Living in a Bully Social System. Bully, Bully, Bully and The Disabled.

We live within a social power system, a bully system, that we did not create.

It's not what our biology was expecting.…

1. One can live with as much personal integrity as possible, as the first step. Ruthless self honesty, total honouring of one's mind, body and being as a biological wonder designed for nurture. Extending that to all you meet, every day, as the mood takes you. Recognising that in all life. De-colonise oneself. Return to full human health, as biology intends.

2. One can also organise, with others to create safe communities. It helps if one is aware that the historical creation of the material social power system places us in historical situations - thus past, present and future becomes our context for action, which is informed by experience, (the past) as action is taken in the present, with envisioned impacts, and paying close attention to outcomes in the future, which further inform our efforts.

Feed back. Better feed back, than blow back.

The task is long term, longer than any single human life time... it is multi generational.

Do one's bit, cheerfully, with full passion, in one's area of skill, talent, aspiration, afinity, and with due diligence. And remember - The bacteria are the base of the forest. They are the base of me, and of you.

Bullying is not a biologically mandated evolved behaviour.

Social organisaiton based on healthy humane bonding is. Bullying

A version of what is known as The BioPsychoSocial Medical Model applied to assessing and relgulation of Disability Social Support.

A US think tank co-opts insight to generate twisted judgementalist medicalily peverse justifications for limiting support for disabled people by focusing on 'attitude'....'like, domore exercise...', 'get a job'.... etc

The amoral background to the UK New Labour/Conservative/LibDem lpong term neoliberal policy that is bullying disabled folk to death in the UK today....

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0261018316649120018316649120

- Blaming The Victim, all over.

A superb, clear and easy to read paper that examines the DWP's 'biopsychosocial medical miodel' basis for WCA, it's origins, and it's validity.

And it's outcomes.

Read about how a US Corporate think tank associated with the Health Insurance Industry directly influenced British policy design and implementation, in the back ground, in ways the EU could never occasion.

How that policy was clearly understood - that it would induce a nudge - a 'stress' to alter claimants behaviour positively, to urge/help them into work, upon an already chronically stressed demographic, leading to deaths.... and was still pursued.

Lord Freud supported this. It's in the Parliamentary record, Hansard.

Descendant of Siggy Freud. Relative of Edward Bernays. Nudge.

19th Century blame the distressed psychology

Identified as a non-medical functional assessment, the Waddell-Aylward biopsychosocial (BPS) assessment model was created at the Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research (the Centre), at Cardiff University, when sponsored with £1.6million by Unum (Provident) Insurance, who had been official UK government advisers on “welfare claims management” since 1994.

Commissioned by the DWP, The Scientific and Conceptual Basis of Incapacity Benefits was rapidly produced at the Centre in 2005, with the recommendation that the medical model should be disregarded when assessing claimants for out-of-work disability benefit.

The totally discredited Waddell-Aylward BPS assessment model as used for the WCA disregards the diagnosis, prognosis and past medical history of the ESA claimant. Deaths were always inevitable.

- DWP Policy based on flawed papers, which when peer reviewed are found to be utterly false.

AUSTERITY was just the latest phase.

https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/killed-by-the-state/

In other words, wholly avoidable harm causation was not avoided, in pursuit of an ideological policy. People died as a direct result.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

Neoliberalism, Henry Spencer, Darwin misread, Nudge Theory and the UK's DWP as doctrinal extremists.

Let me get straight to the point here.

Survival of the Fittest is a caricature, one which when taken literally and applied to human social behavioiur voids the evidence base and replaces it with a violent mindset that runs counter to sociality as a ,marker of our species.

Human Rights are privileges granted to or negotiated for by the grass roots from Power within a violent hierarchy They can be withdrawn at a whim. As they frequently are. As the DWP in the UK are so ably demonstrating in their treatment of disabled and vulnerable people.

Our most natural expectations relate to life within a egalitarian setting, which is our innate biological mandate. More on that below.

Respect, love, kindness, connection, empathy.

Human Rights Law does not protect or nurture, it is a sop to the concept of Justice rather than a robust framework for justice.

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NeoLiberalism, Henry Spencer, Nudge and the DWP

”One of the most famous proponents of individualism as a moral project was Herbert Spence.

His ideas on liberty were derived from natural science (he originated the term ‘survival of the fittest’ some time before Darwin published ‘On The Origin of Species’). Individuals and societies prospered alike according to competition, he argued. In nature those who worked and overcame the harsh natural environment flourished, whilst the weak lost out.

In the modern world economic competition took the place of nature. Pure liberty consisted in everyone exerting his or her energies for private selfish ends; the outcome of self interest would result in harmony, the free market naturally supplying all the needs and wants of a diverse population.

