Neocons At The Aught's Box Office

                          By Robert Hampton 

                     

Remember the 2000s?

It was a simpler time. For most of the decade, smartphones were non-existent. Twitter did not drive the news. People still bought CDs. Not every movie at the theater was based on a Marvel character. Jnco jeans (the horror!) were in style.

It was also the time when neoconservatism ruled the political landscape. It wasn’t just an ideology limited to Washington, DC; the media also pushed it. I remember the absurdity of local radio stations pairing Nickelback songs with George W. Bush speeches in the lead-up to the Iraq War. 24 was a hit show, and its primary message is that we should allow the deep state to stampede over every law and civil right to defeat terrorists. It wasn’t like today, where TV programs and movies incorporate anti-Orange Man themes. The popular media was neoconned.

Two popular, critically-acclaimed films best typify the neocon era. One came out right after 9/11. The other was released a month after Bush was reelected. The first was geared for red-blooded Americans who saw the non-Western world as a threat. The second impressed upon the audience the need to intervene across the world to secure human rights. They were Black Hawk Down and Hotel Rwanda. The two films represented the duality of neonservatism’s appeal. Black Hawk Down displays the martial facade of the ideology; Hotel Rwanda expresses the liberal sensibilities of neoconservativism, pleading that only America can help these poor non-Western children.

Both of these films would not likely be made today – at least, not how they were produced in the Bush years. The times have changed: neoconservatism is out of style. The Woke Left isn’t comfortable with white saviors coming to the rescue of non-whites. They’d rather see them as the villains than the heroes.

Regardless, a review of both films reminds us of how America was convinced it should act as the world’s policeman.

Black Hawk Down is a fairly based film. The entire movie is about high-T white guys blowing away savage Somalis. Outside of a cowardly informant and a scared family, every Somali is shown as a potential threat. Both women and children fire upon American troops. The city of Mogadishu itself is a hostile volcano in pitch-black Africa. No white man is safe there. The viewer comes away with the impression that the Third World is really like this, and only American military might can keep it at bay.

The film depicts the Battle of Mogadishu, which was a black eye to American foreign interventionism in 1993, at the beginning of the Clinton administration. The battle resulted from a bungled operation where two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and nineteen Americans were killed in the ensuing rescue operation. President Bill Clinton pulled American troops out of Somalia shortly thereafter. We were there acting as the world’s policeman, standing guard against perfidious militiamen who defied international law and oppressed their people. The similarities to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq were not subtle.

The film was produced before 9/11 (it was released only three months after the attacks), but it had a message that was very post-9/11. Black Hawk Down doesn’t show the Mogadishu operation as an inevitable failure of foreign interventionism; the film claims that it failed because Washington didn’t provide sufficient support. The film also argues that America should have stayed and avenged the fallen, not abandon the place. These colors don’t run.

The film may feature the most “Hey, it’s that guy!” list of actors in human history: Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, and Ewan McGregor starred at the height of their early-aughts’ glory. Tom Hardy and Jeremy Piven have bit roles. There are at least eight other actors you will recognize. Only one of the American soldiers is fully non-white, and he’s a black guy who has maybe two lines. Nearly all of the others are clearly white, with a few white Hispanics. All of the soldiers are Army Rangers or Delta Force, so this lack of diversity is accurate. Even today, these two elite branches remain very white.

The plot is quite simple. The soldiers go into Mogadishu to capture militia commanders loyal to warlord Mohamed Farrah Adid. Things go wrong from the start. The Americans encounter stronger resistance than expected and a young recruit (played by Orlando Bloom) is badly injured in an accident. Then the helicopters are shot down in ambushes, and the casualties begin to mount. Surrounded, the Americans fight a desperate battle for survival against hordes of dark-faced militiamen and try to escape from the city. Most of the film is one long-running battle sequence. It’s not a film that leaves any doubt as to who the good guys and who the bad guys are.

The racial aspect – likely unintentional – is very reactionary. Even the Pakistani UN Peacekeepers sent to rescue the Americans are portrayed negatively, taking take their time getting to the battle zone and refusing to drive the exhausted heroes to safety. The message is clear: Americans can only count on themselves for survival.

The Delta Force operators are Homeric heroes in Black Hawk Down. They’re capable of throwing grenades into distant windows, a handful can hold off hundreds of enemies at once, and they fearlessly answer the call of duty. The film’s most powerful scene (based on actual events) has two Delta operators volunteering to go in and protect the survivors of the second downed helicopter until the main force can get there. They know they will have no reinforcements and will be on their own for several hours. In essence, it’s a suicide mission. However, they accept it and hold off hundreds of savage Somalis until they both meet their end. Neither one of them doubts their mission for a moment, and bravely fights to the death against impossible odds.

