Inigo Montoya for President

Ya know what I consider the Best Movie Ever?

The Princess Bride.

I love it well enough that my family knows they'll be watching it twice a year- on Valentine's Day and my birthday- for the rest of their natural lives.

Oh, sure, I appreciate it for all the girly touchy feely happy ending stuff- True Love, Epic kissing, as well as the character building stuff it's good to teach children- noble causes,gallant heroes victorious over evil, never engaging in a land war in Asia (guess GW & Co. never saw the movie)...

But my favorite part?

The revenge of Inigo Montoya.

Witnessing the brutal and senseless killing of his father at the tender age of 10, the young Inigo tried immediate retaliation, only to be disfigured (but left alive) by the evil Count Rugen.

Inigo spends the next 25 years or so studying sword play and searching for the man who killed his father to extract revenge.

When he finally encounters him, his first order of business is to cause the same disfigurement he'd been carrying all these years.

With Count Rugen literally backed against the wall, the inevitable 'begging for his life' ensues. He promises to give Inigo anything- ANYTHING- if he just lets him live.

Now, considering it's a movie seen by children, there's a certain part of me that wants to say "Turn the other cheek", "Only the creator can judge", "Two wrongs don't make a right" and "Violence never solved anything".

However

The heart of the Sicilian Mama in me literally swells with joy and I actually tear up and speak along with my second favorite movie line ever

"I want my father back, you son of a bitch".

Thrust.Stab. No more Count Rugen.

and that's what we need. We need THAT sort of right/wrong conviction from our elected officials.

We DON'T need any more steamrollering over citizens' rights, safety and very lives so the corporations and billionaires can continue their decimation of our country ala the Repbublican agenda.

We DON'T need any more pandering to those same corporations and billionaires to the point of watering down important legislation to where it's damn near useless (or worse) ala the Democratic agenda.

Shall we vote out the Democrats and put back the Republicans- those folks who put us on this road to ruination? They've got that pretty little Pledge to America now and are telling us they can make it "all better"- PLEEEEEEZE give them another chance...

I don't think so. If they can make it better, why the HELL did they let things get so out of hand in the first place? And other than vague promises of "reining in spending and cutting useless programs (like Social Security and the VA)" they promise very little.

Shall we give the Democrats another go? Well, they're already there, and truth is, 2 years was not enough to "fix" everything that's gone so wrong- especially the way they've been going about it, yanno- the way that completely sucks donkey balls.

The Republicans want to repeal "Obamacare" and replace it with "something better". Where the hell were they when it was being written up? And so far, their "better" looks alot like letting the insurance companies (a.k.a. the Free Market) continue to let people die in the streets, only worse, because they also want to "privatize"and/or phase out Social Security, Medicare and the VA.

The Democrats promised we'd bring all our service men and women home from a war we never needed to be a part of (one of those things that was steamrolled through under the guise of "protecting freedom afar" a.k.a. "those weird little brown people are sitting on OUR oil"). What the hell happened to THAT?

I really think that the right people are in place, but for some reason, upon taking their oaths of office, all their testicles just magically shriveled up and fell off- rolling under the desks like so many dust bunnies.

We've got less than two months till mid-terms. You know what'd be great?

It'd be great if the Republicans could listen and LOOK at their constituents- unemployed, hungry, sick, scared so shitless they believe anything you say no matter how insanely retarded it may be- all those teeming masses who DON'T take them to lunch on spendy lobbyist expense accounts from Pfizer or Monsanto- and do the right thing. Those are the people you are sworn to protect. Their lives. Their health. Their liberties. Stop purposely dividing this nation with tales of phantom monsters who only look like our neighbors, but who really want to take all their money, their women, their lives.

It'd be great if FOX News could be seen for what it is- NOT news at all, but 24/7/365 paid for programming that feeds the above fears to the point of not only saturation, but frenzy.

And it'd be really, really great if the Democrats remembered their promises, and could go to work every day REMEMBERING that they have the majority now- we gave it to them to use.

That they've had eight years to practice their sword play, hone their skills for a just cause, and that NOW is when they cannot falter in their convictions, that NOW is the time to not waver but move forward with intent, and purpose, look the fear-mongering minority directly in the eyes and say

"We want our country back, you sons of bitches".

There's More Than One Way To Skin A Cat

Their eyes pierce straight into our hearts and chill us to the bone.

Images on the screen of armed recruits being trained for wars far away make us uneasy, upset, dismayed and disturbed because the bodies housing the steely eyes and grasping the automatic weapons are tiny. Child Warriors.

Ripped from their homes by force, or given up in despair by parents who have nothing to feed them and no hope of anything later today, or tomorrow, or next week, or ever, the pint-sized soldiers try to find their way in a world that is very dangerous, unbelievably hard, hellishly unforgiving.

