9/11 killed "only" 3000 people, didn't it? These figures are orders or magnitude higher.

Repetition is often necessary in this kind of thing. You have to repeat yourself, lest you be accused of supporting vigilante murder. The intention was to thoroughly explain the methods and assumptions. As far as the religious bent, that's deliberate. I'm agnostic myself, but I decided to take a very religious "fire and brimstone" framing to the piece. I've read so many pieces condemning Luigi as a monster and irredeemably evil. And maybe it's just my own religious upbringing, but I know of no way to more thoroughly condemn someone than to state that they are literally burning in the fires of Hell itself. That's not the kind of language one is to use lightly.

I think we could use more fire and brimstone rhetoric against the oligarchs. That's always been one of the core traditions of Christianity. It's the money changers in the Temple. The belief that even if the powerful escape accountability in this life, they are still to be shamed, as they will burn in the Pit forever. In today's world, it's primarily only the right that uses this language of Damnation, almost exclusively against LGBT people. But I think the left really needs to reclaim this rhetoric. It is a powerful thing to look an evil man in the eyes and to calmly say, "you are going to burn for what you have done in this world."

Also, this issue is something that appeals to people on all sides of the aisle. I could have written the article from some sort of Marxist class analysis, but that really doesn't seem appropriate for the moment. I mention a policy solution, Medicare for All, that is usually considered left wing. And I wanted to balance it out with some very traditional religious condemnation.