So, why are so many members of the elite pedophiles?
It starts with the fact that money or power gets you pretty much anything you want that’s legal. If you’ve wanted to do something, you can and you do. Hedonic adjustment sets in: if you can have all the boy toys and booze and fine homes and massages and trips and fine cuisine you want, after a while you get bored of it.
It comes second from “elite impunity”, the fact that in most countries a lot of laws aren’t enforced against rich or powerful people. Do crack, go to prison? Have a pricey cocaine habit, like half of American elites in the 80s, and you’re not touched. (Leaving aside immunities like being able to steal employees wages without usually being called on it, and when you are, not going to jail.)
The general observation is true: elites go to prison only when they prey on other elites.
The third bit is how sensual pleasures work. If something is forbidden, if it has powerful taboos around it, like pedophilia, or cannibalism or incest or rape or sacrilege, then when you perform those actions you get much more of a rush from it — powerful emotions are released when violate strong emotional prohibitions.
So you get wealth or power, you use it to enjoy all the things you wanted which are legal, and hedonic adjustment sets in.
All that is left are forbidden pleasures, and as a bonus, those forbidden pleasures come with an extra hedonic boost as long as you’re impaired in your guilt function. But if you’re rich and powerful, over time, your compassion and empathy die (this is well attested to in the literature). You’re used to having your way and to using other people as means to ends which benefit you, not them.
So–extra enjoyment from breaking taboos and unlike ordinary people, no guilt because you can’t feel compassion or empathy for your victims.
And you’re still basically immune. Oh Epstein eventually went to prison and was suicided, but we’ve all seen how those who partook of his services have been protected: how the Epstein files were redacted and no one was indicted.
All the taboo breaking hedonic highs with almost zero likelihood of going to prison.
Then there’s the simple fact that if you’ve got power, other people with power like to have blackmail on you. (Mossad says “hi”, but they are hardly the only panderering blackmailers.) After all, if you’ve got power, you might decide to do something that isn’t good for other elites: blackmail (and remember, Epstein’s properties had hidden cameras everywhere) takes that option off the table.
Elites thus are always at far more risk of engaging in egregious behaviour than ordinary people. It doesn’t show up in stats because elites are in charge and don’t arrest each other. Even those who don’t partake, either because they have some vestige of ethics left, or because they’re smart and don’t want to open themselves to blackmail rarely go after other elites because once there are enough corrupt evil blackmailed elites, there’s no way to get through that vanguard and if you threaten them they’ll band together and destroy you. (See Thomas Massie, the Representative who has pushed releasing the Epstein files the hardest and who lost his primary to a massive influx of outside money.)
Wealth and power are deeply corrupting. They don’t corrupt everyone, but they can corrupt a plurality, and once the threshold where a plurality have been corrupted by evil acts, the system becomes self-sustaining: impossible to stop.
This is the sort of thing that Xi headed off. The Communist party and wealthy oligarchs were becoming corrupt, though as far as I know not yet to the level of pedophile rings. He headed it off with a savage crackdown.
Eventually some future leader will fail to do so, and China’s elites too will become corrupted: it’s a virtually universal experience.
And once you hit that point it generally requires revolution of one sort or another to clean up the mess.
What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.
Jan Wiklund
As far as I gathered the Epstein network was not about children but about sexually mature “underage” girls. Which is something quite different – illegal, but not weird. The real aim of Epstein, I believe, was selling dirty deals. If you wanted to do a dirty deal you contacted Mr Epstein, and he arranged the network for it.
And I don’t think sex with underaged girls was the main point, it was all about networking. It could as well be illegal drugs (it is!), or illegal money transactions (it is, too!) to bond you to the network.
Nel Bonilla, https://worldlinesletter.substack.com/p/incompetent-or-imperial-rethinking, suggests that in the elite groups nowadays all is about networking. Strengthen the network is all that counts, even if the world is destroyed because of it. Having done something that may damage your reputation, together with the network, whatever it is, strengthen the bond and separates you from the real world.
It’s like the aristocracy of the ancien regime.
Ian Welsh
There are quite a lot of pictures of actual pre-pubescent children with Epstein and co, though I know of no confirmed cases. I tend to suspect they did happen, though it’s yet to be proved.
Since they won’t release the unredacted Epstein files I feel justified in making that assumption.
Albert de
It’s Representative Massie. We Canadians accuse the Americans of being ignorant about Canada and Parliament, don’t make the same mistake about them.
david lamy
This article points to why the top tax rates need to be restored to those of the Eisenhower presidency. Not to balance the budget but rather to balance the influence individuals possess. Laws must bind all of us equally.
david lamy
Perhaps ‘laws must bind all evenly’ would be better phrasing?
furies
“about sexually mature “underage” girls”
AKA
Children
sickening
Greg
There’s also a strain of Calvinism in our culture – people with money must be pure and good, otherwise how do they get so much money? Wealth is a sign that they must be chosen of God.
