Limping Towards Catharsis II: Yearning for "Normalcy" in Politics

Covidistan at the Crossroads: part two of a 3-part mini-series on events and developments in late November and early December 2021

I may have been overly optimistic when drafting my last post on the Covidistan situation yesterday. While I slightly adjusted the title of the post (no worries, the original URL stays the same), I stand by my concluding ‘musings’:

‘It’s a lose-lose situation for the Covidistan régime, but I cannot see how the Committee of Public Safety can continue without protests reaching fever pitch.

(…)

I move to call on the President to dismiss the government and announce new elections.

In any ‘normal’ country, this would happen.

If it doesn’t, it’s time to bring out the pitchforks.’

Today, we learned ‘more’ about the shape of things to come, and while I personally watch these disgusting shenanigans with ever-growing loathing, my above thoughts offer three hypotheses, which I shall further explore in this post:

1. Thesis: the Covidistan régime is trapped in a corner of its own making (here).

2. Antithesis: Covidistan is an abnormal country.

3. Synthesis: what will bring (likely) bring about change?

Part II: what would be ‘normal’ political and civic activities?

On the same day, 30 Nov. 2021, more fissures appeared in the media, clearly visible to all, and equally intelligible to anyone who dared to know. The first of these items concerns the motion by a FPÖ politician from Upper Austria, Lt Governor Manfred Haimbuchner and City Councillor (Linz) Michael Raml petitioned the Constitutional Court to get involved immediately. Here’s state broadcaster ORF on this:

‘Apart from the public health crisis, Haimbuchner sees a “crisis of the rule of law” and a “crisis of freedom”. Freedom…means being able to lead a self-determined life, according to Haimbuchner. Raml added that the rule of law as a “victim of the so-called crisis management of the federal government”. Both consider the planned review period of four weeks for the mandatory vaccination legislation, to take place “in the middle of the Christmas season, in the middle of the vacation season”, as far too short. Haimbuchner announced to peruse first all parliamentary avenues, followed probably by legal action”.’

In addition, and this has been an essential demand of Kickl’s ‘Plan B’ for weeks, a country-wide serology study should be conducted to figure out who and how large a share of Covidistan’s population has had Covid-19 (and is therefore naturally immune, as far as this may be said). In all, Haimbuchner and the Freedom Party argue for a combination of measures and what they claim common-sense approaches as opposed to the régime’s fourth house arrest for everyone:

‘“First of all, we have to know to what extent the vaccination really works”, Haimbuchner said, but at the same time he emphasised that it probably prevents severe cases of disease, adding: “I have no doubt about that”. He left open the question of how the vaccination rate could be increased without mandatory vaccination, because “We already have a relatively high vaccination rate. If you compare that with other countries, Austria is not doing so badly.”’

Mostly true, I’d say: while there is no evidence that the current crop of Covid-19 ‘vaccines’ prevent severe cases of the disease (see here, at p. 8), the other two main points are actually correct: all-cause mortality is way above 2020, and as of 30 Nov. 2021, the share of Covidistan’s population who received at least 1 does stood at 70.2% (OWID).

Here’s the ‘problem’ with these propositions, though: while these may sound perfectly reasonable (which they mostly are), here’s what the régime (ÖVP and Greens) and the systemic opposition (SPÖ) had to say (my emphases):

‘The Austrian People’s Party Thomas Stelzer [the governor of Upper Austria and coalition ‘partner’ of the FPÖ] emphasises…that different positions are unfortunately possible on the sensitive issue of compulsory vaccination”…

“Haimbuchner criticises the federal government and at the same time is partly responsible for the Covid chaos in Upper Austria”, maintained state party chair Georg Brockmayer of the SPÖ…

“The FPÖ doesn’t contribute one iota to leading Upper Austria out of its biggest health crisis”, stated Severin Mayr, chairman of the Greens’ state parliamentary party, adding that [Haimbuchner] “contributed significantly to making Upper Austria a Corona hotspot” by undermining measures and fuelling anti-vax sentiments: “Governor Stelzer must be aware that he has his coalition partner not on his side, but against him”, resulting in “huge damage for the country”.’

