The Hostile Environment for Disabled and Sick.

[treelover]

MH is only one, but an important one, of the massive range of medical conditions.

 

[Shechemite]

Honestly, I keep trying to reply to this thread but I get so cross and end up writing a massive long angry rant and then deleting it. I can't even manage to do just a quick summary.

Indeed it’s fucking grim

 

[Shechemite]

MH is only one, but an important one, of the massive range of medical conditions.

No shit, but you understand that there is hope that we can do something about what is and will be happening to us? Better than feeling hopeless, and bitter because ‘no one cares, surely?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Mental health provision is where other things are going to end up. It's the canary in the NHS coalmine.

 

[bluescreen]

<snip>I think the mainstream media holds a big chunk of responsibility for the hateful attitudes some have, and the climate of fear they’ve created with the horror headlines over and over again. I also think it’s in part to do with the tendency for most people to play down how bad their illnesses and disabilities are, to put a brave face on, to minimise the seriousness. There’s a lot of stigma attached to being disabled be it physical or mental or other. I think that spills out into abled people not having the social skills to deal with it, and a general preference to take the option of minimising it whenever it’s presented.

Perceptive comment. I've been racking my brains to work out why the hostility. I reckon you're right that hostility is an easy cop-out, saves the embarrassment - yes, there's sometimes that, because it's too painful to empathise - and a great dollop of self-righteous relief that it's Not My Problem after all because Swinging the Lead Innit? Like the person in a wheelchair who is able to stand up or even walk a couple of paces .

And stigma. Yes, there is stigma. It is historical. It is ridiculous.

No, too many people have no idea, nor do they want to have any idea, because it's too damned uncomfortable to contemplate. Much easier to be hostile.


How do we turn this around?

 

[Shechemite]

Mental health provision is where other things are going to end up. It's the canary in the NHS coalmine.

So let’s start the fightback there.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

So let’s start the fightback there.

Everybody I know is just trying to keep their shit together right now.

 

[Shechemite]

Everybody I know is just trying to keep their shit together right now.

Same. It’s grim

 

[Shechemite]

Didn’t Plumdaff say something about NHS strikes/actions?

 

[nyxx]

Everybody I know is just trying to keep their shit together right now.

Which is exactly why they’re doing it.

I have to admit that for the most part the past few tears, I’ve just felt like I’m only just holding it together and need to focus on how to keep my head above water, nothing left in me for anything else.

My gut reaction to the latest news is I can’t do that anymore, the only way to keep myself together from here on is to find some way to be engaged and involved in resistance, if nothing but to keep my sense of hope alive.

 

[Shechemite]

treelover is right on this. The labour movement needs to urgently get to grips with the reality of disability and welfare.

 

[treelover]

Which is exactly why they’re doing it.

I have to admit that for the most part the past few tears, I’ve just felt like I’m only just holding it together and need to focus on how to keep my head above water, nothing left in me for anything else.

My gut reaction to the latest news is I can’t do that anymore, the only way to keep myself together from here on is to find some way to be engaged and involved in resistance, if nothing but to keep my sense of hope alive.

But lots of others, possible allies have been surviving, many doing well, look at the numbers on the EDL protests, the climate change ones, huge meetings for refugee's, then contrast them with the level of support for disabled and sick, never mind the unemployed, who are even more invisible, then you have the NEETS, apart for Jones book, i can't think of a time they have been discussed.

Oh, and people like myself have been shouted down on here, imagine that happening to a campaigner for any other minority.

 

[Shechemite]

But lots of others, possible allies have been surviving, many doing well, look at the numbers on the EDL protests, the climate change ones, huge meetings for refugee's, then contrast them with the level of support for disabled and sick, never mind the unemployed, who are even more invisible, then you have the NEETS, apart for Jones book, i can't think of a time they have been discussed.

Oh, and people like myself have been shouted down on here, imagine that happening to a campaigner for any other minority.

