It is stunning how similar the Democrats quest for real health care reform is to the obsession of Capt. Ahab in the great epic novel Moby Dick.
With apologies to Herman Melville.
I have edited the words in the below quotes to better reflect today's epic struggle. I retained the original quote by placing Melville's words within the brackets.
"Call me Obama [Ishmael]."
"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league.... Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow -- Death to the health care industry [Moby Dick]! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt the health care industry [Moby Dick] to it's [his] death!" --Chapter 36 (The Quarter-Deck)
"A noble party (the Democrats)[craft], but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that."
"Ignorance is the parent of fear . . ." (No alteration necessary.)
"Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, lobbyists [sharks] will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them . . ."
"No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless Corpocracy [ocean] overruns the globe."
"Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence." (No alteration necessary.)
". . . these are the times (when the health care industry was "cooperating" with President Obama) of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang."
(Spoken by Sen. Baucus regarding the death of the public option) "This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders."
"Our votes [souls] are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it."
http://www.litquotes.com/...
"How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay Congress and the health care industry [I and Queequeg] —a cosy, loving pair."
"Keith Olbermann [He] piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it."
In honor of Ted Kennedy's life long fight against the industy:
"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering industry [whale]; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"
http://classiclit.about.com/...