CLAPPING FOR ATOS

Clapping is the new school star chart.  It is a form of social coercion.  As soon as I heard the first clap for the NHS I knew what was happening.  It has taken ten weeks for NHS workers to begin to combat the collective pathos of the clap and to feel brave enough to attempt to point out that it has some inherent problems.  They need respect and decent working equipment and conditions.  Clapping has been encouraged by the privateers and the neoliberal oligarchs.  It creates a false environment where workers are under more pressure to not complain.  It is putting them on a precarious, and cheap, pedestal.

Until the intentional deconstruction of the NHS, nurses and doctors had serious respect in society.  They worked hard for it too.  It has been a deliberate policy to downgrade them and to create a degree of discontent in the population.  This weakens their position in society and facilitates the narrative of privatisation.  Were there any meaningful appreciation of their role their pay would have immediately risen.  Their working conditions and, significantly, the tools of their trade, would have been upgraded and reinforced.

I understand completely that for many individuals it is like signing a petition - it seems the only thing they can do to show their support.  I don't object to that at all.  It's why I forgive Jeremy Corbyn for joining in - but at least he makes it overtly clear they should be paid better.  Have people learnt nothing from the hijacking of Remembrance Sunday and the social coercion to align with the official authoritarian militarised state by wearing a red poppy.  It took people with guts, genuine insight, and some serious creativity, to come up with the White Poppy initiative to oppose the hijacking of what should be, and is for many, a profound reminder of the sacrifice of so many people and the tragic death and destruction of war.  Seeing the likes of Thatcher and Blair, both overt war mongers, at the Cenotaph should really give most people a clue as to where the problem lies.

If you like war, if you believe in violence as a way to deal with life, that is your prerogative and I am not complaining about that here.  I am complaining about the social coercion which is deliberately fomented and manipulated by nefarious individuals for their own ends.  They are preying on the naive and innocent peace loving people.  It is predatory and oppressive.

This is why I find it so worrying that the next kudos cart is clapping for bin men.  When did we stop knowing they are doing an invaluable job?  We stopped as neoliberalism infected society with Thatcher's selfish ideology.  We stopped when we started respecting stock brokers and bankers as role models for success.  We stopped when we became immersed in a society of individualism and began to aspire to selfishness because it denoted success.

Neoliberal ideology has even usurped charity and turned it into a revenue siphon to extract money from well meaning people into the pockets of offshore privateers.  Charity given to the NHS goes in at the top; part of it goes off shore via secretive corporate trust funds, some of it goes into the pockets of extremely well paid executives like Simon Stevens, what is left is shared out to well paid 'business' managers to keep them on side, and none of it goes to underpaid staff.

Unfortunately the majority in the UK do not appear to understand what these rapacious vultures have been building for the last forty years.  Most people think the NHS is what it once was, and are still being told it is: a collective common resource provided by the people for the people; but it is no longer that.  Of course the people that do the work are valuable and doing a good and important job.  But clapping them in this somewhat mishandled crisis will not improve the NHS.  It will not improve the working conditions - as this government has already shown, if you have been paying attention, by, for example, maintaining the freeze on nurses pay right in the middle of this crisis.
One thing this clapping could achieve is to heighten the population's awareness of the crimes being committed against humanity by these pirates and privateers.  But I see little sign of that, or that it will adversely affect the people and corporations orchestrating this robbery.  Clapping is one thing, but it needs serious anger at the crimes against these invaluable and heroic workers, and it needs real action.

If we are not careful we will find ourselves clapping weakly for the unemployed, the disabled, the homeless, and eventually the suicide victims of the broken welfare state.  It could yet start with clapping for Atos.  You think that sounds ridiculous - just wait and see.  The population is being quite deliberately psychologically manipulated - and you are one of the chickens.

BATTERY PHONE CHICKENS

Yet again I find myself resorting to the defence that I should write a book.  I say 'defence' because I have a tirade of thoughts cascading through my mind which feel overwhelming and impossible to write down.  In spite of my attempts to extricate myself from the poisonous culture even the reduced exposure is proving to be increasingly toxic.

Evolution, complex systems, western philosophy, notions of God, emotional development, fascism, neoliberalism, communication, death camps, genocide, capitalism, consumerism ... and so it goes on.  I would willingly submit to a gentle euthanasia.  If they wanted to anaesthetise me in a quiet room with a nurse muttering soothing platitudes, with wall to wall projections of beautiful landscapes, and with Brian Eno & J. Peter Schwalm's "Drawn from Life" filling the room with undulating ambient sound textures, I would be perfectly happy to fade gently from this vile and disturbing existence.

I have other reasons to want to live though.  I find it interesting that my conscious interpretation of my desire to live is less about my personal hedonistic pleasure or material comfort and more about my pathological sense of opposition to the injustices perpetrated against others.  I have my daughter to think about.  Like a bright light she dominates my vision but were it not for her I am still furious about the harm being done to humanity by humanity.  But in the moment I feel both angry and impotent.

I had cause to phone BT this evening to tell them that the engineer I had waited for all afternoon never showed.  I don't have the energy to attempt to report the conversation verbatim.  The phone call lasted for 1 hour and 13 minutes and I would love to read a transcript.  I was profoundly shocked at how the infection of neoliberalism has become so ingrained and pervasive in such a short time.  And the spread of the infection seems to be continually accelerating.

The BT telephonist's first response was not "Sorry" but rather "He did call and we have photographic evidence."  I pointed out the pre-emptive and prejudicial nature of that response at which point I found myself engaged in an argument about the meaning and relevance of evidence.  But I got out of that one and before I knew it she was turning the interpretation of the conversation around to me personally targeting her aggressively.  This was, in part, because I had made the point that my complaint was not about her as an individual but about BT and their way of dealing with customers.  She clearly saw this as an attack on her personally.  She explained this interpretation by way of stating that I was the one that had denied it by saying it was not personal.

I am stunned by the rapid transmigration of this authoritarian, oppressive, neoliberal world view from the cesspits of the likes of Atos, the DWP, and the Tory Councils to the corporate overlords who were originally the free-market suppliers of a service to the public.

I managed to muster even more diplomacy and when she suggested I might like to talk to her manager I said I thought that was a good idea and thanked her.  The manger was clearly from a similar school.  I suggested that it might have been considerate, if the engineer had knocked and got no answer, to have popped a note through the door saying he had been and possibly suggesting I phone them to arrange another time.  He said "They are not allowed to put anything through the door because of UK marketing laws."  I said I could hardly believe I had just heard him say that, but he went on to explain by quoting various rules and regulations.  Apparently it comes under the heading of unsolicited advertising.

BT have recently separated the telephone system's hardware infrastructure from the telephone service provided.  Openreach, which was once a subsection of BT, is now a separate entity developing and maintaining the physical infrastructure.  BT apparently subcontracts or outsources the supply of the infrastructure to them, it is no longer BT's responsibility.  I pointed out to the manager that I purchase the service from BT, BT charge me for the service, I pay the money to BT.  It is reasonable that BT take responsibility for that service.  It should not be up to me to go to a company that BT uses and to complain to them.  His response?  Can you imagine what this fungus infected ant brain said to me?

"That's the harsh reality."

I couldn't help but recall May's intentional "harsh environment" and did make this observation.  I could almost detect his subtle smirk through the telephone wires.  At this point I decided this evening was not the time to waste my mental or emotional energy on an infected ant and said that neither he nor I was interested in a philosophical discussion about the collapse of Western culture so I would leave it there.

