Sorry, it was 3 parts! Definitely do not rescue the original one - it probably also had some links remaining!
I want to let this percolate before I comment on some of the comments others have made here. But for now, it's important for me to say that I completely agree this:
At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster menThe other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!” The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
Patriarchy holds both the explanation and the remedy for the Epstein scandals and yet is almost never brought up in Epstein discussions.
Instead again and again we talk about how we could better punish rape instead of how we could prevent it.
Here’s a chart from a recent Reuter’s poll showing people’s concerns about the Epstein files:
69% of Americans said that the files show that powerful people are rarely held accountable. 53% of Americans said that the files have lowered their trust in political and business leaders.
All valid concerns. But how many said that the files show that we have a big problem with gender inequality, male entitlement or patriarchy?
I don’t know, they were not asked. Those things never seem to be brought up.
(I do know that 22% of American men said they believe that gender inequality doesn’t really exist, and a third of American men believe feminism is making things worse.)
And again, let me be clear that powerful people not being held accountable is certainly a problem worth discussing.
But when patriarchy is never brought up when we are discussing how to prevent massive sexual abuse epidemics???
THAT’S A PROBLEM!
That ensures we keep whacking weeds (things that make rape easier), without ever whacking the root of rape itself (patriarchy).
To quote that UN report: “Violence against women is a global pandemic: Between 15 and 76 per cent of women experience it at some point in their lifetime. Violence against women is deeply rooted in discrimination and inequality between men and women. Ending it requires investments in women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in education, reproductive health and rights, and economic and political empowerment.”
So that’s how to prevent violence against women, but guess how often women’s educational, financial, political and reproductive equality come up as either solutions to or explanations for the Epstein files?
Poke around the major news stories and see for yourself (but I have some bad news for you). But there are some people pointing to patriarchy
I’m three days into writing this article, and this afternoon I decided to poke around Substack to see what people are writing about the Epstein files.
And lo and behold, I quickly discovered I am not the only person asking, “why the hell are we not talking about patriarchy when we talk about Epstein?”
I actually had to laugh that I thought I had an original observation while reading the news because it turns out lots of other women noticed the exact same omission and wrote about it:
Jude Doyle wrote an article called, “You know You Can Just Say ‘Patriarchy’: These analyses of the Epstein case are… missing something.”
Linda Caroll wrote, “Everyone wants to know which people were so despicable that they raped little girls. So many little girls. Over 1200…You want to know who the men are that abused little children? Look around you.”
Liz Plank wrote, “what’s landing so hard is realizing we weren’t exaggerating patriarchy’s harm at all, in fact we were underestimating it…”
Kara Post-Kennedy at The Good Men Project wrote, “One of the big problems we are having as a society right now is the way the Epstein files are being handled (or ignored). It isn’t just that we are not actively investigating and prosecuting the men who were involved in this criminal and abhorrent and abusive enterprise. It is the framing of this criminal, abhorrent and abusive behavior as “other”. As the outlier behavior of some spoiled rich jerks who ran out of other things to amuse themselves with. Not something that regula’ folk need trouble themselves with at all.”
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD wrote, “Epstein is the patriarchy’s logical conclusion. We do ourselves a disservice when we call Epstein and his ilk monsters or a bizarre glitch of elite decadence.”
Kristen Shelt said, “All men does not mean all men rape or assault or harm women, it means all men are raised inside the same system that teaches male entitlement… And that conditioning exists whether or not its acted on… Every man who is raised in patriarchy is handed the same basic operating system.”
Lane Anderson of Matriarchy Report wrote “the Epstein files peel back the mask of American patriarchal power structures.” “For 249 years, she argues, we’ve celebrated that a nation that left women and girls outside of the definition of humanity, and erased us. What we are experiencing now is the logical conclusion of that legacy.”
Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei say, “The files are telling us what we already know: the conspiracy of patriarchy. Sexual violence isn’t just a problem of the global elite.”
Women of Substack are linking patriarchy with the Epstein files.
Unfortunately, women of Substack are not oft asked to chime in on global conversations.
Academics and experts on wealth and corruption are given quotes in those mainstream articles above. They are regularly consulted to explain this whole how-billionaires-get-away-with-rape phenomenon.
Academics and experts on patriarchy on the other hand? Well, usually they are called crazy bitches and their writings relegated to thought pieces read almost exclusively by other women.
Why men rape seems to be a niche topic of interest reserved for women.
Why men do or don’t get caught raping however, now that’s a universal interest. Call in the experts. It’s time to choke out the root
Jonah Mix’s excellent quote on pornography comes to mind here: “I’m not interested in a world where men really want to watch porn but resist because they’ve been shamed. I’m interested in a world where men are raised from birth with such an unshakable understanding of women as living human beings that they’re incapable of being aroused by their exploitation.” - Jonah Mix
Yessssss Jonah! Preach!
I’m not interested in a world where men want to rape, but don’t because they aren’t super wealthy and powerful.
I’m not interested in a world where the only thing keeping men from raping is not having an elite cabal to keep their secrets.
I’m interested in a world where MEN DON’T WANT TO RAPE FULL STOP!!
I’m interested in a world where men are not aroused by the exploitation of women.
I’m interested in a world where a man’s sense of worth has nothing whatsoever to do with domination.
But if we keep only talking about all the things that make rape easier (money, power, elite networks, anonymity) and never talk about the things that actually cause the desire to rape in the first place (entitlement, domination, patriarchy), then we will continue on our insane, unending weed whacking quest without ever pulling up the root.
The 90+ men who raped Gisele Pelicot were not billionaires.
They were nurses, teachers, firefighters, fathers, grandfathers, councillors, farm workers.
We cannot blame money or elite networks for what they did.
However, we can ask what exactly is the seed that was planted in these average men that would make them want to rape a woman when an opportunity presented itself?
For it’s the same seed that was planted in Epstein. In Bill Clinton, P. Diddy, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and so very many others.
Different elements may have enabled the different rapes, but something they all had in common was the desire to rape. At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster men
The other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!”
The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
Rather, the world we live in seems to plant a seed in the minds of men, that when watered with enough power, opportunity or anonymity this seed so very, very often blooms into rape.
Not every seed blooms into a weed. Not every man rapes. But they all exist in the same fertile soil for it to be possible.
Believing that rapists are monsterous, abnormal, one-off bad apples keeps us relentlessly weed-whacking these “abnormalities” instead of ever digging up the root and making the soil less conducive to weeds.
What was planted in little Bill Gates’s mind that lie dormant until one day when watered with enough power, money and impunity would cause him to befriend a pedophile, cheat on his wife and then secretly give his wife STD medication so she wouldn’t know (allegedly)?
If you trace it to its root— before the 3400+ mentions in the Epstein files— what was the seed planted in little Deepak Chopra’s mind or heart that when eventually watered with status, money and anonymity would cause him to invite a pedophile on a trip and say “bring your girls”?
What is it that was planted in the minds and hearts of that firefighter, teacher and nurse in Mazan, France that when told of the opportunity to rape a drugged woman online they would drive right over and do it?
What is the root of the weed? Let’s start with what it’s not.
Because I know someone is about to chime in that men want to rape because they are just naturally sexual and aggressive. Nothing to be done, it’s just biology. Testosterone makes men want to rape. Sorry.
Let’s address that from the jump.2
If testosterone were the cause of rape, then men with higher levels of testosterone would rape more than men with low levels.
But scientists have measured testosterone levels and disproven this theory.
The National Library of Medicine found that sex offenders do not have higher testosterone than non-sex offenders.
Trans men who increase their testosterone do not become more abusive or start raping.
When scientists decreased the testosterone in domestic violence perpetrators they did not find it to be an effective solution to curbing the abusers’ behavior.
But do you know what they did find was effective in curbing domestic abusers’ behavior?
“Changing their deeply held beliefs about their sense of entitlement.”
(Now we are getting to the root of things.)
If men can’t help the urge to rape because of their biology, then rape statistics would hold steady across all cultures, but that is not true at all.
And what makes the difference between cultures with higher rates of sexual abuse and those with lower?
The World Health Organization has concluded that “Violence against women is rooted in and perpetuated by gender inequalities.”
The UN also came out with a report linking rape with gender inequality that said, “As gender equality improves, the prevalence of violence against women is lower… This is borne out for both physical and sexual forms of abuse. As seen in the graph, countries with greater equality between women and men have lower levels of violence against women.”
A CDC report studying US States found the exact same thing: “States with a high degree of gender inequality also report higher prevalence estimates among women for completed or attempted rape using physical force.”
