To wonder if Nazi Germany felt like the UK does now, when they were creeping into power?

[oneggshellsforever]

Transformations in the justice system are happening, stacking the odds against disabled people having a fair hearing when they appeal sanctions or having disability benefits turned down.

They're getting rid of in person tribunals, and getting rid of expert panel members.

Disabled people are often successful when it goes to appeal, so the government seem to be systematically stripping the legal system of a fair trial?

Will start happening in October. What the government is doing to disabled people, and people with very little money in general, is chilling me to the bone. I honestly wonder if the feeling in the atmosphere was like this in 1930's Germany.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/12/online-benefits-appeals-tribunals-disabled

again the right of centre view that benefits claims should be reduced does not make them nazis or uncompassionate

It certainly makes them the latter considering people are literally dying because of benefit claims being reduced. If you don't care about that then you are the very definition of uncompassionate, and if you do care about that then you can't support the Government policy.

The nineteenth century was bad in lots of ways but it was not nazism. Nor did widespread popular beliefs about deserving vs undeserving poor lead to nazism. Rather the reverse.
I actually can't believe I'm sitting here typing statements like the above in all seriousness. I need to get back to work. When you start thinking threads like this require serious responses something's going wrong

A view from the 1940s:
orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye

Prizes for those who spot from where John Major's speechwriter plagiarised the bit about the old maids (a typo in this version, should be biking).

Did I say it was Nazism? This thread isn't even saying we're in the equivalent of Nazi Germany now, its saying we're on the creeping path towards Fascism, which we really are. Try actually reading the thread because you clearly don't understand what it is about. This is not just about popular beliefs about the poor, this is about policies, this is about othering (that is the first step towards making a group the enemy, first you make them not one of you - the Nazis didn't start off killing the Jews, they started off blaming them for problems in Germany which is exactly what is happening right now with people on benefits, they are being blamed for the problems in the UK, them and immigrants), its about our rights being slowly eroded, its about demonising the judiciary, the list goes on.

This thread isn't even saying we're in the equivalent of Nazi Germany now, its saying we're on the creeping path towards Fascism, which we really are

Exactly. When the Nazis are mentioned, people automatically think of the Holocaust. But there were many steps to the Holocaust, many changes to democracy, the rule of law, the judiciary, dictatorship etc. A change in attitudes...

I don't think the Holocaust could happen again in the West. I really don't. But I do think that we could lose the democracy and many of the rights we do have - if we aren't careful.

Terrorism can make it easy for Governments to impose new laws and take away hard won rights that we have taken for granted - and they can be supported by people because of fear. Surveillance, the Courts, the right to an open trial in public, a free press...

Totalitarianism is an ancient style of rule, and its most recent western European incarnation was in Germany. The current German education system is a credit to their wisdom in educating the current generation of how easy and how wicked it is to fall victim to.

When Britain in the 1960s was looking in horror at the totalitarian government of the USSR, the dissident Alexander Solzehnitsyn reminding the British not to be smug, the conditions, he said were ripe for the same to happen here, (which is what Orwell spotted)

the UK needs its own Amy Siskind

I think mn is a really useful source and historical record for what's going on, particularly as it's mainly women posting.

We could do with a systematic listing of what's happened week by week over the last 5 years or so like Siskind, but in a way all the anecdotal evidence of how it's affecting us and our kids is so valuable.

Dissenting 'posters' ( and when and how they post) are also really useful too.

When I read what mn posters experience in workplaces, in relationships in which they now have no financial status to leave, Grenfell, NHS, PIPS, Home Office it's disparate but all indicative of what we have been talking about.

If nothing else, our grand children will be able to read and learn from what we observed and experienced. Hopefully.

There is no time in history when we have beem safer, had more legal protection and had more access to health and education.

I don't love the tories. But nobody can give any real evidence of life chances deteriorating in comparison to say, the the 1970's.

Three generations ago our population worked in dangerous manual labour and had no access to free health care.

I'm 46 and I have seen my city grow and flourish since my childhood. In areas where there were once waste ground, broken glass and appalling housing there are now health centres, new flats and modern schools with safe playgrounds.

Please can someone just tell me which things are demonstrably worse than they used to be.

Social housing, employment rights, access to justice (3 off the top of my head)

Anyone aware of what's going on in Charlottesville?

I know that's not the UK, but still worrying

Please can someone just tell me which things are demonstrably worse than they used to be

I think that maybe the internet and much much easier communication has made it easier to be far more aware of what people really think of others and to share attitudes. Maybe these feelings were always there but people weren't aware of them.

