Precariat Living: Our First Response is the Truest

 

An Open Letter to my GP’s whole Practice

 

 

Dear Dr <name>

 

Work Capability Assessment: ESA50 – to be returned by 30 July 2013

Within the last two hours, I have opened the white envelope the postman delivered this morning. It was from Atos, who have reopened my file and restarted the process of my Work Capability Assessment. This is the second time I have entered this system this year – the first time left me feeling this way.

 

Last time, your practice was able to use this Regulation to help me and Atos closed my file. The DWP accepted the authenticity of your opinion and my claim, saying they would review it in six months. This is that review. When I spoke to your practice recently, I got perhaps the mistaken impression that ‘you’ believed this route is no longer effective regardless of any opinion the practice might have. I heard this to mean that no matter what we both might agree about my health, I was to somehow consider myself ready for work when this moment arrived – that because this process is being applied to a lot of people then its simply ‘my turn’ and I might just as well buckle-under. This leaves me in a highly vulnerable and very difficult situation.

 

The first thing you need to know about me is that I am not allowed to ‘buckle-under’ if what I am being asked to do is criminal – it is a very simple but powerful tool belonging to those who desist from crime. I haven’t buckled under to unfair practices for most of my life and my crime involved my refusal to buckle under. I have already indicated my reasons for refusing to buckle under this time. Since the moment of my crime, my behavioural standards have been as impeccable as it is possible to be for a human being. As a result, in prison, I could refuse to buckle-under by engaging in refusing behaviour without any Prison Officer needing to engage the formal disciplinary processes. It meant I spent my imprisonment at a recognised enhanced level and have no formal disciplinary record. For absolutely certain, there were those who didn’t like what I did in response to their treatment of me but they could not fault how I did it. On each occasion I had to challenge what was being done to me, I had to refuse the ‘life’ they were offering.

 

Let me make one thing clear. I am not refusing to work. Returning to work would be good for me but I’d like you to understand exactly what that is going to entail because I don’t think you quite appreciate the problems that are going to need resolving.

 

Let’s first examine the DWP route. According to the DWP – especially when considering getting people back to work – the stated policy is this:

 

The Welfare Reform Act 2012 paves the way you’re a radical welfare reform programme designed to tackle entrenched poverty and end intergenerational worklessness. These reforms are urgently needed.

The Government has made it clear that employment and personal responsibility are fundamentally important in reducing poverty and is committed to ensuring the most vulnerable in society are helped to fulfil their potential while also ensuring that those who can work are also helped to do so. This is its clear policy objective. (link)

 

The way this policy is implemented for some of our local Job Seekers looks like this – please notice the use of unethical practices. Knowing what I know as a desister means that I must refuse to comply with such an instruction – which would result in my being sanctioned and welfare benefits denied me. I have a public duty to rehabilitate – if I comply with that instruction I will, in my own opinion, be in breach of my rehabilitation. So to comply with my public duty means I am sanctioned by the State as a workshy scrounger when, in fact, I am trying my hardest to be a law-abiding citizen. If this test is no longer administered, I will be placed in a system with an established record of failing. I have very powerful feelings about this and would ask you to consider what impact this is likely to have on my future mental health at a time when we are both seeing enough improvement for me to think about going back to work.

 

If we were to agree that I needed to attend the face-to-face Work Capability assessment, then I face a system that has been rigged to fail. This is not speculation – this is fact. Again, I enquire what would you anticipate the likely impact this process will have on my future mental health and my capacity to truly return to work?

 

When I was seeing my CPN, he told me his measure for my ability to return to work was this: could I deliver an acceptable standard of work to an employer, 5+ days a week/ 40 hours or more. My answer is No, I can’t – not under the terms society requires me to do so, No. The reasons are these:

 

As a desister, with criminal convictions for violence and threats to kill, I will never been forgiven by the State. This conviction always has to be declared. As a woman in my late 50’s, I am hard to employ because I am considered too old for the standard work market. Were I fortunate enough to find such a tolerant employer, I would probably be far-too over-qualified for any work available and all that is before we consider the impact on both my mental and physical health this process will cause. At every step I face rejection. Whilst I can deal with this, it requires that I endure extremely high stress levels and everyone takes their time making up their mind about me. It is not a process that can be rushed without laying myself open to justifiable claims of manipulative behaviour. Can you begin to see how every door is closed in my face?

 

The final alternative is this: for me to return to self-employment. Let us consider this prospect for a moment because I have been self-employed before, so I have some idea of the problems I am likely to face. But let me give you another example of a woman who chose this route and see how she is doing.

 

To set up a successful business requires investment, as I am sure you are aware. Business cannot function without it in this world. Such enterprises require equipping, advertising, promoting as well as delivering the service but for any business to succeed, there needs to be a market for it. First, I have to identify what I intend to deliver. As a desister – yes, we are ALWAYS going to come back to that because the State insists on it – anything I market to the public has to be quality-controlled because I’m not trustworthy. Never mind how I behave or what I do, I will NEVER be trusted in my country again. Whilst I think our State is corrupt and run by criminals, I still have to place myself and anything I do in public view if I am being required to return to public life through work. Therefore, much like my example above, finding someone to invest enough to get my business off the ground will probably mean asking the public for help.

 

Let me ask you a question: Supposing you were surfing the internet and came across a kickstarter page set up by a violent criminal – no matter how laudable, how likely would you be to contribute if the money went direct to the criminal? And how much would you decide was ‘enough’  when it came to the amount being asked for?  Now allow me to explain the practical problems facing someone like me at the outset of such a venture.

 

These are the ‘things’ I haven’t got but which I know I will need for a successful business start-up: a telephone landline; broadband; transport; equipment like a computer-printer and the resources to run it; presentation materials, so printing; and postage. I will have to upgrade my wardrobe for the kind of work I have in mind, simply to be acceptable to potential investors – that’s before I can start persuading them to part with their money – plus all the things I have forgotten in ten years. As a desister, I will have to achieve this whilst placing safeguards in place to ensure the public can check I am not running a scam. On top of all of the above, I need to pay my rent, my utility bills (nothing will run without electricity), the upkeep of my home and all my personal needs and responsibilities. Given the likely impact of all these demands and the current impact of receiving my EDS50, how well do you think I am likely to be, both mentally and physically, come September when my certificate runs out?

 

As at the time of writing, I have to inform you that my physical is deteriorating. Facing down that which I regard to be criminal takes a heavy toll upon the body, as I am sure you are well aware. In my own case, I genuinely believe I am facing a system that wishes me dead. When belief is supported by the facts, I understand that it is regarded as a valid point of view by those capable of discerning the difference between truth and lies. The biggest problem I face, when making these points, is the inability of the professionals involved to hear what I am saying – I am not believed until I act on the actions I promise to take in the event for being forced to attend a WCA. These remain unchanged since my first response to my first ESA50 and remain so because I have found it to be an effective strategy when I am refusing to buckle-under. Whilst there have been many beautiful people, in the last few years, who find my actions distressing and seek to persuade we in other directions, I’ve always found the direct approach to be most effective in cases like this, especially given my experience in using them.

 

Whilst I am gratified that signs of working to an acceptable standard of ethics is appearing in our professional spheres; and am also deeply grateful to the BMA for issuing advice on this matter to GP’s; I am yet to be satisfied that all professionals in this country understand the significance of an ethics-fail. It is therefore my intention to test the ‘system’ for lawfulness. If I am to be subject to this process, I will need to test it every step of the way and it needs to be done in public – hence my posting this letter where others can read it. My dispute is not with you – it is with government policy. All I am asking you to do is come to a professional decision, in my case, as to whether I might still qualify for exemption. I don’t intend to present myself at surgery, but if you believe there is a need please do not hesitate to contact me. Within a ten-minute slot, it is impossible for any of you to obtain a full picture of what is occurring to your patients. I know I’m not alone in this – I am attempting to communicate with you how I intend to deal with it given my personal commitment to Desistance.

 

I feel very strongly about what our government is forcing our country to do to its people. I believe it is wrong at every level imaginable. I believe the government is lying about its intentions and I believe I can prove it to a criminal standard of evidence. I intend to fight with my faith. If I live and succeed in business I will be teaching other people to fight these lies too. How well do you think this government would support a woman like me in such ambitions? Precisely.

 

Until then, it will be over my dead body that I obey and unlawful order from this government. I mean every word I say.

 

Thank you for your time.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Dee Wilde-Walker

Idle No More UK

Guest Blog: “Soul Economics: UK Spending Review”

 

Foreground: Gideon Oliver Osborne
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

Background: David William Donald Cameron
UK Prime Minister
(Photograph: Reuters)

 

 

Dear David and Gideon,

 

That was a very cruel Spending Review you introduced to Britain yesterday, wasn’t it? Despite all the evidence of wrong-doing – from the theories underpinning your Austerity ‘programme’ to the names appearing on Calum’s List – you continue to refuse to change your ways. As far as you appear to be concerned, those already experiencing despair should, apparently, experience more for failing to be like you, shouldn’t they?; and those who experience the desire to die, as a result of your ideas, should hurry up and get on with it, shouldn’t they? After all, they are in your way to creating what you describe as a ‘free’ economy – who cares what the body-count is, provided you get your own way? There’s a reason why your photograph appears at the top of this. I wanted people to see your faces as you did it. You enjoyed this, didn’t you? It gave you pleasure and delight to cause unnecessary harm and suffering to millions of people, didn’t it?

