My Experiences With Racism, over 73 years, It is a Two Way Street

 

My Experiences With Racism, over 73 years, It is a Two Way Street

America has had a black President and a now has a Black Vice President. If race is the problem how did they achieve success. Really if you look at those two examples there is something that stands out. It is about attitude. Both of these individuals are first generation blacks in America. They do not have a link to the four hundred year history of race in America. They were also raised by families that told them they could be anything they wanted to be. They were never told to mind their place. If they were, they did not buy into it.

In fact that seems to be something I have noticed in Senate Testimonies over the last few years. It seems immigrants care enough about America to get involved. Dozens of people I have witnessed speaking are either immigrants themselves or first generation immigrants of America’s immigrants. They see America as a land of opportunity, something many Americans no longer see in America, mainly because it is to easy to just complain.

The most recent election in America and all the Black Lives Matter protests may be an indicator that blacks in America are no longer buying the lie that they are inferior. The election in Georgia gives the best example. Georgia went from Red to Blue. Not only that they proved in the runoff race, that Black Votes Do Matter. Thank God for this. We just suffered through four years of hell because blacks failed to take part in the 2016 election.

The events of 9/11shook America to its core. It made us question our goodness and our greatness as a nation. It set the stage for a change I NEVER, thought I would see in the America I lived in. In July 2004 I saw a young man give a speech that summed up the hope of America, and that it was a hope for everybody. Four years later that man ran for President and succeeded. Even with portions of America denying his very existence.

I am sure where I live is not the only place that his posters were taken down. When Obama won the election, it stunned me. I think people believed and bought into his message of hope.

The past twelve years the Republican Party has been fueled by hate and a desire to undo anything that Obama did. Here we are in the middle of a pandemic and the Republicans are totally focused on getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, just as Democrats are determined to get rid of Trump. Have the Republicans solved “ANY” of America’s problems or offered their own solutions to the problems facing America. The answer is a big fat NO. Unfortunately for America, neither have the Democrats. Exactly why we need a party that is for all Americans.

America needs a mentoring program for race relations. When in the Army I spent several months as the only white person in a 12 man room. My black 1st SGT thought I was a racist and put me in that room as a punishment, but it turned out to be a  blessing in disquise. It was one of several times in the Army when people tried to punish me that it backfired.

I was at Ft.Campbell, KY before I went to Ft.Stewart, GA. My 1st Sgt thought he was sending me to Vietnam as most ot the units on the   base were going to Vietnam. The reality was that the Army was moving their fixed wing aviation school to Ft. Stewart and I was sent there as a parachute rigger to do flightline inspections of the pilots emergency chutes. Turned out being a Blessing in disquise. Without turning this post into a novel, I just want to be on the record that it seems everytime someone tried to stick it to me in the Army, it turned out to be a Blessing in disquise.

I learned a lot of things about being a black American, that I would never have learned without that experience. Most of America's race problems are from a lack of communication. When we see white cops, killing black citizens we are seeing a lack of respect for human life, especially of our fellow Americans. Mainly because they can get away with it. They are using their authority, to avoid responsibility, for their actions. Authority needs to also require accountability.

If America wants to cure the problem, the first thing we need to do is admit there is one. I remember when I was stationed in France and went to Paris that Blacks, Whites and others mingled and interacted and race was not a barrier or a problem. At least I didn't see it.

When I see the peaceful protests going on, I realize there is hope for America. One thing we need in America is accountability for every life. No one is above the law, especially those who administer the law. The idea that a law enforcement officer can take a life and is above the law is absurd. It may happen, but not when a person is shot in the back seven times from point blank range, or when a man is running away from law enforcement. He is not a threat, he is scared and in this country he has every right to be. Which is a sad thing to say.

My first experience with racism came in April or May of my tenth grade year in high school. I was taking a printing class and had to manually set type. I had a piece of type and looked at it and could not make up my mind if it was a “j” or an “i” and I started saying Enee, Menee, Minee Moe and suddenly realized the person at the table face to face with mine was our schools star athlete a senior, and he was black. I stopped what I was saying. He said, “Finish it.” and I did. I have never forgotten what he said. “Words have meaning, and they have consequences” Two months later I dropped out of high school and joined the Army. I remember setting on the back steps of my barracks a week or so into basic training and four or five guys were talking. As I listened it was like they were speaking a foreign language. Little did I know that a year down the road I would get a crash course and learn that language.

