Media full of Newtown tragedy but ignores far worse in the UK

Lots of links to sources in this one - please visit http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/media-full-of-newtown-tragedy-but-far-worse-is-ignored/:

This is a difficult post to write, but I think it has to be written. So please, don’t make the mistake of thinking what I’m about to say means my heart isn’t breaking at the tragic loss of lives in yet another US school shooting.

As I write, the news media are showing constant footage and updates about the terrible events in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman has entered a school armed with multiple weapons and killed, according to the latest report, at least 27 people, including 18 children, having already killed both of his parents and, so it’s reported, his brother.

It’s an awful, awful situation. I have three children, though now grown up, and one of them is a teacher, so my heart goes out to those affected. But at the same time as I’m appalled and shocked, I can’t help thinking ‘But what about…?’

You see, because of the things I write about, and the research I do for what I write, I’m aware that there are things which are just as bad – and on a much greater scale – going on constantly in this country. The news channels are devoting non-stop coverage of the events in Newtown, and it’s understandable. What isn’t understandable is why the events in this country – also horrific, and hurting far greater numbers of people – barely merit a mention in the news media, let alone saturation coverage.

Already, in the US, the pro-gun lobbies are mobilising to defend the ‘right’ to carry guns. Within minutes of the coverage beginning, I had already heard a commentator talk of how the ‘gun lobby’ was trotting out its well-worn claim: ‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people‘, and is even trying to use the tragedy to call for more guns, arguing that fewer people would be killed by guns if more people had them ‘to defend themselves’, and that schoolteachers should carry guns to defend their pupils.

The mind boggles. But the thing is, they’re partly right. People do kill people – but guns allow them to kill others in far greater numbers than they could otherwise. Because people kill people, the more you can keep them away from guns, the more sense it makes. If you put guns in their hands, more people are going to die.

But we face a parallel situation here in the UK, and it’s what is causing those barely-mentioned and much larger tragedies I referred to above. Not because we put guns into people’s hands, but because we have power in the hands of people of ill will, stupidity, or both.

Power doesn’t kill people. People kill people. But power allows them to do so on a vast scale. Perhaps you think I’m crass to do anything but join in with the public show of horror and grief about the events in Connecticut – but let me tell you about some of those almost-hidden tragedies first, and then if you still think I’m crass, at least you’ll be making an informed judgment.

In Newtown, 29 people died in today’s shooting, plus the gunman, according to the latest news. It’s truly awful – but here are some other figures, which I hope will shock you commensurately. Because they should:

24,000

24,000 is the number of people who died in the UK last winter because of ‘fuel poverty’. That’s 24 thousand people who died because they couldn’t afford to heat their homes properly, and who died either of hypothermia, or of illnesses resulting from their inability to keep warm.

It’s truly a national scandal. And yet I can barely recall a mention of it on the news channels, and little more in the press. Certainly nothing like the coverage that we’re seeing now about the school shooting – or even the near-continuous coverage of the very sad death of Jacintha Saldanha. One royal-related death is big news, but 24,000 avoidable deaths, in a single winter and from a clearly identifiable, remediable cause, are apparently not. But then, the progress of the Olympic torch around the country was deemed worthy of mass coverage when the plan to privatise the NHS wasn’t, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

Our government has the power to do something about fuel poverty, in order to prevent a repeat of this national shame. So what is it doing? In a time of steep rises in fuel costs that are expected to continue for the foreseeable future – it is capping benefit rises at 1%, well below the general rate of inflation and miles below the rate of increase in energy costs (13% up to October this year, and another 8% or so from January)

330,000 – or 1.9 million

I wrote a couple of months ago about the government’s planned change from Disability Living Allowance (DLA), which is currently paid (in varying amounts) to some 3.2 million people, to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Iain Duncan Smith’s Department of Work & Pensions devised the new payment with the specific goal of excluding at least 500,000 people from the new payment who currently qualify for DLA, as a cost-saving measure.

Basing my calculations on this figure, I showed that the change will push at least 85,000 people below the poverty line – but that figure is based on an extremely unlikely hypothetical scenario in which every single person excluded is single and has no dependents. On a more likely situation, the number of people pushed into poverty will number in the hundreds of thousands.

