Interview with Gerd Antes
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Scientists: "Corona rules are interpreted in a completely arbitrary way."
The mathematician Gerd Antes asks on which scientific basis the responsible persons act. He misses the real search for knowledge.
[This interview published on 10/29/2020 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/gerd-antes-im-interview-li.114445.]
A new lockdown will certainly have an effect. But how does it affect the whole of society?
Berlin The pandemic has been gaining momentum again for several weeks. The curve of registered new infections is rising. Politicians are reacting with prescribed measures. But how are they justified? Are there any reliable scientific findings behind them? And how are they communicated to the population? The well-known mathematician Gerd Antes deals with these questions.
Berliner Zeitung: Professor Antes, are the current political measures appropriate?
Gerd Antes: In my view, they are not appropriate because they do not have a sufficient scientific foundation. Internationally, there is a chaos of studies whose results are often not reliable. Coordination is almost completely lacking. The oversupply of information leads to the fact that everyone can pick out a different result that suits them. This results in major contradictions in the conclusions and decisions, which can be seen particularly clearly in Germany through federalism. I find it particularly dramatic that not only is little known, but also no attempt is made to orientate oneself on knowledge. This is extremely disorienting for the population.
But couldn't the new lockdown that has now been decided on have an effect after all?
Yes, if you hit it with a mallet, there will certainly be an effect. But for months now, there has been criticism of the failure to weigh up the benefits and risks of measures. After all, the closure of stores, restaurants and sports facilities has dramatic effects on the whole of society. This again shows that Germany lacks a really highly competent interdisciplinary task force, which I already proposed in March. It would also have to ask social questions, such as the following: Where are the levers that need to be tightened in order to cause as little collateral damage as possible via economic and social effects and still prevent the spread of the virus?
Couldn't such a broad-based task force be set up now?
Surely one could. And one should! In my view, it would have to be based at the federal level at the Chancellery, i.e. above the level of the individual ministries. Such a task force
would have to develop nationwide strategies. In addition to doctors, virologists, epidemiologists and methodologists, it would have to include economists, psychologists and experts in risk communication, for example, to discuss the topic of fear in the population, irrational behavior and how to deal with conspiracy theorists, and to develop strategies for dealing with it. Sociologists would also have to be involved in order to prevent the exclusion and stigmatization of groups. And if, for example, the Chancellor were to warn the public that there could be around 19,200 new corona cases every day at Christmas, someone would naturally have to ask: What does this number actually mean? And is it reasonable to contribute to the threat scenario with such a number?
About the person
Gerd Antes, born in Schleswig-Holstein in 1949, is a mathematician and one of the best known representatives of evidence-based medicine in Germany.
This approach is based on the premise that the benefits and risks of medical interventions must be appropriate - for the individual patient and for society as a whole. Therapy recommendations and political measures should be sufficiently scientifically justified. Antes is an expert in statistics and biometrics.
He studied in Braunschweig and Bremen, worked at the Institute for Medical Biometry and Medical Informatics at the University of Freiburg, among other places, and from 1997 to 2018 was director of the German Cochrane Center at Freiburg University Hospital, which scientifically reviews and evaluates medical studies. In 1998, Antes was one of the founders of the German Network for Evidence-Based Medicine.
To the point: No one can say exactly which measures will bring about a positive outcome: in other words, what effect will individual measures of a lockdown have?
No, the effect results from the complexity of the measures. But unfortunately, we have failed for months to create the basis for making the right decisions today with suitable data collections and studies. The pandemic would be decided in the metropolises, is a headline in the mayor of Hamburg, for example. At the same time we are seeing corona hotspots in Berchtesgaden, Rottal-Inn and Delmenhorst. So in reality exactly the opposite is happening.
Isn't there any scientific basis for finding out where the virus spreads most, in short: where the so-called pandemic driver is?
The pandemic driver itself is the biggest misinterpretation I am seeing right now. The claimed statistics, which indicate that the biggest driver is the private sector, are at best very weak, possibly even grossly mistaken. Data quality is a permanent challenge even in orderly circumstances, all the more so under the current pressure. This is certainly a problem with the reports from the physicians to the health authorities and the RKI, but I have not yet seen anything on reliability. The statements that are drawn from this should
Photo: dpa/Silke Werner/WuBtherefore be treated with extreme caution. The opposite is happening. In talk shows, the same people are always sitting around and using their verve to convey figures to justify certain statements or - more often - far-reaching findings with the statement "We know". In the scientific world, it is a must that the security and uncertainty of data is formulated and communicated transparently.
So it can't be proven at all that most people get infected at family celebrations and in the private sphere?
No, certainly not at all, at best proven by data. The statement that everything happens via clusters and so-called superspreading events is probably wrong, because you can only ever look at such identified clusters retrospectively. But this is a fundamental error in data analysis: looking at something afterwards and constructing absolute truths from it. While looking at certain locations, at the same time a large part of the infections takes place via so-called sporadic transmissions. And we don't have the slightest idea how much actually happens at parties, in bars, in restaurants, on the train or elsewhere - and how many people have been in contact with each other in the process. Even in our neighboring countries, the estimates of this role distribution are often completely different.
You once said: "In this pandemic, accompanying studies should have been carried out from the very beginning and figures should have been systematically recorded. How should this have been done?
For example, scientific teams should have been commissioned to assist the health authorities to see what was happening there: What is actually transmitted? What is being recorded? What specific data do we need in this pandemic to understand what is happening? This is not just about controlled studies, but about necessary data and suitable studies. Such scientific monitoring would require the involvement of epidemiologists, infectious disease epidemiologists and other methodologists. But I see that the health authorities are largely left to their own devices.
