To think the deliberate targeting of disabled people is idealogical and reminiscent of the 3rd reich?

[malificent7]

Friends and I were discussing the current government's treatment of the disabled and I heard ANOTHER harrowing story. Her friends has multiple disabilities, cannot walk and relies on painkillers to make life tolerable. After her last assessment this woman was deemed fit to work and was told by a non medical professional (AKA administrator) that she didn't need medication. Her financial support was removed and now she has nothing whilst she stages an appeal.

The trouble is the government has scrapped a scheme which got disabled people into work. My good friend's sister has quite severe learning disabilities but was very happy in her job in a café until the government scrapped the scheme. Another thing we can thank Cameron for. She was devastated and wanted to work as it gave her self esteem.

So we have double standards here. We are being told to get jobs or loose benefits yet jobs are being cut.

AIBU to feel that humanity has learned nothing from history lessons at school and during a financial crisis we are keen to scapegoat others (disabled, jews etc.) Seems like most people don't want to help others as 'they work hard and why should they pay taxes?'

Someone will probably come along to say that Corbyn is an anti semite but the Nazis were anti disabled and wanted to squeeze them out of existence. So are the Tories. Is this an example of political gaslighting , cognitive dissonance or projection I wonder?

It's awful how disabled elderly and the poor are treated. This government is made up of grammar and public school boys who don't care about anyone else. Capped nurses pay rise, cut nhs spending and yet the old cowbag found 1bn for the dup party to cling onto power. If they get back into power...I will cry. Who the fuck votes for three arseholes?? The wealthy tax dodgers!

No that would be the hatred towards Jews

Have a look in a history book, disabled people didn't make it to camps they were killed in their own homes or in hospitals.

OP

Totally agree, I've been saying we are living in the 1930s.

TM has now launched a plan to get more children into, 'uniformed' organisations.

Not so much antisemitism but there is a lot of anti Muslim rhetoric.

I hope this thread isn't pulled. The personal attacks can be taken down, surely? But why should we not discuss these things?

I never thought the OP was saying that we are living in something like Nazi Germany in the height of the final solution period. Instead it's to do with the very slow burn of societal attitudes changing and becoming more and more polarised as the media join with the government in othering disabled people.

I'm sorry for your troubles, sen, but there are many other voices here who have had the opposite experience. I'm glad your experience has been helpful and positive, but can you not see that this is not the case for thousands upon thousands of other disabled people and their carers? Or do you not believe them?

I'm chronically ill with a degenerative disease and in a support group for people with the condition. Out of my group I've seen lots be turned down for PIP after being on high rate indefinite DLA. Like they'd suddenly got better, or something. When in actual fact they'd got worse, as this disease doesn't ever get better. Some have gone to appeal and won, some have given up because they're simply too exhausted and live hand to mouth. It's utterly rotten. I'm terrified waiting for my PIP letter.

It's true that Labour started ATOS and it wasn't easy claiming DLA. But there wasn't this very insidious creeping atmosphere of polarisation and the not so subtle push from the media to think that so many are on the take. And the hate crimes have increased as a result. Attitudes have changed and are changing.

That doesn't mean we will end up like Nazi Germany. I have no thought that we will. But it surely means we should examine where we are in the light of what we know about its origins.

OP, YANBU.

Somebody earlier said that some disabilities do get better or entirely go away. Yeah, somebody may have recovered from "bad back" or even cancer. But do learning difficulties go away? Autism? Its a disgrace that the process is even happening in the first place.

I agree with you Madhairday and I don't think this thread should be pulled. I don't see any inaccuracy or hyperbole in the Op's post....she stated that what is happening is 'reminiscent of the 3rd Reich' which imo is unarguable. The govt may not be actively killing people, but they are knowingly creating conditions in which many people are dying & others' lives are being made intolerable because of what is happening.

As others have pointed out the Nazi era started with specific groups (incl disabled people) being targeted, scapegoated and 'othered' - this led directly to their crimes against humanity a few years later. Nobody is claiming a comparison with these - just that we have an historical example what targeting groups of people in this way can lead to, so need to be on our guard.

Just because we are as a society more advanced and civilised than 1930s Germany was during the rise of the Nazis doesn't mean the same risks are not there or that the comparisons are spurious. We are used to a welfare state umbrella being there to protect the most vulnerable - which btw was put in place after the injustices & horrors of WWll because everyone said 'never again' and determined to build a more civilised society. We are now seeing so much of that being dismantled before our eyes & it makes me very sad and worried for the future.

And another of the Nazis' methods was to shut down dissenting voices. I don't want that happening again so that is why it is very important you do NOT pull this thread, MNHQ. I am sure that you are proposing doing this for the most benign of reasons (though you haven't shared these here) but they are not good enough.

I think the Op made her points clearly and articulately & don't see she is obliged to come back. Or is that a new MN rule now? 'Come back and elaborate on and debate your point once made, or have your thread pulled'.

The Germany of the early 20th Century was probably one of the best educated and most civilised in Europe, so if conditions there could cause Nazism, there is little reason to assume they can't arise elsewhere. But - we do have history to learn from which they didn't.

You can't learn from history when people hold events as so abhorrent they won't make comparisons to them at any stage. Because of this we are destined to do it again.

The Germany of the early 20th Century was probably one of the best educated and most civilised in Europe, so if conditions there could cause Nazism, there is little reason to assume they can't arise elsewhere. But - we do have history to learn from which they didn't.

Yes, but "having it" and "learning from it" are two very different things.

It's almost axiomatic that countries that descend into totalitarianism removed or diluted history education for the masses beforehand.

