In 58 posts with close to 100k words, we shared a lot in 2024! Explore 2024’s biggest geopolitical shifts, cultural battles, and bold insights with Drishtikone’s year in review. See you in 2025! Happy New Year! Be safe!
When you see Russia get into existential war over Ukraine, or Israel bomb Syria or India battle with Pakistan or Bangladesh, it is not because of some whim. It has a historical and geographical context. That is critical to understand for analyzing geopolitics.
Dive into the shadowy world of the Deep State—its hidden structures, powerful networks, and the far-reaching impact on global events and control.
WorldCoin is coming. COVID provided the petridish for global action by totalitarian minds. As the financial system is infused by Woke agenda, controlling tools are being readied. Are we aware?
During the Tang dynasty in China in the 9th century, there was a Zen master Zhaozhou. A monk named Yanyang came roaming by his monastery.
Yangyang asked Zhaozhou:
"I have come with nothing. What do I do in such a case?"
Zhaozhou quickly retorted:
“Throw it away.”
Yanyang persisted:
“I said I came with nothing, so what do you expect me to throw away?”
The Zen master replied:
“Then hurry and take it away.”
In the cosmic scheme, we are one moment away from annihilation. And one moment away from cosmic realization and being part of it consciously.
Yet, we are striving to control the cosmos. In our own petty way.
Those who attempt that have a few moments of triumph. Those who suffer their triumph take the pain along to other realms of existence.
The balance eventually comes. The greater the collective pain in the other realms and more vicious the triumphs in the physical, the more violent will be the nature's way back to balance.
The start of banking, as we know it today in many ways, started around the end of the 14th century. Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici founded Banco dei Medici (the Medici Bank) and quickly scaled it to a point where huge amounts of money were being processed. It needed new ways to handle and manage money. Some records show that although it was Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and Leonardo da Vinci's friend who first codified the Double entry accounting system in his seminal book Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità, but the use of this system was already happening in business. Specifically the Medici Banks.
The Medicis were using a rudimentary form of cost accounting as well along with the double-entry bookkeeping
Medici family came up with the concept of Letters of Credit as a mechanism to facilitate trade in huge sums across different countries in Europe. Thus circumventing the dangerous task of moving these sums.
In order to expand to facilitate transactions of the Catholic Church, the Medicis expanded to different Italian cities - Geneva, Venice, and Rome. Later branches were opened in London, Bruges, and Lübeck. This helped the Papacy to work and trade across Europe while facilitating payments from bishoprics (office of the bishops). That was the beginning of bank branches.
These were the changes in how relevant methods in accounting were used extensively that helped create the basis for today's Capitalism.
But the Medicis added other facets to their main business of banking - political and religious control.
Medicis did both.
Four popes in the Vatican were Medicis: Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV, and Leo XI. Two queens were Medicis - Catherine de’ Medici and Marie de’ Medici (Source: The Medici Family: Ultimate Power and Legacy In The Renaissance).
The Medici blood was mixed in many European royal families. That helped their cause.
The modern banking system has been dominated by the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and the Barings family. As always, geopolitics and global wars have been central to their activities.
As merchant bankers, they made loans to big business and governments, netting great fortunes for themselves and for the British Empire. The Barings helped the British government fund the Napoleonic Wars and financed the United States’ Louisiana Purchase, while the Rothschilds came up with an eleventh-hour loan for Britain to buy the Suez Canal. With their growing wealth, the Barings collected a string of peerages, or noble titles, throughout the 19th Century. Nathan Rothschild’s son, Lionel, became the first Jewish member of Parliament in 1858 as members of the Baring family became colonial rulers in Egypt, India and Kenya. A century after their landing in England, the Duc de Richelieu called the Baring family “the sixth great power of Europe.” (Source: "British Bank’s Fall Reveals a Persistent Clash of Class" / Los Angeles Times)
These banking families were closely intertwined with the colonial enterprise.
Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook, for example, served as the undersecretary of India and then the Viceroy from 1872 (Source; Brittanica).
Another Baring family member, Lord Cromer served in India and Egypt and became one of the most well-known "colonial officials" of his time. The other was Lord Curzon, India's Viceroy. Cromer was an imperialist and a strong proponent of Eurocentrism as well as the racial superiority of Europeans (Source: Lord Cromer: Victorian Imperialist, Edwardian Proconsul / Harvard University).
