The Cardinal Crisis
image: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
The Middle East Revolts:
A farmer feeds milk to a two-headed calf born in northern Egypt in late June/early July 2010. The cow gave birth to the Janus-faced calf after two hours of strenuous labor. The farmer, Sobhy el-Ganzoury, called it a "divine miracle," and said the calf is a reminder that "God is able to do anything."
Photo: AP
A Revolution In Egypt...Or A Crackdown?
&
Saturn's 29-Year Return In Libra To Cairo, That Solar Eclipse In Capricorn, Hosni Mubarak's Horoscope Of Fate & Omar Suleiman's Date With Destiny
Also,
A Dying Oligarchy & Baby Boomer Generation
And,
Japan's Elderly Stifles Their Young
Plus,
New Establishment Ahead:
Generation X,
Is A Renaissance At Hand?
Also,
Satellite Image: February 1, 2011: Entire land mass of continental United States covered over
Killer Cyclone Poised To Strike Australia
"Yasi," a massive cyclone, is going to make landfall on Australia's northeastern coast Feb. 2, 2011.
Climate Disasters:
La Nina Brings Ice, Snow & Cold To America 
Killer Cyclone Poised To Strike Australia
Plus,
Strange & Mysterious Anomalies:
On Earth, The Moon & Mars
British Scientists Say Earth Must Prepare For Close Encounters... With Aliens?
Global Astrology
By
Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
Θεόδωρος
Peace and Goodwill To All People.
Praise and Glory Be To The Immortal God.
Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
Θεόδωρος
Peace and Goodwill To All People.
Praise and Glory Be To The Immortal God.
Mundane Analysis
By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
In my astrological review, I have seen that there is a lot going on behind the scenes, considering world transits over the Middle East.
Effectively a potential civil war is at hand - pitting homegrown Egyptian forces against one another with the people in the middle.
Battle For Tahrir Square: Cairo, Egypt
Readers of Global Astrology may remember the prophetic sign in the birth of a two-headed calf born in northern Egypt during early summer 2010.
This Janus-faced sign was featured in my August 6, 2010 edition of Global Astrology and was a foreboding of what was to come in Egypt.
When I read world astrological transits, I often see many horrible things I do not wish to see.
What few Westerners know is that what has been happening in Egypt recently comes as a direct result of decades of widespread acts of economic/political repression, police & security force brutality and murder.
image: Louise Sarant
One recent example of what most people outside of Egypt did not know is that during the early months of the Cardinal Crisis, there was a young man by the name of Khaled Said, a blogger, who was exposing police corruption.
On June, 6, 2010, Khaled was brutally beaten to death in the city of Alexandria, Egypt, murdered by two Egyptian policemen, witnesses say.
Both police officers are now running free on the streets of Alexandria after they either broke out, or were "released" last week in the wake of the outbreak of nationwide demonstrations that began January 25, 2011.
[*Editor's Note: graphic photo in this section]
Brutal Murder of An Egyptian Blogger:
Khaled Said
The owner of an Internet cafe says he witnessed police beating a young man to death and described the killing that has outraged Egyptians, bloggers and human rights activists.
Hassan Mosbah says two Egyptian police officers came into his Internet cafe on Sunday, June 6, 2010 in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, dragged Khaled Said out and beat him to death.
Morgue photograph of Khaled Said, smuggled out to bloggers.
Pictures of Khaled's shattered face appeared on Egyptian blogs and social networking sites after his death.
Reports said that, "On Sunday, June 6, 2010, Khaled was at a cyber café at around 11:30 in the evening.
Two policemen asked him for money and when he said he didn’t have, they beat him," said Muhammad Abdel Aziz, a lawyer with el-Nadeem.
"As he was beaten up, his head hit a marble table and he started bleeding."
According to Abdel Aziz, the policemen took Said out of the cyber café and continued to beat him. "He screamed at them saying, ‘I am dying, leave me’, and he fell on the floor."
Abdel Aziz added that witnesses saw a yellow liquid coming out of Khaled's mouth when he fell on the floor, after which there was bleeding.
A pharmacist and a medic passing by confirmed that Khaled was dead after they checked his pulse.
Witnesses said an Egyptian police car picked Khaled up and took him away.
His family was contacted and were told Khaled was in the morgue at Kom el-Dekka, to which they were then denied access.
At the prosecutor’s office, Egyptian security officials told his mother and brother that Khaled had "swallowed a bag of drugs," and that there were witnesses to the incident who confirmed seeing the bag.
On June 11, 2010, Ahmad Badawy, an activist in Alexandria with al-Ghad Party went to the cyber café where the incident happened.
On June 11, 2010, Ahmad Badawy, an activist in Alexandria with al-Ghad Party went to the cyber café where the incident happened.
He said witnesses told him that the bag of drugs belonged to the two policemen who beat Khaled up as he was shooting a video of them making a drug deal.
Egyptian authorities at first denied police beat to death the 28-year-old man.
But after the morgue photo was smuggled out to bloggers and posted on the Internet showing Khaled's bruised and battered face, it sparked outrage and condemnation among Egyptians and from human rights groups.
Egypt's Security Information Center repeated their statement that "Khaled Mohammed Said had died after swallowing a bag of narcotics as police approached him in Alexandria."
Human rights groups say Khaled was beaten to death outside the Internet cafe after refusing to be searched by police dressed in plainclothes.
Amnesty International called for an "immediate, full and independent investigation into the brutal killing.
"The horrific photographs are shocking evidence of the abuses taking place in Egypt," Amnesty said.
"These pictures are a rare, first-hand glimpse of the routine use of brutal force by Egyptian security forces, who expect to operate in a climate of impunity, with no questions asked," it said.
Amnesty criticized Egypt's decades-old emergency law, which was recently renewed for another two years, under which it said "abuses by security forces are routine and rarely punished."
Last month, President Hosni Mubarak's government extended the controversial law which gives police extended powers of arrest and curbs non-governmental political activity.
The government vowed that a modified version of the law would only be used in cases related to terrorism and narcotics.
~
Astrological transits show Egypt's internal security forces had been secretly deploying themselves around the country Saturday (Jan. 29) and Sunday (Jan. 30) after they disappeared suddenly, then re-emerged January 31.
It is assumed this was done to allow the rule of law to break down so that looting could take place.
It did.
But, it appears it was Egyptian police officers and security forces who were the ones breaking into banks, police stations, as well as attacking and looting neighborhoods and burning down supermarkets and stores.
It has also been reported that it was the security forces who released "thousands" of criminals onto the streets of Egypt under orders from the Interior Ministry.
This apparently was done to force the military not to be allowed to take over the traditional roles of security forces and police in handling internal security.
Mubarak's Machiavellian Moves & Egypt's Friday Lunar Phases
In reading the astrological transits of Hosni Mubarak, his Interior minister Habib al-Adly, and newly-minted vice-president Omar Suleiman, all three have been rushing to secure their tenuous positions so as to remain in power.
Mubarak and Suleiman have been playing games with the international community - effectively saying one thing to U.S. President Barack Obama, but doing another.
What Washington and policymakers need to understand clearly is that this is an historic event which will alter the Middle East no matter what the outcome.
The key in running any and all future scenarios is to know that what happening is generational.
In this light, you go with the future - not the past.
Astrological transits show that Mubarak, his elites and security forces will reject any calls for change unless forced to do so.
President Obama's call for Mubarak to restore Internet service to the country was complied with - partially - by the Egyptian government.
Mubarak and Suleiman will treat the Obama administration's call for him to step down with scorn and will most likely react violently against Egyptians demanding the end of Mubarak's regime.
The New Moon in Egypt of Thursday, February 3 will occur at 13-Aquarius-54, conjoined to Mars also in Aquarius, a fixed sign. It will rule the month of February until the next new moon occurs on March 4, 2011.
This series of lunar phases in February 2011 - New, First quarter, Full Moon, Last quarter and back again to new moon - will all occur on Fridays.
- New Moon - Feb. 3, 2011 at 13-Aquarius, fixed
- *First Quarter Moon - Feb. 11 at 22-Taurus, fixed
- Full Moon - Feb. 18 at 29-Leo, fixed
- *Last Quarter Moon - Feb. 25 at 6-Sagittarius, mutable
In the Feb. 3, 2011 New Moon chart provided below, transiting Pluto in Capricorn sits on the cardinal Ascendant of this new moon and is within orb, by square aspect, to transiting Jupiter in Aries, that turns north by declination on February 5.
The powerful and malefic cardinal Jupiter-Pluto square will continue to build during the month and will be exact on February 25, 2011, on the day of the last quarter Sagittarian Moon in Cairo.
The world's transiting North and South Lunar Nodes are reducing on the cardinal Capricorn-Cancer axis where they've been over the last 17-18 months.
We are on the cusp of a new nodal age that arrives March 3, 2011 when the lunar nodes enter the Sagittarius-Gemini mutable axis.
In addition, the transiting South Lunar Node, currently at 1-2 degrees Cancer, continues to conjoin Egypt's natal Mars at 3-Cancer.
Emotional stubbornness, hot-hotheadedness and refusal to accept change is at the heart of Mubarak's negative and reactionary responses - to his own people, to the world media and the international community.
There is great tension depicted in this new moon chart.
New Moon: Feb. 3, 2011 - Cairo, Egypt
The Sabian symbols for 13-14 Aquarius:
"A barometer."
&
"A train entering a tunnel..."
This fixed Aquarian new moon falls in the Second House in Egypt and is in quincux aspect to the star Sirius - setting in this chart.
It indicates Mubarak and his elites have a powerful fear and worry that American financial assets and support will be frozen by the White House.
President Obama's administration are represented by the fixed stars Spica and Arcturus, situated on the Mid-heaven, located on the cusp of the 10th House of the Feb. 3, 2011 New Moon configurations at Cairo. This is a commanding position.
Saturn, retrograde at 17-Libra, is in the Ninth House of Egypt's New Moon chart.
Saturn's return in tropical Libra plays a critical role in all that is happening in this country and the Middle East.
Transiting Venus at 28-Sagittarius is in square aspect to transiting Juno in Virgo that opposes transiting Uranus in Pisces at 28-Pisces which is conjoined to the fixed star Scheat.
This mutable T-square is raw, angry, explosive and feeds into the cardinal crisis transits.
Image: Sebastian Scheiner/AP
It also features highly emotional and bizarre acts in public. Outbursts both impulsive and dangerous that can easily lead toward accidental and/or intended deaths.
Transiting Saturn in Libra, retrograde, is square to transiting Pallas in Capricorn.
There are grinding, competing strategies at hand - organizing quickly to work on immediate problems practically, so as to fight back against obstacles intentionally placed in the way to confuse and cause disruption.
Mubarak's regime uses their secret police, called the Mukhabarat, to hunt down and "detain" innocent men, women and children who are then tortured, raped and murdered.
I have been following their dark movements astrologically and it seems the Mukhabarat are quite busy these days.
My warning to the agents of Mukhabarat is this:
It is you who are being closely watched - by the Immortal God - who sees, hears and knows all.
Every evil thing you have done, and continue to do, is being recorded in every detail so that the demons and archons who will come to rend your bodies, minds and souls will give you ten million times the pain and suffering you have inflicted on Allah's children.
'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' says the Lord.
"To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink - for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with Good."
If the agents of the Mukhabarat thinks they will escape the severe judgments and endless punishments of the Immortal God then they are very sadly mistaken.
Forewarned is foretold.
Here is one recent experience with Egypt's secret police, as told by two detained New York Times reporters.
Saturn's focus is on the wider picture, but the planet's inclinations lean towards pessimism, want, safety and caution - but not opportunity.
The square from Saturn to Pallas slows down progress with resistance to change, with indecision, for fear of making mistakes.
This must be overcome in order to achieve significant progress and social stability.
This must be overcome in order to achieve significant progress and social stability.
Saturn's retrograde in Libra exacerbates this square with undue levels of caution, negativity and worry which makes progress that much more difficult to attain. Saturn will remain retrograde until June 2011.
All in all, the new moon configurations of February 3, 2011 indicate that should Egypt's crisis not be resolved by March, then the implications for the rest of the Middle East into April 2011 (a month with very violent Aries transits) will become dire to say the least.
I urge a speedy resolution to this crisis as soon as possible or things will get worse regionally. There is no doubt.
Calmer, cooler heads and strong international leadership is in much need now, or believe me, going into the Spring of 2011, world transits clearly reveal things could easily get very much out of hand in the Middle East - for all regional and international players concerned.
Further in this edition of Global Astrology, you will find Egypt's Mundane Chart, as well as the personal nativity of Hosni Mubarak. I have delineated both horoscopes and offer my interpretations.
Both charts were affected by the January 4, 2011 partial solar eclipse in Capricorn, observed over the Middle East, North Africa and Egypt.
Demonstrators have not yet been able to form a clear role as a focused "group" in Mubarak's eyes; yet he and his close circle of elites do not believe in democracy and have seen the demonstrators not as their own people, but as another competitive power group to oppose.
All of this is due to the Machiavellian plans of Mubarak, who has his progressed Moon in Scorpio and his progressed Pluto in Cancer, now sitting on his progressed Ascendant.
But Mubarak's plan was stifled early Monday when Egypt's armed forces pledged not to fire on demonstrators as thousands of people, freed from fear after decades of oppression, tried to press home their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak.
In its first formal comment on events issued Monday, January 31, Egypt's Armed Forces Command issued this statement:
"The Armed forces will not resort to use of force against our great people," [it said, though it would stop looters.]
"Your armed forces, who are aware of the legitimacy of your demands and are keen to assume their responsibility in protecting the nation and the citizens, affirms that freedom of expression through peaceful means is guaranteed to everybody."
It was then announced that a "million-man" march was planned for Tuesday, February 1 to reinforce that the Egyptian people want Mubarak and his regime out of power. They planned to march to the presidential palace.
However, serious potential for clashes and bloodshed remain, according to my astrological calculations; especially considering the hostilities between the army and the security forces/police and between the security forces/police and Egyptian people.
News reports have said that Interior Minister Habib al-Adly ordered Egyptian police to go back to their original positions in the country.
This was done at a secret meeting with central security force commanders on Sunday, Jan. 30, in Nasr City, just east of Cairo. So they are planning attacks of some sort to take place, most likely first week of February.
It has been reported that a major battle nearly took place between the Egyptian military, the army and the Interior Ministry which runs the police and internal security forces, plainclothes agents.
Meanwhile, Al-Jazerra news agency was shut down on January 30 by Mubarak's security forces from the Interior Ministry. Their Cairo bureau was then ransacked and equipment destroyed.
The United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union, along with many other nations issued calls for all their citizens to leave Egypt immediately. More than 160,000 foreigners are reported to have left Egypt.
Travel restrictions and mass confusion have made it nearly impossible for everyone to leave the country at such short notice.
Mubarak's plan for Monday, January 31st was set to go as six journalists from Al Jazeera English were set upon and arrested Monday. Briefly detained, they were released without their cellphones and reporting equipment, which Mubarak's security forces confiscated.
The world media has come out strongly against Egyptian authorities' suppression of the press, following the forced withdrawal of Al Jazeera's license in Egypt.
On Monday, January 31, people rushed Cairo's international airport, a scene of chaos and confusion Monday as thousands of foreigners sought to flee the unrest. Nations around the world scrambled to send in planes to fly citizens out, according press accounts.
Canadians on a flight stuck in Cairo say they were extorted by Egyptian officials who demand bribes before people with tickets are allowed onto planes out.
High strung and with nerves frayed, shouting and shoving matches erupted as thousands crammed Cairo airport's new Terminal 3 seeking flights home.
The airport's departures board stopped announcing flight times in an attempt to reduce the tension - but then the plan backfired, fueling passengers' anger.
Making matters worse, check-in counters were poorly staffed because many Egypt Air employees had been unable to get to work due to a 3 p.m.-to-8 a.m. curfew and traffic breakdowns across the Egyptian capital.
"It's an absolute zoo, what a mess," said Justine Khanzadian, 23, a graduate student from the American University of Cairo.
"I decided to leave because of the protests, the government here is just not stable enough to stay."
Behind The Scenes
"The decision to redeploy the internal security forces follows a major confrontation that has played out behind the scenes between the Interior Ministry and the Egyptian military.
The animosity between Egypt’s police and soldiers was amplified on Friday, Jan. 28 when demonstrators overwhelmed the Central Security Forces (CSF) and plainclothes police and the Army had to step in to restore order.
Fearing that he and his forces were being sidelined, Interior Minister Habib al-Adly was rumored to have ordered the police forces to stay home and leave it to the army to deal with the crisis.
Meanwhile, there were multiple reports that many of Egypt's plainclothes policemen then went on a rampage: directly involved in a number of jailbreaks, bank robberies, attacks and break-ins into high-class neighborhoods on Saturday, January 29.
These "attacks" were reported in the media, but blamed on "looters" (read demonstrators.) No one knew who they were, but neighborhood men formed groups to protect their homes, businesses, streets and families as the organized group of police officers were well-armed.
Sources said that the police, who are known to be corrupt and brutal in Egypt were "allowed" to do this so they could "blow off steam" after being embarrassed by the demonstrators in the international media during the week's demonstrations and effectively forced out of action and off the streets.
In addition to allowing these "officers of the law" to blow off steam, the implicit message here was to the military:
The Interior Ministry was saying to the beloved Egyptian army that the cost of undermining them (the internal security forces) was to allow everything to just break down so that the military would see how fast everything went wrong in the country without "law and order."
The Interior Ministry was saying to the beloved Egyptian army that the cost of undermining them (the internal security forces) was to allow everything to just break down so that the military would see how fast everything went wrong in the country without "law and order."
Sources say that "the message was heard loud and clear," and the military and internal security forces then coordinated in meetings to begin a "timed crackdown" on Monday, January 31, 2011 to completely clear all Egypt's cities of demonstrators.
Al-Adly the hated-Interior minister, has been able to keep his job despite wide calls for his dismissal (he was not among those fired by Mubarak when the cabinet was given pink slips on Saturday, Jan. 29.)
It seems the Interior minister has been able to slime his way back into favor despite being accused by nearly all Egyptians of being the main promoter of police brutality and corruption in Egypt.
Rather, both Mubarak and al-Adly are gambling that they can remain in power by waiting things out over the weekend and testing the international waters while planning their sneak attack on the demonstrators.
Their meeting with the military on Saturday and Sunday has not shown that Egypt's military will turn in favor of the people, still the tensions are there from the Army to Mubarak, his Interior Ministry and their security forces and police.
In spite of a minor reshuffling of the Cabinet and the military reasserting its authority behind the scenes, Mubarak and al-Adly are still in place.
The opposition is unified in their hate against Mubarak but is divided on nearly everything else.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist platform is at odds from secularist Mohamed ElBaradei’s following, so no one has been able to assume leadership of the demonstrators so soon.
Mubarak is taking a gamble that Egypt's opposition will not form into a strong threat so quickly, so he planned to strike at them hard and swift.
On Monday, January 31, Egypt's police and military redeployed in large numbers across major cities.
The Central Security Force will hit the streets first and be the first line of defense, sources say.
Tensions are still running high between internal security forces and the military, which could lead to serious clashes on the people, and also between the army and police on the streets.
The size and scope of the protests appeared to be dwindling into the low thousands, though there was potential for the demonstrations to swell again after protesters rested themselves and woke Jan. 31- February 1st to the same government they have been trying to remove.
Moreover, as the events of Jan. 28 and 29 illustrated, the protesters were far more likely to clash with the CSF than with the military.
A deadly clash in front of the Interior Ministry Jan. 29 demonstrated the varying tensions between the protesters on one side and the military versus the police on the other.
According to STRATFOR: al-Adly was attempting to escape the Interior Ministry under heavy protective detail on Saturday, January 29 when he came under attack.
The CSF reportedly shot dead three protesters attempting to storm the building.
Eyewitness reports later came out claiming that the Army had to step in and set up a barrier between the protesters and the CSF to contain the crisis.
The demonstrators are still largely carrying with them the perception that the military is their gateway to a post-Mubarak Egypt and the CSF is representative of the regime they are trying to topple.
Then, in a surprise announcement Jan. 31, Egypt's military released their statement that they would not attack the demonstrators, who then hit the streets - two million strong - and repeated their demands Mubarak and his government step down.
Then, in a surprise announcement Jan. 31, Egypt's military released their statement that they would not attack the demonstrators, who then hit the streets - two million strong - and repeated their demands Mubarak and his government step down.
In the days and weeks ahead into February - the future of the Middle East will be determined by this standoff.
For more on Egypt's Mundane Chart, the effect of the January 2011 partial solar eclipse in Capricorn, and what the horoscope of Hosni Mubarak says to me, see my 'Mundane Review' further below in this extended edition of Global Astrology.
For up-to-date news -> see live stream reports on happenings in Egypt.
~
I have been warning for sometime that the Earth was about to enter historic times.
This was confirmed to me long ago, but few would believe me, but through the power of mundane astrology and world transits, I knew it was all to come true.
We have now entered that era, the start of an historic age, which I call The Cardinal Crisis.
And this is only the beginning.
I know Mundane astrology can be above the heads of many people who struggle to understand the diverse roles Astrology plays in our world and the global events shaped by world transits.
The revolutions of the planets incline on the Earth, and events correlate to their motions and their aspects.
In order to come to a better understanding of these forces, we must have faith and trust in those things we are not fully knowledgeable.
Seek to gain a deeper understanding so you can achieve gnosis. For the salvation of every person on Earth depends on it.
When I began my study of astrology in my childhood at the age of 10, it was with Natural Astrology, and how to forecast long-range climate and weather.
It was in this way I saw how celestial forces incline, cause and regulate events on Earth.
During my years of study I also read the history of the humanity and Astrology, for it is here mundane astrology has its core principles; including reading personal horoscopes and forecasting the destinies of individuals.
Mundane astrology is also concerned with the history and destinies of entire populations, of nations and of the world itself.
The practice of mundane astrology can be lonely and full of grief.
I never wanted to be an astrologer. It was part of my childhood classical education and I thought everyone learned it.
I sometimes cry alone in the dark for the world. For the things I see and know of the perpetual future of nations and the Earth does not bring me happiness, but rather weighs down my soul.
For the more knowledge gained by astronomical vision, the more sadness and grief I send to my heart.
I share what I know and hope people out there will care enough to make a difference in doing more good than evil in the world.
To do good things that are positive and progressive. Show compassion and care for others.
Pray for the world. For there is power in prayer.
Work ceaselessly to achieve gnosis, and do only good. Exercise righteousness and promote peace among humanity.
For the Immortal God watches us all.
In this edition of Global Astrology we explore what I consider to be among the most important issues facing our world in the early years of the Twenty-Tens.
We explore the inclinations of the planets on nations with a closer look at recent cases of self-immolation in the Middle East- people burning their entire bodies in protest of economic and political repression - which has already caused a dictatorship in Tunisia to crumble with uprisings reported in several North African nations, including Egypt: a country now on the very brink of revolution.
We also look at a dying oligarchy and their children, the Baby Boomers, as two eras end and another era begins.
Japan's Generation X is examined as well in Japan's Elderly Roadblocks the young.
We further explore the incoming establishment of Generation X and ask, is there a new Renaissance at hand?
The Weather Disasters Continue as the U.S. fights Ice, Snow and Freezing Temperatures while Queensland, Australia, already suffering from ungodly amounts of floods prepare for another disaster: Cyclone Yasi.
And, as Mars transits the Sign of Aquarius, we apply technology to explore the anomalous mysteries of the Red planet. We do the same with the closest celestial body to our planet - that of the Moon and we take a peek at the anomalies, here in our own backyard on Earth.
We also hear from British scientists who say the Earth must prepare for very real close encounters... with Aliens?
First, we head to the Middle East, where major events are swiftly taking shape that will reshape our thinking and views about geopolitics in the new decades of the Twenty-Tens and Twenty-Twenties.