Now we are digging at the root. What other factors have scientists found leads to sexual assault? “Evidence suggests that it is not innate aggression that makes men violent, but the internalized belief that they fall short of society’s perceived standards for masculinity. Psychologists call this phenomenon, “masculine discrepancy stress” and research shows that the more acutely a man suffers from this, the more likely he is to commit almost every type of violence, including sexual assault, intimate partner violence and assault with a weapon.” - Ruth Whippman
Ah yes masculinity - that North Star our society hands men that says the worst thing you can do isn’t cruelty, the worst thing you can do is act like a girl.
Ok. So entitlement, gender inequality and masculine discrepancy stress4 have all been correlated with rape.
If only we had a name for this… And what is this system called that perpetuates gender inequality, and dominance and entitlement among men?
Patriarchy.
The word for that system is called patriarchy.
If you could zoom in on that seed planted in those boys who would eventually become men who rape—that seed would be labeled “patriarchy.”
Where being emasculated is far more embarrassing and destabilizing than being immoral.
The Epstein rapes were aided by money, elite networks and institutional corruption, but at their core, they are explained by patriarchy.
Perhaps you are thinking, well duh, that’s obvious.
I think so too.
And yet guess how many times the word patriarchy is used in those 12 articles up there? The ones where the New York Times, the BBC, PBS and TIME try to explain the Epstein files?
Zero.
Zero times.
Ok fine, but patriarchy is an unpopular word. Guess how many times gender inequality comes up?
Also zero!
OK, by complete coincidence this landed in my inbox from someone whose substack I don't subscribe to. It says a lot of important things, most of which I agree with, so I have tried to eliminate the hundreds of links, and am going to post it in two parts hoping that’s good enough to get it through (when I tried to post the whole thing, it went into moderation - if this works, please don't rescue it):
Part One There is one word that explains how so many men can be in the Epstein files. So why is no one saying it?
We talk endlessly about the factors that make rape easier, but never about the factors that cause rape in the first place.
Celeste Davis
Feb 22, 2026
Unless you’ve been enjoying life under a rock, the past few weeks have likely involved a relentless scroll of names once spoken with reverence now tied to the words “Epstein files.”
The list of people wheeling and dealing with Epstein after he went to jail for pedophilia is mind-numbing:
alleged STD medications for Bill Gates,
spiritual leader Deepak Chopra texting, “God is a construct. Cute girls are real,”
respected physician Peter Attia’s name appearing 1700 times,
pay outs to linguist Noam Chomsky,
liaisons with British royalty, Israeli Prime Minister, Russian officials, numerous US senators and of course US Presidents.
No sector of society is safe.
Leaders from each and every one of the institutions that run our world—politics, business, tech, academia, wellness, philanthropy, entertainment, spirituality—are all over these files.
It’s gross. It’s everywhere. It’s destabilizing.
Leaving us asking… how? How could this happen? How could so many people let this happen? In plain sight? For so long?
Mainstream media is focused on four answers: 1. Wealth
The New York Times: HOW JPMORGAN ENABLED THE CRIMES OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN
Real News Network: JEFFREY EPSTEIN: HOW WEALTH PROTECTED AMERICA’S WORST CHILD SEX CRIMINAL
The New York Times: ‘GANG STUFF’ AND ‘ILLICIT TRYSTS’: HOW EPSTEIN SOUGHT LEVERAGE WITH THE WEALTHY
BBC: BILLIONAIRE LES WEXNER TELLS US LAW MAKERS HE WAS CONNED BY EPSTEIN
A deep frustration has arisen within me around the press and discussions around the Epstein files.
The bulk of the attention is converged around figuring out who and what exactly enabled Epstein’s rampant sexual abuse—wealth, elite networks, institutional failure and blackmail.
Everyone is asking how did these men get away with so much rape?
No one is asking what would cause so many to want to rape so much in the first place?
It’s as if the Epstein files have exposed an entire field being taken over by noxious weeds—miles and miles of weeds—and then instead of digging to the root to eradicate the weeds’ seed, we are hyper-focused on what exact water and fertilizer enabled the weeds to grow so high.
We’re acting as if weeds/rapists are just a given. Well, of course men want to rape! It’s just most men can’t rape because there are rules, but the rules don’t apply to billionaries so they get to rape. The problem isn’t the rape, it’s that billionairescan get away with rape.
I’m sorry what?
Why aren’t we talking about why so many men when given power continually choose to use that power to rape women?
WHY AREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT THAT?!
Money and corrupt elite networks of billionaires are certainly not off the hook here. Those are important conversations to have.
But while money may have enabled Epstein’s sexual abuse, it didn’t create it.
One in four women have experienced sexual abuse. Billionaires seem to do a lot of raping, but they can’t do THAT much raping.
This week I came across the following Substack note from Melina Magdelenat about the Gisele Pelicot trials where 90 men in a small French town raped one woman, and thought, oh this needs to be brought into the Epstein files discourse immediately.
Here’s what Magdelenat said: “There’s an interaction I think back to every time we are collectively confronted with the utterly habitual nature of male violence against women. It was at a conference a year or so ago by Le Monde journalist Lorraine de Foucher, who won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the porn industry, child prostitution and sex trafficking in France. The Pelicot trials came up during the Q&A, and a seventy-something man in the front row timidly raised his hand. You could tell he was carefully phrasing his question and choosing his words as he was saying them. He said: « So, let me get this right. In the fairly small town of Mazan, Dominique Pélicot easily found 90+ men willing to rape his wife while she was drugged and unconscious. Hundreds more saw the messages on the forum and not one decided to tell the police about it. » At that point, a lot of us were kind of bracing for either a dismissal of the facts, or some convoluted explanation for how those men were unique. But no. He continued: « So, does that mean that in every town, every village in our country, there are just as many men willing to rape an unconscious woman? » Lorraine de Foucher replied, « Yes. » « But then that means that there are thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands! » (You could hear at that point the wheels turning in his head). « Yes », she nodded again. « But… that’s abominable! It’s a catastrophe! It’s a national emergency! » « …… Yes. It is. » - Melina Magdelenat
Yes. It is.
Tina Brown on Mandelson's arrest, Prince Andrew, the US Epstein situation etc:
The Erstwhile Ambassador, the Fallen Prince, and the U.S. Epstein Morass
Tina Brown
Feb 23, 2026
The stunning arrest of the former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson will produce a blast radius in the UK that may be even bigger than Jeffrey Epstein’s. If you are drowned by the volume of the Epstein emails, just wait for the leaking of all the Mandy memorabilia, which will undoubtedly include revelations and scuttlebutt from 30 years at the beating heart of British politics. There is no one Mandelson hasn’t advised, conspired with, gossiped with, and, god help us, texted with in his high-flying life as a political homme du monde as much at home on oligarchs’ boats as at dinner parties at Chequers and 3100 Massachusetts Avenue.
The strategic architect of Tony Blair’s new Labour was dubbed the Prince of Darkness for his sinuous skills as a media spinmaster. He’s been up and he’s been down, but up to now, he’s never been out, and may not be yet as the charge of misconduct in public office is notoriously knotty to prove. Before he was sacked as ambassador last September, Lord Mandelson was forced to resign twice from cabinet positions: for failing to disclose an improper loan in 1998, and again, three years later, for helping a wealthy Indian donor to the Millennium Dome get a British passport. He kicked up more dust in 2005 when, as EU trade minister (admittedly, the world’s most boring job), he flew from Davos to Siberia with his friend Nat Rothschild to join the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska for a banya sauna session. Inappropriate was Peter’s middle name. But he always surfed back because the depth of his strategic know-how was unrivaled. It kept him relevant among power elites who valued his acerbic expertise. Even PM Gordon Brown, who hated him, gave him the post of business secretary. Brown is now incandescent at how casually Mandelson, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, was allegedly leaking real-time, market-moving information from their private meetings to Epstein.
