I’ve been on this planet for over seventy years and have seen a great deal of things that were truly disturbing.

I grew up in a household with an alcoholic and bigoted father who beat and berated his son and molested and raped his daughters and with a self-absorbed mother who turned a blind eye to the abuse and later tried to hide the truth of what happened at all costs to “save the family’s good name”.

I lived through the civil rights movement where innocent black citizens were shot, hung and denied their rights and was horrified over the shooting of Reverend Martin Luther King.

I was in college at the time and during a basketball game between our catholic college in North Carolina and a Christain college in South Carolina, where I along with some fellow students were forced to help defend our black basketball players who were attacked by the other colleges players and students while the referees stood by and watched. Sadly, instead of supporting and congratulating us for our actions they instead placed us on probation.

While at the same college some of my friends and I worked as waiters at a local restaurant. Om our first day at work one of the local waiters warned us to watch our backs as many who worked there were members of the KKK who in addition to blacks hated Catholics just as much.

I also lived through the assassinations of JFK and RFK.

During the Vietnam era I served in the USAF and was safe at home but lost many a friend and fellow student who died during the conflict.

I’ve worked for a number of horrible bosses who acted like kings and who tried to get me to compromise my principals and cheat my customers. Each time I resisted they found ways to punish me. in the end my resisting them cost me my career and financial stability.

I lived through the events of 9/11 where many a friend and customer were negatively affected or died during those events. I was in NY that morning and will never forget the horror of that day.

I was horrified over the killing of George Floyd as well as other innocent blacks and the Black Lives Matter movement where peaceful protesters were treated so poorly.

I’ve been betrayed by friends, family and customers whom I have loved and supported.

But what I’ve seen just in these last few months makes me finally feel like I’ve seen too much. whether it be ICE raids on innocent people just because of how they look or how they speak, the effects of the DOGE cuts, retributions, the roll-back of rights for women, minorities, native Americans, LGBTQ people, the abuse of power, the weaponization of the courts and the military as well as the national guard against our own citizens, the apparent move towards a dictatorial form of government, the ending of Environmental protections, and much, much more, it’s simply too much to bear and i need to call it out.

In my lifetime I’ve been friends and classmates with people of every race, religion, sexual preference, nationality and political persuasion. I’ve seen good in every one of them.

Sure there are bad apples in every case but in the end we are all equal and deserving of the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and we do not need a KING to tell us otherwise.

Thanks for checking in and be good to one another.

Mahalo, Paul