Talk:Wolfgang Schüssel

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[edit] FPÖ= far right-winged

The terms "left" and "right" refer to political differnet views determined under a simplified one-dimensional model. The Austrian Socialdemocrats are considered left, while the Austrian Communist Party should be considered far-left as to state that their views are further to the left as the Socialdemocrats. The Austrian People's party is a right-winged party, while the FPÖ has more nationalistic and xenophobic views of the world and should therefore be considered as a far right-winged party in order to distinguish them from Parties with more moderate views. In addition illegality has nothing to do with the political scale. You can be a member of a extreme left-wing, purely communist party and still do not need to do anything "illegal". That's the reason why I reverted the article again Themanwithoutapast 23:03, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I would be surprised if this anon user responded here. I had a similar problem with him on Germanic peoples, where he insisted on calling Austrians "German", even though I pointed out to him that this is considered a right-wing extremist POV today. Martg76 09:44, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

The 22 edits by User:213.162.65.17 have not necessarily improved this article. It now seems to have been written by an ardent follower of Schüssel, and it is full of POV statements. For example, you cannot deny the fact that Schüssel's government has drastically reduced education at school by simply deleting from the article the sentence where it says so. The passage about pension reform is extremely one-sided and does not belong in a biography anyway.

Is there still a template "The neutrality of this article is disputed"? This is exactly what we would need here. <KF> 17:26, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The neutrality of the old article is disputed!

The old article was extremely one sided. It had totally different content compared to the corresponding german article. 50% of the old article consisted of pure propaganda. What does it help when KF requests all anti-Schüssel arguments to be there and nothing positive should be said about Schüssel.

The old article countained lots of accusations from demonstators and the opposition aggainst Schüssel. This look like the accusations in a court. Exaggerated expressed: The old article obtained the impression of a dictator hated by the population (But this just does not fit the landslide victory of 42%).

Articles of other prominent politicans contain no such accusations and no propaganda. Compared for example to the article about Schröder the old Schüssel article was just not balanced.

The new article tries to be more balanced and based on facts.

For example: The EU requested a balanced Budged. But the Goal was only reached by raising fees. In the old article the EU as reason was missing and just a long and detailed list of raised fees was listed. In my opinion it is unfair to represent government decisions in such a way as if the population is to be harmed. The result of a better balanced budged compared to other countrys was not mentioned in the old article.

In my opinion the reasons for gouvernment actions should be mentioned. A gouvernment does not act in a vacuum.

The new article explains Schüssels decision making process of not asking for permission. This is just a fact and it can be seen positive or negative.

But of course the new article can be polished. When I have time I will try to make the article more acceptable for opposition and gouvernment followers. But basically the new article should be politically neutral and should not have a totally different content than the corresponding german article. TM

Dear TM aka User:213.162.65.17,
Just as you believe that your revised version of this article is "politically neutral" I am of the opinion that the old version was NPOV. I agree that it may not have been exhaustive, but that's the main idea behind Wikipedia: that people add something to a topic they know something about.
However, they are not supposed to delete information unless they have a (very) good reason to do so. It's easy, isn't it, to claim that "50% of the old article consisted of pure propaganda", but every critical mind will dismiss such an assertion as ridiculously exaggerated (just as the phrase "a dictator hated by the population"). For example, in 2000 the government did use an underground corridor to get to Thomas Klestil to be sworn in. Similarly, Schüssel's government did re-introduce study fees for universities and did severely cut the educational budget, first and foremost by reducing the lessons Austrian schoolchildren have to spend in class. You can adopt a blinkered view and ignore all this, but it is still true.
You seem to be a rich man/woman because you are so much in favour of Schüssel's reform of state pensions. But this is a topic details of which belong in a different article (Politics of Austria, I'd guess), not in a biography.
Never mind the German Wikipedia. One could even claim that the articles actually should be different, for two reasons: (a) The Anglo-Saxon tradition and culture of academic writing (encyclopaedia articles included) is different from the German tradition in both form and content; and (b) the target groups of the two Wikipedia articles are different. And anyway, the German text is much shorter, isn't it?
You say that when you have time you "will try to make the article more acceptable for opposition and government followers". This, I believe, is the typical Austrian Lagermentalität which Austrians should have got rid of 70 years ago. I think someone else should (also) have a go at the article as both you and me seem to be biased. All I'm going to do is correct a few grammar mistakes and typos.
All the best, <KF> 23:09, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

