I Have A Dream: The Civil Rights Movement

I Have A Dream: The Civil Rights Movement

“I HAVE A DREAM”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Not since our founding fathers have we seen many great leaders in our history who continue to remind us that we [humans] are all created equal and are deserving of the same rights of all men. One such man did and changed the way we interact with one another by opening those once closed doors to where we could shop, eat, go to school, etc.

Leader Of The Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King, Jr. was such a man. He led the Civil Rights Movement in a non-violent manner mirroring the example and teachings of Mahatma Ghandi. King’s famous speech followed a March on Washington [for Jobs and Freedom], establishing him as one of the great orators of his time. The youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, King’s focus was to end racial discrimination and segregation.

Before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, King had also turned his efforts to end poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. His death sparked riots and unrest in the American people King had fought so hard for. In King’s honor, and probably to quiet the uproar of the people, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared April 7th a day of mourning for the Civil Rights leader.

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“If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

A campaign to make his birthday a national holiday began shortly after his death in 1968, but it wasn’t until 1983 under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, that Americans celebrated King’s birthday as a National Holiday for the first time on January 20th.

Although all 50 states did not collectively accept this holiday until 2000, today we continue to acknowledge this holiday on the 3rd Monday of the month of January so that it falls on or near his birthday of January 15th.

Vision-Strike-Wear.Com wishes to extend our sincerest thanks and praise should be given by continuing in his great works at whatever capacity we can. Treat others how you want to be treated, regardless of race, creed or color, financial status, or other. We are all human and deserving of the same rights as our fellow man. Thank you, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for your valiant works and for keeping in the traditions of our founding fathers in the pursuit of freedom and equality.

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Below, we share with you, Dr. King’s famous speech, “I Have a Dream“. (As you read it, remember how far we have come as a nation).

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the

Emancipation Proclamation
. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.”


We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has  nothing for which to vote.


No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.


Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black
girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day
— this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true 

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:


Free at last! Free at last!


Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

 

To hear the audio of this speech, click here

Thomas Paine Brings Common Sense To The New Year

Thomas Paine Brings Common Sense To The New Year

As we ring in the New Year with resolutions of making changes to better ourselves this year, we can’t help but remind you to look to the past in order to not make the same mistakes in the future.

“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine

Our nation is in a constant state of turmoil with poverty at an all-time high, our soldiers at war, we have homelessness and those who are without food, we’re overweight and dependent on a medical industry that only benefits financially from our illnesses.

Like our founding fathers and the early settlers to America, we need to become more aware of what is happening to us as a whole. We may come from many parts of the worlds but we’ve all come together for a better life. Let us not do this blindly or without knowledge of how to get back to and maintain it.

If you don’t know who Thomas Paine is, get ready for a brief look into this early American Revolutionary individual who sought to remind early American settlers of the sacrifices made to attain sovereignty and freedom from England, and challenged British rule and the royal monarchy. He was an author, a radical, an inventor, an intellectual, a revolutionary and one of the founding fathers of our great nation.

[Tweet “Thomas Paine shares some “common sense””]

At a time when America was beginning to settle, it seemed like its people were retorting back to English ways, be it out of fear, ignorance, or both. Thomas Paine, wrote and published a pamphlet simply titled, “Common Sense” with the goal of rallying the American people to hold steadfast to their freedom they had long fought (and died) for.

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Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense – 1776

What He Wrote Was “Common Sense”

What he wrote was in fact, just plain common sense. It called upon ALL CITIZENS to take responsibility for their lives, their nation, their people. Below is an excerpt of his work, addressing the origin and design of government in general with concise remarks on the English Constitution:

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him to quit his work, and every different want would call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for, though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other: and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State House, under the branches of which the whole Colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of Regulations and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man by natural right will have a seat.

But as the Colony encreases, the public concerns will encrease likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony continue encreasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number: and that the ELECTED might never form to themselves an interest separate from the ELECTORS, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often: because as the ELECTED might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the ELECTORS in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this, (not on the unmeaning name of king,) depends the STRENGTH OF GOVERNMENT, AND THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and reason will say, ’tis right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise is easily demonstrated.

Absolute governments, (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs; know likewise the remedy; and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies; some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.

I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English Constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new Republican materials.

First. — The remains of Monarchical tyranny in the person of the King.

Secondly. — The remains of Aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the Peers.

Thirdly. — The new Republican materials, in the persons of the Commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.

The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the People; wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the State.

To say that the constitution of England is an UNION of three powers, reciprocally CHECKING each other, is farcical; either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.

First. — That the King it not to be trusted without being looked after; or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.

Secondly. — That the Commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the Crown.

But as the same constitution which gives the Commons a power to check the King by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the King a power to check the Commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the King is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the World, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus: the King, say they, is one, the people another; the Peers are a house in behalf of the King, the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of something which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind: for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision which the constitution makes supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a Felo de se: for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern: and tho’ the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual: The first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident; wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute Monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the Crown in possession of the key.