But it appears I was over-cautious. Yesterday, the Tory Minister for Disabled People, Esther McVey, told the House of Commons that, of the 560,000 people who will be assessed for the new benefit by 2015, 330,000 are expected to be excluded from the benefit. That’s an exclusion rate of 59%. 3.2 million people receive DLA, so if the same failure rate applies as they become due for reassessment, that means around 1.9 million disabled people who will lose crucial support. Using the same calculations as I applied to the 500,000 initially flagged to be excluded, it means almost a million people pushed below the poverty line.

Factor that into the death rate from energy poverty, and you’re looking at a situation where the 24,000 deaths last winter will look like nothing compared to what we’re going to see, let alone the 30 innocent deaths in Connecticut.

453 – and counting

That’s the number of additional suicides that happened last year, compared to before the financial crash. As growing numbers of people face financial catastrophe, more and more are seeing suicide as the only escape. The government’s response? To demonise the unemployed, the disabled and low earners who are forced to claim benefits – and then to cut those benefits and deepen the despair, while the rich get richer.

73 – a week

This is the number of deaths (including suicides) among disabled people as a result of the government’s programme of Work Capability Assessments (WCAs), which is categorising people as fit for work when they are plainly not. 70% are eventually overturned on appeal – but the stress of the process and the fear of losing essential support are killing some and causing others to commit suicide. And the government is responding by capping benefits even for those who do pass the test – and closing Remploy, which provides suitable work for disabled people, while Iain Duncan Smith sneers at them and tells them ‘this is better’.

24,000. 330,000. 1.9 million. 453. 73 a week. All numbers at least as deserving of mass media attention as the 30 killed in Connecticut – and all conspicuous by their absence from the BBC and other news media.

Power doesn’t kill people. People kill people. But people with power can kill a lot of people - and this government is wreaking havoc among ordinary and vulnerable people.

The deaths of the 30 (as of now) innocents in Newtown will, rightly, bring people out onto the streets in the US – for prayer vigils, to lay flowers, to protest in favour of (and, insanely, against) gun control.

If the people of the UK became as aware, en masse, of what is taking place under the coalition government as they surely are now of what has happened in Connecticut, the streets would be packed with people protesting – and streaming to the polls in 2015 or earlier to get rid of those in power, killing people.

Which is, probably, why we’re not seeing those other numbers and many like them on our television screens.

The Tory Press files such stories under "culling".

oftenwrong wrote:The Tory Press files such stories under "culling".

I wonder what they file the UKs under, "Making the Pelbs pay for the B(W)ankers GREED" .

skwalker
You are so right - problem is, all these thousands of unnecessary deaths are undramatic, and for a public witha short attention span, a dramatic statement is needed to capture attention - which is why this wicked government is getting away with murder on an industrial scale.
When the statistics are brought to anyone's attention. everyone is so desensitised to death that they are inclined to dismiss any suffering and death that isn't dramatically presented.
Maybe we need to mount a series of vigils, in a public place, to commemorate those who have died unnecessarily, with photo's, audio and video footage, and to establish roadside shrines, like people do after road accidents.
Maybe a march to lay flowers and messages of remembrance at the door of the House of Commons, or better still no 10? Then the telly would have to report - maybe

boatlady wrote:skwalker
You are so right - problem is, all these thousands of unnecessary deaths are undramatic, and for a public witha short attention span, a dramatic statement is needed to capture attention - which is why this wicked government is getting away with murder on an industrial scale.
When the statistics are brought to anyone's attention. everyone is so desensitised to death that they are inclined to dismiss any suffering and death that isn't dramatically presented.
Maybe we need to mount a series of vigils, in a public place, to commemorate those who have died unnecessarily, with photo's, audio and video footage, and to establish roadside shrines, like people do after road accidents.
Maybe a march to lay flowers and messages of remembrance at the door of the House of Commons, or better still no 10? Then the telly would have to report - maybe

Great idea. I'd definitely get behind that!

wonder which organisation has the contacts/ access to data to get something like that going on a national scale?