The upshot is that I have to set aside another 5 hours of my time to accommodate their 'servicing' of me as their slightly undesirable but financially advantageous commodity.  I feel a bit like an abused battery chicken.

MONETISING POVERTY

"Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X"
by Francis Bacon 1953

Someone posted a link to an article entitled: "Charities delivering DWP’s work programme 'must promise not to attack McVey'" and asked me what I thought. Ref: https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/charities-delivering-dwps-work-programme-must-promise-not-to-attack-mcvey/

Our culture is perverted - in the sense of it being turned from its natural course.  Words are changing meaning and concepts are being transmogrified.  I read a blog the other day which said "Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party should be sanctioned."  The writer appears relatively young and I guess not well read.  For me, I had to re-read it, disentangle it, and finally assess what they most likely meant it to mean.  Of course sanctioning something is to give it official legitimacy but the 'officials' have perverted the word by using it to 'sanction' their own otherwise illegitimate breach of contracts.  The word has now become synonymous with punish.  Punish is a word that simply legitimises (or sanctions) torture.

In the case of charities I don't know for how long they have been an abusive corruption of the concept of 'charity' but I suspect for thousands of years.  Recently, in the last 20 years or so, they seem to have been used quite deliberately by governments and corporations as a form of manipulation and control.

In February of last year I contacted National Debtline via their web chat:
Me: "Here's a question that I would like an answer to: As a charity, where do you get your funding. I'll pre-empt you with a guess; You get it largely from corporations and government. If I am right do you consider there may be a "conflict of interest?"
Him: "We are funded by Government and various banks and fuel companies, we can assure you that our advice is free and independent and we will always look to give you the best advice that suits your needs."
Me: "Hmm. That was predictable. I will apologise in advance if I seem a little unfriendly but I am very cynical and have spent many years seeking help in what I feel is a collapsing culture. And thank you for your frank answer regarding funding. People sometimes try to hide the underbelly of their operations."
Him: "There would be no reason for us to hide this."

I suspect he believed what he said but there is a conflict of interest and the problem with 'conflict of interest' is it's not always conscious or obvious.  It is paradigm orientated.  So the way they think of "debt" (like "sanctions" and "punishment") means something quite different to them than it might to me and yet we will appear to be speaking the same language.

I attempted to get some help from the Citizens Advice Bureau regarding rent and Council Tax some time back and I did point out that they seemed to have a conflict of interest since they are now a registered charity and get the majority of funding from the Council.  They clearly had no idea what I was talking about.  They, of course, couldn't help me because they are largely a triage operation who points people to other charities.  They pointed me to P3 (a charity helping the community or something) and I researched their funding which was primarily the Council.  But I continued along this path and the guy that came regularly to 'help' was only helping me find my way through their (the Council's) labyrinthine, bureaucratic, form filling exercises.  In other words he was helping the Council smooth out the path to whatever demonic realms lie beneath these perverted institutionalised mechanisms.  Genuine help may have included researching, and/or having knowledge about, the actual legality of Council Tax or special sub clauses that allow me to claim all my rent from the Council and/or have all my past 'debt' to the Council from unpaid Council Tax wiped from the record.  But these things were both beyond his capabilities and way outside his sphere of understanding.  He, of course, was eking a meagre living below the minimum wage and probably based on 'expenses' by doing this task which should be the responsible and professional operation of the Council.  Eventually, since I felt I was only being 'helped' to jump through the hoops of the bureaucratic circus ring for their ends and at my expense I wrote them a two page letter explaining how their conflict of interest was doing me more harm than good and pointed out that the help they offered was not the help they delivered and so they had declined to help me.  That will have been tidily filed away to no consequence and the world carries on.

When Mike, my nephew, attempted to take his own life in March last year because of the malicious nature of the DWP and their subcontracted private operators like Atos and Maximus I contacted Sue Marsh.  Sue Marsh was a protagonist in a group fighting the government over their devastating disability program and who produced the Spartacus Report which momentarily hit the headlines.  At some point she was offered a well paid job by Maximus as their Head of Customer Relations and took it.  This is a complex issue and pretty well all her thousands of supporters called her a Judas and decried her for working for the other side.  I entirely understand their perspective.  I made my position and views very clear to her and suggested I wanted to discuss these convoluted mechanism and how they work and the effective role they play in society - but most of all I wanted help for Mike.  Within less than 24 hours his benefits had been reinstated and he has since moved away and, as far as I can tell, is at least in a financially secure situation.  Sue did not take up my invitation to discuss these matters and I understand that too.  The reason I mention this is to close the gap between how charities are working within the greater construct of governments which are essentially subservient arms of the global corporations and how this extends all the way through the system to corporations actively ameliorating the harm they do.  This is, in some sense, the Neoliberal perception in the extreme.  Sue Marsh has been enrolled in a 'charitable' function within the combine harvester of the corporation to assist in reducing the attention grabbing screams of the children they slaughter.

I suspect it is impossible to do charitable work in any other way than a one to one activity nowadays.  If you acquire funds to operate a charity then you have to declare it and register as a charity.  As soon as you do that you become embroiled in the tangled web of the bureaucratic governmental establishment.  And there lies the inevitability of corruption.  They do not administer their hierarchical control at a loss - they couldn't.  And so not only does much of the money one acquires end up in the hands of the establishment, but one now has an inbuilt conflict of interest.  You might recall that the government introduced the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act in 2014 motivated by the desire to silenced the likes of the Trussell Trust and Oxfam regarding the massive increase in food banks in the UK in anticipation of the 2015 General Election.  Then there was the Anti-Advocacy Clause proposed for 2016 which I cannot establish whether it was enacted or transformed and disguised as something else but clearly a contentious piece of proposed legislation.  Now this latest obfuscated attempt to control and constrain charities into contractual straitjackets for the purposes of subcontracting what should be governmental activities in the first place.

It is far too complex and convoluted to attempt to clarify or comprehend without extensive, and probably impractical, research.  But the Government takes taxes to perform functions which it fails to perform and then manages and controls 'non-profit' (and that is virtually meaningless) 'charities', who collect more money from the public, to perform the functions for which they originally taxed the public.  To add to the complexity of this demonic fabrication the government doesn't actually 'collect' taxes it simply prints more money.  The national debt is essentially a record of the money printed and, as such, is not a 'debt' at all.

Charity is a laudable concept but organised charities are an abuse of people's good will and desire to help.  Governments manufacture poverty as a commodity they can monetise via charities they control.

MY LIFE IN THE SMOG OF GRUNGE

Once upon a time I was living in Oxfordshire developing noxious gas analysis software for a company that rents it to power stations and other exhaust emitting industrial plants.  I am meticulous and consequently slower than most, hence why I was only earning about £12,000 per annum.  My software is, however, superior and exceptionally bug free.

15 years pass by and I have endured an unbelievable divorce that makes the Skripal Novichok affair look like child's play.  I have been a single parent and spent 18 months struggling to defend my daughter, my nephew, and myself from a hideous eviction orchestrated by my erstwhile siblings (four harpies and a Napoleonic pretender) who cruelly coerced my mother to sign the most disgusting toxic narrative for their solicitor to present in court.

The three of us eventually landed in rented accommodation that we cannot afford sitting precariously in every respect on the banks of the Haven in Lincolnshire.  The stress and anxiety, caused primarily by the Tory's destruction of the fabric of society, proved unendurable for my nephew who attempted to take his own life before being whisked off to Wales.  This left my daughter and me rattling around this house, unemployed, disorientated, and ostracised by society.

