The Lucky English

Barry, My Liege :

If the Scots were miserable in the latter part of the 18th Century, the English must have been better off.

They were, according to Wingfield-Stratford :


"...But when the war was over and the inflated prosperity of the farmer collapsed like a pricked bubble, though [war measures] may have provided the best temporary expedient for keeping land under the plough, easing the burden on the farmers and providing some sort of employment for the labourers, the plight of the countryside was catastrophe. The ratepayers, many of whom were themselves on the verge of destitution and who were , besides, crushed to the earth by enormous taxation, could not afford to be generous. Relief and wages combined were forced down to the bare pittance necessary to keep body and soul together, and this level was steadily depressed until the countryside of England, which had been not so long ago famed as the land of roast beef and plum pudding in scornful contrast with that of the 'skinny Frenchmen', was peopled by gaunt and half-starved wretches shirking about on Sundays - as Corbett puts it - "in ragged smock frocks with unshaven faces, with a shirt not washed for a month and with their toes peeping out of their shoes," droves of slaves, under arbitrary tyranny of their parish overseer, often harnessed, men and women together, to the parish cart. And yet the squires and big landowners were basking in the noontide of prosperity, trapping and transporting men to preserve pheasants, and spending long days on horseback in the pursuit of vermin."

This is what the Republicans will have for us, My Liege. It is the legacy of unfettered Free Market economics.

We pray you fight for us.

Your faithful servant.

Living With Classic Economic Policies

Barry, My Liege :

Here follows a somewhat personalized view of the effects of Classical Economic policies like those proposed by the Republican Party on real people including some of my ancestral family :

From THE HISTORY OF BRITISH CIVILIZATION, Esme Wingfield-Stratford, D Sc., M.A., Ex-Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London First Edition 1928, Second Edition, 1930, Reprinted 1932, 1933, 1938, 1942, 1945 and 1948, pp 886-887

LIFE IN THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS in the late 18th and early 19TH century.

'We can only glance, in passing, at the meanest and most shameful of all the rural oppressions of this time, the sense of which was not the English countryside, but the Highlands of Scotland. Under the influence of the Romantic movement, and particularly of Sir Walter Scott, there was much sentiment about clan loyalty, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and so forth. The kilt and tartan, which were now again legalized became symbolic of

"Old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago."

But the chieftains, whose functions as military leaders of the tribe had lapsed since the strong hand of Butcher Cumberland had brought the King's peace into their remotest fastness, were by no means sentimental where the main chance was concerned. Poor soil and primitive methods of cultivation might maintain a hardy population in contentment, but as a business proposition it would pay to get rid of the clansmen and turn the whole land into pasturage for sheep and cattle - only in the fullness of the Victorian era did the claims of pleasure demand the replacement of men by deer. Even before the "forty-five", evictions had started in the Isle of Skye, but it was towards the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth that practice became common of the chieftain turning on his tenants and driving them out of their homes, with every circumstance of brutality to shift for themselves or perish miserably. The first Duke of Sutherland, in the second decade of the century, gained an infamous pre-eminence by the wholesale eviction of his hapless people, who were forced out when their crops were standing, whose roofs, furniture, and even stock were burnt, some of whom were generously offered allotments on the barren sea-shore, without boats or the money to buy them - nay, a notice was posted on a church door threatening with eviction anyone giving shelter to those already evicted. The black list of robber and traitor chieftains then and subsequently includes such names as Campbell, Macdonald, Fraser, Cameron of Lochiel, Hamilton, Gordon, and many another whose tartan figures proudly at Highland gatherings to-day, as if the colours of Judas were an honorable distinction.'

Your faithful servant,

Merry Christmas, My Liege

Our very best wishes of the Season to Sasha, Malia, Michelle and you, My Liege.

It is a time to take a respite from the cares of our Nation and enjoy family time.

Those cares will resurface soon enough.

Perhaps the time and distance can give a perspective on your second term.

We here in the real world wish that you will try for greatness, My Liege.

Here is a quote from Deepak Chopra writing about the movie and the man Lincoln during the Civil War:

"The heel of history is hard on their necks. Their passions rise and fall with every turn of the war. Lincoln was different. He understood that he was the still point at the center, the one mind whose clarity and judgment must save the day - or it wouldn't be saved."

[http://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/view/977/is_obama_a_man_of_destiny?]

We pray you be that 'still point at the center' and save our Nation from its dangers.

For we have no place else to turn and you give us hope that your are up to the task.

Make no mistake, it is a very big task.

Know this, the bolder you move the more will we be with you.

Do not be small, My Liege. It is time to be big.

Your faithful servant,