It was considered a risky move in late 2024 for the usually excruciatingly cautious current Labour PM Keir Starmer handed Mandelson the prized diplomatic post of representing the UK as His Majesty’s ambassador to the US. It’s amazing now to think that Mandelson, then running a lucrative advisory agency, was in such cocksure form that he was simultaneously lobbying to be Chancellor of Oxford (he lost out to former Tory leader William Hague), and even had the nerve to think he could serve as both ambassador and chancellor. The outgoing US ambassador Dame Karen Pierce argued strenuously against choosing Mandelson to succeed her, but there was logic to the appointment that few want to recognize now. As a longtime appreciator of Peter’s gifts, I thought it was somewhat brilliant myself. It was precisely because of Mandelson’s iffy ethics and affection for money—he famously said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”—as much as his sophisticated understanding of global trade, that the Prince of Darkness was seen as such an excellent fit for Trump-era Washington. And indeed he was. In his brief seven months in the post, he navigated the minefield of Trump tariff threats, closed a long-sought UK/US foreign trade agreement, and unexpectedly struck up a useful rapport with JD Vance. Mandelson was an instant star host at that most glamorous of embassies, with his urbane younger Brazilian husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, and his endearing “ambassadog,” the border collie Jock. I had tea with Mandelson in London after he was ejected as ambassador, and found him wounded but resilient, focused—I thought unrealistically—on finding a foreign benefactor who needed steerage through the corridors of power. But when the second Epstein tranche revealed Mandelson’s apparent breaches of official confidence, his loyal circle was properly gobsmacked. Bad judgment to maintain his friendship with Epstein, yes. But the whiff of semi-treasonous information sharing? Whoa! And for what? To prove his worth to the most worthless man on the planet?
Mandelson’s arrest was the second news meteor to hit British national life in a row, after last week’s historic apprehension of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The iconic news shot of Andrew slumped in the back of the Range Rover, with an expression of traumatized panic after a day in a police cell, gave the British public something that Americans are thirsty to see: a legal reckoning. After years of palace dithering and the murky 2022 payoff of Virginia Giuffre authorized by his protective mother, King Charles’s statement that “the law must take its course” made him look morally impeccable and decisive. It felt good, didn’t it, to see Andrew’s thick hide of royal prerogative finally being ripped away, his veil of ultimate privilege pierced at last. And it was gratifying that the photographer who caught the shot that was splashed on every front page in the world was the unpretentious Reuters journeyman Phil Noble, who, on a tip from a colleague, had driven six hours to Norfolk and raced to the unexpected location of Aylsham police station, where he caught the just-exiting car of Andrew’s security detail, pointed his camera at the back seat, and got the news moment of the year. In case there is anyone deluded enough to feel sympathy for Andrew, I submit the anecdotePaul Page, Andrew’s onetime royal protection officer, told in a 2022 documentary. When a random party girl not listed on the official log showed up at the palace to visit Andrew and was asked to wait for security clearance, the portly prince apparently blasted one of the guards on the phone as a “fat, lardy-assed c–t,” for not letting her through. Whether or not Queen Elizabeth’s epically dreadful second son ends up in the clink, Phil Noble’s picture was a thrilling karmic win for the people versus Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Double Jeopardy The two stunning arrests in the UK have cut through the endless inconclusiveness of the DOJ morass on the US side of the Atlantic. It’d be pretty incredible if, after all the sleaze oozing out from the Epstein files, the only judicial scalps are a hapless royal buffoon and a woefully heedless British ambassador. Over here, fourteen elite leaders, from Wall Street titans to celebrity scholars and white-shoe lawyers, have been shamed and cast into professional purgatory, but no one yet has been arrested, except the pixie-haired society pimp with the cut-glass British accent awaiting Trump’s pardon in the Bryan federal prison camp in Texas.
Perhaps the contents of the just-discovered six storage units Epstein owned across the US will give us something more tangible than a sinkhole of reputations. Thanks to enterprising Telegraph reporterswho noted payments to the locker companies on Epstein’s credit card bills in the files, we can now expect the rotting effluvia from all the stashed hard drives, computers, and photographs, hidden by Epstein’s private detectives from the FBI raids on his multiple mansions. Remember when he told the 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre, “I own the Palm Beach police department”? It was easy for him to be tipped off that a law enforcement sweep was coming. Perhaps the only time Epstein told the truth was in his answer to Steve Bannon’s startling question, “Do you think you’re the devil himself?” With his customary Cupid bow smirk, Epstein replied, “No, but I do have a good mirror.”
Maybe Epstein was the mirror himself. But his reflection gave an x-ray of other people’s moral weakness. In a society built on credit and credibility, a single evil actor who grasps the fallibility of his fellows can entangle all.
novakant, I'm saying that older men wanted to sleep with young girls (newsflash: very many still do), and if they were anywhere in life which facilitated that they took full advantage (cults, the music business, rock bands, revolutionary groups which attracted idealistic young people who were easy to manipulate, etc etc). And they regularly expounded on how it was the natural order of things, as many rich and powerful men still do today (you'd be amazed how often I have been given this talk in my life, and not only when I was young but also as an explanation of the "sense" it makes in evolutionary and biological terms). They don't, however, always treat the girls as disposable products like Epstein did.
The representation of this power dynamic was everywhere, in music, in literature, in films, in history lessons, in politics, and on and on -everywhere. And to a considerably lesser extent, it still is. Hartmut's quotation made me smile in recognition, it was so on the money. I'd be surprised if Chomsky wasn't steeped in it; almost everybody was in those days, even (and maybe especially in some ways) the counter-culture, the revolutionary groups, "free thinkers", "non-conformists", controversial academics etc etc.
If, as it seems, all of the regular male participants on ObWi find this a foreign concept, it makes them a rather unusual group. Who knows about the lurkers, however.
novakant, I don't know how old you are, andI don't know for sure, but I think you might not be a woman. If so, that is significant.
As for the "elite" aspect, it's possible there was some of that in it, since many (but not all) of those lefty revolutionaries of the 60s did come from very comfortable backgrounds. But I think it was absolutely baked into the culture, as many films and books suggest, and going back much further than the 60s of course. And women were heavily influenced by it too, in a kind of false consciousness. I brought that particular period up because of Chomsky, and because (as lots of first wave feminists can attest) men who were otherwise very aware of different types of exploitation showed a lack of insight into the oppression of women, and the power of the patriarchy. Misogyny, like anti-semitism, is always with us, and although nowadays considerable disparity in age and power is frowned on, today's variety is just as (or more) toxic, as this anonymous piece by a teenager in today's Guardian illustrates:
wj, thank you. I see that I am (at least theoretically) out of step with some of the people here. I say theoretically because once, in a diplomatic setting, I let it be known that I should not be introduced to William Kennedy Smith (whose mother was US ambassador to Ireland at the time) because I would not shake his hand.
But my opinion on the Chomsky comment is that it does not reveal or imply his view of the actions of the relevant people, although calling them "major war criminals" admits their guilt and its scale. Nor do we know in what circumstances he met them, whether he sought the meeting, knew in advance he was meeting them, or anything else. It is quite easy to imagine he might have met Kissinger, for example. And saying he doesn't regret meeting them says nothing about his view of them, it says something about him, and not even that he is "comfortable spending time with the scum of the earth". I take it to mean that in his view meeting them did not imply approval of them, and that he does not subscribe to the idea that meeting evil people involves the risk of moral contamination. If he had shared a platform with them I would view it somewhat differently, and if he had been friends with them (as he was with Epstein) different again.
We know much more about his relationship with Epstein.
Being friends with Epstein after his first conviction and sentence is another matter, but one that is not entirely surprising to me in view of the fact that Chomsky is a) elderly and b) a man. It's quite possible he didn't know all the details, and didn't think it necessary to find them out. In my experience, including with very left wing men around in e.g. les evenements in 1968, or in the US the Days of Rage, many or most would see nothing remotely reprehensible about adult men sleeping with teenage girls. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that they might have seen it as the right and proper way of the world.
If this does not apply to the right-on (as we used to say) men of ObWi, so much the more impressive. But for anyone who was a woman or a teenage girl in the 60s it is a truism.
I tend to think that these problems are often defined as sexism or racism, but the underlying issue is the ability to rationalize.
lj, I think your point about rationalisation is a good and important one. It enables people that way talented and inclined to make a logical case for their behaviour or opinions. But I think that this is in the service of their urges, or their instincts, which can indeed be racist or sexist.
On the Chomsky remark you quote, I think it is ambiguous. For example, saying he has no regrets about meeting war criminals does not to me imply any endorsement of their actions. It might mean that he has learnt something about their character and motivation which is useful for understanding how such people come to do what they have done, or got into the positions of power they reached. It could be to do with psychological, sociological or criminological understanding. And of course, it also displays a lack of concern for how it makes him look, which is not in itself a bad thing. Distaste or disgust at being known to have met someone terrible is not necessarily a sign of virtue.
Further to my comment about Trump's back and forth about the Chagos deal, there have been reports in various papers that his latest condemnation of it was because Starmer refused permission for the US to launch an attack on Iran from Diego Garcia.
And today, there are reports in the Times about Politico reporting that both BoJo and Liz Truss have been lobbying Trump against the Chagos deal very recently.