You also mentioned, for example, that the nationwide NAKO health study could have been used to gather data on the pandemic. In this study, more than 200,000 people will be questioned and examined again and again over many years on various diseases.
I cannot understand why this was not used. With this so-called National Cohort, which started in 2014, one would already have had a structure and data as a basis for adding certain data to this basis that are relevant to the current questions. For example, on the question in which people the disease could take a severe course. Or the question of the number of unreported infections. Data would have had to be collected on a very large scale from March onwards. When you consider that we are a population of 80 million and are currently sitting on a powder keg in terms of the overall damage, one can only be amazed at how little consistent effort has been made to close the gaps in knowledge.
What security can we really rely on at the moment when it comes to reliable data?
The easiest way is to apply the distance rule: If you stand alone in the middle of a field, you cannot be infected. I don't need any data for that. So the greater the distance, the safer. If you add up all the arguments and studies, there is now also a clear statement about everyday masks: if two people meet and both wear the mask in accordance with the regulations, then this provides considerable protection in both directions: that one person is not infected and the other is not infected. There is clear evidence of this. In practice, however, chaos reigns. The rules are interpreted completely arbitrarily.
In what way?
For example, I just received an e-mail from a school in Hamburg that so-called mask aids are allowed there, for example a coarsely knitted scarf. And when I recently arrived in Berlin, I got into a cab in which the driver was not wearing a mask. When I did some research, it turned out that the Berlin Senate does indeed prescribe the wearing of masks on certain streets. But there are no such regulations for cab drivers who have to deal with constantly changing passengers. But the question is: What is the probability of infection in a space as small as a cab? If I follow this up throughout Germany, then there is simply no clear statement saying that the mask is a cornerstone of prevention, despite all the slight doubts that exist scientifically about the level of protection. Instead, even an FDP state caucus leader and the president of the Medical Association publicly expressed doubts about the usefulness of masks. This is completely counterproductive. Because actually we should be consistent especially in those places where an effect can be achieved with relatively simple means.
So you mean that one hits with a mallet on one side and is inconsistent again on the other?
Yes, you find differences everywhere that are not comprehensible. But nobody even tries to explain or change them. For example, the distance rules that are imposed on slaughterhouses to the point of ruin are overridden in public transport. In the subway or the suburban train, no one can keep the distances. There is not even the slightest attempt to regulate them. Not even on long-distance trains, for example, via the reservation system. Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer even claims that trains are not a place where people get infected. Completely without evidence, if one does not regard a study financed by the railroad with empty trains as such.
You also once complained that risk communication does not work. And you can see it again in the latest decisions: Measures are prescribed but not communicated.
Yes, I do not see responsible risk communication. And certainly no empathy towards the population. Instead, you keep hearing that the reins have to be tightened now. That is the wrong approach. The whole discussion is also disorienting because the question has been completely lost: What do I actually want to achieve? In the beginning - in complete helplessness against what is coming - there was the idea of "Flatten the Curve". This was about ensuring that the healthcare system did not collapse. Now we just stare at the
infection figures. But even these are only the number of positive tests, which is often overlooked. Then there is always the threat: if we don't do this or that now, we will soon be like Spain or France.
And isn't it? Aren't we threatened by exactly what is happening there?
That is gross nonsense. Even in spring it was not like that. Because these countries have completely different conditions. In Italy and Spain, the hospitals were under strong suspicion of being the main drivers. There are articles on this. In the health systems that were broken down, hygiene conditions were, among other things, worse than here. And in our case, there was a failure to carry out careful and systematic investigations between countries. Why did countries that went into a much tougher lockdown than Germany still have so many more victims? That would probably be the most important question. But this reference to real knowledge is largely missing when it comes to political decisions. And then things like the recent proposal to introduce a ban on accommodation come out, even though it is completely unclear whether such a move would reduce the infection rate in the slightest. If I live in a hotel somewhere, I am probably much more protected than if I take the S-Bahn in Berlin.
Next Lockdown: Blind Actionism does not help Better times - Wagenknecht's newsreel
by Sahra Wagenknecht[This article published on 10/30/2020 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sahra-wagenknecht.de/de/article/2989.n%C3%A4chster-lockdown-blinderaktionismus-hilft-nicht.html.]
So now comes the new lockdown. Many are now wondering whether the measures are appropriate. Sure, the virus is still dangerous, the increasing number of infections a threat. But I think politics is doing the wrong thing. Are the restaurants, cultural and leisure facilities of all places really corona hotspots - precisely those industries that have been most active in developing and implementing hygiene concepts in recent months? Or are they not, apart from private parties, still overcrowded buses or rooms that cannot be properly ventilated? And why hasn't much more been done in the summer to be prepared for the rising numbers in autumn? I think we have to ask: What could have been done differently in the almost nine months of the pandemic? After all, it's no great surprise that a new wave of infections is coming in the fall. And what measures must finally be taken in the healthcare system? After all, good and above all adequate medical care is a decisive factor in how many lives can be saved. It is no coincidence that the death rates are highest in areas where there is no good health care for all: In the USA, for example, where millions of people are without health insurance. Or in the Eastern European countries from which we have poached medical personnel to Germany for years instead of investing in the training and above all attractiveness of the medical professions ourselves. By the way, there are 300,000 trained nurses in Germany who no longer work
in their learned profession. According to surveys, about half of them would be willing to work in nursing again if they were paid according to the workload and responsibility involved and, above all, if working conditions were drastically improved: More personnel, less stress, better care for patients and finally a safer health system that can also exist in crises and does not make patients and employees even more ill. Wouldn't it be better to invest public money in such measures instead of repeatedly shutting down public life through lockdowns, and then to cushion the economic damage with billions in public aid?
