Rarely do I drink, I do not go clubbing nor even the pub, I do not smoke, I shop in charity shops, eat own brand foods, but because I am disabled, society believes it is acceptable to ensure that every third week I have to isolate myself through financial deprivation.
I have good days & bad, on good days I may look well, on bad days I will not be seen. I never ever have a pain free day. I try to live on my ‘good’ days, but society makes me feel guilty for doing so.
I get a letter through the door and my heart seems to become lead. My imagination forms a living nightmare and my mind is full of dread. The envelope says either DWP or Belfast and I feel my future ebb away, a wall builds and I no longer function as a grown up. It may take days for the last shred of me to get the strength and yes stubbornness to open the letter.
If its a form the dread becomes fear, self loathing and anger. I should just fill it in and send it off but i no longer have that ability, I become numb, less than human, the form is now a battle I am scared i cannot win. Its just a form to people that will never need to complete it, but to me it is my nemesis, a step closer to my end, more than any child is lying under the sheets in terror of the monster under the bed I shut down.
I am literate, a grown up, even intelligent, yet a simple request for information kills me a little more.
I ring the DWP, am on hold for an hour and the call is ended without any acknowledgement. I ring again, another hour, even having to take my phone to the loo as my crohn’s continues its mission to clean me out, hoping they answer soon but now my phone dies. Another hour later I finally speak to someone, then as I tell the man on the other end of the phone how I am now suicidal, how I am not coping, the line goes quiet. I think its gone dead, but then his voice returns, not addressing me, but talking to his work colleague, talking about how another work mate has sent a picture around the office. The anger rises, I bared myself, lost even more dignity, became less human and this bastard, a person paid to listen to me was not even interested in my despair, my very real thoughts of killing myself, and worse no one cares.
This is not my story, I do not own it, it is shared by many many more human beings, people that may be your children, parents, friends, brothers, sisters or even sadly you. This is how society reacts to the disabled, the ill, the vulnerable. How we are taught to see those in need, the folk that this Tory government has deliberately dehumanised, made us despise and loathe. The people that the Conservatives see as a drain on our – their resources.
We currently live under a government determined to strip the assets from our country, from us all. This government would rather spend hundred of millions of our pounds stopping people in need from getting their entitlement, the money they need to survive. A government with ministers that will gladly waste tens or even hundreds of millions of pounds on fabricated ferry companies to feed public funds to their mates, but will sit by and watch a human being starve to death, to die looking like a victim of Belson concentration camp.
Today is local elections, EU election, not a General Election but your vote is beyond important, it truly matters, we need to condemn the Conservative Party and its cruel regime to history as we did the memory of Belsen and all the other vile tyrannical regimes of the past.
People will scream at how I compare the Tories to Nazi’s but sadly from the outset ‘Strong and Stable’ Theresa May seems to be intent upon picking and choosing from Hitler’s lessons.
We have a government that dehumanises not just disabled, but folk that have different lifestyles and cultures. A government that allows folk to die on the streets, and sadly councils that fine, imprison and strip the homeless.
A government with MP’s and Councillors that see foodbanks not only as acceptable but a positive way forward. A government stripping us of everything that they can profiteer from.
So please please get out, vote and do not waste your vote.
The Lib Dems allowed the Tories to get in, supported the lie that is austerity, and betrayed a nation.
The New Labour has gone, we now have True Labour. Socialist Labour. A potential for a caring society once more. A society that does not demonise those in need but supports them, that offers not just you but your children a future. Today is the first real chance to begin the fight to claim our country back. Lets take it, grab it with both hands.
So today do the one thing that makes sense, see through the lies you have been told, and today VOTE LABOUR.
Jonesy
#VOTELABOUR
#EndAusterity
#EndCorruption
#EndToryBritain
Jonesy Dog of Socialism & the Trikerpoet 