The Missing Howls of Denunciation Over Major Sex Trafficking

Michael Brenner considers the dearth of #MeToo outrage at the foul activities of the 25-year-long Epstein-Maxwell operation.

(Alec Perkins, CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons)

By Michael Brenner

Why have the howls of outrage not echoed through the media? Why has the trumpet’s call to action been silent?  Why haven’t the halls of Congress resounded with denunciation and the demands for justice.

Sexual trafficking of women and children is probably the century’s greatest assault on girls and young women outside of Boko Haram’s rampages and the crimes of the Islamic State against the Yazidis.  In terms of sheer numbers, it exceeds those atrocities. High among the malefactors is the Epstein-Maxwell operation. Its foul activities went on for 25 years. It was known to law enforcement authorities for most of that time. The sole legal action taken was the one count lodged against Jeffrey Epstein in 2006 for “soliciting a minor.” With the connivance of the highest authorities in Washington, it was a genteel house arrest that was a mockery of supposed punishment.

U.S. lawmakers speak in support of End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act, 2005. (Wikimedia Commons)

The most grotesque aspect of this sinister criminal ring was the knowing participation of dozens of members of the highest echelons of the American elite – possibly including two occupants of the White House. Rape – both statutory and violent – was the order of the day. So, too, involuntary confinement, extortion, blackmail, intimidation and god knows what other heinous crimes.

Yet, the protests and cries for punishment from our self-styled militants for women’s rights have been muted – to understate things. A brief flurry of ritual shock in the weeks immediately after Epstein’s arrest is all. Such condemnation as we heard or read placed the entire affair in the wadding of a general critique of the abuses carried out by privileged men since 1776. Now, just the usual titillation about the deplorable condition of Epstein’s jail cell and tidbits about Lady Ghislaine – the socialite super madame.

Stunning Discrepancy

Compare this soft murmuring with the hell raised by so many about garden variety sexual harassment ascribed to public personalities. Al Franken driven out of the Senate. Garrison Keillor cast into the wilderness by NPR. Etc., etc. No rape, no violence — an uninvited hand on the bare back of a decade-long acquaintance in the latter instance. The discrepancy is stunning.

We comb the news waiting to hear of the reception held by Elizabeth Drew and U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi in the former’s swank Manhattan apartment to console and honor the victims. We wait breathlessly for a special issue of MSM exposing who was involved and what happened. We imagine deputations flooding the Capitol to insist on a swift, no-holds-barred investigation.  We peer into the gloom for Hillary bearing the torch of women’s emancipation. We anticipate The New York Times’ mea culpa as to why they ignored the story for a quarter century. Perhaps #MeToo could sponsor a benefit concert in Central Park to raise funds for the hapless victims from around the world. After all, these odious crimes occurred on American soil, committed almost exclusively by Americans. The Clinton Foundation would be the logical place to ask for financial support. There is an ancient Crusader saying: “first the feast, then the morals.”

We comb the news. 

Mirages all.  Isn’t happening; won’t happen

But why? The mind searches for explanations. Were the professional enforcers of strict no-harassment codes who police the nation seeking out evidence of stray male hands – especially if the women are well-educated, upper middle class and live in safe neighborhoods – on vacation? Or did they repress knowledge of friends who likely were implicated in the Epstein-Maxwell crimes? Did they find intolerable the idea that some of their favorites among the high and mighty are despicable low-lifes? Is the fact that the chief operational officer of the criminal enterprise was a woman inhibiting of incisive responses?
Let’s also bear in mind that taking on the power elites (Epstein/Maxwell/ clients – maybe the CIA/Mossad) would indeed be ahard and dangerous business. By contrast, a Frankel or Keillor is a soft target. Those guys and their like are sensitive to their self-image and are not born fighters – moreover, their bosses have long practiced the art of the preemptive cringe.

Or, is it due to a core ambivalence that touches deep sensitivities about the myths we live by – held by men as well as women? Is it simply unpalatable that numerous of the elites who rule us – we America, the last best hope of humankind – and whom we admire are in fact among the scum of the earth?
Michelangelo: they feel that it is ”better to nurse a delicious FANCY Than GAG ON TRUTH.”

Powers of Sublimation

Hillary Clinton, as first lady, giving her famous “women’s rights are human rights” 1995 speech in Beijing. (Sharon Farmer/White House via Wikimedia Commons)

Finally, let’s never underestimate the powers of sublimation in contemporary America. When facilitated by a lax media, and encouraged by self-serving politicos, there seem to be no limits to their capacity for self-censorship. Consider the most recent example of President Donald Trump’s sexual abuses: E. Jean Carroll’s highly graphic and persuasive description of Trump’s assault on her in Bergdorf’s. It survived little more than one or two news cycles.

Consider this, too, re. Epstein: The New Yorker gave us this bold cover story about the defense of Alan Dershowitz the notorious legal defender of unsavory types who was an Epstein attorney and who has been identified by at least one of Epstein’s accusers as a participant in statutory rape. If you are having difficulty figuring out why the rush to provide him with several thousand words for self-justification and self-promotion, then I have a not-so-green island to sell you.

I personally have no hypotheses to offer in way of explanation. The silence of the arch ‘feminist’ militants is a mystery to me. 

Michael Brenner is a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. [email protected]

Before commenting please read Robert Parry’s Comment Policy. Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. 

97 comments for “The Missing Howls of Denunciation Over Major Sex Trafficking

  1. Gerrard White
    August 30, 2019 at 08:41

    Yes, I wrote a mild enough comment criticising the naive and ill informed inclusion of Boko Haram in a rich white man pedophile article, and it never made it in, as if the selected publicity in the US press given to one and the other justified a parallel, and indisctably
    The limited viewpoint of most if not all commentary on Boko Haram or African affairs in general is remarkable

  2. Evangelista
    August 29, 2019 at 20:05

    Hello NewConsortiumNews,

    This is to recommend you read a book. The title is ” Have Mercy!” . The author is Bob Smith (sounds like an alias, doesn’t it). His real alias was ” Wolfman Jack” . He was a radio and entertainment personality, salesman and event promoter. The title phrase was one of his radio-show tag-lines. The book, published in June, 1995, is his autobiography. From the end of his childhood on his account is of his radio, entertainment and event promotion. The time span was the 1950s through the early 1990s. His recount of his activities is thorough and unreserved. It provides a catalogue of promotion manners, styles and procedures that were regularly engaged in in the entertainment industry during his times. His recount of the norms of the industry back then, mostly for its single perspective focus and racontement rather than analytical point of view and focus leaving out the ” seamy-side” elements that, evidently, give you short-breath and nose-bleeds, and an apparently irresistable feeling of need to protect yourselves from facts you demand to not be true, for which feelings, and, it seems, a phobia that makes you unable to face such facts in print, let alone have to think about them, or seek for answers to their presentation, you engage in censoring. Not even letting the facts you deplore stand for others to respond to. I suppose you are so transported to hysteria by facts you desire not be facts that you are unable to even imagine there might maybe be others who might maybe be able to refute.

    Wofman Jack’s “Have Mercy” recount should be ‘lite’ enough fo you to perhaps read for an introduction to some realities of history.

