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 here, and more speeches here. Won’t it be refreshing when 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 American Experience Series, The Presidents, they are phenomenal!

I totally plagiarized that from Megacritic.com, but if I had used quotation marks, you would have known it was a quote. So I omitted them, just to give you a little mystery. While that is a very well constructed sentence, and overall I like it, I wouldn’t call the movie “ferociously” compelling and find that an extremely odd word choice to describe a movie. “The Orioles had ferociously bad pitching” — now that’s a proper usage of “ferocious.”

Anyway, it was a pretty interesting movie. The ending had a narrative that went something like, “Everyone is chasing something. You just have to look at what you’re willing to give up to get it. We’re never happy enough with what we have.” That’s not a verbatim quote, but that was the sentiment. In searching online for direct quotes to improve the quality of this review, I discovered that most people seemed to have rated the dialogue, and I think the movie as well, pretty low. Oh well. Told you I wasn’t a movie critic.

In short, I see my purpose here as to bore you.

Saturday night, at what we affectionately call “the movie hour,” my husband, always on top of having a fresh movie for us to watch, started the DVD player. “What’s this one?” I asked. “It’s about Pirates” he replied. I thought, “Huh, a historical kind of movie. Doesn’t sound bad. Glad it’s not ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’” As it turned out, it was Pirates of the Carribbean, the Third. Sigh. I’d blame the movie for being a bit convoluted but I wasn’t really that interested, so I may be partly at fault for not paying closer attention. My husband thought it was confusing too though, so maybe it wasn’t me. It fits into the “Die Hard” category of, “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” It wasn’t bad, like “Saw” bad, or “Paris, Texas” bad, just, you know, boring. The husband says it had “good effects” but due to not being able to follow the story, it gets one thumb. That’s a collective total of 1.5 thumbs.

We also watched “Stardust.” It fits into the category of magical, chick flicky. You probably already guessed what I’m going to say. I liked it! My husband gives it three-quarters of a thumb, so that’s a collective total of 2.75 thumbs.

Speaking of thumbs, in a future post, I’ll tell you how it’s shaping up with the Green River serial killer. It’s not really Christmas cheer sort of material though, so I’ll postpone sharing. Here’s a bit of advice I gleaned from the book, don’t let your children run away and work as prostitutes. It seems to be a generally good rule of thumb.

Paris, Je T’Aime on the other hand…is a series of vignettes that don’t seem to be connected in any way. If you’re a regular reader of my blog (hello my three readers), you obviously have a high threshold for pain and things that never go anywhere, so you may be able to enjoy the movie. We gave up on it though.

I’m no good at reviewing movies, so just see it and you’ll be glad you did. In a future post I’ll preach about how we should question our belief systems because, as has been proven throughout history, just because something is an accepted part of our culture doesn’t mean it’s right, and often we’re not good judges at how barbaric and unenlightened our behavior is. We are, on the other hand, very good at rationalizing our utter despicableness, often for the noble cause of money.

If you’re a regular reader (in which case, I’m sorry for you), then you know my husband is British. I can tell you that the British National Health Service isn’t without it’s flaws. A relative of my husband had to wait many months to get a hip replacement and I remember her complaining that women who had mastectomy’s were higher up in priority for breast reconstruction surgery than she was for a hip replacement. Even so, at least she didn’t have to worry about never having the surgery because she couldn’t afford it, or spending a considerable amount of her savings. What’s more, those who want privatized healthcare, can pay for it.

I’ve heard some argue that our doctors are the best in the world and that’s why we need to keep the system we have. I can’t go into the detail right now because it’s still to painful, but I have great insurance and have had a harrowing experience trying to find a good doctor. Unless you have a very routine condition, most are not worth their co-pay. In my experience, healthcare in the U.S. isn’t anything to brag about.

I don’t know whether we should adopt a national healthcare system, I don’t have all the answers, but I can say that I think it’s unacceptable that we’re supposedly such an “advanced” society and we’re the only one of the industrialized nations that treats its poor the way we do. We manage to find money for war and an endless amount of pork, and yet we claim we can’t afford the things that really matter like improving our school systems and keeping people from living on the streets. There’s got to be a better way than how we’re doing it — and I think the Europeans figured it out a long time ago. They take vacation, they have a 35 hour work week, they have time for leisure and relaxation, and they provide healthcare for their citizens.

What’s interesting to consider is how having a national healthcare system would change our lifestyles. No longer would people stay in jobs they hate because they’re afraid of losing the health insurance. How would that influence the job market? How would it change the workplace? We may feel more comfortable pursuing things that we’re passionate about that don’t pay much or anything: art, community service, volunteerism, if one of our biggest expenses isn’t a concern anymore. Would more people stay home with their children in the early years? Would more of us work part-time, which we can’t do now without losing benefits? Would more of us working less allow us to have more energy to pay attention to what the hell they’re doing in Washington and become more active in policing them? (How often do we protest anything here anymore? Where did all the hippies go?) How different would our healthcare be if the government had a vested interest in preventative medicine? What would life be like if we changed from a sickness system to a wellness system? How would our attitudes change in general if we began to see our collective responsibility to respect and take care of all people, even the “least of us,” the poor ones? Are we so little evolved that we regard insurance companies — and their CEOs particularly, wealth as more valuable than saving human lives?

Until we start taking care of everyone, I don’t know how we can use the word “civilized” in good conscience to describe ourselves. We only get this one life (or maybe we don’t but this is all we know right now), why do we care so little for maximizing it?

Yes, some people would lose jobs if we changed our healthcare system. And different jobs would be created. And wealth may be more evenly distributed. And maybe we’d return to a world of community service, we’d have a better quality of life, and we’d certainly have a lot more to be proud of. Seems like there are a lot of arguments for socialized medicine, unless you’re an executive at a pharmaceutical or health insurance company, in which case, no matter how many millions you make, it will never be enough. Of course, we’d have to do it right. Like the Europeans. We’re so supposedly so civilized, surely life is more valuable than a CEO’s salary, and we can figure it out?