Hi Paul - I think your post yesterday under mine was in reply to me? I never said I hated SteveH personally - I have never met the man so to hate him would be a waste of my time. What I DID say was that his views were vile - I despise his views. And that whilst he held those political views it didn't matter really what he did in his professional life in one sense or another he was still part of the problem.There were some very good right wing posters on Cif whose views I didn't agree with necessarily but I didn't find their views vile - EvilTory and PatDavers to name a couple -neither around much more. But they didn't go in for cheap bashing of the sick. And even if I do find someones views vile doesn't extend to the individual (I mean I might find them vile but I would have to meet them right? and if I liked them I would like them despite their views).
I don't think Steve shouldn't post on here - I mean it's good to have people with different views and PeterB seems to be too busy snarling on Cif these days to hang around with us prize fuckwits. But all I was saying is that Steve giving us a long list of those he has helped in his professional life doesn't ameliorate his views. I stand by that.
SteveH - Thanks re the voluntary work. It wasn't just that one article where you mentioned the Mail and you didn't just say that those who were faking were ripping off the system - we can all agree to that I think. What you said - or hinted at - was that over two thirds of those claiming were ripping off the system as they were fakers. When you were challenged you put up an article by The Mail. Now YES that article used figures from the DWP but it twisted them. Nowhere does the DWP say that up to seventy or whatever percent it was - of claimants are fakes. That is what the Mail claims - in an outright twisting of those figures. Yet the fact is that around one third of Incap or ESA claims have always been abandoned because - weirdly enough - people do this little thing called getting better.
You are being disengenious on here when you say you were only saying that fakers are a bad thing and you know you are. And also someone with the career you have had should have the intelligence, I would imagine, to realise that that report in The Mail was highly prejudiced and shouldn't have ever linked to it. Because believe me Steve - people are genuinely suffering and people are terrified - sick and vulnerable people - and every single person that reads The Mail and believes its shit and propogates that propoganda and that shit makes it worse for these people who are now living in fear of their benefits being taken away. It matters a lot.
Shining here too Leni. Was reading recently that most Brits should get out for at least twenty minutes without sunscreen on for some 'gentle sunshine' on their skin (i.e. not in the heat of the midday sun on a really hot day) to get some vitamin D. Some scientists are arguing that because we have had a whole run of cloudy, rainy summers we risk becoming deficient in it. Apparently we can't make it in the winter, even on really bright days. I think after October our bodies cant make it for some reason.
But I think that's controversial with a lot of other doctors.
Interesting article on attitudes to and legal remedies for disruptive women thru the ages.
tried C+Ping it but I get signed out here.
Princess
I read that too - Vit D manufacturing process deficient here this year. The forecast is predicating storms and flash flooding in the south tonight. Be careful everybody south of the Wash.
One gun two bullets? Can I have the six that Hank had?
IDS, Purnell, Cheney, Clegg, Thatcher, Blair.
And because I am a vindictive bitch I wouldn't kill Purnell and IDS just maim them in a way that would render them in pain for the rest of their lives so that every day they could see what it is really like trying to live a normal life when in constant agony.
Not always. I once read a brilliant interview with the Dalai Lama where he said that although senseless killing is a massive no no under Buddhism - Buddhism is wrongly seen as being all about being passive. He actually gave the example of what if you were in a room with a really bad person and a gun. He said you should shoot the really bad person. His example was Hitler.
This was at the time of the Iraq war and he was asked about Blair and he said he thought Blair had to be opposed and exposed as a liar.
In the end his argument went along the lines of weighing up the lives and the rights of the many against the few. I will try and find it, it was really fascinating stuff.
Of course however I am not saying I could actually kill a person. I feel bad when I kill a spider and I hate the feckers. God knows how bad I would feel if I killed a human being.
Has been humid as hell here in the big Shitty but I hear on the news that torrential rain/storms and flash floods are on their way this evening.
@Paul
I'm not sure why you keep trying to bait me into an argument here. Anyway, trouble is, if you have a problem with 'some' women, that generally implies you have a problem with 'all' women.
I have never, ever subscribed to the idea that Thatcher was a 'feminist icon' or a beacon for the Women's movement - those who did were either recklessly misguided or completely stupid (i.e. the Spice Girls saying they were 'inspired' by Thatcher) read any of my posts on CiF in the last 4 years and you'll deduce that I am in the 'shoot the bitch' camp. What did Margaret Thatcher do foe me as a 'woman'? She gave the domaninany masculine culture yet another stick to beat the vast majoirty of powerless women with.
Part of the deal of the sexes being equal has to be that women can't hide behind the veneer of being sugar'n'spice when they are clearly not.
Well, you're on the wrong foot for a start Paul - unless you are living in a bubble, women, even in this country do not enjoy 'equal rights' and you are deluded if you think they do.
In the past fortnight alone, 4 women (some with their children) have been murdered by their ex-partners and on Friday, a man murdered his son and took his own life, the day his divorce was finalised.
Women IMO are every bit as good,bad and mediocre as men
The difference is, their 'badness' and 'medicority' is disproportionately over-represented in the media and within the collective consciouness, in direct contradiction of their lack of power and representation in Society.
some of the men and women who are bad are that way because women,as well as men made them that way
Women and men are 'bad' because the power structure is run and maintained by and for men, the majority of both men and women subconsciously absorb and accept that power structure without question. It is the ultimate controlling force of Capitalism. You cannot separate the roles of men and women from the Class structure and treat it in socio-political isolation.
LaRit i know who won't accept this but often the way we turn out depends on the quality of parenting we experience as children
It's not a question of 'acceptance', it's a question of me understanding how the world works and you not understanding the realtionship between men and power and money.
And women are every bit as likely as men to be abusive parents
I'm sorry, but the facts do not stand up to close scrutiny. If Women are abusive it is because they accept the masculine dominance of culture and perpetuate it without questioning nor understanding why.
Women fuck up their childrens lives every bit as much as men
No, the dominance of masculine culture fucks up children's lives and utilises both men and women to do this.
And whilst men can be more abusive in some ways women are just as abusive in others
See above.
And that IMO is not acknowleged as much as it should be
As I said before, nonsense, when women abuse, it is disproportinately skewed and exaggerated in realtion to Women's position in Society and in the culture.
Further to CBT discussion. Note connection with Insurance claims. They have long operated on a @Malingerers Scale @ when assessing compensation claims.
LoCascio replied in the negative when Private Eye asked if he was not concerned about the conflict of interest involved in his company's advertising campaign, which sought to gain from benefit cuts that he had helped to institute. However Unum Chairman Ward E. Graffam did acknowledge the 'exciting developments' in Britain. Unum's influence in government was helping to boost the private insurance market: 'The impending changes to the State ill-health benefits system will create unique sales opportunities across the entire disability market and we will be launching a concerted effort to harness the potential in these.' 3
From the same article. It is rather long but it really is worth reading .
One more quote for Frog and I/m off up the garden.
Profit for insurance companies mainly lies in the revenue generated by investing the monthly insurance premiums, and interest rates were high so the companies enjoyed high levels of profitability; they monopolised the sector by sharing a similar disability income policy that offered liberal terms. Two factors threatened future profits however. The first was falling interest rates, and the second was the growth in new kinds of 'subjective illnesses', for which diagnostic tests were disputable. The old industrial injuries were giving way to illnesses with no clear biological markers - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain, Multiple Sclerosis, Lyme Disease. In the early 1990s the new kinds of claims began to rise just as interest rates fell: profits were threatened. Unum's 1995 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Management Plan' sounded the alarm: 'Unum stands to lose millions if we do not move quickly to address this increasing problem'.4
"What did Margaret Thatcher do for me as a 'woman'? She gave the domaninant masculine culture yet another stick to beat the vast majority of powerless women with"
If you push down on women's rights and keep women predominantly economically dependent, it is an act of cunning which enables 'powerless' men to act on behalf of the dominant political structures. Dominant masculine culture (Capitalism) tacitly permits men to use the threat of violence, aggression, abuse and murder to control Women like a proxy police force of the State.
I think I might just have a bullet for that Mansel Aylward (Chief Medical Officer DWP) weasel, but maybe instead post him to some very busy A&E department or similar ! Along the same lines, Tony Blair to a Casualty Clearing Station in Afghanistan and of course to help those two guys re-assembling the corpses to be flown home.
Seriously though, those collaborations between civil servants and corporations ( not to forget the "useful" academics ) are an increasing scandal. I don't have time to make a proper argument, but my impression from reading history is that waves of extreme corruption come and go. Most people have a good idea of right and wrong, but when the 'wrong' is triumphing in such an 'in your face ' way they are pretty paralysed by it. Similar to the way one bully can rule large numbers who could easily overpower him. Or her :)
There is a lot of revulsion about, but not mobilised collectively. Yet !
I finished gardening last night with my LED headlamp, and it still hasn't bloody rained. More today, but first a sortie for petrol for machines.
when I first asked Georgina for a full section on CiF I was seeking a mainstream on line archive as jumpimg off point. Private Eye follows it but it is hardly mainstream. We seem helpless in the face of this corruption - how we orgainise and activate people I don't know. It's like fighting the Inquisition.
The second long report is about the presentation of evidence against insurance cos. to parliament, an indictment of nice and the collusion of psychiatrists for financial gain. All ignored.
Of course however I am not saying I could actually kill a person. I feel bad when I kill a spider and I hate the feckers. God knows how bad I would feel if I killed a human being.
Yeah, but Princess -- spiders are useful. If I had to chose between killing a spider and killing Darth Cheney, I know which one I'd chose...
Were we to have a 'usefulness scale' I can think of a lot of people who would come well below spiders, bees and worms.
It like the assumptions around sewage system and workers as opposed to Banking systems and bankers. The latter are clearly of lesser value . No point in being rich if you are up to your neck in shit.
Hi Montana , No problem with that one either. Long battle with the princess to leave alone the spider-webs at my shack.
I'm suffering from information overload from reading just one of leni's last links. As well as from opening a bottla red with my sunday fry-up. Leni's link on the twenty-year conspiracy of successive governments with Unum is a very good one, a longitudinal study as it were , showing how this shit is being developed over time. I haven't delved into her second link on the report to Parliament, but assume it is one of those noble truthful efforts like similar from numerous parliamentary sub-committees, NAO in USA, Audit Commision, that no-fucker reads ... except people like us ! The people who write them think their job is done and then seem to wash their hands when nothing happens to action their advice.
Now for some coffee and Golden Virginia roll-up. Hell, it's sunday !
Have put some more info about resistance meetings up on ATL - a meeting in Newham and a unity building conference in Manchester for anyone who's interested.
Agree with Montana about spiders, most useful creatures. This may sound shocking but I have quite a list of people I could easily put a bullet into and without a hint of remorse....including the bastards who were off roading in their fucking 4x4's this morning in one of the most beautiful parts of the Peak.
I do have a dark side....so count me in if we are planning an assassination bureau.
Understood. I am stopping for a while - the corruption - more than corruption really. There is a smell of sulphur in air - the corruption is going unoticed and is disregarded.
Cannot understand people who cos it is not happening to them think it's ok to let it happen to someone else.
It only happens to 'other people' apparently - they forget that to everyone else we are all the 'other people'
Massive change of consciousness required. It won't come thru politics - or religion.