The events of our most recent times, especially in Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and without any doubt - in the nation of Egypt - continue to prove true what a wise historian and moralist once said and wrote ~
Egyptian Military Deployed As Mubarak Places Egypt Under Emergency Law
By Maggie Michael, Hadeel Al-Shalchi & Sarah El Deeb
Associated Press
January 29, 2011 - CAIRO - Egypt's military deployed on the streets of Cairo to enforce a night-time curfew as the sun set Friday on a day of rioting and violent chaos that was a major escalation in the challenge to authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.
In his first response to the unrest sweeping his nation, Mubarak fired his Cabinet at midnight Saturday, January 29, 2011 and promised reforms, but refused to step down, setting the stage for perhaps even heavier street battles with protesters calling for an end to his nearly 30 years in power.
In this image grab from Egyptian state television, President Hosni Mubarak addresses the nation Saturday, January 29, 2011 in Cairo for the first time since deadly protests erupted against his government. Mubarak vowed reform but showed no sign of stepping down.
image: Nile TV/AFP
Four days of the largest anti-government protests in decades exploded into chaos hours earlier.
Tens of thousands of Egyptians fed up with crushing poverty, unemployment and corruption poured out of mosques after Friday's noon prayers and battled police with stones and firebombs.
By nightfall, they had burned down and looted the ruling party's headquarters along the banks of the Nile and set fire to many other buildings, roaming the streets of downtown Cairo in defiance of a night curfew enforced by the army.
President Mubarak, confronted with the most dire threat to his three decades of authoritarian rule, faced his nation in a televised address at midnight, making vague promises of social reform in what is likely to be interpreted as an attempt to cling to power rather than a genuine pledge solve Egypt's pressing problems.
He also defended his security forces and accused the protesters of plotting to destabilize Egypt and destroy the legitimacy of his regime, outraging those still in the streets well into the night.
In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a police vehicle is set on fire by demonstrators in Cairo, capital of Egypt, on Friday, Jan. 28, 2011. Tens of thousands of Egyptians seized the streets of Cairo, battling police with stones and firebombs, burned down Mubarak's ruling Party Headquarters while ignoring a curfew enforced by military deployment.
Image: Cai Yang/Xinhua
"We want Mubarak to go and instead he is digging in further," protester Kamal Mohammad said. "He thinks it is calming down the situation but he is just angering people more."
A heavy police crackdown and other extreme measures by the government - including the shutting down of all Internet and mobile phone services in Cairo and other cities - but it did not stop the surging crowds.
As crowds surge on the streets below, an unidentified armed man with a rifle runs along a rooftop during clashes between police and protesters in the city of Suez January 28, 2011.
image: Mohamed Abd El-Ghany/Reuters
With police beaten back in many places, the government called the army into the streets and imposed a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew.
Egypt's crackdown drew harsh criticism from the Obama administration and even a threat Friday to reduce a $1.5 billion foreign aid program if Washington's most important Arab ally escalates the use of force.
Stepping up the pressure, President Barack Obama told a news conference he called Mubarak immediately after his TV address and urged the Egyptian leader to take "concrete steps" to expand rights and refrain from violence against protesters.
"The United States will continue to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people and work with their government in pursuit of a future that is more just, more free and more hopeful," President Obama said.
Throughout Friday, flames rose in cities across Egypt, including Alexandria, Suez, Assiut and Port Said, and security officials said there were protests in 11 of the country's 28 provinces.
Calling the anti-government protests "part of a bigger plot to shake the stability and destroy legitimacy" of Egypt's political system, a somber-looking Mubarak said: "We aspire for more democracy, more effort to combat unemployment and poverty and combat corruption."
His promises fell short of the protesters' demands for him to step down.
Still thousands in the capital Cairo defied a nationwide night curfew and were trying to storm two major government buildings — the state TV and the Foreign Ministry.
Others were praying on the streets after nightfall.
Flames rose up across a number of cities from burning tires and police cars.
Even the ruling party headquarters in Cairo was ablaze in the outpouring of rage, bitterness and utter frustration with a regime seen as corrupt, heavy-handed and neglectful of grinding poverty that afflicts nearly half of the 80 million Egyptians.
Hundreds were looting television sets and electric fans from the burning complex of buildings used by the ruling party.
One protester was killed in demonstrations that stretched across nearly half the provinces in Egypt, bringing the death toll for four days of protests to eight.
Egyptian plainclothes police carrying thick truncheons manhandle a demonstrator in Cairo during protests. The Obama administration, after first saying Egypt was stable, quickly reversed course and voiced "deep concern" January 28, 2011 over the unrest in the country and urged Mubarak's government to respect basic rights and avoid violence.
Image: Marco Longari/AFP
"I can't believe our own police, our own government would keep beating up on us like this," said Cairo protester Ahmad Salah, 26.
A protester attends to an injured man during clashes in Cairo January 28, 2011.
image: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
"I've been here for hours and gassed and keep going forward, and they keep gassing us, and I will keep going forward.
This is a cowardly government and it has to fall. We're going to make sure of it."
Internet and cell phone services, at least in Cairo, appeared to be largely cut off since overnight in the most extreme measure so far to try to hamper protesters form organizing.
However, that did not prevent tens of thousands from flooding the streets, emboldened by the recent uprising and revolution in Tunisia - another north African nation - that forced that country's president to flee to Saudi Arabia and brought an end to his government rule less than two weeks ago.
Even Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, one of Egypt's leading pro-democracy advocates, was under house arrest after joining the protests in Cairo.
"It's time for this government to change," said Amal Ahmed, a 22-year-old protester. "I want a better future for me and my family when I get married."
The sustained and intensifying demonstrations raised serious questions about whether Mubarak can keep his grip on power.
Egypt is Washington's closest Arab ally, but Mubarak may be losing U.S. support.
The Obama administration has publicly counseled Mubarak to introduce reforms and refrain from using violence against Egyptians.
U.S. President Barack Obama (far right) convenes National Security Meeting, seen with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
President Barack Obama convened his national security team on the growing protests in Egypt as aides voiced concern about violent clashes between demonstrators and police.
[Editor's Note: U.S. Secretary of State Hilliary Rodham Clinton spoke briefly Jan. 28, 2011 about the crisis in Egypt before her press conference with visiting Colombian Vice President Garzon.]
In one of many astonishing scenes Friday, thousands of anti-government protesters wielding rocks, glass and sticks chased hundreds of riot police away from the main square in downtown Cairo and several of the policemen stripped off their uniforms and badges and joined the demonstrators.
An Associated Press reporter saw protesters cheering the police who joined them and hoisting them on their shoulders in one of the many dramatic and chaotic scenes across Egypt.
After chasing the police, thousands of protesters were able to flood into the huge Tahrir Square downtown after being kept out most of the day by a very heavy police presence. Few police could be seen around the square after the confrontation.
click on graphic to enlarge
The unrest began when tens of thousands poured into the streets after noon prayers in the mosques, stoning and confronting police who fired back with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Groups of thousands of protesters, some chanting "out, out, out," defied a ban that has been in place for days on any gatherings and turned out at different venues across Cairo, a city of about 18 million people.
Some marched toward major squares and across scenic Nile bridges.
As the sun set, burning tires, buildings and cars sent up plumes of black smoke across the cityscape. Security officials said there were protests in at least 11 of the country's 28 provinces.
In Cairo, at least two buildings at the ruling party's headquarters complex downtown were on fire, one directly neighboring the Egyptian Museum, which is one of the country's best-known tourist attractions and home to the treasures of King Tutankhamun.
The protesters were energized by the return of ElBaradei on Thursday night after a month abroad. He declared he was prepared to lead the opposition to a regime change.
When he joined protesters after noon prayers, police fired water cannons at him and his supporters.
They used batons to beat some of ElBaradei's supporters, who surrounded him to protect him.
Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei (bottom, center) takes refuge inside a mosque after Friday prayers during clashes in Cairo January 28, 2011.
Image: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
A soaking wet ElBaradei was trapped inside a mosque while hundreds of riot police laid siege to it, firing tear gas in the streets around so no one could leave.
Tear gas canisters set several cars ablaze outside the mosque and several people fainted and suffered burns.
When he returned home, police stationed outside told him he was not allowed to leave again.
Abeer Ahmed, a 31-year-old woman who showed up for ElBaradei with her toddler, said she has a law degree but makes a living cleaning homes.
"Nothing good is left in the country," she said. "Oppression is growing."
Some of the most serious violence Friday was in Suez, where protesters seized weapons stored in a police station and asked the policemen inside to leave the building before they burned it down.
Smoke covers the sky during clashes between police and protesters in the Egyptian city of Suez on January 28, 2011.
image: Mohamed Abd El-Ghany/Reuters
They also set ablaze about 20 police trucks parked nearby.
Demonstrators exchanged fire with policemen trying to stop them from storming another police station and one protester was killed in the gun battle.
In the upscale Mohandiseen neighborhood, at least 10,000 were marching toward the city center chanting "down, down with Mubarak." The crowd later swelled to about 20,000 as they made their way through residential areas.
Residents looking on from apartment block windows waved and whistled in support. Some waved the red, white and black Egyptian flags. The marchers were halted as they tried to cross a bridge over the Nile, when police fired dozens of tear gas canisters.
In downtown Cairo, people on balconies tossed cans of Pepsi and bottles of water to protesters on the streets below to douse their eyes, as well as onions and lemons to sniff, to cut the sting of the tear gas.
At Ramsis square in the heart of the city, thousands clashed with police as they left the al-Nur mosque after prayers.
Police used tear gas and rubber bullets and some of the tear gas was fired inside the mosque where women were taking refuge.
Hundreds later broke through police cordons to head to the main downtown square, Tahrir. But they were stopped by police firing tear gas.
Near Tahrir, hundreds of riot police in a cluster moved in, anticipating the arrival of large crowds. A short while later, thousands of protesters marched across a bridge over the Nile and moved toward the square, where police began firing tear gas at them.
Hundreds of protesters played a cat-and-mouse game with riot police in a square just behind the famed Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square. Police were using tear gas and the protesters responded with rocks and chants of "illegitimate, illegitimate," a reference to Mubarak's regime.
Later, television footage showed a chaotic and violent scene where protesters were throwing rocks down on police from a highway overpass near Tahrir Square, while a police vehicle sped through the crowd spraying tear gas on demonstrators.
Clusters of riot police with helmets and shields were stationed around the city, at the entrances to bridges across the Nile and other key intersections.
The troubles were preventing trains from coming to Cairo, said security officials.
In Assiut in southern Egypt, several thousand demonstrators clashed with police that set upon them with batons and sticks, chasing them through side streets.
Saturn Stations Retrograde In Libra
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Mubarak has not been seen publicly or heard from since the protests began Tuesday.
While he may still have a chance to ride out this latest challenge, his choices are limited, and all are likely to lead to a loosening of his grip on power.
A Facebook page run by protesters listed their demands:
1. They want Mubarak to declare that neither he, nor his son, will stand in the next presidential elections.
2. Dissolve Parliament and hold new elections.
3. An end to emergency law decrees giving police extensive powers of arrest and detention.
4. Release of all prisoners including protesters and those who have been in jail for years without charge or trial.
5. Immediately fire the Interior Minister.
Mubarak has not said yet whether he will stand for another six-year term as president in elections this year.
He has never appointed a deputy and is thought to be grooming his son Gamal to succeed him despite popular opposition to him.
According to leaked U.S. memos, hereditary succession also does not meet with the approval of Egypt's powerful military.
Mubarak and his government have shown no hint of concessions to the protesters who want political reform and a solution to rampant poverty, unemployment and sky-rocketing food prices.
Continuing the heavy-handed methods used by security forces the past three days would probably buy the Mubarak regime a little time but could strengthen the resolve of the protesters and win them popular sympathy.
The alternative is to introduce a package of political and economic reforms that would end his party's monopoly on power and ensure that the economic liberalization policies engineered by his son and heir apparent Gamal over the past decade benefit the country's poor majority.
He could also lift the emergency laws in force since 1981, loosen restrictions on the formation of political parties and publicly state whether he will stand for another six-year term in elections this year.
Friday's demonstrations also got a boost from the endorsement of the country's biggest opposition group, the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. The group called its supporters to join the protests.
The Brotherhood, outlawed since 1954, is Egypt's largest and best organized opposition group. It seeks to establish an Islamic state. It renounced violence in the 1970s and has since been a peaceful movement.
Its network of social and medical services has traditionally won it popular support, but its detractors say its involvement in politics has chipped away at its support base.
It made a surprisingly strong showing in 2005 parliamentary elections, winning 20 percent of the legislature's seats, but it failed to win a single seat in the latest election late last year.
The vote is widely thought to have been marred, rigged to ensure that Mubarak's ruling party win all but a small fraction of the chamber's 518 seats.
Role of Social Media & Technology:
Jupiter/Uranus & Chiron/Neptune
Egypt's four primary Internet providers - Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr - all stopped moving data in and out of the country at 12:34 a.m., according to a network security firm monitoring the traffic.
Telecom experts said Egyptian authorities could have engineered the unprecedented cutoff with a simple change to the instructions for the companies' networking equipment.
The Internet appeared to remain cut off in Cairo but was restored in some smaller cities Friday morning.
Cell-phone text and Blackberry Messenger services were all cut or operating sporadically in what appeared to be a move by authorities to disrupt the organization of demonstrations.
Authorities appear to have been disrupting social networking sites, used as an organizing tool by protesters, throughout the week.
Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry Messenger have all seen interruptions, and the Internet, down for nearly a week, has been restored in Egypt due to the intervention of U.S. President Barack Obama.
~
Mohammed Bouazizi, torched himself and literally sparked a revolution in Tunisia. It all started on December 17, 2010 when Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old unemployed college graduate, set himself on fire after police confiscated his unlicensed produce stand. Bouazizi’s tragically desperate, yet inspiring death captured a whole nation’s seething yet silent fury at a regime that for 23 years had ruled over a corrupt police state that promised jobs but delivered little save for repression and lies. Bouaziziz’s self-immolation led to other protest suicides and mass youth unrest. The demonstrations started out in the boondocks but eventually spread to the capital Tunis, and led directly to the ouster of Tunisia's dictator, Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia.
January 19, 2011 - Inspired by a deadly act of defiance in Tunisia, at least ten people have set themselves on fire in Algeria, Egypt and Mauritania this week.
The Cardinal Crisis
CHAOS ENVELOPES EGYPT
image: Ben Curtis/AP
By Hamza Hendawi, Sarah El Deeb and Maggie Michael
AP
January 29-31, 2011- CAIRO – With protests raging, Egypt's president named his intelligence chief as his first-ever vice president on Saturday, setting the stage for a successor as chaos engulfed the capital.
Cairo residents boarded up homes and set up neighborhood watches of citizens armed with guns, clubs and knives Saturday as looting and violence engulfed the capital.
With the police having disappeared from the streets, the army expanded its presence of tanks and armored personnel carriers but mainly around government buildings.
As dusk fell and the chaos continued, the military fanned out to neighborhoods across the city in a bid to quell the lawlessness.
"The army guards big institutions like the gardens and museum, not people and their property," said Mighaz Sawzi, who lives in central Cairo.
"God has to protect us, because who's going to protect us now?"
image: AP
Residents reported gangs of youths, some on motorbikes, roaming the streets, looting supermarkets, shopping malls and stores.
Some of the gangs made it to affluent residential areas in the suburbs, breaking into luxury homes and apartments. The crackle of gunfire could be heard in the city center as well as outlying districts.
Looters made off with TV sets, electronics and furniture from a mall along the Nile. In Giza on the other side of the city, young men could be seen carting away bottles of alcohol, chairs, sofas and tables from casinos and night clubs and packing them into their rickshaws.
Downtown, thieves broke into the Arab International Bank and several cafes and eateries, including a McDonald's and a Hardees.
The ruling party headquarters was plundered and torched, while a Carrefour supermarket in the south was also hit.
Onlookers visit the headquarters of the burned out shell of the Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party building, looted and then torched by protesters.
Image: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
The looting, which has spread despite a 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew, prompted residents in some neighborhoods to establish vigilante groups to protect private property. These groups set up roadblocks at intersections to provide security.
Homes and shops in the upscale Zamalek neighborhood were boarded up by mid-afternoon, and outside some apartment blocks guards armed with machine guns had taken up posts.
In the well-heeled Maadi neighborhood in south Cairo, neighborhood mosques called on young men over loudspeakers to come down to the entrances of building and homes to ward off looters.
Naglaa Mahmoud, a 37-year-old Maadi resident, said thugs were breaking into cars and threatening to get into homes.
She said even the ambulance service in the neighborhood had abandoned its offices and accused the regime of planning the chaos by pulling out all of its police forces.
"All this seems to be prearranged. They are punishing us for asking for this change," she said. "What a shame he (Mubarak) doesn't care for the people or anything.
This is a corrupt regime."
Looters outside of Cairo were also taking advantage of the chaos.
On the highway from the capital to Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, car dealerships were broken into and looted.
Banks could be seen abandoned, with papers fluttering out of their smashed windows.
Egyptian state television was running periodic updates throughout the night of areas where looters and criminals had operated - going street-by-street, district-by-district. It aired two numbers that residents could call and report disturbances in their neighborhoods.
The report said that some of the citizen watch groups were calling for help from the military.
Defense Ministry spokesman Ismail Othman said that the armed forces will deal with looters, while appealing to Egyptians to protect their property and stand up to the thieves.
Othman also warned against violating the curfew, saying the military will deal firmly with those caught breaking it.
Egyptian men pray on a bridge in Cairo.
image: AP
The protests in Cairo saw Egyptian soldiers standing by - a few even joining the demonstrators - and the death toll from five days of anti-government fury rose sharply to 74.
Saturday's fast-moving developments across the north African nation marked a sharp turning point in President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule of Egypt.
In this photo released by the White House on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011, President Barack Obama makes a point during a briefing on the rapidly changing events in Egypt with his national security team in the Situation Room in Washington D.C. Tens of thousands of Egyptians have revolted and thrown Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old regime into chaos. President Obama repeated his plea for restraint in Egypt after meeting with his national security advisers to assess Mubarak's response to widespread revolts threatening the stability of Egypt and the Middle East. A White House statement said President Obama: "reiterated our focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint, supporting universal rights, and supporting concrete steps that advance political reform within Egypt."
image: The White House
Residents and shopkeepers in affluent neighborhoods boarded up their houses and stores against looters, who roamed the streets with knives and sticks, stealing what they could and destroying cars, windows and street signs.
Gunfire rang out in some neighborhoods.
Things got heated in other locations of the world as the Egyptian crisis expanded. Briefly, we go to Mexico City, Mexico, of all places.
Here, in a series of three still images taken from video, Egyptian Embassy security guards (R, 2nd R) attack Reuters photographer Jorge Dan Lopez (3rd R) and television camera-woman Lisette Romero (L.) The guards attempt to rip away their cameras and physically assaulted both reporters as they covered a demonstration in support of the Egyptian people, just outside the embassy in Mexico City, January 29, 2011.
The Egyptian embassy guards over-reacted to the gathering of just a few people there to protest against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The man in the white shirt is a driver hired by Reuters and is trying to help both journalists.
Images: Marcel Ventosa and Ning Sukosit/Reuters
Meanwhile, back in Cairo, tanks and armored personnel carriers fanned out across the city of 18 million, guarding key government buildings, and major tourist and archaeological sites.
Among those singled out for special protection was the Egyptian Museum, home to some of the country's most treasured antiquities, and the Cabinet building. The military closed the pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo - Egypt's premier tourist site.
Egyptians demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak pass by a line of army tanks deployed in Cairo on Saturday, January 29, 2011.
Image: Kaled Desouki/AFP
But soldiers made no moves against protesters, even after a curfew came and went and the crowds swelled in the streets, demanding an end to Mubarak's rule and no hand-off to the son he had been grooming to succeed him.
"This is the revolution of people of all walks of life," read black graffiti scrolled on one army tank in Tahrir Square. "Mubarak, take your son and leave," it said.
Thousands of protesters defied the curfew for the second night, standing their ground in the main Tahrir Square in a resounding rejection of Mubarak's attempt to hang onto power with promises of reform and a new government.
Police protecting the Interior Ministry near the site opened fire at a funeral procession for a dead protester, possibly because it came too close to the force.
Clashes broke out and at least two people were killed.
images: Mohammed Abed/AFP
A 43-year-old teacher, Rafaat Mubarak, said the appointment of the president's intelligence chief and longtime confidant, Omar Suleiman, as vice-president did not satisfy the protesters.
Omar Suleiman, Egypt's top intelligence chief whose horoscope is delineated further below
"This is all nonsense. They will not fool us anymore. We want the head of the snake," he said in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.
"If he is appointed by Mubarak, then he is just one more member of the gang.
We are not speaking about a branch in a tree, we are talking about the roots."
The crackdown on protesters has drawn harsh criticism from the Obama administration and even a threat Friday to reduce a $1.5 billion foreign aid program if Washington's most important Arab ally escalates the use of force.
Thousands of passengers were stranded at Cairo's airport as flights were canceled or delayed, leaving them unable to leave because of a government-imposed curfew. Several Arab nations, meanwhile, moved to evacuate their citizens.
The cancellations of flights and the arrival of several largely empty aircraft appeared to herald an ominous erosion of key tourism revenue.
The protesters united in one overarching demand - Mubarak and his family must go. The movement is a culmination of years of simmering frustration over a government they see as corrupt, heavy-handed and neglectful of poverty.
Egyptians were emboldened by the uprising in Tunisia - another North African Arab nation, and further buoyed by their success in defying the ban on gatherings.
At the end of a long day of rioting and mass demonstrations Friday, Mubarak fired his Cabinet and promised reforms. But the demonstrators returned in force again Saturday to demand a complete change of regime.
The president appeared to have been preparing his son Gamal to succeed him, possibly as soon as presidential elections planned for later this year. However, there was significant public opposition to the hereditary succession.
The appointment of Suleiman, 74, answers one of the most intriguing and enduring political questions in Egypt: Who will succeed 82-year-old Mubarak?
Another question is whether his appointment will calm Egypt's seething cities.
Mubarak appointed Suleiman shortly after the U.S. said he needed to take concrete action to achieve "real reform." Suleiman is well known and respected by American officials and has traveled to Washington many times.
Omar Suleiman (L) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyau
Before word that Mubarak had picked his first vice president, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. wanted to see Mubarak fulfill his pledges of reform.
"The Egyptian government can't reshuffle the deck and then stand pat," Crowley said on his Twitter account. "President Mubarak's words pledging reform must be followed by action."
As the army presence expanded in Cairo Saturday, police largely disappeared from the streets - possibly because their presence seemed only to fuel protesters' anger. Egyptian police are hated for their brutality.
On Friday, 17 police stations throughout Cairo were torched, with protesters stealing firearms and ammunition and freeing some jailed suspects.
They also burned dozens of police trucks in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. On Saturday, protesters besieged a police station in the Giza neighborhood of Cairo, looted and pulled down Egyptian flags, then burned the building to the ground.
There were no clashes reported between protesters and the military at all, and many in the crowds showered soldiers with affection.
One army captain joined the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, who hoisted him on their shoulders while chanting slogans against Mubarak. The officer ripped apart a picture of the president.
Protestors carry an Egyptian army captain on their shoulders after he tore up a poster of President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square and joined in the demonstrations in Cairo, Egypt.
Image:Peter Macdiarmid/Getty
"We don't want him! We will go after him!" demonstrators shouted. They decried looting and sabotage, saying: "Those who love Egypt should not sabotage Egypt!"
Some 200 inmates escaped a jail on the outskirts of the city, starting a fire first to cover their breakout. Eight inmates were killed during the escape.
On Saturday, feelings of joy over the sustained protest mingled with frustration over the looting and Mubarak's refusal to step down.
"To hell with Mubarak; We don't serve individuals. We serve this country that we love, just like you," yelled another soldier to protesters from atop a tank scrawled with graffiti that said: "Down with Mubarak!"
Like Mubarak, Suleiman has a military background. The powerful military has provided Egypt with its four presidents since the monarchy was toppled nearly 60 years ago.
