Shortly after publishing Friday's blog, a friend tweeted and pointed out that disabled people had actually won the previous campaign vote, but that 38 Degrees had then shelved that vote and staged another at which the NHS won. Obviously that's a very serious allegation, the problem is that the facts seem to back it up.
If you go to 38 Degree's Campaign Suggestion forum, and order all suggestions by popularity, which this link will do, you'll find a list of the most popular campaign ideas.
Sitting at number 6 is "A campaign to stop the abolition of Disability Living Allowance - the measure of civilised society."
Sitting at number 9 is "The coalition "are considering" assessing children in their DLA shake up." But attached to that is this note:
- "We're looking into a technical problem with the suggest a campaigns system. Last night we merged this with another DLA campaign after being asked to by the people who had originally created the suggestions. This follows on from previous problems we had with merging campaigns. Unfortunately last night there was a problem with the system and when we merged the campaigns thousands of votes were removed from the total. I'm really sorry this happened. We're looking into this and trying to sort it out."
But 'that's okay' you say, 'the problem just happened last night, 38 Degrees will fix it on Monday'. Which would be fine if it was true, but I know for a fact - having seen it myself - that that message has been there for months with no action being taken, and all but a handful of the comments attached to it are 8 months or more old. Months with no action, months of wasted inactivity during which the Welfare Reform Bill has been trekking through Parliament side by side with the NHS Bill. Look at everything 38 Degrees have achieved in trying to stop the NHS Bill, look at everything 38 Degrees haven't done to stop the Welfare Reform Bill. The suspicion that disabled people, and the votes and activities of the 38 Degrees membership, have been sacrificed to concentrate on the NHS Bill is impossible to shake. In fact I can't find any sign that 38 Degrees have lifted a finger to oppose the Welfare Reform Bill or defend disabled people.
There's a word for treating disabled people as second class citizens, that word is disablism, or two words if you aren't familiar with the one, disability discrimination.
I don't want to believe that of 38 Degrees, but their own polls show opposing the disability related provisions of the Welfare Reform Bill at numbers 4 and 6 in their own members lists of suggested priorities, combine them together and they are the 2nd most popular suggestion with a minimum of 7,243 votes, within 350 votes of the most popular suggestion and nearly 1,500 votes ahead of the 3rd most popular suggestion.
Sitting down at number 18 is opposing badger culling, and yet that's currently splashed all over the 38 Degrees front page as one of their successful campaigns?! I can't help wondering if the problem is 38 Degrees HQ thinks crips aren't as cuddly as badgers.
So, opposing DLA changes has got more votes on the 38 Degrees website than any idea but fairness and equality for pensioners (and we all know the strength of the pensioners lobby), but when 38 Degrees put out 17 suggested campaigns, including issues as diverse as powerstations, tax avoidance, the Murdochs, and benefits for pensioners living abroad, disability issues don't feature at all? Forgive me, but something's not just rotten in the state of Denmark, but stinking to high heaven of disablist discrimination.
If you think I'm writing this to shine a light on 38 Degrees and shame them into treating disabled people as the equals this government is determined to ensure we aren't, then you're damned right I am.
So what's it to be, 38 Degrees? Do you really believe in democracy and equality, or is it just a sham to trick people into campaigning for your own hobbyhorses? Are you for disabled people, or against us?
Hi, it's David Babbs from 38 Degrees here. I am sorry it has taken some time to reply to this debate. The whole 38 Degrees office has been very busy pulling together the latest stage of our NHS campaign which needed to go live today in time for a debate in the House of Lords this Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, not including welfare cuts in this month's member poll was a mistake. The member of the office team in charge of preparing the poll this month was in a car accident last weekend (she will be okay, but it was quite nasty and she's currently still off work). In the scramble to get the poll out in her absence we left a couple of things off by mistake. We couldn’t add an extra issue in half way through as that would have definitely badly skewed all the results.
I don't think the omission actually matters that much in the practice – though I am very sorry for the negative impression it has caused. We have polled the 38 Degrees membership around this issue several times before and I feel pretty sure on the basis of all that information that if we can find a way in which 38 Degrees members can make a real difference to this campaign, they will want to take part. The office team is already actively looking at ways we can contribute to this campaign, and we are in touch with many organisations active in this area. That won’t stop because of this omission.
