Skip to main content

When Fiction Becomes Reality

The Affordable Care Act, which the Tea Party Republicans named ObamaCare, is law, is so popular that at its opening last week it overwhelmed the system with some 8 million people looking for coverage. It had some glitches but is up and running. The glitches are fewer. The program is doing well. More and more are signing up and the people signing up seem pleased.

Meanwhile, the Republican Tea Party, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, remains puzzled and disoriented and delirious and berserk and weird and infantile and enraged because the frame-up is not working, the blackmail has fallen apart, and the swaggering bullying is no longer a scare tactic the Democrats pay any attention to.

This brings to mind Captain Ahab’s dictum in “Moby Dick”—“I don’t give reasons. I give orders!” The perfect cry of the Tea Party Republican leaders.

Mr. Cruz, why do you keep fighting ObamaCare? “I don’t give reasons. I give orders!”

Mr. Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, why won’t you get your Republican caucus to end this shutdown that is hurting so many Americans and pass a continuing resolution without any demands? “I don’t give reasons. I give orders!”

Mr. Minority Leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, why don’t you get your fellow Republicans in the Senate and the House who keep endlessly trying to shame and defeat President Obama with these irresponsible tactics, why don’t you get them to act more reasonable and intelligent and statesmanlike and cooperate? “I don’t give reasons. I give orders!”

And so it goes. Captain Ahab, a maniacal man obsessed with revenge, channels these Republican leaders as they keep trying to bring down Moby ObamaCare Dick with their ineffective harpoons and their little boat of miscreant House and Senate followers.

They have tied themselves to the thing with such ferocious anger that it is now in danger of taking them under with their knotted ropes and broken spears and flailing sailors flapping in the wind.

It is an old story of stubborn ego and brute retaliation unwilling to listen to reason as it lashes about hurting everyone around it.

Captain Ahab, with all of his bluster and anger, did not end well, while Moby Dick sailed off to live another day.

True story. Well, true enough, to be a good warning.


© 2013 Timothy Moody

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Actions Make a Difference

“We make progress in society only if we stop cursing and complaining about its shortcomings and have the courage to do something about them.” ~ Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Physician/Author Pictured here is Kikuko Shinjo, 89 years old, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast. As a 17-year old nursing student she helped nurse victims of the carnage back to health. Many of them died in her care. She says she holds no grudge against America and encourages interaction between the Japanese and Americans. She has devoted her life to peace, saying, “I want all the people around the world to be friends, and I want to make my country peaceful without fighting.” Today she makes colorful paper cranes and donates them to the Children’s Peace Monument at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
Post a Comment
Read more

I Saw the Delicacy of Life

I was flying Across the deep And I saw the delicacy Of life Wrinkles on the faces Of the old So pure they glistened Like awards The joy of children Running with abandon Their laughter ringing Like chimes in the wind I saw the soft moving waves Across the sea And the trees releasing Their rainbow leaves Birds joined me on my flight And I saw the surface of their wings Adorned with patterns Glorious and unfurled I saw the tears of the sad And the smiles of the glad The suffering in mourning And the celebration of birth As I descended toward the ground Slowly, slowly, softly I saw the gentle grass of the field And smelled the fresh earth It was a perfect landing © 2018 Timothy Moody
Post a Comment
Read more

A Losing Strategy

OPINION PAGE (c) 2024 Timothy Moody   The Republican strategy to mock and judge others has passed into some form of insatiable, all-devouring nastiness. It is so poisonous and contemptuous that it is now just evil.  Republican Governor of Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders, suggested to a crowd of Trump supporters Tuesday night that Kamala Harris can't be humble because she doesn't have any children of her own.  When will Americans decide they don't want government leaders who are so arrogantly insensitive, as Sanders was, that they offend everyone?  This crude, villainous rhetoric transcends political partisanship. It’s evil, dangerous, and insulting.  The poet Ezra Pound’s brief lines are appropriate here, “Pull down your vanity, How mean your hates” To suggest that someone cannot be humble because they don't have children is not just a cheap political comment. It's an attack on a person’s humanity and worth.  And that is now, and has been fo...
Post a Comment
Read more