When I tell friends about my involvement with OpEdNews’ Arc of Justice Alliance (AJA), their response often borders on disbelief. They’ll say, “Sure, sounds noble—but for something like that to succeed, the entire U.S. and NATO system would have to collapse first.”
Sometimes I’ve found myself agreeing with them. After all, AJA’s vision is sweeping. It aims to build on the left, the kind of powerful infrastructure that MAGA Republicans have laid out for themselves in their Project 2025 manifesto. Its goal is nothing less than reinventing government to serve ordinary people rather than the rich and powerful.
But here’s the problem: the existing system is so entrenched that genuine change often feels impossible. Unless some catastrophic rupture occurs, the machinery of empire and corporate control looks immovable.
Then came Jeffrey Epstein.
The Epstein affair, I have come to realize, contains the explosive potential to unravel the entire Western system.
Why? Because the case points toward something almost unspeakable: the governments of the United States and Israel are implicated not only in covering up sexual violence against children, but in actively organizing and sponsoring it as a tool of blackmail. If that is true—and the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests it is—then we are not just confronting corruption or incompetence. We are confronting a system so depraved that it has turned pedophilia into a weapon of statecraft.
And once ordinary people grasp that truth, no amount of partisan spin will save the system from collapse.
The Weight of Circumstantial Evidence
To understand the gravity of this possibility, it is important to stress the role of circumstantial evidence in criminal justice.
As I’ve recently pointed out, and contrary to popular belief, most convictions—especially in white-collar cases—do not rely on “smoking gun” documents or direct eyewitnesses. They rely on inference: the accumulation of facts that, taken together, point beyond reasonable doubt. Motive, means, opportunity, DNA traces, fingerprints, destruction of evidence, false statements, suspicious associations—all these can convict without a single direct witness to the act.
That is exactly the kind of evidence accumulating around Epstein. Consider the essentials of what has emerged:
The systematic rape of underage girls.
Apparently orchestrated by intelligence agencies—the CIA and Mossad—through assets like Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their associates.
Carried out for the purpose of collecting compromising material (kompromat) on powerful men.
Deployed to ensure that the world’s elites could be controlled and manipulated to serve U.S. and Israeli interests.
This is not conspiracy fantasy. It is where the trail of evidence leads.
Signs of Cover-Up
The circumstantial evidence is damning:
Official deception: U.S. authorities initially promised to release Epstein files in full, later claimed no such files existed, and finally released a mere 33,000 pages—less than 1% of what the FBI possesses.
The prison “suicide”: Epstein himself, the most important witness, died under conditions so suspicious that even Ghislaine Maxwell believes he was murdered. Surveillance cameras malfunctioned, guards fell asleep, and evidence was tampered with.
Censored names: The FBI redacted Donald Trump’s name, along with those of other high-profile figures, from the released documents. Redaction of such relevance is indistinguishable from destruction of evidence.
Intelligence ties: Ghislaine’s father, Robert Maxwell, had well-documented Mossad connections. Based on such ties, respected figures—including economist Jeffrey Sachs and congressman Thomas Massie—have concluded that Epstein was indeed a Mossad asset.
The sweetheart deal: Despite overwhelming evidence of sex crimes against minors, Epstein secured an astonishingly lenient plea bargain in 2008. The prosecutor, Alexander Acosta, later testified that he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and that the case was “above his pay grade.”
Suspicious leniency for Maxwell: After discussions with Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche, Ghislaine Maxwell was quietly moved from a maximum-security facility to a minimum-security prison whose policy specifically excludes sex offenders.
Unusual bargaining power: Maxwell now conditions any congressional testimony on immunity, advance questions, and testimony outside prison walls. Few convicted felons enjoy that kind of leverage.
Taken together, these facts paint a chilling picture of deliberate obstruction and protection.
Questions of Character
Equally troubling is the character of those who have denied Epstein’s intelligence connections.
Donald Trump insists he barely knew Epstein, despite ample photographic and testimonial evidence to the contrary. Trump’s record of habitual lying is a matter of public record.
Ghislaine Maxwell has twice been indicted for perjury. Her status as a jailhouse informer who stands to personally benefit from exonerating the rich and powerful connected with the case hardly qualifies her as a trustworthy source.
And as for the CIA—its former director Mike Pompeo openly admitted that agency operatives are trained to “lie, cheat, and steal.” To accept denials from such sources at face value is to accept testimony from admitted professional liars.
Neither President Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, nor any CIA operative is a credible witness. All of them are compromised actors whose interest lies in suppressing the truth.
A Crisis That Could Change Everything
As the Epstein revelations continue to unfold, the implications are staggering.
This is not about partisan politics. It is not about Republicans versus Democrats, or about conservatives versus liberals. It is about a system in which the ruling class of the United States and its closest ally, Israel, have apparently used the rape of children as a tool of blackmail to maintain global dominance.
No matter where ordinary people stand politically—whether left, right, or center—this is a line too far. Few Americans or Europeans will tolerate their governments being complicit in the systematic violation of schoolgirls.
That is why the Epstein case has revolutionary potential. It exposes rot so deep, depravity so shocking, that once the public fully grasps it, the legitimacy of the system itself could collapse.
The Arc of Justice and the Opportunity Ahead
Here lies the paradox: while many dismiss projects like the Arc of Justice Alliance as quixotic, the Epstein case may provide exactly the systemic rupture that movements for justice have been waiting for.
If the truth about Epstein, the CIA, and Mossad becomes undeniable, a massive crisis of legitimacy will follow. That crisis could open the door to fundamental change—change that AJA and allied movements are preparing to advance.
Far from tilting at windmills, we may soon find ourselves at the forefront of a historic turning point.
The Epstein scandal is not just another corruption story. It may well be the crack in the dam, the event that triggers the collapse of a system too evil to sustain itself.
And if that collapse comes, the task will be to ensure that what rises from the rubble is a system finally dedicated to justice—for the many, not the few
Like many Americans who have not yet surrendered their capacity for outrage, I’ve been haunted by the Jeffrey Epstein Affair. It refuses to go away—not because corporate media wish to pursue it (they manifestly do not), but because it cuts to the rotten core of empire itself.
For years now, we’ve been promised the release of the “Epstein files”—thousands of pages of testimony and hours of videotape implicating political leaders, judges, corporate moguls, Hollywood celebrities, and clergy. We’re told they exist. We’re also told—by the very elites most likely ensnared—that there’s “nothing to see here.” The truth, however, seems closer to what insiders have whispered: that those files contain enough evidence to topple governments across the Western world.
What has especially caught my attention is the strange “reluctance” to release those files publicly, and the curious way the story itself has been managed. Instead of honest transparency, we have smoke screens: Epstein dies in custody under suspicious circumstances; Ghislaine Maxwell is shuffled quietly from high-security to minimum-security prison; Donald Trump alternately promises to release Epstein’s files, then dismisses the whole thing as a “hoax.”
Why?
Because the evidence points not only to sexual predation, but to the use of sex, blackmail, and child trafficking as tools of statecraft—involving not just corrupt billionaires, but also the intelligence agencies of the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom.
Epstein, Maxwell, and Intelligence
Let’s be clear: Jeffrey Epstein was no mere “hedge fund manager.” His wealth was largely unexplained, his client lists opaque. Multiple sources—including Alexander Acosta, the U.S. Attorney who gave Epstein his infamous “sweetheart deal” in Florida—have testified that Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” Acosta was told explicitly: back off, Epstein was “above your pay grade.”
But which intelligence service? All signs point to several.
Mossad (Israel): Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, was long known to be a Mossad asset. His daughter continued that role, serving as Epstein’s partner in recruiting, grooming, and trafficking underaged girls. Several credible reports suggest Epstein and Maxwell’s operation doubled as a Mossad “honey trap”—a means of collecting dirt for purposes of blackmail on powerful Western leaders.
CIA (United States): Epstein’s New York townhouse was reportedly wired floor to ceiling with hidden cameras. Who collected and stored that footage? Who protected him after each arrest threat? The CIA had both motive and opportunity: control through blackmail has always been central to its toolkit. (BTW, in her recent interview with Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanch, Ms. Maxwell denied that there were any recording devices in Epstein’s New York mansion — a claim that is easily refuted.)
MI6 (Britain): Epstein’s circle overlapped heavily with British aristocracy, including Prince Andrew. The United Kingdom’s intelligence services, like their American and Israeli counterparts, benefited from access to compromising materials and plausible deniability through “private” networks.
In other words, Epstein’s operation was not an aberration. It was systemic—a private-public partnership between elites and intelligence agencies designed to entrap and control.
Trump’s Place in the Web
So where does Donald Trump fit in? The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming:
Friendship with Epstein: Trump himself admitted they were close. Photographs and flight logs confirm this. They partied together in the 1980s and 90s—often in the presence of girls who were clearly underage.
Connections to Organized Crime and Intelligence: Trump’s “mentor,” Roy Cohn, was not just a Mafia lawyer but also a fixer with CIA ties. Trump inherited from Cohn both his ruthlessness and his network.
The Access Hollywood and Carroll Cases: Trump’s own recorded boasts of sexual assault, along with civil judgments against him for sexual abuse, demonstrate a pattern of predation that makes his involvement with Epstein’s underage network plausible, even likely.
Obstruction of Evidence: Trump promised as president to release the Epstein files but instead allowed the FBI to redact his own name from them. His sudden dismissal of the entire affair as a “hoax” is not the language of innocence but of guilt management.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Treatment: Under Trump, Maxwell was moved to a lower-security facility and treated more like an informant than a convicted trafficker. Why? Perhaps because she knows too much, and her silence needed to be purchased with privileges.
Circumstantial Evidence and the Law
Of course, defenders say all of this is “only circumstantial.” But American courts have long recognized that circumstantial evidence can be just as probative as direct evidence. After all, few crimes of power leave smoking guns. What we have instead are:
Patterns of association.
Unexplained wealth and protection.
Testimonies suppressed.