Why can they get away with it, because of a lack of peer pressure to do what is right. It is something that is taught. When in the Army at Ft. Bragg, I went to the store to get milk with a friend of mine and his wife. While he went in to get the milk, his wife, baby and I sat in the car waiting. A black man walked past the car and the wife, started telling the baby who could not even walk yet, say N----- Johnny, this went on and on till her husband returned. I know for a long time I blamed it on the fact they were from Alabama. After my months in the room as the only white boy, I found it is taught, it does not just happen.

Even when I was growing up I experienced it in a different way. My Dad took me to the Indianapolis 500 time trials. We had to drive thru a very dark part of Indianapolis. I remember my Dad making me roll up the windows and lock the doors. His actions puzzled me. My home town only has a few hundred blacks in the whole city. Our high school had over 1200 students and only five students in the whole school were black.

Why I found my father a World War II veterans actions puzzling was that he had me do his good deeds so to speak. We had one elderly black lady in our whole neighborhood and her husband had died. My Dad sent me to mow her yard and shovel her snow, whenever it needed it. As he did for several other widows. While I would never call my father a racist, stereotypes definitely effected his decision process.

While living in that twelve man room I got a date with a local girl. Her Dad was the head of the local bank. He and I tried to make small talk while we were waiting for dinner. I bought up the subject that I noticed almost all the blacks in the community lived in run down shacks, but had brand new and really nice cars in the drive way.  They also had really nice color TV’s which I could see from the road. I asked why didn’t they fix up their houses. They evidently had money. The banker made it clear to me that they could buy anything they wanted, but they would never get a loan from him to fix up their property. Because then they would want to sell their house and move, possibly, in next to him. That was not happening. The supper was very good, but the atmosphere was very chilly. Needless to say that was my last date with her. She was still very friendly, but I got the understanding I was not welcome to come back to his house.

Sometime later I went to the enlisted club on post and had a learning experience. We had to be in uniform to attend the club. I was the only active duty paratrooper on the post. The other one lived off base. Anyhow I got called out by a black guy who wanted to start a fight with me. I said fine, but lets take it outside. As we went outside several of his friends fell in behind us. When we faced off outside several of his friends circled us. I was sure I was gonna get my ass kicked regardless what happened. BUT, All of a sudden another group of blacks came out of the club and formed a circle around his circle. It was my room mates. One of them stepped forward and said, “If you want a piece of his ass, your going to have to whip us too.” Suddenly it all just cooled down. When we got back to the barracks I got tagged with my new nickname, I was the cotton tailed nigger.

I learned a couple things living in that room. I asked why they always went everywhere in pairs. They explained that a lone black man walking in Georgia was an invitation to be assaulted if not killed. I also learned that they felt they had a station in life and they should not feel they could get ahead. If I did nothing else in the time I lived in that room. I told them that was bull crap. They were entitled to anything any other American had. If they did not stand up for their rights they were only hurting themselves. Over the time in that room I did acquire a couple changes in my life. I like bright colored clothes and most of my CD’s are soul music.

Almost ten years later I was stationed in Germany and one of the black soldiers in my squad was charged with drug possession. It was all a set up. My superiors wanted to get rid of him because they considered him a trouble maker. I refused to press the charges. So they moved him out of my squad and charged him anyhow. I went to his trial as a character witness. I knew I was cutting my own throat when I did it. I told my wife that if I testified my career was over.

I went to the trial and they would not let me testify till after he was sentenced. Then it was to vouch for his character. The judge asked me what happened and I told him. He smiled and looked at me. Then he said I have had six people tell me their stories and I realize yours is the truth. It makes sense of all their stories which were missing one thing or another. So instead of kicking him out of the Army which is what my superiors wanted, he fined him $25 and dropped all other punishments. My superiors were livid. I paid for it when I left Germany a few months later. They gave me two efficiency reports to ruin my career. They forgot one thing. They had promoted me to Staff Sergeant half ways between the two reports, A couple years later when I volunteered for a qualitative management discharge, I counted on the same blindness that allowed the two reports to be put on my record, to be equally blind in reviewing my record. All one has to do is look at my record and ask, If he was such a bad soldier, WHY did You promote him. It worked for my good when my health declined and I decided to leave the service. I have the efficency reports from Panama that show there was indifference to my condition. It was not till many years later that I found out what had destroyed my health to the point I could not do my job anymore. To my leaders I was just malingering. My MOS proficency test which is also in my record shows otherwise. After Vienam when the Army started downsizing, I volunteered to go to the infantry. Little did I know what was happening to my body.