Every young American boy watching Black Hawk Down would want to be one of those soldiers. Nobody is more badass than Delta Force. They emerge as mythical heroes, with superhuman capabilities and endurance. The young viewer would also be struck by the inhumanity of the enemy and the lack of justice for the fallen. You would want to sign up to be a hero, too, after watching the film. Not surprisingly, Black Hawk Down helped military recruitment for the War on Terror.

The movie does not contain a humanitarian message favoring foreign intervention. None of the troops seem to make life better for the Somalis, nor do the Somalis seem to be worthy of or even want a better life. Foreign intervention is demanded to defend our national honor. We have to show strength in a hostile world, and we can’t let a band of hoodlums frighten the mightiest nation in the world. The American global imperium isn’t maintained by the effeminate libs in Washington, but by manly white guys from Middle America who pray daily and put country before their own lives.

It’s a noble vision of the American imperium, but false. It’s not the Chad general from Texas who represents our foreign policy; it’s a Jewish manlet who never served.

This kind of propaganda hoodwinked Middle America into supporting the Iraq War. It wasn’t about helping the Iraqi people or some grand quest to spread democracy. In their eyes, it was about defending America and showing these Third Worlders we don’t run from anybody. It’s the Jacksonian tradition in foreign policy, as Walter Russell Mead would call it. It’s not about high-falutin’ principles or concern for the Third World. It’s all about honor.

This is a noble spirit that can be found in our people throughout the ages. However, it was corrupted by the neocons and exploited for ends antithetical to those who held to it. The same people who said we needed to invade Iraq claimed three years later that we need to legalize illegal immigrants. Saddam Hussein had more respect for American sovereignty.

                   

By contrast, Hotel Rwanda is not an appeal to the Jacksonian sensibility. There isn’t even a clear American character in the movie. The film is rather a call for Western interventions for the sake of poor Third Worlders. The film is set during the Rwandan genocide and follows the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu hotel manager who saved the lives of hundreds of Tutsis. For readers who may not be familiar with the genocide, Hutus, the ethnic majority, slaughtered the Tutsis, the ethnic minority of Rwanda, who were also the favored group of the Belgian colonialists. In typical Hollywood fashion, the film falsely claims this ethnic distinction was concocted by the Belgians. In reality, the Hutus and Tutsis existed before the white man came; the white man just codified the differences.

This anti-Western bias differentiates it from Black Hawk Down. While the whites are unquestionably the good guys in Mogadishu, they’re seen as the oppressors in Rwanda. At the same time, however, whites are the only ones who can end the suffering and stand up for human rights. Colonialism is blamed for the genocide, yet whites are expected to send a large military force to stop it. Blacks can’t be trusted to not slaughter themselves.

The plot of the movie has the protagonist–played by Don Cheadle–navigating the corruption and inhumanity of Rwanda to save his mixed Hutu-Tutsi family and protect the other Tutsis he is sheltering. Paul is a dedicated, WASP-influenced businessman. He has no time for ethnic hatred or politics because he’s too focused on running the hotel. He refuses entreaties from Hutu radicals who want him to join their militia. He believes that his business acumen and powerful connections will protect him in times of trouble. While these traits do help him, they prove insufficient. The only thing that can protect Paul and his Tutsi friends is the West.

But the West, as said by a sympathetic UN colonel, views the Africans as dirt not worth saving. The film indicts the West for not intervening to stop the genocide that killed nearly a million people. Except for Cheadle’s character, the good Africans don’t have any real agency. They’re helpless victims of socioeconomic factors and colonialism that requires the West to rescue them and right their wrongs. The bad Rwandans are either bloodthirsty monsters or corrupt scoundrels. Hotel Rwanda does not convey the impression that Africans can be left to their own devices. They still need the evil white man’s help.

The white characters have far more agency. Most are well-meaning folks who want to save the Rwandans. But, as in Black Hawk Down, the politicians back home don’t allow them to do so. There’s the aforementioned UN colonel who feels guilt that the Tutsis aren’t given the same priority as European tourists. There’s the cameraman (played by Joachim Phoenix) who laments how his graphic footage of the genocide won’t spur whites to the rescue. There’s the white priest who walks away crestfallen when he learns the UN won’t take his African orphans. It’s a subtle version of the white savior complex, a much-maligned trope in our time.

The film’s argument is similar to that of Black Hawk Down. Only American/Western military power can make the villains of the third world stand down. There is, however, no question of honor or national interest introduced here. There is no American blood to avenge or national security interest in Rwanda. We’re needed there to protect the people and their human rights–it’s all about “doing the right thing.”

The moral case was used by neocons to argue for the Iraq war. The middle Americans who loved Black Hawk Down were convinced that we needed to invade Iraq because Saddam was a threat to our country and supported terrorists who killed our people. It evinced weakness to do nothing. The more-liberal minded folks who cried over Hotel Rwanda were convinced to support the war with arguments that Saddam was a dictator who oppressed his people and Iraq needed freedom. The intervention was done to help the Iraqi people, not to fortify American honor.

