What a state this country and Glastonbury
are in.
Quite a number of our support workers have told us that
people who are very vulnerable and are not in a state to work have to pay their
support worker to take them to the Job Centre in Wells from Glastonbury.
They cannot walk and cannot use the bus.
Many of them are not allowed to drive because of the medication they are
on and if they did not use their support workers scheme at £14.80 per hour they
would have to get a taxi to Wells and back and that would cost a small fortune.
This is because they have been told that unless they attend
the Job Centre they could possibly lose all their benefit. That is of course
after their DLA (Disability Living
Allowance) has already been cut so how are they meant to be able to afford taxis
on the basic benefit? They have been assessed as being able to work under the
Fascist new rules implemented by the LibCon government and supported by many in
our local council. One person we know of who has been assessed as being able to
work has terminal cancer. Can’t they
even leave people to die in peace?
Local benefit offices, (including presumably Wells), have
been issued with new guidance on how to deal with people threatening suicide as
a result of the decisions made by Benefit Officers, (who after all are only "following
orders"). Mind you that as a moral
defence of actions was thrown out in the Nuremburg war trials.
The course of action forced upon people by this governments
Fascist policies is also upsetting support workers who themselves work for a
near minimum wage. They did not go into
that line of work in order to take vulnerable people to the Job Centre in order for them to be made to be forced into jobs they feel they are too sick to do anyhow. They feel bad but of course they are also
worried about losing their jobs. They
also have mortgages to pay and children to feed so we understand about their
role.
While the rich Tories party this Christmas those at the
bottom of society, (including single parents, the unemployed and the poor and
many others), as well the elderly and disabled will spent it being worried sick
as to what the future will bring for them.
We hope that 2012 will bring about a change in consciousness
of such immensity that this corrupt and immoral system will start to be brought
about crumbling to its bloody knees while we end this year having spent another
£5 billion on war, death and destruction.
We hope we can start 2012 for the beginning of the real New
Age. One based on love, justice and
peace.
"You may think we are dreamers but we are not the only ones"……….to
paraphrase a certain Beatle. Oh and of course remember "Work will set you free".
Produced collectively by The Glastonbury Disabled Peoples
Liberation Front
