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“Monday demonstration” in Germany, 2014: Once the pandemic has been contained, the gossip about the “climate lie” comes to the fore.
Photo: IPON / imago images
If you want to understand which "protest movement" is coming next in Germany, it is worth taking a look at the recent history of the fighting term "lying press".
Today you can hear him at "lateral thinkers" demonstrations, before that at Pegida marches.
Many believe that the "lying press" renaissance began with Pegida.
But that's not true.
The term »lying press« came back; I traced it here a good two years ago, in reality in connection with Russia.
With the invasion of Crimea, with the appearance of camouflaged Russian soldiers in Donbass.
The "lateral thinkers" animators were already there back then
The word was chanted at the so-called Monday vigils.
Instead of the aggressor Vladimir Putin, NATO was portrayed as a "warmonger".
At these demonstrations, people from the right-wing extremist spectrum, from AfD and NPD, conspiracy theorists and esotericists gathered.
A Facebook group that organized social media propaganda for the mostly meager gatherings collected everything that is still relevant today among "lateral thinkers": conspiracy theories like that of the "chemtrails" in the sky, murmurs about the power of Banks with Jewish names, esotericism and even then the alleged "climate lie".
That was in 2014.
The alleged operator of this at least apparently very large Facebook group then got involved in Pegida and was sentenced to imprisonment in 2018 for illegal arms sales.
All old friends.
Various "lateral thinkers" animators of today were already there, in addition to Kayvan Soufi-Siavash alias Ken Jebsen, other conspiracy theory entrepreneurs such as Heiko Schrang, "Compact" editor-in-chief Jürgen Elsässer and so many more.
Then as now, the strange potpourri of shared claims is held together: "The people" are being lied to, there is a global conspiracy that includes the federal government and the media, Russia is good, America is bad, Jews have too much power, science is even an opinion, or a lie.
Same brand essence, new marketing
The topics on which the current narrative of suppression and conspiracy is tied are changing - Ukraine, Islam, refugees, now Corona.
The core belief remains.
New names and marketing efforts are being tried to attract a larger audience.
more on the subject
"Lies press": Merkel's mistake, Putin's victory by Christian Stöcker
Companions report: How Kayvan Soufi-Siavash became the conspiracy ideologist Ken Jebsen
Organizers of the conspiracy demos: Who earns from the Corona anger by Felix Bohr, Marie Groß and Christian Volk
Refugee debate: The secret of the screaming dwarfsBy Christian Stöcker
Despite the attention-grabbing social media campaigns, the pro-Putin demonstrations were still quite a flop.
Pegida worked quite well for a while, but then began to show signs of fatigue.
The pandemic, the biggest global turning point in recent history, provided material for the biggest wave of recruiting to date.
The protection of the constitution seems to have escaped this continuity until recently.
Maybe it was his longtime boss.
Actually irrelevant, but very loud
The numbers are still comparatively ridiculous: even tens of thousands of “lateral thinkers” in Germany will never be able to exert any significant influence at the ballot box.
Politics and the media landscape, however, still fall for the same mechanisms of troll politics: screaming dwarfs who pretend to be giants online and attract attention with spectacular actions such as the storming of the Reichstag stairs.
Again and again.
That has to change urgently.
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The goal of the hard core of this chameleon-like shifting "movement" is, regardless of the current topic, always the same: to weaken liberal democracy, to portray it as a disguised "dictatorship" and instead to present right-wing populists and autocrats as shining examples.
With the Corona measures, this shoot worked particularly well.
Apparently also with people who previously had no tendency to narrate right-wing extremist conspiracies.
»Climate lie«, the second
A far-right blogger, who is currently quite successful, recently publicly considered emigrating to Russia because he was wondering whether a new "iron curtain" might not be looming.
This time, however, with the unfree subjects in "eco-socialism" in the West and the free people in Russia who are not confused by "propaganda".
The protagonists of this current talk a lot and often about "propaganda".
At the same time, they are big fans and occasionally interviewees of the Kremlin broadcasting network RT, which was actually founded for foreign propaganda.
The legal blogger quoted earlier wrote a book about "How Moscow is destabilizing the West".
Now he is actively helping with this himself.
Even the favorite party of this current has an intense sympathy for the regime of Vladimir Putin.
And there is something else that unites many of the former “peace demonstrators” and current “lateral thinkers” with the AfD - they still do not want to believe that we are heading for a man-made climate catastrophe.
So here's a clear prognosis: When the pandemic has been contained to such an extent that a reasonably normal everyday life is possible again in Germany, the gossip about the “climate lie” comes to the fore.
Everything will be done so that the splitting potential that has now been laboriously shoveled up with the help of Corona does not simply run away again.
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The goal is far from being achieved: Liberal democracy still makes a relatively stable impression, and the party to which the movement is closest is bobbing between 10 and 12 percent in national polls.
The autocrats, who are so valued, often live on oil and gas themselves and like to spend money on propaganda.
And disinformation material is abundant due to decades of campaigns, "institutes" and "think tanks" financed by the oil industry.
The fourth marketing spin
A few green esotericists will be lost with this panning, but not all.
Finding out of the conspiracy belief is not easy.
Turn Corona into climate, as the fourth marketing shoot after Putin love, racism and the pandemic measures.
For years, German politics slowed down faster and more effective climate protection measures, not least with warnings, but then threatened »German yellow vests« based on the French model.
But the German climate »lateral thinkers« are in the starting blocks anyway.
AfD representatives as well as right-wing blogs and magazines are warming up for a long time: watch out for newly placed battle phrases such as »climate lockdown«.
Parts of the Union and also the FDP have long been looking to join the denier scene.
That is fatal.
Like its predecessor versions on the subjects of Putin, Islam and Corona, this newly varnished "movement" will never even come close to relevant political majorities. It would be nice if the other parties in Germany would finally take this fact into account: by stopping being driven or slowed down by the screaming dwarfs - and instead just doing what - also economically! - is urgently needed.