8th House Scorpions and How NOT to Recycle War Profiteers

In John Cusack’s brilliantly deranged War, Inc., Hilary Duff sticks a live scorpion down her pants, Cusack fights Sir Ben Kingsley in the back of a garbage truck, Dan Aykroyd does a moving portrayal of Dick Cheney on the toilet, and Halliburton-style war profiteers wage the very first American war to be entirely outsourced to a private corporation. Did I mention I love this movie?

I don’t think I’ve ever written so much about one movie before, but when Mr. Cusack cross-posted both of my previous pieces about War, Inc. to his MySpace blog, I made a rash mistake. In a comment, I wrote:

If you are going to keep cross-posting these, I'm going to have to find new angles to use to write about this movie. You know that, right?

Speaking of John Cusack’s movies, why do I suddenly hear the Carpenters on my radio? What if that devious mind keeps cross-posting this stuff? Have I just doomed myself by my word to an eternal damnation of writing about War, Inc. until Halliburton brings about the end times? This could get as scary as, well, Stephen King.

How do I get out of this self-inflicted imaginary obligation to a movie star I’ve never even met? I could fake rabid right wing conversion and write a demonic defense of why what’s good for Halliburton is good for the oil companies and hence, for America, but there are more evil fates than being doomed to write about one movie for eternity, and I dare not go into that dark night. Dick Cheney is one tormented soul I don’t want to find leaping out of the darkness of a chickenhawk bunker to embrace me and invite me on a hunting trip for moose with Sarah Palin.

Right. I’m just going to have to explain what scorpions, garbage trucks, vice presidential shit, and war profiteers have in common. Because that’s a secret I’m fairly sure John Cusack would be horrified to have you know.

Scorpio the scorpion: astrologically, this sign is located in the 8th house of the natural chart. The 8th house rules such mysteries as sex, other people’s money, symbolism, and hidden bunkers in undisclosed locations. Scorpio is ruled by Mars, the God of War, and by Pluto, the God of Death and Transformation.

Let me just say that if you’re a mythological being or even a fictional hitman in a movie, you do not want your daughter kidnapped, taken to an undisclosed location, probably fed pomegranate seeds somewhere along the way, and then taught to put scorpions down her pants. This type of thing tends to make a guy (or gal) want to lay the earth to waste. Best avoided.

Speaking of laying the earth to waste, that’s really what those old miscreants Pluto and Mars wanted in the first place, hence the reason for getting your daughter involved with kinky scorpionic sex. And here’s where the war profiteers come into it, not to mention vice presidential shit.

As Defense Secretary, Mr. Cheney commissioned a study for the U.S. Department of Defense by Brown and Root Services (now Kellogg, Brown and Root), a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton. The study recommended that private firms like Halliburton should take over logistical support programs for U.S. military operations around the world. Just two years after he was Secretary of Defense, Cheney stepped through the revolving door linking the Department of Defense with defense contractors and became CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton was the principal beneficiary of Cheney’s privatization efforts for our military’s logistical support and Cheney was paid $44 million for five year's work with them before he slipped back through the revolving door of war profiteering to become Vice-President of the United States. When asked about the money he received from Halliburton, Cheney said. "I tell you that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it."

No wonder Cheney’s bathroom habits are such a strain, as finally revealed by Dan Aykroyd in War, Inc. That is one huge stinking pile he’s trying to pass. Getting back to the 8th house and other people’s money, Cheney is hardly spending his own. U.S. taxpayers, those are YOUR billions going to Halliburton.

Lest we think U.S. war profiteering is Dick Cheney’s invention, however, let’s remember that General Smedley Butler admitted to having made Mexico safe for American oil interests way back in 1914, and that George W. Bush’s family has war profiteering interests going back to at least the 1920s, including dealings with the Nazis in the 1930s, according to the book American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, written by former Nixon staffer Kevin Phillips.

What, you might ask, does all of this have to do with garbage trucks?

Pluto, one of Scorpio’s rulers, has a morbid fascination with death, decay, and rotting, stinking garbage --- in other words, the Bush administration. And doesn’t this all just make you want to take the trash out?

Fortunately, in the sign of Scorpio, we have the opportunity to do just that on November 4th, when we can all get out and vote, support a transformational regime change, and let in a breath of fresh air. (But then we’ll have to put pressure on Obama to end the war profiteering once and for all.)

When disposing of famous British actors, however, please recycle.

How’s that for a load of “astonishing half-true frontier gibberish,” Ms. Hegalhuzen?

John Cusack explains this all so much better than I do.