Obama the White Man

I recently watched a film, ‘Pierrepoint’, about Britain’s last public executioner. He hanged hundreds of people, including 202 Germans after the various war trials. After his career ended in 1956, he commented that it left a bitter aftertaste, saying that, ”I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...”

Revenge is something that as a self-aware human one needs to forego. It is based on hatred and a desire to destroy. It is essentially life-denying rather than life-promoting. This doesn’t mean that sometimes certain people don’t need to be ‘taken out’ (one of a series of US military euphemisms that have entered our vocab in recent years – collateral damage; extraordinary rendition etc). But motive is all.

The desire for revenge is a natural human emotion, and when a nation is feeling it strongly, as the US has felt about bin Laden for many years, you cannot simply stand in its way. The job of the leader is to introduce some dignity into the process, to treat the enemy as human, and not to let people rationalise what is happening, saying ‘justice’ when they mean ‘revenge’.

This is not what President Obama is doing. His words on hearing the news of bin Laden’s death were “We got him,” a deliberate quoting of George Bush at his cowboy worst on hearing the news of Saddam’s capture. With Bush, it was merely a capture; it is far more distasteful to say it of a death. Obama has shown only joy at the death of his fellow human, and being a leader who is adept at using symbolism, has made a beeline for Ground Zero.

After he had hanged someone, Pierrepoint treated the body with respect and care as he prepared it for the undertakers. His point was that whatever they had done to deserve being killed, they had paid for it and were now innocent.

From a US point of view, bin Laden was an enemy who needed to be killed. The trouble with America is that they don’t have much conception of treating your enemy with honour. They are so convinced of their own rightness, of American 'exceptionalism', that anyone who opposes them is simply a mindless terrorist to whom the normal rules of war do not apply, they are ‘illegal combatants’.

It is well known that during the First World War, there would be ceasefire on Christmas Day and you would even get enemy forces coming out of their trenches and playing football with each other. Wars aren't what you'd want, but it is a case of each soldier fighting for his or her own country, and you can’t begrudge them that. It is what most of us would do if it came to it, however pacifist we might think we are. And honour among soldiers involves recognising that your enemy is in the same position as you are in. He is not ‘bad’, not the demon your government would have you believe. You would still kill him without blinking if necessary, but because you have to, because your country’s security is at stake, not because you hate him.

And this applies to bin Laden. 9/11 was a terrible thing to do. But so was invading Iraq without proper forethought, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths (a hundred-fold more than 9/11), all for the purpose of controlling a region because it supplies your oil. Meanwhile allowing your people to wrongly think Iraq had been involved in perpetrating 9/11. This is the nature of war. People and nations do terrible things. And yes, if you can you will probably kill the leaders of the other side.

And sometimes you can take the moral high ground, particularly when your enemy is not fighting for its own security, but in order to expand its sphere of influence and control.

But this was not the case with bin Laden. America cannot take the moral high ground, not after what it has done, and not when you consider that bin Laden’s desire was to fight American control in the Middle East, and that he was fighting an enemy that vastly outnumbered him.

There are plenty of Americans who can see this. Famously, or notoriously, Obama’s erstwhile mentor Rev Wright, who said about 9/11 that, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” Obama would not have any of this, and disowned him.

I think events around the death of bin Laden are very revealing about Obama. His Mars at 22 Virgo conjoins the US Neptune at 22 Virgo and squares the US Mars at 21 Gemini. Mars-Neptune is the cowboy aspect in the US chart, the glamorisation of violence, the delusion of America’s undiluted rightness.“We got him,” says Obama after the gruesome death of his enemy codenamed ‘Geronimo’, another glamorisation.

Like bin Laden, Geronimo was a warrior fighting the expansion of US control over his people. And like bin Laden, he did some terrible things, evaded capture for many years and pulled off some stunning feats. So you can see the connection, and Obama needs to own up to it. (Obama’s Mars squares the Sun of Geronimo the Gemini and opposes the Sun of bin Laden!)

Obama needs on the one hand to own up to the grudging respect it shows for his enemy, and at the same time the racism it shows towards the Native Americans, the way they were treated like vermin to be removed from land the Americans wanted.

An Afro-American aware of his heritage would never have used the term Geronimo. Obama is half Kenyan and half white American. He does not have in his black background the centuries of racism and brutality that white Americans have inflicted on other races. If he does have it, it's in his mother's white background. He thinks like the white American who is able to believe that the US is essentially a good and religious nation with respect for human rights, that is promoting freedom around the world. He has had relatively little experience of being at the sharp end of America’s ability to trample over anyone and anything that stands in its way.

Click to Enlarge

We have had a lot of experience of the Obama who has Sun in Leo square Neptune. What we haven’t seen so much is the Moon in Gemini square to both Pluto and Chiron. The Moon isn’t so visible anyway, and in Obama’s case it is also hidden away at the bottom of the chart, and hidden by secretive Pluto. The Moon becomes more visible when you are familiar with, and at ease in a situation. I have often wondered about his Moon. Anyone who casts a light as bright as Obama once did has got to have a corresponding shadow lurking somewhere, and I always felt his Moon would have something to do with it.

Gemini is the twins, it is light and dark, it is Jekyll and Hyde, or at least can be. If you are not reflective, then it probably will be. And when it comes to America’s shadow, the way America treats others, Obama has repeatedly shown himself to be blind.

Obama’s Moon is at 3 Gemini, and Neptune has recently entered Pisces, the sign that squares Gemini. With the natal square to both Pluto and Chiron, this Moon can express itself in a really bad way if someone is not conscious. I think Obama’s unalloyed joy and cowboy attitude at the death of bin Laden, and his collusion with the US at its mob worst, is a sign of this Moon relaxing and becoming activated as Neptune moves in to square it. It is populist, and will likely win him the next election; but anyone who is hoping for more is likely to be disappointed. The fine words though, as always, will be there.

Click to Enlarge

In Obama's Progressed Chart, over the next year we will see Prog Mars opposite Prog Asc, and Prog Moon moving into Aries. So Obama the warrior is likely to become more prominent, and the Nobel committee will be wondering what they must have been thinking in 2009.