He has been in charge of some of Egypt's most sensitive foreign policy issues, including the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
Suleiman, additionally, is widely seen as a central regime figure, a position that protesters were likely to view with suspicion.
Mubarak also named his new prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, the outgoing civil aviation minister and fellow former air force officer.
Both appointments perpetuate the military's overriding role in Egyptian politics.
Suleiman's frequent trips to Israel could be held against him by a population that continues to view the Jewish state as a sworn enemy more than 30 years after the two neighbors signed a peace treaty.
With the two occupying the country's most important jobs after the president from the military, Gamal Mubarak, a banker-turned-politician, appears to be out of the running for his father's job.
A leaked U.S. diplomatic memo said Gamal and his clique of ruling party stalwarts and businessmen were gaining confidence in 2007 about controlling power in Egypt and that they believed that President Mubarak would eventually dump Suleiman, who was seen as a threat by Gamal and his coterie of aides.
Gamal Mubarak (center with hand raised to chin.)
Gamal launched his political career within the ranks of the ruling National Democratic Party, climbed over the past 10 years to become its de facto leader, dictating economic policies and bolstering his own political standing.
Ahmed Ezz
Gamal's close aide and confidant, steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, resigned from the party on Saturday, according to state television.
Gamal and Ezz are suspected of orchestrating the rigging of the last parliamentary election in November, making sure the ruling party won all but a small fraction of the chamber's 518 seats.
"There is nothing short of Mubarak leaving power that will satisfy the people," Mohamed ElBaradei, the country's leading pro-reform activist told The Associated Press on Saturday.
"I think what Mubarak said yesterday was an insult to the intelligence of the Egyptian people."
Buildings, statues and even armored security vehicles were covered in anti-Mubarak graffiti, including the words "Mubarak must fall," which by morning had been written over to say "Mubarak fell."
The military extended the hours of the night curfew imposed Friday in the three major cities where the worst violence has been seen - Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. State television said it would begin at 4 p.m. and last until 8 a.m., longer than the 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. ban Friday night that appeared to not have been enforced.
The Internet appeared blocked for a second day to hamper protesters who use social networking sites to organize. And after cell phone service was cut for a day Friday, two of the country's major providers were up and running Saturday.
In the capital on Friday night, hundreds of young men carted away televisions, fans and stereo equipment looted from the ruling National Democratic Party, near the Egyptian Museum.
Others around the city looted banks, smashed cars, tore down street signs and pelted armored riot police vehicles with paving stones torn from roadways.
Banks and the stock market will be closed on Sunday, the first day of the week, because of the turmoil.
~
Mundane Review
Hosni Mubarak Vs. The People Of Egypt
Saturn's 29-Year Return In Libra &
Omar Suleiman's Date With Destiny
Fixed Hexagon on the planet Saturn
By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
The events of 2010 and 2011 are inclined by the transits of the outer planets.
Urged on by economic and social inequalities, we have seen huge gatherings of people with revolt on their minds in the nations of Greece, Ireland, the UK, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and Egypt.
It has been my contention that under the new planetary configurations marking the end of one era, and the start of another, that we can expect ever more popular uprisings, rebellions and revolutions to come.
It simply is that time in history, according to the motions, placements and configurations of the outer planets that incline events here on Earth.
These planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto reflect that we are entering a new age.
This transitional age of major generational change, along with social and political instability brought about by the dying ruling oligarchy, now in their 80s and their children, the outgoing establishment of Baby Boomers, is a marker of times to come.
The Twenty-Tens is the true start of the 21st century.
The Mundane Horoscope of Egypt shows us that indeed, times are changing there are well.
Mundane Chart of the modern state of Egypt
click to enlarge
If nobody but the national party runs, then the regime will have to give in to us," said Nobel Laurate Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei to a gathering of his supporters.
One posting on his Twitter page read: "Total boycott of elections & signing petition R first steps 2 unmask sham 'democracy.' Participation wld. be contrary to the national will."
Mundane analysis shows diverse forces at hand as Egypt's severely divided opposition groups have been deliberating over a possible national boycott for months so it remains uncertain how Dr. ElBaradei's call will influence them.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic political group that, though banned, is the country's single strongest opposition group, has also been mulling a boycott.
No group wants to be the first to say it will sit out the election for fear that rivals will take advantage of the political elbow room.
Despite only sporadic engagement with the country's political scene, Dr. ElBaradei carries considerable weight.
Since he returned to Egypt in February after 12 years as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he has been seen by disillusioned Egyptians as a symbol of change and by many more as the most serious challenger to President Hosni Mubarak's 29-year Saturn cycle hold on power.
While some members of the opposition have expressed a degree of disillusionment over what they describe as Dr. ElBaradei's failure to embrace the cause of political reform and become fully immersed in the drudgery of Egyptian politics, his occasional appearances and announcements continue to garner much support and inject energy into a remarkably unorganized opposition.
Mr. Mubarak, who turned 82 this year and has been in a delicate state of health since undergoing surgery in March, has not announced if he plans to run for re-election in September.
The uncertainty has triggered speculation over the future and supported the possibility that Mr. Mubarak's son, Gamal, is being groomed to succeed his father.
Dr. ElBaradei has said he will run for president if constitutional reforms make it possible; his campaign for those changes has brought together some of the secular opposition, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Under the current constitutional framework, Dr. ElBaradei would need at least 250 signatures from Egypt's lower and upper houses and municipal councils, all of which are overwhelmingly dominated by the ruling party.
Mr. Mubarak introduced an amendment passed in 2007 that abolished full judiciary supervision over elections, which had served as a minimum guarantee for cleaner elections.
"They always say that I must abide by laws and constitutions," Dr. ElBaradei said to loud applause. "I know what is in laws and in constitutions, but what we have here in Egypt is neither laws nor constitution!"
The horoscope of Egyptian President Honi Mubarak, now 82, clearly shows how his transits have brought him to this moment in history.
However, what is most notable is how transiting Saturn in Libra is square to Mubark's natal Pluto in Cancer, rooted in the Fourth House, which is lord of his personal horoscope.
There is a mundane astrological saying: "What goes around, comes around."
Nothing is more true than this saying when it comes to the life, times and rule of Hosni Mubarak.
Hosni Mubarak's Natal Horoscope
click to enlarge
Saturn's recent station to retrograde in Mubarak's Sixth House in square aspect to the transiting Vertex, conjoined to his natal Pluto in Cancer challenges him to accept defeat, however, the position of Pluto (a generational planet) in his Fourth House received an opposition from transiting Mercury in Capricorn.
This transit of Mercury in Capricorn opposed Mubarak's Progressed Mercury in Cancer, which has crossed the cusp of his Fourth House in Cancer, where we find the fixed star Sirius.
Thus, the Mercury to Mercury opposition has crossed Mubarak's Ascendant/Mid-heaven Capricorn-Cancer axis, which is rooted by this fixed star, sparking a major crisis which has been a long time in coming, but is now here.
The warning was the January 4, 2011 partial solar eclipse at 13-Capricorn that took place over parts of western Europe, the Middle East and over Egypt.
In mundane astrology, the power and influences of eclipses only take place if they can be observed over the regions where they occur. This partial eclipse was seen over Egypt.
The eclipse took place directly on Mubarak's natal Mid-heaven at 12-13 Capricorn and opposed Mubarak's Fourth House, his natal Pluto and Progressed Mercury.
On Tuesday, January 25, 2011, the transiting Vertex, an electric point in astrology, transited at 12-13 Cancer, and crossed over into Mubarak's Fourth House cusp. This electric point helped to spark the long-simmering national crisis to new heights.
This Vertex transit opposed the 13-degree solar eclipse point on Mubarak's Mid-heaven and the week turned from bad to much, much worse.
The Mercury transit by opposition on this axis rules his ability to communicate effectively, but, his choices to cut off the Internet and to block freedom of communication to the people has not only led to a very powerful opposition to him, not only from his own people, but by the international community and leaders.
Complicating matters is the fact that Mubarak's Progressed Sun, at 2-degrees Leo, and in his natal Fourth House, wants to be "king" of the nation.
He sees himself as the ruler of Egypt, the face, if you will, of the nation itself.
Mubarak's Progressed Leo Sun is within orb of a square to his natal Moon in Scorpio, so the pressure to resign will not go away, and his has grudgingly had to accept his inability to pass on his legacy to his son - effectively blocked by the Egyptian people, the military and the political opposition.
Mubarak's South lunar node, the Dragon's Tail, is in Sagittarius, conjoined to the star Antares.
His progressed lunar node is nearly exact to this star, and the transiting Moon in Sagittarius passed over this star as he spoke to the nation in a televised address. This merely angered the Egyptian people even more.
The people were expecting him to announce he was stepping down as president, thus ending his rule and that of his entire family over the nation.
But he did not do this, rather, he fired his entire cabinet and began positioning others close to him for succession should he be forced out of office.
The pressure to step down continues to build over the weekend of Jan. 29-30, when, by Monday, January 31, 2011, the transiting Moon in Capricorn will oppose Mubarak's natal Pluto and progressed Mercury in the Fourth House.
In his Fourth House, are the stars Castor, Pollux and Procyon, which represent the people of Egypt in the nation's Mundane Chart.
Here, we also find the South Lunar Node, situated at 3-Leo, which is one-degree from where Mubarak's Progressed Leo Sun is located.
He is highly unpopular, as the Dragon's Tail clearly shows, and with the nation's mundane position of Uranus, Mercury and Ceres in Cancer, located in Mubarak's Fourth House, he cannot hope to continue as president, or to pass his legacy onto his son Gamal.
Egypt's natal Saturn and Neptune in Libra sit on Mubarak's Descendant, and with transiting Saturn returned to Libra, exalted, and in square aspect to Mubarak's Fourth House, not only is he very unpopular, but truly hated for the abuses Egyptians say he and his administration committed during Mubarak's 29-year Saturn-ruled government.
Mubarak's government has always been under the autocratic inclinations of Saturn.
Saturn stationed retrograde in tropical Libra on January 26, 2011 and highlights matters of justice, of law, of society at large and strongly influences feelings what is right and what is wrong within populations.
Transiting Saturn in Libra is within orb of an opposition to Mubarak's natal Jupiter in Aries - poor decision making, stubbornness and the inability to be flexible are all features of this configuration in combination with both his natal, progressed and world transits.
Failing health is indicated by his Progressed Moon in Scorpio, with further decline as his progressed Moon enters, and then transits Sagittarius to conjoin not only his South Lunar Node, but his natal Saturn in Sagittarius by spring 2013.
Transiting Pluto in Capricorn is also square to Mubarak's natal Uranus in Aries: this is clearly a revolutionary transit, and a heavy one for Mubarak. His natal Uranus, in his 12th natal House is being touched by the transit of both Jupiter and Uranus.
Here, in this House, Mubarak is concerned that the abuses and the secrets of 29-years of his regime will not be protected should the opposition come to power.
The years of hidden, Machiavellian moves and counter-moves to the opposition means that Mubarak's regime will be held responsible for nearly three decades of abuses, including: torture, rape, murder, massive misappropriation of national wealth and resources, international abuse of money from abroad, widespread fraud, bribery and election-rigging, among other crimes committed by Mubarak and those under his command.
Transiting Pluto's square from Capricorn to Mubarak's natal Uranus in Aries forces his hand at a very bad time astrologically.
Nonetheless, transiting Saturn's pressure from tropical Libra on his natal Pluto in Cancer in his Fourth House puts the squeeze on ever tighter.
Mubarak became president of Egypt in October 1981, following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. At that time, Saturn was in Libra and now, 29-years later, Saturn has returned to Libra.
Mubarak's regime was ruled by the transit of Saturn.
There is no way out but to resign according to world transits.
In effect, Mubarak's regime has been brought to an end, according to my reading of these planetary configurations.
According to his Secondary progressions, Hosni and his son Gamal are attempting to buy time so they can make adjustments to their extreme wealth and financial assets, where there has been hurried activity in the wake of Egypt's mass demonstrations.
Gamal Mubarak and his father, Hosni Mubarak
Image: Cris Bouroncle/AFP/Getty Images
According to the British Guardian, Gamal and Hosni Mubarak are reported to have built up huge fortunes.
The Mubarak family fortune is estimated to be as much as $70 billion USD (£43.5 billion pounds) according to an analysis by middle eastern experts. This would represent about 3-4% of Egypt's entire GDP.
The bulk of the Mubarak family wealth is located in British and Swiss banks and in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles, along with expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast.
After nearly 30 years as president and many more as a senior military official, Hosni Mubarak has had access to lucrative investment deals that have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
Most of those gains have been taken out of Egypt and deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in upscale homes and hotels.
According to a 2010 report from the Arabic newspaper Al Khabar, Mubarak has properties in Manhattan and exclusive Beverly Hills addresses on Rodeo Drive in California.
His sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also billionaires. A protest outside Gamal's ostentatious home at 28 Wilton Place in Belgravia, central London, highlighted the family's appetite for western trophy assets.
Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton University, said the estimate of $40-70 billion was comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.
Hosni Mubarak is bound to resist stepping down and is more apt to turn to more repression and violence; though he is torn about remaining in Egypt in light of his own people detesting his regime in general and him in particular.
How he chooses to resolve his life, and the legacy of his nearly 30 years in power as Egypt's president will be up to him, however, Saturn's transit in Libra has returned to the position and placement where it was in 1981 when he became Egypt's president.
Remember the mundane saying: "what goes around, comes around."
In this astrological analysis, it is my conclusion Hosni Mubarak will not continue as president.
Saturn's return in Libra - 29 years after he took power - has effectively ended Mubarak's iron grip on Egypt.
~
HOROSCOPE OF OMAR SULEIMAN
Click on chart to enlarge
Omar Suleiman: From Power To Perdition
Delineated by Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
The French mundane astrologer Michel Nostradamus once wrote that "all things are naked and open."
This is very true. Nothing is hidden by the power of the Immortal God in reading astrological transits.
Bloomberg news reported that Suleiman "lacks the support where he now needs it most: the streets of Cairo."
"Egyptians don’t want Mubarak and they don’t want Suleiman," said Chayma Hassabo, a researcher on Arab political movements at Cedej, a Cairo-based research center.
Al Jazeera has written that Suleiman "does not have a high opinion of Islam in politics, and is not shy about telling Western audiences the lengths he will go to allow his security services to keep the Muslim Brotherhood and their offshoots at bay."
The young generational guard protesting in Egypt are also opposed to Suleiman running the country without elections taking place.
Students, union activists and opposition bloggers within Egypt - all remain opposed to Suleiman.
In response to the appointment of Omar Suleiman as the new vice-president of Egypt, opposition leader ElBaradei said that it was a "hopeless, desperate attempt by Mubarak to stay in power. I think it is loud and clear... that Mubarak has to leave today."
Cables released by Wikileaks showed that Suleiman enjoyed a strong relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency:
"Our intelligence collaboration with Oman Soliman (sic) is now probably the most successful element of the relationship with Egypt," said a 2006 U.S. diplomatic cable which described Suleiman as Mubarak’s "consigliore" on foreign policy.
Suleiman became director of military intelligence in 1991. Two years later in 1993 he was appointed chief of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services, or the EGIS.
His name has become known only in recent years, breaking the tradition of keeping the identity of the Egyptian head of Intelligence secret - known only to top government officials. It was released to the world media after the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Taurus in the year 2000.
Suleiman is seen as a very close and trusted ally of Mubarak.
His nativity clearly shows he shares many of Mubarak’s views on issues in the Middle East, Iran, the European Union, Asia, as well as Egyptian relations with Israel and the United States and on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch assert Suleiman’s career has moved in lockstep with Mubarak's regime - marked by widespread abuses:
"Torture is an endemic problem in Egypt and ending police abuse has been a driving element behind the massive popular demonstrations that has swept Egypt," Human Rights Watch said in a report.
Human Rights Watch has further written that "Egyptians, particularly those of us calling for an end to Mubarak's three-decade rule, see Suleiman as “Mubarak II,” especially after the lengthy interview he gave to state television Feb. 3, 2011 where he accused the demonstrators in Tahrir Square of implementing "foreign agendas."
Katherine Hawkins, an expert on the U.S. role in the long criticized "Rendition-To-Torture” program highlighted in Jane Mayer’s book, "The Dark Side," pointed directly to Omar Suleiman’s activity in the rendition program –
By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
Since the year 2000 a very interesting theme has been at hand, though few people had noticed it.
In mundane astrology we study the revolutions of the planets as they impact life and history itself through the ages.
What I knew 10 years ago was barely on the lips of those preparing to celebrate the change over from the year 1999 to the year 2000.
The "change" that the generation in charge at that time - the Baby Boomers - was that the new century was going to be ruled by them.
A few years before the year 2000, Baby Boomers running Hollywood pushed out a number of films depicting "the end of times," with asteroids, aliens and the devil - all ready to bring the world to its end.
Then, there was the Y2K scare in 1999, where people were urged to go out and purchase survival items for fear that computer systems would not be able to read a clock.
It was quite the scene. Remember?
Most of the people who scared at the time were old. In fact, anyone born after 1961 wondered what all the fuss was about, while anyone born before 1961 shopped like it was, well - 1999.
Karaoke style, that is...
When the year 2000 came and went and nothing happened, the events of September 11, 2001 were initiated.
You see, we had to have some kind of "fear" - any kind - of the future, or things just would not be the same, you see?
That is what the oligarchy and their spawn of children have brought the world.
Fear and lots and lots of it.
Fear of Muslims, fear of technology, fear of flying, fear of schools, of children, fear, fear, and more fear.
There are terrorists everywhere they say, ready to take down anything, everything, so we have to "lock it down," and "shut it down" and secure ourselves so that even civil liberties would have to suffer.
You see, they, the Baby Boomers and their parents, would protect us.
From what, I ask?
From fear itself?
Of course, the "end of the world" did not come, so, what happened was that it was "kicked down the road" a bit, to the year of 2012.
Here's another Baby Boomer-generated scare tactic, which is just a year away...
This was confirmed to me long ago, but few would believe me, but through the power of mundane astrology and world transits, I knew it was all to come true.
We have now entered that era, the start of an historic age, which I call The Cardinal Crisis.
And this is only the beginning.
I know Mundane astrology can be above the heads of many people who struggle to understand the diverse roles Astrology plays in our world and the global events shaped by world transits.
The revolutions of the planets incline on the Earth, and events correlate to their motions and their aspects.
In order to come to a better understanding of these forces, we must have faith and trust in those things we are not fully knowledgeable.
Seek to gain a deeper understanding so you can achieve gnosis. For the salvation of every person on Earth depends on it.
When I began my study of astrology in my childhood at the age of 10, it was with Natural Astrology, and how to forecast long-range climate and weather.
It was in this way I saw how celestial forces incline, cause and regulate events on Earth.
During my years of study I also read the history of the humanity and Astrology, for it is here mundane astrology has its core principles; including reading personal horoscopes and forecasting the destinies of individuals.
Mundane astrology is also concerned with the history and destinies of entire populations, of nations and of the world itself.
The practice of mundane astrology can be lonely and full of grief.
I never wanted to be an astrologer. It was part of my childhood classical education and I thought everyone learned it.
I sometimes cry alone in the dark for the world. For the things I see and know of the perpetual future of nations and the Earth does not bring me happiness, but rather weighs down my soul.
For the more knowledge gained by astronomical vision, the more sadness and grief I send to my heart.
I share what I know and hope people out there will care enough to make a difference in doing more good than evil in the world.
To do good things that are positive and progressive. Show compassion and care for others.
Pray for the world. For there is power in prayer.
Work ceaselessly to achieve gnosis, and do only good. Exercise righteousness and promote peace among humanity.
For the Immortal God watches us all.
In this edition of Global Astrology we explore what I consider to be among the most important issues facing our world in the early years of the Twenty-Tens.
We explore the inclinations of the planets on nations with a closer look at recent cases of self-immolation in the Middle East- people burning their entire bodies in protest of economic and political repression - which has already caused a dictatorship in Tunisia to crumble with uprisings reported in several North African nations, including Egypt: a country now on the very brink of revolution.
We also look at a dying oligarchy and their children, the Baby Boomers, as two eras end and another era begins.
Japan's Generation X is examined as well in Japan's Elderly Roadblocks the young.
We further explore the incoming establishment of Generation X and ask, is there a new Renaissance at hand?
The Weather Disasters Continue as the U.S. fights Ice, Snow and Freezing Temperatures while Queensland, Australia, already suffering from ungodly amounts of floods prepare for another disaster: Cyclone Yasi.
And, as Mars transits the Sign of Aquarius, we apply technology to explore the anomalous mysteries of the Red planet. We do the same with the closest celestial body to our planet - that of the Moon and we take a peek at the anomalies, here in our own backyard on Earth.
We also hear from British scientists who say the Earth must prepare for very real close encounters... with Aliens?
First, we head to the Middle East, where major events are swiftly taking shape that will reshape our thinking and views about geopolitics in the new decades of the Twenty-Tens and Twenty-Twenties.
The events of our most recent times, especially in Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and without any doubt - in the nation of Egypt - continue to prove true what a wise historian and moralist once said and wrote ~
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, pictured above, 1st Baron Acton, who lived from 1834 to 1902, otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed views which are applicable to our times, as much as in the past. As a mundane astrologer and historian myself, I wholly agree.
In the year 1887, he wrote a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton that included these words...
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men."
~ Lord Acton ~
The Cardinal Crisis
Has Hosni Mubarak Forced Egypt Into Revolution?Egyptian Military Deployed As Mubarak Places Egypt Under Emergency Law
By Maggie Michael, Hadeel Al-Shalchi & Sarah El Deeb
Associated Press
January 29, 2011 - CAIRO - Egypt's military deployed on the streets of Cairo to enforce a night-time curfew as the sun set Friday on a day of rioting and violent chaos that was a major escalation in the challenge to authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.
In his first response to the unrest sweeping his nation, Mubarak fired his Cabinet at midnight Saturday, January 29, 2011 and promised reforms, but refused to step down, setting the stage for perhaps even heavier street battles with protesters calling for an end to his nearly 30 years in power.
image: Nile TV/AFP
Four days of the largest anti-government protests in decades exploded into chaos hours earlier.
Tens of thousands of Egyptians fed up with crushing poverty, unemployment and corruption poured out of mosques after Friday's noon prayers and battled police with stones and firebombs.
By nightfall, they had burned down and looted the ruling party's headquarters along the banks of the Nile and set fire to many other buildings, roaming the streets of downtown Cairo in defiance of a night curfew enforced by the army.
President Mubarak, confronted with the most dire threat to his three decades of authoritarian rule, faced his nation in a televised address at midnight, making vague promises of social reform in what is likely to be interpreted as an attempt to cling to power rather than a genuine pledge solve Egypt's pressing problems.
He also defended his security forces and accused the protesters of plotting to destabilize Egypt and destroy the legitimacy of his regime, outraging those still in the streets well into the night.
Image: Cai Yang/Xinhua
"We want Mubarak to go and instead he is digging in further," protester Kamal Mohammad said. "He thinks it is calming down the situation but he is just angering people more."
A heavy police crackdown and other extreme measures by the government - including the shutting down of all Internet and mobile phone services in Cairo and other cities - but it did not stop the surging crowds.
image: Mohamed Abd El-Ghany/Reuters
With police beaten back in many places, the government called the army into the streets and imposed a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew.
Egypt's crackdown drew harsh criticism from the Obama administration and even a threat Friday to reduce a $1.5 billion foreign aid program if Washington's most important Arab ally escalates the use of force.
Stepping up the pressure, President Barack Obama told a news conference he called Mubarak immediately after his TV address and urged the Egyptian leader to take "concrete steps" to expand rights and refrain from violence against protesters.
"The United States will continue to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people and work with their government in pursuit of a future that is more just, more free and more hopeful," President Obama said.
Throughout Friday, flames rose in cities across Egypt, including Alexandria, Suez, Assiut and Port Said, and security officials said there were protests in 11 of the country's 28 provinces.
