Hitler changed so much of our postwar world. In fact what he did in the war rippled out in a continuous wave of destruction beyond his own life. What his war did was build a formidable force that destroyed him. Those forces, the Russians and Americans, lived on after the war and added to their arsenal. The world was divided and wars of surrogacy multiplied, where Russia and America fought through their client states. Now we see it continuing and moving in the wrong direction, threatening our safety.
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Of course I could write about the debris of history as if I was writing a manifesto, but I am taking a leaf out of Charles Dickens’s book. When he wished to lambast the wealthy employers for paying peanuts to their staff, and showing no human charity towards the poor, he first decided to write a manifesto. But at the last moment he chose to write a novel. His argument was, who reads manifestos? Only the committed.
He wanted to get the message of the greed and selfishness of the early Victorian businessmen over to each and every person. And he wrote A Christmas Carol to do so. Invented Scrooge and scroogism to show how squeezing every drop of value out of workers can only tread heavily on your own humanity.
A Christmas Carol has never been out of print since and it has inspired dozens of TV and film versions. It hits the nail on the head. Sentimental and at times weepy, it nonetheless demonstrates that stories can change people’s feelings en masse.
I, though, wish to do something more modest with PSHV, which is to get debates going as to why politicians are always dealing with ‘what is’. And rarely asking the question ‘Why is it as it is’?
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Why are we always having to negotiate the mistakes of the past? Why is it that so many people believed the NHS was about to implode that the call for appointments went up dramatically, as was explained to me by a far-thinking doctor. What are we doing to reduce this impossible burden, almost smothering the NHS?
It is interesting, if you look at the health issues of millions of people, that they are mainly related to poor food. The poor food comes from poor incomes, and also from poor food education.
Poverty pushes the NHS into being a manager of the crisis of health and not a solution provider. Why? Because government is yet to concentrate its efforts on destroying poverty, rather than simply managing it.
Circa 90% of investment in poverty – yes, even social security is an investment in poverty – goes on emergency but precious little on cure and prevention.
Why have we done so little to dismantle the frequent inheritance of the poverty that fills our hospitals, prisons and streets?
Why? Because no one is asking the big issue: why is this? Why can’t it be something else? It’s frightening. Politicians are frightened. They only want to deal with what is possible. Without realising that we have to tackle the impossible to make it possible.
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A recent visit to the far side of the moon was, once upon a time, impossible. So we can do it scientifically, but we can’t do it socially.
Will PSHV see the light of day? I hope so. But I am also struggling with A Slim Book on Big Thinking. ASBOBT is another vast canvas, hopefully delivered in a way that many will read it.
Storytelling is the name of the game. To keep us optimistic – and bushy-tailed.
John Bird is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Big Issue. Read more of his words from our archive.
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