I know that’s idiotic, but it’s still true.
Mark Andrew Oglesby
When stated: “And once you hit that point it generally requires revolution of one sort or another to clean up the mess,” I can feel it in the air, and most certainly, it will happen as too many “regular” citizens are suffering greatly.
Mark Level
There was a politics and comedy podcast that covered this quite well for several years: it’s called Grubstakers and can be found online. Who got richest in Gold Rush California? Levi Strauss and those who sold canvas (pants and tents, derived from hemp/cannabis) or the Miners themselves? I won’t answer, most know the simple facts.
They covered a panoply of these creeps, and yes, they all pretty much have each others’ backs. Richard Branson, Larry Summers, Obama’s dudes who rescued the Mortgage Fraudsters after 2009, etc. etc. Their theme: Are there any good Billionaires? They concluded not really, the closest they could come was (ironically, given Ian’s opening) Oprah, at least in her early career.
Trump was in there in passing, with his WWE buddies and the other carnival barkers. There’s a member of the WalMart family, a woman who regularly drives shit-faced drunk and has killed more than one person, injured many others, just pays fines, might spend 8 hours in the drunk-tank when taken into custody, that’s about it, does it again and again. Speaking of coke freaks, during Trump’s 1st term the Wall St. Trader Larry Kudlow had a high position. In the 80s he was known for having a 6 figures a week Cocaine habit; presumably it didn’t all go up his nose, he dealt and shared around with friends. (Chapo Trap House also covered this guy.)
Yes, they normalize depravity, as they possess near-complete Immunity. “Everybody does it, it’s fun!!” Being all but-overt adds a bit of spice as well. Was Epstein really “suicided”– count me as doubtful. Jan W’s comparison to the French courtiers is apt, by the end of the last century, George Carlin’s “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it” became axiomatic. A few publicly flame out– Anthony Weiner, “The Mooch” in Trump’s first term, R. Consultant well-connected Matt Schlapp loved grabbing other R. men friends’ dicks, got exposed. They had a public Exorcism by Catholic priests at his home after, “Satan was banished”, he’s morally resurrected. Gavin Newsom stole his subordinates’ wife, apologized, the excuse was he was drinking too much at the time . . .
US Morality is Dominate and you have Impunity. “Propaganda, all is phony” as Dylan sang long ago. Someone’s gotta keep the Tabloids busy & selling like hotcakes.
mago
I lived in the Santa Barbara area during the time accusations were leveled against Michael Jackson. I didn’t buy it at the time and subsequent information confirms my suspicions. There was something about financial and catalog control of his music along with other matters that I forget. There was also a crooked LA dentist and his son involved, but again, names and details elude me.
Another scandal getting a lot of airplay at the time involved sexual allegations against the owners of LA day care centers. Again, I smelled foul play. Turns out the kids were being instructed to make up stories. The principals were later exonerated after their lives were ruined. It was a personal vendetta if memory serves, but it doesn’t matter. The incident is instructive.
As for the sexual perversions of the wealthy, those are well documented. As Paul Revere and the Raiders sang long ago: your kicks just keep harder to find. Yeah, no shit, and the Epstein class continued to get away with murder.
And, oh yeah, around that time when I was doing a private chef gig for a family with four girls, a family friend insinuated that maybe I was engaged in some sort of sexual shenanigans. I was totally shocked at the suggestion and always thought it spoke volumes about the Insinuator’s mind. So far I’ve avoided the J word, but it’s there in everything I’ve relayed. Just saying.
Thermobarbaric
Mago, the event you refer to was The MacMartin Preschool Child Sexual Abuse case and it was exactly as you described. This Wiki link provides most of the gory and shameful details.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
Mark Level
The McMartin Preschool Sexual Abuse Scandal was a monstrosity that came for me personally a few years’ later. I was in the Oakland OTO after moving to the Bay Area, and in fall of ’89, 2 former members who were kicked out, “Steve the Nazi” and Trina Bohr, aka “Trina Bohr, Drug Whore” found a stupid Mexican-American cop named Officer Robles in the Berkeley Police Dept. & jazzed him up with claims about Satanism by the OTO (a Hermetic group that had been driven out of Germany by the Nazis in the late 30s, went back to the 1880s, find the Wiki page if interested.)
