Clearly a song written this year, what chances could a 24 year old song be so prescient… now where’s my Chaplin mobile…
In November 2001 a conference assembled at Woodstock, near Oxford. Its subject was ‘Malingering and Illness Deception’. The topic was a familiar one to the insurance industry, but it was now becoming a major political issue as New Labour committed itself to reducing the 2.6 million who were claiming Incapacity Benefit (IB). Amongst the 39 participants was Malcolm Wicks, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work, and Mansel Aylward, his Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). Fraud – which amounts to less than 0.4 per cent of IB claims – was not the issue. The experts and academics present were the theorists and ideologues of welfare to work. What linked many of them together, including Aylward, was their association with the giant US income protection company UnumProvident, represented at the conference by John LoCascio. The goal was the transformation of the welfare system. The cultural meaning of illness would be redefined; growing numbers of claimants would be declared capable of work and ‘motivated’ into jobs. A new work ethic would transform IB recipients into entrepreneurs helping themselves out of poverty and into self-reliance. Five years later these goals would take a tangible form in New Labour’s 2006 Welfare Reform Bill.
Between 1979 and 2005 the numbers of working age individuals claiming IB increased from 0.7m to 2.7m. In 1995, 21 per cent were recorded as having a mental health problem; by 2005 the proportion had risen to 39 per cent, or just under 1 million people. The 2000 Psychiatric Morbidity Survey identified one in six adults as suffering from a mental health problem: of these only 9 per cent were receiving some form of talking therapy. The Health and Safety Executive estimate that 10 million working days are lost each year due to stress, depression and anxiety, the biggest loss occurring in what was once the heartland of New Labour’s electoral support, the professional occupations and the public sector. Despite these statistics, Britain has one of the highest work participation rates of OECD countries; while benefit levels are amongst the lowest in Western Europe and benefit claims are on a par with other countries.1 The system is not in crisis, and this is not the motivation for the proposed changes. New Labour’s politics of welfare reform has subordinated concern for the sick and disabled to the creation of a new kind of market state: claimants will become customers exercising their free rational choice, government services will be outsourced to the private sector, and the welfare system will become a new source of revenue, profitability and economic growth.
Read the rest: New Labour, the market state, and the end of welfare Jonathan Rutherford (via Broken of Britain forums)
Oh crap buttons,
Ed Miliband’s office said that a firefighter strike on bonfire night would be “dangerous” and would not have the support of the Labour leader.
Asked if the Labour leader believed the latest action would be responsible, his spokeswoman said: “No, of course not. It would be a dangerous situation. Hopefully it will be resolved by then. We would dearly like to see it resolved by then.”
With an unparalleled assault on workers, the poor, the sick and the disabled by the ConDems we need a little more from the Labour leader than corporate media placating non support of unions. I was made aware of this on twitter by Jim Jepps who said-
Ed Miliband comes out against the firefighters’ strike. He’s such a refreshing change to all those other Labour leaders
So…. I joined Labour to vote in the leadership election to stop David Miliband from becoming leader because he was involved in torture and its covering up, I voted for Ed simply because tactically that was the best option to defeat Davey boy. I had no illusions, the opposition is just a professional role of adversarial parliamentary shenanigans, Labour are in that role now, but all three parties are Neoliberal shills. But would being a Labour member (and in theory lots of other people of actual leftist dispositions) push their adversarial role into an actual principled one of opposing Shock Doctrine, apparently not, or not so far.
So the theory, such as it was, went something like this- to mitigate or (heaven forfend) stop ConDem destruction of the post-war British social settlement a united broad front is needed and at the party political level that is Labour. But that always exists with great tensions as the leadership are all pretty well much New Labour chumps and their actual commitment to fighting the ConDems is always questionable as half the measures (particularly the attacks on unemployed, sick and disabled) were theirs anyway. I’ll say it again having experienced treatment under Tories, New Labour and now ConDems under all those categories the spite, hate speech in the media from ministers and systemic abuse does not differ. Neoliberals hate anyone who is not some mythical ‘wealth producer’ if what you produce is care for another human or self survival against disability or sickness, they don’t value it at all, they are self-hating humans. Ho-hum.