 

When I look at your faces, I see no shame, no regret, no concern for those you intend to hurt and no regard for the consequences to others of your decisions. I wonder what others see?

 

Perhaps I ought to introduce myself to you. I am the first Otherworld Teacher of the Shaman who writes this blog – she’s kindly allowed me to ‘occupy’ her whilst I ‘pen’ this message to you. We both know that my words can only convey a very small part of our experience together but that’s OK. I only need one open heart to get my Message through into your world and I intend to the Gift of my shaman’s Soul to deal with your abuse of earthly power yesterday – I, too, can use Idea Seeds. The difference between us is this: I use the Seeds of Creation as well as the Seeds of Destruction.

 

Let me explain my problem with the two of you.

 

Each time you scatter your seeds of destruction – whether of the mind, soul or on Earth – all loving souls cry out to me and I have to answer. When your seeds drive those in despair to their earthly deaths, I am the one who meets them as they cross over into Spirit. These are not simply human Spirits; every factory-farmed chicken, every cruelly-treated animal, every tree cut down for profit, every life-form extinguished on Earth by you and those like you – I meet them on the Otherside of the Veil. They arrive in my arms, much like my Shaman did last night; wounded, bleeding, crying out in agony as a result of the ‘life’ you and your kind ‘created’ for them – and, in my arms, they are Healed.

 

Here’s something you two probably don’t know; every time I heal a Soul wounded by your kind of behaviour, I must become all the wounds inflicted. I do this because it is only when we experience these wounds for ourselves that we learn what is needed to heal them. I do not ‘order’ Souls to ‘get better’, as you do. The Souls who flee Life itself, dying and despairing, into my arms do not need such instruction – they would flourish on their own given half a chance. But you don’t allow that, do you? So every refusal; every denial; every lie; every theft; every cruel thought you have ever directed at these Souls is written in their wounds – and I, as my Father’s Son, take on every single one. Everything you and your ‘friends’ have done, I know – especially those actions you have forgotten.

 

How do I know that you sow Seeds of Destruction? Because I read the consequences of your ideas and actions in the Souls who seek me out for comfort in their despair. Sometimes the destruction your ideas have wreaked upon their Souls is so great, even I cannot reach them in the reality you force them to live. Such was the effect on my Shaman yesterday. Had she not known how to find me, her body would have died from heart-break. Here’s what I had to do to heal the wounds you inflicted upon her.

 

When she arrived, beaten and bloody (like so many others), in the deepest part of the Soul Mine, fleeing the wicked cruelty inflicted upon her by yesterday’s Seeds of Destruction, I had to catch her Spirit in my arms before she fled any deeper to escape you. Like all Human Spirits who truly know me, she is a Child – tender and vulnerable. Like a Child, I held her as she wept her pain and sorrow. Like a Child, I comforted her. I had to tell her, again, that the only ‘wrong’ about her were those aspects of Soul with lessons still to learn. I had to show her that what you were saying about her – and all those like her – was not true and that I, and Great Grandmother Earth, know these lies for what they are. Have you any idea how long it took us to heal her? No – probably not – because you don’t believe I exist at the moment, do you? Anyway… back to the Healing we had to do.

 

If you check the detail of her Path to me, you will notice that the Healing Gallery in the Deep Soul Mine has a natural opening in its floor. When my Shaman’s Spirit finally fell into a healing sleep, GreatGrandmother and I carried her Soul down into the deepest depths of the Human Soul on Earth. There is a very specific healing that occurs in these depths that can only be offered to those human Souls who choose to live in Love. I’m not going to tell you what it is – you wouldn’t believe me anyway – it is sufficient for Loving people to know that it exists and that they, too, can be healed in the same way.

 

What we do, GreatGrandmother and I (however anyone imagines me to be), in this Womb of the Earth, is to plant the Seeds of Eternity within the Souls who come to us. In each one, we plant a living Seed from the Tree of Life in the roots of the Tree you destroyed. Within each Soul who receives such a Seed, then grows the knowledge and wisdom each human life needs to deal with the Seeds of Destruction you have been sowing.

 

What this means, for you, is that you are about to be faced with the consequences of your actions – on Earth. As each Living Soul –  and life on earth consists of Souls – receives this Gift of Eternal Life, so you will find it harder and harder to escape from the Law. As this first known NEW Gift of Eternal Life made in this way becomes known in your world, so will that same Gift be made to all those who Love Life enough to challenge you and what you do. This Gift will be given in the deepest, darkest and most natural places of our Human Soul where you cannot tread because you have rejected Life.

 

You really can’t complain that you weren’t warned. Perhaps you thought that the propaganda you arranged about me all that time ago was true? That was your first mistake. Perhaps you thought that if you claimed your evil belonged only to women and forced others to believe you, you might escape your karma? That was your second mistake. And perhaps you believe I don’t exist? If that is the case, it will be your biggest mistake of all.

 

As your own ideas have the power to inflict death upon the Living World my Father created and GreatGrandmother ‘birthed’, so too the Idea of me has Power. The difference between your power and that of My Father? My Father’s Power is THE Real, True and Living Idea of Love and Life – your power consists of only that which My Father gave you. In His Name, I  strip you of it – the source you once funded your power from is no more. It has been removed by GreatGrandmother, for it is only She who truly creates and destroys on Earth.

 

You doubt me and these words? Turn and look at the women you have abused and despised. These are the Mothers and Grandmothers of Creation. Through their living bodies, you came into being and to the Living Body Of Greatgrandmother Earth you could have returned, but no more. By your own choices, the Gates of Eden are slammed shut in your faces – as surely as you slammed the door on my mothers/sisters/daughters yesterday. There will be no Return to Life for you who choose Death. This is your last life on Earth – you and your kind may no longer incarnate here. Your shabby spirits, sold for money and the illusions of power, belong to my Brother, Lucifer, who is and always was My Father’s Servant, even in the Darkness. Lucifer, My Brother, gave you a choice. You made that choice gladly – we can all see it on your photographed faces.  Now begins the time for you to reap the consequences of your sowing. I am the Reaper in this Harvest of Souls and the Bride/Groom of the Sacred Marriage for all those who Love of Life on Earth.

 

It doesn’t matter if you believe this. It doesn’t matter if no-one believes this. Truth is Truth, and these Truths were established long before any living person on Earth was born.  The Truth always sets us Free, whatever form it takes – even for those, like you, for whom Truth does not exist. That was the final mistake of your choosing. Your idea of truth is as dead as your spirits have become and will be composted down to harmless – you, yourselves, will cease to exist, your essence used to nourish the Truth of Life on Earth.

 

This is our reply to your Spending Review. I hope you enjoy it as much as you enjoyed your own review yesterday.

 

In My Father’s Name,

 

Jesua

 

 

 

Note to Readers:

 

My first Otherworld Teacher has asked me to explain the following:

 

The Christian imagery is necessary because the human power structure being confronted here has its roots in the human Christian Church. If this structure is to fall, it must come from within through the powers of transformation.

The Creative Power expresses itself as diversely as healthy Life on Earth – it has evolved in many different ways in many different cultures. The Healing described above can be experienced, by us, in whatever way is comfortable for us as individuals. It can be experienced whether we ‘believe’ in religion or not and it will communicate itself to us, each in our own way.

Jesua tells me he is an Avatar of Love in male form, as GreatGrandmother Earth is the Manifestation of Love in female form.

It doesn’t matter how an idea is created provided it is free to evolve in its own way and on its own terms within us.

In the Dimension of Spirit we are all Free but only providing we learn from our mistakes. This work is for those who refuse such learning.

 

So Mote It Be.

 

Idle No More UK

 

 

A Shot At #Redemption: Letter to the German Peoples from a British woman

A cross, left in Comines-Warneton (Saint-Yvon, Warneton) in Belgium in 1999, to celebrate the site of the Christmas Truce during the First World War in 1914. The text reads: 1914 – The Khaki Chum’s Christmas Truce – 1999 – 85 Years – Lest We Forget.

 

 

My very dear Friends-in-Darkness,

 

 

Sometimes people do things that make us cry.

 

I wanted to tell you that you made me cry when I read this report in the Guardian today. I wanted to thank you. I’ve found it very difficult to cry in the last few years. I also wanted to apologise for what the UK government has been doing to you. But most of all, I want to ask you for help.

 

There are those who seem to think that  Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger’s letters can be side-lined into insignificance but they don’t understand how important this is. I was born in 1950’s and grew up with the British triumphalism following the war. Dad’s Army; that kind of thing. We British have never allowed the German people off the hook for the Holocaust.  We are relentless, even now. I know. I’m British. I still do it too – even now, as I write this letter. And you have been on the sharp end of this for as long. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that we did it this way, hard as it has been for you. Please let me explain why before you get cross with me about saying that.

