“Alfred–get it? Alf-RED?”

Written by Michael

"I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party."

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Our favorite rabble-rouser, Jon Schwarz, found this article in Counterpunch, detailing J. Edgar Hoover’s obsession with MAD Magazine. One guess–he loved it, right? Ehh, not quite. Anyway, it’s must reading for any current or recovering readers of MAD. You were more important than you thought!

Just when I lose faith in satire’s ability to discomfit the powerful, I run into something like this, which makes me think, “Yes, satire is a relatively weak method of effecting social change. But it can get you harassed anyway. It’s the worst of both worlds!”

This from the article:

The bureau’s documents on the magazine cover the years 1957-1971, and consist of 36 separate files. How many hours in the working lives of trench-coated investigators these yellowing documents represent we cannot say – but we do know, because the files tell us, the hilarious upshot of Hoover’s sledgehammer being applied to the Mad nuts.