Ex-Premie Forum 6 Archive
From: Jul 14, 2001 To: Aug 22, 2001 Page: 5 of: 5


Mr. Mind -:- What did we buy in our K session? -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:46:04 (EDT)
__ such -:- da famous ladus [nt] -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:46:30 (EDT)
__ __ Mr. Mind -:- Ah, da LADUs [nt] -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 03:11:50 (EDT)
__ Deborah -:- I got ripped in my K session -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 19:23:26 (EDT)
__ __ a0aji -:- Re: I got ripped in my K session -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 09:17:36 (EDT)
__ __ __ Deborah -:- Playpremie Bliss Bunny :) -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 19:54:03 (EDT)
__ __ Mr. Mind -:- Re: yes, it was perpetuated -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 06:31:01 (EDT)
__ Silvia -:- 'GOD' is authority, you know... -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:20:22 (EDT)
__ __ Mr. Mind -:- Re: 'GOD' is authority, you know... -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 16:19:31 (EDT)
__ __ __ Silvia -:- I'm fine, thanks -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 17:01:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Mr. Mind -:- Re: Satsang Brain -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 06:20:26 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Silvia -:- Re: Satsang Brain -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 08:34:50 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Mr. Mind -:- y Tu [nt] -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 09:16:02 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Deborah -:- Re: I'm fine, thanks -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 20:12:38 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Silvia -:- I will never change my view -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:42:45 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Read three good posts from you Silvia -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 04:59:57 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Silvia -:- Re: Read three good posts from you Silvia -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 08:48:16 (EDT)

Barry -:- Joke for Jim (with love!) (ot) -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 00:55:35 (EDT)

salam -:- where are f5 archives -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:48:32 (EDT)
__ JHB -:- OK - I'm looking into it -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:30:04 (EDT)
__ a0aji -:- Re: where are f5 archives -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:06:26 (EDT)
__ JHB -:- F6 Archives? -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 02:13:25 (EDT)
__ __ Salam -:- Re: F5 Archives! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:03:59 (EDT)
__ __ __ a0000 ji -:- Re: F5 Archives! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:13:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Salam -:- thank you for your cooperation -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 22:30:52 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: F5 Archives! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:17:54 (EDT)

Jim -:- Note re post below re revisionism -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:55:11 (EDT)
__ Dermot -:- Jim -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:15:27 (EDT)

Jim -:- A good article on revisionism -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:44:20 (EDT)
__ Perfessor Suchabanana -:- essay points out flaws of -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 02:34:43 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- What are you talking about? -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:38:15 (EDT)
__ __ __ such -:- read the essay again -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:16:58 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Carl -:- 300,000 killed in NANKING, 1937 (long post) -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 10:30:40 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ gerry -:- How many German civilians killed -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 11:50:24 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: How many German civilians killed -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 15:08:32 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ BeenThereDoneThat -:- Re: read the essay again -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:01:34 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- 100,000+ loyal Japanese-Americans were interned -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:49:04 (EDT)
__ Perfessor Suchabanana -:- essay points out flaws of -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 02:32:42 (EDT)

tetonca -:- EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:00:28 (EDT)
__ JHB -:- My position on this -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 16:59:14 (EDT)
__ salam -:- Re: EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:11:04 (EDT)
__ __ a0aji -:- Re: EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:59:02 (EDT)
__ __ __ a0aji -:- Here's a link, salam -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:20:56 (EDT)
__ a0aji -:- Sign-Up Help Sheet Available - see link -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:50:13 (EDT)
__ Selene -:- I looked at it -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:08:29 (EDT)
__ __ tetonca -:- Re: I looked at it -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:22:17 (EDT)
__ __ __ Selene -:- yes I hear this all the time :) -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:56:25 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: yes I hear this all the time :) -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:53:21 (EDT)
__ tetonca -:- Re: EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:07:42 (EDT)
__ __ a0aji -:- goodnight zZZZ -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:32:18 (EDT)
__ Jim -:- Can we bring some token premies? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:02:27 (EDT)
__ __ such -:- no free munchkins? ferGit it! hahaha [nt] -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:59:36 (EDT)
__ __ tetonca -:- Re: Can we bring some token premies? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:15:54 (EDT)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- 40 only ? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:24:48 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: 40 only ? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:29:04 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ pEG -:- Re: 40 only ? HELP! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 03:07:16 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ David -:- This Forum 6 -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:46:34 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: This Forum 6 -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:41:44 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Sir Dave -:- Re: This Forum 6 -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:59:47 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca :C) -:- Re: This Forum 6 -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 14:55:41 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: This Forum 6 -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:38:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca :C) -:- Re: This Forum 6 -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 15:00:01 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: This Forum 6 -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 15:31:05 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Mercedes -:- Re: This Forum 6 -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:54:32 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: 40 only ? HELP! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:47:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ a0aji -:- Re: 40 only ? HELP! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:43:51 (EDT)

Forum God +) -:- From the Anything Goes forum -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:44:48 (EDT)
__ such -:- EV misinformation/smear campaign -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:56:23 (EDT)
__ __ Peg -:- Peg to such -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 04:27:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ such -:- read the documentation at ex-premie.org -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:50:04 (EDT)
__ Barry! >From A.G.! -:- I beat ya to it F-god! Check out.... -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:47:37 (EDT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- Great minds... [nt] -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:50:33 (EDT)
__ Jim -:- Does he mean 'accusing'? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:46:48 (EDT)
__ __ Barry -:- Jim? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:50:56 (EDT)
__ __ Forum God +) -:- Yes, I just corrected that error [nt] -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:49:48 (EDT)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- Hey Sir Dave...(ot) -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:16:57 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Sir Dave -:- This is how it's done -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 04:08:31 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ [Blank] -:- Re: Hey Sir Dave...(ot) -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:35:02 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Re: Hey Sir Dave...(ot) -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:46:14 (EDT)

BeenThereDoneThat -:- Event with M -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:43:31 (EDT)
__ jondon -:- Re: Event with M -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:35:28 (EDT)
__ BeenThereDoneThat -:- Re: Event with M -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 05:34:29 (EDT)
__ Mercedes -:- Re: Event with M -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 01:43:37 (EDT)
__ such -:- i.e. da cult caste system [nt] -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:49:35 (EDT)

Hmmmmmmm? -:- Hmmmmmmmm? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:41:56 (EDT)

Jim -:- More unintentional premie humour -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 17:04:05 (EDT)
__ Barry -:- To bad the carpenters broke up! -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:45:12 (EDT)
__ __ Francesca :C) -:- Barry too funny! LOLOLOLsss [nt] -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:49:15 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- Guess what? OT -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:51:06 (EDT)
__ __ __ Barry -:- Cool Jim! Awsome! I'll e-mail!(nt) -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 00:50:22 (EDT)
__ __ __ such -:- say hi to Diana Krall -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:46:42 (EDT)
__ Abi -:- Re: More unintentional premie humour -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:05:23 (EDT)
__ Perfessor J. Suchabanana -:- story behind da Wizard of Oz -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 19:27:48 (EDT)
__ __ suchabanana -:- Baum probably preferred the term 'Progressive' -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:05:52 (EDT)
__ __ such -:- lion may also represent W.J.Bryan [nt] -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:21:34 (EDT)
__ __ such -:- 'Oh, Aunt Em. I'm so glad to be at home again!' -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:19:00 (EDT)
__ __ Francesca :C) -:- And Dorothy had to WAKE UP from the dream -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:28:46 (EDT)
__ __ BeenThereDoneThat -:- Re: story behind da Wizard of Oz -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 00:15:42 (EDT)
__ __ __ such -:- Re:tired -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 01:48:15 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ BeenThereDoneThat -:- Re: Re:tired -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 08:59:50 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ such -:- got tired of p.c. + dumbed-down curriculum -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:41:56 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca :C) -:- And thank you prof. such -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:32:17 (EDT)
__ __ Jerry -:- Are you shittin' me? -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:49:59 (EDT)
__ __ __ such -:- I wouldn't shit you -:- Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:42:17 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Really? -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:38:54 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ such -:- pick a bone w/ a doggie, Jerry -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:17:24 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- You are right, Such -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:22:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ suchaBanana -:- also, Judy Garland! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:36:42 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- I still think it's bullshit -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:15:34 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Suchabanana -:- http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/dbj5/oz.html -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:42:11 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- I remain unconvinced -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 16:39:42 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ such -:- Jerry, who cares? -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:37:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Well, I do, this is interesting! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 22:14:43 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ such -:- like movie disclaimers:satires of real people -:- Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 00:21:14 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ such -:- Baum and Populism discussion group! -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:55:15 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Perfessor Suchabanana -:- Exhibit A: -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:30:45 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ such -:- Re: Exhibit B: Littlefield -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:01:10 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ such -:- Baum's Cornell connection -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:48:17 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Perfessor Such -:- Footnotes: -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:03:50 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ such -:- or that JFK's murder was a conspiracy... [nt] -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:20:31 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ BeenThereDoneThat -:- Re: or that JFK's murder was a conspiracy... -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:30:17 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- prem-think = 'substance'-abuse -:- Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:22:21 (EDT)
__ __ __ Mr D -:- Or do they? -:- Sat, Jul 14, 2001 at 09:24:56 (BST)


Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:46:04 (EDT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: All
Subject: What did we buy in our K session?
Message:
For me, I think I wanted a constant experience of joy. The fact that it was being provided courtesy of the living incarnation of Jesus made it seem real. Drugs, obviously, weren't it.

Did anyone go to there K session without secretly promising themselves to be on the look out for brainwashing/hypnotism tactics? ...Because we trusted our own judgment or had we already been primed to trust HIS judgmentwithout knowing it?

In the K session, we humiliated ourselves thru the mindfucking oath to M, the pranam/kow-towing to his picture. So, at that point, it was either believe or admit you were an asshole for the self-degadation you had been subjecting yourself too.

On and on we continued, catching a buzz here a buzz there....always with the hope that thru our efforts and M's GRACE we would make this experience more and more constant(Remember The Triangle).

The vast majority of us moved on and away rather quickly.Most of these just drifted away quietly with some rationalization so they wouldn't feel like idiots. I didn't. I basically stuck on for many, many years...still hoping to get to that original promise made to me. Yes, I knew the rules had been changed but that was only for public consumption...you know, for their own good.

There are still a few thousand long time people(just like me) left. I know they are secretly hoping that the promise made to them will still happen. Some will tell you it has....well ??
Some don't realize the rules have been changed gradually. Many just blame their unique circumstance(a strong over-active mind).

If anyone reading this is considering getting involved with this M and EV gang, all I can say is do your homework. Don't be afraid to ask any of them, any and every damn question you want....hang out with them in their real life not just in the controlled environments they provide...take your time in asking for K....and LET the BUYER BEWARE.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:46:30 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: da famous ladus [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 03:11:50 (EDT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Ah, da LADUs [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 19:23:26 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: I got ripped in my K session
Message:
Okay, so in retrospect, I see that I also got ripped off. But that's 20-20 hind vision. I also had an extremely deep 'falling in love' kind of intoxication that made me premie-like. Then lots of experiences of surrendipity occurred and I attributed it to Maha. Of course, I was informed that Maha was picking me up and nothing I could do would stop him because he was a jealous lover.

I started working for a premie (real darshan freak and quite successful at the attempt I may add) and lots of premies would come by the office. It was weird because these glassy giddy dudes would come by with their attache cases and then go into the meetings and come out all blissed out. I use to talk to my girlfriends on the phone and tell them about the clandestine ritual meetings my boss was conducting, and how I couldn't figure it out.

Then I'd get a call saying to interrupt John (my boss), it was an emergency. And he'd bolt from the office. Turned out, it was a darshan tip, you see he was well connected. So much hilarity at this office.

Then my boss would send me down the street to the office staffed exclusively by premies, and they would all be smiling their asses off even they complained they hadn't slept for days. Everyone's life looked so surreal. The energy was contagious and I started to get a contact high.

The night of my initiation was like getting engaged or something. I went out a bought a silk blouse and high heel shoes (okay i'm from Montreal) and came back all dressed up. The premie boys said 'Where are you going, all dressed up, Deborah?' and I told them 'I going to the Broadripple Hotel, I got permission to be initiated'. They laughed hysterically because I was only an aspirant for a week and not dressed like other aspirants.

Well that night I rec'd Knowledge, I got ripped out of my brains. My initiator got ripped as well. We fell over each other laughing. My session was a Jimi Hendrix experience and she never forgot me.
I maintained the bliss state for years, because of my faith in satsang, service, and meditation. And like my boss and friends I became a darshan freak and plotted every day to see him, for years.
This perpetuated the whole experience, for me.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 09:17:36 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Re: I got ripped in my K session
Message:
Okay, so in retrospect, I see that I also got ripped off. But that's 20-20 hind vision. I also had an extremely deep 'falling in love' kind of intoxication that made me premie-like. Then lots of experiences of surrendipity occurred and I attributed it to Maha. Of course, I was informed that Maha was picking me up and nothing I could do would stop him because he was a jealous lover.

I started working for a premie (real darshan freak and quite successful at the attempt I may add) and lots of premies would come by the office. It was weird because these glassy giddy dudes would come by with their attache cases and then go into the meetings and come out all blissed out. I use to talk to my girlfriends on the phone and tell them about the clandestine ritual meetings my boss was conducting, and how I couldn't figure it out.

Then I'd get a call saying to interrupt John (my boss), it was an emergency. And he'd bolt from the office. Turned out, it was a darshan tip, you see he was well connected. So much hilarity at this office.

Then my boss would send me down the street to the office staffed exclusively by premies, and they would all be smiling their asses off even they complained they hadn't slept for days. Everyone's life looked so surreal. The energy was contagious and I started to get a contact high.

The night of my initiation was like getting engaged or something. I went out a bought a silk blouse and high heel shoes (okay i'm from Montreal) and came back all dressed up. The premie boys said 'Where are you going, all dressed up, Deborah?' and I told them 'I going to the Broadripple Hotel, I got permission to be initiated'. They laughed hysterically because I was only an aspirant for a week and not dressed like other aspirants.

Well that night I rec'd Knowledge, I got ripped out of my brains. My initiator got ripped as well. We fell over each other laughing. My session was a Jimi Hendrix experience and she never forgot me.
I maintained the bliss state for years, because of my faith in satsang, service, and meditation. And like my boss and friends I became a darshan freak and plotted every day to see him, for years.
This perpetuated the whole experience, for me.


---

Could you go over the part about the silk blouse and high heels again? :)

naughty Ji

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 19:54:03 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: a0aji
Subject: Playpremie Bliss Bunny :)
Message:
Ha ha ha. I remembered that part as I was writing the post so I added it in for fun. True story. I was always a bit of an unconformist.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 06:31:01 (EDT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Re: yes, it was perpetuated
Message:
My second foot-kissing episode was at Guru Puja in Amherst '74. The morning after as we were leaving the campus, I began to cry because HE was gone. Then, I realized that I hadn't cried in years and experienced a profound joy that there was someone who could really help me. That and some pretty good meditations kept me seeking that permanent realization for years.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:20:22 (EDT)
From: Silvia
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: 'GOD' is authority, you know...
Message:
Hi Mr. Mind,

You sadi: In the K session, we humiliated ourselves thru the mindfucking oath to M, the pranam/kow-towing to his picture. So, at that point, it was either believe or admit you were an asshole for the self-degadation you had been subjecting yourself too.

I don't think I was an asshole at all, but young, and influenciable, and I had the bad luck to find a guru so greedy for power and possesions as to make a believe that if we left him our life was going to stink 'like rotten vegetables', as he, maharaji himself put it. I thought, I was programmed by him to believe it, that he was the Supreme Power in Person, and thought that for a long time, at least until he became just a dude friend, a master, somebody who wanted just to show to all who is interested, bla, bla, bla,....

I feel deceived and haven't yet found a way to make myself completly responsible, but just a very little, considerting the f%$#@**&(* I was subjected to for 26 years!

Good post,

chau

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 16:19:31 (EDT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: Re: 'GOD' is authority, you know...
Message:
Hola Silvia,

Yeah, I was deceived too, obviously. However, my current thinking about it sees me as a victim of a con game. I had to want something and that something was sold as EASY. Remember just being told that all we had to do was 3 simple things--S, S and M and we would just take off. Well this was a very attractive sell to a person who could relate to take off because of LSD and similar stuff...I wanted the real buzz and like any victim of a con, I was manuevered into asking for it....in this case, it was the REAL buzz of GOD AWARENESS.

Hope you're doing well outside of when you think of this stuff...which really gets me angry too

I really should stop reading and posting on these damn forums but I feel there's a little bit of business that needs to be completed.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 17:01:00 (EDT)
From: Silvia
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: I'm fine, thanks
Message:
but I think it needs to be said and repeated....

I don't think that we got involved because and that it was easy. We bought the young guru speech because it was so all promising, so powerful. He deceived us...he lied to us. No justification premies! I want a direct appology and my money back.

I don't ever want to stop coming here, even if what I write is not much, mainly lately for lack of time; I left the cult thanks to this pages and reading often that it has help many others too, I see it as helping others but also to have a voice against the fake guru and helping me too, healing the hurt.

Regarding Service, Satsang and meditation, his AGYA, to hear him as SUPREME authority say it was the ultimate goal bought me; I thought that happiness/bliss was more important than family, education, etc. His luring goes beyond lack of education/ignorance from our part. Is true that in our cultures we were programmed to believe that a human being without knowledge of their spirituality was but a incomplete being, but was this guru who wisely promised the Knowledge of all Knowledges and we bought the speech. But I believe he lured us! Nevertheless, even if I/we bought the promise, I find him responsible of me staying, BIG TIME. The messages he sent with each Satsang was his WAY of indoctrinating us to keep us in the cult, needing him,etc.

I really should stop reading and posting on these damn forums but I feel there's a little bit of business that needs to be completed.

I like reading the forums; is healthy for me, if that what you are refering to saying that. I think is helpful, with moderation of course. Funny, my mind still 'talks' satsang sometimes. Something triggers those thoughts. Does it happen to you? Also, weird, sick, still his face is appealing sometimes as if he still means something to me...freacking ugly! I hate that. So much he has influenced my subconscient mind? Yuck!

Yes, I'm doing fine today. Growing. I feel he kept me naive and stupid in many aspects and I am rediscovering parts of me I had forgotten about. Have fun!

love,

silvia

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 06:20:26 (EDT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: Re: Satsang Brain
Message:
'Funny, my mind still 'talks' satsang sometimes. Something triggers those thoughts. Does it happen to you?'..not so much, but cult think is still very much present. When something positive happens in my life I find myself thinking I should be GRATEFUL. When something negative happens I find myself thinking I'm such a fuck-up.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 08:34:50 (EDT)
From: Silvia
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: Re: Satsang Brain
Message:
Same here, same. Maharaji needs to be accountable for f&**%$$## our minds up!

Have a nice Sunday! :)

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 09:16:02 (EDT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: y Tu [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 20:12:38 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: Re: I'm fine, thanks
Message:
Hi Silvia:

Yes, the point of the matter is not whether we were happy, blissed, miserable, or sad about our participation.

You said it perfectly:

His luring goes beyond lack of education/ignorance from our part. Is true that in our cultures we were programmed to believe that a human being without knowledge of their spirituality was but a incomplete being, but was this guru who wisely promised the Knowledge of all Knowledges and we bought the speech. But I believe he lured us! Nevertheless, even if I/we bought the promise, I find him responsible
of me staying, BIG TIME. The messages he sent with each Satsang was his WAY of indoctrinating us to keep us in the cult, needing him,etc.

That is the BOTTOM LINE. Period.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:42:45 (EDT)
From: Silvia
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: I will never change my view
Message:
Hi there!

Looking back all I see is the same:

You need me: Without me you cannot make it.
I'm youu everything.
The Master deserves to have his stinky feet kiss.
He saves people. ETC............

What a piece of crap he is! Yes I'm still angry. Am we supposse to forget that we gave 20-25 years of our life to a son of a b&^%$## like him? Screw him!

How is school? Things are good around here. :)

I'll write soon. I'm taking a brake today from all.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 04:59:57 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: Read three good posts from you Silvia
Message:
You're in good form! I especially liked the bit about Rawat's game is to make you fall in love with him. That's it in a nutshell! Of course we are angry. Like you I still have some cult-think in me. I suffered for years because I thought I would rot and go to hell for turning against him and sometimes still have pangs of superstitious guilt.