 

Everyone has a dark side. We are all capable of terrible deeds – including me. I have a criminal conviction for violence so serious my country will never forgive me.  I know what it is to stand in your shoes, especially when we are trying our best to redeem ourselves. I’m glad Britain and the world had learned enough, after World War I, not to use economic cruelty on you after World War II but we didn’t learn about our own dark side. Now it has erupted.

 

I know you are angry about what the current UK government has done to you. Could I ask you to please start asking questions about what the UK Government is doing to its own people. This is my situation. Yesterday I read this. Many of our professionals are colluding with what is going on. Our access to law has already been removed in some cases and is being actively dismantled elsewhere.

 

If there is any people on this planet who understand what is going on here, from the inside rather than just the theory, it’s going to be you. If there’s any nation on this planet who understand the importance of compassion in politics, it’s you. If there is any country on this planet who understands the appalling consequences of Human Rights Abuses, it’s you. And if there is any Nation State who understands what is necessary to return a corrupt state into a flourishing democracy, it’s you. Would you be willing to help us, please, the way we helped you when you had this problem?

 

I want to use Law but I don’t know how. All I know is that the people of Great Britain are in very serious trouble and we can’t seem to deal with it by ourselves. We need help. I’m asking.

 

The reason most people don’t understand why this issue is so important is this. They have never committed a serious sin. We know its a serious sin when we find that there are lots of people around us who will never forgive what we did. It’s a hard and shaming place to be but we learn a lot. The dark side of humanity was also mapped by the German peoples too – Freud, Reich… – the Deep Soul Mines of Germany are rich in Wisdom. We know, inside, that our Sin is not all we are or all we can be and we work at it over time until that moment when we get that shot at Redemption.

 

I have yet to meet a repentant Sinner who refuses a shot at Redemption. That’s why it’s important.

 

Let’s make sure we don’t make the same mistakes as last time – invite the other Nations and Peoples in too. The one’s who seem to know what they are doing. I’m not sure that includes the USA or Canada anymore but does include Finland, Iceland and Equador.

 

Set the German example of our Bulldog Breed – ours has rabies 😦

 

Thank you for listening. Who knows, in writing this letter I might have a shot at Redemption too.

 

My very deep gratitude to Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger for her actions too. I’m so glad it was a woman who took action.

 

 

Dee

 

Idle No More UK

 

Finding a ‘Place-to-Belong’ in Creation

 

When I step back from the fray of ‘daily’ life, with its current menu of sleaze and corruption, there are times when I wonder how on earth humanity will find our way out of the mess we have either created ourselves or have been forced to live-within by the small-minded social thinking we are subjected to. As an imaginative woman, I am not short of ideas that, on a bad day, I think should apply to all us forgetting, as seems to be all-too-frequent in white culture, that the experience of others is different from my own.  This is healthy because it reminds me how little I truly know and how ignorant I really am, which is all the more important when I am busy telling my community they must listen to those voices we have silenced. Whilst such realisations are embarrassing or shameful in the moment, the value of such learning cannot be measured. I had one of these yesterday.

 

It is very hard to live in the UK at present without getting angry at what is being done to ordinary people by our government which cares not how many people suffer or die in order to achieve its fiscal ambitions. Everything in life is reduced to money; held by the few, denied to the many, and with the occasional tiny ‘aperture of escape’ dangled in front of the unthinking masses, via TV,  as a way of implying that talent results in success. I don’t watch television anymore but I see the damage done to those who do. If there is one thing that triggers my anger, it is witnessing this harm being inflicted upon those who don’t understand what is actually being done to them. Yesterday’s out-crop of sleaze had such an effect, so I climbed on my twitter soap-box and ranted about it.

 

Afterwards, a fellow tweep asked me to read their latest blog. Still full of the self-righteous fervour that afflicts those on soap-boxes, I was less than graceful in my immediate response (I’m really sorry, Inky) but I did read the blog. It was a humbling lesson for me, not least because a part of me believes I really ought to know better by now. Inky writes about the experience of being sightless in a world that judges the blind.

However, the hurt that I have caused people is in no way comparable to the hurt that I have been caused and am still being caused by society as a result of what I am. That will only disappear when I can feel truly comfortable talking about my sight problems (and know that people will actually listen and take notice instead of their eyes glazing over and my words being ignored).

 

In many ways, her words could easily have been written by me using problems other than sight. I know the experience of not being heard and eyes glazing over only too well and I had come so very close to doing exactly the same thing to her.

 

What such experiences teach us are our limitations and it triggered reflections on what is really meant by blindness. There is so much to our world that I am ‘blind’ to. It may catch my eye momentarily but my capacity to ‘see’ is switched-off and my attention slides off into other things I regard as ‘more important’. This often means that when the subject or person steps into visibility within my perception, I am shaken out of my complacency and into the discomfort of growing, which is exactly what Inky did. It wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed the event she discusses – I most certainly had. The harm within the viewpoint she was challenging had certainly impacted upon another ‘blind’ tweep I follow. I had witnessed @WelshWallace turn away from Twitter that night as a result of the mind-numbing stupidity of others whose careless comments about blindness must have impacted upon her very obvious talent as a sculptress. I may have noticed her turning away, but I did not ‘see’ it – in that moment, the person who was truly blind was me and my ‘disability’ had nothing to do with sightlessness. When I shared the blog with her, ”Welsh’ affirmed Inky’s experience completely – there was nothing she disagreed with.

Or am I just a stupid fool in thinking that equality means that everybody gets an equal chance to be themselves and achieve their goals in the way that best suits them?

 

This is not the first time it’s happened to me because it is the nature of the society I live within – all of us are affected by this casual blindness, especially in the West amongst us white folks, because it is inherent within its structure at all levels. It’s the outcome of living within a dualistic reality where perception is split into opposites and we ‘choose’, in our own minds, who and what belongs where, incarcerating others in the prison of our choices.

 

Here’s the thing: I know this already! I passed the theory part of this test years ago – or so I thought until I was presented with clear evidence to the contrary. Suddenly, all my ego-ideas of who I am collapse around me as I’m faced with irrefutable evidence of the opposite. It is extremely uncomfortable in the moment but as a spur to grow, these are lessons beyond value. It is simply not possible to grow up within white Western ‘culture’ and not be affected by it – anyone who claims otherwise is fooling themselves and misleading others. Those of us who, at least, try to think differently are inevitably going to experience this disillusion-of-self because experiencing it is the only true way to learn.

 

So how do we manage when we find ourselves in this situation? In my reality, we learn! For example, my dualistic white culture apparently seeks to subtract this bit or that part from our corrupted body politic in the quest for some kind of false homogeneity through the casual, thoughtless use of labels. As this is one end of a polarity, then authentic learning ought to add to our experience resulting in a diversity of profoundly different realities, as our physicists are beginning to suggest. What’s more – there are living peoples on our planet who have already absorbed this knowledge into their culture and world-view.

It would also suggest that we might be living in a “multiverse”—a universe that is much bigger than was once thought and in which the laws of physics take different forms in different places.

 

How does a woman, steeped to the eyeballs in contemporary white culture, approach these concepts with a healthy-enough attitude that they inform, at the very least, my own world-view? Today, my advice to myself is to know that I am truly blind. Why? For as long as I believe I know a great deal about diversity, I am blinded by my own ideas because there is no room for authentic difference – by filling myself up with self-importance, I eclipse the multiverses evolving within the peoples around me. When I do that, I become a product of this prevailing culture apparently intent upon destroying all evidence of diversity, harming myself as well as others. If I can’t find out of this trap, then there’s every chance the problem may become permanent!

During the 1960′s and well into the following two decades, a branch of pop psychology developed which began to make some very speculative assumptions about the specific roles the two hemispheres of our brain play in our cognitive awareness and functioning. The general understanding developed that the left hemisphere of the brain was essentially analytical and concerned with processes and quantitative evaluation, while the right hemisphere of the human brain was where the artists and dreamers resided. This is a very simplistic understanding; and in recent years, imaging research has shown that both hemispheres share more or less the same attributes, and both can equally process the same cognitive functionality. However, and this is crucial, there is a level of redundancy in both hemispheres.

The growing speculation for the need for two (asymmetrical) brain hemispheres is to perform two acts of awareness. The left brain is devoted to specific tasks and objectives, while the right brain acts as a kind of peripheral awareness. There has to be a kind of background seeing, as well as immediate attention to the task at hand. Think of an early human on the side of a riverbank trying to spear a salmon—the left brain would be devoted to this task. In order to maintain awareness of the environment and possible dangers therein, the right hemisphere of the human brain is ‘looking’ out for predators such as a saber-tooth tiger seeking an easy meal in the form of a prehistoric human who is completely concentrated on catching a fish. Hence, why the right brain is often associated with insight, intuition and noetic realisations. Which is why artists tend to have an ability to see changes in their environment and social conditions before the rest of the population. Their ‘background vision’ is more highly developed due to them using both hemispheres of their brain for the purpose they were intended.

