Wars of America — Part II

In part I we looked at the three wars that divide American history into convenient and appropriate sections: The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II, and found that these three wars came at intervals of about 84 years, one Uranus cycle. In each case, at some point Uranus was opposite the Ascendant, and thus conjunct the Descendant, of the United States chart. Also during the war, Neptune was either conjunct or opposite the Midheaven of the United States. This may or may not be because Neptune has almost exactly double the period of Uranus and so when Uranus moves around the zodiac once Neptune moves half-way around the zodiac.

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King William’s War

The next thing to do is look at the periods 84 and 168 years before the Revolutionary War, when Uranus was also conjunct the Descendant of the United States. The first time was 1693, when the United States was still a colony of England. At this time there was an ongoing conflict between England and France, who at the time controlled Canada. Part of this conflict took place in North America, and the American colonists were involved on, of course, the side of Britain. What was taking place at the time was the first of three wars which are referred to in high school history books as the French and Indian Wars. This first one was called, in America, King William’s War, for the current king of England, who was imported from the Netherlands, along with his wife, because the British did not want a Catholic king, who had been King James II, who was replaced in the Glorious Revolution. This war, as all the French and Indian wars, was essentially between the French and the English. The war started in 1689 and ended by treaty in 1697, only to be followed in another five years by another war.

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King William’s War

 

In the first chart for July 9, 1693 Uranus has just come to the Descendant of the United States. It also makes a sesquiqadrate to Pluto, again accentuating the Pluto semisquare Ascendant in the natal chart, which is involved in US wars. The second chart for this particular war is for June 2, 1697 where Neptune comes to the IC of the United States. Again we see the pattern that we saw in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II repeated. But this war is smaller even than the Revolutionary War.

 

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Starving Time

 

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After the Starving Time

Let’s look 84 years further back. There was only one colony on what would become the United States, at Jamestown. An earlier colony in the Carolinas had disappeared. This colony at Jamestown had been founded on May 14, 1607 but for food they either traded with the Indians or relied on shipments from England. The Winter of 1609-10 was extremely hard, and almost 90% of the colonists died. Domestic animals were killed for food, and some cannibalism took place, as a recent New York Times story tells a about an current archaeological discovery. A fleet from England did finally come, but it had only more colonists and not food. In the summer of 1610 (July 7) as they sailed away another ship with supplies came and they returned to the colony, which then was firmly established. This was the first crisis of America. If we look at chart for November 24, 1609, that winter of the Starving Time, as it has come to be called, we see that Uranus is on the Descendant of the United States, as it was in the previous four charts. However, looking at the next chart for November 24, 1614, when Neptune first came to the Midheaven, we see that it is a full five year after the crisis, and so this does not seem to fit the pattern. Of course, in this example the crisis only lasted a few months, not nearly as long as the others did.

 

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Eleven Years in the Future

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A Future War?

What we have seen is five crises, starting at the birth of the colony at Jamestown and occurring every 84 years with increasing death, violence, and geographical spread happening to the United States. The obvious question is when will this patten happen next. As it tuns out, the next time Uranus comes to the Descendant of the United States is in less than 15 years, as we can see by this last chart, for July 17, 2028. One would expect another war, even bigger than World War II. Several possibilities: Aliens from outer space will invade and the nations of the world will band together to fight them. A bit fanciful, then perhaps it will be an asteroid that will be expected to hit the earth and the nations of the world will band together to fight it. Or perhaps it will be a world wide fight between th 1% and the 99% since inequality has become so much worse than it is now. Or perhaps the final collapse of the ecosystems of the world. But since I’m an optimist (Jupiter conjunct Sun) my best guess is that the nations of the world will finally decide that the global crises are so ominous that they need to band together in a World War II-scale attempt to fight for the survival of the planet. Of course it should have been done in the 1980s. There is much more that needs to be said about this period, one of the most important of at least the 21st Century, but we need to have more background. If this is the type of crises we will face in another dozen years, it suggests that many things will happen between now and then to make the countries of the world think that that type of world wide response is finally necessary. We will look for signs of that in future entries.