There are two main reasons why we haven't done more on welfare cuts and their impact on disabled people so far. The first is that we are still only small and can only do a very limited number of things at once. The NHS campaign has been massive, and has been quite a struggle for us to keep on top of it. I wish we had more staff so we could do more. The second issue has been trying to work out where 38 Degrees members could add value to the excellent work already being done by other groups already. We don't want to simply duplicate (or even worse dilute) the great work of groups like Hardest Hit and Broken of Britain. We don't want to just do something for the sake of being seen to do something to.
The implication that we're in some way deliberately skewing the results of polls/ignoring past poll results because of some bias against disabled people is wrong. To be honest I find it a bit upsetting to read this accusation. As we explain on the uservoice forum, where an issue is popular we poll our membership on it in other ways. We don't rely on uservoice alone for two reasons: firstly most 38 Degrees members don't regularly visit so it isn't necessarily representative, and secondly non-members can vote which can skew the results. The DLA issue has been very high on uservoice for some time, which has led to us including it in several member polls since.
I'd be really keen to hear ideas on ways in which 38 Degrees could make an additional contribution to the DLA campaign. I'll be coming back to this forum to read suggestions if you want to leave them here.
David, thank you for replying, though frankly it shouldn’t have had to come to this. This has been going on for months and it's finally taken the disability movement calling you on it in public to get you to talk about it at all.
ReplyDeleteDisabled people are desperate to get the word of the extent of the cuts we are facing out to the non-disabled world. The media won't tell people, they would far rather portray us as scroungers and fakers. 38 Degrees brags about its ability to reach and mobilise people, we needed that reach months ago. The Welfare Reform Bill is now almost through Parliament, it is in its final stages in the Lords, and passing that bill means 700,000 disabled people losing potentially all of their benefit through time-limiting of ESA, 20% of DLA recipients losing their benefit (and then all their other disability-related benefits) not because they aren't disabled or because their disability has changed, but simply because the ConDems think we cost too much. Meanwhile the Council cuts mean disabled people being told to lie in their own waste overnight, and the courts claim this is perfectly acceptable. This is a campaigning gift, it could have run hand in hand with the NHS campaign as two sides of the uncaring ConDem assault on those least able to defend themselves from the axe. But you threw that away. If you stood by your own polling you should have been fighting this in March, you should have been fighting it as a point of principle from the moment when the cuts to Independent Living Allowance and the plans for the Welfare Reform Bill were announced last year.
Your poll model may seem democratic, but thanks to the media disabled people are a marginalised and despised minority who simply can't compete with badgers or trees or whatever. I would certainly hope you find the accusation you are skewing your polls as upsetting, think how upsetting it is for us. Opposing the Welfare Reform bill drew more votes than any proposal but one, yet 38 Degrees managed to lose several thousand of those votes, admitted it had happened, then did nothing to fix it for seven months. What does that tell disabled people about the importance 38 Degrees attaches to them? And then out comes another poll, 17 suggested campaigns, and not one of them even mentions disability at all, yet even with the voting fiasco two out of the top ten proposed campaigns are still disability related.
You say being representative is important, think about our position. We're _despised_ by most of the population, we're attacked in the street, slandered in the media, reported as benefit frauds for simply living our lives. The only group more openly hated by the public are gypsies and travellers. And now we see 38 Degrees not even bothering to put us on their poll. The inevitable assumptions are either that you share the general opinion of us, or that we're simply not trendy enough.
You say that you've had problems, that we should have been there, but how does it look when you forget disabled people - 1 in 4 of the population - but remember pensions for people living abroad? Now imagine an election in which one party's candidate was left off the ballot paper. Do you think that election would be allowed to stand? You've admitted the mistake, now it's your job to fix it. Cancel the current poll, admit the mistake, make it work for you by proving that 38 Degrees is willing to admit when it gets it wrong and make efforts to fix it, and run a new poll with opposing the swingeing cuts to disability benefits (far, far more than just DLA is at risk) as the top item.
