That being said, I think Epstein is becoming an obsession for people that is pointless, doesn’t advance the left wing movement, and is borderline unhealthy to be honest.

People on this site and beyond are doing borderline Q-Anon level baking, using random scraps from documents and making extremely tenuous connections. This shit is unhealthy, obsessing over it and staring into the abyss of depravity is just going to cause yourself psychic damage, and for what? It’s borne out of the same thing as all conspiracism: a feeling of powerlessness, a feeling that by uncovering the mystery, doing this “investigation”, finding some hidden truth, you are doing something tangible rather than just obsessing and suffering on the internet.

This isn’t to say I don’t think all things are on the table - “he was mossad”, “this or that person was involved”, “what if he’s still alive?”. But ask yourself, what changes? What changes if any of this is true? Are any of us shocked or surprised by 99% of the names dredged up? These are all people that we already consider ontologically evil for numerous other crimes and their class position. We already know that there are 10,000 ultra powerful, ultra wealthy people who control the world, who act with impunity, who are all interconnected and who all have bourgeois class solidarity that the workers can only dream of at this stage.

And what tactical or strategic advantage is offered to working class movements we are involved in by uncovering this hidden truth? We currently have no power to punish the guilty or prevent it from happening again. Epstein himself is likely dead, most of the people mentioned are dead, or ancient and on their way out. Should we be forming pressure groups and protesting our governments to thoroughly investigate and punish the guilty? If half of what is in the files is true, our governments are riddled with people who are complicit if not actively involved.

So what is the route by which the people’s justice can be served? The same as always - the working class needs to win political power. Our time is better served thinking about how we can advance the ball on concrete issues, work with our irl organisations to build working class power. I think driving ourselves mad on the internet and expanding so much mental energy tying red string between random names and events on our mental corkboards is deleterious to this mission.

Now, I’m open to the idea that using the Epstein angle in propaganda to disillusion workers of billionaires and capitalism could be useful, but that doesn’t require more than a cursory knowledge of the situation, knowledge we’ve all had for 6 years at this point.

As marxists we shouldn’t be hyperfixating on Epstein as the keystone of everything “evil” on earth. We have a class analysis and an understanding of the system superseding the role of the individual. Things such as “epstein was working for Mossad” - ok, that may well be true, but does it change our analysis of Israel? Does it affect how we view the settler-colonial relationship? Could it possibly make them any more morally bankrupt than the genocide we’ve been watching for 2.5 years? Than a century of ethnic cleansing?

I get this feeling that doesn’t sit well with me, that this is becoming some grotesque spectacle of “true crime”, motivated by an inability to look away, by the conspiratorial powerlessness I mentioned above, and by the same instincts that make endless podcast series and TV shows about gruesome murders eternally popular. And it is taking up so much oxygen on the left - ffs, the United States is about to try and topple its second government in a month and everyone is too busy combing through the epstein files to see if the-democrat or the-republican are in there.

Tl;dr: don’t drive yourself insane trying to know the unknowable, focus on the concrete, focus on things you can change, advance the ball!

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[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 47 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (7 children)

And what tactical or strategic advantage is offered to working class movements we are involved in by uncovering this hidden truth?

This seems to be the crux of your argument, and I have to ask, can you seriously not see the obvious? The mother of all radicalizing catalysts has dropped into our laps and you're asking of what tactical or strategic use this is to the workers movements?

How about millions upon millions of people radicalizing toward revolutionary sentiments because they've realized the capitalist class aren't just wage thieves but also murderous pedophiles who target their children?

How about the myth of liberalism dying in the minds of countless people when they witness these pedos continue on as if nothing has happened, exploding our pool of recruitment?

How about the utter exposure of the vast Isreali global spy network and the further discrediting of zionism in the minds of libs who didn't care about dead Palestinians?

As marxists we shouldn’t be hyperfixating on Epstein as the keystone of everything “evil” on earth

We as Marxists shouldn't focus on how the capitalist class organizes amongest itself socially and how it leads to radical evil and depravity?

Things such as “epstein was working for Mossad” - ok, that may well be true, but does it change our analysis of Israel? Does it affect how we view the settler-colonial relationship?

