#ESAendgame: Day Four & A New Task

This time Sue Marsh wants positive reactions and constructive suggestions. Here's your chance to have your say! %)

Today's #ESAendgame request - IMPORTANT

#ESAendgame means exactly what it says.

It's time the people spoke. With one voice and said "Enough is Enough"

We have the evidence - we've had it for years.

People are desperate and our politicians - of all parties - have been too slow to make improvements that would have saved lives and untold human suffering.

We will not wait for another review - we've had 4 official reviews - they've all said the same thing. ESA needs comprehensive change and we are not prepared to wait any longer. If the political system and mainstream media insist on failing us, if they will stand by while this misery is carried out behind a veil of lies, then we MUST act. And we must act NOW. Together.

The dazzling success of The Starting Gun http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html led 450 people to say what they believe is wrong with ESA. What needs fixing. These will form the basis of our demands. (More to come Monday)

Today, I want people to say what ESA SHOULD do. How it should work. What would you like to see change? How could ESA and WCAs be better for you? How can we make them more efficient? Where can we save money? 

Where The Starting Gun was negative, let's be positive. We know what works and what doesn't - we know what needs to change. 

So everyone, sick or healthy, disabled or more able, mentally ill, carers, people with learning difficulties, people with fluctuating conditions and terminal disease, charities, unions.

PLEASE tell us in the comment thread what you need ESA to be and how it should work. What you believe is right and just in a compassionate, progressive society.

If you need a little inspiration, go to the #ESAedngame hashtag on twitter, you'll see some people started to give their thoughts last night.

Again, please can I ask you to stick to one sentence where possible and leave your 

-Name (or pseudonym/social media name) 

-Constituency. 

-And the one thing you most want to change about ESA This is vital for the success our campaign.

This project will ONLY work if you join in. thousands of us are unhappy with ESA, the injustice, the harrassment, the scapegoating, the fear. The ONLY way ordinary people like us can change things is to show that we have a voice. 30, 50, 100 responses won't do. Thousands of us need to tell the country what we want, what we need. 

Please, join us, leave comments about what change we need from ESA, share, tweet and support. 

YOU will make this work. 

Alone we Whisper, Together we Shout. 

#ESAendgame 

If you're "in" please sign http://wowpetition.com/ Thank you 

PLEASE, RT, Share and encourage

#ESAendgame: Day Two's Task

Here is the great Sue Marsh's ESAendgame task for today - absolutely anyone can join in. Please post your comments & links via the following:

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/you-in-for-todays-little-task-esaendgame.html?showComment=1362672072572

I have however listed the links I posted on Sue's site as examples. Happy searching!

You in for today's little task? #ESAendgame

*Waves at all the #ESAendgame people blushes a little there are so many, clears throat*

So, most of the public don't have a clue what ESA or WCAs are. For the next few weeks we need to dig out and share some of the best ESA stories or TV programmes or radio debates we remember and share them around. Everywhere.


Please post your favourite links in the comment thread. **IF LINK IS LONG PLEASE INDICATE WHERE IN ARTICLE INFO IS** 

Again if you can please leave your 

Name (or Twitter/Facebook/Pseudonym) &
Constituency


Here's a few tips :

-Always use the full Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) at first so people start to learn what it is. Same with WCAs

-Remember a particualar time Graying got shown for the liar he is? 
-Remember punching the air when the Mail or Telegraph or somewhere actually wrote something fair about ESA? 
-Remember a statistic that literally blew your head off?
-Remember the first time you read something so clear, a huge penny dropped?

-Dig them out and share share share. At work, online, on twitter
-Be prepared to be patient at first if people ask questions. They almost certainly won't be very sympathetic at first, but that's what they've been told, most people aren't unkind.
-Absolutely never rise to trolls under any circumstances. Stay polite and informative.

We need people to really start thinking about ESA, understanding what it is and what we're actually so afraid of and cross about. Print some off and scatter them round at work, in the hairdresser, on noticeboards - nothing is silly.

Time to fightback with facts!!!!

