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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yea this is definitely a hot take

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some of us here are like dogs chasing cars with whatever is all over social media feeds. If tomorrow it's something else, they would be here scolding us for missing out on the opportunity to radicalize based on that. It's just chasing whatever is trending online. This coincides with how content creators operate, mining social media for content. The online left is enamored with leftist content creators who spend all day coming up with takes based on social media trends. Therefore the people start to confuse the mechanics of being a career takesmith with doing analysis and the work of assessing public opinion. Normal people become inadvertent Hasan (or Brace or whoever) cosplayers, essentially. This will be the most important issue of our lives and the opportunity to radicalize everyone until the next thing happens and everyone rushes to mine takes from that. Mining takes becomes the necessary work of winning hearts and minds. To criticize the takesmiths is to criticize the idea of winning people over at all. That's why they get mad and jump directly into accusing you hindering recruitment and radicalization.

The internet has done a number on us and I think the reaction to and discourse around Epstein is more insightful into modern capitalism than the conspiracy itself.

We have a real world example of a project that is ran by alleged Maoists and is centered on Epstein, it's TrueAnon. In their endeavor to properly analyze and contextualize Epstein withing capitalism they had to spend dozens of hours covering the last 100 years of US and European history. The idea that you can shortcut all that at a party in a weed circle of mixed company is laughable. The pod has "gained support" by gaining patrons. Deciding whether or not a growing consumer market for a podcast, or media consumption habits in general, reflect public opinion is an exercise left to he reader. Then you have to reckon with the mechanics of being a career takesmith again because maybe all that context only exist to mill content. Maybe the issue, as presented by the pod, seemingly connects to so much because the hosts needed more episodes in order to maintain a media career. If you want to be a materialist about it, you can't disconnect the career objectives of our faves from the format nor the industry nor the subject. This is why you have to do more than listen to podcasts before deciding some issue is THE issue of our time. This is why academic study exists and Brace/Liz would probably be the first to tell you they are not academics.

Finally, we have a real word example of a generation-defining conspiracy with JFK. Look at people treating that conspiracy as a joke and you have Epstein's destiny. It was a conspiracy with such broad support that the government had hearings about it. The "leftists" of the time didn't really get much accomplished by dwelling on it. They instead became highly involved in the cottage industry of conspiracy media afterwards (sound familiar?) and then at some point there were more right wing JFK-heads than left-wing. You can argue that they weren't as good as we are and we just need to provide better analysis. To that I say, where have you been since 2018? If you're only now deciding it's time to do real analysis then you already lost the monopoly on it.

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

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

associating epstein with might push some liberal zionists over

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

I have a cynical and pessimistic view of people's future in the US.

Revolution isn't going to manifest from a disillusionment from both major political parties, ICE crackdowns, or the facade of liberal democracy unraveling before our eyes. In Chris Hedges' book from 2012, Wages of Rebellion, he states a belief that the ruling ideology of neoliberalism is discredited but there is no ideology or course of action to take its place, calling this period an interregnum. A period between ideologies.

As long as cheap goods and easy credit exist for Americans to draw their sustenance from, even as they face increasing financial distress, the status quo will remain the same but with a degrading and tenuous political legitimacy and subsequent increase in stochastic terrorism and mass violence. Stable, but "enshittified".

There are mechanisms in the US Constitution and legal system to hold the power elites connected with Epstein accountable, but the rule of law has long been a farce. This was clearly illustrated when the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the Biden admin for complicity in the Gaza genocide when the courts acknowledged the possibility of genocide by Israel & US complicity but denied their own ability to check the power of the US executive in regards to foreign policy. The law favored the CCR but the courts favored power.

Strikes, work stoppages, blocking ports of air and sea, and protests are the only mechanisms available and the government seems content and willing to just let it come to an exchange of violence - and the state is better at violence in toleration and execution than the masses of ordinary people.

I agree with your tl'dr but I don't hold out hope for Americans as a revolutionary body or persons in mass distress to be disillusioned from the Democrats enough to engage in mass movement to compel the reformation of a 21st century New Deal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

this is our Mueller report