How Epstein Rules America

There was a book by William Domhoff that garnered attention, back in the day, called “Who Rules America?” It wasn’t much in tune with Marxism so I paid it little mind. The Epstein foofaraw prompts a new rumination on the rich and how they roll. I’ve always had a weakness for conspiracy theories, so I’ll roll in some of that too, along with my quack sociology.

I have always believed Epstein was murdered. Anybody remember the “Mayflower Madam”? People with relatively little power who know incriminating stuff on the rich tend to disappear. The more you know, the worse your chances. The basic dynamic for Epstein was the disproportion between his destructive power, given what he knew, and his personal powerlessness, as a jail inmate. Nobody is truly safe; there’s my conspiracist paranoia again.

Then there is the chatter about Epstein involved with intelligence agencies and blackmail. I also think this is likely, since that is coin of the realm in the circles in which he traveled. Why would somebody in that position not use such information, and why wouldn’t intelligence agencies cultivate his potential uses?

The mania in MAGAland is not as obvious to me. I’ve given up trying to understand how people think. After all, those particularly impacted negatively by a gigantic public health crisis, or those in Texas by the gross mismanagement of public utilities, never seemed to rise up with pitchforks, as was indeed their due. If that doesn’t get you going, why become involved in a case among elites (victims aside)? I don’t get it.

The displacement reminds me of the anti-immigrant hysteria. Once again, the impact of immigrants, good or bad, on most people is zilch. Ditto with transsexuals, especially transsexual athletes. I’ve written that immigration is an unambiguous good, speaking economically; I would say in other ways too.

Epstein rules because we are a nation of pinheads. Somebody who said it better, as follows:

“The people, incapable as yet of sound judgment as to what is best for them, applaud indiscriminately the most opposite ideas, provided that in them they get a taste of flattery: to them the laws of thought are like the confines of the possible; today they can no more distinguish between a savant and a sophist, than formerly they could tell a physician from a sorcerer.” — P.J. Proudhon, 1840

We’re still waiting for the people.