Orthodox Reflections

Anti-Woke activists have been having a banner year. After the trans-influencer fiasco, Bud Light sales have cratered so badly that it is no longer the top-selling beer in America. Its parent company, Anheuser-Busch, has lost so much money it is reportedly putting some of its craft beer lines up for sale. There is speculation that Bud Light may actually not survive as a brand. Disney, the King Mouse of Woke, has lost its shirt on a string of bloated, preachy box office bombs. Park attendance in Florida is down, and the Disney+ streaming service is bleeding subscribers and money. Target, after drawing criticism for its Pride Month displays aimed at kids, saw its stock lose more than $12 billion in share value, the largest stock price decline in over 20 years. Predictably, that dismal stock performance has spawned an investor lawsuit against the company’s management.

Go woke, go broke. The free market appears to be working so well that activists are already talking about new potential targets for boycotts such as BestBuy. Unfortunately, the apparent recent successes are distracting them from a major problem with their strategy of taking on corporate America. The US doesn’t have a free market economy. While most people were busy being economically uninformed, the US transitioned to a command economy run by an oligarchy. Ironically, an oligarchy whose power is lavishly funded by Americans’ desire to retire well.

The assets of all American retirement funds, at close to $35 trillion dollars, is larger than the entire US annual GDP of $25 trillion dollars. Pension funds, and 401(k)-style plans, are primarily invested through asset management companies. The top three asset managers for all this cash are Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street. BlackRock alone oversees $10 trillion dollars. These companies are the biggest players in the financial markets, and the biggest investors in every level of the economy. Their assets under management dwarf the richest people, even the richest countries.

There are 2,640 billionaires on the planet worth $2.1 trillion. That is a staggering amount of money, and can buy a tremendous amount of influence. BlackRock controls the investment of $10 trillion dollars by itself. Many of the billionaires have Blackrock and its competitor companies managing large amounts of their personal wealth. Billionaires are important, as where their money goes (especially to NGOs and nonprofits) can have a big impact on our lives. On balance, however, the influence of even the richest man on Earth pales in comparison to that of the mega investment houses. Same when they are compared to countries, or even whole continents. Blackrock and Vanguard combined manage a total of $17 trillion in Europe, an amount equal to the entire GDP of the European Union.

The 401(k)s and pensions of millions and millions of ordinary Americans are the key to untold power and influence. The big three asset management firms own almost the entire corporate sector, and an increasingly large chunk of the residential real estate market as well. How does it change things, when the same management firms own everyone and their competitors? You feel good about the boycott hurting Target? Great. But the asset managers (Vanguard, State Street, Blackrock) that own large stakes in Target, also have huge investments in Walmart, its primary competitor in many areas.

Heads they win. 

Tails you lose. 

A functioning free market rewards business excellence and punishes business failure. To keep sales as high as possible, corporate management should be doing everything in its power to avoid offending a major portion of its consumer base. Losing sales is the epitome of failure. But what if corporate management answers to fund managers who have other agendas? What if the fund managers are only concerned about maximizing general market return, and are willing to sacrifice individual companies in pursuit of objectives such as high ESG scores or “advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion”? Whether Target stock drops or Bud Light dies as a brand is of little consequence to the asset managers who own a large piece of everyone. They get paid either way, which makes the success or failure of any one company of little concern.

So how effective are your boycotts really when the true owners of the targeted companies aren’t particularly concerned about the pain you are causing?

The asset managers (including top tier banks) combined with Central Banks, operating with and through the US Federal Government, effectively run much of the world. Nothing happening in the foreign policy and economic spheres is designed to benefit you, the average American tax-paying citizen. The focus is global, with money flowing where the mega investors see fit. Your government, as currently constituted, is there to support the Global Financial Elite, not you. Your welfare is not even an after-thought, which is why the economic and financial results are the way they are.

The average American family is spending $709 more per month than it did just two years ago on the same goods and services. Americans can’t afford to keep up, which is why US credit card debt has now topped $1 trillion for the first time ever. The New York Federal Reserve Bank reported that the average interest rate for credit cards hit a record 22.2% in May 2023. Americans have opened more than 70 million new credit card accounts since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Collectively, Americans owe a total household debt of $17.06 trillion in the second quarter of 2023.