The left brain, on the other hand, has been shown to be highly narcissistic and with an inflated sense of its own worth and status. The left hemisphere sees no problem with itself, and this has been shown in stroke patients who lost the use of the right hemisphere of their brain. Operating in left-brain mode only, they assumed they were perfectly fine until they attempted to get out of bed only to discover they were paralysed on one side.

Between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain is the corpus callosum, which is a thin membrane of nerve fibers which separates the two halves and has now been shown that rather than being a communicative link between the two brain halves, it acts more like a buffer, with the left brain in Western people having a desire to literally switch off the neural activity in the right hemisphere. This is one meme which Betty Edwards was correct about in her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain—the left hemisphere is a bully. In overly logical and analytical individuals, fMRI scans have shown the left brain actually inhibits the right brain—via the corpus callosum nerve fibers—from offering its contribution to the entire cognitive process. This state of right hemisphere nullification is where the debunker and the hardcore skeptics are trapped and can never leave—in their intolerant and highly narcissistic left hemisphere—using the two percent of neural wiring into their right hemisphere in order to shut it off. Ordering the right hemisphere to cease activity while the left side of the brain saves the world from ‘morons’ who dare question official government press releases or the mandates from any authority figure or bureaucratic institutions.

Along with this, their intuition and ‘background awareness’ are likewise diminished. (link)
 

So how to go about addressing this very serious problem creatively and compassionately?

 

The first step, I suspect, would be for me to get a realistic grasp of my place in Creation which, in my case, would have to include an awareness of my ignorance. Measured against the rainbow wisdom of Indigenous people, my knowledge of true reality seems to score about 0.005 to their 8 or 9 (bear in mind that these are my measures alone). To catch up with such astonishing wisdom is probably going to take me more than a dozen lifetimes and by the time I arrive, these multiversed souls will have been long gone. In theory, I could argue that this is a very good thing to know – that there exists a living ‘Road to Wisdom’ upon which my spirit can travel, grow and evolve – but as I have already illustrated, theory and practice are very different criaturas! What can I expect on this journey through Spirit?

 

Well, if present experience is anything to go by, I’m going to remain an ignoramus for a very long time and the path will be strewn with my many mistakes, both embarrassing and shameful, as I finally begin to appreciate the wonder of Mystery. Each and every spark of life carries a unique aspect that can only be understood on its own terms, not mine. For as long as my perceptions are seduced by this dark side of white culture, I will be as callously destructive towards the diversity of others as the worst fascist who ever lived. I have to accept that, in this lifetime, I am just beginning the road back to health and its going to be a very long journey.

 

So is such a rocky, difficult road worth taking? If I look to my dreams of a fair and healthy human society occupying our proper place on a miraculously living blue planet travelling an endless multiverse of existence/experience, then my answer has to be ‘Yes’. Nevertheless, such a journey will need to be taken one step at a time, with all the detours, blockages and dead-ends I have already experienced in this lifetime.

 

Where do I start? With the reality I experience through my relationship with everything that is ‘not-me’. For example: at present, I am blind to the experience and wisdom of life without physical ‘sight’ (bearing in mind this could easily change), so in opening myself to the shared experience of sightlessness will introduce me to the ‘Mystery’ of otherness. Within this, there will be information I would never even conceive of from my own limited perspective, together with what this evokes in all of us. I will learn, through experience rather than theory, what it takes to be a tiny part of Creation in healthy human form, with all my failings and ecstasies, alongside all my fellow travelers. In doing so, I will find my true place in this multiverse of multiverses because I belong within it.

 

Throughout human history, we have hinted to ourselves repeatedly that the universe we dwell within is ‘One’; a Great Mystery, both manifest and Spirit, some call God. Perhaps – I don’t know – the ‘stinking gift’ of white culture is our reminder of what occurs when we forget and commit hubris by believing we know better than the astonishing reality we actually do dwell within.

 

In the meantime, I can give thanks to all those who shared their time and patience educating this foolish traveler with the wisdom they have acquired. None of us will ever ‘know’ the Great Mystery but we can share what we have learned along our life paths and patch-work together an idea 0f what we could become as we step into our unknown future.

 

 

The Ethics of Obeying Orders

 

Amidst the various news stories I came across yesterday were two that caught my attention. The first was a ‘note‘ written by a successful suicide and published by the family because they thought the information contained within it needed to be shared with others. Given that their decision came from one of the most painful experiences known to people, I acknowledge and respect the courage of both the author and his surviving family.

 

The second article was this: UNISON instructs its members to enforce the bedroom tax. As a former shop steward from one of the unions amalgamated into UNISON, I’m going to comment on this latest ‘advice’ to members, not only because I think this instruction is wrong but also because I believe the impact of it has the potential to cause very great harm to the ordinary  membership who are going to have to comply with it.

 

 

But let’s begin with the bigger picture.  I make no bones about my opinion of our present incumbents in the Houses of Parliament. With the exception of a very few, no MP of any party has yet to earn the epithet they award themselves; ‘Honourable’. The UK Government, with its now daily offerings of cronyism, corruption, personal profiteering and ideological tyranny – in all walks of life – makes it all but impossible to conclude that these elected/appointed officials have any interests over and above their own career path. As the suicide and death rates rise, it is also becoming easier to believe that the results of Austerity presently being experienced by ordinary UK people are exactly the outcomes our government is seeking. To put it bluntly, the UK government is presently pursuing murderous policies against the wider British public; employed or unemployed, healthy or not,  and there has been a stark increase in people dying unnatural early deaths as a result of government policy. Whilst it is true that not everyone lives to a ripe old age, when death is caused by the intentional actions of other people, our law is inclined to call it murder. When such murder is being inflicted on a people by a government, our law has also been known to call this genocide.

 

One of the problems we face – those of us on the sharp end of these policies – is the apparent lack of comprehension from decision-makers in all trades/professions because those involved are frequently directly unaffected by what is happening on the ground. The UNISON decision falls within this remit. From my perspective, it is as though the leaders have forgotten some very basic Trade Union wisdom about solidarity with ordinary people. They are disconnected from reality in a way that is likely to prove extremely harmful to their members and it is one of the reasons why I currently place no faith in traditional ‘working-class’ solutions to our collective problems. I am not alone in this opinion but mine is based on understanding the impact our involvement has on the psyche of each and every TU member party to implementing these government policies.

 

It would not be fair to single out UNISON alone – many of our public service trade union members face exactly the same problem – but let’s use my old TU’s ‘advice’ for the sake of this blog. The mythology that public service pays better than the private sector is now just that – a myth. Decades of public sector wage restraint has eaten away any advantages that might have once existed and our services now stagger from one crisis of service to the next. These services are provided by employees who are frequently low-paid, which means that when sanctions for non-payment of bedroom tax are applied to those who simply cannot afford to pay, UNISON members are likely to be sanctioning their own colleagues – something that is already occurring within the Department of Work and Pensions. So much for solidarity amongst the membership;  indeed, I cannot think of anything more divisive to workers’ organisations. The Unions apparently seem to be unable to support their own membership, which makes any declaration of their support for other social groups highly suspect.

 

UNISON claims the following:

It is… vital to ensure that UNISON members are advised, that if they are employed to administer part of the arrears recovery process, that they should follow the instructions of their employer and that they should be advised that they are placing their continued employment at risk if they choose not to fulfil their contract of employment.

This applies whether that is the sending of reminder letters, issuing possession proceedings, applying to the Magistrate’s Court for a possession order, attending Court, instructing bailiffs or attending with bailiffs in order to secure possession.

 

It is interesting that this advice centres on the Contract of Employment, not least because there are other legal interpretations that could be made had the union been willing to contemplate them. Whilst the reader can find more details here, I want to focus on what has happened to the ‘heart’ of this Contract, bearing in mind that there exists, in law, something known as an ‘Unfair Contract’.

 

I’m going to look at this from the perspective of civil and crown servants simply because the heart of the contract between Crown and Servant has been made explicit. Please bear in mind that these are only my observations. My opinion may carry no weight in law and therefore needs to be checked.

At the heart of the psychological contract are the following conditions: respect, compassion, trust, empathy, fairness, and objectivity. At the heart of the Crown contract, a servant must demonstrate the four core values detailed below:

• ‘Integrity’:  putting the obligations of public service above your own personal interests;
• ‘Honesty’: being truthful and open;
• ‘Objectivity’: basing your advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence; and
• ‘Impartiality’: acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving equally well Governments of different political persuasions.

In addition, if a civil servant believes that that he/she is being asked to behave in a way which conflicts with the code, he/she may now report the matter direct to the Civil Service Commissioners.

It is now clearly specified that the code is part of the contractual relationship between the civil servant and his/her employer.