Defendants obstructing evidence.
Intelligence agencies circling like vultures.
These, taken together, paint a picture no less damning than a video recording.
The Larger Stakes
What makes this affair explosive is not merely whether Donald Trump is guilty of pedophilia. It is that the entire Western system—Washington, London, Tel Aviv—may be implicated in using sexual blackmail as a governing tool.
Ordinary people may not follow Russiagate, gerrymandering, or campaign finance reform. But they understand rape. They understand pedophilia. They understand that leaders who use children in blackmail operations have crossed a line that should end not only their careers but also the legitimacy of the system they serve.
If the Epstein files are ever released unredacted, the consequences could be revolutionary.
That is precisely why they remain hidden.
And precisely why we must demand their unveiling.
Notes and Sources
Alexander Acosta’s statement about Epstein “belonging to intelligence” – The Daily Beast, July 2019.
Gordon Thomas, Robert Maxwell: Israel’s Superspy (2003).
Whitney Webb, One Nation Under Blackmail, Vols. 1–2 (2022).
Vicky Ward, “Jeffrey Epstein’s Sick Story Played Out for Years in Plain Sight,” Vanity Fair, July 2019.
BBC, “Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein: What You Need to Know,” November 2021.
Flight logs and photos released in U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York) filings, 2019.
Wayne Barrett, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall (1992).
Vladimir Putin has done it again. Just as he did with Yevgeny Prigozhin, he’s murdered another political adversary. This time it’s his “most prominent political opponent,” Alexy Navalny.
That’s the IMMEDIATE conclusion UNIVERSALLY drawn and promulgated by the political establishment and mainstream media in the collective west.
Such unanimity especially in the United States with its record of political assassinations and brutal political imprisonments raises suspicions that we might not be getting the full story.
That’s especially true when one contrasts western handwringing over Navalny’s fate with its indifference to the torture of imprisoned Australian citizen Julian Assange and to the State Department’s lack of concern about the behind bars death of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in Kiev.
So, before we join in premature conclusions, let’s look at the other side of Navalny’s death especially in the light of what we know about Assange and Lira.
Rush to Judgment
First, consider the immediate response to news that Navalny had died. Virtually EVERYONE from Genocide Joe Biden to Hillary Clinton and the Secretary General of Amnesty International claimed certainty that the man had been murdered “by Putin.”
This was even the general thrust of a “Democracy Now” interview with Russia expert Masha Gessen. The latter had authored an article in TheNew Yorker article entitled “The Death of Alexy Navalny Putin’s Most Formidable Political Opponent.” For Gessen there is “no doubt” Navalny was killed – again “by Putin.”
One wonders where such certainty can possibly come from simply on the report of Navalny’s death. After all, people die in U.S. prisons and migrant detention cells all the time. Such rush to judgment seems to fly in the face of the foundational legal principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, before ANY examination of evidence, before any autopsy, before any independent investigation, the case is already closed.
The message to Americans: we too should have “no doubt.” Just as we were getting to know a more humanized Vladimir Putin (thanks to Tucker Carlson’s recent interview) the cruel autocrat has struck again. Whatever “official” autopsies might conclude, Putin is surely guilty and can never be proven innocent. (After all, who could ever believe Russian investigators?)
Moreover, Alexy Navalny is universally portrayed as a heroic advocate of democracy who has always opposed the “autocracy” of Vladimir Putin. He was a “freedom fighter” in the face of anti-democratic oppression.
True, Gessen admits that Navalny had previously been an ultra-nationalist often photographed with Nazi paraphernalia. And yes, he had also been anti-immigrant and Islamophobic. He was a guns-right advocate too who at one point called for the execution of Muslims and for the extermination of “cockroaches” like Russians living in Georgia.
But according to Gessen all of that was in the distant past. Since his arrest and apparently while behind bars, he had undergone a conversion. In fact, like many jailhouse converts, the imprisoned Navalny had become a student of religions. He had even transformed into an advocate of Muslims and their right to access to The Holy Koran while serving their time.
However, even if we grant the man’s conversion, the question remains why would Putin do such a thing? Navalny was already in prison serving a 19- year sentence. He was out of the public eye. He represented no political threat to the Russian leader who by all accounts enjoys high popularity with Russians and will easily win next month’s presidential elections.
In other words, Navalny’s “murder” could do nothing but make Putin look bad, expose him to criticism from his opponents, and hurt him at the ballot box. As ex-CIA officer, Ray McGovern puts it: Navalny “was of no consequence in terms of Putin’s reelection prospects. He had no real following there (i.e. in Russia) except among a certain group of folks that didn’t amount to much.”
The Other Navalny
But who really was Alexy Navalny? According to Scott Ritter, Navalny was a CIA agent “straight up.” He came to political awareness during the Boris Yeltsin years (1991-1999) before Putin’s reforms when Russia was extremely corrupt. Like so many young Russians of that era, he shared a strong admiration of the West that even bordered on rejection of his own Russian identity.
As such, Navalny was recognized by the CIA as a “future leader.” They sent him to the World Fellows Program at Yale University whose connections to the CIA (according to Ritter) are well known. There they groomed the man as a CIA-funded political opponent of Vladimir Putin.
In other words, Navalny was a player in a process that routinely funds so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia and elsewhere for purposes of bringing about regime change. Put still otherwise, the NGOs in question were fronts for U.S. and British intelligence agencies who after the advent of Vladimir Putin took on the task of bringing down the Russian president.
This made Navalny in the eyes of Russian law a traitor guilty of treason. As everywhere else, there are laws in Russia against such things.
Assange & Lira
Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA analyst, goes further still. He contrasts the hand wringing about the Navalny affair with the lack of such distress over Julian Assange, the Australian founder and editor of Wikileaks. McGovern’s concern is relevant because this week, the 20th and 21st of February, a final hearing will be held in London to determine Assange’s fate.
Julian Assange, of course, faces extradition to the United States to face a 175-year prison sentence for releasing to the public evidence of U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. For five years, he has been held without charge in a 6’X12’ cell in London’s infamous Belmarsh Prison with Great Britain’s worst rapists, murderers, and terrorists. Before that he spent seven years as an asylum seeker in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.
And this despite appeals for his release by the Australian Parliament itself, and despite the CIA’s breach of basic client-lawyer privilege by listening in and recording confidential conferences between Assange and his legal representatives – a fact that alone should disqualify any further legal processes against this Australian citizen.
Where’s the outcry, McGovern says about Assange’s imprisonment and torture? And doesn’t that prominent foreign journalist’s mistreatment deprive the U.S. of any moral authority to criticize, let alone issue demands about the Navalny case?
And then there’s the issue of the apparent murder of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in one of Kiev’s prisons. Lira was charged with suspicion of expressing subversive opinions about Ukraine’s war with Russia. According to Tucker Carlson, “the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several weeks ago, we spoke to his father, who predicted his son would be killed.”
I ask my readers: Have you even heard of Gonzalo Lira? If not, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Genocide Joe’s administration acts as if it never heard of him either.
Conclusion
The conclusion here is not that Vladimir Putin was not ultimately responsible for the death of Alexy Navalny. That remains to be seen. Instead, the proper conclusions include the following:
It is far too premature to conclude anything.
Such prejudice flies in the face of basic legal assumptions about innocence and guilt.
Alexy Navalny was probably not a freedom fighter.
In fact, there is clear indication that he was a white supremacist and anti-immigrant ultra-nationalist.
He also seems to have been an Islamophobe, an agent of the CIA, and a traitor to his country.
Like all countries, Russia has laws about such matters.
In the light of its treatment of Julian Assange and Gonzalo Lira, the United States has zero moral authority to posture as a champion of prisoners’ rights, freedom of speech, rule of law, prosecutorial rectitude, or extra-judicial assassinations.
O yes, and then there’s all that business about Jeffrey Epstein‘s death in prison . ..
For years, many progressives have complained that the mainstream media (MSM) have ignored perhaps the most insightful political commentator in the western world. I’m referring to Noam Chomsky who in a rare moment of recognition was identified (nearly 45 years ago!) by Time Magazine as “arguably the most important intellectual alive today.”
Despite the unaccustomed mainstream kudo, the iconic scholar, social dissident, and progressive hero has for all the intervening years been systematically excluded from news show interviews. He’s virtually never asked for commentary or quoted in the mainstream press.
And why not? After all, he’s the harshest, most relentless critic the MSM has. It’s no stretch to say he’s their Public Enemy #1.
For instance, Chomsky’s magisterial Manufacturing Consent details how organs such as The New York Times (NYT) and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) serve not to inform the public, but to deceive them into accepting public policies that harm not only “Americans” but the entire world. Most recently, he has argued that the only western politician to tell the truth about the Ukraine War is Donald Trump.
One would think such provocative argument (always backed by impeccable documentation) would merit an interview on “Meet the Press” or somewhere on NPR. But no such luck. For the MSM, the otherwise celebrated MIT Professor of Linguistics continues his relegation to a proverbial voice in the wilderness.
However as of last week, all of that has changed. Since then, the MSM has finally taken notice. And when Professor Chomsky declines comment, Rupert Murdoch’s gang (along with “progressive” online commentators) are scandalized by his refusal to engage about what even those progressives characterize as the Wall Street Journal’s “fantastic” journalism. They accordingly shift into cancel culture overdrive.
For instance, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti hinted they might have to remove from the set of “Breaking Points” a prominently displayed copy of Manufacturing Consent. Kyle Kulinski ruefully described the revelations as a severe “gut punch” discrediting his hero. He just couldn’t get over it.
Why the change?
You guessed it: SEX.
Chomsky’s Sex Scandal
New documents released by The Journal reported that the 94-year-old Chomsky met several times with Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, of course, is the convicted and “suicided” pedophile who probably worked for the CIA and the Israeli Mossad. Chomsky’s meetings, we’re told breathlessly, occurred well after Epstein had been convicted and jailed for soliciting minors for prostitution. So, the esteemed professor must have known.