First: I am not a rich man/woman. But beeing rich or poor is not a criteria to write. What makes you think that I am in favour of Schüssels pension reform? Read the article carefully. The reasons to do a reform in this area are not disputed by other parties and the union (From all sides you hear someting like: Of course a pension reform is necessary, but ... ). The history of past reforms of the Austrian pension system shows: Every reform is said to be the last, but two or three years later the next reform is necessary. The article mentions that experts criticise Schüssels pension reform as not beeing ambicious enough. So they think more reforms are necessary in a few years. This is IMHO a heavy critic. The critic of the opposition and the union (too many losses) and their heavy protests is also mentioned.

If a "underground corridor" story is told it should be balanced by the fact that 54% of the voters did vote for parties supporting this gouvernment. Otherwise you get the "a dictator hated by the population" feeling. It was a gouvernment supported by the majority of the parliament (and the voters) but heavily fought by the opposition for being a coalition with a right-wing party.

Of course negative things like "study fees" and raising of other fees are hard to carry for the current generation (and unpopular). But I think no democratic gouvernment does actions in a way as if the population is to be harmed. There are always reasons (For example: A growing defizit for decades is putting a heavy load on the shoulders of later generations). If the negative things (raising of fees) are described, an equal room for a description of the reasons and the proposed positive effect on future generations (as seen by neutral experts) should be added.

Again for the pension part: Pension reforms take place in a lot of countrys. You hear of demonstations and strikes against pension reforms in many countrys. I think an international pension reform page would help. There the reasons for this reforms (which normally are accepted by all parties and the unions) could be shown with statistical material.

I think a description of a political reform should/could have the following parts:

- The reason for this particular reform
- A short description of the reform law
- How other countrys handle the same problem
- How experts see this reform
- Reference to previous attemts to solve this problem
- How the opposition and other organisations see this reform


Greetings TM

[edit] To TM

TM, for the sake of the old Wikipedia principle of NPOV, please refrain from editing this article. You still have to accept the fact that Wikipedia is not a web site run by the ÖVP.

Your edit of December 1, 2004, 15:41 p.m. is absolutely ridiculous. What you do there is deny the fact that

(1) in 2000 the ÖVP had fewer votes than the FPÖ and that Schüssel lied when he said that under those circumstances he would not seek the chancellorship;

(2) consensus democracy was abolished by Schüssel and his team;

(3) Karl Heinz Grasser, in spite of horrendous cuts, first and foremost in the field of education, failed miserably to achieve something even resembling a balanced budget.

I do not know who you hope to be manipulating here, and I am still wondering why you want to do so. Once again, this is an encyclopaedia, and as such Wikipedia is supposed to present facts. <KF> 17:23, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] From TM

No, I am not a party member of any party.

The old article made by KF looked like made from an SPÖ Member. All the views shown in the old page matched exactly the official view of the SPÖ. It just looked like a "Schüssels hater page" from an SPÖ Member and was absolutely ridiculous.

KF, you have to accept the fact that Wikipedia is not a web site run by the SPÖ.

ad 1: Did you write that Kreisky lied when he promised to leave office when losing the Zwentendorf voting, in the Kreisky page? I think Kreisky's change of mind is at the same level than Schüssels. So it should be written in the same manner as it is done for Kreisky.

ad 2: Nobody denies Schüssels decision to change the consensus democracy. This is described in detail as "Change of the decision making process" in the article. Schüssel asks for permission only in his party and the coalition but not outside. This is described with: "not asking everyone for permission". To state that he is "not asking anyone for permission" is giving the impression of a dictator, just not correct and pure propaganda.

ad 3: As you said yourself information should be added and not removed: The fact of failing for the goal of a balanced budget should be added. But it should not replace the fact that the results where better than in other countrys (see germany, france or italy which have bigger deficit problems).

