Kurz

 

Kurz

As a result of the upheaval caused by the last election, hardly anyone remembers this scandal. The big bang was that the black attacked and penetrated the white and the white no longer knew what was happening to it!

What do we know about our brains? Not much! The information in our brains and that of all other living beings is transported with the help of electrical charge.

There is also much to suggest that perhaps sparse remnants of information from whites and blacks have found their way into the human brain. And because there is resistance, this information does not always arrive where it should arrive.

Let's briefly recall the events of that time.

As polls had shown, the young man his party had chosen to run for chancellor was vastly superior. The surveys and statistics of all institutes responsible for the opinion had shown that the population wanted this young man as Chancellor.

What the population did not know, however, is that these opinion polls were bought. Opinion polls can also be purchased!

"I want an opinion poll that clearly says I'm the best, the prettiest, the smartest...!"

It costs a lot of money, but who cares? Once you're chancellor, you'll never be poor again, that's simply impossible.

This policy would be discovered towards the end of the 20th century. The young man was involved, without him it would not have been possible. What was not considered, even scientists got it wrong, was that this policy had a short lifespan, it had an acquired genetic defect that went unnoticed by most people and still does to this day. This genetic defect, maybe it was also a virus, that particularly affected the brain. Saar's illness was short-lived, but it had caused quite a stir. Nevertheless, it was foreseeable that this illness would be short-lived and not taken seriously. A permanent existence of this disease seemed unlikely!

Then something unforeseen happened. Another virus appeared and made the first virus fall into oblivion. The population was and was so panicked that they were ready for anything and let everything happen to them.

And that was the beginning!

Politics has thrown our life so far out of the ordinary that the events we want to tell here have become unusual, illogical and sometimes strange. It takes all the dazzling brightness of truth, like lightning illuminating the dark shadows, to stamp events with a reality that, after all, is very simple.

This young man, his vice president and a priest are riding a boat on a lake. Suddenly the boy gets out and walks on the water. His deputy does the same, gets out of the boat and walks on the water. The priest folds his hands and prays: "Dear God, please make me walk on water too."

Then the priest gets out of the boat - and goes under.

Then the boy says to his deputy: "Do you think we should have told him where the stones are?"

Then the deputy: "Which stones?"

This is how the politicians see themselves.

Every society exactly the belief that those who have the power and use it in the interests of the majority, and those who believe in what emanates from the level of power. To downplay or even talk away this hierarchy is an illusion. Social cohesion can only work if there are enough people who stand up for the powerful, who trust them to the extent that they, in turn, retain their power and shape politics.

What have we not been talked into!

Vote me! We did it.

Eat more vegetables, less meat! We did it.

Walk more! We did it.

Don't go visit your parents anymore! We did it.

Don't eat tomatoes! We did it.

Don't go outside! We did it.

Eat more bread! We did it.

What haven't we done?

We did everything we were told.

We didn't question anything!

The boy and his deputy meet with guests for dinner.

One of the guests asks: "My dear host, what are you talking about all day?"

"We are planning World War III right now."

"And what does it look like?"

To which the deputy replies: "We kill 4 million Muslims and a dentist ..."

The guest looks confused: "Why a dentist?"

The boy pats the deputy on the shoulder and says: "What did I tell you. Nobody will ask about the Muslims..."

And we didn't ask! Without having any scientific evidence, we obeyed.

All these vegetables that were prescribed to us had their impact on public health. Our heads went soft as pudding. And not only that! We no longer knew our relatives, we broke away from our friends? Some left their families! It's hard to imagine what a powerful and strange effect such a vegetable can have.

Society has split into those who devoured this vegetable with great pleasure - not just eating it - and those who preferred to eat a juicy schnitzel. This split continues to this day.

The politicians have not earned a golden trophy, that is slowly but surely emerging.

Diapers and politicians need to be changed regularly. And for the same reason.

Our chancellor really did claim that soon everyone would know someone who had died.

On top of that statement we ate more veggies, we couldn't get enough! We ate so much that the supply could not be guaranteed. And we ate and ate until we got thin shit.

Our politicians have fooled us. Everyone should admit that.