So let’s use this forum (and other spaces) to work out how we can integrate disability/MH/welfare into the labour movement

 

[Shechemite]

[QUOTE="treelover, post: 16330207, member: 334" imagine that happening to a campaigner for any other minority.[/QUOTE]

Don’t go down that road. It doesn’t lead anywhere good.

 

[treelover]

Tories remove disability and health data consent rights – on first day as new Gov. #ESA65B #ESA50 #ESA1 #UC50

and it starts,
Tories remove disability and health data consent rights – on first day as new Gov.

 

[Calamity1971]

Can this actually be legal? Just been sent by a friend
Tories use first day back to attack the disabled

 

[Shechemite]

Tories remove disability and health data consent rights – on first day as new Gov. #ESA65B #ESA50 #ESA1 #UC50

and it starts,
Tories remove disability and health data consent rights – on first day as new Gov.

And you’d be right in saying that the ‘freedom’ types will do fuck all in response

 

[treelover]

Liberty for example, do not cover benefit issues in any way, says it all really.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Can this actually be legal? Just been sent by a friend
Tories use first day back to attack the disabled

It's not legal. What concerns me is that it's _obviously_ not legal but they just did it anyway, which makes me think that they are planning to completely gut data protection, likely as part of Brexit, which I suspected anyway tbh but I didn't think it would be this rapid.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

And you’d be right in saying that the ‘freedom’ types will do fuck all in response

Liberty for example, do not cover benefit issues in any way, says it all really.

The data protection groups I follow are generally good on health and benefits-related data issues; they don't specialise in it but they are aware.

The issue in practice is that they can't do much by themselves, the regulator is useless, and it takes money to challenge things in the courts which generally isn't forthcoming. I would expect this to be challenged but that won't help if the law is changed.

 

[Shechemite]

The data protection groups I follow are generally good on health and benefits-related data issues; they don't specialise in it but they are aware.

The issue in practice is that they can't do much by themselves, the regulator is useless, and it takes money to challenge things in the courts which generally isn't forthcoming. I would expect this to be challenged but that won't help if the law is changed.

I was thinking more the ‘down with spycops’ anarchist/radical lot

 

[Shechemite]

The data protection groups I follow are generally good on health and benefits-related data issues; they don't specialise in it but they are aware.

The issue in practice is that they can't do much by themselves, the regulator is useless, and it takes money to challenge things in the courts which generally isn't forthcoming. I would expect this to be challenged but that won't help if the law is changed.

McLibel involved legal action no? What stops left activists fundraising for legal challenges re disability rights?

 

[Shechemite]

Didn’t Plumdaff say something about NHS strikes/actions?

Is it beyond our collective intelligence to integrate disability demands/actions with NHS staff demands/actions

 

[FridgeMagnet]

McLibel involved legal action no? What stops left activists fundraising for legal challenges re disability rights?

There isn't much money for anything, not from left activists and particularly not after the Tories have deliberately gutted legal aid and the situations where you can even sue in the first place. Most long-running cases will need lawyers willing to work pro bono or for very discounted rates. And data law is complicated and needs specialists - put it this way, I've worked professionally with big data, health informatics, GDPR, etc for years, take an active interest in it, and I still consider myself at "educated layperson" level at most.

The big things are (a) the aforementioned gutting of the legal system, which has drawn way less attention that it should, yet affects every poor person who wants to challenge things when the law is just flagrantly broken - housing maybe one of the main areas there, as well as employment - and (b) how that but also the problem of negative publicity has a deterrent effect in the first place. Ideally you never want to have to go to court because whoever it is is too worried and will not bother in the first place, even if they are much richer/more powerful than you. The latter is certainly an area where activism can do things.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Tories remove disability and health data consent rights – on first day as new Gov. #ESA65B #ESA50 #ESA1 #UC50

and it starts,
Tories remove disability and health data consent rights – on first day as new Gov.

