America's Discgrace

I was born in the early 60s. A pre-teen during the Vietnam Conflict and really didn't understand or remember exactly what was going on. I do remember a denim jacket I had with a bunch of patches.
One patch in particular along side my Apollo 11 mission  patch was a patch that said, "Make Love Not War".
And even at the ripe age of 7, this made sense to me.

Then, in high school, I think it was 1979 there was a KKK rally right in front of the school, in New Jersey!
Now our high school was an inner city, mixed race school but the KKK, in NJ??

This really blew me away, that in 1979 people were still so backwards and not tolerant of others.

Almost 20 years went by and in 1997, I lived in Greensburg, PA, a quiet eastern suburb of Pittsburgh.

One day I was walking by the County Capital building and again I was shocked to see another KKK rally. (Some of the photos I took that day are included in this post.)

It was almost the millennium, and these hate mongers where still around spouting off their vile rhetoric.

I was dumfounded, the way they berated people and pushed the crowd into yelling back.

They were nasty awful human beings and everyone in their right mind distanced themselves from these people.

What we needed and got was clear sane leadership to help calm the region and let the people know that this kind of hate and bigotry would not be tolerated.

Now lets fast forward to Saturday, August 12, 2017. A full 20 years after the last time I saw these white supremacists and they raise their ugly head again. 

Same vile speeches, but more violent and with more  notoriety than ever before. 

What used to be a fringe cult of hate has now become mainstream due to the election of Donald Trump and the voices of Steve Bannon, Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck just to name a few.

As much as I disagree with Trump and loathe his misogynistic, bigoted, xenophobic ways, I thought now is his chance to show a little bit of Presidential leadership. And guess what....
That never happened.

In saying that "I think both sides are to blame" and that there are good people in the white supremacists group, just added fuel to their fire.

He has constantly shown us what he is made of. We all know he has a huge ego and hates it being bruised. He'll lie and belittle others to make himself look and feel better. But in this one crucial moment when America need a President to be Presidential and calm the fears of a severely divided country, he failed miserably and showed the country his true colors.

Donald Trump is America's disgrace. 

Our country cannot stand any more of this blind allegiance to the extreme right. Not to mention all of the other illegal shit he and his family are into.

The Republican party needs to open their eyes to the destruction and erosion of the values of this country and start impeachment proceedings now.

Civility and compassion must be the order of the day. 

And that has to start from the top down.

He has to go before he rips this country apart.