Politicians drew attention to themselves with the demand for "women behind the stove". That's really nonsense when the switches are in front.

They did the same to us.

The little son asks his father what politics is. The father says: "Let's take our family for example. I bring the money home, so let's call me capitalism. Your mother manages the money, so we call her the government. We both care almost exclusively for your well-being, so you are you the people. Our maid is the working class and your little brother still in diapers is the future. Do you get that?"

For now, the son is happy. He wakes up in the night because his little brother has wet his diapers and is now screaming. He gets up and knocks on his parents' bedroom, but his mother is fast asleep and won't wake up. So he goes to the maid and there he finds his father in bed with her. But even when he knocks several times, the two don't let themselves be disturbed. So he goes back to his bed and goes back to sleep.

In the morning his father asks him if he now knows what politics is. The son replies: "Yes, now I know. Capitalism abuses the working class while the government sleeps. The people are totally ignored and the future is full of shit!"

After this very long period of total mental confusion of - almost the entire - people, which was possibly caused by the diet of overripe red tomatoes, according to some scientists, the disillusionment that we have already mentioned followed, because nothing remains the way it is!

In every philosophy there is a point where the philosopher's "conviction" comes on the scene: or, to put it in the language of an ancient mystery: adventavit asinus, pulcher et fortissimus. (came a donkey, beautiful and strong).

It's the same thing with philosophy. Let's say we've turned on. Not a nice thought, but realistic. The philosopher would ask, "What is the point?" However, that is the wrong question, the correct one would be: "What is the reason?" Would certainly be a more useful question. Bad food? Restaurant? A lot is possible there.

The boy, a political prodigy who became head of state at just 31, rose to power by cultivating a youthful do-gooder image that endeared him to young and old alike.

And then he became a villain.

One thing has to be given to him, he is a master of manipulation! As soon as nobody can hold a candle to him.

A cache of private text messages between his vice and deputies and other correspondence, uncovered by authorities as part of a wide-ranging investigation into political corruption, does not portray the boy as the well-mannered "nation's favorite son-in-law" who loves the heart of his countrymen and one conquered much of the EU, but as a shrewd behind-the-scenes actor, ready to do whatever it takes to push its agenda through, whether that be dealing with the Catholic Church, handing out political favors, or taking on rivals.

The boy's transformation may sound like a familiar political coming-of-age tale, but at a time when much of Central Europe has slipped into a form of gentle authoritarianism, his transformation and the larger corruption scandal engulfing politics...

This would be a major setback for the European Union, which is already struggling to deal with unruly governments over their moves to undermine both the independent judiciary and the media. Like the leaders of these countries, the boy has not shied away from attacking the EU to distract attention from his domestic problems. First, he led an unsuccessful attempt, along with the Czech Republic and Slovenia, to win a larger allocation of vaccines from the EU, an unworldly effort widely dismissed as a political ploy.

It wasn't long ago that many in Brussels saw the boy not as a threat but as the future of conservative Europe. Europe's centre-right party, the dominant political bloc in the European Parliament, was delighted with the brash boy whose tough stance on migration was seen by many as a role model for conservative parties across the continent. He was particularly popular where he courted the media, particularly the influential tabloids. Some even saw the boy as the flag bearer of the post-Merkel era.

No longer.

 

While the exchange offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into how politicians work behind the scenes, they also reveal (apart from the boy's penchant for heart emojis and exclamation points) what one veteran political commentator Peter Filzmaier called the "incredible banality of the people who lead our republic.”

"Don't worry! They're family," the finance minister, one of the boy's closest deputies, texted a confidante to assure him he was covered with a 'plum job.'

Such tactics, even if they conjure up a bad mafia movie, hardly come as a surprise in political circles. But the boy who redesigned our staid Conservative Party from the ground up after taking it over in 2017, changing everything from the name to the color (from black to teal), should be different. He not only promised to revolutionize the country's politics: he also convinced most citizens that he meant business.

He, who heads the party, is not a direct object of the corruption investigations, which range from allegations of bribery to breaches of official secrecy, but they have touched his inner circle. Perhaps even more damaging to him in the long run, however, is that the text exchange all but destroyed the public persona he built as a newly minted millennial politician who would put an end to the clubby machine politics that dominated Austria's post-war era has.