Over time, this argument prevailed as the primary reason for why the Iraq war was necessary. Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction and he did not support terrorists. The national security reason was no longer valid. Neocons had to rely entirely on the humanitarian reasons for why we went. Though Iraq was safer and more stable under Saddam, they didn’t have democracy. That’s reason enough to see the invasion as a noble mission.

The humanitarian argument is now the main reason for other foreign adventures. We have to stay in Afghanistan forever to protect women’s rights. We had to bomb Gaddafi to protect the freedom-loving rebels. We need to intervene in Syria to protect the kids from being gassed by the rebels Assad. Much of the warmongering over Iran centers on how the mullahs allegedly oppress their people by not letting them go on Tinder and make their women wear veils that lightly cover the back of their hair (the horror!). The Jacksonian arguments are also used against Iran. Many pundits wave the bloody shirt of dead American soldiers killed by Iranian bombs in Iraq and the threat Iran poses to American forces in the region. But in the other conflicts, our national honor and security play no part. Nobody thinks the Taliban is going to invade the U.S. if we don’t stay. It’s all about Afghan women’s rights.

The films discussed are very much a product of their time. Black Hawk Down is far too “racist” to make today. Imagine the reaction to a new film that was one long scene of heroic white guys mowing down black enemies. Hotel Rwanda portrays Africans too negatively and is too immersed in white savior tropes to make the woke crowd happy. The belief that America can solve every problem in the world is less supported today. Enough people remember Iraq and the failures in Afghanistan and Libya to fall for this insidious message now.

Jingoistic films like Black Hawk Down have been made in the last decade, but they are inferior and less non-white vs. white. Examples include Lone Survivor, American Sniper, and 13 Hours. They also often incorporate the humanitarian reasons for intervention in their plot. The hero of American Sniper witnesses the atrocities committed by the terrorists against the Iraqi people and sees his work as helping Iraqi civilians. His primary motivation, however, remains avenging American blood. Clint Eastwood, who directed the film, knows what themes appeal to his audience.

The 2000s were certainly a strange time that none of us should want to go back to. The movies were better, but the politics are nothing to envy. The neocon moment, unlike the Trump moment, was fortified by the culture and supported by the establishment. There were other neocon-esque movies, shows, and music besides the works discussed above. Soon after Bush’s re-election, the culture took a stridently anti-Bush turn, and Hollywood produced several films that bashed the neocons, such as V for Vendetta. But the damage was already done, and we still have troops all over the Middle East. The patriotic flicks made a return in the later Obama years, but most Americans were too cynical to believe the “we have to attack them there so they don’t come here” arguments anymore.

The establishment still wants America as the world’s policeman, but the people and culture are no longer for it. Middle Americans watched too many of their sons come back in boxes or spiritually ruined for no reason at all to fully support another Iraq. The Woke Left thinks the West is the problem and is outraged by anything resembling white savior complex. The new Hotel Rwanda would require Wakanda’s intervention, not America’s.

In our fractured time of alternative media sources and low-IQ superhero movies, it’s difficult to rile up the American people for war like the elites could just 15 years ago. We lack the common pop culture of that time–outside of Marvel and Star Wars escapism. Every blockbuster has to be suitable for a Chinese audience. This bodes well for the establishment setting us on the war path to Iran. They can no longer sell us another dumb war at the movies.

Freedom Of Speech

                             By Greg Johnson

        

Audio version here

Author’s Note:

This is the text of the speech I gave at the Erkenbrand Conference in the Netherlands on Saturday, November 3, 2018. I wish to thank the Erkenbrand organizers and everyone in attendance.    

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The good news is that everyone likes to get good news. It is easy to bring good news and easy to receive it.

The bad news is that nobody likes to get bad news. It is hard to bring bad news and hard to receive it. Receiving bad news is upsetting, which is why bringing bad news is difficult. Sometimes one has to deal with tears and anger.

But bad news is always more important than good news, because if something is going wrong you need to know. Bad news is not a problem. Bad news is one’s awareness of a problem. And no matter how bad a problem is, it is usually better to know than not know, because knowing about a problem is the first step towards fixing it. The only situation in which it might be better not to know is if a problem is insoluble, so that knowing about it simply adds to the problem rather than helps alleviate it.

Because bad news is upsetting, people often respond to it irrationally. Sometimes they would prefer not to know, even though you can’t solve problems you don’t know about. Sometimes they misplace their emotions. Instead of getting upset with the problem itself and seeking to solve it, they get upset with the bad news and seek to punish the bearer. But this is foolish, because society works best when information flows freely, and the most important information is bad news.