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The deathblow
by Roland Rottenfußer[This article published on 10/20/2020 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://hinter-den-schlagzeilen.de/der-todesstoss.]
The rulers are turning the state of emergency into a permanent state - let's fight back now, otherwise freedom and democracy will be history. The government is once again tightening the reins and has decided on a new lockdown - supposedly "light", as if it were low-fat curd cheese. It signals to us that it is bitterly serious about organized madness. Our taster internship as citizens of a dictatorship is being converted into a permanent position. We will continue to be governed with fear and our rights of freedom will be curtailed. In the process, we will be rhythmically and mercifully loosened up, we will be kept compliant with finely dosed bites of hope. Freedom always exists only in anticipation of its possible restriction at any time. A reduced, enclosed freedom of movement subject to the virus. On the threshold of a new global age of despotism, we must make a decision now: Do we want the greatest possible protection against the risk of death at the price of leading an actually lifeless life? How we choose is also a question of courage. For freedom and liveliness never exist without risk - like everything that is really of value. Roland Rottenfuß
"Groups of celebrating people are unacceptable", said Angela Merkel with a pinched mouth and obviously struggling with the gravity of her decision. And Karl Lauterbach, the SPD dementor, whose charisma swallows every joy of life and every confidence like a black hole, became clearer: "The inviolability of the home must no longer be an argument for lack of controls.
There is no more stopping on the sloping path towards despotism on which Germany and many countries of the world find themselves. We must face the facts: Power in the country is held by a clique of similarly minded putschists - a milieu far removed from freedom, which seems wildly determined to complete its work of destruction on our democracy. There is no longer any measure for them and hardly any taboo. Human dignity can no longer be an argument for the absence of humiliation, if one could continue to spin Lauterbach's dictum. We must counter this drift with an unmistakable "no". Groups of phrases of politicians reeling off are unacceptable.
The powerful now openly spit their contempt for our dignity and our self-determination in our faces. For example, when both Merkel and Söder talk about "tightening the reins". These politicians treat us citizens like farm animals that need to be trained - or better: in the same way that animals should never be treated. We feel the increasingly tightened reins, and our flanks are already bleeding under their spurs. Let's rebel, let's throw off these bad riders! Let's live unrestrained and only limited by a natural ethics, which suggests a consideration for the sick and weak!
A policy of the pulled down corner of the mouth
This "authority" has become too bold in many respects, it behaves arrogantly and increasingly harassing towards us. The pulled down corner of the mouth of a luminous smiley already greets me when I enter a village with 51 km/h. At a speed increased by 6 km/h, I receive a fine notice in pompous legalese - with a photo of me taken without my consent.
Peeing outside, even in the woods, is forbidden - many people just don't know this because such "misdemeanors" are difficult to control. A week ago my state determined that it is no longer 3 o'clock but 2 o'clock. In certain places, it orders me to put a rag over my face, even in fresh air and when no one is around. From 22 o'clock on beer drinking is forbidden in many places, but soda drinking is allowed. Wait, that's still the old rule: From November onwards, it is a punishable offense for landlords to serve anything - even lemonade. If they violate this rule, they will be treated like criminals.
The drawn down corner of the mouth of a giant miley on the side of the road has become the symbol of this arrogant state, which we are actually never docile enough to. It has been completely forgotten that it is actually the "representatives of the people" who have to prove themselves to us and try to get our approval. But this basic rule of a healthy civic self-confidence has been forgotten not only by those in power, but also by those in government.
We are actually treated as if we were dolls that can be dragged here and there or locked in the closet for weeks at will.
We were not even asked if we agreed with all this. Opinion polls always come afterwards, and they always turn out conspicuously in terms of government action.
With the approaching 9th month of the crisis, the political caste pregnant with the dictatorship will now give birth to a monster, and we will be faced with a real repressive rampage. The worst thing is that most people are beginning to get used to it. The most important question that actually intelligent people are moving in their minds at the moment is: "What else can I do? Whereby with the word "still" the continuous shrinking of this domain of the permitted is already taken into account. I have already experienced that a relative asked anxiously weeks before the new lockdown: "Is it actually allowed to go out on the street after 9 pm? He probably confused the curfew with a curfew.
Politics that offends and makes people ill
Whereupon such overzealous rule makers do not come at all: Adults may not be very interested in what they - the politicians and authorities - might want from them and how they judge our behavior. However, in an embarrassing way they constantly force their views and demands on us.
They should leave us alone and do their job - that is: solve the tasks that really matter. This certainly includes helping to shape the framework conditions for good "public health". But the opposite is happening: This policy makes people ill - especially in the soul. Millions of people are already feeling this, provided they have access to their feelings. Rigid, authoritarian politics makes people ill because it offends. Because it robs people of their dignity and self-determination and forces them into a situation of extensive powerlessness.
We can see from the events surrounding the "second lockdown" what is now in store and what we ourselves have misjudged. It is often trivialized as a "lockdown light" because children are still in school and workers are "allowed" to go to work. In view of the masks and catalogs of rules and regulations that are strangling the air, it would probably be better to say: have to go.
