Actually, Walkie, Muslims are the new Jews, not the disabled. How many populist politicians do you see trying to ban the disabled from entering the country or accuse them of taking our jobs? Where are the disabled in the headlines? The sad fact is that the disabled just aren't that important.
Excuse me for "ignoring" some earlier posts. This one as a little bit meat to it , whilst remaining short and sweet enough that I can dissect the spurious assumptions, without writing an encyclopedia...I think.
Muslims are the new Jews..you could certyainly make a case for that, and I would take that case seriously, if only you didn't assume that excludes other people from sharing that dubious honour. One could also make a case for the same old Jews being the new Jews. I'm quite disturbed by that one, cos it's relatively neglected; and a rise in Islamist power surely entails a corresponding rise in Anti semitism? (Methinks the Germans have created a rather paraxoxical situation for themselves, by taking in horfdes of anti-Semites in their desperate efforts to avoid repeating previous mistakes . It's hilarious right now, but I'm not sure it will go on being quite so funny)
As for the case of disabled British people, this really hinges on prejudive against "benefits scroungers" , as I said. Not many people are prejudiced against the disabled as such , but the vast majority of us are only pretending to be disabled , so we can sponge off the State instead of working , don't you know? This logic, in turn, justifies a savage series of" Welfare reforms" which put all disabled people in an increasingly difficult (to understate it)position. Hence the numerous suicides.
As in Nazi Germnany,m every body knows aone "deserving" genuinely disabled , just as everybody knew one "decent Jew" . Equally, as in Nazi Germany,
everybody knows any number of "underserving" cases who serve to justify that harsh treatment (i actually said the bit in bold to someone the other day , and they said "oh! yes, and went off on a rant against the evil scroungers. i had to call them to a halt, and say "i didn't mean that the undeserving are really underserving, ;it's just prejudice , that;'s all. But given that said person already knew about the prejudice I'd faced to that effect, I was shocked. That goes to show how very deeply that response is ingrained)
I know that anecdotal evidence isn't your favourite sort of evidence , odeon, and I understand the reasons. But anyone can haul out relevant stats, inasmuch as they're available. I think my personal strength is my store of personal experience , and only I can draw on that. So I'll carry on doing so. I;'ve already asked if others will handle the stats side of it, and i'll be sursprised if there's nobody here who is willing to do that.
In the meantime maybe I should link you with
DPAC ? There is loads of info there, and you can surely expect it to have a predictable bias. But it's considerably better than nothing, I should think. And, hanfg on, you could equally expect my own selection to be biased, huh?
It's absurdly easy to dismiss disabled people as frauds. The standard model disabled person has a set of wheels underneath himn...and he'd better not be seen getting out of that chair. My ex had that problem, before he became permanently wheelchair bound (as the result of a very slow, erratic, degenerative process, as usual) . We heard neighbours loudly opine "He ain't disabled. I've seen him wealking about"...meaning that they'd seen him hobble the 50 yard to his parked motability car, for instance" that was 20-odd years ago. Nowadays he would never have got that motability vehicle. His ability to hobble 50 yards
most days would have totally destroyed his clain for enhanced Mobility allowance. People like him mostly stay indoors now, because said ability isn't
that useful without private transport. Not that losing their vehicles is the worst thing, that just goes to illustrate how unreasonable things have become. You don't even have to have what one would normally call a "hidden disability" for that disabilty to be effectively invisible . People make facile judgments based on fleeting impressions and disinterest. Neurological disablity? - alcoholic/junkie (that's the one I've very often had thrown at me. And when tyou're facing eviction due to having your bebnefits stopped, that's the thing that stings deepest:Not your utterly bleak future prospects, but the venom you hrear from your neighbours, and the prejudice you hear on the evening news) ,
So, OK, hopefuully that also demonstrates (if you're troubling to read) how banning people from entering a country or accusing them of taking jobs isn;'t the only form that prejudice takes?
Indeed I'd quibble with both of thosde as soloid evidence of prejudice at all. It all depends. i'bve bben part of a group (Agency wokers) who really were taking people's jobs. That statemebnt is not based on prejudice. You call surely call some of the treatment I received as "prejuduiced " though. Want to cast around for somthing to blame? Don't blame the statement. the statement is innocent. You could credibly blame "Free movemebnt iof labour" as an inflammatory factor. Oh ! but hang on that's to talk about banning people from entering the country , isn't it? Which is racist , isn;t it? Do you begin to se how discussing real uissues, and the search for real solutions is impeded by that thoughtless anti- discrimination rhetoric?
There are all sorts of reasons for people wanting immigration control;s. Prejudice mif=ght sometimes be one of them , But you've just made a typical , spurious equation bwetween the two , as do too many people. One reason in Britain is shortage of housing, and too many people living on the streets already. It's pretty natural and logical that more people coming in will mean more people living on the street as well as more people losing their jobs. Never mind which specific groupp of people are getting// losing the houses and the jobs. That's pretty much irrelevant. And just because
some people see
some groups as having an advantage in that respect, that's no reason at all to slur the whole population as "prejudiced" Nor to think that you know exactly what the prejudice is all about.
Oh! one last thing. You do know don't you that disabled people went into those death camps along with the Jews? Autistic people, even? we didn't matter much back then , either. Indeed, we matter so little that history barely ever pauses to recall that. you think
not mattering will save us>?
