From a friend's email on 5/27/2004:
from:
http://www.gunsanddope.com/ "A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
--George Washington
My reply: Hoo-hah! Reminds me of something: this evening, Rich (my literary collaborator) and I were talking about astrology, and I mentioned the brouhaha over which chart is the "proper" natal chart of the USA that has been going on forever among members of the AFA. As I told Rich, look at the natal chart of a country to see whether it fits that country -- if it does, that's the one, and if it doesn't, it isn't. I've seen something like 10 such charts now, all different, by 10 different New Age astrologers claiming that theirs is the US chart, the one which supposedly fits "all the data." None of them use the data traditionally used for the US natal chart, which is July 4, 1776, @ 2:14:55 a.m., Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (longitude 75° 09' W, latitude 39° 57' N), time zone -5 h (EST). In each case, the astrologer pushing for acceptance of that chart as the official US chart cites as his or her reasons for doing so that progressions for such-and-such a date and time, for example 9-11, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and other dates of significance in our history show that the Moon's North Node conjoined such-and-such or some other damned thing.
None of those so-called US natal charts are even close to representing the real character and history of this country. The chart done from traditional data (for the moment when John Hancock affixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence, which is when we were officially separated from our mother country, England) does represent this country's character, both good and bad, and its history subsequent to its founding. Moreover, as Rich and I discovered upon progressing that chart a day at a time for each year after that date and time, all the progressions really fit what was going on in those years. For example, in the progressed chart for 1864, the Union and the Confederacy were both reeling from what the Civil War had done to them, but the South was reeling far more than the North, and fell/passed out/died right then, leaving the North as the last one standing. You can see it in that progressed chart, and you can see it in what actually happened at the time. Both parties had been bled white by that war, but the North still had some blood in its veins when the South ran dry and had to give up.
For every year for which we did a progression, the events of that year were matched by the progressed chart. I dunno where those New Agers are getting their historical data, but they can't date anything worth a pile of beans, because, while their progressions are in some cases a match, or partly matching, most of the time progressions made from their "official US charts" don't match what was going on in the indicated year either in this country or in its relations with other nations. History is a complex thing, and you have to look over a long succession of progressions of a given chart to see whether, overall, they match what actually happened during the indicated years. The New Age astrologers don't seem to have done their historical homework when it comes to our country and their versions of its natal chart. (Why am I not surprised? They're all Peeps Liberals -- so saccharine, sweet, and light they'd give the Clintons and Ted Kennedy diabetes!)
If anyone would like me to give a detailed analysis of that traditional chart and progressions for given years in our country's history, just let me know -- leave the request in the form of a comment/ response to this entry here on LiveJournal.