Is one naive to suggest that this might surely be a good project for the Labour Party and Trade Union movement to organise and promote...?!

Not sure any political party should do this - needs to be a bit of a 'grass roots' thing - but certainly any party that was willing to support and endorse something of this sort would be getting my vote.

Phil Hornby wrote:Is one naive to suggest that this might surely be a good project for the Labour Party and Trade Union movement to organise and promote...?!

One hopes not!

boatlady wrote:Not sure any political party should do this - needs to be a bit of a 'grass roots' thing - but certainly any party that was willing to support and endorse something of this sort would be getting my vote.

We could enlist groups like DPAC, Keep NHS public, NHA Party, Where's the Benefit etc, as well.

I usually enjoy your posts Steve, unfortunately I think your so off the mark with your comparison to Newtown I'm embarrassed for you. To try and gain political sympathy by comparing politics to a raving mad murdering gunman (from another country) is pretty pathetic and this thread should be renamed or blocked (as oft happens to mine), unfortunately it will probably be my post that gets blocked such is equality of thought.

tlttf wrote:I usually enjoy your posts Steve, unfortunately I think your so off the mark with your comparison to Newtown I'm embarrassed for you. To try and gain political sympathy by comparing politics to a raving mad murdering gunman (from another country) is pretty pathetic and this thread should be renamed or blocked (as oft happens to mine), unfortunately it will probably be my post that gets blocked such is equality of thought.

All your post proves tittf that Steve has compassion and you are devoid of any just like the party you vote for, and believe in their IDEOLOGY and raving MANTRA of "KILL the PLEBS" get them back where they belong "UNDERFOOT" doffing their caps to the likes of us dick heads, just to inform you that will never happen but what might happen is what happened in France in the 18th century.

I usually enjoy your posts Steve

tlttf. I doubt if the sentiment is reciprocated.

I'm embarrassed for you

Not half as embarrassed as we are for you, with your grotty and snide postings which frequently consist of half-truths or downright lies.

comparing politics to a raving mad murdering gunman

Steve is making a perfectly valid point that terrible instances like a school massacre understandably attract a lot of media attention, while the steady stream of deaths caused by the policies of Cameron’s vile government hardly get a mention. A comparison could be made with a plane crash that kills 100 people, while the 3,000 deaths on the UK roads every year rarely make the news because they average only eight a day.

this thread should be renamed or blocked

Out of order. Mind your own business and leave the moderation of this forum to the staff.

Reporting by the Media is stimulated by novelty. A "new" event gets saturation treatment for as long as there is something to be said that hasn't been published already, and then the matter drops into the archives.

Criticism of the media almost always overlooks the simple fact that it has to provide the Public with what the Public wants in order to stay in business.

tlttf wrote:I usually enjoy your posts Steve, unfortunately I think your so off the mark with your comparison to Newtown I'm embarrassed for you. To try and gain political sympathy by comparing politics to a raving mad murdering gunman (from another country) is pretty pathetic and this thread should be renamed or blocked (as oft happens to mine), unfortunately it will probably be my post that gets blocked such is equality of thought.

You're entitled to your opinion, mate. As I tried to make clear at the beginning of and throughout the article, none of it meant my heart didn't go out to those affected in Newtown. My old school in Middlesbrough lost a pupil to a knifeman, and it would have been much worse if a heroic teacher hadn't tackled him, so it's a subject that provokes a lot of emotions in me. But we miss the steady but far greater tragedies because they don't receive the attention they should - public demand for the spectacular notwithstanding.

When British Moms become collectors of guns we will know that the end of civilisation cannot be long delayed.

I'm seriously worried about your mental health red. The only sensible rebuke comes from the thread instigator and people wonder why labour is a busted flush.


Cold homes will kill up to 200 older people a day, warns Age UK

Rising energy bills will put millions at risk from 'fuel poverty gap'

Cold homes will put thousands of elderly people at risk
Cold homes this winter will put the lives of thousands of elderly people at risk.

Two hundred people, most of them elderly, will die in Britain of cold-related diseases every day this winter, according to calculations by Britain's leading advocacy group for old people, Age UK.

