You can count on me for great zombie apocalypse survival ideas, but I want you to come to me for all your zombie needs. Of course survival is my expertise. I promise to deliver the survival goods to you as I continue to write. Today’s article is an interesting detour.
Just for the sake of curiosity I wondered what some of the Great Speeches would sound like cast against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse. And so, and also in commemoration of the Holiday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday next week, I thought I would start here. Here is the “I Have a Dream” speech, zombified.
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You can find this speech on American Rhetoric: www.americanrhetoric.com
American Rhetoric is an online database of and index to 5000+ full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.
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I Have a Dream:
“I am happy to join with you apocalypse survivors today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for zombie resistance in the history of what’s left of our desolate nation since the fecal matter impacted the rotating aerial oscillator so many years ago.
Five years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Zombie Eradication Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of zombie apocalypse survivors who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous zombie-free daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred months later, we are still not free of zombies. One hundred months later, the life of the zombie apocalypse survivor is still sadly crippled by the manacles of degradation and the chains of subjugation. One hundred months later, the zombie apocalypse survivor lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material potential. One hundred months later, the zombie apocalypse survivor is still languished in the defensive corners of America and lives like an exile, afraid of the dark, and even more afraid of the daylight. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful apocalyptic 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 surviving American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all survivors would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness in a world free of zombies and assholes." It is obvious today that what’s left of America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as survivors are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the zombie apocalypse survivor 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 in what’s left 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 from further pandemic zombie outbreaks.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind what’s left of 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 total zombie eradication. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of temporary hide-outs to the sunlit path of a zombie-free America. Now is the time to lift what’s left of our nation from the quicksands of frequent zombie outbreaks and roving bands of assholes to the solid rock of one community-one fight. Now is the time to make community 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 zombie apocalypse survivor's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom from zombie hordes and zombie hives. Today is not an end, but a beginning of the American come-back. And those who hope that the zombie apocalypse survivor needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if what’s left of this nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in what’s left of America until the zombie apocalypse survivor is restored his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of pandemic outbreaks will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of total zombie eradication emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my fellow survivors, who stand on the warm decaying remains of a pile of zombies, piled high at a threshold which leads into a zombie-free palace: In the process of gaining our rightful peace from this zombie nightmare, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom from zombies by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred towards non-zombies. We must forever conduct our struggle against this zombie pandemonium on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence against non-zombies. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. We must not become assholes; we must not tolerate assholes; we must resist all assholes and any who tolerate them.
The marvelous new anti-zombie/anti-asshole militancy which has engulfed the zombie apocalypse survivor community must not lead us to a distrust of all bad-asses, for many bad-asses, 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 from zombies is inextricably bound to our freedom from assholes.
We cannot eradicate zombies and assholes alone. Let us embrace those bad-asses who will embrace us and our mutual cause.
And as we fight zombies together, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead and dispose of bodies together. We cannot turn back to a world where zombies are better than us because you never see them screw each other over for a piece of property.
There are those who are asking the devotees of zombie eradication, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the zombie apocalypse survivor is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of zombie and asshole brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot find safe lodging in our cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the zombie apocalypse survivor's basic mobility is from a smaller rat’s nest 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: "No kids allowed." We cannot be satisfied as long as a zombie apocalypse survivor in Mississippi cannot survive and a zombie apocalypse survivor in New York believes there is nothing worth surviving for. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until every zombie in this world is gone.
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 where the zombies could not get to you. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for zombie-free communities left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of assholes. 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 rat’s nests of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this zombie apocalypse 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 cleaning up all the decaying bodies today and tomorrow, I still have a dream amongst my zombie nightmares. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day what’s left of 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. This doesn’t include zombies!”
I have a dream that one day on the charred 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 without being interrupted by zombies and assholes.
I have a dream that one day even what’s left of the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of zombie pandemonium, sweltering with the heat of asshole debauchery, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom with a total absence of zombies and assholes.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be infected or chased by zombies.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious assholes, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "zombie appeasement" and "measured resistance” -- one day right there in Alabama little boys and girls will be able to join hands with little other boys and girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be zombie-free, and every hill and mountain shall be made asshole proof, the rough places will be made safe, and the crooked places will be made infection free; "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 what’s left of 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 zombie-free brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to eradicate zombies together, to stand up for freedom from assholes together, knowing that we will be free of this apocalypse one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of what’s left of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of zombie-free liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if what’s left of America is to be a great and zombie free 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 to 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 survivors, black survivors and white survivors, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, assholes and non-assholes, will be able to join hands if they still have them, and sing in the words of the old zombie apocalypse survivor spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free of zombies at last!”
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Okay... Whew!!! That got my zombie apocalypse survivor blood boiling.
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more.
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Do your part to prevent the zombie apocalypse: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/preventing.htm
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