Total US debt, including government, business, and personal debt has reached an almost unbelievable $100 trillion, with annual GDP of just 1/4 of that ($25 trillion). Interest expense on the national debt has reached $1 trillion for the first time, increasing 50% in just the past year. Interest expenses will soon account for over 20% of all government expenditures, higher than national defense spending. Over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office projects interest costs to hit $10.6 trillion.

Among American businesses, Chapter 11 “reorganization” bankruptcies skyrocketed 68% for the first half of 2023, with filings for small businesses climbing by 55%. The US trucking firm, Yellow, just declared bankruptcy, leaving the futures of its 30k employees very much in doubt. US imports have plunged at an annualized rate of -7.8 for Q2 of this year. The worst decline since 1970.

The US money supply is still twice the size of pre-COVID. 40% of all money in circulation was printed in just the last 1.5 years. Much of the new “hot money”, of course, found its way into the the stock market and other speculative investments, thus making rich investors even richer. Meanwhile, the real buying power of average Americans’ paychecks is shrinking at an alarming rate.

Data reported by the Wall Street Journal shows homelessness is up about 11% from 2022. It’s by far the biggest recorded increase since the government started tracking comparable numbers in 2007. The most significant driver remains high housing costs, including a lack of affordable rental units. Tour almost any urban area, and you will see the homeless camped everywhere.

But, you might ask, won’t many American workers benefit from the inflation-driven growth in their retirement accounts? Sure, maybe, when they retire and can finally tap into those assets. Meanwhile, the asset management companies get paid now to manage those funds. The big investors can sell out now to cash in their gains, before additional inflation makes their dollars worth less than they are today. Meanwhile, American workers must wait and wait for a promised payout, all the while taking on more debit to stay afloat as their paychecks can’t even cover their bills.

It is fashionable to call America an empire these days. If it is, then it is an empire of debt. A financial house of cards in serious danger of collapse. A collapse whose results will be catastrophic for all the Americans who can’t just fly away to Switzerland on their private jets. Meanwhile, however, let’s ignore all that and continue to argue over things that really matter like sexual perversion and billions more for Ukraine. Not like we are being intentionally distracted or anything.

Much of the population has been scared into believing a right-wing, fascist takeover is imminent. Another large percentage is fearfully waiting a left-wing, communist coup. Neither side realizes that the revolution has already occurred. The oligarchic system in the West is designed to funnel ever escalating amounts of wealth and power straight to the very top. They become Kings. The fit and useful (to them) among us become serfs. The “useless eaters” among us become corpses. Any economic system, divorced from Christian morality, ends in the callous exploitation of the weak by the strong.

But, what about Democracy? Aren’t the American people sovereign? Can’t we change all this by voting out Biden, and voting in Donald Trump?

Of course not. Voting does not matter in Western counties, as the results are going to be same, even if the powers-that-be screw up occasionally and allow outsiders to win an election or two. (The advent of lawfare to imprison opponents, along with ever more vigorous censorship, indicate that the Establishment is getting serious about no more “accidental” victories.) Trump won, unexpectedly in 2016, but was never allowed to govern effectively enough to in any way hinder the workings of “the swamp”. Big Government, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Media, the Military Industrial Complex, Big Finance, Big Education, and the political parties are all one big, seamlessly integrated entity that no president or Congress, absent a systemic collapse, will ever have the power to challenge.