Calling the anti-government protests "part of a bigger plot to shake the stability and destroy legitimacy" of Egypt's political system, a somber-looking Mubarak said: "We aspire for more democracy, more effort to combat unemployment and poverty and combat corruption."
His promises fell short of the protesters' demands for him to step down.
Still thousands in the capital Cairo defied a nationwide night curfew and were trying to storm two major government buildings — the state TV and the Foreign Ministry.
Others were praying on the streets after nightfall.
Flames rose up across a number of cities from burning tires and police cars.
Even the ruling party headquarters in Cairo was ablaze in the outpouring of rage, bitterness and utter frustration with a regime seen as corrupt, heavy-handed and neglectful of grinding poverty that afflicts nearly half of the 80 million Egyptians.
Hundreds were looting television sets and electric fans from the burning complex of buildings used by the ruling party.
One protester was killed in demonstrations that stretched across nearly half the provinces in Egypt, bringing the death toll for four days of protests to eight.
Image: Marco Longari/AFP
"I can't believe our own police, our own government would keep beating up on us like this," said Cairo protester Ahmad Salah, 26.
image: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
"I've been here for hours and gassed and keep going forward, and they keep gassing us, and I will keep going forward.
This is a cowardly government and it has to fall. We're going to make sure of it."
Demonstrators show their support for protests in Egypt in front of the Egyptian consulate in Montreal, Canada, on Friday, Jan. 28, 2011.
Image: Ryan Remiorz/AP
Internet and cell phone services, at least in Cairo, appeared to be largely cut off since overnight in the most extreme measure so far to try to hamper protesters form organizing.
However, that did not prevent tens of thousands from flooding the streets, emboldened by the recent uprising and revolution in Tunisia - another north African nation - that forced that country's president to flee to Saudi Arabia and brought an end to his government rule less than two weeks ago.
Even Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, one of Egypt's leading pro-democracy advocates, was under house arrest after joining the protests in Cairo.
Under house arrest in Egypt: Nobel Peace laureate (center) Mohamed ElBaradei
The sustained and intensifying demonstrations raised serious questions about whether Mubarak can keep his grip on power.
Egypt is Washington's closest Arab ally, but Mubarak may be losing U.S. support.
The Obama administration has publicly counseled Mubarak to introduce reforms and refrain from using violence against Egyptians.
President Barack Obama convened his national security team on the growing protests in Egypt as aides voiced concern about violent clashes between demonstrators and police.
[Editor's Note: U.S. Secretary of State Hilliary Rodham Clinton spoke briefly Jan. 28, 2011 about the crisis in Egypt before her press conference with visiting Colombian Vice President Garzon.]
In one of many astonishing scenes Friday, thousands of anti-government protesters wielding rocks, glass and sticks chased hundreds of riot police away from the main square in downtown Cairo and several of the policemen stripped off their uniforms and badges and joined the demonstrators.
An Associated Press reporter saw protesters cheering the police who joined them and hoisting them on their shoulders in one of the many dramatic and chaotic scenes across Egypt.
After chasing the police, thousands of protesters were able to flood into the huge Tahrir Square downtown after being kept out most of the day by a very heavy police presence. Few police could be seen around the square after the confrontation.
The unrest began when tens of thousands poured into the streets after noon prayers in the mosques, stoning and confronting police who fired back with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Groups of thousands of protesters, some chanting "out, out, out," defied a ban that has been in place for days on any gatherings and turned out at different venues across Cairo, a city of about 18 million people.
Some marched toward major squares and across scenic Nile bridges.
As the sun set, burning tires, buildings and cars sent up plumes of black smoke across the cityscape. Security officials said there were protests in at least 11 of the country's 28 provinces.
In Cairo, at least two buildings at the ruling party's headquarters complex downtown were on fire, one directly neighboring the Egyptian Museum, which is one of the country's best-known tourist attractions and home to the treasures of King Tutankhamun.
The protesters were energized by the return of ElBaradei on Thursday night after a month abroad. He declared he was prepared to lead the opposition to a regime change.
When he joined protesters after noon prayers, police fired water cannons at him and his supporters.
They used batons to beat some of ElBaradei's supporters, who surrounded him to protect him.
Image: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
A soaking wet ElBaradei was trapped inside a mosque while hundreds of riot police laid siege to it, firing tear gas in the streets around so no one could leave.
Tear gas canisters set several cars ablaze outside the mosque and several people fainted and suffered burns.
When he returned home, police stationed outside told him he was not allowed to leave again.
Abeer Ahmed, a 31-year-old woman who showed up for ElBaradei with her toddler, said she has a law degree but makes a living cleaning homes.
"Nothing good is left in the country," she said. "Oppression is growing."
Some of the most serious violence Friday was in Suez, where protesters seized weapons stored in a police station and asked the policemen inside to leave the building before they burned it down.
Smoke covers the sky during clashes between police and protesters in the Egyptian city of Suez on January 28, 2011.
image: Mohamed Abd El-Ghany/Reuters
They also set ablaze about 20 police trucks parked nearby.
Demonstrators exchanged fire with policemen trying to stop them from storming another police station and one protester was killed in the gun battle.
In the upscale Mohandiseen neighborhood, at least 10,000 were marching toward the city center chanting "down, down with Mubarak." The crowd later swelled to about 20,000 as they made their way through residential areas.
Residents looking on from apartment block windows waved and whistled in support. Some waved the red, white and black Egyptian flags. The marchers were halted as they tried to cross a bridge over the Nile, when police fired dozens of tear gas canisters.
In downtown Cairo, people on balconies tossed cans of Pepsi and bottles of water to protesters on the streets below to douse their eyes, as well as onions and lemons to sniff, to cut the sting of the tear gas.
At Ramsis square in the heart of the city, thousands clashed with police as they left the al-Nur mosque after prayers.
Police used tear gas and rubber bullets and some of the tear gas was fired inside the mosque where women were taking refuge.
Hundreds later broke through police cordons to head to the main downtown square, Tahrir. But they were stopped by police firing tear gas.
Near Tahrir, hundreds of riot police in a cluster moved in, anticipating the arrival of large crowds. A short while later, thousands of protesters marched across a bridge over the Nile and moved toward the square, where police began firing tear gas at them.
Hundreds of protesters played a cat-and-mouse game with riot police in a square just behind the famed Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square. Police were using tear gas and the protesters responded with rocks and chants of "illegitimate, illegitimate," a reference to Mubarak's regime.
Later, television footage showed a chaotic and violent scene where protesters were throwing rocks down on police from a highway overpass near Tahrir Square, while a police vehicle sped through the crowd spraying tear gas on demonstrators.
Clusters of riot police with helmets and shields were stationed around the city, at the entrances to bridges across the Nile and other key intersections.
The troubles were preventing trains from coming to Cairo, said security officials.
In Assiut in southern Egypt, several thousand demonstrators clashed with police that set upon them with batons and sticks, chasing them through side streets.
Saturn Stations Retrograde In Libra
Mubarak has not been seen publicly or heard from since the protests began Tuesday.
While he may still have a chance to ride out this latest challenge, his choices are limited, and all are likely to lead to a loosening of his grip on power.
A Facebook page run by protesters listed their demands:
1. They want Mubarak to declare that neither he, nor his son, will stand in the next presidential elections.
2. Dissolve Parliament and hold new elections.
3. An end to emergency law decrees giving police extensive powers of arrest and detention.
4. Release of all prisoners including protesters and those who have been in jail for years without charge or trial.
5. Immediately fire the Interior Minister.
Mubarak has not said yet whether he will stand for another six-year term as president in elections this year.
He has never appointed a deputy and is thought to be grooming his son Gamal to succeed him despite popular opposition to him.
According to leaked U.S. memos, hereditary succession also does not meet with the approval of Egypt's powerful military.
Mubarak and his government have shown no hint of concessions to the protesters who want political reform and a solution to rampant poverty, unemployment and sky-rocketing food prices.
Continuing the heavy-handed methods used by security forces the past three days would probably buy the Mubarak regime a little time but could strengthen the resolve of the protesters and win them popular sympathy.
The alternative is to introduce a package of political and economic reforms that would end his party's monopoly on power and ensure that the economic liberalization policies engineered by his son and heir apparent Gamal over the past decade benefit the country's poor majority.
He could also lift the emergency laws in force since 1981, loosen restrictions on the formation of political parties and publicly state whether he will stand for another six-year term in elections this year.
Friday's demonstrations also got a boost from the endorsement of the country's biggest opposition group, the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. The group called its supporters to join the protests.
The Brotherhood, outlawed since 1954, is Egypt's largest and best organized opposition group. It seeks to establish an Islamic state. It renounced violence in the 1970s and has since been a peaceful movement.
Its network of social and medical services has traditionally won it popular support, but its detractors say its involvement in politics has chipped away at its support base.
It made a surprisingly strong showing in 2005 parliamentary elections, winning 20 percent of the legislature's seats, but it failed to win a single seat in the latest election late last year.
The vote is widely thought to have been marred, rigged to ensure that Mubarak's ruling party win all but a small fraction of the chamber's 518 seats.
Role of Social Media & Technology:
Jupiter/Uranus & Chiron/Neptune
Egypt's four primary Internet providers - Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr - all stopped moving data in and out of the country at 12:34 a.m., according to a network security firm monitoring the traffic.
Telecom experts said Egyptian authorities could have engineered the unprecedented cutoff with a simple change to the instructions for the companies' networking equipment.
The Internet appeared to remain cut off in Cairo but was restored in some smaller cities Friday morning.
Cell-phone text and Blackberry Messenger services were all cut or operating sporadically in what appeared to be a move by authorities to disrupt the organization of demonstrations.
Authorities appear to have been disrupting social networking sites, used as an organizing tool by protesters, throughout the week.
Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry Messenger have all seen interruptions, and the Internet, down for nearly a week, has been restored in Egypt due to the intervention of U.S. President Barack Obama.
~
Inspired by Tunisia's Revolt:
A Wave Of Self-Immolation Sweeps Across North Africa
By Brett Wilkins
Moral Low Ground.com
January 19, 2011 - Inspired by a deadly act of defiance in Tunisia, at least ten people have set themselves on fire in Algeria, Egypt and Mauritania this week.
Two more cases of self-immolation have been reported in Algeria today alone.
A woman in her fifties doused herself in flammable liquid and attempted to light a match after being denied housing aid in the town of Sidi Ali Benyoub, located southwest of the capital, Algiers.
Luckily, a local official convinced her to stop and only her hand was burnt.
Another man, age 35, set himself ablaze in Dellys, outside Algiers, and suffered third-degree burns over 95% of his body. He remains hospitalized in critical condition.
An unemployed father of six who demanded a job and housing also set himself on fire on Tuesday.
In Algeria, as in neighboring Tunisia, mass discontent over unemployment and rising costs has erupted into violent protests.
Five people have been killed and 800 injured in the unrest. A thousand people have also been arrested.
Three Egyptians have also set themselves on fire this week. On Tuesday, a lawyer named Mohamed Farouk set himself on fire near parliament in Cairo.
He was followed the same day by a 49-year-old man chanting anti-government slogans who lit himself up in the same spot.
And Ahmed Hashim al-Sayyed, an unemployed 25-year-old, died in the coastal city of Alexandria on Tuesday from self-immolation.
In Mauritania, 42-year-old businessman Yacoub Ould Dahoud lit himself on fire in his car in front of the Senate building in the capital city of Nuoakchott because he was “unhappy with the political situation in the country and angry with the government.”
Algeria, Egypt and Mauritania all have authoritarian governments and high unemployment rates.
The wave of self-immolation is inspired by the December 17 suicide of Mohammed Bouazizi, an act that sparked a revolution in Tunisia that brought down that country’s autocratic government.
For more on Tunisia's 'Jasmine Youth Revolution that toppled a government, read Brett Wilkins' excellent coverage -> here at Moral Low Ground.
~
The Cardinal Crisis
CHAOS ENVELOPES EGYPT
By Hamza Hendawi, Sarah El Deeb and Maggie Michael
AP
January 29-31, 2011- CAIRO – With protests raging, Egypt's president named his intelligence chief as his first-ever vice president on Saturday, setting the stage for a successor as chaos engulfed the capital.
Cairo residents boarded up homes and set up neighborhood watches of citizens armed with guns, clubs and knives Saturday as looting and violence engulfed the capital.
With the police having disappeared from the streets, the army expanded its presence of tanks and armored personnel carriers but mainly around government buildings.
As dusk fell and the chaos continued, the military fanned out to neighborhoods across the city in a bid to quell the lawlessness.
"The army guards big institutions like the gardens and museum, not people and their property," said Mighaz Sawzi, who lives in central Cairo.
"God has to protect us, because who's going to protect us now?"
Residents reported gangs of youths, some on motorbikes, roaming the streets, looting supermarkets, shopping malls and stores.
Some of the gangs made it to affluent residential areas in the suburbs, breaking into luxury homes and apartments. The crackle of gunfire could be heard in the city center as well as outlying districts.
Looters made off with TV sets, electronics and furniture from a mall along the Nile. In Giza on the other side of the city, young men could be seen carting away bottles of alcohol, chairs, sofas and tables from casinos and night clubs and packing them into their rickshaws.
Downtown, thieves broke into the Arab International Bank and several cafes and eateries, including a McDonald's and a Hardees.
The ruling party headquarters was plundered and torched, while a Carrefour supermarket in the south was also hit.
Image: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
The looting, which has spread despite a 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew, prompted residents in some neighborhoods to establish vigilante groups to protect private property. These groups set up roadblocks at intersections to provide security.
Homes and shops in the upscale Zamalek neighborhood were boarded up by mid-afternoon, and outside some apartment blocks guards armed with machine guns had taken up posts.
In the well-heeled Maadi neighborhood in south Cairo, neighborhood mosques called on young men over loudspeakers to come down to the entrances of building and homes to ward off looters.
Naglaa Mahmoud, a 37-year-old Maadi resident, said thugs were breaking into cars and threatening to get into homes.
She said even the ambulance service in the neighborhood had abandoned its offices and accused the regime of planning the chaos by pulling out all of its police forces.
"All this seems to be prearranged. They are punishing us for asking for this change," she said. "What a shame he (Mubarak) doesn't care for the people or anything.
This is a corrupt regime."
Looters outside of Cairo were also taking advantage of the chaos.
On the highway from the capital to Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, car dealerships were broken into and looted.
Banks could be seen abandoned, with papers fluttering out of their smashed windows.
Egyptian state television was running periodic updates throughout the night of areas where looters and criminals had operated - going street-by-street, district-by-district. It aired two numbers that residents could call and report disturbances in their neighborhoods.
The report said that some of the citizen watch groups were calling for help from the military.
Defense Ministry spokesman Ismail Othman said that the armed forces will deal with looters, while appealing to Egyptians to protect their property and stand up to the thieves.
Othman also warned against violating the curfew, saying the military will deal firmly with those caught breaking it.
image: AP
The protests in Cairo saw Egyptian soldiers standing by - a few even joining the demonstrators - and the death toll from five days of anti-government fury rose sharply to 74.
Saturday's fast-moving developments across the north African nation marked a sharp turning point in President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule of Egypt.
image: The White House
Residents and shopkeepers in affluent neighborhoods boarded up their houses and stores against looters, who roamed the streets with knives and sticks, stealing what they could and destroying cars, windows and street signs.
Gunfire rang out in some neighborhoods.
Things got heated in other locations of the world as the Egyptian crisis expanded. Briefly, we go to Mexico City, Mexico, of all places.
Here, in a series of three still images taken from video, Egyptian Embassy security guards (R, 2nd R) attack Reuters photographer Jorge Dan Lopez (3rd R) and television camera-woman Lisette Romero (L.) The guards attempt to rip away their cameras and physically assaulted both reporters as they covered a demonstration in support of the Egyptian people, just outside the embassy in Mexico City, January 29, 2011.
The Egyptian embassy guards over-reacted to the gathering of just a few people there to protest against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The man in the white shirt is a driver hired by Reuters and is trying to help both journalists.
Images: Marcel Ventosa and Ning Sukosit/Reuters
Meanwhile, back in Cairo, tanks and armored personnel carriers fanned out across the city of 18 million, guarding key government buildings, and major tourist and archaeological sites.
Among those singled out for special protection was the Egyptian Museum, home to some of the country's most treasured antiquities, and the Cabinet building. The military closed the pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo - Egypt's premier tourist site.
Image: Kaled Desouki/AFP
But soldiers made no moves against protesters, even after a curfew came and went and the crowds swelled in the streets, demanding an end to Mubarak's rule and no hand-off to the son he had been grooming to succeed him.
"This is the revolution of people of all walks of life," read black graffiti scrolled on one army tank in Tahrir Square. "Mubarak, take your son and leave," it said.
Thousands of protesters defied the curfew for the second night, standing their ground in the main Tahrir Square in a resounding rejection of Mubarak's attempt to hang onto power with promises of reform and a new government.
Police protecting the Interior Ministry near the site opened fire at a funeral procession for a dead protester, possibly because it came too close to the force.
Clashes broke out and at least two people were killed.
A 43-year-old teacher, Rafaat Mubarak, said the appointment of the president's intelligence chief and longtime confidant, Omar Suleiman, as vice-president did not satisfy the protesters.
"This is all nonsense. They will not fool us anymore. We want the head of the snake," he said in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.
"If he is appointed by Mubarak, then he is just one more member of the gang.
We are not speaking about a branch in a tree, we are talking about the roots."
The crackdown on protesters has drawn harsh criticism from the Obama administration and even a threat Friday to reduce a $1.5 billion foreign aid program if Washington's most important Arab ally escalates the use of force.
Thousands of passengers were stranded at Cairo's airport as flights were canceled or delayed, leaving them unable to leave because of a government-imposed curfew. Several Arab nations, meanwhile, moved to evacuate their citizens.
The cancellations of flights and the arrival of several largely empty aircraft appeared to herald an ominous erosion of key tourism revenue.
The protesters united in one overarching demand - Mubarak and his family must go. The movement is a culmination of years of simmering frustration over a government they see as corrupt, heavy-handed and neglectful of poverty.
Egyptians were emboldened by the uprising in Tunisia - another North African Arab nation, and further buoyed by their success in defying the ban on gatherings.
At the end of a long day of rioting and mass demonstrations Friday, Mubarak fired his Cabinet and promised reforms. But the demonstrators returned in force again Saturday to demand a complete change of regime.
The president appeared to have been preparing his son Gamal to succeed him, possibly as soon as presidential elections planned for later this year. However, there was significant public opposition to the hereditary succession.
The appointment of Suleiman, 74, answers one of the most intriguing and enduring political questions in Egypt: Who will succeed 82-year-old Mubarak?
Another question is whether his appointment will calm Egypt's seething cities.
Mubarak appointed Suleiman shortly after the U.S. said he needed to take concrete action to achieve "real reform." Suleiman is well known and respected by American officials and has traveled to Washington many times.
Before word that Mubarak had picked his first vice president, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. wanted to see Mubarak fulfill his pledges of reform.
"The Egyptian government can't reshuffle the deck and then stand pat," Crowley said on his Twitter account. "President Mubarak's words pledging reform must be followed by action."
As the army presence expanded in Cairo Saturday, police largely disappeared from the streets - possibly because their presence seemed only to fuel protesters' anger. Egyptian police are hated for their brutality.
On Friday, 17 police stations throughout Cairo were torched, with protesters stealing firearms and ammunition and freeing some jailed suspects.
They also burned dozens of police trucks in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. On Saturday, protesters besieged a police station in the Giza neighborhood of Cairo, looted and pulled down Egyptian flags, then burned the building to the ground.
There were no clashes reported between protesters and the military at all, and many in the crowds showered soldiers with affection.
Egyptian Muslims pray in front of an Egyptian army tank during a protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011. Thousands of protesters returned to Cairo's central Tahrir Square, chanting slogans against President Hosni Mubarak, just hours after the Egyptian president fired his entire Cabinet but refused to step down.
Image: Lefteris Pitarakis/
One army captain joined the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, who hoisted him on their shoulders while chanting slogans against Mubarak. The officer ripped apart a picture of the president.
Image:Peter Macdiarmid/Getty
"We don't want him! We will go after him!" demonstrators shouted. They decried looting and sabotage, saying: "Those who love Egypt should not sabotage Egypt!"
Some 200 inmates escaped a jail on the outskirts of the city, starting a fire first to cover their breakout. Eight inmates were killed during the escape.
On Saturday, feelings of joy over the sustained protest mingled with frustration over the looting and Mubarak's refusal to step down.
"To hell with Mubarak; We don't serve individuals. We serve this country that we love, just like you," yelled another soldier to protesters from atop a tank scrawled with graffiti that said: "Down with Mubarak!"
Like Mubarak, Suleiman has a military background. The powerful military has provided Egypt with its four presidents since the monarchy was toppled nearly 60 years ago.
He has been in charge of some of Egypt's most sensitive foreign policy issues, including the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
Suleiman, additionally, is widely seen as a central regime figure, a position that protesters were likely to view with suspicion.
Mubarak also named his new prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, the outgoing civil aviation minister and fellow former air force officer.
Both appointments perpetuate the military's overriding role in Egyptian politics.
Suleiman's frequent trips to Israel could be held against him by a population that continues to view the Jewish state as a sworn enemy more than 30 years after the two neighbors signed a peace treaty.
With the two occupying the country's most important jobs after the president from the military, Gamal Mubarak, a banker-turned-politician, appears to be out of the running for his father's job.
A leaked U.S. diplomatic memo said Gamal and his clique of ruling party stalwarts and businessmen were gaining confidence in 2007 about controlling power in Egypt and that they believed that President Mubarak would eventually dump Suleiman, who was seen as a threat by Gamal and his coterie of aides.
Gamal launched his political career within the ranks of the ruling National Democratic Party, climbed over the past 10 years to become its de facto leader, dictating economic policies and bolstering his own political standing.
Gamal's close aide and confidant, steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, resigned from the party on Saturday, according to state television.
Gamal and Ezz are suspected of orchestrating the rigging of the last parliamentary election in November, making sure the ruling party won all but a small fraction of the chamber's 518 seats.
"There is nothing short of Mubarak leaving power that will satisfy the people," Mohamed ElBaradei, the country's leading pro-reform activist told The Associated Press on Saturday.
"I think what Mubarak said yesterday was an insult to the intelligence of the Egyptian people."
Buildings, statues and even armored security vehicles were covered in anti-Mubarak graffiti, including the words "Mubarak must fall," which by morning had been written over to say "Mubarak fell."
The military extended the hours of the night curfew imposed Friday in the three major cities where the worst violence has been seen - Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. State television said it would begin at 4 p.m. and last until 8 a.m., longer than the 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. ban Friday night that appeared to not have been enforced.
The Internet appeared blocked for a second day to hamper protesters who use social networking sites to organize. And after cell phone service was cut for a day Friday, two of the country's major providers were up and running Saturday.
In the capital on Friday night, hundreds of young men carted away televisions, fans and stereo equipment looted from the ruling National Democratic Party, near the Egyptian Museum.
Others around the city looted banks, smashed cars, tore down street signs and pelted armored riot police vehicles with paving stones torn from roadways.
Banks and the stock market will be closed on Sunday, the first day of the week, because of the turmoil.
~
Mundane Review
Saturn's 29-Year Return In Libra &
Omar Suleiman's Date With Destiny
By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
The events of 2010 and 2011 are inclined by the transits of the outer planets.
Urged on by economic and social inequalities, we have seen huge gatherings of people with revolt on their minds in the nations of Greece, Ireland, the UK, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and Egypt.
It has been my contention that under the new planetary configurations marking the end of one era, and the start of another, that we can expect ever more popular uprisings, rebellions and revolutions to come.
It simply is that time in history, according to the motions, placements and configurations of the outer planets that incline events here on Earth.
These planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto reflect that we are entering a new age.
This transitional age of major generational change, along with social and political instability brought about by the dying ruling oligarchy, now in their 80s and their children, the outgoing establishment of Baby Boomers, is a marker of times to come.
The Twenty-Tens is the true start of the 21st century.
