Subject: APRIL FOOLS!

From: [email-masked] (Keith F. Lynch)
Date: 1 Apr 1994 00:09:19 -0500

The organizers of the world's most succesful, and longest running,
April Fools shenanigan, have decided to call it quits.

It all started one April Fools day, long ago.  Me and some friends
were sitting around, kind of bored, trying to think of a clever prank.
Finally, we came up with one.  It was a long shot.  We didn't think
anyone would be fooled for a moment.  But it was worth a try.

The results have astonished us.  However, it's time to call it off.
A true shenanigan shouldn't actually hurt anyone.  It's come to our
attention that this prank has inadvertantly led to the death of a
few billion people, so it's time to put a stop to it.

What did we do?  We dressed up in funny looking clothes, and went around
telling people that we were "in charge".  That they couldn't do various
harmless things.  That disobeying us would be "wrong".

When people didn't catch on, we made it more and more absurd.  We went
around telling people that they had to do various harmful things to
themselves and others.  And that our authority over them was ordained
by a giant, invisible, all powerful being, or by "the people," or by
"manifest destiny" or "historical inevitability".  That they had to
give us half their money every year (in April -- but nobody got the
hint).  That they had to fight against their neighbors, in the name of
"the true faith," or "national prestige," or "democratic reform".  When
they still didn't figure it out we came up with such ridiculous reasons
for fighting as, a piece of colored cloth got insulted, or our racial
purity has been sullied, or even "a war to end all war".  But people
*still* didn't figure it out!

We had one of the Marx brothers write the most ridiculous imaginable
books, filled with nonsense words like "proletariat," "bourgeoisie,"
"manifesto," and "praxis," and reasoning even more fractured and
hilarious than their many wonderful movies, justifying our getting
control of absolutely everything everywhere.  I can't begin to tell
you how flabbergasted we were when people took it seriously!

Well, it's over now.  Yeltsin, John Paul II, and Clinton (and her
husband!) will make a joint statement, then step down.  The statement
will say that you are all free.  And that you always have been.  And,
sorry for the inconvenience.  We didn't mean to let this practical
joke get so out of hand.

Signed -- His most holy supreme pontiff and potentate, his royal
imperial people's social democratic big brother -- Bozo.
-- 
Keith Lynch, [email-masked]

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