Some of the illusionary ideas that have been circulating over the past nine months must now be revised. And I don't blame anyone who - especially in the initial phase - has made a mistake regarding the corona situation. The situation was confusing, the future difficult to predict, and even I would not have been able to foresee everything that has happened so far, although I have certainly consumed several hundred articles and videos on the subject.
The error of the trivializers
Trivializing interpretations of the events must be abandoned. In March and April, it was often said that the encroachments on fundamental rights were annoying but acceptable for a short period of time in view of the dangerous situation. One must first submit, but in doing so one must keep a close eye on the powerful so that the dictatorial tendencies that have become visible do not become entrenched. Well, the tendencies have stabilized, there is no end in sight, and most of those who were politically undecided at the time did not seriously rebel either in the initial or in the advanced phase of the dismantling of
basic rights. The right thing to do would have been to give very clear and very vehement opposition right from the start.
If everyone had said what they thought about the whole thing without regard to possible headwinds, an unpleasant dynamic would not have been able to develop in the first place. One need only think of the oppressive silence of most artists and celebrities, as well as of practically the entire opposition to the restrictions on fundamental rights, which further discouraged potential protesters. The generally shameful climate of opinion loyal to the government, which exerted enormous peer pressure on dissenters, led to a situation in which almost all those who could not freely agree with the ruling narrative felt compelled to at least hypocritically pretend to agree with it.
We must give up the hope that the problem will soon resolve itself, since our politician has integrity at its core and democracy is by and large intact. At best, the much longedfor vaccine could provide relief in this respect - but at a high health price.
Spiritual feel-good narratives of the kind "I found the lockdown quite okay, I finally had time to calm down. This autumn and winter is the end of fun, a great collective depression is threatening, which in turn will weaken the powers of resistance in the double meaning of the word and perhaps for this very reason will be accepted by those in power.
Freedom as a premium for docility
We could experience a black Christmas, poisoned by the bans of the forces of law and order - or by the "loosening up" that is granted to us by grace. Freedom - and even this only partially - is thus transformed from a matter of course to a premium for docility, which is thrown to the people under reserve, just like putting a treat into the mouth of four-legged friends in a dog school when they have been good. The light at the end of the tunnel are possible "adhesion reliefs" at Christmas.
While the days become shorter and the light decreases analogous to freedom and joy of life, the subjects should look forward to the Christkindl, in order to hold out for a while longer.
In the grace-bringing Christmas time the citizens could now be granted the extraordinary favor of "being allowed" to meet family members. Merkel and her surroundings will then certainly try to use the metaphor of the "light in the darkness" in a grandiose warmheartedness simulation, which vaccine manufacturers will proclaim to the salvationhungry people in the following of Jesus. But for it to come to this, it must first remain still for a while. And even if it should come to loosening - of course only in small morsels - then this is again only possible under reserve. Until the third wave is inevitably at the door.
That the breaks between the maltreatments are in a certain way more difficult to bear than the maltreatments themselves, Reinhard Mey has put into words magnificently in his song "Irgendein Depp bores somewhere always".
But the hardest test for psyche and ears
Is the agonizing silence suddenly after drilling,
The knowledge, it can start again at any moment
Or not, oh, this doubt is to tear the nerves.
You only hear your pulse, you hold your breath and bang
Do you wait rigidly - sometimes for days!
Because drilling is bad, but not drilling is worse.
The silence before the shot
In this way, the government keeps us on our toes and on alert even during the relatively permissive lockdown breaks - incidentally, this is a definition of stress that is extremely harmful to health and the immune system. After the restriction of fundamental rights is always before the restriction of fundamental rights. There will - even assuming the situation improves next spring - no longer be a quiet period during which we can feel secure in terms of civil rights. If even in the summer of 2020, which went largely without corona death and seemed to elude even strenuous reconstruction efforts, one could restrict basic rights without any significant resistance, then one will be able to do so again at any time.
The situation will not become more harmless for many months. Viruses and other health dangers have always existed and will always exist, thus also pretexts for attacks on freedom, if the political will for it exists. Infections and unfortunately also deaths are always to be expected. Against the background of the new political agenda, however, the virological norm - somewhat inflated by the media - will prevent the freedom driven from our country from ever gaining a foothold here again. This is already ensured by the possible waves of influenza or - even these can occur - somewhat above-average health threats.
"And they will no longer be free for their whole lives," said Hitler, when he outlined in a speech the typical curriculum vitae of a citizen, including membership of the Hitler Youth, the Wehrmacht and the party. Please don't hold back with the thought that I am trivializing the "Third Reich". I am well aware of the differences to today's conditions. But let this vision come to you for a moment in all its oppressive violence:
It could be that we will no longer be free our whole life.
Many of us could have decades of harassment, terrorization through a staccato of fear messages, face covering, total surveillance and poisoning by forced medication and vaccination before we realize at our deathbed that we have hardly lived at all. At best before the year 2020.
Freedom under reservation of the virus
It doesn't have to happen like this. I am even noticing in the mainstream media and in the parties a greater uneasiness about the new rigid measures than before. I experience how "normal" people, who are certainly not readers of the alternative media, talk very well informed and critical about Corona - even if the narrative "We still live in a democracy" is still strong in these circles.
But I also experience how "hygiene rituals", moral cowardice and the leisure policeman mentality are becoming a habit among the population. Even in the advanced stage of a rampant corona weariness, the reins are still tightened in some places, and corona opportunists become more radical and intolerant. Perhaps this can also be interpreted as a defense against a resistance impulse suppressed within themselves, which they fight vicariously in the form of the "corona deniers".