He will pay no matter how much he thinks he is right. And he does. He thinks he is doing good and should be rewarded for it. What he does not realize is that he is doing the right thing for the wrong reason which, as Shakespeare, said '' is the last and greatest treason.''

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 08:48:16 (EDT)
From: Silvia
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: Read three good posts from you Silvia
Message:
He will pay no matter how much he thinks he is right. And he does.
He thinks he is doing good and should be rewarded for it.

I don't agree he thinks he is good. In my opinion he justifies what he does by saying people are happy, look at them, etc. but I believe what I read from Bob Mishler. Maharaji knew in some point he was deceiving the premies because Bob told him directly to tell the truth, but maharaji became afraid. He didn't know how he was going to survive, make more money; he had become fond of the lifestyle it provided. Is like he said: This is my story and I won't change it. I resent that! I would have never follow for 26 years a f*%$#@ed up guru, a drunk, a prostitute user, etc. NEVER! I thought of him as a pure being.

He is fucked up in his head and needs to drink and who knows what because his conscience bothers him. He rather blame it on the 'mind', to avoid having to look at himself? Perhaps, maybe. I still think he played the game. He was aware it paid off to play 'our god' and profit of it. He kepts us crazy enough to fear leaving.

I detest him! TREASON, YES! He deceived us. He invaded a very private place in us.

Hey, I thought you were not posting anymore....heheheheehe...:)
The forums are therapeutic.

Take care.

silvia

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 00:55:35 (EDT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Joke for Jim (with love!) (ot)
Message:
Heres one bud! from the A.G. gang!
[ http://www.hotboards.com/plus/plus.mirage?who=forumlite&id=6462.851147589741 ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:48:32 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: All
Subject: where are f5 archives
Message:
do seem to find them. I could be looking in the wrong place, anyone knows please post a link, thank you worry worry much.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:30:04 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: OK - I'm looking into it
Message:
Salam,

It would have helped if you could have given a bit more detail on the problem. When I looked I only got as far as the F5 archive menu page, and assumed that it was the F6 archives you couldn't find. But thanks for raising it anyway.

For Netscape, it just displays the error:-

temp/20000119a.htm: write error (disk full?). Continue? (y/n/^C)
warning: temp/20000119a.htm is probably truncated
Content-type: text/html

IE displays a similar error but then displays that part of the file it managed to retrieve.

I'll post when we get normal service back, but it may take until Monday.

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:06:26 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Re: where are f5 archives
Message:
do seem to find them. I could be looking in the wrong place, anyone knows please post a link, thank you worry worry much.


---

I don't have the link. They were there, but my browser would
not display them. If you use a different browser, and go to
the same place on ex-premie.org you'll find them listed.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 02:13:25 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: F6 Archives?
Message:
If you mean F6 archives, I haven't got them on line yet, but I now think I know what I'm doing.

John the slow EPO Webmaster

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:03:59 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: F5 Archives!
Message:
Dear slow webmaster John,

I mean forum 5 archives. I hope you catch up one day, yar?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:13:18 (EDT)
From: a0000 ji
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Re: F5 Archives!
Message:
Dear slow webmaster John,

I mean forum 5 archives. I hope you catch up one day, yar?


---

Here are the links for the last batch (files a, b, c, d, e) and
the overall index (to link to other batches):


[ Forum 5 Archives ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 22:30:52 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: a0000 ji
Subject: thank you for your cooperation
Message:
I must be going blind.

EV sucks

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:17:54 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: a0000 ji
Subject: Re: F5 Archives!
Message:
Dear slow webmaster John,

I mean forum 5 archives. I hope you catch up one day, yar?


---

Here are the links for the last batch (files a, b, c, d, e) and
the overall index (to link to other batches):


---

temp/20010718a.htm: write error (disk full?). Continue? (y/n/^C)
warning: temp/20010718a.htm is probably truncated
Content-type: text/html

Kinda looks like the EPO server has a disk-full error.

I got that error when I clicked on 'A' in my post above, of the links.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:55:11 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Note re post below re revisionism
Message:
That one's fuuuuuckkkkked up!

I tried to cut and paste the source file for an essay I found on the subject and which I had earlier cut and pasted in a post on LG, replying to some very revisionist thing Isabella'd said. Well, I didn't do a very good job, now did I?

Anyway, I tried to correct the post in edit mode but that doesn't work for me for some reason. I hit 'save' and instead of simply fixing the post it starts some weird real player download.

In any event, please read and enjoy the article but don't try replying in that thread.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:15:27 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim
Message:
I replied to it here and it transferred to LG !!!!! hONESTLY !

How the fuck did that happen ??????

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:44:20 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: A good article on revisionism
Message:




Subject: Revisionist? Did someone say revisionist?


Message:


Here's an essay for your consideration. When you say things like 'In retrospect, surrender is about surrendering to who YOU are, to your own nature and your own truth' and then invite criticism that you're being a revisionist, guess what? You're right:











Why 'Revisionism' Isn't













Home

Up One Level

Search

What

Guest Book


































src='/images/navbar.gif'

alt='The Holocaust History Project.'

width=70 height=480 border=0

ismap usemap='#navbar' alt='Navigation Map'>









src='banner.gif'

width=300 height=170

alt='Why 'Revisionism' Isn't'

border=0'>



an essay by Gord McFee



Introduction



This essay describes, from a methodological perspective, some of the

inherent flaws in the 'revisionist'

1

approach to the history of the Holocaust. It is not intended as a

polemic, nor does it attempt to ascribe motives. Rather, it seeks to

explain the fundamental error in the 'revisionist' approach, as well as

why that approach of necessity leaves no other choice.



It concludes that 'revisionism' is a misnomer because the facts do

not accord with the position it puts forward and, more importantly, its

methodology reverses the appropriate approach to historical

investigation.



What Is the Historical Method?



History is the recorded narrative of past events, especially those

concerning a particular period, nation, individual, etc. It recounts

events with careful attention to their importance, their mutual

relations, their causes and consequences, selecting and grouping

events on the ground of their interest or importance.

2

It can be seen from this that history acknowledges the existence of

events and facts and seeks to understand how they came about, what they

resulted in, how they are interconnected and what they mean.



The distinctions need to be made among facts, analysis and

interpretation. Facts are demonstrably empirical events whose

occurrence can be proven using evidentiary methods. Analysis is the

method of determining or describing the nature of a thing by resolving

it into its parts. Interpretation is the attempt to give the meaning of

something. It follows that facts lead to analysis which leads to

interpretation. And it follows that each step in the process is more

subjective than the preceding step.



In this context, history is inductive in its methodology, in that it

accumulates the facts, tries to determine their nature and their

connectivities and then attempts to weave them into an understandable

and meaningful mosaic.



What is Legitimate Historical Revisionism?



On its basic level, revisionism is nothing more than than the advocacy

of revision, which in itself is the act of revising, or modifying

something that already exists. Applied to history, it means that

historians challenge the accepted version of the causes or consequences

of historical events. As such, it is an accepted and important part of

historical endeavour for it serves the dual purpose of constantly

re-examining the past while also improving our understanding of it.

Indeed, if one accepts that history attempts to help us better

understand today by better understanding how we got here, revisionism

is essential.



Three examples of legitimate historical revisionism should suffice to

illustrate this:







  1. A.J.P. Taylor has applied a very new interpretation to the events

    leading up to the Second World War. He minimizes Hitler's role in

    those events - the Anschluß with Austria, the annexation of the

    Sudetenland, the Danzig crisis, the role of the Allies, appeasement -

    compared to the standard interpretation, while portraying Nazi

    Germany as much less centralized and monolithic than the norm.

    3



  2. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen has challenged virtually all the usual

    interpretations of the reasons for the complicity of many Germans in

    the perpetration of the Holocaust, and has posited that ordinary

    Germans willingly involved themselves because of the existence of a

    deep-rooted, eliminationist antisemitism in Germans of that era. He

    downplays, if not outright dismisses, the influence of Hitler and the

    Nazi Party.

    4



  3. German historian Christian Gerlach has interpreted a diary entry

    by Joseph Goebbels and a newly discovered one from Heinrich Himmler to

    mean that the date of the decision by Hitler to exterminate the Jews

    is in December 1941 rather than late spring or early summer as most

    have till now believed.

    5







What Do 'Revisionists' Do?



'Revisionists' depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not

occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that

preordained conclusion. Put another way, they reverse the proper

methodology described above, thus turning the proper historical method

of investigation and analysis on its head. That is not to say that

historians never depart from a preconceived or desired result; they

often do. But in adhering rigorously to the correct methodology, they

accept that the result of their investigation may not be what they

envisaged at the beginning. They are prepared to adapt their theories

to that reality. Indeed, they are often required to revise their

conclusions based on the facts. To put it tritely, 'revisionists'

revise the facts based on their conclusion.



Since 'revisionists' depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust

did not happen, i.e., they deny its existence, they are often called

'deniers'. Rather than analyze historical events, facts, their causes

and consequences, and their interactions with other events, they defend

a conclusion, whether or not the facts support it.



Why they do this is not the subject of this piece, but a few examples

of the distortions, evasions and denials that it forces on them will

illustrate how intellectually dishonest it is. And it should be

remembered that they are forced on them, since 'revisionists'

are denying a historical occurrence, then distorting the facts into accord

with that denial.



The Conspiracy Theory



Since the facts are not in accord with the 'revisionist' conclusion,

they must find an all-encompassing way to dismiss them. This is not a

simple task, since the facts converge in the result that the Nazis had

a plan to exterminate European Jewry, succeeded in large part in

accomplishing it, and left behind multitudinous evidence of the

attempt.

6



Hence, 'revisionists' must argue that there is a conspiracy to

fabricate all that evidence - a conspiracy that must have begun its work

before the end of the war - and one that continues to this day.

'Organized Jewry' or several variants on 'Zionists' are at the root of

this conspiracy. The conspiracy theory manifests itself in the

following contrived positions:







  • survivor witnesses lied, even where their evidence is

    corroborated by documents, or other sources;



  • perpetrator evidence was evinced through torture, fear for their

    families or falsified in various ways;



  • documents left behind by the Nazis were falsified, don't mean

    what they appear to mean, or are forgeries;



  • photographs were faked;



  • films were faked;



  • words don't mean what they appear to mean. When Himmler used the

    word 'ausrotten'

    (exterminate) in respect of the Jews, he didn't really mean

    'exterminate'. When

    Hitler used the word 'vernichten' (annihilate)

    in respect of the Jews, he didn't really mean 'annihilate'. When the

    Einsatzgruppen

    spoke of killing Jewish women and children, they really meant

    partisans, even though partisans had a separate listing in the many

    reports they left behind;



  • recorded speeches were faked. Himmler's 1943 Posen speech, which

    was recorded, wasn't really his voice, or parts were added later, or

    the technology to record didn't exist in 1943 (it did), or it

    disagrees with Himmler's notes for the speech (it doesn't);



  • the victims were responsible for what happened to them. The Jewish

    women and children were partisans or were guilty of committing heinous

    crimes, or both;



  • Jews deserved rough treatment anyway. Even though the Holocaust

    didn't happen, it would have nonetheless been justified because the

    Jews are an alien, parasitical race, hell-bent on destroying the noble

    Aryan, and/or defiling his blood, etc.;



  • if no written Hitler order for the Holocaust can be found, there was

    no order at all;



  • no gas chamber is currently functioning. Therefore, there never

    were gas chambers. But even if there were gas chambers, they were

    only for fumigating clothing, even if they were in morgues.







Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus



Since, as this list shows, the amount of empirical evidence for the

Holocaust is so overwhelming, the 'revisionists' must throw in another

dismissal trick. This has been called the 'falsus in uno, falsus in

omnibus' condition (one thing mistaken equals all things mistaken).

It means, for example, that if any single piece of survivor evidence

can be shown to be wrong, all survivor evidence is wrong and is to be

dismissed. If any Nazi official lied about an aspect of the Holocaust

(on-topic or not), all Nazi officials lied, and anything Nazis said

after the war is dismissed. If any Nazi can be shown to have been

tortured or mistreated, they all were and anything they said is

invalid.



Conclusion



'Revisionism' is obliged to deviate from the standard methodology of

historical pursuit because it seeks to mold facts to fit a preconceived

result, it denies events that have been objectively and empirically

proved to have occurred, and because it works backward from the

conclusion to the facts, thus necessitating the distortion and

manipulation of those facts where they differ from the preordained

conclusion (which they almost always do). In short, 'revisionism'

denies something that demonstrably happened, through methodological

dishonesty.



Its ethical dishonesty and antisemitic motivation are topics for

another day.








Notes







  1. The quotes around 'revisionists' are not sneer quotes. They

    indicate that methodologically 'revisionists' are not what they claim to

    be. This is explained in detail in the body of the essay.



  2. Funk & Wagnall's Standard

    Dictionary of the English Language
    , Volume 1, New York, 1973,

    p. 599.



  3. A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the

    Second World War
    , Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1964.



  4. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's

    Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
    , Alfred

    A. Knopf, New York, 1996.



  5. Die Zeit, edition of January

    9, 1998. His findings are reported in Zeitschrift Werkstatt

    Geschichte
    , Heft 18/1997.



  6. See inter alia Hilberg, The

    Destruction of the European Jews
    ; Gilbert, The

    Holocaust
    ; Yahil, The Holocaust; Dawidowicz,

    The War Against the European Jews 1933-1945; Breitman,

    The Architect of Genocide; Less, Eichmann

    Interrogated
    ; Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution;

    Broszat et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates; and many more.












Suggested further reading: Pierre Vidal-Naquet's

A Paper

Eichmann: Anatomy of a Lie
, in particular part 4,

On

the Revisionist Method
.



Gordon McFee received his Master's degree in 1973, from the

University of New Brunswick, Canada, and Albert Ludwigs

Universität, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany (split studies), in

history and German.



  

Last modified: May 15, 1999




Copyright © 1998-99 Gordon McFee. All rights reserved.


Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org

















Your Name:

Subject:
Your Email:

Quoted Message:

Here's an essay for your consideration. When you say things like 'In retrospect, surrender is about surrendering to who YOU are, to your own nature and your own truth' and then invite criticism that you're being a revisionist, guess what? You're right:




Why 'Revisionism' Isn't




Home
Up One Level
Search
What
Guest Book














src='/images/navbar.gif'
alt='The Holocaust History Project.'
width=70 height=480 border=0
ismap usemap='#navbar' alt='Navigation Map'>

src='banner.gif'
width=300 height=170
alt='Why 'Revisionism' Isn't'
border=0'>

an essay by Gord McFee

Introduction

This essay describes, from a methodological perspective, some of the
inherent flaws in the 'revisionist'
1
approach to the history of the Holocaust. It is not intended as a
polemic, nor does it attempt to ascribe motives. Rather, it seeks to
explain the fundamental error in the 'revisionist' approach, as well as
why that approach of necessity leaves no other choice.

It concludes that 'revisionism' is a misnomer because the facts do
not accord with the position it puts forward and, more importantly, its
methodology reverses the appropriate approach to historical
investigation.

What Is the Historical Method?

History is the recorded narrative of past events, especially those
concerning a particular period, nation, individual, etc. It recounts
events with careful attention to their importance, their mutual
relations, their causes and consequences, selecting and grouping
events on the ground of their interest or importance.
2
It can be seen from this that history acknowledges the existence of
events and facts and seeks to understand how they came about, what they
resulted in, how they are interconnected and what they mean.

The distinctions need to be made among facts, analysis and
interpretation. Facts are demonstrably empirical events whose
occurrence can be proven using evidentiary methods. Analysis is the
method of determining or describing the nature of a thing by resolving
it into its parts. Interpretation is the attempt to give the meaning of
something. It follows that facts lead to analysis which leads to
interpretation. And it follows that each step in the process is more
subjective than the preceding step.

In this context, history is inductive in its methodology, in that it
accumulates the facts, tries to determine their nature and their
connectivities and then attempts to weave them into an understandable
and meaningful mosaic.

What is Legitimate Historical Revisionism?

On its basic level, revisionism is nothing more than than the advocacy
of revision, which in itself is the act of revising, or modifying
something that already exists. Applied to history, it means that
historians challenge the accepted version of the causes or consequences
of historical events. As such, it is an accepted and important part of
historical endeavour for it serves the dual purpose of constantly
re-examining the past while also improving our understanding of it.
Indeed, if one accepts that history attempts to help us better
understand today by better understanding how we got here, revisionism
is essential.

Three examples of legitimate historical revisionism should suffice to
illustrate this:

  1. A.J.P. Taylor has applied a very new interpretation to the events
    leading up to the Second World War. He minimizes Hitler's role in
    those events - the Anschluß with Austria, the annexation of the
    Sudetenland, the Danzig crisis, the role of the Allies, appeasement -
    compared to the standard interpretation, while portraying Nazi
    Germany as much less centralized and monolithic than the norm.
    3

  2. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen has challenged virtually all the usual
    interpretations of the reasons for the complicity of many Germans in
    the perpetration of the Holocaust, and has posited that ordinary
    Germans willingly involved themselves because of the existence of a
    deep-rooted, eliminationist antisemitism in Germans of that era. He
    downplays, if not outright dismisses, the influence of Hitler and the
    Nazi Party.
    4

  3. German historian Christian Gerlach has interpreted a diary entry
    by Joseph Goebbels and a newly discovered one from Heinrich Himmler to
    mean that the date of the decision by Hitler to exterminate the Jews
    is in December 1941 rather than late spring or early summer as most
    have till now believed.
    5

What Do 'Revisionists' Do?

'Revisionists' depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not
occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that
preordained conclusion. Put another way, they reverse the proper
methodology described above, thus turning the proper historical method
of investigation and analysis on its head. That is not to say that
historians never depart from a preconceived or desired result; they
often do. But in adhering rigorously to the correct methodology, they
accept that the result of their investigation may not be what they
envisaged at the beginning. They are prepared to adapt their theories
to that reality. Indeed, they are often required to revise their
conclusions based on the facts. To put it tritely, 'revisionists'
revise the facts based on their conclusion.

Since 'revisionists' depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust
did not happen, i.e., they deny its existence, they are often called
'deniers'. Rather than analyze historical events, facts, their causes
and consequences, and their interactions with other events, they defend
a conclusion, whether or not the facts support it.

Why they do this is not the subject of this piece, but a few examples
of the distortions, evasions and denials that it forces on them will
illustrate how intellectually dishonest it is. And it should be
remembered that they are forced on them, since 'revisionists'
are denying a historical occurrence, then distorting the facts into accord
with that denial.

The Conspiracy Theory

Since the facts are not in accord with the 'revisionist' conclusion,
they must find an all-encompassing way to dismiss them. This is not a
simple task, since the facts converge in the result that the Nazis had
a plan to exterminate European Jewry, succeeded in large part in
accomplishing it, and left behind multitudinous evidence of the
attempt.
6

Hence, 'revisionists' must argue that there is a conspiracy to
fabricate all that evidence - a conspiracy that must have begun its work
before the end of the war - and one that continues to this day.
'Organized Jewry' or several variants on 'Zionists' are at the root of
this conspiracy. The conspiracy theory manifests itself in the
following contrived positions:

  • survivor witnesses lied, even where their evidence is
    corroborated by documents, or other sources;

  • perpetrator evidence was evinced through torture, fear for their
    families or falsified in various ways;

  • documents left behind by the Nazis were falsified, don't mean
    what they appear to mean, or are forgeries;

  • photographs were faked;

  • films were faked;

  • words don't mean what they appear to mean. When Himmler used the
    word 'ausrotten'
    (exterminate) in respect of the Jews, he didn't really mean
    'exterminate'. When
    Hitler used the word 'vernichten' (annihilate)
    in respect of the Jews, he didn't really mean 'annihilate'. When the
    Einsatzgruppen
    spoke of killing Jewish women and children, they really meant
    partisans, even though partisans had a separate listing in the many
    reports they left behind;

  • recorded speeches were faked. Himmler's 1943 Posen speech, which
    was recorded, wasn't really his voice, or parts were added later, or
    the technology to record didn't exist in 1943 (it did), or it
    disagrees with Himmler's notes for the speech (it doesn't);

  • the victims were responsible for what happened to them. The Jewish
    women and children were partisans or were guilty of committing heinous
    crimes, or both;

  • Jews deserved rough treatment anyway. Even though the Holocaust
    didn't happen, it would have nonetheless been justified because the
    Jews are an alien, parasitical race, hell-bent on destroying the noble
    Aryan, and/or defiling his blood, etc.;

  • if no written Hitler order for the Holocaust can be found, there was
    no order at all;

  • no gas chamber is currently functioning. Therefore, there never
    were gas chambers. But even if there were gas chambers, they were
    only for fumigating clothing, even if they were in morgues.

Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus

Since, as this list shows, the amount of empirical evidence for the
Holocaust is so overwhelming, the 'revisionists' must throw in another
dismissal trick. This has been called the 'falsus in uno, falsus in
omnibus' condition (one thing mistaken equals all things mistaken).
It means, for example, that if any single piece of survivor evidence
can be shown to be wrong, all survivor evidence is wrong and is to be
dismissed. If any Nazi official lied about an aspect of the Holocaust
(on-topic or not), all Nazi officials lied, and anything Nazis said
after the war is dismissed. If any Nazi can be shown to have been
tortured or mistreated, they all were and anything they said is
invalid.

Conclusion

'Revisionism' is obliged to deviate from the standard methodology of
historical pursuit because it seeks to mold facts to fit a preconceived
result, it denies events that have been objectively and empirically
proved to have occurred, and because it works backward from the
conclusion to the facts, thus necessitating the distortion and
manipulation of those facts where they differ from the preordained
conclusion (which they almost always do). In short, 'revisionism'
denies something that demonstrably happened, through methodological
dishonesty.

Its ethical dishonesty and antisemitic motivation are topics for
another day.


Notes

  1. The quotes around 'revisionists' are not sneer quotes. They
    indicate that methodologically 'revisionists' are not what they claim to
    be. This is explained in detail in the body of the essay.

  2. Funk & Wagnall's Standard
    Dictionary of the English Language
    , Volume 1, New York, 1973,
    p. 599.

  3. A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the
    Second World War
    , Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1964.

  4. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's
    Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
    , Alfred
    A. Knopf, New York, 1996.

  5. Die Zeit, edition of January
    9, 1998. His findings are reported in Zeitschrift Werkstatt
    Geschichte
    , Heft 18/1997.

  6. See inter alia Hilberg, The
    Destruction of the European Jews
    ; Gilbert, The
    Holocaust
    ; Yahil, The Holocaust; Dawidowicz,
    The War Against the European Jews 1933-1945; Breitman,
    The Architect of Genocide; Less, Eichmann
    Interrogated
    ; Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution;
    Broszat et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates; and many more.


Suggested further reading: Pierre Vidal-Naquet's
A Paper
Eichmann: Anatomy of a Lie
, in particular part 4,
On
the Revisionist Method
.

Gordon McFee received his Master's degree in 1973, from the
University of New Brunswick, Canada, and Albert Ludwigs
Universität, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany (split studies), in
history and German.

  

Last modified: May 15, 1999


Copyright © 1998-99 Gordon McFee. All rights reserved.

Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org





Your Reply:




Textless Message?

Quote message in Reply?







Admin Post?
(Admins Only)
Yes: Password:













This Entire Thread:



.. Way And don't you just love THIS: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 11:21:29 (EDT)


. Katie Why premies aren't posting here (IMHO) Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 20:59:56 (EDT)


. PF Re: Why premies aren't posting here (IMHO) Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:08:49 (EDT)


. Jim Bullshit, Katie Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:42:49 (EDT)


. Jim No, you're right, where ARE the premies? Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 17:17:15 (EDT)


. Isabella You're right. I dont like to talk to you. [nt] Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 19:42:17 (EDT)


. Isabella Re: And don't you just love THIS: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 13:00:18 (EDT)


. Way rephrased for Isabella Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 13:30:38 (EDT)


. Isabella Reply Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 19:35:47 (EDT)


. Jim Revisionist? Did someone say revisionist? Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:02:40 (EDT)


. Isabella Re: Revisionist? Did someone say revisionist? Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:06:02 (EDT)


. Jim Yeah, but you're not? Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:14:18 (EDT)


. Isabella PS Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 19:40:30 (EDT)


. Observe how boring you are (nt) Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 12:24:01 (EDT)





(Previous Message)
(Next Message)
(Next Thread)
(View Entire Thread)
(Message List)





(Administration)
Forum Owners Only



HotBoards.Com 1.0 Message Forums


Copyright 1999-2000 Cyber Concepts, Inc.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 02:34:43 (EDT)
From: Perfessor Suchabanana
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: essay points out flaws of
Message:
the essay points out the flaws and abuses of politically/ideologically motivated, revisionist historical methodology: it operates on presuppositions, and is prejudicially deductive and selective, rather than being open-ended, inquisitive and inductive.

Ironically, the father of modern social science and the methodology of history as an inductive science and a professional discipline was Leopold von Ranke - a German.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:38:15 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Perfessor Suchabanana
Subject: What are you talking about?
Message:
What 'presuppositions' are you talking about and why are they bad or wrong? And what's this 'prejudicially deductive and selective, rather than being open-ended, inquisitive and inductive' bit mean?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:16:58 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: read the essay again
Message:
it explains some fundamental aspects of inductive vs. deductive historical methodology.

i.e. the inaccuracies and pitfalls of agenda-driven, skewered deductive historical revisionism vs. inductive methodology.

no time or inclination for pedantic debate today, Jim. I've got a rare sunny weekend to enjoy.

you ever study historiography in grad school, btw? suggested authors: Von Ranke, Niebuhr, Macaulay, Carlyle, Jaures, de Coulanges, Mommsen, Turner, bury, Beard, Meinecke, Lord Acton, Huiznga, Clapham, Pokrovsky, Hofstadter, Barzun, Namier

I enjoyed that holocaust essay very much. a nice post. I used to teach a class about the holocaust. A survivor of the concentration camps used to come in and do a presentation. She wrote a book called Tapestry of Hope. I couldn't find the book just now in my own library, then remembered I donated it to a school library.

The exclusionary revisionism in Japanese textbooks r.e. suppression of any mention of WWII atrocities vs. their championing of Japan's alleged 'liberation' of Asia is particularly alarming.

P+L,

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 10:30:40 (EDT)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: such
Subject: 300,000 killed in NANKING, 1937 (long post)
Message:
in the most heinously brutal and tortured manner possible. And there is precious little acknowledgment about that, anywhere.

That was more people than were snuffed out in atomic bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and more than the European casualty count in WWII. It is 'the forgotten Holocaust.'

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. There were a number of other Japanese campaigns waged against the Chinese, and most of them were against civilians. Adding up various death counts, including 4,000,000-6,000,000 in direct actions, millions more in deliberate disease-causing 'medical experiments', bombings, and starvation, the count is conservatively estimated at 19 million killed. It only took a few years.

Talk about denial.

The following is from 'The Rape of Nanking' by Iris Chang:

'' It is impossible for most people to imagine exactly what went through the minds of Japanese soldiers and officers as they committed the atrocities. But many historians, eyewitnesses, survivors and the perpetrators themselves have theorized about what drove the naked brutality of the Japanese imperial army.

Some Japanese scholars believe the the horrors of the Rape of Nanking and other outrages of the Sino-Japanese War were caused by a phenomenon called 'the transfer of oppression.' According to Tanaka Yuki, author of Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, the modern Japanese army had great potential for brutality from the moment of its creation for two reasons: the arbitrary and cruel treatment that the military inflicted upon its own officers and soldiers, and the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, in which status was dictated by proximity to the emperor.

Before the invasion of Nanking, the Japanese military had subjected its own soldiers to endless humiliation. Japanese soldiers were forced to wash the underwear of officers or stand meekly while superiors slapped them until they streamed blood. Using Orwellian language, the routine striking of Japanese soldiers, or bentatsu, was termed an 'act of love' by the officers, and the violent discipline of the Japanese navy through tekken seisai, or 'the iron fist,' was often called ai-n0-muchi, or 'the whip of love.'

It has often been suggested that those with the least power are often the most sadistic if the given the power of life and death over people even lower on the pecking order, and the rage engendered by this rigid pecking order was suddenly given an outlet when Japanese soldiers went abroad. In foreign lands or colonized territories, the Japanese soldiers -- representatives of the emporer -- enjoyed tremendous power among the subjects. In China even the lowliest Japanese private was considered superior to the most powerful and distinguished native, and it is easy to see how years of suppressed anger, hatred, and fear of authority could have erupted in uncontrollable violence at Nanking. The Japanese soldier had endured in silence whatever his superiors had chosen to deal out to him, and now the Chinese had to take whatever he chose to deal out to them.

A second factor in the atrocities, scholars believe, is the virulent contempt that many in the Japanese military reserved for Chinese people -- a contempt cultivated by decades of propoganda, education, and social indoctrination. Though the Japanese and the Chinese share similar if not identical racial features (which in a distorted way may have threatened the Japanese vision of themselves as unique), there were those in the Imperial army who saw the Chinese as subhuman beings whose murder would carry no greater moral weight than squashing a bug or butchering a hog. In fact, both before and during the war members of the Japanese military at all levels frequently compared the Chinese to pigs. For example, a Japanses general told a correspondent: 'To be frank, your view of Chinese in totally different from mine. You regard the Chinese as human beings while I regard the Chinese as pigs.' . . . The Japanese soldier Azuma Shiro confided in his diary at Nanking that 'a pig is more valuable now than the life of a Chinese human being. That's because a pig is edible.'

A third factor was religion. Imbuing violence with holy meaning, the Japanese imperial army made violence a cultural imperative every bit as powerful as that which propelled Europeans during the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. . . .

Few doubted the righteousness of their mission in China. Nagatomi Hakudo, a former Japanese soldier who participated in the Rape of Nanking, said he had been reared to believe that the emporer was the natural ruler of the world, that Japanese were racially superior to the rest of the world, and that it was the destiny of Japan to control Asia. Whan a local Christian priest asked him, 'Who is greater, God or the emporer of Japan?,' he had no doubt that 'the emperor' was the correct answer.

With an entity higher than God on its side, it was not difficult for the Japanese military to take the next step -- adopting the belief that the war, even the violence that came with it, would ultimately benefit not only Japan but its victims as well [emphasis mine] . . . Ths attitude echos that of the Japanese teachers and officers who beat their students and soldiers senseless while insisting, between blows, that it was all done for their own good.

Perhaps it was General Matsui Iwane who summed up the prevailing mentality of self-delusion best when he attempted to justify Japanese oppression of China. . . . [H]e would say of the invasion of China:
'The stuggle between Japan and China was always a fight between brothers within the 'Asian Family.' . . . It had been my belief during all these days that we must regard this struggle as a method of making the Chinese undergo self reflection. We do not do this because we hate them, but on the contrary we love them too much. It is just the same as in a family when an elder brother has taken all he can stand from his ill-behaved younger brother and has to chastise him in order to make him behave properly.' ''


---

---
--

Revisionism and denying the past. A common trait for abusers, at whatever scale: individuals, organizations, communities, nations.

Thank God the guru trip never got too big. With so many bozos running things and having power and control over cosmically intimidated average premies, and doing all this in service to a 'greater-than-God' Lord of the Universe, it's a wonder there weren't more abuses than there were. It's when little petty tyrants start pushing people around in pursuit of their ambitions to get 'closer to the emperor', that some real damage gets done. Also guilty?: Those Ira Woods, David Smiths and other scheming or screaming fanatics who perform a sort of psychic rape upon innocent people who were genuine in their initial heartfelt attempts to reach out toward holiness, wisdom and God.

While not of the bloody magnitude of the Rape of Nanking or any other past or present holocaust, it is still a kind of tragedy.

But given the lamentable side of human nature, can you imagine what would have happened if it got really big, i.e., global? With M running the show? Scary indeed.

Sorry this got so long.
Carl

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 11:50:24 (EDT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: How many German civilians killed
Message:
in Dresden and Paulen, etc., where the Allies firebombed entire cities at the end of the was, even when it was clear that the Third Reich was finished? What about THAT holocaust? Few people mention that slaughter. Oh, it's OK it was only the bloody germans...
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 15:08:32 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: gerry
Subject: Re: How many German civilians killed
Message:
I think 'Slaughterhouse Five' made sure Dresden was noticed.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:01:34 (EDT)
From: BeenThereDoneThat
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Re: read the essay again
Message:
When the US decided, in their infinite wisdom, to put US Japanese citizins in concentration camps scattered around the worst geographical parts of these United States, my grandparents stored their neighbor's belongs in their barn, including hoisting a car in the rafters. He and my grandmother took care of their farm along with their own. When they were released, they returned home to a farm and home intact along with their belongings waiting for them. This didn't seem like a terribly significant thing to do, caring for the farm, etc, but this family was greatful forever. It seems most US Japanese returned home to find their homes and business' destroyed. To this day, one of the surviving daughters visits schools with a little photo of said grandparents and their children, telling this tale. Funny how a little common decency can mean so much to another human being. I really thought knowledge allowed this to flourish. That is one reason I am so blown over by this site and the pwk's reaction to it.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:49:04 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: 100,000+ loyal Japanese-Americans were interned
Message:
in concentration camps in the West during WWII.

There was never so much as 1 reported case of wartime sabotage or espionage by any Japanese-American citizen living in the USA.

The internment of Japanese-American families was strictly institutionalized racist xenophobia.

Conversely, none of the millions of German-American families were interned. And, there were blatant pro-Nazi rallies of the German-American bund prior to Pearl Harbor. Also, dozens of incidents of sabotage and collaboration.

r.e. this site and ex-premie.org - lots of premies have come and left da maha cult. others are in bigtime de Nile -- and up the creek without a paddle.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 02:32:42 (EDT)
From: Perfessor Suchabanana
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: essay points out flaws of
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:00:28 (EDT)
From: tetonca
Email: and_on_anand@yahoo.com
To: All
Subject: EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open
Message:
Bud-a-bing, bud-a-boom.

I have a Motet conf setup, with limited seating
for 40 interested in the conferencing tools project Jim asked me about earlier.

We will be guests on someone else's system, so
I expect you to be polite.

Send mail for details.

a0aji

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 16:59:14 (EDT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: My position on this
Message:
a0aji,

So far I've kept away from your efforts to find a better discussion vehicle for ex-premies, but as someone involved (ex-F5 FA, current EPO Webmaster, and Forum 6 archiver), I feel it's my responsibility to give my view.

I've read your posts, and I really don't understand your vision. An obvious response to that is that I should sign up, and taste the mango. The problem is, I am too busy, and need a better reason to invest my time than trying to understand your vision.

Sorry, but these forums are just conversations to me. Some of them are interesting, and some have value to me, but I have no problem in following the conversations as they are currently presented.

So is there any way you can easily convince me to participate?

John.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:11:04 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: Re: EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open
Message:
what is the purpose of what you're asking?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:59:02 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Re: EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open
Message:
what is the purpose of what you're asking?


---

It's a conference. The points have been discussed at length, below.
Jim marked the thread extensively. Please review those remarks, and
let me know what you think!

The name of that thread is 'Inquiry: Status on Forum Development?'
and it was begun with a date/time stamp of 'Tues, Aug 14, 2001 at 12:05:00 (EDT)'. There's a 'View All' link (or somesuch) which
will expose that thread -- this forum only shows 99 messages; the
old ones scroll by and you have to use the 'View All' (somesuch!)
link to see them.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:20:56 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: a0aji
Subject: Here's a link, salam
Message:
Please follow the link!
[ Link to the discussion I mentioned ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:50:13 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: Sign-Up Help Sheet Available - see link
Message:
see link
[ Sign-Up Help Sheet ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:08:29 (EDT)
From: Selene
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: I looked at it
Message:
It doesn't allow for threaded views does it? Just asking, I know people differ on how they like to look at msgs. but i prefer threading. I couldn't see an option for a choice.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:22:17 (EDT)
From: tetonca
Email: None
To: Selene
Subject: Re: I looked at it
Message:
It doesn't allow for threaded views does it? Just asking, I know people differ on how they like to look at msgs. but i prefer threading. I couldn't see an option for a choice.


---

In this instance, the social engineering takes precedence.
Threaded leads to certain social problems, because by its
very nature it is non-sequential. So, no: no good linear
system offers threading, since that defeats its primary
purpose.

Threaded corresponds to distributed networks like usenet,
where there is no central database to coordinate by topic
within a Newsgroup.

Linear corresponds with central networks, where a database
coordinates everyone's participation and orders the messages
so that everyone sees the same sequence of messages -- this
is considered essential to the social engineering aspect,
as it promotes understanding through a shared viewpoint.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:56:25 (EDT)
From: Selene
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: yes I hear this all the time :)
Message:
Which is why we have a Linear system at work.
So I do know your argument and have had to let the deans who feel this way govern the conf system we run.
IMO we aren't conversing naturallly anyway and threading helps things be flexible yet easy to follow.
But that's life, we can't always agree. If people decide they like this format better that's fine. It will be interesting to see how the main topics are decided upon and kept to a limit.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:53:21 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: Selene
Subject: Re: yes I hear this all the time :)
Message:
In my opinion, Motet is Good Enough, and hotboards .. isn't.

I have Motet and Yapp available to me; they're pretty good tools.
I also like Citadel/UX.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:07:42 (EDT)
From: tetonca
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: Re: EPO Conferencing Tools Forum Open
Message:
I'll be back in the morning -- goodnight!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:32:18 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: goodnight zZZZ
Message:
I'll be back in the morning -- goodnight!


---

See you in the morning.

a0aji (tetonca) is offline.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:02:27 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: Can we bring some token premies?
Message:
What's the fun of playing pacman if there's nothing to eat?

I know, I know. I'm going to report myself to the Human Rights Tribunal in the morning.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:59:36 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: no free munchkins? ferGit it! hahaha [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:15:54 (EDT)
From: tetonca
Email: and_on_anand@yahoo.com
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Can we bring some token premies?
Message:
What's the fun of playing pacman if there's nothing to eat?

I know, I know. I'm going to report myself to the Human Rights Tribunal in the morning.


---

There's room. Anyone who isn't polite (who causes me embarassment
with my betters) gets to walk the plank. But bicker all you want,
inside the conference -- it is private.

My ISP just made me walk the plank! (my modem dropped the carrier).

There is a panel discussion feature I'd forgotten about -- of the
40 who are members, 10 of them (for instance) could be authorized
to post, and the other 30 would be forced to watch in silence --
they'd have read-only access. It looks like that can be enforced
per-topic, as well as throughout the entire conference. Interesting
tool; we used it on another system to do the Board meetings 'in
the public eye' -- the other Members got to watch but could not
post. Standard Motet tool; nothing special there.

I'm going to bed *real* soon so anyone who can't wait 8 hours
better mail *now*.

out.

--
tetonca a0aji

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:24:48 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: tetonca
Subject: 40 only ?
Message:
That'll mean some people left out of the equation .......and as I'll be away for a little while .....I'll return here only to find CATWEASLE or someone !!!!! :)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:29:04 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Re: 40 only ?
Message:
That'll mean some people left out of the equation .......and as I'll be away for a little while .....I'll return here only to find CATWEASLE or someone !!!!! :)


---

It's just a planning thing. It isn't what we're looking for;
it's what we're going to use, to look for it. ;)

Don't worry -- finding 40 people willing to contribute will
be a tough sell.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 03:07:16 (EDT)
From: pEG
Email: None
To: a0aji
Subject: Re: 40 only ? HELP!
Message:
My paranoid ex-cult reaction system has moved into action.

ONLY 4O.... tHAT CERTAINLY WON'T MAKE ROOM FOR ME the occaisional slightly boring and very naive new ex ( I'm getting pretty sure about this)premie. What will I do?
stay here and not read the clever and funny and articulate posts you old timers send
miss seeing the next episodes of Jim vs premiedom
or will this place disappear completely and I'll be left with only waffle and battle over on LG
or will i somehow find my way into the fabulous 40 but only be able to listen and not post???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHAAAAT
OR WILL I EVEN Be one of the 40 be able to post but not hear from anyone new unless someone leaves.
And who are these people I'll have to be polite to to join in? Will I get to meet them or will they be some mysterious and all knowing entity i give my power away to?
OK thats out now.as someone totally new to not only the 'real world' but also the internet that is what I understood by this new posting idea.
If any of the above are true I personally don't really fancy it.

PS to Jim re snidey remark that 'just popped out' above. sorry i think I'm more envious than anything. I am just having my first flush of regret and blame about 29 years of my life and my rusty brain etc. feeling rather stupid and envying the clever ones.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:46:34 (EDT)
From: David
Email: sirdavid12@hotmail.com
To: pEG
Subject: This Forum 6
Message:
This place, Forum 6, will remain here until another viable main ex-premie forum has been established which is not limited to 40 people and has free access to all.