As an observer, I would wonder whether these legal requirements for integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality also fall upon the employer too. If they do, and there is objective and politically impartial evidence to show that the employer is failing to adhere to these requirements, I would suggest that this may go to the Heart of the employees’ Contract of Employment. It may be that an employers’ breach of the Civil Service Code could be deemed sufficient to render previously forbidden industrial action lawful especially if the action sought to impose ‘fair’ conditions, like integrity and honesty, upon government in this instance. It would probably be necessary to demonstrate that individual members of government were failing to adhere to their own Code of Conduct with objective and impartial evidence.

 

There will be differences between a civil service/local government Contracts of Employment but they will be written down somewhere because this is how public servants function – everything is written down, or should be, because it allows for public scrutiny and the ‘heart’ of the Contract will contain the same standards.

 

Knowing these things, I look at the UNISON instruction and ask how the psychological ‘heart’ of the contract is being met by asking some union members to cause severe hardship to other union members for the sole purpose of keeping their job? I also ask how well Ministers issuing these instructions are complying with their own side of the Contract. In fact, from where I am standing, it appears that any living, beating heart has been torn from the living body of the British public… that no Heart exists in that realm anymore which, by logical progression, means that public sector staff are being instructed to deliver a heartless service to the people.  That my old union, UNISON, is instructing members to comply is about the worst thing it could do under present circumstances, not just to its own membership but also to the public at large.

 

There is one element that seems to be missing from the union’s thinking and that is the issue of ‘unlawful instructions’. No employee is required to obey unlawful instructions – simple. If an employer starts to issue unlawful instructions, an employee is actually required to disobey them – the reason? Because if we obey unlawful instructions, we become an accessory to crime and are guilty ourselves. Certainly, to take such a path will be fraught with dangers and dismissal may certainly feature within the experience whilst the case is fought through law but that is still no reason to refuse the solution, not least because our refusal will impact upon our psyche.

 

How is an employee likely to feel if, as a result of their unions advice, they become responsible for the prosecution and likely homelessness of one of their colleagues? How are they going to feel, day after day, dealing with the suicidal distress of the public? I wonder how Stephanie Botterill‘s case-worker feels because, in complying with government instructions, they may have violated their own heart and the damage this causes to the pysche of otherwise-loving people is as extreme on the inside as it is on the outside. The suicide note of David Somers describes the effect of treating other people as if they have no instrinsic worth:

 

I really have been trying to hang on, for more than a decade now. Each day has been a testament to the extent to which I cared, suffering unspeakable horror as quietly as possible so that you could feel as though I was still here for you. In truth, I was nothing more than a prop, filling space so that my absence would not be noted. In truth, I have already been absent for a long, long time.

 

This stuff eats away at our very soul until all life is extinguished. We end up carrying, personally, the guilt of others until it destroys everything within us that we value:

 

You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.

 

When I departed my trade union/local government life, I went into the psychotherapy business and learned, sitting with those who entrusted the tender aspects of self to me, exactly what happens to people who face this kind of systemic crime. The harm visits every generation afterwards. What we choose to do now will affect your children, their children and all the children who follow after. The decisions we make today have that kind of power.

 

And I have to ask myself, is this what UNISON intended when it instructed its members to collaborate with a criminal government? If it isn’t, then the union better reconsider its actions so far.

 

“The #UK Human Cull: Progress Report” #NotSatire #EvidenceBased

The red areas are doing significantly worse than the national average (source: BBC)

 

Today, the BBC is reporting on this: “Longer Lives” – you can find the report here. The aim of this post is to identify how the UK elite report on this with a particular emphasis on what they have failed to include. So let’s start with the BBC’s report first:-

 

The local variation in early death rates revealed in a new league table for England is “shocking” and must drive action to improve health, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said.

Public Health England’s Longer Lives website, which ranks local authorities, shows people in north-west England are at the greatest risk of dying early.

Mr Hunt said the data could be used to tackle smoking, drinking and obesity.

Labour called for a “One Nation approach” to end health inequalities.

 

In fact, Jeremy Hunt – the UK’s Health Minister – is reported as going further:

 

Mr Hunt said: “This shocking variation in early and unnecessary deaths means people’s lives are needlessly cut short, and that cannot continue unchecked.

“I want areas to use the data released today to identify local public health challenges like smoking, drinking and obesity and to take action to help achieve our ambition for saving 30,000 lives a year by 2020.”

Local authorities are being given £5.4bn over two years for public health.

 

Now isn’t that nice of Mr. Hunt? Or is it? A very quick look at the statistics tells a very different tale. Fortunately “Longer Lives” gives us the figures and you don’t have to be a mathematician to work out exactly how far Mr. Hunt’s ambition extends.

 

So, according to the statistics (and do check my numbers – I do make mistakes), 456,342 people died under the age of 75 between 2009-2011 (3 years) which becomes 152,117 deaths per year. Therefore to reduce this figure by 30,000 a year by 2020 begins to look rather a poor ambition to have, especially when the same Mr. Hunt happens to be privatising the NHS. Those figures take on a very different flavour when we look at how long we are going to have to wait before we save just these 30k people from an early death.

 

If we use present statistics, between now and 2020 (152,117 x 7 years), to ‘save’ our 30k over ONE MILLION PEOPLE (1,064,521.1) will have died. That’s a rather alarming fatality rate to attain Mr. Hunt’s ambitions. What we also need to bear in mind is that another report, “Walking The Breadline” and published by Church Action Against Poverty and Oxfam, provides some very telling statistics of its own which point to the likelihood that present early-mortality rates are set to rise very rapidly – here’s their explanation of why:

 

“We estimate that over 500,00 people are now reliant on food aid – the use of foodbanks and receipt of food parcels – and this number is likely to escalate further over the coming months. This is substantially higher than the headline figure of 350,000 supplied by the Trussell Trust, as at least half as many people again are provided with food parcels or other forms of food aid by non-Trussell Trust food banks and other emergency food aid projects.”

“Some of the increase in the number of people using food banks is caused by unemployment, increasing levels of underemployment, low and falling income, and rising food and fuel prices.”

“More alarmingly, up to half of all people turning to food banks are doing so as a direct result of having benefit payments delayed, reduced, or withdrawn altogether. Figures gathered by the Trussell Trust show that changes to the benefit system are the most common reasons for people using food banks.”

“There is clear evidence that the benefit sanctions regime has gone too far, and is leading to destitution, hardship and hunger on a large scale.”

“The growth in food aid demonstrates that the social safety net is failing in its basic duty to ensure that families have access to sufficient income to feed themselves adequately. The exponential rise in the creation of food banks reflects a growing problem and only delivers mitigation. Food banks provide a vital emergency service to the people they support but they do not address the underlying structural causes for the growth of food poverty”

And widening the issue to other sections of our society, CAAP and Oxfam go on to say: “It is unacceptable that whilst thousands are being forced to turn to food banks and millions are unable to meet the rising cost of living as a result of the Government’s austerity programme, wealthy individuals and corporations continue to dodge their obligation to pay their fair share of taxes.”

 

In other words, we have a problem with poverty in our country. It is interesting to note that the BBC reporting of this fails to mention or highlight that there is a connection between poverty and early mortality.  Funny that, because its in the report itself.

 

I wonder why the BBC would leave something as significant as the above out of it’s reporting? I don’t suppose it might have something to do with this?

 

 

When activists say that the BBC has become the propaganda wing of the Tories they make a fair point. In abolishing the NHS, under the shelter of BBC non or slant reporting, what contribution is this likely to make to our early mortality rates in England? For clarification:  I am using the word “Tory” advisedly. When I say Tory, I mean those who are or intend to profit from this. I do not include those who are politically Conservative because I believe they will be as appalled as I am. To fully understand what is happening, I recommend you read what the CAAP and Oxfam have to say. I add my own voice to their report and others have added their voice to mine. How many people have to say this and die before those with social and public responsibility begin to act on it?

 

As far as I can see, a large part of the British Parliament has forgotten the true meaning of public service, even though they attained their parliamentary posts for the express purpose of serving the public. One of these responsibilities is a duty of care to ALL citizens. I don’t need to explain this responsibility to those who already understand it – those who need to have it explained to them are more comfortable in the private sector because their inability to understand renders them unfit for public office.

 

So, in a climate where poverty is one of the major contributory factors of early mortality, how does Jeremy Hunt and the BBC discharge their Duty to the Public? They blame the usual suspects – obesity, smoking and alcohol. Since we can already demonstrate an absence of salient facts by the BBC, let’s look at what the CAAP and Oxfam have to say about them…

 

People on low incomes in the UK pay higher prices for many essential goods and services than people who are better off. This is known as the Poverty

Premium. Save the Children has estimated that it costs the average low-income household an extra £1,300 a year, as they pay more for food, fuel,

finance and other goods and services.