For over a year now we have taken to strolling along the banks of the Haven which is tidal and fed through a sluice from the River Witham.  The Haven meanders its way out to the mud flats and sand banks of the Wash before finally reaching the North Sea.  Part of our walk takes us round an odorous sewage works and along a littered path called the Havenside Country Park.  From here we have been watching the construction of some monstrous industrial plant on the other side of the river.  Yesterday it started belching toxic exhaust and I assume someone is very happy to see their investment burst into life.

A search on the internet reveals the new cathedral for modern man to be a multifuel gasification plant.  Apparently these gasification plants process wood, industrial waste, and sometimes human body parts.  So I expect we will soon be able to fill our lungs with the slightly smoked aroma of charred foetuses and gangrenous toes.

And I ponder the intricate harmony of the complex circles of life that bring me to being near destitute whilst staring across a cold bleak river watching body parts incinerated for profit and belching noxious exhaust which is most likely being monitored by sophisticated software that I wrote all those years ago.

A MINISTER FOR TOE NAILS

The idea of a Minister for Loneliness is profoundly sinister.  The Tory Party is transmogrifying at an ever accelerating rate.  I have a view, a sort of general theory, that we, as humans, are in a continuous process of becoming consciously aware of the truth of our existence.  Part of this seems evident in the way that we persistently reveal our unconscious existence, via the material world, to our conscious mind.  It would be a bit heavy duty to try to justify that argument here but I see it continuously in the arena of abuse.  The more people hide from their own pain by attempting to deny it any conscious recognition then the more they behave in a manner which externalises their worst fears for all to see.

This idea is not new.  It is referenced (chronologically) in the I Ching, by Pythagoras, Plotinus, the Talmud, Rumi, Freud, Jung, and most schools of psychology since.  It is an axiom of much philosophy echoed in ideas such as that by discovering more about the world we are actually discovering more about ourselves.  This whole crystal ball of revelation includes what we experience both as good and evil.  It is almost the raw bones of existentialism and linguistic philosophy.  We are interpreting a world that mirrors ourselves.  A beautiful poetic illustration of this idea is summed up by Plotinus "Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful."

So what exactly is going on with our good leader, Theresa May, appointing a Minister for Loneliness?  We know she doesn't give a damn about the people, the actual living people, in this country.  What?  You disagree?  In order to avoid too much digression I will clarify that by saying that she may have sentimental feelings which she interprets as caring about people when she is at home with friends or drifting off to sleep at night but as Prime Minister of the UK she continues to interpret the world in such a way that she promotes and advances policies that evidently erode the social fabric and escalate the harm caused to the least well off in Britain.  She continues to support the wealthy and their tax havens as they pillage the country of all its wealth with the help of her government.  You don't need examples such as Grenfell and Carillion to prove the case but they do a fine job of highlighting the effects of her and her Party's policies.  Her government, and May specifically, vowed to re-house the survivors of Grenfell within three weeks.  Why?  To externalise her desire to appear, maybe even to herself, as a caring and compassionate human.  But they are still not re-housed.  She helps the Saudis bomb Yemen in secret whilst publically exhibiting serious concern for the devastating consequences for the people in Yemen.  But there are too many ways to illustrate that May's evident purpose is to convince the public that her concerns reflect their concerns; that she is what she thinks they want her to be.  It is the act of attempting to convince people rather than the act of being genuine.  It follows that she does not care, in any meaningful way, because it is an evident pretence.

I am not sure what world she lives in but mental health has risen on the political agenda in recent years.  It has risen largely because of the increasing number of problems becoming evident in that domain.  Those problems are mostly a consequence of a fundamental breakdown of a sense of social security.  This is clearly created and illustrated by the most horrible regime of the DWP and the privatisation and profiteering by vetting doctors assessments with corporate tick box exclusion mechanisms with targets.  I won't go on at this point but suffice it to say that Ken Loach's "I, Daniel Blake" will forever stand as a cultural indictment against this government and their ruthless democidal extravagances.

The Tories are clearly losing ground in the political tug of war and there have been numerous attempts recently to increase their share of the public vote.  They have even announced their intent to impress more people with very feeble and flawed policies they say are addressing the concerns of the younger voters such as housing and green issues.  But it is all vacuous, smoke and mirrors, and bluster.  They are perversely attempting to analyse the reasons for Jeremy Corbyn's popularity and Labour's rapidly increasing demographic reach with the sole objective of imitating them to steal their thunder to gain power to continue their ravages against the population of this country for their own benefit.  They are genuinely hideous parasitic beasts.

In attending to the welfare of people in this country the Tories have succeeded in even alerting the UN to their criminal inhumanity.  All their actions with respect to helping the poor have been aimed at getting rid of the poor.  They are not concerned with helping the poor out of poverty but in riding this country of poor people.  They do it in a number of ways including changing definitions and measuring points by which we count poverty.  They devise complicated methods of removing people from categories such as unemployed by fuelling what is called the gig economy, by advancing tax credits, by obstruction using sanctions and what has been judicially cast as slavery in their demands that people do voluntary work for their euphemised 'benefits'.  They encourage and enforce zero hours contracts to remove people from the status of unemployed whilst they are still receiving nothing for their efforts.  Their utter destruction of support for disabled people is almost beyond belief.  These policies are no accident.  These policies are well crafted methods of shrouding their greed and cruelty with a veil of good intention.  These policies are not made up in a back room but rather they are the sophisticated results of studying psychology, sociology, and methods of manipulation and controlling the populations.

We look back in recent history and begin to realise how the two World Wars were driven by the industrialisation of robbery with violence.  The world has moved on and it is less successful to pursue those obvious and transparent industrial methods and so more clandestine ways must be found.  Britain moved from its industrial base to a service economy during the 1980s and what I believe we are seeing is the evolution of the methods of these criminals to something akin to a service based approach to render their objectives of rape, pillage, death, and destruction for their own warped and demonic aspirations.  So the impetus to address mental health issues, for example, has rendered what is described by some as oppressive coercion by putting counsellors in every school, installing 'work coaches' in job centres, and establishing 'talking therapies' as the only available psychological assistance which is designed primarily to keep the chickens quiet whilst they are having their necks wrung.

What continues to happen is that people raise legitimate issues and concerns and the Tories process these topics through their tragically egocentric cognition and render an illusion of addressing the matter whist materially benefiting themselves.  They see this as good business; "What's in it for me?"  The culture, meanwhile, is so distorted by these egocentric authoritarian paradigms that, so far, the majority of the public are clearly fooled by these warped and distorted interpretations and proposed political policies to address the issues in the world.  All the time the evidence is mounting that the rulers are criminally insane and so, inevitably, their attempts to disguise reality are compelled to escalate to a new level.  You really can't criticise someone who wants to help lonely people so obviously the Tories want to appear to be concerned about lonely people.  They are so up their own backsides, to coin a phrase, that they create a Minister for Loneliness to impress the ignorant plebs (to use one of their own terms).

Altercast people as lonely with a feigned concern for their condition and they will interpret their own condition as lonely and will have no choice but to be grateful for the meagre cold bowl of companion gruel they are offered.  There is no accident here.  These are well studied methods of sociopolitical control.  This is the utilisation of information technology, metadata, and complex analytical algorithms, as a service based approach to creating mass ontological insecurity to the point of destroying the manufactured poor.  It is a self consuming, self contradictory, parasitic, and very sophisticated manifestation of the cruelty which the perpetrators are pathologically compelled to deny within themselves.  They are externalising their pain by projecting it onto others in order to manifest it in the world to be seen and acknowledged.  This is the very worst of humanity.

