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It would have cost a sixth of the first Lufthansa aid package to equip classrooms with air filters.
Would have.
Photo: Gregor Fischer / dpa
Of course you can tell the child and youth fiasco as positively twisted as it is usual in this country. That children develop less severe courses of Covid-19. That kindergartens and schools were opened even though they were identified as sources of infection in other countries. Yes, you care so much about the young people that after a lost year you are confronted with barely disguised infection strategies.
But the truth is here, as in many areas: Corona has revealed with pandemic mercilessness how few young people count in Germany.
To be clear, this is not a new finding.
Nevertheless, as a new infusion of the Covid flavor, it is particularly bitter.
Because this disregard for young people not only seems capable of reaching a consensus across parties, but also prevails apart from politics, right into the heads of the older majority.
Sascha Lobo
Photo:
Urban Zintel
Born in 1975, is an author and strategy consultant with a focus on the Internet and digital technologies.
In 2019, Kiepenheuer & Witsch published his book "Realitätsschock: Ten Lessons from the Present".
An example of this from last year: Last year, on the social network for boomers, a strange multiplatform called Facebook, there were endless, hateful litanies about bad young people celebrating "corona parties". The name disguised the fact that these were often open-air meetings in the park, at the place where, according to aerosol researchers, 0.1 percent of all Covid infections take place. Uncle Andreas scolded this and went to his open-plan office the next day, where he fills out eight hours of PowerPoint templates with quarterly results without a mask, accompanied by the VHF radio.
It is telling that the first, broadly medialized statement about the vaccine for children had to come from Biontech boss Uğur Şahin before the previous non-existence was even discussed. The cross-check was delivered by Health Minister Spahn, who at the end of December 2020 - the vaccine has long been on everyone's lips, the vaccination campaign has already started - said: "I am optimistic that we will be able to offer everyone a vaccination in the course of the next six months." Yes no. Not all of them. As of May 2021, there is no approved vaccine for children. We know this "all", it means: all that apply, and it does not include young people. Or, assuming a little more maliciously, one could say: "All" means all those entitled to vote.
It is also a fitting symbol for this country that until his temporary fall out of greed, Philipp Amthor, of all people, the oldest under 30-year-old in the country was considered a conservative young hope. A man who, right up to his admission to the "General Assembly of the Diocesan Council of Catholics in the Archdiocese of Berlin", elevated perfect old man mimicry to a political art form. One can even understand Amthor's successful strategy of imitation of the elderly as self-defense in a society that judges seriousness on the basis of the number of years.
When it comes to Corona, crowds of young people have submitted to the forced deal of sacrificing over a year of their lives, primarily to protect the elderly. In return, they got little, supplemented by poor reception and condescending boomer tales of how good it would be for them to do without, like they did during the war, which they did not experience. From a social, psychological, societal point of view, this missing year can have serious consequences for development. Not to mention the skyrocketing numbers of domestic violence against children.
In addition to the often repeated, iconic phrase "make everyone a vaccination offer by summer", which simply ignores the existence of young people, there is a series of further evidence of the disdain for young people across the Corona landscape. Under no circumstances should one ignore the extent to which the increasingly dangerous "lateral thinkers" abuse children for their radical ideology. As an argumentation aid, as photogenic PR material, as a protective shield against alleged harmlessness. It is not fond of children to switch off all rationality when it comes to issues relating to one's own offspring - but the opposite of that, because it shows a highly selfish agenda: My political view is more important than the well-being of my child.
It is also no coincidence that exactly this attitude can be transferred from »Corona skeptics« to »climate skeptics«, i.e. people for whom their own present is more important than the future of young people and who therefore do not accept any denial of reality are a shame.
There's a pattern behind it, and it's called: Generational egoism.
Probably the two most impressive pieces of evidence for the implicit youthfulness of the powerful boomer generation are on the one hand the school disaster and on the other hand the disregard for parents.
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Sascha Lobo
Reality shock: ten lessons from the present
Published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Number of pages: 400 pages
Published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Number of pages: 400 pages
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Even more than a year after the start of the pandemic, there is simply no recognizable nationwide, comprehensive corona strategy for schools and kindergartens. And that cannot be blamed solely on federalism and the resulting responsibility of the federal states for education. It would have cost around a sixth of the first aid package for Lufthansa to equip the classrooms in Germany with air filters - please hold on and if possible only leave objects that are resistant to anger in the mouth. One sixth. "Protect and support is still the motto in air traffic," said Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU). Corresponding sentences from the education system have not been passed down, in fact, Merkel might in fact "leave classes like that". The filter money estimates are not my numbersbut the one from the Institute for Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich. In other words, an institution that can be assumed to have the best specialist knowledge as well as a rather low degree of public hostility. Nevertheless, the air filter solution for schools is still politically considered to be »too expensive«, explicitly and in the absence of a vaccine for those who sit in classrooms. While air filters are almost standard for public adult rooms such as courts and parliaments, as the institute director Christian Kähler says.explicitly and in the absence of a vaccine for those sitting in classrooms. While air filters are almost standard for public adult rooms such as courts and parliaments, as the institute director Christian Kähler says.explicitly and in the absence of a vaccine for those sitting in classrooms. While air filters are almost standard for public adult rooms such as courts and parliaments, as the institute director Christian Kähler says.
The often rumored and discussed feeling that parents feel left alone has - in addition to the obvious burden of "home schooling" - even a legal equivalent. Parents, by definition, have the people with the highest incidence rates currently darting around their homes, who are the most difficult to deal with with standard pandemic instruments like masks that don't have a vaccine or air filter. And yet the parents' vaccination
priority is
correct:
not a
priority. You'll have to wait until sometime in the summer the prioritization could be un-prioritized. Maybe.
It is of course not the case that all old people and all politics are hostile to young people. In every democratic party there are people of all ages who are vehemently committed to young people. But far too seldom do they penetrate the old age mud layer of their own power apparatus, their priorities are ignored. The Federal Republican system is permeated down to the last detail by a latent disdain for the new and the young. Almost all things are viewed through a lens of age preference and youth disadvantage. This is - unfortunately - even in the Basic Law, namely in the form of the so-called debt brake, a special form of which is often called black zero in everyday life. The black zero is the main reasonwhy so many future investments from digital infrastructure to digital education and health systems to much more family-friendly politics had to stand back. And what for? For the deceptive feeling of being a beautifully thrifty generation at the expense of the young: the black zero as a symbol of rentocracy, now with extra Covid cream on top.
