Austria & how to get away with murder
Why would anybody re-elect such politicians? Because people here say live on camera that they support whoever sanctions migrants, job seekers, and students. Also, Jews, Muslims, and – I don’t get it – even Evangelical Christians (which make the majority of Christians in Germany, but not in Austria where Hitler equipped the Catholic Church with exclusive super-extended privileges) seem a huge issue to many.
My grandfather, who used to be like a grandfather to me, knew a lot about the past that is nowhere documented. Believe it or not: Whenever a government took away (actually: stole) from people, he would get excited. If someone had so much, someone else could take something from them, they are most probably crooks, he said. There is something about it: Whoever was wealthy before and in and after 1945 and had not flown to another country cannot have been a decent person. No way!
I cannot help it, too many strange events and people here. I am not talking about our insane history. I mean today, and that it feels weird here.
I think I smell a rat: Police riots.
I am not proud of anything but that the crazy police here ran against a wall of no reason to assume, accuse, observe, and search some friendly and harmless weirdo because if you want more budget, you better spend time going after criminals, is not nothing, though.
Well, at least, I hope so.
Not long ago, the police observed an elderly man who went for a walk in a public park, and they approached and fined him, as always carrying loaded weapons, when he sat down to rest on a bench. The COviD emergency legislation had allowed the police to make sure nobody leaves their homes unless they had a reason to. Going for a walk was not considered a reason but presented as an exception that will be generously tolerated. Sitting on a bench, however, means not moving and having arrived at what was a bench which neither is a home nor a workplace nor a grocery store and not a valid to not be at home. This is what they do here.
Please take a moment to think that through: This is a quite sophisticated interpretation of brand new (temporary) emergency law and a special case that random sane people would not necessarily consider a problem. An average police offer is not supposed to even be capable of reading here. Think further: Someone in the interior ministry management must have spent time finding possibilities (call them loopholes if you want) of how to punish people in public parks.
That was too much.
In a one-hour exclusive live interview on the by far biggest TV station, aired during primetime, the former head of the government explained that this is not going to happen again.
He said that twice (two times in a row) and spoke this part slower than usual, not leaving any doubt whatsoever that he means it. And that no province police unions will come up with slightly adapted stupidity (call them interpretations if you want) tomorrow.
Why would Mr Kurz have done that? Because he is not a cynical liar (as seen in politics before) but all about the people? Maybe.
Or was he too drunk and had forgotten that he had that message already delivered? I don’t think so. If I can empty a bottle of Vodka faster than I could with water already at the age of 17, then I am a functional alcoholic. That may be a term coined in Austria and not necessarily make sense anywhere else. Still, trust me on that, it’s an actual thing here. If I had emptied two bottles of Vodka and, although found it difficult to sit and move but still be motivated to explain to a possible voter that beer is not an option in politics because Vodka is the only drink you can enjoy all day long without anybody noticing (I wouldn’t know, but I guess I prefer Vodka because it would not have any taste or smell) then there is no reason to raise whatever concerns about my Christian fitness only ten years later. Especially when I had just recently made more than clear that those 2 million ballpoint pens I ordered in 2017 had not been a silly mistake or the result of blurry sight.
Austria is a country of about 6 million citizens allowed to participate in elections, and we are about 9 million altogether.
Maybe, but this is pure speculation; like everything here, Mr Kurz and the Corruption party had never been terrorized by the police and not been aware of what kind of people run around with loaded guns here.
The police would usually be friendly to people with money.
I don’t know why that could be. But it’s a thing and has been for ages. Working-class people (the majority of Austrians) even use a nickname (and not a flattering one) that could indicate something about money being valued by those who wear uniforms, instead of calling them the “police”, but I really don’t know if that is an old out fashioned running gag and even ever used to be a thing.
I guess that Kurz was quite surprisedand because he was in charge since the head of the government and maybe concerned about the police endangering his plans to be crowned the future king.
Doesn’t matter. It had finally been made public and acknowledged by the government and been broadly discussed that there could be something not quite right with a few who carry around loaded guns day and night – and that felt like a relief and had been high time because experiencing police terror is unbearable and causing trauma.
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