Of course it does! It reveals the US empire isn't simply obsessed with zionism for the sake of religious derangement or a slavish devotion to a 1950s conception of global resource management, but that large swathes of the American capitalist class are actively compromised, explaining their maximalist positions concerning a genocidal rump state that undermines US global soft power and cultural hegemony

I get this feeling that doesn’t sit well with me, that this is becoming some grotesque spectacle of “true crime”

The problem with "True Crime" is that it never implicates the capitalist class, the Epstein case clearly does

We already know that there are 10,000 ultra powerful, ultra wealthy people who control the world, who act with impunity, who are all interconnected and who all have bourgeois class solidarity that the workers can only dream of at this stage.

WE know that, those of us who over the course of years already climbed the mountain and peered over the ridge, but that doesn't describe the vast majority of people, who don't conceive of the world the way we do

Whether because of a lack of exposure to socialist thought or because the kayfabe of liberalism blinded them, we have no right to scoff at any opportunity to raise the veil

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Call me crazy but I think everyone learning that Western rules-based order is actually 100 pedophiles in a trenchcoat is a good icebreaker for radicalization

[–] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 15 points 4 days ago

THANK you

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (15 children)

Look, all due respect, but a couple of months ago you were trying to convince me that mamdani is the best thing to happen to the left since the invention of the colour red*, so I don’t really trust you to analyse anything tbh.

In fact, your commitment on this comes from a similar place as the desperate latching on to Mamdani. People such as yourselves who are still yet to fully renounce their liberalism want shortcuts. They aren’t prepared to do the hard yards of building class consciousness. You want an electoral saviour or a magic bullet to suddenly awaken the people.

How about millions upon millions of people radicalizing toward revolutionary sentiments

Source: trust me bro

but that large swathes of the American capitalist class are actively compromised

Congratulations, you have unlocked Russiagate: Israel Edition - yet somehow more liberal. The ruling class has a class interest in operating the way it does. The idea that some puppet master is controlling things is the most liberal take imaginable and totally anti-marxist. This theory also has a whiff of American exceptionalism (as it did when the blue maga types had their version) - “america is good, the evil things it does can be explained by foreign interference”.

*before some epic retort is constructed, this is obvious hyperbole

[–] juniper@hexbear.net 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder and didn't really address the parent commenter's points.

Knowledge that AmeriKKKa is in no small part run but a cabal of billionaire pedophiles, many of whom engage in not just sexual violence but outright torture, is absolutely radicalizing. It is our "job" to turn that disgust and revulsion into class consciousness, because otherwise such radicalization can be subsumed by the larger superstructure. I agree that fixating on it is counterproductive in the same vein as fixating on who really killed JFK, but it is easy rhetorical fuel and to dismiss it like you do is reflexive contrarianism imo.

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[–] hatedbad@hexbear.net 61 points 4 days ago

I agree on all parts but I’ll add that I think this is also an opportunity to teach people that haven’t known these realities, that there is in fact no “normal” to return to. the only way out of this is through, and a lot of people are (or are going to be) looking for what things need to look like on the other side of it all. just like with ICE protests, there’s clear opportunity to engage with people and teach them community organizing and what a leftward future can look like

[–] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 50 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Hot take: The depravity in the Epstein files combined with this being the first time many people realise they're in a class war against the rich, who are already organised, is a pretty reasonable thing to be the cause of your brain breaking a bit.

I remember I had a bit of a walter-breakdown when I learned Bohemian grove was real some decade ago or. That the rich and powerful actually meet up in the middle of the woods once a year for a several-days-long bacchanalia and we all just know it and pretend it's not happening? Made my mind melt.

Reading about children being used as incubators for babies that are disappeared never to be seen again, is supposed to make you deranged. It's fucked up and it's fucked up that it's treated like regular celebrity gossip.

That the rich and powerful actually meet in smoke-filled rooms and carry out crimes against humanity gleefully is now not just something you know spiritually, you have written confessions from the creeps themselves. And we don't know how involved this shit is. Pretending like you do, pretending like you're somehow above it is just falling for the regular "don't worry about that craaazy conspiracy theory" propaganda.

