The Longest Night

It is darkest before the dawn. Tomorrow is the winter solstice, the longest night here in the north. Light and day length begin their slow growth this week until the summer solstice in June. Throughout human history the solstice has marked time and been celebrated. This year there's an additional show in the night sky...https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/great-jupiter-saturn-conjuncti...

In December, just as Jupiter and Saturn are nearly at their closest, the young moon will sweep past them. From December 16-25, 2020, the 2 will be separated by less than a full-moon diameter, just as the crescent moon is passing close. Jupiter will appear brighter, outshining Saturn by 12 times. Saturn is respectably bright, though, shining as brilliantly as a 1st-magnitude star.

Some say the conjunction of these planets on the solstice marks the beginning of a new Age of Aquarius. Despite the ravages of COVID, the Earth has made another revolution around the sun. Another year comes to an end, and what a long strange trip it has been. I'm more than ready for a new age...

I can't resist posting this clip. (Sorry about the bubblerock promotion)

This new age of Aquarius aligns Jupiter with Saturn instead of Mars. Look to the SW after dusk and see it for yourself.

The interesting thing about the 2020 Great Conjunction is that for the first time in 200 years, it will take place in Aquarius. 21st December 2020 will be the beginning of a new Age of Aquarius.

https://consciousreminder.com/2020/12/04/the-age-of-aquarius-brings-one-...

How to observe the great conjunction. (5 min)
and a brief history of great conjunctions (17 min)

Sure would be nice if we used this as a turning point to quell war and conflict and promote harmony and understanding. Most people want peace and prosperity, but corporate interest keeps promoting war and ecocide for profit. The bonds of corporate control are tight around us, and are pervasive across multiple dimensions of our nation and world.

Perhaps there is a feel of change in the air. Excellent discussion of food production, corporate goals, censorship and more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt-y7KtEPgs (47 min)

Several factors are conspiring to weaken the reliability of our food production systems, warns Christian Westbrook, publisher of the website IceAgeFarmer.com We're seeing a shortening of the growing season for important crops due to weather trends and changes in the solar cycle. Our food production system, which is highly dependent on chemical inputs and fossil fuels, is becoming increasingly brittle. And we have more vulnerability due to the global nature of modern food supply chains. Crop shortages/failures in one part of the world impact all markets now. For example, soybean supply is tightening as bad weather in South America and increased buying by China are hitting at a time when global stocks are already low.

As the world population grows, climate instability continues, and more countries are able to economically compete for resources, experts foresee future demand that may prove overwhelming vs supply. The solutions to these challenges lie in cultivating food resilience, says Westbrook...Regenerative soil farming. Sustainable food production at the community and household level. Working with natural cycles vs attempting to force them into submission.

This discussion entitled "Regenerative Agriculture: Cure For An Ailing World" promotes the transition I would like to see, along with market and community gardens in everyone's neighborhood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu4tsS4Q_o8&t=3m (54 min)

As writer and environmental activist Wendell Berry once said, “Eating is an agricultural act.” In this talk, Tim will address the barriers to a paradigm change that creates a radical shift in culture, education, policies and consumer patterns created from the way we have farmed for nearly 10,000 years.

We all understand why we've not moved toward a sustainable global system.
Much of the darkness in the world is the product of corporate greed and control...
We are unhealthy in part because our dietary recommendations are terribly flawed.
Nina Teicholz and Mark Hyman discuss dietary guidelines and how they are manipulated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqDeUDxhj3c (1 hour)

The dietary guidelines laid out by the government are conflicting with good health in so many ways. For one, they are recommendations that would only work for someone who is already healthy, yet close to 90% of our population in the US is metabolically unhealthy. They also don’t take ethnicity and socioeconomic status into account, among many other factors. This is a big issue. Clearly, we should be providing Americans with guidelines that will actually serve their health. And research shows that whether we like it or not, as a society we’ve followed the guidelines over several decades and suffered the consequences with worsening health.

