XPost: uk.politics.misc, uk.people.health, alt.politics.british   
   From: banana@REMOVE_THIS.borve.demon.co.uk   
      
   In article <1138217735.190907.181080@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,   
   ib011f9545i@blueyonder.co.uk writes   
      
   >I don't know your social background or where you live but  most people   
   >I know think that this welfare reform is over due.   
   >   
   >I live on a council estate in North East Edinburgh.   
   >I work in the railway industry and would be described as working class.   
   >I work shifts and weekends and do not get paid a fortune,I pay taxes   
   >and want them to be spent on people who actually need help.   
      
   Working class welfare claimants are not living off you. The rich live   
   off you both.   
      
   >I was brought up to believe in the Welfare State and I still do ,but it   
   >must be reformed.   
   >Those of us in work are trapped,we cannot quit without losing   
   >benefit,but non workers expect to not have to show that they are   
   >willing to even consider work.   
   >   
   >I know of people who have retired early from the local council or the   
   >Post Office or the civil service and aged perhaps 40-45 announce to   
   >everyone that they do not intend to work again.   
   >They have had to stop doing a job involving heavy lifting perhaps,but   
   >this does not mean they are 100 per cent not capable of any sort of   
   >work.   
   >   
   >In any case in the public service there  is a real problem with people   
   >getting retired early when their is not much wrong with them,its only   
   >public money after all.   
   >   
   >I have worked in the past for the local council and the civil service   
   >so I have an idea of what I am talking about.   
      
   The authorities are talking of reducing the number of people on   
   disability benefit by 1 million in a short space of time. AFAIAA they   
   are not talking about 'creating' 1 million jobs - not even Mickey Mouse   
   jobs or college places.   
      
   On the contrary, they just want to reduce the social wage, and let these   
   people go to blazes, let most of them scrape by on the margins of   
   society, in an impoverished existence that will have a detrimental   
   effect on their health, as shit work always does. They are not proposing   
   to raise your income.   
      
   They want to AMERICANISE the composition of the lower classes...   
      
   >Other people have never worked for more than a few weeks and are now   
   >40,they smoke a lot and drink alcohol everyday,   
      
   ...unlike GPs then, who prefer to inject themselves with free heroin...   
      
   >they will not walk   
   >further than the pub or the bookies so they are unwell.   
   >Many of the younger ones smoke dope all day,this is not good for you   
   >either.   
      
   Are these your acquaintances? I am not being sarcastic or trying to be   
   funny - I am just wondering how you know this - or is is just   
   'assumption'? Most people on disability benefit don't have much money to   
   gamble with or spend down the pub. Many lazy layabouts hold down jobs;   
   others prefer to seek dignity by avoiding exploitative work; others   
   wouldn't be offered a job anyway; others are rich and live off the   
   interest on inherited wealth. Meanwhile, other people do useful stuff in   
   their lives despite doing disgusting, waste-of-time, shit work for the   
   boss so as to get money to buy food, or despite being forced into the   
   category of welfare claimant. People are denied control over the forces   
   of production, and this can lead to terrible despair, and many are   
   anti-educated into thinking there is no possible way out, and can drift   
   through their lives, doing shit work and taking drugs to get out of   
   their heads at weekends, so as to forget last week and get them ready   
   for Monday. The rulers meanwhile encourage drug abuse just as they   
   encourage gambling, the use of pornography, 'happy slapping', etc...   
      
   >So the doctor tells them that they should not work due to ill health   
   >and they say "great".   
      
   Yeah, many are basically *unemployed* but not officially so 'deemed'.   
      
   >There are so many examples in the media and more importantly people I   
   >know about personally that you would have to be a Trot or a middle   
   >class bearded veggie in order not to have come across the problem   
   >yourself.   
      
   You haven't actually clearly stated what the problem is, and for whom.   
      
   >I was once unemployed for more than a year and I know it is easy to   
   >settle down to this sort of life,it was in the early 1980s and jobs   
   >were hard to come by but I got myself out of the hole and am glad I am   
   >still not on benefit,people still on benefit might find that despite   
   >what they think their lives would be better if they were in work,not   
   >just financially but also socially and in respect of their mental and   
   >physical health.   
      
   Well some of them might, I agree, but there are areas in the UK where   
   there is mass unemployment and no hope of a job for many or most people.   
      
   >The benefit rules already allow for unemployed people to have to prove   
   >they are looking for work,these rules have been used more in the past   
   >few years with a positive impact.   
      
   >I know several single parents who have received training and are now   
   >glad to be in work,they would not have believed previously that anybody   
   >would want to employ them and that they would have felt so good about   
   >working again.   
      
   They're not interested in looking after their kids then?   
      
   >I do not see why people who are not seriously ill should not have their   
   >circumstances looked at.   
   >Some of the people who complain about people being helped   
      
   ...threatened and forced...   
      
   >back into   
   >work are the same people who complain about the "flood" of immigrants   
   >coming here to do the work some of the natives refuse to do.   
      
   I have never complained about immigrants coming here, so this definitely   
   doesn't include me.   
      
   --   
   banana     "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you   
               give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to   
               Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the   
               rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)