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".]

That's interesting Queen. Why do you think there is a shortage of professionals? Are people leaving, have they cut training places or are struggling to recruit people?

Money pissed up the wall, yes.

Repeat ad infinitum: it's the distrubution of the resourses that's all wrong. Sigh. Every problem is so hard to solve because it's surrounded by all the other problems that affect it...

totally agree with you OP.

we need everything we can get and are, or should be- entitled to.

where the hell is the government getting all this money to overseas aid and the accepting of migrants? From us disabled and carers.

Not from themselves and their paypackets, or the other rich nobs around, the poor and vulnerable. and Cameron has the gall to say he cares about people?

(BTW Im not against helping the refugees, its just its going to affect US, the poor, vulnerable and disabled as usual.)

and we are also a humanitarian issue ffs.

anyone saying otherwise is obviously not disabled or caring full time for a disabled person.

YABU and in regards to the government thinking its more competition for jobs I think the people feel pure relief not to be stuck in a dangerous place and aren't focusing on getting straight down the job centre. I feel awful that many disabled people are having a rough time but it is a seperate issue and it isn't fair to project your anger onto these poor peoples situation.

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

I am thinking homeless on the streets with no income when I say 'nothing'. No income.

Council homeless departments only have to help those deemed 'priority'. I have fallen through the cracks before. I am terrified of losing my ESA, and had to appeal to get it in the first place.

I know I'll get flamed at I am not trying to take away from what the refugees are suffering but in the past few days I've not been sure of what to make of people's reactions. I work in the charity sector. At the moment I'm seeing a lot of people on fb and various forums and comments on newspaper articles that they'd take a refugee in to live with them. That's fantastic!! While waiting for Cameron to let the refugees in do we think we could find space for all the homeless people in this country and all the children needing fostering/adoption?

How are disabled people 'left with nothing' op?

agree, shehasawildheart.

I thought the same thing wildheart - damn, should have remembered that example in my OP. That sums up what I was trying to say exactly.

There should be an outpour of support for the refugees, due to their dire situation and need to access support immediately. There shouldn't be any more deaths of innocent civilians.

However, the manifesto for the current government works on the basis of turning each socio-economic group against each other. There has been a lot of anti-disability propaganda in the media over the last few years, several television programmes showing allegedly disabled people, unfit for work, but still able to continue in their lifestyles, funded by the state. Of course these programmes are bullshit, and edited to maximum effect but the general public have lapped it up and believe this.

This in turn makes it much harder for the average disabled person to fight against the tide of thinking that disabled people must act/look a certain way or otherwise they are just scamming benefits.

It isn't that people with disabilities are less worthy of campaign or protection, but it started as a campaign by the current government to 'highlight' where disability benefits were being used, and trial by television appears to show that the general public believe that most people with disabilities are now somehow less worthy. Therefore there was less of a backlash when they decided to cut those benefits.

The hard left are bringing campaigns, and trying to protect the services of people with disabilities. However, it isn't the refugees v disabled people, but most disabled people are currently living in a safe western environment and although seriously struggling financially, most people would assume they are ok as they aren't at risk of immediate death. I have heard of people with medical conditions struggling to maintain their health and becoming seriously ill but that is not as newsworthy so less likely to come to the attention of the public.

If I'm honest I also think the general public are probably compassion fatigued and less likely to give a shit. Awful as it is.

Macadaamia Not qualifying for ESA, being too unwell/disabled/lacking the support to appeal, losing the appeal, being too unwell to sign onto JSA or meet the demands of JSA (including workfare - oh actually that applies to majority of ESA claimants too), thus being left with no income due to sanctions (up to three years). Becoming homeless due to having to live in inappropriate housing (under 35's must houseshare if they don't get DLA/PIP at a certain rate, which has been cut...), or due to being unable to afford the rent shortfalls or council tax top-ups without ESA or JSA, not being able to get social housing due to lack of support from professionals (access cut - espcially mental health). Off the top of my head. Oh, and not being able to afford care/medicine etc without PIP or ESA.

I am really, really frightened. I want to help the refugees but I dont want people to forget about the disabled. Especially the mentally ill who get a raw deal all round, because society doesn't want to know.

"That's interesting Queen. Why do you think there is a shortage of professionals? Are people leaving, have they cut training places or are struggling to recruit people?"

I can only speak for social work but many of these apply across the board; OTs, community MH nurses and district nurses etc.

Up until recent years, there was a NHS bursary for social work university students. This has been reduced which makes it harder to recruit good students. Many are mature students, with families and other financial commitments. The placements are full on, so there isn't plentiful time to work part-time, although most do.

