What comes to mind when you think of government tyranny? Arrests? Camps full of detained people? Beatings? Murders? Property confiscation? Padlocked businesses, churches, and community centers? Those are old-school methods. Too messy. Too loud. Our endlessly inventive totalitarian class has come up with a much better way to keep people in line.
Just take their money.
Trudeau’s government in Canada pioneered freezing bank accounts and crowd funding access during the truckers’ strike. It was a successful test case for crushing dissent without the messiness of mass arrests. If you can’t pay your bills or buy food, then you will find it quite difficult to protest in the streets. After a successful launch in Canada, the new method of control is spreading to the US.
Dr. Joseph Mercola is an entrepreneur and a strident critic of the US Covid response including the lockdowns, the mRNA vaccines, and the FDA. He runs a mostly online business selling specialty beverages, food, supplements and other health items. You may not like him, or his company, but most people would agree that he has a right to his opinions and to run his business as he sees fit. Unfortunately for Dr. Mercola, his bank does not see it that way. On July 13, Mercola’s business, along with the CEO, CFO and some of their family members, all received letters from Chase Bank saying “[they] have decided to close” their personal and business accounts.
You read that correctly. The personal bank accounts of the company officers, and their children in some cases, were also closed. CEO Steven Rye was told his children would not be allowed to have accounts with Chase in the future. Rye said in a press report:
“It’s just hard to believe that your family, your wife, your kids can’t have a bank account because of the opinions of your employer and they’ve never done anything wrong,” Rye said. “We all have completely clear records.”
So far, Chase has refused to provide an actual reason why this action was taken. However, given what we know of the tight connections between the banking system and the federal government, it isn’t hard to guess.
Mercola and his employees are not alone. Dr. Syed Haider is another doctor who has specialized in “unapproved” COVID treatments. He Tweeted this out on 07/25:
I just tweeted about how my business bank account and PayPal were shut down with no notice for no reason and today my Airbnb rental was canceled 3 days into a 28 day stay and now Mercola tweets that his bank accounts along with those of his CEO and CFO and their spouses and children are shut down with no reason and no due process. This is the passive-aggressive, dystopian, woke, social-credit hellscape that is our dying country.
There is no way to know how many other COVID dissenters are being affected right now. This is not the first time the US government has used private businesses, like Chase and PayPal, to harass and silence those with heretical opinions. We all remember the collusion between Big Tech and Big Government during the recent “Pandemic”. Even before that, an Obama-era Justice Department operation called ‘Operation Choke Point’ targeted gun retailers and payday lenders by making it costly for banks to provide services to them. The government weaponized bank obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) regulations. Banks were severely threatened with penalties for non-compliance. Not surprisingly, people and companies lost access to banking.
This, however, is an even more nightmarish situation than any we have ever experienced before. Individual businesses with their employees and families have been targeted, with absolutely no reason given as to why. Is law enforcement involved? Is the FDA? How did this happen? No one knows.
The entire US banking system is in a world of hurt right now, and Chase is no exception. Chase customers have withdrawn $200 billion worth of deposits in the last year as the bank faces a long list of fines, losses and scandals. Fortunately for Chase, the Federal Reserve appears to have a policy of propping up the Big Banks. Q1 of 2023, the Fed created the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) to make available loans of up to one year to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions to keep them solvent. These loans seem to have a minimum requirement of $200B+ in assets under management. That means regional banks and credit unions need not apply. Based on this program and the latest deals involving insolvent institutions (First Republic, Silicon Valley Bank, etc.), it is clear that the Fed is pushing consolidation in the banking industry.
Regardless of what happens, Chase and the other Big Banks have been backstopped by the Fed. As a matter of government policy, they will survive and keep gobbling up smaller financial institutions as those continue to fail. No thinking person can mistake this situation as a “free market”. Big Banks like Chase are now operating as arms of the US Government, and are happy to do so. At the same time, the number of competing financial institutions is being intentionally reduced. That leaves those cut off by the Big Banks with fewer and fewer options.
Do you see a problem, yet? Well, it gets worse.
In March 2022, President Biden signed an Executive Order directing government agencies to urgently research and develop a potential US central bank digital currency (CBDC) “in a manner that protects Americans’ interests.” CBDC’s are a worldwide trend. China’s digital yuan pilot program is used to pay salaries. The Bahamas’ sand dollar is legal tender in the Caribbean nation. Australia, Thailand, Brazil, India, South Korea and Russia are running or preparing to launch CBDC projects. The powers-that-be in American banking, finance, and government desperately want a US digital currency.