No more brain addling I promise - well, not this week anyway. x
princess - I was, quite fairly, pulled up by Jessica for linking to the Mail report of October 2009: I think she felt it was a red rag with some of the regulars, and she had a point. I responded saying I hated the Mail (always have, always will), and then linked to the next quarter's statistics on the Parliament website, as issued by the National Statistics Office, uncoloured by any editorialising and issued - for the avoidance of doubt - under a Labour government.
They are here: http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2010/DEP2010-0690.pdf
Now I can't help it if you can't understand them, but they are a matter of public record and will be for all time.
And they say that with 352,500 people assessed, 76% of them are either fit for work (38%) or their claims were withdrawn before the assessment was complete (38%), with a further 7% still under assessment. These numbers show a greater incidence of invalid claims than the Mail's October 2009 report.
And I owe no-one any apologies for reporting an inconvenient truth, nor will I be made to feel any guilt for so doing.
The fact is that these people are eating into resources which belong to genuine claimants. They have no conscience about that. They are scammers, shysters, frauds and criminals. It is a national scandal.
You should save your ire for them, rather than shooting the messenger.
Yes, I concede the Atos system is probably flawed, yes there may be some room for error - but 352,000 is a huge sample - and yes some of the withdrawn claims may have been withdrawn for such prosaic reasons as getting better: all that is fair comment and room for honest debate between reasonable people. What is not remotely credible is that 268,000 people, or even most of them, have any such excuses.
A very dear friend of mine is wheelchair-bound with MS and is sick of not being able to park in a disabled space to buy something essential like food or get a prescription, and sometimes having to drive home again in tears without getting out of her car, because some shit with a spring in his step and a fake disc got there first. He's stolen her chances of a better quality of life just as much as any fraudulent IB claimant has.
It was Bracken who came up with the 'prize fuckwits' phrase now being used as a banner. He was refering to those of us who frequent the UT - with one or two notable exceptions.
I don't think anybody here has ever said that the system cannot be exploited.
What we object to are the numbers being quoted, the use of abhorrent language being used used for poltical and commercial gain.
Perhaps you should read more around the subjec. Understand the newly adopted definition of 'malingering' and how this is being used to deny the existence of organic illness.
Perhaps you might read the history of UnumProvident - their political connections and their dishonest dealings to keep their once failing company afloat.
Have you read about the psychiatrists, the medical officers in the pay of Unum and their mates ? Have you seen the research into discredited CBT being used to deny not only rights to the sick and disabled but also to deny the fact that they are ill ?
Your arguments are only partly informed.
This is about the enmeshment of medical practicioners, big business and politics - it has created a grinding mill to crush genuinely ill and suffering people. It is about power and money.
If a few false claimants get thru so what ? Do you believe that all should suffer for the actions of the few ?
As a sometimes wheelchair user I sympathise with your friend. I have no disabled badge and do not draw benefits so I am not talking from a position of self interest. I am lucky in that I can work as and when I can. Reduce or take away benefits from the majority of the sck and disabled and you leave them destitute.
As one who squashed a spider the other day for the first time since I was a kid, I can tell you, it's not nice. The unfortunate arachnid freaked me out when I was feeling over-sensitive. Can't say I'm proud of the fact ;(
helloee. I rescued a wasp from drowning earlier today. It stung me.
Wasp ethics need to improve.
I am especially fond of spiders. Wonderful mechanical systems have they. Close ups show many of them are very pretty - if unusual. Some can live for several years. Many are good mums - guard eggs and babies. The big hunting spiders enjoy midnight walks. Much to be said in defence of spiders.
Harvestmen too tho they are not arachnids. They like it if you give them a drink.
I've had a quick scan of the document to which you refer. The drive to reduce ESA/IB has been gathering pace for some considerable time.
Ever since Thatcher and co. saw fit to 'park' millions of casualties of slash and burn Raygunomics on IB in the 80's (policies and privatisations which left countless people without hope of ever being in work again) IB was used as a very deliberate way of fiddling the true levels of unemployment, to create the illusion that Thatcherism was 'working', as a sop to the hopeless to stop them rioting in the streets.
Now, with Nu-Lab and the Mcconjob's they aren't even pretending anymore, they're not even prepared to disguise the need for large-scale unemployment within the new post-Thatcher, post melt-down economic new world order.
This has been a long time coming and the effect will be to essentially remove benefits from vast swathes of the populace which will, without doubt, leave people destitute or dependant on wages set so low, people in this country will be forced into essentially slave labour. Whilst the billionaires and their mates in Govt. continue to accumulate wealth and power on an unprecedented scale - hitherto unimagined.
If you want to see the future of the UK - just have a long, hard look at what is happening in the US. A third of the US population (including the working poor holding down 3 jobs for peanuts in pay) are dependent on food handouts.
I hope that pricks your conscience, because if you can state without a hint of irony that....
these people are eating into resources which belong to genuine claimants. They have no conscience about that. They are scammers, shysters, frauds and criminals. It is a national scandal
Then until the true horror dawns on you and those who think like you are complicit in accepting that this 'Govt.' is determined to return the UK to the 18thC and the Workhouse.
Hello to you too! I've not had the chance to read your links, but I will.... Mr Hill has got the wrong end of a very shitty stick - can we persuade him to think differently? I doubt it.
Your Wasp story is very funny! They are merciless little buggers and whilst I try to encourage them out of the house, in a face off, the wasp, if in a bad temper, will end up worse off ;( I was stung in my ar as a kid and I do become very agitated when they're around.
I used to be terrified of spiders but would never kill them, they are our house-cleaning buddies, happily ridding us of the nasties!
Am too fascinated by the variety in the UK - I heard something like over 300 species - the Natural History museum in Cardiff had an impressive collection of preserved spiders and ticks, though dead, they made me itch!!!
You haven't then pursued your enquiries beyond some very summary figures, and not bothered to look at the details of the Work Capability Assessment, which to me is not very 'professional' as a former CiFfer .
You "concede that the Atos system is probably flawed". Very big of you. Good God man, inform yourself and see that a great deal of suffering has been caused to a great many already suffering people. We are not a bunch of bleeding-heart lefties just attacking the govt for being 'realistic'. Even Hank Scorpio, or particularly he, is outraged that there are some who exploit the system : Point8 in his manifesto one drunken night. So am I, but weeding out the worst cases can be done in a more civilised, cool, fashion than making hundreds of thousands suffer.
More importantly, this disability-reduction effort is definitely part of a wider long-term scheme. See my 14.56 link.
btw: Steve - as Frog points out, no-one here is defending a 'scammer' - I've seen plenty of it in my time, but let's get this into persepctive hey?
We live in one of the richest countries in the Northern hemisphere, don't you ever ask yourself 'why' life is intolerably crippling for so many? You sould see some of the poor elderly who live around here, it's a bloody outrage - and this 'Govt.' is talking of scrapping Winter Fuel Payments (which incidentally have been abused and scammed to the tune of millions by wealthy ex-pats living in fucking Spain)
Ever asked yourself 'why' visitors to these shores are shocked by the filth on our city streets, the delapidation and neglect of some of our public spaces and the appalling grossly expensive housing and levels of poverty here?
It sure ain't the fault of mythical numbers of 'scroungers' scamming IB.
I did - I was stung in the bum as a child - sat on a nest hidden in a lovely green mossy bank. On Frodsham hill.
I suffered the indignity of going home with a blue posterior - like a baboon. Pub at foot of hill kept supply of the old 'blue bags' - apparently wasp stings were very common there.
I trust this story will not be broadcast on waddya - it will discredit me forever.
''Now I can't help it if you can't understand them, but they are a matter of public record and will be for all time.'' Condescending aren't we? It is YOU who clearly doesn't understand what I or Leni or La Rit or countless others keep trying to tell you!!!
Yes some scam the system but they are not in their thousands. The IB test was in and of itself harsh enough with the changes Nu Lab made. You had to have a medical which was not easy to pass and also doctors and consultants reports. THERE WAS NO NEED TO CHANGE THE TEST. The reason it was changed was to get more people off incap - it was in its most basic sense a test designed to get more people to fail the medical.
Now Steve - even the tests creator - a right wing economist - has said that the test is not working as it should and is far too strict. it is in his words ''a catastrophe waiting to happen'' if it is pushed through. The liberal party were against this test before they sold their souls too.
What about that can you not get your head around?
''And they say that with 352,500 people assessed, 76% of them are either fit for work (38%) or their claims were withdrawn before the assessment was complete (38%), with a further 7% still under assessment.''
Right and that proves what? How do you get from that that the majority of those who withdrew were fakers? As I tried to explain to you before - a lot of claimants HAVE ALWAYS withdrawn before the actual assessment is complete. It has always been the case. Look two of my colleagues were starting the process when it was still IB a couple of years ago as both had cancer - their SSP was coming to an end and they were told to apply for incap. However as it happened both were well enough to return to work before the claim was fully assessed. The assessment stage can take between two and four months!!! Plenty of time for people to recover. So the fact that claims are withdrawn proves nothing to aid your nasty argument that they are fraudsters. Nothing.
Of the 38% fit for work - nearly all are appealed. I doubt many fraudsters would go that far. And appeals are won at a rate of between 40 and 80% - the higher figure being those who have representation at the appeal from experts to help them.
So again of that 38% a significant proportion will have their benefits re-instated - so 38% are NOT found fit for work in the long term.
But EVEN ALL THAT DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING BECAUSE THE TEST ITSELF IS DESIGNED TO GET PEOPLE OFF THE BENEFIT. HOW HARD IS THAT TO UNDERSTAND. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF PEOPLE COULD FAIL IT AND IT WOULDN'T PROVE THEY WERE ALL SCROUNGERS JUST THAT IT IS A RIGGED TEST.
But if you can look yourself in the mirror every morning when you must have read posts from people with cancer like Mike Bach who are being denied this vital benefit then fucking good luck to you.
A blue bum? Like a baboon? (once again, laughs out loud)....
it is coming up to the bad season for Wasps - they're fed up and dying and so much more likely to sting for the hell of it - just because they can. I reckon Michael Gove is a kind of human-wasp hybrid that was developed in a test tube somewhere ;)
La Rit - Yep sleepy wasp season more deadly than active wasp season. A few years ago we were driving down into Bakewell on my birthday to have a potter around when I felt something bounce on my head. The other half said it was just something off the trees and not to worry. As we pulled into the car park I felt a lot of pain in my left boob and thought the metal bit had come out of my bra and stabbed me, then felt the pain further down on my side twice more. Lifted my top and a big old hornet was crawling on me. It stung me again before I jumped out of the still moving car (slow moving as we were about to park).
I actually felt quite 'high' for an hour or so after - really buzzy and weird. Like I had loads of adrenalin in me. The stings themselves weren't that bad.
Worst sting I ever had was a stingray. That hurt like a bastard - it was agony of a truly intense nature. I have heard that when people fishing in rivers in Mexico etc in the middle of nowhere get stung by them they have cut their limb off due to the pain and to stop the poison spreading. Don't know if that is true.
The pain though was unbearable. And I also was faint and had really strong cramping of my muscles in that leg from the venom. It was the first day of the holiday as well!