It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that what causes this 'evil' is the simple act of denying reality in the first place.  The evil is the imbalance, the distortion, the deviation from what is good.  It is not that we, as humans, are fundamentally evil and wish to deny it, but rather that we are vulnerable, sensitive, and creative and dare not own it because we are afraid of our own power.  It is actually the denial of the reality that is the evil.  But evil it is.  And, as far as I can determine, the denial of reality is most prevalent in the minds of those who wish to judge, demonise, and control others.  It is inherent in the Tory mindset to cling on to an internal construct of what the world 'should be' and to scream, fight, control, damage, and destroy all evidence in the real world that threatens to counter their desperate internal construct which is, by definition, a delusion.  In their denial of reality they are destroying reality and the evidence is clear for anyone who is looking with their eyes open.  We, collectively, are raising our subconscious knowledge into our conscious awareness and whilst we deny reality we deny ourselves.  Whilst we destroy reality we destroy ourselves.  All of this is only the consequence of a refusal to be what we are.  So we end up experiencing the denial instead of the reality.

Tories are now hoist by their own petard insofar as they have to maintain the illusion of their own goodness reflected in the magic mirror of their distorted world.  They have no choice, they are compelled, they are inevitably and inextricably drawn by their own denial into ever more ridiculous demonstration of their goodness.  It is clearly nonsense to have a Minister for Loneliness since that is one small category of emotional distress which is a mental or emotional health issue which comes under the auspices of the Department of Health and Social Security which they dismantled in the first place.  They cannot 'help' the lonely and will only make matters worse by attempting to force them to integrate with the Tory mindset which is probably a significant cause of the problem in the first place.  They will also attempt to draw people out from the shadows who are hiding from the dysfunctional Neoliberal State in order to coral them into the convenient pens for future slaughter.  The next thing, of course, will be to demonise them for costing the tax payer too much.  This nonsense, which is off the scale of toy town politics can only end in disaster.

I can't think of any other example of such trite, fatuous, and glaringly nonsensical government stupidity.  How utterly ludicrous to create a Minister for Loneliness.  What next?  A Minister for fucking Toe Nails?

I DON'T THINK THESE THINGS - I SEE THEM

Woke up in a unique fabricated illusion.  It's mine.  It's what is loosely referred to as "me".  But I am not the illusion.  If there were an "I" then I am the perspective.

What is Art?  Give me a fucking huge grant and a prestigious position in an international Art Institution then I'll tell you.  Annie Lennox singing Sweet Dreams springs to mind.  "Everybody's looking for something."  I can't give everybody what they want because everybody is looking for something different.  Some of them want to abuse me.  Some of them want to be abused.

Finding an anchor point, a rock to stand on, a fixed perspective, is nigh on impossible.  It's all relative and any reference point is relative to something else.  It is nice when you can hear someone shouting abuse at you and you can see their trauma instead of feeling their pain.  It is good when you can remain calm in a tumultuous sea of despair.  There is a world of difference, however, between a sanctimonious privileged hypocrite condescending feigned stoicism and a calm spiritually centred mystic.

When people altercast at you they are simply projecting their trauma.  They are falsely holding on to a fixed reference point putting any disturbance or deviation down to you.  They are like a snake that needs a fixed object as leverage before it can crush you to death.  But being human inside these volatile circumstances it is not possible to be a static external unmoved observer.

So when the pressure increases and your family turn against you and your government slowly destroys you and every which way you turn you cannot find anyone with any influence who is not going to conspire with the cultural consensus to cut off your oxygen and suffocate you to death it all begins to feel hopeless.  I'll commit suicide.  That'll teach them.  Then they'll be sorry.  But that's been done before and it won't teach them anything and they'll probably be glad to be rid of me.  I know; I'll take out a few "innocents" with me.  I'll go into the Council Offices with a bomb and blow the whole place up.  That'll make people wonder what the fuck was going on.  No it won't.  It's been tried before.  I know ... I have a better idea, I'll kill my daughter.  That will really fuck with their minds.  That'll make them realise how hideous they are.  That'll make them sorry and finally they will pay attention to me and stop trying to kill me.  Hmm ... That won't work either.  They'll just blame it all on me and walk away muttering to themselves about how dreadful I am and why I should be terminated.  There must be a better way.

HALLELUIAH - I'VE GOT IT!

What I'll do is send my daughter into the world to be abused by them.  I'll let them pursue her and hound her and accuse her and finally murder her.  Then everyone will be shocked.  Then they'll realise what they're doing.  Then they'll feel sorry for me and try to make reparations and worship me and adore me and love me in a desperate attempt to atone for their demonic crimes.  Then I'll have them under my thumb.  They'll never be able to forgive their own despotic, ruthless, bestial, cruel, vicious nature.  They will forever be under my control.

There's one small problem with that.  It's been tried before.  When everything else fails send your son into the world and create such a fucking humungous guilt complex that for thousands of years humanity will suffer in the hell of its own insatiable guilt.  They'll escalate you to a God and worship and adore you forever.  They'll even repeatedly commit genocide for you and in your name.  How's that for success?

Oh well - I guess I'll meander off and think of something more creative to do with my time.

GOD FUCKING HATES YOU

Some years ago I was shouting about the problem.  Now I am sitting here in front of a computer with many thoughts going round in my head.  To those who don't understand let me make it clear that physically I feel sick with distress.  Today I can get up and go for a walk or cook something to eat.  For those of you who don't understand I say FUCK OFF AND DIE.  Oh dear - does that sound offensive?  Try flechette missiles for babies it's much more fun.  And here's the thing - some of them don't die, they just suffer and are traumatised and maimed.  What fun.

I made the profound error of believing the bullshit spewed out by those in authority.  I paid attention.  Strange phrase that.  I "paid".  I was attentive and aligned myself as much as possible with their desired perspective.  I agreed that kindness was a good thing.  I agreed that honesty and equality and good intentions were values to be cherished.  I was always the first to "bury the hatchet", make way for others, tolerate mistakes and generally be amenable to those around me.

So now I am shocked to my foundations to find that really the people espousing those ideas and dictating to those smaller, younger and weaker than themselves do not abide by their own values.  They, instead, abuse these values to maintain their advantageous position over others.  In fact they derelict those values, they dispose of them, they turn them on their head and lie and cheat and assault and deceive to harm other people to maintain their own pleasure.

There is no way for me to acquire this fabricated commodity called money demanded by others to afford me the capacity to live.  I can't make my own way because they have built a fraudulent system of ownership to ensure there is no place for me outside of their constructs.  I am caught in a trap.  And for those currently immersed in the illusion of this fake materialist culture, this fairground of death, it seems you only have to comply to eke a living and be saved.

But if you do not fit the cultural requirement you are deemed a misfit, a reject, a veritable aberration.  You are, in fact, categorically disposable.  This culture is polarising around the amazingly insane idea that a pyramid economy can continue to improve whilst undermining the very foundations of its success.  This culture is consuming itself.  And the first to be annihilated are always the children, the poor, the elderly, the frail, the unemployed, and the sick.