    History is a funny thing. You can attempt to rewrite it to what you might prefer, or find simple enough to fit your comprehension, but your attempts never work. History remains what history was and is, and your, and others’, rewrite attempts only become additions to and supplemental parts of, the history they intend to obscure.

    In the present case the additions are interesting: You have, by presenting an American University Professor writing in turgid prose to ask why, and to lament that, the democratic masses are not mobbing up as mindlessly as the professor would have them, to run a-lynching against hysteria-manufactured designer-designated ‘sex-traffickers’. Your presentation of that kind of thing by that kind of ‘professional’ says a great deal, that needs being said, the saying indicates, about United States education, United States Universities, and the kinds of ‘intellects’ being collected by those educational institutions to “educate” the youth of the United States nation. That you, operating an ostensibly higher-level intellectual information distribution means (with supposed provision for discussion), when someone provides a serious answer to the, for a university professor, astonishing question, obliterate the answer, instead of answering it, or leaving it exposed for discussion, contradiction and mayhap even refutation, says even more, about the United States nation where the ‘adjustment’ of information occurs, about the forum where such ‘adjustment’ is engaged in, and about yourselves, who ‘adjust’, apparently with hope to ‘corral’ perspective to at least semble it, where you are able to control, to support your delusions.

    The results that are accruing, and will continue to accrue, from the generation of divisions, and the employment of falsifications in the generating, which I attempted to hint at the early ‘blisters’ of that have begun emerging, I will not address further. You may read some for yourselves in histories, to discover, and that they are repetitious, or you can do nothing and discover when they erupt to fruit again.

  3. Susan Siens
    August 27, 2019 at 17:09

    “The silence of the arch ‘feminist’ militants is a mystery to me.”

    First, the metoo movement is not militant or radical. Many radical feminists have been extremely critical of it while supporting it to a degree. You should not write about feminism when you seem to know nothing about it. Unless you want to go deeply into Epstein’s predation, as Whitney Webb does on Mint News, Epstein’s activities are just another entry into the log of the crimes against women and girls. See, for example, the daily What’s Current on Feminist Current, a Canadian feminist website.

    While you’re wondering why metoo isn’t focusing on Jeffrey Epstein, you might wonder why the so-called leftist press isn’t covering trans-identified male crimes against women and girls (there are entire websites devoted to these) while acting as though women are the murderers of trans-identified males.

  4. Tom Larsen
    August 26, 2019 at 22:41

    The answer is simple: it doesn’t serve the interests of the ruling class. That’s why the “howls” are missing.

  5. nwwoods
    August 26, 2019 at 16:39

    Speaking of “arch-feminists”, I am reminded of the statement by feminist icon Gloria Steinhem that (paraphrasing) the “girls” were with Bernie because it was an opportunity to meet “boys”, which was ironically the most overtly sexist comment publicly uttered in the whole election cycle by anyone who wasn’t Trump.

  6. Auralee
    August 25, 2019 at 21:00

    Above all, I want to know who partook. Many are still in power, and still subject to blackmail.

    • Ma Laoshi
      August 29, 2019 at 00:54

      From the very little we’ve been told, the FBI has found CDs with “kompromat” videos in Epstein’s safe. Clearly, they’re not keen to act on them. Most likely they’re playing it so slow to give a tiny bit of plausibility to a cover story that the material got “lost”. This is not about justice; the DOJ serves other interests. CN regularly features articles where Ray McGovern expresses his hopes that the truth about RussiaGate will prevail; but what was the last time that happened with any story of consequence?

      And speaking of lost data, my original comment in this thread has disappeared too. Seems others are running into the same problem.

  7. John Wright
    August 25, 2019 at 16:47

    We should also ask “Where is The Squad in all this?

    Why aren’t they holding daily press conferences demanding that Ghislaine Maxwell be brought into custody and interrogated?

  8. August 25, 2019 at 09:30

    It is fear. They are all so afraid of whose feathers may be rankled by making this a top-priority. Clearly some of the culprits own the corporate media…

  9. Jayeles
    August 24, 2019 at 23:07

    Was watching local news the other day and the newscaster kept referring to Epstein as a “trafficker”, not a sex trafficker, or a sex slave trafficker, or a child sex slave trafficker, no, just a trafficker. And they referred to his victims as “women”, not underage girls, or just girls, or minors, or children; no, they are women.

    • Truth
      August 25, 2019 at 11:32

      exactly. USA is only nation that doesnt know all main stream media is and always has been psyops lies. Cranberries, Zombie ,song

  10. Cornelius Pipe
    August 24, 2019 at 17:52

    Simple explanation: ‘Me Too’ is fake.

    • Michael Niemi
      August 26, 2019 at 23:25

      Exactly. They have been given orders to stand down on this one, and they will comply.

  11. Jill
    August 24, 2019 at 12:35

    Michael,

    Women don’t deserve “mild” unwanted touching either. I hope maybe next time, that part of your article could be set aside. Also, I feel that your use of the term “arch “feminist” militants” is a mistake. I think you are asking a good question but this article seems more like a pejorative swipe at feminists than an actual inquiry when you use that phrase.

    To answer your question plainly– women are neither worse nor better than men. As you must know, the movement for racial equality in the 60s was full of incredible sexism and cruelty by revolutionary men towards their sisters in the movement. Stokely Carmichael stated: ‘the only position for women in SNCC is prone.” MLK had some real problems with women. In other words, these men were hypocrites. They were both good and bad. Most movements for social change are filled with hypocrisy. There is freedom for some but not for all. This is shameful and I believe it is why revolutions never achieve their aim. Freedom must be for every person, not just one’s chosen “worthy” group.

    Women in the feminist movement also act shamefully when they fail to support justice for every abuse victim. Notice that you have difficulty criticizing Keiller (who also supports torture) and Franken because you like them. You are willing to minimize their actions because their politics and person meet your approval. This is what Democratic women are doing and have done when confronted by the victims of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Many Democratic women like this couple. They agree with their politics and they are willing to ignore wrongdoing by them because of that fact.

    Your piece in a very real way, answers your own question. People won’t see injustice in those whom they like. It’s easier to pass it on by or minimize it. This is exactly the attitude we must all challenge inside ourselves. Until we do, until we are willing to admit to wrongdoing by those whom we like and agree with, abuse will continue.

    Right, left or center– wrong is wrong. The abuse of women, men and children cannot be tolerated.

    • SRH
      August 25, 2019 at 04:43

      Your allegation that Garrison Keillor supports torture needs some supportive evidence. Where is it?

      • Jill
        August 25, 2019 at 08:46

        SRH, Here’s one, just search for more!

        “Garrison Keillor claims to be a liberal. He – and we — should know better. Keillor has just joined the already large and ever-growing list of allegedly ‘liberal’ media figures who either advocate or apologize for torture.

        “But when it comes to “criminal prosecution,” and “holding the Bush administration responsible for torture,” the Man from Lake Wobegon says we be going too far, that something is rotten in America: “I smell the sour righteousness of the victorious lording it over the vanquished.”