The cause of freedom is Spitz on a button. We are exhausted and yet we must continue to fight, especially now. A decrease in the energy of resistance is likely to take its revenge in the long run, because then we will face even more unbearable things that will further tire and weaken us.
What lies ahead may not be a completely completed and clearly recognizable dictatorship. Rather a fragile dance between freedom and despotism, in which sometimes one force, sometimes the other, comes to the fore, but always both remain on the dance floor. We will - if the measures are once again "loosened" - have to deal with a freedom under reservation and under the sword of Damocles of its always possible rescission.
It must be remembered that we will not be able to refute all arguments that say that one can fall ill with Covid-19 and other viruses and die - although with a lower probability. No matter how many "skeptical" articles we may collect or produce ourselves - a residual uncertainty remains. But this also applies to all other potential health threats to which we are permanently exposed and many of which are more dangerous than Covid-19, only apparently less suitable for the media.
We are always in danger
Living means living with different kinds of threats. It means, however, to recapture the happiness and lightness, which are also part of our being as potential, with courage and confidence. At this fork in the road, we must decide how we want to live.
The assumption that Corona is completely harmless could only be a form of evasion from this decision. The question is rather: With how much danger do we want to and can we live before we flee into a form of existence as completely incapacitated subjects?
In any case, a sensibly weighed help with this decision is not to be expected from those in power. They pursue their own agenda, which is largely disconnected from our wellbeing.
We must also be aware that the decisions we make - for example, to express "coronaskeptical" views in public or to take many people against the "rules" - can have an impact on the health of other people. 40 or 80 "on and with Corona deceased" are a lot. Even if the sometimes more than 300 daily deaths of the "First Wave" are far from being reached. And even if most of them died "with" rather than "on Corona" and if the majority of them were very old and in poor health. These people need special protection, but without old people's homes mutating into prisons - no easy balancing of interests in practice.
We must always be aware that we are acting, how we act, to prevent worse - including, if necessary, the death of people as a result of "collateral damage" such as suicide, postponed operations or - in countries of the South - hunger. We have a responsibility towards our children and the coming generations, whom we want to spare a life of oppression and police-state oppression, with mask compulsion and permanent psychological terror. But this acting, speaking and writing is not without risk. Like every decision whose consequences are not indifferent. Of course, this also applies to the decisions of the "opposite side".
A change of policy is necessary
We need the complete replacement of the current unfit leaders or at least a comprehensive change of attitude in this "milieu".
We need a committee of inquiry to shed full light on the events since February of this year and hold those involved accountable if they have acted against the constitution and the welfare of millions of people.
We need a new policy that makes decisions on the basis of meaningful, non-manipulated figures, instead of upsetting the population with inflated figures based solely on right- or false-positive PCR test results.
We need a stronger involvement of the population in serious decisions of this kind. We want to be asked more, instead of just being the dispositive of the supposedly caring paternalism of the powerful.
We need a broad and at the same time speedy debate on the Corona policy, open to results. Greater involvement of Parliament, as is now being called for in many quarters, is democratically appropriate, but not sufficient. After all, what good is it if the government is "controlled" only by a staff that is mentally equal to it in most respects? Other social groups and independent experts in all relevant fields - for example, not only virologists, but also psychologists and geriatric nurses - must be involved.
We need a massive campaign to strengthen our physical and mental health to make us more resistant to "pathogens" of all kinds. Instead of hating the virus, we need to start improving our immune system to the best of our ability - as well as other indicators of holistic health.
The energy that politicians and the media currently devote to a single goal - preventing contact between a virus and a human being - must in future also be channelled into other effective methods of health care: Exercise, nutrition, appropriate relaxation, including mental relaxation, natural medicine, "hardening" through targeted heat/cold stimuli, suitable food supplements to strengthen the immune system, improving the ecological and social conditions for a "good life".
"Lock out" of course we will not be able to prevent death even by very helpful information and measures. The human body remains vulnerable. So does its soul. Likewise this democracy, whose vulnerability we could feel just in the last months. The fact that this state structure was anything but perfect even before that could tempt many to cynicism. Cynicism, which in turn could weaken the forces of resistance against the destroyers of democracy.
Let us remain attached to the values that we have recognized as good and right and that now seem to be at our disposal. Let us remain faithful to them even in their deformation and perversion by destructive forces. Let us remain vigilant when humanity tries to gossip badly to us. Let us take courage. Let us act - now!...
This film is really a work of art - although the animated film was apparently added to the song by Pink Floys (1975, from the album "Wish you were here"). It shows an oppressive "transhumanistic" world with lifeless computer workers working in parallel, a destroyed environment, repression and surveillance. Other figures are literally petrified. There is the electronic monster, which pulls out the last withered tree, still the most likeable figure. Meanwhile the mechanical rhythm of the song rattles in the background. The text is - as often with Pink Floyd - rather a socialization parable. The film also shows a way out of the dystopian horror world: Rebellion.
Progressives and Power: If Trump Is Defeated, the Real Fight Begins
Heather Digby Parton
Progressives and the Left
by Heather Digby Parton | October 29, 2020 http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/heatherdigby-parton/93615/progressives-and-power-if-trump-is-defeated-the-real-fight-begins
After seeing the spectacle this week of a Supreme Court justice installed just before an election for the express purpose of tilting the result in Donald Trump's favor — and watching Justice Brett Kavanaugh's evil threat of "what goes around comes around" take shape — it's clear that the political battles we've been fighting for these past few years won't be over once the election is decided even if Trump is defeated. The fight is just going to continue on new terrain.