The document in question was a previously undisclosed Epstein appointment calendar that also included CIA director, William Burns, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Bard College President Leon Botstein.
This was not a question, everyone hastened to add, of Chomsky’s presence in Epstein’s infamous Black Book; nor is his name listed in any flight log for the pedophile’s “Lolita Express.”
Still, why his silence and abrupt, “It’s none of your business,” when questioned about his admissions that he met several times with the infamous Epstein?
Moreover, we’re told that Chomsky and his wife once even attended a dinner Epstein arranged for them with Woody Allen and his wife – after which (shudder) Chomsky identified Allen as “a great artist.” (How incriminating is that?! I mean, Allen has only 16 Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay – the most such nominations ever.)
Chomsky’s Response
Yep, that’s it. By all accounts, that’s the heart of the scandal. Again, it’s not that the 94-year-old is suspected of having illicit sex. It’s not even that (unlike Bill Clinton) he got a massage from a possibly underaged “masseuse.” Rather, it’s that he met several times with a convicted felon, Jeffrey Epstein, and had dinner with Woody Allen and his wife, that he admired Allen as an artist, and that he reminded suddenly interested journalists of his right to privacy about such matters.
He has no moral obligation to disclose information about its details.
In any case, the answers to relevant questions about his meeting with Epstein are already in print and so have no need to be rehashed.
Moreover, Chomsky invokes “a principle of western law that once a person has served his sentence, he’s the same as everybody else.”
And so, as a believer in the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution, Chomsky looked on Epstein accordingly.
When reminded that (thanks to U.S. Labor Secretary, Alexander Acosta) Epstein’s “punishment” was far less than merited, Chomsky points out that the one to be blamed in that case is Acosta, not Epstein.
Finally, Chomsky notes, though Jeffrey Epstein did give large contribution to MIT, he is by no means the worst person to do so. (Chomsky observes for instance that outside his office window at MIT is a university building called The David Koch Cancer Center. Now, in Chomsky’s eyes, that’s the real scandal at MIT. He describes Koch as a candidate for one of the “most extraordinary criminals in human history.” Koch, he says, was responsible for shifting the Republican Party from a moderately sane political organization to being the most dangerous organization in human history which may destroy us all. No one, Chomsky charges says anything about that.)
Thus runs Chomsky’s impeccable, basically libertarian, and anarchistic reasoning.
In addition, we know that:
Part of Epstein’s “cover” included his habit of meeting, patronizing, and being photographed with famous people including prominent academics. Michael Wolff’s Too Famous reports that Epstein’s collection of framed photographs included pictures taken with a pope, several U.S. presidents, the Dali Lama, Bill Gates
According to former Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz (who despite having been accused of rape by one of Epstein’s underaged “proteges” remains a regular commentator on Murdoch’s Fox News), Epstein maintained relationships with prominent academic leaders to prop up his own social credentials.
He accordingly met with top scientists and intellectuals.
For their part, the academic leaders in question understandably courted Epstein who had built up a reputation as a generous funder of higher education.
It would make sense then for an academic of Chomsky’s stature to function as an MIT fundraiser.
Conclusion
In view of the above, who could be surprised at Professor Chomsky’s “It’s none of your business” impatience with reporters and news sources who have ignored him for years. Of course, he’s impatient with their sudden “interest” not in his trenchant analysis of their own journalistic crimes, but in what turns out to be “human interest” and “personality” issues that ignore his huge body of work and the bigger picture. Such misdirection has for decades been the very target of Chomsky’s criticism in the more than 100 books he has written.
Similarly, the same media so anxious to pursue the superficial, remain strangely incurious and un-investigative in pursuit of the real issues connected with Jeffrey Epstein, viz.:
The hidden details of and responsibility for his “suicide.”
Epstein’s connections with the CIA and Mossad.
The content of the vaults of Epstein’s endless films recording the crimes of the rich, famous, and politically powerful – all now in the possession of U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Why no plea deal has been made with Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in exchange for what she knows about those same prominent figures.
The full details of Epstein’s Black Book.
Those Lolita Express flight logs.
And why the Epstein records have remained sealed for so long and possibly will remain sealed for decades to come?
And why are progressive media so ready to take seriously the suddenly “fantastic journalism” of Rupert Murdoch’s crowd? Why did they shift so abruptly into Cancel Culture overdrive? Evidently, all is forgiven for Fox News and WSJ, while all is cancelled and forgotten about the incomparable contributions of the previously “most important intellectual alive today.”
Can no one recognize a hit job when they see it? Can’t they recognize the fingerprints of the CIA? Can’t the left identify a classic case of guilt (or character assassination) by association? Why no suspicion that Wall Street Journal and Fox News magnate, Rupert Murdoch have finally seized upon a chance to discredit one of their harshest critics? Why no curiosity about a possible CIA attempt to draw attention away from William Burns’ association with Epstein disclosed on the same appointment schedule with Chomsky’s name on it?
However we might answer such questions, the bottom line here is that Noam Chomsky’s reputation should in no way be sullied by any sensationalism surrounding this latest “revelation.”
Recently, the editorial board of OpEdNews (OEN) — where I’m a senior editor — opened an on-line thread about QAnon and similar right-wing political movements. In the course of the exchanges, editors criticized the latter simply as “conspiracy nuts” whose screeds should be banned from OEN.
After all, conspiratorial political analysis (often supported by odd mythologies, cosmologies and spiritualities) centralizes reptilian aliens. It ends up holding that the world is controlled by a cabal of pedophiles up to their necks in the business of human trafficking. The cabal is somehow associated with the “illuminati,” and with Luciferian Satan worship connected with the consumption of the adrenalized blood of trafficked children. For many, such references raise the specter of anti-Semitism.
Moreover, the conspiratorialists in question support President Trump as a champion of children victimized by such commerce. His actions on their behalf is demonstrated, they say, by his 20 executive orders intended to inhibit such traffic. His border wall is largely responsible for restraining it dramatically. All of this, they observe, is ignored by the corrupt mainstream media.
Additionally, QAnon and others of their stripe dismiss Covid-19 as a “plandemic” fabricated to “reset” the world economy even more in favor of its controlling one-percenters while intensifying their already oppressive management of the remaining 99%. Accordingly, mask mandates and social distancing measures should be resisted in the name of common sense and personal liberty.
Without enumerating them all, OEN editors wondered, what’s not to reject in such apparently unhinged allegations?
This Essay
The point of the following is to answer that question. In fact, it will argue that in religious and historical perspective, the QAnon conspiracy theorists speak more truth than perhaps even they intuit. As we’ll see, the world has indeed been controlled for millennia by a Luciferian Satanic cabal headed by groups of Illuminati with many deeply engaged in the practice of worldwide pedophilia. What’s more, allegations of anti-Semitism though worrisome, often have the effect of protecting pedophiles and deflecting attention from the major business interest that the vice represents.
The values of those involved their opponents say, are so alien to decent people that the guilty ones might as well be invaders from another planet. They seem completely controlled by what psychologists call the primitive reptilian brain. Excluding higher brain functions, it fosters pathological obsession with money, power, pleasure and social status; it excludes empathy and compassion. Reptilian aliens indeed.
We’ll also see that none of the terms many find off-putting – not Lucifer, Satan or illuminati – is sinister, much less evil or self-evidently crazy. And there’s a certain sense in which both Satan and Lucifer have long been undeniably worshipped especially by all westerners including Christians and Jews. And finally, the existence of a controlling unelected cabal and a huge worldwide pedophilia ring is itself beyond question – as is the fact that the already rich are benefitting spectacularly from the coronavirus pandemic.
I want to make this case because realizing the elements of sanity in movements like QAnon opens the door to dialog and cooperation with those on the right whom progressives can too easily dismiss as one-dimensional conspiracy fanatics. Again, they’re not crazy. They’re mostly working-class people who like the rest of us know something’s deeply wrong with the world. They correctly grasp that what’s wrong involves the elite, widespread child abuse and human trafficking largely ignored by the mainstream media.
Worldwide Pedophilia
For starters, QAnon’s allegations of globally organized pedophilia reflect an undeniable fact. Personally, I know what I’m talking about, because as a former priest, it turns out that I was unwittingly inducted into what everyone now sees as a de facto global pedophilic ring impacting more than 1.2 billion people. I’m referring to the Roman Catholic child rapists systematically protected by colleagues, bishops and popes. Think about it: the phenomenon is worldwide; it’s pedophilic; its coverup constitutes a conspiracy. Saying so is not insane.
Additionally, as shown in the recently released McCarrick Report, the Catholic ring had connections to an even wider pedophilic practices among the world’s elite. Its iceberg tip as suggested (in the Epstein scandal) enjoyed connections with the CIA, mi5, mi6, Mossad, and mafias of various types throughout the world. It’s arguably linked to Hollywood, academia and governments across the planet.
Again, all of that is just the tip of a huge iceberg whose gargantuan proportions simply stand to reason. The case of the Catholic Church shows that the pedophilic appetite is there. And, of course, it’s not confined to the clergy. This means that there is big money to be made in the trafficking of children connected with general prostitution, massage parlors, pornography, stripping, live-sex shows, mail-order brides, the foster child system, military prostitution, sex tourism, body organ harvesting, and associated money laundering and blackmail operations.
(Just a microcosmic example. . . One trafficked girl can be forced to have sex with 10 to 15 men each day. A 2003 study in the Netherlands found that on average, a single sex slave like that can earn her procurers at least $250,00 a year. Needless to say, business models involving that kind of money are highly attractive to organized crime and others.)
And it is by no means a stretch to argue that government officials are involved in the traffic – not any more than to allege that they profit from and protect the drug trade and ancillary money-laundering. We know too much to deny that. We know about the CIA’s direct role in the Central American drug trade during the 1980s (and beyond), as well as the connections between Mexico’s drug cartels and police and government officials in Mexico.