        That’s right: the self-described “old museum-quality northern liberal” says that holding high officials responsible for the murderous torture they carried out in his — and our —name would only yield “high political drama that would feed the media goat” and “sap the body politic.”

        https://www.huffpost.com/entry/prairie-home-torture-comp_b_206019

    • AnneR
      August 25, 2019 at 14:59

      True enough – neither women nor men should be put on pedestals; neither sex is more empathetic, sympathetic, warm-hearted than the other; both are equally capable of doing great moral, ethical wrong, using violence to attain their own ends, when and as they can (Madeline Albright and her chum HRC immediately spring to mind as elite examples of such among females).

      However, I would argue that you avoid or miss the glaring fact that the MeToo movement was created by the privileged *for* the privileged. And their silence on the whole Epstein-sex-trafficking grotesquerie, and sex-trafficking more generally, whether of children, adolescents or young adults, makes – to my mind at least – abundantly clear their elitist view of those who are trafficked: lower class, poor and so much less important than someone from the bourgeoisie, petite a haute. And the truly cynical in me wonders if the silence derives from the thought that: well, if elite men are touching up, having “sex” with those who have been trafficked, who are poor, abused, they’ll be less inclined to bother me.

    • Susan Siens
      August 27, 2019 at 17:01

      Excellent, Jill! What someone like the author does not comprehend is that both during the second wave and in contemporary feminism there are two major camps. During the second wave there were RADICAL feminists and there were equal-rights feminists (Gloria Steinem, etc). Radical feminists in my experience do not support capitalism and want to end patriarchy, a big job if ever there was one, and do not see functioning like powerful men as a laudable goal. Today we have radical feminists and neoliberal feminists, the latter supporting prostitution and pornography, something even the equal-rights feminists did not do.

      I have come into contact with supporters of the Clintons and as you say they cannot bear to look at the endless warts the Clintons are covered with. I don’t know why anyone would like this couple, they are totally repellent, but when the Democrats are YOUR team you support them no matter what. That’s what electoral politics seems to have become, a matter of MY team versus YOUR team.

      And, yes, one major reason social movements do not succeed is their failure to have a complete analysis of oppression and resistance. I lived through the sixties and most people protesting the war against Vietnamese peasants had little analysis and even less comprehension of U.S. foreign policy. The same is true today and it’s why you have someone such as Amy Goodman voicing support for Syrian “rebels” several years ago (which caused me to cease listening to Democracy Now). Many radical feminists express deep disgust with the left, such as it is, over its unquestioning support of transgenderism — about which most people know nothing — and its usual attitude of throwing women under the bus. And this does not mean they align themselves with the right wing!

  12. Truth
    August 24, 2019 at 11:58

    The pedophilia is satanic brought to usa by the past and present British Royals which epstein was and Andrew still is. Clinto Kerry and Rodham families as well. Do some real background on their geneology if you can. Scrubbing has eliminated most. Memory dates them all to B.C. druids and Earls in England.
    Remember Stallones Movie Cobra? He was giving you hints. As he always has in the movies he writes.
    Broward county,fla is home to the leaders the Bronfmans and their protege D Wasserman,

  13. Vera Gottlieb
    August 24, 2019 at 11:31

    Epstein’s fortune should go to all his victims.

    • nwwoods
      August 26, 2019 at 16:33

      He made a move before he died to preclude victims getting compensation by placing his wealth on an offshore trust from which legal experts say it will be extremely difficult to obtain access to. A final twist of the knife.

  14. Guy
    August 24, 2019 at 10:21

    The arrest of Jeffrey Epstein was an opportunity for all Americans to have a good look at themselves but it did not last long. Someone,some intelligence agency decided that it was too painful to expose the higher ups and it will do to show the world the corruption involved in the whole affair .So Eptein is now gone.The whole sordid affair is no more .No more to be said .Move on folks ,what was the score last night at that baseball game ?

  15. Gerry L Forbes
    August 24, 2019 at 05:21

    Professor Brenner is a quick study, noticing the dog that didn’t bark. Others have pointed out that MeToo might not even be a dog (a well-trained poodle at best) but I am concerned that all these extralegal groups might be part of a more insidious strategy: destroying the rule of law and the protections it provides.

    MeToo overturns the presumption of innocence making one guilty until proven innocent, inciting mob rule.

    Antifa legitimizes force as speech, just what the fascists want.

    Counterprotests seek to restrict freedom of speech when the worst thing the speakers can do for their cause is express their views.

    Intelligence and law enforcement are always infiltrating organisations seeking social change through legal means. In Britain an undercover policeman even married an organizer in the course of his duties. (a Stasi trick although one presumes the tactic is timeless).

    A possible scenario: one or more of Trump’s strategies implodes causing civil unrest. Heavy-handed response leads to full-blown riots. Americans do what they are supposed to and elect Biden whose advancing dementia only makes things worse. Cities burn. Martial law is declared. Prison labour builds walls paid for by Mexico and Canada (Seriously. We don’t want millions of self-righteous refugees blithering cluelessly about Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. Had enough of that during the Vietnam war. And the Chinese and Indians won’t stand for hordes of white, black and latino people diluting their influence).

    Good luck!

  16. Realist
    August 24, 2019 at 02:30

    It looks for all the world that Epstain was basically pimping for the elitist of the insider elites throughout the capitalist universe. Sex trafficking has always been a big money-maker, even amongst street people, common reprobates and the clergy. The rich and powerful have fixers like Epstain to take care of all their nasty business. Does anyone think that muckety-mucks in high finance, the media monopoly, law enforcement, the courts, the highest levels of government and even some prominent female rainmakers may not have been among the beneficiaries of this service industry?

    It doesn’t surprise me one bit that those who were saved by Epstain’s demise would exercise their power and influence to make sure things were quickly “resolved” and the public calmed. The tried and true remedy has always been for the media to simply change the subject. There is certainly no way they are pinning this one on Putin, so it will quickly be forgotten and lost down the memory hole. They don’t even need to put on a charade about reforming the system because the relevant laws are already on the books. The real reform will be that Epstain’s replacement will make sure that no future service providers ever live long enough to file any legal complaints.

  17. Lois Gagnon
    August 23, 2019 at 21:29

    Why did yesterday’s comments disappear? When is something going to be done about this terrible commenting system?

  18. August 23, 2019 at 20:17

    Dang … I didn’t get past ‘Boko Haram’s rampages and the crimes of the Islamic State against the Yazidis’.
    Aren’t both products of the US. Second, surely a choice of just one American we’ll-bring-you-democracy action over the last 20 years is far worse than Boko Haram? Indications to date are Epstein has been ‘protected’ by Rep and Dem since the early 80s, if not before.

  19. Amanda
    August 23, 2019 at 20:00

    Thanks for posting on this.

    Well, I’m actually not surprised–I always had the sense that the whole “MeToo” movement was controlled behind the scenes. Seems like it was quite useful when Kavanaugh was nominated for the Supreme Court (and I’m not a supporter of him–he’s a Bushy and I’m pretty sure he had something to do with that Patriot Act), and Allyssa Milano was ready to go in telling us “we must believe all women” with regard to Dr. Chrissy Fraud and Julie Swetnick. But they are interestingly quiet right now about the whole Esptein saga, and of course, there were no signs of support on the Friday before Epstein’s supposed death, when there was a document drop, which indicated his victims named George Mitchell (D) and Bill Richardson (D) as men they were forced to have sex with. I think they may have issued a quick denial and then the MSM quickly moved away from it,never to be heard of again.

