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

And what's with the attempts at silencing?
Yep, RiverTam
"My life has completely changed," she told verdict.co.uk. "When I see someone walk towards me on the street with a bottle of water or something, I just freak out. I get people who send me death threats who include their name and full address on the letters. People are so bold that they just don't hide." (Gina Miller)
www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/08/11/week-in-review-gina-miller-and-far-right-terrorism
@Arron_banks
Cracking news twitter.com/leaveeuofficial/status/895288888289374211 …
5:32 PM - Aug 9, 2017

@IanDunt 1h1 hour ago
Gina Miller is facing far-right terrorism. The response of anti-immigrant cheerleaders is to laugh

Whilst we all have the gadgets and the trappings of a decent life

In what way? In comparison to a refugee camp yes. But how can you possibly put this into all of us?

If the argument in favour of this country being like Nazi Germany is based on the fact that we are not funding disability benefits properly, the same would be true of this country at any period of its history prior to about 1945. Which is nonsense.
As others have pointed out there is a clear difference between cutbacks in welfare benefits and a policy of deliberate persecution and killing on eugenic grounds. I suspect only on MN and perhaps CIF would it ever be necessary to point this out.

In the way that some (daily mail readers) see poverty in this country as non existent because "they've all got iPhones and flat screen tv's".
Plenty of people take issue with the talk of poverty because to them, mobile phones and tv's are seen as very high value objects, which they were not so long ago.
A bit like the "always smoking and down at the pub" of the 80's -90's.
Or the opinion that if you can afford a phone you're prioritising wrong.
Sorry, I'm wording this badly.
Poverty nowadays looks different to poverty of my parent's generation, but they are yet to catch up to modern standards of living so can't see it so it's very much denied, whilst still being a negative thing in society (ahh, wording it badly again, hopefully it makes some sense!)

This is terrifying, and reminds me of this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-stone/history-tells-us-what-will-brexit-trumpb11179774.html, long, but SO important to read

In my head that all made perfect sense in relation to the op and the direction we appear to be going in. Reading it back, I'm not sure it does, and I can't find he words to explain it better.

You can look at other countries and see how quickly things can change. Turkey is one example at the moment and the USA is also going through changes.

Have people been watching the Handmaid's tale? Slowly, slowly, drip,drip and changing attitudes, change of laws, othering of groups, changes in attitudes towards groups.

You do wonder when people choose to flee. Choose to stand up for what's right. Choose to stand up for others. And choose to stand up to hate and changing attitudes.

I can't imagine Nazi Germany in modern day UK. But I bet people in Germany in the 1920s couldn't imagine the future of Germany and the horrors that occurred.

Apparently the enemy has to have a silly little moustache or the parallels are ridiculous.

The things you have mentioned zzzz are much better than they were IME. Others may disagree though.

I think this kind of question massively trivialises the events of the Holocaust and is actually pretty offensive.

No-ones comparing now to the holocaust though.
Shifting attitudes that we are seeing have similarities with pre WW2 attitudes. Tiny changes which lead to big ones.
When these patterns are spotted, of course people will be concerned.
History has a nasty habit of repeating itself.

There are definitely similarities.

I'm not sure whether it's useful to be arguing whether it's the 'same' or not - perhaps we should be focusing on what to do?

We need to think about not othering people, not demonising the poor, thinking about stop and search protocols, thinking about the increasing racist attacks.

There's a tipping point - we need to make sure we don't reach it

I think this kind of question massively trivialises the events of the Holocaust and is actually pretty offensive

The Holocaust didn't just happen. Have you read Sophie Scholl's biography? She was a student during the Nazi regime. It details the change in attitudes and what suddenly became OK to say. What went unpunished. There's a change in attitude towards certain groups and blind eyes being turned. Look at Trump's views. He helps change attitudes and harden attitudes towards groups. But it's ok for some people as he's not mentioning their group.

Agree op. And it is too scary to think about. Which makes me one of the bad ones

All I can say zzzzz is notwithstanding the scandal of how some PIP applicants are treated, broadly speaking, things are better today.

It's not all about benefits (money) it's about how people are treated.

This.

The government were hoping to cut 20% of spending by moving from DLA to PIP, even though the fraud rate for these benefits is tiny. It's becoming normal for people with quite severe disabilities to be given zero points following a humiliating assessment process. The number of appeals is rocketing and 65% of PIP appeals are successful.

The picture is similar for ESA (the income-based benefit for people who are too unwell or disabled to work) but there's an even higher number of successful appeals.

Some of the most vulnerable people in the country are being put through repeated, humiliating and stressful ordeals just to get the means of subsistence. And it's not even saving any money because the appeal process is so expensive.

It's the same with the 'hostile environment' (please do read that article if you have time) - I don't think most people have caught up with the increasing cruelty of immigration law, the way it has encroached on all sorts of areas of life and the way it affects people who are here quite legally, as well as those who become inadvertently 'illegal' due to administrative error.

Just one example - here's the lengthy saga of a refugee trying to open a bank account. Bear in mind this man has been granted 5 years' leave to remain in the UK as a refugee. He has the right to work and claim benefits but needs a bank account to do either of these things.

The hostile environment is overtly intended to discourage migration but there is no evidence to suggest it works, no targets have been set, no evaluation is being commissioned and the expense of implementation may outweigh the income generated.

This is not about the money.

The Nazis were people, most of them 'ordinary' people, they were not all uniformed Stormtroopers.
The Holocaust did not just happen over night.

Of course it is possible to have better disability awareness and laws while simultaneously public opinion and the execution of those laws are worse.

"I think this kind of question massively trivialises the events of the Holocaust and is actually pretty offensive."

I am in no way trivialising the Holocaust and frankly find it offensive that you deduce this from my post.

What exactly offends you? I'd be interested in breaking that down and examining it, and I think it's worth doing.

I find it disgusting how disabled people and poor people are being treated, and how it is becoming the new normal. Hate attacks based on race are rising too, as others have pointed out.

I was going to write out a long list of individual cases of people who have died as a result of our hamfisted and obfuscatory welfare system but I don't have the heart to do so right now. I find it depressing and grim. If I have enough mental energy to do it later though I will.

I'd say that we are at the same point as Germany was just before Hitler was elected as Chancellor.
Large swathes of people are being "othered", MSM is being used to publish propoganda against disabled people, people who are out of work are seen as a burden, while those in work are "not working hard enough" because they still need to ask for help from the state just to survive. People who practise different religions are looked upon with distrust, especially as they tend to form close knit communities.
Hitler had an astonishing grasp on the influence of propoganda and media.

"It is part of a great leader’s genius to make even widely separated adversaries appear as if they belonged to but one category, because among weakly and undecided characters the recognition of various enemies all too easily marks the beginning of doubt of one’s own rightness."

I look at Trump and how he others people. He appeals to certain people and has no problem throwing a whole group of people under the bus to further his aims without thought about how his words and actions can have a massive effect.

You only have to listen to his words. Illegal immigrants and crime, Muslims and terrorism, trans people and the military. Who's next?

Hundreds of people have wrongly had their driving licences revoked and their bank accounts closed because of the 'hostile environment'