Montana - I know spiders are useful but I find them hideous and creepy. Do you have dangerous ones there?
yet another excellent reply to Steve there. I hope he comes back, because I don't think he's all bad at all, unlike the Major who appears impervious to reason and evidence. It has always mystified me how Steve has always provided a textbook conventional-wisdom defence of the status quo on the accountancy profession, finance, the City etc, because sometimes I have seen signs of a sentient human being.
I see Alisdair is engaging with FederalExpress on the Catherine Bennett "Philip Green" thread.
Without strong suspicions that commenters are bogus, I believe them, and FedEx strikes me as a hard-working old-fashioned entrepreneur who does not realise that the Big Corporations are not actually as he is. So while arguing from his own 'reasonable' case, he supports their's, which is not .
8,800 IB work assessment appeals have so far been heard out of over 352,500 assessments at the time of the January report.
62% of the appeals did not succeed and the DWP decision was upheld.
These are the facts. It's all in the document I linked to.
I know some people get better: I said so in my previous post. I also believe that a very large number of people are taking the piss. It would be wrong of any government to sit back and do nothing. So what would you suggest?
I'm sorry if the facts are not to your liking, but it's irrational to take against the person who brings them to your attention.
"Steve has always provided a textbook conventional-wisdom defence of the status quo on the accountancy profession, finance, the City etc"
Not so. I have always argued for better regulation.
But you could cancel every banker's bonus entirely and distribute it in benefits, and I doubt you'd manage to add more than 20p a week to the average claimant's lot. There are very few people earning "silly" bonuses, compared to the number of people in real need.
Better regulation helps banks make sane, sensible profits in the long run without occasionally losing the odd trillion on some daft wager that a good regulatory system would not have permitted them to make. And those profits provide vast tax revenues which are far more use to all of us (it is the current absence of such profits which is the main cause of the deficit).
Helping banks earn good (but sane) profits rather than personally attacking bankers is, simply, economically good sense if you want better schools and hospitals. It's a better strategy than envy.
"Perhaps you should read more around the subjec. Understand the newly adopted definition of 'malingering' and how this is being used to deny the existence of organic illness. "
Leni - I've always respected your posts on most things. I am very willing to be informed.
Incidentally, my late wife's IB claim failed in 2003. She had to close her psychotherapy practice following a bad dose of terminal cancer. Her problem was lack of accounting evidence to prove loss of earnings... and frankly we had other things to worry about than instructing accountants or mounting appeals. But I do have some understanding of the issue, and still feel "they" owe us one.
If you look up thread I have ref'd to a parliamentary report.
Both docs are long and detailed.
As frog said we are not trying to present a 'bleeding hearts @ case here.
I have gone from starry eyed idealism of youth through cynicism and out to the other side.
I abhor inequality - if we could work tpwards a more equal society we could reduce exploitation. I have watched politics and society in Britain become more and more unpleasant - nasty in truth - and have seen more and more people sink below a certain line - beyond which their hope dies.
This has come about through the marriage of politcal parties and their leaders and hangers on falling into the grateful arms of businesswho have in return rewarded loyalty generously.
What is presented to us is not even half the story. The 'sociopsycho' model of organic illness is behind much of this attack on the sick. Models change. This new model (under a variety of names) is being used to deny that certain medical conditions exist.
I know more about the nasty side of human nature than I ever would have wished to know. Greed drives, power drives and both need fertile ground and the willing but unknowing/uninformed support of public opinion. Both require a disdain for the needs of others - the unworthy must be rejected. A starving child can trouble the conscience.
I don't know how many millions have been spent in creating false pictures to feed support for vicious policies - a helluva lot.
The society we have created depends upon exploitation and abuse - and yes the poor can exploit the poor. I have known some vicious examples of this. So - I am no bleeding heart who believes in the noble savage. I can best state my position by saying that I believe the less inequality there is the fewer chances there are for exploitation and repression.
We are really talking about the shaping of our society. The so called 'consultation paper' is a travesty. You are an intelligent man, read between the lines and see what is NOT printed there. The 'Nudge' doctrine - relies upon conformity through the limitation of choice.
If you read these links I would be interested in your response. There is plenty of supporting evidence out there.
I am sorry to hear about your wife's experience. It will have added a lot of anxiety to an unhappy time.
Blinding post Leni. I hope Steve that you do take the time to read the links and to read between the lines of the really quite vicious campaign being mounted by both this government and New Labour before them.
You might also be very interested to read about UNUM Provident and their 'disability denial factories' in the US and the fact that they run the Cardif center for social research. The very center that told the UK government to change its stance on sickness benefits. And days later UNUM Prov took out an ad in the pinks aimed at financial advisors warning them that ''soon the UK government won't be providing benefits in relation to sickness and disability...make sure your clients are covered.'' Even the Spectator thought this a spectacular conflict of interest.
Seriously Steve there are some extremely powerful vested interests at work here and some very nasty forces and ordinary sick people are being made to suffer. The DWP itself only estimates fraud on sickness benefits to be under one percent. The stats you gave do not talk about fraud because they don't prove fraud all they prove is that the new test is nearly impossible to pass.
It is going to be made even harder too. As I linked to recently. I hope you read the links provided with an open mind. Right all off to bed - very tired tonight.
Hey Steve, welcome to the Alice-in-Wonderland corner of CiF. Full membership only requires the surgical insertion of a deluded chip, but full frontal lobotomy is preferred.
I'm not in the "envy brigade " against bankers' bonuses, so you can stop that scatter-gun approach right there. This is not lightweight CiF. My oldest friend, since 1953, is close to being one of the star financial rocket-scientists and is worth a few million, plus a couple of nephews in banking, plus I've been in interbank broking myself.
After my sunday lunchtime bottle of red I may not be 100% accurate, but seems to me I remember the US Glass-Steagall Act 1933 was 16 pages, Basel 2 was a few thousand, and Basel 3 is going to be a few thousand more. So the whole fucking thing is getting more and more complicated, a lawyer's delight, and where is the Common Weal in that ?
Your second-to-last paragraph must surely be one of the most rubbish you have ever written --
Better regulation helps banks make sane, sensible profits in the long run without occasionally losing the odd trillion on some daft wager that a good regulatory system would not have permitted them to make. And those profits provide vast tax revenues which are far more use to all of us (it is the current absence of such profits which is the main cause of the deficit).
"Losing the odd trillion", the "vast tax revenues from the banks" , frankly mate, you are completely out of your tree. Off-beam. Delusional. Mad (temporarily at least...:o).
I always give people a chance, and then another one, and another, and even another or two, because I'm ever hopeful. But you persist just like the Major in arguing with very little evidence to support you.
Come back when we can fight on more equal terms, because so far you are in the wrong league.
PeterB name appears in green My name do so too. I clicked on Peters - thinking it led to his website. Empty blogger page. So clicked on my own - same result.
Why is Peter green to me ? Is he to everybody else ?
Yo! Bitterweed -- answer me a question, if you can. I used to have an 8-track tape (did they ever exist in the UK?) called "The British Invasion". One of the songs on it was an early Fleetwood Mac instrumental. Slow, lots of bass. I loved it, but can't remember the name of it. Any clue what it might have been?
Jen-(from yesterday) here is a web page that gives some details about heart failure.
My condition is genetic there is a flaw in the gene that controls the development of heart muscle so that it is not as resilient against infection as it should be.
Meanz that I got an infection like flu a few years ago and it affected my heart permenantly.
Most people's hearts recover from this with this defective gene it might not.
Just my luck the medication makes my heart5 work very well but I do get a lot of extreme tiredness.
Mikebach just up on waddya, with support from leni, but I do wonder if jess reads that on monday morning, because no feedback from her ? Last weekend the very same thing . I'm sure the duke did something late friday too.
"Seriously Steve there are some extremely powerful vested interests at work here and some very nasty forces and ordinary sick people are being made to suffer. The DWP itself only estimates fraud on sickness benefits to be under one percent. The stats you gave do not talk about fraud because they don't prove fraud all they prove is that the new test is nearly impossible to pass."
I'm a terminal contrarian. I hate "received wisdom" in all its forms, and the left is not exempt. I have "fond" memories of being trashed on CiF for daring to suggest that Peter Sutcliffe was actually a schizophrenic who needed treatment, not mainstream prison. Coincidentally, I have a friend staying with me right now who is a Broadmoor shrink and knows of what he speaks.
@peterbracken: thanks for the laugh!
@frog2: I wasn't accusing you personally of playing the envy card. I really do think there's a plausible regulatory model involving realtime computer monitoring so patterns are caught today, not months after the year-end audit. I helped build such a system for the insolvency profession when I was a regulator, and trust me: banks have no fucking idea what "regulatory monitoring" really means. And it's high time they did.
Thanks! It was, indeed, Albatross, but your suggestion is lovely, BW. Never heard it before. Both will be making their way into my iTunes library shortly.
Wonderful to see that stevehill, one of the most consistently odious posters on Cif for years, gets a nice, warm 'Hi Steve!' welcome from many of the Untrusted warriors. It's so nice to see that he can so easily fill the apparent gap in his life by posting on this blog rather than on Cif. It also gives him a chance to wank on about how great he is - how he has single-handedly changed bankruptcy legislation (so that crooks and criminals can blithely walk away from their creditors and start ripping people off all over again within a year!), been thanked by crying peasants in the streets for his divine intervention, has written Times leaders, has been a director of a multi-national company (wow! you minimum wage chavs - check that out!) and is an all-round fantastic guy. (Of course, I believe very little of his bull-shit - he strikes me as a sad guy with delusions of grandeur and an underlying terminally low self-esteem.)
That nobody here actually has the honesty and the balls to tell him to just fuck off and spout his vile nonsense somewhere else speaks volumes about this place. You won't change his mind about anything, you know - you're just enabling a deluded egotist, and giving him a platform, when you shouldn't even be giving him the time of day. As Hank says, you guys just don't do 'angry', do you?
Hiya Kiz! Now that the 'distinctive voice' of stevehill has been lost for ever on Cif, are you going to post here gain? Or does your milk-monitor job on Cif take up too much of your working day?
My comment wasn,t directed at you at all.It was a general point that i,ve been thinking about recently.Irrespective of peoples political views i think the personal and political do invariably overlap in many cases.Wasn,t a dig at anyone here:-)
@frolix8: as I said to Hank - no point in even trying to engage with you unless and until you get over your issues.
Anything I've done is a matter of public record if you know where to look: a few thousand court orders for instance. Why would I bother to make this stuff up? It's a matter of complete indifference to me whether anybody round here is or is not in any way impressed. That's your stuff, not mine.
Anyway, I came here a few days ago solely to put on record why I chose to part company with CiF. And that's done. Thank you to those people who bothered to say hi, but any future visits are likely to be few and far between.
@heyhabib: nothing makes much sense to me let alone if you go cryptic. I've looked at the solutions for cryptic crosswords and returned to look at the clues and I still can't make the connection between either! I suppose some of us are just thick aren't we?
chekhov, when only absurdity makes any sense, you're in the right place. Don't let the sensible bastards ever grind you down. (Incidentally, we are all thick in some way)
Anyway, I came here a few days ago solely to put on record why I chose to part company with CiF. And that's done. Thank you to those people who bothered to say hi, but any future visits are likely to be few and far between.
Bracken's banner is accurate. Cherish it.
23 August, 2010 00:09 Well thanks Steve, you were welcomed on here because this site is not moderated and we were willing to debate with you.