  20. ARLEEN I TORRES
    August 23, 2019 at 19:56

    BRAVO!

  21. JWalters
    August 23, 2019 at 18:13

    Thanks to CN and Michael Brenner for maintaining attention on this extremely important topic. And while the #MeToo people are an understandable focus, the silence is deafening across the board. The politicians are all silent. The major news figures are silent. It’s as if nobody had pulled back the curtain on the sociopaths who rule our society.

    For convenience in posting to other sites, here is a link to the stunning CN interview with Whitney Webb on the Epstein case and its MANY ramifications.
    “Whitney Webb in-depth history of Jeffrey Epstein”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBN7Xqf7rWI

    Also, here is a series of in-depth reports on how the prosecution of Epstein was blocked by higher-ups at the state and federal levels. Jake Morphonios is an excellent, experienced investigator (so good he is being thrashed by YouTube).
    https://www.blackstoneintel.com/podcast

  22. bardamu
    August 23, 2019 at 17:28

    Just an idea —

    A considerable factor in the Epstein case is not his individual perversity or crimes, but hierarchy and corruption, not just the corruption of the sexuality but the use of the sexuality in cementing, rewarding, and coercing corruption.

    Perhaps not everyone who is concerned about sexual abuse is concerned about corruption and hierarchy in general. Perhaps not everyone concerned about sexual abuse even considers that hierarchy, with all its corruptions, is so much as unnecessary. For such people, the fact or apparent fact that Epstein is dead resolves matters insofar as they might be resolved–with all the hierarchy and its corruption in place, whatever such people may think of all that.

    There is no way that Epstein could have had the type of business that he is widely regarded as having had without the extensive and ongoing involvement of both major political parties and major media entities.

    So there will be no extensive and authentic push for investigation by Democrats, Republicans, or the push-style mass media that are allied to them. There is not likely to be a lot of investigation by foreign entities because those not allied with the above positions mostly do not find corruption in the United States to be news.

    It seems that some who concern themselves with hierarchy might be principally concerned not with reducing hierarchy, but with changing which personnel or which demographics are favored.

    It is a sad thing to recognize that one has fewer allies than one imagined. But it seems that for very many of us, the discoveries of the last few years have all been in this direction.

  23. Seasoned Skeptic
    August 23, 2019 at 16:37

    The same corporate media behind the muted outrage response to the trafficking of girls and the anodyne narrative of Epstein’s death just spent more than two years trying to convince the world that it was the Russians, not the fossilized Electoral College, that put Donald Trump into the Whitehouse based soley on rumor, suggestion, inference and accusations from well known liars and frauds who brought us non existent WMDs in Iraq and moderate rebels and White Helmet rescuers in Syria, just to name a few more recent state sponsored fabrications. Justice and truth don’t factor into the agenda of the swine who run our plutocracy. I believe this horror story will be papered over, many accusers and collaborators will meet the same fate as Karen Silkwood and the think tanks and mainstream media talking heads will continue to bandy about the conspiracy theory trope while continuing to endorse the official false claims of the political establishment.

  24. Stephen P
    August 23, 2019 at 16:15
  25. Iowa Scribe
    August 23, 2019 at 15:30

    Gilad Atzmon’s critique is far more substantive and more interesting, in part because he doesn’t stoop to blaming class or feminists for the “missing howls of outrage” and “dearth of MeToo denunciations”.

    http://www.unz.com/gatzmon/predators-united/

    “Not Just Weinstein: The Year #MeToo Rocked and Shocked the Jewish World” was the title of a 2018 Haaretz article that reviewed the large number of Jews involved in sex scandals that year. “Over the past year,” Haartez wrote, “a high number of powerful Jewish men have been accused of sexual misconduct. While it has provided fodder for anti-Semites, activists say addressing the problem is vital.”

    Haaretz listed some of the prominent Jewish men accused of predatory sexual behaviour. “In addition to (Harvey) Weinstein and (Leon) Wieseltier, the list of Jewish men implicated in #MeToo over the past 12 months includes former Democratic senator Al Franken; ousted CBS chief Les Moonves; actors Dustin Hoffman, Jeffrey Tambor and Jeremy Piven; directors Woody Allen, James Toback and Brett Ratner; playwright Israel Horowitz; journalists Mark Halperin and Michael Oreskes; conductor James Levine; and radio show hosts Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz.”

    Apparently someone decided to ‘clean the swamp’. Harvey Weinstein was just an early bird. In 2018 we also learned about the Nxivm sex cult and the role of Clare Bronfman at its centre. The Jewish Forward wrote that Nxivm’s leader attracted “several prominent figures to his group, including heiress Clare Bronfman, who pleaded guilty in April to credit card fraud and harbouring an undocumented immigrant who provided unpaid “labor and services.” Bronfman is the daughter of the legendary ultra Zionist billionaire Edgar Bronfman (1929 –2013) who was president of the World Jewish Congress. In his obituary, Edgar Bronfman was described by Haaretz as “prince of the Jews.” His daughter has been ordered to pay a penalty of $6 million out of her $200 million fortune, and she faces up to two years in prison. …

    When it seemed the Jewish universe couldn’t cope with any more scandals involving predatory sexual behaviour, the Epstein affair resurfaced. The Jeffrey Epstein spectacle is one of the biggest of its kind in the history of America ensnaring presidents and prime ministers. Some of the world’s most influential men in cultural, financial and academic fields are allegedly implicated in predatory behaviour with underage girls. And it doesn’t take a genius to observe that the Epstein drama is, unfortunately, a ‘Jewish drama.’

    Bloomberg, not exactly an ‘anti-Semitic’ outlet, dug into The Complicated Orbit of Jeffrey Epstein. Zionist enthusiast Leslie Wexner was identified as Epstein’s ‘patron’. The Jewish virtual library informs us that Wexner “often support[s] .. Jewish projects. He serves as Honorary Vice Chairman of the Board of Congregation Aguda Achim… [And] established the Wexner Foundation, which runs both a Graduate Fellowship and an Israel Fellowship Program.”

    Bloomberg lists the following as amongst Epstein’s ‘business partners’: Harvey Weinstein, Mort Zuckerman, Donny Deutsch, Nelson Peltz, Ehud Barak and Ponzi aficionado Steven Hoffenberg.

    Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of notorious Zionist pension plunderer Robert Maxwell, is described by Bloomberg as Epstein’s ‘Inner Circle.’ And then there is Alan Dershowitz who has been labouring tirelessly to try to convince the American media and anyone else willing to listen that he didn’t have sex with underage girls.

    Again I find myself admitting that the list of Jewish names surrounding an unsavoury character, this time Epstein, resembles my Bar Mitzvah’s guest list: a lot of Jewish names with just a few goyim at the margin.

