Rebuilding a world.

 

 Rebuilding a world.

I am an old man with no power whatsoever. I am not rich, powerful, or influential. Not being “privileged” exposed me in my youth to conditions that now I am paying for with my health. I write a little op-ed for a tiny community newspaper and thanks to my lifelong wife, a few friends, and a social safety net that I and others like me helped built, I can stay alive.

During the occupation of Ottawa by the discontented small percentage of truck drivers and many small groups of agitators from all walks, I learned some things. Mostly, our lives and the existence we enjoy can be shaken and destroyed at any time with little warning.

When a few thousand people get the idea that they were victimized by society, they can upset the whole apple cart. I expected the government of thirty-seven million people to stop things from deteriorating, but it didn’t and a group of people, who remind me of the Taliban in Afghanistan, demanded that the government will resign and they will dictate what will happen. For them, it is freedom, for me, perhaps a life sentence.

When finally the government figured things out, the first thing they did was to distribute a page with a warning. How could they, I ask myself? After all, people know they can’t camp and park on the streets of our capital city and on highways and bridges? I have seen people get tickets for answering their cell phones while driving. Well, a government warning statement, ignored, is still littering the streets. When I am writing these words nothing worst yet happened. (By Sunday they are all gone.)

If I was the Prime Minister, none of those trucks would have been in the capital city and the people who had enough obeying the law would have been mortgaging their trucks and hiring lawyers. Wearing a tiny mask is not like being drafted to go to war, and many have done that for “freedom.” You don’t see a family taking orders from a toddler or a school following instructions issued by grade one students, but here we are doing just that. A self-appointed committee of teamsters can’t run a country, yet we take the time to warn them. They are causing millions of dollars of damage that ultimately, we will all pay for, and we play nice.

I take a critical look at the world I am living in. Sixty years ago, I heard people say that some bad guys (and some good guys) had bombs that could destroy the only planet we have. They have a lot more now. Fifty years ago, there was talk about us being destroyed by making too much garbage and pollution which may kill us in time, and we have much more now. Old people told us kids that we should protect ourselves from diseases that kill millions and we didn’t.

More than half of what humanity’s work is producing is for wars or for a relatively small group of people to enjoy, while it forces the rest to live on the edge.

Lately, events took shape, making it clear that humans must change direction. I am sitting here in a little mountain town, watching. A pandemic happened as if to show us what it can do. Millions already died, but those who are untouched are demanding not to be inconvenienced by it. We know that a worst virus could happen at any time, but we are told “to learn how to live with it,” as if we can.

The two superpowers who possess most of the world’s killing machines are facing off threatening war and people are arguing over who has the “biggest button.” The pollution that we produce overcame the Earth’s natural defenses, and the climate is becoming hostile to humans while we are arguing about who is at fault. Just like kids on the playground, we are pointing fingers, crying, “he started it.” Some people have so much money that they don’t have a clue how to use it, while many others work two or three jobs and live on the streets in tents. Each nation is trying to pretty up their place, ignoring the others who are camping in poverty-stricken camps outside their borders. The leaders are “protecting the health care system” not the people who die in terrible agony in it, cared for by ever-dwindling overworked workers.

I am afraid that these latest events will not just further divide us, but teach us to be militant. A cornered animal is always dangerous since it has nothing to lose. There is a song doing the rounds on the net called “The cry-baby caravan.” Now when the safety measures are being hastily removed thanks to a so-called protest of an un-vaccinated few, groups that want Alberta to leave confederation, and other fringe anti-government clubs, we look and learn how it’s done.

What’s left at this point is the question of what should we do when this is all over. We are bound to repeat mistakes if we don’t learn from them. If I survive or not, I want a better life for my grandkids and great-grandkids. No guarantees, but a better chance.

To me, the path is clear. We have a world full of resources and we have our work and ability to make things. We must find a way to reward all people for their contribution, large and small. Elon Musk should be compensated for his hard work and exceptional abilities, but so should the barber or the single mother. She may not be as gifted, but she possibly works harder than Elon and should share in the bounty. When she does, she will contribute to the economy without killing herself. Even the neediest people have something to contribute. The most famous people can’t do what they do without the contributions of the many little people who, a little at a time, make the greatest things happen.