The Mountain People from One Tin Soldier

[gulliver]

"Peace on Earth" was all it said.

The Mountain People didn't handle themselves very well. That much has to be admitted.

First, the Valley People "sent a message up the hill asking for the buried treasure, tons of gold for which they'd kill."

One would think that the Mountain People, knowing they just had a stone with the words "Peace on Earth" written under it, would have come back with something like: "Chill, V-Peeps! All we've got is this stone with some writing under it! Sheesh, it's all yours. Or we'll teach you how to make your own. Hey, there are a lot of rocks. Nothing special about ours."

But no, the King (or Queen) of the Mountain People's kingdom responds to the homicidal Valley People, "With our brothers we will share, All the secrets of our mountain, All the riches buried there."

Clearly, the Mountain People royals consulted with professional Dem election consultants for this wording.

The song doesn't say, but it's a safe bet that the Mountain People weren't good fighters. We'll probably never know. We know they had the high ground but still lost. Although they had arrows, they were probably only used for signs and traffic control.

Some of the Mountain People probably wanted to fight the Valley People. But what I think happened is that the Mountain People as a whole wanted some higher power to step in and save them because they were "right." The people who wanted to fight were probably ostracized as "un-Mountainly."

In the end, a lute playing minstrel was recruited by the Mountain People. He would write a song about how bad the Valley People were. The song would be hidden somewhere besides under the stone. (There was already "Peace on Earth" under the stone, and the stone was heavy. Even Mountain People didn't read the message very often for just that reason.)

In the end, the song was inscribed on a golden urn. That proved to be a wise choice, because everything the Mountain People had that was not gold is now dust--their philosophy of life isn't even dust. The Valley People thrived, killed a bunch more people of other cultures, the usual Valley People stuff. One of them had the golden urn in a vault when it was found in the 60's.

[merh]

1. :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCCR2huE2m8

[jwirr]

2. Wow, that song brings back so many memories but the video is

powerful. I do wish the troops had not been made out to be the bad guy. *ss and his oil compatriots are the bad guys here. That last picture should have been one of them.

[merh]

3. The troops are the bad guys, as are we, each of us

we will live with the sins of this war for generations.

We didn't stop them.

God forgive us.

[jwirr]

6. As long as you include all of us then I see what you are talking about

but I was a protester against the Vietnam war and I know we were wrong when we blamed the soldiers for what they were doing. Then also it was all of us.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. How old am I . . .

My mom taught me that song when I was a very little girl . . . I can remember driving in the car on back roads from our rural town into the city of Rochester and my mom blasting that while we sang at the top of our lungs!

[LWolf]

5. So, you think the mountain people should have

had a core of hapkido practitioners to reluctantly kick the valley people's ass when they crossed the border?

[gulliver]

7. Yes

As you say, reluctantly kick their asses. But thoroughly.

[LWolf]

8. Remember, though,

that their hero status occurs because they turn themselves in when they are done.

[gulliver]

9. They had to..

...for the kids.

[LWolf]

11. That's right.

Of course, after the trial, they are released to enjoy the peace and love of the mountain until the greedy valley intrudes again.

[Matariki]

10. brilliant!