Didn’t we always know, in our hearts, that they were all dead?

That thought forced its way into my mind upon my perusal of the various tranches of Epstein emails.

Missing kids have been in the collective consciousness of Americans for decades. When did the milk carton announcements of missing children begin, and why? Here is a timeline:

•  September 1984: Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines became the first to feature Gosch and Martin on their half-gallon cartons.
• December 1984: The National Child Safety Council (NCSC) launched a coordinated nationwide program.
• January 1985: The program went national, eventually involving over 700 dairies across the United States.
• March 1985: More than 1.5 billion cartons were distributed monthly with images of missing kids.

1.5 billion milk cartons carrying the faces of missing kids per month? Looking back, what was that supposed to accomplish? I internalized the ramifications of all these children having gone “missing.” I knew in my soul these children had to be dead, but it was too horrible a realization, and I locked it away in my subconscious. And, life has a way of derailing our thoughts, stealing our attention.

Then my children were born in 1986. This started a four-decade episode in primal fear, a realization in my heart, that my daughters were going to be perpetually in danger from men. But the scope of what we have learned was beyond my ken. I could not fathom, and if I could have, I would not have wanted to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that there could be a world-wide coordinated web of what I can only define as evil entities, running around free of restraint either physical or financial while abducting children. It is beginning to appear that they are also running the world.

Thinking back over that time, I remember those PSAs on network television asking, “It’s 10PM. Do you know where your children are?” I recall thinking, “When I was a teenager, my mom knew where I was constantly.” Only now have I come to understand that teenagers weren’t necessarily the focus of that PSA.

Were these almost impotent efforts made just to appease us? To make us all think that the government was equally concerned and would enact protections, or was it just a pacifier so we’d stop asking questions and drop our hypervigilance about our children? I now wonder.

From the moment my daughters were born in 1986 until 1999, the year of the Columbine shooting, I worried about them being snatched while my attention was diverted when they were small. Later on, mass shootings were added to my fears. They still are, if I’m honest. Still, I told myself that if I was vigilant enough, I could prevent my children from being harmed.

We have seen milk cartons informing us of missing kids, billions of milk cartons, but no legislation to prevent these disappearances. Nor was there action on increasing the sentencing guidelines for pedophiles. Or laws with the necessary level of enforcement, to catch those who create child pornography?

A slap on the wrist is milder than some sexual assault perpetrators receive. Many end up back on the streets within months receiving no therapy, but they’re entered into a flaccid “Sex Offender” database, showing the location of those released from jail. Of course, a number of those ex-cons just lied about their addresses and skipped their parole appointments. Wouldn’t you in their shoes?

The laxity in sentencing isn’t just for pedophiles; those convicted of rape and sexual assault are also given hilariously ineffective sentences. What will be done about this? Not much if the current “powers that be” have a say. The Trump administration has diverted federal resources away from preventing human trafficking.  The nonchalance of the MAGA faithful should be astounding, but alas, it is not. Currently, the weasels in our henhouse run the enforcement agencies who should be taking down pornography and trafficking rings. Need we ask why?

Why are so many people, who should be indicting and jailing the perpetrators, brushing off this horror? Why haven’t we filled the streets and brought the perpetrators to justice? WHY is the testimony of so many female victims never enough to warrant arrest?

We need to take a cold hard look at our society, the emphasis on and sexualization of women’s and GIRL’S bodies, on film and in advertising.  In too many ways to name, pedophilia is burned into our society and accepted by a larger than anticipated cohort. I remember a friend’s boyfriend said to me once, “This craze of women waxing ‘down there’ is for men who don’t like real women.” That has stuck with me ever since, because that was what I felt at the time. The thought that this was grooming, although I didn’t know that phrase, flitted across my mind. Another uncomfortable thought I pushed down because I didn’t have the capacity to imagine the existence of the world, we are now coming face to horrifying face with. Now I do and I cannot adequately define how I feel. Nothing I can come up with seems heinous enough to fit the reality.

