The Monster Underneath

When the system is a destructive beast, strike anywhere

Twitter (X) lit up last week with word that a strange scene was unfolding at a synagogue in Crown Heights, New York. Reports showed a stand-off between members of the shul and contractors, which led to the police being called. The story so far is this: some students from the Chabad-Lubavitch Yeshiva had been digging a tunnel under the synagogue and neighboring buildings (even hiring workers secretly to help out). Some of the older men objected and called in a crew, instructing them to fill the tunnel with concrete. When the young men found out they were none too happy and you know the rest.

Why were they digging? It appears the tunnel was a means by which to extend the property. (New York rent, amirite?) According to reports, the young men were “trying to bring to fruition an expansion of the synagogue” proposed by the Seventh Rebbe, the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Schneerson’s teachings generated an internecine debate in the Chabad movement, with some viewing him as a messiah.

So why was Right Wing X all a-flutter? A story of secret tunnels under NYC is so strange, especially without any extra details. A disguised passageway under a synagogue, unwillingly exposed? Wild claims began popping up all over social media, suggesting a cover up. It must be that this is part of a whole network of tunnels, with access to the Children’s Museum across the street, likely used for nefarious rituals and child trafficking. But that was just guessing.

There has been a lot of guessing, though, and for good reason – 2020 threw the conspiracy theory dumpster wide open. As the contents have been flying out, both sides of the political aisle have been grabbing what they deem to be worth keeping. But whoever has the bullhorn sets the agenda, so with the latest round of Jeffrey Epstein-related news still lingering in the air, liberal media have made it clear they are flabbergasted with what the “far Right” has latched onto – why are they so “obsessed with sex trafficking”? Politico asked. The media site brought in conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild to try to explain what is going on with the “MAGA crowd” to its readership.

The QAnon “movement”, Rothschild explains, can’t handle reality, so they make up elaborate connections between data points. The misinformation around Jeffrey Epstein is really about the Right’s antisemitism and obsession with the Clintons, he says. Pizzagate weirdos should move on, but they can’t admit their ideas are idiotic for fear of losing face. So the misinformation snowballs, getting more outlandish with every fresh headline.

Similar complaints were voiced by corporate media when the crowd-funded movie “Sound of Freedom” became an unexpected hit last year. Mainstream media could not congratulate the film for highlighting the horrors inflicted on children and leave it at that. It seemed it was their duty to frame any talk about coordinated child sexual abuse as [dangerous] “QAnon” nonsense. It’s true that some folks see Pizzagate under every rock in a paranoid fashion, but if you’re honest about what human hearts are capable of (especially when furnished with wealth and power), it is not too hard to believe. When journalists and experts downplay the pervasive reality of trafficking altogether, they prove themselves to be ignorant or straight-up ghouls.

Despite the expressed desire on the part of media elites that trafficking be brought to an end, the sexual libertinism at the heart of a lot of progressive policies they endorse will thwart their efforts. Light and darkness cannot mix. You can’t endorse abortion, surrogacy, gay parenting, open borders, drag queens at family events, pornography in schools or the idea that children can consent to sex and then be shocked when perverted men take advantage of little ones. You can’t undermine marriage and family and the reality of male and female and expect that vulnerable children will find their way just fine. Frederick Douglass was definitely onto something when he said that it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. However, that would require adults to stop sacrificing children’s well-being for their own convenience and pleasure and instead, actively protect them from harm. But that aspect of being a grown-up has not been a virtue in our society for some time now.

A couple of years ago, Daryl Cooper, a former intelligence agent who now produces the Martyr Made podcast, took a grueling five hour deep dive into Jeffrey Epstein’s mysterious life and death. In the course of his retell, he covers some of the most harrowing cases of child sex trafficking in recent history. With every account, Cooper draws attention to the noticeable miscarriages of justice. There are detectives unexpectedly taken off cases, investigating journalists threatened, judges meeting with unfortunate deaths, police failing to do due diligence, witnesses smeared into silence, records lost, etc. You get the idea. Perhaps there are more plausible explanations for these series of unfortunate events than the scheming of a cabal of pedophiles – this is just a pile of circumstantial evidence after all. But as Cooper observes, if it piles up high enough, that’s a different story.

Cooper recounts many of the grim details from the scandal around Kincora boys’ home in Ireland in the 1960s. Victims claim that they were trafficked around Britain and Europe, to be abused by politicians, lawmakers and royalty.

What about “The Finders”? Were they devilish government assets who trafficked children around the world or a harmless hippie cult who liked LARPing as intelligence operatives? They had curious child-rearing practices but was it all blown out of proportion by 1980s media outlets who loved a good “Satanic panic”?

