#heardwhilstdisabled and the US variant #HeardWhileDisabled
Here is a British Councillor claiming disabled housing is like winning the lottery to the disabled. If we had a society that did not throw us away, then such scraps would lack that importance.
Culturally we face similar problems world wide as the 1% siphon away resources it is those of us with little power that lose the most. One of the ways of making sure we are demonized is the use of demeaning and dismissive terminology to refer to us. Especially if that terminology implies a moral failing on our part. It makes stealing the crutches from the legless go down much easier:
On paper, Linda Smith‘s job with an Aberdeen company was straight-forward – she was meant to be helping the long-term unemployed – many of them disabled – to find jobs and move off benefits.
The reality, she said, was a corporate culture that saw staff in training sessions referring to those same people as LTBs – code for “lying, thieving bastards”.
“That is how they are referred to,” she said of the clients of Triage, which is a key player in the government’s ambitious plan to pay private companies to move people from benefit into work.
There are 2.5m long-term sick and disabled unemployed people in the UK. The cost to the taxpayer is £13bn a year.
The hypocrisy burns when you read more about this company:
"These people were probably more difficult to place in employment for us as employment workers, but for them (the company) these people were bigger money... these people were the bucks, the ker-ching."
But once those people were on the company's books, and an initial fee paid, Mrs Smith said the company - which operates in Scotland and northern England - told its staff to spend as little time and effort as possible on helping them find jobs.
She said the practice is known as "parking". Four other former Triage employees told the BBC similar stories of being told to "park" clients rather than actively help them find work. They also confirmed the use of the term "LTBs" to describe their clients.
So this corporation focuses on being on the public teat and once they are paid refuse to provide services? Who are the lying, thieving, bastards?
Now obviously the US and the UK have alot in common. Here we see that the austerity boogie man needs to have it's way paved by the demonization of the class of people being most impacted by austerity. That way when the homeless person in the wheelchair reaches with a palsied hand out to beg for scraps to forestall the agony of gnawing hunger you can pass them by without a twinge of guilt.
But we can do something now instead of making those of us with empathy see the result of your greed. You can contact those millionaires in Congress making decisions that will never alter their lives to not cut off those of us that are disabled. If you think I'm annoying now right wing I'm an absolute beast when I have nothing to lose. We don't have to put up with this posturing in an effort to bring the US down to a third world status. It may be profitable to sell security and survival gear but do these companies really think we will maintain an infrastructure capable of getting their products to market if we go total capitalist here?
Austerity is a death sentence not only to untold millions around the world but our standard of living as we know it. Blaming the poor when half our taxes go to the MIC is not going to stop our economic woes. 7:12 AM PT:
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