Because receiving bad news is upsetting and giving it is risky, dealing with bad news is a test of character. Those who receive bad news have to master their emotions, for if you dissolve into tears or explode into anger, you are making it more burdensome to bring you bad news in the future, which means that you might not receive news about a problem until it is too late to rectify it. Bringing bad news is also a test of character, because one always risks unpleasant personal consequences, but sometimes short-run personal risks are necessary to secure the greater good in the long run. But since the bearers of bad news are doing us all a favor, it is incumbent upon us to reduce the risks to the absolute minimum. This is why freedom of speech needs to be a right enshrined in the fundamental law of every land.

One does not need the right to freedom of speech to tell people what they want to hear. Freedom of speech is the freedom to tell people what they don’t want to hear — but need to hear anyway. A right to freedom of speech, moreover, is not necessary when one bears bad news to powerless people, for instance one’s children, one’s students, or one’s employees. After all, they can’t punish you for your good deed. We need the right to freedom of speech when we bear bad news to people who are more powerful than us — people who need bad news to make important decisions, and people who have the power to punish the bearers of bad news. But they can’t punish us if free speech is our right. Our rights trump their anger.

The two most important things for White Nationalists today are:

1. Breaking down the taboo against white identity politics, i.e., the idea that it is immoral for whites — and only whites — to take our own side in ethnic conflicts.

2. Maintaining our freedom of speech long enough to destroy that taboo.

White Nationalists are the bearers of bad news: that diversity is not a strength, but a source of alienation, conflict, and violence; that modern politics and morals have put our race on a path to extinction; and the only solution is to abandon liberalism, hedonistic individualism, globalization, and multiculturalism and bring back healthier, pro-white policies and values. We are changing people’s minds, and the establishment is powerless to change them back. Thus they are trying to censor us.

How can we deal with this threat?

In the short run, we need an internet Bill of Rights to protect dissidents from censorship and deplatforming. Beyond that, we need an across-the-board ban on politically-correct terms of service and employment, so we are free to dissent without threatening our livelihoods and social capital. If we can get such legislation in place, I am confident that we can win, and sooner rather than later. We will change so many minds that we will reach a tipping point. The taboo against white identity politics will melt away. Pro-white values will pervade the culture. Eventually we can mobilize enough support to overthrow the existing political establishment and replace it with a pro-white one.

But who told us that this would be safe and easy? White Nationalists are battling against the most all-encompassing soft-totalitarian system in history. It is a system bent on nothing short of the genocide of the white race, a goal so evil that when Plato and Aristotle drew up their lists of bad regimes, it was simply inconceivable. To overthrow this system, we might have to risk much more than our livelihoods. We might have to risk our very lives.

In the long run, though, we are probably going to win even if we don’t get an internet Bill of Rights. Censorship can slow us down, but it can’t really stop us. Already people are laying the foundations for a new internet that will be free of the choke points where censors perch. Thus, ultimately, the only way to prevent us from getting our message out online will be to shut down the web entirely. But the establishment cannot contemplate that, because the global political and economic system depends on the Internet.

The establishment — or at least the tiny stratum that is fully aware of the present threat of white identity politics — has the same relationship to the Internet as a junkie to his habit. He knows that it will kill him in the long run. But very few junkies overcome their addiction because they cannot bear the short term pain, even if it is the price of long-term survival.

Human beings might best be defined as the intermittently rational animal, and one of the most pervasive forms of irrationality is pursuing short-term self-indulgence at the expense of long-term well-being. This is how nations and individuals get into debt; this is how economic, demographic, and ecological crises arise. Fortunately for us, it is also how the system will fail to do the only thing that can stop the rise of White Nationalism — until it is too late.

So be of good cheer. If we continue to get out message out, we will win. And internet censorship cannot stop that process. It can only make it slower and more difficult.

Once we win, what should  our attitude be toward free speech? Some White Nationalists see free speech as merely a means to take power. I wish to argue that free speech is something that we will want to keep after we win.

Freedom of speech is a value because we are all fallible and vulnerable. Fallibility means that we can make mistakes. We can have false or inadequate pictures of the world which can be improved upon. Vulnerability simply means that unforeseeable contingencies can upset our best laid plans. To overcome mistakes and misfortunes, we first need to know about them. That means that we need the freedom to be the bearers of bad news. We need freedom of speech, because it makes genuine intellectual and social progress possible.

A society that lacks the ability to change lacks the ability to preserve itself. But a society can’t change if it lacks the ability to communicate bad news to its leaders. This is why we should want to protect freedom of speech, even when we are the ones in power.

Why do people oppose freedom of speech? There are two main reasons.