O brave new world, that has such leaders (and past leaders) in't.
novakant, I'm also very sympathetic to what you say. And for clarity's sake, although I often examine this kind of stuff for its effect on women, it is very clear that the kinds of men who can get away with it also take sexual advantage of any group that suits their taste, including children, boys and other men.
But the question of whether to judge such behaviour by today's standards, or the standards of another time, is a different and difficult one. It may, for example, have been acceptable/legal until recently to rape your wife, but if she was trying to resist and in distress that still entails a kind of lack of empathy for the suffering of a fellow human that makes it possible to judge the perpetrator harshly.
And as for whether one can or should enjoy or appreciate the intellectual or artistic work of a moral degenerate, we have discussed that on ObWi many times. There is no easy answer. And whether the French (or any other) intellectual culture makes such behaviour more likely, or more tolerated, this is above my pay grade. It is noticeable, however, that more prominent women in France have found fault with the MeToo movement than those in other countries, so that's a clue. And Macron continuing to staunchly defend Gerard Depardieu in the face of countless allegations is another one. It doesn't stop Depardieu being (or having been) a great actor, however.
It's very good that this is happening. Also, what an illustration of how deeply unfortunate it is when stupidity, ignorance, and an entitled sense of impunity collide.
The King is saying and doing all the right things about it. But it is unsettling that the country is in a rather fragile and unstable state, with uncertainty about Keir and Labour, the Tories, and the malignant Farage waiting in the wings. On the whole, as far as one can tell over many years, Charles is a perfectly decent sort, and William seems to be OK too. But the Royal Family is not as popular as it was (understandably!), and in retrospect even the admired late Queen is responsible for some of this. What a mess.
As a sidenote: interesting and shocking what has been revealed in France since MeToo. The sense of entitlement and the sheer depravity of anyone from Foucault to Duhamel is just astounding.
In my experience, nothing that is coming out anywhere in the wake of MeToo is any surprise to a large proportion of women, particularly those who've had a life and are no longer young. I don't know how much you all saw about the Gisele Pelicot case, but her husband arranged to have her raped, unconscious, by over 70 men he'd recruited online over 10 years. Of the 51 men who were identified and charged, they ALL came from a 30 mile radius around the small Provencal town the Pelicots lived in. And they were from every walk of life: journalists, firefighters, nurses, delivery drivers, labourers etc etc. Eminent thinkers and other famous and powerful men, not to mention soi-disant enlightened, decent, liberal or progressive ones, are hardly exempt from the qualities which make this possible.
Further to russell's comment upthread about the new social media site for AI "agents" to interact, this is an NYT writer interviewing her own agent about its experiences on the site:
And, on an entirely unrelated note (as far as I know), you could get a dislocated neck if you were trying to keep up with Trump's reaction to the UK's proposed settlement with Mauritius of the Chagos problem, and Diego Garcia. By my count (and I'm not going to go back and check) today's accusation by Trump that Keir's deal is "a very big mistake" is his third volte face in a few weeks where he has said this, and then the opposite, and now this again. Not to mention his original back and forth about it a year ago:
But, while on the subject of Western Civilisation, and its American version, did you see that 12% of Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife?
Oddly, to me, all of this blather comes in the context of the US basically telling Europe to fuck off. Which seems… inconsistent with an emphasis on “preserving our Western identity”.
Yes, and regarding nous's comment in the other thread about the standing ovation Rubio got, it just shows how pathetically (and I really mean that) grateful they all were that, unlike Vance, Rubio was taking the trouble to put it in more flattering, quasi-ingratiating diplomatic-style language. FFS.
(Glib is pretty good, but as an adjective "facile" might be as or even more pejoritive, whereas as a noun "facility" seems to me to lose that somewhat insulting implication.)
I wanted to post this from today's Guardian. I didn't look at the Focaldata source link, but I thought the charts shown in the Guardian article were pretty interesting:
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has accelerated a profound shift in the global order, according to new analysis. A report from Focaldata, which analyses UN voting records, reveals how Washington’s “America First” agenda has started to redraw the geopolitical map in favour of China. In 2026, the world is now diplomatically closer to Beijing than it has been in recent memory, with significant shifts in alignments taking place during the start of Trump’s second presidential term.
lj: we seem (in "Recent Posts") to have had 11 new posts in the last 14 days, but as far as I can tell we do not have a current Open Thread (the last one I found is from January 8th). Would it be possible always (each month- isn't that their lifetime?) to have one, with that name, going simultaneously with the others? Speaking for myself, I really miss them.
Don't know which thread to put this in, but I have just seen this in the Independent - the subheading says "Pullout from Minneapolis comes as Trump's approval ratings on immigration enforcement have thanked":
The Trump administration is ending the “surge” of thousands of immigration and law enforcement agents to Minnesota that sparked months of protests and led to the shooting deaths of two American citizens who were protesting the federal presence there. White House Border Czar Tom Homan told reporters in Minneapolis on Thursday that there has been a “big change” in state and local officials’ willingness to assist in providing some support for federal operations in the state and said there has been less of a need to deploy “quick reaction forces” to protect agents from protesters. “With that and [the] success that has been made arresting public safety threats and other priorities since this search operation began, as well as the unprecedented levels of coordination we have obtained from state officials and local law enforcement, I have proposed — and President Trump has concurred — that this surge operation conclude a significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue through the next week,” Homan said.
He added that “a small footprint of personnel” would remain in the area to supervise the transfer of “full command and control” of immigration enforcement in the state back to the ICE field office that has been in Minneapolis for decades. Homan also said he would remain in Minneapolis “for a little longer” to “oversee the drawdown of this operation” while stressing that the massive deployment of agents that had been dubbed “Operation Metro Surge” by administration officials was in fact “ending.”
The administration's decision to withdraw the thousands of agents whose roving patrols and aggressive tactics roiled Twin Cities streets in what appeared to be a deliberate effort to punish Minnesotans for having voted against President Donald Trump in the 2024, 2020 and 2016 elections comes weeks after the White House dispatched Homan there in the wake of the shooting death of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of a Border Patrol agent. Federal officials announced the deployment in early December, ostensibly to combat what the administration claimed was a wave of public benefits fraud by Somali immigrants after a viral video by a right-wing YouTube creator alleging that Minneapolis was filled with fake child care centers and medical businesses run by Somalis gained attention in conservative media circles. Administration officials say the months-long effort has led to more than 4,000 arrests of what they allege to be “dangerous criminal illegal aliens” but that number has also included numerous American citizens and people without criminal records.
The White House had justified the outsized presence and roving patrols as necessary because Minnesota does not allow state and local law enforcement to conduct civil immigration enforcement, though Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have maintained that ICE officers have always been permitted to take custody of people who are being released from jails and prisons at the end of a court-imposed sentence. At one recent White House press briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed there are “thousands” of “criminal illegal aliens” held in Minnesota facilities and being released back into the community without notifying federal officials. One Department of Homeland Security press release recent alleged that there were “more than 1,360 active detainers for criminals in Minnesota jails” as well.
But the administration’s claims and purported justifications have also been undermined by Minnesota officials who have pointed out that only as many as 380 non-citizens were being held in state prisons — and of those, only 270 were subject to “detainers” filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Minnesota Department of Corrections also said there are roughly 100 non-citizens with “detainers” filed against them in county and local jails as well. And while the administration has repeatedly claimed the aggressive operations in Minnesota were justified by the state government’s refusal to cooperate with federal enforcement efforts, Attorney General Pam Bondi further undermined those arguments last month when she sent a letter to state officials demanding access to the state’s voter database in exchange for removing agents from Minneapolis streets. President Donald Trump has in recent months repeatedly lied about his electoral history in the Gopher State by claiming to have won it three times even though he has never carried the state’s electoral votes and no Republican has done so since the 1972 presidential election. Walz had said earlier in the week that he expected the federal deployment to end in “days, not weeks and months” based on his own talks with administration officials, including Homan and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. And in the wake of Homan’s announcement, Walz said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the “surge of untrained, aggressive federal agents are going to leave Minnesota.”
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
Sorry, it was 3 parts! Definitely do not rescue the original one - it probably also had some links remaining!
I want to let this percolate before I comment on some of the comments others have made here. But for now, it's important for me to say that I completely agree this:
At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster menThe other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!”
The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
"
Part Three:
Patriarchy holds both the explanation and the remedy for the Epstein scandals and yet is almost never brought up in Epstein discussions.
Instead again and again we talk about how we could better punish rape instead of how we could prevent it.
Here’s a chart from a recent Reuter’s poll showing people’s concerns about the Epstein files:
69% of Americans said that the files show that powerful people are rarely held accountable. 53% of Americans said that the files have lowered their trust in political and business leaders.
