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General discussion

late i know, but you have to admit, it's different :-)

Nov 29, 2003 11:30PM PST

In 1620 the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock with its intrepid band, and supplies and provisions for the first winter. These Pilgrims were of the working poor, ready and able to turn their hands to labor. They had carpenters, masons, joiners, bakers, farmers, chandlers, boatsmen, fishers, hunters, and other useful types. They knew enough physick to stay healthy. Brewster could preach, Standish drill and shoot, Bradford write and govern, John Alden speak. The women could cook and sew and wash and harvest and peel and all those workwomanlike things. All stood as one in faith and purpose, giving mutual aid, but owning and trading goods too, knowing the arts of bargaining, the power of self-interest and the usages of the market. They never ate the seed corn, but consumed little, storing up capital to make tools and provision their winters. By Christian humility and fair dealing they made friends of the neighbors, and wasted little on vain warfare.

Yet all their hard work and frugality and mutual aid and shrewd trading availed them nought, God did not prosper their ventures. Poverty and distress prevailed; crops withered; timbers rotted; stores spoiled; women sued for divorce; discontent ran riot. The Elders pondered.

As luck would have it, one bachelor had packed along a book on Political Economy for the lonely evenings. Studying one night he suddenly cried "Eureka! Political Economy will save us!"

http://www.progress.org/thanksgi.htm

Discussion is locked

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Re:late or not I loved it. Just one question.
Nov 29, 2003 11:41PM PST

How is it you are so familiar with the trials and tribulations of the USA? Happy

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Just one answer...
Nov 29, 2003 11:49PM PST
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Re: NO KIDDING :-) (NT)
Nov 30, 2003 12:28AM PST

.

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NT Eds' answer too ;-)
Nov 30, 2003 12:54AM PST

.

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Re:sort of an answer
Nov 30, 2003 12:15AM PST

ummmmmmmm

i guess things interest me, i'm the guy who picks up a dictionary and will forget what he was looking for because he got sidetracked into something not even remotely related to the original subject....

why specifically the US?
ever since reading Steinbeck, Kerouac, Whitman, Hemingway, Sinclair and Fenimore Cooper i guess

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Re: Thanks Jonah, I was just curious (NT)
Nov 30, 2003 12:29AM PST

.