Every citizen had a moral duty to better himself independent of of hindrance or help alike from the state. Any attempt by the state to help the poor might seem benevolent, but it would in fact have disastrous consequences…

To help the poor then would diminish liberty, and liberty of action in the economic field was the ‘vital’ condition of a progressive society driven forward by the unrestrained exertions of its members. Any theory of freedom should contain the freedom to fail, even if it was painful to members of society to witness the deprivation of their neighbours.

Relief of poverty would make the lowest members of society dependent and therefore less inspired to work hard.

’Society in its corporate capacity, cannot without immediate or remoter disaster interfere with the play of these opposed principles under which every species has reached such fitness for its mode of life as it possesses, and under which it maintains its fitness.

Written in the age of Darwin, these words had an immediate resonance. They were also familiar from the language of modern political economy and Protestantism: that of self-reliance and self-abnegation in the present for benefits in the future. It was the idea that the world was so ordered that the industrious enjoyed the fruits of their diligence while the slothful and immoral were visibly punished in this life by the rags of poverty.”

Page 152, What Price Liberty by Ben Wilson…

So there you have it, the core psycho-social justification for the impositions of the DWP, Nudge Theory; saving the tax payer money, ‘improving peoples behaviour’ are merely the device used to cover it.  

The poor are to be punished for being poor by removing any support provided by the State, the seriously wealthy to be rewarded with access to Power to impose their will which necessarily meets their needs above all others…. the fact that poverty is an outcome of unjust social systems, (unjust because they are rigged by powerful networks of established power, economic, military and religious/ideological to meet the needs of the powerful - their need to maintain dominance over the State and the people)  is ignored, and denied.

”Liberty was the space that modern man had to expend his energies and talents; the outcome was natural justice - survival of the fittest.”

This remains as the base of Neoliberalism, and is also a widely indoctrinated and internalised value - survival of the fittest, adversarial competition, alpha male, nationalism, flag waving, misogyny - across the grass roots of the dominant culture, and it is, of course, utterly false and deeply toxic. It is also a frequently applied post hoc justification for immense cruelty.

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So what to do with all this?

Huge question, and here are a few rapidly written ideas to start working with...

The main thing is adult child relationships, and how we heal those traditional dynamics of parent as authority, and child as possession, or subject.

England still refuses to ban parents from slapping children.

That says a lot, to me, about the social and institutional psychology of England, and all that English power has influenced.

The healing is under way. It is slowly emerging, as accurate information, science and experience, is being shared across the grass roots, through a myriad of communication channels. Shared knowledge, shared insight helps with the recovery process.

On a personal level one has to focus on evidence, and be able to discern disinformation, deliberate or misled. That is key, learning how to think for one self, and how to question, check, confirm, debunk - that is for the education system and parents to deal with in the first instance... but it is also a best standard practice when using the net or a library...

Abuses are being confronted,all over the world, always by the Survivors in the first instance, and their advocates, and with some minimal support from Society and the grass roots, who tend not to get too involved - eg: the Vatican and other Institutions issues with protecting their status by covering up abuse - that should be a matter for ALL people, not just those directly involved... Iraq War Crimes, again a matter for ALL tax payers in the UK, whose taxes funded those War Crimes.

We need to shift away a little form single issues, and zone in on bullying behaviours in any institutional setting and confront them for what they are. and at work, at play.....

Racsim, Sexism, Genderism, Sectarianism, adversarial behaviour, it's all bullying.... each with it's own set of false assumptions and falsified rationalisations. An action rationalised by some text, that ignores or seeks to mitigate the value of the harms caused is falsified....

Indoctrination of children must be outlawed, it must be rejected as the intrusion into the mind of the child,  abrogating the rights of the child.

Change comes over generations, each must put their back into the oars and row that boat further on it's voyage...

There's more too; permaculture, ceasing intrusions into the lands of aboriginal peoples, acknowledging those cultures, and their land tenure as valid and sustainable human cultures. Learning more about the biology of egalitarian behaviour, of mutual nurture systems, our most basic mode of life…

I see this work, this healing, this struggle and effort in the historical context, going back to before writing, way back before Empires, Kings, further back to ancient aboriginal cultures world wide who lived sustainably, in good health, for hundreds of thousands of years and who, in spite of being called 'primitive', nurtured the world whey were part of... enhanced it.... they were gardener/gatherer/hunters ..... they sowed wild seeds of all available food plants as they roamed,. reseeding each patch, ensuring future food supplies.... obviously.... what matters is that their relationships were unsullied by oppression, and tended to be closer to the biological mandate for sustainable healthy human social behaviour....

It is those relationships we need to re-awaken, and they will then alter the existing culture, over time....

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. 

All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find, and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. 

The rest is easy.

Benefits and Assistance

On benefits.

There's a difference between assistance or help and benefits.

When people are in need they deserve assistance and help.