You gave us the two fingered salute for our hospitality and dropped your turd on our carpet before leaving.
He is a contraversial figure - but nevertheless wrote some interesting things.
A jew - was in concentration camp for a while - became a psychologist. Some people claim he lied about his war time experience. I don't know the truth.
Methinks Blair has got his eye on the money of the oligarchs.I think it's a long time since he gave a second thought to ordinary folks.
Dunno much about Bruno Bettleheim but when i,ve got time i,m looking at the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who did a lot of work to try improve the quality of life for the terminally ill.Was dead set against euthanasia.So being Swiss born i'm sure she'll be spinning in her grave at the work of Dignitas.
Apropo of nowt really, I e-mailed the link some suggested earlier to a George Orwell article titled something along the line of "Socialists can't have fun" to my twin sister.
She thought is was a bit "dense" for a Sunday morning read.
I'll have to admit that I never thought my twin sister would consider George Orwell's prose as "dense"!
This was the post I prepared for that dishonest prat --
"Steve In your non-reply to PricessCC's and others' points on the Disability scandal you proudly portray yourself as a contrarian. None of us were spouting "received wisdom'" and you have obviously read none of the links. A serious person would have come back on those, but you did not . You then go on about how fucking tough bank regulations will be one day, which is really Cloud Cuckoo Land. "Realtime Computer Monitoring" , but of whose figures ? I first encountered the term GIGO - garbage in, garbage out - in 1966 and it of course applies equally today. All of us here are interested in the Disability question, and I would appreciate your getting involved properly in that . I don't give a monkey's what you wrote about Peter Sutcliffe back then ." ----------------------------------
So I wasted my time probably, but that is what working with the disadvantaged is all about. My waste of time, my problem. No sweat. I always prefer to give a loser or other weak sister a chance.
So "Bracken's banner is correct', a really pitiful non-goodbye, because he says he may be back ! You complete Arsehole who never answered any straight and well-intentioned and fucking civilised questions, don't cross my hawse.
Some here mistakenly gave you a big welcome, but even I gave you a great big chance of being a member of a very interesting debating-forum. You pissed on that, your choice.
here are grave doubts about the truth of these criticisms.
Bettleheim went on to work with seriously disturbed children. He was interested in their personal autonomy - realised you can't teach children unless they want to and are ready to learn. You have to reach the heart of the child. I think he was a good man.
His thesis on the jewish prisoners wanting to 'be like the guards' has received some support - some agree saying that the prisoners understood it as a way of reclaiming personal power.
Some - mainly people who feel it insults the prisoners - revile him.
Much more is nowunderstood about relationships where the balance of power favours only one party to it - leaving the other helpless - in a way this is similar to the question "Why no revolution?" Relations within a population with the power structure - whatever it is - interesting questions. Some answers we think we have but not all.
hy are some compliant - why do others rebel ? Why do some want to be like the powerful (some certainly do ) while others reject them and their values /
an oddity of Cif - and other fora - is the number of posters who express uninformed opinions as though they are gospel.
The waddya discussion on 'The Spirit Level was typical. Without reading the book they were taking sides - for or against - with the critics. That is certainly using received wisdom -wisdom received in the space of 5 minutes - to make what i'm sure they felt were substantive contributions.
i don't think Steve read any of the links - perhaps he started and found them at variance with his own values - misconception or whatever.
leni/chekhov -- 40 years ago I could have given a good snap résumé of most of Bettelheim's writings, but all that has faded. A very quick google and it would come flooding back. I'm not over-worried about Alzheimers, because I've always had a weirdly selective memory !
i have to have a selective memory - too much in there. But like you a quick reminder can pop the stack. Just need the right button - it's all in there somewhere.
The sting from the ungrateful wasp has now swollen under my finger nail - painful.
Just been browsing yesterday's thread.For the record i don't see my ethnic background as a cross to bear .It is something i'm very proud of.I do however think you are being extremely naive if you think you can simply dismiss the race and religious 'fault lines' that can and do exist within many working class communities. Yes class considerations should over-ride anything else but until/unless these fault lines within working class communities are addressed there is never going to be the solidarity that is needed to confront the 'real enemy'.
We often talk about 'Divide and Rule' here.Well the 'real enemy' perhaps has a vested interest in keeping these 'fault lines' festering in working class communities in order to keep us divided.And we'll stay divided until we face up to the things that prevent us all standing shoulder to shoulder when it really matters.
I,m sorry Hank but sometimes you really do come across as someone who is shit hot on theory but somewhat lacking when it comes to grasping certain realities.
''I'm not sure why you keep trying to bait me into an argument here. Anyway, trouble is, if you have a problem with 'some' women, that generally implies you have a problem with 'all' women.''
Firstly i don't keep baiting you so please quit the amateur dramatics.And secondly your theory cuts both ways.You're saying that the fact i have a problem with some women generally implies i have a problem with all women.Which incidentally i think is rubbish.But using your own theory the fact you clearly have a problem with some men implies you must have a problem with all men.????
I can,t be arsed to respond to the rest of your points.Your views on gender seem to be underpinned by a combination of both radical and marxist feminism.And it's quite clear IMO that you will bend over backwards to exonnerate women from being being held to account for their behavior whilst at the same time holding men to account for theirs. You and i are never going to find common ground on this issue.
Leni,,a great deal of simple wisdom from you in the posts of the last few days,,i personally have very much enjoyed seeing someone say simple things in small words that made PERFECT sense to me,,i cant write it myself (without gnomic distortion) but its enough for me to see that someone has said these simple truths,,
@ everyone """ you can't teach children unless they want to and are ready to learn. You have to reach the heart of the child.""""
you are all children
as chomsky says on the first UTtoo,, smart people cant handle simplicity,,they are too good at argueing,,
For the record, when I was discussing The Spirit Level on Waddya I was not taking sides having not read the book. Although a couple of people tried to claim that I was.
My comments were addressed to frolix8. I would be happy to discuss things reasonably with you, Leni, chekov and many others here. But the "welcome" from florix8, Hank, and to a lesser extent Princess is clear enough: hanging around here would be too much like pushing water uphill.
And strangely enough on a simple human level I find it quite hurtful to read some of the bilious bullshit pouring out of the poisoned mouths of these people who do not know me from a hole in the ground.
A parting gift for (a few of) you to ponder: the hatred and sheer lunacy displayed far too often by some of the hard left has pushed 50 floating voters towards the right for every one they've managed to win over to the left. Maggie Thatcher would be very proud of you.
Morning all.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul - I think your post yesterday under mine was in reply to me? I never said I hated SteveH personally - I have never met the man so to hate him would be a waste of my time. What I DID say was that his views were vile - I despise his views. And that whilst he held those political views it didn't matter really what he did in his professional life in one sense or another he was still part of the problem.There were some very good right wing posters on Cif whose views I didn't agree with necessarily but I didn't find their views vile - EvilTory and PatDavers to name a couple -neither around much more. But they didn't go in for cheap bashing of the sick. And even if I do find someones views vile doesn't extend to the individual (I mean I might find them vile but I would have to meet them right? and if I liked them I would like them despite their views).
I don't think Steve shouldn't post on here - I mean it's good to have people with different views and PeterB seems to be too busy snarling on Cif these days to hang around with us prize fuckwits. But all I was saying is that Steve giving us a long list of those he has helped in his professional life doesn't ameliorate his views. I stand by that.
SteveH - Thanks re the voluntary work. It wasn't just that one article where you mentioned the Mail and you didn't just say that those who were faking were ripping off the system - we can all agree to that I think. What you said - or hinted at - was that over two thirds of those claiming were ripping off the system as they were fakers. When you were challenged you put up an article by The Mail. Now YES that article used figures from the DWP but it twisted them. Nowhere does the DWP say that up to seventy or whatever percent it was - of claimants are fakes. That is what the Mail claims - in an outright twisting of those figures. Yet the fact is that around one third of Incap or ESA claims have always been abandoned because - weirdly enough - people do this little thing called getting better.
You are being disengenious on here when you say you were only saying that fakers are a bad thing and you know you are. And also someone with the career you have had should have the intelligence, I would imagine, to realise that that report in The Mail was highly prejudiced and shouldn't have ever linked to it. Because believe me Steve - people are genuinely suffering and people are terrified - sick and vulnerable people - and every single person that reads The Mail and believes its shit and propogates that propoganda and that shit makes it worse for these people who are now living in fear of their benefits being taken away. It matters a lot.
Good Morning.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Noah after the rain - the sun is shining.
Shining here too Leni. Was reading recently that most Brits should get out for at least twenty minutes without sunscreen on for some 'gentle sunshine' on their skin (i.e. not in the heat of the midday sun on a really hot day) to get some vitamin D. Some scientists are arguing that because we have had a whole run of cloudy, rainy summers we risk becoming deficient in it. Apparently we can't make it in the winter, even on really bright days. I think after October our bodies cant make it for some reason.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that's controversial with a lot of other doctors.
One gun, two bullets?
ReplyDeleteCheney and Netanyahu. Thatcher's almost dead anyway.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11037247
ReplyDeleteInteresting article on attitudes to and legal remedies for disruptive women thru the ages.
tried C+Ping it but I get signed out here.
Princess
I read that too - Vit D manufacturing process deficient here this year. The forecast is predicating storms and flash flooding in the south tonight. Be careful everybody south of the Wash.
One gun two bullets? Can I have the six that Hank had?
ReplyDeleteIDS, Purnell, Cheney, Clegg, Thatcher, Blair.
And because I am a vindictive bitch I wouldn't kill Purnell and IDS just maim them in a way that would render them in pain for the rest of their lives so that every day they could see what it is really like trying to live a normal life when in constant agony.
One gun two bullets...
ReplyDeleteinto the ground.
Wicked people,
to kill is wrong.
HeyHabib,
ReplyDeleteNot always. I once read a brilliant interview with the Dalai Lama where he said that although senseless killing is a massive no no under Buddhism - Buddhism is wrongly seen as being all about being passive. He actually gave the example of what if you were in a room with a really bad person and a gun. He said you should shoot the really bad person. His example was Hitler.
This was at the time of the Iraq war and he was asked about Blair and he said he thought Blair had to be opposed and exposed as a liar.
In the end his argument went along the lines of weighing up the lives and the rights of the many against the few. I will try and find it, it was really fascinating stuff.
Of course however I am not saying I could actually kill a person. I feel bad when I kill a spider and I hate the feckers. God knows how bad I would feel if I killed a human being.
ReplyDeleteMorning all,
ReplyDeleteHas been humid as hell here in the big Shitty but I hear on the news that torrential rain/storms and flash floods are on their way this evening.
@Paul
I'm not sure why you keep trying to bait me into an argument here. Anyway, trouble is, if you have a problem with 'some' women, that generally implies you have a problem with 'all' women.
I have never, ever subscribed to the idea that Thatcher was a 'feminist icon' or a beacon for the Women's movement - those who did were either recklessly misguided or completely stupid (i.e. the Spice Girls saying they were 'inspired' by Thatcher) read any of my posts on CiF in the last 4 years and you'll deduce that I am in the 'shoot the bitch' camp. What did Margaret Thatcher do foe me as a 'woman'? She gave the domaninany masculine culture yet another stick to beat the vast majoirty of powerless women with.