Our most powerful tool to reverse the global epidemic of chronic disease, heal the environment, reverse climate change, end poverty and social injustice, reform politics, and revive economies is food. The food we grow and the food we eat has tremendous implications not just for our waistlines but also for our communities, the planet, and the global economy. ⁣⁣
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Lobbyist’s influence over policymakers has put corporations not citizens at the center of every aspect of our food system, from what and how food is grown, to what is manufactured, marketed, and sold. ⁣⁣
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When money rules politics it results in our current uncoordinated and conflicting food policies that subsidize and protect and facilitate Big Food and Big Ag’s domination of our food system to the detriment of our population and our environment. These policies protect centralized seed production, large mono-crop industrial farms, factory farming of livestock both of which drive climate change. ⁣⁣
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Our policies permit unrestricted junk food marketing to children, prevent clear food labeling that helps citizens understand if a food product is healthful or harmful, pays for $7 billion worth of soda and billions more for junk food for the poor with our SNAP or food stamp program, then pays for disease care for those sickened by that very diet through Medicare and Medicaid.⁣⁣
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Big Ag and Big Food coopt politicians, public health groups, grassroots advocacy groups, scientists, schools and pollutes science and public opinion with vast dollars and misinformation campaigns.⁣⁣
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⁣The policies and businesses that drive our current system must change to support a reimagined food system from field to fork and beyond. ⁣⁣
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If we were to identify one big lever to pull to improve global health, create economic abundance, reduce social injustice, mental illness, restore environmental health and reverse climate change it would be transforming our entire food system. That is the most important work of our time – a true food fix. A work which must begin now.

Excellent presentation about corporate control of our sick care system (27 min)

Jimmy has been pushing for a floor vote on M4A.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHcMUYSi-Vs (19 min)
I support the idea, and think we should be pushing politicians to do things for people. There's quite a stir about Jimmy's proposal, and even a petition https://forcethevote.org/

I thought his best conversation this week was with Cornel West
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHLX2kH9_7k (34 min)

However, I think we need more health and less care. Recommending a healthy diet would be a good starting point. Here's a nice 15 min interview with Robert Lustig

Dr. Lustig has fostered a global discussion of metabolic health and nutrition, exposing some of the leading myths that underlie the current pandemic of diet-related disease. He believes the food business, by pushing processed food loaded with sugar, has hacked our bodies and minds to pursue pleasure instead of happiness; fostering today’s epidemics of addiction and depression. Yet by focusing on real food, we can beat the odds against sugar, processed food, obesity, and disease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYS2bcCFJgw
He recommends whole real foods.

Of course the health crisis on everyone's mind is COVID which has been the number one cause of death in the US for several weeks.

I'm expecting continued growth of the disease after the holidays due to poor behavior and cold weather.

This week saw the highest number of cases and deaths globally. On Wednesday, 13,579 people succumbed to the infection, and on Thursday, almost three-quarters of a million people were infected. Of the 75.7 million cases of COVID-19, 20.9 million were active cases of infection, with more than 107,000 in critical condition. There are have been 1.676 million deaths thus far.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/19/pand-d19.html

Southern California hospital ICUs reach zero percent capacity as COVID-19 rips through state https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/19/cali-d19.html

Chris on the suppression of treatments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNM7BhysCq0 (11 min)
On his own site he provides much more information, but he is requiring free registration as he explains... https://www.peakprosperity.com/war-on-truth/

... once you are signed into this site (which requires registration for all newcomers) you will be able to access (for free, of course) today’s video which builds upon and goes further than the one posted to YouTube. Why are we doing this? Because we cannot risk being deplatformed. We already have had one video taken down by YouTube for our strictly scientific coverage of a review paper of Ivermectin (IVM) put out by some of the most accomplished critical care medical doctors in the world. It’s nothing personal, their own video of Dr Kory’s testimony to the US Senate was taken down and deleted by YouTube. But chilling nonetheless. It sucks, and here we are. Our response? Put relatively benign, non-objectionable content out on YouTube but then put what we actually want to say here, on our own site, and behind a soft wall (registration required). Why the soft wall? Because our biggest foes are scammers, spammers, bots, and Google’s prying eyes and spiders which will scrape our content and potentially misuse it against us. Are we over-reacting? No, in fact we may be underreacting. Behind the scenes we are having daily conversations with other content creators who are battling their own waves of censorship that lack both any defensible rationale and a party you could actually talk to on the other end of the social giant machinery. So what’s down there that’s worth your time? Today I discuss:

Ivermectin and the war against it.
The various strategies in play to confuse the public’s perception of IVM
Provide direct actions you can take to inform your doctor about IVM

The data on IVM is compelling as to its effectiveness (we’ve got some direct user experiences in there today) which makes the obviously coordinated campaign against it all the more horrible (if not horrifying). As always, I provide full links to everything.