When people are doing extremely well financially because they have lobbied government, they are deriving a benefit.

"You do not need a BENEFIT, you deserve assistance."

A shareholders derives a benefit.

Someone who buys a house cheap, decorates it, and and sells it a year later at a profit, not related to the decorating work done, but to 'market prices' derives a benefit.

That is the difference.

If the State called 'benefits' 'assistance' instead, then the bullying of 'people on benefits' would become much clearer because it would be 'the bullying of people deserving assistance'..... so we must call 'benefits' 'assistance' and insist on the clarity of  meaning, intention and outcome.

The system uses words to beat our minds into compliance. We have to counter that.

Tax breaks are benefits.

Subsidies to large scale commercial activities that are immensely profitable are benefits.

Corrupt weapons deals yield benefits.

Cui Bono?

Income support is assistance.

Housing Benefit is Assistance.

Rent controls and social housing are forms of assistance.

Personal Independence Payments and the Independent Living Fund and other ways to support disabled people etc were and are all assistance. Not benefits.

"We are going to reduce the benefits bill" and compare it to "we are going to reduce assistance to those who need it."

"We will support industry with tax breaks" and compare it to "We will ensure shareholders and executives get a financial benefit from our policies".

Critical analysis is a beautiful tool.

Opinion is the subversion of evidence by prejudice.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

Corbyn is not the problem: the threat of prison sentences for War Criminals is the problem.

Look. See the evidence.

The NeoLiberals within Labour, within Conservative, across Society in the UK and elsewhere have a problem.

They went to war, and it was illegal.

They knowingly lied about the 'reasons'.

Iraq was a War Crime, and everything, everything related to it that flows from that decision, from Iraq to Libya and Syria, is part of that crime spree.

Check their voting records, the speeches they made, the justifications they repeated without due diligence.

The broke a number of laws... repeatedly.

They believed they would get away with it because Saddam was such a bastard, nobody, nobody liked him, even those who worked for him - they feared him and for many it was safer to work for the Devil than to challenge him. Blair thought he would get away with it. Bush thought he would get away with it.

Corbyn has made it clear that for him, according to the evidence, Iraq was a War Crime, and he has made that clear publicly. He cannot back away from that statement, nor can he avoid it's clear implications. I think he knows that, and that he has the mettle to push this all the way that it needs to go. I think that many, many people support this.

The Labour and Tory and LIberal Dem MPs who voted for the War can smell the iron bars, they can smell the loss of liberty and their great wealth and priviledge.

Cameron can smell the bars awaiting him for bombing Libya and arming violent militia and escalating violence across North Africa and the Middle East.

The BBC, Guardian, Sun, Sky News, etc are all participants in maintaining the propaganda, and they can smell the iron bars of those cells that await them. They cannot say they did not know, as all their errors were pointed out at the the time, in detail, repeatedly.

The Military top brass likewise.

So they are fighting for their lives, their liberty, their social position.

They will do ANYTHING to avoid those trials.... they cannot admit the crime.

And they are all part of the British Establishment that is shitting all over poor and low income folk, beyond the limited imagination of 'successful middle class' folk....

They are also the same people who DID not resist 'austerity', they are the same people who forced the tax payer to bail out the banks on a fraudulent prospectus, they are the same people who allowed WorkFare, Benefit Sanctions, who allowed the DWP to sanction disabled folk, unemployed folk, who encouraged the Buy-To-Let Mortgage market to create more indebted 'landlords' who then raised the rents to meet their 'costs', screwing the renter whilst taking the profits from the house price rise,  all of this to enrich the finance industry, to increase land prices..

Those policies are part of their over all world view. And yes, there are those in Europe who share those views.And yes there are issues with the way the EU treated the Greeks, the Irish, the Spanish and how that affected the poorest sectors of society. That's a lot of hardship meted out to people who did nothing wrong at all, who are vulnerable because they are poor or disabled, or slightly mad or badly educated....

And look at the 'killing' they are making out of all of this abuse. Look at the distribution of wealth and resources. They are raking it in. Does Tony Blair need or deserve a fortune edging onto £100 million?

The War Crimes trials are the ONLY real leverage those who seek justice and fair governance within the UK have against that Power Establishment.... imagine Murdoch being charged with War Crimes? Or the individual writers who wrote clear lies in order to sell the war? Imagine the executives that profiteered from War being indicted, tried in public? Imagine the UN putting Ian Duncan Smith on trial for Human Rights Breaches at the DWP sanction regime?

They all KNEW what was going on. They all KNEW what they were doing.

They went to war and they shafted the poor/low income of this country at the same time. These are not separate matters.

So that is why there is so much energy directed at the Corbynistas, so much energy devoted to making out that the working class leave vote is racist and xenophobic, so much energy devoted to shredding social support.

