Sanctioned, A Vindictive Act Of Intimidation.

    I always find it amazing we accept how certain words used quite liberally in this society never convey their true meaning. Words like "austerity", it can be spoken by what seems a calm unemotional fashion, concealing its real life meaning. To those who spout it most, it means being careful with money, balancing the books, being prudent. When in actual fact, in this society, it means misery, low wages, cuts in social services, deteriorating health service and education system, and much more in the way of misery for vast swaths of ordinary people.

      Another word that can be used in a seeming innocuous manner is "sanctioned". Again our political ballerinas use this word in civilised tones as if they were oblivious to its true meaning. Its true meaning being, increased poverty, deprivation, stress, homelessness, mental health problems, family break-ups, suicides and more. Not a word that should be banded about with emotionless calm.

     "Sanctioning" someone who is on benefit is a sadistic, savage, callous act of vindictive brutality, meant to intimidate and bludgeon the poor in our society, into submissiveness. All caring and civilised people in this country should be up in arms at the very idea of such a vicious, life threatening act based on "upper class" ideology that see the poor as a group that need to be punished for their poverty.

       How long will we accept the cruelty that flows freely from this ideology of the wealthy ruling cabal of parasites, an ideology that thinks in terms of rewarding the rich and punishing the poor. How long will we accept such words as "austerity and sanctions" being used with calm politeness before we take to the streets to vent our anger and disgust with this system of hypocrisy and avoidable injustice and inequality?

 This image taken from    Humanity Torbay

 

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Living With The Fear Of Homelessness.

       Across the UK people are being penalised because of a government hell-bent on pursuing the policies of the financial mafia. You can pick any village, town or city and there will be people being pushed into poverty, or worse, facing homelessness. If its not low wages, it's zero hours contracts, if it's not disability benefit cuts, it's being sanctioned and having your jobseekers allowance stopped, then there's the bedroom tax.
       With the bedroom tax there are approximately 50,000 people living with the threat of homelessness because of this vicious attack on ordinary people. Homelessness has rocketed in the last year, up 62% in London alone, and other massive rises across the country as a whole. Why should anybody have to fight for a home? We are in a society where the fear of homelessness is becoming part and parcel of life.
       This is the picture of capitalist progress, this is us "on the mend", this is the vision of the mythical growth, that the millionaire cabal of pompous parasites keep mouthing off about.
       You could pick one of thousands of cases that bring home the viciousness and callousness of these policies, each one a display of the injustice and inequality that riddles this capitalist system, each one genuine and unacceptable.Though we should campaign to have the bedroom tax scrapped, the real answer is to destroy this system that has these policies inherent within its very fabric, a system built on power and exploitation.

 This is just one case put forward by Care2:

 

 

      For fourteen years Danielle Heard has fought cancer -- a disease that has left her disabled.
    Despite everything she's been through, she's now got another fight on her hands: avoiding homelessness because of the bedroom tax.
The cruel, unfair "Bedroom Tax" means that Danielle's parents must now pay an extra £80 a month in rent; they're now worried that they could lose their home if they can't stretch the budget to make ends meet.
      Right now, a staggering 50,000 people across Britain like Danielle and her family face losing their home because of the bedroom tax.

That's not right, and it's not fair.

Take action today: Join us in calling on David Cameron to repeal the bedroom tax and stop penalising hard working families like Danielle's.

 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

How Do You Live When Sanctioned?

     How do you cope if you are on Jobseeker's Allowance and you get “sanctioned”? Quite frankly, you don't, you can't possibly, unless you can dip into a nice bankbook, which in the circumstances is most unlikely. It's a matter of begging, borrowing, stealing or doing without. After all Jobseeker's Allowance doesn't let you save for a rainy day. Losing the pittance that you rely on to survive, even for a few months, can tip you over the edge. This policy is brutal, inhumane and totally unjust, and belongs to, what should be, a bygone era of peasants and serfs. In a civilised society, nobody should be treated in that manner or forced in to that situation.

       That babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is quiet on this matter of sanctions, far be it for them to reveal the truth of what life is like for the ordinary people, too many celebrities to pander to, and splash across their pages. However on the streets in the real world, where you and I live, the number of people being sanctioned is growing, we now have an army of people being brutally abused in this way. What is more, it is not just the Department of Work and Pensions that are willy-nilly throwing about santions, the companies that are involved in the workfare scheme are referring people to be sanctioned. Not content with getting the labour free, they want sweat and blood.

This from Corporate Watch:

Sanctioning – stopping someone’s benefits after a perceived infringement of the terms of their claim for between one week and six months – was a favourite policy of the previous government but figures revealed by Corporate Watch and the Observer today show the coalition, together with sub-contracted private ‘provider’ companies, has massively increased the amount of sanctions imposed.

To download as a pdf click here.

Read a personal experience of being sanctioned here.

      139,000 sanctions were handed out to Jobseeker’s Allowance* claimants in 2009 but this more than tripled to 508,000 in 2011, the coalition’s first full calendar year in government. There was little change in the number of people signing on in this period, meaning a much higher proportion of people have had their benefits cut. In February 2011 for example, 1.44 million people were claiming JSA compared to 1.42 million in 2009. 51,000 sanctions were imposed in the former month, compared to 9,000 in the latter.

       Many of these sanctions are initially suggested, or ‘referred’, to the Department of Work and Pensions by the private companies the government has sub-contracted to run many of its welfare schemes, such as the flagship Work Programme, for people who have been signing on for a year or more. DWP statistics, obtained by a Corporate Watch freedom of information request (download the disclosure here), show companies such as Serco, Seetec, Working Links and A4E have been even more eager to sanction people than the government.

      The companies referred over 110,000 cases to the DWP for sanctioning between the start of the Work Programme in June 2011 up to January 2012, the last month figures were available (they do not have the power to sanction but they can suggest claims should be sanctioned to the DWP, which then decides whether the reasons given by the provider are appropriate).

Read the full report HERE:

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SET-UP TO BE SANCTIONED.

    

         The Guardian has just released this video of a whistle blower explaining how claimants are set up to be "sanctioned", temporally removed from benefit. This is all part of the government's culture of targets, manpower cuts and spending cuts, part and parcel of a sustained attack on the most vulnerable in society. Of course anybody can see that this will push lots of vulnerable people over the edge. It will also go a long way to increase poverty in families and create stress related illnesses. This is Cameron's "Big Society", dump people and let them sink or swim, depending on their ability to access a suitable charity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2011/apr/01/jobcentre-whistleblower-target-culture-welfare

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