My days as an ostrich have come to an end. We must become vigilant and honest about the hunting grounds these men use. Being aware while out in public if observing girls with a single man. We know how a daughter and dad look together, be observant.  Modeling agencies for children and young women, dance competitions, any excuse to bring young girls together under the guise of “competition” with men coaching or leading them, must be investigated and monitored, if not eradicated. As we are learning, too many times the male authority figures or owners of those “modeling” agencies are the perpetrators of sex trafficking.

The penchant of the Conservative faction with Trans women has resulted in certain states passing laws which allows ANY man to challenge a person and to then examine the genitalia of ANY women they suspect to be Trans. Really? How does that happen? WHY are we allowing this?

Adoption agencies, with little to no supervision over a child POST-adoption makes it easy for a child to be “traded” to someone else. From my reading along with anecdotal evidence told to me, it seems that this happens in certain fundamentalist religious sects. The foster system, where children are veritable transients with no continuity of care or supervision, must be revamped. Cutting an 18-year-old (or younger) loose with no money, shelter, or adult input makes kids easy marks for those who profit from selling people who live among us.  The runaways fleeing sex abuse in foster homes, OR their nuclear family, are also prime targets for predators. Our systems, all of them, need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

The laxity shown towards the welfare of children as a whole, stems in large part, from the piss-poor investment of our tax dollars into the necessary components that would nurture kids and keep them safe. After school programs, counseling, and proper mental health systems along with medical care would go a long way towards keeping children safe. Adequate mental health care would be beneficial for everyone, including stressed out parents. These services would be possible if we didn’t, as a nation, consistently sacrifice our nation’s humanity at the altar of “lower taxes” for corporations.

Home schooling is another weakness in the systems meant to benefit our children. I taught GED prep to home-schooled HS seniors, a review of materials prior to taking the GED test. An understanding of basic science in particular, was negligible in most of my students. I got the impression that teaching science, particularly biology, countermanded the parent’s agenda. Usually, in my experience, the reason was religion based. Research has shown that not teaching our kids biology or sex education results in teen pregnancies, rampant venereal disease amongst groups, and an inability to recognize or understand the sexual advances of an adult. I cannot help but feel that this derives from, if not the intent of those parents, then a risk they should be well aware of but purposely are not.

One cannot leave out the most glaring component in this horrific tale of greed and perversion. Money, power, and prestige flows to these thieves of innocence. The BILLIONS of dollars changing hands, as chronicled in the Epstein Files released thus far, is staggering. The Who’s Who of his clients; heads of states, CEOs, Tech Bros, Bankers, Royals, Diplomats, Prime Ministers, Hollywood denizens, and Presidents is outrageous. This also demonstrates the sheer magnitude in manpower and lucre attached to this “business”. And, let’s not forget the kompromat acquired along with all the leverage and cash it provides.

Note: The bank accounts attached to this “enterprise” have been reported as still active, with transactions going in and out.

Given the magnitude of institutionalized debauchery, how do we protect our children? Sentencing minimums for pedophiles and sex abuse must be increased and impervious to the tampering of a sympathetic towards the perpetrator, kind of a judge. Police need to be retrained from their, if true crime shows are accurate, standard response of, “She probably just ran off with a boy” to those reporting a child or women as missing. It should be required to run rape kits through the required labs, rather than storing them in a room for years, as Texas was found to have done. If the results of those tests did not identify the perpetrator that DNA should be entered into a national database.

Therapy for those imprisoned predators is an idea. However, pedophiles are not known to be cured by therapy. Psychiatry is always making advances, so who knows if that will change.  Additionally, I am of the opinion that it is beyond time to employ the use of chemical castration for repeat offenders. Reproductive “rights” should be forfeited as a part of sentencing by repeat sexual predators until which time a “cure” is found. If ever. Nothing changes if nothing changes. The time is well past to demand accountability and to initiate the systemic changes needed to keep our children and women safe from those apex predators, men.

• My preference is the creation of a matriarchy which would be a giant step in the right direction. Men have proven themselves unreliable and dangerous to society. It’s time they move over.

But, to start, we need to take care of what’s in front of us. Not punishing those we know are guilty is the same as saying, “Sure, the rest of you, go ahead, hurt girls, boys, and women. It’s okay, no harm no foul”.  

Isn’t it?

Kimberly Monaco