The question then, is how the left and the Democrats will respond. After all, they've just spent the last four years focusing their energy on taking back the Congress in 2018 and then removing Donald Trump from office in 2020. The entire center-left, and a fair amount of the center-right, has unified behind this common purpose and it's brought some impressive results. We'll soon see whether that streak continues.
The grassroots organizing in this cycle is remarkable. For instance, according to The Connector Newsletter on democracy, organizing, movements and tech, Get Out the Vote activism since August dwarfs even that of the 2018 election — and that was unprecedented. "Resistance" groups, operating outside the Democratic party apparatus, have been active all over the country.
The question, of course, is what happens to all that if they win. You'll recall that there was a ton of grassroots energy in the center left organized around Barack Obama's campaign in 2008, which was promptly squelched by a combination of top-down direction from the administration and a foolish belief among many of the faithful that their work was done and they could just trust Obama. That's the natural consequence of a "movement" that's based upon a charismatic leader.
That's not going to be an issue this time. Joe Biden is not a charismatic leader, and while people are enthusiastic about ousting the worst president in American history, they are also primed for change in a substantive way. Trump and the Republicans have exposed the rot in our system in a way nothing else could have done.
Salon's Andrew O'Hehir wrote a thoughtful piece this week about political engagement in which he makes the case that merely voting is a tepid form of activism anyway, particularly in America, where it often becomes "a bizarre form of symbolic theater or public therapy." He suggests that direct action is necessary to move the country forward and cites the civil rights movement, the in-your-face ACT UP AIDS activism of the 1980s and the anti-globalization protests of the late '90s as movements that were considered far outside the mainstream at the time but pushed their agendas much more quickly than they could have through traditional lobbying or partisan politics. He points out that the post-Parkland student movement, Greta Thunberg's climate strikers and the Black Lives Matter protesters, among others, are the rumblings of a new generation getting ready to push the envelope beyond anything we've seen.
I completely agree with this, but I will add that I think electoral grassroots organizing (carried on more by the older generation, and mostly by women) is still vital. I'm reminded of this interview with leftist organizer Norman Solomon from a few years back discussing what makes a healthy, progressive political ecosystem:
We need to occupy — literally and figuratively — congressional seats for the 99 percent. Social movements need a healthy ecology, which means a wide array of activities and manifestations of grassroots power. That includes progressives in Congress. I say on the campaign trail that we need our feet on the ground and our eyes on the stars of our ideals.
It's not good enough to have one or the other. State power matters — we've seen that from county and state offices to Washington, D.C. And as somebody who has written literally thousands of articles, 12 books, gone to hundreds of demonstrations and probably organized hundreds of demonstrations, I believe we always have to be protesting; we always have to be in the streets. It's not either-or. I want our feet on the ground to include change for government policies. Laws matter. Whether or how they are enforced matters.
If nothing else, Donald Trump has revealed just how much state power matters in this country. With no more ambition than to be worshipped by his followers and treated like a king, Trump — with the help of his conniving Republican henchmen — has managed in four short years to turn the federal government into his personal fiefdom, enrich himself and his friends, twist the rule of law for his own purposes and upend American alliances and institutions, simply because he didn't know what else to do.
Trump also finally laid bare the true nature of the Republican Party. It sees politics as war, and many or most Republicans are willing to win by any means necessary. If Trump ultimately loses the election and leaves office in January, that will only be a momentary pause in the conflict. The last four years of establishment GOP collaboration with his lawless administration, along with Mitch McConnell's manipulation of Senate rules to stack the federal judiciary with youthful, far-right extremists, shows what an exercise of raw political power can accomplish. With or without control of Congress or the White House, Republicans will hold tremendous power to impact the lives of everyday Americans for a generation.
We don't know if this upcoming election will provide a close enough result for the courts to decide the outcome, but we can already see considerable willingness to use the judicial system for crude partisan gain. Kavanaugh echoed his benefactor Donald Trump in his concurrence in the Wisconsin voting case this week, suggesting that election results should be decided on election night.
Trump is ignorant enough to think that when the networks call an election result, it's official. TV is God to him. But in reality, elections are never certified on election night. Kavanaugh knows this. He was one of the Bush v. Gore lawyers who argued that absentee ballots should be accepted as late as Thanksgiving. He was acting as a partisan hack then, just as he is now. (And doing a sloppy job of it.) This is a preview of what we can expect Republicans to do whenever they get the chance.
When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., endorsed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary campaign, she said it was because she wanted to be part of a movement. And so she is. She is one of the new generation of progressive leaders who is also, as Norman Solomon said in that interview I quoted above, "occupying" a seat in Congress. She has learned very quickly that if the movement is to accomplish anything, state power is essential.
Refugee Talks 2015ff. On democratic xenophobia and nationalism, leftist love of the homeland and open-minded patriotism
A pamphlet
[This 2015 foreword is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.vsaverlag.de/uploads/media/www.vsa-verlag.de-Huisken-Fluechtlingsgespraeche2015ff.pdf.]
Content
Foreword ............................................................................................ 9
Call: "Stop the right!" - But not like this! .................. 11
Chapter 1
"I have nothing against refugees, but..." ................................ 15
1.1 "... they are taking away our jobs..." ......... 15
1.2 "As a woman, one no longer dares to be a woman on the street!"
1.3. "I am not a racist if I have Germans as foreigners!" ................................ 28
1.4 "... but there are now far too many and besides, they don't fit in with us." ............................