The Mundane Horoscope of Egypt shows us that indeed, times are changing there are well.
click to enlarge
If nobody but the national party runs, then the regime will have to give in to us," said Nobel Laurate Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei to a gathering of his supporters.
One posting on his Twitter page read: "Total boycott of elections & signing petition R first steps 2 unmask sham 'democracy.' Participation wld. be contrary to the national will."
Mundane analysis shows diverse forces at hand as Egypt's severely divided opposition groups have been deliberating over a possible national boycott for months so it remains uncertain how Dr. ElBaradei's call will influence them.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic political group that, though banned, is the country's single strongest opposition group, has also been mulling a boycott.
No group wants to be the first to say it will sit out the election for fear that rivals will take advantage of the political elbow room.
Despite only sporadic engagement with the country's political scene, Dr. ElBaradei carries considerable weight.
Since he returned to Egypt in February after 12 years as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he has been seen by disillusioned Egyptians as a symbol of change and by many more as the most serious challenger to President Hosni Mubarak's 29-year Saturn cycle hold on power.
While some members of the opposition have expressed a degree of disillusionment over what they describe as Dr. ElBaradei's failure to embrace the cause of political reform and become fully immersed in the drudgery of Egyptian politics, his occasional appearances and announcements continue to garner much support and inject energy into a remarkably unorganized opposition.
Mr. Mubarak, who turned 82 this year and has been in a delicate state of health since undergoing surgery in March, has not announced if he plans to run for re-election in September.
The uncertainty has triggered speculation over the future and supported the possibility that Mr. Mubarak's son, Gamal, is being groomed to succeed his father.
Dr. ElBaradei has said he will run for president if constitutional reforms make it possible; his campaign for those changes has brought together some of the secular opposition, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Under the current constitutional framework, Dr. ElBaradei would need at least 250 signatures from Egypt's lower and upper houses and municipal councils, all of which are overwhelmingly dominated by the ruling party.
Mr. Mubarak introduced an amendment passed in 2007 that abolished full judiciary supervision over elections, which had served as a minimum guarantee for cleaner elections.
"They always say that I must abide by laws and constitutions," Dr. ElBaradei said to loud applause. "I know what is in laws and in constitutions, but what we have here in Egypt is neither laws nor constitution!"
The horoscope of Egyptian President Honi Mubarak, now 82, clearly shows how his transits have brought him to this moment in history.
However, what is most notable is how transiting Saturn in Libra is square to Mubark's natal Pluto in Cancer, rooted in the Fourth House, which is lord of his personal horoscope.
There is a mundane astrological saying: "What goes around, comes around."
Nothing is more true than this saying when it comes to the life, times and rule of Hosni Mubarak.
Hosni Mubarak's Natal Horoscope
Saturn's recent station to retrograde in Mubarak's Sixth House in square aspect to the transiting Vertex, conjoined to his natal Pluto in Cancer challenges him to accept defeat, however, the position of Pluto (a generational planet) in his Fourth House received an opposition from transiting Mercury in Capricorn.
This transit of Mercury in Capricorn opposed Mubarak's Progressed Mercury in Cancer, which has crossed the cusp of his Fourth House in Cancer, where we find the fixed star Sirius.
Thus, the Mercury to Mercury opposition has crossed Mubarak's Ascendant/Mid-heaven Capricorn-Cancer axis, which is rooted by this fixed star, sparking a major crisis which has been a long time in coming, but is now here.
The warning was the January 4, 2011 partial solar eclipse at 13-Capricorn that took place over parts of western Europe, the Middle East and over Egypt.
In mundane astrology, the power and influences of eclipses only take place if they can be observed over the regions where they occur. This partial eclipse was seen over Egypt.
The eclipse took place directly on Mubarak's natal Mid-heaven at 12-13 Capricorn and opposed Mubarak's Fourth House, his natal Pluto and Progressed Mercury.
On Tuesday, January 25, 2011, the transiting Vertex, an electric point in astrology, transited at 12-13 Cancer, and crossed over into Mubarak's Fourth House cusp. This electric point helped to spark the long-simmering national crisis to new heights.
This Vertex transit opposed the 13-degree solar eclipse point on Mubarak's Mid-heaven and the week turned from bad to much, much worse.
The Mercury transit by opposition on this axis rules his ability to communicate effectively, but, his choices to cut off the Internet and to block freedom of communication to the people has not only led to a very powerful opposition to him, not only from his own people, but by the international community and leaders.
Complicating matters is the fact that Mubarak's Progressed Sun, at 2-degrees Leo, and in his natal Fourth House, wants to be "king" of the nation.
He sees himself as the ruler of Egypt, the face, if you will, of the nation itself.
Mubarak's Progressed Leo Sun is within orb of a square to his natal Moon in Scorpio, so the pressure to resign will not go away, and his has grudgingly had to accept his inability to pass on his legacy to his son - effectively blocked by the Egyptian people, the military and the political opposition.
Mubarak's South lunar node, the Dragon's Tail, is in Sagittarius, conjoined to the star Antares.
His progressed lunar node is nearly exact to this star, and the transiting Moon in Sagittarius passed over this star as he spoke to the nation in a televised address. This merely angered the Egyptian people even more.
The people were expecting him to announce he was stepping down as president, thus ending his rule and that of his entire family over the nation.
But he did not do this, rather, he fired his entire cabinet and began positioning others close to him for succession should he be forced out of office.
The pressure to step down continues to build over the weekend of Jan. 29-30, when, by Monday, January 31, 2011, the transiting Moon in Capricorn will oppose Mubarak's natal Pluto and progressed Mercury in the Fourth House.
In his Fourth House, are the stars Castor, Pollux and Procyon, which represent the people of Egypt in the nation's Mundane Chart.
Here, we also find the South Lunar Node, situated at 3-Leo, which is one-degree from where Mubarak's Progressed Leo Sun is located.
He is highly unpopular, as the Dragon's Tail clearly shows, and with the nation's mundane position of Uranus, Mercury and Ceres in Cancer, located in Mubarak's Fourth House, he cannot hope to continue as president, or to pass his legacy onto his son Gamal.
Egypt's natal Saturn and Neptune in Libra sit on Mubarak's Descendant, and with transiting Saturn returned to Libra, exalted, and in square aspect to Mubarak's Fourth House, not only is he very unpopular, but truly hated for the abuses Egyptians say he and his administration committed during Mubarak's 29-year Saturn-ruled government.
Mubarak's government has always been under the autocratic inclinations of Saturn.
Saturn stationed retrograde in tropical Libra on January 26, 2011 and highlights matters of justice, of law, of society at large and strongly influences feelings what is right and what is wrong within populations.
Transiting Saturn in Libra is within orb of an opposition to Mubarak's natal Jupiter in Aries - poor decision making, stubbornness and the inability to be flexible are all features of this configuration in combination with both his natal, progressed and world transits.
Failing health is indicated by his Progressed Moon in Scorpio, with further decline as his progressed Moon enters, and then transits Sagittarius to conjoin not only his South Lunar Node, but his natal Saturn in Sagittarius by spring 2013.
Transiting Pluto in Capricorn is also square to Mubarak's natal Uranus in Aries: this is clearly a revolutionary transit, and a heavy one for Mubarak. His natal Uranus, in his 12th natal House is being touched by the transit of both Jupiter and Uranus.
Here, in this House, Mubarak is concerned that the abuses and the secrets of 29-years of his regime will not be protected should the opposition come to power.
The years of hidden, Machiavellian moves and counter-moves to the opposition means that Mubarak's regime will be held responsible for nearly three decades of abuses, including: torture, rape, murder, massive misappropriation of national wealth and resources, international abuse of money from abroad, widespread fraud, bribery and election-rigging, among other crimes committed by Mubarak and those under his command.
Transiting Pluto's square from Capricorn to Mubarak's natal Uranus in Aries forces his hand at a very bad time astrologically.
Nonetheless, transiting Saturn's pressure from tropical Libra on his natal Pluto in Cancer in his Fourth House puts the squeeze on ever tighter.
Mubarak became president of Egypt in October 1981, following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. At that time, Saturn was in Libra and now, 29-years later, Saturn has returned to Libra.
Mubarak's regime was ruled by the transit of Saturn.
There is no way out but to resign according to world transits.
In effect, Mubarak's regime has been brought to an end, according to my reading of these planetary configurations.
According to his Secondary progressions, Hosni and his son Gamal are attempting to buy time so they can make adjustments to their extreme wealth and financial assets, where there has been hurried activity in the wake of Egypt's mass demonstrations.
Image: Cris Bouroncle/AFP/Getty Images
According to the British Guardian, Gamal and Hosni Mubarak are reported to have built up huge fortunes.
The Mubarak family fortune is estimated to be as much as $70 billion USD (£43.5 billion pounds) according to an analysis by middle eastern experts. This would represent about 3-4% of Egypt's entire GDP.
The bulk of the Mubarak family wealth is located in British and Swiss banks and in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles, along with expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast.
After nearly 30 years as president and many more as a senior military official, Hosni Mubarak has had access to lucrative investment deals that have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
Most of those gains have been taken out of Egypt and deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in upscale homes and hotels.
According to a 2010 report from the Arabic newspaper Al Khabar, Mubarak has properties in Manhattan and exclusive Beverly Hills addresses on Rodeo Drive in California.
His sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also billionaires. A protest outside Gamal's ostentatious home at 28 Wilton Place in Belgravia, central London, highlighted the family's appetite for western trophy assets.
Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton University, said the estimate of $40-70 billion was comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.
Hosni Mubarak is bound to resist stepping down and is more apt to turn to more repression and violence; though he is torn about remaining in Egypt in light of his own people detesting his regime in general and him in particular.
How he chooses to resolve his life, and the legacy of his nearly 30 years in power as Egypt's president will be up to him, however, Saturn's transit in Libra has returned to the position and placement where it was in 1981 when he became Egypt's president.
Remember the mundane saying: "what goes around, comes around."
In this astrological analysis, it is my conclusion Hosni Mubarak will not continue as president.
Saturn's return in Libra - 29 years after he took power - has effectively ended Mubarak's iron grip on Egypt.
~
The Cardinal Crisis
Omar Suleiman's Date With Destiny
HOROSCOPE OF OMAR SULEIMAN
Omar Suleiman: From Power To Perdition
Delineated by Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
The French mundane astrologer Michel Nostradamus once wrote that "all things are naked and open."
This is very true. Nothing is hidden by the power of the Immortal God in reading astrological transits.
Omar Suleiman’s nativity shows that he is implicated in many of the outrageous crimes of Mubarak’s long regime: years of widespread torture, rape and murder.
In delineating this horoscope, it is easy to see how General Omar Suleiman came to become Egypt’s very own "Darth Vader," playing his role beside that of Hosni Mubarak’s evil Sith-Lord Emperor.
Suleiman’s nativity shows a YOD aspect (finger of the Immortal God) which includes his natal Cancer Sun, his natal Uranus in Taurus in sextile aspect - with both celestial bodies in quincunx aspect to Suleiman’s natal Moon, conjoined to the fixed star Antares.
He has a date with destiny.
Many of the children born during the mid-1930s were born under aspects that correlated to the rise and spread of fascism throughout the world.
This was an era that dismissed human rights, attacked and tortured others with acts of brutality, intolerance and without respect for human dignity, freedom and life.
In the wake of the start of widespread demonstrations against Mubarak’s government that began January 25, 2011, Suleiman was named vice-president on January 29, 2011. There had not been a vice-president in Egypt for nearly 30 years.
Bloomberg news reported that Suleiman "lacks the support where he now needs it most: the streets of Cairo."
"Egyptians don’t want Mubarak and they don’t want Suleiman," said Chayma Hassabo, a researcher on Arab political movements at Cedej, a Cairo-based research center.
Al Jazeera has written that Suleiman "does not have a high opinion of Islam in politics, and is not shy about telling Western audiences the lengths he will go to allow his security services to keep the Muslim Brotherhood and their offshoots at bay."
The young generational guard protesting in Egypt are also opposed to Suleiman running the country without elections taking place.
Students, union activists and opposition bloggers within Egypt - all remain opposed to Suleiman.
In response to the appointment of Omar Suleiman as the new vice-president of Egypt, opposition leader ElBaradei said that it was a "hopeless, desperate attempt by Mubarak to stay in power. I think it is loud and clear... that Mubarak has to leave today."
Cables released by Wikileaks showed that Suleiman enjoyed a strong relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency:
"Our intelligence collaboration with Oman Soliman (sic) is now probably the most successful element of the relationship with Egypt," said a 2006 U.S. diplomatic cable which described Suleiman as Mubarak’s "consigliore" on foreign policy.
Born July 2, 1936 in Qene, Egypt, north of the city Luxor, the most notable factor in Omar Suleiman’s nativity is the position of Mars in Cancer, conjoined to his South Lunar Node, also in tropical Cancer.
This position of both the Dragon's Tail, or the Moon's South Node, and Mars is also conjunct to the Mundane Horoscope of Egypt’s Mars in Cancer - a wholly negative and malefic influence on the country by conjunction.
Both South Lunar Node and Mars in Suleiman’s nativity are conjoined to the fixed star Propus, Tejat Prior, located at 3-4 degrees Cancer, a star under the malefic character of Saturn, and very unfortunate to those who come into contact with a person in power who has this placement.
The position signifies pride, shamelessness and overconfidence in oneself.
Mars conjoined to the Dragon's Tail conjunct Propus features a temperament prone to extreme violence but which shrouds itself in charm to leaders around the world - eminence bestowed upon: a high position with a license to kill - effectively given power by Mubarak's regime in matters of life and death.
Suleiman left his hometown for Cairo in 1954-55, at the age of nineteen to enroll in Egypt's military academy. He received additional military training in the former Soviet Union and at Moscow's Frunze Military Academy. He participated in both the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars.
By the mid-1980s, he earned a bachelor and master degrees in political science and was then transferred to military intelligence.
He is fluent in the English language and has a long relationship with the CIA and other world intelligence agencies.
He is fluent in the English language and has a long relationship with the CIA and other world intelligence agencies.
Born with his natal Ceres and Vertex in the star cluster of Scorpio, between the stars Serpentis, the "Accursed Degree" and the Northern Scale, or the star Zuben Alschemali, Suleiman had a choice early in his career between doing good or doing evil.
While the northern scale star of Zuben Alschemali can bring forth honors, wealth, with distinction along with a brilliant mind and success in the areas of politics, sport and war – it can also lead one to commit acts of evil: violence, torture and murder that bring immense grief and deep melancholy to innocent victims and their families.
Serpentis, is at the "accursed degree" of 19-Scorpio. It does not precess and has the character of the two primary malefic planets, Mars and Saturn, also featuring acts which bring about tragedies and misfortune to others and ultimately - to oneself.
The vertex is an electric point in astrology that signifies the use and application of one’s free will, and how that free will may be exercised - for good or for evil - by the native himself.
Suleiman’s natal Vertex is in a bad position and required him early in life to be very careful about morals, his actions and his choice of career.
To take on the role of a chief spymaster with Suleiman's nativity, effectively sealed his personal destiny.
To take on the role of a chief spymaster with Suleiman's nativity, effectively sealed his personal destiny.
Hosni Mubarak’s own natal Lilith and Progressed Moon are now among Suleiman’s personal natal Scorpio placements.
Suleiman’s Vertex conjoined to these Scorpion stars is also conjoined to Alpha Serpentis, to the star known as Unukalhai - another star of the character of Saturn and Mars which signifies evil acts.
It signifies a life of material success and honor to be followed by a fall and then - perdition.
Suleiman became director of military intelligence in 1991. Two years later in 1993 he was appointed chief of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services, or the EGIS.
His name has become known only in recent years, breaking the tradition of keeping the identity of the Egyptian head of Intelligence secret - known only to top government officials. It was released to the world media after the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Taurus in the year 2000.
In his role as Director of EGID, the British dubbed him "one of the world's most powerful spy chiefs,” and in 2009 foreign policy experts ranked Suleiman the "Middle East's most powerful intelligence chief - ahead of Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan."
Suleiman’s natal Moon is conjoined to the star Antares, the fixed star also conjoined to Mubarak’s natal south Lunar Node.
Both men share similar convictions and President Mubarak trusts Suleiman explicitly.
His nativity clearly shows he shares many of Mubarak’s views on issues in the Middle East, Iran, the European Union, Asia, as well as Egyptian relations with Israel and the United States and on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch assert Suleiman’s career has moved in lockstep with Mubarak's regime - marked by widespread abuses:
"Torture is an endemic problem in Egypt and ending police abuse has been a driving element behind the massive popular demonstrations that has swept Egypt," Human Rights Watch said in a report.
Human Rights Watch has further written that "Egyptians, particularly those of us calling for an end to Mubarak's three-decade rule, see Suleiman as “Mubarak II,” especially after the lengthy interview he gave to state television Feb. 3, 2011 where he accused the demonstrators in Tahrir Square of implementing "foreign agendas."
Suleiman did not even bother to veil his threats of retaliation against protesters.
Although a military man who by law was not a member of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) Suleiman prefers suits to military uniforms and is seen as a critical link between Egypt’s political and military elites.
Astrological transits show his role in the regional political scene and the lack of an alternative candidate acceptable to Mubarak would lead to Suleiman succeeding Mubarak as President.
Others say he is the obvious choice of the old Egyptian military establishment as well as intelligence agencies who depend on Suleiman's methods of repression.
Others say he is the obvious choice of the old Egyptian military establishment as well as intelligence agencies who depend on Suleiman's methods of repression.
Human rights groups tie Suleiman’s career to a regime marked by widespread abuses and assert he is a carbon copy of Mubarak; especially after a lengthy interview Suleiman gave to Egypt’s state television Feb. 3, 2011 where Suleiman accused the demonstrators in Tahrir Square of "implementing foreign agendas."
Suleiman blamed "certain friendly nations who have television channels... they're not friendly at all… who have intensified the youth against the nation and the state."
TIME magazine said Suleiman was "describing foreign journalists as enemies of the state," that there had been attacks on human rights workers and journalists, and that "the Mubarak regime is organizing these attacks and directing the violence" through Egyptian police, its secret services apparatus of agents and its political street thugs.
These descriptions of Suleiman are easily seen within his own nativity: his natal Mercury in Gemini (communications) opposed to his natal Jupiter in Sagittarius (general outlook and judgment.)
His natal Jupiter, retrograde at 16-Sagittarius is in square aspect to his natal Neptune in Virgo, depicting a person who lacks religious and spiritual beliefs which bring about his own self-undoing.
This same position of Neptune in Virgo is also square to his natal Mercury in Gemini - a mutable T-square formed with his natal Jupiter which signifies that he has divulged and shared state secrets to others outside of Egypt to further causes which have not been to the nation's benefit.
Suleiman's natal mutable T-square involving Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune has a tendency to notice some facts while ignoring others as dictated by policy and personal prejudices.
Transiting Saturn in Libra is now conjoined to Suleiman’s natal Pallas in Libra. This signifies his quest to retain his power exercising life and death decisions as Egypt’s intelligence chief and now, it’s temporary vice-president.
He is maneuvering publicly with chosen opposition groups in order to strike a deal, but secretly, Suleiman's astrological transits show he plans widespread retaliation and repression of opposition groups by use of his nationwide security apparatus, on hopes that nothing will change Egypt’s status quo.
In fact, he has already started.
In fact, he has already started.
On his direct orders, the international media along with Egypt's journalists and editors were attacked by street thugs, their equipment taken, with reporters, drivers and interpreters detained and harassed by Suleiman's network of agents forming the Mukhabarat - all done to intimidate and frighten the media not to report on Egypt's demonstrations.
"Each rendition was authorized at the very top levels of both governments ... The long-serving chief of the Egyptian central intelligence agency, Omar Suleiman, negotiated directly with top Agency officials.
[Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt] Walker described the Egyptian counterpart, Suleiman, as ‘very bright, very realistic,’ adding that he was cognizant that there was a downside to “some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in - of torture and so on.
But he [Suleiman] was not squeamish, by the way."
To prove this point, that Suleiman wasn’t just a “go-to bureaucrat” to reach Mubarak, he was also the man that some U.S. officials in the Bush administration liked to see when they wanted to arrange a little torture.
Suleiman, the 'urbane and sophisticated man,' apparently enjoyed a little of the rough stuff himself."
Sources say that shortly after the events of September 11, 2011, an Australian citizen, Mamdouh Habib, was captured by Pakistani security forces and, under Bush administration pressure, was tortured by Pakistanis.
He was then rendered (with Australian diplomats watching) by CIA operatives to Egypt, a not uncommon practice under the rendition program.
In Egypt, Habib merited Suleiman’s personal attention.
As related by writer Richard Neville, based on Habib’s own memoir -
“Habib was interrogated by the country’s Intelligence Director, General Omar Suleiman.
“Suleiman took a personal interest in anyone suspected of links with Al Qaeda.
As Habib had visited Afghanistan shortly before 9/11, he was under suspicion.
Habib was repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks.”
“Suleiman took a personal interest in anyone suspected of links with Al Qaeda.
As Habib had visited Afghanistan shortly before 9/11, he was under suspicion.
Habib was repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks.”
Bad enough, as if inhumane treatment wasn’t enough for Suleiman, so -
“To loosen Habib’s tongue, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a gruesomely shackled Turkistan prisoner in front of Habib - and he did - with a vicious karate kick.
After Suleiman’s men extracted Habib’s confession, he was transferred back to U.S. custody, where he eventually was imprisoned at Guantanamo. His 'confession' was then used as evidence in his Guantanamo trial.' "
With the astrological transits of his nativity, it is amazing that some nations would even consider doing business with Suleiman, much less believing him, unless of course, they share his beliefs in torture tactics, murder and negative outlooks on universal human rights.
The fixed star Scheat sits on Suleiman’s natal mid-heaven. This is the place where transiting Jupiter and Uranus have been and is another wholly malefic influence.
Suleiman’s natal Mercury is also conjoined to the fixed stars in the constellation Orion -
Signifying quarrels, headstrong attitudes, brief fame, a quick temper and scandals emerging from years of malefic acts that have jeopardized the lives of many people and on the population and nation of Egypt at large.
Suleiman’s progressed Moon is now transiting tropical Virgo, effectively in a last quarter phase to his progressed Sun, also in Virgo.
Times are changing and matters are coming to a close, as global transits shuts the door on one era, while transits opens another door into a new era.
Times are changing and matters are coming to a close, as global transits shuts the door on one era, while transits opens another door into a new era.
This progressed Virgo Moon is moving toward an opposition to Suleiman’s natal and progressed Saturn, featuring fears that the end of Mubarak's government - along with his own elitist career and its terrible secrets - is near.
"Mary said: 'Woe, woe, unto sinners!'
Salome answered and said:
"My Lord Jesus, a murderer who hath never committed any sin but murdering, if he comes out of the body - what is his chastisement?"
Jesus answered and said:
"A murderer who has never committed any sin but murdering, if his time is completed through the sphere [Earth] that he comes out of the body, the receivers of Yaldabaōth come and lead his soul out of the body and bind it by its feet to a great Demon with a horse's face, and he spends three days circling round with it in the world.
Thereafter, they lead it into the regions of the cold and of the snow, and they take vengeance on it there three years and six months.
Thereafter they lead it down into the Chaos before Yaldabaōth and his forty-and-nine demons, and every one of his demons scourges it another three years and six months.
Thereafter they lead it down into the Chaos before Persephonē and take vengeance on it with her chastisements another three years and six months.
Thereafter they carry it on to the way of the Midst, and every one of the rulers of the way of the midst takes vengeance on it with the chastisements of its regions, another three years and six months.
Thereafter they lead it unto the Virgin of Light, who judges the righteous and the sinners, that she may judge it.
And when the sphere turns itself, she commands that it shall be cast into the outer darkness until the time when the darkness of the midst shall be upraised; then it, the soul, will be destroyed and dissolved.
This is the chastisement of the murderer."