Cooper goes on to retell how the bungled case of serial killer Marc Dutroux brought Belgians to protest in the streets in record numbers in the 90s. Dutroux claimed at his trial that he was part of a child trafficking ring, aided by Belgian police and wealthy businessmen. “The total number of his victims is unknown.”

A Buzzfeed investigation from 2021 revealed that at least ten CIA agents were under investigation for pedophilia. The Agency keeps inquiries into agents’ detestable behavior in-house, citing “privacy reasons, national security, and a federal law that exempts the CIA from disclosing details about its operations.” This means “few faced any consequences beyond the possible loss of their jobs and security clearances.”

And so Cooper comes to Jeffrey Epstein, whose abominable behavior was enabled by powerful friends, wealthy clients and authorities who gave him a pass. How did he get so rich? What did people pay him for? From the first time Vanity Fair wrote about him, Epstein was clearly a sketchy character whose job was to hide-and/or-seek money for the ultra wealthy. “Why do billionaires choose him as their trustee? Because the problems of the mega-rich, he tells people, are different from yours and mine.”

Epstein was good at covering his fiscal tracks. “He ensured that even if his crime was uncovered, the victim would be unable to do anything about it, either because of social embarrassment or because the money was tucked away in a place where they couldn’t either find it or get it”, wrote Vicki Ward, one of the first journalists to draw attention to Epstein. The same was true of his abuse victims. An investigator into his case said, "He chose girls he thought would not be believed if they told what had happened to them…The more vulnerable the better.”

Rumors of his being an intelligence asset might have been exaggerated, but there are grains of truth in the details. The story of Epstein cannot be told without reference to arms dealers, Arab hustlers, African dictators, Israeli intelligence and British spies. The more you zoom out, the murkier it gets. There must have been any number of people who wished him dead. Some evidence that Epstein was killed might be wrong, Cooper concedes, but for the official suicide narrative to be correct, all the evidence to the contrary would have to be lies.

So where does that leave us? The latest document release from the late pedophile’s case was not the bombshell that a lot of people hoped it would be. There was a list of associates, a lot of whom were already known and that was about it. Cooper is resigned that we will likely never know the truth about Jeffrey Epstein. For their part, governments feel no obligation to disclose anything to their citizens, he says. In fact, the intelligentsia will reassure itself that national security depends on the people knowing as little as possible. Keeping people guessing is also a handy way to control them, I suppose.

So, why be “obsessed” with child trafficking?

Because we know survivors; they sit next to us on the bus, at the office, in the pew.

Because we love mercy and hunger for justice.

Because Jesus warned that those who exploit children would be better off throwing themselves in the sea with a millstone around their necks.

Because this deviant trade continues, even in our modern society, even in our churches…

It is easy today to believe we’re so much more enlightened than ancients who endorsed “Greek love” or the Romans for whom pederasty was a passport into the upper echelons of society. Surely, we’ve got a handle on the basest instincts of human nature and times of barbarism are over. But how are things different to ancient times? We are right to be angry at a corrupt system that allows corrupt individuals to thrive in the shadows, but for every shocking tale of a billionaire who secretly exploited children that unsettles us for a while, there are countless other incidents of slavery and abuse that fly under the radar because they are more acceptable to our governing classes.

It would be satisfying to know the whole truth, to have our suspicions proved right, to see rich and powerful perverts brought low. But meting out that kind of retribution is above most of our pay grades – should authorities fail to do their job in this life, Judgment Day will be enough, as Pastor Fisk says. It is the sovereign God who sets the wicked in slippery places and casts them down to destruction, even in a moment!

There is a lot that can be said on this topic and I am glad to be wrapping up my reading on it – this muck is particularly disturbing. Jesus Christ, preserve the people who go into dark places and pull people free, day in and day out! But my hope is that the church will be a place where people can be restored, where shame is washed away by the grace of Jesus Christ in water, bread and wine; where clear words of truth and wisdom compel the saints to pray against this darkness that swallows up the “least of these”.

For now, the wise will mourn and repent. The task is great, but the grim good news is that there are so many ways to strike at this Leviathan. We are not able to cut off the head of this beast – that is the preserve of our King when he returns; but we are tasked with raiding its territory to take back those captured. We are still somewhere on the slippery slope to perdition, so all it not as bad as it could be, granted. But the system that eats our children is currently so anti-god that every faithful stand for truth, goodness and purity, for marriage, family and life is a blow against it and the people who feed it. The wicked will not escape the justice of God and that gives us hope.

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says:

God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.

Amen, so be it.