Part of the deal of the sexes being equal has to be that women can't hide behind the veneer of being sugar'n'spice when they are clearly not.
Well, you're on the wrong foot for a start Paul - unless you are living in a bubble, women, even in this country do not enjoy 'equal rights' and you are deluded if you think they do.
In the past fortnight alone, 4 women (some with their children) have been murdered by their ex-partners and on Friday, a man murdered his son and took his own life, the day his divorce was finalised.
Women IMO are every bit as good,bad and mediocre as men
The difference is, their 'badness' and 'medicority' is disproportionately over-represented in the media and within the collective consciouness, in direct contradiction of their lack of power and representation in Society.
some of the men and women who are bad are that
way because women,as well as men made them that way
Women and men are 'bad' because the power structure is run and maintained by and for men, the majority of both men and women subconsciously absorb and accept that power structure without question. It is the ultimate controlling force of Capitalism. You cannot separate the roles of men and women from the Class structure and treat it in socio-political isolation.
LaRit i know who won't accept this but often the way we turn out depends on the quality of parenting we experience as children
It's not a question of 'acceptance', it's a question of me understanding how the world works and you not understanding the realtionship between men and power and money.
And women are every bit as likely as men to be abusive parents
I'm sorry, but the facts do not stand up to close scrutiny. If Women are abusive it is because they accept the masculine dominance of culture and perpetuate it without questioning nor understanding why.
Women fuck up their childrens lives every bit as much as men
No, the dominance of masculine culture fucks up children's lives and utilises both men and women to do this.
And whilst men can be more abusive in some ways women are just as abusive in others
See above.
And that IMO is not acknowleged as much as it should be
As I said before, nonsense, when women abuse, it is disproportinately skewed and exaggerated in realtion to Women's position in Society and in the culture.
Frog
ReplyDeleteFurther to CBT discussion. Note connection with Insurance claims. They have long operated on a @Malingerers Scale @ when assessing compensation claims.
© Soundings 2007
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.
http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/articles/rutherford07.html
things have moved on apace since 2006.
LoCascio replied in the negative when Private Eye asked if he was not concerned about the conflict of interest involved in his company's advertising campaign, which sought to gain from benefit cuts that he had helped to institute. However Unum Chairman Ward E. Graffam did acknowledge the 'exciting developments' in Britain. Unum's influence in government was helping to boost the private insurance market: 'The impending changes to the State ill-health benefits system will create unique sales opportunities across the entire disability market and we will be launching a concerted effort to harness the potential in these.' 3
ReplyDeleteFrom the same article. It is rather long but it really is worth reading .
One more quote for Frog and I/m off up the garden.
ReplyDeleteProfit for insurance companies mainly lies in the revenue generated by investing the monthly insurance premiums, and interest rates were high so the companies enjoyed high levels of profitability; they monopolised the sector by sharing a similar disability income policy that offered liberal terms. Two factors threatened future profits however. The first was falling interest rates, and the second was the growth in new kinds of 'subjective illnesses', for which diagnostic tests were disputable. The old industrial injuries were giving way to illnesses with no clear biological markers - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain, Multiple Sclerosis, Lyme Disease. In the early 1990s the new kinds of claims began to rise just as interest rates fell: profits were threatened. Unum's 1995 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Management Plan' sounded the alarm: 'Unum stands to lose millions if we do not move quickly to address this increasing problem'.4
Whoops.... loads of typos....
ReplyDelete"What did Margaret Thatcher do for me as a 'woman'? She gave the domaninant masculine culture yet another stick to beat the vast majority of powerless women with"
If you push down on women's rights and keep women predominantly economically dependent, it is an act of cunning which enables 'powerless' men to act on behalf of the dominant political structures. Dominant masculine culture (Capitalism) tacitly permits men to use the threat of violence, aggression, abuse and murder to control Women like a proxy police force of the State.
For Princess and Frog - and anyone else interested- another long MUST read.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmhealth/503/503we79.html
Leni
ReplyDeleteI think I might just have a bullet for that Mansel Aylward (Chief Medical Officer DWP) weasel, but maybe instead post him to some very busy A&E department or similar ! Along the same lines, Tony Blair to a Casualty Clearing Station in Afghanistan and of course to help those two guys re-assembling the corpses to be flown home.
Seriously though, those collaborations between civil servants and corporations ( not to forget the "useful" academics ) are an increasing scandal. I don't have time to make a proper argument, but my impression from reading history is that waves of extreme corruption come and go. Most people have a good idea of right and wrong, but when the 'wrong' is triumphing in such an 'in your face ' way they are pretty paralysed by it. Similar to the way one bully can rule large numbers who could easily overpower him. Or her :)
There is a lot of revulsion about, but not mobilised collectively. Yet !
I finished gardening last night with my LED headlamp, and it still hasn't bloody rained. More today, but first a sortie for petrol for machines.
Frog
ReplyDeletewhen I first asked Georgina for a full section on CiF I was seeking a mainstream on line archive as jumpimg off point. Private Eye follows it but it is hardly mainstream. We seem helpless in the face of this corruption - how we orgainise and activate people I don't know. It's like fighting the Inquisition.
The second long report is about the presentation of evidence against insurance cos. to parliament, an indictment of nice and the collusion of psychiatrists for financial gain. All ignored.
Finally off to garden.
Of course however I am not saying I could actually kill a person. I feel bad when I kill a spider and I hate the feckers. God knows how bad I would feel if I killed a human being.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but Princess -- spiders are useful. If I had to chose between killing a spider and killing Darth Cheney, I know which one I'd chose...
Montana
ReplyDeleteWere we to have a 'usefulness scale' I can think of a lot of people who would come well below spiders, bees and worms.
It like the assumptions around sewage system and workers as opposed to Banking systems and bankers. The latter are clearly of lesser value . No point in being rich if you are up to your neck in shit.
Hi Montana ,
ReplyDeleteNo problem with that one either. Long battle with the princess to leave alone the spider-webs at my shack.
I'm suffering from information overload from reading just one of leni's last links. As well as from opening a bottla red with my sunday fry-up. Leni's link on the twenty-year conspiracy of successive governments with Unum is a very good one, a longitudinal study as it were , showing how this shit is being developed over time. I haven't delved into her second link on the report to Parliament, but assume it is one of those noble truthful efforts like similar from numerous parliamentary sub-committees, NAO in USA, Audit Commision, that no-fucker reads ... except people like us ! The people who write them think their job is done and then seem to wash their hands when nothing happens to action their advice.
Now for some coffee and Golden Virginia roll-up. Hell, it's sunday !
and leni, please no more links for a bit :)
Have put some more info about resistance meetings up on ATL - a meeting in Newham and a unity building conference in Manchester for anyone who's interested.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Montana about spiders, most useful creatures. This may sound shocking but I have quite a list of people I could easily put a bullet into and without a hint of remorse....including the bastards who were off roading in their fucking 4x4's this morning in one of the most beautiful parts of the Peak.
I do have a dark side....so count me in if we are planning an assassination bureau.
Frog
ReplyDeleteUnderstood. I am stopping for a while - the corruption - more than corruption really. There is a smell of sulphur in air - the corruption is going unoticed and is disregarded.
Cannot understand people who cos it is not happening to them think it's ok to let it happen to someone else.
It only happens to 'other people' apparently - they forget that to everyone else we are all the 'other people'
Massive change of consciousness required. It won't come thru politics - or religion.
No more brain addling I promise - well, not this week anyway. x
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am adopting a new strategy on waddya - the sweeping statement addressed to the world in general. Have to release the pressure valve somehow.
ReplyDeleteprincess - I was, quite fairly, pulled up by Jessica for linking to the Mail report of October 2009: I think she felt it was a red rag with some of the regulars, and she had a point. I responded saying I hated the Mail (always have, always will), and then linked to the next quarter's statistics on the Parliament website, as issued by the National Statistics Office, uncoloured by any editorialising and issued - for the avoidance of doubt - under a Labour government.
ReplyDeleteThey are here: http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2010/DEP2010-0690.pdf
Now I can't help it if you can't understand them, but they are a matter of public record and will be for all time.
And they say that with 352,500 people assessed, 76% of them are either fit for work (38%) or their claims were withdrawn before the assessment was complete (38%), with a further 7% still under assessment. These numbers show a greater incidence of invalid claims than the Mail's October 2009 report.
And I owe no-one any apologies for reporting an inconvenient truth, nor will I be made to feel any guilt for so doing.
The fact is that these people are eating into resources which belong to genuine claimants. They have no conscience about that. They are scammers, shysters, frauds and criminals. It is a national scandal.
You should save your ire for them, rather than shooting the messenger.
Yes, I concede the Atos system is probably flawed, yes there may be some room for error - but 352,000 is a huge sample - and yes some of the withdrawn claims may have been withdrawn for such prosaic reasons as getting better: all that is fair comment and room for honest debate between reasonable people. What is not remotely credible is that 268,000 people, or even most of them, have any such excuses.
A very dear friend of mine is wheelchair-bound with MS and is sick of not being able to park in a disabled space to buy something essential like food or get a prescription, and sometimes having to drive home again in tears without getting out of her car, because some shit with a spring in his step and a fake disc got there first. He's stolen her chances of a better quality of life just as much as any fraudulent IB claimant has.
P.S. If you think I'm a prize fuckwit, that's fine by me - but you ought to do something about the banner at the top of the page in that case ;-)
ReplyDeleteSteveH
ReplyDeleteIt was Bracken who came up with the 'prize fuckwits' phrase now being used as a banner. He was refering to those of us who frequent the UT - with one or two notable exceptions.
Steve
ReplyDeleteI don't think anybody here has ever said that the system cannot be exploited.
What we object to are the numbers being quoted, the use of abhorrent language being used used for poltical and commercial gain.
Perhaps you should read more around the subjec. Understand the newly adopted definition of 'malingering' and how this is being used to deny the existence of organic illness.
Perhaps you might read the history of UnumProvident - their political connections and their dishonest dealings to keep their once failing company afloat.
Have you read about the psychiatrists, the medical officers in the pay of Unum and their mates ? Have you seen the research into discredited CBT being used to deny not only rights to the sick and disabled but also to deny the fact that they are ill ?
Your arguments are only partly informed.
This is about the enmeshment of medical practicioners, big business and politics - it has created a grinding mill to crush genuinely ill and suffering people. It is about power and money.
If a few false claimants get thru so what ? Do you believe that all should suffer for the actions of the few ?
As a sometimes wheelchair user I sympathise with your friend. I have no disabled badge and do not draw benefits so I am not talking from a position of self interest. I am lucky in that I can work as and when I can. Reduce or take away benefits from the majority of the sck and disabled and you leave them destitute.
Princess:
ReplyDeleteAs one who squashed a spider the other day for the first time since I was a kid, I can tell you, it's not nice. The unfortunate arachnid freaked me out when I was feeling over-sensitive. Can't say I'm proud of the fact ;(
LaRit
ReplyDeletehelloee. I rescued a wasp from drowning earlier today. It stung me.
Wasp ethics need to improve.
I am especially fond of spiders. Wonderful mechanical systems have they. Close ups show many of them are very pretty - if unusual.
Some can live for several years. Many are good mums - guard eggs and babies. The big hunting spiders enjoy midnight walks. Much to be said in defence of spiders.
