I discuss the gut-wrenching situation in Gaza and why we must hold our leaders to higher ethical standards.
This episode was recorded on December 11, 2023. It was published on December 12, 2023 at 11:15am EDT.
Astrological dates mentioned herein are calculated using the Eastern Daylight time zone.
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Episode transcript:
Greetings all!
Welcome to Aquarian Diary. I’m your host, John Irving.
It is December 12th, 2023.
This episode was recorded on December 11th and published on December 12th.
We’re having some very unusual weather here today, with wind speeds up to around 100 kilometers an hour, or 60 miles an hour, so if that’s audible in the background, I apologize for that.
I’m at the final stages of some difficult transits, which have kind of caused me to lay low, as I described in my previous episode, which turned out to be very aptly titled “Drawing Lines”. That episode was published on November 19th.
I want to share with you what I’ve been experiencing and feeling in recent weeks and months.
Before I get into that, a quick heads up about the fact that Mercury will be going retrograde on December 13th in early Capricorn, through January 1st in Sagittarius. Most of you, I’m sure, understand the implications of that, with all of the travel plans and purchasing that goes on around this time of year that can introduce some challenges. So be aware of that. I mentioned this in an episode quite some time ago.
One of the main things I want to talk about here today is what has been coming up for all of us, I think, since the powerful eclipses in October. This is going on around the world, and we can see a lot of tumult, politically and socially, pretty much everywhere.
One of the things that I pray for pretty much every day, or set intentions for, actually, is that the light reveal the darkness so that humanity can become aware of what is actually happening, so that we can address those things.
And I particularly focus on people in positions of significant power, authority, privilege, wealth, or influence. And I’ve been doing that for a long time. I actually have a short on that, which provides some text or verbiage that you can use in your own practice for that end.
And that has most certainly been happening.
What is occurring right now in the Middle East, in Gaza, to me is extremely shocking for a number of reasons. The scale and ferocity of it is something that I find profoundly disturbing.
But even more so is the fact that many of the people who, in some ways, not entirely, but in some ways, I looked up to, or referenced as good sources, are promoting the dominating narrative, which is enabling these atrocities to occur.
And there are many scholars who have defined what’s happening as just that, whether it’s war crimes, genocide, or ethnic cleansing. Those are extremely powerful terms, all of them. But in many respects, what’s happening meets those definitions.
And again, one of the most disturbing aspects of this is that this is being cheered on by many people who we look up to, and in some cases, even elected, who not only oppose a ceasefire, but are, in some cases, are providing the weaponry and the technology, or the political cover, which is enabling this to occur.
Meaning that they are actively complicit in this. To me, this is extremely disappointing from a moral and ethical perspective.
There is no justification for what is happening, and the fact that the majority of the victims are innocent men, women, and children, who will be forever traumatized by what is occurring.
And I think we can argue that for those of us who are watching what’s happening, it can be quite traumatizing as well. I can certainly say that’s true in my case.
To add insult to injury, much of the mainstream media is disproportionately favoring the dominant narrative. There are many examples where people who have been questioning what’s happening have been shut down, targeted, attacked, and in some cases, removed from their positions, or fired.
This has been very divisive on the left, as everyone knows, I’m sure, because anyone in good conscience finds what’s happening extremely disturbing. That is simply a fact.
When you think about this whole scenario, it undermines our faith in our institutions, our leaders, and those who are supposed to be representing our values.
And perhaps that trust has been permanently broken. How can you forgive somebody who has been condoning atrocities? It’s very difficult.
Sure, there are some people who are simply misled, but we know that even within the Biden administration, for example, there are people within the State Department and staffers and aides to Democratic politicians who have taken steps to voice their concerns and outrage about this situation.So there are good people with good intentions within these institutions who are expressing their outrage.
Yet, despite a brief ceasefire, the atrocities continue and they are being supported diplomatically and militarily in what they’re doing.