#ESAendgame: Update on Day One

Title says it all - and what reaction! Here's Sue Marsh's follow-on blog. Remember: please leave your comments on Sue's site at -

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html

#ESAendgame Beyond Day 1

The launch of #ESAendgame yesterday was simply remarkable.

Nearly 9,000 people have read about #ESAendgame in under 24 hours. 

It was the most shared and read article online in the UK yesterday. (Ebuzzing News)

318 people have taken part in our consultation "What Most Needs to Change about Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Why" In DWP terms, 318 responses is very large. But I want 1,000 - 2,000 We MUST show that we truly represent the experiences and opinions of sick and disabled people and their carers. A consultation here with thousands of comments is a VERY powerful tool in anything we compile.

PLEASE keep sharing any of the consultation posts like yesterday http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html

whenever you can and encourage people to comment - you don't have to be sick or disabled or a carer to understand that ESA is inhumane and want to stand up for justice. I can't stress enough that #ESAendgame is open to EVERYONE. In fact, the more non-disabled people, DPOs, charities, MPs and "influential politicoes" that contribute and who join with us, the more credible our response and more frightening for Government. 

It is ONLY unity that will convince the government to think again, but with unions, the TUC, disability groups, political sites, everyday blogs on shopping and cooking and fishing, charities and politicians ALL talking about why ESA must be changed NOW we CAN win. But every last one of us has to join. Please, cross-post everything - you don't have to ask, just link back so we can estimate our reach.

So far, the issues people believe to change about the WCA and ESA RIGHT NOW (In order of most mentions) are :

Fear and Dread caused by the process

Constant Reassessment

The One Year Time Limit

Worsens Mental Health conditions

Continuing scrounger Rhetoric and made to feel dishonest and worthless

The Error rate and inaccuracies on forms and in decisions

Continuing inability to deal with Mental Health conditions

Makes symptoms/illnesses worse. 

Assessments are inhumane

The assessment ignores own Drs/medical evidence

Removing ESA indefinitely for reconsiderations before appeal - fear of no income

Fear of the Brown Envelope

WCA is designed to make you fail

The Assessors are not appropriate to the condition

Only 30 days to return the ESA50 application form

The form is to hard to fill in and takes enormous emotional toll

It's just a tick box system that gets 1 in 6 decisions wrong. LIMA must go

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is not a "real life test", not about what you can do in a real job

Poverty casued by out of control process

People dying days after being found "Fit For Work" - in ever increasing numbers

**TRIGGER** ESA process making some suicidal

A growing number of people are "Fit to Work" according top Atos, unfit according to JCP and stuck in limbo

Changes are purely ideological and not based on evidence

The process is clogged up and taking far far too long

Many Disability Testing Centres are still inaccessible

Lies on forms

Fear for the future of dependants without carers

The descriptors do not apply to many conditions

Money taxpayer is paying for this failure

Forcing abuse victims to discuss abuse with stranger

I think that's a pretty good start as mini-sections of a report to present to the public eh? Your quotes explaining each one and adding human warmth? 

PLEASE we need new people to join every day and leave comments. 

Name (or twitter/Facebook/pseudonym)

Constituency

1 line on what needs to change NOW about ESA

And please keep sharing every day and using #ESAendgame on twitter when discussing ESA. Let's keep building momentum

**PLEASE do remember to leave your constituency. It's not an address, but will be SO helpful later when we want to contact every MP and peer in the country to already have people who can send a quick email or two in every constituency. 

Ekklesia wrote this wonderful article with a selection if #ESAendgame tweets, it's very powerful and another GREAT article to share. http://t.co/5yRsJCUpSd

As always, if you care about this, please sign WOW petition 

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154

#ESAendgame: Sue Marsh's Starting-Pistol

This is from my modern-day saint, the great activist Sue Marsh, who more often than not works from a hospital bed. Please post any comments you have on her site. Here is the link:

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html

ESA SOS - The Starting Gun

In a few weeks, I'm going to arrange for some very significant stories to break in the very mainstream press about ESA.

I've been collecting them for about 6 months and if there's any justice left at all, they will kill ESA once and for all.

They will totally change your perception of ESA and WCAs

We need a Spartacus 2 and as you all know, I've been sick as a dog.