On another thread, I noted horrors like Lidice, and Oradour which I can guarantee few on this thread will have heard of - let alone the person in the street.

Few adages are as true as the one about ignorance of history leading to it's repetition

I have been to Lidice, at the time when Czechoslovakia was still behind the Iron Curtain. It was very moving. The actual site was then rose gardens. Just as an aside, a film that they showed suggested that the Russians won the war single handed! Well, to be fair, that is probably more true in East Europe.

Have a look in a history book, disabled people didn't make it to camps they were killed in their own homes or in hospitals.
There were specific camps for the disabled. Hadamar and Hartheim Castle.

I think the ones who find Nazi comparisons offensive are those who are in the wrong - oh we know we're bad, but NOT THAT BAD, or at least, not yet.

The Nazi comparisons make many of us uncomfortable - perhaps deep down we are asking ourselves, 'What would I have done?' I know I have asked myself this - would I have objected, or would I have been one who didn't notice what was happening? That is why I think this debate is a valuable one, we are being made aware of the situation and have the chance to do something now, before we slide further down the slippery slope.

The Nazi comparisons make many of us uncomfortable

If the shoe fits ...

perhaps deep down we are asking ourselves, 'What would I have done?

One of the most powerful sentences I have ever seen written - because it expresses something I have felt for years - appeared on my FB feed a few months ago.

The people that hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people that killed here were obeying the law

It's one of the reasons my back can easily be gotten up by people who use "it's the law" as an reason for inhumane behaviour. It's also one of the reasons why we need juries. Because we need people who can say "fuck the law. This is wrong".

The Nazi comparisons make many of us uncomfortable
Which is the main reason this thread should not be pulled.
You make valid points. We should feel uncomfortable but instead of shouting it down, we should be using it to provoke a much needed discussion.

The thing is (and I really should hide this thread for good) I just do find nastiness towards disabled people for something that isn't their fault, utterly upsetting.

People always say to me things like "these scroungers, but obviously not you, you're clearly genuinely deserving" but it's still a sweeping generalisation of a fucktonne Of people whose circumstances they don't know but thanks to rhetoric believe they do, the vast majority of whom have genuine need.

The Scrounger Myth is so damaging to disabled people.

Those with very right wing views of the Bring Back The Workhouse variety or have a cut off line of where government help should cease which conveniently cuts off in favour of them and theirs really don't see themselves as "Nazi" we fought the Nazis and they did terrible things and it's a terrible slur

BUT

Their views are FASCIST as were the Nazis

And the original question itself is not about the Holocaust it's about The Third Reich which did systemically target disabled people as a "subspecies" and much of the rhetoric we have now has a distinct "subspecies" vibe ; even the language alleged allies and supporters of disabled people on this thread have used about and toward disabled people has a distinct "subspecies" vibe to it

People have so much unconscious bias against disabled people akin to racism and homophobia which they don't so much fail to acknowledge as fail to appreciate exists due to a lack of grassroots political movement akin to Black Lives Matter or the work of Stonewall

@ValleyClouds I genuinely believe some people treat disabled people as some kind of subspecies to console themselves that if disabled people are somehow different it'll never happen to them...

The Third Reich?

The OP is bonkers..........

Obviously nowadays disabled or other people in the western world wouldn't be rounded into camps like the Nazi's as it couldn't be hidden.

But for those young people with disabilities in education right now, everything to support them has been cut. Access to work programmes, NHS and charity support, respite and residential care even the basic education system is failing children with SEN in both MS and SEN provision as shown by Birmingham's recent SEN report. They don't actually get that support and are meant to be cured post-16 and dont qualify for PIP after lifetime DLA award on the say-so.

I don't think we are looking at Nazi scenarios, what I can see is a rise in social care needs where families caring for disabled adults are not able to do that anymore .

Obviously nowadays disabled or other people in the western world wouldn't be rounded into camps like the Nazi's as it couldn't be hidden.

The state won't be blamed. It's society they want to take the lead. The translation of that (real) poster I put upthread is an appeal to society. It says:

"60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too. Read '[A] New People', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP."

With some threads on MN ("Too many disabled spaces") leading the charge ...

Perhaps a read of the thread would be helpful @bridgetoc
or this

I agree with you OP.

My friend knows someone who works for Maximus (the company that carry out ESA assessments) and basically she wants her next holiday in Australia and know she needs to award a certain number of disabled people O points (depriving them of the money to pay food, rent, heating or towards costs related to their illness) in order to get extra pay to afford the holiday.

There's a really prevalent discourse of 'scroungers and benefit cheats' and a lack of understanding that there is a set amount set aside for benefits and that not all of it is taken up (there are more people who are NOT claiming for benefits that they ARE entitled to, than there are people who are claiming benefits that they are claiming benefits illegally).

There are some disabled people who are literally stuck in a cycle of applying, being refused any allowance to live on and then having to appeal despite being too unwell to do so, only to have to re-apply six months or a year later. It's horrendous.

I remember hearing a quote 'The true measure of a society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members'...

"Yeah, somebody may have recovered from "bad back" or even cancer"

Some cancer patents are left with lifelong health problems from the chemo.

UN denounces Britain's treatment of people with disabilities

Over the last 8 years i have also watched the "othering" of social housing tenants.

DH is both and it is this "othering" which makes it ok for HAs to say Move your disability aids or they will be taken and sold to cover the cost of taking them or destroyed.

@DGRossetti I don't drive so don't know much about parking but it really floored me when I had to leave work to be a FT carer people were saying I would have so much time for me to relax and go to the gym .