What is a Central Bank Digital Currency? Think of it as a dollar that only exists virtually. There is no physical cash. All transactions are electronic. This article provides more information about CBDCs. The proponents of CBDCs say they would lower costs, offer greater transparency and improve efficiency for national payment systems. Central Banks also love the idea because they could more easily execute monetary policies to “fight” inflation or “stimulate” the economy.
There will be other proponents who will appeal to social conservatives by pushing the law enforcement angle. Want to stop drug deals and child trafficking? Then make it impossible for those “businesses” to operate. It was the desire to control the drug trade, after all, that led to so many of our current banking regulations. Good people will be all too easily taken in by their desire to see justice done.
What are the downsides of a CBDC? Below is a partial list:
- Loss of settlement finality as a buyer can’t just hand you cash and walk away.
- Loss of financial privacy as surveillance will be total.
- Easy seizure of assets.
- Loss of autonomy at the local banking level, as the Fed will be involved in everything.
- Outright prohibition on spending or purchase limits with certain merchants or on certain products.
- Social engineering by central banks and governments including negative interest rates, the expiry of one’s money, and the discouraging of the consumption of products like gasoline, travel, red meat, etc. in order to enforce a climate agenda, equity agenda, antiracism agenda, safety agenda, or any other kind of agenda. The Karens will own your money.
- Harassment of businesses operating legally under state law, but which are illegal or highly regulated under Federal Law.
Those are serious downsides. CBDCs are not popular where they have been tried, nor are they popular with the American people as a concept. Surveys routinely find that only around 16% of Americans are comfortable giving the government that much control over their financial lives. That is why there is talk of tying CBDC adoption to a Universal Basic Income scheme. Nothing incentivizes people like “free” money. Further enhancements of the digital system could include “tokenizing” all property, and even implanting a microchip under your skin to access your digital wallet. The Transhumanist push (see here, here, here) and vaccine passport efforts have already prepared many people to accept such an invasion of bodily autonomy. (For more on the growing surveillance state in general, please see Our Resignation to Mass Surveillance.)
The team from the Redacted channel does a good job in the video below of covering these topics:
While the Fed could bypass the banking system and issue CBDC directly, it is unlikely to do so. The Fed likes the system of Big Banks we have, and even seems to be consolidating it further. A top tier of banks, totally committed to doing the Fed’s bidding, provides the government with a level of plausible deniability. “We didn’t cut off your funds,” says a bureaucrat to a citizen punished for exercising free speech, “Your bank did. Oh, and no other bank will accept you. So, good luck.”
The threat to individual liberty should be plain enough. However, my greatest fear is actually for the Church.
Dangers to the Orthodox Church
The US Government is Woke. Federal Government policies include: LGBTQ+ “rights”, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, transhumanism, unlimited immigration, foreign wars (possibly with China), the destruction of Russia as a great power, the preservation of wealth for the top 1%, costly Green initiatives, fighting “white supremacy”, fighting “Christian nationalism”, fighting “antisemitism”, and combatting climate change. The above list represents a wholesale transformation of American society, and much of it runs counter to the teachings of the Orthodox Church.
The Pandemic taught us three things. First, the government can close Churches if it can make a compelling enough argument. Second, many Orthodox bishops and clergy will go along the closures, rather than face possible penalties. Third, while forced closures worked for awhile, they were successfully challenged in the courts, were unpopular, and actually drove many people to join more conservative Churches that resisted locking down.
Clearly just forcibly shutting down recalcitrant Churches is not a good solution for the government. Now, of course, the government doesn’t have to. The banks can shut the Churches down instead. Your Church opposes same-sex marriage, sexually mutilating children, has hymns that are “antisemitic”, or has the word “Russian” in its name? No bank account for your Church.
No problem, you say? You can just donate cash? Sorry, welcome to the digital dollar. There is no cash. By the way, as an affiliate of a known radical, subversive, hate group – let’s just cut off your bank account as well. Just how do you keep a parish open, or a family from starving, with absolutely no access to any way to pay for anything?
The government does not even have to ask for everything all at once. After all, Satan normally works incrementally. Today you have to accept non-discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons in hiring for Church support positions (admin, daycare, teachers, professors, etc). That’s okay, right? The Church should be fair, right? You can easily talk yourself into that. Next week, you have to stop preaching against same-sex behavior. No sweat, lots of other topics to cover! Next month, you change a few hymns that are not “inclusive” enough. The month after, you have to ordain women. At some point you find yourself so far gone that there is no coming back.