Robles was a complete moron with a long, documented history of zealous beatings of innocent people & thuggery. Just one example of many. There was an attempt by the local right-wing Libs in the Bay Area to take over the Pacifica Radio Station in the Bay Area that was actually Radical and turn it into Neera Tanden-style LibSlop. They grabbed Pacifica HQ with a ginned-up Court Order, but then the Pacifica folks set up a Pirate Radio station and got a couple hundred fans to invade that and temporarily take it back. Robles got cited by the Berkeley Police Commission, a reform agency to rein in cop abuses at that time that was surprisingly strong. People were climbing a ladder and invading the premises to take back the property. R. stood on a balcony and bashed their heads with a nightstick. At least he didn’t do it when they were on the ladder, so nobody died, but serious injuries happened. The BPC convicted him after hearings, he got a slap on the wrist.
So the 2 ex-OTO members, Nazi Steve and Trina da Bohr, she couldn’t pay her rent on time (not enough prostitution that week) and she brandished a hammer at her landlord, Sam Trull, (Trull is a name originating in Britain meaning “Pimp”) to threaten him, bit then changed tack and suggested if he helped them accuse a tenant on the property, single woman with a small girl child, of Occult Abuse, they could pay more and he could evict a couple, Michael and Marlene, who had a Sensory Deprivation tank in their apt. that they let friends use. He bit, for whatever reason (sex w/ Bohr?) The woman targeted was (a) not in the OTO, but dating someone in it, an ex-Bohr boyfriend, and her brother was a member; (b) not abusing the child or anyone.
Robles conspired with Trull to improperly enter the M&M apartment with Robles pretending to be a “Plumber” checking the tank’s safety (shades of Watergate Plumbers.) He also had a pretextual visit to Thelema Lodge in Berkeley, claimed at the back door he saw “bags of white powder” on a table which would’ve been blocking the entrance in a Warrant. A local Lib Luminary judge, Julie Conger, stupidly signed off on the lurid, fabricated warrant, and 3 separate premises were invaded, Berkeley cops used a bus-sized van and multiple cop-cars, falsely arrested 13 people, found next to nothing. M & M for instance, had 1/4 ounce of pot on their premises, the raid happened on a Friday night at the end of September (as best I recall). When their case went to court the local Judge laughed off the prosecution and dismissed it immediately. You had 7 cops invade their apartment (alone) and they found a 1/4 oz on a Friday night in Berkeley? What a joke, case dismissed!! They brought along video cameras and made lurid films of “Occult Symbols” in Thelema Lodge and salacious art of Tarot cards by a high-ranking 8th degree OTO Member, Jerry Cornelius.
No convictions resulted. The only guy who could’ve gotten in trouble was an out-of-towner who was planning to see a Grateful Dead concert the next day (not in the OTO) who had a sheet of Acid, but when he got falsely arrested by Robles a 2nd time by Robles when he went to Berkeley Police HQ for his property, his case was thrown out.
I was one of 7 people arrested at the Oakland Lodge. I had quit smoking pot, fortunately, about 8 days’ prior when I’d broken up with my attractive, married OTO girlfriend, didn’t want to go into a funk over the breakup, somebody was teaching me martial arts and I had gone Straight-Edge Punk for about 2 months. I was sleeping when they raided the place, they passed my small room in the back entering the Central areas, and I walked out, was immediately roughly cuffed in plastic ties, wearing only some shorts and a Rock Against Racism T-Shirt. I was 29 yrs. old, had already had my Saturn return. I spent 5 days in jail (it was the Labor Day Weekend) from Friday night until Tuesday morning after the holiday, never allowed to shower, very green at the gills when let out from no sunlight, smelled funky. I was charged with “impeding an investigation” for refusing to give my name until I saw a Warrant (which they had but refused to produce) when my wallet was in the bedroom, they easily found my ID, and “suspicion” of using stimulant drugs, as I have shaky-leg syndrome when sitting still, just as my brother and dad did. I never went to trial, the charges were dismissed long before then.
The OTO is an International Organization, tax free C-3 Religious (whatever the actual letter/# combo is) and I was one of 9 plaintiffs that sued the City of Berkeley. We had 2 lawyers, one very good, a Jewish Lefty, Glen something, and a Sleazebag Ambulance Chaser named Stewart Mackenzie. We testified about “irregularities” to the Police Commission in Berkeley first. There were 3 members, a famous Bay Area Lefty lawyer Osha Newman (great guy, later a casual friend, I last saw him at Oakland Occupy rallies in 2012), a black Christian priest (who saw it was unjust but still voted against us) & some dullard I barely remember who also did.
Case filed in less than a year, Discovery went very badly for the cops when it turned out 2 of them were involved in Crazy, anti-Occult “Police” orgs, File 18 the most prominent. A BPD Lieutenant, Larry “Guy” Craig wrote articles for them, wackadoodle shit, they were linked to the Chick Comics group that did anti-Semitic Extremist free comics at the time as well as anti-Catholic ones like “The Death Cookie” about the Catholic Host.