Now this, Ed fails to support the FBU or even at least point out what the management were up to and while strikes are an unfortunate measure if the fire brigade workers vote for such a measure then that has to be respected. It would hardly be- to the barricades, but would signal a party that saw what the French were doing and realised stopping the Austerity agenda required united action between a party called Labour and well y’know, labour. I’m trying to avoid the perhaps glaring truth- We Iz Fuct Baby, those with power might differ in styles but the underlying movement towards the Neoliberal corporate state is shared. So what is the point of being member (pun pondered) in a a party political broad opposition if they are not going to really do…anything. It’s not like this is the only thing, I have tracked their activities as the new team were assembled and rather than mention every outrage (as I was resigned to it being little better than awful) I hoped for no major glaring atrocity. So is this the sign of that? But other good people manage to be members, and while they may not look on it quite like this my impression is in party political Westminster terms, they view it as the only game in town. Swallow your pride and get on with real stuff at the national and local levels while knowing the bosses in London are an embarrassment at best.
Over the announcement of the CSR I have to say Labour push back was conspicuous by its absence and where there was any it was lukewarm, perhaps indicating the rebadged libertarianism of the ‘Big Society’ was all that was left the best response came from blogger Bendy Girl
In the absence of a Labour party fighting for us, Dave’s idea will win because we will have to build our own support networks and opposition, albeit unfunded and under attack from local Tories who will be the beneficiaries of patronage the ‘Big Society’ will act as cover for. To the extent anything is done, mostly the ConDems will abandon many communities as too poor and not their supporters, sooner or later Dickens will be seen as a prescient futurologist and Engels & Mary Burns ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ will be a local government manual for conditions to aspire to, not an exposé.
Any-road-up, this is a massive disappointment, fire fighters have understandably massive public sympathy and support and the Labour leadership throwing them under the bus is dumb, dumb, dumb, unless you accept they value making themselves appear ‘business friendly’ then it is technocratic business as usual. So what am I doing hanging around when I could be in the Greens? Hmm, I’ve started eyeing the exit door.
The complete article is essential reading, this is the new torture paradigm and crucially they differentiate these methods of torture from others which they call ‘torture’ so by their logic these must not be torture, newspeak at its best.-
The British military has been training interrogators in techniques that include threats, sensory deprivation and enforced nakedness in an apparent breach of the Geneva conventions, the Guardian has discovered.
Training materials drawn up secretly in recent years tell interrogators they should aim to provoke humiliation, insecurity, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning, and suggest ways in which this can be achieved.
One PowerPoint training aid created in September 2005 tells trainee military interrogators that prisoners should be stripped before they are questioned. “Get them naked,” it says. “Keep them naked if they do not follow commands.” Another manual prepared around the same time advises the use of blindfolds to put prisoners under pressure.
A manual prepared in April 2008 suggests that “Cpers” – captured personnel – be kept in conditions of physical discomfort and intimidated. Sensory deprivation is lawful, it adds, if there are “valid operational reasons”. It also urges enforced nakedness.
More recent training material says blindfolds, earmuffs and plastic handcuffs are essential equipment for military interrogators, and says that while prisoners should be allowed to sleep or rest for eight hours in each 24, they need be permitted only four hours unbroken sleep. It also suggests that interrogators tell prisoners they will be held incommunicado unless they answer questions.
The 1949 Geneva conventions prohibit any “physical or moral coercion”, in particular any coercion employed to obtain information.
One PowerPoint aid, entitled Any Questions?, explains that the techniques have been developed over decades by British military interrogators serving in Borneo, Malaya, South Arabia, “Palastine” (sic), Cyprus and Northern Ireland. It explains that interrogators have faced “adverse pulicity (sic), investigations and problems” in the past. During operations in Cyprus in the 1950s, it says, such problems were created by members of parliament, and in Aden by the International Committee of the Red Cross. In northern Oman, trainees are informed, the problems were created by “our own side!”.
via Humiliate, strip, threaten: UK military interrogation manuals discovered | UK news | The Guardian.
Richard Murphy notices the CBI are now petulantly whining that growth will be impossible in a climate of cuts..hey wait, but they..no not finished yet, so they need loads of concession to business and loads of restrictions on labour. See how that works? First you support a measure that will imperil ‘recovery’ and then oh noes our recovery is imperilled we had better do something, I know remove regulation on us and onerously regulate our workers, woohoo, is anyone buying this crap? Doesn’t really matter, might makes right, Neoliberalism has always been impose by force, sometimes literally, sometimes structurally and always by such elites…eagerly. Sense and logic, do not in fact matter.
