This is my first post of the sott.net forum, if I have misunderstood the protocol or objectives, or
proper methods of cutting and pasting, please inform me.
The following quote is taken from Henry C K Liu's essay on "The Shape of US Populism", posted
on Asia Times, March 13, 2008. The predators behind the financial control system have been sharpening their knives for a long time. This history is context for the on going collapse of the financial system installed by imperial elites. The endgame of absolute subjugation of humanity by the few is in motion as Donald Hunt's posts have made clear. A powerful "shock" is being delivered to humanity. Will mankind awaken or will they embrace
slavery and "proud of it" as Gurgieff noted nearly a century ago. Henry C K Liu presents
populist American economic history with a reference to the Wizard of Oz, so admired by and
referenced on Signs-of-the-Times.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JC14Dj07.html
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was founded in 1869 by Philadelphia garment cutters under the leadership of Uriah Stephens. It admitted all except lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers, liquor dealers and professional gamblers. It pushed for organizing cooperatives through legislation rather than direct confrontation with the employer class. In the spirit of Jeffersonian democracy, it aimed "to secure to the toilers a proper share of the wealth that they create" and to make "every man his own master - every man his own employer."
Most readers the world over who have enjoyed Lyman Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the audiences that have been delighted by the Hollywood movie, do not realize it is an allegory of populist efforts to reform the nation in 1896. Born in 1856 near Syracuse to a wealth family, Baum moved in 1887 to Aberdeen, South Dakota, a little prairie town where he edited the local weekly until it failed in 1891, during which time Western farmers had been in a state of loud, though unsuccessful, revolt. The Romantic view of benign nature had disappeared, replaced by the stark reality of the dry, open plains. The acquiescence towards social Darwinism served to crush Romantic idealism.
In 1891, Baum moved to Chicago, where he later saw first-hand the miseries of the frightful depression of 1893 and was drawn to dynamic reform elements led by populist governor John P Altgeld. In Chicago, Baum took part in the pivotal election of 1896, marching in "torch-light parades for William Jennings Bryan". Bryan consolidated all the farmers’ hopes in a campaign basket of "free coinage of silver". Even in defeat, he brought the hopeless plight of the little man into national consciousness.
Between 1896 and 1900, while Baum worked and wrote in Chicago, the great depression of 1893 was put to an end by the war with Spain, which thrust the United States into world power status, just as the Great Depression of 1933 was put to an end by World War ll, which thrust the US into superpower status.
Bryan in defeat maintained control over the Midwestern base of the Democratic Party and spoke out against US policies toward the newly acquired colonies of Cuba and the Philippines. By 1900, as Bryan prepared to run again, anti-imperialism and not silver became the prime campaign issue, with the silver as a background leitmotif.
Baum introduces Dorothy and Kansas by contrast:
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty-looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds.
When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.
When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.
Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.
It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.
Henry M Littlefield's The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism describes a wealth of allusions to Gilded Age society in Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The wicked Witch of the East who controls the Munchkins represented Eastern industrialists and bankers who control the working people; the Scarecrow is the wise but naive Western farmer; the Tin Woodman stood for the dehumanized industrial worker; the Cowardly Lion was William Jennings Bryan, Populist presidential candidate in 1896; the Yellow Brick Road, with all its dangers, was the gold standard; Dorothy's silver slippers (Judy Garland's are ruby red in the movie, but in Baum’s version they are silver) represent the Populists' solution to the nation's economic woes by "the free and unlimited coinage of silver"; Emerald City is Washington, DC; the Wizard, "a little bumbling old man, hiding behind a facade of papier-mache and meaningless noise ... able to be everything to everybody", is the parade of Gilded Age presidents, or Mark Hanna, McKinley's campaign manager, and subsequent campaign strategist who manufacture winning images for undeserving candidates.
The Deadly Poppy Field, where the Cowardly Lion fell asleep and could not move forward, is the anti-imperialism that threatened to make Bryan forget the main issue of silver (note the Oriental connotation of poppies and opium). Once in the Emerald Palace, Dorothy has to pass through seven halls and climb three flights of stairs; seven and three make seventy-three, which stands for the Crime of 1873, the congressional act that eliminated the coinage of silver and that proved to all Populists the collusion between Congress and bankers. The Wicked Witch of the East is Grover Cleveland; of the West, William McKinley.
The enslavement of the yellow Winkies is "a not very well disguised reference to McKinley's decision to deny immediate independence to the Philippines" after the Spanish-American
proper methods of cutting and pasting, please inform me.