Actually that turned out to be a Blessing in disguise. A year and a half later after reenlisting for six years at Fort Campbell. I ended up going to Panama, I volunteered for the Qualitative Management Program and used those two reports as part of reason for my request. I had also received several reports in Panama saying I was physically unfit for my job. However I had good reports and ratings at Ft.Campbell, between my return from Germany and my assignment to Panama. Just as I suspected the review board never caught the little glitch on the efficiency reports. For some reason I could not handle the heat in Panama and could not physically do my job. My father came down from the states and we went sight seeing. I could not keep up with him. It was then I realized I had a problem. I could not do the two miles in eighteen minutes for my physical. I was a miler in high school and ran five minute miles, so I knew something was wrong but I did not know what until almost thirty years later I found out the problem. I had been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

The reason My father came to visit me in Panama was that in World War II he had been at the Normandy invasion and at the end of the war he was in Tokyo Harbor tied up close enough to the USS Missouri to watch the surrender ceremony. In the process of going to the Pacific Ocean they only kept a skeleton crew on his ship and picked the crew back up in California. It allowed the sailors a chance to go home and see their families. So he missed the trip through the Canal and wanted to see it. We had a neat thing about our birthdays. I was born on December 7^th the day World War II started. He was born on August 6, the day they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and technically ended the war.

In July of 2010 I went to a 4^th of July celebration at my best friends home. Most of the guest were retired military. One of them was a retired Air Force Colonel who had worked in claims and compensation before he retired. In the course of our conversation the subject came up that I had had a heart attack in 2004 and had a defibrillator. He informed me that all I had to do was file a claim. Based on my condition I was automatically qualified for Agent Orange Compensation. In January of 2012 I decided to file a claim based on our conversation.

In October of 2013 I started receiving my Agent Orange Compensation. It was not till four or five years later I realized I had been ripped off for about half of the compensation I should have gotten. I received a copy of the Nehmer Claims compensation guidelines and realized I should have received compensation from the time the claim was created. As I was under VA treatment at the time. Actually they owe me back to when the Diabetes Claims were started. If they want to be technical my letter to request discharge under the Qualitative Management Program made clear that I wanted out for health reasons, Even though I did not know at the time what caused those problems, so technically they owe me from the start of it all.

After leaving the Army I did not really feel like I had wasted thirteen years of my life in the Army. I learned to drive a truck in Vietnam while driving OJT for three months. It got me a job in civilian life. I did it till I had my heart attack caused by the Agent Orange, but I do feel cheated out of what I was entitled too. Which is part of why I felt compelled to write this post for my blog. I intend to send a copy of it to my Congressman and see if he can get me what I am entitled too.

Is America Ready for a 2nd Revolution

 

    I hope and pray it is not, but the attitude of our government leadership in view of the recent attempted coup says I may be wrong. The choices that led up to it were made by the American people. In 2016 people voted against the candidate they did not want by voting for the opposing party. Trump offered change. He was going to drain the swamp, but in reality he was just more of the same, but worse. The only thing he cared about was himself.

    His actions leading up to the coup showed his utter lack of respect for our government and for the laws we have. In 2016 he made the comment he could stand on the street in NYC and shoot somebody and nothing would happen. 

    Well in his attempted coup five people died. That blood is on his hands and I hope our Congress will charge him based on the law. However, the reality is looking like the Republicans have know understanding of danger of the insurrection that happened in their house. They are to stupid to realize that the person in charge did not care if they got killed in the process. All he cared about was getting his way.

    General Flynn makes clear in the video I am enclosing the link to of the cost. It is long but if you watch from the 22 minute mark to the 25 minute mark. He makes clear our government is being torn apart. I used to not like him, but after watching the video I find him to just be another of Trump's victims, of which there were many.

    It is my view that at a minimum Trump should never be allowed to hold office again, nor any of those that supported and enabled him in his attempt, but sadly true to the lack of moral value and conscience shown by the Republican Party over the last several years, he will probably not even receive a slap on the wrist.

    They have been saying on the news that the Republicans are scared of upsetting Trump. I guarantee you if I live long enough, every Republican does not vote to impeach him will recieve my utmost effort to make sure they never hold office again.

Celebrating The 17th Anniversay of My Death

            Celebrating the 17^th Anniversary of My Death

                  Every Day is a Good Day.

The 22^nd of January was the 17^th anniversary of my death. Fortunately they brought me back. It has been a long and sometimes strange experience. The link will take you to the story of that experience. A lot has happened over that time. It all turned out to be a Blessing in the long run. It is strange how the Lord can show you how Blessed you are.

A few months ago I left my phone on my trailer and forgot about it. It ended up getting run over and I had to get a new one. I thought I had lost everything, but ATT was able to restore all the numbers in it. My daughter and her husband and kids bought me a new computer last year. My son-in-law did the transfer of all the info off my old laptop to my new computer and I was really happy for almost a year till I had the phone problem. It was then I found out my address book and my blog history had been lost in the transfer process. I had a list of all the countries my blog had been read in, last I remember putting one in, I was at 86 countries. I was kind of proud of it. The list also let me know that there were three or four countries that more people read my blog overseas at some points than here. Russia, South Korea, The United Arab Emirates and Argentina are my countries with the most readers. Why I am not sure, but I enjoy it.