Harvestmen too tho they are not arachnids. They like it if you give them a drink.
@SteveHill:
ReplyDeleteI've had a quick scan of the document to which you refer. The drive to reduce ESA/IB has been gathering pace for some considerable time.
Ever since Thatcher and co. saw fit to 'park' millions of casualties of slash and burn Raygunomics on IB in the 80's (policies and privatisations which left countless people without hope of ever being in work again) IB was used as a very deliberate way of fiddling the true levels of unemployment, to create the illusion that Thatcherism was 'working', as a sop to the hopeless to stop them rioting in the streets.
Now, with Nu-Lab and the Mcconjob's they aren't even pretending anymore, they're not even prepared to disguise the need for large-scale unemployment within the new post-Thatcher, post melt-down economic new world order.
This has been a long time coming and the effect will be to essentially remove benefits from vast swathes of the populace which will, without doubt, leave people destitute or dependant on wages set so low, people in this country will be forced into essentially slave labour. Whilst the billionaires and their mates in Govt. continue to accumulate wealth and power on an unprecedented scale - hitherto unimagined.
If you want to see the future of the UK - just have a long, hard look at what is happening in the US. A third of the US population (including the working poor holding down 3 jobs for peanuts in pay) are dependent on food handouts.
I hope that pricks your conscience, because if you can state without a hint of irony that....
these people are eating into resources which belong to genuine claimants. They have no conscience about that. They are scammers, shysters, frauds and criminals. It is a national scandal
Then until the true horror dawns on you and those who think like you are complicit in accepting that this 'Govt.' is determined to return the UK to the 18thC and the Workhouse.
I've never been able to look at spiders the same way since I read Charlotte's Web when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteLeni
ReplyDeleteHello to you too! I've not had the chance to read your links, but I will.... Mr Hill has got the wrong end of a very shitty stick - can we persuade him to think differently? I doubt it.
Your Wasp story is very funny! They are merciless little buggers and whilst I try to encourage them out of the house, in a face off, the wasp, if in a bad temper, will end up worse off ;( I was stung in my ar as a kid and I do become very agitated when they're around.
I used to be terrified of spiders but would never kill them, they are our house-cleaning buddies, happily ridding us of the nasties!
Am too fascinated by the variety in the UK - I heard something like over 300 species - the Natural History museum in Cardiff had an impressive collection of preserved spiders and ticks, though dead, they made me itch!!!
Steve
ReplyDeleteYou haven't then pursued your enquiries beyond some very summary figures, and not bothered to look at the details of the Work Capability Assessment, which to me is not very 'professional' as a former CiFfer .
You "concede that the Atos system is probably flawed". Very big of you. Good God man, inform yourself and see that a great deal of suffering has been caused to a great many already suffering people. We are not a bunch of bleeding-heart lefties just attacking the govt for being 'realistic'. Even Hank Scorpio, or particularly he, is outraged that there are some who exploit the system : Point8 in his manifesto one drunken night. So am I, but weeding out the worst cases can be done in a more civilised, cool, fashion than making hundreds of thousands suffer.
More importantly, this disability-reduction effort is definitely part of a wider long-term scheme. See my 14.56 link.
Sgd -- proud fuckwit !
Sorry was not stung in my 'ar' but in my EAR!
ReplyDeleteLa Rit - nobody thought for a second it was your AR** :)
ReplyDeletebtw: Steve - as Frog points out, no-one here is defending a 'scammer' - I've seen plenty of it in my time, but let's get this into persepctive hey?
ReplyDeleteWe live in one of the richest countries in the Northern hemisphere, don't you ever ask yourself 'why' life is intolerably crippling for so many? You sould see some of the poor elderly who live around here, it's a bloody outrage - and this 'Govt.' is talking of scrapping Winter Fuel Payments (which incidentally have been abused and scammed to the tune of millions by wealthy ex-pats living in fucking Spain)
Ever asked yourself 'why' visitors to these shores are shocked by the filth on our city streets, the delapidation and neglect of some of our public spaces and the appalling grossly expensive housing and levels of poverty here?
It sure ain't the fault of mythical numbers of 'scroungers' scamming IB.
frog
ReplyDeleteI did - I was stung in the bum as a child - sat on a nest hidden in a lovely green mossy bank. On Frodsham hill.
I suffered the indignity of going home with a blue posterior - like a baboon. Pub at foot of hill kept supply of the old 'blue bags' - apparently wasp stings were very common there.
I trust this story will not be broadcast on waddya - it will discredit me forever.
Frog:
ReplyDelete:o) (laughs out loud)
''Now I can't help it if you can't understand them, but they are a matter of public record and will be for all time.'' Condescending aren't we? It is YOU who clearly doesn't understand what I or Leni or La Rit or countless others keep trying to tell you!!!
ReplyDeleteYes some scam the system but they are not in their thousands. The IB test was in and of itself harsh enough with the changes Nu Lab made. You had to have a medical which was not easy to pass and also doctors and consultants reports. THERE WAS NO NEED TO CHANGE THE TEST. The reason it was changed was to get more people off incap - it was in its most basic sense a test designed to get more people to fail the medical.
Now Steve - even the tests creator - a right wing economist - has said that the test is not working as it should and is far too strict. it is in his words ''a catastrophe waiting to happen'' if it is pushed through. The liberal party were against this test before they sold their souls too.
What about that can you not get your head around?
''And they say that with 352,500 people assessed, 76% of them are either fit for work (38%) or their claims were withdrawn before the assessment was complete (38%), with a further 7% still under assessment.''
Right and that proves what? How do you get from that that the majority of those who withdrew were fakers? As I tried to explain to you before - a lot of claimants HAVE ALWAYS withdrawn before the actual assessment is complete. It has always been the case. Look two of my colleagues were starting the process when it was still IB a couple of years ago as both had cancer - their SSP was coming to an end and they were told to apply for incap. However as it happened both were well enough to return to work before the claim was fully assessed. The assessment stage can take between two and four months!!! Plenty of time for people to recover. So the fact that claims are withdrawn proves nothing to aid your nasty argument that they are fraudsters. Nothing.
Of the 38% fit for work - nearly all are appealed. I doubt many fraudsters would go that far. And appeals are won at a rate of between 40 and 80% - the higher figure being those who have representation at the appeal from experts to help them.
So again of that 38% a significant proportion will have their benefits re-instated - so 38% are NOT found fit for work in the long term.
But EVEN ALL THAT DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING BECAUSE THE TEST ITSELF IS DESIGNED TO GET PEOPLE OFF THE BENEFIT. HOW HARD IS THAT TO UNDERSTAND. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF PEOPLE COULD FAIL IT AND IT WOULDN'T PROVE THEY WERE ALL SCROUNGERS JUST THAT IT IS A RIGGED TEST.
But if you can look yourself in the mirror every morning when you must have read posts from people with cancer like Mike Bach who are being denied this vital benefit then fucking good luck to you.
Leni:
ReplyDeleteA blue bum? Like a baboon? (once again, laughs out loud)....
it is coming up to the bad season for Wasps - they're fed up and dying and so much more likely to sting for the hell of it - just because they can. I reckon Michael Gove is a kind of human-wasp hybrid that was developed in a test tube somewhere ;)
@PrincessCC:
ReplyDeleteWell said!!!!!!!
In SteveH's case, you do need a sledghammer to crack a nut.
ReplyDeleteOK - off to eat Lincolnshire sausages and drink wine in Penge with my friend Hilary.
Shall be back in a wee while for more tales from the Crypt ;0) xx
Princess
ReplyDeleteIf I had a hammer ....
La Rit - Yep sleepy wasp season more deadly than active wasp season. A few years ago we were driving down into Bakewell on my birthday to have a potter around when I felt something bounce on my head. The other half said it was just something off the trees and not to worry. As we pulled into the car park I felt a lot of pain in my left boob and thought the metal bit had come out of my bra and stabbed me, then felt the pain further down on my side twice more. Lifted my top and a big old hornet was crawling on me. It stung me again before I jumped out of the still moving car (slow moving as we were about to park).
ReplyDeleteI actually felt quite 'high' for an hour or so after - really buzzy and weird. Like I had loads of adrenalin in me. The stings themselves weren't that bad.
Worst sting I ever had was a stingray. That hurt like a bastard - it was agony of a truly intense nature. I have heard that when people fishing in rivers in Mexico etc in the middle of nowhere get stung by them they have cut their limb off due to the pain and to stop the poison spreading. Don't know if that is true.
The pain though was unbearable. And I also was faint and had really strong cramping of my muscles in that leg from the venom. It was the first day of the holiday as well!
Montana - I know spiders are useful but I find them hideous and creepy. Do you have dangerous ones there?
PrincessCC -
ReplyDeleteyet another excellent reply to Steve there. I hope he comes back, because I don't think he's all bad at all, unlike the Major who appears impervious to reason and evidence. It has always mystified me how Steve has always provided a textbook conventional-wisdom defence of the status quo on the accountancy profession, finance, the City etc, because sometimes I have seen signs of a sentient human being.
Must be cognitive dissonance or summink like that.
ReplyDeleteee our Frog
ReplyDeleteYou could be right. A lot don't want to know - may have to adjust thinking.
OK - off to eat Lincolnshire sausages and drink wine in Penge with my friend Hilary.
ReplyDeleteI went through Penge once.
@Princess:
The only dangerous spider we have in Iowa is the brown recluse.
I see Alisdair is engaging with FederalExpress on the Catherine Bennett "Philip Green" thread.
ReplyDeleteWithout strong suspicions that commenters are bogus, I believe them, and FedEx strikes me as a hard-working old-fashioned entrepreneur who does not realise that the Big Corporations are not actually as he is. So while arguing from his own 'reasonable' case, he supports their's, which is not .
8,800 IB work assessment appeals have so far been heard out of over 352,500 assessments at the time of the January report.
ReplyDelete62% of the appeals did not succeed and the DWP decision was upheld.
These are the facts. It's all in the document I linked to.
I know some people get better: I said so in my previous post. I also believe that a very large number of people are taking the piss. It would be wrong of any government to sit back and do nothing. So what would you suggest?
I'm sorry if the facts are not to your liking, but it's irrational to take against the person who brings them to your attention.
One document and that's enough for you ? How about your reaction to MikeBach's story ?
ReplyDeleteHave you not read the three or four replies to you above ?
All very well getting worked up about the Palestinians, but this is your own backyard.
@frog2
ReplyDelete"Steve has always provided a textbook conventional-wisdom defence of the status quo on the accountancy profession, finance, the City etc"
Not so. I have always argued for better regulation.
But you could cancel every banker's bonus entirely and distribute it in benefits, and I doubt you'd manage to add more than 20p a week to the average claimant's lot. There are very few people earning "silly" bonuses, compared to the number of people in real need.
Better regulation helps banks make sane, sensible profits in the long run without occasionally losing the odd trillion on some daft wager that a good regulatory system would not have permitted them to make. And those profits provide vast tax revenues which are far more use to all of us (it is the current absence of such profits which is the main cause of the deficit).
Helping banks earn good (but sane) profits rather than personally attacking bankers is, simply, economically good sense if you want better schools and hospitals. It's a better strategy than envy.
