Bernadette McAliskey interview

[seafoid]

The Civil Rights movement was misguided says Uncle Tom...

people got far too uppity for their own good. Bloody Sunday was tough love.

[Oraisteach]

Being a member of the OO was virtually a requirement for any social advancement.  One snowflake, Tony, does not make a blizzard.

[Hardy]

Another example of argument from the particular to the general. The ould man next door smoked 80 a day and lived to 98. Therefore the statement that smoking causes lung cancer is a myth.

[T Fearon]

Facts

The Catholic Professional class,including  Civil Servants,suffered no institutional discrimination nor disadvantage.

Bernadette Mc Aliskey,by the fact that she attended Queens University,suffered no discrimination herself.

Catholic and protestant   working class were treated appallingly.

Discrimination against Catholics,where it did take place,was not due to a gratuitous dislike of Catholics,but due to the fact that they were perceived to be disloyal to the state and untrustworthy.This is not excusable by the way.

[seafoid]

Here is a list of the richest people of all time (not to be taken too seriously):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures

Considering the population has risen rapidly over the last couple of centuries, the wealth of some of those people, relative to the world's population at the time, would have be many multiples of the wealth of anyone living versus today's population.

Slavery was shafting the poor. Throwing people off their meagre land and leaving them with nothing, was shafting the poor.

Society shouldn't allow useless people to be born rich because their great-grandfather struck oil. We should tax these inheritances to death.

Benefit sanctions are cruel and unusual punishment . Food banks are a result and a disgrace in a rich country
The poor are targeted.


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/jobcentre-adviser-play-benefit-sanctions-angela-neville
Angela Neville, 48, is describing events she witnessed as a special adviser in a jobcentre that prompted her to write a play about her experiences.
"We were given lists of customers to call immediately and get them on to the Work Programme," she recalls. "I said, 'I'm sorry this can't happen, this man is in hospital.' I was told [by my boss]: 'No, you've got to phone him and you've got to put this to him and he may be sanctioned.' I said I'm not doing it."
Neville worked as an adviser in Braintree jobcentre, Essex, for four years and has written a play with two collaborators, her friends Angela Howard and Jackie Howard, both of whom have helped advocate for unemployed people who were threatened with benefit sanctions by jobcentre staff.
The title of the play, Can This be England? is an allusion to the disbelief that she and the others feel at how people on benefits are being treated, she says. And she unashamedly describes the play, in which she also acts, as a "dramatic consciousness-raising exercise".
Can This be England? deals with the quagmire that awaits people caught in the welfare system. Scenes are set in jobcentres and in characters' homes addressing some of what Neville calls the "everyday absurdity" of what occurs, such as when people with disabilities and fluctuating health conditions are wrongly declared "fit for work" inflicting additional suffering in the process. It also examines the dilemmas faced by staff in jobcentres, many of whom Neville believes feel stripped of any power to do good and are crumbling under the strain as managers enforce new rules.


http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/08/tories-avert-rift-church-food-bank-report
"The latest statistics show that since October 2012, 833,628 individuals have received an average of 1.73 benefit sanctions each. ."

the lies
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/08/tories-avert-rift-church-food-bank-report
"The report insists that contrary to government claims, food banks have spread because of greater need. "More recently, rising national income no longer appears to be benefiting those at the bottom of our society," it finds.Matt Hancock, the business minister, was reluctant to accept this conclusion, saying one reason for rising food bank use "is because more people know about them."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30323682
"Between 2011 and 2014, the number of people receiving trussell trust food parcels jumped from 128,697 to 913,138.The DWP did not comment on the specifics of matt's case but says sanctions are only used "as a last resort in a tiny minority of cases"

[muppet]

Seafoid nothing in your post is proof, or even remotely connected to, the statement that the poor are being shafted.

mortality stats not good enough?
Wages at the lower end being cut endlessly not good enough?
It all comes out in GDP numbers.
Median wage in the US is lower post inflation than in 1975.

Mortality rates? What are you comparing with?

Life expectancy has never been higher. Free healthcare wasn't always there you know.  As for 'wages', the threshold for poverty in Ireland has nothing to do with wages. It has everything to do with benefits, as why would anyone work if their wages were below benefits?

As for US median wage, wtf has that to do with poverty? The median wage could be high but you could still have people starving in certain areas. For example Britain thrived throughout the 1860s and yet they had a 'famine' in Lancashire due to the American Civil War.

[seafoid]

Seafoid nothing in your post is proof, or even remotely connected to, the statement that the poor are being shafted.

mortality stats not good enough?
Wages at the lower end being cut endlessly not good enough?
It all comes out in GDP numbers.
Median wage in the US is lower post inflation than in 1975.

Mortality rates? What are you comparing with?

Life expectancy has never been higher. Free healthcare wasn't always there you know.  As for 'wages', the threshold for poverty in Ireland has nothing to do with wages. It has everything to do with benefits, as why would anyone work if their wages were below benefits?

As for US median wage, wtf has that to do with poverty? The median wage could be high but you could still have people starving in certain areas. For example Britain thrived throughout the 1860s and yet they had a 'famine' in Lancashire due to the American Civil War.

Life expectancy is falling for people in the 4th quartile in the US. In the case of the US something similar happened in Russia in the 1990s after the collapse of communism. It's only a matter of time before it turns up in UK stats.
50m people in the US live on food stamps. Median wages lower than 1975 covers these people. Their standard of living continues to fall. Pauperisation is systematic.
There was a study done on life expectancy in the UK. Both the highest and lowest levels occured in Glasgow. The difference was 13 years.

