Disclaimer: I don’t want this to come across as downplaying the suffering of the victims, or the horrific nature of the crimes.
That being said, I think Epstein is becoming an obsession for people that is pointless, doesn’t advance the left wing movement, and is borderline unhealthy to be honest.
People on this site and beyond are doing borderline Q-Anon level baking, using random scraps from documents and making extremely tenuous connections. This shit is unhealthy, obsessing over it and staring into the abyss of depravity is just going to cause yourself psychic damage, and for what? It’s borne out of the same thing as all conspiracism: a feeling of powerlessness, a feeling that by uncovering the mystery, doing this “investigation”, finding some hidden truth, you are doing something tangible rather than just obsessing and suffering on the internet.
This isn’t to say I don’t think all things are on the table - “he was mossad”, “this or that person was involved”, “what if he’s still alive?”. But ask yourself, what changes? What changes if any of this is true? Are any of us shocked or surprised by 99% of the names dredged up? These are all people that we already consider ontologically evil for numerous other crimes and their class position. We already know that there are 10,000 ultra powerful, ultra wealthy people who control the world, who act with impunity, who are all interconnected and who all have bourgeois class solidarity that the workers can only dream of at this stage.
And what tactical or strategic advantage is offered to working class movements we are involved in by uncovering this hidden truth? We currently have no power to punish the guilty or prevent it from happening again. Epstein himself is likely dead, most of the people mentioned are dead, or ancient and on their way out. Should we be forming pressure groups and protesting our governments to thoroughly investigate and punish the guilty? If half of what is in the files is true, our governments are riddled with people who are complicit if not actively involved.
So what is the route by which the people’s justice can be served? The same as always - the working class needs to win political power. Our time is better served thinking about how we can advance the ball on concrete issues, work with our irl organisations to build working class power. I think driving ourselves mad on the internet and expanding so much mental energy tying red string between random names and events on our mental corkboards is deleterious to this mission.
Now, I’m open to the idea that using the Epstein angle in propaganda to disillusion workers of billionaires and capitalism could be useful, but that doesn’t require more than a cursory knowledge of the situation, knowledge we’ve all had for 6 years at this point.
As marxists we shouldn’t be hyperfixating on Epstein as the keystone of everything “evil” on earth. We have a class analysis and an understanding of the system superseding the role of the individual. Things such as “epstein was working for Mossad” - ok, that may well be true, but does it change our analysis of Israel? Does it affect how we view the settler-colonial relationship? Could it possibly make them any more morally bankrupt than the genocide we’ve been watching for 2.5 years? Than a century of ethnic cleansing?
I get this feeling that doesn’t sit well with me, that this is becoming some grotesque spectacle of “true crime”, motivated by an inability to look away, by the conspiratorial powerlessness I mentioned above, and by the same instincts that make endless podcast series and TV shows about gruesome murders eternally popular. And it is taking up so much oxygen on the left - ffs, the United States is about to try and topple its second government in a month and everyone is too busy combing through the epstein files to see if 
or 
are in there.
Tl;dr: don’t drive yourself insane trying to know the unknowable, focus on the concrete, focus on things you can change, advance the ball!
This seems to be the crux of your argument, and I have to ask, can you seriously not see the obvious? The mother of all radicalizing catalysts has dropped into our laps and you're asking of what tactical or strategic use this is to the workers movements?
How about millions upon millions of people radicalizing toward revolutionary sentiments because they've realized the capitalist class aren't just wage thieves but also murderous pedophiles who target their children?
How about the myth of liberalism dying in the minds of countless people when they witness these pedos continue on as if nothing has happened, exploding our pool of recruitment?
How about the utter exposure of the vast Isreali global spy network and the further discrediting of zionism in the minds of libs who didn't care about dead Palestinians?
We as Marxists shouldn't focus on how the capitalist class organizes amongest itself socially and how it leads to radical evil and depravity?
Of course it does! It reveals the US empire isn't simply obsessed with zionism for the sake of religious derangement or a slavish devotion to a 1950s conception of global resource management, but that large swathes of the American capitalist class are actively compromised, explaining their maximalist positions concerning a genocidal rump state that undermines US global soft power and cultural hegemony
The problem with "True Crime" is that it never implicates the capitalist class, the Epstein case clearly does
WE know that, those of us who over the course of years already climbed the mountain and peered over the ridge, but that doesn't describe the vast majority of people, who don't conceive of the world the way we do
Whether because of a lack of exposure to socialist thought or because the kayfabe of liberalism blinded them, we have no right to scoff at any opportunity to raise the veil
Call me crazy but I think everyone learning that Western rules-based order is actually 100 pedophiles in a trenchcoat is a good icebreaker for radicalization
Look, all due respect, but a couple of months ago you were trying to convince me that mamdani is the best thing to happen to the left since the invention of the colour red*, so I don’t really trust you to analyse anything tbh.
