16.3.02024

Post photo: woman with glasses | © Pixabay

War cry

It's true that whether we like it or not, we have been at war for a long time. This has been a fact since 2022, even if most people still don't want to admit it. For us in Germany it is the same as it was for the Swiss, the Portuguese and the Irish, among others, in the Second World War. But they didn't know at the time whether the shooting war would spill over to them after all.

And even if we do — what is to be hoped! - even if we survive this war without bombs and missiles, we will come out of it very badly damaged, at least economically - not to mention the social upheavals.

But there are two main reasons why it got this far. Firstly, the permanent refusal of our professional policy to finally realize the European federal state - this would cost far too many their own sinecures - and secondly, the complete failure of the federal government in the years 2008 to 2014 - solely because the government did not back then were able to agree on who could enrich themselves from the necessary expenses. This political and moral incompetence got us into this very mess (Helmut KohThe spiritual and moral turnaround still sends greetings!

And so professional politics is now crying on all channels after the war! They would like to make kindergartens fit for war use as quickly as possible. All these war cries only have two things in common: they refuse to continue to make sustainable politics and all these war cries continue to think only about how they can get the most out of it for themselves.

Not to mention the human lives, this war will cost us trillions of euros and these war howlers continue to only think about how much more - similar to the mask deals during COVID-19 times - they can earn from it.

tilt

My last statements to an imbalance in our social system not only led to the general agreement of some readers, but also to a tip from someone directly affected. So another clarification. Any functioning state must also be able to care for its less able citizens - simply letting them starve is not an alternative.

The question is solely about how best to take care of these fellow citizens, and also about how this can be done as cost-effectively as possible.

The whole thing then becomes dangerous and this is probably the actual birth of populism when this supposed type of care is turned into a political instrument for gaining and maintaining power.

Regardless of this, every social system becomes unaffordable if it is also used to guarantee the most comfortable life possible for the somewhat smarter fellow citizens - and I don't primarily mean the somewhat smarter social welfare recipients, but rather the "apparatus" that takes care of such a thing a completely excessive social system was established around it.

A Ugandan professor once said in 2010 that for every Ugandan street child there are now ten aid organizations that claim to care for this child. In Germany, there are also countless civil servants and administrative apparatuses whose existence depends solely on the presence of potential social welfare recipients.

My suggestion in this regard was that we should look for alternative models to solve the causal challenge. My own idea is still very simple: education, education and more education.

Corruption

On yesterday's trip to Strasbourg, corruption was a completely surprising topic among the passengers. To my great regret, I had no idea what had become of the recently reported corruption cases in the European Parliament.

In further discussions, however, we were able to discover that corruption is definitely a global issue and that we in Germany are by no means one of the most corrupt countries, but are rather in the forefront of the slightly better countries - although not in the top group of decent ones.

In keeping with this discussion, the note on my weblog last night that the link on Wikipedia to a “list of corrupt politicians in Germany” that Recumbent once provided in a comment no longer works. When I then looked on Wikipedia, I found that the entire article had also disappeared.

List of corruption affairs involving politicians in the Federal Republic of Germany

This article does not exist.

Wikipedia, 15.3.2024

However, at least yesterday the corresponding link still exists in the Wikipedia article on “corruption”, which refers exactly to the Wikipedia article above.

Situation in Germany

See also: List of corruption affairs involving politicians in the Federal Republic of Germany

Wikipedia, March 15.3.2024, XNUMX

What is certainly a fundamental problem with Wikipedia is that articles appear there or disappear again, probably solely depending on the wallets of personally affected fellow citizens.

And so it may be a topic again to think about encyclopedias that have minimum criteria regarding transparency and scientificity.

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