All valid concerns. But how many said that the files show that we have a big problem with gender inequality, male entitlement or patriarchy?
I don’t know, they were not asked. Those things never seem to be brought up.
(I do know that 22% of American men said they believe that gender inequality doesn’t really exist, and a third of American men believe feminism is making things worse.)
And again, let me be clear that powerful people not being held accountable is certainly a problem worth discussing.
But when patriarchy is never brought up when we are discussing how to prevent massive sexual abuse epidemics???
THAT’S A PROBLEM!
That ensures we keep whacking weeds (things that make rape easier), without ever whacking the root of rape itself (patriarchy).
To quote that UN report: “Violence against women is a global pandemic: Between 15 and 76 per cent of women experience it at some point in their lifetime. Violence against women is deeply rooted in discrimination and inequality between men and women. Ending it requires investments in women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in education, reproductive health and rights, and economic and political empowerment.”
So that’s how to prevent violence against women, but guess how often women’s educational, financial, political and reproductive equality come up as either solutions to or explanations for the Epstein files?
Poke around the major news stories and see for yourself (but I have some bad news for you).
But there are some people pointing to patriarchy
I’m three days into writing this article, and this afternoon I decided to poke around Substack to see what people are writing about the Epstein files.
And lo and behold, I quickly discovered I am not the only person asking, “why the hell are we not talking about patriarchy when we talk about Epstein?”
I actually had to laugh that I thought I had an original observation while reading the news because it turns out lots of other women noticed the exact same omission and wrote about it:
Jude Doyle wrote an article called, “You know You Can Just Say ‘Patriarchy’: These analyses of the Epstein case are… missing something.”
Linda Caroll wrote, “Everyone wants to know which people were so despicable that they raped little girls. So many little girls. Over 1200…You want to know who the men are that abused little children? Look around you.”
Liz Plank wrote, “what’s landing so hard is realizing we weren’t exaggerating patriarchy’s harm at all, in fact we were underestimating it…”
Kara Post-Kennedy at The Good Men Project wrote, “One of the big problems we are having as a society right now is the way the Epstein files are being handled (or ignored). It isn’t just that we are not actively investigating and prosecuting the men who were involved in this criminal and abhorrent and abusive enterprise. It is the framing of this criminal, abhorrent and abusive behavior as “other”. As the outlier behavior of some spoiled rich jerks who ran out of other things to amuse themselves with. Not something that regula’ folk need trouble themselves with at all.”
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD wrote, “Epstein is the patriarchy’s logical conclusion. We do ourselves a disservice when we call Epstein and his ilk monsters or a bizarre glitch of elite decadence.”
Kristen Shelt said, “All men does not mean all men rape or assault or harm women, it means all men are raised inside the same system that teaches male entitlement… And that conditioning exists whether or not its acted on… Every man who is raised in patriarchy is handed the same basic operating system.”
Lane Anderson of Matriarchy Report wrote “the Epstein files peel back the mask of American patriarchal power structures.” “For 249 years, she argues, we’ve celebrated that a nation that left women and girls outside of the definition of humanity, and erased us. What we are experiencing now is the logical conclusion of that legacy.”
Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei say, “The files are telling us what we already know: the conspiracy of patriarchy. Sexual violence isn’t just a problem of the global elite.”
Women of Substack are linking patriarchy with the Epstein files.
Unfortunately, women of Substack are not oft asked to chime in on global conversations.
Academics and experts on wealth and corruption are given quotes in those mainstream articles above. They are regularly consulted to explain this whole how-billionaires-get-away-with-rape phenomenon.
Academics and experts on patriarchy on the other hand? Well, usually they are called crazy bitches and their writings relegated to thought pieces read almost exclusively by other women.
Why men rape seems to be a niche topic of interest reserved for women.
Why men do or don’t get caught raping however, now that’s a universal interest. Call in the experts.
It’s time to choke out the root
Jonah Mix’s excellent quote on pornography comes to mind here:
“I’m not interested in a world where men really want to watch porn but resist because they’ve been shamed. I’m interested in a world where men are raised from birth with such an unshakable understanding of women as living human beings that they’re incapable of being aroused by their exploitation.” - Jonah Mix
Yessssss Jonah! Preach!
I’m not interested in a world where men want to rape, but don’t because they aren’t super wealthy and powerful.
I’m not interested in a world where the only thing keeping men from raping is not having an elite cabal to keep their secrets.
I’m interested in a world where MEN DON’T WANT TO RAPE FULL STOP!!
I’m interested in a world where men are not aroused by the exploitation of women.
I’m interested in a world where a man’s sense of worth has nothing whatsoever to do with domination.
But if we keep only talking about all the things that make rape easier (money, power, elite networks, anonymity) and never talk about the things that actually cause the desire to rape in the first place (entitlement, domination, patriarchy), then we will continue on our insane, unending weed whacking quest without ever pulling up the root.
"
Part Two:
The 90+ men who raped Gisele Pelicot were not billionaires.
They were nurses, teachers, firefighters, fathers, grandfathers, councillors, farm workers.
We cannot blame money or elite networks for what they did.
However, we can ask what exactly is the seed that was planted in these average men that would make them want to rape a woman when an opportunity presented itself?
For it’s the same seed that was planted in Epstein. In Bill Clinton, P. Diddy, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and so very many others.
Different elements may have enabled the different rapes, but something they all had in common was the desire to rape.
At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster men
The other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!”
The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
Rather, the world we live in seems to plant a seed in the minds of men, that when watered with enough power, opportunity or anonymity this seed so very, very often blooms into rape.
Not every seed blooms into a weed. Not every man rapes. But they all exist in the same fertile soil for it to be possible.
Believing that rapists are monsterous, abnormal, one-off bad apples keeps us relentlessly weed-whacking these “abnormalities” instead of ever digging up the root and making the soil less conducive to weeds.
What was planted in little Bill Gates’s mind that lie dormant until one day when watered with enough power, money and impunity would cause him to befriend a pedophile, cheat on his wife and then secretly give his wife STD medication so she wouldn’t know (allegedly)?
If you trace it to its root— before the 3400+ mentions in the Epstein files— what was the seed planted in little Deepak Chopra’s mind or heart that when eventually watered with status, money and anonymity would cause him to invite a pedophile on a trip and say “bring your girls”?
What is it that was planted in the minds and hearts of that firefighter, teacher and nurse in Mazan, France that when told of the opportunity to rape a drugged woman online they would drive right over and do it?
What is the root of the weed?
Let’s start with what it’s not.
Because I know someone is about to chime in that men want to rape because they are just naturally sexual and aggressive. Nothing to be done, it’s just biology. Testosterone makes men want to rape. Sorry.
Let’s address that from the jump.2
If testosterone were the cause of rape, then men with higher levels of testosterone would rape more than men with low levels.
But scientists have measured testosterone levels and disproven this theory.
The National Library of Medicine found that sex offenders do not have higher testosterone than non-sex offenders.
Trans men who increase their testosterone do not become more abusive or start raping.
When scientists decreased the testosterone in domestic violence perpetrators they did not find it to be an effective solution to curbing the abusers’ behavior.
But do you know what they did find was effective in curbing domestic abusers’ behavior?
“Changing their deeply held beliefs about their sense of entitlement.”
(Now we are getting to the root of things.)
If men can’t help the urge to rape because of their biology, then rape statistics would hold steady across all cultures, but that is not true at all.
And what makes the difference between cultures with higher rates of sexual abuse and those with lower?
The World Health Organization has concluded that “Violence against women is rooted in and perpetuated by gender inequalities.”
The UN also came out with a report linking rape with gender inequality that said, “As gender equality improves, the prevalence of violence against women is lower… This is borne out for both physical and sexual forms of abuse. As seen in the graph, countries with greater equality between women and men have lower levels of violence against women.”
A CDC report studying US States found the exact same thing: “States with a high degree of gender inequality also report higher prevalence estimates among women for completed or attempted rape using physical force.”
Now we are digging at the root. What other factors have scientists found leads to sexual assault?
“Evidence suggests that it is not innate aggression that makes men violent, but the internalized belief that they fall short of society’s perceived standards for masculinity. Psychologists call this phenomenon, “masculine discrepancy stress” and research shows that the more acutely a man suffers from this, the more likely he is to commit almost every type of violence, including sexual assault, intimate partner violence and assault with a weapon.” - Ruth Whippman
Ah yes masculinity - that North Star our society hands men that says the worst thing you can do isn’t cruelty, the worst thing you can do is act like a girl.
Ok. So entitlement, gender inequality and masculine discrepancy stress4 have all been correlated with rape.
