Letters from Vienna #4
On Saturday, the 15th of January I attended a demonstration held by the MFG, the party of Menschen, Freiheit, Grundrechte (People, Freedom and Basic Rights) at Schwarzenbergplatz, in Vienna’s first district. It was a bright, sunny if cool winters day and clusters of shiny, white balloons reflected the hard, beautiful if cold light as they fluttered in the wind.
Not far removed was a statue of a Russian soldier, the “unknown father”, and beyond that the summer palace of the Schwarzenberg family, which was converted into a hotel many years ago.
The founder of the MFG, Michael Brunner, who on the one hand specialises in property, tenancy and forwarding law and on the other on the dangers of arbitrary rule, spoke at considerable length.
He quoted Cicero: “The closer the collapse of the Empire, the crazier its laws are”. No sooner had he uttered those words when the police moved among the crowd and demonstrated the lunacy of the current rules: that one has to wear a mask even in the open air. Of course, the wearing of masks has more to do with the status of slavery than any medical necessity and there is a considerable body of literature demonstrating their detrimental effects. Furthermore, there has long been a debate about whether viruses infect or not. No scientific paper, for example, has ever demonstrated a link between HIV and AIDS. And COVID-19, many have repeatedly argued, has never been isolated and might not even exist. But I digress…
It is extraordinary, Michael Brunner stated, that Austria should be subject to Apartheid, a sin for which his fellow countrymen castigated South Africa many years ago, and that millions of the country’s citizens should be discriminated against on account of their vaccine status. The rules are arbitrary, opaque and contradictory. Is it possible for the unvaccinated to buy clothing? The question remains unclear.
It also isn’t clear, Michael Brunner said, given the fact that many shops are empty, how long the restrictions will last. I couldn’t help but think of the videos I’d seen of empty shopping malls and department stores. Was Austria, I reflected, on the verge of economic collapse on account of the current restrictions? Perhaps. Do the powers that be, the Globalist oligarchs, care? Obviously not. This is most probably their aim. And given the concentration of financial, economic and political power in so very few hands all that is needed is the stoking of inflation to rid the Globalist oligarchs of their debts.
Michael Brunner pointed out that there will be a need for a tribunal to investigate the COVID-19 hoax and those in positions of responsibility both high and low must be held to account.
The figures he quoted were truly astonishing. Austria, he said, a country of roughly nine million, is being held hostage by merely 216 hospitalisations, it is again unclear whether these are “with” or “because of” COVID-19, which is patently ridiculous. Innumerable studies have demonstrated the inefficacy of lockdowns, he added, and Sweden has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no need for “collateral damage”. Everywhere lockdowns were imposed death-rates soared but they fell in Sweden during the same period! Furthermore, the Austrian government, instead of increasing the number of hospital beds to “cope with the pandemic” has actually reduced them!
Although a hundred new judges have been hired, Michael Brunner continued, the judicial system is ill-prepared for the deluge of cases it will inevitably be confronted with due to the vaccine mandate and after fifteen months administrative penalties are considered null and void.
Over a thousand members of the medical profession, he added, have threatened their resignations should the medical mandates be enforced.
After speaking of the requirement that human rights be respected and the changes needed he introduced the next speaker, a former member of the Green Party, Irina Baumgartner, who had switched to the MFG shortly before.
She confessed that she had been unhappy with the current situation for quite a while but had glossed over the glaring discrepancies in the narrative. Yet now she was no longer willing to slavishly obey the party line.
How many, I asked myself, have also “glossed over” the discrepancies in the narrative? And how often had I glossed over unhappy truths in the past and downright lied to myself? I thought of one acquaintance, who works in the theatre and has a position of considerable influence. Was it not easier for him to lie to himself about what is going on and to call me crazy than to accept the inevitable consequences of the truth and to be forced to resign? After all: he has a wife and family to consider.
The values of the Greens, for which Irina Baumgartner had once fought, such as solidarity, justice and tolerance were no longer respected within the party.
I thought of a former Green politician I know who complained that he could speak more freely outside than within the party. At what point, I considered, was party discipline, which is legitimate, a curse and a hindrance to democracy? And how is anything to be expected of a party whose members are muzzled? Is not free speech sacred after all?
Hers is not a single action. Also, an ÖVP (People’s Party) politician named Wolfgang Kieslich has switched to the FPÖ (the Freedom Party about whom I shall write about in a later letter). The parties in power seem to be falling apart…