This Isn't Justice

There is nothing good in Jeffrey Epstein's death. Despite the fact that for many of us, there may seem to be some justice in it. In this case, truth loses out, and as twisted and sick as Epstein was, we end up being more sick and twisted because of his death. Collectively, we lose as a society and the probably hundreds of victims who have yet to step forward lose individually as well. 

The kind of "ultra spiritual" notion that everyone deserves understanding and forgiveness isn't even the reason to look at it this way. More often than not, as inspiring or as respectable as that sentiment might be, it doesn't square with everyday living. The lack of the ability to reach such a spiritual plateau just becomes another excuse for us to lash ourselves with our failure to meet a standard which is nearly impossible, and frankly, our daily lives leave us without any of the necessary resources to be able to really cultivate. Anger is extremely human. What it shouldn't be is an excuse not to seek actual justice, for the community and/or society or for victims. 

Epstein's death solves nothing. It just exacerbates problems we already have. With the news of his death just getting around, the conspiracy theories are already beginning to whirl through the atmosphere. His death is going to be the foundation for an entire army of new conspiracy theories. No matter what other evidence comes out now, other than pictures of some wealthy, high powered member of the elite being caught on video strangling Epstein in his cell, the machine is not going to stop. 

One of the things the Democratic Party leadership and their operatives have consistently been misreading or ignoring publicly, has been the lack of trust in our institutions, the abject suspicion toward the wealthy and powerful. The Republican Party doesn't just understand it, they're partly responsible for it and they have been manipulating and massaging it expertly for decades. To assume this is just a phenomenon among the Republican voter base or even just among the more broad conservative movement is a failure created by the exact privilege so many people have come to be suspicious or outright hostile toward. It's this exact sentiment which drives the lack of participation in even the simplest tools of government, democracy and society generally. "It's all so corrupt, nothing any of us could do will change it." 

Epstein's death just deepens that chasm. Combine the facts that he hobnobbed and entertained for some of the most wealthy and powerful people on the planet, without respect for political party, nation of origin or the like, with the history of very powerful and wealthy people going to absurd and extreme lengths to protect their power and wealth, the idea that there may have been a conspiracy to murder Epstein isn't so absurd as to be unbelievable. It's quite clear we live in a world where the wealthy and the powerful will cause shocking amounts of carnage to expand their grasp. US history alone is littered with examples. The war in Iraq and WMD. COINTELPRO. The murder of Fred Hampton. The Iran/Contra scandal. The CIA importing cocaine into Los Angeles. The Gulf of Tonkin. These aren't the creations of wild imaginations or hallucinatory exclamations. They're documented and accepted actions taken by people in positions of great power.  

Let's also be clear that it is no less believable that a man like Epstein who had gone to incredible lengths to secure a position among the most elite in the world would commit suicide instead of having to answer for precisely the lengths he went to. He was facing a very long sentence, and there was no way the same system which afforded him that status could continue to protect him by putting him in some facility where he wasn't going to be at the mercy of some violent and domination hungry men. That he would commit suicide isn't out of the question, and if the news about "correctional facilities" has told us anything in the last few years, it's that the well being of the people being housed in them isn't their top priority. 

As wild, improbable, downright absurd and ridiculous as so many of these conspiracies are, they exist because the behavior of our institutions and elites over the time the US has existed, in no way precludes the possibility that conspiracy to do terrible things is beyond their capabilities. To suggest otherwise is to be at least as out of touch with reality as many of the actual conspiracy theories are. 

Now, at a point when society's suspicions are being further manipulated by entities both foreign and domestic, with the specific intent of foreign entities being the chaotic results brought on by a deep suspicion of government and it's institutions, and the intent of the domestic entities being to create a motivated and dedicated fascist revolutionary force, Epstein is dead, and both of those endeavors are given potent fuel for the fire they've been tending for a decade or more. 

Not only does it just leave extremely fertile ground for more of the conspiracy theories to take root and for the communities grown around the already existing theories to further bloom, it denies the kind of real accounting which would be a boon in preventing them. 

Instead of an accounting of the depth and breadth of the criminal enterprise Epstein was running, and who among the worlds elite could be connected to it by evidence or from Epstein's own admissions, there is now instead a void. Instead of proof that a global criminal enterprise is  not beyond the reach of accountability, there is just an empty space into which further distrust and further misinformation will be constantly dumped. 

A prosecution and possible trial of Jeffrey Epstein provided some ray of hope in attempting to be able to instill some faith in something other than chaos, greed and sadism. At this point, given what we do know about Epstein and the allegations which have come from the civil suit brought against him by a victim, it certainly seems he was able to basically run a criminal conspiracy for a very long time. It certainly seems that even when he was on the verge of being held accountable for having done so, he was afforded not just preferential treatment, but practically a rescue by Alex Acosta. 

All of this leaves out the girls and women victimized by Epstein's criminal conspiracy as well. There is no action which could be provided to have made them whole. From what we know so far, the depth of the depravity they were subjected to can't be healed by either throwing money at it (though money can definitely give them options for how they attempt to heal and what other stresses they may face while attempting to do so) or by the eye for an eye logic of criminal punishment. 

What could best have been done for them was to have the wrongs done to them acknowledged and to have anyone who participated held accountable in a public forum. To have their worth publicly acknowledged in a way that says they were harmed in a way they aren't responsible for, and that there was a failure of those same institutions which we're losing faith in to protect them, would have been the most useful thing we could have afforded them. 

At the end of the day, that's what justice is, the establishment of recognition and balance among the members of a community or society. A recognition of the worth of the individual and the worth of the harmony of the collective. The victims deserve to be recognized by a society which created the conditions which allowed their worth to be dictated by an individual because of it's existing imbalances. That wrong needs to be recognized. 

It also needs to be recognized that the same imbalance is what is driving the suspicion and distrust which is being manipulated to catastrophic ends at this point. The chasm created by the imbalance and inequality, the emptiness that is that suspicion is being manipulated by hucksters promising racism will fill it, misogyny will fill it, sadism will fill it, xenophobia will fill it, and ultimately that the only way to not be victim to that imbalance and inequality is to become one of its purveyors. 

It's those hucksters and those ineffective ideologies which gain from the death of Jeffrey Epstein. It's from them we get the instinct that even the best and most well intentioned among us have, that it's good he's dead. It's the kind of simplistic solution we've been told will give us an answer to the fears and anxieties created by our suspicion and the well earned distrust of our institutions and social norms. We didn't need Jeffrey Epstein to live because he deserved it. We needed Epstein to live because of what we needed from the rest of his life. This is the difference between punishment and justice. Epstein had certainly forfeit any other worth to his life, but there was still worth in the accounting he could provide and the justice his victims and society deserve. 

It would behoove all of us who are interested in and who crave a society which can recognize justice as the understanding of the worth of the both the individual and a loving community to take Epstein, in life and now in death as well, as a failure to take advantage of the opportunity to make it real and alive. Punishment is focused on, and only deals with the person or entity who has done wrong. Justice and accountability are informed by the needs of the community/society and the victims. Epstein escaped all of that. 

As terrible as Epstein was, this is the worst possible outcome for everyone other than Epstein and whoever may have been involved in his criminal enterprise.