If you have a job and a house and a currently sustainable way of life in this materialistic Western Culture and you judge, dismiss, ignore, or condemn those who are worse off than you, then you are guilty of a most insidious transgression.  If you do not lend your humanity to opposing the escalating insanity of this culture then you are feeding it and part of it and as guilty as any of those in power who are creating it.  And for those ignorant, self satisfied, sanctimonious, hypocritical religious freaks:  Don't go to church - GOD FUCKING HATES YOU.

The Queen's Brain is Fracked.

Ok so I'm very distressed today.  Not only do Atos wake me when I am deeply asleep for the only 2 hours I got last night, leaving me shaking with my heart pounding and 'fluttering' (or more like positively gurgling in the most disturbing way) but I am left listening to the most appalling insanity being spewed out across the air waves by Radio 4.

The illusion of freedom.

So there we are like cattle being herded to the slaughterhouse through a number of channels.  Unlike cattle we come to junctions and, to allay our fears, there are kindly looking people explaining that we are free to chose which way to go.  "This is a democracy;  You can choose which way to go.  Would you like to go to the right or to the left?"  Too true we can choose but it's all going to the same end point.  Loki was right " It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation."

Radio 4 informs me that:
1: The queen has a new coach.
2: Fracking under your house will become legal.
3: A new 5p charge will be applied to supermarket plastic bags.

I don't know where to begin!

1. I looked into the Queen's new coach - "Not literally, fool!" - officially named "State Coach Britannia" and it is a far more interesting story than I had anticipated.  I love art and craftsmanship and this coach excels in many respects.  It is not only a traditional ornate masterpiece of coach building but it encapsulates an extensive range of historical artefacts from the Mary Rose to the Stone of Scone.  At only a few million quid's worth when you consider the years it took to build I can't help feeling that although it represents the opulence of the dominant plutocratic class it is actually and ironically a jolly good thing in itself.  Of course the inequality across the globe and in the UK is disgusting, unacceptable and inhumane and as such this artefact is symbolic of the abusive nature of our culture but compare it with the neoliberal madness, the corporate insanity and the utterly dehumanising nature of industrialised manufacturing and what we have in the coach is a lot of dedicated and creative people working diligently with integrity and skill on an individual masterpiece with some functional purpose.  Human beings at their best - just a pity it is in the service of such a ridiculous hierarchy.  But 'value for money' is probably surprisingly true.

So my presumption that the tax-payer (what a fucking stupid bit or Orwellian doublespeak) had been robbed to provided the Queen with more moreness was partially wrong and the whole topic is too complex to sum up because the artistic endeavour is good and the sycophantic adoration of authority is bad so I will simply leave it at that for the time being.

But items numbered 2 and 3 are simply overt madness.

2. In the Queen's speech of 4 June 2014, in only her second sentence, she says "My government’s legislative programme will continue to deliver on its long-term plan to build a stronger economy and a fairer society." That is simply not true.  Some would call it a lie.  Some people may believe that the lunatic neoliberal philosophy will deliver more fairness but there is no substantial rational or logical indication that it could nor is there any evidence to date to support that belief.  The evidence that is available clearly indicates it creates inequality which as far as the English language stands today means a reduction in fairness.  And in line with the usual perverse political doublespeak she goes on to say "The Bill will enhance the United Kingdom’s energy independence and security by opening up access to shale and geothermal sites and maximising North Sea resources."  Well that makes it sound like a jolly good idea.  "Enhance UK's independence" from what?  The unspoken assumption is from dependence on the supply of oil from other countries (arguably breaching the fair trade agreements with those countries and their ability to profit from the UK) but this is not made explicit and there is also the unspoken assumption that destroying the geological integrity of this country is a reasonable manner in which to achieve that "independence" which it is not.  If the UK wishes to be 'independent' there are numerous ways of achieving that but the Queen goes on to say "by opening up access to shale and geothermal sites".  So the objective is not independence but rather the 'method' of achieving that condition.  Independence is the excuse not the objective.  The objective is to enable fracking in the UK and even this is denied any explicit mention by, instead, obliquely referring to "shale and geothermal sites".  So, inherent in the wording is the overt guilt that what is being done is illegitimate.  What this woolly wording aims to obscure is the real subject of breaking the laws governing trespass.  Because the oil and gas industry cannot damage the underlying structure of land which is owned by someone else this makes it impractical for them to indulge in their massively destructive process of eking out the traces of gas in the geology of Britain.  The intent is to write new laws making it 'legal' to steal other people's gas and destroy the land upon which their house is built.  This is legalising theft by large corporations- as simple as that.  It is not only insane it is also cruel and unacceptable.

3. This would be funny if it were not so incredibly gratuitous and profoundly stupid.  The Queen, with her very royal fucking vocal chords, then uttered the insane nonsense "My government will continue to implement major reforms to the electricity market and reduce the use of plastic carrier bags to help protect the environment."  The most amazing thing is that one expects the Queen to have standards even if her speech writer is an ignorant arsehole.  Yet again the actual subject remains unspoken.  The subject is 5p on supermarket carrier bags.  The wording yet again refers to an excuse not an objective.  And the excuse is overtly contradictory with other issues raised in the same speech - namely fracking.  How, exactly, is fracking protecting the environment?

The stark stupidity is stunning to anyone with the slightest ability to string two thoughts together.  It seems the Queen's brain has been fracked for profit.

Britain could achieve energy independence by investing in wind, sun and sea power which we know are more environmentally friendly than oil and gas.  Supermarkets already produce biodegradable plastic bags and could easily provide free paper bags.  But what is so insidious about this is that it is another tax on the poor masquerading as an environmental issue specifically to distract from the corporate rape and murder of the ecology of Britain.

Why NOT kill the disabled?

I just love the internet.  I am beginning to love it more and more all the time.  In the very early days I believed it was a good thing.  I saw its potential for being Stage 2 of the printing press.  Given that the printing press gave more people more access to more information and the results seemed productive for the health and well being of more people my guess was that the internet would have a similarly profound effect.  So far I am not disappointed.

Many people think the internet is dangerous.  Children are spending all their time playing games on the internet.  Society is breaking down because of the internet.  Pornography is on the rampage because of the internet.  Terrorism flourishes because of the internet.  People no longer know what to believe because of the internet.  International espionage and cyber warfare are flourishing.  Identity theft, financial scams, cyber bullying, information overload, and monetizing of the mindless masses by malicious multinational megaliths.

In the early days of financial transaction on the internet many people wouldn't buy things over the internet because they were afraid it was not secure.  They were afraid someone could just take their money and never supply the goods.  It seemed impersonal and therefore less secure.  There were many cases of internet theft and deception.  A web site could simply get your card details and then do stuff like use your details to buy stuff.  Little did most people realise that this was being done regularly in the physical world.  You gave your card to the retailer who ran it through the machine and kept a copy for their records.  Those copies were sometimes used illegally by criminals.  And research indicated that the percentage rate of fraud on the internet was one tenth of that in the physical world.  Internet relationships are also believed to be risky but research indicates that the percentage success rate is far higher than in the real world.  There is lots of misinformation on the internet but I would estimate there is more misinformation available through conventional media.

And here is an example of something only available to me in the internet age which I am so glad has some air time (so to speak).

