Hatred of those on benefits is dangerously out of control

[T_i_B]

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/owen-jones-hatred-of-those-on-benefits-is-dangerously-out-of-control-7763793.html

Hatred against those receiving benefits is out of control in Cameron's Britain. The Tories transformed a crisis of capitalism into a crisis of public spending, and determined that the most vulnerable would make the biggest sacrifices. But taking away support from the disabled, the unemployed and the working poor is not straightforward. It can only be achieved by a campaign of demonisation – to crush any potential sympathy. Benefit recipients must only appear as feckless, workshy scroungers, living in opulent quasi-mansions with wall-to-wall widescreen TVs, rampaging around the Canary Islands courtesy of handouts from the squeezed taxpayer. Benefit fraud does exist – according to Government estimates, it is worth less than 1 per cent of welfare spending – but the most extreme examples are passed off as representative, or as the "tip of the iceberg". The reality is all but airbrushed out of existence.

Six of the biggest disability charities have warned that the campaign of demonisation – by both journalists and politicians – has led to a surge in abuse towards people with disabilities. According to Scope, two-thirds reported abuse in September last year, up from 41 per cent just four months earlier.

But this campaign helps sustain public acquiescence in a massacre of the welfare state. George Osborne plans £10bn of further benefit cuts; Cameron's parting spinmeister Steve Hilton has proposed £25bn. Half a million people are to have their disability living allowance taken away, even though the estimated fraud rate is just 0.5 per cent. People with serious illnesses are being stripped of their employment and support allowance, after undergoing the horrendous (and often humiliating) ordeal of a points-based assessment by French corporation Atos. One man with a degenerative lung disease, Larry Newman, was awarded no points – just a few weeks before he died of his illness. Under New Labour (let's not forget who started this), one woman had her benefits cut after missing an assessment appointment – because she was in hospital having chemotherapy for stomach cancer.

But we rarely see this reality: it is intentionally hidden from us. The Government and much of the media divert anger from those who caused the crisis, to your "scrounging" neighbour down the street. And so we end with Carole Malone arguing that a family whose children died in a fire brought it on themselves. It is beyond shameful. And it must be challenged.

[I owe a]

1. derp

LONDON — British Prime Minister David Cameron backed new French President Francois Hollande's deficit plans as the leaders prepared to meet for the first time in Washington on Friday.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h9TwPt2O0k-qEKiDBcmtbXNjeR0w?docId=CNG.3fbd5b32739e3209c58578b8a8480023.131

[LeftishBrit]

2. This is a great article

There is a horrific culture of blaming the victim; the current Tory attitude is very much of 'kicking people when they're down'. And it is going along with an extreme hatred of all benefit claimants in general, and those of disability-related benefits in particular.

Nothing begins to compare with the sheer sickness of treating the horrible deaths of six children as something that the family might have brought on itself; but here is an everyday, common-or-garden anti-disabled article by Cristina Odone.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100157702/iain-duncan-smith-must-not-give-in-to-disability-bullies/

'Disability bullies' - nice, huh? Typically, she seems to conflate invalidity benefit and Disability Living Allowance: two quite different things.

And here is the Daily Mail a few months ago:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2097157/If-public-opinion-turning-disabled-disability-charities-blame.html

And this is at a time when the government, by cutting Remploy, is reducing disabled people's chances of employment!

The viciousness toward the disabled - and toward the charities that support them (thus saving the state huge amounts of money) - is something that particularly revolts me, but it's just part and parcel of the hatred and contempt for anyone who is at a disadvantage or might need any help. First and foremost, poor people, of any sort. The unemployed. The ill. The homeless. Those who live in poor and otherwise disadvantaged areas: the 'anti-northern-ism; in particular is not very unlike a form of racism.

Everything is all about competition and toughness, and the devil take the hindmost!

[fedsron2us]

3. Tory scumbags

Cameron and Osbourne are typical public schook bullies who like dishing it out to the poor and weak but would run a mile if they had to face up to anyone who would give it back to them. Moreover, crapping on the disabled while extracting ever greater amounts of tax money from ordinary working people to prop up the UK rotten financial sector is beyond contempt. The sickening cheerleading from their whores the media who never question the corporate dole for the rich just makes me sick. May they all burn in hell.