Can this actually be legal? Just been sent by a friend
Tories use first day back to attack the disabled

It's not legal. What concerns me is that it's _obviously_ not legal but they just did it anyway, which makes me think that they are planning to completely gut data protection, likely as part of Brexit, which I suspected anyway tbh but I didn't think it would be this rapid.

oh fuck. You think its bad then it get worse. Ill and poor people make easy targets - easy to divide and hit. Easy to attack by the media / press etc. You would think by the vilication of the ill and poor that they were solely to blame for the banking crash - we must constantly turn this attack those really - responsible the banks, the rich, the markets, the govt etc.

Looking after ourselves and our own is important - as Audre Lorde said — 'Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.' They would like nothing better for us to fade away, to die, to fight and kill each other. Go on annoy them - survive and live well.

The pm has already shown contempt for the law and willingness to evade, dodge and test it to the limit. A dangerous road for him to go down I would have thought if he want people to obey the law. Civil disobedience is called for.

solidarity! as much as possible between as many people as possible againgst this evil govt.

 

[Shechemite]

oh fuck. You think its bad then it get worse. Ill and poor people make easy targets - easy to divide and hit. Easy to attack by the media / press etc. You would think by the vilication of the ill and poor that they were solely to blame for the banking crash - we must constantly turn this attack those really - responsible the banks, the rich, the markets, the govt etc.

Looking after ourselves and our own is important - as Audre Lorde said — 'Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.' They would like nothing better for us to fade away, to die, to fight and kill each other. Go on annoy them - survive and live well.

The pm has already shown contempt for the law and willingness to evade, dodge and test it to the limit. A dangerous road for him to go down I would have thought if he want people to obey the law. Civil disobedience is called for.

solidarity! as much as possible between as many people as possible againgst this evil govt.

So fucking true

 

[Sasaferrato]

Something mps who have never done a day's work in their lives should go on

I have always felt that would be MPs should have to demonstrate a period of real world work, say ten years.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I have always felt that would be MPs should have to demonstrate a period of real world work, say ten years.

The "I worked in the city for X years so I know how things work" lot are the worst. Hardly a shortage of roles for dim posh kids with rich parents that reinforce the worst of their prejudices.

 

[Sasaferrato]

The "I worked in the city for X years so I know how things work" lot are the worst. Hardly a shortage of roles for dim posh kids with rich parents that reinforce the worst of their prejudices.

That is why I said 'real world'. Not finance, not as a researcher for an MP...

Too often now:

School.
University PPE 2/2.
Researcher for MP.
Unwinnable to get blooded.
Winable.

And totally fucking clueless as to how ordinary people live.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Doesn’t some of this have roots in the Thatcher/Major era where unemployed people in areas with fuck all employment opportunities were encouraged to go on the sick so as to bring down the headline unemployment figures? Which was then followed with anyone sick facing accusations of being workshy fakers/chancers (goaded on by a press that liked nothing more than exposing the odd case of piss taking, creating the idea that it was widespread).

Was there any history of abuse before then? Asking because I was too young to have any political awareness of stuff before thatcher, although mocking disabled people was common at school, as were racist jokes etc.

My dad took early retirement/ redundancy and was positively encouraged to claim sick benefits (industrial related ill health/ heart problems) rather than dole - as were millions of former workers of heavy industry, from the closed mines, shipyards, foundries and factories. That is how Thatcher dealt with unemployment figures - but redefining what employment was and blaming the unemployed for their own lack of employment 'Get on your bike' they said. Then had to stop travel re embursements as so job seeker's did exactly that.

Of course there was a notion of workshy slackers before of course - but as I recall before '79 media and govt ire was more directed at trade unions / closed shop / work to rule types.

Ideas about ill and disabled people have changed enormously - but not thanks to Thatcher. She wanted to save money by starting 'care in the community' or no care in the community as it turned out.

I was brought up in the 60s to treasure the NHS and welfare state by my family who all remembered life and illness before the NHS

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”

[QUOTE]“No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”[/QUOTE]
Aneurin Bevan