Far from drawing a line under that era, the boy has established what critics are calling the "House of Shorty," a tight-knit network of the Chancellor's cronies in government, the private sector, and the media, working together tacitly for mutual benefit.

Instead of the "new style" he promised, we learn that "anything goes".

We also ate a lot of overripe tomatoes, so "everything has to go well!"

The corruption probes that uncovered the private text traffic were sparked by the so-called Ibiza affair, a scandal that exploded in 2019 after the release of a video showing the far-right leader becoming the boy's coalition partner and offering political favors in exchange for cash bartering for a boozy session with a woman he mistook for the niece of a Russian oligarch. The boy emerged unscathed from the immediate scandal, although he toppled his coalition partner and forced snap elections that led to his current coalition with the Greens. Meanwhile, the authorities' original Ibiza investigation has led them into the Chancellor's inner circle.

At the heart of the investigation into corruption is the relationship between casino operators and officials. The former Vice-Chancellor, the man featured in the infamous Ibiza footage, claimed on the tape that one of the companies, Novomatic, "paid everyone". In other words, he claimed that the company gave money to all political parties in the country in exchange for favors, an accusation the company and political parties strenuously deny.

However, while investigating this claim, investigators came across a text that the former Novomatic boss had sent to his ally, the finance minister, in 2017. Novomatic board member said he needed a meeting with the boy, then foreign minister, to discuss "a donation on the one hand and a problem we have in Italy on the other".

The finance minister and the chancellor say the meeting never took place and it was never donated. (The reference to Italy was related to a Novomatic tax dispute there.)

The chancellor portrayed the investigations, led by the financial crimes prosecutor, as deeply flawed.

"So many mistakes have been made that I think something needs to change there," he said in im, drawing the wrath of judges and prosecutors who accused him of an unprecedented attack on the independence of the judiciary.

If the chancellor had hoped that the prosecutors would roll back his interventions, he was disappointed. If anything, they increased the pressure, investigating allegations - which have been denied by those involved - that a senior law official loyal to the boy secretly planted information about the investigation into his camp.

Prosecutors have named the finance minister as a suspect in their bribery investigation, prompting calls for opposition to his resignation, which he dismissed. He denies any wrongdoing.

As is often the case with broad-based investigations into politicians' dealings, the probe has taken authorities in unexpected directions.

One is a man who heads a state-owned holding company that manages shares in former state-owned companies, including Telekom and the oil and gas company. Along with the Minister of Finance, this gentleman belongs to a small circle of committed lieutenants from the chancellor who have accompanied him since his beginnings in politics.

Analyzing the SMS on this gentleman's phone, the authorities found out how the manager got his top position at the state holding company, where he earns up to 600,000 euros a year, depending on the development of the portfolio.

This gentleman – a senior Treasury official until 2018 – not only wrote the job description for the position, but also selected the board who would hire him. This gentleman had never worked as an executive and had no international experience, factors which in other circumstances would have ended his chances of heading a holding company overseeing €26 billion in corporate investments. But he had something else: a powerful ally, namely the Chancellor.

After months of planning his move, this honorable gentleman asked Kurz for assurances that his new job would be one of real power and not just ceremonial.

"You get everything you want 😘😘😘", the Chancellor reassured these gentlemen in March 2019 via SMS.

"🙂🙂🙂 I'm so happy...I love my chancellor," he replied.

After the public outcry about the affair, the gentleman said that he would leave the state holding company when his contract expired next year and would not exercise an option to extend it by two years.

The opposition is calling for an investigation into whether this gentleman broke any laws in securing the post. Both he and the Chancellor, who declined to comment on the article, deny any wrongdoing.

"What we see is that the 'system of the chancellor' was designed from the start to take control of state institutions and create a state within a state," said the leader of the opposition Social Democrats.

 

It is more likely that the Chancellor was simply rewarding an ally for his loyalty. The gentleman has taken on countless unusual assignments for the chancellor over the years, according to people who have worked with the two men. Just a few weeks before this gentleman got the big job in the prosecutor's office, he was helping the chancellor in a sensitive matter involving the Catholic Church.

