The implosion of narratives

The narratives and actions of politics contradict each other, leading to a complete inability to act

In recent years, political convictions and communicated recommendations for action have taken many detours. From neoliberalism to a pseudo-pandemic, to a war against Russia. Although all these narratives seem to build on each other logically and serve “higher” interests such as profit interests and the expansion of power, they produce so many contradictions at the level of actual life that they paralyze and block each other.

by Felix Feistel

[This article posted on 8/21/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/die-implosion-der-narrative.]

Anyone trying to move around Germany these days using Deutsche Bahn (DB) has a lot to be prepared for. The minimum requirements for German trains are that they are at least late and either arrive in a shortened form or have defective toilets. If the air conditioning or, in winter, the heating also fails, the travel experience is perfect. It is also not uncommon for trains to simply break down completely, which means that passengers not only have to wait on the platform for the next train, but also that the next train cannot accommodate everyone as it is usually already overcrowded. When traveling with Deutsche Bahn, you can therefore experience the German infrastructure apocalypse up close and in real time. Disaster tourism in northern Hesse, the Rhineland or Upper Franconia instead of Chernobyl. Why go far away? You can hardly afford it anyway.

But if you are traveling by car, things are hardly better: construction sites everywhere, most of which have been there for decades, without giving the impression of any kind of change or even tentative construction activity. What's more, out of a total of 130,000 bridges in Germany, at least 16,000 are in need of renovation. This goes so far that some bridges, such as the Rahmende highway bridge on the A45, are no longer passable at all. The Salzbachtal bridge in Wiesbaden even had to be completely blown up a few years ago.

The German infrastructure is rotting away before our very eyes. The reason for this is the ideology of neoliberalism, which has also been advancing in Germany since the 1980s.

The idea is that the state should stay out of all economic matters as far as possible. It should save money, just not spend it. This is why savings were also made on the necessary renovation of the highways, while at the same time construction sites sprouted from the ground without any building activity taking place. Of course, this is nothing more than good old-fashioned corruption, where construction contracts are awarded to acquaintances or relatives of those who put them out to tender. After all, construction sites cost more and more every day, and if no materials or workers have to be paid to actually operate these construction sites, the construction company, which is not actually building anything, can cash in handsomely.

In the 1990s, the railroads were also privatized and divided into dozens of profit-oriented companies. Of course, these companies were constantly in the red, because a railroad is not something you can really earn money with, nor should you. Unless, of course, you are on the supervisory board. Then you get bonus payments in the millions on top of what you already get - and that already amounts to around 4 million euros for the nine members of the DB Management Board. In return, travellers get the full experience of Latin Americanization - adventure vacations on the daily commute to work.

The usual reaction of Germans to these conditions is to complain. The decay of Deutsche Bahn is always a good topic that everyone has something to say about, especially when it comes to rail travelers who are crammed into completely overcrowded alternatives or rail replacement services after a train cancellation.

I, on the other hand, find the whole thing extremely reassuring. Because while all this is going on, our German government is preparing for a major war against Russia in conjunction with the USA. Germany is a NATO hub for military technology. Tanks, trucks, men and machines are to be shipped from the port of Hamburg and Bremerhaven to the eastern front, the Baltic states or south-eastern Europe.

And you have to imagine this in practical terms: when the US forces land in Germany and realize that most of the bridges on the way to the front will probably not be able to carry entire columns of heavy equipment. If highways and roads are narrowed or even completely closed by construction sites, bridges are closed or demolished, how is all the material supposed to get to the eastern front at all?

Of course you could use the railroad tracks. So tanks and soldiers could be loaded onto the trains. I imagine the journey from Hamburg to Riga or Kiev, crammed into far too short trains without functioning toilets and air conditioning, to be a greater challenge than life in the trenches. Provided, of course, that the trains arrive at all. If something like the weather gets in the way, which the railroads can do little with, regardless of the weather, then that is not guaranteed.

The question also arises as to what exactly we actually want to send to war. Since 2022, a large part of the war material, such as tanks, anti-aircraft missiles and ammunition of various calibers, has already been dumped in Ukraine. Under the ideology of solidarity with this country, this bastion of “democracy” ruled by real neo-Nazis, not only the German stocks have been emptied. Ukraine alone currently needs around 2 million artillery shells per year. If Europe were to plunge into a full-scale war, Germany would also have a corresponding need. The problem: German arms companies such as Rheinmetall can currently only produce around 450,000 per year. The other German weapons systems are also only “conditionally operational”, if at all. “Conditionally operational” presumably means that they are operational as long as there is no war and their use is limited to standing around in storage.

In addition, the German energy infrastructure is being systematically destroyed. The abandonment of Russian natural gas has not only led to an increase in heating costs, but has also raised serious supply deficits. It remains questionable whether it will be possible to heat at all next winter.