There were probably a hundred and fifty names and addresses in the book. Some of them were multiple listings for the same person, my brother had six addresses, his daughter had five. Because I am computer illiterate I just created a new address line instead of deleting. It wasn’t till I got my hard copy of my address book that I realized over the years, I am 74, many of the names I had, had passed away. Actually only 10 or 12 of the names and addresses were good. Taught me a lesson though. Now I put addresses in the phone with the number.

Getting back to the start of the story, sorry about the side track. Thought it might help someone else survive a crisis. That is one reason I write my blog to share experiences to prevent someone else from making the same mistakes, I have.

One thing I noticed this year is that the experience I had in the link at the start was a period of seventeen years and about three months from it happening and my turning my life over to God, or at least feel I was being moved in that direction by God. Then I drove a truck for about twenty years. Which ended when I had my heart attack. So based on that the next three months may be interesting, it has been seventeen years since my heart attack. I have already scheduled up into May. That is when I plan to take my grand-daughter and grand-daughter-in-law for their first skydiving jump at Skydive Chicago. In October I hope to go to the Atlanta Koi Show again, plus I have about a half dozen on going projects. Two of which are starting new businesses I hope to pass on to my grand-kids. Oh yes, I also plan to do some serious pond building.

I remember from reading in the Bible that there was a King named Hezekiah and he was told he was going to die and he cried out to God. God gave him fifteen more years. While he was Blessed because he had been faithful to God, over the fifteen years he had a bit of a falling away.

About 2014 I was convicted by 1st Timothy 5:8, after looking up the word infidel, which means a person who does not know God. It made me realize I needed to step up to the plate so my Great Grand Daughters Mom could get a job and get out of goverment housing. She did and now she lives in  her own home which is paid for. All was going good and I had the thought, what happens to all this if something happens to me. That is when the door opened to start my own T-shirt business. Since I retired from trucking I had been giving the Road Angel Trucking Center $100 a month out of my tithe. It was my desire to give more, and the door opened to start giving them T-shirts with a map to their facility on the back that they could sell for $20 each. By buying the shirts and letting them sell them. The money they got went from $1200 a year to over $2000 a year, plus their visitations have increased.  They offer free meals, showers, laundry facilities and fellowship to over the road truckers. So my goal is to expand the T-shirt business and give it over to their Mom.  My other goal is to make several ponds on my property and raise Koi that they can sell, this project is ongoing, but the Lord is opening all the doors fot it.

Back when I had the heart attack, I think I was a lot closer to God than I am now. I was ready. I was totally at peace with myself. At the point I surrendered to God I had lost everything, my family, my business, my house and even my car. It was hard times. Finally I turned to God and started reading the Bible. I soon realized that I should be tithing to the Lord, but I had nothing to tithe, not even a job. I said all I have is my time and I am going to tithe ten percent of my time to you. For the next four years I spent two and a half hours a day reading the Bible. It was easy till I got a job. God is faithful to His Word and three and a half years later I had back everything I had lost plus some. It was then I decided to start tithing twenty percent to the Lord. I told him that I owed him for all the years I didn’t tithe. So that is why I was doing it. I also told him it was my goal to pay all I owed him. If I did not live long enough, it was his fault. I did that based on the fact that I know God is a Good God and he has a sense of humor. If you don’t believe me read this link and you will clearly see he does, at least he did with me.

 

If you read my blog long enough you will find I believe God is always present in all we do. Even when I lost my truck driving job I continued to tithe and the Lord continued to Bless me. I went from making about $150,000 a year to $1350 dollars a month. That lasted almost eight years, then he opened the door for me to get Agent Orange compensation and my retirement quadrupled over night. The problem with a sudden Blessing is that it is easy to forget some of the stuff that got you through the hard times. During that eight year period I supplemented my income by making crafts. Which I sold online via EBAY, farmers markets and flea markets. The birds Blessed me. At one time I was going through two fifty pound bags of bird feed a month. Taking pictures and posting them is how I made the money. So I felt I owed the birds. The link will take you to a post with pictures of the things I sold and made. It all started with the need to get rid of the seventy five dollar trash hauling bill, that we paid every three months.