All of the people who listen to me, I’m sure, know that the threat of the right, politically, represents a clear and present danger. The former president of the United States and his acolytes have declared very clearly what their intentions are should they be re-elected, and we should all be terrified about that.
But at the same time, like I said, our trust in the alternative has been tremendously degraded. And this is extremely disturbing because it can leave one feeling a sense of hopelessness that we have to choose the lesser of evils when we don’t want to choose any evil at all.
And so what the light of truth is showing us, chills here, is that our system is corrupt no matter how you look at it. That it requires profound transformation from top to bottom.
Now that pretty much jives with everything I’ve been saying on my channel for a very long time, that we need radical transformation.
But this transit of Pluto through the final degrees of Capricorn as it’s finishing up its devastation since 2008 is making it very clear that it is not black and white. That we have work to do on all sides.
Even in my own country here in Canada, there are things going on politically where the governing Liberal Party, who is supposedly center-left, has been engaging in a wide variety of policies that, if you’re an objective observer, cause you to question whether they’re simply just incredibly inept or incompetent or simply serving the interests of the wealthiest in our society.
It’s dumbfounding to behold, actually. I mean, it’s so inept you have to think sometimes that maybe it’s deliberate.
The alternative to the Liberals, who are likely to win the next federal election when it occurs by quite a significant margin because of the incompetence of the governing Liberal Party, who at the same time seem to be completely oblivious, tone-deaf, and indifferent to the mood of the nation, like they’re completely disconnected in a different reality, and they go out of their way to not listen, so they’re intransigent, which makes them seem so arrogant, and the polling keeps showing them going down and down and down, and this has been happening for months.
It’s a death spiral. But they refuse to change course on critical issues. It’s completely baffling.
The alternative is even worse, but people are so pissed off and fed up with the status quo that they are probably going to vote out of resentment. They’re not voting for something, they’re voting against something.
And I express that simply because that trend is occurring around the world right now. That’s exactly what’s happening from Denmark* to the United States to everywhere.
[*Correction: I inadvertently referenced “Denmark'” here. I intended to mention “Netherlands” (ie the recent election of Geert Wilders).]
People are pissed off, and they should be because the system is basically garbage, and our leaders are not reflecting our values accurately, and that is becoming crystal clear to us.
But back to the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East.
The cowardice and lack of moral compass and moral or ethical spinelessness of some people can be gut-wrenching to behold. How can you respect people who are in positions of leadership who are cowardly?
As I have stated here previously, there is a greater onus on those of us in positions of power or privilege to protect the most vulnerable people. Period. Strong chills here. We have a fundamental duty to protect the most vulnerable people, and if we fail that test, we should not be in positions of power or influence. There should be no exceptions to this rule.
The fact that so many people on the so-called left are willing to allow elected representatives or the government to tell universities and students or academics what they can do and what they can think and what they can say should be utterly terrifying.
And I am appalled that people are casually allowing these kinds of things to happen in so-called democracies. This is the road to totalitarianism or fascism.
The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping. How is that better than what we criticize countries like China or Hungary or Russia for doing?
This plays right into the hands of far-right extremists and their agenda to undermine, control, and discredit all of our institutions, whether it’s journalism, the fourth estate, or higher education. And many people applaud or tacitly condone this. It is incredibly naive and dangerous.
Like I said at these final stages of Pluto, Transit, and Capricorn, which I’ve talked a lot about before, and again I’ll put links in the episode description, Pluto re-enters Aquarius for a longer period of time on January 20th of 2024, and it will be there for a very long time, save for about 11 weeks later in 2024. And that marks kind of the new beginning.
When people talk about Pluto transits, they often refer to things like death and rebirth, or the Phoenix rising from the flames of destruction. And this came to me in my spiritual practice a few days ago. We’re in that destruction phase.
But for those of us who are feeling really disheartened and lost or disillusioned right now, like we have nowhere to place our faith, and that includes me, we need to remember that we’re in the death cycle, but there will be a regeneration, a rebirth cycle that will follow.
