This time around, my “brand eins” copy had to wait in its plastic cover for almost two weeks. On Sunday evening, when we arrived back in Munich on this second day in September, the first thing I had to do was unload the camping stuff. Then followed three intense days in the office, many appointments, etc. – No time for reading.
On Thursday, September 6th, however, I went to Switzerland by train – which finally gave me some time to read “brand eins”.
The September issue is titled:
WHO WANTS WHAT?
The focal point is INTERESTS.
Well, that sounds good, doesn’t it? After all, I certainly believe in the prejudice that our complex society is hugely controlled by interest policy, i.e. by lobbyism. And you all know that is something I hate very much, because I think it causes both my and the “common man’s” normal “interests” to be subdued in favour of systemic powers.
Now wouldn’t it be an important task for journalists to unsnarl the jumbled-up of imagined (group) interests – which probably even have gained their own lives by now – and isolate their dimensions? Consequently, I get more and more eager to read what it says in the magazine. I quickly tear up the cellophane cover with my long fingernails and get under way.
The editorial by Frau Fischer is titled “We only want your best!” Immediately, the old saying comes to mind: “Your Best, Your Money!” And, indeed, the article by Frau Fischer finishes with the formula “Good Products for Good Money!” This is a formula I can easily live with. After all, I have no problem spending my money on good products. Except that I do not appreciate being cheated and deceived!
Here is my experience while reading the current issue:
It is a true pleasure for me to read the magazine as I ride the train to Lindau. Every now and then, I look up from the magazine and see the soft Allgäu countryside gliding along the ALEX windows. And then I go back to reading the next article in the magazine.
I find the focus article ”What You Want“ on page 40 by Dan Ariely particularly remarkable. The ADAC overview shortly before this article, is also rather exciting. Apparently, the “C” has nothing to do with “Club”, neither is it anything like a “Christian C”; in fact, it is clearly for “Cash”.
There is also, at long last, an article about the Board of Trade I have so little love for (“The Keepers of the Grail”). We are forced to be members. And then this club usually supports the opposite of what I consider right. For example, they lobby for the Third Munich Airport Runway.
You see how far we have come in this country? – I am forced to be a member of some lobbyist association. Incidentally, the club euphemistically calls this forced membership “obligatory membership”. What a truly nice phrase.
And the more I browse through the magazine, the more exciting articles I find. Unfortunately, they all support my prejudice of the “interest-controlled society”. Now that hurts a bit. On the other hand, I am glad brand eins is actually telling me I am not dreaming all these things.
Basically, lobbyism is not a nightmare. It is reality. And I certainly need no “Zwickt’s Mi”, das kann doch alles nicht wahr sein” (Wolfgang Ambros 1975) in order to realize it.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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