Robles said he thought the OTO was related to the Mexican “Matamoros Gang”, a tabloid phenom at the time; he was demolished even by his fellow cops when our lawyers did discovery with us. Craig looked like shit as well. Worse, before Discovery Bohr made 2 visits to the Police Commission. At the first she felt guilty for lying and snitching, massively puked on the floor before she could speak and was dismissed. When she testified the 2nd time, she claimed the then-Lodgemaster, David R. Jones, “once sacrificed a chicken” and “as far as I’m concerned, killing a chicken is just as bad as killing a Mexican.” There is a transcript of this. All 3 BPC Commission members’ jaws dropped simultaneously at that bon mot, but 2 still voted there was no “direct” proof of religious bias!!
3 years later, the OTO got a $30,000 settlement from the City of Berkeley, and $30,000 from Trull’s insurer. And Robles never got promoted in his subsequent 15 years with the BPD. He ended his career with a severe drinking problem, and a vehicular homicide charge for killing an 82 year old woman in a crosswalk in Albany, CA. (just north of Berkeley) but no jail time. My Chiropractor got $100 from the settlement for treating my back 4 times pro bono after Robles himself injured my back when I had moved my plastic-tied arms from behind my back to the front when the cops were out of the room, he restored them then yanked them up to near my shoulder-blades. (My ex-gf was a Yoga Teacher and I was doing a lot of Hatha Yoga at the time.) The settlement sent a message. Paul Rauber, a Lefty columnist at the then-successful, since defunct East Bay Express, covered the lawsuit extensively, then did a massive cover story on the fake Occult Crime Grift. At the same time we were in court, the City of San Francisco got sued by 18-20 Gay men the SFPD had raided when they were having a social meeting, all dressed, no sex, held them captive several hours, photo’ed and doxxed all of them. Respectable folks, not deviant Freemasons, lawyers, businessmen, etc. They settled for only $3,000, so our case won more I guess being more sensationalistic. And having opponents who were complete fucking En Retard morons.
Coda: I left the OTO by 2002, stopped paying dues about 3 years prior. By then the Berkeley OTO had turned into a cess-pit of drugs and criminality: Speed freaks (the worst), a bank robber, and a mentally ill man named “Ebony Anpu” (Charlie Reese) with some Manson-style followers like the junkie Holly Hamilton and Edmund “Scabby” James (years prior he had been “Randy” James) who did at least 7 years in the Super-Max that Ted Kazynski was in in Colorado for selling synthetic drugs (even though he snitched on his 3 co-conspirators.) When the cops raided Michael and Marlene Sanborn’s place there was an OTO discussion group, and Jerry Cornelius, in his 40s at the time, was there with his 17-year old girlfriend, Tracy I think her name, a UC Berkeley Freshman and emancipated minor. The cops at first tried to exaggerate that into “trafficking in minors,” it went nowhere. By 1998 there were underage minors, 2 andecdotal accounts of high school girls naked in a hot-tub in a Marin County “Camp” (Lodge is biggest group, camp smaller) called Mons Abiegnus there. The Mons Leader, a psychotherapist called Ed King, got overly involved with “Ebony” and his green-card wife and lost 8 of 12 members of his Camp (including me) for covering up this sleazy shit. I think he left the OTO in disgrace some time later, could be mistaken though.
spud
this is important. its a beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfI-_5HhABM
Cancelling Billionaires Before They Cancel Us
Sep 25, 2026
WARNING: contains some explicit language
The 2026 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture featured authors Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, co-authors of the book Cancelling Billionaires Before They Cancel Us. Hosted by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Senior Economist Marc Lee.
Laughingsong
@Mark Level, I am assuming that “O.T.O” is Ordo Templi Orientis?
Old Jake
A recent Larry Johnson post included a long aside describing his life beliefs in the need for and use of military and paramilitary forces to respond to incidents and protect groups. And how much more recently his view on this changed radically – scales removed from eyes type of event – wherein he realized that all violent acts engender violent responses and thus perpetuate the very behaviors that are deplored. And so he has grown. Deeply personal but also universally applicable, and to me one of the most important essays he has given to us. In the same vein, this essay starts with a specific class of despicable acts and then shows how and why it illuminates a much more general set of circumstances, and concludes with a chilling prediction. I think one of your most important essays. I will mitigate your conclusion just a little by citing Kaitlyn Johnson’s writings in which she relates her belief that our culture is on the verge of a deep shift, along the lines of Eckard Tolles’ writings, that would end this tyranny of the oligarchs. One can hope, and perhaps find ways to act.
Old Jake
Should be “I think _this_is_ one of your most important”