The old needs to die before something new can be born. So bear that in mind that all of these things that seem to be crashing down around us, they need to be destroyed in order to create a better future.
So we’re becoming aware of all of the darkness because the light is shining on it. That’s the optimistic conclusion to this.
But I can say that I am disgusted by what I have been seeing occurring over the past few months. So much so that it stopped me. It stopped me in my tracks because I felt like there was nothing positive I could say because the news is really bad.
This situation which is occurring right now in the Middle East that has compromised the integrity of so many people who we had put our faith in, where innocent civilians are being starved to death and being bombed relentlessly.
On that note, I will include in the episode description a link to a speech that Chris Hedges published a day or so ago, which is extremely moving.
He is a phenomenally credible person, a very powerful thinker with a lot of real world experience as a journalist who has frequently reported from war zones, including at one time for the New York Times, which resulted in him receiving a Pulitzer Prize. And he articulates his perspective about this situation in Gaza.
And I encourage everyone to listen to it because our media is failing us on this point. And it’s not failing us because of the journalists, let’s be clear about that. It’s just that a lot of journalists who want to counter the dominant narrative are being shut down.
The LA Times even went so far as to ban a significant number of their journalists from even reporting on this issue because they signed a letter calling for a ceasefire. That’s just one example.
So it’s really important that you make sure that you’re not getting all of your news or information about this incredibly complex and significant situation from only the mainstream traditional media sources. You have to read other sources.
The Guardian does a pretty good job of this. You can check Al Jazeera for a more Middle Eastern perspective. There are a lot of people covering this on platforms like Substack and some smaller independent media sources.
Of course, you want to make sure that you’re not reading propaganda because that is a real problem. So it’s important to make sure that the sources you’re acquiring information from are credible and respected and uphold the highest journalistic standards.
So to close, there’s one other thing I want to point out, which came to me the night after I listened to Chris Hedges’ speech, which is a video. And you can just listen to it because it’s basically just him talking.
So in my spiritual practice, at first I was concerned about the safety of these people because they’re putting themselves at danger potentially.
And so I sort of asked for protection for these brave souls who are speaking out and doing so diligently. And then what I got was that there are bright lights out there.
These are people who are actually putting themselves at risk to promote the truth and to promote perspectives that differ from the dominant mainstream narrative. And that these people are extremely brave and extremely important, but that there’s not a lot of them.
There’s a lot of people who are simply too fearful to talk about this. They would like to, but you know, people have to survive. They have to pay their mortgages, care for their families and so forth. So there’s a lot of people who simply can’t afford to take risks like that. And that must be heartbreaking. But there’s a few people who are willing to do it.
And in my spiritual practice, what came to me was that these people are the really bright lights. They are the truth tellers. Getting strong chills saying this.
So we need to support them and we need to look to them because they are the true change agents. There’s not a lot of them.
And it doesn’t matter where it is. Maybe it’s somebody in Russia. Maybe it’s somebody in the United States or in Britain or the Middle East or China or South America or wherever who is speaking truth to power. These are the bright lights of this new age we’re entering into.
There’s a lot of people who simply are really poorly informed or misled and we try not to be one of those.
And there’s a lot of people who are afraid. There’s a lot of people who just don’t care. There’s a lot of people who just want to make money and profit from whatever they’re doing. And they’re not willing to put their ethics ahead of anything else.
But there are a small group of people who are willing to stand up for the truth. And we need to support them and recognize them.
But generally these bright lights are people who are very well informed, very well intentioned, extremely conscientious, and very, very brave. They are the beacons of light.
I look forward as usual to all of your feedback and I thank all of the people who’ve been supportive of me. People have been wondering where have I been? What have I been doing?
I have been actually following what I have published here on my channel in recent months, which is that I just knew and saw, if you look back at what I published, that we were going to be going through a really challenging phase.
I believe the energy should really start shifting January 20th.