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government, by King, Lords and Commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries: but the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the First hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.

Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is that IT IS WHOLLY OWING TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.

An inquiry into the CONSTITUTIONAL ERRORS in the English form of government, is at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man who is attached to a prostitute is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.”

To read COMMON SENSE in its entirety, you can find it here.

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Read his other works: The Crisis, The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason

He certainly was a radical and an intellectual. His writings are detailed and well thought out calling out “the people” to participate as a active equal members of society.

This new year brings with it the hope for change and betterment in our nation and it takes a strong, well informed people to make it happen. Look to the past to fair well in the future.

US Army Custom T-Shirt Designs 2014

US Army Custom T-Shirt Designs 2014

US Army Custom T shirt Designs 2014

The design team of Vision-Strike-Wear.Com was busy creating military art during 2014. US Army Custom T shirt Designs 2014 saw more detail and many more colorful ideas spring from the troops! It was a great year for art for US Army and its soldiers both at home and while on deployment. The Army had a chance to participate in the creative aspects of Army military shirt design and spent time when not combating terrorism, having cool military design become the discussions to find more interesting than some of the routines of life while on deployment.

A Co 2916th Avn

US Army Aviation

US Army Aviation

3-7 Cav

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4-3_Headhunters-6

ARMY 1-5 Field Artillery

ARMY 1-5 Field Artillery

ARMY 4-3 Lightning Troop-5

4-3 Lightning Troop Sanai Deployment Shirts – Custom Army tees!

VSW1198 ARMY US Army Firefighter

US Army 51st Transportation Company Custom Army design!

ARMY 1st PLT Renegades

Fighting fire the US Army way with this custom USAR shirt design.

VSW996_ARMY 1-41 Field Artillery Bn

Glory Guns Motto for this Army artilleru unit and their custom US Army shirt design.

VSW988_ARMY 1ST PLT QRF-NOMADS-BRAVO BTRY 1-6FA 3-1 IBCT

The Nomads of the US Army and their custom Army shirts.

 VSW976_ARMY 101st ABN Pinup

War Whores and a custom deployment military pinup shirt for the US Army.

VSW973_ARMY 206th FA Regimental Reunion

The 206th FA Regiment US Army and their shirts for their occassion.

VSW967_ARMY 554th Engineer Company

HHT 2-116 Cavalry Medical Hellraisers Shirt

ARMY 1-204th ATB Hellraiser

B Co 1-52nd Aviation Sugar Bears Shirt

ARMY 1-52nd Avn Sugarbears

1st Squadron 10th Cavalry Bandit Troop Shirt

ARMY B Troop 1-10 Cav

4-3 Cavalry Killer Troop Army Shirt

4-3 Cavalry Killer Troop Army Shirt

A Co 563rd Aviation Support Battalion Bagram Shirt

A Co 563rd Aviation Support Battalion Bagram Shirt

HHT 2/11 Armored Cavalry Regiment Shirt

HHT 2/11 Armored Cavalry Regiment Shirt

Army 92nd CST Weapons Of Mass Destruction Shirt

Army 92nd CST Weapons Of Mass Destruction Shirt

1st Squadron 10th Cavalry Bandit Troop Shirt

1st Squadron 10th Cavalry Bandit Troop Shirt

Tactical Medics Group Shirt

Tactical Medics Group Shirt

Task Force Attack OEF Deployment Shirt

Task Force Attack OEF Deployment Shirt

OIF OEF Combat Veteran Shirt

OIF OEF Combat Veteran Shirt

VSW_Logo_2014-Gold

Top 10 Viral Thanksgiving Posts (updated for 2014!)

Top 10 Viral Thanksgiving Posts (updated for 2014!)

Thanksgiving is a time of family and friends and food. A harvest celebration holding long family traditions and the start of the holiday season in the United States. It’s also a time when people start sharing all the tweets and Facebook posts about Thanksgiving.

Here are the most shared ones for you to amaze and astound your friends with or just to get an idea of what is trending in Cyberspace this year.

1. WKRP In Cincinnati – Turkeys Away!

“As God as my witness, i thought turkeys could fly.”

All the way back on October 30th, 1978, WKRP In Cincinnati, a show about a family run rock music radio station, aired a classic episode called “Turkeys Away.”  the plot of the episode was that Mr. Carlson, the owner, feels a little useless after the change over to a new format rock & roll music radio station. He decides to create a big Thanksgiving Day promotion. He rents a helicopter and has a banner attached to it that says, “Happy Thanksgiving From WKRP” and then drops live turkeys from the helicopter to give them away to happy families… not knowing that Turkeys can’t fly.

2. Sesame Street Thanksgiving Dinner

big bird thanksgiving

 

3. Alice’s Restaurant (Illustrated Version)

Warning: This was recorded in 1967 and has some foul language and concepts in it, but we wanted to include this in our list as it has been making it’s rounds on Twitter.

Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” is a musical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie released on his 1967 album Alice’s Restaurant. The song is one of Guthrie’s most prominent works, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the same name. Apart from the chorus which begins and ends it, the “song” is in fact a spoken monologue, with ragtime guitar backing.

Though the song’s official title, as printed on the album, is “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” (pronounced “mass-a-cree”), Guthrie states in the opening line of the song that “This song’s called ‘Alice’s Restaurant'” and that “‘Alice’s Restaurant’… is just the name of the song;” as such, the shortened title is the one most commonly used for the song today.

In an interview for All Things Considered, Guthrie said the song points out that any American citizen who was convicted of a crime, no matter how minor (in his case, it was littering), could avoid being conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War.” (Source: Wikipedia)

 

4. Carly Rae Jepsen sings to the Native Americans

thanksgiving call me maybe Carly Rae Jepsen

 

5. Unfriended

Somethings up. The farmer just unfriended me on Facebook funny Thanksgiving turkeys

 

6. Keep Calm and Gobble On

Keep Calm and Gobble On

 

7. Thanksgiving Lion Cat

thanksgiving cat

 

8. Hot… 300 Hot!

300 hot turkey

 

9. Thankful for Black Friday Trampling

Why not save yourself the hassle and shop online!

black-friday-meme

 10. In my house, we call it stuffing…

butthole-bread

 

US Army War Eagle is Wise About Thanksgiving

thanksgiving-meme-bouthebaste

thanksgiving-meme-howfat

thanksgiving-meme-hungergames

thanksgiving-meme-lastplate

xmas-meme-reindeer

 

Get a US Army War Eagle Shirt!

 

Got more of your own Thanksgiving memes, videos or images?

Post ’em in the comments below!

 

Who Shot Osama Bin Laden – Does It Really Matter?

Who Shot Osama Bin Laden – Does It Really Matter?

Robert O’Neil says that he was the man who shot Osama Bin Laden.

Robert-ONeill-shot-Osama-Bin-Laden

He is a former Navy SEAL and the Pentagon has confirmed was one of 23 Navy SEALs on SEAL Team Six that went on the mission to find Osama Bin Laden. He claims to have fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden.  O’Neil said Friday that he was inspired to reveal his secret after meeting with the families of victims from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Robert O’Neil Describes What Happened On The Today Show

“This wasn’t my first mission. This was probably mission 400 plus. So, I took the shot because it was my primary threat and then I went to the secondary, tertiary threats. And that was to clear the room and make sure the other two in the room were properly taken care of.” – Robert O’Neil

Did O’Neil Shoot Bin Laden and Should He Even Be Talking About It?

There are conflicting reports whether he was the man who shot Osama Bin Laden, former Al Qaeda leader, or if SEALs are even supposed to disclose those kinds of details to anyone. He said that after speaking at an event for the families of victims of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and seeing the reactions of the families, he was inclined to speak out about what happened.

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Montana native, Robert O’Neil, being interviewed November 14, 2014 on NPR said that the families “found solace and closure” by knowing that Osama was killed and knowing who “punched his ticket”  made it seem “real” to them.

I think it’s a difficult secret to keep,” he told CBS News. All 23 SEALs who participated in the raid on a stronghold in Pakistan back  in 2011 were sworn to secrecy about the mission. Some say that there were thousands involved in the hunt for Osama and that O’Neil was merely the “tip of the spear” or the “triggerman” in the multi-year world-wide man hunt for Bin Laden.

Previously, a book published under the pen name “Mark Owen” by former Navy Seal Matt Bissonnette, is under investigation by the Pentagon.

“A former member of the Navy SEALs who wrote a best seller about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden is under criminal investigation for possibly disclosing classified material, according to federal officials and his lawyer.” (source: NY Times)

Don Mann, Also of SEAL Team Six, Talks About The Announcement

“These things have to be kept quiet for a number of reasons,” Don Mann, a former SEAL and author of Inside SEAL Team Six, said Sunday. “Talking out like this goes against the fabric of our community.” But Mann cuts O’Neill some slack: first of all, the government made it clear, shortly after bin Laden’s death, that SEAL Team 6 was responsible (“To me, that’s the bigger problem,” Mann says). Then Bissonnette took too much credit for his role, Mann believes. (Source: Time Magazine)

What Matters Most

I doubt that there will ever be consensus on an issue such as this, however there are a few points that everyone can agree on.

  1. Osama Bin Laden had to be removed, even if he was only a figure-head at that point and not operationally involved.
  2. The families of the victims of 9/11 deserve any small amount of comfort or closure we can give them.
  3. We need to do everything we can to guarantee the operational safety of our men and women in uniform.

Robert O’Neil does not seem to have a direct profit motive, as he is not promoting a book or product and he does work with a registered charitable organization.  However, he broken the code of secrecy that SEAL teams swear to uphold.  Even if his motives are honorable, the code is in place to protect our troops during and after their active duty, and that is a line he has crossed.

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