And we wonder how something like that could happen- how could an entire society turn its back on its young people, allow- even encourage them- to become pawns of war.

How can they not protect them, do something that would allow families to stay together and be strong, live well, not just survive, but thrive and become instruments of true honor and strength and hope.

And all the while the training of child troops continues- the boys becoming sometimes quickly, sometimes inch by inch, immune to pain and fear and that little voice inside that says "STOP! Killing is wrong".

And after a while they pull the trigger without thinking,

without pausing,

without feeling a thing.

Luckily, we are very far removed from that sort of de-humanization. We live in the lap of luxury, the land of the free, the home of the brave, by the Grace of God, Amen.

That sort of horror could never happen here- we're too smart, too blessed, too wealthy, too in tune with our family values.

So we tuck in our children at night- our children who will not be torn from our arms violently, who we will not abandon due to lack of food, or water, or shelter.

Our children, most of them, will go every day to either day care or school- safe places where they "do their work" while we do ours for many hours each day until we pick them up and go home- after the extracurricular activities are finished and errands are run.

Our children, most of them, have more worldly possessions than most adults the world over- thanks to us and our culture of consumerism, and after dinner and after homework they wrap themselves in their solitary rooms surrounded by tv's and computers and playstations and cell phones.

And we sit in the living room, or in front of our own computer screens- staring mutely and with horror at the babies overseas who are being blatantly trained to kill without thought, without fear, without regret.

while our children sprawl in their rooms filled with technological wonders, and they plug in the latest video game and face virtual foes and monsters, some imaginary and some human and the graphics are amazing, the images indistinguishable from "real life". The first few minutes are spent acclimatizing to the scenery and the creatures and the rules of the game.

But after a while they pull the trigger without thinking,

without pausing,

without feeling a thing.

Honoring Our Lost By Finding Sanity

Andy Rooney had a very nice Memorial Day piece last night- photos and stories of men he'd served with during World War II- men who never came home.

I had ancestors who served overseas- my grandfather and his brothers served in World War I- grandpa came home but didn't talk about it, one great-uncle did not come home, and one did, but wasn't "quite right" ever again.

I have friends who've served during wartime and peace- making sacrifices great and small, from horrifying to merely inconvenient- in the name of our Nation and its Safety.

I thank them all for their service.

What I wanted to say here today I'd held off on putting to pixels because I wasn't sure, didn't want to minimalize in any way what our men and women in uniform are doing- have done- will continue to do- for our country.

But at the end of his on-air time, Andy Rooney said (and I'm paraphrasing) that the greatest way to honor those who will never come home is to make sure, to find a way, somehow, that no one has to ever die again in a war.

And that's what I wanted to say.

I wanted to say that while I understand that nations consist of people and people are by nature argumentative and squirrely and that there will most likely always be disagreements, bad feelings and even hatred between different societies, there MUST be a better way of dealing with it than to have each country throw wave after wave of living bodies at the other one.

I've long thought that if the leader of one country was pissed off at the leader of another one, we should just arm them both and let 'em have at it.

Winner take all.

I know world leaders think long and hard before resorting to armed conflict, but I guaran-damn-tee that they'd think one more time if it were their own asses entering the ring.

Now, granted, alot of world leaders are not particularly scrappy nor physically fit, which is a hoot since they're the ones who throw other peoples' kids at the war machine, so maybe World Leader Armed Combat would not be the most prudent way to solve it.

No worries- I still think it's a good idea,

AND I can eliminate pretty much not only the hellacious expense of staging a giant war by not using huge amounts of ammo, vehicles and bodies to accomplish it

AND not only will it not cost the entire national budget- it would actually diminish the national debt-

*Pay Per View Mercenary Foreign Relations Dispute Resolution*

I'm not kidding and not in the least making light of the Day- historically, it's been done.

The greatest warrior of each country battling each other mano e mano- the stuff of legend, the stuff of story and song, made all that much better by the modern technology that would allow spectators to watch from the comfort of their own homes- to be up close to history without the danger of dying for it.

Because at the end of the day, no matter what starts a war, the end result is never who is "right" and who is "wrong", but who has the most money, toys and sheer amount of bodies to throw at it- bodies that happen to be someone's son, daughter, father, mother- humans that should be at home with their loved ones doing normal human things for the duration of their normal human life.

There ARE humans who enjoy a good fight- live for the thrill, the excitement, the hunt, the strategy, and even the pain. Every society has them.

These are the men (and women) who should be fighting each other.

Of course the optimal scenario would be for everyone to get along and to not fight wars at all.

Tree-huggin' ol' hippiechick that I am, even I am not prepared to believe humanity is that...human.

Next best thing- leave the wars to the warriors and leave the majority of us literally in peace.

To those serving, and who have served- I thank you, my family thanks you, and we wish you and your families homecoming- and peace.