People talking to me a lot about end times, recently. Fires and floods and hurricanes and earthquakes. “Morons” with their fingers on the nuclear buttons.

These conversations make me realize I need, at the very least, a basic belief system to imagine there could be an end times. My belief system is wrecked beyond repair. I feel abandoned by the religion I was raised in. I see so much hate and wrong.

How do you vote against health insurance for children? How do you take away Medicaid from the elderly? How do you not care for soldiers after they come home blown apart, or oppose food stamps for hungry kids? How do you allow pharmaceutical companies to write health care law while 60,000 addicts will die in the US – THIS YEAR, and then sell yourself as a Christian nation? [Read more…] about Same as it ever was…

So, yesterday, after busying himself all weekend with really important matters like kneeling football players; choosing to ignore the little things like: a growing certainty of nuclear war with Korea, a healthcare system that is about to collapse and the long-promised solution (7 years, long promised) nowhere in sight, he made this statement about the devastation in Puerto Rico:

“Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with”

Since 1917 Puerto Ricans have been American citizens. These people lost everything and this fat “son of a bitch”, one of his favorite terms, I thought I’d use it, is worried about his boys on Wall St.

Of all the reprehensible garbage to spew from your mouth trump, and there have been oceans of reprehensible garbage, this is the most telling. This is the example of the vacuum that exists where others have a soul

#resign

https://williamlobb.com/865/

Now we have the radical left who are no better than the radical right. It feels as if the entire country has lost its mooring.

We are adrift.

This is not who we are, what we are. There is and always has been racism – on all sides. I’ve been the only white guy in the room, not a comfortable situation; no more or less than being the only black guy in a room. But, we have always been able to put on the back burner and survive, when the shit hit the fan.

I know a man who can and does spew the vilest racist comments, but yet when the chips are down shows his true colors. I’ve seen this same guy risk his own life to save a non-English speaking Hispanic guy from a car fire. It showed me his racism is, or was, only on the surface, not who this guy is. It was his mouth, not his heart.

I fear it’s gone deeper in us now.

The right wing’s hate and anger that a black man had the audacity to be elected president and effectively lead for eight years has spilled out from the gut and now defines a substantial percentage of who we are.

Are we going to allow a handful of cowards who fear “them Uppity Niggers” define us a nation?

By the way, this is the first time I’ve ever used that word in a post. It is an ugly, yet powerful word. I wish people who use it freely would ponder its weight. Just think, step back from the anger and think.

We all own this. We have to.

I don’t think you will ever educate Klan members, Neo-Nazis. I’ve been in fights with the Klan, they are gutless cowards. They feed off each other. Their power is fragile. Giving them attention gives them power. The media gives them power, the White House gives them power. Ignore them and they will not go away, but they will diminish and weaken. They will go back into their holes.

The left is no better. Sinking to the same level as the right and the KKK. The radical left is nothing more than another disenfranchised collection of cowards. Again, the attention feeds them and their actions justify the radical rights actions.

I struggle with this. There is nothing I’d rather do that bust open the skull of a Klan member with a pipe.

That makes me no better than them.

We need calm level-headed leadership, not trump, not Hillary, not the mess we call congress. Instead, we have black armbands in the street.

We are seeing in this country now a direct result of the failure of leadership. We have been accepting the unacceptable for too long. There is a cancer eating this country alive. I’ve watched it come unglued since the ’70’s.

We used to have, at the very least, respectable leadership. What happened, why? How did we get to a place where we accept – AND DEFEND – the unacceptable.

We have the highest number of prisoners, per capita, of any nation in the world. A for-profit prison system. We have a government that is now encouraging – boldly – the militarization of local police departments. We have radicalized hate groups in the streets. We have men like Joe Arpaio endorsed by the occupant of the White House. That same occupant of the White House publicly endorses police violence. We have a Supreme Court that says corporations and people and they can dump as much cash as they want to spend to buy all the politicians they want to buy. We have a congress with an 11% approval rating and they still get elected…

We have a government so gutless that it stands back and watches it unfold… just lets it all be, as if these things are acceptable and normal.

We have got to do better. I’m not sure we are capable of coming back from this ledge. For the first time in my life I’m thinking of leaving, seriously thinking of leaving, abandoning my home and going somewhere else. Another shore to sit and watch it burn. I know some will say, “Good, go.” To them, I say, “God bless yer ‘merica”.

A recent conversation with a sane and somber conservative friend. We discussed the most effective gun for protection and hunting. He said the .12 ga. Shotgun hands down. As I sat looking at them, considering the life and death power; what they mean to me.  Thinking back to the reason I gave up my guns years ago, I had to ask myself, “is it really that bad?”

Sadly, I think it is. I’m curious to observe, will I buy the gun or pack it in.

#williamlobb #resign