Relatedly, ex-NSA officer and whistle blower, Bill Binney, has maintained in pubic interviews that employing his former bosses’ unprecedented surveillance technology, the NSA could easily keep track of, reveal, and take legal measures against the entire human trafficking network. He says that with ten people, he himself could within thirty days identify not only domestic enemies, but every traitor, every elite child molester, and every money-laundering white-collar criminal in the world.
So, it’s not unduly conspiratorial to allege that members of the world’s elite get together to conceive, plan and protect the operations involving children just listed. Again, we know too much about J. Edgar Hoover and his deals with mafia kingpins. In addition, the Epstein scandal itself and its implications of government officials, royals from various countries, the CIA, Israel’s Mossad, Catholic Church officials, and bankers for purposes of money-laundering, reveals a level of criminal planning that fulfills the very definition of conspiracy.
For instance, what do you think the world’s financial elite are doing during G7 and similar conferences? If it’s true that human trafficking is among the fastest growing enterprises in the world yielding billions to trillions in revenue each year, do you think they can avoid its discussion? If not involved in its day-to-day activities, bankers simply can’t avoid involvement in its money-laundering schemes? It would be insanely naïve to think otherwise.
Instead, it is perfectly sensible to affirm that a powerful faction of the world’s elite (if you don’t like the word “cabal”) is deeply involved in pedophilic and associated operations that are fostered, protected, and extended virtual immunity from prosecution. Their processes, procedures and crimes go virtually unreported in the mainstream media. (Think of how little we’ve heard from Ghislaine Maxwell since her arrest).
The Illuminati
And it’s all connected with the “illuminati,” secret societies and conservative rejection of the same. Everything in the modern world is. That’s especially true in the United States whose very founders were children of the Enlightenment; they were illuminati. And in the 18th century, people like them had to form secret societies such as the Free Masons complete with identifying handshakes and passwords. They needed them simply to protect themselves from the Catholic Church establishment and their royal antagonists.
Additionally, and despite the spirit of the French Revolution, the illuminati worldwide had not yet entirely jettisoned belief in God. Instead, they were deists. They had largely rejected the Bible in favor of a “watchmaker divinity” who had created a self-governing, clock-like universe, set it spinning according to Newton’s laws and had not been heard from since. Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States were all illuminati in that sense.
Ironically and to this day, Christian fundamentalists find that kind of Founding Father secularism highly objectionable. They continue to mistrust science, evolution, psychotherapy, Marxist criticism, and modern biblical scholarship. No wonder the term “illuminati” retains sinister overtones for Republicans whose most powerful wing is comprised of white Christian evangelicals.
No wonder the latter can overlook the moral failings of Donald Trump and even see him as a messiah. Such apparent contradiction survives as one of our nation’s anti-intellectual cornerstones.
Satanic, Luciferian Cults
As for Lucifer and Satan . . . The Constantinian betrayal of the authentic Jesus tradition (during the 4th century CE) turned Christians generally into Satan worshippers. Paradoxically, it also had them vilifying Jesus who was originally identified as the Great Bearer of Light (Lucifer) for his liberating message that contradicted the world’s self-serving imperial morality.
To be more specific, the book of Job shows that the being called “Satan” was in Hebrew lore a prominent member of God’s heavenly court. In fact, Satan was originally the representative of the Persian Empire in those celestial precincts. (Evidently, it was impossible for the ancient biblical authors to believe that an entity as powerful as Persia could not find representation in the ultimate seat of power.) As the imperial advisor of Yahweh, Satan was the defender of empire’s law and order.
It was precisely this Satan whom Jesus repeatedly repudiated in the gospel accounts of his words and deeds (see Matthew 4:10 and Mark 8:33). In his tale about Jesus’ temptation in the desert, Luke (4:6) has Satan (now identified with the devil) showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and telling him “I shall give to you all this power and glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.” In other words, according to early Christian tradition, attainment of imperial power is dependent on Satan worship.
Jesus’ rejection of Satan’s offer was a rebuff to empire that reached its apotheosis in the Book of Revelation where (according to Apocalypse mythology) Satan and his imperial legions were expelled definitively from Yahweh’s heavenly realm (Revelation 12: 7-12).
Such rejection in the atmosphere of hated imperial Rome, led Jewish Christians to imagine Jesus as “Lucifer,” the bearer of light – the ancient world’s avatar consistently associated with the morning star, the planet Venus, and with human wisdom and liberation.
The point is that all of this was reversed when under Constantine a prevailing faction of church leaders agreed to exercise condominium with Rome over its vast empire. To do so, they had to in effect deify Satan and call him “God” while vilifying Jesus’ revolutionary spirit by demonizing Lucifer. Thus, Jesus’ antinomian, anti-imperial stance became heresy, while obedience to law and empire became orthodoxy.
So, even according to biblical texts, there is truth to the contemporary conspiratorial position that the world is run by worshippers of Satan.
Anti-Semitism
Standard articles about QAnon and anti-Semitism begin by observing that the movement is not doctrinally anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, because of its denunciations of a world-controlling elite including figures such as George Soros and the Rothschilds, QAnon is often accused of that bigotry. Moreover, as we’ve seen, it and similar groups allege that the elite in question are connected to criminal enterprises that sometimes include the consumption of adrenalized blood by the so-called Satanists just referenced.
In the eyes of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and others, such criticisms and allegations, understandably evoke “anti-Semitic tropes” that are considered enough to justify labeling and dismissing those using them as basically anti-Semitic. However, (again, though understandable in the light of the Holocaust’s unspeakable horrors) the charges ignore at least six important factors:
Because of its frequent misapplication, the term “anti-Semitism” has been politicized almost to the point of meaninglessness. It has been used to discredit supporters of Palestinian rights, upholders of international law, members of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement as well as Jewish leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky. The term has even been used to characterize those who do not completely endorse the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu.
In fact, Alan Dershowitz, longtime colleague of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, has already played the anti-Semite card.
Nevertheless, according to the Anti-Defamanation League, anti-Semitism is not a specific plank in Q-anon’s platform. Instead, while noting the earlier referenced trope allusions, the League has said “the vast majority of QAnon-inspired conspiracy theories have nothing to do with anti-Semitism.”
George Soros and the Rothschilds are integral parts of the one percent criticized by virtually all progressives without anti-Semitic overtones.
Anti-Semites can be found in almost any group one cares to name. Offending tropes (e.g. “eating of blood”) actually originated with the Roman Catholic Church, were shockingly given voice by Martin Luther, and were reprised by Lutherans and Catholics in Nazi Germany. Yet neither Luther nor most of the groups just mentioned are routinely dismissed as anti-Semitic.
The charge of anti-Semitism is frequently stretched to discredit allegations of worldwide trafficking in children as “conspiracy theory” thus protecting the traffickers involved.
In summary, all of this impedes honest discussion of human trafficking in general and pedophilia in particular. Such prevention has arguably been an important factor enabling individuals like Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, and Ghislaine Maxwell to spend decades freely engaging in the traffic of underage females.
Conclusion
None of the foregoing is meant to endorse QAnon or related so-called conspiracy theories. It is however to say that their adherents should not be dismissed out of hand. In fact, they occupy terrain that is largely friendly to progressives – despite their support of Donald Trump. For instance:
They are not our class enemies; we all belong to the working class
They are sworn enemies of the one percent.
They correctly recognize the alien, reptilian, and pathological nature of the world’s elite controllers
They call us to recognize our own identities as illuminati and as satanic insofar as we support empire
They absolutely and correctly distrust the mainstream media.
They are similarly and justifiably suspicious of government officials.
They specifically recognize that official responses to the pandemic are deeply unfair and therefore highly suspicious
Their moral concern for children, child abuse and human trafficking is completely admirable.
Realizing such areas of convergence makes dialog and cooperation possible. That in turn helps us overcome the divide and conquer strategies of our keepers who would have us believe that potential allies are irredeemable deplorables who should be excluded even from the revolutionary pages of OpEdNews.
This is a follow-up to and revision of my last posting about a Zoom call that recently caused a stir on OpEdNews
Rob Kall, the editor in chief of OpEdNews (OEN) recently published a provocative edition of a weekly Zoom call among editors and contributors to his website. It was provocative because the remarks of one of the participants about fascism and the Great Holocaust caused several Jewish attendees to take offense and vehemently accuse him of holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.
Basically, the offending remarks identified Germany’s wealthy Jewish 1% as providing Hitler’s fascism with pretext for his genocide of the other 99%. (I’ve summarized what was actually said here.) The discussion that ensued led Rob to wisely recommend caution in approaching such sensitive topics.
Rob’s recommendation reminded me of a sobering experience I had years ago in Mexico. It put me in the position of the OEN provocateur. It also caused me to reflect on the role of self-criticism that is part and parcel of the Judeo-Christian tradition and of critical thinking in general.
My Report from Israel
The experience I’m referring to came when I was invited to give a “Report from Israel” after a three-week study tour of Israel, Jordan, and Egypt sponsored by Berea College, where I taught in the Philosophy and Religion Department for 40 years. The invitation came from the Unitarian Universalist (U.U.) congregation of San Miguel de Allende.
My report was heavily influenced not only by our time spent in the Palestinian community, but by a separate visit my wife, Peggy, and I made to the Sabeel Ecumenical Center for liberation theology in Jerusalem. Scholars there connected the Palestinians’ situation with colonialism. They pointed out that ever-expanding Jewish settlements stood in blatant contravention of UN Resolution 242. It was a continuation of the European colonial system that had supposedly been abolished following World War II. In Israel-Palestine, Jewish occupation represented the familiar European settler pattern repeated throughout the former colonies. It had (Zionist) settlers from Germany, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, and elsewhere arriving unexpectedly in lands belonging for millennia to poor unsuspecting Palestinian peasants, and then confiscating their homes, fields and resources.
With all of that fresh on my mind, the thesis of my U.U. presentation was clear and unambiguous. “The real terrorists in Israel,” I said, “are the Zionists who run the country.” I didn’t consider my basically historical argument particularly original or shocking. The Sabeel Center and Noam Chomsky had been making it for years.
