Epstein's Island

The idea of ​​depraved elites gathering on an island, in a castle, or some other secret location to indulge in aberrant pleasures while controlling the fate of the world is ancient and deeply rooted. The declassification, at the end of last week, of a deluge of documents (thousands of emails and audiovisual files) from the Jeffrey Epstein case file by the U.S. Department of Justice has set social media and the pseudo-media outlets of influencers and fake journalists worldwide ablaze. It has also ignited the macabre imaginations of thousands, or perhaps millions, of anonymous profiles, both real and fictitious, that roam the internet's underbelly, seeking out or disseminating sensationalism and trash. Epstein rowsThe Epstein files have found a home, and the, shall we say, content creators, after having pondered (but not digested) the deluge of repugnant crimes reflected in the actual documents, have responded with a regurgitation of speculations as unhealthy as, or even more so than, those of the undergrowth. The result is that, these days, logging onto social media resembles a festival of guttural horror, and offers cause for unease—once again—about a society addicted to stimulation, which is just as likely to shed a tear over saccharine and cloying stories as to then, or simultaneously, or on top of them, or at the same time. Many have been reminded, in light of what the Epstein files say or suggest, of an extreme film like Salon or the 120 Days of SodomPasolini's film, which in turn alludes to the work of the Marquis de Sade and the dark world of libertines. Others have returned to the idea of Eyes wide shut, the last film Kubrick shot, which adapted The round and Dream storyby Arthur Schnitzler.

However, as Mark Twain is said to have remarked, my paranoia doesn't stop them from persecuting me. In other words, the fact that many people are ranting on social media doesn't invalidate the evidence that, on Epstein's island, a long list of powerful figures and celebrities gathered to celebrate orgies involving pedophilia, rape, and torture, and possibly also rituals, murders, and macabre practices like vampirism. Epstein, and by extension Trump, perfectly represent the obscenity of power, an idea that comes to us, at the very least, from the Roman Caesars and other emperors of antiquity, who consumed human flesh and blood to demonstrate the complete impunity of their absolute power, the savage and demonic freedom of those who can defy it. The only good news is that the festering wound of this mess is surfacing from the Justice Department, because it means that Trump and Trumpism don't yet control the entire administration, and therefore, not all the power. The approval and popularity ratings of the degenerate president are getting lower every day, and the November midterm elections are drawing ever closer. Democracy must stop Trump.