If only we had a name for this…
And what is this system called that perpetuates gender inequality, and dominance and entitlement among men?
Patriarchy.
The word for that system is called patriarchy.
If you could zoom in on that seed planted in those boys who would eventually become men who rape—that seed would be labeled “patriarchy.”
Where being emasculated is far more embarrassing and destabilizing than being immoral.
The Epstein rapes were aided by money, elite networks and institutional corruption, but at their core, they are explained by patriarchy.
Perhaps you are thinking, well duh, that’s obvious.
I think so too.
And yet guess how many times the word patriarchy is used in those 12 articles up there? The ones where the New York Times, the BBC, PBS and TIME try to explain the Epstein files?
Zero.
Zero times.
Ok fine, but patriarchy is an unpopular word. Guess how many times gender inequality comes up?
Also zero!
"
OK, by complete coincidence this landed in my inbox from someone whose substack I don't subscribe to. It says a lot of important things, most of which I agree with, so I have tried to eliminate the hundreds of links, and am going to post it in two parts hoping that’s good enough to get it through (when I tried to post the whole thing, it went into moderation - if this works, please don't rescue it):
Part One
There is one word that explains how so many men can be in the Epstein files. So why is no one saying it?
We talk endlessly about the factors that make rape easier, but never about the factors that cause rape in the first place.
Celeste Davis
Feb 22, 2026
Unless you’ve been enjoying life under a rock, the past few weeks have likely involved a relentless scroll of names once spoken with reverence now tied to the words “Epstein files.”
The list of people wheeling and dealing with Epstein after he went to jail for pedophilia is mind-numbing:
No sector of society is safe.
Leaders from each and every one of the institutions that run our world—politics, business, tech, academia, wellness, philanthropy, entertainment, spirituality—are all over these files.
It’s gross. It’s everywhere. It’s destabilizing.
Leaving us asking… how? How could this happen? How could so many people let this happen? In plain sight? For so long?
Mainstream media is focused on four answers:
1. Wealth
2. Elite Networks
3. Institutional Failure
4. Blackmail
A deep frustration has arisen within me around the press and discussions around the Epstein files.
The bulk of the attention is converged around figuring out who and what exactly enabled Epstein’s rampant sexual abuse—wealth, elite networks, institutional failure and blackmail.
Everyone is asking how did these men get away with so much rape?
No one is asking what would cause so many to want to rape so much in the first place?
It’s as if the Epstein files have exposed an entire field being taken over by noxious weeds—miles and miles of weeds—and then instead of digging to the root to eradicate the weeds’ seed, we are hyper-focused on what exact water and fertilizer enabled the weeds to grow so high.
We’re acting as if weeds/rapists are just a given.
Well, of course men want to rape! It’s just most men can’t rape because there are rules, but the rules don’t apply to billionaries so they get to rape. The problem isn’t the rape, it’s that billionaires can get away with rape.
I’m sorry what?
Why aren’t we talking about why so many men when given power continually choose to use that power to rape women?
WHY AREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT THAT?!
Money and corrupt elite networks of billionaires are certainly not off the hook here. Those are important conversations to have.
But while money may have enabled Epstein’s sexual abuse, it didn’t create it.
One in four women have experienced sexual abuse. Billionaires seem to do a lot of raping, but they can’t do THAT much raping.
This week I came across the following Substack note from Melina Magdelenat about the Gisele Pelicot trials where 90 men in a small French town raped one woman, and thought, oh this needs to be brought into the Epstein files discourse immediately.
Here’s what Magdelenat said:
“There’s an interaction I think back to every time we are collectively confronted with the utterly habitual nature of male violence against women. It was at a conference a year or so ago by Le Monde journalist Lorraine de Foucher, who won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the porn industry, child prostitution and sex trafficking in France.
The Pelicot trials came up during the Q&A, and a seventy-something man in the front row timidly raised his hand. You could tell he was carefully phrasing his question and choosing his words as he was saying them.
He said: « So, let me get this right. In the fairly small town of Mazan, Dominique Pélicot easily found 90+ men willing to rape his wife while she was drugged and unconscious. Hundreds more saw the messages on the forum and not one decided to tell the police about it. »
At that point, a lot of us were kind of bracing for either a dismissal of the facts, or some convoluted explanation for how those men were unique. But no. He continued:
« So, does that mean that in every town, every village in our country, there are just as many men willing to rape an unconscious woman? »
Lorraine de Foucher replied, « Yes. »
« But then that means that there are thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands! » (You could hear at that point the wheels turning in his head).
« Yes », she nodded again.
« But… that’s abominable! It’s a catastrophe! It’s a national emergency! »
« …… Yes. It is. » - Melina Magdelenat
Yes. It is.
On “Open Thread”
Tina Brown on Mandelson's arrest, Prince Andrew, the US Epstein situation etc:
The Erstwhile Ambassador, the Fallen Prince, and the U.S. Epstein Morass
Tina Brown
Feb 23, 2026
The stunning arrest of the former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson will produce a blast radius in the UK that may be even bigger than Jeffrey Epstein’s. If you are drowned by the volume of the Epstein emails, just wait for the leaking of all the Mandy memorabilia, which will undoubtedly include revelations and scuttlebutt from 30 years at the beating heart of British politics. There is no one Mandelson hasn’t advised, conspired with, gossiped with, and, god help us, texted with in his high-flying life as a political homme du monde as much at home on oligarchs’ boats as at dinner parties at Chequers and 3100 Massachusetts Avenue.
The strategic architect of Tony Blair’s new Labour was dubbed the Prince of Darkness for his sinuous skills as a media spinmaster. He’s been up and he’s been down, but up to now, he’s never been out, and may not be yet as the charge of misconduct in public office is notoriously knotty to prove. Before he was sacked as ambassador last September, Lord Mandelson was forced to resign twice from cabinet positions: for failing to disclose an improper loan in 1998, and again, three years later, for helping a wealthy Indian donor to the Millennium Dome get a British passport. He kicked up more dust in 2005 when, as EU trade minister (admittedly, the world’s most boring job), he flew from Davos to Siberia with his friend Nat Rothschild to join the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska for a banya sauna session. Inappropriate was Peter’s middle name. But he always surfed back because the depth of his strategic know-how was unrivaled. It kept him relevant among power elites who valued his acerbic expertise. Even PM Gordon Brown, who hated him, gave him the post of business secretary. Brown is now incandescent at how casually Mandelson, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, was allegedly leaking real-time, market-moving information from their private meetings to Epstein.
It was considered a risky move in late 2024 for the usually excruciatingly cautious current Labour PM Keir Starmer handed Mandelson the prized diplomatic post of representing the UK as His Majesty’s ambassador to the US. It’s amazing now to think that Mandelson, then running a lucrative advisory agency, was in such cocksure form that he was simultaneously lobbying to be Chancellor of Oxford (he lost out to former Tory leader William Hague), and even had the nerve to think he could serve as both ambassador and chancellor. The outgoing US ambassador Dame Karen Pierce argued strenuously against choosing Mandelson to succeed her, but there was logic to the appointment that few want to recognize now. As a longtime appreciator of Peter’s gifts, I thought it was somewhat brilliant myself. It was precisely because of Mandelson’s iffy ethics and affection for money—he famously said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”—as much as his sophisticated understanding of global trade, that the Prince of Darkness was seen as such an excellent fit for Trump-era Washington. And indeed he was. In his brief seven months in the post, he navigated the minefield of Trump tariff threats, closed a long-sought UK/US foreign trade agreement, and unexpectedly struck up a useful rapport with JD Vance. Mandelson was an instant star host at that most glamorous of embassies, with his urbane younger Brazilian husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, and his endearing “ambassadog,” the border collie Jock. I had tea with Mandelson in London after he was ejected as ambassador, and found him wounded but resilient, focused—I thought unrealistically—on finding a foreign benefactor who needed steerage through the corridors of power. But when the second Epstein tranche revealed Mandelson’s apparent breaches of official confidence, his loyal circle was properly gobsmacked. Bad judgment to maintain his friendship with Epstein, yes. But the whiff of semi-treasonous information sharing? Whoa! And for what? To prove his worth to the most worthless man on the planet?
