Because man is a human being

Because man is a human being (Georg Rammer)
[This article published in Ossietzky 3/2020 is translated from the German on the Internet.]

... he stands up against oppression, exploitation, corrupt elites: in India, France, Chile, Iraq, Czech Republic, Algeria, Lebanon. But there are also "authoritarian national radicals" (W. Heitmeyer) who do not fight for their dignity and justice, but react to their anger: through aggressive demarcation, hatred of enemies and all those who declare them to be such. Brutalization is increasing, cohesion is dwindling – as a result of a brutalized policy? As much as power elites seek to clow it, the goals and methods of globally prevailing politics promote a desolate social mood. Neoliberal dogma destroys social coexistence.

Contempt

For months, mass protests and street fights against the blatant inequality have been taking place in Chile. A comparison of the statistical measures reveals something surprising: In Germany, social inequality is greater than in Chile, so that even the International Monetary Fund states: "Germany is one of the countries with the highest wealth and income inequality in the world."

At whose expense is wealth concentrated among the 0.1% oligarchs? We have known it for decades: the number of people affected by poverty is growing in Germany and elsewhere. Greater poverty in old age is inevitable: In response to a request from the Left Party, the Federal Ministry announces that employees have to toil full-time for 45 years and earn 12.63 euros per hour in order to get basic security in old age. Politics relies on the habituation effect and our indifference.

Both the unfair distribution of income and wealth and the systematically bled-out services of general interest affect the everyday lives of people who currently complain about unaffordable housing, sick and poor work or a broken social infrastructure. Everyone knows that hospitalization endangers health, because privatization in favor of corporations and billing according to lump sums is demonstrably at the expense of staff and patients, as the documentary »The Market-Oriented Patient« vividly shows.

The neoliberal restructuring has succeeded in destroying services of general interest and the foundations of a social constitutional state. Large parts of the population of the Federal Republic of Germany do not want these "reforms": In a survey by the Forum New Economy in October 2019, 80 percent complain about the privatization of public services. As many as 87 percent criticize dwindling social cohesion due to inequality. Instead, 87 percent want more government investment in climate protection, schools, universities and railways. Against the demands for justice of the population, however, the power elite is using its proven ideological weapon: the rich have earned their possessions and the power associated with them – the poor have failed. People rightly perceive this attitude as a mockery, contempt and devaluation; to the material disadvantage comes the mental injury. The life lie of the profiteers believes at best themselves; their class conceit is destroying the basis of peaceful coexistence.

Faint

Neoliberalism was able to start its triumphal march because its pseudo-scientific assumptions about man, economy and society gave the power elite carte blanche: "Inequality is not regrettable, but highly gratifying. It is simply necessary," as lectured by Hayek, one of the "fathers" of market radicalism. Politicians freed capital from all shackles through deregulation and liberalization, legitimizing disinhibition. Now (almost) everything that served profit was allowed.

Politicians like Berlusconi, Trump or Bolsonaro are often referred to as psychopaths; countless accused of corruption (Netanyahu, Rajoy, Sarkozy). What is forgotten is that they gained their power only through the support of capital, whose interests they enforced. People are rightly outraged by the criminal machinations of the corporations in Germany, for example in the toll, CumEx and diesel scandals or the tax havens; but outrage over laws that allow legal raids and expropriations of the population through tax advantages and privatization remains limited. All morality and human sentiment is overridden by the goal of maximizing profit. An example: At least nineteen suicide cases and twelve suicide attempts were the responsibility of the bosses of France Télécom: After privatization measures, the company pushed through the "restructuring" through psychological terror of the employees. They were to be "destabilized" until they "if not go through the door, then just go through the window," as the then head and advisor to President Sarkozy recommended (cf. n-tv.de,11.7.19).

Corporations and banks operate free of morality anyway, "shadow banks" also free of control. BlackRock, for example, as the world's largest financial investor, has a power of almost seven trillion US dollars with investments in 17,000 large stock corporations – including all DAX corporations. In all major German housing groups – the five largest own over 900,000 apartments – BlackRock is among the main shareholders – with fatal consequences for apartment seekers and tenants. The German head of the financial investor, Friedrich Merz, CDU, has ambitions for the chancellorship. It is committed to privatising pensions in the interests of investors, not pensioners. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says: "The world needs our leadership" (Le Monde diplomatique, January 2020).

