Wizard of Oz Redux by SJ.com ... for IJAG

A lot of people don't know the YBR was the original Brickyard.

 

If you don't watch the Wizard of Oz, the terrorists win.

 

Peyote

 

This far and no one has mentioned that the entire plot of the Wizard of Oz was a political parable? The Yellow Brick Road was the gold standard and I forget a bunch more...

You can learn all about it at L. Frank Baum Storybook Land in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

 

You and your wacky leftist fantasies, Zeke.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz

 

Political parable? Bullshit.
It was just a trip...somehow some little girl on a farm in Kansas in 1939 got her hands on some good hallucinogens

 

Hey, the Free Silver movement was hot, hot stuff...

From the wiki article:

U.S. monetary policy references

From 1880 to 1896, the price level in the U.S. economy fell by 23% (deflation). Most farmers of the west during that time were debtors, making their interest owed to the banks worth more than expected due to the deflation. According to the Populists' beliefs of the time, the solution to the farmers' problem was free coinage of silver (the U.S. was operating under a gold standard at that time). Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan supported the free silver requisition, summarized in his Cross of Gold speech. However, Republican William McKinley won the presidency and the gold standard remained.

Historian Hugh Rockoff interprets the story of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in the Journal of Political Economy:

Dorothy: traditional American values
Toto: Prohibitionist party (also called Teetotalers)
Scarecrow: western farmers
Tin Woodsman: industrial workers
Cowardly Lion: William Jennings Bryan
Munchkins: citizens of the East
The Lollipop Guild: child labor
Wicked Witch of the East: Eastern business and financial interests, Grover Cleveland
Wicked Witch of the West: William McKinley
Wizard: Mark Hanna (chairman of the Republican party)
Oz: abbreviation for ounce of gold
Yellow Brick Road: gold standard
Cyclone: the free silver movement
Emerald City: Washington D.C.
Emerald Palace: the White House
Silver Slippers: the free coinage of silver

At the end of the story, Dorothy finds her way home, but it is not by just following the Yellow Brick Road. After her journey, Dorothy finds that the Wizard is incapable of helping her or her friends. In the end, she finds that the magical powers of her silver slippers help her. Since the silver slippers are the vote, she realizes that she had the power to fix the problems all along.

It should be noted, however, that the historian David Parker, in an article referenced in this article, cites evidence that Baum was in fact an 1896 McKinley supporter who opposed "silverism" as undermining business confidence and believed that the answer to America's economic problems lay in the Republican policy of "sound money" and protective tariffs.

 

I was really disappointed that this wasn't Wizard Of Oz with SJ personalities.

I lightened up when I saw all the drug references.

 

When I saw this thread title I figured it was one of your works Bubbler similar to what you did with Hoosiers. I was disappointed to find out it wasn't.

 

Is that your way of auditioning for the Scarecrow part, Bubs?

 

yeaaah, me neither.