Sabotage

So, it is official. Bavaria has officially become Germany's Florida, including our own "personal" DeSantis knockoff.
And ... it's weird. I mean, people have been making Fun of Bavaria for a long time. For as long as I can remember and perhaps even longer. Probably. It's like ... when we Germans diz each other over trivial nonsense, it seems we can all take it really well but oddly enough ... the Ball usually ends up rolling into Bavaria ... and it doesn't really wanna come out of there.

And I've been reluctant - yet, it is in the Spirit of Bavaria itself to recognize a kind of Apartheid with the rest of Germany. See, even our biggest long time Political Party goes by CDU/CSU because the bavarian branch insists on going by a different name than the rest of it. Which had me wondering for a bit, since the effective difference - ignoring what ignorance I might be guilty of by thinking this way - is between the D and the S; Implying as much as a question of why the CSU rejects the D ... in CDU ... which, by the way, stands for Democracy.

And ... I think I get it. The CSU is regarded to be a more conservative leaning Party - although, what the CDU/CSU did for Germany might strike terror to the hearts of US-American conservatives - and the matter of Culture is yet much of a somewhat unresolved issue. Possibly in general. And ever so often there is a bit of an outcry that relates to some kind of ambition to preserve "it". And I can see why that might be popular in Bavaria. It is ... kind of pretty there. But this insistence on being unchanging, to maintain things as they are, is very antithetical to Progress. And that seems to be what's going on there. Similarly in the former east German side - though their "back to the roots" would be some Xenophobic Russia alignment I suppose.

But to stick with the introduced subject matter for a little longer, what I see is indeed a strong reluctance to engage with Democracy. And perhaps the problem with that is, that we don't really have a strong public entity to lead the narrative. What we got instead is the BILD Zeitung. Think ... Fox News except in Print and in German. And it is oddly ... present here. There are plenty of store-counters that have a showcase for it; Bakeries in specific might have some papers flying around for sale. It's basically THE newspaper one would encounter in possibly every break-room; At least in respects to "Hard and Honest" work - which, it has to be said, also isn't too intellectual.
And ... like so ... it's in a sense ... a Nazi Style Newspaper. Which is ... a bit of a subtopic here. What I'm implying is that the NSDAP - the National Socialist German Workers Party ... much like Sovjet and for sure US-Republican propaganda ... lean/ed into the worker's sentiment to mobilize a large bulk of drones for their Agenda. And in so doing, one does not need to give a flying fuck about Democracy. And once the loudest mouthpieces shout from the rooftops how this and that party fucked up, while either being silent about other fuck-ups if not turning them into W's, there isn't even an understanding of what this Democracy might be. And certainly no higher influence of sorts that would hold them to it.

It's overall ... a bit of a sad trend I've observed. That ... there is little to no 'loud' understanding of what ... Democracy should be. Instead the narrative is dragged along the detracting voices. Creating a kind of apathy concerning that vote that every citizen of age has.
And, it might be - or should be - a symptom of our time. That ... we grew up understanding things to be a certain way; Thus believing in some base-line of human decency that we apparently believe in collectively; And therefore all we know is to argue against those few that don't seem to have it.

But that's not Democracy. It is what they might even rightfully criticize as ... thought policing. The issue being that ... for the most part as we try to argue 'for' Democracy, we somewhat ignore what choices we even have per se. Those are then being called "the Establishment" or equated to "the Status Quo" - or Swamp perhaps. An unchanging thing. Stagnant and possibly riddled with incompetence.

It is however, at the end of the day, in the hands of our elected leaders - to do what they were elected for. Which, probably for the worse, might just end up being what they think they were voted in for rather than what they actually were voted in for. It should be relatively easy though, the will to do so provided, to preface any kind of authoritative decision making with a question; And to further buffer any authoritative action with some level-headedness - like fact checking. To thus start a kind of ... communication; As opposed to just implying that X or Y ought to be somehow the right thing.


And ... well. There's a lot more nuance to that for sure. What I'm arguing boils down to trying to minimize the weight of any kind of personal agenda. But that's not the point here. The point is my understanding of why I feel like it isn't being understood - like ... already. So ... sabotage.

I mean, things have worked out just fine for us. Humankind. Although, apparently - more and more obviously so - there has been a cancer pulling strings in the background that prevented us from making certain kinds of progress; And now that we're about to suffer the consequences of those shortcomings ... it's ... kind of too late. But not only that. If that were the only problem. Ontop of that there's ... the "rat's tail" that comes with it. Corrupt Politicians as it were - and their various machinations. And I don't know how else to put it, but to accuse them of sabotage!

I mean, the legalization of Cannabis is one example. Eventually the cogs have turned so that the government agreed to legalize it. But then came one "but this" after the other - and now we're back to nothing. As it would seem. And I'd think that this is because a lot more political capital was put into the counter-narrative than actually getting it done. Which ... I suppose is German Politics in a nutshell - at least so as per the background-noise I was exposed to during my years here. And what is possibly going to happen? Well, as it stands - nobody is going to care about that because everyone is ... invested in some other bullshit.
Whatever ...

The thing is, if there are important things that need to be done - it is important that Democracy isn't turned into a tool to disrupt that. But whatever. I don't care to get into too much detail here; So, back to the point.

I guess the best way to put it is like so: Assume that all the liberal progress - the sort-of world peace that we had, the expansion of human rights, emancipation, tolerance and all that - was really just a mantle for some evil that was in charge to disguise itself. That disguise was however not only successful; But also did that success become like its own thing. And now that this evil thinks it's time for a fascism again ... it first has to kind of ... undo that. And so it first has to break each and every sliver of meaningful belief in those liberal ideals.
That is my impression!

Also - Bavaria is effectively catholic, by the way. I originally meant to mention this in some think-piece on why "die Schwaben" are the true "Leitkultur" of Germany. For, thinking of us south-germans as the front-line against the roman empire, you'd have us - the "Schwaben" on one side ... and the Bavarians on the other ... and you might chose whom you'd trust. Next to a lot more of things in that manner. Of course implying that ... actually it's ... a non-issue. I mean ... the fault of every non-"Schwabe" of course is that they ... fall short by not trying to or trying to not be a "Schwabe". That goes for Cars. I mean, every Car on earth is either a Mercedes, a Porsche or something trying to get away with not being that. I mean, just look at Ferrari. Arguably the bestest Sportscar ... and yet their Symbol shows that they are just a knockoff. The Lamborghini on the other side is one of those cases where someone got away with being like a "Schwabe" without publically admitting to it. By which I imply that our culture yet holds a lot of potential - it is ... within everyone! Regardless of color and what not. People just have to ... stop being ashamed of it.

Anyhow ... I didn't find the time to write that however. And it's possibly also a bit cringe. In the eyes of the unenlightened for sure!