At the same time, nuclear power plants have been shut down and our neighbor France, which has always been a loyal supplier to us, is having problems feeding its nuclear power plants with cheap uranium due to its withdrawal from Niger. Wind and solar energy are not particularly reliable or even available in winter, when the wind turbines are frozen and the solar power plants are covered in snow. Of course, this also has an impact on a possible war. If there is a shortage of fuel and the logistics don't work due to a lack of energy, how can a sensible Barbarossa plan be implemented? As far as I know, solar tanks and hydrogen howitzers have not yet been invented. The climate rescue fantasies of the Greens therefore make a war dramatically more difficult.

And so the German infrastructure apocalypse is the epitome of pacifism in action. In retrospect, the neoliberal and climate rescue ideologies are proving to be ingenious means of preventing war. We are simply no longer at war.

And who should go to war anyway? Compulsory military service was suspended over a decade ago and the Bundeswehr is understaffed for a major land war. Instead, a woke ideology was established that relies entirely on feelings, identity and personal sensitivities. Young people in particular have been indoctrinated with this - in other words, the very people who are primarily needed for a war. But it is precisely these people who probably have the least motivation to go to war. After all, what are they supposed to do in the military, where the goulash cannon certainly doesn't contain any vegan sausage? Chair circles and non-violent communication are also unlikely to take place in the trenches and barracks.

Even gender identity, the major topic of the current German government, is rather underplayed in the Bundeswehr. This is because the new self-determination law, according to which anyone can in principle redefine their gender identity every year, stipulates that this is not possible in the event of war. So if there is a war, no biological man can identify as a woman, but remains a man. Heteronormative deadnaming - i.e. being addressed with the “wrong” name because it corresponds to the biological and therefore “wrong” gender - and consequently discriminatory addresses in the Bundeswehr. In any case, there are only two genders there, namely man and woman.

This naturally raises the question of why a biological man who considers himself a woman should not be able to feel like a woman. After all, in the context of equal rights for men and women, it should be conceivable for both sexes to be called up for military service. But this is not happening, at least not at the moment.

All the talk of women's empowerment therefore does not lead to equal participation in state-organized acts of violence - and thus, in theory, to discrimination.

The same applies to all the other 700 genders. This is where the rainbow faction needs to sharpen up its indignation.

But the question arises as to what else should motivate anyone in this country to go to war. National pride has been systematically forbidden to Germans; even during the European Football Championships, people are not allowed to enjoy the successes of their own team - which is actually no longer German at all, even in terms of the migration backgrounds of the players and the ownership structure of the clubs. This is because the clubs are owned by groups such as Bayer or Red Bull, which in turn are owned by BlackRock and Vanguard. Or they are owned directly by foreign oligarchs or families. So it's BlackRock against BlackRock, and that's called the European Football Championship.

Even the German national flag is only displayed bashfully, if at all. When it is hoisted on public buildings, it is usually flanked by several rainbow flags, which, if you didn't know any better, you might mistake for the national flag.

Didn't Nancy Faeser also wear a rainbow armband at the World Cup in Qatar? Germans wearing armbands in a sports stadium has always ended well in history, right?

But if it is now forbidden to identify with one's own country and everything here is falling apart anyway, from Deutsche Bahn to the energy supply, then it remains unclear what exactly one is supposed to let oneself be slaughtered for on the front line. Is the abstract idea of some kind of “democracy”, set against the realm of the evil “dictatorship”, enough? The democracy that bans opposition media, has demonstrations beaten down, abolishes fundamental rights and subjects people to meaningless and dangerous coercive measures in the face of a non-existent but deadly pandemic? That democracy that implements the interests of a small caste of rulers, while the rest have to “tighten their belts” and choose between living and eating every day, using a washcloth instead of a shower and doing minor business in the shower, which they are no longer supposed to use and soon won't be able to? With the promise that if we all just do our bit, protect the climate, defeat the evil Russians and wrap everything in rainbow flags, paradise on earth will become a reality?

In other words, who wants to go to war for a rainbow wonderland in which those in power ignore the needs of the people, even mock them, rob them of any possibility of identifying with their own country and replace any discourse about necessity with a discussion about feelings and gender identification?

Going to war impoverished and gender-diverse, where probably no tank, which we no longer have anyway, and no soldier will ever arrive, seems a little unrealistic. The ideologies and narratives of recent years are therefore clearly at odds with the current preparations for war. The consequences of these ideologies are paralyzing and blocking this country and making it completely unfit for war.

And that, despite all the annoyances of crowded trains, is somehow reassuring.

Felix Feistel, born in 1992, studied law, specializing in international and European law. He already worked as a journalist during his studies; since his state examination he has been working full-time as a freelance journalist and author. He writes for manova.news, apolut.net, multipolar-magazin.de and on his own Telegram channel. His training as a trauma therapist according to Identity-Oriented Psychotrauma Theory and Therapy (IoPT), which he also works as, has broadened his understanding of the background to what is happening in the world.