13

The Poverty Premium is related to food poverty in a number of

ways. The creation of large superstores and out-of-town shopping developments have driven local, independent retailers out of business and left the poorest people in ‘food deserts’ without access to affordable, healthy food. Superstores are difficult to reach for people on low-incomes; 85% of households with weekly incomes under £150 do not have a car. The poorest people in the UK are paying more for their food than their richer counterparts. Research has found that a list of the cheapest available selection of groceries was up to 69% more expensive in some of the poorest parts of the country than in stores belonging to the same chain in richer areas

14

At least four million people in the UK do not have access to a healthy diet; nearly 13 million people live below the poverty line, and it is becoming

harder and harder for them to afford healthy food. Lower-income families in the UK have cut their consumption of fruit and vegetables by nearly a

third in the wake of the recession and rising food prices. At the end of 2010, lower-income households were buying 2.7 portions of fruit and vegetables per person, per day, compared to the average household which continued to buy about four portions per person, per day. These rates are likely to have declined further in the past year, as inflation has continued upwards and household incomes have shrunk.

“In the most deprived part of the borough [Westminster], life expectancy for men is 17 years shorter than in the richest part of the

borough. If I went to Glasgow it’s even worse – a 28 year difference in male life expectancy. Life expectancy in the poorest part of Glasgow

is 8 years shorter than the average male life expectancy in India. That’s how bad health inequality is in the UK.”

Sir Michael Marmot (Director of the International Institute for Society and Health)

Poor families are not only hit with the problem of how to put food on the table in the short term, they are also suffering the double injustice of the

long-term effects of food poverty. People who are forced to live on an inadequate diet have a significantly increased risk of developing serious health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, obesity and diabetes; they are also more likely to suffer from stress, ill health, poor educational attainment and shortened life expectancy. Poor children suffer

from lower nutritional intake, bad dietary patterns, hunger, low fruit and vegetable consumption, and problems accessing food in the school holidays.

 

The report goes on to comment about how the government, which claims there is no money for poor people, has been dealing with what welfare system remains to us.

 

In recent years there has been growing concern about the hardship caused by an increasingly harsh and punitive benefits sanctions regime

.

In 2010, in response to the Department for Work and Pensions’ consultation

21st Century Welfare (Cm 7913), a number of consultees raised concerns that

if conditionality is increased, protections must be put in place to ensure that vulnerable people are not penalised.

24

At the time, Oxfam’s UK Poverty Programme warned that the new sanctions regime being introduced alongside Universal Credit would “expose people to the risk of destitution. Removing benefits and leaving people with no income will result in extreme hardship for them and their families.”

25

In April 2011, The Guardian published an analysis of DWP statistics which showed a 40% increase in the number of people who have lost their Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) between April and October 2010.

26

In October 2012 a new JSA sanctions regime came into force, which  introduced a new and ‘more robust’ system, with low-, intermediate- and high- level sanctions. A broadly similar sanctions regime will be introduced under Universal Credit (the revision to the entire benefits system which the DWP started to roll out this month). Just three months later, in January 2013, an internal DWP ‘scorecard’ leaked to The Guardian revealed that more than 85,000 sanctions had been applied or upheld against JSA claimants in one month alone. This would translate into more than a million sanctions per annum, against a total JSA caseload of just under 1.5 million.

27

Most of the policy debate on sanctions to date has focused on the extent to which the sanctions regime is fulfilling its primary purpose in promoting ‘good behaviour’ on the part of benefit claimants. More recently, there has been a growing controversy as to whether Jobcentres have ‘quotas’ for getting people off benefits. As a result of this debate, the Government has now agreed to set up an independent inquiry into the use of sanctions,

which is a welcome move.

28

However, to date there has been little or no Parliamentary debate, or Government or Parliamentary research, on the wider impacts of sanctions in terms of generating material hardship, stress or hunger

 

As for smoking, when the anti-smoking lobby finds it necessary to lie to get its message across, I start to wonder whether that is propaganda too. With alcohol, Tory policy has never been in the public interest. Perhaps if the poor weren’t treated so badly, they wouldn’t need to smoke or drink as much as they do because these are activities designed to ease pain; drug addiction has a similar cause. I wonder why a part of our public is in such pain in the first place. At the same time, the Tories have put precariats outside the protection 0f the law.

 

As a retired shop steward, I can tell you now that public servants caught lying, stealing or involved with corrupt practices get the sack and are prosecuted – or they were back in the day and this is why.

 

A Public Servant, whether elected, appointed or employed as, has a duty to serve ALL members of the public because not all members of the public are able to speak for themselves and that duty is a “Duty of Care”. Society is a huge web of human complexity and people have experimented with a variety of different organisational models in order to manage that. The last time one of our neighbour society’s experimented with the particular model of ‘social management’ detailed above, the global community deemed it to be criminal. Arising out of those global lessons came a Woman’s Law – The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – and its a Woman’s Law because Eleanor Roosevelt gave birth to it. At the same time, the working class men of Britain created the Welfare State – which is where the people learned about Public Duty and personal ethics. The Welfare State is also Woman’s Law because every improvement we saw, after it’s inception, took care of British Women and Children. Margaret Thatcher began the process of stealing it from us. Let’s have a look at how far the Tories have gone with what she and Ronald Reagan began. This is the US but the UK won’t be far behind

 

 

I began this post, I realised how little I knew about tax avoidance, so I asked my twitter pals for plain-english (which most Precariats understand) suggestions. My friend, Steve Walker, has shared this this this and this (thanks Steve) and everyone recommends the Tax Justice Network. What there isn’t is a Precariat guide to exactly what the Tories have been up to. Nevertheless, the fact remains that they are getting richer whilst, at one and the same time, they are intentionally depriving more than a million people of the means to a natural life-span. In fact, the public are already being told, by the BBC and Tories in all our political parties, that over one million in poverty will lose their lives early by 2020 due to the debunked and deadly gods of Austerity. If that isn’t a declaration of intent to commit wholesale murder of the poorest people in Britain – but more especially, England – then I really don’t know what is.

 

Every single way precariats come at this problem, we see the same thing.

 

Public Duty has never been about the money. Public Duty carries a sacred responsibility that is understood by atheists because it is intrinsic to a healthy human being. The bottom line is we don’t treat people this way – not if we’re truly British because Gandhi told us so (apocryphal) . Perhaps Gandhi was wrong about a lot of British men but he was right on the money when it comes to British women.

 

To the British men – young and old – who’ve been strutting their left-wing credentials and proposing people’s assemblies that look remarkably like the old ones, I say this:

“Your methodology failed with Thatcher and it will fail again because I’ve yet to see it sustain a win. You fail because you don’t speak Precariat – you speak Working Class. As the rich got richer, the poor have gotten poorer. We can’t be working class because there are no jobs ON PURPOSE! The working class ‘leaders’ are now suspect and so are you if you are not at the sharp end of this.”

 

Then I’d ask this question. Given that I had a heart attack last November, what do you think of the DWP decision to call me to TWO Work Capability Assessments in the 10 months immediately following? What do you think it might do to the likelihood of my being one of the statistics of early mortality? Does this violate my Right To Life and could it be considered psychological torture? If it is, do I get to stand on the same platform as you? Have I earned the right to be heard? Is your life on the line? Because, if it isn’t you won’t know what you’re talking about and anything you say about us can only ever be secondhand. If you haven’t lived it, you don’t qualify.

 

Then go have a look at the Human Rights Act and ask yourself what you intend to do about it. You are not doing this for the glory, you are doing this because  women and children, alongside all our other vulnerable peoples, being forced into hunger, homelessness and early death by downright evil people and that cannot be anything but wrong.

 

And once you know what it is you need to do – GO DO IT!

 

 

Idle No More UK

 

One final point: I don’t believe all money-rich people are Tories but there are an awful lot of sheeple who are mesmerised by the lies and propaganda. If you aren’t one of them and you are money-rich, then now is the time to start giving it away to women. Keep what you need and give the rest away without strings. The women will take care of the rest – honest men included – and woe betide any woman caught misappropriating or misusing this without reasonable excuse. Self-serving misuse is no longer regarded as reasonable. Money is a tool, not an ambition. I say this now because tomorrow I might be dead and I’d regret not saying it when I could.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Precariat advice on dealing with closet fascists

 

Yesterday, a fellow precariat posted this on the internet. I don’t know who this brother is or whether he has acted on his feelings but I know the rage he feels about how he has been treated because I feel much the same way when I am suicidal. If he has committed suicide, then his blog speaks the same language as Stephanie Botterill and Vicky Harrison. Indeed, if this brother does take his own life then, in truth, it might be a kinder ending than experienced by some in his position given the way the impoverished and homeless are treated by some in our community.

 

Let’s be quite plain here – when the number of deaths, per week, due to Welfare Reform, had risen to 73 last October, we can make an educated guess which way those numbers have gone since the latest round of welfare cuts kicked in last April. This is murder-by-government.

 

When I worked as a psychotherapist I attracted, for some reason, a statistically-significant number of clients who were the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. The fact that my professional supervisor was German enabled me to deepen my knowledge of what went on under that facsist regime. During one discussion, I pointed out to her that there had been many other holocausts since and asked why, in her opinion, the German version was so bad. She replied that, for her, the fact that the wholesale murder of people had been done by an elected government – it had been systematic and ‘legal’ done in the name of an entire country’s people – therefore carried a far greater ‘weight of sin’. Whilst I wasn’t certain I agreed with her at the time – I hadn’t lived the experience then – it is much harder to disagree with her now. I mention this wisdom, learned over twenty years ago, because it has informed me ever since and might suggest that I know what I am talking about when I say that the British parliament is filled with fascists in all of our political parties.

