Social Rebirth.

Social Rebirth.
I feel privileged to be able to communicate with my chosen community in the Alberta Rockies once a week. I am blessed to have a limited space of half a page in a local newspaper and I hear comments from readers all the time. I don’t mind doing the work, it’s a pleasure, but I have a hard time choosing the most relevant topic.
My favorite subject has always been something philosophical or spiritual, but events hijack my focus. Politics and economics are so important yet often ignored. The state of our world, be it peace or war or environmental justice must be dealt with or there will be an end to God’s creation as we know it. It may happen in the lifetime of my precious grandchildren. COVID attacks people, the economy is in ruins and politicians are demanding air time in the name of Democracy.
My fingers holding the pen above the paper, or something like that, and I am ready to write about “towers and the holy spirit.” I have been preparing for that. NO! The hand of God waves back and forth, ordering me to change the subject. I am an obedient guy, so I switch my computer screen to news and see what the Lord may want.
The world is up in arms about a well-publicized killing of a US citizen in the hands of police. The video is horrific. It shows a very tall, muscular African American submitting to police in every way, killed slowly. No mistake here. This is police brutality. Soon there are more videos surfacing and other cases are brought into focus.
In the last few years, I watched a constant increase in civil unrest. People seem to have reached a point in which they say enough is enough. Personally, I interpret the impatience as discontent with the way things are, based largely on the obvious and ever-increasing inequalities in society. I could be wrong.
The day after President Trump’s inauguration, we witnessed the largest women’s protest ever. The Black Lives Matter has been steadily growing. A “Me Too” movement sprung up when some very influential people were named for abusing girls and there is economy based unrest. People all over the world, especially in the US, are protesting measures designed to prevent or influence voting rights and the appointment of judges is being questioned.
Here in our province, we saw a great reaction to the way the government treats education and health professionals. In Ontario, the Premier reversed course and now people are talking about the New Doug Ford and the Old Doug Ford as if they are two different people. It is obvious that people no longer believe that the regular methods of advancing social change are working for their needs.
George Floyd’s funeral was televised everywhere. Many thousands of people in other parts of the world, including Canada and America, were protesting his killing, often facing police violence themselves. Some used the opportunity to create additional mayhem by burning and looting. George’s niece, a pretty girl who looks sixteen gave an emotional speech about the gentle giant who cried for his mother as they choked his life out of him. She said in a husky teen girl voice full of tears, “no justice, no peace.” The huge cathedral was full of silent Americans. They all looked human to me and I was thinking, their lives matter, as any human life.
Later a golden casket was carried by a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Houston lined with people. I found myself thinking, here is a man who died for $20.00. Will the billionaire now in the White House have as many people at his funeral? I remembered the words I heard on June 5th, 1970, from Apollo 13th. “Houston, we have a problem.”
“When the US catches a Cold, Canada sneezes.” It looks as if people in both countries are ready to explode. I remember the sixties and the seventies very clearly. We had what became known as the Middle Class. Then something changed. No one event riled people up, only slow change. Here we had the usual switching over between Liberals and Conservatives every few years and so did the US, but life changed. 
One day my kids were grown and starting families and I noticed a significant difference. In the seventies, working folks could afford an education, keeping up with inflation, and even saved towards retirement. Some of us even managed to work a four-day workweek and most had delightful holidays. Slowly but surely the working class lost ground while earth-shattering profits of Corporations rose. Some people tried to protest, so they equipped the police with riot gear and ordered to fight the poor. We are a land of law and order, said those who purchased lawmaker’s positions. The laws favored the powerful, not us, in the name of “jobs.” 
People were ready to rebel as soon as they would find a just cause and now they do. What could be more just than systemic discrimination, first towards minorities but also against an entire class of people? Some educated people are predicting another vast setback for the working class after the COVID crisis. Together we who work make a majority and now can all see it.
I feel sorry for the righteous people who have the job to police this mess. They are being hit from all sides. The left fights them, the far-right fight them, and they are often punished for following orders. In New York, a whole lot of officers resigned already.
The way we do policing will change now by public demand. What we need is to bring those brave men and women back into the fold. They are like us, the lost middle class. We should all be working together to fix a system that no longer serves us. I urge people in my community to step over towards any of our police officers, even if he/she gave you a ticket, and say: thank you for what you do.

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