 

 

Prohibition and its Discontents

The Twenties in the United States was very active, both in the world and astrologically. There were three significant transits to the chart of the United States during this period, but there is one I want to draw your attention to, and that is the transit of Neptune opposite the Moon of the United States. One theme I have mentioned for Moon Neptune is denial, illusion, and that was certainly the case in the speculative binge on the stock market that was taking place in the Twenties. We know how that turned out. While we have drawn attention to meanings of Neptune in another entries there is another one I want to draw your attention to this time: drugs. In general, Neptune is said to rules dugs. Also oil, but that is certainly a drug, as many people including George W. Bush have pointed out. But Neptune rules drugs in general, a change of consciousness. But there are several groups of drugs, and I have the different types ruled by the three outer planets. Uranus rules stimulants, such as caffeine, cocaine, amphetamine, nicotine, in other words uppers. Neptune rules depressants, such as alcohol, opiates, barbiturates, in other words downers. And Pluto rules psychedelics, such as cannabis, LSD, ecstasy.

 

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Prohibition

 

Neptune opposite the Moon of the United States is a good symbol for the attitudes toward alcohol that were happening in this country. On one hand this was a national extension of the earlier prohibition laws that had been passed at a state level. On the other hand there was a widespread flouting of the law by people from poor to rich and increased drinking of harder liquor, since if you’re going to smuggle contraband you might as well smuggle something concentrated.

 

In 1846 Maine became the first state in the nation to pass a law outlawing the sale of any beverages containing alcohol. The main proponent of this law was the mayor of Portland, Neal Dow. Five years later this law was strengthened. A few years after that the law had spread to many more states. This was the beginning of Prohibition of alcohol, thought it took another 70 years to make it the law of the land.  Many groups worked to bring prohibition to the national level.

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First Prohibition

If we look at a chart of transits to the United States in 1846 we see that Neptune, the planet of drugs, is squarely upon the Moon. The fact that Saturn is also there certainly helps matter, since Saturn represents limits and constriction, which is certainly well in keeping with the Prohibitionist mindset. Often the discovery of a planet – especially Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto – is linked to events that were happening in the world at that time. This was certainly true of Neptune, which was discovered in 1846 just as prohibition was become the law of at least one state.

 

Drinking was indeed excessive in antebellum United States, as compared to the standard of today. Farmers on the frontier found it was easier to transport corn to the East coast as whiskey than as ears of corn. Hard apple cider was also very popular. While I don’t have the exact figures at hand, the level of drinking was several times higher per person than it is now. And young people were part of the crowd that was drinking. One can well see why prohibition societies grew up.

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End of Prohibition Starts

When I saw that Neptune was coming to a conjunction with the US Moon once again, the first time since 1846, the year the planet was discovered, I realized that something would happen in regards to prohibition. Since I could see the trends I did not think that prohibition would make a comeback.

It all started with the legalization of marijuana in the states of Colorado and Washington, after almost happening in California (two years previously) and in Oregon that year of 2012. Then the South American country of Uruguay legalized also. But even more impressive, all kinds of officials are coming out saying that the drug war, which got started with the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, is badly conceived and counterproductive. Majorities of the American public agree that marijuana should be legalized and that it will be in a few years.

This is hardly a new idea; one could mention the book Licit and Illicit Drugs by Edward M. Beecher published by that extremely radical organization Consumers Union back in 1972 or the first book by Andrew Weil The Natural Mind, also published in 1972. Other books with the same ideas, such as Marijuana Reconsidered by Lester Grinspoon (1971), also come out in this period, as many authors were reacting to the drug use of the Sixties.

