To wonder why people care so much about refugees but not disabled people?

[elementofsurprise]

... I don't know where disabled refugees fit in...

... and why we can influence policy about refugees but not the cuts to disability benefits?

It just doesn't seem to add up. And, as a disabled person, it's frightening.

I suspect the government are happy to allow refugees in without bothering about providing for them, eg. house building, infrastructure, NHS and so on. From their POV it's just more competition for jobs, enabling further driving down of wages making their business chums happy, and increased demands on the NHS so they can say "it's not working" and have an excuse to privatise everything! Oh, and us disabled people are just lazy, look the refugees are (being exploited and) doing a 60hr week and happy to live ten to a room! Type thing.

In addition so many apparently left-wing people (usually men) seem to sacrifice one cause for another, eg. it's ok to laugh at/demonise/criticise uneducated or unintelligent people, or the unemployed, if it's in favour of immigrants/refugees. Or it suddenly doesn't matter about sexism if the sexist people are immigrants, in case it comes across as 'racist', whilst those people hold discrimatory views about half the population . Meanwhile every other 'ism' seems to trump the demonisation of the mentally ill, which is barely a cause, let alone with enough support to influnce policy so drastically!

The government are bastards imho, but it's the selective compassion of fellow left-wingers that is frightening and upsetting...

[To be clear on my position: I think we should help refugees but there needs to be some joined up-thinking past "let them in".]

Do you know what ISIS are doing to little Yazidi girls?

I don't honestly believe that anyone in Britain is having anywhere near as shit a time of it as a result of gov. policy, and that's that.

I think people respond to whatever they consider to be most urgent and whichever issue the media decides is worthy of attention.

The civil war in Syria has been going on for ages and there has been trouble in Syria for at least 3 years (I've been donating money to a charity in syria since before it became interesting to the media). It has had almost no attention in the press until relatively recently and now because there are refugees and pictures of dying babies, the media is all over it like a rash because it makes a good news story - I feel quite strongly about how wrong it is that people only care when things reach a crisis point.

I am sure a crisis with disabled care would never be interesting to the media it doesn't really have the same appeal - it is not extreme enough.

I don't either Saucy, but the voters don't care about that. It's been proven over and over that they (we) vote according to what's best for us personally.

I am confused. Which left wingers are you cross at and why do tories get let off the hook? Because we all know they are selfish bastards anyway?? Doesnt that make them worse?
I am never surprised by the lemming like approach to whatever cause strikes the public imagination, although i am surprised so many suddenly care about the difference between migrants and refugees. People are odd.

My GP and I have been fighting my council for almost 12 months to get an assessment from an OT. I'm not sure the refugees will change that, tbh.

I'm so sick of people saying "we should help X group, Y group, Z group instead of the refugees." Are people that naive to think if there were no refugees the government would start thinking about helping another group?

I've said it before and will again.
Anyone being 'anti-refugee' in my name can fuck off. How dare they presume to use my life and the life of other disabled people as an example of britain not having enough money to help people who are suffering.

The answer op is because helping the disabled isn't the 'in cause' at the minute and the govt have an agenda stopping disabled rights becoming a bandwagon for people to support.
There are so many people who promote gay rights but you don't have the same support for disabled rights . In fact it is fashionable to label the disabled scroungers and they are faking it and disabled hate crime is on the rise. I hope the tide turns and people champion disabled rights just as much as any one else's rights

You can care about both. They are separate issues but if you want to compare, living as a disabled person in this country puts you in a far better position than these horrors these refugees are escaping. it isn't so nice to hear that is it but you did state them as being being equal problems
I'm glad that people are finally seeing what it means to be absolutely destitute and desperate as compared to what life is like here. You think people here have problems? Problems are what these refugees are experiencing.

Possibly we are just being softened up for troops in syria. It is strange how the media is suddenly bothered

iamabove I fear your voice will get lost in the outrage!

Fwiw, I can't see the connection myself, as I posted earlier. But there you go, the DM and other sources of terribly sad faces won't see how unpleasant their outrage is.

iamabove I completely agree with you.

Personally, I do care about disabled people & the cuts in benefits and services introduced/proposed. I have an adult DS with ASD and I also work as a Carer with disabled people. The cuts are wrong on every level.

I also care a lot about people who are so terrified by the very real & imminent threat of themselves & their children being captured, killed, raped and tortured by ISIS (and other terrorist groups), that the best option for them is to put their family in to a small plastic dinghy and venture out in to the open sea in the hope of reaching somewhere safe. For these refugees it is literally a life or death crisis. A developed country with the power to help cannot just continue to sit by and watch people die. These are refugees not migrants. There is a distinct difference.

We cannot refuse to help just because budgets are being cut elsewhere (don't even get me started on the cutting of funding for a number of proven cancer treatments for example).

I disagree with many aspects of the current government imposed "austerity" - but that's another thread entirely.

I hate it when people use these kinds of arguments, OP. If people are against cruelty to animals, we are accused of not being against cruelty to children, now, according to you, if we are in favour of war refugees being given refuge, we are against the disabled.

We've got the media to thank IMO.

I too am a disabled person whose heart goes out to genuine refugees. I do think that charity should begin at home but maybe an exception should be made in a major crisis.