What I didn’t realize was that almost everyone in my audience was Jewish. (I didn’t even know about San Miguel’s large Jewish population – mostly “snowbirds” from New York City.) Nonetheless, my remarks that Sunday stimulated an engrossing extended discussion. Everyone was respectful, and the enthusiastic conversation even spilled over beyond the allotted time.
The trouble started after the head of San Miguel’s Center for Global Justice (CGJ) where Peggy and I were working at the time invited me to publish my talk as an article in San Miguel’s weekly English newspaper, Atención.
I’ll never forget what followed; it was very similar to what occurred during Rob’s OEN Zoom call. All hell broke loose:
A barrage of angry letters flooded the Atención pages for the next two weeks and more.
As a result, Atención threatened to cancel the column space set aside for the CGJ each week.
San Miguel’s Bibliotheca (library) talked about ending the CGJ’s access to meeting rooms there.
My article was removed from Atención’s archives.
Someone from the AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee) phoned my provost at Berea College reporting me for my inflammatory article, asking whether I really taught there and if my credentials were genuine.
The CGJ’s leadership was forced to do some back-pedaling distancing itself from me and my remarks.
They lit candles of reconciliation at a subsequent U.U. meeting begging forgiveness from the community and absolution for that mad man from Berea.
The guiding assumption in all of this was that my argument was patently false.
In other words, an article that should have stimulated critical thinking and discussion (with CGJ activists leading the way as a voice for Palestine’s voiceless) was met instead with denial, dismissal, and apology.
Biblical Perspective
Of course, I know that criticizing Zionists for their treatment of Palestinians is quite different from the holocaust denial that some on the OEN call perceived a few weeks ago.
It is also probably futile for members of the goyim like me to comment on the topic. Frankly, I’m unqualified to do so, because:
My relatives and loved ones weren’t the ones slaughtered in Hitler’s crematoria and gas chambers.
They weren’t among the peasants, laborers, shopkeepers, mothers, fathers, grandparents and children whose lives were cruelly wasted and destroyed by the Third Reich.
Instead, as Elie Wiesel has pointed out again and again, my Christian religious cohorts were the very ones who incinerated Jews during the week, went to confession on Saturday, were given absolution, received Holy Communion on Sunday, and then returned to their gruesome work the following day.
Yet, it must be acknowledged that my religious tradition is also specifically Judeo-Christian. Its central figure is the Jewish prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, who was a reformer of Judaism and had no intention of founding a new religion. Jesus was not a Christian; from his birth to his death, he was a proud and faithful Jew.
In a sense, then, especially as a theologian in this tradition, I too am somehow a spiritual Semite. (Whether they realize it or not, all Christians are.) Additionally, what separates Zionists from other contemporary neo-colonizers is their claimed religious identity. So, to ignore the role of religion here overlooks the proverbial elephant in the room.
Recognizing the elephant gives license to say that what really happened in the Zoom conversation and in reaction to my remarks in San Miguel mirrored exactly the traditional dynamic between Jewish prophets like Amos and Jesus and their contemporaries. Both Amos and Jesus (as typical Jewish prophets):
Denounced their nation’s elite in no uncertain terms
Predicted that their crimes would lead to destruction of the entire nation
Were vilified as unpatriotic, self-hating Jews
Were threatened with ostracism, imprisonment and death
And were often (as in the case of Jesus) assassinated for their prophetic words
Put otherwise, the Jewish prophets were social critics – the kind of clear-eyed seers who weren’t afraid to blame the powerful in their own nation for crimes that brought harm, ruin, death and destruction to the entire nation. The prophets did not blame the widows, orphans, foreigners, peasants, unemployed, beggars, prostitutes, or the hobbled and ill. Instead, they unstintingly impugned the equivalents of Germany’s Jewish 1% while recognizing that the crimes of those few inevitably brought ruin, pain, exile and death even to the innocent among their own people. It’s simply the way the world works. The blameworthy crimes of the powerful cause suffering, death and massacre for the innocent majority. Pointing that out is simply telling the truth.
Conclusion
Despite what I said about being unqualified to comment on words that seem cruel and insensitive to victimized Jews, I do know something about being tarred with a broad brush. As a Roman Catholic and former priest, I could easily be accused of being part of a worldwide pedophilic ring represented by the priesthood and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. It would even be true to say that the ring has connections to a still wider movement of pedophiles among the world’s elite whose iceberg tip revealed (e.g. in the Epstein scandal) connections with the CIA, mi5, mi6, Mossad, and Mafias of various types throughout the world.
All of that would be true even though I never personally encountered any hint of pedophilia in all my more than 20 years preparing for and direct involvement in the Roman Catholic priesthood. It remains true despite the innumerable saints, martyrs, and holy men and women I’ve known personally and from the otherwise hallowed history of the Catholic Church.
The point here is that as an American, and much more as a former priest, I’ve been deeply associated with horrendous institutional delinquencies that I’d rather not discuss, because they hit too close to my spiritual and cultural identity. In other words, as both a Roman Catholic and a U.S. citizen, I find in my own community, uncomfortable truths that parallel the “accusations” against the Jewish 1% in Hitler’s Germany and against contemporary Zionists. I feel resentment at the very mention of such truths.
Nonetheless, and despite my hurt feelings, truth remains truth. And in the spirit of Amos and Jesus, I must face the facts and draw appropriate conclusions. Doing so draws me out of parochial consciousness and self-defensive denial. It creates room for the dialog and recognitions that might head off further community disaster.
As Paulo Freire puts it in The Politics of Education, all critical thinking begins with self-criticism.
Rob Kall, the editor in chief of OpEdNews (OEN) recently published a provocative edition of a weekly Zoom call among editors and contributors to his website. It was provocative because the remarks of one of the participants about fascism and the Jewish holocaust caused several other attendees to take offense and vehemently accuse him of holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. The discussion that ensued led Rob to wisely recommend caution in approaching such sensitive topics.
In my capacity as a theologian of the specifically Judeo-Christian Tradition, the conversation made me realize that the type of criticism that offended so many on the OEN call was entirely biblical. It was consonant with the tradition of Jewish prophets like Amos and Jesus of Nazareth who because they denounced the rich and powerful among their countrymen, were roundly accused of being self-hating Jews.
My hope is that summarizing the offending remarks on the one hand along with the outraged responses to them on the other, might highlight the value of the biblical tradition in helping us transcend national and institutional loyalties that prevent frank self-criticism and acceptance of historical fact.
Offending Remarks
Begin by considering the provocative remarks in question. In paraphrase, they ran as follows:
“I never use the word ‘fascist,’” the provocateur said. “I never use the word ‘holocaust’ either. That’s because the simple use of those words implies that one accepts the assumptions of Zionists and right-wing Jews. I refuse to do that, because the words suggest that in the 1930s, the German Jews were entirely innocent, when they weren’t – not by a long shot.
“I mean, no one hates any person or group without reason. For instance, the Shylock character in the “Merchant of Venice” wasn’t simply a product of Shakespeare’s imagination. Shylock had a foundation in reality – in people’s experience. And like Shylock, elite Jews in Germany gave Germans plenty of reason for hating them. In turn, Hitler used that legitimate animosity towards the few to tar all Jews – even the poorest and most exploited – with the same well-justified brush.
“Let me explain.
“The fact is that the period from the end of the 19th century to WWI was a very prosperous time. Working class expectations for social mobility were on the rise. However, to move up the social ladder – to become an attorney, for instance — one had to belong to certain clubs (like guilds) in order to get clients. Wealthy Jews who were the bankers, attorneys and physicians, controlled the clubs in question; and they wouldn’t let working class people in. That created a lot of bitterness towards Jews in general.
“Before that, under feudalism and until the end of the First World War, the people who owned the land were the nobles, the clergy, the burghers and yes, the Jews. Wealthy Jews were not peasants. They had privileges. For instance, they could carry weapons. They also bought leases to the estates of the nobles (sometimes the size of entire counties). They managed those estates for a profit.
“In other words, wealthy Jews were the interface between the peasants and the nobles.
“At the same time, the nobles mistrusted the Jews I’m describing because (again) they were the bankers, attorneys, and physicians. The nobles resented having to trust the Jews for all those essential services. For their part, the peasants mistrusted the Jews just referenced because they were always in debt to them as their landlords.
“Then following the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany experienced tremendous inflation that drastically devalued the German mark. The Jews were blamed for that too because they controlled banking. The fact is that Jewish bankers engineered the inflation to bring down the actual costs of repaying the debts demanded by the Versailles treaty. That served the interests of the wealthiest Germans who, like the wealthy today, kept their money not in savings accounts but in stocks, bonds, and real estate. Unlike working class savings accounts, the value of stocks, bonds, and real estate float with inflation. So, inflation helped the rich Germans stay rich, but completely wiped out the country’s workers, both Jewish and non-Jewish.
“Finally, there came the Great Crash of 1929 that impoverished everyone. So, by the time Hitler came to power in 1933, the Germans, the Poles, the Hungarians and the Austrians were all ready to explode. And, of course, Hitler lit the match with his identification of all Jews as the root of their problems.”
Defensive Responses
Responses mainly from Jewish participants in Rob’s Zoom call came thick and fast.
They included the following:
I disagree. People do in fact hate individuals and groups for no reason at all. And Jews in Hitler’s Germany represent a case in point. They were completely innocent. To hint otherwise is simply anti-Semitic and leads to holocaust denial.
I don’t think there were very many Jews who managed property for the feudal lords. Yes, there may have been a few Jews who had a lot of power, and there is something to the Rothschilds, and now we have the Zionists that I absolutely hate. However . . .
You’re talking about Jews as if they were somehow monolithic. Most Jews were poor.
Yes, my own ancestors were holocaust victims and I assure you that they had nothing to do with what you’ve just described.
My grandmother was dragged off to Auschwitz with her husband and three children. Their entire village was leveled.