A lof this can be considered (pseudo-) political rhetoric, of course, but do note that ‘different opinions’ aren’t ‘unfortunate’, they are the essence of democracy.

Note, further, that it is supremely odd, to say nothing of objectionable, to equate political dissent with causing, or contributing, to somebody contracting a communicable disease. This is perhaps one of the more egregious breaches of etiquette, for it opens the door to any number of nasty ad hominem assaults, which leads to a vicious cycle at whose end, inevitably, stands the return of political violence to domestic politics, perhaps akin to the later 1920s and early 1930s.

(For those who consider this egregious and an outrageous statement, I’ll offer the following thought experiment: replace ‘Covid’ with, say, ‘obesity’ or ‘diabetes’ and have fun making up new allegations, e.g., if you’re overweight, your lifestyle choices are partly responsible for the obesity chaos in [add territory]; by the way, the share of death attributable to obesity in Austria stood at 11.24% in 2017, the last year for which OWID has data available.)

The Greens’ statements are mainly boilerplate blah-blah, but do note the casual, if ill-founded, conflation of the Freedom Party’s political stance (contra vax mandates) with all and any tinfoil-hat positions, such as the labelling of 30% of the population as ‘anti-vaxxers’. This is certainly not a winning argument (I think that there are way fewer hardcore anti-vaxxers, and most people I know in Austria are opposed to coercive ‘health’ interventions based on principles of bodily autonomy and the sovereign individual).

In addition, and I find this to be even more egregious an insult: how on God’s green earth could the voicing of political opinions be causing ‘huge damage to the country’?

In this half-sentence alone, we can observe not only processes of ‘othering’, but there’s also an intrinsic element of violence: somebody else’s political position is deemed a national security risk, hence I’d consider the Greens’ utterances even more devastating and destructive than their competitors’.

Moving on to the anonymous letter sent by some 150 teachers in Vorarlberg who made their protest known by threatening to quit their jobs, if Covid ‘vaccinations’ become mandatory. What’s perhaps ‘worse’, these teachers did so without talking to ‘their’ (sic) union first, whose representative, Willi Witzemann, had this to say (all on 30 Nov., still, via ORF)

‘“We’re trying to stay in this conversation, educate and, convince our colleagues that because of their health, the kids and the school as a whole, it would be a bad solution if they left.”’

While the remainder of the piece is devoid of any helpful content, it displays the full extent of the cognitive dissonance here. The reason behind the letter is clear, for ‘under no circumstances do teachers in this state [Vorarlberg] want to be forced into an experimental vaccination’.

Here’s what state education secretary Barbara Schöbi-Fink (ÖVP), who ‘cannot quite follow the arguments’, had to say about this:

‘“I think the authors have made a mistake in thinking, for the issue at-hand is a general vaccination mandate, which is being discussed for the whole population and not only for the teachers”. That's why she doesn’t understand the connection and why the education directorate is the wrong address.

Witzemann sees it similarly: “A general vaccination mandate is envisioned; hence, I also see no difference whether I am teaching at a school in Austria in Switzerland or Liechtenstein. After all, there is no alternative.” He does not understand the purpose behind the letter. [doh]’

Do note one more aspect: re-read the first quote from that piece, and you’ll see that the régime is very hard at work to shift responsibility for its own actions (the vax mandate) onto those who will be affected. There’s already a shortage of teachers in the country, and to blame those 150 teachers who don’t want to be force-fed these experimental therapeutics—which is, after all, a perfectly reasonable proposition—is an outrageous position for any politician to take.

Hence, my suggestion:

Politicians who make decisions but refuse to take responsibility for their actions should be tarred, feathered, and paraded through town for everyone to see who and what they are: cowards, bereft of conscience, unworthy of the offices they hold, and who display less understanding of responsibility than kindergarten kids.