Dear President-elect Obama,
I am very sorry that I incorrectly predicted that you wouldn’t win yesterday’s Presidential Election. While it’s true that you as a person are going through a wonderfully fortunate period of life, which lasts for a few more months, I always felt that it was the wrong time for a progressive politician to become the President of the United States.
To be more specific, you’re becoming president during a very tricky phase of the twenty-year Jupiter-Saturn cycle, which started in the year 2000. It’s the culmination of the Bush years, which will reach its peak in 2010 and 2011. So in many respects the Bush years will continue, with you as president. You might try to have your great new beginning, but it’s not going to work – the time for new beginnings is 2013 and afterwards.
Put another way, the tide is against liberal, progressive ideas, even though you’ve won the presidency. This might not be immediately apparent, but with Pluto entering Capricorn at the end of the month, we’re entering a conservative era. And if you want to have any chance of going down in history as a great president, you must recognise this.
You won’t make it as a progressive, you have to move to the right. Your left-of-centre associates might been useful on your path to the White House, but they’re now surplus to requirement. Your role models should be Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon, presidents who like you were both elected in ‘eight’ years – 1828 and 1968. You’ve got to be conservative and tough, both at home and abroad. And you probably need to be weary of Congress, even though it’s controlled by your party – you’ll have to control its excesses, and that’s going to be difficult.
Most importantly, you need to recognise that your first term in office is going to be disappointing and perhaps disastrous. From the end of March onwards things will move from bad to worse, and by 2012 you’re going to be one of the most unpopular men in America. In 2010 and 2011 the global economy will go down the pan, and in terms of foreign policy there’ll be significant challenges, that threaten to erode American power in a big way.
The changing of your luck in March 2009 is a big deal. An extremely difficult period starts, which goes on until February 2010. I don’t think there’ll be much you can do, and it’s a time when you need to play safe and avoid risks. Keep your public engagements to a minimum, and avoid dangerous sports.
I would also suggest that from March 2009 through to February 2010 you hire a team of reputable Hindu priests, to do constant yagyas for you. Yagyas are a type of prayer, often use to mitigate a problematic configuration in a horoscope. Obviously you’ve got to be subtle about it, because it might upset your Christian supporters, but I think it’s worth doing.
The problem is connected with the planet Mars. From March 2009 through to February 2010 it becomes a significant factor, and as well as having the yagyas done, you should fast on Tuesdays, because Tuesday is Mars’ special day. If fasting is too much for you, then you should at least refrain from eating meat, and of course you shouldn’t smoke.
From February 2010 the danger does diminish, and you move into a new phase. It still won’t be much fun, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you start giving serious consideration to giving up politics – perhaps you’ll decide it’s too much aggravation, and you won’t want to run for a second term.
Yet in July 2012, just as everyone has written you off, your luck will return, and there’s a real chance that you can win the November 2012 election. But whether or not you win, depends on where you have positioned yourself on the political spectrum. If you’ve successfully abandoned your old allegiances, and you’re on the right of your party, pushing a fairly conservative agenda, then you can win. I know, you’ll have to re-invent yourself, but if you want to go down in the history books as a great president I don’t think you’ll have an option. You can then achieve the kind of greatness that Richard Nixon might have achieved if it hadn’t been for the Watergate Scandal.
That’s probably not a scenario you want to go for. And you might want to keep plugging away, with your progressive agenda. In which case there’s a big problem.
You see, McCain was supposed to win in 2008. The Republicans were supposed to destroy themselves from 2008 to 2012. And the 2012 election was supposed to be the big election – the worst of the economic crisis would be over, and someone like you could have stepped in as the great saviour, in the the FDR mode. But by winning in 2008 rather than 2012 – through the sheer power of your favourably configured horoscope – you’ve ironically wrecked your chances of being the new FDR. Or even the new Bill Clinton. Indeed the platform you’ve just been elected on is not only unworkable, but is also out of the synch with the times.
But 2012 could still be the big election. This year you’ve humiliated the Republicans but you haven’t destroyed them. And unless you move to the right, it’s going to be a crushing Republican victory. And your successor will share your charisma, and they’ll define an era of radical conservatism, that could hold sway over America for a decade or more.
Still, congratulations on your victory, and enjoy the honeymoon period – it should last until the end of March. After that, get the Hindu priests on board, and start dumping your progressive policies. It’s a time for concrete realism rather than vague hope.
All the best,
archiedunlop
PS The Jupiter-Saturn opposition in 2010 and 2011 won’t only have a bad effect on America. I believe it will also have a devastating impact on Iran, and I believe that in the next few years the Islamic Regime in Iran could lose power, to be replaced by a relatively pro-Western, secular government. However bad things get for you, this could be your foreign policy trump, that could help win you the 2012 election.