But many people ask: Why don't the politicians we pay for it limit the omnipotence of these greedy monsters? How can they squire public property? A detached totalitarian power system has developed, perceptibly for all, which is not prepared to take human needs into account. People are reduced to their role as customers and workers and receive as a signal from the rulers: We don't care about you! You feel at the mercy of anonymous exploiters. The consequences are the feeling of powerlessness and a comprehensive loss of trust – and also anger. Corporate omnipotence is opposed by the powerlessness of the sovereign.

Fake Reality

Which interests determine the guidelines of politics on existential issues such as services of general interest, militarism and rearmament, climate catastrophe and social inequality? The people should not learn anything about the intimate interplay of the power elite, their goals and methods. By systematically influencing the public, reality is reinterpreted in the sense of the profiteers. For example, the US government sought advice on how the climate catastrophe can be obscured by discrediting scientific results in such a way that no measures have to be taken – made known by the leaked Frank Luntz Memorandum of 2002. On issues such as rearmament and imperial expansion of zones of influence, enemy images are intended to steer public opinion until history is revised: In the Bundestag (27.11.2019), the Chancellor accused Russia of having come to the border of NATO with its attacks. Volker Bräutigam and Friedhelm Klinkhammer describe similar distortions and lies in the press and TV as "systematics of the collaboration of the media with the government: deception, distraction from the essentials, incompleteness, trivialization." (https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/das-lacheln-der-killer)

The war for the heads is waged with »narratives«, i.e. emotional narratives that aim at the subconscious: effect instead of truth, manipulation instead of information. But when politics is pursued by the governing parties as propaganda, it enjoys a credibility like television advertising, namely none at all – even if it is still able to influence attitudes and feelings. Leading figures in major media are also part of the power cartel; the close networking of democratically illegitimate lobby and elite associations such as Atlantikbrücke or Bilderberg Meetings is clearly visible in a diagram of Swiss Propaganda Research, cf. https://swprs.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/netzwerk-medien-deutschland-spr-mt.png

In this way, a fake reality is created in which a commitment to truthfulness is cultivated in accordance with the elite interests. Manipulation penetrates through technical progress into all areas of life in order to influence thoughts, feelings and decisions. Edward Bernays had already described in 1928 how the masses are to be controlled and controlled according to the will of the elites: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Whoever manipulates the unseen mechanisms of society forms an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country." (cit. n. Wikipedia) In this manipulation of opinions, all parties that have determined market-radical politics in recent decades have played a role that should not be underestimated. Contrary to Article 21 of the Basic Law, according to which parties participate in the political decision-making of the people, they knew how to monopolize their power of opinion.

Many people lose their orientation. The confusion is intentional: people can be better steered in this way. Through the ubiquity of manipulation, the basis of reliable communication is destroyed, truth becomes arbitrary. The result: mental destabilization and loss of reality. And it doesn't stop at cognitive confusion. Because even toddlers learn that feelings do not serve to build secure relationships, but to manipulate. But in order to overcome their own powerlessness and insignificance, some want to reach the public and be perceived as strong, to achieve as much effect as possible. Feeling a bit of power – what politicians and unscrupulous bankers practice on a large scale: A witness in the CumEx trial spoke of "a bit like Pippi Longstocking: I make my world the way I want it".

Injustice, destruction of services of general interest, powerlessness, loss of trust and reality are inhumane and awaken destructive energies. If submission to this pathogenic illusory world becomes a habit, one loses one's dignity. You can't preserve them by making yourself more usable. People don't have to remain victims. Rebellion and resistance against a disease-causing system serve to stabilize psychological existence and social coexistence. The basis for resistance is sensitization: perceiving that society is deprived and disenfranchised by privatization, for example, that people are violated in their dignity by manipulation. Resisting also means sensitizing oneself to the violence that is constantly spreading through poverty, the fight against refugees or rearmament. We can change a lot on our own if we join forces.