I’ve heard these tired arguments before – you know: the Jews keep to themselves, they wear odd clothes, speak their own language, etc., etc. It’s all part of anti-Semitism. I don’t buy any of it.
You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re nothing but an anti-Semitic holocaust denier. You’re basically saying that “The Jews deserved what they got in the holocaust. That makes you uncivilized; you should get off this call.”
I hope you’re recording all of this, Rob, so we can go back and see who’s misrepresenting what.
Biblical Perspective
Of course, it’s probably futile for a member of the goyim like me to comment on the dialog just summarized. Frankly, I’m unqualified to do so. My relatives and loved ones weren’t the ones slaughtered in Hitler’s crematoria and gas chambers. They weren’t among the peasants, laborers, shopkeepers, mothers, fathers, grandparents and children whose lives were cruelly wasted and destroyed by the Third Reich.
Instead, as Elie Wiesel has pointed out again and again, my Christian religious cohorts were the very ones who incinerated Jews during the week, went to confession on Saturday, were given absolution, received Holy Communion on Sunday, and then returned to their gruesome work the following day.
Yet, it must be acknowledged that my religious tradition is also specifically Judeo-Christian. Its central figure is the Jewish prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, who was a reformer of Judaism and had no intention of founding the new religion that ended up defaming Jews as God killers – and who finished by supporting Hitler’s genocide. Jesus was not a Christian; from his birth to his death, he was a proud and faithful Jew.
In a sense, then, especially as a theologian in this tradition, I too am somehow a spiritual Semite. Whether they realize it or not, all Christians are. So, in that capacity, please indulge the attempt that follows to shed some biblical light on the dialog centralized here.
What really happened in the Zoom conversation just summarized mirrored exactly the traditional dynamic between on the one hand Jewish prophets like Amos and Jesus, and on the other, their contemporaries, especially among the elite in Amos’ 8th century BCE and in Jesus’ first century of our era. Both Amos and Jesus (as typical Jewish prophets):
Denounced their nation’s elite in no uncertain terms
Predicted that their crimes would lead to destruction of the entire nation
Were vilified as unpatriotic, self-hating Jews
Were threatened with ostracism, imprisonment and death
And were often (as in the case of Jesus) assassinated for their prophetic words
Put otherwise, the Jewish prophets were social critics – the kind of clear-eyed seers who weren’t afraid to blame the powerful in their own nation for crimes that brought harm, ruin, death and destruction to the entire nation. The prophets did not blame the widows, orphans, foreigners, peasants, unemployed, beggars, prostitutes, or the hobbled and ill. Instead, they unstintingly impugned the equivalents of Germany’s Jewish one percent while recognizing that the crimes of those few inevitably brought ruin, pain, exile and death even to the innocent among their own people. It’s simply the way the world works.
For his part, Amos criticized the wealthy for breaking covenant with Yahweh, their God, the traditional protector of widows, orphans and resident non-Jews. Instead of caring for the poor, the one-percenters, he said, lay on beds of ivory, lounged idly on soft couches, drank the finest wines, anointed themselves with precious perfumes and oils, lived in their luxurious summer houses while underpaying and overcharging the peasant poor. They victimized everyone, even the most innocent. Such crimes brought harm, the prophet warned, to everyone, even the most innocent. Once again, that was simply the law of cause and effect.
Jesus did something similar under the Roman Empire. His prophetic criticism was directed not towards his people’s poor majority; he didn’t blame them. No, he unrelentingly criticized their Jewish exploiters. However, at the same time he knew that the crimes of those powerful would cause untold suffering for everyone. So, he predicted the absolute destruction of Jerusalem where forty years after his death more than one million innocent Jews were slaughtered and nearly 100,000 of his blameless compatriots were captured and enslaved.
To repeat, that’s the way the world works. The blameworthy crimes of the powerful cause suffering, death and massacre for the innocent majority.
Conclusion
Despite what I said about being unqualified to comment on words that seem cruel and insensitive to victimized Jews, I do know something about being tarred with a broad brush. As a Roman Catholic and former priest, I could easily be accused of being part of a worldwide pedophilic ring represented by the priesthood and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. It would even be true to say that the ring has connections to an even wider movement of pedophiles among the world’s elite whose iceberg tip revealed (e.g. in the Epstein scandal) connections with the CIA, mi5, mi6, Mossad, and Mafias of various types throughout the world.
All of that would be true even though I never personally encountered any hint of pedophilia in all my more than 20 years preparing for and direct involvement in the Roman Catholic priesthood. It remains true despite the innumerable saints, martyrs, and holy men and women I’ve known personally and from the otherwise hallowed history of the Catholic Church.
The point here is that as an American, and much more as a former priest, I’ve been deeply associated with horrendous institutional delinquencies that I’d rather not discuss, because they hit too close to my spiritual and cultural identity. In other words, I find in my own community, uncomfortable truths that parallel the “accusations” against the Jewish 1% in Hitler’s Germany. I feel resentment at their very mention.
Nonetheless, and despite my hurt feelings, truth remains truth. And in the spirit of Amos and Jesus, I must face the facts and draw appropriate conclusions. Doing so draws me out of ghettoized consciousness and self-defensive denial. It creates room for self-criticism, dialog and recognitions that might head off further community disaster.
Readingsfor the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jeremiah 20: 7-9; Psalm 63: 2-9; Romans 12: 1-2; Matthew 16:21-27
This Sunday’s readings are about truth, the world’s rejection of the same, and about the truth-teller’s willingness to take the consequences – even if they entail loss of one’s life.
The readings are extremely relevant to our moment in history. There, the current occupant of the White House has from day one (and before) challenged conventional ideas about truth itself. His administration popularized the phrases “fake news” and “alternative facts.” The Washington Postalleges that in less than one year, the chief executive told more than 2000 lies.
In the meantime, sources like QAnon have spread right-wing conspiracy theories that have many scratching their heads about what to believe. For instance, are Q’s assertions true that:
Antifa is a sworn enemy of Black Lives Matter (BLM)?
BLM itself is funded and controlled by George Soros and left-wing think tanks?
President Obama is really a Muslim?
Kamala Harris is ineligible to be POTUS?
Sandy Hook was a false flag event staged to justify disarming U.S. citizens?
Prominent Democrats have run a child-trafficking ring out of a D.C. pizzeria (“Pizzagate”)?
The entire world is run by a Satan-worshipping child sex-trafficking organization?
In the context of COVID-19, beliefs are widespread that:
COVID-19 is a fake “pLandemic” orchestrated by a “deep state” to eliminate democracy and reset the economy even more in favor of the rich.
Dr. Anthony Fauci is a key player in starting the pLandemic – to make billions for himself.
But the ultimate goal is to set up a New World Order under a single government.
Face masks and social distancing are means to deprive unsuspecting citizens of their civil liberties.
Debate Among OpEd Editors
With all of that in mind, a lively debate has erupted for the past couple of weeks among OpEdNews senior editors. It was sparked by an editorial penned by the website’s editor-in-chief (EIC), Rob Kall. Rob has taken a courageously firm editorial stance against articles that reflect the right-wing talking points of view just listed. According to Rob, they’re all “bad guy” theories. Moreover, the uncritical use of right-wing talking points and language (e.g. “deep state,” “pLandemic,” and “New World Order”) only serve to boost and promote right wing messaging. The EIC wrote, “When you use the language of the enemy, you help the enemy . . . So, stop using their language.”
For me, Rob’s stance makes a lot of sense. But I can also see how others (excluding the senior editors) might label it just another example of “cancel culture?” Are we to cancel well-written and well-documented articles because of their conspiratorial language?
More importantly (at least in the context of this Sunday homily) can we get away with classifying those we disagree with as “bad guys” or as “the enemy?”
[Believe me, I ask that question with some trepidation. I’m uncomfortable with the theories listed above. Many of them (not all – see below) seem outrageous. Most often, I think of Donald Trump and his cohorts as “the enemy” – as “bad guys.”]
Today’s Readings
However, such reflections bring me back to this Sunday’s readings and their faith underpinnings. All of the readings underwrite truth alternatives severely in conflict with unquestioned cultural convictions. They point to the embrace of those who hold “unacceptable” opinions.
And it’s not just the Judeo-Christian tradition I’m talking about. Instead, I’m referencing all the non-dual spiritualities that find home in all the world’s Great Religions. In their mystical forms, they all agree that there’s no distinction between us and those we’re tempted to “other” as bad guys and enemies. Despite our understandable antipathies, none of them is cancelable any more than we would like to be.
Even more familiarly, Jesus the Christ recommended loving “your neighbor as yourself” (i.e. because she or he is yourself). That’s because (as Marianne Williamson puts it) “There is really only one of us here.” Ken Wilber comes close to saying the same thing when he observes (uncomfortably for me!) that given their level of consciousness, everyone is right — at least partially. And then there’s Deepak Chopra who says everyone’s doing the best they can.
Again, with all of that in mind imagine, for instance, how Donald Trump or QAnon partisans would relate to today’s readings. Please check out the originals for yourself here to see what I mean. My “translations” run as follows:
Jeremiah 20: 7-9: Life is deceptive. When I explain how, everyone laughs and makes fun of me. Yet, despite my resolutions to stop talking, I cannot remain silent about the violence and outrages that no one else seems to see. My compulsion to tell the truth is like an out-of-control fire burning inside me.
Psalm 63: 2-9: In fact, truth-seeking is synonymous with my thirst for Life Itself. It’s like rain falling on parched soil. It involves an encounter with the Force that some call “God.” That meeting is what life itself is about. Hence despite rejection by the world, speaking truth is more satisfying than a rich banquet. It’s like water for my scorched soul.
Romans 12: 1-2: So, sisters and brothers, be willing to endure rejection for your stubborn non-conformity – for your commitment to the true, the good, and the beautiful – for your enlightenment. No other way of life is worth living.