Once upon a time there was a deputy mayor who wanted to chop off the heads of little children.  No - it was not Herod (he was a king, not a mayor) that bloke who ordered the death of newborns for fear of a prophesy that one of them may usurp his throne.  Neither was it that God (he was a God, not a mayor) who in the Book of Exodus allegedly said "About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn in Egypt will die..." all because he wanted to upset the Pharaoh.  No, it was as a British Conservative Party member called Owen Lister.  He "allegedly" said of disabled children "I would guillotine them."  He went on to elucidate saying "These are children you can't educate. It's merely a matter of caring for them until they die." and "The only difference between a terminally ill patient and a severely handicapped child is time."  (A reference: TORY DEPUTY MAYOR: THE BEST THING FOR DISABLED CHILDREN IS THE GUILLOTINE)

Well this is shocking enough and if you have doubts about its authenticity then do a "Google" search with the words "deputy mayor owen lister".

Then the good person Kanjin Tor popped this picture on his Facebook timeline.

Which draws attention to the sinister policies of the government to kill off the disabled population of the UK.  I will make no apology here for accusing the government of such a policy nor will I attempt to make it more palatable to the frightened somnambulists who are still hanging on to the excuse that this gaggle of suited politicians couldn't possibly do such a thing in this day and age.  It is an excuse to imagine that it was nasty men in jackboots who did malicious and evil things.  In their time the Nazis were appealing to the preferred respectable image.  So is David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith and Grant Shapps and George Osborne and Theresa May and Vince Cable and Michael Gove and Chris Grayling and the list goes on but these are just a few that spring to mind.  They wouldn't get away with it if they wore Charlie Chaplin moustaches and swastikas.  They are getting away with it by pretending to be caring.  But it is clearly a pretence because they continue with draconian policies that any numbskull can see through.

And I recalled stuff that I wrote about on a blog entitled Genetic manipulation and included a Nazi Party poster which was significantly milder that Owen Lister's remarks:

Translation: "60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too. Read 'New People', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP."

It is a chilling realisation that the Conservative Party are on the same genocidal mission that has happened so often in history.  It is a chilling realisation that there is NO DIFFERENCE between any of the electable Parties at present.  Are we going to stop it this time? So, due to the internet, we get the chance to see what is really going on...  So I love the internet;  Because it gives us a chance.  Whether people will take that chance is another matter.  I happen to believe they will in spite of the apparent scale of mindless somnambulism out there.

Is the UK government committing genocide?

NxtGenUK

I watched the video below and my eyes nearly popped out of my head.  NxtGenUK has a giant talent for poetry and facts as well as an astute political awareness.  This is very important.

So I was impressed - and it got me to thinking how I consider these policies of the UK government to be close to genocide, so I looked up 'genocides in history' on Wikipedia.  It sent shivers down my spine.  Clearly I have to do some more research but for now this is part of the opening paragraph on Wikipedia:

It is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the groups conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

UK Children Services confiscated over 10,000 children in 2010 from their parents (and it seems the number per annum is increasing).  More than 10,600 people died within six weeks of being found 'fit for work' in the first 11 months of the Atos test introduced by the DWP (that is about 12,000 per annum and probably rising). We know people are committing suicide because of the insane and ruthless welfare cuts.  Legal aid has been slashed.  People are forced to work for their benefits putting other people out of work and on benefits.  It is expected that the deaths due to fuel poverty will rise yet again this year.  Approaching half a million people use foodbanks and the Red Cross has launched an emergency food parcel program for the UK.

It is clear that significant aspects of genocide are occurring.  There is no doubt that a 'national' group, the poor, is being targeted (the poor include disabled, sick, elderly, and unemployed).  It is clear that they are being destroyed in part.  It is clear the welfare reforms are causing serious bodily and mental harm to members of the group.  It is clear that the policies are inflicting conditions of life which are bringing about physical destruction in part.  And there is frightening evidence of forcibly transferring children to another group.

Discussions about charging IDS and other members of this government with genocide have stalled on a number of accounts including 'intent'.  A valid question would be: if it is not 'intentional' is there some serious suggestion that it is 'accidental'?  IDS has lied about the death toll figures.  Those figures were mysteriously removed from the government web site but reappeared when a storm blew up.  His department has repeatedly, and illegally, refused to respond to FOI requests about the death toll.  The DWP have stated that they are no longer counting the death toll after Atos examinations.  Possibly a majority of the UK population 'know' this is an assault on the poor.  I say that because there are those who clearly see it that way and then there is the 'negative' press 'justifying' austerity by denigrating the target (the poor, the sick, the mentally ill, the elderly, the disabled etc).  By denigrating the target it is an implicit acknowledgement of the assault because the suggestion is 'they deserve it'.  There is quite a large consensus that what is happening is a crime;  The problem is prosecuting the government.

Is this UK government indulging in the international crime of genocide?

There are attempts to deal with the genocidal aspects of 'austerity' as discussed on Vox Political: Greek case for austerity “genocide” creates hope in UK.

Please give me any leads you can and I will attempt to investigate further.

7 million Sun readers are full of shit

I am no journalist.  There are many reasons for this but the one I am referring to (or to be correct 'the one to which I am referring') is that I can't be bothered to do the research.  It's not because I am lazy but rather that the I have researched a number of subjects and it has turned out to be a rather pointless exercise.  Specifically I am talking about researching a subject to refute a banal or erroneous claim by someone else.  The temptation is to explain what is wrong but the point turns out to be that they knew they were wrong and don't give a shit.  So why did I ever work at proving it?

The Sun has printed a headline "1,200 killed by mental patients" and the subtext "Shock 10-year toll exposes care crisis"  It will create a great scandal.  People will, quite reasonably, get very angry and upset by this headline.  I am fully aware of the social implications of this kind of banal, cruel, scare-mongering, divisive sensationalism.  It is disgusting and it is dangerous.  It is harmful to a lot of innocent people.  It is pandering to the ignorant and to the politically right wing.  It is intellectually pathetic.

Incidentally my headline "7 million Sun readers are full of shit" is more correct than the Sun's scandalous headline because it is not even dependent upon collected figures or spurious definitions.  It is also slightly less misleading.  The fact remains that every Sun reader is full of shit because we all are.

But I thought about this and currently, according to the World Health Organisation, we have something more than 20% of our population with mental health problems.  If it is known you have a mental health problem then presumably you can be described as a 'mental health patient'.  That means that approximately 12,000,000 (12 million if you are a Sun reader because they don't do lots of zeros) people are mental patients.  Given that in 2011/2012 there were 640 murders in the UK, that equates to a rough average of 6,400 in ten years.  Take the 1,200 mental patient murders off that and it leaves 5,200 murders by normal people (Do you get jokes?).  So if 80% of the population killed approximately 80% of the murder victims I am left wondering what the intention of the headline could possibly be except to denigrate mental health patients.

BUT... whilst thinking about this I was moved to compare Ian Duncan Smith's death toll with this almost meaningless claim by the Sun.  The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), headed up by the now infamous criminal IDS, has figures indicating that, in the first 11 months of the new welfare reform tests, more than 10,600 people died within six weeks of being declared 'fit for work' by their henchmen at Atos.  Some people regard this as murder.  I do too.  In fact I regard it as genocide but that's another story.  Taking the view that the inhumane oppressive policies enacted by the DWP are causing these deaths (which is not unreasonable but I am not going to spend three weeks doing the research, collecting the figures and proving this point - which is why I am not a journalist) this amounts to approximately 120,000 killed over a 10 year period.  So although these figures are not included in the one to one murder statistics they amount to 100 times more killing than the Sun wishes to claim is caused by mental patients.

Does this suggest that Iain Duncan Smith is 100 times more mentally ill than the average mental patient in the UK?