[continued]
And as for what you can do, it's simple, tell people about our situation. Use your access into society to ensure that we are no longer the ignored and the despised. Tell them that the Independent Living Allowance has been axed, that the Tories swore to protect those who needed support most and promptly turned around and killed the benefit that supports the most disabled people of all. Tell them that time-limiting ESA means 700,000 disabled people left with no income, expected to sacrifice their pension funds and every asset they have, or to rely on their partners if they have even a tiny household income. Tell them that one DLA recipient in five will lose DLA and Carers allowance and SDA and everything else simply because the Tories think there are too many of us. Tell them that disabled people and their families will be forced out of their homes because the changes to housing benefit mean that the system doesn't recognise that people may need space for wheelchairs and ventilators and carers and all the other paraphenalia of disability. Tell them about the horrors of the Work Capability Assessment, with 16 suicides to date, 1 decision in 8 overturned at appeal, and countless disabled people abused and traumatized by the DWP's private contractor, ATOS. And most of all, tell them that we're no different to them, that we aren't frauds and scroungers, just people who need society's help through no fault of our own.
ReplyDeleteI'll be delighted when I can write a blog to say that 38 Degrees have proved their worth, but disabled people don't feel we have been treated well and we'll be waiting to see how you go about putting that right.
The most important effect of a group like 38 Degrees speaking up here is that it's a grassroots-based organisation that ISN'T a dedicated welfare or disability group; it would show that ordinary people support us. This would be powerful for us, as it would help us feel that we aren't shouting into the abyss with no-one caring, and it would show the politicians that we're not just a selfish interest group.
ReplyDeleteDavidG is exactly right. I was a member of 38degrees, when I find the spare spoon I will be leaving, for all the reasons stated above.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you're sat there thinking 'despised? isn't that laying it on a bit thick, just to make the point?' or something like that.
If anything, it is an *UNDERSTATEMENT*. Otherwise reasonable human beings, who care about badgers and trees, will curse you, spit at you, shove you, hit you, hurt you, wish you dead. Just for being disabled. Really. Absolutely. Every time I go out, someone will do one of those things. And a couple of dozen others will watch, with hate and smugness in their eyes.
The Broken of Britain, Hardest Hit, Where's the Benefit, DPAC, are all amazing. The problem is, being created, organised, led, supported by disabled people - a *lot* of non-disabled, not just Tory cunts, dismiss it as simply us protecting our interests. As something they have no need for. After all the money has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? (no, actually). And if it doesn't come from the bare minimum that keeps us alive, it might have to come from their comforts...
The Government want it quiet. The media aren't interested in rocking the boat (Guardian a partial and honourable exception). Charities are in bed with the 'reformers' and in it for the cash. Non-disableds 'know' it isn't going to happen to them.
I hope your staff person who was in a crash is OK. But imagine for one moment she wasn't - had lost limbs, needed a wheelchair. Worse, had a traumatic but completely invisible head injury. Had to learn to speak, walk, write again. Couldn't control her voice, her emotions, her movements. Constantly sneered at for being 'drunk' or 'retarded' for the rest of her life.
Would you at 38degrees have cared then?
DavidG is right: you could have used this to reinforce the case for the NHS, especially along with the cuts to social care as well.
He's also right: you're too damned late. You abandoned us, and it's too bloody late. When the deaths start mounting up - they are already, but it's going to get much, much worse - remember that you could have helped us, and didn't care. It feels bad to hear that 38degrees don't care about this disabled? Awww. Wonder how it feels to starve, or freeze, because you can't afford food *and* heat and there was no slack in your budget, nowhere to go, *before* the cuts. Wonder what it must feel like, when the latest kick in the face from the DWP lands on the mat in a brown envelope, and you decide your final choice is between suidice or slow starvation. Think about it.
Because all the excuses about 'disorganised' and 'problems with votes' and upsetting things to reset it - that's what it means. That you don't care enough to help some of society's most spat upon, who never asked for this, and who are being attacked from every angle. Seven months! *seven* *months* you've just sat there protecting fluffy ecology at the expense of people.
Thanks. I hope you're proud of yourself.
Just to add to Jaime's passionate message on the depth of hatred for us that's out there, I'm into double figures for personal experiences of disability hate crime from complete strangers on the street. Mostly verbals, almost universally accusing me of benefit fraud, but also one physical assault, and an anonymous accusation to the DWP that I was working while claiming disability benefit (particularly ludicrous as I only get out of the house for about 4 hours a week). Then there is the good career I used to have....
ReplyDeleteI have been very troubled over this.
