When they kick out your front door, how you gonna come?

[cybermule]

With your hands on your head? Or on the trigger of your gun?

Note that this is not driven by over-much knowledge of the facts, but what I've read, thought about and am happy to stand corrected on.

• Tough action by the PM getting dem selfish addicts off da state:
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/uk-politics-13152349
  
  Only allowed state benefits now if you're ill through no fault of your own. Like puppies in rescue homes. If you're there through no fault of your own, then you're deserving. If someone thinks you did something wrong, it's the short walk down the concrete corridor to Mr Euthanasia Needle for you. I mean, who decides this? I grew up with addicts and alcoholics, and I've no fucking idea when the fun stopped and the demon moved into their brains and took over their lives. And try actually getting help for this anyway - maybe some state-sponsored tablets, or sitting around excrutiating yourself with a bunch of other "losers" while some middle-class wannabehipster nonce tells you you either need to realign your chakras, or re-program your brain not to want to take drugs. Fuck me! That easy, eh? Well that'll stop the skivers whacking themselves out with filthy needles and fertiliser to get their 90 quid a week. And I'm sure we can find something for all those fat people and all those bloody emo bastards who pretend to be depressed and just need to cheer up and settle down.



• So, you can lose all your benefits and your home for being fat, ill or addicted to narcotics. Probably eke yourself out a living on the streets or in a squat. I'm not going to speculate how you make ends meet, cos I don't know. Certainly not going to judge however you do it, cos I've not been there and I don't think I'd make it. But don't try having a squat opposite a major supermarket chain store:
  
  http://www.bristol247.com/2011/04/22/riot-in-bristol-hundreds-on-streets-as-police-close-squat/
  
  Tesco won't like it having those dirty squatter types living opposite and taking the precious things of the shop. Makes you wonder why they set up there, really. I'm generally surprisingly pro Tesco stores, but, you know, silly fuckers



• Found yourself a nice squat where you're not going to annoy anyone? Marvellous. As long as there are no troublemakers or suspected ringleaders there, you'll get a bit of peace and quiet. Failing that, bring on the dawn raids for thought crime. Police can now kick your door down and arrest you if you may potentially consider upsetting a celeb by being a bit smelly:
  
  http://www.euronews.net/2011/04/20/uk-police-promise-no-messing-for-royal-wedding/
  
  It'll get ugly down The Croft if Jilly Cooper is passing on her way to Bristol Airport to catch the big orange bus in the sky to Marbella.

So, dispossess them. Drive them out into the squats, break up the squats, arrest the ringleaders. Ran Prieur's roving gangs of ill, pissed off, dispossessed nutters will come to pass. And the shit going down will infect and subsume the weak. Couldn't find the original trailer from the first film with the Ave Maria soundtrack - think the site's been wiped - but this is more apt as to how peoples' shit may fall.

How you gonna come?

Comments

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

End times.

[weemadharold.livejournal.com]

Cameron's statements in that BBC article imply that those dependent on drugs will receive help in combating their addictions. The efficacy of such help varies considerably, I'm sure, and hopefully the government will choose treatments with decent amounts of supportive evidence. But Cameron's question - "But is it OK to leave these people on incapacity benefit, year after year, not examining their circumstances, not seeing if we can help them?" - is very reasonable. Surely just writing people off, giving them the money they need to survive and leaving them alone to drink/smoke/inject themselves to death is the least compassionate solution of all? 'Out of sight out of mind' may be comfortable for the middle classes (aside from the regular Daily Mail rants) but attempting to address the problems is the responsible choice.

I'll admit the practicalities of such a change may leave a lot to be desired - will there be extra funding for treatment programs? Will overworked benefits staff simply give a polite "Fuck off" to people who've spent years dependent on IB? - but in principle this seems like a good thing, and if enacted thoughtfully it could be a good thing.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I have a problem with the fundamental concept of deserving and undeserving poor. Bandying around the concepts of fault and blame make me uncomfortable. But then addiction services do leave a lot to be desired. Although they will need quite a lot of money to improve. I admit that I have a degree of paranoid cynicism, I agree with what you say. I'll just eat my hat if it turns to good.

[weemadharold.livejournal.com]

Yeah, some of the rhetoric is definitely unhelpful. Knee-jerk moral judgements should have no place in politics. Somebody who broke their back while skydiving arguably 'brought it on themselves' even more than somebody who turned to drink as a coping mechanism. Fuck questions of 'who deserves it more?' let's just ask 'how can we help as many people as possible (within necessary budgetary constraints)?'

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I entirely agree with your question - quite pragmatic and sensible - just get fed up with the constant rhetorical appeal to the lowest common point of savagery denominator

[badnewswade.livejournal.com]

BTW, the Tories and the press have been ranting on about banning squatting:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23933443-ken-clarke-to-toughen-law-on-squatting-after-spate-of-sit-ins.do

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8363748/Stop-the-squatters-criminalise-this-unjust-behaviour.html

The Star even had a poll: "DO YOU FINK SQUATTARS SHULD GO TO JAIL?" sort of thing. I'm surprised; I didn't think their readers could count that high.

A squatting ban would be risky business though; we're talking "summer of apoplectic, screaming rage" territory here.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

It would get ugly. Although I'm almost fed up to the point of politely asking if they could just bring it on.

[cleverkat.livejournal.com]

One of the cities I used to live in tried to enforce a ban on sitting on sidewalks to "prevent the homeless from congregating". A bunch of my friends and I would sit with the street kids all the time when we were teenagers/young adults, sharing food and cigarettes with them. No one ever sat directly in the middle of the sidewalk, just on the edges or around the bus stops. Eventually the city gave up, as no one could prove loitering definitively. I feel for the people who are too ill, too young or too poor to fend for themselves.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Look at the City of Westminster (Central London) and the recent ban on giving away free food. As well as collateral damage for tasting ice cream even Christian Holy Communion, it's basically a clamp-down on soup kitchens, to drive away the homeless.

This is the same council as Dame Shirley Porter, another one who's worth the Googling.