We are also seeing a renaissance of interest in psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, psilocybin, MMDA (ecstasy) for the use in psychotherapy, end-of-life, increased spirituality, among other uses. Many of these “new” findings recapitulate the findings of fifty years earlier, before the inevitable backlash. To someone who has followed the tangled course of the War on Drugs this change of attitude is nothing short of amazing.

 

A Small Circle of Friends: Kitty Genovese

Another fiftieth anniversary took place two months ago, and a couple of books were published in commemoration of the event. This was the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York on March 13, 1964. This type of event is, unfortunately, very common in the United States and elsewhere, but this event was special. This event captured the interest of the country (if not the world) and is still mentioned in textbooks. While the brutal crime took place supposedly many people were aware of it and did nothing, so that it is held up as an example of people not wanting to get involved. It was the inspiration of a song by Phil Ochs, a contemporary of Bob Dylan (one rumor has it that Dylan’s song “Positively 4th Street” is about Ochs), his most popular, called “Outside a Small Circle of Friends”. The song would have been more popular except for an ironic anti-drug lyric that offended parents too dull to appreciate the support for the supposed a-motivational syndrome of marijuana in the song.

According to WikiPedia, she arrived back at her apartment from work at about 3:15 the morning of that day, parked and walked to her apartment. I’ve done these charts for 3:20 AM and since they are timed charts we can use the position of the Moon. I did not really except anything to show up, and so again I was surprised. While many girls and women are raped and murdered in the United States each year in an all too common act, this one was special in that in captured, and still captures, the attention of the country.

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Let’s look at this first chart, transits for the event to the United States chart. We see the loose Uranus-Pluto conjunction, and since Uranus is behind Pluto, we know that the conjunction is forming. This is the signature of the Sixties, but it has some time to go before it is exact. Notice also that it is a New Moon – about one day before exact, with a conjunction of Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Mars. In fact, Mercury is almost exactly on he Sun. Mars is half way between Sun and Moon. Sun Moon midpoint can be read as man and woman, and with Mars there it could indicate violence between a man and a woman. But of course this midpoint configuration happens often, so while it indicates the nature of the event, it does not say this is special, and of course it could indicate other things as well.

There is an exact conjunction between Mercury and the Sun, within one minute, and the conjunction will be exact by 4 am. This suggests that this is the day (Sun) that communication (Mercury) is important, that something will be communicated. And in fact, the murder of Kitty Genovese was communicated for the next fifty years.

Next we have the Sun opposite Neptune of the United States. There is something Neptunian about this event. Things are unclear, confused. Not only is this true of the event, but even to this time certain important facts are little know, for example, the fact that she was raped as well as murdered is not part of the standard narrative, and the fact that she lived with her female lover is mostly unknown.

And then there is Pluto. It squares the Ascendant and sesquiquadrates the natal Pluto of the United States, both aspects fairly tight. This accentuates the Pluto-Ascendant semisquare that is so fundamental to the character of the United States. My reading of this is that the event was a reminder of the violent nature of the United States as revealed by this natal semisquare, as talked about in the entry about the Gulf of Tonkin, which took place a few months after the Kitty Genovese murder.

Another tight aspect is the trine between Mars and Neptune. Mars Neptune combinations can be problematic and difficult to handle; the square in the chart of United States is one example, but a trine is somewhat different. The keyword I give for hard aspects is “overt”, they force themselves on you, you can not ignore them. Soft aspects are “covert” in that you may not notice their effect. Most people think soft aspect are easier, but more important is the planets involved, and these two together are not easy. With a trine the “unresolved energy” is not obvious but it is still happening.

 

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Since this is a timed chart, the position of the Moon is meaningful. It is opposite Pluto, but to see this more clearly look at the fourth harmonic chart. In this we can see that the Moon-Pluto conjunction (in the fourth harmonic) is almost exact, and almost exactly conjunct the United States Ascendant and opposite the United States Pluto. This was an event that really effected the United States. And that Moon-Pluto tight aspect can be read as brutality (Pluto) to women (Moon).

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Looking further at the fourth harmonic chart, we see things that were not evident in the firs harmonic chart. Neptune is at the midpoint, and making aspects with, Saturn and Venus. One simple minded way of thinking about this combination is uncertainly about difficulty with woman. Ebertin says about this midpoint “wrong ideas about love” which is certainly an understatement. There are tight hard aspects between transiting Saturn and Neptune with the natal Mars. This again brings out the unclear and limiting expression of energy – violence – in this event.

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Looking at the event chart, we see that transiting Neptune was hight in the sky close to the local Midheaven at the time of the event and would pass over the Midheaven in 11 minutes. This further adds to the confusion – the neighbors did not know whether to call the police – and uncertainty surrounding the event. Neptune was very strong in the murder of Kitty Genovese.

 

The Wars of America – Part I

In general, American history is divided into four periods: before the Revolutionary War, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, from the Civil War to World War II, and after World War II. This division is not just arbitrary. Obviously there was a big change to the country after it declared itself independent from Great Britain and successfully fought a war to achieve that end. The Civil War allowed former slaves to “vote” and the many industries who had made a profit during the war, and specifically the railroads, were able after the war to continue to get very big and dominate the country – the appropriately named (First) Gilded Age was the result. And after the Second World War the defense industries that were empowered during the War were able to continue their growth with the convenient rise of the Cold War. Many technologies that were developed for the war were put to peace-time use which resulted in a more technological-oriented society.

So below we will look at the astrological patterns that existed during all three of these boundary events, the three wars that defined America. One can think of the first period as one of youth, the second period as one of adulthood, and the third period, the one we are in now, as the period of maturity.

The official dates for the Revolutionary War are from the Battle of Lexington and Concord (April 19,1775) to the surrender at Yorktown (October 19, 1781). The dates for the American Civil War are from the firing on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861) to the surrender at Appomattox court house (April 9, 1965). The dates for American participation in World War II – the Americans were definitely late to the party – is measured from the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) to the surrender of Japan (Germany had surrendered 4 months earlier) on September 2, 1945. One notices that the wars got larger – more participants and over a larger area — and more bloody over time.

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This first image for June 23, 1777 is not, as far as I know, a stand out date in the Revolutionary War. Notice that all three outer planets are near their birth locations. This is not surprising, considering that this chart is less than a year after birth. What the chart does show is that Uranus is passing over the Descendant and on this date is exactly opposite the Ascendant for the first time since birth. Again, not surprising since the natal position of Uranus is close to the Descendant. Whereas the Ascendant relates to the personal projection – a good synonym is persona – the Descendant is the opposite point, and indicates how we relate to the outside world. In personal astrology, this often is used to refer to the partner or people one draws to oneself or open enemies. In either case, it refer to energy coming to us from outside, which can easily be seen as a war which also comes to us. In the second chart, for November 23, 1778 we see that Neptune has come to the Midheaven of the United States. The Midheaven refers to the way the country relates to the outside world, one can see it as a public persona as opposed to the private persona of the Ascendant. I am at a loss for an interpretation of Neptune on the Midheaven that would relate to a war. The symbolism would suggest that our public image is unclear, uncertain, foggy. Perhaps this is just an effect of Neptune having almost exactly twice the period of Uranus (84 vs. 165 years) and Uranus-Descendant is the operative aspect.

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Let’s move on the the Civil War. Here there is only one chart, for March 11, 1962. The war had started almost a year earlier. We see both Uranus opposite the Ascendant as in the first Revolutionary War chart, and Neptune conjunct the IC (Imum Coeli – the Bottom of the Sky) of the United States chart, opposite the Midheaven. This is about one Uranus cycle, 84 years, after the first chart. The fact that Neptune is now opposite the earlier position (the second chart for November 23, 1778) is not surprising since the period of Neptune is almost exactly double that of Neptune. Note also that since the natal Uranus is close to the Descendant and the natal Neptune is close to the Midheaven, these periods are also close to a Uranus return and a Neptune bi-return. But we do see a pattern.

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Let’s look at World War II. The first chart is for November 5, 1942, the first time Neptune conjoined the Midheaven of the United States on this cycle. Then the second chart for World War II for August 6, 1944, one year to the day before the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the first pass of Uranus to the Descendant of the United States. Also Neptune is very close – one degree beyond – the Midheaven. This was again one Uranus cycle and one-half a Neptune cycle since the Civil War. The pattern repeats itself.

The Descendant is where energy comes in to you from outside, and so Uranus on the Descendant suggests disturbance, upset coming into the country, like for example as war. At least it was in the three cases we looked at. Since we have only the United States a an example, and only three cases to draw upon, we can’t draw an overwhelming conclusion. But in every case there was, the correlation was definite.

In part two of this subject, we will look at examples of Uranus on the Descendant before the birth of the country to see if the patten holds. And we will look at the obvious – when will this pattern repeat again.

 

The 2008 Election

Below are four views of election day 2008 in the United States, but they all have a single message. That election will be remembered for all time as the one in which a black man (but interestingly one related to slaves only through his white mother) was elected President of a country whose founders were slave owners. But the campaign and election will also be remembered for other things, as discussed below, which may well set the standard for upcoming elections in the United States.

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Obama on Election Day

 

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Neptune on Obama’s Ascendant

 

The first chart is that of the winner of the election, Barak Obama, on election day. The most noticeable feature of this chart is Neptune prominently in the first house and near the Ascenant. Neptune was conjunct the Ascendant since Mr. Obama speech to the 2004 Democratic convention that first gave him prominence on the national stage. Neptune can be handled successfully but with difficulty by an individual, but collectively it usually turns out negatively. Neptune represents illusions, delusions, not seeing things clearly. Neptune on the Ascendant is great for actors since it allows them to easily pretend to be someone they are not, the hallmark of a good actor. With someone in the public eye, it allow the person to appear to be something that he is not. Obama himself described this in one of his campaign autobiographies, saying that people see in him whatever that think he is. Neptune in this position means exactly that. And in fact Mr. Obama got an award from Advertising Age as the best marketing campaign for 2008, beating out Apple that usually won. Neptune on the Ascendant definitely helped him win this award.

The second  chart, a graphical ephemeris of Mr. Obama from June of 2004 to June of 2009 (mistakenly labelled as 6 years) shows clearly that transiting Neptune was dancing around his Ascendant — near the bottom of the graph — during this   entire period.  By noticing how slowly Neptune move  — it appears to   move only 15º in five years — one can judge that it is near his Ascendant for all of his first term.  See also Definition section for Graphical Ephemeris for more details.

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Comparison of USA & Obama

The third chart is a comparison of Mr. Obama’s chart (on the inside) and the chart of the United States (on the outside). Several things stand out. First we notice that the Obama Venus is conjunct the US Venus. Love at first sight! If this were two people they definitely should get together. Then Obama’s Uranus is opposite the Moon of the US. The people in the US see this person as being unconventional, maybe even revolutionary. Obama’s Mars is conjunct the US Neptune and square the US Mars. Remember that the tightest hard aspect in Obama’s chart is the Mars semisquare Neptune that now we see fits into the US Mars square Neptune. As mentioned before, Mars-Neptune hard aspects are difficult to maninifest positively. They tend to indicate poorly planned action, deception about violence. Obama fits right into the violence of the US. Obama’s Midheaven is sesquiquadrate the US Sun and his Ascendant is sesquiquadrate the US Venus. Here again are two more indicators that these two were meant to be together. A further indication, his Jupiter is trine the Midheaven of the US, his Sun is trine the Ascendant of the US, and is Venus is square the Midheaven of the US – Obama and the United States: a Match Made in Heaven!! Of course, as in all relationships, hate is the other side of love, and so there can be deep animosity in this relationship between Mr. Obama and the United States as well as love. And one more: his Satun is conjunct the Pluto of the US. We’ve talked about Saturn Pluto aspects before, and will talk some more later, but this does not bode well.