The following quote is taken from Henry C K Liu's essay on "The Shape of US Populism", posted
on Asia Times, March 13, 2008. The predators behind the financial control system have been sharpening their knives for a long time. This history is context for the on going collapse of the financial system installed by imperial elites. The endgame of absolute subjugation of humanity by the few is in motion as Donald Hunt's posts have made clear. A powerful "shock" is being delivered to humanity. Will mankind awaken or will they embrace
slavery and "proud of it" as Gurgieff noted nearly a century ago. Henry C K Liu presents
populist American economic history with a reference to the Wizard of Oz, so admired by and
referenced on Signs-of-the-Times.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JC14Dj07.html
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was founded in 1869 by Philadelphia garment cutters under the leadership of Uriah Stephens. It admitted all except lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers, liquor dealers and professional gamblers. It pushed for organizing cooperatives through legislation rather than direct confrontation with the employer class. In the spirit of Jeffersonian democracy, it aimed "to secure to the toilers a proper share of the wealth that they create" and to make "every man his own master - every man his own employer."
Most readers the world over who have enjoyed Lyman Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the audiences that have been delighted by the Hollywood movie, do not realize it is an allegory of populist efforts to reform the nation in 1896. Born in 1856 near Syracuse to a wealth family, Baum moved in 1887 to Aberdeen, South Dakota, a little prairie town where he edited the local weekly until it failed in 1891, during which time Western farmers had been in a state of loud, though unsuccessful, revolt. The Romantic view of benign nature had disappeared, replaced by the stark reality of the dry, open plains. The acquiescence towards social Darwinism served to crush Romantic idealism.
In 1891, Baum moved to Chicago, where he later saw first-hand the miseries of the frightful depression of 1893 and was drawn to dynamic reform elements led by populist governor John P Altgeld. In Chicago, Baum took part in the pivotal election of 1896, marching in "torch-light parades for William Jennings Bryan". Bryan consolidated all the farmers’ hopes in a campaign basket of "free coinage of silver". Even in defeat, he brought the hopeless plight of the little man into national consciousness.
Between 1896 and 1900, while Baum worked and wrote in Chicago, the great depression of 1893 was put to an end by the war with Spain, which thrust the United States into world power status, just as the Great Depression of 1933 was put to an end by World War ll, which thrust the US into superpower status.
Bryan in defeat maintained control over the Midwestern base of the Democratic Party and spoke out against US policies toward the newly acquired colonies of Cuba and the Philippines. By 1900, as Bryan prepared to run again, anti-imperialism and not silver became the prime campaign issue, with the silver as a background leitmotif.
Baum introduces Dorothy and Kansas by contrast:
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty-looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds.
When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.
When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.
Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.
It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.
Henry M Littlefield's The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism describes a wealth of allusions to Gilded Age society in Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The wicked Witch of the East who controls the Munchkins represented Eastern industrialists and bankers who control the working people; the Scarecrow is the wise but naive Western farmer; the Tin Woodman stood for the dehumanized industrial worker; the Cowardly Lion was William Jennings Bryan, Populist presidential candidate in 1896; the Yellow Brick Road, with all its dangers, was the gold standard; Dorothy's silver slippers (Judy Garland's are ruby red in the movie, but in Baum’s version they are silver) represent the Populists' solution to the nation's economic woes by "the free and unlimited coinage of silver"; Emerald City is Washington, DC; the Wizard, "a little bumbling old man, hiding behind a facade of papier-mache and meaningless noise ... able to be everything to everybody", is the parade of Gilded Age presidents, or Mark Hanna, McKinley's campaign manager, and subsequent campaign strategist who manufacture winning images for undeserving candidates.
The Deadly Poppy Field, where the Cowardly Lion fell asleep and could not move forward, is the anti-imperialism that threatened to make Bryan forget the main issue of silver (note the Oriental connotation of poppies and opium). Once in the Emerald Palace, Dorothy has to pass through seven halls and climb three flights of stairs; seven and three make seventy-three, which stands for the Crime of 1873, the congressional act that eliminated the coinage of silver and that proved to all Populists the collusion between Congress and bankers. The Wicked Witch of the East is Grover Cleveland; of the West, William McKinley.
The enslavement of the yellow Winkies is "a not very well disguised reference to McKinley's decision to deny immediate independence to the Philippines" after the Spanish-American