1.5 "Islam simply does not fit to the Christian-Jewish Occident."
1.6. "We are the people!"
1.7. "I am a patriot, but not a nationalist!" ...........................
1.8. interjection: "With right-wing extremists one does not discuss!"
1.9 "Germany the German. Foreigners out!" .............. 56
1.10. "As a German one is automatically for Germany!"
1.11. Interjection: "How can the Germans only choose the brown ones?" .......................................................... 76
Chapter 2
The misery of democratic criticism of right-wing and "Stammtisch" slogans: Nothing but nationalistic misunderstandings .............. 84
2.1 Interjection: "These are fugitives, no refugees!" .............................................................. 84
2.2. nothing but nationalistic misunderstandings ................... 86
2.3. interjection: "Do you reject partiality?" .................. 102
Chapter 3
Slogans against rights: Who stands for a better Germany? ..................................... 108
3.1 "No one is illegal!"
3.2. "Heart not hate", "Tolerance not exclusion" ......... 110
3.3. "Colorful instead of brown" ............................................................. 111
3.4 Excursus: "Not the concept of home left to the rights" ................................................... 112
3.5. "We are the people!", "We are more!" .......................... 114
Chapter 4
The exhortation: "Always just criticize and theorize. Where is the practice?" ................................................... 115
Chapter 5
The test ......................................................................................... 122
5.1 Final reader deception ... .................................... 122
5.2. ... and their constructive management .............................. 124
Obituary
Why a conversation with refugees did not come about ...................................................... 138
"About what is ruling, there is a wrong opinion about agree. Most people do not know all their lives that they be controlled, that is a fact.
They mean they do whatever they would do if there were no authority or anything else that prevails.
When they notice something, they sometimes become quite wild: 'We are that People!'"
(Kalle, with supplement, in: Brecht, Flüchtlingsgespräche)
Refugee Talks
Conversations not among refugees, not with them, but about them;
with people who do not get along with them, and those who cannot stand it.
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Foreword
The criticism of right thoughts, of false objections against them and the elaboration of correct counter-positions is not presented in this text as a selfcontained argumentation, but rather in the form of conversations, comments, correspondences, etc. from the years 2015ff.
on the one hand in everyday dealings with friends and relatives, Railroad passengers, visitors of lectures or workshops, correspondents etc. (their requests to speak are listed in italics paragraphs), and on the other hand my later, partly already elsewhere published considerations about it. The printed conversations provide, with a few exceptions, not the literal transcription of photographs, but their subsequent notation, which I supplemented, polished and therefore inevitably idealized. Of course, I always have the last word.
The style is speaking and not writing. Leave repetitions do not avoid each other. Where they occur, I have taken care of in each case somewhat different accentuation endeavors.
I have chosen this form in order to demonstrate that the confrontation with other, here predominantly right-wing views, must start with their mistakes, that these mistakes must first be corrected in their inconsistencies, breaks, logical faults or in their obvious contrafactivity are to criticize. Right only to deny thinking, to confront it with left-wing views, to classify it as nationalistic or racist, to make its
Stigmatizing followers and excluding them ideologically puts an end to debates instead of opening them and leading them with the intention of doing so, the interlocutor from the incorrectness, absurdity and to convince the harmfulness of his judgments - of which he himself often has no idea at all, let alone a concept. This is a tedious business, which lives from the fact that, based on from the clarification of the issues that are the subject of each (populism, neo-fascism, democracy, refugee policy, racist 10 mus, nationalism, etc.), to work into the (error) logic of right thinking. Without this it is possible - also on every other front - no persuasion.
The reading reenactment of the conversations, debates and correspondences does not have the sense of following a more or less exciting "competition" - that the form of representation does not danger, I know. Rather it is more important to me that (Counter-)arguments, checks, to use them, if they are found to be plausible, for own later application to have at hand. There are "winners" in these arguments anyway not. For I do not know what of my objections has arrived at the opposite party, has become clear and has been used to correct his has led to wrong thoughts. That finds alone in his head instead. Nothing but insight is required and the criticized person can only come yourself. After each conversation I am concerned with the question of whether I have caught judgements, where I have more, where less or would have been more appropriate. This has nothing to do with the ritual of self-criticism or with acquired skepticism, but only with the question whether I was right in my criticism and expressed it in a comprehensible form. My current revisions are always included in the written record of the conversations and debates.
Persuasion is so necessary because the political It is also important to note that the Republic's course of action, led by Democrats and with the support of the legal forces, can only be corrected by citizen appeal. What can be done with small writings in I have no illusions that small publishers, who are also victims of freedom in the book market determined by the prevailing pluralism of opinion, can be reached in this way. But there is another means, other than arguing orally or to interfere in writing, I have not. Criticism, inquiries and additions to: info@fhuisken.de
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Call: "Stop the right!" - But not like this!
With "Stop the AfD! Together Against the AfD Federal Party Congress "1 a national alliance has called for a "large-scale demonstration" in 2019 to "express protest and resistance against the shift to the right". It gathers on its flyer, which is treated here on behalf of others, reasons of a strange kind: "Since its foundation in 2013, the AfD has become more and more radical in the direction of a folkish nationalist party. The election results show that many people still have no scruples to give it their voice. ... It is our Task to counter the advance of the extreme right, before it gains further influence and power."