Crafts helped us through the hard times

About 2016 I started through a very hard time physically in my life. It came I believe from becoming very lazy because of my heart attack. Pampering myself. I found all the 90 pounds I had lost before my heart attack, plus some. I ended up on insulin and a type II diabetic. Finally after talking to people and changing my ways and especially my diet. I ended up getting off insulin and all the diabetic meds. It can be done. I lost almost sixty pounds in the process also. Thanks to a diet that works that my daughter who passed away had put me on. She was a nurse. I feel better now than I have in years. So I plan to make the best of the time I have left. I lost 90 ninety pounds the first time I was on the diet and sixty this time. My original goal was to lose 140 pounds. Combined I have lost 150 so I met my goal in a way, but I have another 80 to go to get to my ultimate goal which is 220. I weighted 175 when I got out of the Army, but I don’t think I could get back to that goal. But, if God is Willing it could happen.

About 2017 I found a new hobby and kind of turned my back on the birds. My wife recently corrected me on the matter cause the birds were not coming this winter. I told her it was because it was a mild winter. I started feeding them again a few days back and they are showing up again. I only have twelve feeders right now. At one time I had seventeen. In fact this last week I overhauled some of my older ones that needed some maintenance.

My new thing is Koi fish and Koi ponds. I find it fascinating. Kind of wish I had discovered it years ago. I found it on YouTube. I watched a video on Buying Koi in Japan and I was hooked. In fact in the fall of 2019 I took a vacation for ten days and it was all about learning about Koi. I spent the last three days of the vacation at the Atlanta Koi Show. I really enjoyed it and it is past time to write that story.

Even my writing is a Blessing. I spent my last year in the Army in Panama and got drafted into writing for the Command Newspaper. It happened because my commander liked some photos I entered in a Photo Contest. All I got were a couple of honorable mentions, but my commander told me if he had been the judge I would have won several awards. So I got a new job also.

As for this blog it started because my daughter went to Costa Rica and started a blog. She did it to let us know what she was doing while she was there. In August 2010 I had lost my youngest daughter after she fought a seven year battle with a brain tumor and I was in kind of a funk. Angel saw that it cheered me up to read it. So she set me up a blog in March of 2011 and I have been doing it every since. She wanted me to write stories of life so my grand kids can know what I did in life.

The blog has a lot of faith based stories, trucking stories, how-to stories and some personal experiences. Early on I wrote a lot of financial advice as we were just coming out of the 08 collapse and I knew some of the things I had been thru could help others make it through the hard times.

Some people think seventy-four is a little late in life to start a business, but Moses was eighty when he started his trip across the desert. Some people are late starters for whatever reason.

Years ago when I was trucking I met an old man in his seventies or maybe even his eighties and I asked him how his day was going and his answer forever changed my attitude about life. He said,” Young man, any day I spend looking down at the grass, and not up at it is a good day.”

Over the years I learned that the most valuable thing in the world is something you can not buy and you can never get anymore of. It is TIME. Time is our most precious commodity and using it wisely is one of the most Godly things we can do.

A preacher I used to listen to when I was on the road was Duane Sheriff. He had a ministry in Durant Oklahoma that was very awesome. His church, Victory Life, had around a thousand people. It had a food bank that fed almost 8,000 people. Pretty impressive when you consider it is a town of about only 17,000 people. He also had a free tape ministry. His goal was to give away a million tapes a year. I use to stop and help label and pack tapes for shipping when I passed thru the area. Miss it, his church was a very Blessed place to attend.

Getting back on track, Brother Duane had a saying I always liked. “A rut is a grave with both ends kicked out.” If your in a rut it is time to get back into life and live for the Lord. He has tapes on almost every topic. If you read Joshua 1:8 you will see it is your efforts that make things happen, God's job is to Bless it. 

Over my years of trucking I was Blessed to attend churches and have fellowship all over the country. The first link is to a post which contains links to about 50 faith based trucking stories and the second link will connect to a story of my experiences in finding a church while traveling the country.

So what is the purpose of this post. To share my blog with people who might like to read some faith based stories. In the ten years I have been writing I have posted almost 280 stories. The purpose of these links is to make it easier to find the faith based posts. I also write on trucking, how-to topics, politics and travel stories. So it may save those interested some time.

As I come to the end of my second seventeen year period, I look back to the start of it all and my Testimony, this posst is part of the first link I posted. I realize we may be near the end. Because of the experience I had it has been my belief that I will be here for the second coming. However having been dead twice already, maybe I misinterpreted what it meant, but I don’t thing so. I know four years ago it could not have happened as I understand it, but changing my diet and getting my health back in order, it might be possible.

My main purpose in writing is to thank the almost 80,000 people who have read my posts over the years. I pray the stories have Blessed you in some way or helped you avoid some of the pitfalls I had. So get up out the rut of life and get back on the road it it applies. Thanks again. 