Oh for gods sake op, talk about a serious case of whataboutery. People having compassion for migrants doesn't mean they can't have compassion for disabled people. It's not like there's a limited supply of it in the world.

People having compassion for migrants doesn't mean they can't have compassion for disabled people. It's not like there's a limited supply of it in the world.
Compassion may be unlimited-but resources aren't!

But the op is talking about peoples support for the disabled and fighting cuts to their services - so yes, compassion would be required.

Personally, I think both should be funded, it's not an either/or thing. I don't see why support for migrant people seems = to not supporting disabled people.

The media have done a great job highlighting the current refugee crisis and it is chilling to think that the harrowing imagery that I have seen is the tip of a giant iceberg. How many millions(?) of people have died without us knowing their terrible stories?

I'm not a big newspaper reader but when the media discuss how austerity has affected disabled people here they tend to focus on "bedroom tax" and cuts in benefits. As an ordinary person it feels like the only help we can give to help people facing benefit cuts is via food banks. And "bedroom tax" seems like an indulgent moan when refugees want to move out of tents and have access to toilets and showers. I realise bedroom tax is more complicated than that but it's not comparable to being forced to sleep in a tent.

I agree with your points about housing, schooling, healthcare. I really hope that the government are busy planning where to allocate extra resources and that the resources are for long term support like training and language lessons rather than short term accommodation in B and Bs.

I think most people care about both but resources are another matter.

I wonder where our priorities would lie if the media had a different headline

I think the OP has a point and it isn't to say we shouldn't be compassionate to refugees but we should be compassionate full stop to everyone in need and not just whatever is in the media at that moment. Syria has been an appalling mess for a while now, displaced families have been in the news with kidnappings of young girls and women for rape and slavery for many months. Germany was calling for EU cooperation to settle these people before these photos as was Yvette Cooper. David Cameron is a populist politician and it does take people in the millions standing up and the media support to get the government to act, there isn't enough support for disabled people to make the cuts etc stop. This is a comparison and they are both awful. Life and death always is treated well compared to disibility/long term health issues, just like in the NHS - cancer care is great but chronic pain and mobility problems aren't treated effectively.

As for the cultural/sexism stuff - I've seen defence or turning a blind eye to cultural practices which are discriminatory or abusive - only need to see the Rotherham and Rochdale stuff to see how that turn out. Christianity is not protected in this way, it is criticised and derided very openly and I actually believe this has helped, many Christians are far more tolerant and understanding than 20 years ago. Huge amounts of Christians support gay marriage and we now have women bishops, although there is further progress to make.

op can I just thank you for this thread, reading the replies that are so supportive to disabled people has allowed me to realise that some people do care and do see it as still being an issue.
I will ignore the lack of resources comment as that just will lead to a squabble about if there is money for this blah blah
(I am not anti refugee just can't work out who will pay for it)

Of course resources are finite but there is often more money than you think and it is poorly used, perhaps pissed up on the wall on 'projects' that fail. There is a nationwide shortage of qualified professionals, including social workers and OTs. I work for a local authority who pays their front line workers considerably less than neighbouring authorities. As a result, they are having more trouble than most when recruiting workers. Disabled people sit on our waiting lists; weeks to see an OT or social worker. The LA received a significant sum of money injected into employing people who don't effing exist! The money is there, so, don't blame "the big bad government" helping migrants.

Wow. I thought I made it clear I think we should help the refugees?

I don't think it's "help the disabled" or "help the refugees" either.

I'm just wondering why there is such an outpouring of support for refugees (all good, not criticing that, to be clear) to the point where it's influenced policy, but the same thing didn't happen regarding disabled people being left with nothing?

Being cynical I suspect the government reckon they can do well out of refugees and immigrants but will not put their money where their mouth is to provide the services needed (seeing as how they're cutting everything...) so maybe that's why they've reacted? Whereas to respond to disability benefit and NHS cuts they'd have to stump up? I don't know.

But I have noticed, especially irl and as mentioned especially amongst lefty men a weird hierarchy of 'causes worth bothering about'. (I know a lot of protesty type people, having been more active in that department myself when my mental health was better.) Another example is people getting massively on board with 'bedroom tax' protests/preventing evictions but not appearing to give a flying fuck about others hit by benefit changes, even the Housing Benefit changes happening at the same time for private renters. Mumsnet is much more even and much more actual debate tbh. It seems to be the same people men who before the current refugee crisis were pro- all immigration without questioning or working out how to manage cutural differencs, especially relating to sexism which in theory in an issue they care about. Again, I'm not particularly criticising their standpoint on the immigration issue, it's more that it somehow trumped any thought towards/involved turning a blind eye to sexism. (As an aside, there does in general seem to be far, far more arguments debate over the "let them in or not?" question than to how to make the process run smoothly.)

I think people respond to whatever they consider to be most urgent and whichever issue the media decides is worthy of attention. Maybe this has something to do with it.

It is frightening to hear the narrative and jokes about 'lazy/thick brits' vs 'hardworking immigrants' when you are relying on these people (taxpayers) to be alive. I feel like a burden/worthless at the best of times, I'm not entitled to NHS mental healthcare since the cuts, and it scares me that society will turn a blind eye or even inadvertently encourage the idea that people like me are a cause not worth bothering about.

YABU, I would hazard a guess that your idea of being left with "nothing" isn't remotely like a refugee's reality of "nothing".