First, some people think they already have the truth. This truth is, moreover, absolute: It is complete and not subject to revision. Any contrary position is, therefore, a falsehood. This is why religions in the Abrahamic tradition — including Marxism — have opposed freedom of speech. They claim to be absolutely true. Therefore, all other religions are false — or, at best, semblances of the truth — and must be suppressed.

Second, people with a vested interest in a given political and economic system don’t like criticism because it threatens their power and peace of mind.

Both views are irrational.

We all make mistakes. We all suffer misfortunes. But only some of us are destroyed by them. Others learn from them and overcome them. But, again, the first step to overcoming a problem is knowing that one has it.

One of the most powerful ideas of Plato’s Republic is that political regimes and personality types have analogous structures, so the city can throw light on the soul, and the soul can throw light on the city.

Years ago, I read a listicle on signs that your boss might be a narcissist. The item that made the strongest impression on me is: Narcissists tend to punish bearers of bad news.

Defining narcissism is a tricky thing, because we live in a society in which all manifestations of honor, especially male honor, have been pathologized as narcissism. There is nothing wrong with thinking well of yourself and demanding that others treat you with respect. There is nothing wrong with taking pleasure in praise for your achievements. There is nothing wrong with high self-esteem, as long as it is based on objective merits.

Narcissism is a problem, though, when one puts preserving a positive self-image ahead of positive self-actualization.

Everyone makes mistakes. The path to self-actualization requires that we acknowledge our mistakes, take responsibility for them, learn what we can from them, and then rise above them. The narcissist, however, seeks to preserve his positive self-image at all costs. So when confronted with his mistakes, he denies them and doubles down on them. Or he blames others for his mistakes. Or he goes on the attack, particularly against the bearer of bad news. Anything, really, to avoid taking responsibility and acknowledging that he might have some room to learn and grow.

Narcissists may be highly attractive people. They may have enormous potential. Unfortunately, they think they are perfect just the way they are, and such complacency is deadly to personal growth. So as time passes, you will notice that narcissists seldom actualize their potential. Instead, they come off as dilettantes with a smooth patter. Older narcissists also seem increasingly puerile when compared to their contemporaries.

Narcissists also have difficulty maintaining friendships. Friends tell you what you need to hear — even if it is painful. Flatterers tell you what you want to hear. Friends aid self-actualization because they will tell you bad news. Flatterers encourage complacency because they only tell you how wonderful you are. Friends threaten a narcissist’s positive self-image, whereas flatterers reinforce it.

Obviously it is disastrous to put narcissists into positions of power, because they end up making important decisions based on false or incomplete information fed to them by flatterers. It is no way to run a society.

Today’s censorious establishment is narcissism writ large.

By censoring and suppressing White Nationalist ideas, the establishment changes almost nothing. We like to flatter ourselves that the White Nationalist movement is the driving force behind the rise of white racial consciousness. Our enemies share the same illusion. But the main forces behind the rise of White Nationalism are the moral outrages and catastrophic consequences of multiculturalism and white dispossession. People are coming to us in droves less because our movement is pulling them than because the system is pushing them. Which means that white racial consciousness would continue to rise even if White Nationalists were completely silenced.

Our anti-white oppressors, of course, do not see it that way, for that would threaten their positive self-image. The rise of white identity politics cannot be their fault. So it has to be our fault. They think white identity politics only exists because silver-tongued deceivers like Jared Taylor and Millennial Woes have Twitter accounts. Which is why they conclude that censorship will actually stop us. But White Nationalists are not the cause of ethnic conflict. We are just the bearers of bad news — and advocates of a workable alternative.

Censoring White Nationalists online does not stop people from noticing things, drawing conclusions, and formulating dissenting thoughts. It does not prevent people from discretely communicating their thoughts face to face or organizing in the real world. All censorship does is render the full extent of dissent invisible. This makes it difficult for the establishment to make rational political decisions. Censorship does not make the system stronger; it only makes it blinder, brittler, and more vulnerable. Advocates of censorship are like people who remove the battery from their smoke detector because they are tired of false alarms. But when the house catches fire, you need to know sooner than later.

If I were running a society, I would like to know who the dissidents are and what they think. So I would make freedom of speech a fundamental political right. If the dissidents are right, we can learn from them. If they are wrong, we can instruct them. If they are dangerously and stubbornly wrong, we can keep an eye on them.

But if we win, are we really going to give our enemies the freedom to regroup and rebrand, then lead our people back down the road to extinction once more? Don’t we want to shut their dirty, lying mouths forever?

There are two points here.

First, if we do come to power, we will have to purge the existing institutions. We will not leave wealth, influence, and political power in the hands of implacable enemies. We will take away their platforms in politics, the media, and the academy. We will just give them early retirements and a lifetime ban on addressing the public. Then we will fill their positions with people who are loyal to us. But that is a far cry from instituting a regime of intellectual censorship.