The stress of our job is immense. I work in an older adults and physical disability team. The nation is living longer, not necessarily always in good health, so needing services. Front line workers get a lot of abuse for things that are usually beyond our control. It's wearing on even the most resilient worker. Some of the things we see is horrifying. I'm dealing with a horrific sexual abuse case of an older person with severe dementia. Closing my eyes at night doesn't make it go away. You can't switch off from some of the horrors. The pay is not great, not for the long hours we work. Despite this, I like what I do. I'm physically disabled myself, so receive a lot of positive feedback about doing my job because I know it, I live it myself.

Ooooh... I think the penny just dropped in my head. It's basically 'deseverving' vs 'undeserving' poor, isn't it?

I just wish protesty lefty types didn't buy into it

Mac the criteria for PIP which is replacing DLA means it is much harder to qualify for. The government are actively trying to reduce the number of claimants during the switchover. Lots of people are losing their DLA and not having it replaced with PIP. Their disability hasn't necessarily changed, but they're left with nothing or reduced benefits due to PIP being much harder to qualify for.

OP, although I disagree I can see where you're coming from. The vulnerable and poor are being told there isn't enough money to support them, but all of a sudden there is money available for other people. I don't think comparing the two situations is helpful though. More people should have come out and supported disabled people during the cuts, it's bad enough that instead they were brainwashed into viewing sick people as 'scroungers' without comparing it to the refugee situation. The disabled situation is bad enough in itself IYSWIM, it doesn't need to comparison.

Queen All the money isin the wrong places. And a little spending is missed which causes a much more expensive problem to solve down the line...

Nobody wants to hear it but we need more money in the pot to help both refugees and the disabled/homeless/unemployed etc. Id happily pay more tax if companies were paying me a decent wage. I'm happy to support others but many are not.

Tiptops OP, although I disagree I can see where you're coming from. The vulnerable and poor are being told there isn't enough money to support them, but all of a sudden there is money available for other people.

But I wasn't saying that! My issue is with the attitude of people who care about refugees but don't about other issues close to home!

As summed up far better in wildheart's post: "At the moment I'm seeing a lot of people on fb and various forums and comments on newspaper articles that they'd take a refugee in to live with them. That's fantastic!! While waiting for Cameron to let the refugees in do we think we could find space for all the homeless people in this country and all the children needing fostering/adoption?"

See?

Tiptops the reason I compared it to the refugee situation is because the refugee situation seems to have brought out protesting and compassion from the same people who didn't care about the disabled! I thought people just didnt care, now it turns out their compassion is selective.

It isn't selective for most people. Having compassion for one set of people doesn't exclude having compassion for another set.

Someone said upthread - it's the immediacy of the situation that has people fired up. Something has to be done now to help the refugees and Cameron didn't seem to be doing anything.

I'm disabled. I have significant MH issues (spent time in a secure ward last year).

I care about the refugees and I'm actually quite cross to be used as a reason why people shouldn't. It's divide and conquer at its absolute worst and I won't be a part of it.

We should absolutely demand that we are a country help those refugees. And we should also fight for the vulnerable in our own community. If some people can't do that, then that's life, but I won't let that turn me into the kind of shitty person that is OK with pushing other vulnerable people under the bus so I can get mine.

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

I think you answer your own question here . You are trying to compare refugees with nothing, to disabled people WHO HAVE BENEFITS but will be getting LESS BENEFITS - not NO benefits.

You are saying someone who has nothing what so ever is comparable to someone who is living on benefits, but might be given less for free now than they have been used to.

there is no comparison between the two situations.

The changing policy bit is the part where i get cynical. I have seen the same left wing people protest cuts to disability as campaign for refugees, in fact we have been doing so for quite a while now. Why is policy changing and the media changing its tune? To soften us up to 'save syria' via bombs i expect.

Less for free
Fuck me are you for real
Being disabled is not a life style choice
This shows why people like the op are fighting a losing battle

But I have noticed, especially irl and as mentioned especially amongst lefty men a weird hierarchy of 'causes worth bothering about'

Really? You do realise that the disabled, well every vulnerable group, were better looked after when we had a Government made up mostly of 'lefty men'? It's since we've had public school, rich, right wing men in charge that we've been shat on!

And it starts . .

Latest daily mail headline
People are just being manipulated to support war in syria. Hence the sudden concern for refugees

Thousands of exhausted migrants make it to the promised land: 5,000 refugees arrive in Germany and Austria - as George Osborne calls on Europe to tackle the 'evil Assad regime and Isis'