"The fact that these 'excess' deaths occur in winter makes it clear that they are due directly to cold," the organisation's research manager, Philip Rossall, said. "And the fact that other, colder countries have lower excess winter deaths means that there is no reason that they are not preventable."

Age UK's special adviser for policy, Mervyn Kohler, asked: "Why is this not a national scandal?" There were 26,156 excess winter deaths during 2009-10, with figures for 2010-11 to be published next month. "There is no reason to suppose that the worsening trend will not continue," said Kohler.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/22/older-people-cold-energy-bills

Check the date and tell me about the caring loving government at the time?

tlttf wrote:-
I'm seriously worried about your mental health red.

I’m seriously worried about the mental health of someone who thinks that the lies he posts on this forum will be believed by anyone. I’m surprised you haven’t entered a collection of your posts for the Booker Prize for Fiction, nobody else would stand a chance. Here we go again:-

labour is a busted flush.

LOL. Is that based on the 12.5% swing in the Corby by-election, or Labour winning council seats in Tory heartlands like Chipping Norton, Burgess Hill and Stratford-upon-Avon? Or maybe it’s based on recent opinion polls?

YouGov/Sunday Times: LAB 45%, CON 33%, LIB DEMS 9% UKIP 8%
ConRes/Indy on Sunday: LAB 39%, CON 28%, UKIP 14%, LIB DEMS 9%
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

I notice you chose not to include this sentence from your source:-
"Although energy prices per unit are 50% higher in Sweden than in the UK, the average bill is 30% lower."

Just remind us who privatised domestic fuel and gave us these exorbitant bills. Just remind us who put VAT on it at 8% and tried to increase it to 17.5%. Tell us about the caring, loving government at the time. Then remind us which party reduced VAT to 5%, the lowest rate allowed under EU rules once it has been imposed on an item. And tell us who introduced the winter fuel payment for pensioners.

There is no reason to suppose that the worsening trend will not continue

Just remind us who is in power as things get worse; tell us about the caring, loving government at this time. Just remind us who reduced the winter fuel payment for pensioners after they promised that they wouldn’t do so. Your hypocrisy makes me sick.

Ivan, I appreciate your emotive about your beloved tinted party, do you really think attacking me (waste of your energy mate) convinces anybody that labour with their following has a democratic leaning, it appears fairness and debate are beyond some!

No answer to this then?

There were 26,156 excess winter deaths during 2009-10

Ivan, I appreciate your emotive about your beloved tinted party, do you really think attacking me (waste of your energy mate) convinces anybody that labour with their following has a democratic leaning, it appears fairness and debate are beyond some!

Dream on TTLTF, fairness and debate is all but lost on Cutting Edge, I have virtually given up and now usually watch from the sidelines as eventually they turn on eachother, which can be amusing.
Any written word 'pro Labour' true or not is perfectly acceptable and must be believed...anything else is outrageous and has no place here. I think you could call it a one side propaganda exercise.
Threads not towing the party line will be moved or merged or deleted....end of discussion!!

And.....The typical response will now be on its way...wait for it!!!!

And her we go.....The media is biased in favour of the tories, so now you know what it's like.
The Tories are evil and Labour are amazing ect ect.....blah blah blah

Ivan, I appreciate your emotive about your beloved tinted party, do you really think attacking me (waste of your energy mate) convinces anybody that labour with their following has a democratic leaning, it appears fairness and debate are beyond some!

No answer to this then? There were 26,156 excess winter deaths during 2009-10

tlttf. Oh no, not ‘tinted’ again. Have you only just learned that word? Is your vocabulary so limited?

I will certainly respond to the lies and half-truths that you post on this forum, correcting them is never a waste of energy, mate. When are you going to apologise for the libellous posting you recycled from ‘The Daily Telegraph’ about Margaret Hodge? When are you going to admit that Boris Johnson is far more profligate when it comes to taxi fares than Ken ever was? You’re happy enough to post trash yet you're invisible when you get caught out.

