BürgerKonvent - Germany is better than now
buergerkonvent.de
In the democracy the majority decides while taking care of legitimate interests of the minorities. In Germany this principle has been hurt. Actually rigidly organized minorities enforce their interests - legitimate or not - against the objective interests of the unorganized majority. The unorganized majority can not easily state its will. Minorities took over those opinion leadership.
Power structures, which grew out of a misguided welfare state and the social partnership, are particularly problematic. They are based on the constitution and legal regulations. But they have extricated themselves from democratic control, even though they keep affecting our all living conditions in a substantial way.
These power structures are often closely interlaced with the representative governments on the federation, land and municipality level.. They promote political careers and make them possible; and they repel all attempts to pry this kind of structures open or to at least submit their efficiency to a thorough examination.
For example, we have to thank this fusion of special interests and politics is for gazillions of funds that the citizens have pumped for many years into the without a question little effective Federal Work Institution - steered by tariff parties and politicians.
Something similar applies to a wide degree to the so-called public social safety net, where behind the front of socially committed behavior not rarely most egoistic personal interests are being pursued.
This sorry blending of state, parties, trade unions and federations has lastingly impaired the development of this country. But large parts of the population got so much accustomed to it that they regard it as nearly normal, instead of abnormal to a high degree.
In order to legitimize themselves, they all keep making new promises to the population. Since some time it's not possible to hold them any more. But for many illusions count more than the reality. Whoever promises the brightest dreams, improves his election chances. On the long term, however, there's a limit to how much lipstick you can put on realities.
Germany is not prepared for this realities. The citizens suspect much, but for the time being they know little. Neither do they know about how fragile the population structure has become nor do they know about the real conditions on the job market, about the dilapidated state of the social systems or the lastingly weakened position of Germany in the world. The country suffers from a truth back-up, which must be dissolved briskly, if we want to master the existing and foreseeable challenges. Notions must become certainty, which can serve as the basis for a new orientation.
We can expect such reorientation from politics only within very narrow limits, if at all. For many decades it nurtured the impression that it can easily clear any obstacle on the way into the future. That shaped the expectations of the population. Something else would disappoint it now. The politics would like to avoid such a disappointment. It learned its lesson. Only few politicians got the favor of the voters, when they told them the truth. Longer is the list of those, who were punished for telling the truth with the loss of their mandate. Who bends the truth, has reasons to expect advantage in the political competition. The past Bundestag elections demonstrated this again.
That does not mean that the politics is not ready to face reality. But jammed between powerful particularistic interests and unrealistic voter expectations many politicians feel too weak. To avoid getting in argument, they hide themselves more and more often behind alliances and commissions. Such mechanisms are meaningful, if it's a question of reality deficits. However right now it's not the feel for realities that's missing. The politicians are missing strength and courage and above all the broad support by those, who see further, to scratch deeper and are ready to engage themselves for the whole - of the citizens, who are ready to stand by their responsibilities. Out of fear of loss of their political mandates many flee in platitudes. The fewest among them learned how to lead an open argument with organized possessors and ignorant voters. They went through a long school of the adjustment. That determines the style of their politics.
Men and women, who depend neither on varying voters' moods nor on particularistic interests, must therefore cut a wide corridor through this political brush, to relieve the politics of the ungrateful task of dissolving the truth back-up and to make the acceptance of realities possible. In the future politicians may not be allowed any longer to fall back onto the fact that an adequate and trend-setting policies would cost their party the majority and themselves the office. Rather it should be possible to rate them and their politics by the degree of the attention they show to not only the present, but also the future interests of the population.
The citizen convention stands for a country, where people like to live, work and invest their savings; where it pays to go an extra mile; a country that nurtures its best traditions; that has future in freedom and prosperity; that we can be proud of tomorrow too.
The citizen convention calls on everybody in this country to get active, particularly those, who feel mature enough to take on more responsibility for themselves and for others. Let's terminate the guardianship of the state. Let's create the society of citizens! Any support is welcome: Commitment, knowledge, abilities, time, money. Together we can break through the tormenting self-blockade of this society.
You can get information about the citizen convention and about possibilities of the co-operation from the following address:
BürgerKonvent e.V.
Bundeskanzlerplatz 2-10
53113 Bonn
www.BuergerKonvent.de
Deutsche Bank Bonn,
Konto 11 56 56 l, BLZ 380 700 24 |