I do feel there is more open intolerance and 'othering' of people - demonisation of groups by the media, politicans and TV. Documentaries about people on benefits, can't pay, won't pay etc. All seeking to paint a picture of people.

Maybe it's always been there. But it's a lot more open now.

*"It's the exact attitude expressed here started my OP that makes me believe that reforms couldn't come soon enough!"

What does this even mean? Genuinely. Curious to know.*

It means that when you've come from a family of members who have been either killed or severely traumatised at the hand of the nazis regime, you believe that anyone linking the current benefit system to that is highly disillusion and need a serious reality checks.

The benefit system is NOT killing people in this country.

Anyone aware of what's going on in Charlottesville?

It's American Student Identity Politics taking the logical step that anyone with an IQ above room temperature have been warning about.

Because burning torches at a protest are always a good look.

There does seem to be so much hate expressed at the moment. People should be able to protest, to go to the Courts and to use the law to fight things and not face the hate of the media. To not have to worry about acid attacks.

And I hate the word "The people". WTF does that mean? The people have said this, defying the will of the people. It really makes me feel that I don't belong. It seems to be that dissenting voices aren't welcome and are demonised because 'the people' have spoken. We are all 'the people'.

The benefit system is NOT killing people in this country

You what? People have literally died because their benefits were cut off.

The benefit system is NOT killing people in this country

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-died-after-fit-for-work-assessment-dwp-figures

calumslist.org/

Dentists were free as were opticians and prescriptions and I think there was more time /cash in the NHS. Most people expected to move out of home and purchase a property in their 20s.

Plus:
free higher education
NHS genuinely free and effective at the point of access
workers' rights
holiday pay/sick pay
equal rights pay
women's refuges
disability rights legislation
Warnock report on disability rights education
racism was regarded as uncivilised
council housing was a normal part of housing provision
rule of law was upheld
international trade and human rights law was respected and operated under
the very real memory of the the totalitarianism the allies had fought against was a reference point

Some one posted up thread the number of british aristocrats and ultra rich who were Nazi collaborators during the 1930s and the war.

Look at Trump and Leave funding.

And I agree Charlottesville is no co incidence.

The crackers in britain and US are in the ascendance, it would be wise to read and research how and why this is going on.

And what works well to stop it.

They've already moved to hearings on paper only for cases against LA refusing to assess children with SEN for an EHCP.

So if you have a child with Sen (who is likely to have a disability although the 2 aren't mutually exclusive) they are likely to now not receive the amount of support they need in school.

MorrisZapp
Disabled people are dying by the thousand because of austerity measures. People are being told they are fit for work and dropping dead - literally - within a week.
Employers are not happy about this. For one thing, it makes them look bad. As a direct consequence, they are becoming more wary of employing disabled people...

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-died-after-fit-for-work-assessment-dwp-figures

2016 figures showed that more than half of disabled people who appealed their “fit to work” assessment eventually got the decision overturned.
www.theguardian.com/careers/2017/feb/23/disability-employment-gap-sanctions-cuts-and-death-after-fit-to-work-tests

There were 30,000 excess deaths in 2015 that cant be accounted for, mostly among OAP's. They are probably linked to austerity.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/social-care-scandal-tory-cuts-9836261

Blimey. I'm genuinely surprised by those lists. When was this? Like, in which decade?

Two patients die from starvation or thirst each day in UK hospitals and care homes.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/two-patients-die-starvation-thirst-each-day-nhs-hospitals-uk-care-homes-statistics-office-national-a7517171.html

Deaths from domestic violence are on the increase, 10 women die every month. Meanwhile shelters close and thousands have to be turned away.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/womens-refuges-turned-away-thousands-5503694

Austerity is killing UK citizens.

"The benefit system is NOT killing people in this country

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-died-after-fit-for-work-assessment-dwp-figures"

That article simply gives a number of people who died out of a certain population group. It shows no link at all between benefits and the deaths. I could equally come up with some stats showing that the old age pension kills people, as thousands of people who are in receipt of an old age pension die each month!

And if people are dropping dead within a week of being assessed as fit for work I think we can safely say that a few more weeks of benefits, wouldn't keep them alive. Of course you may be exaggerating this for impact.

And taxes were relatively high, in the 1950s- late 1980s, during those period of relative equality, public services and stability.

Being a money rich free loader on the system was regarded as uncitizenly rather than a virtue as thatcher's administration made it:
'Greed is good' became a mantra. A bit Orwellian really.

Taxes in britain then were comparable to Scandinavian and western European countries now, which are not suffering the income disparities Britain is now and subsequent alt right power grab.