I wouldn't worry. The new forum might just be a pipe dream. It might not ever happen. I can't see people setting up an incorporated company just in order to have an online forum!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:41:44 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: David
Subject: Re: This Forum 6
Message:
This place, Forum 6, will remain here until another viable main ex-premie forum has been established which is not limited to 40 people and has free access to all.

I wouldn't worry. The new forum might just be a pipe dream. It might not ever happen. I can't see people setting up an incorporated company just in order to have an online forum!


---

To be fair, you encouraged the idea of an alternative, Dave.

I'm trying to interest others in just that.

And to be fair, it will take a lot of effort to replace what we
have now, but I'm fairly optimistic it can be done and people
would participate -- but I'm not certain that's so.

To reiterate, the 40-seater is just a planning conference,
and a free look at Motet, using our own posts and voices,
rather than the generic demonstration found at www.motet.com.

By the way, Motet does have a bongo filter, so we even have
room for bongos! I can say 'we' because two people have sent
e-mail indicating *voluntary* interest, which is the cat's meow,
as far as I'm concerned.

I do not expect to fill 40 seats. I expect maybe 12 people will
login, if that. There is room for 40; any more than 40 would
cost me more than the initial $60 I spent out of my own pocket!

If you want a seat, earlier is better -- better for me, anyway.
I have to be available for the first part (signing you up) but
I don't have to be around for every discussion -- there's no
f*ckin' way I'd do this if that were required!

I think it'll take at least three months to gain enough of a
group to get a conversation going there, to discuss this in
much detail. A lot of people who will show interest don't
read this Hotboards forum constantly; I'm one of them. ;)

Summer isn't the best time for this, either. Winter works
better, because people spend more time indoors.

What we'd be planning (for something long-term which I *cannot*
afford to do out-of-pocket!) would be an *unlimited* number of
accounts; I would plan for at least 1500 people lurking, and a
few hundred posting (not all at once; perhaps 60-90 in any
given month). There would be no entry fee; it would run on some
form of voluntary contribution. The public would not have to pay,
to see.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:59:47 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: a0aji
Subject: Re: This Forum 6
Message:
I toyed with the idea of making this forum password protected, wherein people would sign up (to a robot) which would email them their unique password within seconds but layed it to rest after talking to a few other people about it.

I think there may be a need for such a forum but I don't know if it need be the main ex-premie forum, which by it's nature is a bit of a battle ground. If a nuicance poster was banned, which is easily done by deleting his/her account, they can easily set up a new account using a new Hotmail address.

This forum has around 3-400 visitors per day (some are the same people visiting more than once) and about 5,000 page views per day. It's costing about $60 per month.

It does the job for the time being. If you do set up an alternative, I'd poll people's views on the need to sign up to read or post.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 14:55:41 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Re: This Forum 6
Message:
Dear Sir Dave,

As much as I have been wounded at times by this Forum when it is in a 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' mode, and people are flinging insensitive taunts, I do believe there is a need for an open Forum that can be READ or LURKED IN without signing up for a password or identifying onself.

I know of at least two committed premies who have lurked here, or talk to those who do enough to know that I am posting here. These people are not going to sign up for passwords and make themselves known. I know of exes who have lurked for months, not even recent exes, but those who never cult the umbilicus to the cult. Some of them never post.

I'm not sure whether EPO alone can do the trick, although that's generally the first stop, and is a resource once the questions come up so that we don't have to keep explaining the same stuff over and over.

I digress. Bests, Francesca

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:38:00 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Re: This Forum 6
Message:
I toyed with the idea of making this forum password protected, wherein people would sign up (to a robot) which would email them their unique password within seconds but layed it to rest after talking to a few other people about it.

I think there may be a need for such a forum but I don't know if it need be the main ex-premie forum, which by it's nature is a bit of a battle ground. If a nuicance poster was banned, which is easily done by deleting his/her account, they can easily set up a new account using a new Hotmail address.

This forum has around 3-400 visitors per day (some are the same people visiting more than once) and about 5,000 page views per day. It's costing about $60 per month.

It does the job for the time being. If you do set up an alternative, I'd poll people's views on the need to sign up to read or post.


---

I hear you -- and thanks.

I think the problem is, unless you have the resources to leverage
someone authoring a custom program that does just what you want it
to do, you have to settle for *someone's* vision of what a forum
should look like -- to use an off-the-shelf product. They're getting
better, but slowly.

Motet is definitely passworded; and that's what I've used to set up
the discussion forum (I've named it EPO: Conference Tools). I think
people around here are understandably nervous about logging into any
system; but I think also that having a passworded system addresses
some things that can't be addressed with any currently-affordable
technology.

Most 'solutions' are based on the fact that web browsers are
widely deployed to the populace, already. In the old days (of
BBS systems, which I've been involved in since 1985) there was
sometimes a special program the participants had to download
onto their own machine, to join the discussion forum. This
is called a 'client'.

Your web browser is such a client.

One of the reasons Hotboards is (in my opinion) so incredibly
clumsy, is it relies on least-common-denominator principles.
It makes no attempt to elevate the discussion. It is hardly
a wonder when the discussion turns mean, or when it attracts
participants willing to endure feelings of meanness, in an
ongoing venture.

That's one of the reasons I can't just STFU and 'relax' -- I get
really angry when someone commands 'Relax!' You gotta wonder.

I need a board that promotes civility; and my experience suggests
the software has *everything* to do with that: it is, in a word,
programming! It's social programming. The board determines a
great many things about how we interact with one another. Some
of those things, there's just no getting around them. For me,
the delay -- the time investment -- in full participation, is
quite prohibitive.

There's something to be said for self-imposed limits to participation,
but I think making the software (in essence) *deliberately* slower
is no answer, since one may suppose the person participating in any
system can -- by sheer will -- 'slow down' their own participation.

Maybe that's a weak argument.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 15:00:01 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: a0aji
Subject: Re: This Forum 6
Message:
Dear Chris,

I already post on a civil password protected Forum, as well as this one, so I know what you mean, totally. I need both.

Francesca

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 15:31:05 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: Francesca :C)
Subject: Re: This Forum 6
Message:
Dear Chris,

I already post on a civil password protected Forum, as well as this one, so I know what you mean, totally. I need both.

Francesca


---

Francesca,

EPO forums (multiple) is a special case (for conferencing)
involving, essentially, inviting the enemy camp. It is a
unique set of problems to address in the software that supports
such a congress, online!

I wish there were better news about the availability of an
appropriate conferencing (forum-enacting) tool for our needs,
including issues such as cost of the license and ability to
tailor it further to our own needs, as compared with the
off-the-shelf version they vend to others.
But proof-of-concept stands, as does failure of same. The
present system fails my needs (which drives, in turn, the
search for alternatives).

I'm not sure how to go about putting the word out with regard
to what is needed -- that someone would read it and say, 'Aha!
I have one of those for you!' -- that'd be living. ;)

Drawing up a specification would be a good step to make. If
people are sure passwording (or a system with no alternative
to passwording for everyone) isn't what is needed (in all
or parts of the system to be designed/procured) then that
should go into the specification. There has to be a solid
discussion on it, and some amount of expertise brought to
bear on it, too.

I just don't want people coming away from the discussion
holding the belief that Hotboards did their research, or that
their target demographic includes anyone like what our group
is like. I don't think that is remotely the case.

There are a ton of design issues left unexamined, even granting
an entirely password-free experience. If people feel, by and
large, that the present Forum is working for them, that's fine
(for them!) It isn't working for me -- the architecture is all
wrong, here. A hyperlink-based tracking system is fundamentally
broken! It's a gross abuse of the 'marked as read' concept. ;)
The whole system is architecturally bankrupt, from where I sit.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 09:54:32 (EDT)
From: Mercedes
Email: None
To: David
Subject: Re: This Forum 6
Message:
Thank you David, I really couldn't understand what they were talking about. I don't wish to have to sign up for anything really.

Thanks for your efforts,
Mercedes

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:47:00 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: pEG
Subject: Re: 40 only ? HELP!
Message:
My paranoid ex-cult reaction system has moved into action.

ONLY 4O.... tHAT CERTAINLY WON'T MAKE ROOM FOR ME the occaisional slightly boring and very naive new ex ( I'm getting pretty sure about this)premie. What will I do?
stay here and not read the clever and funny and articulate posts you old timers send
miss seeing the next episodes of Jim vs premiedom
or will this place disappear completely and I'll be left with only waffle and battle over on LG
or will i somehow find my way into the fabulous 40 but only be able to listen and not post???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHAAAAT
OR WILL I EVEN Be one of the 40 be able to post but not hear from anyone new unless someone leaves.
And who are these people I'll have to be polite to to join in? Will I get to meet them or will they be some mysterious and all knowing entity i give my power away to?
OK thats out now.as someone totally new to not only the 'real world' but also the internet that is what I understood by this new posting idea.
If any of the above are true I personally don't really fancy it.

PS to Jim re snidey remark that 'just popped out' above. sorry i think I'm more envious than anything. I am just having my first flush of regret and blame about 29 years of my life and my rusty brain etc. feeling rather stupid and envying the clever ones.


---

Um, this is coming out of my own pocket and isn't meant to be
a production system. I can't afford to have dental work done.
Where will the $60 come from?

The limit is 40; it's a bargain (that $60 is good for a year).

Instead of worrying, sign up and show an interest!
[ sign up help sheet ]

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:43:51 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: a0aji
Subject: Re: 40 only ? HELP!
Message:
My paranoid ex-cult reaction system has moved into action.

ONLY 4O.... tHAT CERTAINLY WON'T MAKE ROOM FOR ME the occaisional slightly boring and very naive new ex ( I'm getting pretty sure about this)premie. What will I do?
stay here and not read the clever and funny and articulate posts you old timers send
miss seeing the next episodes of Jim vs premiedom
or will this place disappear completely and I'll be left with only waffle and battle over on LG
or will i somehow find my way into the fabulous 40 but only be able to listen and not post???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHAAAAT
OR WILL I EVEN Be one of the 40 be able to post but not hear from anyone new unless someone leaves.
And who are these people I'll have to be polite to to join in? Will I get to meet them or will they be some mysterious and all knowing entity i give my power away to?
OK thats out now.as someone totally new to not only the 'real world' but also the internet that is what I understood by this new posting idea.
If any of the above are true I personally don't really fancy it.

PS to Jim re snidey remark that 'just popped out' above. sorry i think I'm more envious than anything. I am just having my first flush of regret and blame about 29 years of my life and my rusty brain etc. feeling rather stupid and envying the clever ones.


---

Um, this is coming out of my own pocket and isn't meant to be
a production system. I can't afford to have dental work done.
Where will the $60 come from?

The limit is 40; it's a bargain (that $60 is good for a year).

Instead of worrying, sign up and show an interest!


---

I passed along the story about people worrying 40 seats at
the conference (it's a metaphor! it's all on a computer!)
to a good friend of mine, who is a college instructor. She
uses the same conference (it is software! a metaphor! runs
on a computer!) software we will be using; she runs into the
same issues hosting her professional conferences.

She laughed when I told her (on a conference! I typed it!
I didn't actually *hear* her laugh! We've known each other
for years! Never met once, in person! Never spoke on
the phone! It's a METAPHOR!)

She laughed when I told her about it.
'C, it's weird..' I said. 'They were really worried somebody
would be left out, because there were only 40 openings
available. And then NOBODY SIGNED UP.'

She was dying laughing. Her group did the same thing!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:44:48 (EDT)
From: Forum God +)
Email: None
To: All
Subject: From the Anything Goes forum
Message:
Saucy
from next week, f6 will be monitored for a while by an anti-terrorist agency. I know because they asked me for the url. And no, this is not a joke.

Forum Duck
Well it's already being monitored by the FBI, CIA, KGB, Interpol, Scotland Yard and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - another one won't make any difference.

Saucy
it's being done on behalf of EV.

Someone else
Salam, what group approached you? Does this group have ties to Deltek or ADVC?

Sir Dave
Surely, Forum 6 itself would be the place to post the info.

Saucy
I can't say the name of the group at the moment. But EV is accusing some exes of trying to blow up amaroo, am one of them. I did not put this on f6 because am a bit, what do you call it, apprehensive as I had one of the people calling on me.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:56:23 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Forum God +)
Subject: EV misinformation/smear campaign
Message:
why would anyone with a brain want to blow up Amaroo -- except maha himself and his org -- for the insurance?!!

Amaroo's a cult money loser -- maybe they're trying this trick out before they do an arson scam -- it's an old mafia godfather trick.

I wouldn't put anything past the cult, at this point. Hey, they tried assassination, they've engaged in long-time bigtime non-profit org money diversions, they lie pathologically about historical facts, they committed perjury on what should have been the maha's own vehicular manslaughter report in India. So, what else is new...

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 04:27:19 (EDT)
From: Peg
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Peg to such
Message:
when? who? why? I didn't know about that.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:50:04 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Peg
Subject: read the documentation at ex-premie.org
Message:
dettmers
donner
Pat Halley
the divine toys and money trail
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:47:37 (EDT)
From: Barry! >From A.G.!
Email: None
To: Forum God +)
Subject: I beat ya to it F-god! Check out....
Message:
The Hmmmmmmmmm? post!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:50:33 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Barry! From A.G.!
Subject: Great minds... [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:46:48 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Forum God +)
Subject: Does he mean 'accusing'?
Message:
Salam,

If you're reading this, if you like, email me:

jamesheller@home.com

I'd like to talk with you about this. It sounds absurd but, if you say so ...

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:50:56 (EDT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim?
Message:
Hey that cheesy poem or chant or what-ever is hillarious! Is that real? Do premies actually natter that tripe?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:49:48 (EDT)
From: Forum God +)
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Yes, I just corrected that error [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 22:16:57 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Forum God +)
Subject: Hey Sir Dave...(ot)
Message:
How the fuck do you italicise your text????? and how the fuck did you get instant play of 'somewhere over the rainbow' (hahahah and very apt choice of music too I might add ) over on LG?

Cheers

Dermot

ps .....this ps is just added as I'm experimenting with the edit function!!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 04:08:31 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: This is how it's done
Message:
If you do a no text post here, by just writing a title and choosing the textless message option, then the title comes out in italics.

Embedding a sound file into a post is easy. Read the quoted message on the message that has the sounds and at the end of my message (on LG) you will see the HTML code I've used to embed the sound file.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:35:02 (EDT)
From: [Blank]
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Re: Hey Sir Dave...(ot)
Message:
type

< I >

and you text, and remember to type

< /I >

at the end of your text. like this

Charles Sucks

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:46:14 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: [Blank]
Subject: Re: Hey Sir Dave...(ot)
Message:
Duhh ...yeah of course .....but it in the 'Hotboard Help' section it only mentions changing size and/or colour of text so I figured folks were somehow using their word processor or browser to italicise.

I knew the html italics all along. Dumbo huh?

Cheers anyway

Dermot

Now it's time for BED GLORIOUS BED AT NEARLY 5AM !!!!!!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:43:31 (EDT)
From: BeenThereDoneThat
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Event with M
Message:
Apparently this past Sunday there was an event with Maharaji for the Hindi premies only. It was held in the LA area. They sang Arti and had darshan. Some really ticked off white premies....

The Hindi community was asked to raise lots and lots of money for the Visions bill for satellite broadcasts in India. They have not been able to pay the bill. Of course, no one has actually seen the bill.....

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 07:35:28 (EDT)
From: jondon
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: Re: Event with M
Message:
This could be true. I noticed the price of slushies down at the local 7-11 here in LA just doubled, and hotel prices in the area are up from last month when I was visiting.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 05:34:29 (EDT)
From: BeenThereDoneThat
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: Re: Event with M
Message:
M's 'rational' was that he could brush up on his Hindi and the premies in India could see video's with him speaking in Hindi-not dubbed. Evidently they are lacking in these videos. So why doesn't he speak in Hindi and make everyone else listen to translation?
The question of the day is, will it be translated into English without editing for English pwk's? Would the English pwk's disturb
'the force' in the hall or something?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 01:43:37 (EDT)
From: Mercedes
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: Re: Event with M
Message:
Apparently this past Sunday there was an event with Maharaji for the Hindi premies only. It was held in the LA area. They sang Arti and had darshan. Some really ticked off white premies....


---

Wow this tells me more and more that his fattiness is addicted to being worshiped, hindi premies are the excuse, he really needs that fix. Disgusting!!!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:49:35 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: i.e. da cult caste system [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:41:56 (EDT)
From: Hmmmmmmm?
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Hmmmmmmmm?
Message:
http://www.hotboards.com/plus/plus.mirage?who=forumlite&id=11177.044616169806
[ http://www.hotboards.com/plus/plus.mirage?who=forumlite&id=11177.044616169806 ]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 17:04:05 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: More unintentional premie humour
Message:
It doesn't matter

If you are the king of heaven
or even the king of the earth,
or ruler of the salty oceans
it doesn't matter.
For, because of you, I am saved.

Because of you, a sweet song
rises, like a wanderer, from my heart
clearing the clouds and
paving a way for you.

For this reason
I feel your love blessing me.
Your love reaches out to me
and brings us together.

Come to my side, O my beloved.
Like the Wizard of Oz
you know well how to open hearts
so that the music of true love may play.

From Dominga Navarro in Caracas

Excuse me, but wasn't the Wizard of Oz a fraud?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:45:12 (EDT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: To bad the carpenters broke up!
Message:
That could have been thier biggest hit!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:49:15 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: Barry too funny! LOLOLOLsss [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:51:06 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: Guess what? OT
Message:
Nate just called. His brother's getting married in Nanaimo on the 25th of this month and he'll be sticking around for a few days after. I told him you were coming to town two weeks later and asked him to see if he could stay long enough so we could all hookup. He said he'd try.

Meanwhile, I think Laurie might want you guys to take Boz back with you. I don't know, he's kind of settled in but it's pretty much at Mocha's expense, if you can imagine. The rest -- we really should be emailing .....

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 00:50:22 (EDT)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Cool Jim! Awsome! I'll e-mail!(nt)
Message:
sss
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:46:42 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: say hi to Diana Krall
Message:
and her family in Nanaimo
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:05:23 (EDT)
From: Abi
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: More unintentional premie humour
Message:
I remember once we all went off to a festival in Rome via coach from Conrwall and on the way we all chanted 'we're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz, because, because, because, because... of the wonderful things he does!!' (repeat fifty million times). God only knows what the coach driver thought. And yes, it did strike me at the time that the Wizard was a fraud and why was it that all the love-sick premies were singing this song. I think everyone was so infantalised by the cult they they all became childlike and unthinking and innocent and ... brainwashed.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 19:27:48 (EDT)
From: Perfessor J. Suchabanana
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: story behind da Wizard of Oz
Message:
Actually, 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' is an allegory.

It was originally written by Frank L. Baum [1856-1919] in 1900. Baum was a Populist journalist who was sympathetic to the plight of American farmers, factory workers, and veterans in their stuggles with Wall St. banks and corporations, the railroads, and the federal govt.

Accordingly, Oz is Washington DC, and the farmers [i.e. scarecrow], factory workers [tinman], veterans [lion], and naive citizen Dorothy from Kansas follow the yellow brick road of the establishment Gold Standard [which is also oppressing them], as they all go to the great city to meet with the President - who turns out to be an incomptent fraud in dealing with the wicked witch of Wall St. [Hetty Green] and her associates and minions.

The book was written after 3 decades of labor strife and government suppression of unions/strikes, veterans being stiffed on their bonuses and pensions, and farmers going bankrupt because of railroad and bank monopoly practices and hard cash via the Gold Standard. Progressives, farmers, and the Populist Party supported government regulation of railroads, big corporations, and banks, interstate commerce practices, a Silver standard for specie, fair labor practices and better working conditions, etc.

The Gay 90s of the 19th century [unlike the Gay 1990s] was actually a period beset with economic Panics [aka Depressions].

Baum's book was so successful that he wrote 13 more books in the Oz series.

Ever since a movie was made in 1938 featuring Judy Garland et al, the much-loved movie has essentially relegated relegated the socio-political allegory to a children's fairy tale.

