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The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

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Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#31

Post by saghm »

EGreg wrote: post #9
rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

I always thought Oz was a reference to Australia. How did Aus come to be called Oz, the land down under?

I'm not sure where exactly I heard this, but some time when I was young, I either was told or read somewhere that the author came up with the name "Oz" when looking at a filing cabinet; the top was labeled "A-N", and the bottom was labeled "O-Z"

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#32

Post by peteey »

rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

What does the good witch of the North represent?

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#33

Post by msla »

rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

That thesis has been ably challenged:

http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm

I'll just quote a bit from the end:

> Thomas A. Bailey once suggested that we set up a computer network to keep track of misinformation that has been corrected--sort of a national clearinghouse for discredited myths. Is it time to move Littlefield to the computer trashpile of misinformation? Given the mounting evidence against it--given that Littlefield himself has admitted that it has "no basis in fact"--should we forget the whole notion of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a parable on Populism? That would be a big mistake. Perhaps we can no longer say that Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz "as an allegory of the silver movement," but we can still read it as an allegory of the silver movement--or, as Henry Littlefield noted just two years ago, "we can bring our own symbolism to it." Recent scholarship might have taken away Baum's intent, but the images are still there, vivid as ever.

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#34

Post by dragonwriter »

jackhack wrote: post #25
rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

How far we've drifted as a nation. People then seemed to realize the danger of fiat money, yet The Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913, when most lawmakers had already left the Capital for their home states -- and it passed on a simple majority of those present vote. The Federal Reserve (a cabal of international banks that is not part of the…

> The Federal Reserve (a cabal of international banks that is not part of the US Government) seized control of the US monetary system

The body that controls the US monetary system is the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The Board of Governors are Senate-confirmed Presidential appointees. I'm not quite seeing how this is not part of the US government.

Sure, the Federal Reserve System involves private member banks, who have some role on governing the regional fed banks, but those don't control monetary policy, the Board of Governors does.

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#35

Post by samstave »

rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

YEP!

Its so sad how few people are aware of this and the fact that we were FUCKED when 1913 Fed Reserve happened....

and after the fact Woodrow Wilson the scumbag wrote a letter regretting the decision and signing of the act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#36

Post by mttjj »

krustyburger wrote: post #18

I’ve always meant to go through and read the entire Oz series by Baum. I’ve heard that it’s surprisingly enjoyable from start to finish, given the number of books.

I've read them all but it's been years. I want to go back to them. They are great books. Silly, goofy, and weird but very enjoyable. The world of Oz books is surprisingly complicated[1] but I would say the original series penned by Baum is definitely worth checking out.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oz_books

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#37

Post by JakeStone »

jackhack wrote: post #25
rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

How far we've drifted as a nation. People then seemed to realize the danger of fiat money, yet The Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913, when most lawmakers had already left the Capital for their home states -- and it passed on a simple majority of those present vote. The Federal Reserve (a cabal of international banks that is not part of the…

  > Even though the constitution still describes
  > the value of a dollar as a specific weight of
  > gold, like most other things in that document
  > it is ignored.
Citation needed.

Article 1, Section 10 is the only place I can recall saying anything about gold:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

_My_ reading opens up a door for "Texas Bucks" issued with backing/redemption of some volume of gold/silver. But I'll wait on expounding more to give you the opportunity to show me where I am mistaken.

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#38

Post by ssully »

airstrike wrote: post #30
jackhack wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far we've drifted as a nation. People then seemed to realize the danger of fiat money, yet The Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913, when most lawmakers had already left the Capital for their home states -- and it passed on a simple majority of those present vote. The Federal Reserve (a cabal of international banks that is not part of the…

> President John F. Kennedy voiced support for returning America to the Gold Standard. He was assassinated soon after. He also voiced a million other things that you might as well pin his assassination on, if you're so willing to jump to conclusions.

The Netflix movie The Irishman is about a labor union organizer/mob hitman [1] who claims to have assisted in JFKs assassination at the behest of the mob/ Jimmy Hoffa.

You can literally spin a wheel of different motivations for groups who wanted JFK dead and they all have their own convincing reasons. Except hackjack's little conspiracy here, which seems to be missing a final paragraph about why we need to switch to using Bitcoin as our standard currency.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sheeran

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#39

Post by JakeStone »

airstrike wrote: post #30
jackhack wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far we've drifted as a nation. People then seemed to realize the danger of fiat money, yet The Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913, when most lawmakers had already left the Capital for their home states -- and it passed on a simple majority of those present vote. The Federal Reserve (a cabal of international banks that is not part of the…

> President John F. Kennedy voiced support for returning America to the Gold Standard. He was assassinated soon after. He also voiced a million other things that you might as well pin his assassination on, if you're so willing to jump to conclusions.

A little known secret is that the Lunarians had him assassinated due to his declaration of war against the Moon. Elon Musk better watch out for the Martians now that he's threatened to nuke them. :)

Re: The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

#40

Post by thaumasiotes »

rabidrat wrote: post #6

From "Debt, The First 5000 years": L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold. … [O]ne of the main constituencies f…

> The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which appeared in 1900, is widely recognized to be a parable for the Populist campaign of William Jennings Bryan, who twice ran for president on the Free Silver platform – vowing to replace the gold standard with a bimetallic system that would allow the free creation of silver money alongside gold.

This is more "crackpot theory" than "widely recognized".

> the Scarecrow represented the farmers (who didn’t have the brains to avoid the debt trap), the Tin Woodsman [sic] was the industrial proletariat (who didn’t have the heart to act in solidarity with the farmers), the Cowardly Lion represented the political class (who didn’t have the courage to intervene)

This, on the other hand, doesn't even meet that standard. If you read the book, the joke about those three characters is very clear -- the Scarecrow is the intelligent one, who solves all the problems the group encounters. The Tin Woodman is the empathetic one, who constantly worries about inadvertently harming anything else. And the Cowardly Lion is the brave one, always volunteering to put himself at risk for the benefit of the group. It's a major theme of the novel that they all already have the things they claim to need.

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