After a local official was stabbed to death by a Turkish refugee in western Austria in early 2019, the chancellor approved a tough new law allowing authorities to place asylum seekers deemed "dangerous" in preventive detention.

But Catholic leaders rejected the idea, publicly comparing it to the tactics of repressive regimes. "Every dictatorship in the world imprisons people out of sheer distrust," wrote one churchman in a newspaper column. "Tomorrow it might be you or me."

The chancellor encouraged this gentleman to "step on the gas" to put pressure on the church. "We will leave them a sizeable package," this gentleman wrote to him ahead of a meeting with a senior church official.

The gentleman went on to say he would report to his church counterpart that "as part of the review of all tax privileges throughout the republic, the Treasury Department will be taking a very close look at the church." Both men knew that the threat to the church was that without preferential tax treatment would struggle, would be tantamount to the nuclear option

Answer from the Chancellor: "Yes, great."

A few hours later, the gentleman reported to the chancellor about the meeting, writing that the church official was "repelled" after receiving the threat. The man "blushed, then paled, and then started shaking," he wrote to his boss.

"Great, thank you!!!!", the boy replied.

Despite the Chancellor's obvious enthusiasm, the tactic did not work. The cardinal continued to criticize the proposed asylum policy, calling it "inhuman".

Just weeks after the Lord's church visit, the Chancellor's government collapsed amid the Ibiza affair. The asylum policy never came into force, although the Chancellor's party still pursues it.

Aside from the scandals eroding the chancellor's credibility, the bigger question is whether he can survive as a political bad boy. Although his approval rating has fallen in recent days, given the weakness of the opposition, most observers are betting he will again.

"Since he took over the party in 2017, the question has been whether this is just clever marketing or whether something is really changing."

At least we now have the answer.

There came a time when one rubbed one's forehead: one still rubs it today.

The only thing that can come to mind is this quatrain: What is the difference between a phone booth and politics?

In the phone booth you have to pay first and then dial.

In politics you can vote first and then you have to pay.

We can feel like we are in a capsule theater. The chancellor, the boy, introduces us voters.

Chancellor: "Voters, are you all there?"

And we voters cheer: "Jaaaaa!"

The chancellor has turned politics into what it really is: a theatre! Therefore, no one should be surprised if some make fun of it.

Austria's former chancellor has refused to rule out options for forming a new government, including courting the far-right Freedom Party, which has suffered heavy casualties amid corruption allegations.

That was after his second term. We citizens of this country are not learning anything, or we are just learning too slowly, or we don't want to learn.

We voters stumbled and fell on our backs. The chancellor happens to drop by, helps the poorest of us to our feet and jokes: "You have to vote for my party in the next election!" "But Mr. Chancellor," says the voter, "I'm on my back and not upside down please!"

We do!

what was given

Among the many shocking statements made by his then-deputy, right-wing party, during his stay at the finca was the claim that a company, an international casino operator based in the country, "pays everyone".

The deputy's allegation, which this company denies, is the focus of investigations by the authorities in the Chancellor's inner circle.

Prosecutors are investigating whether senior government officials from both the Right Party and the Chancellor's Party conspired with executives at the company to trade casino licenses for jobs and other favours.

The main allegation concerns a local FP official who was installed as casino finance director just weeks before the Ibiza video appeared, despite a headhunter finding he lacked the experience and qualifications required for the position.

At that time, this company was a major shareholder of the casinos alongside the state. Prosecutors are investigating whether the then-vice-chancellor agreed to help this company win additional gaming licenses in exchange for agreeing to appoint the FP official.

Both the then deputy and the FP official say they did nothing illegal.

Authorities are investigating a number of other high-ranking current and former government officials and business leaders in connection with the affair, including current and former finance ministers, the chief executive officer of one of the largest banks and the current head of the state-owned holding company, which owns a portfolio of company interests worth more than 26 billion euros managed. All deny wrongdoing.

The conservative People's Party came first in Sunday's snap election with 37.1% of the vote, and he said he plans to keep his promise to talk to all rivals about the possibility of a coalition.

"Of course we will seek dialogue with all parties and try to find out which parties overlap and with which parties a stable government can be formed," he told the public broadcaster.

