What Epstein Proves, As All Corruption Proves

With the weekend developments surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's arrests on sexual abuse of underage girls, after months of investigative reporting exposed not only his empire of sleaze but how a political-driven prosecutor like Acosta pretty much gave him an earlier slap on the wrist, we as a nation - we as humanity - ought to recognize these established truths.

There are far too many men of power who abuse people they view as their lessers, who are poor, often young, almost always women.

I rattled off a list of names in a couple of tweets this morning.

And that list is incomplete.

The sexual abuse, the financial corruption, the political rot, it all ties together. Everyone looked the other way on Roy Moore's open pursuit of teenage girls for decades in Alabama because even in his 30s he was a politically connected attorney. Hollywood moguls and celebrities, rolling in their wealth, have their goddamned casting couches. Any institution that holds ANY power over people, political or financial or religious, is going to have some nasty rot hidden among their elites, like the priests who kept molesting children while their superiors covered it up to avoid any scandal weakening their authority (or because the reforms needed to reduce such crimes - like the Catholic Church changing rules to priests can have normal sex and get married - would violate their dogma).

And as the Epstein case is proving, all of these rich, authoritative, politically connected men travel in the same goddamn circles.

We do not take rape and sexual abuse claims serious enough.

These men of power get away with what they do because our culture eagerly looks away, or excuses bad behavior out of certain - hint: White Upper Class - boys whose parents and friends all claim "He comes from a good home" after the accusations and evidence come out. How many judges have tossed aside allegations of violent sexual assaults by teen boys on teen girls, or college boys on teen girls, or 30-year-olds on teen girls, all because "Well, we don't want to ruin the bright future that's facing these fresh-faced young men." Christ, it happens enough that we've made it a cliche.

It does not help that these upper class families can afford teams of lawyers to overwhelm the courtroom, throw doubt into the mix with psychologists and privately-paid research to counter the evidence and witness testimonies. Yes, every person has a right to a legal defense. But the rights of the victims in these cases get tossed to the curb.

Nearly every state has a backlog of rape kits, untested and going bad, numbering in the tens of thousands, which allows those rapists - they never stop at one - to continue raping because the cops don't have enough physical evidence to arrest them yet.

And despite most evidence and research proving that a majority of rape and assault charges are legit, our culture cannot abide such reality. We live in a situation where every accusation becomes a "He Said She Said" and we rarely believe the She Said (even when the victim has scars and bruises across her body). We have juries who come back with Not Guilty decisions because of what the woman wore (she deserved it) or if she drank (she deserved it) or she should have known not to go to a man's house (she deserved it) or get a ride in his car (she deserved it). In this reality, we seem to blame the victim first.

Of any ethnic street gang out there, none of them have the destructive power or violence like Wall Street White Boys.

You think MS-13 is bad, or the Crips and Bloods, or the Triads? They ain't got shit on investment bankers and third generation rich boys rolling in drugs, human trafficking, and billion-dollar acts of fraud. A biker gang might mug you for your wallet. A hedge fund manager from JP Morgan will mug you for your mortgage, college debt AND pension plan.

Our nation has had a long, troubling history of Rich White Boys Behaving Badly. At what point will the bill come due?