    This raises critical questions, the most elementary of which is, why? Why are so many Jewish men currently in the news in connection with sexually predatory behaviour? What is it about these rich and influential people that pushes them over the edge?

    And there are deeper questions that beg attention. Why is it that with so many Jews in academia and media ordinarily so clever in explaining in a ‘professorial manner’ the psychology and sociology behind every world development and political shift, not one has volunteered to explain the cultural, ideological and spiritual continuum between Weinstein and Epstein and beyond? How is it that the academics and think tanks that are so adept in analysing ‘cultural clashes’ and, as they call it, ‘Islamofascism,’ are unwilling to analyse the roots of the cultural crisis at the core of the Epstein saga? And I must extend this inquiry just one step further, why does the Jewish solidarity industry that cares so much for Palestine, Immigrants, the Civil Rights Movement and LGBT issues remain silent when it comes to the crimes committed, and on a mass scale, against underage girls just a few blocks from JVP’s New York headquarters?

    • Litchfield
      August 23, 2019 at 17:08

      Uh, wait just a minute.
      Good post up until this:

      “why does the Jewish solidarity industry that cares so much for [1]Palestine, [2]Immigrants, the [3]Civil Rights Movement and [4]LGBT issues remain silent when it comes to the crimes committed, and on a mass scale, against underage girls just a few blocks from JVP’s New York headquarters?”

      Quick IQ test: of the four issues named, which one does not belong?
      Yep, number 1.
      These other groups are not known for their vocal or otherwise support of Palestine or, more precisely, the civil, political, property, and human rights of Palestinians.

      This sentence sure looks like a misdirection game. Unless “cares for Palestine” actually is meant to mean, “cares for fighting indigenous rights in Palestine.”

      • John Wright
        August 25, 2019 at 14:53

        Clearly, you have differing definitions of what constitutes the “Jewish solidarity industry”.

        Be well.

    • JWalters
      August 23, 2019 at 18:18

      Thanks for that great link.

    • John Wright
      August 25, 2019 at 15:03

      Iowa Scribe –

      Thanks for posting that excellent comment.

      The rather obvious answer to your final question is:

      Mossad

      They are the hidden hand that keeps their agenda on track and out of the spotlight. And corrupting/controlling the elites is central to their core operations. Even the most ardent anti-Zionist Jews are afraid to take them on, or are actually created gatekeepers controlling the “opposition”.

      Be well.

  26. John Puma
    August 23, 2019 at 15:06

    Re: ” … and whom WE admire are in fact among the scum of the earth?”

    Mr Brenner, if you did NOT mean: “whom we are instructed and expected to admire,”
    then please remove me from the “we” cohort … retroactively to 1968.

  27. Robert Emmett
    August 23, 2019 at 14:21

    Professor calling out baffling lack of virtue signaling called out for virtue signaling! Ha ha. The hits keep rolling. Hoop snake devours its own tail. But not in a good way!

    Big Brainism from hallowed halls of Academe, O, save us!

    Meanwhile, Ms. Carroll reports troubled encounters with Moon-V’s, mafia bosses, media titans, boyfriends & husbands. O my! So, T-rump was just her type!

    And modeling lingerie for a casual “friend” in the draperied change lounge of Berg-Dorf? Tres sheik! As in Araby – Man.

  28. AnneR
    August 23, 2019 at 14:13

    My response to Tom Kath was gunned down by the “moderators” it would seem….

  29. Drew Hunkins
    August 23, 2019 at 13:33
  30. Anarcissie
    August 23, 2019 at 12:57

    This is all pretty stupid. #metoo was about people with legitimate complaints being ignored. ‘Howls of outrage’ were appropriate to get the needed attention. The Epstein business is hardly being ignored and involves so many bigwigs that its ramifications and effects are only beginning to be known. Cops, lawyers, journalists, and conspiracy theorists are on the case. So what are you all, including the author, talking about at such length?

    • Seamus Padraig
      August 23, 2019 at 13:21

      So, why hasn’t Ghislane Maxwell been arrested yet? What’s your theory there?

      • John Wright
        August 25, 2019 at 15:12

        Exactly!

    • 0ccupy on!
      August 23, 2019 at 13:48

      Dear Anarcissie, Puhleeze! You’re comparing what Epstein ‘allegedly’ did with #MeToo’s Al Franken’s ‘alleged’ unwanted French kiss? Where is your sense of proportion?

    • Litchfield
      August 23, 2019 at 15:26

      In response to Anarcisse, all I can do is tell her to reread the article.

      Why isn’t #MeToo using its political and PR muscle to keep the pressure on Bill Barr to conduct a genuine investigation, which would include interrogating a number of big-wigs and also, Primus inter pares, Ghislaine Maxwell?

      Until we see Maxwell subpoena’d and compelled to appear for questioning, we in the media peanut gallery will continue to assume that no serious investigation is to be espied in our crystal balls.

      Re “Cops, lawyers, journalists, and conspiracy theorists are on the case. So what are you all, including the author, talking about at such length?”
      This sounds a bit trollish (and sarcastic) to me, in particular the grouping “cops, lawyers, journalists and conspiracy theorists.”
      What we actually need is a wide-ranging and deep-delving investigation by the DOJ or by Congress. We need to get to the bottom of Epstein’s ties to various intelligence communities. We need see chapter and verse as to how the sex trafficking interfaced with intelligence work. We need to know what is hidden under concrete at Little Saint James Island. Among other things. A genuine investigation, or multiple investigations, might allow the “ct” phrase to be retired in connection with this complex of crimes as it would uncover genuine evidence. Failing such a genuine investigation it can be inferred that evidence is being destroyed and/or suppressed and/or not developed (e.g., via under-oath questioning).

      It is decidedly odd that Anarcisse thinks that “the case” can be adequately pursued by the four groups she names. “Cops”?

      • Karenvista
        August 23, 2019 at 19:43

        Unfortunately, of fortunately for some, William “Bill” Barr was involved in Iran-Contra and the Reagan/Bush Administration’s dirty wars that not only illegally funded our death squads in Central America but also imported cocaine and promoted crack. As a side benefit, they also captured and trafficked in kids from the region, so anyone counting on him will be sadly disappointed. See Whitney Webb https://www.mintpressnews.com/shocking-origins-jeffrey-epstein-blackmail-roy-cohn/260621/

      • Blevins
        August 25, 2019 at 11:10

        That will NEVER happen! This is going to be nothing but another angry memory tumbling down the DC highway like all those other tumbleweeds filled with horrific crimes committed by those that control the narratives of this country…
        I wonder how many more weeks or days until this is a small paragraph on the last page of the newspaper underneath the car ads.

      • Anarcissie
        August 25, 2019 at 23:16

        First of all, I’d like to denounce the Fails-To-Denounce trope. Yes, some people associated with #MeToo may have _failed_to_denounce_ Mr. Epstein. There are hundreds, thousands, millions of people, things, situations, and events in the world that are reprehensible. No one can get around to denouncing them all! Perhaps the missing #MeTooists were busy denouncing something else like the hearbreak of psoriasis and could not work around to Epstein in time. Maybe they’ll do better next time. Denouncing can be tiring!