Last year in February 2022, a whistleblower leaked details from Credit Suisse - a Swiss bank - that shocked the world. The patrons of this bank were the most immoral set of groups and criminals possible.
They include a human trafficker in the Philippines, a Hong Kong stock exchange boss jailed for bribery, a billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend and executives who looted Venezuela’s state oil company, as well as corrupt politicians from Egypt to Ukraine.
The headlines demonstrated how the influential European banks were still in cahoots with the Catholic Church in order to facilitate its fraudulent and criminal activities.
The whistleblower said something interesting in the statement. Something obvious but important.
It is not without reason that one organization, Tax Justice Network had rated Switzerland as the world's most corrupt country. The organization's rankings measure corruption by how much the country's legal systems assist in money laundering and protecting corruptly obtained wealth.
A new study by Tax Justice Network has revealed that Switzerland is the world’s most-corrupt country, with a high secrecy score of 76. The US ranks second, while several European countries hold high positions in the list, ahead of many poor, developing nations. Switzerland is the grandfather of the world’s tax havens, one of the world’s largest offshore financial centres, and one of the world’s biggest secrecy jurisdictions or tax havens, on 30 January 2018 said the Tax Justice Network’s report Financial Secrecy Index - 2018 Results. (Source: Switzerland, US ‘The Most Corrupt’ / Meer)
Berlin-based Transparency International however ranked Switzerland as the 7th least corrupt country in the world. However, recent investigations and events at Transparency International have shown that it is itself a shady organization to begin with. Check out this extract in the English translation of a German article.
Even long-term employees who are deeply committed to the cause complain that TI is involved in political intrigues in which some are only interested in their own progress. For a non-governmental organization that is fighting corruption has set the goal around the world, which employs around 120 people in the secretariat alone and which collects millions of dollars in funding from governments and companies every year, is a startling finding. (Source: The dark side of the corruption hunt / Faz.net)
So what is Switzerland? Corrupt or Virtuous?
So what does this all tell us?
That morality and banking are poles apart.
As the whistleblower for the Swiss banks put it - moral positions are but a fig leaf. Nothing more.
This fig leaf allows the banks and other financial intermediaries to run their own political and citizen control agendas they need to in order for them them to maintain a dominant position in the geopolitical sphere. Thus solidifying their business interests.
The one person who has taken a strong interest in the impact and interference of Woke ideological agenda in American and indeed global businesses is the Republican Presidential contender, Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek is a first generation American citizen who has a pedigreed past. His stand against the forcing of ESG principles specifically and Woke ideas into the corporate governance metrics is quite informed and clear.
Ramaswamy, the high-haired, quick-tongued face of the anti-ESG movement, deftly signals to corporate leaders that merely backing off their public extolling of ESG will not satiate their concern that businesses have been captured by the political left. This new counter force has sprung up rapidly in the last few years and united everyone from canceled business execs to evangelical thought leaders to Silicon Valley techno-capitalists. Together, they’re mounting an aggressive response to the belief, now widespread in corporate America, that businesses ought to have a “social purpose beyond financial performance,” in the words of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the face of ESG who is the movement’s favorite villain. (Source: How conservatives ‘lost’ corporate America / Fast Company)
The Woke (and ESG) movement has worked against many interests in the West. Most importantly against the First Amendment rights of Americans of Free Speech.
In this video, Vivek explains the genesis of how Woke ideological battles became the driving force behind Corporate America's actions.
It all boils down to the three main investment funds which run the global corporates behind the scenes:
Warren Buffet, the legendary investor, believes something similar to what Vivek preaches. Investment should not be a prisoner to ideological constructs. It should follow the right returns.
But these views - like those of Buffett and Vivek - are termed toxic and the speakers called terrorists and extremists.
That characterization is then reinforced by a massive reactionary force in order to cancel such people who have a difference of opinion.
It is no surprise that the Silicon Valley Bank that went down recently paid for its alignment with the ESG policies.
So, is this just a small action plan of a few investment companies? Think again!
New alliances and groups are being created overseen by the United Nations. They are now regulating companies across the world for their climate actions in order to starve companies engaged in fossil fuel-related activities of credit on national and international markets.