Chris provides some pretty convincing evidence for the efficacy of ivermectin, and features emails from those who have used the horse paste. Here's some of those resources if you choose not to register at his site. (which only involves providing your email address)
Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (excellent resource)
Ivermectin is effective for COVID-19: meta analysis of 25 studies
Ivermectin as a Broad-Spectrum Host-Directed Antiviral: The Real Deal?
A COVID-19 prophylaxis? Lower incidence associated with prophylactic administration of ivermectin

Here Dr Kory in a 10 minute interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSL7sqOudoE

and an Australian Doctor from four months ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93jI7Gl3yic (7 min) Think how many lives would have been saved had we taken this advice four months ago.

Chris writes on his site...

Why you need to be your own health champion regarding COVID-19

2020 has taken a lot of the wind out of my sails. I’ve gone from being pretty skeptical of all-things-corporate-and-governmental to being completely flabbergasted at just how transparently self-serving and power/money-hungry they actually are.

Somewhere deep down I suppose I’ve been holding onto a remnant of hope that when push finally came to shove, better people and better policies would emerge. You know, because it’s a global emergency and all that. But, nope. We got the opposite instead.

By way of example, I first began reporting on Ivermectin as a possible COVID treatment back in April of 2020. I’ve been following it every step of the way ever since. Confusingly, all of the studies done on it came from poorer, third world countries.

The stupendously rich and well-resourced countries of the West – Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia somehow couldn’t find the time to fund a proper study of Ivermectin. A few are in the works, but they’re small and not finished and won’t report out until long after the first vaccines are deployed. Instead, those same countries’ health managers dourly note that because there are no RCT (Randomized Controlled Trial) results, they can’t recommend Ivermectin.

However, the poorer countries out there, who instead are ‘richer’ in scientific inquiry in this regard, have somehow managed to plow ahead and perform numerous RCTs — 100% of which have come back showing a powerful preventive and curative effect of Ivermectin as a treatment against COVID-19.

Basically this suggest to me we could get back to normal with this treatment and the arrival of vaccines. Perhaps this is a dawning of change in this long dark experience with COVID. I must admit I bought some of the horse paste at my local farm supply to have in case either of us becomes symptomatic. You do what you have to do. Again, I'm not a doctor nor am I recommending this for you, but I am trying to arm you with information.

So, information that could protect lives and help people is suppressed. The dietary guidelines are making people chronically ill, and the suppression of the promise of ivermectin is literally killing people with COVID. These are areas where we can be misled and misinformed, but not controlled. You can eat a healthy diet and can arm yourself with a pretty effective drug against COVID.

The economy is a farce...massive unemployment, looming eviction crisis, small business closures, and record high markets....quite the disconnect.

The Economic Policy Institute recently released new numbers showing, “Unemployment has especially skyrocketed for young workers in the COVID-19 labor market. . . . The overall unemployment rate for young workers ages 16–24 jumped from 8.4% to nearly 25% from spring 2019 to spring 2020 … Spring 2020 unemployment rates were even higher for young Black, Hispanic, and Asian American/Pacific Islander workers – close to 30% for all three groups.”

Unemployment is raging. Out. Of. Control.

https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/14/unemployment-soars-an-evolved-society-...

Congress dithers over token relief bill as 4.8 million more Americans face poverty in January https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/19/stim-d19.html

Today China is controlling your weather. Yesterday the Russians were hacking your mind. The day before it was Kremlin microwave guns. Before that it was Chinese super soldiers. Tomorrow Venezuela will be using communist gamma rays to ruin your performance in bed.

And on and on and on and on. And, strangely, at no time will these media institutions warn you about the fact that your government is constantly murdering people in other countries every single day while you and your neighbors struggle to survive.

Right now the hot topic in US lefty discourse is the fact that Americans are struggling financially and medically as a result of Covid-19 and the ensuing lockdowns, yet the US government is doing virtually nothing to help with this. Americans received a piddling one-time $1200 payment eight months ago, and now after all this time they’re looking at receiving an even more ridiculous one-time $600 stimulus check.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/12/20/why-theyre-denying-you-healthcar...
(worth the full read)

In this episode of Keiser Report, Max and Stacy look at the money supply data soaring as fast as the negative yielding debt in the Potemkin economy. (1st 15 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usaDqnz-_hA

So the US people are sick and broke, but on the bright side the vaccines are coming soon. Plus it is the holiday season, and next week the light will grow. Here's an old weekly watch about the roots of the holidays. We still have a few months of this to suffer through. We need to hang in there and hold the course. Now is not the time to let up our guard. Stay vigilant and careful, and be well. Enjoy the solstice and conjunction and use it as a time to be the change you want to see. Happy holidays!