        But the other thing here is that Mr. Epstein’s derelictions are in a whole different league than, say, Mr. Weinstein’s. Do I need to explain this? Harvey Weinstein, as far as I know, was not buddied up with the Clintons or the Mossad. Weinstein is a creep, maybe, but Epstein was a monster and a monster’s monster. He was killed for a reason, or maybe several reasons. We probably know most of what we want to know about Weinstein. We are only beginning to learn about Epstein.

        Now, as for ‘cops, lawyers, journalists, and conspiracy theorists’: those are the exact people who are effectively on the case. Politicians like Barr are not going to want to touch it, but the people I name are very interested and some of them stand to profit greatly if they come up with something juicy. The Epstein affair is not going to rest. It might well affect the election, or American foreign relations. (Although after Prince Mohammed Bonesaw was eased off the hook, I suppose anything goes in that field.) I especially expect much from the conspiracy theorists, because they never rest, and, you know, there _are_ conspiracies. We are obviously discussing one now, to which #MeToo is mostly irrelevant.

  31. August 23, 2019 at 12:51

    Thank you for this. It’s insane that the average person is not screaming for justice and for the disbanding of sex trafficking rings and the jailing of those participating and running them. Simply insane. And now, a woman who was going to Washington DC to testify against traffickers has ‘disappeared’. I can’t even find her disappearance, although reported by friends on social media, in the news at all. Isn’t that interesting?

    • Litchfield
      August 23, 2019 at 15:28

      Who was that?
      When?
      I hadn’t heard of that?
      Where did you read or hear about this?

    • John Wright
      August 25, 2019 at 15:16

      The first of many, I’m afraid.

      The Mossad are masters at covering their tracks and/or misdirection.

      Be well.

  32. Maricata
    August 23, 2019 at 12:34

    I will post again. Indignation at failures might be suspect to some but rational criticism is justified. In fact, a lack of such is itself suspect.

  33. Bob In Portland
    August 23, 2019 at 12:32

    “Target” is the word. Franken was clearly an attempt by the Democratic leadership to push the party farther to the right. Better to have someone in the Senate to vote for wars and ignore social issues. This cleansing, on the surface, looked like a right-wing attack on Franken, check out the “complainants”. But who did the DNC back during the primaries? All sorts of veterans of the military-industrial complex, from the CIA through the military Buttigieg is Naval intelligence and worked in Afghanistan trying to track down the financing of the Taliban. Seems to me that the mystery of where the money’s coming from could be easily answered by asking the soldiers who are guarding the opium fields. In the 2018 Democratic primaries the DNC backed over fifty “former” intelligence/military/Department of State et al.

    Much of the suspicions about the Epstein case involve really high-end politicians, to include two Presidents. There are hints of Epstein’s connections to Mossad. That information is even more valuable to the CIA, who would rather embarrass someone out of office than kill them. Someone thought it was time to pull the plug on him, and it didn’t happen because of a sudden outrage by progressive women. Even Gloria Steinem, the woman chosen by the CIA to lead their faction of the feminist movement, is silent.

    And, of course, many iconic feminist groups depend on the financing of the powerful. Realpolitik. Compromise everybody.

  34. Maricata
    August 23, 2019 at 12:29

    Need we forget that our ‘military contractors’, like DynCorp have been found enslaving women in Kuwait, sexually raping them in Bosnia?

    Perhaps it is not that we forgot, perhaps it is that we never knew.

    https://www.mintpressnews.com/lawsuit-military-contractor-enslaved-american-employees-sewage-flooded-barracks-tent-cities/250994/

  35. Eddie
    August 23, 2019 at 12:21

    The Me Too movement was an identity politics scheme initiated by elite bourgeois women actresses and their wannabes. From its very beginning , these well-to-do so-called liberals in the Democratic party had no interest in the plight of working class women. The working class victims of the neighbors and the country-club set of the Me Too leadership did not fit into the desired profile of the rich and spoiled.

    Those on the roster of the status-seeking rich women do not have time for those who do not share their glamour and Beverly Hills addresses. Those who suffer the mundane and daily sexual harassment and outright sexual assault at their blue-color jobs just don’t fit in with “right” crowd to be worthy of the fake Me Too outrage.

  36. Clark M Shanahan
    August 23, 2019 at 11:47

    You said it so well, Mr Brenner
    Thanks,
    My disgust started with the DNC’s copyrighting the term “RESISTANCE”.
    I agree totally w/ML on MeToo being a reactionary movement.

    from an earlier comment I made on exclusionary politics:
    “What about that BS imbroglio over the Women’s March and Farrakhan…
    Should we have asked all Jewish participants to denounce apartheid Israel, before being allowed to take part..?”
    (the DNC retracted their $$$ at that time.)

  37. Pablo Diablo
    August 23, 2019 at 11:31

    HYPOCRISY? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

  38. joel
    August 23, 2019 at 11:17

    The list of names in Epstein’s black book reads like a who’s who of the political, media, finance, and entertainment establishment of the past thirty years. Virtually all of them are in there. The media and politicians do not want the public dwelling on the revelation that the neoliberal ruling elite is one big gang of child rapists.

    • August 23, 2019 at 15:43

      Isn’t it a little surprising that these who’s who’s didn’t know that their sexually deviant behavior wasn’t being recorded for the purposes of blackmail. And these are supposed to be the brightest the species has to offer.

      • lysias
        August 24, 2019 at 07:59

        Not surprising if being compromised was a necessary preliminary to their careers being advanced.

  39. August 23, 2019 at 11:17

    This only confirms what I suspected about the Me,Too movement from the very start – that it is not a genuine grassroots movement by women, but rather a political tool the “politically correct” Establishment party invented as a weapon to destroy powerful men of the Opposition.

  40. ML
    August 23, 2019 at 09:56

    It is about class. #Me too was a reactionary moment at its core- not a movement, a moment of the “better classes.” In one telling comment on a recent Consortium News Epstein article, a poster sited a Vanity Fair piece and claimed Lady Ghislaine had once called these poor girls “trash.” You know, throwaway children… so a waif on a street corner late at night or working in a spa gets trafficked and the bourgeoisie and the upper classes “don’t really care, do you?” (Melania’s jacket was a clue.) But a Hollywood starlet gets patted on her bum? The horrors. It’s about class- always has been, always will be. If the burgeoning underclass in their precarity doesn’t one day choose to rise up en masse, I will be disappointed. And I am prepared for disappointment.

  41. geeyp
    August 23, 2019 at 06:48

    True feminists have nothing to do with the fifteen minutes of fame #MeToo people. They are two completely different mindsets. True feminists have the righteous way of thinking regarding fairness and life.

    • Vida Galore
      August 23, 2019 at 12:52

      Bingo. Those are fauxfeminists or corporate feminists or just the upper class. I want nothing to do with their type of ‘feminism’. I’m a radical feminist all the way.

    • August 23, 2019 at 15:46

      True feminist? What does that mean?

  42. Ghost Ship
    August 23, 2019 at 06:11

    “we America, the last best hope of humankind”
    Nah, not really, the United States is just like any other country and the sooner USians realize this the better for everyone including USians.