@Leni
ReplyDelete"Perhaps you should read more around the subjec. Understand the newly adopted definition of 'malingering' and how this is being used to deny the existence of organic illness. "
Leni - I've always respected your posts on most things. I am very willing to be informed.
Incidentally, my late wife's IB claim failed in 2003. She had to close her psychotherapy practice following a bad dose of terminal cancer. Her problem was lack of accounting evidence to prove loss of earnings... and frankly we had other things to worry about than instructing accountants or mounting appeals. But I do have some understanding of the issue, and still feel "they" owe us one.
Here's Steve's sole link , will go away to peruse.
ReplyDeleteSteve
ReplyDeleteRad this when you have time to consider it.
http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/articles/rutherford07.html
It is one of many such reports.
If you look up thread I have ref'd to a parliamentary report.
Both docs are long and detailed.
As frog said we are not trying to present a 'bleeding hearts @ case here.
I have gone from starry eyed idealism of youth through cynicism and out to the other side.
I abhor inequality - if we could work tpwards a more equal society we could reduce exploitation. I have watched politics and society in Britain become more and more unpleasant - nasty in truth - and have seen more and more people sink below a certain line - beyond which their hope dies.
This has come about through the marriage of politcal parties and their leaders and hangers on falling into the grateful arms of businesswho have in return rewarded loyalty generously.
What is presented to us is not even half the story. The 'sociopsycho' model of organic illness is behind much of this attack on the sick. Models change. This new model (under a variety of names) is being used to deny that certain medical conditions exist.
I know more about the nasty side of human nature than I ever would have wished to know. Greed drives, power drives and both need fertile ground and the willing but unknowing/uninformed support of public opinion. Both require a disdain for the needs of others - the unworthy must be rejected. A starving child can trouble the conscience.
I don't know how many millions have been spent in creating false pictures to feed support for vicious policies - a helluva lot.
The society we have created depends upon exploitation and abuse - and yes the poor can exploit the poor. I have known some vicious examples of this. So - I am no bleeding heart who believes in the noble savage. I can best state my position by saying that I believe the less inequality there is the fewer chances there are for exploitation and repression.
We are really talking about the shaping of our society. The so called 'consultation paper' is a travesty. You are an intelligent man, read between the lines and see what is NOT printed there. The 'Nudge' doctrine - relies upon conformity through the limitation of choice.
If you read these links I would be interested in your response. There is plenty of supporting evidence out there.
I am sorry to hear about your wife's experience. It will have added a lot of anxiety to an unhappy time.
mikebach is sounding despairing over on waddya.
ReplyDeleteBlinding post Leni. I hope Steve that you do take the time to read the links and to read between the lines of the really quite vicious campaign being mounted by both this government and New Labour before them.
ReplyDeleteYou might also be very interested to read about UNUM Provident and their 'disability denial factories' in the US and the fact that they run the Cardif center for social research. The very center that told the UK government to change its stance on sickness benefits. And days later UNUM Prov took out an ad in the pinks aimed at financial advisors warning them that ''soon the UK government won't be providing benefits in relation to sickness and disability...make sure your clients are covered.'' Even the Spectator thought this a spectacular conflict of interest.
Seriously Steve there are some extremely powerful vested interests at work here and some very nasty forces and ordinary sick people are being made to suffer. The DWP itself only estimates fraud on sickness benefits to be under one percent. The stats you gave do not talk about fraud because they don't prove fraud all they prove is that the new test is nearly impossible to pass.
It is going to be made even harder too. As I linked to recently. I hope you read the links provided with an open mind. Right all off to bed - very tired tonight.
Hey Steve, welcome to the Alice-in-Wonderland corner of CiF. Full membership only requires the surgical insertion of a deluded chip, but full frontal lobotomy is preferred.
ReplyDeletesteve 17.50 --
ReplyDeleteI'm not in the "envy brigade " against bankers' bonuses, so you can stop that scatter-gun approach right there. This is not lightweight CiF. My oldest friend, since 1953, is close to being one of the star financial rocket-scientists and is worth a few million, plus a couple of nephews in banking, plus I've been in interbank broking myself.
After my sunday lunchtime bottle of red I may not be 100% accurate, but seems to me I remember the US Glass-Steagall Act 1933 was 16 pages, Basel 2 was a few thousand, and Basel 3 is going to be a few thousand more. So the whole fucking thing is getting more and more complicated, a lawyer's delight, and where is the Common Weal in that ?
Your second-to-last paragraph must surely be one of the most rubbish you have ever written --
Better regulation helps banks make sane, sensible profits in the long run without occasionally losing the odd trillion on some daft wager that a good regulatory system would not have permitted them to make. And those profits provide vast tax revenues which are far more use to all of us (it is the current absence of such profits which is the main cause of the deficit).
"Losing the odd trillion", the "vast tax revenues from the banks" , frankly mate, you are completely out of your tree. Off-beam. Delusional. Mad (temporarily at least...:o).
I always give people a chance, and then another one, and another, and even another or two, because I'm ever hopeful. But you persist just like the Major in arguing with very little evidence to support you.
Come back when we can fight on more equal terms, because so far you are in the wrong league.
Get a grip, frog; pond life is no league to boast about.
ReplyDeleteAre you the real peter b?
ReplyDeleteYou seem to link to an empty blogger page.
Lay off the amphibia, fishy folk and small scurrying things.
Peter --
ReplyDeletegive your considered response to PrincessCC at 19.04 , just to prove you haven't had serious brain damage, sometime, somewhere.
Interesting posts. Is it ok to have vinegar with my deluded chips ?
ReplyDeleteI see
ReplyDeleteIt is the blogger page for here.
However if you are the real peter - has something gone wrong in your life ?
Bitters
ReplyDeleteOnly if the vinegar is made from miasma and can be inhaled.
Miasma Vice...
ReplyDeleteLeni - Peter's life went wrong a long time ago. Happened to most of us too, but some grew through it.
ReplyDeleteLast of the Whiney Cunts.
ReplyDeleteJust call me compo...
BW -- the only compo I know is 'compo rations', would you translate
ReplyDeleteHe was a tramp in a rubbish sitcom.
ReplyDeleteAs are many of us.
ReplyDeleteVery funny, Leni, BW and frog. That can't be the real Kraken - it usually takes three paragraphs of purple prose before he makes a point of any kind.
ReplyDeleteA bit foggy, me sen.
Right
ReplyDeleteI am now beset by curiosity.
PeterB name appears in green My name do so too. I clicked on Peters - thinking it led to his website. Empty blogger page. So clicked on my own - same result.
Why is Peter green to me ? Is he to everybody else ?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, Peter Green was the founding member of Fleetwood Mac, and wrote the "Green Manalishi with the Three-Pronged Crown"
ReplyDeleteHere he is singing some blues, and if anyone upsets him again I'll kick their fucking face in. Can't you see he's hurting ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP5IEOYj9MU
OK.
Leni:
ReplyDeleteLinks go bright green after you've clicked on them.
Thanks Montana
ReplyDeleteHave never clicked before ! I tend to only consider what people post - either opinion or anything they wish to tell us about themselves.
Yo! Bitterweed -- answer me a question, if you can. I used to have an 8-track tape (did they ever exist in the UK?) called "The British Invasion". One of the songs on it was an early Fleetwood Mac instrumental. Slow, lots of bass. I loved it, but can't remember the name of it. Any clue what it might have been?
ReplyDeleteFinally managed to get on to the computer!
ReplyDeleteJen-(from yesterday)
here is a web page that gives some details about heart failure.
My condition is genetic there is a flaw in the gene that controls the development of heart muscle so that it is not as resilient against infection as it should be.
Meanz that I got an infection like flu a few years ago and it affected my heart permenantly.
Most people's hearts recover from this with this defective gene it might not.
Just my luck the medication makes my heart5 work very well but I do get a lot of extreme tiredness.
Which is why I am going to bed.
Hello Anne
ReplyDeleteSleep well x
Mikebach just up on waddya, with support from leni, but I do wonder if jess reads that on monday morning, because no feedback from her ? Last weekend the very same thing . I'm sure the duke did something late friday too.
ReplyDeleteEarly birds ...if any !
@Montana
ReplyDeleteIf BW's not around - it might be this.
Albatross?
ReplyDeleteAnnetan --sleep well. X
ReplyDeleteprincess -
ReplyDelete"Seriously Steve there are some extremely powerful vested interests at work here and some very nasty forces and ordinary sick people are being made to suffer. The DWP itself only estimates fraud on sickness benefits to be under one percent. The stats you gave do not talk about fraud because they don't prove fraud all they prove is that the new test is nearly impossible to pass."
I'm a terminal contrarian. I hate "received wisdom" in all its forms, and the left is not exempt. I have "fond" memories of being trashed on CiF for daring to suggest that Peter Sutcliffe was actually a schizophrenic who needed treatment, not mainstream prison. Coincidentally, I have a friend staying with me right now who is a Broadmoor shrink and knows of what he speaks.
@peterbracken: thanks for the laugh!
@frog2: I wasn't accusing you personally of playing the envy card. I really do think there's a plausible regulatory model involving realtime computer monitoring so patterns are caught today, not months after the year-end audit. I helped build such a system for the insolvency profession when I was a regulator, and trust me: banks have no fucking idea what "regulatory monitoring" really means. And it's high time they did.
Montana
ReplyDeleteCould have been this one ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Nqtwy9qXI
Or perhaps Albatros of course... but everyone knows that.
"Coincidentally, I have a friend staying with me right now who is a Broadmoor shrink and knows of what he speaks."
ReplyDeleteI bet he's thrilled with your discretion.
@PeterJ, Chekhov and BW:
ReplyDeleteThanks! It was, indeed, Albatross, but your suggestion is lovely, BW. Never heard it before. Both will be making their way into my iTunes library shortly.
More Danny Kirwan
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhd9HwnPOU
I know the one you're taliking about Montana - it's in my collection somewhere.
Oh it WAS Albatros ??? Damn ubiquitous that one.
ReplyDeleteHere's some piano Blues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00kUeks9EM
Great !
Great music, BW. I see everyone's gone again, so I'll play another lazy blues piece, admittedly a bit more commercially renowned.
ReplyDeleteWonderful to see that stevehill, one of the most consistently odious posters on Cif for years, gets a nice, warm 'Hi Steve!' welcome from many of the Untrusted warriors. It's so nice to see that he can so easily fill the apparent gap in his life by posting on this blog rather than on Cif. It also gives him a chance to wank on about how great he is - how he has single-handedly changed bankruptcy legislation (so that crooks and criminals can blithely walk away from their creditors and start ripping people off all over again within a year!), been thanked by crying peasants in the streets for his divine intervention, has written Times leaders, has been a director of a multi-national company (wow! you minimum wage chavs - check that out!) and is an all-round fantastic guy. (Of course, I believe very little of his bull-shit - he strikes me as a sad guy with delusions of grandeur and an underlying terminally low self-esteem.)
ReplyDeleteThat nobody here actually has the honesty and the balls to tell him to just fuck off and spout his vile nonsense somewhere else speaks volumes about this place. You won't change his mind about anything, you know - you're just enabling a deluded egotist, and giving him a platform, when you shouldn't even be giving him the time of day. As Hank says, you guys just don't do 'angry', do you?
What a fucking waste.
And Hank is so much nicer...
