Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. I'm afraid we're heading that way again.

[garlicblocks]

"It is estimated that close to 250,000 disabled people were murdered under the Nazi regime. Persecution of people with disabilities began in 1933, but mass murder commenced in 1939.

"The organised killing of disabled children began in August 1939 ... All children under the age of three who were suffering from conditions such as Down?s syndrome, hydrocephaly, cerebral palsy or ?suspected idiocy?, were targeted. A panel of medical experts were required to give their approval for the ?euthanasia? of each child. In the first few months of the program this was usually achieved either by lethal injection or by starving the child to death. Many parents were unaware of the fate of their children, instead being told that they were being sent for improved care.

"The first experimental gassings took place at the killing centre in Brandenberg and thousands of disabled patients were killed in gas chambers disguised as shower rooms. Now that a fast and effective method of mass-murder had been developed it could of course be used to exterminate gays, Gypsies, political opponents and of course over six million Jews.

"Worryingly, in 2012 in Great Britain, Geoffrey Clark, a local government candidate for the UK Independence Party in a by-election in Gravesham, Kent posted this on his website:

"Consider compulsory abortion when the foetus is detected as having Downs, Spina Bifida or similar syndrome which, if it is born, will render the child a burden on the state as well as on the family."

"Although UKIP suspended Clark?s party membership when this hit the news, it was too late to cancel his candidacy. He came second to the conservatives with almost 27% of the vote."

What can we do about escalating persecution of the disabled and otherwise 'unproductive' people in the UK? Are we heading back towards forced sterilisation and murder?

Nobody, nobody is saying the two things are equal at present.

Nobody is saying this is equal to the Holocaust.

What we are saying is how something like that happens.

It starts like this.

Slow. Gradual. Unnoticed. Excused. 'Minor'. Something that nobody could compare to something as mindblowingly revolting as the Holocaust. Something that people get angry with you about if you try to reference it in your explanation, instead of seeing what you are saying and standing with you...

When people refuse to see, accept or stop something - what is it exactly that could never happen?

People who are getting cross because they think we are saying that what is happening here and now is exactly like or equal to the gassing of millions of people are not seeing what we are saying.

Go back to before the Holocaust. Go back to the 10 years, 15 years, 20 years leading up to it.

Then look around you NOW. See the propaganda. ?strivers not skivers?, ?training not claiming? - catchy, eh? See the attitudes. See the speeches. See the drip drip drip against certain groups. See them demonised. See them blamed for everything that's going wrong. See people turning on each other in hard times, with a government and a media that seems to be feeding rather than stopping that.

THAT is what is happening here.

All that is being said is that this has happened before and for people to think about all the places such things have the potential to take us.

if people cannot see it then how will they stop it?
WHEN will they stop it?
People are already dying - What has to happen for you to say no, we're not doing this? What is the cut off point? What's the point at which you will say no more?

What have you protested today? Yesterday? The day before that? How have you protested someone killing themselves because they're terrified of being destitute? Protested people being called lying thieving bastards because they're disabled? Protested ATOS kicking people off benefits who seriously CANNOT work? Protested day centres being closed left, right and centre? Protested cuts to services that are essential for disabled people? Protested the lack of a 'bedroom tax' consideration for disabled people - which means that someone who needs an extra room due to their disability (eg equipment, because they can't get up the stairs, someone to stay over at times but not constant overnight care - will lose money)? Protested reassessment of what it means to be disabled in order to kick people off - despite them being seriously disabled in any true sense of the word - sneakily trying to change the wording on assessment so that criteria for mobility element is not that you can do something " reliably, repeatedly, safely and in a timely manner" -so you could crawl on your hands and knees, once, taking you an hour and theoretically they could consider that ok? Protested the newspapers talking about all these massive amounts of dla fraud despite the reality being it's miniscule?

Do you know who Larry Newman was? Who Brian Mcardle was? To pick two examples out of many.

What do you personally, you right there, know about what's happening to us?

What are you doing to help us stop it?

Bad things happen when good people do nothing. When people sit back and say no, that could never happen here. This country's just too good and nice for that. When people say how dare you compare this too... or this is minor... or that isn't even really happening...

Shitty things are happening right now.

What are you going to do today about it?

What a load of hot air.

Ah. doing nothing then.

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

Nice and easy for you. Job done. No need for you to think or care. Hefty dose of I'm Alright Jack.

In the meantime, I have 2 children with disabilities that mean they will never have any form of independent life and they face a shitty future. a really shitty future.

Great world we live in.

Thanks for doing fuck all.

You may be sure from out there. I am not sure from in here. I am seeing the support that is available already being cut. I am being told that there is no money to meet needs they have (SALT, for example) and therefore they do not have that need. Despite the fact they are teenagers who communicate at a toddler level. I am seeing people refusing to acknowledge a need in writing because if they do, it commits them to meeting it.

Re concentration camps - Is that what you think that I have said is going to happen? Is that all you took from what I said?

So do people think there is actually a plan here, or is this just something we as humans can't help repeating in cycles?

In my more paranoid moments I do think there is a plan, yes.

I think that it is the old 'divide and conquer' plan.

That it's the 'get people fighting among themselves so that they don't look over here to where the real problem is' plan

Blame disabled people. Blame immigrants. Blame the poorest and most vulnerable. Blame each other.

But don't blame the obscenely rich or the multinationals or the bankers or the politicians who are milking the system for all they can.

Don't all turn as one and look in their direction.