Second, even if there is a great purge of the existing system, no matter what kind of society you have, in every generation, there will be aberrant personalities who are drawn to ideas that threaten social order. The best way of preventing bad ideas and institutional subversion from taking root again is not to create a world where people have never heard of such things. Instead, we need to create a world where everyone has heard of them. A proper education imparts sound information as well as healthy values and tastes. Such an education will inoculate us against bad ideas. We don’t have to censor bad ideas if we are immune to them.

Evil will always be with us. But we need not fear it if we are immune to its charms. We should keep evil around, but keep it powerless, as a kind of memento mori, a death’s head at the feast, so we have a constant reminder of the hell on earth we will vanquish — but only if we start using, and defending, our freedom of speech today.

"I'm Not A Conspiracy Theorist, But...." Jeffrey Epstein's Death Gives New Life To "Conspiracy Theories"

                             By Greg Johnson

        

When Jeffrey Epstein died on August 10, 2019, he was one of the world’s most important prisoners because of the people he might implicate in his crimes.

Epstein was charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for sex. But he was no ordinary pervert or pimp. Epstein enjoyed enormous wealth from obscure origins. He was described as a financier but had only one known client, Les Wexner, owner of Victoria’s Secret and other companies.

Epstein used his wealth to buy his way into the upper echelons of the American-Anglo-Jewish political and financial elite. Epstein’s black book contained contact information for such people as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Andrew, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, Alan Dershowitz, Ehud Barak, Henry Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg, and many other oligarchs and entertainers.

Epstein apparently had a taste for underage girls. Underage girls, of course, cannot legally consent to sex, so Jeffrey Epstein was a serial rapist. He widely advertised his tastes, calling his private jet the Lolita Express. In 2006, the FBI began investigating Epstein, tracking down more than 100 women, many of them underage, who had been paid to perform sex acts for Epstein and his wealthy and influential friends.

But in 2007, Epstein cut a deal with US Attorney Alex Acosta to avoid federal prosecution and prison. According to the terms of this agreement, Epstein agreed to plead guilty to two felony prostitution charges in state court. In exchange, Epstein and his accomplices received immunity from federal sex-trafficking charges that could have landed them in prison for life. Epstein served 13 months in a private wing in a county jail. He was allowed to leave the jail 16 hours a day, six days a week. Basically, he only slept there. His alleged accomplices were never prosecuted. The Epstein deal was sealed, so that the nature and full extent of his crimes were never made public. The Epstein case was unsealed earlier this year due to the efforts of reporter Julie Brown, eventually leading to Epstein’s arrest and death.

Acosta ended up as Secretary of Labor in the Trump Administration. Acosta reportedly told a White House official, who then told reporter Vicky Ward, that he had signed the non-prosecution agreement because he had been told to “back off” on Epstein. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.” If this is true, one has to ask: Which country’s intelligence services did Epstein belong to? And who told Acosta to back off?

Philip Giraldi suggests that Israel is a likely candidate. Epstein was Jewish. So is his one known client, Les Wexner. His former girlfriend, confidante, and alleged co-conspirator in sex trafficking is Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch), a wealthy Jewish businessman and swindler who, like Epstein, died in mysterious circumstances. According to Giraldi, “After his death, [Maxwell] was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: ‘He has done more for Israel than can today be said.’”

All of this raises uncomfortable questions. Was Epstein entrapping his wealthy and influential friends into committing statutory rape? Was he also collecting other more or less embarrassing dirt on them, in order to financially and perhaps politically blackmail them? That’s my working hypothesis.

I think Jeffrey Epstein was probably an Israeli intelligence agent, given the cover of a wealthy and connected financier, who pimped out underage girls to wealthy and influential perverts so he could blackmail them for money and business and political favors. This theory fits the known facts, has predictive power, and can be verified or refuted by further investigation. If this hypothesis is true, then quite a few powerful people had reasons to ensure that Epstein never stood trial or cut a deal with the prosecution.

Now if I knew Epstein was a likely target for assassination, so did the people who prosecuted him. So did Epstein’s jailers at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center. Everybody should have known that Epstein was a target as soon as he was arrested on July 6, 2019. Those who somehow initially overlooked this fact certainly had no excuse after Epstein was found injured and semiconscious in his cell on July 23, 2019. Epstein had marks around his neck consistent with either attempted suicide or attempted murder. To make matters worse, Epstein and his cellmate dummied up about what happened.

Thus when Jeffrey Epstein turned up dead with marks around his neck consistent with murder or suicide, everyone with two IQ points to rub together and a cursory knowledge of his case concluded that his death was no mere suicide.

Let’s think this through. Jeffrey Epstein was either murdered or he committed suicide. Nobody has suggested that Epstein died of natural causes. I am surprised nobody has suggested auto-erotic self-asphyxiation, given what a colossal pervert he was.