Jupiter is also retrograde now too, until the end of the year. That’s a bit of a bummer, especially if you’re a Sag. Or Jupiter is your chart ruler or something like that, or otherwise important to you. So hang in there.
And you know what we need to take away from this is that we need to zero in on the truth and the light and put pressure on people to hold themselves to a higher standard of ethics and morality.
We definitely don’t want something like 45 to win the next election because that would be utterly catastrophic for democracy, but those people that we are aligned with have to hold themselves to a higher standard.
And like I said, I have found that there’s a lot of people who I used to look at in one way, and now I look at them differently. And I recognize that they’re not as aligned with my values as I thought they were.
And so I’m a bit more jaded. I’m a bit more realistic, and I’m a bit more critical than I used to be. And that’s probably a good thing.
This whole period, frankly, has felt like a gut punch to me.
If you happen to agree with the prevailing opinion about this topic, please listen to my prior episode before challenging me.
I am in no way condoning any kind of atrocity against anyone. On the contrary. And I have made that point very clearly previously, as I’ve said.
All of the innocent victims of this terrible tragedy deserve our compassion. It doesn’t matter what side they’re on. All efforts should be made to minimize any further unnecessary harm.
If I am critical of the policies of the United States, and many of us are, including most of my listeners, it doesn’t mean we are prejudiced against all Americans.
Being critical of the state of Israel and its policies does not mean that one is anti-Semitic. We should criticize any country around the world for its failures. It is a fundamental component of a democratic society to be able to openly criticize your government, or any government for that matter.
And this applies to organizations and institutions like religious groups as well.
Again, for more detail, check the episode description for other episodes or articles that are related or that I mentioned.
And if you’re interested in a reading with me, I’ll put a link to that as well. I have a 20% off special on currently. A natal or transit reading makes a great gift, by the way. It’s something people won’t forget.
Many sincere thanks to everyone who supports me, especially my YouTube members. Thank you very much.
Take care, all the best, and I’ll talk to you again soon.
Bye for now.
End transcript.
Other episodes referenced herein:
Drawing Lines
Pluto in Aquarius – Dawn of Global ConsciousnessPluto at 29° Capricorn – A Karmic Reckoning
Intentions 4: Accountability for Those That Cause Harm
Drama and Detachment During This Intensely Karmic Cycle
Prepare for Major Systemic Changes
Articles or podcasts referenced herein:
So Many Child Deaths in Gaza, and for What? – Nicholas Kristof
Killing Children, the Burdens of Conscience, and the Israel-Hamas War – Henry Giroux
Civilians make up 61% of Gaza deaths from airstrikes, Israeli study finds
Israel-Hamas war live updates: Gaza’s health system is ‘collapsing’ and battles intensify in the south
Why is the US still sending an endless supply of arms to Israel without conditions?
State Department employees send Blinken ‘dissent’ cables over Gaza policy
Democratic Aides in Congress Break With Their Bosses on Israel-Hamas War
More Than 500 U.S. Officials Sign Letter Protesting Biden’s Israel Policy
U.S. Military Equipment Traced to Possible War Crimes in Gaza, Report Finds
It could be a ‘bloodbath for the Liberals’ if polls hold up until next election, say political strategists and insiders
The Sick Hypocrisy of the Republican Investigation Into College Campuses
How University Presidents Fell Into Congresswoman Stefanik’s Trap
Israel-Gaza war sets Biden at odds with youth of America
Progressives rebel against Biden’s handling of Israel-Gaza crisis
The Genocide in Gaza – Chris Hedges
LA Times blocks reporters who signed open letter criticizing Israel from covering Gaza
‘I’m concerned about my personal safety’: Hong Kong activist Agnes Chow speaks about life in exile
On Israel’s War Against Hamas, Sanders Faces a Backlash From the Left
“Just factually wrong”: Jewish Dem calls out GOP resolution declaring “anti-Zionism is antisemitism”
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