In the UK over 60 people have died as a result of benefit sanctions .People with long term mental illness are particularly vulnerable.
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2014/10/21/uk-welfare-reform-deaths-updated-list-october-21st-2014/

[muppet]

You were talking about the 'poor'.

You jump from mental health issues, to mortality to life expectancy to your median wages. But you always ignore the point.

The poor has never been so few and never had it as good in history. Again before people deliberately miss the point, I will point out that I am not saying it shouldn't be better.

I can't post images, as I am on an iPad but Google 'poverty rates', and hit 'images'. Pick any one you want. Here is just one:

https://www.google.ie/search?q=world+poverty+stats+2016&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjplsKp3KjPAhWCF8AKHQEeBQMQ_AUIBygB&biw=1024&bih=672#imgrc=qIql_dhersh64M%3A

That is just since the 1980s. Try a graph since the 1880s. Or 1780s.

The poor are not being shafted as you claimed originally. Their numbers are falling thankfully. It is the working and middle classes that are being shafted.

[Minder]

Seafoid that link is absolute speculative nonsense, mainly people that committed suicide with mental health issues but are linking it to benefits.

Just to give a bit of accuracy, if someone is put off ESA, their benefits are not stopped, they then move on to JSA.

[T Fearon]

Seafoid you make Jeremy Corbyn look sane

[seafoid]

You were talking about the 'poor'.

You jump from mental health issues, to mortality to life expectancy to your median wages. But you always ignore the point.

The poor has never been so few and never had it as good in history. Again before people deliberately miss the point, I will point out that I am not saying it shouldn't be better.

I can't post images, as I am on an iPad but Google 'poverty rates', and hit 'images'. Pick any one you want. Here is just one:

https://www.google.ie/search?q=world+poverty+stats+2016&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjplsKp3KjPAhWCF8AKHQEeBQMQ_AUIBygB&biw=1024&bih=672#imgrc=qIql_dhersh64M%3A

That is just since the 1980s. Try a graph since the 1880s. Or 1780s.

The poor are not being shafted as you claimed originally. Their numbers are falling thankfully. It is the working and middle classes that are being shafted.

They are being shafted.You can look at the issue via mortality or benefit sanctions or median wage
It's not my fault if you don't understand it

The Republican party didn't understand it either

Lehman collapsed because of subprime which was basically lending money to poor people who because of the median wage thing hadn't got a payrise in a generation.
Wall St made hundreds of billions off the business. It's documented in that Michael Lewis book. they thought the system could go on forever. But you can't take money indefinitely from poor people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVXh4xM-Ww

Most of the homes were repossessed. Home ownership now is lowest in 50 years

The UK economic model is based on reducing working class wages with the help of migration and jacking up upper management salaries.
Needless to say the per capita growth is crap.

[seafoid]

Seafoid that link is absolute speculative nonsense, mainly people that committed suicide with mental health issues but are linking it to benefits.

Just to give a bit of accuracy, if someone is put off ESA, their benefits are not stopped, they then move on to JSA.

More than 2,300 died after fit for work assessment - DWP figures
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34074557

They are targeting long term disability, many of whom would be suffering from mental illness

The economic Policy doesn't generate growth either so the whole thing is pointless

[seafoid]

McAliskey :
"I grew up in this state with the opportunity, by virtue of free education and universal healthcare, of not only surviving extreme poverty but having a university education. I look at my granddaughter now, living in the same place [Co Tyrone], going to the same university, and she will be in debt until she's 50. If you look at those pillars, of education and health, they were accessible regardless of religion. That no longer exists. The welfare state is being destroyed."

40 years ago in the UK

Education was free
Healthcare was universal
People could live on benefits without being hounded to death
Social housing was still being built
Workers got payrises
The society could still produce people like Stewart Lee

"There's no way he would have made it to Oxford today, he says. "For a start, I was adopted. In the 1960s, the process took three months, now it can take three years. That's going to affect people differently. I might have been damaged by longer in care. And I wouldn't have gone anyway because of the debts. There's no way I would take that on. Thirdly, a whole generation of people are being made to feel that they shouldn't be studying the arts. They're being told that their degree has got to be cost-effective."
He especially regrets the disappearance of the old "support networks", such as the unemployment and housing benefits, that enabled artists to live cheaply and find their way. "It's all over. There'll come a point when somebody will suddenly realise – there's loads and loads of Coldplay but there isn't a Radiohead, there's loads and loads of ITV1 sitcoms, and things with Robert Lindsay in a house, but there isn't a League of Gentlemen. Someone will be reading an embossed novel about a missing artefact, and they will suddenly think, 'Didn't there use to be books that were not just a list of events?' " (Lee's well-known parody of a typical Dan Brown sentence goes: "The famous man looked at the red cup.") In 40 years, he reckons, people will be saying, "Where's all that stuff gone that was ... good?"


40 years ago in the US

One average industrial wage was enough to afford a house
Healthcare didn't drive poor people into penury
Workers got payrises
Life expectancy for blue collar workers was higher.

This is not some abstract thing. If working class people don't get things like payrises  and chances to develop their talents there won't be any economic growth. And if there is no economic growth nice middleclass people will not get the pensions they were expecting. 

[Gaffer]

Did Bernadette take an oath of allegiance when she entered the House Of Commons.

I understood that this was a requirement and you couldn't take your seat if you didn't although I can't imagine her having taken it!!

[T Fearon]

You can't take a seat without taking the oath.

As I said she was a female Bob Mc Cartney,egotistical and arrogantly presuming to speak and indeed think for the community from which she came,as in both their views, that community couldn't think or speak for itself.