Then you have the nerve to complain if I don’t answer every last point in your squalid postings! 26,000 excess winter deaths is indeed unacceptable, so blame it on the party which privatised gas and electricity. The private utility companies offer us no real choice and don’t give a damn if people die, all that matters to them and their Tory friends is making a big profit. How much higher might that figure have been without Gordon Brown’s pension credit and winter fuel allowance, which this evil government has reduced? As you have posted, the problem is getting worse. Any answer to that then?

The Labour Party is far more democratic in its structure than the Tories have ever been, and this forum tolerates a lot more then your beloved Conservative Home. (Oh sorry, you keep telling us that you’re not a Tory – you just post all their propaganda and vote for them.) I made one posting at Conservative Home and it was zapped in minutes without any explanation; fairness and debate doesn’t interest Tim Montgomerie and his cronies. So once again, you can stop being a hypocrite, though on second thoughts, you probably can’t help yourself.

Threads not towing the party line will be moved or merged or deleted....end of discussion!!

blueturando. If you want to have a conversation with tlttf, please do so by private message, not on a thread.

As I’ve already demonstrated to you in a PM, anyone’s threads will be merged if they are similar, and why shouldn’t threads be moved if they’ve been placed on the wrong board? The number of threads that get deleted is miniscule. Your friend likes to pretend that he’s had lots of threads deleted (I’m not sure he knows the difference between a thread and a post), whereas the truth is that only one of his threads was ever removed – one which contravened our rules by promoting a well=known racist who became notorious for talking about “rivers of blood”.

Of course there will be personality clashes on any forum, regardless of politics. More importantly, there are some big differences of views between people on the left, and that’s what I hope this forum will be used to discuss. We know we have differences over the EU, the monarchy, religion, abortion, equal marriage, immigration, Scottish independence, localism and the role of the state, means testing, the voting system, the role of the unions, comprehensive versus grammar schools and social democracy versus socialism for a start. It’s the differences on the left – the natural majority in the UK – which lead to fragmented voting (and non-voting) and allow the Tories to slither into power when they really only represent the interests of a small minority of people.

Most of us here are well-acquainted with the evils of Toryism and/or US Republicanism. Right-wing policies are essentially based on hatred. They want us to hate everyone who doesn’t work, can’t work, can’t find a job or works in the public sector. We’re meant to hate unions when they dare to seek better pay and conditions for their members. We’re meant to hate all foreigners (and to view immigrants as ‘a problem’), unless they are rich, live in Belize or Monaco and make tax-free donations to the Tory Party. We’re even meant to hate disabled workers, because according to Duncan Smith, they just sit around drinking coffee all day. Now we’re meant to hate our neighbours if their blinds are down.

We all know – even if you and your friend don’t – that the policies of this government are bordering on fascism, which as Mussolini reminded us (and he should know) is the wholesale transfer of power from democratic accountability to unaccountable corporations. Try reading ‘The Shock Doctrine’ by Naomi Klein, a very profound book which might open even your eyes. We know that our current so-called Prime Minister is the biggest liar and probably the most corrupt politician ever to sit in Downing Street. We also know that Labour didn’t cause the global credit crisis by creating record numbers of doctors, nurses, teachers and police, despite the Goebbelesque repetitions of that lie by the Tories.

Should a right-winger who is prepared to do as much research as Steve Walker does, and is as able to construct an argument as well as he can, offer us a decent topic to discuss, it will be welcomed. It would be interesting to see the case for self-reliance, individual responsibility and small government argued cogently, especially if it offered solutions to the social problems which right-wing policies always create. That would make a pleasant change from just having to deal with snide remarks, downright lies and attempts to derail new threads with stupid questions or points of order. And prejudice such as “I wouldn't believe a single word that comes out of that poisonous man’s mouth” doesn’t exactly lend itself to constructive discussion.

To the Pure, all things are pure.
Virtue has its own reward.
The Coalition Government is acting like a foreign Army of Occupation.

Now is the time for all good men to do something about it.

blueturando. If you want to have a conversation with tlttf, please do so by private message, not on a thread.

Thanks for proving me right Ivan. Many posters have coversations with eachother on all threads here...are we non Labourites now banned from that too?

