Back to Work Betches!
This New Moon in Scorpio today is going to be a spicy one. We have both the Sun and Moon in Scorpio squaring Mars. However, I am seeing some of this roll out in a fairly unexpectedly welcome way. This is because, although there are a lot of folks treating it like a sporting event and being on a winning team of sorts, riding around with cardboard RIP MAGA tombstones in their trucks and the like, the majority of folks I know are not taking the bait.
How I feel after telling the “Blue Tsunami” libs to get back to work (photo by @thekasual)
Even people that are more liberal than populist or progressive, see the so called “Blue Tsunami” as a call to action and not a time to sit back and wait for the next election. It all may mean that the leaders we elected or other prominent leaders, exercise authority in a new and unexpected way because they have learned from the past and are on high alert. Fingers crossed. Since Mars will also be bumping up against Jupiter, this may mean that whatever comes of this spreads further than expected. Watch this space and don’t get to comfy basking in the post electoral glow. Pro tip…it’s only real if we keep doing the work.
Speaking of which, how are you tapping into the people power in your communities? Pluto in Aquarius is also trine Uranus in Gemini this New moon, which means any new or novel collective action we take either individually towards a collective good or as a group is well stared. Try something new. Now is a good time to tap into something new that deals in some small way with any number of the existential issues we currently are up agai nst. Tapping into organizing with your community or a new community may help your mood in ways that you hadn’t previously anticipated.
I shouldn’t have to remind you that nothing has changed in terms of the federal goon squads unleashed on our streets. In fact, there has been an uptick in kidnappings in my area post election. Again, there is tons of work to do. If you need help and or suggestions on how to get involved, feel free to DM/email me and I will plug you in.
Examples:
Joining a noise protest fiesta outside the hotels that are harboring ICE?DHS/CBP agents
Calling the hotel and finding a comedic way to express your displeasure….Or just telling them they suck. PS - they will lie and say that ICE is not there, but there are many pictures saying otherwise
Bringing food and things to folks who are patrolling/protesting or observing
Canvassing neighborhoods after abductions take place to educate neighbors
Attending local county supervisors meetings that they have with law enforcement and voicing your opposition
Organizing to protect your co-workers at your work site either through your union, or by pressuring your union to do more, or by making moves to use this issue as a way to push for unionization
Visiting a detainee at a facility — there are organizations doing this, I can tap you in
Figuring out what disguises ICE agents are using for their vehicles and clothes. Pro tip — they try and blend in so people in the area will say “I haven’t seen any ICE agents, that’s a rumor”. There is tons of evidence showing them with regular cars, rental cars, taking plates of their cars, wearing regular clothes, disguising themselves as local law enforcement , etc. The saving grace with all this is that it shows they are scared and at the very least, not proud of what they are doing.
In terms of riding the Blue Wave/Tsunami (eyes rolling all the way back in my head as I say this) there are also things to pay attention to. Stacey Abrams (the G. O. A. T. in terms of political strategy) of course, had a brilliant and concrete strategy moving forward, which is a breath of fresh air after listening to all the flailing talking heads:
“We need to start investigations at the federal level but we need to start going to work at the State and local level. We’ve got to remember that when authoritarians loose power at the federal level they don’t just sit down and be sad, they go to the states. We need to remember, Jim Crow never had a single federal law it was all state law…the Dobbs decision didn’t outlaw abortion at the federal level, it allowed the states to take women’s bodily autonomy away.”
This takes care of places we could get bogged down, like focusing all efforts on impeaching a president for the millionth time who abides by no laws, and ignoring the very real worsening conditions in this country. Folks interested in politics can continue to work at the state and local level where real change can happen. Accountability needs to happen on the federal level but it cannot be the focus or a distraction from the real issues.
Because let me tell you, if the Dems don’t do something, we will have a JD Vance, a Ron DeSantis, or a Tucker Carleson for president real soon. Vance is already distancing himself from Trump. Don’t let him fool you. Just like Kamala couldn’t get away from being complicit in the Gaza genocide as Vice President, nor can Vance get away from continuing the genocide AND starting the War in Iran. In fact, he is the one who told us “Don’t worry, it will be a short war.” These people are sinister idiots who think the rest of us have two braincells to rub together and the attention span of a goldfish, because they have successfully eroded our educational institutions so badly over the years. Don’t let anyone tell you that man is smart. Also before you start thinking Tucker Carleson would be a viable alternative, let me remind you that his son worked for JD Vance, and they maintain a strong relationship. DeSantis rolled over multiple times for Trump to do horrible things in the state of Florida, and now we are supposed to trust his judgment for the country? These people are not your friends, they are opportunists, who will continue to provide support for the Epstein Class.
So it appears that Mercury and Venus delivered us a somewhat favorable US midterm election night. The results surprised everyone to some degree. Honestly, I am glad that it was so profound in terms of the numbers in Democrats favor for the simple fact that it means that any shenanigans by the Trump administration will not go over well. I can also say that as someone deep in anti ICE and DHS work, I was happy to see that even in the midst of the current ICE surge on CA, they decided not to go full January 6.
Most of the Proud Boys are absorbed into the ranks of ICE at this point anyway. Even they are finding out that their sign on bonuses may never come and that most people hate them. Well, most people except apparently the people on Orinda’s Next Door chat who my friend said were cheering on the ICE abduction at a gas station in their area that left a minor alone in the car as they disappeared their family member. It’s also safe to say that many of those officers don’t care if they are hated anyway. The amount of them who have been arrested for all kinds of crimes including paying a child to keep quiet after sexual abuse by telling them that he (this officer) would give the child their check from the Trump administration. I can’t make this shit up and it’s shocking how little people know about this.