Mandelson’s arrest was the second news meteor to hit British national life in a row, after last week’s historic apprehension of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The iconic news shot of Andrew slumped in the back of the Range Rover, with an expression of traumatized panic after a day in a police cell, gave the British public something that Americans are thirsty to see: a legal reckoning. After years of palace dithering and the murky 2022 payoff of Virginia Giuffre authorized by his protective mother, King Charles’s statement that “the law must take its course” made him look morally impeccable and decisive. It felt good, didn’t it, to see Andrew’s thick hide of royal prerogative finally being ripped away, his veil of ultimate privilege pierced at last. And it was gratifying that the photographer who caught the shot that was splashed on every front page in the world was the unpretentious Reuters journeyman Phil Noble, who, on a tip from a colleague, had driven six hours to Norfolk and raced to the unexpected location of Aylsham police station, where he caught the just-exiting car of Andrew’s security detail, pointed his camera at the back seat, and got the news moment of the year. In case there is anyone deluded enough to feel sympathy for Andrew, I submit the anecdote Paul Page, Andrew’s onetime royal protection officer, told in a 2022 documentary. When a random party girl not listed on the official log showed up at the palace to visit Andrew and was asked to wait for security clearance, the portly prince apparently blasted one of the guards on the phone as a “fat, lardy-assed c–t,” for not letting her through. Whether or not Queen Elizabeth’s epically dreadful second son ends up in the clink, Phil Noble’s picture was a thrilling karmic win for the people versus Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Double Jeopardy
The two stunning arrests in the UK have cut through the endless inconclusiveness of the DOJ morass on the US side of the Atlantic. It’d be pretty incredible if, after all the sleaze oozing out from the Epstein files, the only judicial scalps are a hapless royal buffoon and a woefully heedless British ambassador. Over here, fourteen elite leaders, from Wall Street titans to celebrity scholars and white-shoe lawyers, have been shamed and cast into professional purgatory, but no one yet has been arrested, except the pixie-haired society pimp with the cut-glass British accent awaiting Trump’s pardon in the Bryan federal prison camp in Texas.
Perhaps the contents of the just-discovered six storage units Epstein owned across the US will give us something more tangible than a sinkhole of reputations. Thanks to enterprising Telegraph reporters who noted payments to the locker companies on Epstein’s credit card bills in the files, we can now expect the rotting effluvia from all the stashed hard drives, computers, and photographs, hidden by Epstein’s private detectives from the FBI raids on his multiple mansions. Remember when he told the 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre, “I own the Palm Beach police department”? It was easy for him to be tipped off that a law enforcement sweep was coming. Perhaps the only time Epstein told the truth was in his answer to Steve Bannon’s startling question, “Do you think you’re the devil himself?” With his customary Cupid bow smirk, Epstein replied, “No, but I do have a good mirror.”
Maybe Epstein was the mirror himself. But his reflection gave an x-ray of other people’s moral weakness. In a society built on credit and credibility, a single evil actor who grasps the fallibility of his fellows can entangle all.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
novakant, I'm saying that older men wanted to sleep with young girls (newsflash: very many still do), and if they were anywhere in life which facilitated that they took full advantage (cults, the music business, rock bands, revolutionary groups which attracted idealistic young people who were easy to manipulate, etc etc). And they regularly expounded on how it was the natural order of things, as many rich and powerful men still do today (you'd be amazed how often I have been given this talk in my life, and not only when I was young but also as an explanation of the "sense" it makes in evolutionary and biological terms). They don't, however, always treat the girls as disposable products like Epstein did.
The representation of this power dynamic was everywhere, in music, in literature, in films, in history lessons, in politics, and on and on -everywhere. And to a considerably lesser extent, it still is. Hartmut's quotation made me smile in recognition, it was so on the money. I'd be surprised if Chomsky wasn't steeped in it; almost everybody was in those days, even (and maybe especially in some ways) the counter-culture, the revolutionary groups, "free thinkers", "non-conformists", controversial academics etc etc.
If, as it seems, all of the regular male participants on ObWi find this a foreign concept, it makes them a rather unusual group. Who knows about the lurkers, however.
"
Correction: second wave feminists, not first!
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novakant, I don't know how old you are, andI don't know for sure, but I think you might not be a woman. If so, that is significant.
As for the "elite" aspect, it's possible there was some of that in it, since many (but not all) of those lefty revolutionaries of the 60s did come from very comfortable backgrounds. But I think it was absolutely baked into the culture, as many films and books suggest, and going back much further than the 60s of course. And women were heavily influenced by it too, in a kind of false consciousness. I brought that particular period up because of Chomsky, and because (as lots of first wave feminists can attest) men who were otherwise very aware of different types of exploitation showed a lack of insight into the oppression of women, and the power of the patriarchy. Misogyny, like anti-semitism, is always with us, and although nowadays considerable disparity in age and power is frowned on, today's variety is just as (or more) toxic, as this anonymous piece by a teenager in today's Guardian illustrates:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/23/15-year-old-girl-misogyny-social-media-online-abuse
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wj, thank you. I see that I am (at least theoretically) out of step with some of the people here. I say theoretically because once, in a diplomatic setting, I let it be known that I should not be introduced to William Kennedy Smith (whose mother was US ambassador to Ireland at the time) because I would not shake his hand.
But my opinion on the Chomsky comment is that it does not reveal or imply his view of the actions of the relevant people, although calling them "major war criminals" admits their guilt and its scale. Nor do we know in what circumstances he met them, whether he sought the meeting, knew in advance he was meeting them, or anything else. It is quite easy to imagine he might have met Kissinger, for example. And saying he doesn't regret meeting them says nothing about his view of them, it says something about him, and not even that he is "comfortable spending time with the scum of the earth". I take it to mean that in his view meeting them did not imply approval of them, and that he does not subscribe to the idea that meeting evil people involves the risk of moral contamination. If he had shared a platform with them I would view it somewhat differently, and if he had been friends with them (as he was with Epstein) different again.
We know much more about his relationship with Epstein.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/22/noam-chomsky-jeffrey-epstein-ties-emails
While he may not have expressed regrets for it, his wife has said it was a "grave mistake".
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/08/noam-chomsky-epstein-ties-wife-apology
Being friends with Epstein after his first conviction and sentence is another matter, but one that is not entirely surprising to me in view of the fact that Chomsky is a) elderly and b) a man. It's quite possible he didn't know all the details, and didn't think it necessary to find them out. In my experience, including with very left wing men around in e.g. les evenements in 1968, or in the US the Days of Rage, many or most would see nothing remotely reprehensible about adult men sleeping with teenage girls. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that they might have seen it as the right and proper way of the world.
If this does not apply to the right-on (as we used to say) men of ObWi, so much the more impressive. But for anyone who was a woman or a teenage girl in the 60s it is a truism.
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wj, if that is the totality of what Chomsky said, what do you take to be the unambiguous meaning (or implication) of it?
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I tend to think that these problems are often defined as sexism or racism, but the underlying issue is the ability to rationalize.
lj, I think your point about rationalisation is a good and important one. It enables people that way talented and inclined to make a logical case for their behaviour or opinions. But I think that this is in the service of their urges, or their instincts, which can indeed be racist or sexist.
On the Chomsky remark you quote, I think it is ambiguous. For example, saying he has no regrets about meeting war criminals does not to me imply any endorsement of their actions. It might mean that he has learnt something about their character and motivation which is useful for understanding how such people come to do what they have done, or got into the positions of power they reached. It could be to do with psychological, sociological or criminological understanding. And of course, it also displays a lack of concern for how it makes him look, which is not in itself a bad thing. Distaste or disgust at being known to have met someone terrible is not necessarily a sign of virtue.
On “Open Thread”
Further to my comment about Trump's back and forth about the Chagos deal, there have been reports in various papers that his latest condemnation of it was because Starmer refused permission for the US to launch an attack on Iran from Diego Garcia.
And today, there are reports in the Times about Politico reporting that both BoJo and Liz Truss have been lobbying Trump against the Chagos deal very recently.
O brave new world, that has such leaders (and past leaders) in't.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
novakant, I'm also very sympathetic to what you say. And for clarity's sake, although I often examine this kind of stuff for its effect on women, it is very clear that the kinds of men who can get away with it also take sexual advantage of any group that suits their taste, including children, boys and other men.
But the question of whether to judge such behaviour by today's standards, or the standards of another time, is a different and difficult one. It may, for example, have been acceptable/legal until recently to rape your wife, but if she was trying to resist and in distress that still entails a kind of lack of empathy for the suffering of a fellow human that makes it possible to judge the perpetrator harshly.
And as for whether one can or should enjoy or appreciate the intellectual or artistic work of a moral degenerate, we have discussed that on ObWi many times. There is no easy answer. And whether the French (or any other) intellectual culture makes such behaviour more likely, or more tolerated, this is above my pay grade. It is noticeable, however, that more prominent women in France have found fault with the MeToo movement than those in other countries, so that's a clue. And Macron continuing to staunchly defend Gerard Depardieu in the face of countless allegations is another one. It doesn't stop Depardieu being (or having been) a great actor, however.