ReplyDeleteWe shared a stage with David at the Left Foot Forward fringe event at Labour Conference and I have had contact with 38 degrees several times by email. It didn't seem right to me that they would deliberately skew this.
I also understand better than most the enormous demands of campaigning with no money and a very few helpers. You want to do so much but find there are only so many hours in the day.
I spoke at #OccupyLSX last week and my entire message was that we must unite and work in solidarity. Where I can help other groups, I do, and they have helped me.
To be honest, it does ring true that 38 Degrees thought Broken of Britain, my site,v WTB, DPAC and the many others, were already running a very dominant campaign. Online, we are certainly very visible, and perhaps in the minds of other campaigners this skews how very invisible we are to the "outside world". Hardest Hit was barely reported despite being the biggest demo of sick and disabled people in UK history.
The most important thing I think 38 degrees could do to help us right now is by supporting Pat's Petition http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/11/show-them-we-exist.html
It wouldn't take much manpower, just a few emails spreading the news about the link. However, with the mighty membership of 38 Degrees, it could help us enormously in boosting our chances of getting this up to 100,000 signatures. We need to be one of the groups that manage that. We represent 5 million people.
I'd be happy to write anything you might need, as I'm sure would others, but if we can't let able bodied people realise what we're up against soon, it will be too late.
We are turning the clock back 40 years with the cuts in services and support to disabled people, but more importantly, we are allowing decades of social progress be undone. All that work on equality means nothing if you can't afford to eat or get to work. It's the lazy scrounger attitudes that are really frightening and 38 Degrees could go a long way to helping us shift that.
I'm really glad that you responded and there's no point looking back - let's look at how we can move forward to achieve our various goals together.
We need allies. It's not that hard to understand.
ReplyDeleteEspecially (to state the bloody obvious) because the very nature of being a disabled person or carer often means that you can't promise the consistency or the energy necessary to coordinate a campaign on the scale that is needed. Not even if you're absolutely terrified.
But if all you care about is those of your members who have the energy to shout loudest to get their campaign taken up, then forget it. If you care about justice, then the answer is obvious. People are frightened for their lives.
There is so much more to welfare reform than DLA. There is so much more to welfare reform than weeding out 'scroungers'. There is so much more to welfare reform than simplifying the system.
This bill is just one example of the systematic targeting of disabled people and carers, because we are the unfortunate combination of expensive and not-vote-winning.
You're really coming to us now and saying "you tell us how to help"? Now? You mention the names of various campaigns - how about looking at the action points on their websites,and just doing what they ask? You might not end up with a whole heap of glory, or publicity, but you would be doing the right thing.
The Labour Conference was another good example of how invisible we are to the media - and through them the public. Kaliya putting Ed M on the spot in the Q&A over the damage caused by his attitude to disabled people was the single best soundbite of conference, and the reporters on the spot knew that and did the interviews to support it. But did it make the news, did it hell!
ReplyDeleteI just noticed that in one of Sue's comment's she says we represent 5 million people, by which I presume she means disabled people in receipt of benefits. And clearly those of us in the 5 million are the most desperately affected. But the savagery of the attacks on disabled people andvthe worsening of our acceptance in society mean that it isn't just the 5 million benefit claimants who are affected, every disabled person is affected by the rising tide of hatred, and that means between 20 and 25% of the population (depending on whether you follow the ODI or the EHRC figures for incidence of disability), not 5 million, but 12 to 15 million people.
ReplyDeleteit's also our carers. it is our husbands and wives, partners, lovers. it is our children that this is hurting, and our parents. families, friends, friends who have become family over the years. people who already bear part of the cost of disability, even when it is not theirs. they do it by necessity, because someone has to, and by choice, because they love us.
ReplyDeleteI wish non-disabled people would realise it doesn't have to happen to them to affect them. no man is an island, but some use them to store tax money where the 'scroungers' can't get it...
David Babbs, I'm sorry to say this (truly I am, because the situation should never have come to this), but there's not a single response to you on this post so far that's in any way wrong.
ReplyDeleteSue Marsh has been quite reasonable about it, and are I say genial and diplomatic, but the fact is that people are dying and more will die.
