A Glimmer Of Hope

     Our economic and political systems are not working for the majority of people in this country. This is different from when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. It was much clearer then what was wrong and more importantly what we could do to fix our problems. People protested. Protests and the ensuing media coverage helped to end the war in Vietnam, and to create The Great Society. I wish today we only had these as our main goals those of The Great Society: ending poverty, reducing crime, abolishing inequality and improving the environment (think Earth Day). Sounds pretty easy when you consider how Covid-19 has ravaged the world and shown us far we have to go to protect one another.

      Protests back in the day gave us hope that we could make the world a better place.

     Today our problems are much bigger. Fortunately, people are protesting. The protests are holding our attention to horrific images like the cop kneeling on a Black man's neck while staring into the camera of a smartphone. The protests are energizing people across all age groups. Some have never protested anything before, others haven't done it in a long time. I'm just glad to see them all out and giving voice to their feelings. I wish they wouldn't burn things like police cars, but there are bad apples in every group.

     The protests show me we have a glimmer of hope. Because in the end we have nothing left to lose if we give up calling attention to what's wrong with the world