Victoria S

All the stuff in the news about bank checks and fraud crackdowns and such - it makes me anxious. I know it's largely due to how they're rewritten, they're intended to be fear-provoking, to make the news folk money. Clickbait. Rage bait. Lies and confusion and control. But it's something else too, something I can't quite formulate into words. I can try, but no matter how many times, I write it down it doesn't full convey the anxiety policies, and especially practices, like this invoke.

I keep reassuring myself that I've nothing to be anxious about, as I know I'm not fraudulent or committing any crimes of any kind. Yet, knowing this doesn't help the anxiety, doesn't reassure, doesn't give comfort. It's another slap in the face, another reminder of how unvalued we are, how hated we are. Another small attack on our rights and supposed legal protections. An assumption of criminality without just cause, or rather, the "just cause" is a mindset of "poverty is a crime".

And it makes me fearful cos I've learnt over the years that when you're on benefits you have very few legal protections. Technically everyone has rights, it's written in law. But realistically, day to day, the less money, the less connections, the less value you have the less likely you are for those rights to be respected, let alone enforced. From council homes being technically unsafe to live in but not fixed or made liveable. Of police refusing to follow through on crimes cos the perpetrator has funds and we don't, so justice isn't available as readily to us, yet we're disproportionately punished when someone at the bottom of the social totem pole does commit a crime, and that's used to further justify eroding our rights even more. Government agencies and/or public figures (from social workers, to doctors, to work coaches, police, family courts, criminal courts, landlords, etc.) frequently lie or make life harder, either cos they're too overwhelmed and undertrained to provide the service required, or (in the case of a supposed minority but yet I've never met someone on benefits who hasn't had this experience atleast once, often multiple tims, in each field of "support" or "aid" they're supposed to be legally entitled too as a Brit) they actively enjoy playing with peoples lives. We're easy targets for folk like that, because we've no legal recourse to defend ourselves, as we've no money for lawyers or courts, etc. If we do complain, it's often our words against there's, regardless of what evidence we have, and our word isn't valued as equally as their, so nothing happens and they get away with abusing our rights time n again. I found out years later, after I complained about a doctor, that he put in my medical records suspected Munchausen, that I'm challenging and possibly hypochondriac - which added years to getting diagnosis for my disabilities - and no justice. Doctors since then have written notes that I'm not what was claimed by the other doctor, but it's still on my medical records and still there for drs to use as an excuse to deny due diligence and fair care.

So for your own government to say "sure we'll stop you from starving, just about, but well treat you like potential criminal the whole time and shame you for the life of relatively poverty you've have little control over, largely due to decades of government policies and cuts" is like kicking a dog when its already down, beaten, broken, and tired. Heck, I'm starting to wonder if dogs have more rights than we do these days. If someone abused a dog there are charities in place that will fight for that dog's rights in court. No one is fighting for our rights, rights to basic dignity and fair treatment. Even with courts saying the govs planned cuts to disability benefits is unlawful the gov still plans to go ahead with them. If that isn't proof of how vulnerable we are, that government can ignore their own laws when it suits them, I don't know what is.

Can people truly not see what a dangerous trajectory were all on, the slippery slope ahead? Instead we're just get told "beggars can't be choosers" and "you've nothing to fear if you're not doing anything wrong" which completely misses the point. First, they go for the vulnerable, then the working poor, then the middle classes, etc. that's when the general public will start caring and by then it'll be too late.

How can we have a cess to so much information, so much knowledge, and still being so gullible and ignorant to the harm being done to the most vulnerable in society. It's more than just scary. And even with all I've just said I don't feel I'm fully conveying the problem at hand, not enough that I'd expect anyone to read this and go "yeah that's fucked up, let's do something about this" cos we're all kept too busy by work or bills or pressures or responsibilities or stress to have time to fix problems that aren't impacting the "valued" within society yet. And like I said, by the time this impacts them it'll be too late. I hope for positive change, but things seem bleaker than ever.