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Hand on heart - democracy needs honesty

We demand ours Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to stand behind the content of the declaration. You too can support the explanation!

We are at a crucial point in the history of our society.

Many people in Germany feel more clearly than ever that times are becoming more turbulent. Fears of financial poverty, social decline, wars and climate catastrophe are omnipresent.

Gone are the days when we can say to ourselves: “Our children will one day be better off than us!” On paper, Germany is getting richer, but the money ends up with fewer and fewer people. Rising costs for food, heating and rent, overloaded hospitals and unequal educational opportunities: the scope for action is becoming increasingly narrow for many of us. Collecting deposit bottles and going to the food bank may once have been the exception, but today it is part of everyday life for more and more people.

Right-wing extremist parties across Europe are abusing these insecurities and fears to inject misanthropic content into the middle of society. Democratic parties are also increasingly throwing their values ​​overboard in order to maintain their power. Our democracy and our constitutional state are at risk.

Shouldn't we know that right-wing extremist parties have exploited social crises in the past to come to power?

This will be no different in the climate catastrophe. Extreme weather events, sinking groundwater, crop failures and increasingly expensive food: it's about our existence.

The climate catastrophe will hit first and hardest the people who least caused it. Areas in which large parts of humanity now live are in danger of becoming uninhabitable. It's about suffering and death for billions of people.

Every day people in the Global South have to flee. Many people have no alternative but to toil under conditions that violate human rights in order to extract resources for our prosperity.

German politicians fail to recognize our responsibility for this. They tolerate systematic violence against people at the EU's external border. We used to criticize Trump for building a wall. Today Europe is a fortress behind barbed wire.

We are at a crossroads. It's time for an honest look into the future. For admitting that renewed fascism is possible in Germany if we don't change course. A world of crises and adverse living conditions provides breeding ground for fascism. It is time – also because of our historical responsibility – to confront this consistently.

We must address unsustainable social injustice and climate catastrophe together.

The government imposes a CO2 price and does not pay it back to citizens as climate money. The CO2 price makes the simplest needs, such as heating living space, more expensive. The poorest in our society and the middle class should save. They can no longer afford the energy. The rich, who consume the most, don't care about rising prices.

Saving energy cannot be solved through price increases alone! This is a question of justice and therefore a question of fair rationing that puts a limit on the overconsumption of the rich.
If water becomes scarce, let's not let the price rise to infinity so that some can no longer afford to drink while others water their lawns.

Why are some people allowed to own more and more houses while others have to live on the streets? This is reminiscent of Monopoly. We need money for everyone, so the super-rich have to give something - a wealth tax. Finally repairing and expanding the railway network, insulating houses, renaturalizing moors, so many things are possible that bring something to everyone instead of just the luxury of a few.

It is an illusion that everything can be solved through technology. It is high time to speak the uncomfortable truth: some things that are taken for granted today must come to an end. If we want to protect our livelihoods, the government must fairly shut down the airline industry - especially private jets and domestic flights. Other things cannot continue to exist at their current size - for example the automotive and chemical industries.

These challenges are so great that politicians shy away from them and continue to send young people into training for industries that have no future. There are civil society initiatives that show that retraining is possible. For example, people can learn solar installation within a few weeks. But to address these challenges, we should first hear the voices of those most directly affected by the impacts.

We need an honest debate. Only when the parties stop telling the comfortable old fairy tales and say what is at stake can we tackle the challenges of our time. The majority do not want our children's future to be destroyed. The majority want a fair society. A society that doesn't just talk about its values ​​in Sunday speeches, but actually acts according to them.

That is why people from civil society and especially our Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, are called upon to bring honesty into our democratic debate.

Hand on heart. It's time for honesty.

READ MORE COLLAPSE

Proof:

Report on the floods in West Germany: Andy Neumann – It was just rain!? https://www.gmeiner-verlag.de/buecher/titel/es-war-doch-nur-regen.html
Christian Lindner receives lobby money: Annika Joeres, Susanne Götze - The Climate Dirt Lobby, p.191

Impact of the climate crisis on floods in West Germany:
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/studie-zeigt-zusammenhang-klimawandel-flut-an-ahr-und-erft-100.html 

Dangers for old people in heat waves:
https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/fileadmin/Dateien/5_Publikationen/Praevention/Broschueren/Alter_und_Hitze_RBK_BMG.pdf

Heat waves and miscarriages:
https://background.tagesspiegel.de/energie-klima/hitzewellen-erhoehen-zahl-der-fehlgeburten 

Asthma, COPD and heat waves:
https://www.rnd.de/gesundheit/asthma-bei-hitze-welche-auswirkung-das-heisse-wetter-fuer-menschen-mit-atemnot-hat-UZG26YXD5ZCXVKPYCUFUXJ7NG4.html

Excess mortality and heat waves:
https://taz.de/Hitzetote-in-Deutschland/!5873299/

Excess mortality and heat waves 2:
 https://www.tagesschau.de/wissen/klima/hitzetote-105.html 

Heat islands in Berlin:
https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/umwelt/umweltatlas/ 

Effect of heat on cognitive performance:
https://www.spiegel.de/gesundheit/diagnose/hitze-laesst-uns-langsamer-denken-versuch-mit-studenten-a-1217681.html

Drought in East Africa:
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/ostafrika-36-millionen-menschen-von-duerre-betroffen-1.5706947 

Drought in East Africa 2:
https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/duerre-und-krieg-dramatische-hungerkrise-in-ostafrika 

Floods Pakistan:
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/pakistan-flut-monsun-100.html 

ExxonMobile and climate studies:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2021/09/16/the-other-merchants-of-doubt-big-oils-economists/ 

Oil company profits and how they buy influence:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/revealed-oil-sectors-staggering-profits-last-50-years

Christian Lindner's additional income:
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/undurchsichtige-nebeneinkuenfte-wie-unabhaengig-sind-unsere-abgeordneten-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000172378482?context=issue

Friedrichs Merz lobbies for fossil companies:
https://lobbypedia.de/wiki/Friedrich_Merz

Lobbying in Germany:
https://www.finanzwende.de/themen/finanzlobbyismus/was-das-lobbyregister-ueber-die-finanzlobby-verraet/ 

Expansion of renewable energies is being sabotaged:
https://www.duh.de/fileadmin/user_upload/download/Projektinformation/Energiewende/210127_DUH_Analyse_7Fehler_EEG_final.pdf 

70 billion fossil subsidies:
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/umweltschaedliche-subventionen-fast-die-haelfte

RWE employees write laws for the Ministry of Economic Affairs:
https://www.zeit.de/green/2021-11/klimawandel-journalismus-konzerne-manipulation-oeffentlichkeit-gesellschaft-profit-cop26/komplettansicht

Judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court:
https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2021/bvg21-031.html

The survival plans of the super-rich, bunkers in New Zealand:
https://www.zeit.de/entdecken/2022-12/douglas-rushkoff-milliardaere-katastrophen-elon-musk-survival-of-the-richest 

Schellnhuber quote:
https://archiv.klimanachrichten.de/schellnhuber-alarm-klimawandel-ist-wie-ein-schulbus-der-mit-98-wahrscheinlichkeit-toedlich-verunglueckt/

Successful citizens' councils:
https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/experiment-in-belgien-wenn-zufaellig-ausgeloste-buerger-ploetzlich-mitbestimmen-a-00000000-0002-0001-0000-000174211453 

Coalition agreement and citizens' councils:
https://www.spd.de/fileadmin/Dokumente/Koalitionsvertrag/Koalitionsvertrag_2021-2025.pdf 

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