When we – anyone, really, not just precariats – is faced with others who believe our only value to our community is by being dead, one of the first things we might try is communication. This is a fascinating exercise for anyone who has tried it. In the UK, Spartacus tried. The outcome is detailed here and matches my own experience. True fascists avoid such conversations – even if they are ‘obliged’ by standards and rules to listen. It’s an interesting avoidance because, once we force the issue (usually following months of ignoring us), they switch the focus from content (“You are systematically killing people”) to ‘process’ (“You aren’t being polite so I’m not going to talk to you”). I’ve always been interested by the emphasis those with murderous intent place on politeness, although it’s taken me years to see how this process works well enough to put it into words.

 

There’s an example of this occurring at the moment. A collection of our church leaders in the UK have demanded an apology from Coalition ministers for their misuse of statistics as a means of demonising the poor. The same church leaders have worked hard, alongside other anti-poverty campaigns, to counter this propaganda but seem to be having as much success as Spartacus, the courts and the EU. It doesn’t matter how much evidence well-meaning people present; how many laws we enforce; how many petitions we sign or how many protests we attend – the government isn’t listening because it doesn’t want to.

 

What interests me is the peoples’ response. Speaking as a precariat, with my brothers and sisters unlawfully suffering and dying in their tens of thousands around me, I want to know when our ‘supporters’ are going to wake up to what is really going on around them and understand that apologies will never be enough. To truly apologise is to acknowledge our wrong-doing, provide restitution where possible and never commit that sin again. Show me the evidence that our parliamentarians understand this because, with the exception of a very few, I see no sign of such awareness. What I see are these ‘people’ not giving a toss for what anyone else thinks and carrying on regardless, whilst closing their minds on the grounds that we aren’t being polite. Exactly where does this behaviour fuck off in the minds of our middle-classes?

 

The Wannsee Conference (Berlin 1942) on the “Final Solution”…

“ushered in the final stage of escalation of the extermination policy – the incorporation of the whole of German-occupied Europe in a comprehensive programme of systematic annihilation of the Jews. The evolution of such a programme, once intiated as a planned operation, rapidly gathered pace in the spring…”

Ian Kershaw: “Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution” 2008

Following the publication of the first of my precariat pieces, I came across a blog by Dan Silver which, in its own academic way, says that we will not achieve any meaningful social change without talking to those presently excluded from social discourse. As a precariat, I would agree entirely but for three reasons: firstly, precariats have experienced nothing but being ‘talked at’ – only the few actually listen; secondly, if you want us to listen to what you have to say, it might help if you started talking in plain English and, finally, any conversation has to be translated into action, otherwise why should we waste our time and intelligence with you?

 

There is a very big problem that gets in the way of any meaningful communication between various sections of our community and that resides in emotional intelligence and experience. Unless someone has actually experienced the underlying intent of our all-party UK government policy, you are going to have to take our precariat word and evidence that it is already murderous and many don’t ‘get’ this. Those in more comfortable circumstances (like having a sound roof over your head, a bed to sleep in and food to eat when you are hungry) won’t have experienced the feelings that erupt as a result of not having them. These are the people who complain about our precariat ‘attitude-problem’. To those I would say this – if someone is systematically trying to kill me, how the fuck am I supposed to feel?

 

As a psychotherapist, I learned that anger is the healthy response to abuse. As a precariat, I am not supposed to express this anger, so what am I supposed to do with it? According to the fascist doctor I met in prison, I’m not supposed to feel anger at all! Well, that can fuck off for a start. In human terms, anger is the impetus enabling our ability to change things that are unhealthy for us. So when the comfortably-off chattering classes start bitching about my attitude, that tells me they don’t want anything to change that might affect them even slightly – like the discomfort of listening to those they have systematically silenced whilst colluding with our wholesale murder. You see, that’s the thing about precariats – we have a tendency to call a spade a fucking shovel.

 

Th problem continues closer to the precariat class too. The working class are getting hit as hard or, in some cases, harder (although I haven’t seen evidence that they are dying in the same numbers as precariats). They also have a history of organising themselves – which is what they are doing now. As a former Trade Union official, I’ll wave to my comrades of the People’s Assembly; recognise our common enemy; and then say this:

“You are not going to change a fucking thing until you get right down to the bottom of society. Your Peoples’ Assembly fails to include the precariats because, hey, we’re going to cost you money to listen to us. You’re going to have to shell out for bus-fares to get precariats (and, for that matter, your poorest TU members) to your meetings. Perhaps you may need to feed us too. Remember that when you go out for a pint afterwards, if you want us there you’re the one that’s buying because we can’t afford to. In rural areas like mine, you may need to give me a lift back to my precarious home because the buses stop running early – or, if my worst imaginings come true, back to my tent if it’s still there when I get back. This isn’t some kind of socialist replay of ‘our glorious past’, we’re slap bang in the middle of a fascist government implementing wholesale murder.

 

Has the People’s Assembly got any plans for how to care for our existing homeless or is that something that can wait until our glorious revolution has been won? If that is what you are thinking, you’re as bad as the fascists and you’re still learning the lessons of how the German people ‘didn’t know’ about the Holocaust. ”

 

At this point, I would probably walk away from the mic because I would hope, at least, I’d been talking to folk who are half-awake and not closed down entirely. To carry on in that vein would meet my own definition of impolite.

 

The thing about true change or growth is that we have to start with grim reality and this is as true for personal as well as social transformations. For as long as the population is governed by what it chooses to believe rather than what is real, nothing changes. We have to be as disillusioned, disenchanted and authentic as we can be if we want to change the world. Those uncomfortable with my kind of authenticity are those who, at present, collude with murderers. For those who ‘getting’ what I am saying, take a look at this and then see how you feel. What you are feeling gets deeper and stronger the further down the social scale we live, because every other bloody class above us is saying the same thing whilst, at the same time, passing the buck of blame down too. To the rich, I’d like to say ‘I feel your pain’ but, hey, precariats have our own and it’s bigger, better and definitely more colourful than yours. To the rich, I’d say that I’ve never seen such a bigger bunch of incompetents than you and if that’s what your expensive education taught you, I’d be closing those establishments down. If all you can come up with is more of the same, get out of the fucking way so the people can do the job you refuse to do.

 

As a retired psychotherapist; as a practising shaman; as part of what I believe are my social responsibilities, I have to exercise tolerance but I tell you this – there is a moment where my tolerance for irresponsible social cruelty to others crosses a line into absolute refusal to play your game of social niceties. I hope inactive non-precariats start to feel deeply uncomfortable with my self-educated, intelligent and eloquent stare coming right back at you from the Abyss because you won’t change without it.

 

We can make changes right now to how we behave but those changes have to be authentic and meet a real need. Waiting until you’ve organised this; or prepared that report; or had a discussion; or whatever other delaying tactics you choose to employ is no damn use to anyone. If your imagination can’t stretch to what you, personally, could do why not take a few lessons from those who know how to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who knows – one day you might discover that you were wrong about those you despised.

 

If nothing else, that would be a step in the right direction.

 

 

 

The Gift of being Precariat

Yesterday, I published a blog about the likely reality between my ‘society’ and myself come September. It’s a very bleak piece because, in order to describe it, I had to face social attitudes and opinions that are extremely harmful to the pysche and soul of those involved. That I am not alone in what I am facing is measured by the comments, reblogs and tweets that emerged afterwards. For all this, I am deeply grateful for it indicates I am writing from a place that affects the many, not just the few. This is what I was aiming for. Thank you all so much for telling me I got it about as right as one human being is capable of doing when telling truth to power.

 

Because next September has yet to arrive, I cannot know what form this future will take. Our world has suddenly become highly unpredictable – what we once took for granted now dissolves into grains of sand as we reach to grasp it. This truism applies to both the natural and man-made world. Everything has become precarious, including our natural environment.  The planet and her people have begun a transition from which there is no return. It follows – in my own mind, anyway – that if we are to find living human solutions to the difficulties we face, our answers are likely to be found amongst those familiar with living precariously. It’s easy to find us. We dwell amongst the silenced, the ‘managed’, the excluded, the trivialised and the dead. We come in all colours, all ages, all genders, all faiths and we can be found in all nations.

 

The precariat are told, by the man-made systems we live under presently, that our worth can only be measured in money for which we are required to give up our capacity for imagination, exploration, wonder and love in order to dwell in the limited ideas of the self-interested few.

