Accusations face indignation over disability-related deaths
Dominic Raab: An overprivileged, lazy rich boy who wants to bully minorities including the sick and disabled.
More Conservatives have voiced their indignation at comparisons between their attitude to the disabled and that of the Nazis in Germany during the 1930s and 40s – despite the fact that there are clear parallels.
The latest outburst was in response to claims by Sioux Blair-Jordan at the Labour Party conference, that if David Cameron enacts plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a Bill of Rights, the disabled and sick “might as well walk into the gas chamber today”.
As explained in a Vox Political article yesterday, Ms Blair-Jordan’s criticism is accurate; clear comparisons can be made between the Conservative attitude to illness and disability and that of the Nazis.
Three examples are the adoption of ‘chequebook euthanasia’ in the work capability assessment ‘medical’ test, with people who have mental illnesses being asked if they have ever considered suicide – those who answer in the affirmative are then challenged over why they did not go through with it, provoking the claimant to consider suicide again; the fact that, after visiting the Auschwitz extermination camp, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith adopted the slogan over its gate “Arbeit macht frei” (work makes you free) and has used it several times since, to sum up his attitude to claimants; and the fact that, despite many Freedom of Information requests for the number of people who have died under the Conservative Party’s current benefits regime, the Tories – like the Nazis – have hidden the full effects of their policies from the public.
In the light of these facts, the indignation professed by some Conservatives at Ms Blair-Jordan’s comment can only be regarded with contempt.
Look at Dominic Raab. This creep co-wrote a book entitled Britannia Unchained a few years ago, in which he claimed that British workers are “among the worst idlers in the world”, that the UK “rewards laziness” and “too many people in Britain prefer a lie-in to hard work”. At the time, his record of attendance at Parliament was among the worst of all MPs, at a meagre 79.1 per cent.
It seems Mr Raab is the one who prefers a lie-in to hard work – but he would clearly reopen the workhouse for the sick and disabled, given half a chance. It’s just one step from there to turn it into a concentration/extermination camp.
Yet he wants us to accept that “It is delusional, and shows extraordinarily bad taste, for Labour conference to applaud the delegate who equated the government’s common sense human rights reforms to Nazis sending innocent people to the gas chambers. Jeremy Corbyn should apologise immediately for embracing rather than distancing himself from the delegate. It points directly to his unfitness to lead.”
On the contrary – it is Mr Raab who is delusional. Let’s face it, he even describes his government’s fascistic plans to eliminate our human rights as “common sense”. It is hard to accept protestations that the Tories are not behaving like Nazis from someone who is upholding a policy demonstrating that they are.
Bizarrely, a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism got on this bandwagon:
“Sioux Blair-Jordan’s reference to gas chambers was gratuitous and offensive. Over six million Jews as well as others, including the disabled, were murdered during the Holocaust, many of them in gas chambers.”
That is precisely the point. Perhaps this person should be joining Ms Blair-Jordan in opposing the Conservative Party’s behaviour, rather than siding with the oppressors. Perhaps this person should be reminded of the now-too-often-quoted words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, before the Tories come for him, and he finds out there is nobody to stand up for him.
Jeremy Corbyn is to be applauded. He is standing up for the sick, the disabled, and anyone else facing oppression from the overprivileged, spoilt brats who have conned their way into control of the UK.
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
I have it on good notice that the UN are taking note of the treatment of the sick and disabled deaths
i know first hand on how the sick and disabled come to die i myself would have died by now if it were not for the police who were called to my house during a DWP visit that had got out of control
there are grave risks in being sick or disabled or both as the so called charities may not be able to help you as you may not be in their post code for assistance
i myself have no charity whatsoever that covers my postcode for a home visit so i myself have a much greater understanding on how people fall through the cracks and then go on to die
to the tory mp’s i would say you haven’t a clue on what your talking about and although the using of Nazis words are disturbing so is hounding me when i was 6 stone in weight by the DWP
Human rights bill is a brain child of Rebeckah Brooks, loyal pig Cameron is just the tool.
Privatisation of NHS is the brain child of Murdoch to make it like the bankrupting system of US which loyal pig Hunt is working on. Destabilize NHS, bring about a crisis and tell people, state can’t handle it efficiently and so privatising to make it workable.
Nazi comparisons are more than just suitable. These people should be in Prison for commiting war crimes on the innocent civilians.
I had never heard that the Bill of Rights was a Brooks invention before. Tell us, where did you learn this?
Privatisation of the NHS is a long-cherished Tory aim. I don’t think we can lay that at Murdoch’s door, although I’m sure he’d support it.