Not only are people dying, and not only are many disabled people afraid for their very lives, but those self same people are being spat upon in the street and are experiencing physical violence towards them, causing them not only additional distress, but also further fear and disability. This is happening for one reason - nobody but the disabled will speak out for the disabled.
The Government has gone on a negative propaganda campaign against disabled people almost since the day it was formed, with the right wing tabloid press licking it up, which has in turn hardened some appalling attitudes in the country, which has allowed the media to go further. Even the Labour party are complicit through having kick started this whole process from 2008 on, but also because of their utter failure to speak up against this negative propaganda campaign. Worse yet is that the Opposition has even found itself caught up in the language of this propaganda and so contributing to it.
While people are dying, while vulnerable people are being made homeless and/or told that it's acceptable for them to be left to rot in their own filth, and while the Government has been encouraging this in order to enact their plans to make things even worse, 38 degrees has in effect stood idly by when it could have used the one thing more important to disabled people than anything else to help them - its voice.
It's very easy to become so wrapped up in other things that the thought of doing anything else, nomatter how simple, gets pushed away to the side as though it were impossible, but compared to people dying and being physically abused in the street for daring to be disabled in public it's a pretty poor reason for inaction on this, 38 degrees' second most popular cause...
... and that the plight of the sick and disabled has seen so much support on 38 degrees, in spite of the fact that disabled people are getting such a raw deal just about everywhere they look can only serve to tell you just how important and desperate the situation is... not to mention how many votes the cause would have received had there been a meaningful voice to speak out for them. It also goes to tell you that the very fact that 38 degrees hasn't spoken out on this issue has contributed to the fact that this issue is as low on the radar as it obviously has been.
There is only one decent thing to do here, David, and that's to do everything you can, and do it now. The petition mentioned by Sue Marsh is a good starting point, but don't forget to tell te whole story about what disabled people are experiencing, and don't forget that one day it could be you sitting here and typing these messages simply hoping that someone who actually has a voice will deign to use it to make a difference.
38 Degrees must act and do something about this. Thousands of people, like myself, are suffering and it is vital that action is taken. I am shocked and stunned that in this modern UK, the disabled and sick are being overlooked, debased, dehumanised and dismissed. We are still human, we still breathe and bleed just like healthy folk. Stop this disgraceful behaviour towards others, as no one knows if ever they are going to be faced with long-term disability or sickness.
ReplyDeleteI will also add my tuppence here as I was watching the events unfold eight months ago (yes, eight months ago, and NOW a response) and even sent an email asking what had happened with our petition, which was then unanswered till now.
ReplyDeleteI understand that 38 Degrees may be understaffed - I get that, truly I do. But Broken of Britain is run by people who are primarily running the campaign out of necessity because, quite honestly, no one else can be bothered. It has been fraught with a lack of volunteers as well because people who belong to TBoB are ill - I recall last year actually when we were trying to get the petition going with 38 Degrees that nearly everyone at TBoB was in hospital, bound to be admitted or had just come out from an extended stay and had been told to do NOTHING on pain of being re-admitted. We all have to not only battle for the campaign, but are often very ill and have to deal with the realities of trying to live as well. I honestly wanted to get more involved last year but I had three of my own hospital visits and a firm warning that I was working myself to death - and I also have a child I'm battling the Local Education Authority for so sadly I can't be more dedicated to TBoB cause. But these are all very real facts of life for us; "dilution" isn't the issue here as I am personally not bothered about -who- takes up the call, but that SOMEONE does. I honestly don't care if someone is worried about "stealing one's thunder" - my own thunder has been dulled down to a passing mumble due to being plain exhausted, and TBoB regularly has to take time out to recouperate regularly or run the risk of doing themselves irreparable damage. This isn't a popularity contest, this isn't about worrying about stepping on someone's political-toes; it's about survival, and any help, anywhere, from anyone, is needed.
As has been pointed out, the new petition to get the debate about welfare reform back into debate in Parliament would be a massive help. The pressure needs to be kept up as well to continue to keep the welfare reforms in the public eye and brought to the attention of people who would normally not care about it because they do not think it applies to them, or because they simply do not understand what these reforms mean. Some of the commentary we receive regularly as disabled people would appall you, and thanks to the damaging "scrounger" rhetoric which is becoming almost encouraged by the media no one wants to take up the fight.
