, is an extra interesting part. Whether 2016's voices have the insight of 1945's won't be known for a while. :-)

Twilight said...

mike ~ Trump's ethics or the way they have been presented to us day after day, are not admirable, but then nor were those of the guy who was, and is, much loved in the USA - Bill Clinton. By all accounts he did some good things though (and some bad things). While we'd love to have a president with a clean ethical slate, those kinds of people don't usually run to be president - sad to say. Bernie was the nearest to that ideal (in my view) but he was hamstrung by the US system and DNC.

I will not decry all those who voted for Trump. They had their reasons - and yes, I realise that a proportion of them, I believe a small proportion, have dark intentions.
I do not believe that Donald Trump has dark intentions. I just don't. He might have mistaken intentions, based on lack of experience, but, against most advice I believe he intends to help rather than hinder. And he is "malleable" - Gemini is nothing if not malleable! I don't like the potential advisors he's gathering in his team - as I mentioned in the post, but weighed against them is his very strong and persuasive personality - theirs are pretty feeble.

I've just taken another look at Trump's natal chart and begin to realise why I don't feel the same level of antipathy for him that almost everybody else left of the great divide does. His Gemini Sun/Uranus is friendly to my Aquarius Sun, his Sagittarius Moon is conjunct my natal Venus, he has Cancerian flavour from 3 planets and I have Cancer rising. I just started humming an old Sinatra song:
Call me irresponsible,
Call me unreliable
Throw in DEPLORABLE too
Do my foolish alibis bore you?

:-D

Yes, mike, I agree we're on the way to something different in 4 to 8 years. Trump is the first wobbly step on a ladder (up or down) - it might break off sooner than we think too - or it might not.
Wait and watch. :-)

mike (again) said...

Well, I guess we'll have to give you an astrologically-enamored, starry-eyed pass for now, Twilight.

Excerpt from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/nov/12/spurs-coach-gregg-popovich-rome

Popovich spoke of his anger and frustration after Trump’s victory on Tuesday. “Not because the Republicans won or anything,” he said, “but the disgusting tenure and tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic. I live in that country where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part of the whole thing to me.”

After suggesting he needed more time to put his thoughts together, Popovich spoke for several minutes, even telling a reporter who tried to interrupt at one point that he wasn’t finished.

He said: “I’m a rich white guy and I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it,” said Popovich, a graduate of the US air force academy and the next coach of the US Olympic men’s basketball team. “I can’t imagine being a Muslim right now or a woman or an African-American, Hispanic, a handicapped person. How disenfranchised they might feel. For anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all that.”

He continued: “I live in that country where half the people ignored all of that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part for me. It’s got nothing to do with the environment, Obamacare, and all the other stuff. We live in a country that ignored all of those values that we would hold our kids accountable for. They’d be grounded for years if they acted and said the things that have been said by Donald Trump in that campaign. I look at the evangelicals and wonder: ‘Those values don’t mean anything to them?’”

Twilight said...

mike (again) ~ Who the heck is Popovich? Oh I see, a sports figure, basketball coach and an Aquarius Sun 28 Jan (day after me) but a decade later. What does he know that we should follow and bow down to his diatribe?

I'm a woman, Mr Popovich and I'm willing to give the guy a chance. He won this thing the only way he could against a Clinton dynastic take-over and a slew of classic die-hard Republicans. He said the things he knew would appeal to a certain group of rather unpleasant people, and he also said the things that would appeal to a lot of practically disenfranchised people in poverty who are finding it hard to feed their families- no matter what their race or colour!

I don't admire everything about Donald Trump, but unlike many, I'm willing to give him a chance to redeem himself. A chance - that's all - is that so flippin' hard?

Anonymous said...

You may remember me as Bob or unique_astrology.

I think the election results will serve a good purpose in the long run. The powerful shock sent through the Congress and voters was a much needed affect.

I make my measurements in right ascension but most dates will be the same or nearly the same as when measured in longitude. Exceptions would likely be aspects to the Moon or Pluto.

Just 5 months after inauguration Trump will have a solar return with Saturn hard at work in locked into an opposition to his Sun just for starters.

In Trump's 2017 precession corrected SR located to Washington the Sun culminates at 83°23' as return Saturn is in opposition on the IC at 84°07'. When return Saturn is on the Asc (193°07') it is opposed by return Sun on the Desc (193°43'). With the Sun and Saturn reversed on the MC/IC axis that is 3 very stressful Sun/Saturn oppositions that will be swept by the progressing angles of the solar return.

Here is the period of time I think will be very important for Trump and the country. It is a very strong transit of Saturn as it stations on points in the Trump and Sibly charts. Jun 25 through October 10 2017. Saturn to Trumps Sun and Moon (conjunct his Moon and opp his Sun – beginning when 1 degree before through 1 degree after exact [in right ascension) and stationing there just 4 days after the total solar eclipse of Aug 21 that spans the contiguous 48 states, is opposite the Sibly Moon and conjoins Trumps Mars and Asc.. During that time that transit Saturn opposes Sibly Mars and squares Sibly Neptune.

On July 1 his secondary progressed Moon will conjoin his progressed Saturn. That will be very potent as the conjunction is on the zenith of his secondary progressed chart (Q2 Mean Quotidian angles) in Washington. And as posted before things just keep rolling along for him through October.

On Aug 21, 2017, the date of the total solar eclipse that lands on his DC Asc and has it’s Saturn on his natal Sun-Moon opposition his secondary progressed chart has his progressed Mars and Neptune (terror) on the MC.

Transit Saturn will also be opposite the progressed Sun in Trump's wife's chart at the time of the eclipse.

With the possibility that Trump could be impeached or like Nixon resign before that happens. Looking at Nov 3, 2020 it does not appear that Pence will even be running (thinking there would be more than 1 possible aspect to either his natal or progressed chart. Nothing close except for transit Neptune at 18°20' Pisces square natal Sun (noon chart) 16°09' Gemini. Could he have been driven from office before then or beaten in the primary races?

Transit Saturn to Pence natals (Noon chart). All aspects except the last one occur before the mid-term elections in 2018. Looking at other charts (returns, eclipses, etc.) is still to be done. Hopefully, Dems in the Senate can prevent or limit the seating of justices to the Supreme Court before the mid-term elections. I think voters will have had enough of authoritarian leadership by then that they will put control of the Senate firmly in Democratic hands and severely reduce the Republican majority in the House on the way to taking their control away in 2020.

Neptune 212°55' - Saturn sextile at 272°55'

Jan 12, 2018

Aug 23, 2018

Station at 272°45' on Sep 6, 2018

Sep 19, 2018

Saturn 275°30' - Saturn return at 275°30'

Feb 3, 2018

Jul 8, 2018

Nov 2, 2018

Pluto 158°24' - Saturn trine 278°24'

Mar 7 2018

May 30, 2018

Nov 30, 2018

Twilight said...

Anon/Bob/Unique Astrology ~ Thanks for these astrological details. I'd not be surprised to find that Trump doesn't last even one term, but he will have served as a much-needed shake-up of the system, and of people's complacency, which over too many years, as I see it, has led us to the situation we have now. Far too much of the old "I'm alright Jack buggger you!"

I still hope he can redeem himself, though it'll be a hard slog, and though he's tough I don't know if he has the necessary will power or the right advisors to get through it, with so much of the country doing their nuts, unwilling to even give him a chance.