As expected my ESA reconsideration has been turned down so I now go to full tribunal appeal, though have yet to retain any legal help being as that all got cut and the places left round here are at breaking point already. We shall see.
However in a synchronous bit of animosity my 81 year old mum was attempting to park in a disabled space (she is a badge holder) when a white middle aged, middle class woman with a ‘big saloon car’ decided to go up to her car and shout expletive filled abuse at her. My mother was shook up, upset, she went on to the library where the staff were enormously nice to her, talked to her and sat her down while they went about the library getting the books she had set out to borrow.
It would seem to me something is rising here, something ugly, something that directs hate at any aspect of society deemed unfit or unprofitable (the library is probably not facing closure unlike others on the island) in order to facilitate policies that attack people and institutions that are of social benefit but do not fill the Cayman accounts of CEO’s. My mum was too unnerved to note down the registration of the woman’s car and does not want me to pursue it (cctv, talk to library staff etc) so I won’t. But I wonder if somewhere this woman understands she was abusive and intimidating to a stranger and feels any regret? I mean sure, my mum like any person can attempt to be annoying but I suspect an 81 year old parking in a disabled space to go and borrow some books from the library is probably not considered terrorism, yet. So call me rash, but I think this woman was in the wrong. So what makes her feel it is ok to verbally assault an older woman with some disabilities? Hmm, maybe Professor Nick Watson of Strathclyde Centre for Disability at the University of Glasgow & the University’s Glasgow Media Group can answer that: Increase in negative coverage of disability issues in print media- Oh look they can.
None of the Big 3 parties diverge from the anti-disability and anti-welfare rhetoric so there is no use looking to established Westminster politics to defend against the rising level of bigotry. We’re in for the long haul, a dark, long, haul. And ain’t that great for one’s depression (or the country’s for that matter)?
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret
The work done by the University of Glasgow merely quantifies what you have described. The kind of behaviour suffered by your mother is becoming more commonplace. You see it in queues at grocery stores, banks, post offices, highways and even traffic intersections! Those who see themselves as privileged or exceptional treat the rest of the populace as an inconvenience, a field of animal feces that has to be carefully navigated so that the privileged can complete their perfect walk in the park.
The conversation is controlled by whom!? Those same people who see themselves as privileged and exceptional.
The internet is the wildcard in that conversation maybe. Maybe things do not have to play out (Marx- history, tragedy/farce etc) as expected. Because otherwise this is just going to be the most ludicrously avoidable era of horror. I’m going to be in London this weekend, will be interesting to see how it feels there, one year on from marching there, and the august riots and the increasing social cleansing now enacted by govt. The trick to watching big wheels turning is not to be crushed by them I guess. Strange days ahead.