I would point to the "One Month Before Heartbreak" (which was almost completely missed by many campaigns) which took place last year to try and highlight the stories of the people whom these changes are about to affect: http://onemonthbeforeheartbreak.blogspot.com/
I would also point to the Hardest Hit rally this year which was a huge effort, a day long event that only received a passing comment on BBC news even though there were over 800,000 people marching.
I would point at the rise in disability hate crime, at the nearly daily reports of "scroungers" and "cheats" which is getting the population in a tizzy and which has led to three attacks on wheelchair bound people in my area alone (and I live in a very quiet West Country town...and I'm moving now as I no longer feel safe here).
I would point to the fact that the disabled know all about this stuff, but that those who aren't seem to have absolutely no clue whatsoever...and the fact staggers me. We need a lot more awareness, we need a lot more support, and we need people to become aware that this is happening, right now, right here in Britain. It's a reality, it's really happening...and no one seems to care.
Now that the welfare reform bill has gone through and seems to now become law it seems almost ironic that now people come out saying "How can we help" as if it's almost understood there's nothing to be done and its a lost cause. I will be optimistic rather than my usual pessimist self and assume this wasn't intentional, but it does mean that the battle is now nearly a vertical uphill battle rather than a gentler grade. And we simply cannot do it alone.
ReplyDeleteGet the current petition its signatures (and if 38 Degrees could save trees, then surely getting 100,000 signatures should be child's play). Petitions for getting ATOS thrown out of the process of "assessing" our illnesses would also not be amiss when our own specialists and GPs and ourselves are more than aware what our problems are and why we have them. That would be a start - it would certainly be better than all the complete silence we've been dealing with up to this point.
It may be "distressing" to hear that we have felt abandoned by 38 Degrees but I invite you to have a real good look at all the work which The Broken of Britain has done in the past year and a half...and then have a look at who even heard about any of it. Then you will know what "distressing" truly means.
I agree with Sue Marsh. The 38 degrees members should be emailed, told about the mistake and informed about Pats Petition http://www.wheelchairlaptrays.com/pats-petition/
ReplyDeletethat would be a big help and a show of support.
Sorry there is too much here for me to read through it all. But my experience with 38 degrees has made me very cautious of their motives as regards disabled people.
ReplyDeleteAs a sufferer of ME I struggled to start a campaign idea on 38 degrees, suggesting we take psychiatry out of an illness which is in fact neurological based as defined by the World Health Organisation.
My idea was up for about 13 hours (overnight) and gained something like 180 signatures if I remember correctly. The campaign idea was removed by 38 degrees without a word to myself.
When I asked what had happened it seemed there was some mistake. I was advised on how to start another, which I did at great cost to my health. I supplied links as advised. Posted it late at night. Again we gained a good amount of signatures for it to be taken down again, much to my distress.
I contacted Johnny at 38, he told me he would check into why this happened and get back to me.
When I did not hear from him I called and was told he had tried to call me. No message was left on my voice mail. I contacted them several times, in the end he asked me to call him back.
Frankly I am sick and I had put a lot of work into doing those two campaigns I did not have the strength to argue the case with them.
So do I feel they discriminate against the disabled? I can only answer yes. I am disabled I have been treated very shoddily by 38 degrees. In order for them to have any credibility at all they should be fighting for the weak in our society, those who cannot fight for themselves, those of us cast aside by government,society and even the NHS we are still fighting for.
They prefer to go for campaigns which will gain themselves glory. Carefully handpicked campaigns. They are as democratic as our government once they begin censoring members campaign ideas and do not even have the decency to let that person know.
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ReplyDeleteThere is more going on here than we are being told. To ignore the issue of the disabled, just at the time when government came out for an all out attack upon these people, is a telling thing. The softer option was to run with the NHS campaign because that was seemingly winable, and so good for the image of 38? Is this what is happening, advancing an image?
ReplyDeleteLike to know where the humanity and conscience of 38 degrees is being as it acts like dictatorial government, deciding upon what people should have, not what they require. Common humanity, attached to a conscience, would have dictated that the NHS campaign came second to that of the disabled, because NHS is going no where, the disabled are dying through the antics of the government of all parties. No one party has ever, and will never, walk out of parliament as a protest at what parliament is doing, but no party will because no common humanity or conscience exists, just an image to promote.