Posted on 06/01/2009 7:39:58 PM PDT by C19fan
A corrupt parliament; an unprincipled government; an economy sinking under a mountain of debt - and a people enraged. Not a bad description of Britain in 2009.
Also not a bad description of Britain nearly two centuries ago, in the dismal decade of distress and discontent that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, we've been in this mess before. The question is: How did we get out of it? And can we do it again?
In his Rural Rides, which he began writing in 1822 and published in 1830, the radical journalist William Cobbett portrayed a country groaning under the twin burdens of debt and sleaze.
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(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
1: The Victorians, using the term loosely since Queen Victoria would not be coronated until 1837, considered it shameful an able bodied person would go on the dole. Unfortunately that ethic has been lost a long time ago and the TOTUS is committed to making the rest of us wards of the state.
2: Whole generations on both sides of the Atlantic have grown accoustomed to gov't handouts and subsidies whether the Midwest corn farmer, porkulous, etc. Cobbett was one of the leaders of the Corn League who wanted to end the British trade barriers to importation of food stuffs that was benefiting the landed gentry and aristocrats. I do not see any mass movement to end the whole range of gov't subsidies and special tax breaks on both sides of the Atlantic. Duing Gladstone's time gov't spending as a % of GDP has been estimated at around 10% compared to 50% in the UK today. It is such a struggle to keep the share of gov't from growing let alone actual cuts in gov't spending.
Niall pins his hopes on people such as this guy:
“Cameron may be a committed opponent of European federalism, but he is also - like many younger voters - distinctly green on the issue of climate change.”
Yup, his savior is just another big govt jerk using “climate change” to sucker the ignorant electorate (including Niall).
He did get one thing right: This is going to be ugly...
As Saul Bellow’s character Artur Sammler observed, humanity is unaccustomed to freedom, and does not handle it well. Although we have abolished the “dark satanic mills” of the Victorian age, we have merely replaced them with the “light satanic mills” of no-brow consumer culture.
During the Napoleanic war(s) there was a great movement towards ‘enclosing’ the commons, turning thousands of independent tenants into oft-unemployed laborers.
Instead of having a garden, a cow, and land enough to feed it on, the only money to be made was by working the enclosed land for low wages, if you were lucky enough to be chosen for the job.
Elite lefties refuse to learn.
Want to be enraged?? According to an article in USA Today, in the past year Congressional spending has increased each American family’s share of the national debt by 12%. That equates to an increase per household of $55,000 for a TOTAL DEBT per household of (I hope you’re sitting down!) $546,668!!
Let Congress hear you roar!!!
Yes, I think you are right about that. It will be ugly. In other words we are still in the crescendo.
The article uses the word crescendo, but in the wrong sense: "In America, by sheer good luck, a charismatic new President was elected just as the financial crisis reached a crescendo." A crescendo is a gradual increase in volume, intensity, or force. A crescendo will at some point reach a peak, but the peak is not the crescendo. The gradual increase over time is the crescendo. So we are still in the crescendo of this financial mess. This crescendo is increasing in intensity. And it will get very ugly before the peak of the crescendo is reached.
Paul Johnson has an excellent chapter on the boom and bust of the 1820s, entitled; ‘Crash’ in his book, “The Birth of the Modern, World Society 1815-1830”. I would also highly recommend “Modern Times” , “Intellectuals” and his histories of Christianity, the Jews and art.
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