THE never-ending saga surrounding the late billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein continues with the latest batch of files released by the American Department of Justice, totalling over three million documents.
In typical fashion not uncommon to the politicised elements of the internet, people project their own preferred narratives on to what was released. Those generally interested in the story want to know who’s in the latest release, what more horrifying or lurid details are to be found concerning his and his posse’s behaviour, or further revelations of his involvement with government actors during the 2008 financial crisis, including Britain’s.
Those on the left condemn Donald Trump, other populists and even the founders of the infamous 4chan board /pol/ as degenerate sleazebags down to any associations or alleged actions with the billionaire, some going as far to claim that the files implicate the whole populist right enterprise as an elaborate ploy by Epstein. Those on the right conclude the files confirm their usual suspects in the Epstein story, Bill Clinton and Peter Mandelson, Bill Gates and so on; while an anti-semitic fringe believes they confirm theories that Epstein was part of a Jewish cabal of sexual predators, linked with the Rothschild dynasty!
The truth, as ever, gets lost in all of the noise (MSM and social media). Given the number of files and the impossibility of 24 hour forensic analysis the story has turned into a media circus, in which serious justice and or restitution for victims is put to one side, as the latest juicy story (which has little updates at most) becomes breaking news.
Then there is the hysteria provoked, like that against Sky News for pointing out correctly that mention in the files was not automatic guilt, or the temporary suspension from X of Quillette editor Claire Lehmann after she was mass flagged for calling the matter ‘boring’.
More troublingly however, is how the mainstream treatment represents the rise of what can be called ‘acceptable anger’ – a cynical tool the establishment uses in order to remain in power.
There is a precedent. Following the death of famed Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin in 1921, the Soviet government (under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin) gave him a lavish funeral. Over this time, they allowed for a modicum of dissent to occur, previously totally alien to that system and for the most part afterwards, until its collapse 70 years later. Imprisoned anarchists were given temporary release to support their late comrade, anarchist publications were allowed to publish tribute bulletins uncensored and anti-Bolshevik slogans were allowed to be displayed.
This was an era when any sort of open opposition the Soviet Union had been crushed. So the rulers allowed this display to happen, knowing that it posed no threat to the state or its ideology. Something, of course, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies would not have dared do during the remainder of the 20th century Communist experiment.
In short, in a managerial system whose ideology is all-encompassing and total, any widespread dissent will only be given an outlet to wider society if it will not prove a threat.
The Jeffrey Epstein saga is one version of this occurring.
This isn’t to downplay or defend Epstein or the horrific crimes he and his associates carried out, and hopefully the release of such files will lead to some people being sent down. Nor is it to dismiss rightful anger over the Epstein madness as a distraction or something that is irrational – quite the opposite actually.
In fact, that is how such anger is used. Genuine rage over such an issue can be weaponised and spread by the media and elite or ignored,
Consider this. How many of the same outlets which have (rightly) laboured extensively over these Epstein files have been as interested at the grooming gang scandal in Britain? Without Elon Musk pushing the story strongly at the start of 2025, it would have once again been memory holed without a second thought, as it so often was in previous years. Only then was it turned into a national scandal, at long last, to their reluctance. Indeed, there was some elements of British society who were annoyed at this at all, such as Private Eye editor Ian Hislop and Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, men who had no problem going after Epstein.
That seems to be how it goes in Britain. It seems that some stories will rightly get a lot of coverage and calls for justice – an enthusiasm not exploited for those stories that threaten elite orthodoxy.
You are allowed to get angry about the Post Office scandal and call for Paula Vennells to have her damehood revoked as much you please. But then, these will be stories that are cynically used to push establishment narratives. Most notably, the Grenfell Tower fire was covered in a way to push multiculturalism and diversity as wonderful things. Any voice questioning how those ideologies had led to the event occurring was not allowed in polite society.
This is not, however, the attitude the establishment takes with other ‘multicultural’ issues. When grooming gang scandals, Islamic terrorism or the latest immigrant murderer hits the news, the response isn’t to be rightfully angry or demand change, by (at the very least) calling for borders to be sealed and to crack down on poorly integrated communities. Instead, there is Don’t Look Back in Anger sentimentality at best, and at worst genuine nudge units behind the scenes deliberately trying to suppress any actual negative emotions towards the incident in question.
After the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, those who questioned extremist Islamic literature on BBC panel shows were dismissed as lying conspiracy nuts, while protest marches in the area were called ‘hate’ by the Labour Mayor Andy Burnham. Other times, such anger is redirected into an excuse for the repression of dissent, like the Arena bombing being used by the then Home Secretary Amber Rudd to end online encryption or the murder of Sir David Amess being used to call for censorship on the internet.
Sometimes ‘acceptable anger’ is pushed in order to cover up stories deliberately. As the true horror stories of Rochdale and Rotherham were being exposed in the early 2010s, it is telling that what the establishment was focusing on was the completely fabricated Carl Beech VIP paedophile list – not least one suspects because the culprits were old guards of the evil, white establishment that they despised.
Finally, such stories are used by those in power to downplay those which make their side look bad. The awful recurring trend on social media of lefties is to sneer at the supposed populist/far-right’s ignorance of evil ‘white’ grooming gangs, something crudely demonstrated this week on Jeremy Vine’s eponymous Channel 5 show when dimwit Marina Purkiss challenged Reform UK Mayor Andrea Jenkyns on the matter.
All these scandals should get us angry and prompt us to demand justice and change policy. However, due to our increasingly polarised political climate and an elite wholly in the pocket of one side, this is unlikely to happen any time soon – so acceptable anger is this alternative we are stuck with.
