Food Banks
Posted 08-12-2019 at 01:51 PM by DemolitionRed
After reading TS’s comment on poverty and those using food banks, I felt a need to comment (just not on the forums because if I did I’d be banned!).
A lot of people who use food banks are people who have recently and suddenly fallen into poverty. Its very easy in this day and age to fall into poverty and so hard to get out of it. People aren’t necessarily poor because they don’t work and people don’t necessarily use food banks because they don’t work. 50 per cent of people using food banks are actually in employment but not earning enough money to pay the bills and buy food. Zero-hour contracts where workers don’t know where the next job is coming from and short-term contracts that often aren’t renewed, especially in the public sector, means they just don’t have enough security or make enough money to sustain basic living.
We have a massive increase in people with anxiety because of the stress of just trying to stay afloat because of real lack of increase in wages. Whole swathes of the country have felt the effects of Tory cuts and everyone has to do more with less. People working several jobs where couples don’t even see each other because they are constantly working to try and make enough money to survive.
And for those who find themselves unemployed (There have been recent cuts of 550 million staff to public health services and preventative medicine) They now have to face big cuts to benefits and that awful introduction of universal credit where people have to wait five weeks for their first payment. That missed rent payment could put them on the street. Homelessness is up 98%, contrary to what Mr Sajid Javid claims when he says they had halved it, he’s a liar! The dehumanizing process for benefits is disgusting. The risk of suicide attempts from people having to claim benefits has sky rocketed and that’s happening in our country, one of the richest countries in the world!
When I hear some of the comments from the ‘don’t give a fckers’ it used to really bother me; actually no, it used to really scare me because when heartlessness becomes a reality, you have this awful underlying feeling that its going to reach out and touch your life and like a vampire, sap you of your energy. Now, when I hear such comments I normally smile, raise an eyebrow and turn my back. I reassure myself that such comments don’t really come out of the mouths of wicked people or people with no empathy. This gradual erosion of any sense of empathy towards those less fortunate comes from their chosen news sauces and ‘together groups’ they frequent. The sort of papers with headlines that say things like “£1.2 billion lost in benefit fraud” neglect to tell their readers that “£37 billion was lost in tax evasion”
This pitting against each other is very deliberate. Making us see each other as the threat stops us looking up because when we do look up we see who is really causing this crisis and that crisis isn’t being caused by the person who adamantly disagrees with me or me with them. Its not coming from the man who turns his back on a homeless beggar or believes all benefit claimers or food bank users are lazy scroungers and its not coming from those of us who desperately want change because we can see this country is in dire crises.
I would say though, it doesn’t look good and it doesn’t look clever to come over as having no empathy with your fellow man, no matter where they are in the world. Its not nice to have a cold heart because no matter how self-riotous you are in the here and now, tomorrow could be a very different story. Its always better to give a fck. It makes you a much more likable person… at least likable to those with empathy!
A lot of people who use food banks are people who have recently and suddenly fallen into poverty. Its very easy in this day and age to fall into poverty and so hard to get out of it. People aren’t necessarily poor because they don’t work and people don’t necessarily use food banks because they don’t work. 50 per cent of people using food banks are actually in employment but not earning enough money to pay the bills and buy food. Zero-hour contracts where workers don’t know where the next job is coming from and short-term contracts that often aren’t renewed, especially in the public sector, means they just don’t have enough security or make enough money to sustain basic living.
We have a massive increase in people with anxiety because of the stress of just trying to stay afloat because of real lack of increase in wages. Whole swathes of the country have felt the effects of Tory cuts and everyone has to do more with less. People working several jobs where couples don’t even see each other because they are constantly working to try and make enough money to survive.
And for those who find themselves unemployed (There have been recent cuts of 550 million staff to public health services and preventative medicine) They now have to face big cuts to benefits and that awful introduction of universal credit where people have to wait five weeks for their first payment. That missed rent payment could put them on the street. Homelessness is up 98%, contrary to what Mr Sajid Javid claims when he says they had halved it, he’s a liar! The dehumanizing process for benefits is disgusting. The risk of suicide attempts from people having to claim benefits has sky rocketed and that’s happening in our country, one of the richest countries in the world!
When I hear some of the comments from the ‘don’t give a fckers’ it used to really bother me; actually no, it used to really scare me because when heartlessness becomes a reality, you have this awful underlying feeling that its going to reach out and touch your life and like a vampire, sap you of your energy. Now, when I hear such comments I normally smile, raise an eyebrow and turn my back. I reassure myself that such comments don’t really come out of the mouths of wicked people or people with no empathy. This gradual erosion of any sense of empathy towards those less fortunate comes from their chosen news sauces and ‘together groups’ they frequent. The sort of papers with headlines that say things like “£1.2 billion lost in benefit fraud” neglect to tell their readers that “£37 billion was lost in tax evasion”
This pitting against each other is very deliberate. Making us see each other as the threat stops us looking up because when we do look up we see who is really causing this crisis and that crisis isn’t being caused by the person who adamantly disagrees with me or me with them. Its not coming from the man who turns his back on a homeless beggar or believes all benefit claimers or food bank users are lazy scroungers and its not coming from those of us who desperately want change because we can see this country is in dire crises.
I would say though, it doesn’t look good and it doesn’t look clever to come over as having no empathy with your fellow man, no matter where they are in the world. Its not nice to have a cold heart because no matter how self-riotous you are in the here and now, tomorrow could be a very different story. Its always better to give a fck. It makes you a much more likable person… at least likable to those with empathy!
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