Not even 10% of the files have been released and what has been released has been heavily redacted and even then people are far from done looking through them and what they do find is biblically evil. It's the kind of stuff Alex Jones would rant about, but here presented with actual credibility. Not only are depraved acts described gleefully by participants, but the overarching capitalist world order is implicated directly. Unironically we do not know how far this shit goes. Ghislaine Maxwell was one of the most active moderators on all of reddit. Her dad met up with Mother Theresa. Epstein hung out presidents. Whatever it is, it's spread out.

Older conspiracies like the brabrant killings and the Dutroux affair and the tinfoil shit around those now seem almost sensible, due to what is seen discussed.

It is also an incredible tool for radicalisation. I've used it for many fruitful discussions. Pointing out how practically every one is in it, regardless of outwards political affilitations, has been very useful.

The only derangement syndrome I see with this Epstein-thing is Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's become just another element of the current regimes moral corruption, instead of the blatant black spot on the last three decades of the political establishment.

[–] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Not related to anything really but in the wikipedia for Bohemian Grove:

Wage theft

In June 2023, a group of former workers sued Bohemian Grove alleging wage theft and unfair labor practices.[50] The club was dismissed from the lawsuit in January 2024 after a judge ruled it did not fit the legal definition of an employer.[51] In May 2024, another lawsuit was filed.[52]

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[–] JustSo@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

the rich and powerful actually meet up in the middle of the woods once a year for a several-days-long bacchanalia and we all just know it and pretend it's not happening?

And the poor and powerless actually meet up in the woods to hit each other with foam swords. Who gives a fuck about the theme of their annual LARP, if people weren't so distracted by fears of demons and black magic maybe they'd recognise the most damning aspect of things like Bohemian Grove is that the participants all let their hair down and stop pretending they aren't on the same side, regardless of their public political ideology and kayfabe conflicts.

[–] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 16 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I give a fuck, obviously, since I decided to mention it. You could just have asked why I do instead of this passive-agressive dismissal.
I don't believe there is anything "spiritual" to it, but the fact that what has been a punchline in movies and tv-shows, plotline in hacky true crime and I don't know what else in popular culture, is something that is actually going on is wild to me. That people like Hillary Clinton and George Bush meet up, in person, for some weird theatre-kid LARP in the woods on a regular basis is pretty crazy in my world. I could just go "oh yeah they're all in cahoots, we know this" like how people go "well what did you expect? All politicans are corrupt" but that the most powerful people in the world ACTUALLY meet up IN PERSON and do WEIRD SHIT is something that sticks out in my brain moreso than the idea of some vague smokefilled room where capital aligns its material interests.

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[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 57 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I can understand your concern, but I'm more getting the vibe that people here are just enjoying themselves. It's a dunk-fest, which I think is fine. I do agree, as I hope most here do, that these files are a kind of sideshow to to the collapse of capitalism into fascism.

[–] ComradeRat@hexbear.net 65 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The crimes epstein committed and that the USA and its ally-vassals continue to commit are horrifying and depressing

The fact that he was posting on 4chan, types typos constantly, sending fnaf porn animatics to his friends, despite being so rich is the funniest shit ive seen since musks pathetic livestream from his private jet

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 37 points 4 days ago (2 children)

since musks pathetic livestream from his private jet

God, so many things have happened that this was lost like tears in rain

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's even weirder when you learn that Elon paid someone else to play the game for him and grind stuff lol.

[–] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Legitimately the funniest part was how he created this gamer facade like his usual bullshit but instead of being some lofty gatekept science like astrophysics it was just videogame stats. So when his ~~rocket exploded~~ I mean character failed to perform anyone with a cursory understanding of the game knew who and what was fucking up.

I didn’t even know what that game was like but when people started clowning on him I looked up high level play by other gamers vs him playing and it was clear he had no idea what he was fucking doing.

When people clowned on his Elden Ring build I wasn’t in on the joke, I don’t play Elden Ring, I don’t know what good stats look like. So I just had to trust the online rumor mill.

But when he tried to stream and he was visibly fucking up and the chat was telling him he was a pedophile and that he should kill himself, mercilessly, every .2 seconds, well, I didn’t have to play Path of Exile. I was able to enjoy that straight up.

