So picture let us now the scene. You are scrolling through the endless cat pictures, videos and insufferable dull posts about people's lives on Facebook. You stop suddenly on a few of these pictures, and go to like one of them. There is a pause... Unlike the moron who clicked immediately, you think about them for a second, you try to find a meaning. Why has it been made? What does it really say? What does it say about me and my friend?
Picture 1.
Firstly, this is linking race to that other great Right-Wing crusade... benefit scrounging. It is clearly, and quite cleverly I have to admit, designed as a joke. One that I do not find funny, but one that many will do, the point is clearly labelled on the thing "share if you laughed". Something which many undoubtedly would have done without thinking about its implications. In this sense it would have been quite successful. Ultimately, it would have spread the lie that being foreign is not compatible with hard-working British ideals. This is and always will be nonsense. This 'joke' is designed solely to distance Johnny Foreigner and his lifestyle from the average stereotypical British person. It also has no truth to it whatsoever!
Want proof? Unlike the racists I will provide some. Here is a quick example from the Government and Office of National Statistics, with the most recent statistics I could be bothered to find. "As at February 2013, 16.4% of working age UK nationals were claiming a DWP working age benefit compared to 6.7% of working age non-UK nationals (at the time they first registered for a National Insurance Number) (resident working age UK population figures based on country of birth 2011, ONS). Claimants who were non-UK nationals when they registered for a NINo may of course subsequently have become permanent residents or British citizens."
If you share a post like that and you deserve... Toe Wedging
If you now dislike the person who shared this then congratulations, you remain a decent human being
Picture 2.
I can hear many of you reading this now saying "oh come on!!! How can a quote by Winston Churchill be construed as racist? He led Britain through World War Two and saved us from horrible racists!" Of course you would be right in saying that. Under his government we did indeed fight the worst case of anti-Semitism Europe has ever seen. Yes we did defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. However, that alone does not stop him being a nasty and despicable man, he was a racist. That quote is just one such example of it. By spreading this quote, or any of his imperialist attitudes you or your friends are implicitly condoning the actions of 'our once great empire'. The same goes for any of the other 'great' imperialists and their like baiting quotes.
For sharing a post similar if not the same as this one the punishment should be... The Pear of Anguish
If you decided to delete this idiot (who at one point was an acquaintance but is now nothing more than a footnote in your history) then you're still in with a shout of succeeding where that moron failed. You could still have an IQ above 70!!!
Picture 3.
This one has continuously annoyed me since I first laid tired eyes upon it. Why? Because just like a case of herpes it goes away every now and then just to come back when you least want it to. I could be in a good mood, then bang... The same old (eye)sore is back. This particular one is incredibly inaccurate, calls upon the vulnerable as emotional anchors, and uses foreigners as scapegoats for all their woes. All very much the key staples of right-wing propaganda. I can hear people say "surely they cannot make all of this information up, pensioners are paid poorly!" Actually whilst I do agree they are paid a pittance, they have made up most of (or at the very least selectively reported) the facts to create a sensational and divisive load of twaddle.
Point 1. Whilst the average state pension entitlement is indeed around £6000 per year (it is actually £5881.20 per 52 weeks) if you are entitled to the full amount. They have conveniently ignored the other eligible benefits in order to keep the total so low, such as: State Second Pensions, Pension Credit, Council Tax Support, Housing Benefit, Winter Fuel Payments, etc.... I'm not saying they are enough but, it is significantly more than what is stated on this piece of racist propaganda.
Point 2. The picture they have chosen to use for this is deliberately very evocative. It has been purposefully chosen to encourage the target audience (read: gullible idiots) to sympathise with this lady. She is hunched over in a pose reminiscent of frailty, the heightened camera angle encouraging the audience to view her as small or subordinate. She is counting a minimal amount of change in her hand, signifying the stated pittance she receives as financial support. Visually you are encouraged to view that as the sum total of her entitlement. By using all of these techniques in the photographs composition they want you to view her powerless in the face of this suffering. All of it caused by the 'folk devils' or immigrants/scroungers/government/whoever they want to crusade against. It is however nearly all lies; as we know pensioners are one of the most powerful groups when it comes to policy making. The grey vote is one all the politicians chase simply because they vote more.
Point 3. The use of a sensationalist newspaper headline is deliberately designed to label all immigrants as recipients of this little old ladies rightful pension fund. This is nonsense, it is a special case and one which requires some leeway. An example of this kind of rubbish, and quite possible the same article from the same newspaper (although I cannot verify that myself), can be found here. A few things jump out when you examine this article:
Firstly, it is a large family and as such there is a need for a large house. Simply put it is necessary to pay rent on a more expensive property.
Secondly, the father is an EX-asylum seeker, he has now become a legal and recognised resident of the UK on reasonable humanitarian grounds.
Thirdly, he had become unemployed after losing his job as a bus conductor. He used to work but is unfortunate to be without a job at the time this article was published. Convenient subject matter if you wish to demonise a group as scroungers.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the authors of the article gloss over the real problems mentioned in the article. This is done so they do not draw too much attention to the true cause of such high payments. It states very briefly that the house "is owned by Brophy Group Business Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company whose registered address is a post office box in Liechenstein". Someone is making huge profits on renting this accommodation to this family, simply because there is not enough social housing being built and what there was is being sold off, whilst having the money pumped out of the UK into two tax havens!
Point 4. This is by a country mile the most inaccurate and the most irritating. Illegal immigrants cannot claim benefits, because by definition they are ILLEGAL. If they came forward and tried to claim benefits they would be caught out and deported! That one piece stupidity alone is enough to make me want to rip the beating heart out of anyone's chest who likes or shares this rubbish. As for refugees they are rightly entitled to benefits should they need them (just like the aforementioned family). Asylum seekers are another favourite of these idiots and I will quickly address that too. They are entitled to some benefits but they are negligible, about £36 for a single person.
Anything that has 'factual' statements that seem to be incredibly unfair or just plain ridiculous need to be verified before you believe them, that is just not a rule of the internet. That should be a known practise in every aspect of life. Do not trust everything you read, especially if it is trying to scapegoat someone or something. Disinformation is one of the key tactics used by these people. The racists, fascists and a lot of politicians will use the average person's laziness, or inability to research the facts, to spread hate and anger at minorities. Groups who are almost exclusively made out to be the sole benefiters of structural inequalities in our society, rather being the targets of discrimination.
Punishment for anyone spreading this level of nonsense should be proportionate to the crime... Flaying
Congratulations, if you punched that moron in a particularly nasty part of their body. Even more so if it came after running 23,547 miles to their home (just because you felt so strongly about the need to). Unlike your (now former) friends you can spot racist propaganda and you do not easily fall for the techniques they use to spread this nonsense.
These are only three of the many, many examples of this nonsense currently filling the social media platforms. It could be described as having similar properties to brown and foul substance, one often found in a porcelain bowl.
*Disclaimer* I do not accept any responsibility for torture that is done upon the idiots who spread the aforementioned rubbish throughout the various forms of social media. What is done to them is the responsibility of the person who deemed it necessary to go too far, especially when a simple "you're an idiot and a racist whom I shall no longer associate with" would have sufficed. The torture methods were suggested for my own amusement only!
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