ReplyDeletefrolix8 (great name) anyone can post here. To demand that people think and feel the way that you do, is just petulant.
ReplyDeleteThat many do think and feel the way you do is merely coincidence.
Hiya Kiz!
ReplyDeleteHiya Kiz! Now that the 'distinctive voice' of stevehill has been lost for ever on Cif, are you going to post here gain? Or does your milk-monitor job on Cif take up too much of your working day?
ReplyDeleteNot more posting police surely - telling who we may or may not respond to.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the belief in personal freedom, choice and all that ?
How was that ? Any good ?
ReplyDeleteNight my preciousesss...
ReplyDeleteScared the fuck out of me, BW.
ReplyDeleteHi Princess
ReplyDeleteMy comment wasn,t directed at you at all.It was a general point that i,ve been thinking about recently.Irrespective of peoples political views i think the personal and political do invariably overlap in many cases.Wasn,t a dig at anyone here:-)
Text
Sorry where it says TEXT is a brilliant BobJames track.Hope you enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteLovely BW but if yr going to do theatrical you have to get some better quotes...
ReplyDeletefrolix... you look like you could do with some milk.. bit anaemic...
How was that ? Any good ?
ReplyDelete22 August, 2010 23:16
Makes perfect sense to me Bitterweed!
However what would I know?
I'm just a fuckwit.
A general point, do theatrical. and make perfect sense.
ReplyDelete@frolix8: as I said to Hank - no point in even trying to engage with you unless and until you get over your issues.
ReplyDeleteAnything I've done is a matter of public record if you know where to look: a few thousand court orders for instance. Why would I bother to make this stuff up? It's a matter of complete indifference to me whether anybody round here is or is not in any way impressed. That's your stuff, not mine.
Anyway, I came here a few days ago solely to put on record why I chose to part company with CiF. And that's done. Thank you to those people who bothered to say hi, but any future visits are likely to be few and far between.
Bracken's banner is accurate. Cherish it.
Another Bob James classic.
ReplyDelete"any future visits are likely to be few and far between"
ReplyDeleteSteve, if you hear a dripping sound, that's my heart bleeding.
Life is dotted about with funny little interludes - innit?
ReplyDelete@heyhabib: nothing makes much sense to me let alone if you go cryptic.
ReplyDeleteI've looked at the solutions for cryptic crosswords and returned to look at the clues and I still can't make the connection between either!
I suppose some of us are just thick aren't we?
chekhov, when only absurdity makes any sense, you're in the right place. Don't let the sensible bastards ever grind you down. (Incidentally, we are all thick in some way)
ReplyDeletechekhov
ReplyDeleteFFS stop putting yourself down.You are very talented in your own field and could probably teach people here -including myself-a thing or two.
Anyway, I came here a few days ago solely to put on record why I chose to part company with CiF. And that's done. Thank you to those people who bothered to say hi, but any future visits are likely to be few and far between.
ReplyDeleteBracken's banner is accurate. Cherish it.
23 August, 2010 00:09
Well thanks Steve, you were welcomed on here because this site is not moderated and we were willing to debate with you.
You gave us the two fingered salute for our hospitality and dropped your turd on our carpet before leaving.
Please fuck off and never bother us again.
good one habib. Absurdity is one of the constants of life.
ReplyDeleteChekhov
Bruno Bettleheim wrote about "The knowing heart" - said there were too few in the world x
Chekhov
ReplyDeleteSteve clearly didn't want to discuss anything with any of us - just called in to leave a message for others.
Sometimes on here its like neighbours you barely know walking through your house - some stop for a cuppa and a chat - others just walk through.
What's this i'm reading about Tony Blair opening an Investment Bank for the super rich.The man clearly has no shame.
ReplyDeleteHello Leni: never heard of Bruno Bettleheim, do you have a link?
ReplyDeletegoogle away, pretty interesting man
ReplyDeleteGoogle his name Chekhov
ReplyDeleteHe is a contraversial figure - but nevertheless wrote some interesting things.
A jew - was in concentration camp for a while - became a psychologist. Some people claim he lied about his war time experience. I don't know the truth.
Paul
ReplyDeletewill lodge my pittance at the Bank of Blair - that man has mysterious ways of making money grow.
Any rain yet frog?
ReplyDeleteChekhov
ReplyDeleteBook called "The Informed Heart"
http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/rghl_01/rghl_01_00375.html
Leni
ReplyDeleteMethinks Blair has got his eye on the money of the oligarchs.I think it's a long time since he gave a second thought to ordinary folks.
Dunno much about Bruno Bettleheim but when i,ve got time i,m looking at the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who did a lot of work to try improve the quality of life for the terminally ill.Was dead set against euthanasia.So being Swiss born i'm sure she'll be spinning in her grave at the work of Dignitas.
Apropo of nowt really, I e-mailed the link some suggested earlier to a George Orwell article titled something along the line of "Socialists can't have fun" to my twin sister.
ReplyDeleteShe thought is was a bit "dense" for a Sunday morning read.
I'll have to admit that I never thought my twin sister would consider George Orwell's prose as "dense"!
And, yes I told her so!
Watch this space for the response!
This was the post I prepared for that dishonest prat --
ReplyDelete"Steve
In your non-reply to PricessCC's and others' points on the Disability scandal you proudly portray yourself as a contrarian. None of us were spouting "received wisdom'" and you have obviously read none of the links. A serious person would have come back on those, but you did not .
You then go on about how fucking tough bank regulations will be one day, which is really Cloud Cuckoo Land. "Realtime Computer Monitoring" , but of whose figures ? I first encountered the term GIGO - garbage in, garbage out - in 1966 and it of course applies equally today.
All of us here are interested in the Disability question, and I would appreciate your getting involved properly in that . I don't give a monkey's what you wrote about Peter Sutcliffe back then ."
----------------------------------
So I wasted my time probably, but that is what working with the disadvantaged is all about.
My waste of time, my problem. No sweat. I always prefer to give a loser or other weak sister a chance.
So "Bracken's banner is correct', a really pitiful non-goodbye, because he says he may be back ! You complete Arsehole who never answered any straight and well-intentioned and fucking civilised questions, don't cross my hawse.
Some here mistakenly gave you a big welcome, but even I gave you a great big chance of being a member of a very interesting debating-forum. You pissed on that, your choice.
hekhov
ReplyDeletei gave you the unsympathetic assess first.
here are grave doubts about the truth of these criticisms.
Bettleheim went on to work with seriously disturbed children. He was interested in their personal autonomy - realised you can't teach children unless they want to and are ready to learn. You have to reach the heart of the child. I think he was a good man.
His thesis on the jewish prisoners wanting to 'be like the guards' has received some support - some agree saying that the prisoners understood it as a way of reclaiming personal power.
Some - mainly people who feel it insults the prisoners - revile him.
Much more is nowunderstood about relationships where the balance of power favours only one party to it - leaving the other helpless - in a way this is similar to the question "Why no revolution?" Relations within a population with the power structure - whatever it is - interesting questions. Some answers we think we have but not all.
hy are some compliant - why do others rebel ? Why do some want to be like the powerful (some certainly do ) while others reject them and their values /
Lots to think about.
frog
ReplyDeletean oddity of Cif - and other fora - is the number of posters who express uninformed opinions as though they are gospel.
The waddya discussion on 'The Spirit Level was typical. Without reading the book they were taking sides - for or against - with the critics. That is certainly using received wisdom -wisdom received in the space of 5 minutes - to make what i'm sure they felt were substantive contributions.
i don't think Steve read any of the links - perhaps he started and found them at variance with his own values - misconception or whatever.
leni/chekhov -- 40 years ago I could have given a good snap résumé of most of Bettelheim's writings, but all that has faded. A very quick google and it would come flooding back.
ReplyDeleteI'm not over-worried about Alzheimers, because I've always had a weirdly selective memory !
leni -- there are some people who don't want to see. Or listen, or learn. Always we have to judge who is in which category.
ReplyDeletefrog
ReplyDeletei have to have a selective memory - too much in there. But like you a quick reminder can pop the stack. Just need the right button - it's all in there somewhere.
The sting from the ungrateful wasp has now swollen under my finger nail - painful.
mikebach has 12 recs for his suggestion - will see if Jessica responds to him tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHank
ReplyDeleteJust been browsing yesterday's thread.For the record i don't see my ethnic background as a cross to bear .It is something i'm very proud of.I do however think you are being extremely naive if you think you can simply dismiss the race and religious 'fault lines' that can and do exist within many working class communities. Yes class considerations should over-ride anything else but until/unless these fault lines within working class communities are addressed there is never going to be the solidarity that is needed to confront the 'real enemy'.
We often talk about 'Divide and Rule' here.Well the 'real enemy' perhaps has a vested interest in keeping these 'fault lines' festering in working class communities in order to keep us divided.And we'll stay divided until we face up to the things that prevent us all standing shoulder to shoulder when it really matters.
I,m sorry Hank but sometimes you really do come across as someone who is shit hot on theory but somewhat lacking when it comes to grasping certain realities.
Leni -- I did not notice her replying to any over-weekend reqests last time
ReplyDeleteFrog
ReplyDeleteFrankly - she ignored them. Not on the agenda.
SO, a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteRE-posting this morning is one thing to do,on the very new thread, but I'm off now ! nn !
LaRit
ReplyDelete''I'm not sure why you keep trying to bait me into an argument here. Anyway, trouble is, if you have a problem with 'some' women, that generally implies you have a problem with 'all' women.''
Firstly i don't keep baiting you so please quit the amateur dramatics.And secondly your theory cuts both ways.You're saying that the fact i have a problem with some women generally implies i have a problem with all women.Which incidentally i think is rubbish.But using your own theory the fact you clearly have a problem with some men implies you must have a problem with all men.????
I can,t be arsed to respond to the rest of your points.Your views on gender seem to be underpinned by a combination of both radical and marxist feminism.And it's quite clear IMO that you will bend over backwards to exonnerate women from being being held to account for their behavior whilst at the same time holding men to account for theirs. You and i are never going to find common ground on this issue.
Leni,,a great deal of simple wisdom from you in the posts of the last few days,,i personally have very much enjoyed seeing someone say simple things in small words that made PERFECT sense to me,,i cant write it myself (without gnomic distortion) but its enough for me to see that someone has said these simple truths,,
ReplyDelete@ everyone
""" you can't teach children unless they want to and are ready to learn. You have to reach the heart of the child.""""
you are all children
as chomsky says on the first UTtoo,, smart people cant handle simplicity,,they are too good at argueing,,
@Leni
ReplyDeleteFor the record, when I was discussing The Spirit Level on Waddya I was not taking sides having not read the book. Although a couple of people tried to claim that I was.
@frog2
ReplyDeleteMy comments were addressed to frolix8. I would be happy to discuss things reasonably with you, Leni, chekov and many others here. But the "welcome" from florix8, Hank, and to a lesser extent Princess is clear enough: hanging around here would be too much like pushing water uphill.
And strangely enough on a simple human level I find it quite hurtful to read some of the bilious bullshit pouring out of the poisoned mouths of these people who do not know me from a hole in the ground.
A parting gift for (a few of) you to ponder: the hatred and sheer lunacy displayed far too often by some of the hard left has pushed 50 floating voters towards the right for every one they've managed to win over to the left. Maggie Thatcher would be very proud of you.