[–] corgiwithalaptop@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Remind me, what was this again?

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 25 points 4 days ago (1 children)

He was playing Path of Exile 2 and struggled really hard to beat a boss while playing on Starlink internet. The boss is honestly quite difficult so I can't fault him too much for failing at it, except he was top 10 in the ladder at the time because he had paid some people to play on his account. IIRC as soon as he logged in he got whispered by someone telling him he had no friends and should kill himself.

[–] corgiwithalaptop@hexbear.net 15 points 4 days ago

Ah, now I recall that. Ty

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 20 points 4 days ago

here's a snippet that there's screenshots for, which still makes me laugh:

“YOU HAVE NO REAL FRIENDS AND WILL DIE ALONE,” wrote one user whose account was called “Elon_Musk_is_a_peedophile,” before hitting return repeatedly so the message would keep appearing.

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 45 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The site went down right after I posted this, the admins are trying to keep us from the truth, RELEASE THE DOCUMENTS 👁️

[–] segfault11@hexbear.net 29 points 4 days ago

the hextein files

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wasn't me, I was writing a dm when the server hamster took its union mandated break

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[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 34 points 4 days ago

I think the fact that it is so bad and involves people on "both sides" of the mainstream liberal consensus is an absolutely amazing agitprop opportunity. This is going to disillusion a lot of people from across the middle part of the ideological spectrum. Being able to hammer the fact that the ruling class is made up almost entirely of Draculas who are all secretly friends doing despicable shit with each other despite the public kayfabe is a great opportunity.

[–] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 29 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Is it important to be informed? Yes. But everyone needs to keep their guard up. I saw an instagram reel saying that Epstein, believed himself to be superior to other races because he was jewish (instead of because he was a zionist, and had a psycho-sexual need to justify his pedophilia on supremacy and domination grounds). Other social media posts have made comments like "the schizos were right!" This is how you end up with multiple satanic panics against free child care in your state.

Knowing every intricate detail of the files is not gonna do anything if these people are still in power. The first priority is to abolish the system that allows rich people to own private property and, by some sick twisted extension, the ability to own children.

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

10000-com

I think the worst possible thing to lead a potential radicalisation candidate into would be the Epstein rabbit hole. There’s a 50/50 chance they start “doing their own research” and end up becoming a straight up nazi

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[–] sewer_rat_420@hexbear.net 28 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The lesson here is that wealth inequality and the power of the bourgeoisie is so ludicrous that they can actively do the worst crimes conceivable with complete impunity and even when the crimes are brought (mostly) to light and everyone knows that the entire government either is pedophiles or actively covers for pedophiles but our political system offers us no course of action.

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[–] Soot@hexbear.net 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

My issue with people obsessing over it, as is my issue with a lot of things, is a lot of missing the woods for the trees.

99% of libs I know are suckered into "oh yeah but once we prosecute the named people everything will be fine" and not "this is a systemic issue maybe we should consider forms of society that prevent that kind of consolidation of sick power."

That being said, I still think it's a good radicalisation moment. It's just one that needs seizing on and framing correctly.

[–] THEPH0NECOMPANY@hexbear.net 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yea this is definitely a hot take

Epstein files and ICE were basically the only topics of conversation brought up as chatter in my college courses today. It's so incredibly easy to show people that the capitalists only want to do is SA children and unlimited murder. I literally opened up this site and pulled the first Epstein post I saw and just explained it to them.

ICE is getting people to organize but Epstein is the thing that's waking people's class consciousness, it's definitely not pointless and absolutely furthering left wing radicalization

[–] homhom9000@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago

I think one of our biggest problems of the left is being unable to meet the moment. We fear being reactionary so much that we brush off current events as distractions. But the people we need to move likely only focus on current events so we need to be ready to respond to those and tie it to something bigger.

This new Epstein drop is a slam dunk to tie the capitalist of today to the slave owning capitalist of yesterday. We can organize on a better work where people like that are unable to gain power ever.