I imagine that for those poor souls who are too embarrassed to dwell on the impact of a Tory-inspired government, and for whom the time to blame Gordon Brown for everything from the weather to the price of fish has long gone , things must be so tough that there is nothing left but to feel mutually sorry for themselves...

Many posters have coversations with each other on all threads here...are we non Labourites now banned from that too?

blueturando. In one sense you're correct; other posters do say "hello" and "how are you?" to each other occasionally. However, your message to tlttf earlier today was nothing more than a public attack on the way this forum is run. As you've both been told several times before, that's not acceptable and you should confine your complaints to personal messages.

Now please tell me what else you're "banned" from doing on this forum.

Ivan wrote:

I usually enjoy your posts Steve

tlttf. I doubt if the sentiment is reciprocated.

I'm embarrassed for you

Not half as embarrassed as we are for you, with your grotty and snide postings which frequently consist of half-truths or downright lies.

comparing politics to a raving mad murdering gunman

Steve is making a perfectly valid point that terrible instances like a school massacre understandably attract a lot of media attention, while the steady stream of deaths caused by the policies of Cameron’s vile government hardly get a mention. A comparison could be made with a plane crash that kills 100 people, while the 3,000 deaths on the UK roads every year rarely make the news because they average only eight a day.

this thread should be renamed or blocked

Out of order. Mind your own business and leave the moderation of this forum to the staff.

Thank you very much Ivan, it just goes to prove like the party he votes for ITS "Self First and Self again if there anything left Myself again" not a half ounce of compassion any where in his body he comes from the ME ME ME brigade.

Ivan wrote:Should a right-winger who is prepared to do as much research as Steve Walker does, and is as able to construct an argument as well as he can, offer us a decent topic to discuss, it will be welcomed. It would be interesting to see the case for self-reliance, individual responsibility and small government argued cogently, especially if it offered solutions to the social problems which right-wing policies always create. That would make a pleasant change from just having to deal with snide remarks, downright lies and attempts to derail new threads with stupid questions or points of order. And prejudice such as “I wouldn't believe a single word that comes out of that poisonous man’s mouth” doesn’t exactly lend itself to constructive discussion.

Thank you for the kind comment! And they do exist - I have one passionate free-marketeer who comments fairly frequently on my blog, and we debate with mutual respect and even admiration. He helps sharpen my own thinking - and, just occasionally, he's right and I concede the point, or vice versa. It's fun, and stimulating!

A Nation gets the Government it deserves.

A Nation gets the Press it pays for.

Compare and contrast. (10 points)

If - and I say 'if' - there has been some less-than-honest reporting by an individual about Andrew Mitchell and 'Plebgate' we must contrast it with the almost daily less-than-honest reporting by virtually all the written media about the Labour Party and individuals within it.

In other words, while there is fuss when a Tory gets the dirty end of the stick, there is a calm acceptance of the daily lies which another Party and its MPs can face.

No wonder there are those who , like me, consider most journalists are worthy of greater contempt than second-hand car salesmen and brothel-keepers..

Can we bring some balance to this.

Newtown is an absolute tragedy. All our sympathies go out to those who have lost loved ones. And in other incidents.
But - mediawise this is a 'time limited' story. Our thoughts will be with the community, but what is done is past. We cannot bring these people back to life, only support those left.

But we can prevent further deaths, both in the US and the UK by continuing to focus heavily on preventative measures. Have either Government in their various ways the determination to prevent further tragedy.
A change of attitude in respect of guns in the US. A change of attitude in respect of the poor in the UK.

This must be a continuing 'longterm' media story. Only then can we be effective in letting authority know what we, the poor, think.

A solid rock can be worn away by drip after drip upon its surface. We need a flood at the moment to wash away the foundations that are being built by this unfeeling Government to whom 'reality' is a nice warm mansion and plenty of food and wine.

Enough said. My bile is rising.

I wonder if one way around the issue of the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms is to only allow each American to own a Flintlock Musket in keeping with when the Constitution was written....

QUOTE:

“[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.”

And there is evidently a major unknown for Americans surrounding the wisdom of allowing everyone to carry a gun.