bigbrother, I appreciate your comments. What I’ve been thinking about lately is will there be a deflationary recession or an inflationary one. It looks like we have both now, deflation in the housing market, and inflation with the cost of food and energy. Boy do we ever need a New Deal! FDR was a genius. The difference between 1932 and now though is we’re up to our eyeballs in debt.

In response to GrandmaJ at 95:

Can Edwards stand the heat? How do we judge that?

Where has Edwards stood in the past on important issues?

During his Senate career he was representing North Carolina and had to defeat Lauch Faircloth (R) by running against the Jesse Helms machine to get the seat. A lot of what he said related to how one gets elected in a Red state and how the people of that state wanted to be represented.

He followed-up on what he promised.

Now he’s going to represent all of us and the issues he’s been discussing are clearly most pressing.

I trust him to do what he’s promising. I think it flows naturally from his background (as he so often relates) and it fits with his career as a trial attorney helping people who’ve been hurt.

None of these candidates is perfect and I agree we can’t know exactly what any of them would do. A lot of this is taking a leap of faith. I trust Edwards.

We recently moved into a BIG house, a very strange thing for us DFH’s to do. We realized after we moved in that we were both thinking the same thing when we chose it: now we have room to help any friends who will need a place to live in the next couple of years.

“Peony, is the configuration followed by another re-ocurring configuration? If so, what characterizes it? Is there hope in the stars?”

Mommybrain, it would take a long essay to do justice to your question. But, briefly, yes, if I understand what you’re asking, planetary configurations do follow one another in sequence and reoccur in cycles that can be anticipated ahead of time. Periods of contraction and crisis (next two or three years) are followed by more expansive ones where we’ll see a culmination of revolutionary and/or emancipatory movements worldwide, cultural creativity, and rapid technological progress (2010-2011).

What often happens too is that configurations having very different or contrasting archetypal characteristics are operative simultaneously which unfold in highly complex ways in the collective psyche and historical events. We’re moving into one of these which is unfolding between now and 2011. This particular one occurred only twice in the 20th century: 1929-1933 and again 1964-1967. The mid ‘60’s to elaborate on this example was accompanied by widespread civil unrest and protest and like now, we were in an unpopular war.

It looks like politically and socially, the country will be even more polarized than the last seven years, with progressives and conservatives – both empowered – with a high degree of tension created by contrasting and opposing archetypal forces. Whether that means a Republican will win the presidency and the Democrats will maintain control of Congress I don’t know. But, given the dynamics of these configurations, a message of unity, the change theme beng a significant exception, doesn’t resonate with the spirit of the time, a time which will be more hard-edged and turbulent. The current divisions between corporate wing and the progressive wing of the Democratic party will likely continue or intensify. But, in the long run (2010 and beyond), the country is moving more toward the progressive end of the political spectrum and the influence of the netroots will grow stronger. Around November, ‘08 and whoever is in the WH in 2009, it also looks like national security will be a major issue again.

I cannot do better than to take Ian’s sage advise to be on good terms with my family and friends, know my neighbors, forge strong ties with my community, and to add my own, in whatever way works for me, amplify the inner light and raise my vibratory rate. Thanks for the question.

Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
eating his Christmas pie.
He stuck in his thumb
and pulled out a plum
and said “What a good boy am I!”

And that’s a very old rhyme.

But I believe they will be busy undermining everything an agency will be doing to make sure the idea the government does not work, actually comes true. That will be their mission.

Grandma, you got that right.