- Jesus Christ, sixth book, chapter 145, The Pistis Sophia
The nativity of Omar Suleiman reveals a man deeply involved in multiple acts of torture, murder and malefic acts which signifies he is yet another name on the Immortal God's lengthening list of punishment and perdition who has a date ahead – with destiny.
~
The Cardinal Crisis
A Dying Oligarchy & The Baby Boomer GenerationBy Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
Since the year 2000 a very interesting theme has been at hand, though few people had noticed it.
In mundane astrology we study the revolutions of the planets as they impact life and history itself through the ages.
What I knew 10 years ago was barely on the lips of those preparing to celebrate the change over from the year 1999 to the year 2000.
The "change" that the generation in charge at that time - the Baby Boomers - was that the new century was going to be ruled by them.
A few years before the year 2000, Baby Boomers running Hollywood pushed out a number of films depicting "the end of times," with asteroids, aliens and the devil - all ready to bring the world to its end.
Then, there was the Y2K scare in 1999, where people were urged to go out and purchase survival items for fear that computer systems would not be able to read a clock.
It was quite the scene. Remember?
Most of the people who scared at the time were old. In fact, anyone born after 1961 wondered what all the fuss was about, while anyone born before 1961 shopped like it was, well - 1999.
Karaoke style, that is...
When the year 2000 came and went and nothing happened, the events of September 11, 2001 were initiated.
You see, we had to have some kind of "fear" - any kind - of the future, or things just would not be the same, you see?
That is what the oligarchy and their spawn of children have brought the world.
Fear and lots and lots of it.
Fear of Muslims, fear of technology, fear of flying, fear of schools, of children, fear, fear, and more fear.
There are terrorists everywhere they say, ready to take down anything, everything, so we have to "lock it down," and "shut it down" and secure ourselves so that even civil liberties would have to suffer.
You see, they, the Baby Boomers and their parents, would protect us.
From what, I ask?
From fear itself?
Of course, the "end of the world" did not come, so, what happened was that it was "kicked down the road" a bit, to the year of 2012.
Here's another Baby Boomer-generated scare tactic, which is just a year away...
So what do we have here: more fear of a yet another year?
Why doesn't anyone ask astrologers when they think the world might end? We are experts in this area of future time-management you see.
As a mundane astrologer who should know - the world will not end in 2012.
I will also say that when the world does come to an end many people will not even be aware of it beforehand to say with certainty that it will happen like it was, well, 1999.
Here's a tip - when an aging crowd says look to the right - turn your head to the left.
All of this fear is based on a dying oligarchy and their children who are simply afraid of death, of losing their clout.
These are the kinds of people who have lost their spirit and souls to the point of not having any other vision of the world, that is, except one of angst, doom and destruction.
That is a sickness born out of ideology that wants to see nothing but negativity - when in fact all it really is about is the fear of getting old. So much so that the future - that is the 21st century - means nothing to them.
Doesn't say much to the younger generations living on the planet, does it?
Why would a dying oligarchy be so obsessed with control to the point of having their own children, the Baby Boomers, so scared of aging that they would act out in every negative way imaginable to avoid what is essentially inevitable to every human being?
Why would a generation of Baby Boomers, who had been the establishment for 18 years, be so intent on ruining whole economies, whole communities, degrading society and hating the young, - just because they are getting old?
Who said that they would never age?
Who gave the Baby Boomer generation the tag of the "me generation" and the "youth generation" and whom once said "never to trust anyone over 30?"
Well, it was them.
The moniker of the generation born in the 1920s - the dying oligarchy - and their children - the Baby Boomer generation, have been frightened of anything and everything associated with something which happens to all human beings - we age.
Aging isn't anything new. It's been happening to human beings since the dawn of time.
We all grow older. We all age. What makes them so special?
Only a spiritually empty generation fears aging. Is that is what is going on here?
After "flower power," the "Um" spiritual movement, the Transcendental Meditation movement, the EST movement, the cults, the ashrams, Buddhist and Yoga movements of the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and the "New Age" movement of the 1990s - you'd think the Baby Boomer generation certainly would have reached a high-level of peace and emotional maturity and lack any fear of retirement and aging with the achievement of universal nirvana by now - in 2011 - wouldn't you?
So while there is a lot of "doom and gloom and angst" about in the world - spurred on by an aging generation self-absorbed with itself, I see something entirely different in the potential future.
I see a Renaissance - coming from a new generation. That's what I see on the horizon.
Now this is something which is not new to humanity.
For as much as the history of the world has had its share of filth, war, destruction, and perversity, it also has had equal share of light, truth, enlightenment and healthy progress.
Those who would attempt to turn the early years of the 21st century into their personal toilet to drown out the positive and progressive voices now alive on the planet, who know that human history is not about perverted forms of ideology, really are self-absorbed as a soulless generation heading straight into perdition.
That's right boys and girls, and you heard it first here.
What is most revealing about these times, though not openly said by the outgoing generation of Baby Boomers, is that what is really happening in the world is generational change.
Let's look at world transits for proof of this:
Jupiter has recently entered tropical Aries, starting a new 11-12 year cycle.
Uranus is about to enter Aries, to begin a brand new orbital phase and ending the old cycle it began in the 1927-28.
Pluto has entered tropical Capricorn.
Saturn has entered tropical Libra.
Neptune is about to enter tropical Pisces.
The Dragon's Head & Tail are about to change quality to the Sagittarius/Gemini axis.
All these planetary motions signify great change - and all of it is generational.
We can see this throughout the world. Those born after 1961 are now demanding change.
And, that is exactly what everyone is going to see it too.
World transits confirm this.
What that change will be will not be determined by the ending establishment of Baby Boomers. The fact is that the oligarchy - their parents born in the 1920s are dying, so is their ideology and so are their children.
How any generation deals with their own history basically writes that very history with its acts.
The Boomers, who have never come to terms with the events of the cultural revolution and backlash of the 1960s and 1970s, have continued their ideological wars amongst themselves while inflicting unjust measures against the young.
This will not be forgotten. If you are going to piss off any generation, then make sure it is the one in front of you - not behind you.
During their time as establishment (1993-2011) the generation of Baby Boomers has proven itself to be a failure. The state of the world, of sovereign economies and sad conditions of world society-at-large is testament to this truth.
The attacks on Science, the Arts, the Economy, Education and Humanities - by ideologues, humanists, secularists and their irreligious, politically-incorrect sexual warriors, etc., etc., has caused perverted ideologies to roam wild by those who have been at constant ideological war for decades, with one another with society and within themselves.
Each generation has its time as the establishment. What is essential about this is the atmosphere a generation brings to the table, to the cultural and social traditions.
For Generation X, a diverse generation around the world, formed by the children born in the 1960s and 1970s, stable diverse and progressive values are important.
Many of the parents of Generation X were born in the 1930s, called the 'silent generation' who were having children in the 1960s and early 1970s and missed out on the cultural revolution because they were raising families.
Generation X was raised on these values, but their childhoods were threatened by the prior behaviors and actions of the Baby Boomers in the political and radical upheavals of 1960s and 1970s.
Adults in the United States by the 1970s and 1980s had become wary of what they saw as a decline in values.
In the wake of Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, then the failures and missed opportunities of the Carter Administration, they rejected the cultural wars and turned to a grandfather figure, Ronald Reagan, who less than a month after he was inaugurated president, had turned 70 years old.
The early to middle years of the 1980s was a time of recession and of rejection of the radical cultural wars of the Baby Boomer generation, who were mired in a form of angst and depression signified by the American television show, "Thirtysomething."
Here, Baby Boomers were whining about changing diapers and minding their children and their friends whined how the babies were getting too much attention. You got to see it to believe it, but they played this shit on American TV for the Boomer generation and they drank that kool-aid.
It made me want to puke.
All the whining, the complaints, the "oh poor me's." Geez.
I had grown up in a house with a full-time daycare business full of children when I was a kid myself, and with my sisters had changed thousands of diapers and emptied potty blocks for years.
This was before throw-away Pampers were invented for Baby Boomer parents.
Get the picture?
Gimme a break.
Age and family responsibilities had crept up on Baby Boomers, so, by default, they were not yet the establishment. That would not come until the early 1990s and would not end until the year 2011.
These years from 1993 to 2011 saw what was termed the greatest economic boom in world history.
It ended in an economic crash that is being called the Second Great Depression.
When does it come to an end?
Well, soon, if world transits have anything to say about it, and transits are saying quite a bit as they configure in their motions.
The fact of the matter is that the ideologies of the late 20th century are coming to an end, but the dying oligarchy and their children are attempting to extend all this ideological poison into this new century.
But, they are old and will soon pass on.
So, what to do? Freak out?
Well, that's what we've all been witnessing over the past 10-11 years.
The fears of bogeymen everywhere, the attacks of September 11, 2011; the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq; the religious, political, drug, sexual, economic, terror-based ideological attacks on societies; the lies of "man-made climate change," the wars on the young - all of this are expressions of their fears of losing clout.
Of passing off into something they all fear - and that is death and what lies beyond.
In effect, the dying oligarchy, and the children they spawned, the Baby Boomers, have been at ideological war with themselves and with the world.
It is their "fear" personified into whatever forms they've chosen.
And the world is no better off, but, in fact, worse off because of them.
And people, that is the up and coming generations, have had enough.
These forms: the Wikileaks sensations, the Tunisian overthrow, the uprisings in Algeria, Yemen and Egypt, the destruction of national economies, the religious wars, the invasion of privacy, the crimes, massive financial frauds, the destruction of education, the perverting of children - all the building anger at the oligarchy's bankers, politicians, the ideological leaders who make up the Baby Boomer contingent intent on war against, well - everyone who isn't like them.
World transits clearly show that the generations born after 1961 have had enough and the planets define the boundaries of how far the oligarchy and their spawn has left - and time has run out.
The Twenty-Tens is that decade.
The oligarchy is dying off, as Jupiter/Uranus conjunctions often speed up the mortality rate. Saturn is helping and so are the transits of Pluto in Capricorn.
It is happening now. Moreover, the oligarchy's children, the Baby Boomer generation, has come to the end of their time as establishment, and they fear aging like no other generation before them.
So, what is happening is historical fragmentation: as the oligarchy and their children's ideological wars have coalesced into a total mess. It is coming to an end and they do not want it to end - they want to live forever.
But they will not live forever. No generation does.
This is not so much the "downfall of science and humanity," as it is the downfall of the oligarchy and their children. That is what is happening.
The world will survive, and will move on past the fear-based ideologies that treat human freedom as some sort of thing to control, to drug people into a form of their own perverted vision of how a world should be - according to the ideologies of dying oligarchy and their sick generation of children.
What is happening, rather, is a new renaissance is taking shape.
We have major transition underway, which is historical in the sense of the death of the oligarchy with their children out of power who frankly, did not want to enter the 21st century.
They wanted things to stay the same, but time does not stand still - for no one.
For years, as a mundane astrologer, I have been warning any Baby Boomer who would listen not to treat those younger than them with contempt, to use hegemony as a means to keep the status quo.
Now, you would think this particular generation, who pitched their music as their ideology, and who battled the establishment of their times - would never behave in a manner today which is wholly conservative, outmoded, outworn, rigid and dismissive of the generation born after them?
Some don't like to use the word "generation" now because of the association of the failure of the Baby Boomers to leave any kind of positive legacy at all in the world.
But, not so fast I say. I remember back in the 1970s, as a Generation Xer hearing Baby Boomers tell me what it was like for them in the 1960s.
And they always mentioned this song - in fact they played it a lot - so anyone would know what they were talking about.
Baby Boomers do remember their 1967-68 anthem song?
Ten years after this, the majority of Boomers were flooding disco halls three nights a week and dancing to the likes of the Bee Gees and KC & The Sunshine Band.
Go figure.
So, my astrological warning to the Baby Boomer generation in 2011 is based on foreknowledge, but also on trends easily sensed by anyone with their eyes and ears open.
As they age, and continue to treat the generations behind them with contempt, the Baby Boomers are effectively sealing their own fates as senior citizens.
Just whom do you think will protect and take care of you in your elderly years?
And, that fuzzy math, you know, where "70 is the new 40" - isn't like that in the real world.
In the real world, 70 is, well, 70.
And it will feel like 70 too.
I'm only telling it like it is and any Baby Boomer with eyes open should see it too.
But, many do not because of angst. Because of fear of aging.
Yet, the generational planets say otherwise.
So, I continue to warn aged Baby Boomers worldwide that they had better change course immediately and quit with their hegemony over the young, or 70 and 80 years of age is going to soon feel a lot older and much worse when the payback from the generations behind them comes due.
And it is nearly here.
Foretold is forewarned.
We are in a time of major, worldwide generational transition. It is happening now. It's just begun.
The hegemony and denial of progress by the Baby Boomer generation in their angst over aging has led to their placing of diverse roadblocks over Generation X for 20 years, and now, has been extended to Generation Y.
This fact is seen in all nations with Baby Boomers and their oligarchical parents who are now passing, inclined by the rise in mortality rates spurred by the transits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Let's visit the nation of Japan, where Generation X and Generation Y say the establishment of aged Baby Boomers has effectively excluded them from jobs, innovation and entrepreneurship - and finally, out of Japanese society altogether.
Please consider,
The Cardinal Crisis
The Truth of Generational Inequalities
Image: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg News
In Japan, The Young Face Harsh Generational Roadblocks
By Martin Fackler
New York Times
Tokyo, Japan - Kenichi Horie was a promising auto engineer, exactly the sort of youthful talent Japan needs to maintain its edge over hungry Korean and Chinese rivals.
As a worker in his early 30s at a major car-maker, Mr. Horie won praise for his design work on advanced bio-fuel systems.
But like many young Japanese, he was a so-called irregular worker, kept on a temporary staff contract with little of the job security and half the salary of the "regular" employees, most of them old workers.
After more than a decade of trying to gain regular status, Mr. Horie finally quit - not just the temporary jobs - but Japan altogether.
He moved to Taiwan two years ago to study Chinese.
"Japanese companies are wasting the young generations to protect older workers," said Mr. Horie, now 36. "In Japan, they closed the doors on me. In Taiwan, they tell me I have a perfect résumé."
As this fading economic superpower rapidly grays, it desperately needs to increase productivity and unleash the entrepreneurial energies of its shrinking number of younger people.
But Japan seems to be doing just the opposite.
This has contributed to weak growth and mounting pension obligations, major reasons Standard & Poor’s downgraded Japan’s sovereign debt rating on Thursday, January 27, 2011.
"There is a feeling among young generations that no matter how hard we try, we can’t get ahead,” said Shigeyuki Jo, 36, co-author of The Truth of Generational Inequalities.
"Every avenue seems to be blocked, like we’re butting our heads against a wall."
An aging population is clogging the nation’s economy with the vested interests of older generations, young people and social experts warn - making an already hierarchical society even more rigid and conservative.
The result is that Japan is holding back and marginalizing its youth at a time when it actually needs them to help create the new products, companies and industries that a mature economy requires to grow.
A nation that produced Sony, Toyota and Honda has failed in recent decades to nurture young entrepreneurs, and the game-changing companies that they can create, like Google or Apple - each started by entrepreneurs in their 20s.
Employment figures underscore the second-class status of many younger Japanese.
While Japan’s decades of stagnation have increased the number of irregular jobs across all age groups, the young have been hit the hardest.
Image: Chao-Yang Chan for The New York Times
Last year, 45 percent of those ages 15 to 24 in the work force held irregular jobs, up from 17.2 percent in 1988 and as much as twice the rate among workers in older age groups, who cling tenaciously to the old ways.
Japan’s news media are now filled with grim accounts of how university seniors face a second “ice age” in the job market, with just 56.7 percent receiving job offers before graduation as of October 2010 - an all-time low.
"Japan has the worst generational inequality in the world," said Manabu Shimasawa, a professor of social policy at Akita University who has written extensively on such inequalities.
"Japan has lost its vitality because the older generations don’t step aside, allowing the young generations a chance to take new challenges and grow."
Disparities & Dangers
While many nations have aging populations, Japan’s demographic crisis is truly dire.
Some of the consequences have been long foreseen, like deflation: as more Japanese retire and live off their savings, they spend less, further depressing Japan’s anemic levels of domestic consumption.
But a less anticipated outcome has been the appearance of generational inequalities.
These disparities manifest themselves in many ways:
As Mr. Horie discovered, there are corporations that hire all too many young people for low-paying, dead-end jobs ~ in effect, forcing them to shoulder the costs of preserving cushier jobs for older employees.
Others point to an under-financed pension system so skewed in favor of older Japanese that many younger workers simply refuse to pay for - silver-haired democracy.
One that spends far more on the elderly than on education and child care; an issue that is familiar to Americans with outdated hiring practices that have created a new lost generation of disenfranchised youth.
Nagisa Inoue, a senior at Tokyo’s Meiji University, said she was considering paying for a fifth year at her university rather than graduating without a job, an outcome that in Japan’s rigid job market might permanently taint her chances of ever getting a higher-paying corporate job.
That is because Japanese companies, even when they do offer stable, regular jobs, prefer to give them only to new graduates, who are seen as the more malleable candidates for molding into Japan’s corporate culture.
And the irony, Ms. Inoue said, is that she does not even want to work at a big corporation. She would rather join a nonprofit environmental group, but that would also exclude her from getting a so-called regular job.
"I’d rather have the freedom to try different things,” said Ms. Inoue, 22. "But in Japan, the costs of doing something different are just too high."
Many social experts say a grim economy has added to the pressures to conform to Japan’s outdated, one-size-fits-all employment system.
An online survey by students at Meiji University of people across Japan ages 18 to 22 found that two-thirds felt that youths did not take risks or new challenges, and that they instead had become a generation of "introverts," who were content or at least resigned to living a life without ambition.
image: Junji Kurokawa/Associated Press
"There is a mismatch between the old system and the young generations," said Yuki Honda, a professor of education at the University of Tokyo.
"Many young Japanese don’t want the same work-dominated lifestyles of their parents’ generation, but they have no choices."
Facing a rising public uproar, the Welfare Ministry responded late last year by advising employers to recognize someone as a new graduate for up to three years after graduation.
It also offers subsidies of up to 1.8 million yen, or about $22,000 per person, to large companies that offer so-called "regular jobs" to new graduates.
But perhaps nowhere are the roadblocks to youthful enterprise so evident, and the consequences to the Japanese economy so dire, as in the failure of entrepreneurship.
The nation had just 19 initial public offerings in 2009, according to Tokyo-based Next Company, compared with 66 in the United States.
More telling is that even Japan’s entrepreneurs are predominantly from older generations: according to the Trade Ministry, just 9.1 percent of Japanese entrepreneurs in 2002 were in their 20s, compared with 25 percent in the United States.
"Japan has become a zero-sum game," said Yuichiro Itakura, a failed Internet entrepreneur who wrote a book about his experience. "Established interests are afraid a young newcomer will steal what they have, so they won’t do business with him."
Many Japanese economists and policy makers have long talked of fostering entrepreneurship as the best remedy for Japan’s economic ills.
And it is an idea that has a historical precedent here: as the nation rose from the ashes of World War II, young Japanese entrepreneurs produced a host of daring start-ups that overturned entire global industries.
Generation Y Entrepreneur’s Rise, Fall and Rise...
But many here say that Japan’s economy has ossified since its glory days, and that the nation now produces few if any such innovative companies.
To understand why, many here point to the fate of one of the nation’s best-known Internet tycoons, Takafumi Horie.
When he burst onto the national scene early in the last decade, he was the most un-Japanese of business figures:
An impish young man in his early 30s, who wore T-shirts into boardrooms, brazenly flouted the rules by starting hostile takeovers and captured an era when a rejuvenated Japanese economy seemed to finally be rebounding.
He was arrested five years ago and accused of securities fraud in what seemed a classic case of comeuppance, with the news media demonizing him as a symbol of an unsavory, freewheeling American-style capitalism.
In 2007, a court found him guilty of falsifying company records, a ruling that he is appealing.
But in dozens of interviews, young Japanese brought him up again and again as a way of explaining their generation’s malaise.
To them, he symbolized something very different: a youthful challenger who was crushed by a reactionary status quo. His arrest, they said, was a warning to all of them not to rock the boat.
"It was a message that it is better to quietly and obediently follow the established conservative order,” Mr. Horie, now 37, wrote in an e-mail.
He remains for many a popular, if almost subversive figure in Japan, where he is once again making waves by unrepentantly battling the charges in court, instead of meekly accepting the judgment, as do most of those arrested.
He now has more than a half-million followers on Twitter, more than the prime minister, and publicly urges people to challenge the system.
"Horie has been the closest thing we had to a role model," said Noritoshi Furuichi, a 25-year-old graduate student at the University of Tokyo who wrote a book about how young Japanese were able to remain happy while losing hope.
"He represents a struggle between old Japan and new Japan."
Mr. Furuichi and many other young Japanese say that young people here do not react with anger or protest, instead blaming themselves and dropping out, or with an almost cheerful resignation, trying to find contentment with horizons that are far more limited than that of their parents.
In such an atmosphere, young politicians say it is hard to mobilize their generation to get interested in politics.
Ryohei Takahashi was a young city council member in the Tokyo suburb of Ichikawa who joined a group of other young politicians and activists in issuing a “Youth Manifesto,” which urged younger Japanese to stand up for their interests.
In late 2009, he made a bid to become the city’s mayor on a platform of shifting more spending toward young families and education.
However, few younger people showed an interest in voting, and he ended up trying to cater to the city’s most powerful voting blocs: retirees and local industries like construction, all dominated by leaders in their late 50s and 60s. "Aging just further empowers older generations," said Mr. Takahashi, 33.
He lost the election, which he called a painful lesson that Japan was becoming a "silver-haired democracy," where most budgets and spending heavily favored older generations.
Social experts say the need to cut soaring budget deficits means that younger Japanese will never receive the level of benefits enjoyed by retirees today.
Calculations show that a child born today can expect to receive up to $1.2 million less in pensions, health care and other government spending over the course of his life than someone retired today; in the national pension system alone, this gap reaches into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Young People Abandon The System
The result is that young Japanese are fleeing the program in droves: half of workers below the age of 35 now fail to make their legally mandated payments, even though that means they must face the future with no pension at all.
"In France, the young people take to the streets," Mr. Takahashi said. "In Japan, they just don’t pay."
Or they drop out, as did many in Japan’s first 'lost generation' a decade ago.
One was Kyoko, who was afraid to give her last name for fear it would further damage her job prospects.
Image: Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
Almost a decade ago, when she was a junior at Waseda University here, she was expected to follow postwar Japan’s well-trodden path to success by finding a job at a top corporation.
She said she started off on the right foot, trying to appear enthusiastic at interviews without being strongly opinionated - the balance that appeals to Japanese employers, who seek hard-working conformists.
But after interviewing at 10 companies, she said she suffered a minor nervous breakdown, and stopped.
She said she realized that she did not want to become an overworked corporate warrior like her father.
By failing to get such a job before graduating, Kyoko was forced to join the ranks of the 'freeters' - an underclass of young people who hold transient, lower-paying irregular jobs.
Since graduating in 2004 she has held six jobs, none of them paying unemployment insurance, pension or a monthly salary of more than 150,000 yen, or about $1,800.
"I realized that wasn’t who I wanted to be,” recalled Kyoko, now 29.
"But why has being myself cost me so dearly?"
~
So, we can all see how Japan has greatly declined.
When you resent and put down young people: your entrepreneurs, your innovators, the very engine of the working world and prevent progress for those younger than your own generation, via hegemony, corruption, theft, resentment and hate for the young - then your nation, your communities, your companies and your economy will die.
And that is exactly what is happening to Japan and other countries with identical generational issues.
This includes the United States, Canada and England, all of which had better get its own act together before too long or these countries will also see old workers crash not only their economies - but the very hearts of their own nations.
It is time for the Baby Boomers to retire - like it or not. You're old, and you know what?
It's okay.
We all get old and your generation ain't no different, as we Yanks like to say in American-speak.
Sorry to say it, but older people clip coupons. Senior citizens do not frequent businesses, restaurants and clubs like the young. They do not spend money like the young.
