The results of the federal-state talks are no surprise, says our editor Jochen Grabler. He thinks it is time for a learning effect.
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Image: Radio Bremen
Finger up who is surprised! The Chancellor and Prime Minister deliberated, this time with an almost seven-hour break because nothing was going on. Last time there were results just before witching hour, this time in the middle of the night – but basically everything was the same. In between it should have been a lot – as always. The result was something with some restrictions with an incidence of somehow, if mayors, district administrators, sovereigns participate.
Well, who would have thought that in view of the exploding numbers of infections? And then the Chancellor drags out her bloodless technocratic German. Söder explains verbatim that now you have a clear line. Aha. And the ruling miller from Berlin makes a face again as if he had slept in there.
No learning effect
To avoid any misunderstandings: The situation is serious. She is dead serious. Yet again. As expected, we are in the third wave; the number of infections will foreseeably ensure full intensive care units. And for the dead. Younger, this time. Isn’t it time to learn something? For example from the time since October when the second wave rolled in. What happened? In five months? After all the measures, all the grinding discipline since then, now comes wave number three. Did we learn anything? Do we really want to learn something? Is something changing? I where!
Some have elections in front of their noses again or individual sectors such as tourism are on their way and insisted on this or that special regulation. Which then leads to the fact that your own long-term decisions (emergency brake!) Are no longer worth the paper and have to be discussed again and again. Tests and vaccines are still insufficiently available. And the group can think of nothing more than to use the same toolbox over and over again. So now there should be an even more lockdowny lockdown at Easter. It can hardly be more unimaginative and entangled.
Continue as usual
Put your fingers up if you seriously expected something else! Smart suggestions, for example. A change of strategy, for example. With learning successes from parts of the world that come through this human crisis much better, for example. Because after more than a year full of experience, one might at some point come up with the idea that lockdown on lockdown on lockdown is not a particularly promising plan after all. Who should this boost in political creativity come from? Well, from whom?
It goes on as usual. And that’s bitter! In the first phase of the pandemic, the general uncertainty was understandable. But now? The country’s political elite has been mistaken as it has been mistaken for months. Second wave in October – Lockdown light – oh no, not possible – Lockdown tightened – relaxation exercises – oh no, not possible – now lockdown tightened again. The country is tumbling through the pandemic. Leadless, unimaginative, powerless. And now wants to sell us that the wave of infections can be broken with five sad Easter days. As if we had stopped mentally a year ago! As if there has been no experience with the virus since then!
Germany is not coping well with the crisis
A long time ago, a chancellor was sunk with the caustic words that “Lord likes to bathe lukewarm”, he was “sleepy”. One could simply repeat these days. With the slight variation that the “gentleman” is now a “lady”. If staff debates would bring anything. But they don’t bring anything. The misery is: At that time Helmut Schmidt was ready to take over the helm. Today there is no Schmidt in sight. Not even a Schmidtchen. On the contrary. For months the hour of the opposition has struck, the hour for those with the better ideas, with energy and assertiveness – but no one comes.
We find that Germany is not coping well with this world crisis. What is happening? The Union is preoccupied with corrupt staff, their electoral chances and thus with itself. The SPD is watching the Union decline and is happy that no one is looking at the SPD. The FDP succeeds in the trick of intellectually tunneling under itself again and again. Soon they will have reached the core of the earth. The left – oh yes, the left, do they still exist? The Greens are concerned with the incredibly interesting question of whether Habeck or Baerbock, and otherwise they say who is suffering from the pandemic. And this other party …? No, mentally and morally I’m not getting that deep at my age.
I would really like to draw up a different balance sheet and present someone with a beaming hope. I can not. I have not.
Political reflection of society
So what good would it be to scream for resignations and personnel changes now? Damn little. Whereby, a small restriction: if I had the choice between scouring or not scouring … Since the 3rd of March. Said Scheuer is head of the “Test Logistics Taskforce” alongside Jens Spahn. The tests should now come in sufficient quantities. Hear. So soon. Runs, I would say. So much for “state failure”.
Which is why we can now lean back comfortably and point our finger at “them”. But that would also be a lie. Because if you look closely, political paralysis is only a reflection of social paralysis.
Why is there no working warning app? Because the so-called social media and the so-called classic media would have foamed hysterically, because the sacred data protection would have been violated. Do you want to be a politician in such a situation and stick this conflict to your cheek? As a punishment for your own downfall?
Just don’t think out loud about compulsory vaccinations
Why aren’t the currently rudimentary test and vaccination strategies really safe? Because even staff in the healthcare sector or in old people’s homes do not have to be tested and vaccinated. As a retirement home resident or patient, one is really happy to learn that the specialist staff may be contagious! And thanks the judges, who can always be found to make appropriate judgments. And who in the political arena is so stupid as to even think out loud about compulsory vaccinations? None! On the contrary! There were a thousand assurances that there will never be no compulsory vaccination. Otherwise: Shitstorm, end of political career.
Why was there never a serious discussion about “Zero Covid” or at least the goal of an extremely low incidence to control the spread of the mutant? Because there are more sympathy points to promise easing. And because brave people like Karl Lauterbach are now openly receiving death threats.
Why do energetic people like the Lord Mayor of Rostock get through so little with their proposals? Because there is hardly anyone who openly emulates them and takes over the ideas and carries them on. Tomorrow the next talk show guest will be sitting at Lanz anyway and then the next but one, very likely someone again to complain. And when it comes to complaints, we Germans really seem to be world-class. Last week, for example, the philologists’ association complained. Bitterly! The Philologists Association is, how should you put it, the association for teachers with high school diplomas. And finds the tests in schools very stupid: “In addition, it is unacceptable that pupils and teachers in the classroom are exposed to a situation of alarm and uncertainty, since positive test results can be expected in any case.” I’m going nuts!
Every country has the pandemic it deserves
Now we can continue to point our finger at “the politicians” and continue to complain comfortably in front of us. But we only look in the mirror. Those who come around the corner with courageous suggestions are ignored in the best case scenario, in the worst case there are death threats. The time in between is wasted. Welcome to Germany!
Which slowly brings me to the realization: Every country has the pandemic it deserves. Hands up who this surprises!
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