'Universal Credit'? More like: "Shock & awe if you are poor!"

'Universal Credit'? More like:
"Shock & awe if you are poor!"

According to Milton Friedman's 'economic shock therapy', "traumatized economies should be shocked immediately, before the public can respond to the change."(1)

See also

• The connection between Universal Credit, ordeals and experiments in electrocuting laboratory rats(2)
• "I miss one bill [to] pay another." Universal Credit and debt, debt, debt. More #foodbank interviews(3)
• DWP: (n) UK-state-run modern slavery gangmaster(4)

 Placard and blog posting by Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Link references

1. http://www.naomiklein.org/reviews/ms-magazine-review-shock-doctrine
2. https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/the-connection-between-universal-credit-ordeals-and-experiments-that-electrocute-laboratory-rats/ 
3. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2017/10/universal-credit-and-debt-debt-debt-universal-credit-is-really-hard-i-miss-one-bill-to-pay-another-more-foodbank-interviews/#comments 
4. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/dwp-n-uk-state-run-modern-slavery-gangmaster.html

Benefit sanctions, social cleansing, the Shock Doctrine and loss of social security

Considering an apparent disinterest in the Conservative & Unionist Party Government toward benefit sanctions deaths — leading the DWP to cover up the benefit sanctions deaths enquiry results as best they can and continue to extend the sanctions regime to include low-waged people via Universal Credit conditionality sanctions — I thought of benefit sanctions as being in line with the torture element of what Naomi Klein exposed in her 2007 publication: The Shock Doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism.(1) (2) (3)

So after looking up what outlining reviews I know of that book, I went to a Naomi Klein interview headed Naomi Klein: Climate Change "Not just about things getting hotter.... It's about things getting meaner". That interview was first published at Common Dreams website, and later republished on the London Green Left blog.(4) (5) It was there that I came across this extract:

Q: .... what brought you to this point? How did you become this articulate advocate of this cause? What changed you? When you say, this changes everything, what changed Naomi Klein?

A: I think my wake-up call was definitely [Hurricane] Katrina. And I was writing the book that I wrote before this, I was writing The Shock Doctrine. And I was in New Orleans during Katrina while it was still underwater and doing reporting. I was there when all the lobbyists were descending on Baton Rouge with their wish lists: Close down public housing. Privatize the school system. And New Orleans, it was just such a horrifying thing to witness first hand. To me, it’s one of those events that actually becomes more shocking with time. With some things you kind of get used to them, but I think actually what happened in New Orleans, it was so shocking that we couldn’t actually believe it or metabolize it, in particular the fact that African-American residents were given one-way tickets out of their city, forcibly relocated, at gunpoint, people were loaded onto buses. And there was no plan to bring them back. And while they were gone, their homes were bulldozed. I mean this is, to me, the more I think about it, the more shocking it becomes and there was so much happening in that moment that I actually think that we could not fully understand that this was — local residents were calling it genocide and I think they had every right to call it that.

I shall leave my readers to investigate further and draw their own metaphors and conclusions for what is really going on under this Government.

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Link addresses

1. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/ministers-breach-foi-laws-by-delaying-release-of-fresh-benefit-deaths-reviews/
2. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/how-a-single-word-shows-dwp-has-finally-owned-up-on-benefit-deaths/
3. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/07/15/sharing-knowledge-in-the-face-of-further-attacks/
4. http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/03/naomi-klein-climate-change-not-just-about-things-getting-hotter-its-about-things
5. http://londongreenleft.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/naomi-klein-interview-climate-change.html

Global markets thriving on global warming and linked disasters

Naomi Klein wrote 'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism' that was published in 2007. An analysis of that book can help us understand trends that accelerated in the UK dramatically from the 2010 General Election, and also gives a keen understanding of what gloval financial institutions are doing to the Greek economy. See M. Magazine Review: The Shock Doctrine.(1)

Naomi Klein's latest book looks at the links betwen global warming and disaster capitalism's lust for creating shortage. Red Pepper magazine review of 'This Changes Everything'.(2) And as it seems that to me that the increased warmer weather trends in the Meditteranean are toward the 40deg C tipping point that could lead to what some climate scientists call 'tipping point', I tought of looking up the current temperature in that land that is in economic crisis.

While I've not found that yet, I have found this report of Caribbean-wide drought.(3)

No doubt there are forces at work in the global financial institutions that use another country's debt crisis as a cue for the financial institutions to turn from 'creditors' to predators. They will probably be rubbing their hands with glee at what is going on in the Caribbean and they themselves will be drinking their gin with bottled tonic water.

And nationalist organisations around the world that are funded by financial institutions will say that a rise in immigration is a root problem rather than a consequence of ever worsening global warming.

Meanwhile, the ambient temperature in my South-facing one-roomed flat has recently reached 27deg C (80deg F) even at night, making it difficult for me to get to sleep and worsening my health.

Notes — all links below were accessed today

(1) http://www.naomiklein.org/reviews/ms-magazine-review-shock-doctrine

(2) http://www.redpepper.org.uk/change-or-be-changed/

(3) http://uk.weather.com/story/news/major-drought-hits-caribbean-20150629

Autumn 2014 Budget Statements in placards

By Dude Swheatie of the KUWG

Challenge all benefit sanctions!

It really is the Government and its minions at jobcentres that are 'faking it'. In a world where daily signings on and intimidation regarding enforced conscription to 'Universal Jobmatch' are taking the place of real job creation and opportunities, benefits sanctions are applied unfairly and — when challenged — are overturned.

So reclaim what is rightfully yours, above all, that includes your dignity in the face of tyranny.

With a General Election 2015 looming, your MP can be more sympathetic and empowering than usual!

The Department for Work & Pensions' ploy of bringing in 'reconsideration' and 'mandatory reconsideration' measures before a claimant can appeal against a sanction or having their Employment & Support Allowance claim rubbished by the medically negligent is just to wear claimants down. Knowing that can do wonders for your resolve against those fakers. Writing your MP about such mistreatment that you have experienced can boost your claim to social justice, especially with a General Election 2014 looming.

Osborne's 'austerity' is not working but slavery

The 'austerity' measures of this Government operate to excuse a fire sale of public assets to the global wealthy, against the backdrop of public service cuts. It means what amounts to various forms of slavery for the rest of us. Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism can be very instructive regarding what is really going on.

One form of slavery is the regime of daily signing on, of which KUWG's Honorary Member Kate Belgrave has written illuminatingly.

Daily signing on is right wing government's substitute for real support for the unwaged and demeaning

Benefits that have never kept pace with inflation are being taken away from us

Derail the 'slash and burn' of 'austerity'

Smear stories sneak in unjust laws

Successive UK governments have followed right wing agendas and the dictates of lobbyists from global corporations. Taxpayers' money has been used to turn public opinion against the vulnerable, and now there is the Gagging Law to reduce a counterbalance of truth promotion.

Yet against that backdrop, Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group operates with its regular leafleting of jobcentres showing the unwaged that there is hope and good reason to attend our weekly meetings. This boosts the diversity of our meeting attendances, and our casework taken at and beyond weekly meetings is direct action against injustice. That direct action has helped many people get the benefits that even existing laws allow people.

In all this, we are funded through donations and are not statutory funds. If you are able to assist us in all this financially,

All cheques and donations to KUWG should be made out to 'KUWG' and sent to:
Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group
C/o 85 Webheath, Netherwood Street, London NW6 2JS.

Thank you in anticipation.