And old people certainly do not work like the young.
The velocity of money wants speed.
It has a need for speed and it is the young who produce and who spend - not the old.
That's a fact, jack.
Look at what happened to Toyota, you know, the Japanese car company.
Would you have believed this company, known for decades as a nearly 'perfect' auto manufacturer, now with old, aging Baby Boomers clinging to their jobs until they drop dead on the factory floor, would screw up decades of outright success with millions and millions of worldwide recalls of its own vehicles?
That's what happens when you repress young workers in favor of old ones.
Things start to go wrong. Badly.
What is awaiting Baby Boomers worldwide who continue with their hegemony is not a pretty sight, for the younger generations are behind all of you - and have very good memories.
This generational hegemony by Baby Boomers has created a society that have become fearful, rigid, irreverent and conservative - against innovation, against change and highly consumptive of resources that do not belong to them.
It has been ongoing - the outdated ideologies and work methodologies which are outmoded and outworn.
In effect - all too tired.
This hegemony over others, the angst, the breaking of the historical inter-generational contract by Baby Boomers - by outright theft, lies, neglect, abuse and misuse of resources; with massive debt "kicked down the road," and loaded onto Generation X, Generation Y and the Millennial children - has more than half of the planet's population very upset.
People want to work, are raising their own families and becoming mightily angrier with each passing day.
Not a good thing for Baby Boomers now a senior citizen, or about to become one.
I continue to say, if you are going to piss off any generation - make sure that generation is in front of you - not behind you.
So, the generational transition has begun, according to planetary transits that are always on time.
There is no stopping the motion of Time itself.
As Uranus begins to square Pluto in these early years of the Twenty-Tens, and as Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune form their configurations by aspect in this new decade, we are witnessing the rapid decline of two generations of the late 20th century - and the emergence of two new generations in the early 21st century.
A new era is at hand - in accordance with world transits.
The true start of the 21st century and a Renaissance.
In reality, the "downfall" is really that of a dying oligarchy and their children, the Baby Boomers.
Their "world" - of ideological terror based on angst and fear - is coming to a fitting end.
So, what's next?
We've explored this before on Global Astrology.
What's next - is Generation X.
~
A New Establishment
By Tim Daniel
A Noble Generation is one that first ensures our survival and then secures a better future for us all, not just for themselves.
That means it must be fearless and highly skilled. It must be realistic and adaptive.
It must be able and willing to break the old rules and run sequential experiments until new rules emerge from the confusion.
It must be tough enough to overcome the flack it catches for doing this.
Then it must be willing and able to build new, thriving endeavors around those new rules and successfully engage the rest of us in those endeavors.
A Noble Generation must be realistic, creative and social.
Generation X is a perfect match for such a daunting assignment.
Generation X, born between 1961 and 1981, is our “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Generation.
Generation X, equity research analyst, Meredith Whitney
They were mocked and put down as being somehow flawed. They have been overlooked and under-studied by marketers and politicians.
There isn’t a lot of money to be made or elections to be won by understanding and responding to their concerns.
But now a dark and stormy night is upon us.
We need precisely the set of traits that gave this generation a bad name in their youth.
They are destined get us safely through this Night.
They have the right stuff:
Warren Buffet says the only real security lies in your own skills and in the collective skills of organizations you belong to or support in some way.
Generation X gets this hard truth in their bones.
Generation X, circa 1977
Their life experiences taught them they could trust no one but themselves and the few collective endeavors they have personally experienced as legitimate.
They were the most aborted generation in history. They grew up in the highest percentage of divorced homes to date in history. During their childhoods the percentage of kids left alone after school went from 20% to 47%.
It turned out to be a lifetime theme.
They were left alone to figure it out on their own because their early boomer parents, teachers, coaches, clergy and politicians were incredibly self-absorbed and self-serving.
They sold Generation X all sorts of stuff that turned out to be harmful.
So how did they respond? Xers realized right away that what is being sold all too often benefits the seller at the buyer’s expense.
They realized the rules they were taught benefit the rule-makers more than the rule-followers.
The authority figures who failed them always used lofty words and intricate processes.
So Xers learned to value the results of the idea over the process used to get there, the tangible impact on real people over its ideological purity or pedigree.
They developed incredibly accurate “b.s. meters.” They cultivated an uncanny ability to cut through the crap and look for whatever really works – and will keep working; not just for the individual but for the whole.
So like all great generations - they embody some big paradoxes. Big paradoxes tear less hardy generations apart.
Noble generations wrestle with the paradoxes and come out the other end with stunning, original, creative breakthroughs.
Here are three of the paradoxes that have shaped this remarkable generation:
First, they are very self-reliant and independent, but they are equally motivated to figure out what actually works to create the kind of community that was not there for them when they needed it most.
Here’s what has worked for them so far:
They are pragmatic, quick and sharp-eyed. They cherry-pick what works out of any system and leave the rest.
Gen X, America, 1975
They are able to step outside themselves enough to learn how the game is really played, rather than ranting that there is a game being played at all, something they rarely saw their boomer elders do.
As a result they are the most street-smart generation we have had in a long time. They are resourceful and adaptive by necessity.
There was no welcome mat set out for them economically, so they became problem-solvers, innovators and entrepreneurs, creating their own careers by their own rules.
Second, as forward looking as they are - they have a living link to our most noble traditions.
They use the best of the past to inform their visions of the future, while not simply trying to re-capture the past.
They are the last generation who know what a book is for and how to read one.
They know you don’t read a great book, a great book reads you.
It’s not how many books you’ve gotten through – it’s how many books have gotten through you and changed you.
Gen X, Brooklyn, 1975
They were the last generation who were told – “come home before the street lights come on.”
Which meant two things: 1) Self-guided play, outdoors, without a screen and 2) you can trust the neighbors.
Gen X - 1975
Third, they have been let down by almost every authority they have trusted, yet they still believe in the need for legitimate authority.
Slowly they are realizing the one authority that won’t ever go away, one that can teach them whatever they need to know is – nature.
In nature they see themselves – realistic, unending adaptation to an uncaring but wonderful world, producing new things that are at once beautiful, durable and useful.
They know what it feels like to be uncared for.
Now they look at the future and are worried.
This feels familiar. The future is currently being uncared for by the very same people who didn’t care for them, the people currently in charge.
But this time they are not powerless. Far from it.
They have never just sat passively on the sidelines. They are doers. They take initiative and responsibility. They will do it again.
They will step up, mimic nature and show the rest of us how it’s done.
They are here, already among us, just in time, hiding in plain sight.
Find them. Listen to them. Follow their funny-looking noses.
I promise you – they will lead us to a new golden age.
Generation X, circa 1976
Alive & Kicking
~
Just what will this new golden age look like?
In light of the destruction left in the wake of the Baby Boomer generation, it is estimated that Generation X will have to do the work of 36 years in just 20 years.
So, how can this be accomplished? Is it possible?
I say that it is and offer one view of how it is to be done.
A new generation is primed to become the new establishment.
What will this age look like?
In mundane astrology there is a concept known as 'perpetual change.' This means that the future is not written in stone, that as human beings we have the capacity to work within the rules of the physics of the system we inhabit.
the configurations of the planets offer two octaves - one good and the other bad.
The planets incline, but they do not compel.
Human beings are born with free will.
We are either rewarded for our good acts on Earth in the world of light, what is called Heaven.
Or we are punished for our evil acts in the mouths of Hades, or what is called Hell.
Thus, by this knowledge, we have the power not only to move the world forward in a positive way, but we are also seen as stewards of the Earth and given free reign to do what we will - but with consequences to our words and our acts during our time as human beings on Earth.
Every generation born has its own era as the establishment.
Now, into the decades of the Twenty-Tens and Twenty-Twenties, it is the children born with the generational planet of Pluto in the Signs of Virgo and Libra who enter the limelight as establishment.
How will it feel and sound?
Generation X
By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
As the planets reveal, a new age is beginning. The decade of the Twenty-Tens.
Generation X carries within itself both the traditions of the past and visions of the future.
That future is now here and will shape the next thirty years.
The authors William Strauss and Neil Howe write,
Comments by Thom Hartmann
What is perhaps most relevant and impressive about The Fourth Turning is that the first edition was published in 1997, meaning it was written in 1995/6.
Nearly ten years ago, in a book about how every four generations (roughly 80 years) history repeats itself, the authors had the prescience to write:
Tea Party sign holder demonstrating
One of those four generations invariably faces a crisis, which was produced innocently enough by the actions of the preceding three and the stage of time.
Each generation in a particular way is reacting in a predictable and reasonable way to the values and world-view of the one preceding it.
Roughly 80 years ago was the Great Depression and World War II. Roughly 80 years before that was the Civil War.
Roughly 80 years before that, the Revolutionary War. Roughly 80 years before that, Glorious Revolution of 1675-1704.
Roughly 80 years before that, the Armada Crisis of 1569-1594. And roughly 80 years before that the War of the Roses (1459-1487.)
In each 80 year period, there are four turnings, produced by each of the four generations.
The Fourth Turning is the one of greatest danger, maximum impact upon the world.
And it’s due to happen any day now - if it’s not already underway.
Understanding how these "turnings" come about, and the archetypal roles both each generation and individuals within them play is one of the most important keys to understanding what we can collective and individually do to bring about the most positive outcome from each Turning.
Although Strauss and Howe have written more recent books, The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny is, in my opinion, the most important of the bunch, a guidepost during this time of turbulence, providing access to the proverbial keystone that holds together our culture.
It ’s certainly one of the most important and valuable books of this era."
~
The Cardinal Crisis
Climate Disasters Continue:
Ice, Snow & Sub-zero Temps Strike America
While Australia Readies For Historic Cyclone To Hit
Radar image of the Category Five monster storm Cyclone Yasi, preparing to strike northeastern Australia's Queensland Province Feb. 1-2, 2011. Already suffering from months of heavy rains and floods, Australians in droves are now fleeing ahead of what is being called the most devastating storm in Australian history.
Reuters reports
February 1-2, 2011 -- Cairns, Australia - Thousands of residents fled their homes and crammed into shelters in northeastern Australia as a cyclone described as the most powerful in the country's history and with a 650 km (400 mile) wide front barreled toward the coastline on Wednesday.
It is expected to hit the coast on Wednesday evening, packing winds in excess of 280 km (175 miles) per hour. The weather bureau predicted it would be the strongest ever to hit Australia, Sky TV reported.
"We are facing a storm of catastrophic proportions," Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said after Cyclone Yasi was upgraded to a maximum-strength category five storm.
"All aspects of this cyclone are going to be terrifying and potentially very very damaging," Bligh added, noting the greatest threat to life could come from storm surges along the coast with the system due to hit when the tide is high.
Mines, rail lines and coal ports have all shut down, with officials warning the storm could drive inland for hundreds of kilometers, hitting rural and mining areas still struggling to recover after months of devastating floods.
Outside a shuttered night market in the tourist city of Cairns, nervous backpackers tried to flag down cars and reach temporary evacuation centers at a nearby university.
"We are terrified. We have had almost no information and have never seen storms like this," said Marlim Flagar, 20, from Sweden.
At a sprawling shopping center on the outskirts of Cairns, hundreds of people streamed into a makeshift shelter, carrying backpacks, blankets and food.
"We've bought tinned food and cucumbers. That's all we could find this morning," said Natalie Zerbach, on holiday from Germany.
The cyclone is 650 km off the coast of northeastern Australia and is expected to make landfall at 10 pm (7 a.m. EST) on the Queensland coast between Cairns and Innisfail.
Its strength is on a par with Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.
More than 400,000 people live in the cyclone's expected path, which includes the cities of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. The entire stretch is popular with tourists and includes Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
The weather was overcast with winds picking up in Cairns early on Wednesday.
The main streets were largely deserted. Shops were closed and windows taped to stop shards of flying glass.
At a coffee shop on the Cairns waterfront, Scott Warren covered windows with black plastic sheeting and sandbags from a pickup truck, trying to work out how high he would need to build the barrier to escape a possible storm surge of seawater.
"We get a heap of cyclones every year, but this one has got everyone's attention," Warren said.
Medical personnel try to reassure patients being evacuated from Cairns Hospital to Australian Air Force aircraft at Cairns International Airport as Cyclone Yasi approaches.
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
"We're hoping for the best, but expecting the worst to be honest."
An updated cyclone warning from Queensland disaster officials said:
On Tuesday the military began evacuating nearly 40,000 people from low-lying coastal areas, with the high winds expected to create a storm surge of 5 meters, which could carry water far inland.
At Cairns airport, people queued from dawn to catch the last flights out of the city before the terminal was locked down and sandbagged against potential storm surges.
"We're so relieved to be on," said Paul Davis, from Sydney, as he stood in the line with his partner Sylvia Leveridge and 3 year-old daughter Ella.
Queensland, which accounts for about a fifth of Australia's economy and 90 percent of steel-making coal exports worth about $20 billion a year, has had a cruel summer, with floods sweeping the eastern seaboard in recent months, killing 35 people.
~
Queensland's Residents Say Ahead of Cyclone Yasi:
"Run For Your Life!"
Image: Ian Hitchcock/Getty
Cyclone Yasi Looms More Doom
On Australia
By Theodore White, astrometeorologist.S
It is my estimation that Cyclone Yasi will easily drawf Cyclone Tracy - the most previous destructive storm in Australian history.
That Christmas Day 1974 cyclone hit Darwin, Australia and killed 71 people including 49 in the city and 22 people at sea. Many buildings in Australia's Northern Territory were destroyed and the mass exodus saw its population fall from 48,000 to 10,500.
Coming in the wake of months of heavy rains since November 2010 and the epic floods that followed in December and January, Queensland, Australia faces yet another La Nina-caused disaster from Cyclone Yasi which will reshape its land mass, population and its natural history.
High-risk medical patients are being quickly evacuated at Cairns International Airport by emergency personnel.
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
The historic cyclone is expected to smash into the coast of Cairns, Australia on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 1, and usher in furious winds, torrential rains and even more flooding after Queensland's terrible summer season of massive floods.
Two Townsville, Australian residents rush to fill sandbags at a local beach just ahead of Cyclone Yasi.
Image: Ian Hitchcock/Getty
Cyclone Yasi was upgraded overnight Tuesday with winds of up to the 300 kilometers an hour expected.
Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke said Cyclone Yasi was the largest cyclone he had ever seen in Australian waters on satellite images.
Overnight, Yasi was upgraded to a Category 5 cyclone.
"The area that it's covering is massive and to see it so close to Australia, even 1,000 kilometers away... is a bit taunting," he said.
"It's definitely something I've not seen before."
Supermarket shelves run bare as Australians brace for Cyclone Yasi to strike on February 1-2, 2011.
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
Cyclone Yasi makes cyclone Tracy - the storm that destroyed Darwin in 1974 - pale in comparison in size, strength and ferocity.
"It's a huge contrast to Tracy, "Dutschke said.
"Tracy was a much smaller cyclone, a lot more compact and it just happened to pass directly over a major populated area," he said.
"[Tracy] was a similar intensity to this one, but Yasi is much larger so it probably only has to get within a few hundred kilometers of a populated area and it could cause similar damage.
"It doesn't have to be as choosy as Tracy with its accuracy."
People jam Australia's Cairns International Airport to escape Cyclone Yasi on February 1, 2011.
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
Mr Dutschke said a severe cyclone like this was "always on the cards" during a La Nina event.
And yet Cyclone Yasi is so powerful, it could remain a cyclone even after it had reached the outback.
"The more intense they are when they make landfall, the further they need to go [inland] before they are no longer a cyclone," Mr Dutschke said.
"It's probably going to have to go 500 kilometers inland before it's no longer of cyclone intensity.
"It can effectively be desert that far inland."
Once it reaches landfall, Yasi is expected to follow Cyclone Anthony's lead and head southwest.
Mr Dutschke said the effects of Yasi could be felt as far away as Adelaide.
"It will bring a lot of moisture and there's a reasonable chance for flooding along the Murray [River]," he said.
A resident scurries to get cash at an ATM at a Townsville, Australia bank that taped its windows and placed sand bags inside ahead of the monster cyclone.
Image: Ian Hitchcock/Getty
By comparison Cyclone Larry, which caused $1.5 billion worth of damage to Innisfail and surrounds, was a mid-level category four system when it hit in 2006.
"This of course is not only a system now tracking as more intense than Cyclone Larry, it is significantly larger than Cyclone Larry," Premier Anna Bligh said.
A New Establishment
Generation X
Alive & Kicking
By Tim Daniel
A Noble Generation is one that first ensures our survival and then secures a better future for us all, not just for themselves.
That means it must be fearless and highly skilled. It must be realistic and adaptive.
It must be able and willing to break the old rules and run sequential experiments until new rules emerge from the confusion.
It must be tough enough to overcome the flack it catches for doing this.
Then it must be willing and able to build new, thriving endeavors around those new rules and successfully engage the rest of us in those endeavors.
A Noble Generation must be realistic, creative and social.
Generation X is a perfect match for such a daunting assignment.
Generation X, born between 1961 and 1981, is our “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Generation.
They were mocked and put down as being somehow flawed. They have been overlooked and under-studied by marketers and politicians.
There isn’t a lot of money to be made or elections to be won by understanding and responding to their concerns.
But now a dark and stormy night is upon us.
We need precisely the set of traits that gave this generation a bad name in their youth.
They are destined get us safely through this Night.
They have the right stuff:
Warren Buffet says the only real security lies in your own skills and in the collective skills of organizations you belong to or support in some way.
Generation X gets this hard truth in their bones.
Their life experiences taught them they could trust no one but themselves and the few collective endeavors they have personally experienced as legitimate.
They were the most aborted generation in history. They grew up in the highest percentage of divorced homes to date in history. During their childhoods the percentage of kids left alone after school went from 20% to 47%.
It turned out to be a lifetime theme.
They were left alone to figure it out on their own because their early boomer parents, teachers, coaches, clergy and politicians were incredibly self-absorbed and self-serving.
They sold Generation X all sorts of stuff that turned out to be harmful.
So how did they respond? Xers realized right away that what is being sold all too often benefits the seller at the buyer’s expense.
They realized the rules they were taught benefit the rule-makers more than the rule-followers.
The authority figures who failed them always used lofty words and intricate processes.
So Xers learned to value the results of the idea over the process used to get there, the tangible impact on real people over its ideological purity or pedigree.
They developed incredibly accurate “b.s. meters.” They cultivated an uncanny ability to cut through the crap and look for whatever really works – and will keep working; not just for the individual but for the whole.
So like all great generations - they embody some big paradoxes. Big paradoxes tear less hardy generations apart.
Noble generations wrestle with the paradoxes and come out the other end with stunning, original, creative breakthroughs.
Here are three of the paradoxes that have shaped this remarkable generation:
First, they are very self-reliant and independent, but they are equally motivated to figure out what actually works to create the kind of community that was not there for them when they needed it most.
Here’s what has worked for them so far:
They are pragmatic, quick and sharp-eyed. They cherry-pick what works out of any system and leave the rest.
They are able to step outside themselves enough to learn how the game is really played, rather than ranting that there is a game being played at all, something they rarely saw their boomer elders do.
As a result they are the most street-smart generation we have had in a long time. They are resourceful and adaptive by necessity.
Gen X, New York, 1976
There was no welcome mat set out for them economically, so they became problem-solvers, innovators and entrepreneurs, creating their own careers by their own rules.
Second, as forward looking as they are - they have a living link to our most noble traditions.
They use the best of the past to inform their visions of the future, while not simply trying to re-capture the past.
They are the last generation who know what a book is for and how to read one.
They know you don’t read a great book, a great book reads you.
It’s not how many books you’ve gotten through – it’s how many books have gotten through you and changed you.
They were the last generation who were told – “come home before the street lights come on.”
Which meant two things: 1) Self-guided play, outdoors, without a screen and 2) you can trust the neighbors.
Third, they have been let down by almost every authority they have trusted, yet they still believe in the need for legitimate authority.
Slowly they are realizing the one authority that won’t ever go away, one that can teach them whatever they need to know is – nature.
In nature they see themselves – realistic, unending adaptation to an uncaring but wonderful world, producing new things that are at once beautiful, durable and useful.
They know what it feels like to be uncared for.
Now they look at the future and are worried.
This feels familiar. The future is currently being uncared for by the very same people who didn’t care for them, the people currently in charge.
But this time they are not powerless. Far from it.
They have never just sat passively on the sidelines. They are doers. They take initiative and responsibility. They will do it again.
They will step up, mimic nature and show the rest of us how it’s done.
They are here, already among us, just in time, hiding in plain sight.
Find them. Listen to them. Follow their funny-looking noses.
I promise you – they will lead us to a new golden age.
Alive & Kicking
~
Just what will this new golden age look like?
In light of the destruction left in the wake of the Baby Boomer generation, it is estimated that Generation X will have to do the work of 36 years in just 20 years.
So, how can this be accomplished? Is it possible?
I say that it is and offer one view of how it is to be done.
A new generation is primed to become the new establishment.
What will this age look like?
In mundane astrology there is a concept known as 'perpetual change.' This means that the future is not written in stone, that as human beings we have the capacity to work within the rules of the physics of the system we inhabit.
the configurations of the planets offer two octaves - one good and the other bad.
The planets incline, but they do not compel.
Human beings are born with free will.
We are either rewarded for our good acts on Earth in the world of light, what is called Heaven.
Or we are punished for our evil acts in the mouths of Hades, or what is called Hell.
Thus, by this knowledge, we have the power not only to move the world forward in a positive way, but we are also seen as stewards of the Earth and given free reign to do what we will - but with consequences to our words and our acts during our time as human beings on Earth.
Every generation born has its own era as the establishment.
Now, into the decades of the Twenty-Tens and Twenty-Twenties, it is the children born with the generational planet of Pluto in the Signs of Virgo and Libra who enter the limelight as establishment.
How will it feel and sound?
Generation X
The New Establishment
Is A Renaissance At Hand?By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
As the planets reveal, a new age is beginning. The decade of the Twenty-Tens.
Generation X carries within itself both the traditions of the past and visions of the future.
That future is now here and will shape the next thirty years.
The authors William Strauss and Neil Howe write,
"A Crisis arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice. People support new efforts to wield public authority, whose perceived successes soon justify more of the same. Government governs, community obstacles are removed, and laws and customs that resisted change for decades are swiftly shunted aside. A grim preoccupation with civic peril causes spiritual curiosity to decline. A sense of public urgency contributes to a clampdown on “bad” conduct or “anti-social” lifestyles. People begin feeling shameful about what they earlier did to absolve guilt. Public order tightens, private risk-taking abates, and crime and substance abuse decline. Families strengthen, gender distinctions widen, and child-rearing reaches a smothering degree of protection and structure. The young focus their energy on worldly achievements, leaving values in the hands of the old. Wars are fought with fury and for maximum result. Eventually, the mood transforms into one of exhaustion, relief, and optimism. Buoyed by a new-born faith in the group and in authority, leaders plan, people hope, and a society yearns for good and simple things. Today’s older Americans recognize this as the mood of the Great Depression and World War II, but a similar mood has been present in all the other great gates of our history, from the Civil War and American Revolution back into colonial and English history. Recall America’s conception of the future during the darkest years of its last Crisis: From “Somewhere over the Rainbow” to the glimmering Futurama at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. People felt hope, determination, and a solid consensus about where society should go: toward spiritual simplicity (home and apple pie) and material abundance (bigger, better, and more homes and pies). All this seemed within reach, conditioned on a triumph that demanded unity from all, sacrifices from many." |
Comments by Thom Hartmann
What is perhaps most relevant and impressive about The Fourth Turning is that the first edition was published in 1997, meaning it was written in 1995/6.
Nearly ten years ago, in a book about how every four generations (roughly 80 years) history repeats itself, the authors had the prescience to write:
"The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium.
Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode.
Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire.
Yet this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth.
Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes - and a resolute new consensus about what to do. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake.
Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.
The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and efforts - in other words, a total war.
"America’s post-Crisis answers will be as organically interconnected as today’s pre-Crisis questions seem hopelessly tangled.