    • John Wright
      August 26, 2019 at 14:24

      Agreed, but so many here have to believe that we are the “exceptional, indispensable country”, the “shining light on the hill”.

      And, the U.S. is armed to the teeth, so better keep buying those worthless dollars, or else!

      Be well.

  43. August 23, 2019 at 03:17

    #MeToo was silent against the Clintons whose past with Epstein and brought slavery back to Libya was a crime against humanity.

    Speaks volumes

  44. Zhu
    August 23, 2019 at 02:49

    We Americans kill on an industrial scale; why wouldn’t we F* ** on an industrial scale too? And the victims are all poor people.

  45. jsinton
    August 23, 2019 at 00:50

    The missing howls can be explained easily. The military-industrial-congressional-corporate-media complex does not wish them to be.

  46. LarcoMarco
    August 23, 2019 at 00:45

    It’s been a month and a half since Nancy Pelosi’s daughter said, “Quite likely, some of our faves are implicated.”

  47. robert e williamson jr
    August 22, 2019 at 23:42

    Professor Brenner’s choice of topic here is somewhat suspect as far as I can tell. Given his professional background I would expect him to focus on Jeff Epstein’s not so stellar career on Wall Street and the resulting melt down of the world economy after the subprime mortgage debacle. Those topics more aligned with his forte. But nothing on that.

    Instead he turns his focus to criticize the ME TOO movement and others, “Why no howling?”. He blew it, he seems to have made a pretty grievous error. I

    He flirts with discussing MOSSAD and CIA and their potential involvement in this story quickly moving on to provide a hot link to lend exposure to the extremely troubling history of Alan Dershowitz and his ties to Jeff Esptein.

    Chose the link and read the story. His effort here to me is puzzling, unless he sees this as him “howling”.

    If in fact Brenner is virtue signaling he has failed himself miserably. What he has submitted here seems to openly blame victims and their advocates and appears to be his attempt distance himself from “elite status”by naming a few caught up in this story. Given his profile at The Globalist:

    https://www.theglobalsist.com/contribtors/micheal-p-brenner/

    he seems to travel in some very elitist circles himself.

  48. paul wichmann
    August 22, 2019 at 22:59

    __ “I personally have no hypotheses to offer in way of explanation. The silence of the arch ‘feminist’ militants is a mystery to me.” __
    Perhaps you inadvertently offer half the answer:
    __ “By contrast, a Frankel or Keillor is a soft target.” __

    Maybe #MeToo had its fifteen minutes of fame and is now shot. Or should we tag it its fifteen minutes of pop credibility, or sufferability. Provisional official endorsement?
    Also, #MeToo arose in the atmosphere of no-drama Obama. The Age of Trump is starved of oxygen. It is bereft of good will toward men, compassion and conscience, an Age of tunnel-vision selfishness, hypocrisy, know-nothingness, deceit, chaos and lunacy. We’ve followed him into moral bankruptcy.
    In 2008 (Epstein’s first run-in with the law) our government excused and thus endorsed the sex trafficking of children. Now, with Epstein (for want of a definitive term) gone, the case is is closed. That Ghislaine Maxwell was known to be in Massachusetts, and then was spotted in LA at a burger joint, in broad daylight, silently screaming her impunity, our government is owning the sex trafficking of children. Hundreds of children were abused and ruined and forever haunted and our government rules it was worth it.

    Maybe the Hellish, outlandish, makes-no-sense character of the tale dictates that our reactions to it are necessarily inadequate and stilted.

    • paul wichmann
      August 23, 2019 at 08:10

      One more thing – Epstein’s victims were not celebrities.

    • Seamus Padraig
      August 23, 2019 at 13:20

      “Also, #MeToo arose in the atmosphere of no-drama Obama.”

      Not true. It started in 2017, well after Obama had left office: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement

      • Katherine
        August 23, 2019 at 15:36

        Right. It started IMO definitely as a “response” to Trump—the scare quos are there to indicate that that is kind of a facade story. I think the movement arose to try to tar Trump with the Weinstein poison. It was totally opportunistic. Its aim was to contribute to a poisonous atmosphere around Trump that would help weaken him and his presidency. And perhaps build up enough steam to lead to his impeachment. The silence of #MeToo in the face of disgusting crimes against girls and who know who others is indeed telling. I always thought the whole #MeToo and Pink Pussy things were a kind of PR ops. The way celebrities were used as both accusers and accused to create a judicial circus was disgusting. I am certainly totally turned off Meryl Streep at this point! Ugh.

      • paul wichmann
        August 23, 2019 at 15:49

        Thank you for the correction.

  49. Arthur
    August 22, 2019 at 22:37

    It is strange.

  50. Craig rudholm
    August 22, 2019 at 21:47

    It breaks my heart that the only comment is about the article rather than the issue addressed. Sexual predators, no matter their sex, economic or social stature, politics, nationality or racial background are heartless, soulless, vampires. Blood suckers. My guess is that it is just hard to admit we humans have a shadowy side, part of which is envy of those who appreciates to get away with it.

  51. Joe Tedesky
    August 22, 2019 at 21:35

    As we wait for the feminist to crush human trafficking we should not forget to cry out for Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning’s release from prison for they’re crime of telling the truth.

  52. jared
    August 22, 2019 at 21:18

    Excellent point. Glad to see at least one person making it.
    However, I understand the rhetorical excersize for purpose of driving point home but still author knows full weel the likely causes of silence.
    – Issue offers no certain political benfit diffucult to predict where it might lead.
    – Nobody wants to highlight the increasingly evident point that our law enforcement and intelligence services are corrupt and not focused on the inerests of the public.
    – Might result in some unpleasant things said about individuals and agencies associated with Israel.
    – The media is a propaganda tool, end of report. Read the Times if you are comforted by being embued in right-thinking.

  53. Gregory Herr
    August 22, 2019 at 20:33

    “Why have the howls of outrage not echoed through the media? Why has the trumpet’s call to action been silent? Why haven’t the halls of Congress resounded with denunciation and the demands for justice?”

    The monolithic, feckless “media” got the same memo Acosta did.
    “Congress” and conceptions of “justice” are as oil and water. And besides, they don’t f*** with the “well-connected”.

  54. Tom Kath
    August 22, 2019 at 20:26

    What a miserable piece of virtue signalling ! Mr Brenner writes as if he knows all the details of what his imagination has led him to conclude.
    Indignation at the failure of others is necessarily suspect.

    • Laura Mueller
      August 22, 2019 at 22:52

      Mr. Tom Kath, you demonstrate the Second Law of Silencing Dynamics in your comment accusing Mr Brenner of “virtue signaling” in this article, which raises questions over why the media is silent and no activist organizations are organizing responses over the sexual trafficking of children flown for at least twenty-five years on Epstein’s plane, where Bill Clinton made 26 trips according to flight manifests after these children and teens had been defrauded most recently by Ghislane Maxwell from such resorts as Mar-a-loco. You and your comment are obstructing justice and essential solutions to these continuing crimes against humanity.