With all the things going on in the World right now, I have to hope and pray I end up with a better outcome at the end than Hezekiah.

Praying for a Blessed New Year.

Praying for a Blessed New Year.
 
New Years, 27 Hours to Go

I love this time of year, normally. We are eight days into shorter days and only 78 days from spring. I am only 23 days from the 17^th Anniversary of my death and resurrection the first time. Been there and done that twice. The link I am sharing will hopefully lift your spirits, it did mine.

While this has been the year from Hell, it is almost over. Trump may raise hell for the next twenty-days, but he is history. One thing I have learned in the last four years, the Founding Fathers did not put enough thought and ways to get rid of an incompetent leader. Of course they could not have imagined a leader like the one we have now. One solution would be to have the heads of the Armed Forces do a quarterly efficiency report on his performance as Commander in Chief and submit it to Congress.

America has always been for the underdog, unfortunately when they wanted change they had no clue what they were really getting. They took Trump at face value and believed all his BS. Now four years down the road they have a better understanding of what the election process can unleash. This evenings news showed what they said were five potential candidates for 2024. Unfortunately nothing has changed, another election with no real choice.

In 2016 Democrats nominated a candidate that most people did not really want, and a large part of the party crossed over. This time the cross over was the other way, the Democrats went back home and many of the Republicans went with them as they did not want another round of what we presently have.

The only way to save America is form a third party that stands up for America and what it believes in. Between 30 and 40 % of American’s are independent minded. Unfortunately they do not have a like minded party. It is time to create one.

Over the last several years I have tried to create the foundation for such a party. I have a blog post for it. Here is the link to get to it. https://carpforamerica.blogspot.com/2020/07/carp.html I encourage you to read the posts I have put up. They cover healthcare, gun control, immigration, infrastructure, and the election process to name a few.

As for me I have gotten into a hobby of building fish ponds and playing in my yard and plan to keep doing that and sharing my how-to posts. Praying the coming year is better than this one just past. I did manage to get out of a writing rut and managed to complete 20 posts this year, my best year since 2015.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you like it or agree with it, share it with others so that by 2024 we have an alternative choice to the broken two party system.

It is Time to Trump, Trump

 Recent news events have made it pretty clear how and why Trump won't concede the election. There is a reason why.                 

Trump has refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s Presidential Victory. He has an ulterior motive or reason. General Flynn may have been the author of a treasonous plan to overthrow our recent election. He has advocated that Trump should declare Marshall Law and cast out certain states election results. Trump’s recent shuffle in the leadership at the Pentagon may be nothing more than a preparatory move to do just that.

Trump has gotten away with just about anything he has wanted to do so far. Many times because no one thought he would actually do the things he has done. His admiration of Vladimir Putin is well know and his unwillingness to take any action that would alienate Putin is very clear.

Trump’s reaction or lack of reaction to the recent security breach in our government shows where his sentiments are. If Trump, Flynn and members of Congress try to carry out the treasonous actions they seem to be planning they should be lined up at the Washington Monument and shot.

One thing has become clear during Trump’s time in office. Out Constitution does not offer adequate controls on a corrupt or incompetent president. My solution to that problem would be to have the heads of the branches of the service give him a job performance rating quarterly. They could deliver it to Congress. As the Commander in chief of the military that would be one way to rate his performance.

   It is time for our Congress to take actions to protect our election.

Our Congress can cut off Trump’s treasonous actions by passing one 

simple bill. It is one bill that should already exist. If a president wants 

to declare Marshall Law it should have to be approved by both houses 

of Congress. Simply passing this law would end Trump’s backdoor 

attempt to throw out the election.

It is Like Ragu, it is in here.

 

                                                     RAGU

December 15, 2020

As the seventeenth anniversary of my death and retirement from the working class approaches, I have to wonder why I am still here. Have I lived this long to die of Covid. The last five years I have taken care of my twin great grand-daughters five days a week. Actually the epidemic has given me back my life.

Sometimes I like to take a look back and see what I have done in the past. As the New Year approaches I realized I will be entering my tenth year of sharing stories on my blog. I like to think my writing has matured a bit. From March 2011 when I started till the fall of 2015 my goal was quantity. To put out as much as I could put out. A severe battle with a case pneumonia changed my attitude. I really wondered if I was going to make it. It was during that episode that I had a chance to sit down and reflect on my writing. I decided quality was a more important issue.

I never pictured myself as being a Hemingway or a Mark Twain, but their styles influenced how I tried to write. One other writer challenged me with his style. Will Rogers had a down to earth type of writing that said it like it was. That has been my goal. I want to tell it like it is, and share the experiences from my life that might help someone else avoid my mistakes in life. It had been my goal to share those experiences in a book. Recently I realized over the last ten years I had unintentionally written the book. It is contained in forty-five posts on my blog. There are a total of two hundred seventy posts on my blog.