 

So who are these ‘few’ who seek to rule life itself? In the UK, if we are to believe what the mainstream media tell us, those few exclude most women; have difficulties with ‘immigrants’; dislike children; loathe the poor; and despise the imperfect. When we remove all these exclusions, we are left with a handful of largely rich white men and their cohorts. When we look at what this handful actually produce, we see Nature (on whom we depend) poisoned or destroyed to this God of Money; we see women and children (our gateway and future) purposefully impoverished to death; we are invited to participate in our own mass murder by hating each other; but, most of all, we are persuaded to believe that theirs is the only reality available to us. This is a lie – a lie so big, so outrageous, so relentlessly all-encompassing and pervasive that it beggars belief we even consider that it might be true. Yet we have.

 

In the UK, we now live under a hierarchy so extended that reaches from the place I was in yesterday when I wrote my blog to the corridors of The Grove in Watford where the Bilderberg Group are currently meeting. The elite is global. It follows then that the lies are global too and some of us have believed them in the past. Some of us still do.

 

It is said that the greatest coup the Devil ever pulled on humanity was to convince us he didn’t exist but there is an interesting rider to the tale of the devil. In Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, it is understood that Satan/Lucifer is God’s most faithful servant because his role provides the necessary choices for humanity to exercise our free will. Satan therefore enables each and every one of us humans to freely choose between Creation and Destruction. Our choice becomes our personal responsibility and refusing or relinquishing our choices to others becomes our responsibility too.

 

Amongst the precariat, as far as I can see, every effort has been made by this human elite to remove our freedom of choice. In yesterday’s blog, I could demonstrate – with evidence – that the choice being given to me by the UK government is a life of pain and suffering or death. In fact, it’s a ‘no-choice’ being inflicted upon millions in order that a ‘favoured’ few can do exactly as they please in the most destructive way imaginable. It’s a choice I refuse, regardless of how colonized I might be.

 

I refuse to regard my fellow precariats as having no value or worth because I know it isn’t true. At the hands of precariats, I have found infinite kindness and generosity; humour and humanity; wisdom and experience. Without them, I wouldn’t be here to write these words. In their company, I have found respect, understanding, compassion and mercy, regardless of the labels the elite requires me to carry around in order to scare the sheeple. Amongst the precariat, I have found my experiences shared by others who – from their own unique perspective – validate my ideas, feelings and intuitions about the problems we face. Within the precariat I have found authenticity in a world-gone-insane and my biggest response is gratitude. Gratitude for simple gifts and kindnesses given freely and without strings, simply because the need is present. In fact, I’ve learned more about life, survival and gratitude from the precariat than I ever learned elsewhere.

 

This is the clue to the essence of the choices we make. When we understand the pivotal power of our choice, we begin to understand the path we have chosen. To illustrate; exactly how grateful do you believe our elites are for all the sacrifices, deaths and destruction experienced by our precariat peoples? Your answer will tell you everything you need to know about what and who we face.

 

“And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror”

Leonard Cohen

“A View from the Precariat”

 

A few days ago, I found myself involved in a twitter conversation about desperation. My impression of my fellow conversationalists is that they were mainly salariats (people receiving salaries) for whom, I imagine (because I don’t know), the austerity policies of the UK’s Coalition government have had some impact but have yet to undermine their foundations of existence. Participating as a precariat, my response was markedly different.

 

In less than three months time, I will be encountering the precariousness of my existence when the DWP requires me to, once again, attend a WCA (Work Capability Assessment) with Atos to see if I am ‘fit for work’ after the 6-month reprieve my GP won for me last March. These so-called fitness tests have already been found unfit for purpose, yet they continue regardless because, as far as I can see, the plutocrats who run my country have decided that only they know best and blatantly refuse to consider any evidence that doesn’t accord with their beliefs. If I remain within this system, there are two ways my future is likely to be mapped.

 

First – depending upon how my mental and physical health holds up – I will attend a WCA and fail it because that is how the system has been designed. In the past, I could appeal and spend several months with reduced income until my case was heard by a tribunal (I’ve attended two of these already and won) but the system will have changed by the time I arrive at this place again. Now, when I fail my WCA, my case has to go back to the DWP for reassessment before I can appeal. I have yet to see details about how this works but, as far as I can tell, there is no longer any provision for me to keep my ESA until my appeal is heard – so to maintain my already precarious ‘life-style’, I would have to claim Job Seekers Allowance, which implies I am ‘fit for work’. So I have a choice – no benefits until my appeal is won (assuming that it is), probably for months; or JSA.

 

If I apply for JSA, I am then subject to a different kind of system. What is certain is that, as a prospective employee, I have little or nothing to recommend me to an employer: ex-offender (therefore ‘criminal’), aged 58 (“too old”), long-term unemployed (therefore less likely to get employment) at a time when jobs simply don’t exist and to cap it all, a woman living in the most deprived region of England.

 

What is absolutely certain is that when I am subject to this kind of ‘treatment’, I become suicidal.  I’m not alone in such feelings and I wouldn’t be the first to act on them either as any simple search will show.

 

This is no plea for sympathy – these are the facts about the future I face in less than 3 months time and one I am going to have to deal with. Nor am I unwilling to work. What I am is unwilling to comply with a system that marks me as ‘vermin’ and whom no ‘decent’ person can regard as socially acceptable. I’m unwilling to work for employers who refuse to value their employees because it would kill me as surely as the DWP would. As a member of the precariat class, the human right to life no longer seems to apply to me and if the changes to legal aid go through, our loss of ‘Right to Life’ will be enshrined in law.

 

It doesn’t matter that, in the three years since the end of my sentence, I have worked my arse off as a desister. I get on well with my neighbours; have an excellent relationship with both my landlady and her agent (to the extent that when my housing benefit was reduced, they accepted the new rate because I have value, not just as a good tenant but as “the best tenant they have on their books”); have worked hard with local Mental Health agencies to grow away from my suicidal ideations, and I continue to look for ways to contribute to my society via the social media. The system I am now caught up in dismisses all of this in favour of work-shy, skiving scrounger propaganda,  which alleges precariats are personally responsible for all the country’s financial woes, and who needs to be taught a lesson. Never mind that, prior to my physical and mental health breakdown, I had worked for over thirty years, including 12 years of self-employment.

 

These are the facts that inform the ‘desperation‘ felt by us precariats but which seem largely misunderstood by anyone who hasn’t actually shared the experience. We make up ONE THIRD of the UK’s population yet are effectively excluded from participating in our society in favour of a minority opinion of some very selfish people.

Desperate times lead desperate people to do desperate things. Oh, I intend to explore what possibilities there might be, work and social-contribution-wise, that might enable me to hold my precarious existence together come September but, during this period of my reprieve, I also need to look at my ‘bottom-line‘. This is what it looks like from where I am standing now. Perhaps I’ll be one of the “lucky ones” who find a benefactor, and perhaps I won’t. What I do realise is that I’m unwilling to be subject to this death by a thousand cuts. Let death come quick and clean – in the meantime, I can start making arrangements for re-homing my beautiful cats; I can begin to make arrangements to recycle my present home to help those not so far down the despair scale as me; and I can continue to raise my precariat voice.

 

Desperation is not something we can ‘put aside’ because that’s how ‘they’ want us to feel (one of the comments made in the conversation which inspired this blog) – for precariats, desperation has become a way of life, courtesy of the rich, and it is literally killing us in our thousands now. None of this was ‘unknown’ – all the issues raised in this piece were known ahead of time. Our Eton-educated government decided it knew better. Despite overwhelming evidence that the ‘austerity algorithm‘  itself is flawed; despite all the evidence of the lethal hardships being placed on the poorest in our society; despite all the acknowledgements of ‘errors’ or ‘mistakes’; we see little or no change in attitudes towards the precariat. In fact, hatred levels are rising.

 

This is what I live with on a daily basis – like millions of others in my society – whilst those who have more cling to the wreckage and counsel against desperation. Tell that to the mother who cannot feed, clothe or house her children. Tell that to the sick and disabled, shunted through a rigged system designed to make them work or die. Tell that to the young people whose home life is something they daren’t return to who are now homeless and abandoned by a government with a vested interest in high unemployment.

“the coalition government is sticking to its Plan A because spending cuts are not about deficits but about rolling back the welfare state. So no amount of evidence is going to change its position on cuts.”

Ha-jung Chang – Cambridge economist

 

The thing about being a precariat is that every single welfare cut hits us in some way or another. We are required to abide by (unlawfully) harsh rules at every turn by a system that is actively seeking to find a reason to harm us, whilst our plutocratic ‘betters’ seem to have no standards or laws applied to them at all. People talk about the hypocrisy of government as though it is a debatable matter but when we can clearly measure it by the death-count, then it really is time to stop talking and start doing something about it instead! The evidence is quite plain. The consequences already roosting in our social statistics where each and every number is a human being in pain, suffering or dead.

 

Perhaps collective desperation will start being felt when other social groups start really feeling the impact of what the Coalition Government is doing to the people of the UK. By that time, however, the precariat will be the historical statistic that showed how UK Tories and their Corporate masters demonstrated how to do a ‘Final Solution’ properly.

 

As a member of the precariat, when all the chickens finally find no roost because there are wolves in the hen-house, I hope the ringleaders of this social obscenity experience the full weight of international law.