An early work-in-progress dedicated to helping,
circuitously, precipitate the Great Mobilisation
Dare to be wise!
Kant
Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 20240721
I’ve seen the flame of hope among the hopeless
And that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all
That was the straw that broke me open
Bruce Cockburn, 1999
Liberty with which to End Child Hunger: In the fight to preserve liberty, or a survivable climate, the fight to end child hunger must the first to be won. Pictured is the firstfrom that particular shipyard Liberty ship to launch at the new, state-owned shipyard at Cape Fear River, North Carolina—other photographs attest to a crowd of 13 000 having attended the launch. The ss Zebulon B Vance, as the usahs John J Meany, served the latter years of World War II as a hospital ship. In addition to kitchens, modular clinics, field hospitals, housing and schools could all be manufactured in Aotearoa—from planted, locally-grown engineered timber—high-cube-shipping-container dimensioned. image East Carolina Digital Collections
Food, clothing, shelter, and something to hope for—to paraphrase Norman Kirk. For generations now, increasing numbers of New Zealand children have routinely gone without food, and without hope, a crime perpetrated by the ungrateful 1984 usurpers of the Greatest Generation and a once-noble Labour Party machine. This takeaway brigadewhich Cimino refuses to dignify with its accepted title, the Fish and Chip Brigade didn’t win but were gifted an election, much less did said greasiesNew Zealand vernacular for take-away fish and chips munchers earn a mandate for the secret, state- and society-destroying agenda they gleefully set about enacting.
At the heart of child hunger in Aotearoa was the confused capitulation of a once proudly egalitarian society, to neoliberal ideology. Forty years of neoliberalism’s odious trickledown dogma delivered an immense disparity in prosperity, for example: a 14-fold prosperity-score disparity between the opulent 9.8 of Ōrākei, depravedly indifferent to the 0.7 of Ōtara–Papatoetoe. Hungry children can’t be allowed to live in hope for another 40 years for neoliberalism’s wrongs to be reversed, when the first liberty kitchens could be being prototyped and trialled, within months.
From his earliest awareness of individual dispositions, Cimino had always thought of himself as an optimist, even owning the Pollyanna end of the spectrum. It is days like this, when the day dawns clear and cold, when his Wordle start word has come up trumps, and when Biden has done the decent thing by quitting his run at re-election that nurtures Cimino’s determined undying ember of optimism. As was the case when Robert Mulddoon had drunkenly demonstrated his use-by both to his party and too the opposition, his desperate bid to hold onto power gave agency to those with anti-state inclinations. Demented from day one as President Biden’s dogged determination was, Cimino prays now that the Democratic Party, 44 years after the Republicans chose a compelling face, but particularly the voice to go with it, appreciates that it doesn’t just need to listen to George Clooney, but to nominate him. Six decades ago, a barely inaugurated president implored:
…ask not what your country can do for you…
Would, that that shadow-of-its-former-self party, today, could imagine a great, new beginning. Although it often doesn’t feel like it, Cimino knows he’s not the only one who imagines a path to practicable, respectful democracy. What he has yet to glimpse elsewhere is an inkling of anyone else who sees a polycrises Great Mobilisation as the way past short-termism and division. The valiant few intent on creating a world where policy-making is elevated from the filth of the political cock-fighting pit, such as Professor Sir Peter Gluckman with his Wicked Problems, Policy and Politics rightly identify the need for long-term reform and early investment to break the cycle. While Cimino agrees and applauds, he sees these long-term radical changes as exasperatingly difficult to sell to a society wanting the sort of miracle that the likes of only Lotto or going viral—think Daddy Yankee and Despacito ’s 8.4 billion viewsas of 202406—produces. In this age of rupture, rather than risk reform withering on the vine while the world doubles-down on de-democratisation, a demonstration by Aotearoa–Australia of practicable, profoundly democratic mobilisation must be mounted, and all the more compelling if partnered with Canada. To be continued…
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Disclosure The author of this novel modello is no longer the secretary of Mahurangi Action Incorporated or the Mahurangi Coastal Path Trust. The content published here, however, is that of the editorially independent, independently funded Mahurangi Magazine.
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