Not all parishes will comply, of course. That’s fine by the government. They can pick them off slowly, one at a time, and pretend all the while that the decisions came from private companies. Maybe hit the smaller parishes first, so to cause less of a stir. As we know, the government can already stifle press coverage and censor social media. Outside of the targeted parishes, no one will even know this is happening. Churches will just mysteriously close and disappear.
What happened to the neighborhood parish that has been there for 100 years? No clue, just pass the Doritos cuz the game is on.
Now, as a Christian, at some point you look at all this and think, “Mark of the Beast”. Changes in our financial system could be leading to exactly that. After all, we are staring straight at a world in which you will require permission to buy and sell anything. Perhaps even a world in which you will need permission to possess anything. This is not a world that any of us should wish to inhabit, but it is a world that our Global Elite openly wishes to build.
“16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”
-Revelation 13:16-18
For the Lords of the Manor, serfdom is a wonderful system.
Is a global government with its own “mark” inevitable? Yes, because the prophecies in Revelations are undoubtedly true. Is the Mark of the Best going to happen now? Maybe so. We could fill whole volumes with things that “couldn’t happen” which have happened in the past few years. The End of Days would be just another in a string of already unimaginable events. While prophecy may be coming true before our eyes, it remains to be seen if our repentance and prayers might not convince Jesus to tarry awhile longer.
Beware Orthodox Bishops and Academics
Before I close this out, I have to issue a final warning. Subversive bishops and academics have an important role to play in the coming financial and political conflicts. Their primary task is to keep you asleep and unconcerned. They already favor implementing the government’s Woke agenda in the Church. They view governmental pressure as just the excuse they need to transform the Church into a “modern”, Globalist institution.
Always concerning when an Orthodox Hierarch peppers his speeches with Globalist buzzwords
They will excuse every compromise the same as they did their compliance during COVID. “We have no choice,” they will say with a concerned look, all the while smiling inside over their good fortune. For now, they will call anyone raising the alarm an unhinged “conspiracy theorist”. Their assurances will keep many naïve Orthodox Christians calm until it is far, far too late.
Of course, there is a big problem with that label “conspiracy theorist” being applied in the current situation. You don’t issue press releases about conspiracies. You don’t talk about them in panel discussions, in interviews, or in marketing brochures either. It is not a “conspiracy” if everyone knows about it. Still, expect Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop Elpidophoros, the Fordhamites, and other Orthodox “Progressives” to apply that slander, and many more like it, to anyone daring to question their Globalist beliefs.
Hold fast to the good shepherds. Hold fast to each other. Pray for discernment. Repent of your sins. Prepare yourself spiritually for whatever may come. The world is God’s, so is the future. So are our souls.
Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America
⛓️CBDC, de-banking and sergianism, a trifecta of control on the road to serfdom.
Dearest brothers and sisters,
These things are very real and on the horizon. Be praying everyday asking God to show you a way out of the “world”/matrix/system. Do it now!
Since Industrialization, Man has been “institutionalized”/ monetized, and commoditized (including the Church[1]), all bench marks of life have come under the care of the “professionals” making void the family unit God created where all provision and trust in God are gone end-around God as provider, and Father. Where the money says, “In God we Trust”, it is a joke on you—they are laughing all the way to the bank—they are the bank. The “note” is a nothing—the fathers would call it a “non-being” and its inscription a void as well. Only the pyramid tells you what spirit it is of. We have come to trust that very thing, and God will over throw it in a moment.
Birth, death, healing, education, child care, wealth creation, food production, and worship have been removed from the home—God’s design— and placed into the care of professionals, the industrial complex now governed by AI.
The world is being run on maritime law, only the oceans are universal (e.g. ecumenism). It’s all based on economic trade offs, and might makes rite—in every sense of the word. He with the deepest pockets wins. And the tradeoff will be—and now is—, to buy or sell, pledge allegiance to us, worship our idols or pay the consequences.
(NO, thank you! We will not bend, we will not bow, we will not burn [3 Hebrew Children]).
Take a hard look at any dollar. It says, “Federal Reserve Note.” The only lie in this, the “Fed”, is not anything American. It is foreign. From the beginning the Federal Reserve has always been owned by the World Bankers. When our government gave away its rite to provide a currency, it sold itself into the hands of the globalists bankers forever. Mark well, the word “note”. What is a “note”? That is a non-descript that could mean anything the overlords wish it to be. Which means they can change it anytime they like. Its value is a pure fantasy easily manipulated.