My goal now is to make a blog post with links to all the stories. Right now I would title the book Ragu, it is in there. So if something happens to me before I get that done, the stories are in my blog. When I started I wrote a lot on how to survive hard times financially, trucking stories, political views and opinions, and how my faith had guided me through life. So if you skip the first three topics and search out the remaining stories you will get to read my book.

In May of 2012 I went to my first writers conference. It was the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer’s Conference and I literally stumbled onto it on the internet.

For years I subscribed to Writer’s Digest. Each month I scanned the up and coming writers conferences across the USA looking for one I felt I would be comfortable going to. I finally found one that appealed to me. It was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I got to the point I had a couple weeks in May left to mail in the deposit for the June conference. That is when I found the BRMCWC. It was only a week away. It had a lot of benefits that outweighed the Wyoming conference, It was less half the drive and it included meals, room and classes for less than Wyoming wanted just for the conference.

It meant I had to hustle to get my stuff together to go, but I got it done and it was a Blessing and a half. I ended up going their in 2012, 2013 and 2014. I learned a lot and really enjoyed the conferences, but in 2015, The link will take you to the story of how that turned out.

In 2015 I became convicted that while I loved going to the conferences, that was not what God was calling me to do. It was when I read 1^st Timothy, Chapter 5-Verse 8… “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

The word infidel threw me as I did not know what it meant, but upon looking it up, it opened my eyes. It is a person that does not know God. While I had always professed that I did, I was not living it. My twin great-grand-daughters mother was having a hard time finding a job and living in government housing. She could find a job, but the fees for babysitting took most of what she made and it was cheaper to stay home. Being convicted by the Word, I volunteered to take care of the girls. My wife said I was nuts, but my heart told me it was the right thing to do. We have been through head start, kinder-garden and now are in the third grade.

Everything had gone smooth till today. Even when mywife went to Texas for a month at a time, somehow everything always seemed to work out. This morning on the way to school my 2004 Honda gave up the ghost. On the highway right in front of the school. As I was parked in the highway in front of the school I had the girls walk the final one hundred yards thru the grass to school. A sheriffs deputy and a school guard came and helped me and they towed my van off the highway and into the school parking lot. Finally ended up calling a wrecker. The driver was really nice bought me back to my house and here I sit.

With everything happening in the world today, or should I say yesterday. The first vaccine, the Electoral College, Barr stepping down and the Covid death toll reaching the three hundred thousand mark. I decided to make this post and at least those who follow my writing would know there was a method to my madness. Will anybody follow up and try to find the forty-five stories I don’t know. As I write a lot on the end times, based on sixty plus years of reading the Bible. I just discovered that the Star of Bethlehem is supposed to be visible on the 21^st of December.

If you read my testimony, I have always thought I would be here for the second coming. If I am not I realize it doesn’t matter. At several points in the last six years I really wondered if I would make it. I even went through a three year period of being on insulin as a Type II diabetic, but changing my diet and loosing weight gave me a new lease on life, or at least made it more enjoyable.

The last three years have also seen me become addicted to a new hobby, raising Koi fish. My last vacation centered around going to fish farms and seeing how they are grown and kept. YouTube provides me hours of entertainment. My pond is already dug and now it is just a matter of waiting for warmer weather to put in the liner. It has gotten so out of hand I had to build a small pond to make more room in my aquarium for the fish I bought anticipating having a pond.

So Lord Willing my next post will be to put links to the forty-five stories all in one place.

Congress is Dysfunctional, Our Elections Are Proof

 

 

        What Is Wrong With America’s Election System

Last weekend I took a trip to Kentucky and it reminded me of the following joke. After my GPS crashed and I had no map in my new car I felt like I was living the joke. I finally had to stop at a small country post office and ask directions, he printed them up for me which was nice, but they didn’t say how far the turns were apart and an hour and a half later I made it the fifteen miles and arrived at my destination. Best thing I can say about it was that it was a pretty drive through Kentucky horse country. There were many very beautiful homes along the way.

Years ago I heard this joke that I think applies to the problems facing America today. It goes something like this. “A traveling salesman was driving the back roads of Kentucky and found himself lost. After awhile he saw an old man sitting on his front porch swing and whittling. So he pulled over to get directions. He asked the old man if he knew how to get where he was going. The old man said “Yes”, with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. The salesman said, “Well can you tell me how to get there?” The old man started giving him directions and the salesman said “Thank You” got in his car and took off. After about an hour and a half he was starting to believe the old man had sent him on a wild goose chase. Suddenly he came back to the house where he started. Totally frustrated he got out of his car and told the old man,”I thought you said you could tell how to get where I was going.” The old man said “I can” The salesman said, “I am not so sure about that, if you did, why am I back here?” The old man smiled and said, “I can give you the directions, but first I had to make sure you could follow them.

