This is my second article on my experiences as a self employed person on a low income on the government’s abysmal Universal Credit (UC) ‘social security’ programme. When writing my first article, it was even a surprise to me just how many examples of incompetence I had experienced in only around 7 months as a claimant. Perhaps, then, I shouldn’t be surprised that in the following 6 months I’ve experienced so much more incompetence that it justifies writing a second article. The main issues I have faced are due to the process of transferring from the ‘Live Service’ which I was on in Sheffield, to the new and improved ‘Full Service’ here in Oldham. Additionally, as I’ve been self employed for over a year, I have been introduced to a new kind of sanction called the ‘Minimum Income Floor’ (MIF). Transferring from the ‘Live Service’ to the ‘Full Service’ A few days before moving house in September, I had a mandatory work coach meeting at the Job Centre. I used it to explain that ...
‘Birmingham is a caliphate’ - the latest lie from the Murdoch machine.
Fox news are terrorising the public. This might sound ridiculous, but they are effectively non-violent terrorists. The Oxford Dictionary defines terrorism as “The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” - take out the violence and that’s exactly what Fox are doing; intimidating the population for political purposes, as well as using violence committed by others to further their own agenda. The Daily Mail and The Sun are much the same, though perhaps to a less insane degree due to Britain's marginally stronger regulations.
People are saying that Fox are stupid for making these bizarre claims, but actually they are very smart at what they do. They want to foster amongst the population a sense of being under siege , because a frightened population is an easily controlled one. Their paymasters want an excuse for war and the erosion of our human rights, and the demonisation of Islam is this excuse. Furthermore they want the people to be distracted from the real issues of poverty, inequality, and power in the hands of a financial elite.
I’m making no excuses for Islam, by the way, I think religions are harmful institutions, and Muslim fundamentalists are brainwashed, if not insane, but there are bigger problems to deal with.
This is all the most obvious when they show a photo of a Muslim woman (in a niqab, of course) pointing the crossbow towards the viewer, the message is: “YOU ARE THE TARGET!”, “THEY’RE COMING TO GET YOU!”. When people absorb these messages they will allow the establishment more and more power to stop the perceived threat.
Every Fox segment is orchestrated; they get 'experts’ on the show who they know will say exactly the right thing, while the presenter nods knowingly and validates everything the guest says. When they occasionally entertain an opposing voice in the pursuit of 'balance’, they shout them down and twist their every word; and if they cannot beat them they will personally insult them, cut off their microphones or call a swift end to the interview: “That’s all we’ve got time for…”.
Think of this: if Fox News or the Daily Mail were published in North Korea or China, we would call it propaganda and the manipulation of the public, so let’s call it what it is in the Western world, too.
They also know that they can lie without consequence, as long as they mutter a paltry apology and correction when they get caught.
The establishment claims that it needs the power to spy on and torture its own innocent civilians in order to 'protect our freedom’ - but what freedom will be left if they ever 'defeat’ fundamentalist Islam? When all our enemies are gone will they hand our rights back to us? Will they say “now that our work is done, we no longer need to spy on you… Guantanamo will be closed, GCHQ and the NSA will be disbanded”, or more likely will they create a new enemy, a new excuse?
In Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Orwell’s totalitarian mega-states were in a perpetual war of attrition, making occasional meaningless losses and victories against one-another, but constantly demonising the enemy. In one scene the people of Airstrip One cheer and spit as enemies from the evil Eurasia are publicly executed; an end that, some argue, Muslim fundamentalists deserve. The authoritarianism we now face is not ostensibly socialist as Orwell imagined, but capitalist, with the state being a weapon of the rich.
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