Atos Nazis "Work the sick to death."

"Atos Nazis are working the sick to death" says the world’s longest surviving kidney dialysis patients.  What he actually said was "I’d liken this to what the Nazis did, working the disabled and the sick until they dropped dead and were no longer a burden."

Paul Mickleburgh is 53 years old and has been on dialysis since he was 19.  He managed to work for about 15 years as a technician in spite of having four kidney transplants.  He has survived 14 heart attacks and he is destined to stay on dialysis because his body is unlikely to survive another attempt at a transplant.

There is a full article on the Daily Record entitled "Fury as Tory welfare police order kidney dialysis patient Paul Mickleburgh back to work".

David Cameron said, at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester this week, "I want to thank the most determined champion for social justice this party has ever had:  Iain Duncan Smith.  Iain understands that this isn't about fixing systems, it's about saving lives."

First of all this country has a long standing and respected tradition of good education and a good medical profession.  Highly paid doctors are legally obliged to correctly assess patients ability to work.  They are the experts.  So they say someone is not fit to work and this Tory government pays a foreign conglomerate Information Technology company called Atos (with a registered trading name Atos Healthcare) to employ unskilled people to tick boxes with targets to deem a certain proportion of sick people 'fit for work'.  Excuse me Mr Cameron why waste all that money on the doctors?  They could be usefully employed clearing up litter - after all it is a health issue.

There seems to be this wilful denial of any problem by making nice sounding statements about good intentions.  Even if their intentions were good (which they are patently not) then looking at the facts would soon disabuse them of their delusion.  Some people interpret this behaviour as deliberately malicious and evil.  I think it is a bit more Freudian than that.  I believe these people have been seriously abused in their childhoods.  They have been brought up by dysfunctional toxic parents who have not only abused their children at home but in many cases have sent them to abusive institutions like Eton.  By the time these little souls leave the education system they are perfectly sausage shaped (like Jimmy Savile's cigars) and they prance around like upper class twits reminiscent of Lord Percy Percy or Prince George (The Prince Regent) from Blackadder.  They clearly possess the same level of intellectual ability - NONE.

But the devastating thing about abuse is it perverts perception.  Although I wouldn't credit any of these power seeking individuals in the Tory Party with seriously humanitarian or even slightly benign motives they probably think of themselves as good.  Not necessarily very good but good.  This seems to be the most sinister aspect of all.  If they see themselves as good, how could they ever comprehend the severity of the crimes they are committing?  Freud realised that people do believe their own interpretation of the world and that to understand behaviour that appears contradictory or perverse one has to 'believe' the patient.  It is not a question of taking on their projected beliefs but it is necessary to believe that they are accurately describing the world they inhabit.  Of course it is far more complex because people deceive too, but they deceive for a reason and that has to be understood.

One particular trait I see very often is that these abusers make statements which have double meanings.  I don't credit them with the wit to be doing this consciously - when they do it consciously it is pathetically transparent - but their subconscious is trying to represent reality behind the perversion of the abused consciousness.  So statements like Cameron's above contain a truth but perhaps not the one you would be expecting a rational sentient being to make.  So to a relatively human person it is galling but to another victim of abuse it can sound like the benign statement it is masquerading as.

What Cameron was quite really saying was that IDS is championing 'social justice' (meaning being strong enough to meting out 'justice' [a perverted interpretation of justice as punishment - because that's what they experienced as children] to the lazy wasters that are the sick and the poor).  He then goes on to blatantly tell the truth "this isn't about fixing systems" (the stark meaning of that is frightening) and goes on to say "it's about saving lives".  Of course his brain is referring to his own life and those of the people like him whilst his conscious mind is allowed to maintain the delusion that they care about anybody else.  Idiots like Tories will all clap and think he is wanting to save people's lives in spite of the fact that their emotional condition is hating the poor.  It is allowing them to massage their egos.  It especially allows IDS to believe God loves him because he 'cares' about people in spite of the fact that he doesn't.

If this is all sounding a little complex, contradictory, and bizarre then I would suggest it is a good description of what is going on.

I profoundly hate these hypocritical, sanctimonious, self satisfied do-gooders who interfere with other people's lives in the pretence of caring but the evidence is clear that it is they who benefit at other people's expense.  Jesus rather despised these people too and it is ironic that they can even pervert that.  But be assured Mr Duncan Smith (self proclaimed Roman Catholic), if there were a God you would be up shit creek you piece of sugar coated faecal matter.  You are, tragically, simply a dead man walking or more poetically a twitching cadaver.

I ask myself "Why can't my blog posts be impartial and objective?" and the answer comes back "But they are!"

60,000 Invisible to the Media

On Saturday 28 September 2013 there was a gathering outside the Houses of Parliament.  It was, in fact, a ceremony of remembrance led by the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral.  It was organised by 10,000 Cuts & Counting ( #10Kcuts ).  It was a profoundly important event and it happened in Parliament Square in the centre of London.  BUT...  if you watch the BBC news, listen to the BBC radio or read any of the main stream UK press you wouldn't know it had happened.  The country was not supposed to know!  How could this event go unreported?  It was a remembrance service for the 10,600 people who died within 6 weeks of being put through the Atos Work Capability Assessment in just the first 10 months of it being imposed on the sick and disabled in the UK. (GOV.UK: Incapacity Benefits: Deaths of recipients)  These figures are for a period between January and November 2011 and there have been two more years of unrecorded death and destruction since then.  The situation is not only devastating but very disturbing.  The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for these circumstances and have, on all accounts, stopped recording the related deaths.  They are also, unbelievably, refusing to act legally according to statutory obligations to provide information they do have through FOI (Freedom of Information) requests, falsely claiming these requests are vexatious and therefore they do not have to respond. (see: Vox Political: Will the DWP do ANYTHING to avoid revealing the true extent of the Atos deaths?)

This gathering included many disabled activists, Occupy, Mohammed Ansar, Michael Meacher MP, John McDonnell MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP an others.  The grass area was strewn with 10,000 white flowers representing 10,000 of the severely abused victims of this policy.  The fact that this event was so significant, in such a significant place, attended by significant people but was NOT REPORTED by main stream media is indicative of the power of the sinister forces at work in the UK at the moment.  It is almost beyond belief that the government, or rather the controlling influence behind the government, has such malevolent power to enact such a news blackout in this day and age.  If you have any doubts about the devastating effects of this policy I personally know three people whose lives have been profoundly damaged by the offensive, threatening and degrading abuse of Atos and the DWP system.

And if you have any doubts about the severity of the propaganda machine in action today I suggest you think again because the Conservative Party Conference has had hours of news time devoted to it but many people are unaware of the 50,000 protestors who demonstrated against the government outside the conference hall on Sunday 29 September 2013.  This was stunningly under-reported by the BBC and the main stream media.  A protest of 50,000 people in Manchester NOT REPORTED!  Unbelievable - until you understand how sinister this government has become.  Many people in the UK remained unaware of one of the biggest protests ever witnessed in Manchester!

Here are some references to the two events that the UK media was presumably banned from reporting.

10,000 Cuts & Counting references:

This is a truly compassionate and disturbing video.  Watch it, think about it.  Then pass it on and spread the news before it is too late.  And remember what Martin Niemöller said:
...they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . and by that time there was no one left to speak up.


Human Cost - #10kCuts #Atos from You and I Films on Vimeo.

Please sign this petition:
HM Government e-petition:
We call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions.