 

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United States on Election Day

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Neptune and the Moon of the United
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The fourth chart is that of the United States on Election Day. Neptune is loosely conjunct with the Moon of the United States, and it will be drawing closer and going over the Moon over the next four years. In fact, for the 2012 elections Neptune was about the same distance from the Moon but on the other side of it, leaving orb. Here again we see Neptune, as was described above, effecting the people (the Moon represents the people of a country) of the United States. As I mentioned before, Neptune is very difficult to handle in a positive manner for individuals (spiritual adepts are an exception) but for a collective group of people – that is the citizens of the United – it is almost impossible to manifest positively. In its negative manifestation Neptune represents illusion, delusion, deception. The old Roman proverb qui vult decipi, dicipiatur is most appropriate: those who wish to be deceived, let them be deceived. The people of the United Stats were going through a period where they could not see things clearly, there was much denial. We could also see this in the increasing denial that humanity is causing climate change.

 

The fifth chart is another graphical ephemeris for the period September 2008 to September 2013, showing that Neptune flirted with  the Moon of the United States over all of this period.       We also   note that Uranus crossed the Aries point — the heavy black  horizontal line —  during this period.

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Neptune on the Sun/Midheaven Midpoint

One final chart. This shows that on election day, and for a while thereafter, Neptune was at the midpoint of the US Sun and Midheaven. The Sun-Midheaven midpoint, written as Sun/MC (MC stands for Medium Coeli, Latin for middle of the sky) can be seen as the way the US is seen by the rest of the world. With Neptune there, the rest of the world can be deceived (witness the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Mr. Obama shortly after he took office) and many believed that the US was now something other than it once was under the previous administration.

Another issue was pointed out to me by Canadian astrologer Audra Stenger (yellowlotusarts.com). She points out that Obama accepted his nomination under a void-of-course moon. (The void of course moon concept, popularized by New York astrologer Al Morrison and used now by Oregon astrologer Jim Maynard in his calendars, is that period of time after the Moon makes its last ptolemic aspect and before it enters the next sign. It is suggested that events occurring in this period do not come to fruition. See write-up in any of Jim Maynard’s calendars for further details.) She writes of this:

Nothing has come of it. That is what a VOC moon means. I am being a bit existential, so I will elaborate: he has gone back on every single campaign promise and we might as well have kept George W. in office or elected a Republican (as Chomsky says- there is no real difference between the two parties. We really have a one party system here in the US).

 

Obama promised to end extraordinary rendition, close overseas blackop sites, gitmo, end the war in Iraq (never did say he would end the war in Afganistan- hum), end torture, he promised initially to give us Medicare for All, to end domestic spying. what we have instead is illegal drone wars in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, troops just sent to Nicaragua, and troops in Australia. Additionally, he declared WikiLeaks an enemy of the state just as if Assange were Osama bin Laden.

 

So, I for one, existentially speaking, do not see really where the US is in a different place had a Republican like Sarah Palin been sworn in. At least we all knew she was a dumb as a box of hammers. Obama is a lawyer- he’s smart. To me, Obama is a perfect example of a VOC president. Nothing has come of his presidency that is any different than before, and every political analyst worth their salt agrees.

 

Change you can believe in was his slogan. Well, the more things change, the more things stay the same should be his second campaign slogan.

 

Blogs at the time of this election also reflected  this Neptunian theme: The terms used were “hopium”, Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS)  and “drinking the Kool-Aid”. The latter was a reference to the massacre at Jonestown where the followers of Jim Jones drank Kool-Aid and Flavor Aid containing poison and died.