      • Tom Kath
        August 24, 2019 at 00:20

        I have commented on this site numerous times my opinion that the REAL crimes of the intelligence agencies and their power is hidden, disregarded, and even condoned, by the “virtuous” indignation about specific sexual misconduct and even the inappropriate wealth of certain individuals.
        This obscene power could be exposed just as readily by focusing on the way different people are dealt with for double parking, tax evasion, speeding, or moving pigs without a permit. The inequality and “protection” would almost certainly be far more obvious there than by virtuously and indignantly protesting that we detest the idea of being wealthy or being interested in attractive young women.

    • August 23, 2019 at 03:58

      #MeToo ignoring the Clintons was a huge oversight indeed.

      Not only did they have to ignore the rape allegations but the abuse of an intern.

      They conflate rape with jokes and get people fired for making passes and accused Sanders of being complicit of actions outside of his domain and things he was completely unaware of?

      • AnneR
        August 23, 2019 at 08:33

        In my opinion, admittedly not worth the time taken to express it, Mr Brenner has raised a thought-provoking point. Where indeed is the pious Me Too lot. And as he indicates the vast majority in/of the Me Too “movement” were among the privileged, the bourgeoisie. So too the Me Too’s much heralded victims.

        But the victims of human trafficking (mainly for sex, though not always), whether children, adolescents, young adults – well, they’re clearly *not* from the same social class, not of the bourgeoisie. They and the treatment, abuse of them matter less, it would seem than straying hands on the backs, bums of adult females within the upper middle classes. Especially when that abuse is at the hands of someone from the bourgeoisie, particularly from that segment of the haute bourgeoisie within the ruling elites.

        The ruling elites (and CIA-Mossad) simply want this business buried so that the circus and the information flowing from it can continue through other means… Me Too has no interest, nothing to be gained from, no ax to grind in this affair – apparently. Which would seem to indicate that it was as shallow and spiteful as it appeared in the main.

        I’m not saying that sexual assault should ever be ignored, that females who are forced to submit to sex – rape, surely?- in order to work, continue working should not have justice. Indeed they should and the men who do such things should not only lose their jobs but also spend a nice lengthy time in a real prison. But Me Too seemed to be more about identity politics rather than really changing societal and police/court room attitudes toward rape and sexual assault.

        That such as Epstein was allowed, given the nod and wink, to carry on as he had and that the Me Too movement has so far been silent about the whole business does indeed suggest that the women involved in that so-called movement were had motives other than really wanting a big change in socio-cultural attitudes toward and about male-female relationships, interactions, conceptions of each other.

      • Maricata
        August 23, 2019 at 12:33

        I will post again. Indignation at failures might be suspect to some but rational criticism is justified. In fact, a lack of such is itself suspect.

      • Steve
        August 23, 2019 at 13:18

        The reason for MeToo disinterest is because they are a CIA controlled operation.

      • Seamus Padraig
        August 23, 2019 at 13:25

        “#MeToo ignoring the Clintons was a huge oversight indeed.”

        Yup. It was about as big an oversight as BLM giving Hillary “Super-predators” Clinton a pass during the 2016 campaign, while protesting against Bernie Sanders.

      • Bob In Portland
        August 23, 2019 at 18:17

        Whether or not Clinton abused Lewinsky is debatable, the question being consensuality, but what is clear is that there were intelligence operatives all around the case, which always points to others beyond the stage actors the public sees pulling the strings. Lucianne Goldberg has been trying to get dirt on Democratic presidents from 1960 on, when she tried to get close to JFK before settling for Johnson. In 1972 she worked for the North American Newspaper Alliance, a CIA front, looking for dirt in the McGovern campaign. Lewinsky’s “friend”, Linda Tripp, has a military intelligence background. It appears to me that the Lewinsky scandal was planned to happen.

        I suspect that Bill was easy to hook for Epstein’s operation.

    • August 23, 2019 at 12:31

      Tom Kath, the message I took from the article is that there are too many third rails that can be touched and there is not an attempt to find out the truth about possible widespread and heinous criminality. The way Epstein did jail time in the first instance should have touched the antennae of investigative journalists. Perhaps they will dig deeper but Mister Brenner is right to be suspicious. In fairness it is too early to starting pointing fingers but it is probable that what we know will be as far as it goes..

    • Maricata
      August 23, 2019 at 12:32

      Indignation at the failure of others might be suspect, but not rational criticism. In fact, lack of rational critique is what is suspect.

  55. CitizenOne
    August 22, 2019 at 19:55

    Here is a mind bending fact. The sin of omission is the greatest sin the media commits all day long.

    You could go on and on about it.

    Where are the howls about impending doom with global warming threatening to decimate life on Earth?
    Where are the howls over the Supreme Court Rulings that threw campaign finance limits out the window?
    Same for Net Neutrality
    Same for international comparisons of health care costs.
    Same for alternative theories about the US foreign policy that has been wrong about intelligence every time but we never look back.
    Where are those ethics committees in the Capital who make sure everything is being conducted appropriately. Do we really believe there is no corruption?
    What about oil companies that hid information about global warming
    Ever heard of the Carlyle Group and its relationship with nations as the biggest weapons dealer?
    Does anyone really know the scope of Cambridge Analytica and why they got just slapped and mentioned for a week then they were allowed to slip into oblivion.
    How about Operation Hemisphere?
    Why is black box voting not an issue and why were republicans so quick to protect it and kill paper ballots?

    The answer is they are getting away with all this stuff because they own the microphone. Kind of odd that all the investigation into the case of this or that is always some local channel or independent organization like this one.

    If you have absolutely no clue why all this is not being shouted from the highest rooftops the answer is it is but you will never know that.

    In 2003 I saw it with my own eyes and the founder of this website founded it as a venue where the truth could be told. Not madness, disinformation or no information but the real story. Robert Parry left Washington “Journalism” after he saw a coalescing group think during the Iran Contra hearings as a group think settled in Washington and all journalists that were not on point felt the sharp end of it. At the end Bob had shown a great amount of evidence that CIA Chief Bush met with Iranian officials in the fall of 1979 and arrangements were made to prolong the captivity of the hostages until after the election.

    The fact that the hostages were released to the exact minute that Reagan was sworn in was a gift from the Iranians but not one paper asked one question. When the Iran Contra hearings got close to figuring out that the arms for money to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua went way back and it was becoming clear that the president and vice president might be involved both democrats and republicans on the hearing abruptly shut it down without reason.

    You might ask yourself then “Where is the public outcry”. Well my own state of mind at the time told me that what just happened was obviously not just a coincidence and the lame story that the Iranians waited until the minute that Reagan was sworn in because they were afraid of him was a total pile of dung. Why would the Iranians want in such a highly visible way for all to see their capitulation to Reagan and show the World their fear. But that’s the story they ran with and soon all was forgotten.

    If you still do not have a clue then you should read the many excellent articles in the archives of Robert Parry and his quests to uncover the truth and tell the stories that official Washington just refused to do.

    • Lola
      August 24, 2019 at 08:41

      Agree with you, it is not good

    • SRH
      August 25, 2019 at 04:52

      Pretty much your entire list of things supposedly ignored have been extensively covered in many media outlets, including The Guardian which had the Cambridge Analytica scandal on its front page.

Comments are closed.