Follow @stuckinscared Stuck In Scared: April 2013

Sunday 14 April 2013

A Ding Dong and A Prayer

In these times of such austerity I would object to Government spending millions of pounds on ANY ONES funeral, Let alone a multimillionaires! 

Now I’m the first to admit that I  never thought much of Maggie Thatcher, or her policies, and I also admit to ‘Ding Donging’ with the best of them when I first heard the news of her passing. In fact if I’m being really honest (which I generally am)  ‘Ding Dong’ had already occurred to me and been ‘smugly’ tweeted way before I’d a chance to realize that half of ‘Twitter World’ was one step ahead of me!

It might after reading that surprise some of you to hear that in addition to my ‘Ding Donging’ I have also prayed for her (Eyebrows down please, it’s a Christian thing) not the ‘Ding Donging’ obviously, ‘Hangs head in shame’, the praying I mean. 

It's hard praying for someone you feel nothing but contempt for, harder still when your feelings toward that person are not relieved by prayer! Perhaps praying for myself would have been more appropriate in this instance, since it was my own conscience that led me to pray for 'Maggie'. 
I'm not sure I'm making much sense! It's all very confusing. 
Being a Christian (in my head anyway) isn't always easy. 

You might also be surprised to hear given my frequent  *I can’t stand Tories rambles* that I often pray for them too (I can’t by the way – stand Tories; I despise everything they stand for!) but, it would be impossible for me to pray effectively for the people I DO care about without at least in passing praying for the hearts of these rich bully boys (and girls) - that their hearts will by some miracle be opened to the suffering of so many British people, (suffering they are directly responsible for!)

Having said all that, as a Christian, and as a human being, my heart, thoughts and prayers are first and foremost with........ 

The despairing parents who queue up with their frozen children at the ever growing number of food banks across the UK before returning their furrowed brows and frozen children to homes they can barely afford to heat! 

The 50 year old man made redundant through no fault of his own who unable to find alternative work now finds himself labelled scrounger by his own Government! (Striver to shirker overnight) despite having worked hard and paid into the system his whole damned life.

Sick and disabled people whose lives have been turned upside down under this regime. People whose own doctors are ignored in favour of under qualified ATOS/DWP assessors in a deliberate attempt to strip them of benefits. 
Frightened, vulnerable people whose illnesses/disabilities are being greatly exacerbated by constant and overwhelming fear of the next assessment interrogation.

The sick and disabled people who have died as a result of this Governments draconian treatment, and those who mourn them.  

The working man (On minimum wage) who struggles to feed his family and pay his bills even with the addition of tax credits and housing benefit! A man who must now find money from God knows where to pay a tax on his spare room, or down size into a smaller property that doesn’t exist!

The determined, fun loving, intelligent graduate who has spent almost every waking minute for the past two years trying (unsuccessfully) to find a job that pays a living wage and now faces losing her home due to bedroom and council tax charges that she simply can’t afford to pay.

And this week added to this already long list of ‘first and foremost’ my heart, thoughts and prayers are with my (disabled) best friend, who died unexpectedly on the same day as 'Margaret  Millionaire Thatcher'.

Any ‘Ding Donging’ going on in my house (or head) that day was silenced abruptly at 6.15pm when a voice on the other end of the phone said “Tracey’s dead”!

We were friends for 43 years, we grew up together, I never got to say goodbye!

The Government will NOT notice my friends passing, except perhaps that their figures will now show one less disabled person reliant on the state! 

So my friends, am I appalled that our Government think it’s acceptable to fund a millionaires funeral!? (whilst declaring it can’t afford to support all those I've prayed for *first and foremost* this week) Yes I'm appalled, yes I am and so 'I would imagine' is my God! 

PRAYER
Come by here my Lord, please come by here. Amen

Thank you for allowing me to share

God bless you and all those you love

Kimmie x 


Friday 5 April 2013

One Class - Humanity

The following guest post was written and posted on twitter a couple of days ago by @THemingford   A few people including myself felt that it deserved a wider audience.                                               

ONE CLASS - HUMANITY!

So, I tried the "class calculator" on the BBC website, it was a bit telling.

To start with there was no option for "carer" or "unable to work due to disability or illness", which I feel discriminates! Both of the above options affect income but not through choice or because of "market forces" etc. 
It concluded I was an "emergent service worker", which I found odd!
Anyway, the interesting thing was that when I did it again but using the circumstances my wife and I were in before disability took over our lives I was very surprised at the result. 

Years ago, I was lucky enough to earn a lot of money and my wife and I also managed to build up a substantial nest egg. We had a nice house too!
As many of you will know, we lost all of this through disability. We lost our jobs, our house, sold our cars, and then lived off our savings until they were exhausted. After years of hard work, we were left with no money and no assets. 

The interesting thing was that the calculator put me in the Elite group. Now, the only thing that had changed between my first and second inputs was the financials - income, value home, owning, not renting. Yet, it had significantly displaced me in the classification.

Now, I know we can say that this is just a bit of fun, silly software that doesn't mean anything but, if this does reflect how I'm classified or what ‘class’ I'm perceived to be in, then this means that my disability has changed my social class. It means the class system places me in a different class because of changes in my life that were out of my control and down to disabilities. I find that very distasteful and offensive. 

I actually find the concept of "class" to be vile, egotistical, and an example of how divide and rule can be woven into society. 

If I was still fit, and my wife was okay, I dare say our income would still be high. The point is regardless of income we're still the same people. The fact that we can't work now due to disabilities does NOT change who we are. I personally think that this shows just what nonsense "class" is, and how divisive the concept is. 

At the end of the day, we are all people, and putting man-made, virtual barriers between one another does not help one another. From the womb to the tomb, we are all human. We all belong to one class - HUMANITY!   By Thomas Hemingford.

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Thank you as always friends for allowing me to share, Iv'e had an interesting week myself and will pop back sometime in the next few days to throw it all your way :O)

God bless you and all those you love

Kimmie x

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