Because the Metropolitan Correctional Center had ways to prevent Epstein from committing suicide, if it was suicide, then Epstein was allowed to kill himself. If he was allowed to kill himself, it was either intentional or negligent.

If Epstein was intentionally allowed to kill himself, then the probable motive is the same as murder, namely to prevent Epstein from testifying.

If Epstein was negligently allowed to kill himself, then we have to conclude that the US government, particularly in New York City, is no longer a serious institution. Instead, it is functioning on a level somewhere between a Latin American banana republic and an African failed state. In particular, we have to conclude that the people in charge of New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center are either criminal or negligent, or perhaps a combination of the two.

Moreover, any intelligent person could have concluded all of this before we began hearing stories of mysteriously malfunctioning surveillance cameras, mysteriously discontinued suicide monitoring, and mysteriously absent guards.

Whether it is murder or suicide, Jeffrey Epstein’s death is the scandal of the decade. Whether it is murder or suicide, and whether we ever get the truth or not, the Epstein case can only further unravel the average American’s already frayed trust in the political system and mainstream media. And that’s really good for populist dissidents like me, for populism feeds on the breakdown of trust in the establishment.

When the Epstein debate is between those who think that the system was evil enough to murder him or incompetent enough to let him commit suicide, the system can’t win, and we dissidents can’t lose. No matter what happened, the truth hurts them and helps us.

But what if we never even learn the truth? Then the debate will be between people who think the system is evil enough to cover up the truth and the people who think the system is too incompetent to find it. Heads we dissidents win, tails the establishment loses.

I like those odds.

Furthermore, something else died on August 10th, 2019, something of potentially far greater import than Jeffrey Epstein: The phrase “conspiracy theory” lost its power to deter critical thinking about the consensus manufactured and imposed by the political and media establishment.

In the hands of the establishment, “conspiracy theory” is simply a term of abuse masquerading as an objective category. For the establishment, a “conspiracy theory” is just a dissenting viewpoint that threatens its power.

But there’s nothing wrong with conspiracy theories. A “theory” is simply an explanation that ties together observed phenomena in terms of an underlying set of causes, e.g., the theory of evolution or atomic theory. A “conspiracy theory” is an explanation that ties together observed phenomena in terms of underlying causes as well, in this case human planning. The Latin root of “conspiracy,” conspirare, mean to “whisper together.”

A conspiracy is a kind of human planning and action that has two essential characteristics. First, a conspiracy requires at least two people. An idea hatched and carried out by a lone person may be a plot or a crime, but it is not a conspiracy. Second, a conspiracy requires secrecy, because the things that people conspire about cannot be discussed openly without endangering the plan.

Conspiracies are often criminal but need not be. Sometimes one must resort to conspiracies to do perfectly legal things because to plan and act openly would tip one’s hand to rivals and enemies. So when football players huddle, they are conspiring. When businessmen develop products, they are conspiring. When governments plan espionage and warfare, they are conspiring. When political parties and candidates plan election campaigns, they are conspiring. When dissidents plan meetings and events, they are conspiring. I conspire every day of my life, from dawn to dusk.

Much of human history springs from plans and actions that begin in secret. Thus to stigmatize conspiracy theories as such would require us to throw out a vast number of criminal prosecutions. The same goes for most journalism and historiography, which often seek to tie together multiple observed facts in terms of unified plans. Most of the best literature and film on politics, espionage, and crime would have to be discarded as well. Can you imagine a James Bond movie in which merely uttering the words “conspiracy theory” would paralyze thought and action?

Moreover, the very same people who denigrate “conspiracy theories” engage in them all the time. But they don’t present them as theories. They just pass them off as facts. Consider this howler from Julia Ebner, who begins her essay “Stop the Online Conspiracy Theories Before They Break Democracy,” with the words: “Organised conspiracy theorist networks have launched an all-out information war across Europe.” Of course, an “organized network” is just a clumsy way of saying “conspiracy.”

For the Left, Russia collusion, patriarchy, and white privilege are not conspiracy theories. They’re just facts. Which means that a “conspiracy theory” is just something that the establishment doesn’t want you to believe. A “conspiracy theory” is just a “dissenting idea,” which means that Ebner’s real title should he “Stop the Online Dissenting Ideas Before They Break Democracy.”

I’ll bet you thought that one feature of democracy is protecting dissenting ideas. That is certainly the purpose of the First Amendment in the United States. Freedom of speech needs to be a constitutional right to allow people to dissent from the opinions of the powerful, who might otherwise censor and punish disagreement.

Like “discrimination” and “generalization,” which the establishment also stigmatize as wicked, conspiracy theorizing—like theorizing in general—is simply a form of intelligence. Theorizing is what smart people do when faced with bewildering and complex phenomena. An establishment that praises credulity and stupidity is obviously up to no good.