That is kind of like America. We know where we came from, and where we want to go but aren’t sure how to get there. Our problem is we have too many slick old people in charge, of our country. They haven’t a clue how to get to where we want to go, but they have learned how to line their pockets with our dollars. Forty-one of our Senators have been in the Senate for over twelve years, one has been there thirty five years and one has been there forty-five years. They have not fixed our problems, they have just learned to milk the cow and enjoy the ride.

It is time to fix the problem, and the only way I think it can be done is to start a third party that is for America and its people. The present system has a lot of problems. I know that people are put in place by seniority and that it helps provide order. However it can frustrate new comers who are motivated. They get frustrated waiting their turn.

The present election is a perfect example of the problem. Voting and making sure your vote is counted is a challenge. Certain elements in the process are trying to suppress the votes of many. Congressman John Lewis fought his whole life to make sure everybody got to vote. In the Constitution Article 1, Section 4 it makes clear that it is Congress duty to make the rules concerning elections.

As the government sponsors the education system in the United States it would seem logical to use that system to provide equitable opportunity to all Americans to vote. There are 130,930 K-12 schools in the United States, and there are 260,000,000 eligible voters in the United States according to the census. That means if every school provided a polling place, there would be 1985 voters in each school system. Allowing for a twelve hour voting day, it would require voters to vote at the rate of 165 per hour. If they have at least three voting booths it would require 55 voters per booth per hour. Proof there is no reason for people standing in lines for hours on end. The problem is Congress would have to implement it. If each school had a polling manager they could be in charge of making sure all voters are properly registered and that no one is denied their right to vote. Each school should have a six person nonpartisan board with one person elected from among them to serve as the administrator for a term of two years. The six members should be equally divided between the parties.

The next thing that needs fixed is the rules concerning appointment of Supreme Court Justices, which has been an issue in the last two elections. The Congress can solve this simply by making sure there is one justice for each regional district and make one extra to ensure any special needs can be addressed. All judges should be required to retire from the court with a pension at the age of seventy five.

Another thing that needs to be addressed is the Electoral College. It needs to be eliminated. It does not allow the will of the people to be respected. The main purpose it serves is to allow the politicians to appoint the person they want to the presidency. At a minimum the system needs to be altered. The present system does not represent the will of the voters. Instead of one party takes all the votes, it should be proportional. to the vote in the state sending the delegates, and reflect the vote balance in that state. Only Maine and Nebraska use that system presently.

Finally there is the issue of term limits. Right now America is being held hostage to the will of one Senator from Kentucky who has been in the Congress for thirty five years. He is a Republican, but the longest serving is a Democrat from Maine who has been in the Congress for forty-five years. There are 41 Senators who have served in excess of 12 years or two terms in office. Sixteen are Republicans and the balance are Democrats.

At present the system allows eight Senators, from four states, NY, CA, TX and FL, to represent the will of 34 % of the population of the United States. It also allows one Senator, who represents a state that is only one and one third percent of the population to hold the whole nation hostage to his personal will. That is absolutely wrong and is certainly not what the Founding Fathers intended.

Under Mitch McConnell the Republicans have done nothing since 2008 when President Obama was elected, but try to prevent or undo anything that Obama or the Democrats have tried to do. That is not what the system was designed to do. The really sad part is the present President has not only encouraged this but done virtually nothing to correct the problem. His major accomplishment is having fired a lot of civil service workers who had dedicated their lives to serving our country. Of course firing people was his greatest skill on his reality TV show the Apprentice.

Trump was elected because he was not really a politician, Most Americans wanted change and one thing is for sure they definitely got change. It was not the change many of them wanted, but that will issue will be resolved one week from today. I have heard a lot of people say based on placards that Trump will get reelected. Based on that philosophy, Obama should never been elected. The picture below is from in front of my local polling place on election day 2008. Is there something missing in the picture. I am sure where I live is not the only place it happened.

                   

A while back I created my own political party called CARP. The Party Platform is on my other blog and can be reached by following the link enclosed. https://carpforamerica.blogspot.com/2020/07/carp.html It addresses how to fix many of the problems that Congress has failed to do. If you follow me, you will get updates as I address them. I have what I consider a solution to the gun problem on my post and a lot of other stuff that is from a different or third party point of view.