I guess you could say Jeffrey Epstein was being a Job Creator™

Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

jeffrey epsteinPhoto: Telegraph UK

Our betters in action:

Britain’s Prince Andrew allegedly lobbied the U.S. government to go easy on an American billionaire the FBI was investigating for holding sex slaves he allegedly shared with the prince and “many other powerful men,” according to claims in a court document obtained by RadarOnline.com.

Four women who allege they were Jeffrey Epstein’s sex slaves are suing the federal prosecutors for not conferring with them before reaching “a secret non-prosecution agreement” with the Wall Street money manager.

Instead of possible life sentences over human trafficking allegations, which included claims he shared teen sex slaves with his rich and powerful friends, Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to a far lesser state sex charge that sent him to a Florida prison for just 13 months.

Here is the line that most stands out for me among the explosive allegations that have emerged:

But the uproar over “The Prince and The Perv”—as the British headlines screamed—mysteriously drowned in the Mid-Atlantic. New Yorkers barely batted an eye about the scandal-mongering across the pond. “A jail sentence doesn’t matter anymore,” says David Patrick Columbia, founder of New York Social Diary. “The only thing that gets you shunned in New York society is poverty.”

Remarkable that this was taken more seriously in a country with a monarchy than in the ostensibly “classless” United States but there you have it.

Let me stipulate to some things here: Scumbags who sexually prey on underage people are found at all socio-economic levels. From the age of eleven or so throughout my teens I was approached and propositioned by a diverse array of grown-ass men who either knew exactly how old I was or who could easily guess. And I am not an outlier in that. Many, if not most, women can recount similar experiences. So it’s not just rich men who are guilty of this. But it is incredibly odious how rich men are protected and encouraged in their sense of entitlement* to the bodies of young people (or anyone else, really), whether or not it is morally and legally acceptable for them to have that.

I further stipulate that women are sometimes sexual predators too, though I’m not aware of any getting away with it to the extent that so many powerful men have. Finally, I acknowledge that Epstein was a good friend of Bill Clinton’s (before the former President quietly withdrew that). It is no surprise to me that rapist scumbags can have liberal leanings, either genuine or strategic.

I joked on Twitter that Jeffrey Epstein personifies why we should start confiscating obscene wealth. I was really only half kidding and if you’ve been reading my friend Bob Lord’s many posts on income inequality and how it threatens democracy, then you should understand what that means for real people. Income inequality isn’t merely line graphs and Piketty citations. It is a crushing force that exacerbates human trafficking and sexual exploitation. It leads to more dehumanization and enslavement of people considered disposable (because they are poor) while rich shitbags like Jeffrey Epstein become more and more untouchable. Unfettered, unregulated capitalism is far from the realization of the bold dreams of Randian** heroes. It is far more often a refuge and cultivating environment for the worst kind of people in the world.

*Seriously, your typical seventeen year old has no personal desire to give “sensual massages” to men in their fifties. Ew.

**Well, actually, things did often get rape-y in Ayn Rand novels.