"The Net-Zero Banking Alliance is a massive worldwide agreement by major banking institutions, overseen by the U.N., to starve companies engaged in fossil fuel-related activities of credit on national and international markets. Missouri farmers, oil leasing companies, and other businesses that are vital to Missouri’s and America’s economy will be unable to get a loan because of this alliance," Schmitt told FOX Business. (Source: 19 states investigate major US banks for pushing ESG policies 'killing' American companies / Fox Business)
Just like the reputational risk, the fig leaf of climate and environment moral high road won't last very long. It is a control mechanism. Period!
The entire gamut of woke practices are being unleashed on global corporations, banks and investment companies as we speak. In many cases now, very well established and reputed companies are being brought down by the Woke extremist administrations.
For example, Capital One, of the largest American banks, and Key Bank had their New York City deposits frozen because it did not submit the "anti-discrimination plans"!
Those actions hit their stock value directly! And these are not "one-off" cases!
Arm-twisting banks into submission is the first step.
Next is to target anyone who does business with the banks.
The most profound application of the cancel culture that we are currently seeing is the canceling of political or ideological opponents from the banking system itself!
During Obama's rule, a secret operation was put in place. Operation Choke Point. The idea was to throw out companies from the banking and payment systems that the administration considered "high risk" or objectionable.
Operation Choke Point was created by the Justice Department to “choke out” companies the Administration considers a “high risk” or otherwise objectionable, despite the fact that they are legal businesses. The goal of the initiative is to deny these merchants access to the banking and payments networks that every business needs to survive. (Source: Report: DOJ’s Operation Choke Point Secretly Pressured Banks to Cut Ties with Legal Business / US Committee on Oversight)
One of the people who faced action under Operation Choke Point was Andrew Torba, the Gab.com CEO. Gab is a strong Christian Nationalist conservative social media company.
In a letter addressed to Torba that he posted on Gab, BB&T, which merged with Sun Trust in 2019 to become Truist, informed him that they made a decision to close his bank account with them. “This decision is not based on credit reporting information or any other considerations related to your credit,” the letter read. “We have made this decision because some or all of your account activity is not consistent with the intended purpose of the account,” confirming that they had they right to close any account at any time at their discretion. (Source: Gab Reveals They’ve Been Canceled By ANOTHER Bank, Torba Slams ‘Financial Persecution’ / National File)
Yes, people on Gab maybe racist and even with extreme political views. But they were not terrorists in the vein of say the ISIS or Al Qaeda.
Torba was not alone. MyPillow CEO Lindell faced the same treatment. Reason? "Reputational Risk".
When the banks start getting pressured by the bureaucrats (specifically in FDIC) aligned to a certain political dispensation to close and cancel bank accounts of certain political adversaries, things get out of hand. That is exactly what happened. What had started out as a way to take down the "payday loans" companies, quickly spiraled into targeting perfectly legitimate businesses. Only because they were politically inconvenient.
It is now coming to light that banks have indeed been closing accounts of perfectly legal and legitimate businesses and individuals for reasons unknown.
The administrative system is coming together to play politics via the financial system.
Individual financial institutions must answer to a bureau of the Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. Its job is to safeguard the financial system against criminal activity, including money laundering and terrorism financing. Its basic mission: Follow the money. And the banks play a central role in collecting that data. Banks can close a customer’s account for any reason, at any time, a point that is buried in the fine print of its customer agreements. When they do dump an account, it’s usually because they’re trying to protect the institution (or the customer) from a potential fraud. It usually starts with an algorithm programmed to detect certain patterns or behavior. A customer’s transactions may have tripped a wire — perhaps by repeatedly making cash deposits just below $10,000, a tactic known as structuring, since anything above that amount is usually flagged. Or maybe the customer had a transaction with another party that was deemed suspicious (and in some cases, the banks don’t want the customer to be a victim). (Source: Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Customer Accounts / New York Times)
People and banks in the US are not isolated cases.
In Canada, last year, Justin Trudeau's totalitarian government shut down the truckers protest (Freedom Convoy).
What was this protest?
What did the media do? It vilified them and painted them as "White Supremacists", Terrorists and Extremists.
Once that was done, then the most feared set of actions could be unleashed on the nations truckers.
