Here are a few fascinating facts about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the mysterious financier, friend to the rich and powerful, prolific ephebophile and alleged organizer of a child abuse ring. He was taken off suicide watch despite apparently attempting suicide just weeks before; his guards were asleep while he was reportedly hanging himself despite his being perhaps the most high-profile convict in the United States; two cameras outside his cell allegedly malfunctioned, and his friend and alleged accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell has somehow disappeared. Perhaps there are innocent explanations for all of these curious facts, but can you sincerely blame anyone who asks the question of whether there has been a conspiracy?
The Epstein case really has something for everyone. American liberals can point to Epstein’s association with President Trump. American conservatives can point to Epstein’s far deeper connections to Bill Clinton. More old school conspiracy theorists can point to Epstein’s friendship with Prince Andrew of the British royalty, or his membership of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. Really, speculating about the Epstein case has been a wonderful way to bring Americans together.
Against the State: An ...
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Still, some skeptical voices have resisted the temptation to indulge ‘conspiracy theories’. EJ Dickson of Rolling Stone, for example, has chided the Washington Post‘s Carol Leonnig for her ‘apparent willingness to explore if Epstein [was] murdered — or, at least, her refusal to refrain from directly engaging with that theory.’
Dickson has some fair points, noting that Leonnig leapt on the idea that Epstein’s corpse revealing a broken hyoid bone pointed away from suicide with excessive haste (broken hyoid bones can be a consequence of hanging as well as strangulation.) Still, why is it so ‘dangerous’ to explore questions of conspiracies?
I do not oppose ‘conspiracy theories’ for the simple reason that conspiracies exist. MK-ULTRA and COINTELPRO were real. Iran-Contra happened. Enron was no figment of the imagination. I will go further and suggest that strange, conspiratorial events have yet to be exposed. I doubt that Libyans perpetrated the Lockerbie bombings. It would not surprise me if the Kremlin was involved in the bombings of the Moscow apartment blocks. I would not blame anyone for wondering if JFK’s assassination was not quite what history informs us. In its essential form, a conspiracy is a pair or a group of people engaged in covert behavior – which, as we generally understand the term, is malicious and illegal. On the level of the street this called organized crime. Anyone who doubts that this can transcend social classes has not been paying attention to history.
