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Cancer is a Cardinal Water sign that is governed by our Moon which influences our Oceans and Tides. Cancer rules Motherhood, Family, Food, Feelings, Home, and our Personal and Collective Unconscious. The birth of the USA is embodied by the Summer Solstice. When the Declaration of Independence was signed in Cancer on July 4, 1776, our Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter were in the sign of Cancer. That’s a lot of Cancer.

There’s some controversy among astrologers as to the correct time of signing the Declaration. Aquarius or Sagittarius is rising. I believe it’s Sagittarius because the placement of planets in that natal chart indicates leadership and sticks our noses in everyone else’s business. Let’s look at how the 20^th Century transits of Pluto and Uranus through the constellation of Cancer influenced Personal and Collective Psyche.

Pluto, archetype of sex, death, and transformation transited the sign of Cancer from 1913 to 1938. Plutocrats, partisan politicians, nationalism, and isolationism transformed world ideologies. World War I turned into World War II. In 1913, President Wilson pressed a button in the White House that blew up the Gamboa Dike at the Isthmus of Panama that created a canal between oceans that transformed travel by sea. Wilson legislated the Carter-Owen Bill that established a Federal Reserve System that transformed the stranglehold on the nation’s currency and credit system by banks.

NBC became the first Nationwide Broadcasting Company. Daylight Saving Time transformed clocks and schedules. Transcontinental telephone service transformed international communications. World infrastructures and atomic energy transformed planetary energy sources and usages. Wall Street prospered from war while soldiers earning $16 per month died in the trenches. No child was left behind. President Wilson established a lottery style draft promoting patriotism. Congress passed the Espionage Act fining draft dodgers $10,000 and imposing a twenty-year jail sentence.

Pluto in Cancer catalyzed Kleptocracy (government by people who use their power to steal their country’s resources) and Kakistocracy (state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens). “Like all good illusionists, the kleptocrats know how to distract us from looking at their misdeeds and the kakistocrats know how to distract us from their ineptitude. They do it by talking to us about ideology and attacking those of their rivals. While we watch and play our part in these ideological circuses, they steal. Or tinker with government policies they don’t really understand. And we pay the price.”

“Do your bit” encouraged citizens to buy Liberty Bonds. Wheatless-meatless days were promoted. The end of 1919 marked the end of the Influenza pandemic that caused half a million deaths and a quarter of the nation’s population to be sick. Prohibition banned liquor for all citizens. Black markets and bootlegging industries flourished. Black leader Marcus Garvey organized ‘The Empire of Africa’ with 500,000 followers. Garvey led the largest mass exodus of Blacks with the least sense of brotherhood in US history. Pluto passing through Capricorn opposite Cancer is furnishing the wisdom necessary to not make the same mistakes. Hindsight has few surprises and many possible benefits.

In 1929, doubt, fear, and panic upset our stock market as we faced our darkest hour. Foundations and structures of home and family were crumbling. Pluto in Cancer birthed many people who spent their lives taking care of family. Their overdeveloped senses of responsibility, guilt, and obligation motivated their children to become dropouts and runaways. Neither extreme has worked.

Uranus, planet of sudden and unexpected changes, invention, rebellion, and revolution transited the sign of Cancer from 1949 to 1955. Mothers stopped staying at home and went to work. Women began wearing the “bikini”, a fashionable French bathing suit. ‘I Love Lucy’, a comic show about a housewife and her Cuban bandleader husband became the most popular show on TV. Ranch houses and basement playrooms became popular. Subconscious mind was explored in psychology. Born between 1949 and 1955? Your psyche may be shipwrecked somewhere in time and space in opposition between rational awareness and fearful confusion.

We should think twice before we elect (appoint) another Cancer President. Four USA Presidents were born under the sign of Cancer. George W Bush (7/6/1946) has an egocentric character to match his Leo rising. George Bush demonstrated some of the worst qualities of Cancer and Leo in his behavior, intentions, and actions. Check out the similarities between the three other Cancer Presidents.

Like George Bush and Al Gore, John Quincy Adams finished second in popular vote behind General Andrew Jackson. There was no majority. The choice was put before the House of Representatives. House Speaker, Henry Clay, swung the election to Adams. When Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State, Jackson followers cried, “Corrupt bargain”.

W.H. Littleton proclaimed, “Of all the men whom it was ever my lot to accost and to waste civilities upon, he (Adams) was the most doggedly and systematically repulsive. With a vinegar aspect, cotton in his leathern ears, and hatred in his heart, he sat like a bulldog among spaniels.”

President Calvin Coolidge shared his birthday 7/4 with the USA Declaration of Independence. Coolidge was famous for “holding his tongue”, earning him the title, “Silent Cal”. Two of his favorite sayings were: “If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it.” and “The business of America is business.” William Allen White said of him, “He was an economic fatalist with a God given inertia. He knew nothing and refused to learn”.

The 38th President, Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. didn’t know he was adopted until he was seventeen. Betty performed all the domestic chores. Gerry never lifted a finger around the house. As Speaker for the other house, Ford passionately pleaded for escalation of the war in Vietnam. He urged “unleashing devastating air and sea power”. He failed to impeach liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas as a favor to his buddy Richard Nixon. Ford granted Nixon a “full complete and absolute pardon” for all crimes relating to Watergate. Ford blamed democrats for the disastrous rate of inflation and warned that electing more would “jeopardize world peace”. He admitted to not reading books, but did find time to watch football on TV. Good thing there was no Twitter!

Congressman Robert Drinan said, “I cannot dislike him personally — he’s cordial and gracious, but he’s consistently wrong and consistency is a virtue of small minds. He’s never proposed a constructive solution to anything”.

Lyndon Johnson quipped, Ford “played too much football with his helmet off” ~ “Jerry’s the only man I ever knew who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time”.

Reverend Duncan Littlefair proclaimed, “Ford isn’t a bad man, but he’s dumb—dumb. He shouldn’t be dumb either. He went to school just like everybody else”.

“The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life…

it should be something useful, something good”

The Dalai Lama (Cancer) is “The Reborn Soul of Buddha” who fled Tibet in 1959 to live as a “simple monk” in a remote corner of Northern India. Unable to return home, he chose to promote world peace and love. Like Orpheus, singer, priest, healer, poet, and musician in Greek myth, the Dalai Lama must charm Pluto into letting him enter into the domain of death to mine the matrix of collective unconscious and restore humanity. Death warned Orpheus that he’d lose Eurydice forever if he looked back. In a moment of doubt, Orpheus looked back and lost Eurydice forever. If hindsight is 2020, we must be fully conscious in 2024 of the consequences of our choices and corresponding votes.