There is something wrong with many of the responses to the Coalition’s attempt at imposing Shock Doctrine, and it is simply this- Acceptance.
There is wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth, and particularly in the mainstream media a concern for its most deleterious effects, however there is little backbone to most of it. Let’s just cut through the bullshit and reams of articles and posts about it, the ConDem Coalition is aiming to impoverish the already poor, increase homelessness, increase sickness and decrease care and here is the kicker- it is not necessary, it is all a choice they have made to service their ideological fetishes. Even if you wish to fixate on the deficit, it could be paid back by simply collecting the taxes corporations routinely avoid & evade, you could also tax transactions, the inoffensively trite Robin Hood tax would do that (in fact to truly earn that named it should be a lot more aggressive). So a choice has been made, the coalition is attempting to victimise the poor, the sick the disabled, it is choosing to do this with full knowledge of the impacts upon it’s targets, many MP’s even cheered the announcements, there is a simple word for that, it is this- Evil.
This word has been devalued by deranged religious bigots and sensationalistic media covering serial killer cases (or a distressed and inadequate woman putting a cat in a bin), the rock star like impact of Nietzsche’s work has irreparably damaged it as a concept but sometimes it is appropriate, correct and illuminating. This is such a condition, choosing a path with knowledge of its impact, to cause suffering and death is an evil act, and this what sane and functioning humans do when confronted with such an act- They fight back. But quickly let’s just deal with any accusations of hyperbole here, the changes to the welfare system will create homelessness, people with physical and mental illness and disabilities will no longer be able to cope, there will be death caused by these proposed policies. Now remember these policies are a choice, a path of action has been proposed which will lead to greater inequality, more poverty and death. Death.
This has been chosen.
So, do you accept this choice that the Coalition is attempting to impose upon you? I acknowledge the insipid tones of acceptance come from many people who while disgusted by the measures know they will still be reporting, posting, organising still as people whose names no one will ever know quietly die like paupers. They are not ready for the uncomfortable truth of what needs to be done.
What needs to done: The Coalition must be stopped from implementing its proposed spending review, this can be done by either causing the coalition to disintegrate necessitating another general election or by such concerted opposition in civil society that it realises it is untenable to proceed. The Poll Tax is being cited as an example of this, I would add another instance, the fuel protest, while the motives of both were different they succeeded because they caused such significant damage to the government’s revenue raising and/or public disruption that the government was forced to back down. As energising as the Iraq anti war protest was, it failed, because marches along streets are now entirely factored into the cost of policy, they serve purposes of solidarity building, sending global messages of solidarity to target populations, networking, political recruiting and staying the hand of more extreme policy measures. But by and large they do not significantly hinder the functioning of the state enough to cause it to alter course.
The poll tax protests were the atavistic culmination of a long process of opposition that in many instances took the form of simply not paying, thus revenues were badly affected, the government literally had to alter its policy because it was not going to get enough money from this tax. While the fuel protesters were a very different group they also had a direct effect on the nation, fuel distribution was so significantly disrupted and continually so that negotiating (and secret service involvement) was deemed necessary, you may disagree with the protesters’ politics (and I do) but their methodology worked. Like the Saboteurs throwing their shoes into the machinery, a material effect on the functioning of the nation and government forced a change, power unfortunately only respects power. Given we know the Coalition has chosen to commit evil acts it is unlikely they will be swayed by a petition and well stewarded demo.
So I believe tactics must be to work with Liberal Democrats and ask them to break the coalition agreement, at the same time massive actions & strikes by unions, community groups, activist and pressure groups, charities and religious organisations need to be planned to disrupt for several days at a time the functioning of the UK. If neither of these can be achieved the attack on the people of Britain will succeed, that much of the reaction has contained aspects of acceptance perhaps already indicates there is not the critical mass necessary. But let’s just be clear on this- the nation is not in dire straits, it can afford to look after all its citizens and create a greener sustainable economy, we have the knowledge, the tools and the motivation, that political Neanderthals refuse to accept the future and instead choose old ways of prosecuting ideological warfare is their choice, and our failure for not stopping them.