Honestly this thread is so melodramatic. It's absolutely necessary to cut benefits, yes, even to disabled, the old, children. The UK's can't support the current benefit levels. It doesn't mean that it's the thin end of the wedge of torturing them all to death. The safety net will exist, there'll just be less of it. the system will just be a little harder to scam and not give out so quickly.

When it's you that it's happening to, perhaps it feels dramatic. did you consider that?

Certainly it's not fun being told all the ways in which you and your children are a burden and are you sure you're not scamming the system and do you really need quite so much help and support.

I work. I have disabilities and my own business. I have some aids and adaptations. adapted vehicle, for example. I don't need a high level of support. but my children do. And always will. And I am getting the message loud and clear. We all are. Those of us who are actually living it, that is.

I know this isn't the main thrust of the thread, but I can't let this pass. "I bet if you had told the average German in 1933 that by the time 12 years had passed 6 million Jews would have been murdered they would have been horrified." No they wouldn't - European society was incredibly anti-Semitic at that point. Lots of perfectly respectable British people thought that taking the Jews out of the equation was entirely rational.

Name me a cut pensioners are on the receiving end of?

Never reported anyone before, but I've reported you, Dawndonna.

That anyone, anyone at all, is deluded enough to believe that there's some "plan" afoot by the government and that we're headed for another holocaust astounds me.

Being disabled or caring for disabled shouldnt' give you a free pass out of answering questions about your needs, and just expect to be bunged cash, no questions asked This is true - like it or lump it.

" something menial could probably be found which might give them some self respect and the respect of their community."

So, theplodder you'd have them doing the shitty jobs that no-one else wants to do. Nice.

That is NOT what I am saying.

The point is that they are NOT doing it right. They ARE targeting people who DO need the help.

If they were accurately assessing people and identifying those who did not need help, and supporting them into work - fair enough.

That is NOT what they are doing. They are causing harm and distress to people who do need help.

and 'no questions asked'?

Clearly you have never filled in a DLA form.

It is a MASSIVE document. And you have to provide evidence. And they contact your doctor. And they contact everyone else involved in your care. And you have to go into great detail up to and including who helps you wipe your arse.

No questions asked. Ha.

Brilliant posts, Hecate.

I agree with you, Dawn.
Plodder, GPs are giving out food bank vouchers to patients because they're coming in with starvation-related diseases. They can't afford to feed their children and themselves, so they're going without and getting sick. This is what "less of a safety net" means. People are dying of illnesses which Atos said would not stop them working, suiciding from lengthy appeals or killing themselves after falling through the benefit gap. This is what "assessed and then made to work" means. Do not be sure Hecate's children will be supported by the state, that provision is already under threat.

It is people like you that lead to what happened before, Plodder. Bad things happen when good people do nothing.

Some people have obviously swallowed the skiver rhetoric wholesale, then.

There are numerous reasons why work is not viable for people with disabilities. Severity of disability, inconsistency of disability. Employers aren't going to give people a week off once a month as they're bed bound, for example.

Biggest hurdle to people with disabilities in the workplace is employers. Prior to my being a carer I worked. In one role they cut my pay as I'm hearing impaired. Equality laws allowed that to happen due to company size.

Other reasons people don't work are tied up in dignity issues. If a specialist consultant with their expertise in a particular condition says someone isn't fit for work that should be sufficient.

Did anyone watch Panorama last night?

Whoeverheardofawormskinrug

What job would you expect a mentally disabled person to do ? It would have to be something fairly straightforward. But nevertheless, work they should, if capable, at something.

Lots of perfectly respectable ... people thought that taking the Jews out of the equation was entirely rational.

But they didn't want them killed, did they, Bluestocking? They just wanted them to own less, to have less, to be ... out of the way, less of a 'drain'.

Still not seeing any similarities?

Plodder, it will be interesting. People with poorly-controlled mental illnesses and other highly problematic conditions will be sent on Workfare placements (the law allows this indefinitely.) It will probably lead to some quite fascinating situations with co-workers and customers.

Report away, Ellie, don't give a damn. Try living my life for a week, or Hecate's life before you even think about it.

Plodder, nobody is calling you a genocide enabler, but you are not protesting, speaks for itself.
The university of East Anglia did a study recently, (can't find it at the moment) which clearly demonstrated that the disabled and their carers are bearing the brunt of the cuts.
As Hec said, filling out a DLA form is a marathon task, it can take up to three weeks to fill one in.
As others have said, this is happening now. You're in Australia, but I suggest you get onto the BBC website and watch last nights panorama, a programme which again, clearly demonstrated that the government and their employees think that those disabled people on benefits are lying, cheating bastards. Their term, not mine. So, in what way is this not happening now?

Panorama last night.
Woman unable to cross the road unaided fit for work. So she's unable to keep herself safe.

Unbelievable. Unless if you're like us and living it.

Ellie so nice you're offended. It's a lot worse than just 'offence' being in the sharp end of this govt's propoganda.

Do some of you realise a blind person could be sent - blind - on a workfare placement? This is because it's now legal to assess them as capable of work if they could do some work with aids, like a guide dog and an adapted screen reader.

Same with a person who could use a wheelchair, if they had one.

Regardless of whether they actually have any aids, or can get them.

Oh, and a lot of ~Work programme offices are up stairs, with no lift!

Which would be if not for the fact that people are having their benefits stopped - this automatically stops their housing benefit as well - for not turning up to their meetings. Which they can't physically get to.

Still think they're not being targeted?