HRA, Brooks – Leveson inquiry! and some of the utterly atroious articles on the sun.,many clues there, if you are patient enough to sit through it, you can probably connect the dots too. I don’t believe Cameron has such strong views of HRA except without nudge from Brooks thorrugh some late night SMSs like the ones that got out.
NHS, Murdoch – I was just making a reaching assumption in this case, Tories always pushed through Murdochian world view and his political agenda since Thatcher days. Recently read a Guardian article – some 30 yr old Thatcher administration docs revealed a plan to dismantle nhs which didn’t go through. And a guy Lord wasserman who was in Thatcher time working on this agenda, now on a official role in cameron team.
Maybe it is simply a Tory agenda or maybe it is Murdoch’s lieutenant trio being driven by Murdoch the master. I read on another leveson inquiry article Osborne made some 16 meetings with Murdoch and co in the first 12 months after election, Hunt almost gifted BskyB, Osborne meeting Murdoch just before informing BBC of some 650 million cut (all alleged ofcourse). Murdoch said during the inquiry he uses 10d back door quite often (as it is closes to the car park apparently). All sounded very suspicious to me. On top of that, these posh idiots don’t look like they have anything up their sleeves except a posh face and annoying smirk.
I think it’s more likely that Murdoch follows a neoliberal agenda, as do the Conservatives. Thatcher came to it independently of him, and Cameron is still carrying out her plan. Murdoch will happily cheerlead for it, though – and it certainly seems he has some Tories in his pocket, like Jeremy Hunt, who famously didn’t want to be photographed attending a Murdoch event.
IDS said “Work makes you free” and that was not long after he visited Auschwitz, and he seems to have a callous disregard to the lives of the disabled people who at best, he is ruining, at worst hastening their deaths. Social Darwinism and eugenics is quite prevalent throughout the right wing camp, as well as a mythological belief in their own superiority, so it’s not surprising that parallels are drawn between them and the Nazis. There do seem to be a number of Tories who have been caught out saying that disabled people should be killed at birth. There are also much more subtle ways of committing genocide than the Nazis did, and one way is to make social “undesirables'” lives so difficult that they take their own lives rather than do it directly. A slow, quiet genocide. The number of people who have died as a result of having their benefits cut is far too many to ignore or blame on incompetence.
“There are also much more subtle ways of committing genocide than the Nazis did, and one way is to make social “undesirables’” lives so difficult that they take their own lives rather than do it directly. A slow, quiet genocide. ” You are so correct in this assessment. Thank you. This makes the Nasty Party even more nasty than the Nazis, because the new Tory Nazis have found a way to perpetrate a genocide without the need to build concentration camps and gas chambers. The gas chambers are all around us, up and down streets all over Britain, in the rooms where desperate people starve to death or in sheer desperation take their own lives.
“Conned” being the appropriate word, and still “conning” the electorate.
I’ve been reading forum posts from claimants stating that they were denied ESA and PIP due to false statements made by assessors; one claimant was stunned to find that the recording of their second assessment (after challenging the assessors report of the first) produced a blank tape: nothing recorded at all (and consequently a subsequent loss at Tribunal because the Judges made the decision based on the assessors original written report which could not be disproved by the claimant). These reports by claimants aren’t new; they are a growing list of claimants’ complaints reporting a fiddle of their assessments -wrongfully recorded answers, fabricated statements, and outright lies made by Maximus and Capita assessors. It’s quite clear that DWP is willing to go to any length to deny claimants their rightful benefits.
It was the Tories who initiated the rhetoric regards claimants being a burden to society; the word ‘scrounger’ is one adopted by the Nazis to describe Jews, gypsies and the physically and mentally disabled. Tories have cleverly adopted the ‘social burden rhetoric first used by the Nazi’s: “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…”
We’ll never forget the image, the video recording of Smith, Cameron, and Osborne laughing uproariously at a disabled person attempting to speak in the HoC; pointing, guffawing and chortling at the struggle of someone with a speech impediment to be heard over the braying frontbenchers. Quite a contrast to see JC helping a woman whose wheelchair got stuck at a recent conference.
Dominic Raab and his ilk are a threat to British society. People who would intentionally manipulate assessments, publicly ridicule the disabled and take free school lunches away from impoverished infants, sanction ill and disabled claimants at the stroke of a pen leaving them destitute and suicidal are all a threat to society.
Greetings Sally. Is there any way this video of Smith, Cameron and Osborne laughing can be made available online? Some of us are about to start compiling and presenting in a very methodical manner all the media stuff and statements made by Tories and their cohorts on this issue.
i hope there is some way this video can be put online to show the public what an evil,odious,lying,murdering bunch of nazis these people really are.
it needs to be brought home to those who voted Tory because they saw no difference between the two major parties and opted for Tory con politics.
i bet there are millions,who were not natural Tories who are now regretting voting for them.