The former chancellor, who has dominated his centre-right party and his country's political life for the past five years, has surprisingly announced his retirement from politics.

Skillful, suave and long regarded as a political prodigy, he became one of the youngest democratically elected leaders in the world in 2017 at 31, but resigned as chancellor in October 2021 after being and still being investigated on suspicion of corruption.

He resigned from his remaining posts as boss and group leader, saying he had decided to step out of politics to focus on his family life. He recently became a father.

He vigorously defended himself against public and media criticism and allegations of corruption. "As Federal Chancellor you have to make so many decisions every day that you know early on that you will also make wrong decisions," he said.

Describing himself as "neither a saint nor a criminal," he added in an unusually long statement: "You're always under surveillance. Also, you have the constant feeling of being hunted.”

The chancellor, his ex-vice and his deputy fly over the country. Suddenly the chancellor gets a fit of charity that is totally out of the ordinary for him and he throws a 1,000 euro note out the window. "Oh, it's good to make a German citizen happy down there!" His ex-vice wants to do the same, thinks for a moment and then resolutely throws ten 100 euro bills out of the window. "Oh, it's good to have ten German citizens there a little happier down below!” Of course, his deputy cannot stand aside very well. He takes 1,000 euro pieces and throws them out the window. "Oh, it's good to make a thousand Germans a little happier down there!" The pilot in the cockpit wonders what's going on in the passenger compartment because his machine is listing. He hands over to the co-pilot, goes to the back, sees the three politicians fidgeting at the open window and throws them out without further ado. Then he returns to the cockpit and says to his colleague: "Oh, it feels good to make eight million Germans really happy down there!"

(We should have, though!)

The Chancellor resigned as Chancellor under strong pressure from his coalition partner, the Greens, after anti-corruption investigators raided offices in the Chancellery, the Treasury Ministry, his party headquarters and a powerful publishing house.

Prosecutors suspect that a network of conservative politicians around him used funds from the Treasury Department to buy favorable newspaper reports and "financed partly manipulated opinion polls" in order to polish his image and that of the party.

A tabloid has denied her guaranteed favorable coverage of him and his party in exchange for taxpayers' money, but she has reportedly been paid €1.33 million for ads run by the Treasury in the last two years alone.

Prosecutors say he is under investigation on suspicion of making false statements and breach of trust, and has denied any wrongdoing. Nine other people close to the former chancellor and three organizations suspected of varying degrees of corruption and bribery are also under investigation.

The fall from him was as rapid as his rise. With 24 State Secretary for Integration, with 27 Foreign Ministers, he became party leader in May 2017 and half a year later Chancellor and rebuilt the party around himself.

In his first term, he forged a power-sharing agreement with the xenophobic far-right Freedom Party, a coalition that collapsed in 2019 when the populist party became embroiled in another corruption scandal.

The former chancellor said in his resignation statement that the allegations had affected his ability to work, forcing him to spend his final months in office "defending himself against allegations and trials and no longer competing for the best ideas."

His successor as chancellor, a career diplomat, was widely regarded as a placeholder until the chancellor could clear his name and return to office. He will be succeeded as party chairman by the Minister of the Interior.

As certainly our young Federal Chancellor has stated, one can certainly caricature him a little better.

George W. Bush, Barack Obama and our dear Chancellor are dead and standing before God. God asks Bush, "What do you believe in?" Bush replies, "I believe in free trade, in a strong America, and in the nation." God says, "Fine, come to my right!" Then he asks Obama, "In what do you believe?” Obama replies, “I believe in democracy, in helping the poor, and in world peace.” God says happily, “Wonderful! Come to my left!” Finally he asks our Chancellor: “And what do you believe in?” The Chancellor replies: “I think you are sitting on my chair!”

Does this course of action by the Chancellor have any impact on life after the boy's departure?

As Chancellor, he was said to have an affinity for the start-up world. In startup politics, while less than a year and a half after stepping down as chancellor in October 2021 and just over a year after his final retirement from politics in December 2021, the youngster is active in several roles in the startup world: as an advisor , as a founder and as an investor.

