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Minnesota and the Epstein Files

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Jonathan Neale

This is the first of several articles that put the protests in Minneapolis in the context of swiftly moving changes and ruptures in the global system. This article argues that the conflict over the Epstein files is the largest single confrontation so far in a long global struggle against sexual violence by the powerful. It is also a direct threat to Donald Trump personally.

By early January Trump was cornered. He embarked upon a manic Killer Klown tour that has visited grief on Venezuela, Iran, Greenland and several American cities. One reason was to distract attention from the Epstein files. The other was to display enough power and kill enough people to terrify both the Epstein survivors and their supporters.

The next article will argue that the resistance in Minnesota is the continuation of a mass confrontations between the people and the police on the streets of more than thirty countries since 2010. In Article 3 I look at the global international alliance of extreme racist movements led by Trump, Putin, Modi, Netanyahu and many more. Article 4 is about tariffs, Greenland, NATO, Ukraine and the crumbling of American imperial power.

But this article is all about the Epstein files. Here I will break two long established rules of method in the study of international relations. The first is that international politics should only be explained by international relations. “Domestic issues” are not fundamentally important in great power conflicts.

The second silly rule of method is that sexual violence is wrong, but it is not important. Or rather, of course sexual violence is important. But it is not important in the way that oil, profits, the arms trade or global financial markets are important.

In this way of thinking, paying attention to struggles over the sexual abuse of young people is not only harrowing. It’s icky. It’s about scandal. Fundamentally, there is a hierarchy of seriousness, and rape is dreadful, but it is not serious.

Now let’s transgress those two silly rules.

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The Epstein Files and Class Struggle

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Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale

One of the great class confrontations of our time is playing out in Washington DC right now – the Epstein files. We know that sounds like a really, really weird thing to say. But look at what’s happening in front of our eyes.

On September 3, 2025, roughly twenty working class women showed up to speak to the press in Washington and demand the release of the Epstein papers. Some were in their thirties, and some were in their early middle age. They were cold – winter was coming. They were survivors of Epstein’s abuse and exploitation. And they were terrified. Most did not speak, but they stood there beside those who spoke.

Julie K. Brown was the journalist hero first broke the Epstein story in the Miami Herald in 2018. Now she tweeted that she was speaking to many survivors, and they were all terrified. The obvious reason was what happened to Epstein. But also, of course, those women had known those powerful men up close and personal, their arrogance, cruelty and ruthlessness. As they took turns leaning into the microphone, shaking in their courage, they knew what they were doing.

On the other side were the legions of rich, powerful and influential men who had used them, and the greater legions of powerful men and women who had concealed and enabled the abuse. On that side stood two presidents of the United States, one former prime minister of Israel, the American architect of the Good Friday agreement in Ireland, rich and powerful lawyers, distinguished Harvard professors, the greatest linguist of his generation, the British ambassador to the United States, Bill Gates and other billionaires.

Those working class women confronted scores of men from the ruling class. That courage was in them because there were many of them, standing together. It was in them because their fight against Epstein had now lasted for years, and they had grown and changed as they stood by each other to rescue themselves.

They also found courage because they stood on the shoulders of giants. The global movement against the sexual violence of the rich and powerful has been growing for forty years. It began with women and men who had survived abuse as children.

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Trump is in Deep Trouble

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Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale

A 6 minute read

Trump is in deep trouble. Look at the photo. Those are the 800 generals and admirals Hegseth and Trump summoned from all over the world to meet together and be admonished. Look at their faces. They are angry.

Hegseth called them weak, unmanly and fat. He told them they would have compulsory physicals every six months and would be fired if they were overweight.

Trump spoke next. He arrived twenty minutes late and nobody clapped. He said it was the most silent room he had ever been in. He told them to applaud. No one applauded. Those senior officers sat and listened to the silence. No one applauded. They now all know where they stand.

No authoritarian right winger insults all their senior generals and admirals together. Pinochet did not do it. Putin doesn’t do it. Modi would not dream of it. Mussolini did not do it. Netanyahu hasn’t done it. Hitler never did it. It’s mad.

Trump cannot have a coup if all the generals and admirals have  learned that they all hate you. And with luck this means this road to a dictatorship is closed to Trump.

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The Epstein Files and Me-Too

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The photo is of the heroic journalist Julie K. Brown

NANCY LINDISFARNE and JONATHAN NEALE report:

This article says four important things about the Epstein files.

First, though all the talk is about conspiracy theories, this case is of a piece with the cover-ups of the abuse of gymnasts by Larry Nasser; the cover-ups of generations of abuse in residential schools for indigenous children in Canada, the consistent cover-ups by the Catholic Church; the cover-up of the Smythe case by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and hundreds and thousands of other cover-ups by institutions all over the world. This is not some bizarre conspiracy. It is what the rich and powerful do.

Second, this is not just about Donald Trump. This cover up started way before Trump, and it goes way beyond Trump. Third, the liberal and centre mainstream media are unable to talk sensibly about any of this because the Democratic Party has been part of the cover-up. Fourth, as with almost other every abuse and Me Too case, this one came to light because brave survivors fought back.

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Trump is cutting HIV drugs for 20 million people. He can be stopped.

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9 minute read by Jonathan Neale.

 Since 2003, a US government program (PEPFAR) has provided free drugs that are presently keeping 20.5 million people with HIV alive. All these people are in poorer countries, and most of them in Africa. And now, President Trump has suspended the PEPFAR program for 90 days, and it looks like the closure will be made permanent. This is a death sentence for millions of people. It seems Trump is happy to let these people die.

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Putin, Modi and Trump: Ukraine and Racist Right-Wing Populism

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Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale

The invasion of Ukraine is appalling. The resistance is heroic. The situation is moving fast, and each step is politically revealing. There remains a great deal of confusion about Putin and Ukraine in the United States and Britain. This long read aims to unpack some of that confusion and to explain Putin’s rise, how he fits into the global racist right, and his reasons for invading Ukraine.

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Anti-maskers, Anti-vaxxers and the Racist Right

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Jonathan Neale writes: One of the puzzling and enraging things about the covid pandemic is the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers in the United States, Britain, and more widely. And then there are the other forms of covid denial – ‘It’s only the flu’, ‘It’s not real’, ‘There are no cases in hospital’, ‘Herd immunity will save us’.

Many people explain this by saying those other people are mad, deluded, stupid, paranoid, the victims of the internet and conspiracy theories. Or by saying it’s a mystery why they do that. I want to present a political explanation. It comes from some thinking Nancy Lindisfarne and I have been doing about big lies and fascist movements.

[First published at The Ecologist on 27 Jan 2021]

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