We can illustrate this sad truth many ways, but the COVID Pandemic is one of the best examples. During the pandemic, BlackRock instructed the major pharmaceutical corporations to collaborate on vaccine research. The asset managers didn’t care whether Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson or Merck patented a vaccine first. BlackRock owned all three. In record time, we got three major vaccines developed using new and untested technology, which the FDA dutifully approved for “emergency use”. Below are some of the things we now know about how corrupt the whole process of developing and marketing these “vaccines” really was:

• There was substantial mishandling and lack of oversight of Pfizer’s research into its vaccine
• Pfizer admitted that it never actually tested if its vaccine stopped transmission
• There have been continuing efforts to obscure evidence demonstrating that natural infection confers superior immunity to the vaccine
• mRNA can remain in the blood for at least a month after vaccination, with no idea what it may be doing in that time to our immune systems
• There was high variation in adverse reactions caused by different batches of mRNA vaccine, with some off the scale
• US researchers and Pfizer were involved in engineering the kind of coronaviruses that led to the COVID pandemic in the first place
• There was a causal connection, confirmed by the WHO, between vaccination and the development of autoimmune disease like multiple sclerosis
• Many, many thousands of “excessive” deaths, including those of young people, are happening across the Western world than should be when compared to previous years. The deaths are often for entirely mysterious reasons.

Why would the FDA, charged with protecting the public health, approve for use an untested, potentially dangerous gene therapy? Why did multiple branches of the government cooperate to mandate the jabs? Why is everyone in power still covering up the abysmally low effectiveness and poor safety record of the COVID jabs?

Embarrassment plays a role. No doubt politics does too. Ideology is there also. So was the exploitable panic of the 20% or more of Americans with mental illnesses.

But mostly it was money. Buckets and buckets of money.

The financial results for Pfizer, and subsequently the profits to its investors (top three of which are BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street), were truly astounding. In 2022, Pfizer earned $37.8 billion from its COVID jab, and an additional $18.9 billion from Paxlovid, its antiviral treatment. Pfizer’s combined sales from its “vaccine” and Paxlovid alone generated more revenue in 2022 than it had in total sales in 2019. Moderna had never had a viable product before its COVID “vaccine”. Now that demand is dropping for its jab, Moderna’s stock is tanking. The big investors and company insiders, of course, have been unloading overpriced shares all along the way to the fools willing to buy.

Developing a product using taxpayer funds, with total legal immunity for any side effects, marketed by the government, and even required for millions to travel and/or earn a living – that is great work if you can get it.  But don’t think the Big Pharma companies are all bad. At least they were benevolent enough to make sure the government, and all those selfless “public servants”, got their pieces of the action.

The Food and Drug Administration gets close to 45% of its budget from “user fees” that companies pay when they apply for approval of a medical device or drug. 65% of the funding for human drug regulatory activities are derived from user fees. You get what you pay for. Since industry started providing so much funding, the number of standard new drug applications approved the first time around rocketed from 38% in 2005 to 61%. The approvals also came faster, while safety standards have plummeted as a result. In one assessment, investigators looked at the number of newly approved medications that were subsequently removed from the market, or had to include a new black box warning, within 16 years from the year of approval. These black box warnings are the highest level of safety alert that the FDA can employ, warning users that a very serious adverse event could occur. Before the user fees, 21% of medications were removed or had new black box warnings as compared to 27% afterwards. Side effects from prescription drugs are estimated to be the 4th leading cause of death in the US.

The sicker the public is, the more money these companies earn. Approximately 47% of the US population, 150 million Americans, suffered from at least one chronic disease, as of 2014. Almost 30 million Americans are living with five or more chronic diseases. Approximately 27% of children in the United States suffer from a chronic condition, while about 6% of children have more than one. So whether they are treating illnesses caused by our horrific lifestyles and diets, or the effects of their own products, the result is more money for “health care” / Pharma companies and their investors. A bought and paid for FDA seems to care as little about the “health outcomes” of the American people as its masters in the “private” sector.

So why didn’t the FDA protect the public from the dangerous COVID jabs? For the same reason it is not protecting the people from all the other dangerous drugs and vaccines – the agency mostly works for Big Pharma, not you. To the extent the massive infrastructure dedicated to researching infectious diseases, and promoting “public health”, does work for the American public, that is really just about getting more taxpayer money. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NAID), formerly headed by Fauci, has a $6.3 billion budget. That’s not even the biggest. These bureaucrats are constantly looking to protect and expand their budgets. The bigger the public scare, the bigger the budgets.