Canadian banks froze about C$7.8 million ($6.1 million) in just over 200 accounts (Bloomberg)
The banks in Canada had become a tool in the political battle!
What is next in this battle?
If banks are canceling someone out of the financial system, one has the option of going off the system and withdrawing his/her cash.
That is where the move to target cryptocurrency comes in while pushing for a national digital currency option. The digital option that is independent and open source is an anathema to full control. What if that is smoked out and its alternative with full state backing is pushed as the normal fiat?
That would be a totalitarian's greatest wet dream!
This is precisely what the Democratic Presidential contender, Robert F Kennedy Jr is talking about!
This is where the grand daddy of it all - the World Coin - comes into play.
What is a digital currency and payment system without the complete ID data base of the entire population to be controlled.
Well, that is what the WorldCoin's team is working on. They are using an "Orb" - a device for mapping a person's entire biometrics and then link it to the payment system.
The project uses a device called an “orb” — which looks like a Magic 8 Ball but bigger and silver-colored — to scan a person’s iris, which has a unique pattern in every human much as a fingerprint does. That creates a World ID, which grants its holders “proof of personhood” — a way to verify their identities on various online services without disclosing their name or other personal data. Worldcoin is also the name of the cryptocurrency that’s used to reward people who scan their eyeballs or who support the project. The Worldcoin Foundation is listed as the steward of the technology, but the organizers say that it has no owners or shareholders and that holders of Worldcoin tokens will have a say in the direction of the project. Worldcoin is also affiliated with a tech company called Tools for Humanity Corp. that says it was “established to accelerate the transition towards a more just economic system.” (Source: Sam Altman’s New Worldcoin (WLD) Orb Crypto Project, Explained / Bloomberg)
As every imperialist has done, they are targeting the poor first in order to garner numbers while paying them princely amounts of $49!
The African governments are trying to fight back but the poverty and the need for money and livelihood is too huge to fight for the poor in those contries.
The developed countries in Europe are seeing a similar strategy and by the time their regulatory systems and governments wake up to take any action for the privacy of personal data of their citizens, it may be too late!
The question that we need to ask ourselves is: Is Global Totalitarianism staring in our faces?
Sometimes you cannot put your finger onto something. But you can sense the direction of the river. We have been talking about these topics for quite sometime. It is not without any evidence or reason. The dots that are around us, when joined together, point to a very disturbing direction.
Please read one of our previous newsletters.
Drishtikone
Now watch the statement of the German MEP, Christine Anderson. She has some startling to share:
The so-called "pandemic" was a beta test—conducted by unelected globalists—to see how easy it would be to seize totalitarian control, under the pretext of a global "emergency".
"The goal, ultimately, is to transform our free and democratic societies into totalitarian societies. Their goal is to strip each and every one of us of our fundamental rights, of freedom, democracy, the rule of law. They want to get rid of all of this."
"In the entire history of mankind, there has never been a political elite concerned about the well being of regular people, and it isn't any different now... For god's sake, stop complying. Start rebelling. They are out to get you if you do not resist."
Watch!
The consolidation of biometrics of a global population and using mechanisms to shut out and cancel large groups of people and worse, discriminate and close off huge populations for lack of a "certificate" are tools and weapons that point to only one direction!
A new era of totalitarianism.
When two of the biggest contrarians come together, the conversation is always stimulating.
That was precisely my experience with this Elon Musk-Vivek Ramaswamy Twitter Space.
Please enjoy.
When you see Russia get into existential war over Ukraine, or Israel bomb Syria or India battle with Pakistan or Bangladesh, it is not because of some whim. It has a historical and geographical context. That is critical to understand for analyzing geopolitics.
Dive into the shadowy world of the Deep State—its hidden structures, powerful networks, and the far-reaching impact on global events and control.
America's Justice Department and SEC have targeted India's Adani Group with a bribery case. Using Nationalistic sentiment doesn't help. Yes, law has been weaponized and India's sovereignty compromised but not how they think. A definitive guide to understanding the case.
There was a clear warning from Putin on provision of long range missiles that could hit deep into Russia to Ukraine. It would be consider as a direct attack by NATO on Russia. Biden has done just that!
Every Sunday AM (US Time)/ PM (India time), we send out a weekly detailed newsletter. We also share other insightful notes during the week. Its free. Do sign up and share with friends!
