Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's Stories
June 26 / 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
June 25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush
Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| Weekend
Edition
June 26 / 27, 2004
L. Frank
Baum: Racist
Indian-Hating
in "The Wizard of Oz"
By
THOMAS ST. JOHN
Lyman
Frank Baum (1856-1919) advocated the extermination of the American Indian
in his 1899 fantasy "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Baum was
an Irish nationalist newspaper editor, a former resident of Aberdeen
in the old Dakota Indian territory. His sympathies with the village
pioneers caused him to invent the Oz fantasy to justify extermination.
All of Baum's "innocent" symbols clearly represent easily
recognizable frontier landmarks, political realities, and peoples. These
symbols were presented to frontier children, to prepare them for their
racially violent future.
The
Yellow Brick Road represents the yellow brick gold at the end of the
Bozeman Road to the Montana gold fields. Chief Red Cloud had forced
the razing of several posts, including Fort Phil Kearney, and had forced
the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty. When George Armstrong Custer
cut "the Thieves' Road" during his 1874 gold expedition invasion
of the sacred Black Hills, he violated this treaty, and turned U.S.
foreign policy toward the Little Big Horn and the Wounded Knee massacre.
The
Winged Monkeys are the Irish Baum's satire on the old Northwest Mounted
Police, who were modelled on the Irish Constabulary. The scarlet tunic
of the Mounties, and the distinctive "pillbox" forage cap
with the narrow visor and strap are seen clearly in the color plate
in the 1900 first edition of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz".
Villagers across the Dakota territory heartily despised these British
police, especially after 1877, when Sitting Bull retreated across the
border and into their protection after killing Custer.
The
Shifting Sands, the Deadly Desert, the Great Sandy Waste, and the Impassable
Desert are Frank Baum's reference to that area of the froniter known
always as "the great American desert", west and south of the
Great Lakes. Baum creates these fictional, barren areas as protective
buffers for his Oz utopia, against hostile, foreign people. This "buffer
state" practice had been part of U.S. foreign policy against the
Indians, since the earliest colonial days.
The
Emerald City of Oz recreates the Irish nationalist's vision of the Emerald
Isle, the sacred land, Ireland, set in this American desert like the
sacred Paha Sapa of the Lakota people, these mineral-rich Black Hills
floored by coal. Irish settlements in the territories, in Kansas, Nebraska,
and Minnesota--at Brule City, Limerick, at Lalla Rookh, and at O'Neill
two hundred miles south of Aberdeen--founded invasions of the Black
Hills.
The
Yellow Winkies, slaves, are Frank Baum's symbol for the sizable Chinese
population in the old West, emigrated for the Union-Pacific railroad,
creatures with the slant or winking eyes.
The
Deadly Poppy Field is the innocent child's first sight of opium, that
anodyne of choice for pain in the nineteenth century, sold in patent
medicines, in the Wizard Oil, at the travelling Indian medicine shows.
Baum's deadly poppies are the poison opium, causing sleep and the fatal
dream.
The
Wicked Witch of the West is illustrated in the 1900 first edition as
a pickaninny, with beribboned, braided pigtails extended comically.
Baum repeats the word "brown" in describing her. But this
symbol's real historic depth lies in the earlier Puritans' confounding
of European witches with the equally heathen American Indians.
The
orphan Dorothy's violent removal from Kansas civilization, her search
for secret and magical cures for her friends, her capture, enslavement
to an evil figure--and the killing of this figure that is forced on
her--all these themes Baum takes from the already two hundred year old
tradition of the Indian captivity narrative which stoked the fires of
Indian-hating and its hope of "redemption through violence".
In
the year immediately following the huge success of The Wonderful Wizard
of Oz, Baum wrote a fantasy entitled The Life and Adventures of Santa
Claus. It is apparent that his frontier experiences were still on his
mind. The book was illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark--tomahawks, spears,
the hide- covered teepees, and the faces of Indian men, women, and children,
and papooses fill the pages and the margins. Baum describes the "rude
tent of skins on a broad plain".
Two
crucial chapters are titled "The Wickedness of the Awgwas"
and "The Great Battle Between Good and Evil". The Awgwas represent
native Americans: "that terrible race of creatures" and "the
wicked tribe". Baum condemns the Awgwas:
"You
are a transient race, passing from life into nothingness. We, who
live forever, pity but despise you. On earth you are scorned by all,
and in Heaven you have no place! Even the mortals, after their earth
life, enter another existence for all time, and so are your superiors.".
Predictably
enough, a few pages later, "all that remained of the wicked Awgwas
was a great number of earthen hillocks dotting the plain." Baum
is recalling newspaper photos of the burial field at Wounded Knee.
The
Wizard of Oz in 1899 ruling his empire from behind his Barrier of Invisibility
evokes the 1869 Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Empire of the South,
the Ku Klux Klan. Baum's figure King Crow and his by-play with the Scarecrow
relate to the Jim Crow lynch law at the turn of the century.
Lyman
Frank Baum's overwhelmingly popular fantasy, and the more violent aspects
of United States foreign policy, were welded togehter in the American
mind for the next century and beyond.
Frank Baum's widow, at the Hollywood premiere of "The Wizard of
Oz" in 1939, complained that the story had been sentimentalized.
Indeed, the old and crudely direct political symbols had been removed,
and the sweetness poured in--the new U.S. foreign policy demanded more
subtle justifications.
"Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.".
Thomas
St. John graduated from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey,
and lived in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the author of
"Forgotten Dreams: Ritual in American Popular Art" (New York:
The Vantage Press, 1987), a collection of essays on Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The House of the Seven Gables, Reverend Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God", the black history driving the films
"Casablanca" and the cartoon "The Three Little Pigs",
and the Dakota Indian territory symbols in "The Wonderful Wizard
of Oz". The short book "Nathaniel
Hawthorne: Studies in the House of the Seven Gables" is now
almost complete and online. He can be reached at: seekingthephoenix@yahoo.com
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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