Shit Talking Pluto
Pluto toggling in and out of Aquarius provides flashes of ‘coming attractions’ for the final 25-year transit once the planet is firmly ensconced in the sign. Black Pill, anyone?
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“The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” —Steve Bannon
PLUTO AND SHIT, the two go together. It’s a simple axiom within the astrological lexicon of associations. Although he’s not an astrologer, Trumpian political strategist Steve Bannon spat out the perfect description to define Pluto’s taking-forever entry into Aquarius. Bannon’s prescience provided a summary of how the provocateur imagined the culture wars would be won, not by wrangling with the Democrats but by clogging the media channels that carry the left’s message.
I was meditating on all of this shit-spewing yesterday morning while reading a great interview on ’s Substack with journalist Elle Reeve about Reeve’s new book Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics. You couldn’t have cobbled together a more Pluto-in-Aquarius title if you tried.
Considering the synchronic rhythms that illustrate how the astrological matrix interweaves through everyday life, it’s apt that Reeve’s book would arrive while Pluto is moving across the most ‘charged’ zone between signs. And what an appropriate title: Black Pill. Black. Nigredo—putrefaction or decomposition. The shit phase is the beginning of any alchemical odyssey (I’ve banned the use of the word ‘journey’ entirely from my life, FYI).
Unsocial Media
Also, on this theme of Pluto retrograding into zero degrees of Aquarius and reminding us again of how social media dependence has made life awful in countless ways, I just happened to catch a video that capsulized everything I abhor about ‘influencer’ culture, especially as conservative mutations like Jordan Peterson and Russel Brand continue to capture massive audiences of, primarily, characters you’d find on Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, AKA: The Island of Lost Boys.
The Tron-like computer culture we’re stuck in creates desperate measures as people who rely on its reach struggle to make a living. This environment has destroyed any middle-ground perspective (there’s no money to be made there). Gone is the nuance within any topic you’d consider discussing with another human. Again, there is nothing to monetize when standing at a center point.
Right? Left? (Let Me Out on the Corner)
Corraled into tech-supported echo chambers, the right seems to have gobbled up Christianity and twisted it into a white nationalist fever dream. And the left has gone all hardcore, Inquisition-style scientism-atheism on the culture. And so everyone screams at each other and invites the perplexed to ‘friend’ and ‘follow’ them because, well, eyeballs and algorithms. And then democracy suffers as we scoot deeper into tribal mania. The only people benefitting from this is the Tech Broligarchy, which pulls the levers and skips out on their share of taxes by turning Irish.
While watching the recent DNC convention last week, there were moments when I felt caught up in an en masse religious conversion. Too, the rampant jingoism transported me back to the days right after 9/11. I guess the DNC is trying hard to correct the growing association within the culture that the Dems are out of touch with the religio-patriotic aspect of life. But, my god, again, a little nuance, please.
Oprah (the mother of all Aquarians) Winfrey’s speech felt like penance and commando-style damage control. I mean, it was Winfrey who helped catapult J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy onto the bestseller lists. And before Vance, she gave us the bogus Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil, two Barnum & Bailey worthy ‘medical experts’ who laid the groundwork for the sort of gullibility and confusion that made the Covid pandemic a shit show. As I note below, Aquarians often have a weird draw to quackery.
Neptunian Grift Drift
Russel Brand, who started as a goofy, ADD-driven post-modern hippy, found that aligning with crazy-ass conspiracy theories (and later blubbery Christian bombast) afforded him millions of eyeballs versus the paltry numbers his earlier hipster videos would pull.
I give you Media Matter’s excellent close read on Grift Drift. It explains so much (as to understanding the endless stream of this hyperbolic brain-drain you see everywhere on social media and YouTube):