Lynn Swearingen (c) copyright 2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Recession has been over for 14 months, Housing Starts are up 10.5% in August, and all around everything is just “less bad”. Of course the President has relayed this information to us on the same day that he attempted to pay $1 for 4 apples in a Philadelphia Farmers Market.
If ever there was a more fitting example of the return to the Landowner/Serf relationship as in the above NPR article, I’d like to see it.
Obama bought four apples, but only gave the vendor $1 which probably didn’t matter to the vendor. Four apples is a pretty cheap price to pay for a souvenir of a presidential visit like a dollar bill that had lived for a while in the presidential pocket.
But you can barely get an apple for a buck these days, depending on the variety and size, let alone four.
Fortunately, Reggie Love, Obama’s aide and “body man” whose role is to step in at such times, asked the vendor if more was needed, then handed over more change the vendor could believe in.
One can be sure that the vendor was thinking “Oh to be able to own the gold from my lords pocket is privilege enough for my lowly apples!” And as the lord’s Knight approached the grateful serf to bestow upon him the remainder of the value of his goods, Mr. Vendor wept with joy at the largesse of his owner lord.
As Joel T. Rosenthal writes in The World Book Encyclopedia:
“Although they (serfs) lost their independence, having the protection of a powerful lord was more important to them.”
No matter how many times Mr. Obama stresses he does not want to “go back” to “business as usual”, looks like old tymes shall return again.
[...] insane, but what can one expect from a group of out of touch legislators whose boss attempted to pay $1 for 4 apples and had to have his “body man” settle the [...]
“Obama paid with tender of debt. What does that equate?”
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Either he sees himself as the debt provider or those of us lessor are “slaves” …
Thank you not only for the History Lesson, but for the research as well.
feudalism (fyood- l-iz- m). 1. A landholding system, particularly applying to medieval Europe, in which all are bound by their status in a hierarchy of reciprocal obligations of service and defense. • The lord was obligated to give the vassal (1) some land, (2) protection, and (3) justice. The lord guaranteed the quiet occupation of the land by the vassal and guaranteed to do right if the vassal became involved in a dispute. In return, the vassal owed the lord some type of service, called “tenure” (literally “means of holding”), because the different types of service were the methods by which the vassals held the property. 2. The social, political, and economic system of medieval Europe. — Also termed feudal system; feodal system. — feudalistic, adj.
Quote
“What do we mean by feudalism? Some such answer as the following is the best that I can give — A state of society in which the main social bond is the relation between lord and man, a relation implying on the lord’s part protection and defence; on the man’s part protection, service and reverence, the service including service in arms. This personal relation is inseparably involved in a proprietary relation, the tenure of land — the man holds land of the lord, the man’s service is a burden on the land, the lord has important rights in the land, and (we may say) the full ownership of the land is split up between man and lord.” F.W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England 143 (1908; repr. 1955).
Quote
“Modern historical research has taught us that, while it is a mistake to speak of a feudal system, the word ‘feudalism’ is a convenient way of referring to certain fundamental similarities which, in spite of large local variations, can be discerned in the social development of all the peoples of western Europe from about the ninth to the thirteenth centuries.” J.L. Brierly, The Law of Nations 2 (5th ed. 1955).
Cite as: BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 655 (8th ed. 2004)
Gold is the currency of Kings, silver of nobleman, barter of the working class and debt the currency of slaves. Obama paid with tender of debt. What does that equate?