Only weeks after announcing his retirement from politics, his first step into the startup world became public. He started as a "Global Strategist" at Thiel Capital in Los Angeles. What exactly he does in this position in the investment company of the polarizing Paypall founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel is still not publicly known a year later. It should be but it is an advisory activity.

The former chancellor should also contribute his network. It's quite possible that he got the connection to Jared Kushner in return from Peter Thiel. The entrepreneur, investor and - as Donald Trump's son-in-law - former US presidential adviser brought the ex-chancellor some time ago as an honorary advisor to his "Abraham Accords Peace Institute", which aims to promote relations between Israel and the Arab states. It is currently not known whether Sebastian Kurz will also do (startup) business with Jared Kushner.

In addition, a few months ago there was a report in the tabloid magazine Exxpress, according to which the former chancellor runs "a consulting firm for technology companies with offices in Dubai and Tel Aviv". According to the ex-chancellor's spokesman, this is not entirely correct SK Management GmbH, which is registered in Austria, is building a second office in Abu Dhabi – not Dubai – in addition to Vienna.The office in Tel Aviv is that of the start-up Dream Security Wife of ex-Chancellor AS²K co-founder Alexander Schütz.

The former chancellor has founded two companies in Austria so far. The consulting and investment company SK Management GmbH, which he owns alone and whose managing director he is. This is based in the Waldviertel town of Zogelsdorf, which, however, is only a postal address. The office is located at Schubertring in Vienna. The total rent is probably at least 13,000 euros, as a well-known real estate expert said. Secondly, AS²K Beteiligungs GmbH, which the former chancellor founded together with C-Quadrat founder and 2 minutes 2 million investor Alexander Schütz. The former chancellor holds 50 percent of the shares through SK Management. AS²K Managing Director is Vera Regensburger, formerly Deputy Head of Cabinet in the Federal Chancellery. Schütz used to be a major donor to the ÖVP.

Both Austrian companies, as consulting firms or investment companies, are by definition not start-ups. In addition to the above-mentioned consulting company, the former chancellor also co-founded a start-up abroad: Dream Security. The cyber security company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. One of the ex-Chancellor's two co-founders is Shalev Hulio, co-founder and ex-CEO of the NSO Group, which caused an international scandal a few years ago with its Pegasus spy software. The secret services used the “state trojan” to spy on numerous top politicians.

As a start-up investor, the ex-Chancellor has only been active in Austria so far. He made his first investment in May 2022 as a private individual – it was made public in August. The former chancellor holds two percent of Graz-based medaia GmbH, which has dedicated itself to the fight against skin cancer with the SkinScreener app. The investment amount should therefore not have been too high. The same applies to the Viennese care platform startup HeldYn. The above-mentioned AS²K holds 5.09 percent of this.

There are consequences of his work in politics.

The former chancellor is currently residing in his new office on Vienna's Schubertring. Vis-à-vis behind a glass wall, ex-finance minister and his ex-chancellor Intimus, who only recently left his job at Superfund, move into his workplace. Other former cabinet employees are also based in the office in downtown Vienna.

According to the party sector in the government district, the crowd at Schubertring has not gone unnoticed. Because the former chancellor should also be dissatisfied with the performance of his successors. Including about the Federal Chancellor and the club chairman. The ex-chancellor's opinion of the now no longer so good party is said to have "finally tipped over" in the second half of the year. The trigger may have been the confession of the former boss to the public prosecutor's office, which heavily incriminated the former chancellor.

"After this behavior from the boss, which he saw as a betrayal, the former chancellor takes everything he hears from the party and government even more personally than before," reports a party insider.

The current chancellor is also likely to have gotten his fat from the ex-chancellor.

The former chancellor's companions, who also gradually started to flee from politics after his withdrawal, are also said to attract attention with cross-shots against the party. "Without us you wouldn't be where you are now," the tenor should be towards Ballhausplatz.

In a dictatorship you are oppressed. In a democracy you can choose who oppresses you.

It may all be theory, but the fact that it can be disproved is not the least appeal of a theory: that is precisely what attracts finer minds, because someone always comes along and feels strong enough to refute it. Only in this case are they facts and it should be difficult to refute them.