Peace and lentils,

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:05:52 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: Perfessor J. Suchabanana
Subject: Baum probably preferred the term 'Progressive'
Message:
over 'populist'. He became disillusioned with politics. The wizard of Oz is rife with socio-political allegory, satire [some self-deprecating], and of course childlike fantasy.

r.e. Oz [silver and gold were weighed per oz.] haha

He also worked in carnivals/circus and in sales in the Midwest and Great Plains states -- note the traveling patent medicine salesman with the wagon in Kansas (appearing before Dorothy's dream, after the great cyclone [like the one that hit Aberdeen, SD, where Baum had operated a failing farm town newspaper])

It is interesting to note that he also wrote a prose companion to Mother Goose rhymes -- some of those English rhymes have long been held to be satires, too. His second Oz book not so subtly satirizes the suffragette and feminist movement[s]. His wife's family included prominent feminist leaders.

Also, Baum was into occultism and thesosophy!

He later moved to Hollywood, California, where he retired comfortably on his estate!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:21:34 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Perfessor J. Suchabanana
Subject: lion may also represent W.J.Bryan [nt]
Message:
'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has provided unknowing generations with a gentle and friendly Midwestern critique of the Populist rationale on these very same grounds. Led by naive innocence and protected by good will, the farmer, the laborer and the politician approach the mystic holder of national power to ask for personal fulfillment. Their desires, as well as the Wizard's cleverness in answering them, are all self-delusion. Each of these characters carries within him the solution to his own problem, were he only to view himself objectively. The fearsome Wizard turns out to be nothing more than a common man, capable of shrewd but mundane answers to these self-induced needs. Like any good politician he gives the people what they want. Throughout the story Baum poses a central thought; the [American] desire for symbols of fulfillment is illusory. Real needs lie elsewhere.' (excerpt, Littlefield article)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:19:00 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Perfessor J. Suchabanana
Subject: 'Oh, Aunt Em. I'm so glad to be at home again!'
Message:
'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has provided unknowing generations with a gentle and friendly Midwestern critique of the Populist rationale on these very same grounds. Led by naive innocence and protected by good will, the farmer, the laborer and the politician approach the mystic holder of national power to ask for personal fulfillment. Their desires, as well as the Wizard's cleverness in answering them, are all self-delusion. Each of these characters carries within him the solution to his own problem, were he only to view himself objectively. The fearsome Wizard turns out to be nothing more than a common man, capable of shrewd but mundane answers to these self-induced needs. Like any good politician he gives the people what they want. Throughout the story Baum poses a central thought; the [American] desire for symbols of fulfillment is illusory. Real needs lie elsewhere.' (excerpt, Littlefield article)
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:28:46 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Perfessor J. Suchabanana
Subject: And Dorothy had to WAKE UP from the dream
Message:
. . . in order to get back home to Kansas. Pay no attention to that Rat behind the curtain. And wake up and see all the faces of your friends and family surrounding you -- the ones who are here to love you in this life you have! That's the message of the Judy Garland version, eh?

Great background, Prof. Such!

All the best, Francesca

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 00:15:42 (EDT)
From: BeenThereDoneThat
Email: None
To: Perfessor J. Suchabanana
Subject: Re: story behind da Wizard of Oz
Message:
DANG!!!!! You're one smart cookie. Where do I sign up for history 101 with the great Perfessor Suchabanana???
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 01:48:15 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: Re:tired
Message:
DANG!!!!! You're one smart cookie. Where do I sign up for history 101 with the great Perfessor Suchabanana???


---

i.e. retired.

also, am tired of dat other wizard of oz [i.e. you-know-who]

Actually, I am practically a recluse these days, 'cept for my music and writing projects, + some internet postings.

Peace and lentils,

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 08:59:50 (EDT)
From: BeenThereDoneThat
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Re: Re:tired
Message:
Well,phoooey.....You, Perfessor, are the sort of teacher I could have listened to all day. You are the kind of teacher I hope my kids are fortunate enough to have for at least one class each year.....Please reconsider. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, donchya know!!!!!!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:41:56 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: got tired of p.c. + dumbed-down curriculum
Message:
+ zippo support for faculty from benign administrators.

talk about revisionism -- in the name of misguided so-called 'political correctness', many facts are being distorted, negated and/or manipulated by revisionists in social sciences. then there is pressure from politically-driven curriculum committees to use only certain texts for undergraduate core classes.

I could elaborate at length on the gross inaccuracies, skewered subjectivity, and rife political prejudices and selectivity injected into texts we had to use, but it would probably wreck my weekend.

I was trained in historiography and inductive scientific approaches to history. Prior to the 19th century, history was essentially the province of chroniclers -- of the powers-that-be. Today, people with pronounced p.c. axes to grind have laid siege and stormed the ivy-mantled towers of academia, generating curriculum and approaches designed to serve their political agendas. Similarly, in hiring procedures and tenure reviews, as well as administrative appointments.

while I do hope that I made a positive contribution in some people's lives and their education, I prefer to write independently nowadays, compose and record music, and enjoy the blessings of Nature.

At least, now I don't have deans telling me to give Cs to football players who flunked the exams and never came to class, or radical gender feminist colleagues who depict practically every male figure in history as a chauvinist pig sexual exploiter/oppressor. [We had many complaints from students about the p.c. agenda being rammed down their throats by extremist instructors (i.e. from da p.c. cult -- haha)]

Upon occasion, I like to watch that tele show, Politically Incorrect, just for kicks.

Thanks.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:32:17 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: such
Subject: And thank you prof. such
Message:
Your political uncorrectness and views are always welcome here.

As well as your wild sense of humor and witticisms, of course.

Bests, Francesca

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 21:49:59 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Perfessor J. Suchabanana
Subject: Are you shittin' me?
Message:
That's all very interesting... if it's true. But who was the Good Witch, eh? What was her name, Wendy I think it was? And what did the ruby shoes stand for, not to mention Toto. What was he all about, smart guy? And Auntie May? Who was she? I think I see some loopholes in the theory, perfesser.

Ever since a movie was made in 1938 featuring Judy Garland et al, the much-loved movie has essentially relegated relegated the socio-political allegory to a children's fairy tale.

I think you've got this backwards, such. I think a children's fairy tale has been relegated to a socio-political allegory. At least, that's what it sounds like to this skeptic.

Sorry.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 23:42:17 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: I wouldn't shit you
Message:
yer my favourite...

ok, so be ignorant and opinionated in your skepticism. Baum was a an ardent Populist editor/journalist. He originally wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a fantasy socio-political commentary, then embellished it and created a whole Oz series for kids after people liked it, and he saw a chance to make da proverbial buck. -- Just like Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Moliere's Candide and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress were all allegories.

Wendy? that was in the play Peter Pan - written by the Englishman Sir James Barrie in 1904.

naturally, not every single thing and person is an allegory in the story. This is like American Cultural History 399. Get a PhD in History in this field, and Then - maybe - we can discuss this rationally and informatively.

What was the Populist platform? the goals of the Progressives? the Bonus Army? Who wrote The Octopus? [another Populist allegory] etc. etc.

Incidentally, the movie was made while the Depression was still happening, especially in the farm-belt and factory towns. Movies cost a nickel then [sometimes a dime]. the movie also celebrated the invention of colour 16mm film processing -- in Kansas everything's black and white -- then, when they get to Oz - bingo - colour!

Ok, Q and A is over. Don't forget that the mid-term is next week. Please bring a blue-book and a pen.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 10:38:54 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Really?
Message:
Such,

Baum was always telling children's fairy tales. It was the love of his life. Children were always gathering around him way before the Wizard Of Oz to hear him spin his tales. He even wrote a book on Mother Goose called Mother Goose In Prose explaining to the delight of both children and adults how it is a cow can jump over the moon, how black birds baking in a pie could fly away, or even why a mouse would run up a clock. Nowhere have I heard or read that his fantasies were rooted in his political views. He was just a great storyteller who loved telling stories, the more fantastic the better. Of course, I'm not a professional teacher, as you are, but being curious, I did some research on the net, and nowhere did I find any reference that Baum was a Populist (which he very well might have been), who wrote the Wizard Of Oz as a socio-political allegory. You're the only one. I hope you don't teach your students this. You've denigrated an innocent storyteller into a moneygrubbing opportunist. Shame of you, perfessor!

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 11:17:24 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: pick a bone w/ a doggie, Jerry
Message:
-- Not me.

I didn't say he was 'money-grubbing', nor that he didn't also love to write/edit children's stories -- simply that he used elements of topical socio-political commentary as allegory in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. And, I delineated those elements. If you will observe, your sources do not discuss his journalist career or political persuasions.

Do not simply rely on the net. Many incomplete historical biographies appear on the net.

btw, I learned about Baum when I was a college student myself -- way back when. I'm Not 'the only one.' By innuendo, you, sir, have also denigrated the research of my own award-winning history professors.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:22:00 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: such
Subject: You are right, Such
Message:
Baum was part of the populist, William Jennings Bryan movement at the turn of the century. It's true that there are all kind of political allegories in there. Also, the 1890s to about 1930 was about the most viciously racist period in American History, and Baum was reacting to that as well.

Whether Baum meant this or not, the Wizard of Oz was also adopted by the gay rights movement, and Yip Harburg included when he wrote the musical lyrics for the movie. [He also wrote Finnegan's Rainbow, a musical on broadway with clear socialist overtones.] Any, you can not the symbolism adopted by the gay rights movement from the movie, like the rainbow, and all through the 50s and 60s being 'a friend of Dorothy' was a code word among gay people to identify each other.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:36:42 (EDT)
From: suchaBanana
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: also, Judy Garland!
Message:
what happened in NYC at the Stonewall Inn, when she died in 1969, after all?!!! the beginning of the modern politically 'out' gay rights movement.

the Wiz was a black adaptation of the Wizard of Oz.

The film 'Under the Rainbow' delved into the plight of the lil' people who were the dwarves and midgets featured as the munchkins! [One of them has been a casual acquaintance for 16 years]

how 'bout The Rainbow Coalition! The Rainbow Gypsies, groceries, etc.!! hohohoho

Peace and lentils,

da lil' swami

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:15:34 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: such
Subject: I still think it's bullshit
Message:
Such, you banana, you, you said that Baum saw a chance to capitalize on the Wizard Of Oz, I think 'proverbial dollar' was the phrase you used, when he saw how successful his tale had become. Maybe you're not the only one who thinks that Baum was capitalizing on a tale that started out as a socio-political allegory, but I think that tale is just as fantastic as the Wizard Of Oz, itself, and not nearly as good. And my sources DO mention he was a journalist and an editor, as well as a salesman, an actor, and a theater manager. They mention that as a journalist he was a bigot who spoke unkindly about Native Americans. That's about it! Nowhere is there mention of his political affiliations other than he was married to the daughter of a leading feminist.

Such, maybe you're right about the socio-political allegory stuff, but I'm not buying it, no offense to you. It just doesn't set well. It just sounds like something somebody made up for the hell of it, like the story that Puff The Magic Dragon is about marijuana, or that Paul McCartney is dead, or that Alice In Wonderland is an allegory on drug use and quantum physics. I suppose you believe that one, too.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:42:11 (EDT)
From: Suchabanana
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/dbj5/oz.html
Message:
Introduction -- Taking a Stand for the Powerless Majority...

It is often said that art can function as a commentary on the times; jazz reflected the 'roaring twenties,' and the peace-loving tunes of the 1970s supported the desire of America's youth to end the Vietnam War. However, some pieces of art are not so conspicuous in revealing their observations. One such piece of art is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum just after the climax of the Populist movement.

The idea for the analysis of this author and his work was derived from 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Parable on Populism,' by Henry M. Littlefield. His essay focused on the numerous similarities between Baum's work and the United States during the late 1800s. We share his point of view that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written as a children's story first and an allegory second. Specifically, Littlefield theorized that Baum concentrated on the development of the Populist movement and the pecuniary motives of the silverites. Littlefield opened the doorway to the symbolism of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for us. From this point, we began research on L. Frank Baum and his career, important figures in the Populist movement, silver versus gold, the election of 1896, the state of affairs in and around the Unites States in the 1890s, and the influence of the book on the twentieth century.

After giving ourselves an understanding of the information involved in these topics, we began to analyze The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and look for symbolism within the text. We attempted to relate the characters of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to prominent figures during the 1890s. In this process, we identified similar characteristics between Oz characters and historical figures. After this, we chose quotations from the text that supported our theories for Baum's symbolism. We also searched the text for a single theme that commonly appeared in each of his historical symbols. We found this theme to be Baum's personal belief that the powerless majority, although evidently suffering, was not really powerless; they had the ability to free themselves from the rule of the rich minority.

This topic addresses this year's theme, 'Taking a Stand,' by showing how L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as an allegory to convey his stand for the powerless majority during the late 1800s. Baum, like many other artists, used his writing to communicate his opinions of the world around him. However, this presentation was unconventional relative to the methods that other artists have used. The convention would be to write or produce artwork that focuses on the opinion at hand. Baum chose to focus on the children's story and made his opinions a secondary and latent issue. It was in this way that Baum took a stand for what he believed in.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

The Gold Standard as the Yellow Brick Road...

'After a few hours the road began to be rough, and the walking grew so difficult that the Scarecrow often stumbled over the yellow brick, which were here very uneven. Sometimes, indeed, they were broken or missing altogether, leaving holes that Toto jumped across and Dorothy walked around. As for the Scarecrow, having no brains he walked straight ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell full length on the hard bricks.'

In the late 1890s, a major issue was the currency of the United States. The gold standard was perceived as insufficient and was already almost cornered by Jim Fisk and Jay Gould. Baum, like many others, favored bimetallism. Here, he reveals his opinion that although the gold standard had holes and obstacles, it could still last through the long haul.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Silver Coinage as the Silver Shoes...

''The Witch of the East was proud of those silver shoes,' said one of the Munchkins; 'and there is some charm connected with them; but what it is we never knew.''

'At that moment Dorothy saw lying on the table the silver shoes that had belonged to the Witch of the East. 'I wonder if they will fit me,' she said to Toto. 'They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out.''

Supporters of the silver movement argued that it had the elasticity and abundance to last for a long time. Dorothy likewise felt the silver shoes to 'be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out.' Additionally, the Wicked Witch of the East was proud of the silver shoes because 'there is some charm connected with them.' The banker bosses during that time had the power to control money but the addition of silver to the gold standard would dampen their ability to hold power by money.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Uncle Sam as Dorothy

'She (the Witch of the West) looked down at Dorothy's feet, and seeing the Silver Shoes, began to tremble with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them. At first the Witch was tempted to run away from Dorothy; but she happened to look into the child's eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them was, and that the little girl did not know of the wonderful power the Silver Shoes gave her.'

In Baum's mind, the nation was unknowing and innocent. They always had the chance to implement silver, but they were too 'simple' to realize its power. Dorothy owned the power of the silver shoes but was too innocent to recognize it. In this passage, Baum reveals his opinion that the railroad barons and banker bosses fed off of the innocence of the nation (Dorothy).


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

William Jennings Bryan as the Cowardly Lion...

'I learned that if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way. Whenever I've met a man I've been awfully scared; but I just roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go.'

Bryan, who never actually won a presidential election, ran many times, including the 1896 election against William McKinley. In speeches such as the Cross of Gold, Bryan was known for his tremendous oratory skills. Baum symbolized his strong words but less powerful actions in the ways of the cowardly lion, who roared loudly but tightened with fear.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

An Eastern Worker as the Tin Woodman...

'He (the Cowardly Lion) struck at the Tin Woodman with his sharp claws. But, to the Lion's surprise, he could make no impression on the tin, although the Woodman fell over in the road and lay still.'

The eastern laborers of Baum's era were often cruelly subjected to long hours, low pay, and an inability to argue for themselves because labor unions were prohibited and the ones that existed were powerless. Baum noted in this passage how William Jennings Bryan could not get the vote of the worker during his election. Baum was taking a stand against the approach of the Populists and Bryan. He contended that the worker could find his own solution just as the Tin Woodman, in accepting his fake heart, found his own emotions.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

A Midwestern Farmer as the Scarecrow

'As for the Scarecrow, having no brains he walked straight ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell at full length on the hard bricks. It never hurt him, however, and Dorothy would pick him up and set him upon his feet again, while he joined her in laughing merrily at his own mishap.'

Baum's experiences during the droughts that he observed in Aberdeen, SD made him sympathize for the farmer. He took a stand in favor of the motives of the common farmer as represented by the Scarecrow. For this character, Baum contradicted his theme, which pointed out that the individual could find the solution to his dilemma. Baum suggested for the Scarecrow that farmers do need some aid.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

William McKinley and Mark Hanna as the Wizard of Oz...

''No; you are all wrong,' said the little man, meekly. 'I have been making believe.'

'Making believe!' cried Dorothy. 'Are you not a great Wizard?'

'Hush, my dear,' he said; 'don't speak so loud, or you will be overheard--and I should be ruined. I'm supposed to be a Great Wizard.'

'And aren't you?' she asked.

'Not a bit of it, my dear; I'm just a common man.'

'You're more than that,' said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; 'you're a humbug.''

''What is that (a balloonist)?' asked Dorothy.

'A man who goes up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of people together and get them to pay to see the circus,' he explained.'

Mark Hanna presented William McKinley, who won the election of 1896, as a great man and coerced the people into electing him, even though he was simply a common man. The Wizard of Oz was 'supposed to be a Great Wizard,' but was in reality just an ordinary man. Baum supported the common man and objected to Mark Hanna's dominance.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

A Banker Boss as the Wicked Witch of the East

''She was the wicked Witch of the East, as I said,' answered the little woman. 'She has held all the Munchkins in bondage for many years, making them slave for her night and day. Now they, are all set free, and are grateful to you for the favour.''

The banker bosses during the late 1800s easily controlled manufacturing and business in the east using such methods as trusts and interlocking directorates. The common worker, especially the child worker, suffered at the expense of the profits of these banker bosses. In Oz, the Wicked Witch of the East held the Munchkins in bondage, who were forced to 'slave for her night and day.'


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

A Railroad Baron as the Wicked Witch of the West

'She (the Witch of the West) looked down at Dorothy's feet, and seeing the Silver Shoes, began to tremble with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them. At first the Witch was tempted to run away from Dorothy; but she happened to look into the child's eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them was, and that the little girl did not know of the wonderful power the Silver Shoes gave her. So the Wicked Witch laughed to herself, and thought, 'I can still make her my slave, for she does not know how to use her power.' Then she said to Dorothy, harshly and severely, 'Come with me; and see that you mind everything that I tell you, for if you do not I will make an end to you, as I did of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow.''

The monopolistic railroad barons of the late 1800s ruled over the common workers and farmers, controlling the farmers shipping expenses and manipulating the earnings of railroad workers. In the same way, the Wicked Witch of the West made an end to the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow. Many people, including Baum, feared that the population of the US (Dorothy) would be the next victim.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

The Plains Indians as the Winged Monkeys...

''Once,' began the leader, 'we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. Perhaps some of us were rather too full of mischief at times, flying down to pull the tails of the animals that had no wings, chasing birds, and throwing nuts at the people who walked in the forest. But we were careless and happy and full of fun, and enjoyed every minute of the day. This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land.''

The Plains Indians, in the 1890s, were unable to find a home anywhere in America. At this time, the frontier was dying out, and the US government was unable to send them west again. Baum explains the very similar situation the Winged Monkeys endured through in this passage.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Imperialism Represents the Cat and the Mouse...

'He (the Tin Woodman) saw a strange beast come bounding over the grass towards them. It was, indeed, a great, yellow wildcat, and the Woodman thought it must be chasing something, for its ears were lying close to its head and its mouth was wide open, showing two rows of ugly teeth, while its red eyes glowed like balls of fire. As it came nearer the Tin Woodman saw that running before the beast was a little gray field-mouse, and although he had no heart he knew it was wrong for the wildcat to harm such a pretty, harmless creature.

So the Woodman raised his axe, and as the wildcat ran by he gave it a quick blow that cut the beast's head clean off from its body, and it rolled over at his feet in two pieces.'

America was entering the arena of worldwide imperialism in the 1890s. Baum was not a supporter of this movement. To support his stand against American imperialism, he incorporated this passage into the story. The passage illustrates the Tin Woodman's heart for the weaker creature as well as Baum's sympathies for the weaker country, which could have easily been the Philippines.