[–] Dessa@hexbear.net 15 points 4 days ago

10000-com

There is literal organizing and radicalizing happening all across the country due to ICE, and Epstein is sucking the air out of the room. This is intentional

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 20 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

encouraging stochastic anti-pedo rightwingers on twitter is a funny and worthwhile pursuit, of course it doesn't matter in some sense. Squeaky clean elites would do exact same shit to people and countries

*you can also preface any liberal talking point (say by summers or british labor or macron) by proximity to pedos, which also wastes their brain cells

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[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

associating epstein with isntrael might push some liberal zionists over

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'd advise against making it the crux of your argument, TBH. The hardest proof of Epstein working for Israel is Ehud Barak's relationship to him and Robert Maxwell having been a spy for Israel. That's not very hard evidence. The proof of Israel being a genocidal apartheid state is infinite.

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago

oh yeah it's hardly the main thing wrong with settler-colonial genocide.

[–] Mindfury@hexbear.net 16 points 4 days ago

i can probably respond more to this once my brain warms up, but for now i'll just say that we should take every single opportunity possible to spread agitprop against capitalists and this provides an incredibly large opportunity

[–] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It is funny to see the meltdown on rightwing anti-semitic spaces (such as /pol/) if you can stomach lurking in them. They are actually in existential despair that they've been sheep led around by pedophile zionists. It's good for a laugh

I don't see the epstein stuff as a path to any kind of working class power, it's more just a grim symbol of our times. A slice of life of modern capital. Good as an anecdote and example, not good as an obsession.

[–] blobjim@hexbear.net 17 points 4 days ago (3 children)

It's mostly an online thing anyways. People doing left-wing stuff in real life aren't randomly bringing up Jeffrey Epstein.

[–] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago

i mean we do chat about it, it's interesting. It's just not what we're organizing around and focusing on

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[–] abc@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago (3 children)

10000-com

You can see this in Hexbears posting shit from Twitter where it is clearly a joke. See the Ghislaine "sorry elon we're actually not doing pedophile island this week, maybe next time" email that was a joke tweet but definitely was posted here in one thread as if it was serious.

[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 9 points 4 days ago

Ooft, good point. there has definitely been some embarrassing onion-eating going on.

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[–] JustSo@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I don't mind the discussion on hexbear for the most part but I checked out a linked r/epstein thread to find out about an apparent alarming pattern of "pizza" code phrases in the released docs and the discussion was indistinguishable from watching 4chan do pizzagate the first time.

Posters scaring and outraging each other with the most helen lovejoy ass interpretations of mostly benign things in a feedback loop.

I'm not saying there isn't some pizza code shit and I'm not saying there isn't some of it in the emails, but the way people are jumping at shadows and amplifying each other's freak outs seems to be occurring very similarly to pizzagate 1 and qanon's genesis.

We never left lib derangement country tho, I think this is just the most important thing to be deranged about for them right now.

Edit: cynically, it obviously serves the perpetrators for the public to be irrational about the epstein scandal, so if we're gonna be conspiracy brained maybe that's the vector to examine.

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 10 points 4 days ago

watching 4chan do pizzagate the first time.

Or, for a more reddit-adjacent example: the kind of shit people did when they were trying to catch the Boston Marathon Bomber.

[–] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago

I'm just trying my best to not lose my mind thinking about how the world is run by a group of pedophile billionaires/royalty and even when it's slowly coming to the open no one seems to be able to make these ghouls face any meaningful consequences. I don't know if you can even call it an open secret anymore that a bunch of the richest most powerful people were hanging out with a pedophile convicted of trafficking minors even after he "served" his first sentence. Like how can you not see that as the upperclass approving/taking advantage of his crimes? Especially when they take every step imaginable to obscure evidence of his wrongdoings?

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The upper class throughout history were slave owners, feudal lords etc and today they still exploit people. Fucking Thomas Jefferson had children with a slave. Whatever you think of them its worse. Cosign what the OP is saying though.

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[–] himeneko@hexbear.net 11 points 4 days ago

the only thing that rly broke my brain on the epstein stuff was how much stuff involved the weirdo pedophile trans researchers, and just how interconnected that is with the broader right. it hurts to see a direct connection between the chaser vibes of the pedo elite and how it led to a decade long campaign of disenfranchisement of trans people. this kind of thing has been speculation for a while but to have it confirmed still hurts

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