Lest We Forget (a poem written and read by Paula Peters in honour of loved ones lost through stress, disability and illness while trying to cope with the process of the Atos Work Capability)

The few (2) mentions of the ceremony I could find on the web:

DEMOTIX: London Remembers over 10,000 dead after Atos Work Capability Tests

Kuriositas: Human Cost: 10,000 Cuts and Counting (... and it doesn't even make the front page of the papers!)

Here are some prior announcements:

It appears the Mirror could announce the event was scheduled but didn't report on the event - I wonder who got to them?
Mirror: 10,000 Cuts and Counting: Protest campaign in memory of victims of welfare reforms

teifidancer: Petition and Protest, 10,000 Cuts and Counting: A Ceremony of Rememberance and Solidarity

the void: 10,000 Cuts and Counting : A Ceremony of Remembrance and Solidarity
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/tag/parliament-square/

OCCUPY LONDON: 10,000 Cuts & Counting

Human Rights & Political Journal: 10000 Cuts & Counting: Our Supporters

References to the 50,000 demonstration against the government in Manchester:

This is an impressive speech by Owen Jones outside the Tory Party Conference on Sunday 29 September 2013.

Here are some pictures of the protestors in Manchester:

Here are some of the remarkably sparse references on the internet:

International Business Times: Manchester: Police Praise 50,000 Protesters at Conservative Party Conference

BBC News Manchester: 50,000 march in NHS cuts protest in Manchester

mancunian matters: Police praise 'peaceful' behaviour of 50,000 protesters in Conservative Party conference rally

ITV: Police: 50,000 protesters and only two arrests

The Guardian: 50,000 attend Manchester protest against austerity

The Independent: Tory Party Conference: 50,000 march in Manchester rally against austerity

Manchester Evening News: Pictures and video: 50,000 join Manchester anti-cuts march as Tory conference begins

The Huffington Post: Union Rally Draws 50,000 To Tory Conference

Cultural abuse - or just a bad apple?

Image from Philip Zimbardo's talk on Good and Evil

Whew!  I didn't sleep last night at all.  Eventually I went to sleep at 4:30 this afternoon for 5 hours.  I feel a little better.  I still don't know what I use this blog for.  Sometimes I think it is a diary of what it is like being me and so it should include everything from what I eat and how I feel to the analysis of the socio-political landscape and the semiotics of cinema.  But then sometimes I wonder who is reading it and should I focus on the 'reader' rather than the 'writer'.  Having said that I might try to split what I write into two categories.  But that is for another day.

I encountered an article on the Independent web site entitled "Job agent boasted on Twitter about halting 'suckers' benefits".  Essentially there is an objection to a recruitment agent boasting about their pleasure and power in getting people's benefits stopped.  On the surface it seems a horrible thing.  So I feel there would generally be a consensus that this is a little unacceptable.  Of course one can imagine some people gloating along with her but broadly speaking it is not nice.  She is condemned for this cruel attitude and her actions.

So I thought about it as is my want.  I'll start by clarifying that I think it is dreadful.  But there is an interesting contradiction for me.  In my experience of being abused by the Children Services one of my angry responses (in my brain) was that 'these people' (the abusive social services personnel) had their comfortable little lives with their homes and their pensions and their little cars and their jobs and their incomes.  They had 'normal' lives and had little candles on birthday cakes for their children.  But they could be so ruthlessly cruel and abusive to us.  I was so angry I wanted them to lose all that.  They had no right to all that comfort if all they were going to do do was abuse people without.

I still feel that angry with these people and I think there is a lot to be sorted out.  But if, just if, I had the power would I actually take all that away from them?  Well if I did (and I might) my motive would be to let them know what they are doing to other people.  What they are doing to me and my daughter.  I am so angry with them I would take their house away and their job and their money and possessions.  Then see how they would cope.

Ok - luckily (for them) I don't have that power.  But what is the difference between that and what this girl at the recruitment agency was doing?  It makes me wonder if she is so angry at other people that finding a way to 'pay them back' makes her feel good.  Without going into a long explanation I do happen to believe this is partly what it is about.  I do feel that children who experience injustice with no recourse to putting it right grow up resentful and 'pay people back'.  It is what I see all the time.

Supposing I am right it would emphasize two things:  One being that abusing children (and I mean all abuse from the rare and severe to the more 'normal' everyday abuse that we see in schools and even in the supermarkets) has serious negative consequences; and the other being that if we are living in an abusive culture it is very hard to see what abuse is since the cultural paradigms are abusive.

This girl is only doing what I want to do.  Obviously I can see some differences like she IS doing it and I DON'T do it.  She is doing it to WEAKER people and I want to do it to STRONGER people.  I want to hit out UP the hierarchy and she is lashing out DOWN the hierarchy.  But for all the differences the thing that interests me most is that I can relate on some level to her 'feelings'.  I think this is something our culture has got to address.  If people feel cheated, deprived and manipulated then they will have (almost by definition) a desire to restore the balance.

There are two ways the response (to restore the balance) can manifest itself.  Firstly the child may get angry or upset and complain bitterly or try to 'take back' what they feel is theirs.  These responses are generally criticised and so the abusive control continues.  I.e. they are prevented from expressing their feelings and views by a threat of condemnation, ostracism or some other negative control mechanism.  The net result is probably more resentment leading to what is mistakenly interpreted as teenage angst.

The other way is to 'compete' with the abuse to redress the balance.  One can almost picture the sweet little Pollyanna character springing horns and a tail as her mind starts working out how to get revenge whilst maintaining her sweet persona.  This, it strikes me, is the beginnings of how abuse becomes a 'cultural' thing.  Pollyanna (mine, not the original) decides to be sweet and delightful to ingratiate herself with Granny thereby getting the opportunity to get Granny to give her favour.  Pollyanna learns 'how it is done'.

My perception of what I call authoritarian control freaks entirely fits that model.  They are getting what they want (redressing the balance) whilst keeping their 'motives' subconscious.  If their motives became conscious they would be perceived as 'taking' and would be rejected for it.  So they would be left having to deal with their feelings.  Hence the teenage angst, the tortured artist in a garret or even the bitter and twisted old man in an attic.  But whilst they maintain the illusion that they are kind and considerate they will continue to get success for their (misplaced) desires.

It also reminds me of the issue of it being the 'getting caught' that is wrong not the crime.  Apparently the ancient Romans were very clear about this.  Young boys were taught that doing bad stuff is perfectly fine if you get away with it but if you are 'caught' that IS the crime.  I often encounter this philosophical issue in younger people as if they have 'just discovered' it.  I have been there too.

The connection to this incident in the paper is that by virtue of us all sitting around being judgemental about this girl's behaviour it becomes easy to point out how dreadful it is that someone in a position of influence over other people's welfare should use that position to do what we can collectively agree is unkind.  By comparison we assume it is the exception and thereby continue to massage our illusion that the authority is benign.  Her 'crime' was to make the abuse 'evident' and the culture requires it to be hidden, or subconscious, for it to work.  That way we can carry on subconsciously supporting a system that benefits 'us'.

It is frightening when you realise how much the 'facts' fit this theory.  The people who complain most vociferously about the cruelty of the benefit system are the people claiming benefits.  The danger is that we are using this girl as a scapegoat.  It is convenient to 'blame' the person who is 'caught'.  As Philip Zimbardo astutely observes (in the TED talk below) it is not a bad apple in the barrel but rather a bad barrel.

Thank you and goodnight!