The Roots of Reaganomics -- Sherwood Forest

“Working like a madman, he ripped the skin from the haunch of the dead beast, cut a slice of the warm flesh, and bolted it as a dog might have done. After that, he went at the carcass more carefully, cutting off the best of the meat and placing it in a pile on the snow, strip after strip of juicy venison. Then, with a cry that was more like a dog's bark, he started up, knife in hand, and faced the tall man whose shadow had fallen across him as he worked…”

“Put the knife down, Sebald,” said the tall man quietly.

“Robin – Robin of Locksley!” Sebald gasped. “Master, I was starved.”

“And like to be hanged,” said Robin of Locksley. “For this is death, Sebald, if a forester find one head of deer taken.”

“If I die of a rope, or of hunger, what difference is there? Sebald asked doggedly. “Look you, Master Robin, when this winter began I had a wife and two little ones. But because I feel ill, a thing no serf may do, Guy of Gisborne turned us out of our hut and gave our shelter to Walter the Bald. A serf who cannot work, said Guy, shall neither eat nor shelter on his lands, and they drove us out, the wife and the children with me, though the little ones were all unfit.”

“True,” said Robin, nodding. “Guy of Gisborne is a hard man, and cruel. But it is death to touch the deer, Sebald.”

“Death? What is death but a kindness?” Sebald asked. “For so my wife found it when the cold wrapped her round and she fell asleep, never to wake more in this world. So the child Freda found it, for a least she will hunger no more, and now only the boy Waltheof is left me, and he a-crying with bitter hunger. By the Rood, Master Robin, if I hang, I hang with a full belly, and the boy shall have one more good meal!”

There was a look of pity in Robin’s eyes. “Where is the boy?” he asked.

“There” – Sebald pointed along the way he had come – “in the hollow of a dead elm, wrapped in such rags as I could find him that he might not die of the cold.”
“Then you harbour in the forest?” Robin asked.
Sebald nodded. “Else I must go back to Guy of Gisborne, being his man,” he answered. “And to go backs means lashes on the back, and labour from morn to night, with more lashes at the end of it, since I am all unhandy and slow, and so they call me the dolt, Master Robin. I tell you” – his voice rose to sudden fierceness – “there is no justice…”

from The Adventures of Robin Hood
by E. Charles Vivan

More on Robin Hood.

L'homme à la houe

The Man With The Hoe



Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this--
More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--
More filled with signs and portents for the soul--
More packed with danger to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
A protest that is also prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
With those who shaped him to the thing he is--
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?

In 1899 an American schoolteacher, Charles Edward Anson Markham (1852-1940), who used the penname Edwin Markham, was inspired by an 1863 painting to write a poem. The painting was "L'homme à la houe" by the French artist, Jean-François Millet (1814-1875); the poem was "The Man with a Hoe".

The poem quickly became as famous as the painting. Both continue to be moving testimonies to what the too prevalent inhumanity of humanity can cause.

The Sound Of Trickle...

"Trickle down creates and thrives on war. War profits do not trickle down they land on the workers drip by drip, but inflation keeps them at the faucet trying to survive. Those of us who call ourselves "peace people" do what we can issue by issue. We try, but only if we can cut off the serpent’s head will real peace arrive. The serpent is greed and it feeds at the trough of Trickle down Economics."

David Truskoff


"If a baseball player slides into home plate and, right before the umpire rules if he is safe or out, the player says to the umpire — 'Here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. If a lawyer was arguing a case before a judge and said, 'Your honor before you decide on the guilt or innocence of my client, here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. But if an industry lobbyist walks into the office of a key legislator and hands her or him a check for $1,000, we call that a campaign contribution. We should call it a bribe."

Janice Fine
Dollars and Sense magazine

No Room For Monkey Business

"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path."

Ronald Reagan
Reason Magazine July 1975

Consider The Source...

"I have said publicly, and I will again, that unless he proves me wrong, he is a Marxist."

Tom DeLay

"...Now in the dialogue of American politics, there are few classic—and loaded—charges. "Appeaser" is one. "Isolationist" is another. And "Marxist" would have to be right up there with those two. I think to call someone a Marxist, you have to provide some evidence that he 1) believes capitalism is based on exploitation and 2) is calling for a worker's revolution.

DeLay didn't provide any evidence of either, probably because that is not an accurate reflection of Obama's views, which seem to be well within the mainstream of Democratic policy for the past quarter century. And his biggest policy idea, a cap-and-trade system to reduce climate emissions, is not noticeably different than the plan offered by John McCain. And certainly all those Wall Street folks sending him money don't think Obama's a Marxist.

Such campaign season silliness aside, it is certainly true that Obama has chosen to pursue government solutions rather than market solutions to problems such as possible climate change, healthcare, Social Security solvency, income inequality, the trade deficit, and education. Compare those views with those of Bill Clinton, who cut capital gains taxes, pushed free trade, and floated the idea of having the government invest Social Security dough in the stock market..."

James Petokoukis

Read more @US News & World Report.

...and even more.

On The Borderline Baloney Sighting

A current post by Chris @ ontheborderline -- Drowning in water bill -- too. -- points out that the New Richmond Municipal Water Utility has filed for a rate increase with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.

Chris points out that Jeff Holmquist -- the editor of the New Richmond News -- doesn’t have to worry. Not only does he not live in New Richmond he doesn’t have to pay their water bills either, kind of like the $93,000,000 Million dollar boondoggle him and his paper pushed.

Chris fails to mention that he also doesn't have to worry about higher water bills, because he also doesn't live in New Richmond. From some of the lies and slander posted at the On The borderline site, it is evident the Chris might have a nose long enough to reach for Hudson to New Richmond.

Liberal, Liberal, Liberal On The Label, Label, Label

"Unable to win by labeling Democrats ''liberals,'' Republicans don't know what to do. Labeling worked before. Why isn't it working now? The answer is that it only works in combination with superior ideas, which you then contrast to those of your ''liberal'' opponent. You can't do that credibly unless you have embraced those ideas and sought to implement them. Republicans traded in their ideas in favor of gaining and keeping power as their sole objective. The party wants credit for giving lip service to its abandoned ideology while it practices cave-in politics.

John McCain has promised to bring Democrats into his Cabinet and work with Democrats in Congress. Does that mean ideas don't matter? Does it mean that when Democrats disagree with him he will embrace their ideas just to get along? If so, why should voters vote Republican? They might as well vote for Democrats and get their liberalism straight-up.

Which of the principles articulated by Ronald Reagan, and the conservative revolution he led, does the GOP believe has failed? Lower taxes? Reduced spending and smaller government? Self-reliance? Strong defense? Defeating our enemies so they will fear and respect us, instead of appeasing them in hopes that they might like us? If such principles remain valid, why don't more Republicans articulate them?"

Cal Thomas
Read more.