Margaret Thatcher all over again! Poor be dammed and everything for the rich!
Hi Mike, can you explain why you don’t allow either reblogging or sharing via “Press this” despite the fact that you repost content from other people’s blogs? It’s far more practical to share to social from a WordPress blog than to share to each social network individually
Who says I don’t allow my blog to be quoted?
I don’t allow anybody to quote entire articles, because this is a commercial blog and that would be taking readers away from here – effectively stealing my work.
I do allow people to quote it – using either the reblog or “Press this” features – provided they use only a representative sample and always direct their readers to the original blog, as I do with all the content that I use from other blogs and the mainstream media.
Other bloggers and users of the social media happily share my work among their readers every day, within the limits I stipulate.
Hi Mike, the reason I asked is that I don’t see the “Press this” or “reblog” options when I visit the blog. I absolutely understand that you want to drive the traffic to your blog rather than have someone cut and paste your work in it’s entirety, something I would never do. If this is a premium feature that needs to be particularly applied for than apologies. I asked the question because I never see the options when I browse your blog. Like other bloggers I certainly don’t want to steal other people’s work and want to be a responsible and contributory member of the community.
Reblog probably isn’t an option because I’m in the commercial part of WordPress – that’s why VP has its own web address now, rather than a wordpress.com address.
As for “Press This” – I had to drag the button up to my own Favourites bar so I could use it with other sites – that’s how it works.
You only need to refer to Allport’s ladder of prejudice and his work on how the Holocaust happened to validate the comparisons with the Nazis – there are ideological similarities and propaganda techniques that are paralleled, including the process of stigmatisation and dehumanisation of targeted groups. Whilst it’s important not to trivialise the Holocaust, which is a point many make in objecting to the use of comparisons of this kind, it’s also important to learn from those who researched the escalating socio-political processes that culminate in harm to politically targeted groups, and ultimately, end in genocide.
Aktion T4 – Stereotyping & Disability – YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8ddG7oejgA [Parallels with propaganda and current welfare developments in UK]
Here’s some more parallels – https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/aktion-arbeitsscheu-reich-human-rights-and-infrahumanisation/
and – https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/eugenics-is-hiding-behind-hitler-and-informs-tory-policies/
I knew someone would say it was ‘offensive’. Here is my standard reaction to the o word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceS_jkKjIgo
How can it be ‘common sense’ to scrap safeguards against governments? America has a bill of rights – and they torture and execute people. There is no government in the world without blood on it’s hands – we need more restraints on the governments not fewer.
Also don’t forget Ids has links to far right European groups.
Tiergarten 4. Kristallnacht.
I wrote the following more than three years ago which includes quotations from a rabbi: http://crippledqueeranglo-europeanranter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/nazi-treatment-of-disabled.html
And this conversation on twitter with current LibDem leader, then president of the party, on the comparisons between NAZI Germany and modern-day Britain, I wrote more than two-and-a-half years ago: http://crippledqueeranglo-europeanranter.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/libdem-president-fails-to-see-parallels.html
Regarding the DWP look no further than the multi billion dollar American insurance companies that influence this government.
Its all to do with money money money and even more money.
The way they run the disability denial factory is no more than “mind over matter”.
disability and illness is all in the mind.
It does make me wonder if the multi billion dollar American “evangelist” hands on spiritual healers have a stake in these health companies as the amount of money they rake in is absolutely obscene. The insurance companies that dominate the DWP and these billion dollar “healers” both think that the lame can walk and cancers can be cured by hard work. All inspired by the psychological babble.
Coincidence?
Definition of Ableism (as adopted by Hitler from Lebensraum)
Similar to many of the assumptions underlying the medical model of disability amongst many clinicians, the “ableist” societal world-view is that the able-bodied are the norm in society, and that people who have disabilities must either strive to become that norm or should keep their distance from able-bodied people. A disability is thus, inherently, a “bad” thing that must be overcome. The ableist worldview holds that disability is an error, a mistake, or a failing, rather than a simple consequence of human diversity, akin to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender.[4]
I wish also that I could “overcome” my disabilities, but I can’t and am, therefore, not “normal” as one MP described me.
Ergo, the person who chose to view non disabled as “normal” is in fact an ableist.
Get this Tory git to phone me up, and I’ll tell him to his face that I think he is a Nazi, and that the Tories are perpetrating a genocide of sick and disabled people. I’ll throw in a few facts in case he is so ignorant he doesn’t know them. I bet he does know them, as I bet he’s happy with the genocide. He just doesn’t like being exposed as someone who supports Nazi policies. Well, pardon me for being observant enough to notice.