Think for just a moment: inherently no government can have a debt—there is no such thing, it does not exist. Whenever any government goes into debt, that debt is carried by the citizens, always; it is being sold into slavery. You are monetized; they own your ass, and everything else. Because of this, you will not be able to buy nor sell without coming under their control; pledging allegiance to them and carry their grudge against God. They own it, and rightfully so.
Only God can give you a “get out of jail free card.” Which will not be “free.”—there is no such thing as free. Even though salvation is free, it will cost you whatever investment/stakes/ you possess in the world system. It will cost you what the rich young ruler refused to give up. Pray, Pray, Pray, and expect God to totally upset your life to get it out of the matrix. Be willing to give up things of security to stand on raw faith in God. If you look back, you become a pillar of salt.
As each day passes, the ante is raised to another level, where the following of Christ becomes harder, and the cost of freedom, all the higher. As God’s warnings goes forth, you become all the more responsible for what you know to be fact. Each time you refuse an off-ramp, the next becomes more difficult. And, you and your children are sold into slavery. Those who wait will face certain martyrdom to make it out on the rite side. Others will be the remnant.
What is happening right now? The world bankers are foreclosing on America, other nations, and you. The debt is insurmountable. For them to get away with it, it must have some validity in covenant. It has to be honest enough to work, and it does. Our American forefathers gave away our birth rite, and now the bill must be paid; God will not void this, because it is covenantal. In His temptation, Jesus never argued with Satan regarding who owns it, he does, until Adam’s lease runs out.
When Adam’s lease runs out, then the effects of the Passion will come full force, and many will sorrow for not getting on the rite side of things before the end as destinies will be locked. To have any freedom in this life, you must be living and working in God’s kingdom, living by faith not giving any thought for what ye shall eat, wear, where you will live, or how you will pay for it.
This is why Jesus preached the kingdom, not the Church. The Church cannot keep you out of the domain of Satan (Hello Elpi), nor will being a church member ever make you free from antichrist, only the kingdom can do this and the kingdom is within you.
As for the mark of the beast, is it a physical mark, or is it spiritual, how will we know it? It is all of the above, including the automatic default for not taking the “mark of God” in the forehead. The front of the brain is the control for the whole person. With the mark of God, it means the control—being voluntarily led by the Holy Spirit. The front of the brain is also reasoning; if you live by sword of reason (parsing life), you will die by the sword of human reasoning; God will require of you to do the unreasonable—e.g. sell all—to find freedom. Now would be a good time to make that move.
HE IS NO FOOL WHO GIVES UP WHAT HE CANNOT KEEP, IN ORDER TO GAIN WHAT HE CANNOT LOSE (some forgotten missionary).
You have been warned.
[1] Make no mistake, every diocese is a business entity according to the courts.
Thanks, very good article. The blog “Naked Capitalism” has published something substantially similar to what you have published (except of course the article does not go into the implications for Orthodoxy, as your article does).
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/07/the-broader-ramifications-of-the-nigel-farage-debanking-scandal.html
Thank you for the recommendation.
In order for any of this stuff to work, people have to use it enough that the former things can be removed. Obviously, many will take the bait. Don’t use your cell phone as a credit/debit card, start there. Just use plastic, or better yet, just use cash and with businesses you know, a check. keep using face to face banking. the market has to trend with the behaviors of the folks.
While Dr. Mercola is fairly solid in his medical advice, he–and his family– should know better than put any money in Chase. If he has mortgages there, bad idea–the debtor is always servant to the lender.
There are local banks, that are not moving in this direction. So, here is the hot tip, get all your money out of interstate–international banks and go with local banks that are restricted to a small area. Over the last few decades they have tried to distroy these small banks, but some hang on due to customer loyalty. One bank recended its place as a “national” bank, retooled, changed its name, to cater to the local economy, all branches within a hundred miles. This is the kind of bank you want to put your money in. These banks will have less convienence, and probably charge a fee for a checking account. This is old fashion banking where the bank must profit to stay in business without government bailouts–which always have strings attached.
The Bank of Russia’s digital ruble CBDC was officially signed into law on Monday by President Vladimir Putin… https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/th-bank-of-russias-cbdc-myth-vs-reality?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=520963&post_id=135434718&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
I don’t know if the Mark is just spiritual or physical and spiritual, but whatever it is it will be tied directly to the social credit CBDC system. Read Elder Athanasius’ Revelation series if you haven’t, and then prepare yourself for what’s ahead.
ARCHIMANDRITE Athanasios Mitilinaios’ commentary (Zoe Press) on “Revelation” in five volumes (English Translation) is outstanding…… Αξιοσ!
These are indeed ⏰ interesting times