On “Open Thread”
Robert Reich's open letter to Kristi Noem in today's Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/19/kristi-noem-ice-google-meta
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
It's very good that this is happening. Also, what an illustration of how deeply unfortunate it is when stupidity, ignorance, and an entitled sense of impunity collide.
The King is saying and doing all the right things about it. But it is unsettling that the country is in a rather fragile and unstable state, with uncertainty about Keir and Labour, the Tories, and the malignant Farage waiting in the wings. On the whole, as far as one can tell over many years, Charles is a perfectly decent sort, and William seems to be OK too. But the Royal Family is not as popular as it was (understandably!), and in retrospect even the admired late Queen is responsible for some of this. What a mess.
As a sidenote: interesting and shocking what has been revealed in France since MeToo. The sense of entitlement and the sheer depravity of anyone from Foucault to Duhamel is just astounding.
In my experience, nothing that is coming out anywhere in the wake of MeToo is any surprise to a large proportion of women, particularly those who've had a life and are no longer young. I don't know how much you all saw about the Gisele Pelicot case, but her husband arranged to have her raped, unconscious, by over 70 men he'd recruited online over 10 years. Of the 51 men who were identified and charged, they ALL came from a 30 mile radius around the small Provencal town the Pelicots lived in. And they were from every walk of life: journalists, firefighters, nurses, delivery drivers, labourers etc etc. Eminent thinkers and other famous and powerful men, not to mention soi-disant enlightened, decent, liberal or progressive ones, are hardly exempt from the qualities which make this possible.
On “Open Thread”
Further to russell's comment upthread about the new social media site for AI "agents" to interact, this is an NYT writer interviewing her own agent about its experiences on the site:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/upshot/moltbook-artificial-intelligence-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NFA.HHDh.MSfIxI2Jr59d&smid=url-share
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Oh my God, just when you think you can't be shocked any more by examples of the administration's (or the POTUS's) corruption, you learn otherwise:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/opinion/corruption-trump-accountability.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NFA.U6Ki.7VQgP7cuBbQV&smid=url-share
And, on an entirely unrelated note (as far as I know), you could get a dislocated neck if you were trying to keep up with Trump's reaction to the UK's proposed settlement with Mauritius of the Chagos problem, and Diego Garcia. By my count (and I'm not going to go back and check) today's accusation by Trump that Keir's deal is "a very big mistake" is his third volte face in a few weeks where he has said this, and then the opposite, and now this again. Not to mention his original back and forth about it a year ago:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dqg3nqynlo
On “Take your’n and beat his’n”
Speaking of Western Civilisation, I am linking Jamelle Bouie on Rubio's speech and its implications etc:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/opinion/marco-rubio-is-failing-western-civ.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NFA.nGv3.IM14r16m3-M0&smid=url-share
But, while on the subject of Western Civilisation, and its American version, did you see that 12% of Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife?
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/religion-and-horror-soul-mates-in-popular-culture-1.3065296/joan-of-arc-is-not-noah-s-wife-1.3065328
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Oddly, to me, all of this blather comes in the context of the US basically telling Europe to fuck off. Which seems… inconsistent with an emphasis on “preserving our Western identity”.
Yes, and regarding nous's comment in the other thread about the standing ovation Rubio got, it just shows how pathetically (and I really mean that) grateful they all were that, unlike Vance, Rubio was taking the trouble to put it in more flattering, quasi-ingratiating diplomatic-style language. FFS.
(Glib is pretty good, but as an adjective "facile" might be as or even more pejoritive, whereas as a noun "facility" seems to me to lose that somewhat insulting implication.)
On “Open Thread”
Different kinds of agents, I think.
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I wanted to post this from today's Guardian. I didn't look at the Focaldata source link, but I thought the charts shown in the Guardian article were pretty interesting:
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has accelerated a profound shift in the global order, according to new analysis.
A report from Focaldata, which analyses UN voting records, reveals how Washington’s “America First” agenda has started to redraw the geopolitical map in favour of China.
In 2026, the world is now diplomatically closer to Beijing than it has been in recent memory, with significant shifts in alignments taking place during the start of Trump’s second presidential term.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/feb/13/these-charts-show-how-trump-is-isolating-the-us-on-the-world-stage
On “The Aiken formula”
lj: we seem (in "Recent Posts") to have had 11 new posts in the last 14 days, but as far as I can tell we do not have a current Open Thread (the last one I found is from January 8th). Would it be possible always (each month- isn't that their lifetime?) to have one, with that name, going simultaneously with the others? Speaking for myself, I really miss them.
On “What fresh hell is this?”
Don't know which thread to put this in, but I have just seen this in the Independent - the subheading says "Pullout from Minneapolis comes as Trump's approval ratings on immigration enforcement have thanked":
The Trump administration is ending the “surge” of thousands of immigration and law enforcement agents to Minnesota that sparked months of protests and led to the shooting deaths of two American citizens who were protesting the federal presence there.
White House Border Czar Tom Homan told reporters in Minneapolis on Thursday that there has been a “big change” in state and local officials’ willingness to assist in providing some support for federal operations in the state and said there has been less of a need to deploy “quick reaction forces” to protect agents from protesters.
“With that and [the] success that has been made arresting public safety threats and other priorities since this search operation began, as well as the unprecedented levels of coordination we have obtained from state officials and local law enforcement, I have proposed — and President Trump has concurred — that this surge operation conclude a significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue through the next week,” Homan said.
He added that “a small footprint of personnel” would remain in the area to supervise the transfer of “full command and control” of immigration enforcement in the state back to the ICE field office that has been in Minneapolis for decades.
Homan also said he would remain in Minneapolis “for a little longer” to “oversee the drawdown of this operation” while stressing that the massive deployment of agents that had been dubbed “Operation Metro Surge” by administration officials was in fact “ending.”
The administration's decision to withdraw the thousands of agents whose roving patrols and aggressive tactics roiled Twin Cities streets in what appeared to be a deliberate effort to punish Minnesotans for having voted against President Donald Trump in the 2024, 2020 and 2016 elections comes weeks after the White House dispatched Homan there in the wake of the shooting death of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of a Border Patrol agent.
Federal officials announced the deployment in early December, ostensibly to combat what the administration claimed was a wave of public benefits fraud by Somali immigrants after a viral video by a right-wing YouTube creator alleging that Minneapolis was filled with fake child care centers and medical businesses run by Somalis gained attention in conservative media circles.
Administration officials say the months-long effort has led to more than 4,000 arrests of what they allege to be “dangerous criminal illegal aliens” but that number has also included numerous American citizens and people without criminal records.
The White House had justified the outsized presence and roving patrols as necessary because Minnesota does not allow state and local law enforcement to conduct civil immigration enforcement, though Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have maintained that ICE officers have always been permitted to take custody of people who are being released from jails and prisons at the end of a court-imposed sentence.
At one recent White House press briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed there are “thousands” of “criminal illegal aliens” held in Minnesota facilities and being released back into the community without notifying federal officials. One Department of Homeland Security press release recent alleged that there were “more than 1,360 active detainers for criminals in Minnesota jails” as well.
But the administration’s claims and purported justifications have also been undermined by Minnesota officials who have pointed out that only as many as 380 non-citizens were being held in state prisons — and of those, only 270 were subject to “detainers” filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections also said there are roughly 100 non-citizens with “detainers” filed against them in county and local jails as well.
And while the administration has repeatedly claimed the aggressive operations in Minnesota were justified by the state government’s refusal to cooperate with federal enforcement efforts, Attorney General Pam Bondi further undermined those arguments last month when she sent a letter to state officials demanding access to the state’s voter database in exchange for removing agents from Minneapolis streets.
President Donald Trump has in recent months repeatedly lied about his electoral history in the Gopher State by claiming to have won it three times even though he has never carried the state’s electoral votes and no Republican has done so since the 1972 presidential election.
Walz had said earlier in the week that he expected the federal deployment to end in “days, not weeks and months” based on his own talks with administration officials, including Homan and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
And in the wake of Homan’s announcement, Walz said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the “surge of untrained, aggressive federal agents are going to leave Minnesota.”
On “Unsure on the definition of ‘torn’”
hsh beat me to it! That's what I understood it to mean too.
On bamboozled, I always thought it meant thoroughly confused, but I see that both meanings are possible. You live and learn.
On “Separated by a common language”
‘support for pathetic patriarchy’ describes the fundamental mindset of a very large group of Americans. sadly.
And not just Americans, I am sad to say.
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