Memor(ph)ial Day

Un-happy Memorial Day, everyone.

Thought we’d take a break from our ongoing search for the mysterious King (nothing solid to report over the last few weeks; several ridiculous and dire warnings for us to stop reporting — OR ELSE!) to NOT celebrate what has become a bogus, continually morphing American holiday.

We do love our holidays here at The Flashlight.

A little history:

Memorial Day began innocently enough in the late 1860s to honor the fallen from the Civil War. This noble tradition continued through the end of World War II, expanding to encapsulate those wars and their fallen.

And that’s where things first changed. The country (read: the government) received such a financial boon from World War II that we not only escaped the Great Depression, but leaped ahead of the rest of the world. Naturally, they wanted to keep the gravy train going, and the war machine had worked so well in the past…

But the Nazis were defeated. Europe was in tatters. Who could unite the country together and possibly serve as a villain we needed to fight against? Why, Communism, of course.

A rift was created with Russia becoming the Evil Empire we had to watch out for, and the country experienced a boom the likes of which we probably won’t see again for a long time. You know this story — baby boom, ever-rising salaries, rampant consumerism — we had to keep growing to stick it to the Reds.

This worked out incredibly well for the government right through the first half of the Vietnam War, when public sentiment shifted about the need for the war and began questioning what was behind the fighting, behind the war machine.

Once again, they were able to morph Memorial Day to serve their interests. This time it was to serve as a distraction from many of the actual things it was honoring by MOVING IT FROM THE ORIGINAL DAY TO GIVE US A THREE-DAY WEEKEND. The crazy thing about this plan, though, isn’t the insult of the plan itself, but how well it worked and has continued to work.

Rather than have us focus our efforts on a common enemy, we could now take vacations with the family and forget about our troubles! Within a few years, it worked better than expected, not only distracting citizens from war troubles but also supporting the growth of rampant consumerism, which taught the government a valuable lesson: the real value of American citizens to them was not in uniting us against a common foe, but uniting us in our desire for STUFF and a desperate need to have what our neighbors have and do what our neighbors do.

A few brave people and agencies have stood up to point this out and attempted to get the government to return the holiday to its rightful day on the calendar in order to make the holiday again be about what it once was, but so far their pleas have fallen on deaf ears… because let’s face it, if you have a choice between honoring fallen soldiers or raking in a ton of money, which one are you going to choose?

King(ed)

Apparently this guy gets around.

In the three days since our last post, where we revealed that a mysterious figure calling himself King ALLEGEDLY hired The Purgers to dump chemicals in the LA River, The Flashlight offices have been deluged with emails about encounters with him.

Or maybe encounters aren’t exactly the right word, since no one seems to have actually seen him in person. All the reports are the same: phone calls, voice modulators, and money either deposited into bank accounts or left at specific locations for groups he’s hired to do unsavory deeds.

And I suppose we shouldn’t really be saying “he,” since King could be anyone, male or female.

So who are these emails from, and what do they say King has asked them to do?

Mostly, they’re from ex- or current members from one of our angel city’s myriad gangs. And what they say they’ve done for King (or been asked to do) varies greatly.

One said that King paid them handsomely to pick up trash on a stretch of the 405. Two said they were hired to buy up all the cough and diarrhea medication from stores in their area. Another group was paid to cut power lines, and yet another received money for rounding up homeless men over 40 and locking them in a warehouse in the City of Industry.

And in what may be the weirdest one yet, one teen wrote in to say he and his buddies were paid to give out drugs to kids at a certain middle school — while a separate emailer said his gang was hired to STOP drug dealing at that same school.

What is this King’s game? What deep pockets are funding all of this craziness?

At least as disturbing are the emailers who wrote in to say they DIDN’T take King’s money, instead deciding to report the unusual phone calls to the police. At least three dozen people said this, but when I called the police stations to ask about these “King” reports, I was given the usual run-around about prank calls and urban legends.

Fine. Except if that’s the case, then why did a number of the emails from people saying they’d REFUSED to do what King asked detail EXACTLY THE SAME REQUESTS as those who said they DID take the money and do the deed?

Also, since several of the people who refused King’s offer called the local TV news instead of reporting to the cops, why aren’t THEY reporting this? The only answer I was given was that “there’s too much news, and they have to choose the most important stories.”

The most important stories?! Are you kidding? Last night two stations devoted 10 minutes to people getting plastic surgery to look like celebrities, and a third had a 5-minute segment on a dancing cat.

Looks like any information that’s going to come out about this character is going to come from us, Constant Readers.

Keep sending us the truth, and we’ll keep shining a light on it.

Return of the Purgers

Or at least of the “unknown party” conspiracy — our favorite “river” poisoners are still behind bars, awaiting a supposedly fair trial.

But last night, we received startling information from two separate — and very interesting — sources.

One of them claims to work for the same precinct as my now-defunct contact of a month ago. The other says he used to be one of The Purgers, but left after they “lost their way.”

Who knows if either is telling the truth about who they are. What I DO find interesting is that BOTH gave me the SAME information: The Purgers were hired by a man calling himself King. They never met him, but spoke with him over the phone while he utilized a voice modulator and telephone scrambler to ensure he couldn’t be identified or traced.

King hired The Purgers to dump barrels of chemicals into the rivers at specific places and times. They were not told what they were dumping, just where to find the materials they would need to do it (i.e. marked barrels, jumpsuits, DWP vans, etc. were left abandoned for The Purgers to find).

To prove his seriousness, King deposited $5000 into the bank accounts of each of The Purgers, with a promise of 20K more for each person when the job had been completed. None of The Purgers knew how much more would be asked of them; after each successful dumping, King called to congratulate them and tell them where to pick up the next batch of barrels.

Who is this King? Does the name ring a bell with anyone?

And WHY ISN’T THE REGULAR PRESS REPORTING THIS?!

The Flashlight: Shining a light on the TRUTH!