29 November 2012

Wizard of Oz Silver-Gold Metaphors



The History of Money by Jack Weatherford, 1997, Excerpt

The most memorable work of literature to come from the debate over gold and silver in the United States was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, by journalist L. Frank Baum, who greatly distrusted the power of the city financiers and who supported a bimetallic dollar based on both gold and silver.

After the cyclone violently rips Dorothy and her dog out of Kansas and drops them in the East, Dorothy sets out on the gold road to fairyland, which Baum calls Oz, where the wicked witches and wizards of banking operate. Along the way she meets the Scarecrow, who represents the American farmer; the Tin Woodman, who represents the American factory worker; and the Cowardly Lion, who represents William Jennings Bryan.

Marcus Hanna, the power behind the Republican Party and the McKinley administration, was the wizard controlling the mechanisms of finance in the Emerald City. He was the Wizard of the Gold Ounce - abbreviated, of course to Wizard of Oz - and the Munchkins were the simpleminded people of the East who did not understand how the wizard and his fellow financiers pulled the levers and strings that controlled the money, the economy, and the government.

In the end, all the American citizens had to do was expose the wizard and his witches for the frauds they were, and all would be well in the bimetal monetary world of silver and gold.

In the book, Dorothy’s magic silver slippers got her back to Kansas.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7933175.stm






28 November 2012

Carter’s "Crisis of Confidence" aka “Malaise” Speech – 15 Jul 1979






“The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

“Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose."



27 November 2012

Carter Responds to Critics




Carter Responds to Critics at Brandeis
23 Jan 2007
“This is the first time that I’ve ever been called a liar and a bigot and an anti-Semite and a coward and a plagiarist,” Mr. Carter told the crowd of about 1,700 at Brandeis, a nonsectarian university founded by American Jews, where about half the students are Jewish. “This is hurting me.”

Mr. Carter said he realized his use of the word “apartheid” “has caused great concern in the Jewish community.” He said he had used it “knowing that it would be provocative.” He said he had intended to describe conditions not in Israel but in the occupied Palestinian territories, and had not meant to “equate Zionism with racism,” but to point out “that this cruel oppression is contrary to the tenets of the Jewish religious faith and contrary to the basic principles of the state of Israel.”

He apologized for what he called an “improper and stupid” sentence in the book. He said a sentence in which he seemed to suggest that Palestinians would not have to end their suicide bombings and acts of terrorism until Israel withdraws from the territories “was worded in a completely improper and stupid way,” adding: “I have written my publisher to change that sentence immediately. I apologize to you personally, to everyone here.”

The Controversial Sentence, Page 213
It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.