In fact, your commitment on this comes from a similar place as the desperate latching on to Mamdani. People such as yourselves who are still yet to fully renounce their liberalism want shortcuts. They aren’t prepared to do the hard yards of building class consciousness. You want an electoral saviour or a magic bullet to suddenly awaken the people.
Source: trust me bro
Congratulations, you have unlocked Russiagate: Israel Edition - yet somehow more liberal. The ruling class has a class interest in operating the way it does. The idea that some puppet master is controlling things is the most liberal take imaginable and totally anti-marxist. This theory also has a whiff of American exceptionalism (as it did when the blue maga types had their version) - “america is good, the evil things it does can be explained by foreign interference”.
*before some epic retort is constructed, this is obvious hyperbole
I can't believe I'm doing this unironically, but your argument is mainly just an ad hominem. You're not arguing against what is being said, but who is saying it.
I mean if you can't even properly identify the implications of a simple case like Epstein, then I'm not surprised you didn't understand a word I said all those months ago, which unlike the simplicity of the Epstein case, did involve some hard-boiled thinking
There is a shitton of street organizing going on rn like I've never seen. Nobody is talking about Epstein. Epstein is not making liberals reconsider guns and band with neighbors to jam federal agents. Epstein did not make a general strike happen with 2 weeks planning or put 100k on the streets of Minneapolis.
You understand things can compound, it's not one or the other, I never claimed 100k went on the streets of Minneapolis because of Epstein, but it's ridiculous to assert the average American isn't paying attention to the Epstein leaks or that they don't care about it, polls show the opposite, discourse all over social media shows the opposite
The average American viewing the ruling class as pedophiles is a boon to organizing and the socialist movement in general, even while some are organizing directly against the fascism that is gunning people down in the streets
The indirect influences of radicalization isn't something to just be dismissed out of hand
This degree of noise around Epstein is not helpful. There are a million bits of info easily forgotten in the flood of a million more, and all of it is way too easily individualized.
How’s mamdani doing bud? Everything you dreamed of?
Nice dodge, let's get back to you not understanding basic theory
I never claimed Israel is the all powerful puppet master, I said they've actively compromised a large swathe of the US capitalist class, which partially explains why the US state takes a maximalist position toward the puppet state that is Israel
The puppet can have agency and class interests of its own that lead it to undermine the puppet master in certain arenas, even tho the US maintains ultimate control in the end by weight of its infinitely larger control and access over the global capitalist system
Your narrow mechanistic interpretation of class just led you to overlook one the most crucial aspects of class; which is how it socially manifests and how that manifestation impacts the allocation of capital beyond the textbook imperatives of the circuit
The manifestation is this case being capitalists utilizing pedophiles for blackmail and acquisition of leverge
Real basic shit
You are one of the best examples of dunning-kruger I’ve seen on this site, and there have been plenty to choose from over the years. Arguing with you is pointless because you have no humility or ability to consider your position might be wrong. Positions which coincidentally always seem to overlap with whatever is popular with radlibs at any given moment. You might want to think on why that might be.
This post was simply presenting an argument that maybe (just maybe), as the US government executes people in the street, as they prepare regime change in iran, as living conditions for workers around the world collapse, there are better things communists could be doing with their time than obsessing over Epstein on the internet - and you are so incapable of being receptive to even light critique of your positions that rather than sit and consider such a thing, you find the need to jump in and defend the revolutionary strategy of epstein baking with all your heart, as in our prior interactions over Mamdani.
I look forward to hearing your reports of the dozens of people you have radicalised into communism using this epstein/mamdani strategy out in the real world - surely an inevitability given your invincible grasp on historical materialism.
don't want to stir stuff up, just want to mention that i have made a big dent on people's belief in the liberal order by doing nothing but factually showing them bits of the depraved shit our lords are up to.
for reference, the fascist pundits over here briefly shit on chomsky then SHUT UP about it.
Yeh fair, and I think like I said in the OP, depending on who you’re talking to, the epstein angle could be a good avenue to attack with. I just think we should be cautious with the sort of QAnon style investigations going on. It’s gonna be enough for most people for us to just say “and look at that epstein shit! These billionaires don’t deserve their power”
Just want to pop in and say I think your comments and analysis here is correct
You being needlessly hostile and trying to browbeat people into agreeing with you is making me not want to listen to you, just FYI
I’ll do my best to carry on with the burden of this knowledge weighing upon me
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder and didn't really address the parent commenter's points.
