The conclusion, then, is not a lurid morality tale about “bad people doing bad things,” nor the tired revelation that royals, celebrities, or billionaires behave with impunity. That much is already obvious. Child abusers exist across every class and every society. What does not exist everywhere is a system that records, archives, weaponises, and protects that abuse for strategic ends.

The Epstein case points not to isolated depravity, but to structured leverage: an architecture of blackmail in which sexual crimes become instruments of power rather than grounds for prosecution. That is why the fixation on individual scandal – princes, parties, and gossip – functions as misdirection.

The real scandal is the evidence of an intelligence-linked operation in which Mossad repeatedly appears as a point of reference, protection, and utility; an operation that embedded itself across politics, finance, media, and celebrity culture.

  • perestroika@slrpnk.net
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    1 day ago

    Besides the speculations about Israel and Russia having some relation to Epstein’s “work” (which sure looks like a honeypot, even if typically the operator of a honeypot doesn’t dive into honey) there is another avenue of extortion open currently.

    It is imaginable that US special services could offer people “deals” worded like:

    • “would you like your name to be redacted from, or published with the Epstein files?”

    …and it’s foreseeable that some people would do a lot to have their name redacted. I hope that in the DoJ, it’s a large crew of many people doing the redactions, since that would reduce risk of someone trading favours.

    • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
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      6 hours ago

      Epstein might not have been the main operator. Ghislaine was there as well, and not quite as stupid as him.

      • hector@lemmy.today
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        6 hours ago

        With all the powerful people behind this though, any leaker would commit suicide according to the authorties within a week.