by Nomad
An insane tabloid article from 1995 proclaims that Hell has released its laid-off work force. And very soon, says a mystic, the demons will be making the earthly realm their home.
Laughable? Yes, Ridiculous? Of course. But then again, let's look at what was happening in 1995.
I found this silly article in the November 21, 1995 issue of the now-defunct Weekly World News.
It's pretty standard fare for a tabloid, along with special diets and the latest travails of Bat Boy.
(Like the half-boy, half bat, the Reverend Magnist of St. Paul also appears to be a non-existent character. At least, there was no trace of him online.)
I like the part where it says:
"We can expect to see two very ugly results of downsizing [in Hell]... First, demons will be appearing more often. We'll be seeing the reddish horned creatures everywhere...Secondly, more people will be going insane as the spirits of the demons take possession of their minds and bodies.."Christian theology with a capitalistic spin. At the end, the mystic added that we all must be on guard against these demons on the loose "whether they keep their own hideous bodies or take over those of our fellow human."
But suppose just for a second (and no longer) we take this seriously. What was going on in 1995 to support the Reverend's notions?
Hmmm, let's see what a little research uncovers...
As one source reminds us, this was actually an important moment in the Republican party. Around this time, the Koch brothers set up a shell company called Triad Management which was used to funnel millions in secret money to help the Republican Party.
In an interview, Elizabeth Stein, a investigative attorney for the Counsel to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affair, gives us a little more information on the activities of this shell corporation. Triad was a for-profit corporation, Stein says, whose sole purpose was to funnel cash into non-profit organizations that would be used to influence federal elections.
And the groups would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this.
And the groups would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this.
One of the things that Triad did was set up two shell corporations, essentially, tax-exempt organizations. One was called Citizens for Reform and the other was called Citizens for the Republic Education Fund, and the sole thing that those corporations did was to air attack advertising in various races across the country.Stein adds:
Triad's groups were essentially shells. They had no existence, they had no purpose, they had no staff, they had no office.
Moreover, before the dawn of Citizens United when there were limits and oversight on individual contributions, this scheme allowed wealthy individuals to put more money into the election process than they would otherwise legally have been allowed to do. As Stein point out: these organizations were "funded by a few, wealthy conservative Republican activists."
In that light, it was the beginning of the end of the American representative government. It was in some ways, the first baby steps in the larger Koch plan to dramatically remodel the political system into something more to the liking of the 1% and to replace our democratic republic with a lawless plutocracy.
* * *
Oh I know the tabloid article is pretty ridiculous. And yet in a strange way, it's not such a bad description of what was happening in late 1995. That was the moment when the Koch brothers began their mission to destroy America's political system from within.
So maybe we should not laugh too hard at the idea of out-of-work demons taking on human forms.