Individual employees of the Federal government are on the take as well. National Institutes of Health scientists raked in more than $325 million in royalties from foreign as well as domestic pharmaceutical companies over more than a decade. Taxpayers may have paid their salaries, but corporate royalties bought their souls. Government functionaries also get handsomely rewarded when they leave government “service”. Deborah Birx , the former White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator under former President Donald Trump, was recently named the CEO of Armata Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company.

But don’t think all this corruption is limited to health care. The whole government is dirty.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin went from Army general, to defense giant Raytheon’s Board of Directors, then back to “public service” in the Biden Administration. The Pentagon has awarded Raytheon Technologies billions in government contracts since his confirmation in 2021. Any guesses where Austin will end up after his time “serving” the public is over?

Would you be curious to know who are the top three shareholders in Raytheon? They are (in order) Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock. Don’t expect the US to be interested in peace negotiations with Russia anytime soon. It is also interesting that the US and Ukrainian governments want to turn over the reconstruction of Ukraine to a Ukrainian Development Fund, which will be run by Blackrock. The Blackrock-managed fund will mobilize capital to carry out the reconstruction of the country focusing on energy, infrastructure, agriculture, industry and information technology (IT). Experts speculate that Kiev intends to repay its foreign debts by selling off Ukrainian property to transnational capital.

Given what you just read, how independent from corporate interests do you think the Department of Defense and our foreign policy establishment really are? Between the billions in military contracting, and the future potential outright ownership of much of Ukraine by “private” interests, no wonder the US taxpayer is being continuously fleeced to keep this war going. It seems strange that more Americans haven’t figured that out, yet. You would think the Ukrainians would also get a clue that they are nothing but victims in the theft of their own country. So far, however, most everyone seems oblivious.

One other curious thing about BlackRock and the US financial establishment. It was selected by the US Federal Reserve to manage the system of bailouts for the financial stimulus program. Blackrock “helped” the Fed buy billions of dollars in bonds and securities to sustain the companies that dominate the world capitalist economy, as well as to “stabilize the bond market.” BlackRock is also the leading creditor of the Global South. Countries poor in money but often rich in resources. Countries with which the US Government is frequently in conflict. Are you having a hard time telling where BlackRock ends, and the US Government begins?

Don’t worry, you are not alone.

Fine, you might say, so why doesn’t the media blow the whistle on all this collusion? Vanguard and BlackRock are the top two owners of Time Warner, Comcast, Disney and News Corp, four of the six media companies that control more than 90% of the U.S. media landscape. Experience over the past few years has proven that if Big Money and Big Government want to spike a story, distract the populace, or promote a narrative, then the Mainstream Media will cooperate fully. The Pandemic Narrative, the Hunter Laptop, vaccine injuries, Ukraine’s impending “victory”, “Bidenomics” is saving the US economy – just a few examples when the entire media seemed to be singing from the same hymnal, in the same church. which is coincidentally owned by a group of mega rich investment firms.

It is more than just the influence that comes from common ownership, however. The CIA has been referred to as an “Enforcer for Global Capitalism”. Domestically, that job is fulfilled primarily by the FBI. These government agencies, and more, have their tentacles in our entire media spectrum.

In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled “The CIA and the Media” reporting that the CIA had covertly infiltrated America’s most influential news outlets and had over 400 reporters who it considered assets in a program known as Operation Mockingbird. It was a major scandal, as the truthfulness of news reporting was called into question. That was then, however. Now, CIA collaboration with, and coordination of, news reporting is done entirely out in the open. Known CIA assets routinely work for news organizations, including former high-level employees of the agency. Reporting is too often little more than passing on CIA or government press releases, with no independent journalistic investigation. That is why so many stories are later debunked or retracted, routinely leaving egg on the faces of so many “journalists”, who simply turn around and do the same thing again and again. Things are so bad now that one commentator described the situation like this, “The CIA used to infiltrate the media. Now the CIA is the media.”