Indeed, attacking conspiracy theories as such is an act of desperation. If truth is on your side, then it should be easy to refute contrary positions. The only reason one would want to disqualify dissent as such is the inability to refute dissenting views on their individual merits. But that’s exactly what one would expect from a system founded on lies, particularly the strange, self-contradictory lie that people are all equal and their differences are always a source of strength.

Conspiracy theorizing has been rising in recent years as trust in the establishment declines, and the establishment was pushing back. Before Epstein’s death, there was an alarming trend to weaponize the “conspiracy theory” smear to silence dissidents.

For instance, on August 6, 2018, Facebook, Apple’s iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify removed all content by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars site from their platforms. What’s the most plausible explanation for all four platforms dumping Jones on the same day: conspiracy or coincidence?

In January of 2019, YouTube announced that it would tweak its algorithms to recommend fewer “conspiracy theory” videos. Of course, YouTube does not define Russia collusion as a conspiracy theory, but it does brand white genocide and the great replacement as conspiracy theories.

Then on August 1, 2019, Yahoo! News reported on an FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, which identified “conspiracy theories” like Pizzagate and QAnon to be domestic terrorist threats.

But since Epstein’s death, “conspiracy theories” are no longer marginal. They are mainstream.

Donald Trump has retweeted speculations that Bill Clinton was behind Epstein’s death. Democrats, for their part, are floating the theory that Trump was behind Epstein’s demise. Both Trump and Clinton are womanizers who knew Epstein.

Former New York Mayor and prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani pronounced the story of Epstein’s suicide “incredible” and claimed that there are “probably 50 very important people that have a motive to kill him.”

Current New York Mayor Bill De Blasio agreed, saying that Epstein’s death was “way too convenient” and could not be attributed to “traditional human error.” De Blasio basically said, “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but . . .” But, as De Blasio put it, “sometimes you see a series of events that you cannot give a normal explanation for, and there needs to be a full investigation”—which pretty much sums up the feelings of conspiracy theorists on this matter.

Since Epstein’s death, media attempts to contain speculation with the “conspiracy theory” canard have been rather half-hearted, with the lamest attempts coming from the most authoritative sources. For instance, the BBC clucks disapprovingly that “Just hours after the high-profile financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead on Saturday, unsubstantiated theories about his death began to gain traction online.”

Epstein’s death is obviously fishy to any intelligent person. So of course people immediately began to speculate about alternative scenarios. Complaining that such theories are “unsubstantiated” is silly. Of course they are unsubstantiated. There has not been time to substantiate them. Every theory is unsubstantiated before it is tested. That is what investigation is for. But apparently people at the BBC would like you to suspend judgment about the Epstein case and simply believe what they tell you.

After Epstein, we’re all conspiracy theorists now. The distinction between marginal “conspiracy theories” and mainstream “facts” has collapsed. The only relevant distinction now is between good conspiracy theories and bad ones, true conspiracies and false ones. I will discuss that distinction in a future article. This is a necessary labor, because I have a strong distaste for bad conspiracy theories, which often draw on false metaphysical assumptions and smack of madness.

Conspiracy theories are organically connected with populism. Populism holds that government is legitimate only if it governs for the common good. Populists regard factions and special interests as inimical to good government. Populists believe that government deliberations should be maximally transparent to guard against subversion by special interests, which of necessity must conspire in secret against the public good.

As I argued above, Epstein’s death helps populists no matter what the outcome of the case. First and foremost, Epstein’s death has deprived “conspiracy theory” of its power of marginalize, stigmatize, and paralyze critical thinking. Second, no matter what side of the Epstein debate you take, the system loses: If Epstein was murdered or intentionally allowed to commit suicide, the system is evil. If Epstein was negligently allowed to commit suicide, then the system is incompetent. If we never learn the truth about Epstein’s death, then the debate will be between those who think the system is evil enough to cover up the truth or too incompetent to discover it.

Please note that none of these populist gains are contingent on ever discovering the truth about Epstein’s death. The system has already written off these losses and moved on, leaving us to capitalize on them. The best-case scenario for the system entails a catastrophic loss of public trust, prestige, and narrative control.

It’s almost as if Epstein’s death was engineered by people who have no investment in the long-term viability of the American system. Perhaps America isn’t their country. Or perhaps they fear a much worse outcome.

Which makes me wonder: What would happen if the system’s worst-case scenario came true, namely that we learn the full truth about Jeffrey Epstein and his friends? Given the waning power of the conspiracy canard and the role of genuine investigative journalism in bringing Epstein’s crimes to light, there is some reason for hope. But we shouldn’t wait around for such an eventuality. Instead, we should be capitalizing on the gains the Epstein case has already handed us.