If we take this request at its word, then we may already ask the question, why the alliance pursues this goal with a marching-up before the federal party conference of this party. His opposition to the AfD brings it to this way already, whatever way it is, and together with people who already share this rejection. And only with those. But whether this will stop the advance of the right can stop? Whether AfD voters can be dissuaded from voting by loudly proclaiming disgust and aversion to the party in front of party conference rooms is more as doubtful. For all that these AfD critics have said against party - "hatred and hate", "attack on fugitives", "Division of society" etc. -, speaks only of the reasons, from which they were taken by a considerable number of contemporaries2 –
the right trend should, as they proclaim, meanwhile "in the middle the company" has arrived - is selected. "Exactly!",
1 https://region-s-o-n.verdi.de/themen/stoppt-die-afd (All net quotes appearing in the book were viewed in the period August-September 2020). 2 During the Corona period, the AfD nationally has settled at 7-8%. In the new federal states, approval rates of 20% were quite not a rarity.
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they applaud! The party supporters naturally reverse the direction of criticism, consider every attack on fugitives as right and fair, declare the government responsible for the division of society, turn its hatred of refugees into a "right and wrong" and "wrong". no secret and applaud the party officials when in word and writing against the "traitors to the people" in political Offices to field.
What were the organizers of such demos thinking when they expect this to halt the legal trend? Like the pure existence of opponents in front of the party convention building the AfD supporters convert, when the demonstrators are recognizable as representatives of that policy in dealing with refugees who just drove them to AfD? Or should they
be convinced by the mass of demonstrators, if they gather in decent numbers? Like this, when
their vote was for a party that still belongs to the political minority. If one of all the voters the political organization of outlawed bourgeois-democratic parties that kind of opportunism, which is always based on beats the side of majorities? Hardly, because the AfD has from the outset the unanimous rejection of the established parties experienced, and thus at first experienced itself as a minority in parliament set up. Rather the demo organizers could put on that they are among the party supporters as representatives of a united Germany, that is, against the division of the homeland. In this way they would be able to stand up to the parties on the right wing, which with their reputation on national identity, on the one hand quite close. On the other hand, this would have the catch that the AfD in its fight for German unity, it is precisely they, the friends of the refugees, who wants to exclude splitters. In any case, it is treacherous when the flyer states in disbelief that in view of the "nationalistic" radicalization of the AfD "many people still (!) have no scruples, to give this (party) its vote". Unscrupulousness, lack of Scruples should be the reason for such a completely unjustifiable choice decision? Actually, as this reason is called in plain language, German citizens should be concerned about everything that is "völkisch-natio13
"nalistically", but give a wide berth, this would have public appearance of neo-Nazis in German cities for unworthy of being declared unworthy and to feel only disgust in the face of the brown party conference marches as Germans. Long live the subjunctive, with which, with the help of the logic of actuality, one may allow oneself such counterfactuals. In view of Germany's Nazi past, this pattern of thought assumes that shame is the basic pattern of political thought, than the national morality of all Germans after 1945.
The AfD voters would have deviated from this, which is why a powerful demonstration of the German "Wehrret-den-Anfängen" attitude would have to remind us of what a nation who still owes a great deal to the guilt she has incurred in the past. That is why the Flyer also with a short summary antifascist Our answers to racism, chauvinism and sexism are justice, appreciation, equality and solidarity.
By the way, scruples should not be equated with considerations, let alone thoughtfulness. Scruples refer to a guilty conscience, unscrupulousness makes this kind of person go back and forth between his or her own concerns and what is proper, missing, belongs itself; especially when questions of conscience are not the only problem of whether one should still drive a car after five beers, but such high goods as the unity of the nation, from which in The following will be discussed in more detail. It must be noted that demos of this kind - and only
against such I speak out here - only bring together people before AfDParteitagen, who as German citizens know that a rejection of "völkisch-nationalist" parties is to be heard on election day. The demonstrative celebration of this rejection is their primary result. Your concerns stated in the flyer miss these anti-AfD activities: At "influence and power gain" of these parties this changes nothing. Convinced AfD voters and even protest voters, who of course also bring votes, do not see themselves criticized by this. Nor are they. But other things would be necessary:
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n On the one hand, all the things that these voters criticize about the AfD policies and programs are convincing, or rather what makes protest voters turn their reservations about the established parties into approval of the right-wing radicals. This means that the mistakes of right-wing thinking would have to be identified, demonstrated and it would have to be made clear to their representatives that the practice of these mistakes is not just for refugees and others for quite "un-German" declared, but also to them themselves not very good.
n the other hand, one would have to take the political thinking of those fellow men to heart who obey precisely their national moral scruples. Their credo is that of "but" Germans: "I have nothing against foreigners; and the AfD-Nazis vote I already not. But (!) that refugees are taking away our jobs is not to be denied! They accumulate also in the middle of the society and know that it not heard to vote NPD or AfD. With AfD slogans in head and German national scruples in the heart - or also reversed - do they know themselves then with the CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and the Greens are still in relatively good hands. And indeed: They are!
n Which of course - and this thirdly - raises the question whether it is correct if the action alliances of the cited type declare the oppositional AfD as the main opponent. The electoral behavior of these "but" Germans only works if the political programs of the state-sponsored democratic parties are not so incompatible with the program of the right-wing radicals. If this is true, then not even the called scruples with the choice, thus the knowledge that actually a cross is announced with the AfD. It will be shown in the following that it is not so easy to find out against which refugee or foreigner policy consensus the democratic parties violate the AfD slogans. In other words, I maintain that the boundaries between democratic and völkisch nationalism are fluid. There is do not remain with the pure assertion.