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Remember the “Disinformation Dirty Dozen,” the group identified as responsible for 65% of anti-vaccine content on internet platforms? Their number one offender, Dr. Joseph Mercola, just got debanked. He was informed that Chase was closing all of his business and investment accounts, along with the personal accounts of his CEO, CFO, and their spouses and children.
This is pretty major, to have debanked not only the offender but also his employees and their children. How bad is this guy? What did he do to warrant such extreme action?
Who is Dr. Mercola?
Dr. Mercola grew up in the Chicago area and attended school to become an osteopathic physician. He is licensed to prescribe medicine and perform surgeries in all 50 states. He became interested in natural health after watching the integration of improved nutrition and exercise improve his patients’ outcomes.
Aside from treating patients, Dr. Mercola also began selling nutritional supplements and writing books, two of which have been New York Times bestsellers. He ran his various businesses in the Chicago area until about ten years ago when he moved to Florida.
Dr. Mercola has had his share of controversies over the years, like claiming that tanning beds prevent skin cancer. In spite of this, millions of people read his website and follow him on whatever social media platforms will allow him. Even if you don’t agree with all his claims, he still posts a variety of fascinating medical studies that make for interesting reading.
He has been a longstanding critic of the conventional vaccine regimen, so it was no surprise that he came out against the Covid jabs. As other prominent voices were being shut down and deplatformed, in 2021, Mercola decided to only post his articles for 48 hours at a time.
What many followers like myself do, sign up for his email list here, look over the daily articles for what seems interesting, and then download pdfs of anything promising. You can also check out his book, a USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly National Bestseller, The Truth About Covid 19. The paperback is less than $5 at the time this article was published.
Dr. Mercola is unusual in that he is willing to engage in discussions with people presenting different information. For example, he has been a big promoter of the ketogenic diet for a long time but has run multiple articles in the past six months with another nutritionist who argues against long-term ketogenic diets. The discussions are interesting, informative, and respectful. He offers the public what so many people desperately want and need, the opportunity to listen to experts present varying points.
Because of Dr. Mercola’s large clientele base and internet presence, he has been able to get his messages about natural health, and increasingly, about the irregularities in the Covid response, to many millions of people. And this is the only reason he can think of that explains the closure of his bank accounts.
He is not the only one who has been debanked.
As Dr. Mercola explains in his interview with GBNews he received no warning and no explanation from Chase as to the closure of his and his employees’ bank accounts. Now, GBNews is a British station, and they’ve been willing to interview Dr. Mercola when American stations haven’t, because they’ve been covering the debanking of British politicians.
In June, Nigel Farage, one of the major politicians behind Brexit, announced that his bank of over 40 years had closed his accounts. When he contacted other banks, nine others refused to bank with him as well. After Farage publicly complained about being debanked, many thousands of people came forward with their stories, claiming they had been debanked, too.
Other debanked British figures include podcasters Konstantin Kisin and Frances Foster, writer Toby Young, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt. Many politicians involved with Brexit, the rebranded Brexit Reform Party, and the Reclaim Party have also not been able to obtain bank accounts, making it incredibly difficult for those particular political movements to function.
At first, the British bank, Coutts, claimed that Farage’s account was not “commercially viable,” and within the first few days of Farage going public with his complaints, this was how the BBC tried to spin the situation.
However, Farage is well known enough it quickly became obvious that this was a complete lie. He had plenty of money in his accounts. And it soon became obvious, as well, that he had been targeted for his political beliefs. NatWest (Coutts’ parent company) Chief Executive Alison Rose and Coutts CEO Peter Flavel both resigned this week, as Farage’s claims became substantiated.
Farage has been able to make so much noise about being debanked that British politicians, even Rishi Sunak, his political opponent, have criticized the actions taken by banks against Farage. Going forward, British banks will have to provide reasons to customers who lose their accounts. It seems that, for now, British bank customers might get a reprieve from this particular social engineering technique.
Nigel Farage is a Donald Trump supporter; the two men have a great deal in common. They are often criticized for believing in controlled immigration. They’re a thorn in the side of global establishment figures because both men ran on platforms promoting national sovereignty.
Donald Trump has also been debanked. After the Jan. 6 protests, many banks severed ties with Trump. In March, PNC Bank closed the business accounts of Donald Trump Jr. relating to his news curation app, MxM News. However, this barely made news in the U.S.; a few conservative outlets reported on it, but none of the major legacy outlets did.
What happens when people get debanked here?
Financially targeting conservative voices has been going on more than we realize, for longer than we realize. There were a variety of reasons that the Tea Party went away, but the IRS targeting them for additional scrutiny certainly did not help. JP Morgan Chase has been accused of debanking conservatives since 2019. Given the scant attention this has received, I don’t think we can hope for the kind of public outrage Nigel Farage was able to channel to change things in Britain.
Britain has its share of problems. But Farage can still be treated like a human being by politicians on the other side of the aisle. In the U.S., that’s becoming increasingly difficult. Since 2016, there has been a widespread assumption that Trump and his supporters are so dangerous that no tactic is too outrageous when it comes to opposing them.
The definition of “dangerous speech” in the U.S. is far too broad.
Dangerous speech has gone from shouting “fire” in a crowded theater to having a different opinion on medical treatments, and that’s the issue with Dr. Mercola. He’s not even a political figure, just a medical dissenter. The language the mainstream media has used against him, particularly in the last three years, has been ridiculous.
A 2021 MSNBC segment outright accused him of killing thousands of people because he questioned the efficacy of masks and vaccines and recommended vitamin D supplements. The Center for Countering Digital Hate named him one of the Disinformation Dozen due to his views being part of the “dangers of the anti-vax industry.”
With Dr. Mercola being labeled not just as wrong but as dangerous, his opponents are absolved of any moral obligation to engage in real debate with him. His opponents are able to see themselves on the moral high ground in an ethical battle with a dangerous man.
Though, as Dr. Mercola himself pointed out, it’s somewhat ridiculous for Chase to imagine it can claim any kind of moral high ground when they happily did business with Jeffrey Epstein until shortly before his death. In what kind of alternate reality is trafficking organic supplements more morally egregious than trafficking underage girls?
Daisy’s written a lot lately about FedNow and the framework in place for CBDCs If you’re wondering what life might look after CBDCs are implemented, we may be getting a taste of it. We’re watching a dissenter from mainstream orthodoxy get punished in a fashion that will be a lot more streamlined once CBDCs are in place.
What are your thoughts?
While it’s hard to be very optimistic about this subject, there are still steps you can take to avoid getting debanked. There are a host of reasons to have multiple bank accounts. I’ve had more than one bank account long before I knew anything about CBDCs. If you’re used to only having one, now might be the time to spread things out a little. Getting some of your savings into precious metals may also be wise.
And it’s important to keep talking about CBDCs and their potential uses. Most people I know are still blissfully unaware of what’s going on in the financial system. They pay attention to their 401ks, and that’s about it. But the more aware people are about the efforts to centralize control, the less likely they are to simply go along with whatever comes next.
What do you think about Dr. Mercola and his employees and families being debanked? Are you concerned this may become more widespread? Is this the next way that unpopular views will be silenced and their espousers “canceled?” What are your thoughts on ways to combat this? Would you continue doing business with Chase Bank after this?
Let’s discuss it in the comments section.
About Marie Hawthorne
A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.