Last weekend, my husband and I were searching for something to rent from Blockbuster and discovered that every single plot has been done. There are no new plots. Then my husband saw “Bobby,” so even though I knew it wouldn’t be uplifting, we decided to rent it. My husband didn’t know what to expect, just like I, embarassing as it is to admit, know even less about British politics and history. (Except the part where we threw away their tea in the start of the “War of American Rebellion” as someone close to me has been known to call it.)

The movie was okay. It was a story about fictional characters who are shot in the Ambassador hotel (demolished in 2006) the night Robert Kennedy was shot. Only the ending of the movie had anything to do with Bobby, as the soundtrack from his speech, “Of Mindless Menace and Violence” plays over the remaining scenes. To me, the speech is heart-breaking and I can never hear it without getting upset and wondering what would our country, and our world be like today if he, as well as King, hadn’t been killed?

Here’s a portion of Kennedy’s speech, “Of Mindless Menace and Violence,” so much of it relevant today.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Dare we have the audacity to hope? Can we return to a nation with higher ideals and integrity?

We desire something greater than large sums in corporate bank accounts. We crave a return to harmony, a national dialogue that brings us toward each other instead of the constant barage of divisiveness that drives wedges between us, a national dialogue that reminds us to find our commonality and remember our collective responsibility to one another. We need a president who elevates us to something greater than a constant search to fulfill our own individual selfish wants, but to find our deeper purpose and helps us to exercise our capacity for more noble motives, which include concern for the well-being of the majority instead of an interest in the grand profits of a select few.

Mostly we crave a return to a respect for diversity, where we have respect for the ideals of our founding fathers who designed our political system so that private matters, such as religion, remain in private spheres where they belong. Instead of trying to force everyone to adopt the same religion, all the while claiming that we’re not, wouldn’t it be great if we could return to a time when we’re proud that people with different cultures, ethnicities, and religions can live in harmony, not secretly hoping that we were all the same, but loving the fact that we’re not, learning as much as we can from each other, about each other, and about ourselves. Instead of hiding in corners where we never have to think about our own beliefs and values, what if we sought to have a circle of diversity so that we might gain complete inner clarity, come to the best solution when confronted with a decision, and become skilled and careful thinkers? Wouldn’t it be nice if we and our neighbors were less easily seduced by rhetoric, but were more interested in facts and truth? Wouldn’t that be a great country to live in?

You can find the audio of Kennedy’s speech [1] here, and more speeches [2] here. Won’t it be refreshing when [3] our next president has a command of his native language and has greater ideals than making his wealthy cronies even wealthier.

Incidentally, if you ever have a chance to watch any of the [4] American Experience Series, The Presidents, they are phenomenal!