Much of how you see politics depends on where you come from, right? My father was raised in and around World War II in a family, that definitely sympathized with the Nazis. He was 10 when the war was over (“lost” in the terminology of the right), but although he was too young while fascism lasted, he always voted FPÖ, just like his father did. FPÖ, that’s the populist right-wing, xenophobic and utterly corrupt party that was made a big player in Austrian politics by the late Jörg Haider. I guess at least that name will ring familiar to most readers.
At home politics were never really a topic though, and I, on the other hand, was strongly influenced by the values of the late 1960s. Bruno Kreisky’s Socialist Party SPÖ has always seemed like a petrified fossil to me. The then new Green Party was what I first voted for, and through all elections since, I have kept voting green and therefore as much left as it’s possible in Austria without voting for the Communists.
The guy on the right poster is our current chancellor, head of the government, SPÖ, a puppet called Werner Faymann. He stands for nothing. Or maybe compromise regardless of political cost. Which again means nothing.
The old man on the left is an Austrian-born Canadian millionaire named Frank Stronach. He has returned to Austria, literally bought most of the remains of Jörg Haider’s fraction of the far right (it’s complicated), and he also stands for nothing, but this time a more populist, pseudo-neo-conservative version of nothing. His party is going to make it across the 5% hurdle. My father, among other protest voters, will make that possible.
It’s a week after the German elections. Germany overwhelmingly voted for the parties who broke the German constitution by allowing unrestricted US surveillance and who didn’t even find it necessary to explain themselves. The same will happen here. You find me depressed 🙂
The Song of the Day is one more time “Choose Now”, interpreted by Clifford Brown. Hear it on YouTube.