If you are the kind of person who actually believes that electoral politics has the potential to change things on its own the Mars conjunct Jupiter is a good sign that this election may have longstanding implications. I personally think it is a good litmus test for where we are at as humans, and the message sent was that the elites are on thin ICE (pun intended). However, what we want to avoid is what I am already seeing.
I went to an election watch party that was populated by a bunch of liberals who were in denial with regard to our political structure, one even said Hakim Jeffries was “so cute” and I threw up in my mouth a little bit. It gave me some insight into where we are at when someone said “That is such great news” right after. So many people will be lulled into a false sense of complacency with these results when the only reason we have them in the first place is because of the street level organizing of community members, not politicians.
Nurses, chefs, and indigenous groups mobilized to protect their communities in Minnesota while the government murdered, kidnapped, and made them enemies of the State. We are kidding ourselves if we think that these politicians who are already making concessions to the machine, are going to come in and be the activists and organizers we need. What we can be happy about though, is that they know we are the reason they were elected even if you did not vote, and they owe it to us to listen to our demands. They need to make sure the Democratic party falls in line with the people and not the corporations, who have been given personhood by the Obama administration, emboldened by the Trump administration, and been wreaking havoc ever since.
I have not skipped a beat with my organizing, no days off! Just so you understand the urgency, this is probably one of the most dangerous times before the new Senate is seated. The Trump administration will try to ram their agenda through with the help of the current Democratic establishment. For example, they are trying to ram through a Bipartisan American Affordability & Jobs Act (BAAJA) which makes all the legislation that holds up environmental regulations null and void, and also includes a massive hyper scaling of data centers including lowering regulation of both data centers and ICE detention facilities. I personally think these data centers are dual use in that if they can’t get the backing for them, they will just flip them into detention centers. I also really want to be wrong about this.
The bill is bipartisan and would also drop regulations on renewable energy which means that the renewable industry is more likely to become environmentally unfriendly while pretending to the pubic that it is good for the environment. All the fossil fuel companies are also doing green energy projects now and they couldn’t care less if they are ACTUALLY green. Without regulation and oversight they will be green in name only. All we have to do is look at the roll out of the carbon capture programs previously and how it just resulted in companies bribing government agencies by trading in their carbon allotments while making very little environmental gains.
In fact, a lawyer for Exxon even said this BAAJA bill is one of the biggest threats to American Democracy he has ever seen because it completely transfers power from the people to the corporations.
So in the future, if people oppose the building of these facilities, they will have no recourse which opens the door for military and paramilitary groups to suppress any group that dares to express disdain for the actions of the state.
I’m not saying this to scare you, what I am saying though is that This “hopium” should last about five minutes. Then the real work continues. We are in the most dangerous time now, as this administration tries to force everything through just as we are having this ICE surge in California, that the Trump administration calls “Keep California Safe”.
The most epic thing these senators could do would be to fix as much shit as they can then vote to abolish the Senate and the Electoral College entirely. Speaking of the Electoral College, there is a bright spot in all this that might actually have some teeth. This Substack User @grammamarta had a good synthesis of this confusing bright spot. Full disclosure, I have not vetted them at all, but I am into supporting normal human beings with opinions and not rich assholes who buy their degrees with inherited wealth, so on occasion I quote randos who do a good job synthesizing information, as I too am one of those randos. Hopefully she isn’t AI. And I digress, here’s the synopsis:
“HOLY SMOKES! Democrats now control enough states to effectively abolish the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Republicans did NOT have this on their bingo cards...
Under the Constitution, states control their electoral votes and are allowed to decide how they are allocated during presidential elections. Currently, almost every state gives its votes to whoever wins the state.
In practice, the current system means that a candidate can win the national popular vote, but lose the election because small states like Wyoming exert undue influence on the outcome.”
This is a hold over from post Civil War era when the country was more interested in appeasing the wealthy landowners and “bringing them into the fold” than redistributing the wealth they earned on the backs of those they enslaved, torturing, maimed, and raped as a way to make more slaves to maximize their profits.
“That state [Wyoming] has 3 electoral votes with a population of just 577,000 people. California has 54 electoral votes and a population of 39.5 million people. So a vote in Wyoming is essentially 3.8 times as valuable as one in California.
Since 1992, Democrats have won the popular vote seven out of nine times.
Under the NPV, states that join agree to give their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote, not just their own state. So a state could go red on the map, but if the Democrat wins the national vote, they still get that state’s votes. And vice versa of course.
The crucial mechanism is that the compact doesn’t trigger until the member states have a combined power of at least 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win the White House. So far, 18 states plus DC have joined, totaling 222 electoral votes. We only need 48 more.”
It also seems that some of these more complex electoral concepts are being understood by people more broadly and we have the Mercury Cazimi to thank for that. Mercury is also retrograde, as is Venus, so we are revisiting our past errors of sorts on a collective level and so far it seems we may have learned our lesson in some sense, at least for now.
Personally, look out for relationships from your past coming back into view and communication being a little wonky. I kind of feel like since the world in general right now is super wonky, the Mercury retrograde may have helped our electoral situation. We’ll see what happens in the coming days though.
Make a note of November 13 because that is the date that Mercury and Venus will both station direct. Crossing my fingers for good things and clarity for everyone individually and on a collective level but also concerned that things might get weird once we come out of our post election bliss.
Ok thats it! Star rant over!
Remember