Matthew 16:21-27: Commitment to truth always brings some type of martyrdom. Jesus saw that clearly. However, he refused to be dissuaded from following his prophetic script – even by his closest friend. “STFU,” he told Peter in no uncertain terms. “You too,” he said, “and anyone wishing to follow me must be willing to endure even capital punishment. Yes, opposing the lies of church and state is more important than life itself.”
The Unresolved OpEd Debate
So, if life is so mysterious and even deceptive, if our faith demands nonconformity and taking the heat for unpopular opposition to church and state, if transcendent truth really lies 180 degrees opposite of routinely accepted cultural bromides, what are we to do about “bad guys,” “enemies,” and their apparently wild conspiracy theories?
First of all, we must recognize that bad guys indeed exist. There are criminals in the world and the worst of them reside not behind bars, but behind desks in D.C., in state capitals, and on Wall Street. It may even be that CIA or NSA operatives are behind the more outlandish conspiracy theories in question. Clearly, many of these perps belong in jail. And most of us look forward to the day of their incarceration.
Secondly, however, we must recognize that the bad guys are emphatically not the people writing for OpEdNews. In Ken Wilber’s terms, those persuaded by the earlier-referenced theories might simply be coming from mindsets Wilber calls “egocentric” or “ethnocentric.” These are not negative terms; all of us, even if we’ve transitioned to “world-centric” or even “cosmic-centric” levels, have passed through those stages (no one can avoid them). In other words, following the thread I’m trying to develop here, and given their stage of evolutionary development, these people are right and are doing the best they can.
Thirdly (and most uncomfortably for me), it may be that the so-called “conspiracy theorists” are objectively correct or at least partially so. Here I’m thinking specifically about a video interview of Sasha Stone I posted on OEN a few weeks ago. There Stone (who sometimes appears angry and even unhinged) does endorse that claim that the world is run by a cabal of pedophiles and Satan worshippers. More importantly however, he’s endorsed in that position by Robert David Steele, an ex-CIA officer, who seems perfectly sane, objective, and entirely rational. Steele claims that 22,000 children are kidnapped and “disappear” every year into an underworld of pedophilia and Satan worship. That conclusion is supported by an entire panel of sober scholars and jurists belonging to Stone’s International Tribunal for Natural Justice.
What is one to think about all that – especially given what’s been revealed in the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell saga? Is that merely the tip of an iceberg?
Conclusion
Given the thrust of today’s readings (and even discounting them if you prefer) it could very well be possible that the conspiracy theorists now under threat of cancellation from OEN pages might be right – or at least partially so. With the readings’ recommendations of nonconformity and prophetic resistance ringing in my ears, here’s where I see that they might well be on the right path:
By his outrageous lies, Donald Trump has clearly pulled the curtain back from our culture’s ethnocentric prevarications. As the very incarnation of egocentrism, he has rendered untenable all claims to American exceptionalism. In that sense, he himself is a great (though completely unconscious) prophet.
Secretary of State and former CIA director, Mike Pompeo, has been even more explicit in his admissions about our government’s systemic lies. Pompeo’s predecessor under President Reagan, William Casey was more honest still. He said, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” (Think about that! How can we trust anything our government says?)
Trump, Pompeo, Casey and the revision of American history stimulated by their policies have shown that all of us have been duped about our country’s foundations and “noble traditions.” Most of it is fake.
Consequently, everyone should presume without contrary smoking gun evidence that our politicians (and mass media, church leaders, scientists and educators) are lying, though often unconsciously.
NOTHING is immune from such well-founded skepticism – including COVID-19, mask wearing, and social distancing.
Moreover, the Epstein/Maxwell saga coupled with the worldwide pedophilia scandal within the Roman Catholic Church and the massive profits gained from child pornography have all revealed the centrality of child sexual abuse that few previously suspected. (As Robert David Steele puts it: the five pillars of U.S. policy are guns, gold, cash, drugs, and child trafficking.)
Those same revelations have demonstrated that our country’s ruling class (and the world’s!) are corrupt to the bone. NOTHING – no crime, no degeneracy – is beyond them. The swamp is deep and fetid.
Joe Biden and the Democrats will be no better than Mr. Trump in draining that swamp. They have no interest in doing so.
Of course, I could go on with my list. However, the point is that there is more overlap than one might think between the convictions of those on the right and progressive readers and contributors to OEN. As uncomfortable as it might be, leftists must not cancel, but rather dialog with “the enemy” and seriously investigate their claims.
Readings for 19th Sunday in ordinary time: I KINGS 19: 9A, 11-13A; PSALMS 85: 9-14; ROMANS 9: 1-5; MATTHEW 14: 22-23
In today’s Gospel, we hear Matthew’s iconic account of Yeshua walking on water – and of his invitation to Peter to follow the Master’s example.
The story is relevant to our times filled as they are with turbulence, polarization, and uncertainty. Those were the disturbing characteristics of Yeshua’s time as well – and of Matthew’s early church. In both contexts, there was turbulence everywhere. But despite it all, the early followers of Yeshua were asked to do the impossible – to walk on water themselves.
Before I get to what that might mean, here’s a reminder of how our own tempestuous times mirror those of Yeshua and Matthew.
My Own Confusion
If the truth be told, I must admit that I hardly know what to think anymore. The polarizing spirit of the day has me pretty upset. I can barely listen to the news each day. And the mere images of the politicians I have come to despise cause my stomach to churn. I can’t stand to hear their voices – or those of their ever-harsher critics. And besides that, I see no alternatives. (How much better is Joe Biden than Donald Trump?)
However, the immediate cause of my upset and confusion is the video I posted here last week – an interview by Jason Dean of Sacha Stone, the founder of the International Tribunal for Natural Justice. It generated a lot of controversy when it appeared on OpEdNews on Thursday.
Subsequently, a whole ZOOM meeting of the site’s editors, contributors, and readers had everyone arguing about the interview’s truth claims. Is the coronavirus a pandemic or a “plandemic?” Does wearing a facemask make sense? There was wide disagreement during the call.
Those questions and emotions generated by the video were rooted in the polarizing figure of Sacha Stone himself. He’s charismatic, articulate, extremely outspoken, and given, I fear, to hyperbole. On the one hand, he is deeply spiritual and reflective of the best of the mystical traditions shared by all the world’s great faiths. His passionate concern about and energetic action against the trafficking of children for pedophilic purposes is unmistakable and genuine.
On the other hand, he somewhat off-puttingly fills his discourse with references to evil, Satanic cults, the deep state, and to ruling class rituals devoted to drinking the blood of fear-adrenalized two and three-year-olds.
Obviously, then Stone himself is controversial. He illustrated, I said, the difficulty of classifying people today on the basis of the traditional categories of “left” and “right,” liberal and conservative.
For instance, he is a supporter of President Trump. But he has long despised, he says, all politicians as liars and sell-outs to the rich 1% that govern our nation through the lawmakers they have long since bought and sold. Nonetheless, Stone sees Trump as one of the two modern-era U.S. presidents of true human worth. The other one? John F. Kennedy.
In all of this, Stone finds prominent support in a former CIA operative, Robert David Steele. Steele was described by one OEN ZOOM call participant who knows Steele well, has corresponded with him, and has interviewed him formally as “a brilliant guy.” In fact, as an elite insider, Steele not only backs Stone’s claims about cults and blood, he serves as Commissioner and Chief Counsel on Stone’s International Tribunal for Natural Justice. Steele says 22,000 children are disappeared each day for purposes of pedophilia and employment in those blood rituals.
Is all of that disturbing and confusing enough for you? It’s almost more than I can bear. It has my head spinning with questions I thought resolved long ago about Trump, his portrayal in the media, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Even more seriously, it makes me wonder if our world is indeed controlled by sexual perverts who seem (in Stone’s words) “soulless” and as if they were aliens from another planet.
My only hope is that despite Steele’s endorsement, Stone’s claims about trafficked children are false or exaggerated. Failing that, my hope is that the truth of Stone’s accusations will all unmistakably come to light in the context of the explosive tip-of-the-iceberg saga of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Such revelation has world revolutionary potential.
Yeshua’s & Matthew’s Confusion
In the context of this Sunday homily, my thoughts about national and personal upset and about revolutionary solutions return me to the social and political circumstances of Yeshua’s own day and of the Gospel writer, Matthew some fifty years later. Both contexts were no less turbulent than our own. As a matter of fact, they were even more so.
Yeshua, of course, lived under Roman occupation. As a good Jew, he surely hated that. The four Gospels are filled with indications of his antipathy towards Rome. However, as a reformer of Judaism, the Master was even more upset about the collaboration between Rome and the Temple Establishment’s scribes and priests. In his estimation, they were even worse sell-outs than our own presidents, congresspeople, judges, media, police, and military.
I’m sure that Yeshua along with his inner circle and his poor and oppressed audiences hardly knew what to think.
The same was true for Matthew’s audience. More than fifty years after Yeshua’s death, tensions with Rome had exploded just as Yeshua had predicted they would. In the year 70, Rome had finally punished Jerusalem’s Jews for their insubordination. In fact, the genocidal Romans had attacked and brutally destroyed the Holy City of Jerusalem, killed more than a million of its inhabitants (including the entire leadership of the emergent Christian community) and razed its temple to the ground. Fifteen or 20 years later, when Matthew wrote his Gospel, his community was still reeling from that defining act of devastation.
It’s in that context that Matthew spins his iconic story of Yeshua walking on water.
The story goes that following Yeshua’s feeding of the 5000 (last week’s Gospel focus), Yeshua forces the apostles to get into their boat and row to the other side. [The text says, “Yeshua made (emphasis added) the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side.” Perhaps these experienced fishermen (as opposed to the land lubber, Yeshua) saw a storm was coming and were reluctant to set sail despite Yeshua’s urgings.] In any case, a storm does come up and the apostles fear they are all about to drown. You can imagine their cries for help.
Then they see a figure walking on the water in the midst of high threatening waves. At first, they think it’s a ghost. Then they realize that it’s Yeshua. He’s walking on the raging waters.