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Geography of Oz...
East The eastern region of the land of Oz, the blue land of the Munchkins, paralleled the United States east coast. There was a distinctive slave-master relationship between the Munchkins and the Wicked Witch of the East that symbolized the mistreatment of eastern workers in factories, at banks, and at the voting booths.
West The west in Oz was inhabited by the Winged Monkeys and the Winkies. The Winged Monkeys were symbols of the plains Indians and the Winkies represented frontiersmen. Baum described the land with the words, 'as they advanced the ground became rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in this country of the West, and the ground was untilled.' These words could describe the terrain of Baum's South Dakota perfectly.
North Although, the travelers never encounter the land of the Gillikans during the first book, its purple color and mountainous terrain that are incorporated in later editions of the Oz collection suggest the areas of northern Michigan and Minnesota.
South The best connection between Baum's life and the southern land of the Quadlings was that Baum travelled through Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri selling china and he included a country of china having 'a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Scattered around were many houses made entirely of china.'


---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Taking a Stand...

At first, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz seems to be the average, simple children's novel. However, further investigation of the plot and the political aspects of the author, L. Frank Baum, reveals an allegory that takes a stand for the powerless majority. Written in 1900, Oz symbolically portrays such figures as the eastern worker and the midwestern farmer as somewhat powerless; Baum believed that although these people suffered greatly, they also were able to solve their own problems. In this way, L. Frank Baum took a stand for this poweless majority, but in a unique fashion. Like other reformist writers of that period, such as Upton Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle, and Frank Norris, writer of The Octopus, Baum took a stand for what he felt was right. Unlike those writers, he did not directly voice his opnion; instead, he symbolically represented the significant aspects of the late 1800s and thus revealed his take on America. It is in this way that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz takes a stand for the powerless majority.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 16:39:42 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Suchabanana
Subject: I remain unconvinced
Message:
Such,

I thought you were going to show me an admission from the author, himself, that the Wizard Of Oz is an allegory, but this is only a theory by some scholar (a hairbrained one if you ask me) on what was Baum's intent for writing the story. Everybody has political views and I'm sure every author's work is influenced by those convictions, if only subconsciously, but to come out and say the author wrote with the intent of expressing his political, socio-economic views is stretching it. Find me something where the author himself states that the story is an allegory and I'll believe it. Until then, I'll continue being skeptical, as any wise person should, IMHO.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 21:37:07 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Jerry, who cares?
Message:
this was supposed to be fun. Now, you're gettin' to be a drag, queenie. 'intent', 'money-grubbing', 'You're the Only one' -- those were YOUR words, NOT mine. 'an admission from the author'? you going to law school, or somethin'? 'Everybody has political views and I'm sure every author's work is influenced by those convictions.' OK, Just leave it at that then.

Baum is dead -- obviously, you won't get 'an admission' from him. or me. So, go pull the wings off a fly, ya 'hairbrained' name-calling kid. You think yer 'wise'? well, that's a 'hairbrained' theory, too -- really 'stretching it', at this point. ok, ya septical 'wise'-guy.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 22:14:43 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Well, I do, this is interesting!
Message:
Such,

In your 'exibit B', Baum is quoted as stating 'The story of 'the Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was written solely to pleasure children of today' (p. 1). So what does that have to do with an allegory on populism, unless the children of Baum's time were all very much into it? Do you think they even knew what the term meant? Hardly. It's all very interesting, this theory, but since Baum never claimed there was an allegory, it's only by a stretch of the imagination that we see one. Seriously, if Baum had intended yes, fucking INTENDED, that his tale was a parable on populism, don't you think he would have let the cat out of the bag and said so? Hey, guess what? He never did. All he ever said, and I quote again, is ''The story of 'the Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was written solely to pleasure children of today'. I guess he just never knew what his own story was about, huh?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sun, Aug 19, 2001 at 00:21:14 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: like movie disclaimers:satires of real people
Message:
Jerry: the guy was a disillusioned Progressive political activist, newspaper journalist and carnie. + just study the history and raging topical issues of the period and the region where he lived right before he wrote the book, dude. sure, the numerous coincidences were then pointed out in some teacher's theory [as well as by others, too] -- just like evolution is a theory, or relativity is a theory, or psychology.

'Any resemblance to real-life events or any person living or dead is purely circumstantial and unintentional....'

In a morality fantasy fable designed for parents to read to their kids, you can get away with a lot. In a newspaper, there are always potential libel and slander suits. Or, you could get ostracized by the powers-that-be, i.e. businesswise or by publishing firms [if you're a writer]. that's food for thought. In fact, the strident muckrakers and more outspoken critics of Baum's era got brutalized and were virtually pilloried by the establishment. Sinclair Lewis was even arrested and put in prison for dissent during WWI. talk about 'freedom of the speech, freedom of the press.'

The fact remains, the Wiz is still a morality fable, generated and compiled from the mind and real-life experiences and personal viewpoints of Frank L. Baum. If you don't see any allegories in it, that's yer problem -- yer opinion and 'hairbrained' theory, too. hohoho

btw, Have you actually read the original first-edition version of the book --not just watched the derivative Hollywood movie? Baum even has accompanying notes in it which correlate it to real-life events and people. One of those articles cited mentions that, too.

Speaking of movies, I got a film to cue up on my DVD player. Several lovely intelligent women from Provence are coming over here to watch Chocolat [in French]. gotta clean up da cave, fast, and make some popcorn. It's Saturday night!

Have some fun! Ciao.

Peace and lentils,

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:55:15 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Suchabanana
Subject: Baum and Populism discussion group!
Message:
H-SHGAPE Discussion: The Wizard of Oz and Populism

From: IN%'H-SHGAPE@h-net.msu.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' 14-APR-1998 23:10:35.35 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.EDU' 'Recipients of H-SHGAPE digests' CC:
Subj: H-SHGAPE Digest - 13 Apr 1998 to 14 Apr 1998
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 08:43:36 -0500 From: 'Ballard Campbell, H-SHGAPE' Subject: Replies: All About Oz (7 replies)
(1)
From: IN%'china@wam.umd.edu' 'Christine R. Gray' 13-APR-1998 11:12:12.57 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' CC:
Subj: RE: Query: subplot of the _Wizard of Oz_
I can't give you details on Oz or Baum, but let me know if you want the address of the Oz list. It's very, very active. Christine Gray
Christine R. Gray, Ph.D.
'You are unique--just like everyone else.' china@wam.umd.edu
(2)
From: IN%'amy.chazkel@yale.edu' 'Amy Chazkel' 13-APR-1998 12:00:33.87 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu'
CC:
Subj: Wizard of Oz
For an interpretation of the content, historical context, and biographical information on Frank Baum and his *Wizard of Oz*, a good place to start -and one that does NOT view the book as a populist allegory- is William Leach's *Land of Desire*.
-Amy Chazkel
Department of History
Yale University
(3)
From: IN%'scottm@rice.edu' 'Scott Marler' 13-APR-1998 12:40:53.20 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' CC:
Subj: RE: Query: subplot of the _Wizard of Oz_
With regard to the question about the allegorical status of the Wizard of Oz, a recent discussion from the standpoint of therapeutic 'mind-cure' is William Leach's 1993 book Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, esp. pp. 248-60. The locus classicus of the populist reading of Oz is probably Henry Littlefield's article in American Quarterly, Spring 1964.
Scott Marler
graduate student
Rice University
(4)
>Subj: Wizard of Oz
>
>Dear readers,
> I heard that the Wizard of Oz was an allegory of populism, I even >heard it from a history lecture as an undergraduate. However, when I >checked the book out of the library there was an introduction to the text >which claimed otherwise. The author of the introduction wrote that Baum >was a newspaper writer in Chicago, and he never wrote about the problems >of farmers. He said that the Wizard of Oz was an example of Baum's >interest in the power of the mind. For example, Dorathy gets home on her >own power without the help of others. The author debunked the use of the >Wizard of Oz because Baum himself was not a populist or concerned with >farming problems. It concerns me that so many people use it as an >allegory when it may not be correct. What have others discovered about >Baum and the use of his work?
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Diane Schumacher
>Acalanes High School
>
>
From: IN%'rweir@mtholyoke.edu' 'Robert Weir' 13-APR-1998 12:49:55.19 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' CC:
Subj: RE: Query: subplot of the _Wizard of Oz_
The question of Baum's Populism has raged for over three decades now and derives largely from a seminal article written by Henry Littlefield for the American Quarterly in 1964 (vol. XVI). The text of that article is available on line: http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm
For what it's worth, my take is that Oz is likely to be equal parts intentional and unintentional commentary on Populism. Baum's time in the Dakotas could not have failed to impress Populism into his consciousness. With the risk of opening a literary debate of which I am ill qualified to comment, I'd say that nearly all works of fiction parallel the writer's own time to some degree or other. The open question for Oz, then, becomes to what degree is Baum doing this? I have long been persuaded by many of Littlefield's arguments, particularly as applied to the Tin Woodsman, free silver, and the Scarecrow.
I'd also add that most people only encounter Baum through Hollywood and that the book is different in several important ways, again outlined by Littlefield.
A final speculation. Subsequent Oz books are not open to the speculation involving The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. My guess is that Baum--who had been a struggling writer--knew a good franchise when he saw it and dropped politics for profit.
But as for the truth of all this
---
another example of how wise Marc Bloch was when he defined history as 'the event plus the interpretations of that event.'
Rob Weir
Associate Professor
Liberal Studies
Bay Path College
Longmeadow, MA 01106
(5)
From: IN%'sthomas@hs1.hst.msu.edu' 'Sam J. Thomas' 13-APR-1998 14:18:16.26

To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List'
CC: IN%'sthomas@hs1.hst.msu.edu'

Subj: RE: Query: subplot of the _Wizard of Oz_
The 'classic' analysis of Baum's first wizard book was written by Henry Littlefield and published in the American Quarterly (1964) subtitled 'A Parable of Populism.' A more recent and different analysis is by William Leach in his Land of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of a New American Culture (1993). See Ch. 8, Mind Cure and The Happiness Machine.
There have been other analyses as well, one, for example (the source of which I cannot recall), challenged Littlefield and viewd Baum's book as an allegory of Progressive reform. For teaching purposes, however, whether one thinks that Littlefield is wrong or not, his analysis is a wonderful way to explain Populism in imagery that students readily relate to.
Sam Thomas
HST
Mich. State Univ
East Lansing, MI
sthomas@hs1.hst.msu.edu
(6)
From: IN%'reedwards@vassar.edu' 13-APR-1998 14:59:47.52 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' CC:
Subj: RE: Query: subplot of the _Wizard of Oz_
To the contrary, Frank Baum worked on behalf of William Jennings Bryan during the 1896 campaign, in his hometown (Baum's, not Bryan's). A student of mine produced a webpage for this, in my site-in-progress; it's at:
http://iberia.vassar.edu/1896/wiz.html
He cites the relevant articles that explore Baum's background. I find the allegory argument pretty persuasive.
Rebecca Edwards
Vassar College
(7)
From: IN%'NUnger@mailer.scu.edu' 'Nancy Unger' 13-APR-1998 15:34:36.95 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu'
CC:
Subj: Query: subplot of the _Wizard of Oz_ -Reply
Henry Littlefield's article 'Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism '(American = Quarterly 1964) is the standard source for this interpretation. See = also 'the Rise and Fall of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a 'Parable of = Populism'' by David Parker in the Journal of Georgia Association of = Historians (1994 15 49-63), which details the many different ways Baum's = tale has been interpreted.
Personally, It doesn't matter so much to me whether or not it was Baum's = INTENT to write a populist parable. All my students are familiar with = that story and seeing it as a parable helps them understand some sophistica= ted concepts. I hope this helps.
Nancy C. Unger
Department of History
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95053
phone (408) 554-6889
fax (408) 554-2181
nunger@mailer.scu.edu
From: IN%'H-SHGAPE@h-net.msu.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' 15-APR-1998 23:08:37.48 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.EDU' 'Recipients of H-SHGAPE digests' CC:
Subj: H-SHGAPE Digest - 14 Apr 1998 to 15 Apr 1998
Subject: Replies: more about Oz
More about the subplot of 'OZ'
(8)
From: IN%'wintert@email.uc.edu' 'thomas winter' 13-APR-1998 20:31:09.95 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' CC:
Subj: RE: Query: subplot of the _Wizard of Oz_
Re. Wizard of Oz subplot
I told myb students the same story as a Populism lecture opener. Who is the author of the intro you are referring to?
Thomas Winter
thomas.winter@uc.edu
(9)
From: IN%'cccocks@ucdavis.edu' 13-APR-1998 20:53:51.98
William Leach includes an interesting discussion of _The Wizard of Oz_ and Baum's career as window dresser in his _Land of Desire._ I think he also notes alternative readings of the book, including the one labeling it a Populist fable.

Catherine Cocks
Lecturer
History Department
University of California, Davis

(10)
[the original query is reprinted below, followed by a response]
>From: IN%'dschu@silcon.com' 'Diane Schumacher' 12-APR-1998 23:14:45.66 >To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era >List'
>CC:
>Subj: Wizard of Oz
>
>Dear readers,
> I heard that the Wizard of Oz was an allegory of populism, I even >heard it from a history lecture as an undergraduate. However, when I >checked the book out of the library there was an introduction to the text >which claimed otherwise. The author of the introduction wrote that Baum >was a newspaper writer in Chicago, and he never wrote about the problems >of farmers. He said that the Wizard of Oz was an example of Baum's >interest in the power of the mind. For example, Dorathy gets home on her >own power without the help of others. The author debunked the use of the >Wizard of Oz because Baum himself was not a populist or concerned with >farming problems. It concerns me that so many people use it as an >allegory when it may not be correct. What have others discovered about >Baum and the use of his work?
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Diane Schumacher
>Acalanes High School
From: IN%'JRBiggs@aol.com' 'JRBiggs' 14-APR-1998 17:37:14.20 Subj: Replies: All About Oz
The most recent discussion of Baum's Wizard of Oz as political allegory is Gretchen Ritter, Silver Slippers and a Golden Cap: Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Historical Memory in American Politcs, in Journal of American Studies, December 1997.
From: IN%'H-SHGAPE@h-net.msu.edu' 'H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List' 17-APR-1998 23:13:47.61 To: IN%'H-SHGAPE@H-NET.MSU.EDU' 'Recipients of H-SHGAPE digests' CC:
Subj: H-SHGAPE Digest - 16 Apr 1998 to 17 Apr 1998
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 08:12:37 -0500c From: 'Ballard Campbell, H-SHGAPE' Subject: Reply: another angle on OZ
In all the suggestions made about Baum's work as a possible allegory for populism, no one has yet mentioned that suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage was Frank Baum's mother-in-law. According to _Notable American Women_, Gage lived with Frank & Maud Baum in Chicago during the last years of her life (she died in 1885). I'm sure there's been some scholarship on this relationship and its possible influence on the Wizard of Oz, but can't now recall where. Perhaps in Ritter's article, cited in a recent communication? Was Gage the good witch or the bad witch? Or neither? Was Dorothy a 'strong-minded' or 'new' woman?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:30:45 (EDT)
From: Perfessor Suchabanana
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Exhibit A:
Message:
The Rise and Fall of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a 'Parable on Populism'
 
by David B. Parker
As published in the JOURNAL OF THE GEORGIA ASSOCIATION OF HISTORIANS, vol. 15 (1994), pp. 49-63.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of America's favorite pieces of juvenile literature. Children like it because it is a good story, full of fun characters and exciting adventures. Adults--especially those of us in history and related fields--like it because we can read between L. Frank Baum's lines and see various images of the United States at the turn of the century. That has been true since 1964, when American Quarterly published Henry M. Littlefield's 'The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism.' Littlefield described all sorts of hidden meanings and allusions to Gilded Age society in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: the wicked Witch of the East represented eastern industrialists and bankers who controlled the people (the Munchkins); the Scarecrow was 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 were ruby red, but Baum originally made them silver) represented the Populists' solution to the nation's economic woes ('the free and unlimited coinage of silver'); Emerald City was Washington, D.C.; the Wizard, 'a little bumbling old man, hiding behind a facade of paper mache and noise, . . . able to be everything to everybody,' was any of the Gilded Age presidents.(1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was no longer an innocent fairy tale. According to Littlefield, Baum, a reform-minded Democrat who supported William Jennings Bryan's pro-silver candidacy, wrote the book as a parable of the Populists, an allegory of their failed efforts to reform the nation in 1896. 'Baum never allowed the consistency of the allegory to take precedence over the theme of youthful entertainment,' Littlefield hedged at one point; 'the allegory always remains in a minor key.' Still, he concluded that 'the relationships and analogies outlined above . . . are far too consistent to be coincidental.'(2)
It was an interesting notion, one scholars could not leave alone, and they soon began to find additional correspondences between Populism and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Richard Jensen, in a 1971 study of Midwestern politics and culture, devoted two pages to Baum's story. He implicitly qualified Littlefield by pointing out that not all pro-Bryan silverites were Populists. But Jensen then proceeded to add two new points to the standard Littlefield interpretation, finding analogies for Toto and Oz itself: Dorothy's faithful dog represented the teetotaling Prohibitionists, an important part of the silverite coalition, and anyone familiar with the silverites' slogan '16 to 1'--that is, the ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold--would have instantly recognized 'Oz' as the abbreviation for 'ounce.'(3)
A few years later, literary scholar Brian Attebery wrote that 'it is too much to say . . . that The Wizard is a 'Parable on Populism,' but it does share many of the Populist concerns and biases.' Like Jensen, Attebery cautioned against an uncritical acceptance of Littlefield; and again like Jensen, he went on to suggest an analogy of his own: 'Dorothy, bold, resourceful, leading the men around her toward success, is a juvenile Mary Lease, the Kansas firebrand who told her neighbors to raise less corn and more hell.'(4)
The most extensive treatment of the Littlefield thesis is an article by Hugh Rockoff in the Journal of Political Economy. Rockoff, who saw in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 'a sophisticated commentary on the political and economic debates of the Populist Era,' discovered a surprising number of new analogies. The Deadly Poppy Field, where the Cowardly Lion fell asleep and could not move forward, was 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 had to pass through seven halls and climb three flights of stairs; seven and three make seventy-three, which stands for the Crime of '73, 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 was Grover Cleveland; of the West, William McKinley. The enslavement of the yellow Winkies was 'a not very well disguised reference to McKinley's decision to deny immediate independence to the Philippines' after the Spanish-American War. The Wizard himself was Mark Hanna, McKinley's campaign manager, although Rockoff noted that 'this is one of the few points at which the allegory does not work straightforwardly.' About half of Rockoff's article consisted of an economic analysis that justified Bryan and Baum's silver stance.(5)
In a recent history of the Populist movement, Gene Clanton wrote that while The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was 'a classic parable on the silver crusade,' Littlefield had gotten some of it confused. Clanton explained (as had Jensen) that not all pro-Bryan silverites were Populists. A number of reform Democrats shared the Populists' distrust of railroads and bankers,their support for inflation, and so forth, but the Democrats disagreed with the Populists' call for a strong and active government to solve those problems, and in fact they tended to see Populists as dangerous socialist radicals. Clanton suggested that if the Wicked Witch of the East was the forces of industrial capitalism, then Baum's Wicked Witch of the West was Populism itself. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 'mirrored perfectly the middle-ground ideology that was fundamental among those who favored reform yet opposed Populism,' wrote Clanton. 'Baum's story was an apt metaphor or parable of Progressivism, not Populism.' This was hardly the death knell for Littlefield; he had simply confused pro-Bryan, silverite Democrats for pro-Bryan, silverite Populists.(6)
As scholars continued to extend and modify Littlefield's interpretation, laymen discovered it as well. Perhaps the best example was a widely-reprinted essay, first published in the Los Angeles Times in 1988, in which Michael A. Genovese described The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as 'the story of the sad collapse of Populism and the issues upon which the movement was based.' Genovese's brief analysis was pure Littlefield. But there was one notable (and somewhat disturbing) aspect of Genovese's piece: Littlefield's name was never mentioned. The phrase 'according to one scholar' never appeared. Less than a quarter century after his article appeared, Littlefield had entered the public domain.(7)
Several factors help explain Littlefield's popularity. First, he produced an overwhelming number of correspondences, and others have added to the list. One would be hard pressed to find any character, setting, or event in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that does not have a 'Populist parable' analogy.
Second, educators discovered Littlefield's usefulness in teaching Populism and related topics. (This was the reason Littlefield, at the time a high school teacher, developed his analysis in the first place; the correspondences between Populism and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he wrote, 'furnish a teaching mechanism which is guaranteed to reach any level of student.')(8) The journal Social Education suggested using The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to help secondary school students understand the issues behind Populism, and I myself proposed the Littlefield thesis as a possible lecture topic in an instructor's manual for a popular college-level textbook.(9) Another textbook contained a two-page 'special feature' essay explaining The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a Populist allegory (although once again Littlefield's name was not mentioned).(10)
Third, many people in post-Watergate, post-Vietnam America were fascinated to learn that their favorite children's story was something of a subversive document, an anti-establishment fairy tale. Hence in 1988 the Utne Reader praised a newspaper article for 'expos[ing] Oz as a parable on Populism,' a movement that had been critical of 'Eastern banks and railroads, which [Populists] charged with oppressing farmers and industrial workers.'(11)
By the 1980s, Littlefield's interpretation had become the standard line on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.(12) Recently, however, one of his basic assertions--that the book was, like the Populist movement itself, a critique of American industrial capitalism--has been challenged by scholars who argue that the book actually celebrated the urban consumer culture of the turn of the century.
The best statement of this revisionist view is William R. Leach's two essays in a new edition of the book. Baum's masterpiece was popular, Leach explained, 'because it met--almost perfectly--the particular ethical and emotional needs of people living in a new urban, industrial society.' Leach pointed out that the book exalted the opulence and magic of the metropolis. The Emerald City, with its prosperous homes and luxurious stores, resembled nothing as much as it did the 'White City' of Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893, which Baum had visited several times. Furthermore, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz reflected Baum's belief in theosophy, a spiritualist/occultist quasi-religious movement that was popular in the late nineteenth century. Specifically, the book emphasized an aspect of theosophy that Norman Vincent Peale would later call 'the power of positive thinking': theosophy led to 'a new upbeat and positive psychology' that 'opposed all kinds of negative thinking--especially fear, worry, and anxiety.' It was through this positive thinking, and not through any magic of the Wizard, that Dorothy and her companions (as well as everyone else in Oz) got what they wanted. 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was an optimistic secular theraputic text,' wrote Leach. 'It helped make people feel at home in America's new industrial economy, and it helped them appreciate and enjoy, without guilt, the new consumer abundance and way of living produced by that economy.' Leach concluded that 'the book both reflected and helped create a new cultural consciousness--a new way of seeing and being in harmony with the new industrial order.'(13)
Leach's new look at Baum directly challenged much of what Littlefield wrote.(14) Furthermore, it was consistent with Baum's background. Before he became a professional writer, Baum worked as a traveling salesman and owned a dry goods store. In 1897, he founded The Show Window, the first journal ever devoted to decorating store windows, and in 1900 (the same year as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), he published The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors, the first book on the subject. Furthermore, Baum's involvement in the theater, as everything from actor to producer and writer, taught him to appreciate the artistic lifestyle that only the big cities could offer.
Leach's essays did not necessarily overturn Littlefield, however. Baum might have been 'a shopkeeper, a traveling salesman, an actor, a playwright, a windowdresser,'(15) but he was also a reform-minded Democrat who supported Bryan's pro-silver campaign in 1896. Given this, Littlefield's thesis still seems plausible.
For years after Baum's death in 1919, the best biography of him was a twenty-five-page sketch written by Martin Gardner for a new edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1957. Gardner wrote just two sentences on Baum's politics: 'Aside from marching in a few torchlight parades for William Jennings Bryan, Baum was as inactive in politics as in church affairs [which is to say, pretty inactive]. He consistently voted as a democrat [sic], however, and his sympathies always seem to have been on the side of the laboring classes.' Four years later, the first book-length study of Baum appeared. Written by Frank Joslyn Baum (Baum's son, who died during the project) and Russell P. MacFall, the biography did not go beyond Gardner in discussing Baum's politics.(16)
Baum's political affiliation was a big part of Littlefield's argument for seeing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a Populist allegory. Citing Gardner, Littlefield mentioned Baum's support for Democratic candidates and, of course, the torchlight parades for Bryan. 'No one who marched in even a few such parades could have been unaffected by Bryan's campaign,' Littlefield asserted.(17) If one begins with the assumption that Baum was a Bryan Democrat, it is easy to read a Populist (or at least a pro-silver) message into the book.
But was Baum a Bryan Democrat? In the summer of 1888, Baum moved his family to Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he opened a dry goods store. In January 1890, after the business failed, he bought a local newspaper, renaming it the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. The Pioneer was obviously a Republican paper. During the municipal elections that spring, Baum editorialized in support of the Republican candidates; after they won, he wrote that 'Aberdeen has redeemed herself . . . [a]fter suffering for nearly a year from the incompetence of a democratic administration.' Later that year, Baum urged unity against the growing Independent movement: 'We are all members of one great family, the family which saved the Union, the family which stands together as the emblem of prosperity among the nations--Republicanism!' Not only did Baum speak for the Republican party; he spoke against the movement that would soon evolve into the Populists.(18)
It must be admitted that the Pioneer had been a Republican paper before Baum bought it, and perhaps he had to maintain its partisan identification in order to maintain its circulation. Furthermore, Baum's Pioneer, while clearly Republican, was quite progressive: he wrote in support of women's suffrage, alternative religions, occultism, toleration, and so on. So perhaps Baum was a closet Democrat in Aberdeen, forced to hide his true political feelings.
But that appears not to be the case. In the summer of 1896, the year of the election that would mark what has been called 'The Climax of Populism,' Baum published a poem in a Chicago newspaper:
When McKinley gets the chair, boys,
There'll be a jollification
Throughout our happy nation
And contentment everywhere!
Great will be our satisfaction
When the 'honest money' faction
Seats McKinley in the chair!
 
No more the ample crops of grain
That in our granaries have lain
Will seek a purchaser in vain
Or be at mercy of the 'bull' or 'bear';
Our merchants won't be trembling
At the silverites' dissembling
When McKinley gets the chair!
 
When McKinley gets the chair, boys,
The magic word 'protection'
Will banish all dejection
And free the workingman from every care;
We will gain the world's respect
When it knows our coin's 'correct'
And McKinley's in the chair!
 
Hardly the writings of a silverite! Michael Patrick Hearn, the leading scholar on L. Frank Baum, quoted this poem in a recent letter to the New York Times. Hearn wrote that he had found 'no evidence that Baum's story is in any way a Populist allegory'; Littlefield's argument, Hearn concluded, 'has no basis in fact.' A month later, Henry M. Littlefield responded to Hearn's letter, agreeing that 'there is no basis in fact to consider Baum a supporter of turn-of-the-century Populist ideology.'(19)
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.(20)
And because the images are still there, the Littlefield interpretation (especially as modified by Clanton, Rockoff, and others) remains a useful pedagogical device. Baum gave us a delightful and unforgettable way of illustrating a number of Gilded Age issues, from Populism and the silver movement to the Gilded Age presidency, from the problems of labor to the insurrection in the Philippines.
Thirty years ago, Henry M. Littlefield looked at The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and saw things no one had seen there before. More recently, William R. Leach has shown us another new way of looking at the book, a way that emphasizes a different side of the Gilded Age--the fascination with the city and urban abundance, the rise of a new industrial ethic, and so on. Leach's argument is just as compelling as Littlefield's. 'Factual' or not, both are impressive achievements.
But even more impressive is the achievement of L. Frank Baum himself. In the preface to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum stated that he wanted to write a new sort of children's story: a modernized, American story, shorn of all the Old World images and motifs. He was tremendously successful in this, producing not only the first real American fairy tale, but one that showed American society and culture in all its wonderful diversity and contradictions, a story so rich it can be, like the book's title character, anything we want it to be--including, if we wish, a parable on Populism.(21)
 

NOTES
1. Henry M. Littlefield, 'The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism,' American Quarterly 16 (1964): 47-58 (quotation on 54); L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Chicago, 1900).
2. Littlefield, 'Parable on Populism,' 50, 58.
3. Richard Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896 (Chicago, 1971), 282-83.
4. Brian Attebery, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin (Bloomington, 1980), 86-87.
5. Hugh Rockoff, 'The 'Wizard of Oz' as a Monetary Allegory,' Journal of Political Economy 98 (1990): 739, 751.
6. Gene Clanton, Populism: The Humane Preference in America, 1890-1900 (Boston, 1991), 149-50. Fred Erisman, 'L. Frank Baum and the Progressive Dilemma,' American Quarterly 20 (1968): 616-23, made a similar point, but outside the context of Littlefield's analogies.
7. Los Angeles Times, 19 March 1988.
8. Littlefield, 'Parable on Populism,' 58. For a brief discussion of how he came to write the essay, see Henry M. Littlefield, 'The Wizard of Allegory,' Baum Bugle 36 (Spring 1992):24-25. The Baum Bugle is published by the International Wizard of Oz Club.
9. David W. Van Cleaf and Charles W. Funkhouser, 'Inquiry, 'Oz,' and Populism,' Social Education 51 (1987): 282-83; Thomas S. Morgan and David B. Parker, Instructor's Manual and Test Bank to Accompany America: A Narrative History, Second Edition, by George B. Tindall (New York, 1988), 213.
10. Robert A. Divine et al., America: Past and Present (Glenview, Ill., 1984), 594-95. The essay was retained in later editions of the textbook; the third edition was published in 1991. For other examples of educators and the Littlefield thesis, see Michael Gessel, 'Tale of a Parable,' Baum Bugle 36 (Spring 1992): 19-23.
11. Michael Dregni, 'The Politics of Oz,' Utne Reader 28 (July/August 1988): 32-33. The newspaper cited was In These Times, 18 Feb. 1987.
12. There have been other interpretations of the book--scholars have read it from psychoanalytical, feminist, theological/philosophical, mythological, and Marxist perspectives, among others
---
-but Littlefield's was easily the best known and most widely accepted of the bunch.
13. William R. Leach, 'The Clown from Syracuse: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum,' in L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Belmont, Calif., 1991), 2; Leach, 'A Trickster's Tale: L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,' in ibid., 168, 174. Stuart Culver discussed Baum's book as a reflection of the advertising that accompanied the consumer culture. Culver, 'What Manikins Want: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows,' Representations 21 (1988): 97-116.
14. One could try to reconcile the differences by suggesting that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was not so much about the Populists themselves as it was about the culture that gave rise to the Populists. Midwestern farmers were well aware of the consumer paradise Leach described (through the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog, for example); perhaps their inablity to partake more fully in that paradise was one of the reasons for the agrarian discontent that led to the Populists. But this oversimplifies Littlefield's argument, which was about silver and gold, William Jennings Bryan and dehumanized factory workers, not just 'agrarian discontent.' I appreciate Robert C. McMath, Jr.'s and James Cassidy's helpful comments on this point.
15. Leach, 'Clown from Syracuse,' 3.
16. Martin Gardner, 'The Royal Historian of Oz,' in Gardner and Russel B. Nye, The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was (East Lansing, Mich., 1957), 29; Frank Joslyn Baum and Russell P. MacFall, To Please a Child: A Biography of L. Frank Baum, Royal Historian of Oz (Chicago, 1961), 85, 124. ('The Royal Historian of Oz' is a title L. Frank Baum himself had used.) Michael Patrick Hearn is preparing a new biography of Baum; for now, the most reliable source of information is Hearn, ed., The Annotated Wizard of Oz (New York, 1973).
17. Littlefield, 'Parable on Populism,' 49.
18. Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, 12 April 1890, 19 April 1890, 18 Oct. 1890. For more on Baum's editorship and political affiliation, see Nancy Tystad Koupal, 'The Wonderful Wizard of the West: L. Frank Baum in South Dakota, 1888-91,' Great Plains Quarterly 9 (1989): 207-8.
19. Robert F. Durden, The Climax of Populism: The Election of 1896 (Lexington, 1965); Chicago Times Herald, 12 July 1896, quoted in New York Times, 20 Dec. 1991; New York Times, 7 Feb. 1992.
20. Thomas A. Bailey, 'The Mythmakers of American History,' Journal of American History 55 (1968): 18; Divine et al., America, 594; Littlefield, 'The Wizard of Allegory,' 25.
21. When describing characters and settings that readers have never encountered before, writers (and especially writers of fantasy) might naturally use familiar imagery to help the reader along. This could explain why The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is richer and more vivid than Baum's later books in the series (he wrote 13 others, from The Marvelous Land of Oz to Glinda of Oz): after that original volume, the characters and settings were no longer unknown--from the second book on, readers had encountered them before--and so Baum had less reason to use American images as the basis for his descriptions. And as good as some of those later books are, an Ozian Oz(described on its own terms) was nowhere near as fascinating as an American Oz.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:01:10 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Perfessor Suchabanana
Subject: Re: Exhibit B: Littlefield
Message:
The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism

by Henry M. Littlefield
On the deserts of North Africa in 1941 two tough Australian brigades went into battle singing:

Have you heard of the wonderful wizard,
The wonderful Wizard of Oz,
And he is a wonderful wizard,
If ever a wizard there was.

It was a song they had brought with them from Australia and would soon spread to England. Forever afterward it reminded Winston Churchill of those 'buoyant days.'[1] Churchill's nostalgia is only one symptom of the world-wide delight found in an American fairy tale about a little girl and her odyssey in the strange land of Oz. The song he reflects upon came from a classic 1939 Hollywood production of the story, which introduced millions of people not only to the land of Oz, but to a talented young lady named Judy Garland as well.
Ever since its publication in 1900 Lyman Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has been immensely popular, providing the basis for a profitable musical comedy, three movies, and a number of plays. It is an indigenous creation, curiously warm and touching, although no one really knows why. For despite wholehearted acceptance by generations of readers, Baum's tale has been accorded neither critical acclaim, nor extended critical examination. Interested scholars, such as Russel B. Nye and Martin Gardiner, look upon The Wizard of Oz as the first in a long and delightful series of Oz stories, and understandably base their appreciation of Baum's talent on the totality of his works[2].
The Wizard of Oz is an entity unto itself, however, and was not originally written with a sequel in mind. Baum informed his readers in 1904 that he has produced The Marvelous Land of Oz reluctantly and only in answer to well over a thousand letters demanding that he creation another Oz tale[3]. His original effort remains unique and to some degree separate from the books which follow. But its uniqueness does not rest alone on its peculiar and transcendent popularity.
Professor Nye finds a 'strain of moralism' in the Oz books, as well as 'a well-developed sense of satire,' and Baum stories often include searching parodies on the contradiction in human nature. The second book in the series, The Marvelous Land of Oz, is a blatant satire on feminism and the suffragette movement[4]. In it Baum attempted to duplicate the format used so successfully in The Wizard, yet no one has noted a similar play on contemporary movements in the latter work. Nevertheless, one does exist, and it reflects to an astonishing degree the world of political reality which surrounded Baum in 1900. In order to understand the relationship of The Wizard to turn-of-the-century America, it is necessary first to know something of Baum's background.
Born near Syracuse in 1856, Baum was brought up in a wealthy home and early became interested in the theater. He wrote some plays which enjoyed brief success and then, with his wife and two sons, journeyed to Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1887. Aberdeen was a little prairie town and there Baum edited the local weekly until it failed in 1891[5].
For many years Western farmers had been in a state of loud, though unsuccessful, revolt. While Baum was living in South Dakota not only was the frontier a thing of the past, but the Romantic view of benign nature had disappeared we well. The stark reality of the dry, open plains and the acceptance of man's Darwinian subservience to his environment served to crush Romantic idealism[6].
Hamlin Garland's visit to Iowa and South Dakota coincided with Baum's arrival. Henry Nash Smith observes,

'Garland's success as a portrayer of hardship and suffering on Northwestern farms was due in part to the fact that his personal experience happened to parallel the shock which the entire West received in the later 1880's from the combined effects of low prices, ... grasshoppers, drought, the terrible blizzards of the winter of 1886-1887, and the juggling of freight rates...'[7]
As we shall see, Baum's prairie experience was no less deeply etched, although he did not employ naturalism to express it.
Baum's stay in South Dakota also covered the period of the formation of the Populist party, which Professor Nye likens to a fanatic 'crusade'. Western farmers had for a long time sought governmental aid in the form of economic panaceas, but to no avail. The Populist movement symbolized a desperate attempt to use the power of the ballot[8]. In 1891 Baum moved to Chicago where he was surrounded by those dynamic elements of reform which made the city so notable during the 1890's[9].
In Chicago Baum certainly saw the results of the frightful depression which had closed down up on the nation in 1893. Moreover, he took part in the pivotal election of 1896, marching in 'torch-light parades for William Jennings Bryan'. Martin Gardiner notes besides, that he 'consistently voted as a democrat...and his sympathies seem always to have been on the side of the laboring classes.' No one who marched in even a few such parades could have been unaffected by Bryan's campaign. Putting all the farmers' hopes in a basket labeled 'free coinage of silver,' Bryan's platform rested mainly on the issue of adding silver to the nation's gold standard. Though he lost, he did at least bring the plight of the little man into national focus[11].
Between 1896 and 1900, while Baum worked and wrote in Chicago, the great depression faded away and the war with Spain thrust the United States into world prominence. Bryan maintained Midwestern control over the Democratic party, and often spoke out against American policies toward Cuba and the Philippines. By 1900 it was evident that Bryan would run again, although now imperialism and not silver seemed the issue of primary concern. In order to promote greater enthusiasm, however, Bryan felt compelled once more to sound the silver lietmotif in his campaign[12]. Bryan's second futile attempt at the presidency culminated in November 1900. The previous winter Baum had attempted unsuccessfully to sell a rather original volume of children's fantasy, but that April, George M. Hill, a small Chicago publisher, finally agreed to print The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Baum's allegiance to the cause of Democratic Populism must be balanced against the fact that he was not a political activist. Martin Gardiner finds all through all of his writings 'a theme of tolerance, with many episodes that poke fun at narrow nationalism and ethnocentrism.' Nevertheless, Professor Nye quotes Baum as having a desire to write stories that would 'bear the stamp of our times and depict the progressive fairies of today.'[13]
The Wizard of Oz has neither the mature religious appeal of a Pilgrim's Progress, nor the philosophic depth of a Candide. Baum's most thoughtful devotees see in it only a warm, cleverly written fairy tale. Yet the original Oz book conceals an unsuspected depth, and it is the purpose of this study to demonstrate that Baum's immortal American fantasy encompasses more than heretofore believed. For Baum created a children's story with a symbolic allegory implicit within its story line and characterizations. The allegory always remains in a minor key, subordinated to the major theme and readily abandoned whenever it threatens to distort the appeal of the fantasy. But through it, in the form of a subtle parable, Baum delineated a Midwesterner's vibrant and ironic portrait of this country as it entered the twentieth century.
We are introduced to both Dorothy and Kansas at the same time:

'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 was 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.[14]
Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur would not have recognized Uncle Henry's farm; it us straight out of Hamlin Garland.[15] On it a deadly environment dominated everyone and everything except Dorothy and her pet. The setting is Old Testament and nature seems grayly impersonal and even angry. Yet it is a fearsome cyclone that lifts Dorothy and Toto in their house and deposits them 'very gently -- for a cyclone -- in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty.' We immediately sense the contrast between Oz and Kansas. Here there are 'stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits... gorgeous flowers... and birds with ... brilliant plumage' sing in the trees. In Oz 'a small brook rushing and sparkling along' murmurs 'in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairie.'(p. 20)
Trouble intrudes. Dorothy's house has come down on the Wicked Witch of the East, killing her. Nature, by sheer accident, can provide benefits, for indirectly the cyclone has disposed of one of the two truly bad influences in the land of Oz. Notice that evil ruled in both the East and the West; after Dorothy's coming it rules only in the West.
The Wicked Witch of the East had kept the little Munchkin people 'in bondage for many years, making them slave for her night and day.' (pp. 22-23). Just what this slavery entailed is not immediately clear, but Baum later gives us a specific example. The Tin Woodman, whom Dorothy meets on her way to the Emerald City, had been put under a spell by the Witch of the East. Once an independent and hard working human being, the Woodman found that each time he swung his axe it chopped off a different part of his body. Knowing no other trade he 'worked harder than ever,' for luckily in Oz tinsmiths can repair such things. Soon the Woodman was all tin (p. 59). In this way Eastern witchcraft dehumanized a simple laborer so that the faster and better he worked the more quickly he became a kind of machine. Here is a Populist view of evil Eastern influences on honest labor which could hardly be more pointed.[16]
There is one thing seriously wrong with being made of tin; when it rains rust sets in. Tin Woodman had been standing in the same position for a year without moving before Dorothy came along and oiled his joints. The Tin Woodman's situation has an obvious parallel in the condition of many Eastern workers after the depression of 1893.[17] While Tin Woodman is standing still, rusted solid, he deludes himself into thinking he is no longer capable of that most human of sentiments, love. Hate does not fill the void, a constant lesson in the Oz books, and Tin Woodman feels that only a heart will make him sensitive again. So he accompanies Dorothy to see if the Wizard will give him one.
Oz itself is a magic oasis surrounded by impassable deserts, and the country is divided in a very orderly fashion. In the North and South the people are ruled by good witches, who are not quite as powerful as the wicked ones of the East and West. In the center of the land is the magnificent Emerald City ruled by the Wizard of Oz, a successful humbug whom even the witches mistakenly feel 'is more powerful than all the rest of us together' (p.24). Despite these forces, the mark of goodness, placed on Dorothy's forehead by the Witch of the North, serves as protection for Dorothy throughout her travels. Goodness and innocence prevail even over the powers of evil and delusion in Oz. Perhaps it is this basic and beautiful optimism that makes Baum's tale so characteristically American -- and Midwestern.
Dorothy is Baum's Miss Everyman. She is one of us, levelheaded and human, and she has a real problem. Young readers can understand her quandary as readily as can adults. She is good, not precious, and she thinks quite naturally about others. For all the attractions of Oz, Dorothy desires only to return to the gray plains and Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. She is directed toward the Emerald City by the good Witch of the North, since the Wizard will surely be able to solve the problem of the impassable deserts. Dorothy sets out on the Yellow Brick Road wearing the Witch of the East's magic Silver Shoes. Silver shoes walking on a golden road; henceforth Dorothy becomes the innocent agent of Baum's ironic view of the Silver issue. Remember, neither Dorothy, nor the good Witch of the North, nor the Munchkins understand the power of these shoes. The allegory is abundantly clear. On the next to last page of the book Baum has Glinda, Witch of the South, tell Dorothy, 'Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert.....If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country.'. Glinda explains, 'All you have to do is knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.' (p.257). William Jennings Bryan never outlined the advantages of the silver standard any more effectively.
Not understanding the magic of the Silver Shoes, Dorothy walks the mundane -- and dangerous -- Yellow Brick Road. The first person she meets is a Scarecrow. After escaping from his wooden perch, the Scarecrow displays a terrible sense of inferiority and self doubt, for he has determined that he needs real brains to replace the common straw in his head. William Allen White wrote an article in 1896 entitled 'What's the Matter With Kansas?'. In it he accused Kansas farmers of ignorance, irrationality and general muddle-headedness. What's wrong with Kansas are the people, said Mr. White.[18] Baum's character seems to have read White's angry characterization. But Baum never takes White seriously and so the Scarecrow soon emerges as innately a very shrewd and very capable individual.
The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman accompany Dorothy along the Yellow Brick Road, one seeking brains, the other a heart. They meet next the Cowardly Lion. As King of Beasts he explains, 'I learned that if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way.' Born a coward, he sobs, 'Whenever there is danger my heart begins to beat fast.' 'Perhaps you have heart disease,' suggests Tin Woodman, who always worries about hearts. But the Lion desires only courage and so he joins the party to ask help from the Wizard (pp.65-72)
The Lion represents Bryan himself. In the election of 1896 Bryan lost the vote of Eastern Labor, though he tried hard to gain their support. In Baum's story the Lion meeting the little group, 'struck at the Tin Woodman with his sharp claws.' But, to his surprise, 'he could make no impression on the tin, although the Woodman fell over in the road and lay still.' Baum here refers to the fact that in 1896 workers were often pressured into voting for McKinley and gold by their employers.[19] Amazed, the Lion says, 'he nearly blunted my claws,' and he adds even more appropriately, 'When they scratched against the tine it made a cold shiver run down my back' (pp. 67-68). The King of Beasts is not after all very cowardly, and Bryan, although a pacifist and an anti-imperialist in a time of national expansion, is not either.[20] The magic Silver Shoes belong to Dorothy, however. Silver's potent charm, which had come to mean so much to so many in the Midwest, could not be entrusted to a political symbol. Baum delivers Dorothy from the world of adventure and fantasy to the real world of heartbreak and desolution through the power of Silver. It represents a real force in a land of illusion, and neither the Cowardly Lion nor Bryan truly needs or understands its use.
All together now the small party moves toward the Emerald City. Coxey's Army of tramps and indigents, marching to ask President Cleveland for work in 1894, appears no more naively innocent than this group of four characters going to see a humbug Wizard, to request favors that only the little girl among them deserves.
Those who enter the Emerald City must wear green glasses. Dorothy later discovers that the greeness of dresses and ribbons disappears on leaving, and everything becomes a bland white. Perhaps the magic of any city is thus self imposed. But the Wizard dwells here and so the Emerald City represents the national Capitol. The Wizard, a little bumbling old man, hiding behind a facade of paper mache and noise, might be any president from Grant to McKinley. He comes straight from the fairgrounds on Omaha, Nebraska, and he symbolizes the American criterion for leadership -- he is able to be everything to everybody.
As each of our heroes enters the throne room to ask a favor the Wizard assumes different shapes, representing different views toward national leadership. To Dorothy he appears as an enormous head, 'bigger than the head of the biggest giant.' An apt image for a naive and innocent little citizen. To the Scarecrow he appears to be a lovely, gossamer fairy, a most appropriate form for an idealistic Kansas farmer. The Woodman sees a horrible beast, as would any exploited Eastern laborer after the trouble of the 1890's. But the Cowardly Lion, like W. J. Bryan, sees a 'Ball of Fire, so fierce and glowing he could scarcely bear to gaze upon it.' Baum then provides an additional analogy, for when the Lion 'tried to go nearer he singed his whiskers and he crept back tremblingly to a spot nearer the door.' (p. 134)
The Wizard has asked them all to kill the Witch of the West. The golden road does not go in that direction and so they must follow the sun, as have many pioneers in the past. The land they now pass through is 'rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in the country of the West and the ground was untilled' (p.140). The Witch of the West uses natural forces to achieve her ends; she is Baum's version of sentient and malign nature.
Finding Dorothy and her friends in the West, the Witch sends forty wolves against them, then forty vicious crows and finally a great swarm of black bees. But it is through the power of a magic golden cap that she summons the flying monkeys. They capture the little girl and dispose of her companions. Baum makes these Winged Monkeys into an Oz substitute for the plains Indians. Their leader says, 'Once we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master.' 'This,' he explains, 'was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land' (p. 172). But like many Indian tribes Baum's monkeys are not inherently bad; their actions depend wholly upon the bidding of others. Under the control of an evil influence, they do evil. Under the control of goodness and innocence, as personified by Dorothy, the monkeys are helpful and kind, although unable to take her to Kansas. Says the Monkey King, 'We belong to this country alone, and cannot leave it' (p. 213). The same could be said with equal truth of the first Americans.
Dorothy presents a special problem to the Witch. Seeing the mark on Dorothy's forehead and the Silver Shoes on her feet, the Witch begins 'to tremble with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them.' Then 'she happened to look into the child's eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them was, and that the little girl did now know of the wonderful power the Silver shoes gave her' (p. 150). Here Baum again uses the Silver allegory to state the blunt homily that while goodness affords a people ultimate protection against evil, ignorance of their capabilities allows evil to impose itself upon them. The Witch assumes that proportions of a kind of western Mark Hanna or Banker Boss, who, through natural malevolence, manipulates the people and holds them prisoner by cynically taking advantage of their innate innocence.
Enslaved in the West 'Dorothy went to work meekly, with her mind made up to work as hard as she could; for she was glad the Wicked Witch had decided not to kill her' (p. 150). Many Western farmers have held these same grim thoughts in less mystical terms. If the Witch of the West is a diabolical force of Darwinian or Spencerian nature, then another contravening force may be counted upon the dispose of her. Dorothy destroys the evil Witch by angrily dousing her with a bucket of water. Water, that precious commodity which the drought-ridden farmers on the great plains needed so badly, and which if correctly used could create an agricultural paradise, or at least dissolve a wicked witch. Plain water brings an end to malign nature in the West.
When Dorothy and her companions return to the Emerald City they soon discover that the Wizard is really nothing more than 'a little man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face.' Can this be the ruler of the land? Our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay.

'I thought Oz was a great Head,' said Dorothy....'And I thought Oz was a terrible Beast,' said the Tin Woodman. 'And I thought Oz was a Ball of Fire,' exclaimed the Lion. 'No; you are all wrong,' said the little man meekly. 'I have been making believe.'
Dorothy asks if he is truly a great Wizard. He confides, 'Not a bit of it, my Dear; I'm just a common man.' Scarecrow adds, 'You're more than that...you're a humbug' (p. 184).
The Wizard's deception is of long standing in Oz and even the Witches were taken in. How was it accomplished? 'It was a great mistake my ever letting you into the Throne Room,' the Wizard complains. 'Usually I will not see even my subjects, and so they believe I am something terrible' (p. 185). What a wonderful lesson for youngsters of the decade when Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland and William McKinley were hiding in the White House. Formerly the Wizard was a mimic, a ventriloquist and a circus balloonist. The latter trade involved going 'up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of people together and get them to pay to see the circus' (p. 186-187). Such skills are as admirable adapted to success in late-nineteenth-century politics as they are to the humbug wizardry of Baum's story. A pointed comment on Midwestern political ideals is the fact that our little Wizard comes from Omaha, Nebraska, a center of Populist agitation. 'Why, that isn't very far from Kansas,' cries Dorothy. Nor, indeed, are any of the characters in the wonderful land of Oz.
The Wizard, of course, can provide the objects of self-delusion desired by Tin Woodman, Scarecrow and Lion. But Dorothy's hope of going home fades when the Wizard's balloon leaves too soon. Understand this: Dorothy wishes to leave a green and fabulous land, from which all evil has disappeared, to go back to the gray desolation of the Kansas prairies. Dorothy is an orphan, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are her only family. Reality is never far from Dorothy's consciousness and in the most heartrending terms she explains her reasoning to the good Witch Glinda,

Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than there were last I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it. (p. 254)
The Silver Shoes furnish Dorothy with a magic means of travel. But when she arrives back in Kansas she finds, 'The Silver Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the desert' (p.259). Were the 'her' to refer to America in 1900, Baum's statement could hardly be contradicted.
Current historiography tends to criticize the Populist movement for its 'delusions, myths and foibles,' Professor C. Vann Woodward observed recently.[22] Yet The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has provided unknowing generations with a gentle and friendly Midwestern critique of the Populist rationale on these very same grounds. Led by naive innocence and protected by good will, the farmer, the laborer and the politician approach the mystic holder of national power to ask for personal fulfillment. Their desires, as well as the Wizard's cleverness in answering them, are all self-delusion. Each of these characters carries within him the solution to his own problem, were he only to view himself objectively. The fearsome Wizard turns out to be nothing more than a common man, capable of shrewd but mundane answers to these self-induced needs. Like any good politician he gives the people what they want. Throughout the story Baum poses a central thought; the American desire for symbols of fulfillment is illusory. Real needs lie elsewhere.
Thus the Wizard cannot help Dorothy, for of all the characters only she has a wish that is selfless, and only she has a direct connection to honest, hopeless human beings. Dorothy supplies real fulfillment when she returns to her aunt and uncle, using the Silver Shoes, and cures some of their misery and heartache. In this way Baum tells us that the Silver crusade at least brought back Dorothy's lovely spirit to the disconsolate plains farmer. Her laughter, love and good will are no small addition to that gray land, although the magic of Silver has been lost forever as a result.
Noteworthy too is Baum's prophetic placement of leadership of Oz after Dorothy's departure. The Scarecrow reigns over the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman rules in the West and the Lion protects smaller beast in 'a grand old forest.' Thereby farm interests achieve national importance, industrialism moves West and Bryan commands only a forest full of lesser politicians.
Baum's Fantasy succeeds in bridging the gap between what children want and what they should have. It is an admirable example of the way in which an imaginative writer can teach goodness and morality without producing the almost inevitable side effect of nausea. Today's children's books are either saccharine and empty, or boring and pedantic. Baum's first Oz tale -- and those which succeed it -- are immortal not so much because the 'heart-aches and nightmares are left out' as that 'the wonderment and joy' are retained (p. 1).
Baum declares 'The story of 'the Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was written solely to pleasure children of today' (p. 1). In 1963 there are very few children who have never heard of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman or the Cowardly Lion, and whether they know W. W. Denslow's original illustrations of Dorothy, or Judy Garland's whimsical characterization, is immaterial. The Wizard has become a genuine piece of America folklore because, knowing his audience, Baum never allowed the consistency of the allegory to take precedence over the theme of youthful entertainment. Yet once discovered, the author's allergorical intent seems clear, and it gives depth and lasting interest even to children who only sense something else beneath the surface of the story. Consider the fun in picturing turn-of-the-century America, a difficult era at best, using these ready-made symbols provided by Baum. The relationship and analogies outlined above are admittedly theoretical, but they are far too consistent to be coincidental, and they furnish a teaching mechanism which is guaranteed to reach any level of student.
The Wizard of Oz says so much about so many things that it is hard not to imagine a satisfied and mischievous gleam in Lyman Frank Baum's eye as he had Dorothy say, 'And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!'

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:48:17 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Perfessor Suchabanana
Subject: Baum's Cornell connection
Message:
It was while Frank was home on holiday that he met the other love of his life, Maud Gage. Through his sister Harriet’s persistence, Frank agreed to meet Maud at a party. She was still at Cornell University while Frank was with The Maid of Arran Company. After the holiday season came to a close, Maud left to go back to school to the admiration of other male suitors and Frank stayed with the Company. Maud came from a prosperous family who lived in Fayetteville, NY. Maud’s mother, Matilda Joslyn Gage, was a nationally known feminist and her father was a dry-goods merchant. It is interesting to note, that Matilda worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in her later years. It was in the Gage home that these three women wrote History of Woman Suffrage published in four volumes from 1881 to 1902.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 13:03:50 (EDT)
From: Perfessor Such
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Footnotes:
Message:
Footnotes 1. Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour (Cambridge, 1949). pp. 615-16.
2. Martin Gardiner and Russel B. Nye, The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was (East Lansing, Mich., 1957), pp. 7 ff, 14-16, 19. Professor Nye's 'Appreciation' and Martin Gardiner's 'The Royal Historian of Oz' totaling some fourth-five pages, present as definitive an analysis of Baum and his works as is available today.
3. L Frank Bum, The Marvelous Land of Oz (Chicago, 1904), p 3 (Author's Note).
4. Gardiner and Nye, Wizard, pp. 5-7,23.
5. Ibid., pp. 20-22.
6. See Calton F. Culmsee, Malign Nature and the Frontier (Logan, Utah, 1959), VII, 5, 11, 14. The classic work in the field of symbolism in Western literature is Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Lane (New York, 1961), pp. 225-26, 261, 284-90.
7. Ibid., p. 287.
8. Russel B. Nye, Midwestern Progressive Politics (East Lansing, Mich., 1959). pp. 63, 56-58, 75, 105. See also John D. Hicks, The Populist Revolt (Minneapolish, 1931), pp. 82, 93-95, 264-68.
9. See Ray Ginger, Altgeld's America (New York, 1958).
10. GArdiner and Nye, Wizard, p. 29
11. See Williams Jennings Bryan, The First Battle (Lincoln, Neb., 1897), pp. 612-29. Two recent studies are notable: Harold U. Faulkner, Politics, REform and Expansion (New York, 1959), pp. 187-211 and Nye, Politics, pp. 105-20.
12. See Richard Hofstadter's shattering essay on Bryan in The American Political Tradition (New York, 1960), pp 186-205. Nye, Politics, pp. 121-22; Faulkner Reform, pp. 272-75.
13.Gardiner and Nye, Wizard, pp. 1, 30.
14. L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, pp. 11-13. All quotations cited in the text are from the inexpensive but accurate Dover paperback edition (New York, 1960).
15. Henry Nash Smith says of Garland's works in the 1890's, 'It has at last become possible to deal with the Western farmer in literature as a human being instead of seeing him through a veil of literary convention, class prejudice or social theory.' Virgin Land, p. 290.
16. Hicks declares that from the start 'The Alliance and Populist platforms championed boldly the cause of labor....' Revolt p. 324. See also Bryan's Labor Day speech, Battle, pp. 375-83.
17. Faulkner, Reform, pp. 142-43.
18. Richard Hofstadter (ed.), Great Issues in American History (New York, 1960), II, 147-53.
19. Bryan, Battle, pp 617-618, 'During the campaign I ran across various evidences of coercion, direct and indirect.' See Hicks, Revolt, p. 325, who notes that 'For some reason labor remained singularly unimpressed' by Bryan. Faulkner finds overt pressure as well, Reform, pp. 208-9.
20. Faulkner, Reform, pp. 257-58.
21. Professor Nye observes that during 1890 (while Baum was editing his Aberdeen weekly) the Nebraska Farmer's Alliance 'launched the wildest campaign in Nebraska history.' Politics, p. 64-65. Bryan was a Senator from Nebraska and it was in Omaha that the Populist party ratified its platform on July 4, 1892. Seen Henry Steele Comager (ed.), Documents of American History (New York, 1958). II, 143-46.
22. C. Vann Woodward, 'Our Past Isn't What It Used To Be,' The New York Times Book Review (July 28, 1963), p. 1; Hofstadter, Tradition
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 12:20:31 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: or that JFK's murder was a conspiracy... [nt]
Message:
ciao!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 14:30:17 (EDT)
From: BeenThereDoneThat
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Re: or that JFK's murder was a conspiracy...
Message:
After seeing the film Thirteen Days in October, and piecing together my husband's military career, as well as my parent's memories of that time frame (I was in grade school), we finally feel JFK's assination makes sense if viewed through the bruised ego's of US military top brass. JFK was gonna put those bad good ole boys outa business being friendly with them Russians, donchya know? We looked up all the players, what happened to their careers, etc. It's truly sickening. I used to hear Vietnam vets talk where I worked in the '70's about how they were forbidden to bomb certain areas because of Mrs. Ladybird Johnson's bazillion acres of plantations. Not to worry though..now we have schoolboy Prezeeedent Georgie to re-establish stupidity. So esteemed, Perfessor, is this JFK theory possible or do you think it was mafia inspired?

It really is a shame you don't teach anymore. The caliber of truly great teachers is dwindling. I get happy for my kids and their friends when they come across a college prof who is passionate, borderline crazed, about their field. The passion is contagious and learning takes place that is wonderful to watch. But, alas, I understand your point of view very well. I work with kids who have fallen through the cracks because of bad curriculum and it is a nightmare at times to deal with all the political/educational/circus crud. Always it is at the expense of the children. May I inquire if you have posted a journey or is that too personal?

The feeling of having a near nervous breakdown after discovering this site has subsided. I'm still discovering all the pieces for myself. I couldn't make sense out of the new video about knowledge info trainings. M seemded to contradict himself over and over and over. Even the actor guy, Michael Nori, a very talented individual, looked to me like he wasn't even buying it. Very uncomfortable.
Ya know, premies bash this site but they aren't offering any truth with any substance. This place is filled with people who are honest.
People like me recognize that here. Those that come spewing hate and venom are as scary here as they are in the premie world. It's that blind fanatacism (sp) that resemble shades of Nixonism-oops, make that Nazism. 'Follow the money, forget about the myth that surrounds the White House'= 'Ivory Rock.' A part time perfect master? Part time on stage then part time partying? How is that none of our business?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Aug 18, 2001 at 15:22:21 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: BeenThereDoneThat
Subject: prem-think = 'substance'-abuse
Message:
yeah, if one needs 'training' now [after decades of practice] to tell people about one's own inner experience and m., then the whole m. trip is revealing itself as a contrived control-trip hype -- the part that has to do with him. Your experience is whatever it is, and whatever you make of it -- yourself, independent of 'incultcated' concepts about himhimhim.

r.e. JFK assassination -- I think it was a mafia/fed. govt. covert operation. I spent a lot of time looking at records/documents/files, films, autopsy, backgrounds of people involved. what a tangled web -- officially sealed by LBJ from the American people. There is a very informative book on the subject: High Treason. [the writing is very poor quality, but the data and facts presented are compelling, to say the least!]

r.e. 'The feeling of having a near nervous breakdown after discovering this site has subsided. I'm still discovering all the pieces for myself.' yep, been there, done that, too!! still discovering all da pieces -- and peace Is...

Peace and lentils,

da lil' swami
j. suchabanana

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Sat, Jul 14, 2001 at 09:24:56 (BST)
From: Mr D
Email: sirdavid12@hotmail.com
To: Mr D
Subject: Or do they?
Message:
I dunno.



Copyright 1997 Paradise Web Enahancements


All Rights Reserved

Return to Index -:- Top of Index