Social Media is not exempt from government meddling and infiltration. In the Twitter files release, Matt Taibbi revealed that, prior to Musk, Twitter kept in contact with so many agencies, including the Department of Defense and the FBI, that it lost track. Taibbi also described alleged meetings of Twitter executives with FBI personnel and other agencies where they would discuss foreign matters and moderation requests from state governments and local police. There are indications that the CIA was also involved.

Merely influencing Social Media from the outside is evidently not enough for the government agencies. Big Social Media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Google have recruited dozens of CIA officers, including some formerly of high rank, as well as many more resources from other agencies like the FBI and Department of Defense (DoD). Former FBI agents are everywhere at Twitter, while Facebook seems to prefer ex-spies. These former G-Men usually work in highly politically sensitive sectors such as trust, security and content moderation. Even companies that you would not normally think of have been infiltrated. TikTok is flooded with former NATO officials. Reddit is led by a former war planner for the NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council.

Censoring Social Media, affecting search algorithms, promoting content that pushes the “narrative” of the moment, making unapproved commentary hard to find – these things are all bad enough on their own, but the Establishment does not stop there. The Establishment also actively writes, and rewrites, history. Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, said in an interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald:

“The rank and file ‘Wikipedians,’ they take their cues not from … Wikipedia’s original neutrality policy or anything like that. They take their cues from, basically, CNN and MSNBC and The New York Times and whatever those outlets feel comfortable saying.”

 

“It’s clear that between 2005 and 2015… Wikipedia moved on the establishment’s radar,” Sanger stated, adding that it was discovered in 2008 that “the CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia.”

 

“And [do you] think they stopped doing that back then? No.”

 

“And we know that that intelligence now—a great part of intelligence and information warfare is conducted online. And where, if not on websites like Wikipedia?”

 

“They pay off the most influential people to push their agendas, which they’re already mostly in line with. Or they just develop their own talent within the community, learning the Wikipedia game, and then, you know, push what they want to say with their own people,” Sanger said.

Scientists, politicians, union bosses, bureaucrats, journalists, college professors, police, federal agents, CIA spooks, Social Media influencers, priests, bishops, theologians – this game works the same for everyone. With trillions of dollars at stake, almost everyone is for sale at a price Global Capitalism can easily afford. Most can be bought for what BlackRock or Vanguard would consider pocket change. The very few, who can’t be bought, can still be blackmailed, otherwise coerced, or jailed. It really pays off to have intelligence and Law Enforcement assets on your list of “friends”.

Suppose some principled men and women of integrity actually do manage to tell the truth, without fleeing the country like Snowden or going to jail like Assange? Why should the Global Elite care? Even when the truth is put plainly in front of them, a thoroughly propagandized Western public sits totally helpless and inert in the face of even the greatest outrages. You can see Biden wandering around the stage in a haze, you can see suspicious deaths all around you, domestic catastrophes go ignored in favor of billions for Ukraine, you can see story after story pushed by the Media that turn out to be false, and still you sit quietly in the face of it all. The West is beaten down, demoralized, and at the mercy of those who have none.

Now arises the absolute coup de grâce to what is left of our freedom – Central Bank Digital Currency. When that particular plan is complete, offending the Global Establishment could result in being completely locked out of the financial system altogether. Of course, the new system won’t represent any danger at all for the Masters of Global Capital. They’ll co-own the new system with the Fed. All reward, no risk.

For 2,000 years, the Christian Faith has warned against the dangers of a globally integrated political, religious, social, and economic order. That particular Beast is almost fully upon us. The Globalists running the world don’t care about the citizens of any particular country or region. They are above such considerations. We are all just cogs in their vast machine generating profits for Mammon, the god of this world.

What can be done about this? See to your own soul, and those of your family. Effective resistance will require true Christian discernment that can only be developed through prayer, fasting, and participation in the sacraments. As one practical measure, we can focus on spreading the truth. The vast majority of our fellow citizens are too distracted, too propagandized, to realize that they are the suckers in this Global con game. Telling the truth can cause discontent, which can spread. Popular discontent is the only thing the Global Elite really fears. There are just so many of us, and so few of them.

Journalist H.L. Mencken was wrong on God, but right on so much else

Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America