Knowledge that AmeriKKKa is in no small part run but a cabal of billionaire pedophiles, many of whom engage in not just sexual violence but outright torture, is absolutely radicalizing. It is our "job" to turn that disgust and revulsion into class consciousness, because otherwise such radicalization can be subsumed by the larger superstructure. I agree that fixating on it is counterproductive in the same vein as fixating on who really killed JFK, but it is easy rhetorical fuel and to dismiss it like you do is reflexive contrarianism imo.
Pasting this Marx quote again (my bold added), basically him saying the same as you:
THANK you
In the sense that this critique of capitalist is too narrow and does not in fact include some of the other prominent figures (such as Bezos and Zuckenberg, at least to my knowledge), it is indeed insufficient in criticizing capital as a whole. Moralistic critiques are great supplements to systematic ones, but can never take their place. They can certainly be introductions, but you're not going to get anywhere if they cannot accept the central thesis of capitalist exploitation. Especially with a guy such as Chomsky being in them, who sure as shit is not much of a capitalist (although most certainly a radlib). You're not exactly discrediting anarchism if you point that out. You're also not going to find someone such as Dick Cheney on the files, even though we know he's an evil piece of shit. Sure they have all the power to be the most morally depraved evil bastards, but that is inherently not a characteristic of capitalist production. This certainly isn't the "mother of all radicalizing catalysts", rapid economic deterioration is, which is why economism was so widespread in the Russian worker's movement, particularly with the Mensheviks.
Also the whole compromising thing with Mossad is a bit unconvincing considering that Trump is constantly in the files yet nothing has actually happened to him. Nobody cares about compromising material in the form of someone's dick pic or moral depravity, except for Starmer and his weird spy camera obsession I guess.
The capitalist class is not a monolithic entity; it is factional and tied to various concentrations of capital that settle around specific forms of commodity production and arbitrage (the Oil Barons, the Tech Lords, Wall Street, Legacy Media etc.) We've born witness to the exposing of a major decades old intelligence operation by the CIA and Mossad to utilize pedophiles for the purpose of blackmail and leverage, ensnaring a wide assortment of capitalists and capital supporters from a wide pool of factions
This reality is born right out of the unpunished criminality of the CIA and the state/capitalist self-preservational logic of the settler-state of Israel; this is an operation that took conscious advantage (proven by the most recent released files) of the fall of the Soviet sphere, kidnapping and trafficking young girls from Russia and Eastern Europe for the sake of political networking
This operation didn't require the ensnarement of every single capitalist on earth to work, they simply needed some of the most powerful, and they got all the ones they went after, because your assessment that capitialist production doesn't lead to moral depravity is incorrect, to be a capitalist is to devalue the lives of workers and their families, to set aside humanity to keep the circuit growing, the capitalists are human who through the pressures of competition and the imperatives of capitalist produtction transform themselves into anti-humans just to keep afloat
This is precisely why the moralistic vs. mechanistic binary is bunk theory no matter which side you fall on the binary
Trump broke containment in 2016 to become the avatar of carbon extraction capitalism, and he's done nothing that would warrant Israel challenging his status and the question you should be asking is why would they risk it anyway? You think the Israelis would risk alienating the MAGA base anymore than they've already done? Blackmail doens't have an infinite shelf life
No, of course they're not monolithic in the sense that they all realize surplus value in the same form. However, the profit of the bankers, rentiers, merchants, industrialists etc. all rests on commodity production and the realization of surplus value. This attribute of capital generally, standing in contradiction with that of labour in general, is why we're opposed to capital. Yes, all the people caught in this scandal all wield some sort of power, but that power in and of itself does not automatically assume that someone will stoop to that depravity, which is why I mentioned Bezos and Zuckenberg.
And since I'm going to assume we're talking about the radicalization of the american working class (since this is affecting the american political scene the most), that is not going to be realized by pointing out the exploitation of Easter Europe. It can only be realized by directly pointing to the contradictions inherent between capital and labour in America (although considering imperialism, who knows if a true radicalization of the working class in America is even good, let alone possible). The Russian, French and Chinese peasants certainly didn't rise up in arms because they were appalled by the treatment of Native or African Americans.
And that's exactly why it is not the "mother of all radicalizing catalysts"! It is not an all systematic, all-encompassing critique of capital as such, but rather a moral failing of a certain group of capitalist (and even non-capitalists). Sure you could say it leads to moral failure in the way you described, but it is not definitively and absolutely so. The capitalists aren't practicing their evil laugh, they all equally think they're saving the world whilst lowering wages. It also doesn't take a capitalist to be a piece of shit, thus the concept of "good billionaires" for the liberals. And again, at the end of the day, morality is completely subjective based on the country, as well as the time in human history and the advancement of human development.
The mistake is assuming Trump's policies are the result of blackmail, rather than the presupposition of him coming to power in America. Kamala and Biden too, enacted Israeli interests despite not being apparently compromised.
This is a great post and worded better than I could