By the 2020s, America could become a society that is good, by today’s standards, and also one that works.
Thus might the next Fourth Turning end in apocalypse - or glory. The nation could be ruined, its democracy destroyed, and millions of people scattered or killed.
Or America could enter a new golden age, triumphantly applying shared values to improve the human condition.
The rhythms of history do not reveal the outcome of the coming Crisis; all they suggest is the timing and dimension."The key thesis of the book is that there are four generations that recur every roughly 80 years, and are built into the structure of our culture and civilization.
One of those four generations invariably faces a crisis, which was produced innocently enough by the actions of the preceding three and the stage of time.
Each generation in a particular way is reacting in a predictable and reasonable way to the values and world-view of the one preceding it.
Roughly 80 years ago was the Great Depression and World War II. Roughly 80 years before that was the Civil War.
Roughly 80 years before that, the Revolutionary War. Roughly 80 years before that, Glorious Revolution of 1675-1704.
Roughly 80 years before that, the Armada Crisis of 1569-1594. And roughly 80 years before that the War of the Roses (1459-1487.)
In each 80 year period, there are four turnings, produced by each of the four generations.
The Fourth Turning is the one of greatest danger, maximum impact upon the world.
And it’s due to happen any day now - if it’s not already underway.
Understanding how these "turnings" come about, and the archetypal roles both each generation and individuals within them play is one of the most important keys to understanding what we can collective and individually do to bring about the most positive outcome from each Turning.
Although Strauss and Howe have written more recent books, The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny is, in my opinion, the most important of the bunch, a guidepost during this time of turbulence, providing access to the proverbial keystone that holds together our culture.
It ’s certainly one of the most important and valuable books of this era."
~
The Cardinal Crisis
Climate Disasters Continue:
Ice, Snow & Sub-zero Temps Strike America
While Australia Readies For Historic Cyclone To Hit
Reuters reports
February 1-2, 2011 -- Cairns, Australia - Thousands of residents fled their homes and crammed into shelters in northeastern Australia as a cyclone described as the most powerful in the country's history and with a 650 km (400 mile) wide front barreled toward the coastline on Wednesday.
It is expected to hit the coast on Wednesday evening, packing winds in excess of 280 km (175 miles) per hour. The weather bureau predicted it would be the strongest ever to hit Australia, Sky TV reported.
"We are facing a storm of catastrophic proportions," Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said after Cyclone Yasi was upgraded to a maximum-strength category five storm.
"All aspects of this cyclone are going to be terrifying and potentially very very damaging," Bligh added, noting the greatest threat to life could come from storm surges along the coast with the system due to hit when the tide is high.
Mines, rail lines and coal ports have all shut down, with officials warning the storm could drive inland for hundreds of kilometers, hitting rural and mining areas still struggling to recover after months of devastating floods.
Outside a shuttered night market in the tourist city of Cairns, nervous backpackers tried to flag down cars and reach temporary evacuation centers at a nearby university.
"We are terrified. We have had almost no information and have never seen storms like this," said Marlim Flagar, 20, from Sweden.
At a sprawling shopping center on the outskirts of Cairns, hundreds of people streamed into a makeshift shelter, carrying backpacks, blankets and food.
"We've bought tinned food and cucumbers. That's all we could find this morning," said Natalie Zerbach, on holiday from Germany.
The cyclone is 650 km off the coast of northeastern Australia and is expected to make landfall at 10 pm (7 a.m. EST) on the Queensland coast between Cairns and Innisfail.
Its strength is on a par with Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.
More than 400,000 people live in the cyclone's expected path, which includes the cities of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. The entire stretch is popular with tourists and includes Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
The weather was overcast with winds picking up in Cairns early on Wednesday.
The main streets were largely deserted. Shops were closed and windows taped to stop shards of flying glass.
At a coffee shop on the Cairns waterfront, Scott Warren covered windows with black plastic sheeting and sandbags from a pickup truck, trying to work out how high he would need to build the barrier to escape a possible storm surge of seawater.
"We get a heap of cyclones every year, but this one has got everyone's attention," Warren said.
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
"We're hoping for the best, but expecting the worst to be honest."
An updated cyclone warning from Queensland disaster officials said:
"Severe tropical Cyclone Yasi is a large and very powerful tropical cyclone that poses an extremely serious threat to life and property.
This impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations."
On Tuesday the military began evacuating nearly 40,000 people from low-lying coastal areas, with the high winds expected to create a storm surge of 5 meters, which could carry water far inland.
At Cairns airport, people queued from dawn to catch the last flights out of the city before the terminal was locked down and sandbagged against potential storm surges.
"We're so relieved to be on," said Paul Davis, from Sydney, as he stood in the line with his partner Sylvia Leveridge and 3 year-old daughter Ella.
Queensland, which accounts for about a fifth of Australia's economy and 90 percent of steel-making coal exports worth about $20 billion a year, has had a cruel summer, with floods sweeping the eastern seaboard in recent months, killing 35 people.
~
Queensland's Residents Say Ahead of Cyclone Yasi:
"Run For Your Life!"
Cyclone Yasi Looms More Doom
On Australia
By Theodore White, astrometeorologist.S
It is my estimation that Cyclone Yasi will easily drawf Cyclone Tracy - the most previous destructive storm in Australian history.
That Christmas Day 1974 cyclone hit Darwin, Australia and killed 71 people including 49 in the city and 22 people at sea. Many buildings in Australia's Northern Territory were destroyed and the mass exodus saw its population fall from 48,000 to 10,500.
Coming in the wake of months of heavy rains since November 2010 and the epic floods that followed in December and January, Queensland, Australia faces yet another La Nina-caused disaster from Cyclone Yasi which will reshape its land mass, population and its natural history.
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
The historic cyclone is expected to smash into the coast of Cairns, Australia on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 1, and usher in furious winds, torrential rains and even more flooding after Queensland's terrible summer season of massive floods.
Image: Ian Hitchcock/Getty
Cyclone Yasi was upgraded overnight Tuesday with winds of up to the 300 kilometers an hour expected.
Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke said Cyclone Yasi was the largest cyclone he had ever seen in Australian waters on satellite images.
Overnight, Yasi was upgraded to a Category 5 cyclone.
"The area that it's covering is massive and to see it so close to Australia, even 1,000 kilometers away... is a bit taunting," he said.
"It's definitely something I've not seen before."
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
Cyclone Yasi makes cyclone Tracy - the storm that destroyed Darwin in 1974 - pale in comparison in size, strength and ferocity.
"It's a huge contrast to Tracy, "Dutschke said.
"Tracy was a much smaller cyclone, a lot more compact and it just happened to pass directly over a major populated area," he said.
"[Tracy] was a similar intensity to this one, but Yasi is much larger so it probably only has to get within a few hundred kilometers of a populated area and it could cause similar damage.
"It doesn't have to be as choosy as Tracy with its accuracy."
Image: Simon J. Baker/Getty Images
Mr Dutschke said a severe cyclone like this was "always on the cards" during a La Nina event.
And yet Cyclone Yasi is so powerful, it could remain a cyclone even after it had reached the outback.
"The more intense they are when they make landfall, the further they need to go [inland] before they are no longer a cyclone," Mr Dutschke said.
"It's probably going to have to go 500 kilometers inland before it's no longer of cyclone intensity.
"It can effectively be desert that far inland."
Once it reaches landfall, Yasi is expected to follow Cyclone Anthony's lead and head southwest.
Mr Dutschke said the effects of Yasi could be felt as far away as Adelaide.
"It will bring a lot of moisture and there's a reasonable chance for flooding along the Murray [River]," he said.
Image: Ian Hitchcock/Getty
By comparison Cyclone Larry, which caused $1.5 billion worth of damage to Innisfail and surrounds, was a mid-level category four system when it hit in 2006.
"This of course is not only a system now tracking as more intense than Cyclone Larry, it is significantly larger than Cyclone Larry," Premier Anna Bligh said.
~
La Nina Strikes The United States With
Ice, Snow & Sub-Zero Temps
Image: Spencer Ainsley/Poughkeepsie Journal
Huge Winter Storm Slams Southwest & Midwest, Heads East
By Mary Wisniewski
AP
February 1-2, 2011-- Chicago, Illinois - A colossal winter storm stretching from New Mexico to Maine hit the heartland of the United States with snow, high winds and freezing rain on Tuesday, and experts said the worst was still to come as the storm moved northeast and temperatures were set to plunge.
The storm, expected to affect as much as a third of the U.S. population, created blizzard conditions from the southern Plains to the upper Midwest, paralyzing grain and livestock movement and threatening near-record snowfall.Ice and sleet created dangerous travel conditions and forced the cancellation of thousands of flights.
Image: L.G. Patterson/AP
U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed on the storm and preparations for emergency relief.
The National Weather Service has issued storm watches, warnings and advisories in more than 30 states, and blizzard warnings for eight states: Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
Moderate to heavy snowfalls of 8 to 15 inches will blanket the central and northern Midwest, with some places getting 20 inches more.
In Chicago, local forecasters expect to see accumulations of up to 2 feet.
Image: Stephen Savoia/AP
In the Northeast, already facing a wintry mix of snow and sleet, the storm could dump 12-18 inches of snow on Boston through Wednesday.
After the snow lets up Wednesday, some affected areas will be in a deep freeze until the weekend, with daytime temperatures below freezing and "really dangerous wind chills," said National Weather Service spokesman Pat Slattery.
Wall Street financial markets were operating normally on Tuesday, but officials were making plans for Wednesday, when dangerous icing was possible.
In Washington, the federal government said workers could take unscheduled leave or telecommute on Tuesday because of the treacherous travel conditions.
"The largest area of the country we've seen so far this winter will be hit with moderate to heavy snow," said Mike Palmerino, a forecaster with Telvent DTN weather service.
"Transportation will be treacherous for the next 48 hours."
The southern half of the United States will miss the snow, but parts of it may get hit with freezing rain and ice.
Image: David J. Phillip/AP
Eleven states, from Oklahoma to Rhode Island, have taken the Federal Emergency Management Association up on an offer to deploy personnel as needed, and the agency has positioned items such as meals, blankets and generators for rapid delivery if needed.
WHEAT, CATTLE THREATENED
The storm is expected to wreak havoc on agricultural operations in the Plains states, threatening the dormant winter wheat crop, cattle herds and grain deliveries.
Key farm states of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are being hammered by what forecasters said could be a record combination of frigid conditions and snowfall.
Between 12 and 24 inches of snow are forecast in an arc from southeastern Kansas to southern Michigan and northern Ohio.
Grain elevators across the southern Plains were working with limited shifts and icing on Midwest rivers was expected to slow loading of grain barges headed to U.S. Gulf export markets.
Meat processor Cargill Inc said it will reduce production at two U.S. Midwest pork plants ahead of the storm.
Chicago soybean futures rose more than 1 percent early on Tuesday, hitting their highest level since July 2008 as the frigid winter storm boosted feed demand.
Image: David McDaniel/Daily Oklahoman
Freezing temperatures were proving dangerous for Oklahoma's 5.1 million head of cattle, its Department of Agricultural Food and Forestry said. "Hypothermia and dehydration are the two things we worry about," said spokesman Jack Carson.
FLIGHTS CANCELED
Image: Keith Myers/The Kansas City Star
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport closed for 2 1/2 hours early on Tuesday due to ice, just as thousands of American football fans began arriving in Dallas for the Super Bowl game on Sunday. Ice made main roads in the city almost impassable.
Plows were pulled from the runways at Kansas City International Airport at one point due to blowing snow and low visibility, and near-whiteout conditions prompted the closure of Interstate 70 in central Missouri.
The top U.S. airlines United Continental, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines had canceled more than 5,400 flights by Tuesday afternoon.
FlightAware.com, a website that offers live flight tracking, estimated total cancellations at more than 6,450.
The National Weather Service said the ice and sleet could turn into one of the biggest blizzards in more than 40 years in Chicago, with as much as 2-feet of snow expected.
The snow is expected to be accompanied by high winds of more than 40 miles per hour and plunging temperatures.
Image: M. Spencer Green/AP
Chicago faces a blizzard warning through Wednesday afternoon. Many traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange were planning to stay downtown on Tuesday night.
A CME Group official said the exchange was monitoring the weather forecasts but had not put any contingency plans in place.
In New York City, snow, sleet and freezing rain made for a messy, slippery commute.
Subways and buses were running but with delays and crowding.
Morning commuters make their way over a snow covered Williamsburg bridge, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011 in New York.
Image: Mary Altaffer/AP
Many in the financial industry took the latest severe weather in stride, though. "We have a couple of people working from home who live long distances from the office. Other than that, our office is pretty staffed," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut.
"Companies that really will be impacted are companies in rural areas where employees have to drive a significant distance," Sheldon said.
States of emergency have been declared in Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, conditions were so bad that the Tulsa World newspaper will not publish for the first time in its history, said publisher Robert E. Lorton III.
Many subscribers couldn't find their Tuesday editions under the snow.
The storm is unlikely to hurt first-quarter U.S. economic growth, but is another problem for state and local governments already beset by budget problems, Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi told Reuters Insider.
Many cities and towns have already drained their snow removal budgets for the year after a series of storms in January.
February has started with no respite at all.
~
The Cardinal Crisis
Anomalous Activity On Earth, The Moon & Mars?
By Theodore White, mundane Astrolog.S
For centuries, astrologers and astronomers who spent countless hours gazing at the Moon and Mars have reported odd anomalies on both celestial bodies.
Mars, in mundane astrology, is called the lesser malefic, after the planet Saturn, the greater malefic.
For ages, there have been stories circulating among mundane astrologers astrotheologians of life existing on Mars.
Scoffed at by rationalists who said that only the Earth was inhabited, astrologers continued to report strange lights and features seen both on the Moon and Mars.
As the power of mirrors and telescopes increased century by century and with reports detailed of anomalous activity it has become known that what the astrologers and astronomers reported may, in fact, be true.
We first explore the planet Mars, one of the most mysterious planets in our solar system, and just one world away from the Earth itself.
Some very unusual and shocking features that have been slowly revealed over the decades show that there obviously has been - and still may be - activity of life on the red planet.
Please consider the following anomalies on Mars, some of which have been airbrushed out by NASA and JPL, but which have been captured nonetheless by telescopes, explorer craft and by Google Earth.
Mars is a very strange planet, as the following signs of what obviously is activity on its surface clearly is shown.
Let's take a closer look at the planet Mars
All of my life, I have practiced and believed that science is about exploration and discovery.
It is also one of my principles that ideology has no place in science, for those things that exist must be made known to all humanity.
But, for many years, populations have been treated as if they were merely children, that they would not be able to handle discoveries and findings for fear of upsetting the sensibilities of a few who believe that they are only worthy of knowledge.
That, to me, is not only pretentious, but ideology couched in ignorance.
For the rays of the Sun shine on all people. And the skies are open to all.
This simple fact shows that it is not the few who are deemed worthy, but who are least worthy of respect since it has been they claimed exclusivity based on self-absorbed egos, careerism and fear of truth.
Science is about exploration and discovery. Not ideology.
What will people think about these things, I am asked?
Let them think whatever they want, I answer.
Human beings are born free and have free will. Knowledge is for all people - and not just for the few.
The Mysteries of Mars
[At 3:35 into this next video, look for two giant astrological symbols photographed on the surface of Mars - one is a symbol for the zodiacal sign of Capricorn and the other for the zodiacal sign of Leo]
The Moon
Mundane astrologers do not simply cast horoscopes. We also watch the skies and monitor space and the celestial bodies. It is our job to be well-acquainted with space, the stars, constellations and the planets.
As a boy, I was fascinated with the American space program and very proud that my country was exploring space. The 1970s was a time when space was in for every Generation Xer who loved science. I was one of those kids.
I spent many hours with my telescope scanning the lunar surface from the roof of my house and backyard. I observed what was to be my first anomaly in the year 1974 when what looked like two objects glazed over the lunar surface.
Since that year, I've seen many strange sights: lights flashing, and what seemed to be round crafts passing to and from the Moon.
The Moon itself has many strange anomalous features which have been hidden from the public for decades.
The fear, of course, was again, that we adults would not be able to handle the truth that perhaps we have "visitors" who are on the Moon, and may have been there for some time.
Let's take a look at some of these anomalies that it seems NASA and JPL has been hard at work for many years airbrushing so that we little ones aren't able to see and think for ourselves, shall we?
The Moon's Anomalies
An overview
An assortment of strange Lunar structures
Anomalous Activity on Earth
Here on our planet, we all know of the strange history of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs.) Who hasn't?
Still, in these times, we want to take a peek at what has been going down. We know of the most recent UFO sightings in China, but there have also been many in the United States.
Here are some interesting anomalous activities taking place in southwestern Pennsylvania, where a woman named Alison Krause has been filming strange objects in her region of the country - an area long associated with UFOs.
Many people say they do not "believe" in UFOS and that people are simply imaging things.
However film does not imagine anything. It simply captures what is there.
Alison uses night-vision on her cameras and has been filming multiple objects she calls "orbs" or "blinkies," near her home in Murrysville, Pennsylvania.
These craft, and whomever operates them, seem to be very interested in the dense woods of southwestern Pennsylvania... and they land there often.
Let's visit with Alison, as she "Alien hunts," Part I
"Alien Hunting With Alison," Part II
"Alien Hunting With Alison," Part III
~
The Cardinal Crisis
British Scientists Say Earth Must Prepare For Close Encounters...
...With Aliens?
...With Aliens?
By Alok Jhn
The Guardian
January 10, 2011 -- World governments should prepare a coordinated action plan in case Earth is contacted by aliens, according to British scientists.
They argue that a branch of the UN must be given responsibility for "supra-Earth affairs" and formulate a plan for how to deal with extraterrestrials, should they appear.
The comments are part of an extraterrestrial-themed edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society published January 10, 2011.
In it, scientists examine all aspects of the search for extraterrestrial life, from astronomy and biology to the political and religious fallout some say would result from alien contact.
Huge UFO filmed over China in July 2010
"Will a suitable process based on expert advice from proper and responsible scientists arise at all, or will interests of power and opportunism more probably set the scene?" asked Professor John Zarnecki of the Open University and Dr Martin Dominik of the University of St Andrews in the introductory paper.
"A lack of co-ordination can be avoided by creating an overarching framework in a truly global effort governed by an international politically legitimated body."
The pair argue that the UN has a ready-made mechanism for such a forum in its Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (Copuos).
Member states of Copuos should put "supra-Earth affairs" on their agenda, say the scientists, and establish structures similar to those proposed for dealing with threats from near-Earth objects, such as asteroids, that might be on a collision course with our planet.
According to Simon Conway Morris, a professor of evolutionary palaeo-biology at Cambridge University, anyone planning for alien contact should prepare for the worst.
[Astonishing video footage provided below is claimed to be the "most important images of a UFO ever filmed" and is said to even depict Aliens.
The shots were captured by night guard Yalcin Yalman in Turkey. The then 42-year-old and a number of residents claim the UFOs were spotted over a four-month period between May-September 2008 near the coastal compound in Istanbul.
He said: "I don't know what these things are. We filmed them several times and they are totally unknown to us. I was very excited when I saw them and I want the world to know that UFOs do exist."
Almost two-and-a-half hours of footage was filmed featuring a variety of objects ranging from incredible flying saucer-type 'craft' to clustering orb-like lights hovering in the night sky.
The clips were handed to the Sirius UFO Space Science Research Center in Turkey who interviewed witnesses and painstakingly combed through the footage frame by frame.
International UFO researcher Haktan Akdogan said: "In this amazing video footage, physical forms of UFOs and their metallic structures are clearly noticeable.
"What is more important is that in the close-up of some footage of the objects, entities in them can be distinctly made out."
"After conducting all of the analysis we came to the conclusion that this video footage is 100 percent genuine. "The objects filmed are structured objects and are not the result of misidentification or natural phenomena, aircraft or astronomical objects.
"They are not the results either of any kind of computer animation. Now is it a time for world governments to acknowledge the reality of UFOs."
He added: "The images captured on film are expected to have a tremendous impact throughout the world and they are the most important UFO images ever caught on camera." And it has earned the seal of approval from British experts.
UFO Data Magazine editor Russell Callaghan said: "This video footage from Turkey represents a serious challenge to science. I can honestly say that this footage is truly unique."]
[Astonishing video footage provided below is claimed to be the "most important images of a UFO ever filmed" and is said to even depict Aliens.
The shots were captured by night guard Yalcin Yalman in Turkey. The then 42-year-old and a number of residents claim the UFOs were spotted over a four-month period between May-September 2008 near the coastal compound in Istanbul.
He said: "I don't know what these things are. We filmed them several times and they are totally unknown to us. I was very excited when I saw them and I want the world to know that UFOs do exist."
Almost two-and-a-half hours of footage was filmed featuring a variety of objects ranging from incredible flying saucer-type 'craft' to clustering orb-like lights hovering in the night sky.
The clips were handed to the Sirius UFO Space Science Research Center in Turkey who interviewed witnesses and painstakingly combed through the footage frame by frame.
International UFO researcher Haktan Akdogan said: "In this amazing video footage, physical forms of UFOs and their metallic structures are clearly noticeable.
"What is more important is that in the close-up of some footage of the objects, entities in them can be distinctly made out."
"After conducting all of the analysis we came to the conclusion that this video footage is 100 percent genuine. "The objects filmed are structured objects and are not the result of misidentification or natural phenomena, aircraft or astronomical objects.
"They are not the results either of any kind of computer animation. Now is it a time for world governments to acknowledge the reality of UFOs."
He added: "The images captured on film are expected to have a tremendous impact throughout the world and they are the most important UFO images ever caught on camera." And it has earned the seal of approval from British experts.
UFO Data Magazine editor Russell Callaghan said: "This video footage from Turkey represents a serious challenge to science. I can honestly say that this footage is truly unique."]
Evolution on alien worlds, Morris said, is likely to be Darwinian in nature.
Morris argues that life anywhere else in the universe will therefore probably have important similarities with life on Earth – especially if it comes from Earth-like worlds that have similar biological molecules to ours.
That means ET might resemble us, warts and all, with our tendencies towards violence and exploitation.
"Why should we 'prepare for the worst'?
"Why should we 'prepare for the worst'?
First, if intelligent aliens exist, they will look just like us, and given our far from glorious history, this should give us pause for thought," wrote Morris in the journal's special issue.
Ted Peters, a professor of systematic theology at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in California, considered what might happen to the world's religions in the event of ET making contact.
Conventional wisdom suggests that terrestrial religion would collapse if the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) were confirmed, he wrote.
"Because our religious traditions formulated their key beliefs within an ancient world view now out of date, would shocking new knowledge dislodge our pre-modern dogmas?
Are religious believers Earth-centric, so that contact with ET would de-center and marginalize our sense of self-importance?
Do our traditional religions rank us human beings on top of life's hierarchy, so if we meet ETI who are smarter than us will we lose our superior rank?
If we are created in God's image, as the biblical traditions teach, will we have to share that divine image with our new neighbors?"
His conclusion, however, is that faith in Earth's major religions would survive intact.
"Theologians will not find themselves out of a job. In fact, theologians might relish the new challenges to reformulate classical religious commitments in light of the new and wider vision of God's creation."
"Traditional theologians must then become astro-theologians ... What I forecast is this:
Contact with extraterrestrial intelligence will expand the existing religious vision that all of creation – including the 13.7 billion-year history of the universe replete with all of God's creatures – is the gift of a loving and gracious God," he speculated.
~
Posts
1 comment:
Hey Theo - Fab post, as always. Glad to know you're a fan of Strauss and Howe, I did much of my graduate work with The Fourth Turning on my desk.
I just wanted to mention that the Millennials - aka Pluto in Libra/Pluto in Scorpio are a larger demographic group than the Boomers. But the real group to watch imho are the Pluto in Sadge/Pluto in Cap generation that doesn't yet have a moniker. (Homeland Security Generation? Princesses and GI Joes?)
best regards, Janet C.
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