Thread by @osamabishounen

glad people are discovering the VP ball, but sad its flattened to "KKK party" and ignoring the part where marxist-led strikers briefly seized st louis in 1877 and every year since the city's elite has celebrated its suppression by crowning the city's richest man as their new god

the wiki page doesnt even begin to do justice to how insane the entire thing is. back when i first read about it there was almost no coverage outside local papers, not because its stopped attracting the most powerful people in st louis but because its much more private now

that extends to the strike of 1877 too. its mostly buried in digitized secondary sources and old websites but this sort of stuff is just not supposed to be possible in the united states, especially a former slave state one year after the collapse of reconstruction

marx himself followed the news of the strike at the time, and while he predicted to engels that it would be crushed, it apparently convinced him that socialism in america might actually have a chance

and wikipedia really does not do the parade justice. the VPO has tried to reframe its traditions as quirky mardi gras knockoffs that dont mean anything, but early on it was pretty much explicit that the veiled prophet is the personification of Capital and he is america's new god.

the veiled prophet organization also makes the "american aristocracy" accusation extremely literal. theyre not just metaphorically the prophet's chosen people, the organization has semiconsciously helped make st louis's bourgeoisie an actual hereditary caste

if its not enough that st louis has a literal capitalist aristocracy, they also admitted a few token black members in the 80s to appear more diverse and moved behind literal closed doors to obscure their membership until america forgot they were even there

worth noting that since the VPO is way more secretive now, the only reason we found out about ellie kemper is because they published her name when she was picked as queen of love and beauty. you can still find rich debutantes' selfies by searching the hashtag on instagram though

also so far i've only included stuff that isnt on wikipedia, but you cant leave out the time an activist ripped the veil off america's new prophet to reveal a corporate executive and then got her car bombed as a warning. sadly gena scott passed away in 2015, rest in peace queen

heres her obituary page btw if anyone's interested. idk if she would want to be remembered by paying a huge company a 400% markup on some flowers but who knows legacy.com/us/obituaries/…

anyway i feel like a hidden american aristocracy descended from the robber barons of old that worships capital as an infallible god is a pretty obnoxious caricature of what marxists believe, so big shoutout to the veiled prophet organization for literally doing exactly that

last bit of accidental symbolism: the "veiled prophet" character is originally from a now-obscure 1817 poem. but while the st louis prophet never shows his face, in the poem he lifts his veil to reveal an inhuman monster bent on enslaving humanity. draw from that what you will