[tjwmason]

4. It's a natural end-point from the extreme individualism promoted from the '80s onwards

There is a cultural shift in which we are told that people can (and therefore should) look after themselves; and that people get 'what they deserve'...which makes it easy for us to see those who need to have some assistance as being less than fully human, and deserving of ridicule.

The conflation of different types of benefit, combined with an obsession over the (probably) tiny levels of fraud acts as grace-notes to a wider narrative which is a toxin in the national culture.

[Matilda]

5. Jobseekers who reject help for alcohol and drug addiction face benefits cut

Duncan Smith will give a flavour of the new rules when he addresses an event in parliament organised by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He will say: "The outdated benefits system fails to get people off drugs and put their lives on track. We have started changing how addicts are supported, but we must go further to actively take on the devastation that drugs and alcohol can cause.

"Under universal credit we want to do more to encourage and support claimants into rehabilitation for addiction and starting them on the road to recovery and eventually work. Getting people into work and encouraging independence is our ultimate goal. Universal credit will put people on a journey towards a sustainable recovery so they are better placed to look for work in future and we will be outlining our plans shortly

(snip)

The source said Duncan Smith believes it is right to give jobcentre staff powers to cut benefits if an addict refuses treatment because they can detect signs of trouble.

The source said: "The universal credit will allow staff in Jobcentre Plus offices to say: this person has been unemployed for some time. The staff know if people are addicted to alcohol. They know the people they are dealing with.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/22/jobseekers-alcohol-drug-addiction-benefits-cut

How will the Jobcentre staff "know"? Fully-trained experts in addiction, are they?

If the minister has any understanding of the problems of addiction, he would know one thing that the public knows: you can't force an alcoholic or a drug addict into treatment - it doesn't work unless the addict wants it to, and even then it can be shaky. I'm surprised to see that AA is touting for business – they should know better than to get involved in such a stunt.

Life under conservatives is chilling!

[T_i_B]

6. Job Centre staff are fully trained......

.....in the "wham bam thank you ma'am" school of customer service. You don't even get very much in the way of eye contact, let alone assistance.

And in any case, if you do have problems with alcohol & drugs, wouldn't the job centre be the very last people you would let this on to? Too much risk of losing benefits.

[LeftishBrit]

7. All very disgusting

Using the benefit system as a stick to punish people who don't conform to the government's moral judgements of how they should act is disgusting. Duncan Smith seems to want to turn the welfare system into a branch of the criminal justice system. This is all of course one aspect of why they prefer 'Big Society' charitable services to public services; mainly it's just an excuse for cuts, but some of it is that right-wingers think that the charitable committees will be more able to pick and choose as to the 'deservingness' of those whom they help. And now people like Cristina Odone are even suggesting that healthcare should be triaged according to deservingness rather than need.

Of course, it's ironic that the haters of the 'nanny state' are introducing a very caricature of a nanny state. But it's all part and parcel of an attitude of libertarianism for the rich and authoritarianism for the poor. After all, I am sure that many government ministers drank too much in their student days (Oxbridge PPE-ists with their eyes on a political career are well known, even by the standards of other students, for their drunken behaviour); and some of them probably still do so. A not insignificant number of them probably took illegal drugs in their time. But they would not consider that they, or their friends, or in the case of older politicians their children, should be treated as pariahs and condemned to poverty because of such behaviour. But if the users are poor, kick them when they're down!

[Matilda]

8. It gives me chills,

because we're on track to get a conservative government at the next election, led by "The Mad Monk", Tony Abbott. From statements made by Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey recently, the most vulnerable are likely to be targetted. I'm sure he's gazing on Cameron's efforts with admiration.

Bring back the workhouses!

[LeftishBrit]

9. Just found this post!

'A not insignificant number of them probably took illegal drugs': apparently practically the whole bloody lot of them did!

But I'm most worried about their brains being on that drug known as 'Brexit!'