Great quote from Moby Dick, reminded me of globalization, immigration:

[1932]

"In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without
a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers."

Capital can cross borders freely. Large corporations can send their ships all over the world and take from the powerless so that they concentrate their own wealth and power. Whereas, the exploited and poor are criminalized if they try to reset the imbalance by following those ships back to their home ports and don't have the proper documents.

[ulysses]

1. yup.

I wonder how many on DU who support greater attempts at border enforcement and roundups of illegal workers thought or think NAFTA was nifty because Clinton supported it.

[benburch]

2. FAR too many!

Open Borders NOW!

Open Citizenship NOW!

Do those and the Democratic Party will never lose another election!

[ulysses]

3. that's what kills me

I guess "job snatchers" are more easily understood and villified when they're poor laborers than when they're wealthy economy wonks.

[xchrom]

9. ding! ding! ding!

bring back manufacturing and keep jobs here instead of in china.

[benburch]

10. Protective import duties!

And move the tax burden to the rich.

[xchrom]

11. yup -- sounds good to me.

[LouisianaLiberal]

4. Great quote. Thanks.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Wow! What a simple and enlightening way to put it!!!

:thumbsup:

[screembloodymurder]

6. The great American novel

also had a prediction.

"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."
"BLOODY WAR IN AFGHANISTAN."

I read this shortly after 911 and saw the image of an airplane being tossed like a harpoon through the WTC. I did not know who Ishmael was and when I searched the name I got a pop-up with the following message: Mankind has but two choices, reconciliation between the houses of Isaac and Ishmael or utter destruction.

[1932]

7. Melville could be the 21st century's American Nostradamus.

Actually, he could see where the path of empire and constantinian christianity (as Cornel West calls it) was leading when we were just beginning to embark upon it in the middle of the 19th century. It's no surprise that, with the governments that we've had over the last 100 years (plus change) -- governments which haven't heeded Melville's warnings -- we have bloody war in Afghanistan again today and grand contested elections, and that so many Ishmaels, in their voyages through life, learn of the "blackness of darkness" and the devestation that results from imperialist nihilism (again, as West says).

[tishaLA]

8. on that same topic,

the chapter The Doubloon is simple and elegant. It ends...

"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all one fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha! ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious gold!- the green miser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!"

[Ms. Clio]

12. He also wrote about the "Metaphysics of Indian Hating"

In Melville's version, Colonel John Moredock, frontiersman and Indian-hater, was "the son of a woman married thrice, and thrice widowed by a tomahawk." As a widow with nine children, she joined a company moving to the new country of Illinois. Her party was ambushed by a band of 20 Indians, "renegades from various tribes, outlaws even among Indians." The widow and her children were killed, except for John who was 50 miles away, following with a second party.

Moredock tracked the Indians for a couple of years, and one night he and his men killed 17 of them. Three escaped, but Moredock tracked them down over the next 3 years, and killed them. Melville says: "But this did not suffice. He made no avowal, but to kill Indians had become his passion. As an athlete, he had few equals; as a shot, none; in single combat, not to be beaten. ..... The solitary Indian that met him, died. ..... Many years he spent thus; and after a time he was, in a degree, restored to the ordinary life of the region and period, yet it is believed that John Moredock never let pass an opportunity of quenching an Indian."

But, says Melville's narrator in the novel, speaking of Moredock's passion: "It were to err to suppose that this gentleman was naturally ferocious, or peculiarly possessed of those qualities, which, unhelped by provocation of events, tend to withdraw man from social life. On the contrary, Moredock was an example of something apparently self-contradicting, certainly curious, but, at the same time, undeniable: namely, that nearly all Indian-haters have at bottom loving hearts; at any rate, hearts, if anything, more generous than average. Certain it is, that, to the degree in which he mingled in the life of the settlements, Moredock shoed himself not without humane feelings. No cold husband or colder father, he; and, though often and long away from his household, bore its needs in mind, and provided for them. He could be vary concicial, told a good story (though never of his more private exploits), and sang a capital song. ..... "

[1932]

14. Sounds like The Searchers...

...and not just to me.

http://gfisher.org/ch_2__overkill.htm

[Ms. Clio]

17. It also reminds me of the movie Jeremiah Johnson

based on a real person called John "Liver-Eating" Johnson.

[1932]

15. Great Melville quote about Indian hating, from college paper I found:

In a review of Francis Parkman's "The California and Oregon Trail," written in 1846, Melville takes note of Parkman's hatred of the Indian:

"...when in the body of the book we are informed that is difficult for any white man, after a domestication among the Indians, to hold them much better than brutes; we are told too, that to such a person, the slaughter of an Indian is indifferent as the slaughter of a buffalo; with all deference, we beg leave to dissent."

And what is the dissent based on?

It is based on our belonging to one race, the human race. Melville says, "We are all of us--Anglo-Saxons, Dyaks and Indians--sprung from one head and made in one image. And if we reject this brotherhood now, we shall be forced to join hands hereafter."

Brilliant man. This was 1846!

http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/confidence_man.htm

[Ms. Clio]

18. What a great find

I am bookmarking that, thanks!

[saltpoint]

13. Thank you, 1932, for putting that quotation from Melville in front of

us this evening.

Very effective, and terrific lyrical writing, too.

A nice treat. Thanks.

[1932]

16. My pleasure. Thanks for reading & commenting!

Gracias.