Today is stage one. If you're in, please leave your Name and user name on twitter or Facebook (Feel free to only provide the latter if you like to keep your anonymity a little) and Constituency

You don't have to be claiming ESA or even sick or disabled or a carer. This is a mutual shame, a shared disgrace. We must ALL show politicians of all parties, the public are NOT OK with this. 

There will be a task most days, so please keep watching my blog. 

Today, I would like something very specific. What is the worst thing, for you about ESA/WCAs? I need you to simply leave a one line answer if possible, ie "1 Year Time Limit - It totally undermines any contributory principle"

The most popular of these "subjects" will make up every short section of the new report.

Share this post everywhere you can. This will be the start of our biggest fightback. EVERYONE will have to give this everything if it is to work. We need hundreds of responses to every request to make this a truly representative report from disabled people, by disabled people. The more join, the more powerful our voice and the more impact any final work will have.

What's more, by crowdsourcing our information and skills, believe me, we have 100 times the resources and ability of the DWP.

I have an awesome team in place - they produced #esaSOS in just 4 days. Hard though it will be, PLEASE, I'm still very weak and CAN'T read endless comments or pages and pages of Hansard or reports. Make this easy for me by keeping as close to the brief each day as you possibly can. I WILL cover everything, nothing will get missed. I'll ask the question you're itching to comment on, honest, but if we do it this way, I can delegate very much and empower you all to know exactly what we need.

Even a shadow of division will see us fail. This will need every group, every campaigner, every supporter, no matter how radical or moderate, how powerful or unknown, every journalist that has supported us, every politician who is fully signed up to our arguments.

If you have a prominent welfare/disability/political voice, website or other outlet, please cross post this from me. 

So today, in the comment thread below please leave :

Name and social media name/s (or just the latter if more comfortable)
Constituency
The WORST thing for you about ESA/WCAs in one line. 


****ESA is the most terrible failure of any developed nation for a very long time. The reasons are numerous and utterly undeniable. The government has failed to implement Harrington with any commitment and is actively increasing the rate at which vulnerable people face a failing and unfair test. We have engaged with a democratic process that has failed us at every stage. We have no choice left but to stop this ourselves. Over 100,000 people now face some kind of ESA assessment every MONTH. We can't afford to wait. ****

Enough is Enough. 

From today, please use the hashtag #ESAendgame in all your tweets. We must build awareness and create an army or support and dissemination. 

"Alone we Whisper, Together we Shout"


http://wowpetition.com/

Twitter's Catch-22

On Sunday 10th February I collated tweets I had sent or had been sent to me in relation to disability bias at the BBC and referrals to the BBC Trust in a Storify. This was only my second attempt at creating a Storify narrative. I had referred to or quoted some two hundred folk. I assumed that the etiquette is to inform all those mentioned that they are included, in case they wish to raise any objections or caveats. So I began sending tweets apprising them. I eventually completed the task and a couple of hours later my account was suspended just as I was reading the "Twitter Rules".

Twitter did not send me any communication explaining what had happened and the reasons therefor, so I went to the help area and lodged an appeal, as apparently this is what one is supposed to do. In response to the appeal, I received the following email.

10th February

Hello,

We understand that you're contesting an account suspension. Please be sure to read this entire email; you will need to take further action in order to reopen your ticket and trigger a review of your account.

Twitter suspends accounts for a variety of reasons:

• If your account was suspended for aggressive following behavior, you should have received an email notification to the address associated with your Twitter account. You'll need to confirm that you've removed all prohibited following automation from your account, and will stop any manual aggressive following behavior. To expedite your appeal process, please review our Best Practices page if you haven't already, and then reply to this ticket with a confirmation that you understand our policies and will not engage in any prohibited following behavior.

• Please take a minute to review the Twitter Rules.

• If you received an email from admin@twitter.com saying 'you're being suspended' or that we're going delete your account, you're safe; the email is fake. More information here https://support.twitter.com/articles/204820-safety-fake-twitter-emails

• While we strive to avoid mistakes, it's also possible that your account was suspended in error. If after reviewing the Rules, you have no idea why your account was suspended, just reply to this email indicating as much, and we'll take another look at your case. Our apologies if the error turns out to be ours.