This is the fight we ought to have put up back in 2003.

We ought to have gone on general all out strike, to bring the Blair War cabal down.

We failed then, we cannot fail now, or we will be remembered as 'good germans' are now remembered.

This is a matter of Justice above all else.

Do you uphold the Law, or is lawlessness rewarded?

This is the choice before us.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

Austerity and the Independent Living Fund - Inhumane Bureaucracy and Lies.

A friend of mine, who is wheel chair bound as a result of her life long disability, has been told that both her care provided by care workers and her Independent Living Fund will be reduced.

Savings must be made. She must live a more austere life for the sake of the Nation's Finances.

The Independent Living Fund is being cut back, for purely ideological reasons. Her life is being curtailed for purely ideological reasons.

Here is her statement:

"I am an absolute wreck today! Finally saw a Social Worker yesterday about the impending closure of the Independent Living Fund, which Social Services are supposed to replace - they are proposing to not only Not replace my ILF Care (7 hrs per day), but to reduce the care they themselves currently give me, from 5 hrs per day to just three, and worst of all to put me into adult nappies to 'increase my independence'(!), as I won't then have to depend on anyone taking me to the toilet during the day or the night!

I am devastated! They say they will also refer me to the health team as they may be able to provide some other interventions and may even provide me with some care....

It's all so demeaning, dehumanising & wrong & utterly, devastatingly traumatising! I don't know how I or anyone else is supposed to function. Saying that, I think that is exactly the point! They don't want us to function, so we cannot challenge & contribute to society and the debates on welfare, the NHS, etc., etc! They want us to be dead, or at the very least to be silent & hidden away from society!

And this doesn't just affect me, but my carers too, who will lose some or all of their livelihood - one of my carers is a single mum: you cannot imagine how bad I feel about how this is going to hit them all, especially her & her daughter! And, as if this isn't bad enough, Osborne is also considering cutting Child Tax Credits, which are paid to people who are already in work, further cutting & hitting poor people with children who are working & struggling to survive & to provide for their children.

I feel like a bear in a trap & want to chew off my own hand so I can escape! I think maybe I should give them what they want & die - what use is living anyway? Thousands have already died* and even still, most people, most of my friends included, are not yet aware of the terror of this situation and are blithely getting on with their own lives oblivious of the fact that their voices & actions are vital & crucial to changing this situation. How many more must die before enough of the population dare to care enough to stop this happening? 

This living on handouts is soul destroying at the best of times, when they propose to start hitting you from every direction & you don't know how hard they're going to hit you, or from which direction, or how long for & how many times and you are trapped & have to just wait in agony of anticipation & fear, it is the most unbearable & exquisite torture. I'm being hit by the closure of the ILF & loss of the care support I depend on to live with dignity & independence & which enables me to participate & contribute to society, as well as the ending of Income Support & DLA, without knowing if I will even get anything from ESA or PIP to replace them....

I don't know how much longer I can keep going, or how I'm going to cope, or how much more pain and loss & fear & worry I can bear! I just keep crying and/or trying not to cry!!

In essence, my friend is being asked to sit with her feces and urine next to her skin until a care worker attends to her, some hours later.

How does sitting in you own feces and urine foster dignity for one's life?

How can this be called ‘support’ and how can anyone suggest that this will increase her independence?

Where is the caring empathy of the strong for the vulnerable?

What kind of bullying bureaucracy can drive an official to even make such a suggestion?

‘Austerity’ translates into willfully ignoring the pain, stress and fear created by the way these policies are being implemented, in the pursuit of purely ideological aims.

This is but one of many tens of thousands of similar incidents, all 100% avoidable.

Our Government is behaving with cruelty towards vulnerable people.

It has no mandate to enact this kind of situation, this kind of cruelty. Nor does it have any evidence that the Austerity Cuts are necessary.

Indeed there is ample evidence suggesting otherwise, published by right, center and left wing media.

Our Government is behaving with cruelty towards vulnerable people in pursuit of ideological aims.

Those Government Ministers, Civil Servants and Advisors who initiate and design the implementation of this policy are acting on personal prejudice and that is a psychological problem, a matter of personal dysfunction intruding into Governance.

We are being ruled by sick people.

And it would appear that morally weak and vulnerable people being put to work to implement that policy.

Would Iain Duncan Smith or David Cameron sit in their own feces and urine as they debated the issues of the day in Parliament? 

Would you?

Why is Iain Duncan Smith fighting a legal battle to withold Government data on deaths of disabled people that are correlated to this 'austerity' campaign?

Disabled people and their carers are trying to hold the Government to account. Will you help them?

Petition to protect the Independent Living Fund

and

Tomorrow, Wednesday 24th June a group of disabled people will go to Parliament to lobby the Government.

You can follow what happens through their facebook page.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe