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6:00 am, February 6th, 2026 - 34 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
The discussion (started by Ad) yesterday bemoaning the lack of left wing governments failed to mention the PSOE led government of Pedro Sanchez.
This coalition that includes Sumar, Podemos and other small parties has carried out a number of leftist policies, including (among many things) recognising Palestine, refusing to kow tow to Trump and giving citizenship to half a million immigrants-about as non-Trump as you can get.
All this while running a successful economy.
Hipkins should take note.
Killing off Taranaki seabed mining is the best news I've had in years.
Defeating extractive capitalism even when the government re-writes every law and removes our judiciary is still possible.
Awesome work all those who fought.
Same. Now for the Bendigo mines.
Agreed. All eyes on the Minister for Sealord for his next moves.
Didn't this proposal have a major wind turbine builder closing down here in NZ also ?
Two in fact – BlueFloat Energy https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/531844/wind-power-firm-departs-amid-fast-track-controversy-over-seabed-mining and JERA Nex BP https://renews.biz/106039/jera-nex-bp-to-end-new-zealand-operations/
The Epstein files and cases graphically show how patriarchy and capitalism are strongly intertwined. The network of wealthy and powerful men involved in the sexual offences and trafficking also is intertwined with political networks (e.g. Mandelson, Israel) and economics.
There's a couple of articles on Aussie websites that explain this.
From the ABC by Julia Baird: Epstein files reveal the men who looked away after women had spoken up
This article focuses quite a bit on Melinda Gates negative reactions to Epstein, in contrast to Bill Gates involvement. It also covers the men on the fringes who were complicit/apologists after the facts about Epstein's criminal activities had started to become publicly well-known. And it includes men of different political affiliations eg Naom Chomsky on the left.
Baird writes:
And the main victims and abused and exploited are young vulnerable women.
Another article on the Aussie, Women's Agenda site is "The Epstein files and the patriarchal structures that protect predators" by Rita Nasr
The article begins with a comment about the appalled response of her 19 year old son to reading about the Epstein files: disgusted by the files and what wealthy powerful men, like Trump, can allegedly get away with.
Nasr writes:
The origin of this is darker still.
Experiments – abuse of females going through puberty and into adolescence was used (the trauma) for mind control – carried out by the Reich.
The research was transferred to America, (the woman who ran it provided them with assistance in return for not being charged).
This went into CIA (MK Ultra Mind Control) use of sex trafficked women (some of this shut down by the 1975 Church Committee) all before the Epstein era.
connecting MKUltra and Epstein appears to be a conspiracy theory/
The link is simply the management of controlled (young) females for entrapment.
ie 2 different patriarchal systems? With some similarities.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361844965_False_Memory_Syndrome_Foundation_1992-2019_and_CIA_US_MK_Ultra_1995
It'd be helpful if you'd explain the connection rather than just dumping in a link.
It does outline some similarities.
It's not clear to me what false memory syndrome has to do with MK Ultra. The only thing I could find was that Epstein had claimed his accusers were suffering from false memory syndrome.
Maybe you could explain more? I'm at a loss.
Google's AI tells me this,
No references (SPC can provide those). This connection seems more credible. AI is referencing Linda Bellos' work. I didn't look further.
Using under age females.
Management of any complaint
https://medium.com/fourth-wave/harvey-weinsteins-false-memory-defense-and-its-shocking-origin-story-2b0e4b98d526
OK. I think I get it.
False Memory Syndrome has been used to discredit women's memories of childhood sexual abuse, or of any historical sexual abuse.
I had in mind that in the past there was a focus on 'recovered memory therapy' through which women who had previously had no memory of historical abuse, came to decide they actually had been sexually abused, assaulted or raped. This was controversial and has largely been discredited as far as I'm aware. And I thought that was what False Memory Syndrome was about.
The above link says that recovered memory is much debated and some research shows it's believed more by many mental health practitioners than by researchers.
It sounds like it's a matter of the finer details about how memory works, but that the FMSF advisory board may have been trying to use intervention in memory processes to manipulate women and control women.
traumatic amnesia was earlier studied in soldiers, where it was easier to verify events that soldiers later remembered. Afaik there’s been no discrediting of this, which establishes that humans can forget experiences under trauma and then remember them later.
FMS movement came about specifically in response to adult women talking about being sexually abused as children, and mostly men being sent to prison. We can understand that in the context of who society protects (eg in Epstein’s case it wasn’t the young women, it was Epstein), and might then consider that the FMS movement at least in part was about protecting men.
Whatever issues there might have been about recovered memory work in therapy, and how that could be used legally, the idea that humans can’t remember later what they forgot under trauma appears to be simply untrue. Which begs the question of why the FMS movement was so successful in convincing society that it was true.
There there are overlaps in senior powerholders in both MKUltra and the FMS movement is utterly unsurprising to me, and I’d like to see better evidence on that.
There are two different issues
1.Investigation of abuse
Is the testimony that results credible?
2.The claim made of being abused
And the use of experts by defence counsel to discredit a female’s testimony .
The other article referenced in the initial link.
https://news.isst-d.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-false-memory-syndrome-foundation/
SPC appears to be saying that society was already doing fucked up things to women and girls, and Epstein's gang follows on from that because society enables both. I'm guessing that's what they meant, because they didn't actually explain (and I hope they're not peddling the conspiracy theory that Epstein's gang were doing mind control)
The common denominator imo is men being enabled within the patriarchy, and sociopaths being rewarded with positions of power.
Were you aware there’s a conspiracy theory claiming a link?
What we know is that one era preceded the other in time.
Today's logical fallacy is "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc"
Noting that something occurred earlier is not a claim the two are directly related.
Your language is too vague and ambiguous. A link can be a correlation that’s not causative but it might be. An origin, has a stronger suggestion that goes beyond a shared beginning towards something that stays connected and intertwined (i.e., ‘linked’). When bringing up conspiracy material you may want to be more careful in your choice of words as to not sow doubt and confusion in the minds of TS readers as to what you really mean or intend to convey.
I simply mentioned to an earlier time (when abused young females were as used in entrapment operations)
1.all before the Epstein era.
This was misrepresented as
I explained that the kink was "the management of controlled (young) females for entrapment".
Not my misrepresentation.
Your initial reply (@ 3.1) was to the comment by Karolyn_IS (@ 3) and her (long-ish) comment was all about Epstein.
You weaved a narrative about a dark origin that goes back to the [Third] Reich, subsequent transfer to the US, and uptake by the CIA, before Epstein. But it still was a reply to a comment about Epstein. There was not a single link to help with understanding what you meant (no context). It was to be expected that indeed some people would assume that there was a direct relationship between all the various components as you sketched them out.
In subsequent comments you failed to clarify and come clean.
The onus is on you be clear and explain, so you do carry responsibility for causing confusion and misrepresentation and wasting people’s time here (including your own).
Your language and terse comments cause problems here, from time to time. That’s on you – own it.
it wasn’t so much a misrepresentation as guessing because you didn’t explain yourself.
Horrendous and vile though the sexual abuse by Epstein and his co-conspirators is, Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart of British political fame also explore what else was happening behind the scenes – the almost unimaginable level of corruption with tentacles which spread across the world including in NZ:
But but but Anne…..Trump is absolved……..mmmmmnnnn……
And still the only prominent people to be subjected to an appropriate penalty – with the exception of Epstein himself – are British.
Seems to me the idea that we have a human society is a conspiracy theory – if so no wonder we are always finding them when we lift the carpet.
First Dog on the Moon gets it right.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/feb/06/how-many-nameless-trafficked-children-how-many-how-many?