Peter, ever the impetuous leader of the apostles, doubts what he sees. So, he says “Prove to me that it’s you, Yeshua; let me walk on the waves just as you’re doing.” Yeshua says, “Join me then over here then.” So, Peter gets out of the boat and, like his teacher actually walks on water for a few steps.
Then, despite the evidence, he begins to doubt. And as he does so, he starts sinking below the water line. “Save me, Lord!” he cries out again. Yeshua stretches out his hand and saves Peter. Then he asks, “Where’s your faith? Why is it so weak? Why did you doubt?”
Of course, this whole story (like last week’s “Loaves and Fishes”) is one of the dramatic parables Matthew composed. If we get caught up in wondering whether we’re expected to believe that someone actually walked on water, we’ll miss the point of this powerful tale. It’s about Yeshua’s followers doing the unexpected and irrational in the midst of the seriously threatening crises life forces upon us.
You see, Matthew’s Jewish audience shared the belief du jour that the sea was inhabited by dangerous monsters – Leviathan being the most fearful. And courageously walking on water was a dramatic way of expressing what Matthew’s community believed about Jesus, viz. that he embodied the courage and power to do the completely unexpected in the midst of crisis and subdue the most threatening forces imaginable – even the most lethal they could think of, the Roman Empire.
Yeshua’s invitation to Peter communicates the truth that all of us have the power to confront monsters if we’ll just find the courage to leave safety concerns behind even in the most threatening conditions, to confront life’s monsters, and join Yeshua in the midst of its upheavals.
Problem is: we easily lose faith and courage. As a result, we’re overcome by life’s surging waves and by the monsters we imagine are lurking underneath.
Conclusion
So, what does it mean to confront today’s angry waters and invisible monsters. What are we to believe before those who tell us that everything’s fake, there is no truth, and that the world is run by leviathan beasts hiding below the waves boiling all around us? What are we to think for instance, when the police and military we were taught to trust, betray us utterly? What do we make of the fact that there are no leaders we can follow – when we fear that talking heads, pundits, and even the spiritually astute are only sowing confusion, spin, falsehood and doubt? What’s entailed in stretching out our hand towards our Great Teacher inviting us to walk on water and ignore the threatening confusion and fear engendered by our uncertain times dwarfed by those he himself and his followers endured?
Frankly, I’m not sure. As I said, I remain more confused than ever.
However, I do think that walking on water today means desperately grasping Yeshua’s hand in the sense of getting back to the basics of our Great Master’s message about the Kingdom of God. That’s the anchor for many of us. He told us that despite all appearances to the contrary – despite the engulfing waves:
We humans are not truly in charge. Life Itself is working things out in an evolutionary pattern that is beyond any of our thought categories (Matthew 6:25).
A New Era is in the process of birthing – a new heaven and a new earth is about to dawn (Matthew 3:2, 4:17; Mark 1:15).
In that order, empires of all kinds (including our own) are doomed (See the entire Book of Revelation).
The new heaven and earth are destined for everyone – not merely for the 1% (Luke 4: 14-22).
In fact, the present reality will be turned upside down. Those now considered “first” will be last (Matthew 20:16).
It will be governed by a politics of love (not fear or hate).
There, the identity of those now despised (the poor, hungry, thirsty, houseless, naked and imprisoned) will be revealed as embodying Yeshua himself (Matthew 25: 40-45).
Embracing those truths promises to save us from being overwhelmed and drowned. No matter what the “informed” or “experts” might say, living by those convictions represents what it means to walk on water in these uncertain times.
Sunday’s New York Times carried a thought-provoking editorial by opinion writer at large, Charles Warzel. It was entitled, “Epstein Suicide Conspiracies Show How Our Information System Is Poisoned.” The article lamented the power of Twitter and other social media to spread toxic conspiracy theories reflecting our current culture’s worst “choose your own reality” tendencies.
According to Warzel, Twitter and other versions of social
media have actually “outmatched” the power of the mainstream media (MSM). And
this to such an extent that an FBI field office recently identified fringe
conspiracy theories as a domestic terror threat.
Warzel illustrated his point by focusing on Twitter speculation regarding the Clinton’s involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein “suicide” and on President Trump’s role in advancing the theory. The editorial complained about resulting “dueling hashtags” with their viral accusations of foul play.
The unexpressed message of the whole exercise seemed to be that
conspiracy theories are bad in themselves and that one would do better to
simply accept the more reasonable official story emanating from the CIA, FBI,
and prison officials that Epstein actually did commit suicide as
explained by those official sources. Fevered accusations of foul play are ipso
facto unreasonable.
Others whose opinions have appeared in sources such as OpEdNews have made that point more explicitly. Forget exciting conspiracies, they cautioned, simply accept the boring reality that Epstein killed himself just as we’ve been told.
The point I wish to make here strongly disagrees. I contend
that in cases like Epstein’s mysterious death, conspiracy theories are not only
good; they are inevitable and necessary. Additionally, the overwhelming power
of Twitter and other social media to “outmatch” that of mainstream media
represents the public’s healthy recognition of the fact that the government
officials and the MSM (like The New York Times) are no longer reliable.
Their “official stories” must be presumed false unless otherwise demonstrated
by irrefutable evidence. Such evidence will come to light not by internal
investigations, but by full legal process involving (yes!) conspiracy theories,
discovery and trial.
“Conspiracy” Is A Legal Category
My first point is to recognize the fact that the term “conspiracy”
is not synonymous with fiction or paranoid fantasy. It is a legal term referring
to the crime that occurs when two or more people plan actions forbidden by law.
In other words, criminal conspiracies happen all the time. People go to jail
for them.
In fact, “conspiracy theories” are routinely employed by
prosecutors who use them to initiate investigations when such crime is
suspected. Without lawyers’ conspiracy theories, there would never be any criminal
trials involving two or more suspects.
With such theories in mind, prosecutors gather evidence. Some of it is circumstantial or inferential (it’s usually what sparks legal inquiry). Other evidence constitutes direct or “smoking gun verification. Juries and judges evaluate evidence of both kinds. When it is convincing beyond reasonable doubt (based on direct and/or circumstantial evidence), the legal system convicts conspirators and sentences them accordingly.
The bottom line here: It does not discredit a theory to call
it “conspiratorial.”
Official Stories Are Suspect
My second point is that the public has not merely good, but excellent
reason to discount official theories about, well, EVERYTHING! Think about:
Iraq and Colin Powell’s testimony before the United Nations about the certainty of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction
The New York Times’ endorsement of his testimony as “masterful and compelling”
The literally thousands of obvious lies that our current chief executive has uttered – and how he adds to them each day
Secretary of State (and former CIA chief), Mike Pompeo’s boastful admission that he and the agency he formerly headed lie, cheat, and steal on a routine basis. In fact, he said, the CIA sponsors whole courses for its agents on how to do so effectively. (Imagine a witness at trial admitting on stand that he is an inveterate liar. Would his testimony be taken seriously?)
The testimony of numerous CIA defectors revealing that the CIA has routinely conspired to assassinate heads of state and others considered enemies or persons who know too much
Epstein’s Death Is Welcome
My third point is that there exists reasonable circumstantial and direct motive for suspecting that important people had good cause to want Jeffrey Epstein dead and that he was murdered accordingly. All of them are related in Whitney Webb’s comprehensive historical account of government-sanctioned sex enterprises like Epstein’s. In fact, Webb’s four-part series ends up detailing motives for Epstein’s murder on the part of the powerful including the following:
Epstein was a convicted pedophile who preyed on underage girls. (He even called his private plane “the Lolita Express.”)
Bill Clinton with his checkered sexual history traveled on Epstein’s plane at least two dozen times.
Donald Trump admired Epstein for his taste in younger women.
Trump has been described (e.g. in Webb’s series) as “mentored” by Roy Cohn, another pedophile who used tape recordings and videos for purposes of blackmail.
Alexander Acosta was told to back off prosecution of Epstein because of the latter’s association with “Intelligence.”
It is standard operating procedure for “Intelligence” to film and record sexual deviance for purposes of blackmail and evidence-gathering.
Epstein sponsored frequent parties involving a virtual Who’s Who of world leaders and other celebrities.
The parties were also said to be attended by “call boys” and “call girls.”
Epstein had tapes of sexual deviance, some of them locked in a safe indicating their special content.
Reasons for suspecting that Epstein was killed or purposely allowed
to commit suicide include the following:
Epstein was an extraordinarily important federal prisoner.
After his arrest, he was placed on suicide watch – at least for a time following his apparent suicide attempt last month.
He was sequestered in a highly secure federal prison presumably with special capacities for monitoring inmates on such watch, including video cameras and guards trained for such duties.
Nonetheless, Epstein somehow found himself with a rope, a belt, with sheets or some other material sufficient to hang himself.
He was inexplicably given unmonitored time to accomplish the task.
Where Do We Go from Here?
There is no claim here that the details presented above somehow “prove” foul play regarding the “suicide” of Jeffrey Epstein. However, they do provide basis for reasonable conspiracy theories sufficient (and necessary) to warrant legal indictments – perhaps of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s reputed procurer of unsuspecting girls. The conspiracy theories in question warrant discovery processes, trials, presentation of evidence, deliberation by juries of peers, verdicts, and eventual clarification of the whole Jeffrey Epstein saga.
Only such legal processes will yield truthful conclusions. Internal investigations by proven and admitted liars will not do. Neither will out-of-hand dismissal of “conspiracy theories” as though the phrase exclusively describes fictional fantasies or paranoid imaginings. As presented by Charles Warzel and others such dismissals simply mean that the theories in question are socially, culturally, and politically unacceptable – too threatening to consider. So, rational analysts should back off.
Actually, as shown above, the theories are good and necessary. And so are the vilified social media through which The People thankfully counteract MSM disinformation and its defense of the given order and the official stories undergirding its undeserved legitimacy.
About Things That Matter 