Thanks,

Twitter Support

So I replied:

10th February

Can you apprise me of the problem and how to put it aright, as per request. From my twitter a/c you will see I have already checked rules & regs, just before you suspended the a/c.

Cheers!

[Image description: Twitter logo on smartphone screen surrounded by water droplets which could be construed as tears. © unknown, http://cafedocbao.com/danh-muc/cong-nghe/thuong-hieu-nao-quot-mat-nho-quot-khi-facebook-thanh-loc-tai-khoan-ao--403386.html]

There was then no further communication from Twitter until...

12th February

Hello,

This account was suspended for sending multiple unsolicited messages using the @reply and/or mention feature. These features are intended to make communication between people on Twitter easier. Twitter monitors the use of these features to make sure they are used as intended and not for abuse. Using either feature to post messages to a bunch of users in an unsolicited or egregious manner is considered an abuse of its use, which results in account suspension.

For more information about these features, please visit our @Replies and Mentions help page:

http://support.twitter.com/articles/14023

Your account will be unsuspended within 24 hours. Please note that it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal.

Be sure to review the Twitter Rules, as repeat violations may result in permanent suspension:

http://twitter.com/rules

Thank you,

Twitter Support
support.twitter.com
@support

I then attempted to gain clarity as Twitter's response did not really answer my query, in my opinion of course.

12th February

Dear Twitter Support,

Well, as you have not been specific about which tweets you are referring to, I cannot fully defend myself.

Whilst the tweets may have been unsolicited - all tweets are unsolicited, it is their very nature. However, I deny that any of my tweets are egregious. On the rare occasions I swear I use symbols to block out letters and do not consider that any of my tweets could be construed abusive. I have remained courteous at all times.

My tweets are directed at all my followers or specifically at individuals who might be interested due to their interests or positions. As you have failed to give concrete examples of any problems, it is difficult for me to know exactly what the issue(s) is(are).

As I have already advised you, you suspended my account just after I had finished reading the rules; so I very much doubt I shall find any help there.

No-one I have contacted has ever said they objected to one of my tweets and if anyone (or more than one!) has blocked me, I am assuming I would be informed of that. That being so, as far as I am aware I have not been blocked.

Whenever I come across spammers, I have blocked them and apprised you thus exercising my civic duty.

As the point of twitter is surely to network and share information, which is all I have been doing, I cannot see what issue you take with my tweets. I behave in the twittersphere as I would in the real world: with politeness, honesty and where possible humour.

I iterate that without your being more specific, it will be impossible for me to behave as you would have me. Please therefore provide me with a fuller explanation, than thus far given, as well as detailed guidance on how to avoid pitfalls.

Yours,

My attempt at gaining clarification was to all intents and purposes bounced.

12th February

You tried to update a request that has been closed. Please submit a new request at http://support.twitter.com/forms. You can also visit our help center at http://support.twitter.com for self-help solutions to common problems. Thanks!

I did as I was told, and once again I was bounced.

12th February

Hello,

If you're writing in about criquaer being suspended, this account is not currently suspended; please review any previous communications from Twitter for clarification about what the reason for the suspension may have been.

If you are writing in about an account other than criquaer being suspended, please refile the ticket from the suspended account.

If you are writing in about an issue other than your account being suspended -- including if you believe your account to have been deactivated or compromised -- please refile a ticket via the appropriate form; you'll find the forms athttps://support.twitter.com/forms.

Thanks,

Twitter Support

In effect, Twitter has made it impossible for me to truly determine what the problem is/was. I suspect it could be related to my Storify, but as Twitter have not been specific, I cannot be sure of this. Whilst, in future, I can refrain from apprising folk of their inclusion in a Storify - which seems both rude and impolite to me - if this is not the problem, I am very much likely to again commit the "egregious" travesty.

Twitter, has left me in a Catch-22 situation. All tweets one initiates are unsolicited, by their very nature. I doubt very much that sending less than two hundred tweets (as up to three folk were included per tweet) could in any reasonable person's mind be described as "egregious".

Either Twitter is a space to share ideas & information and to network or it is not, in which case what is the point of Twitter?