OPINION:
Whole Foods Market is rolling out a new palm payment reader devised by Amazon One, the contactless identification creation of Amazon, with expectations that all 500-plus grocery stores will offer the system before the end of this year.
And so Americans move a step closer toward taking the mark of the beast — the Bible-based tell of end times, when all must either take the “666” or lose the ability to buy and sell with ease.
Whole Foods isn’t the first entity to set up a palm reading scanner from Amazon One, but it is a huge hike of potential users and one that moves the technology from fringe to normalized.
“As Amazon One … reaches a critical milestone with more than 3 million uses, Whole Foods Market stores are going all in,” Amazon’s online press release read. “By the end of this year, all 500+ Whole Foods Market locations in the U.S. will offer Amazon One for payment and Prime membership benefits. This means Whole Foods Market customers who choose to use Amazon One will no longer need their wallet or even a phone to pay — they can simply hover their palm over an Amazon One device.”
Prime members, meanwhile, who link their Amazon and Amazon One accounts can receive extra savings and discounts — adding to the enticement for more and more, and yes, even more to opt for the payment method.
Panera just launched an Amazon One model at select spots. Coors Field, where the Colorado Rockies play, offers Amazon One as a means of identifying the age of ballpark customers who wish to purchase alcoholic beverages. Other sports venues have followed suit. Retailers inside busy airports have gone Amazon One palm reader payment crazy, as well. From Atlanta to Dallas to Seattle, travelers buying from the likes of Hudson and CREWS don’t have to bother with cash or cards, but rather can simply wave their hands over a reader and voila! — they’ve paid; they’re on their way.
Whole Foods, however, is a whole new mass market — one that even Amazon acknowledges ratchets the technology to a whole new level.
“Whole Foods Market expansion reflects a growing demand for Amazon One,” Amazon wrote.
What a privacy nightmare.
“A fast, FREE identity service that allows you to enter, identify and pay using only your palm,” Amazon One wrote.
“Your palm consists of multiple layers of distinguishing features that make it the safe, easy and most convenient choice [for cashless payments],” Amazon One wrote. “No two palms are alike and the features of your palm change little over time making it unique to you and you alone.”
And then this, also from Amazon One’s website: “Amazon One was designed in accordance with Amazon’s long-standing privacy policies and controls and is protected by on-device and cloud-based security measures. … We treat your palm signature just like other highly sensitive personal data and keep it safe using best-in-class technical and physical security controls.”
That’s comforting. Not.
“5 Ways Your Amazon Account Can Be Broken Into,” Firewall Times wrote in November of 2022. Five. Those are the knowns. What about the unknowns? What about the coming-down-the-pike knowns?
“Amazon data breaches are rare and there aren’t any major incidents involving user credentials,” Firewall Times wrote. “However, it’s technically a possibility.”
Of course it’s a possibility.
Any time data meets technology, data thefts are possibilities. Those who claim otherwise are lying.
But the bigger consideration is this: freedom.
America is rapidly moving toward an oligarchy, or fascism, or perhaps better labeled — toward a corporatocracy, where privileged, wealthy, elitist woke, social justice warrior corporate entities take over the job of government and dictate to the citizens how best to live, Constitution and individual freedoms be danged. It’s the World Economic Forum’s ultimate Great Reset end game, where free markets are replaced by what WEF’s Klaus Schwab describes as the Chinese model of capitalism — which is to say communism — which is to say so long America, so long God-given individual liberties, so long Founding Father intents and visions, and certainly, most certainly and most definitely, so long God. You can’t have a good, obedient communist country if citizens still believe in God.
America has fallen prey to the forces of evil who have been able to exploit the growing secularism and materialism of this country’s citizens by turning the corporations into quasi-governments — the unelected, unaccountable-to-the-people corporations — headed by soulless leftists who gladly bed with the bureaucrats in exchange for unfettered markets. Business in America used to be a means to financial independence and self-reliance; now, the corporate world is America’s nanny, Americans’ moral compass.
And Americans can’t comfortably call for government to put in place regulations to stop their woke agendas without completely destroying the free market. It’s the evil genius of the Great Reset.
That’s why the Founding Fathers were so intent on reminding us of the need for a moral, virtuous populace — so as to keep the immoral and evil away from positions of leadership and places of massive influence.
Well, here we are.
Entering mark-of-the-beast times.
“Amazon One is designed to deliver the highest levels of customer privacy and data security,” Amazon wrote.
Sure.
What could go wrong?
Only this: Amazon One at airline check-in points could stop travelers deemed suspicious by government. Or this: Amazon One at car dealers could prevent the sales of vehicles deemed hazards to the environment by climate radicals. Or this: Amazon One at toll booths could put a chilling halt to free travel — as well as allow government to track travelers across the nation. Or this: Amazon One at medical providers could allow snoopers the ability to see private health records — to regulate private health services — to deny private health choices. Oh, wait.
“Amazon and One Medical Sign an Agreement for Amazon to Acquire One Medical,” Amazon reported in July of 2022. “One Medical is a human-centered, technology-powered U.S. primary care organization … [that] combines in-person care … with digital health and virtual care services.”
Health care has already gone high-tech. Wave-of-the-palm payments for medical appointments aren’t far from widespread availability, either.
Data concerns, privacy concerns, tracking concerns — the more Americans put convenience as the premium, the more America loses individual liberties.
The younger generations are all on board with this high tech; they’re conditioned to put it all out in the open, for all to see — think of all their social media “look at me” selfies and their all-consuming quests for the most “likes” and “thumbs-up” to prove their worth as humans and boost their esteem and egos.
And the globalists and leftists are certainly seeing their opportunities, post-COVID-19, to pounce on a world population that only proved happily compliant to cede freedom to government mandate.
It’s mark-of-the-beast time, for sure — the Revelation era when no one “might buy or sell, save he that had the mark of the name of the beast or the number of his name,” as the King James version puts it.
And it’s Whole Foods and its 500-strong grocery stores that will prove a wide open door in the normalization of cashless payments using nothing but body parts.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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