The first person who tried to manipulate opinions with the Schüssel page was KF. Now KF tries to turn things around with accusations aggainst people with other views in the same way as the old page contained just accusations aggainst Schüssel.

KF, when you say this is an encyclopaedia, and as such Wikipedia is supposed to present facts, why do you praise Kreisky at his page and remove all critical facts from the Kreisky page, while at the same time insisting that only a "Schüssels hater page" would be politically neutral.

Greetings TM

TM, I said on July 13 (see above) that someone else (neither you nor me, that is) should have a look at the Wolfgang Schüssel article. I even posted a message on the German Wikipedia, hoping that someone would be interested. However, I did so to no avail, as so far no one has shown any interest. I'll just keep on waiting. If, however, you make any further substantial changes to the articles in question—Wolfgang Schüssel, Viktor Klima, and now Bruno Kreisky (and maybe some more, I'll have to check)—I'll revert those changes in order to re-establish the status quo.
People who know me would laugh out loud if they read your verdict on my political preferences. Also, as you may have realized, I'm not that much interested in Austrian politics and usually write about completely different things here at Wikipedia. <KF> 00:06, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] KF, WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO GENERALLY REVERT CHANGES OF OTHER PEOPLE

KF, it is obvious that in the political area you have by far no "Neutral point of view". For all politicans of the SPÖ you add praises of their politics and want to remove all critical points while for politicans of the ÖVP you want just to mention critical points.

Examples of critical points ommited at Kreisky's page:

-- Kreiskys first gouvernment was silently supported by the FPÖ which was headed at that time by a former member of the SS. Kreisky just said: "I decide who is a NAZI".

-- Kreisky did not reduce the military service to six months. He promised to do this before an election and after the election reduced it to eight months (when done at once) or six months plus eight weeks later on. As I mentioned elsewhere the real reduction to six months was proposed by a commission headed by Helmut Zilk and is sceduled by Schüssel for (I think) 2006.

-- Kreisky ignored a voting of 1.3 million people (Volksabstimmung) aggainst the "Konferenzzentrum" (1.3 million people is by far the all time high of this sort of votings). This gave all later gouvernment's excuses to ignore such votings.

-- Kreisky not only raised a lot of taxes (for example the "Umsatzsteuer" which was 8% in the year 1970 and was raised by Kreisky to 10%) but also invented whole new taxes like the "Luxussteuer" (30% on cars for example) which also is not mentioned.

-- Kreisky's politic of supporting gouvernment owned companys (vor example VÖST) with lots of money (deficit spending) did just postpone worker layoffs for a few years and was done before elections. After Kreisky this politic had to be stopped because of financial reasions. The subsequent economic problems (which in your opinion do not exist) where layoffs in the supported companys, which where necessary, in the time after Kreisky. So the enormous sums given to companys had only a short effect on the employment but a very long and negative effect on the budgets.

-- You insist that the raises of fees that Schüssels gouvernment did and all the protests aggainst them should be mentioned in detail, while the heavy tax raises of Kreisky's time should not be mentioned.

KF, this are just some examples which come into my mind quickly, but they show that your point of view (in the political area) is by far not neutral.

This leads to the following conclusion: KF, when you start to generally remove all my changes, I have to mark some of this pages as having no "Neutral point of view". I hope this is not necessary, but when neccessary I will do this very carefully and document all the reasons for this decision.

Greetings TM

[edit] another reply to TM (and TM's answer to this reply included)

TM, please calm down. And don't make a fool of yourself by generalizing and exaggerating things. Let me answer each of your points separately to show you that I take your objections seriously:

  • KF, WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO GENERALLY REVERT CHANGES OF OTHER PEOPLE
I do not "generally revert changes of other people". I once (as in "on one occasion only") reverted your changes to the Bruno Kreisky article because I think they were detrimental to a very good, and balanced, "featured" article, i.e. an article that had gone through a stage of peer approval.
There is hardly any hierarchy here at Wikipedia, so anyone, including anonymous users, have the "right" to revert changes if they feel this is necessary. However, if you want to press the point, I am specifically entitled to revert what is usually referred to as "vandalism" in my capacity as administrator, and I will continue doing that job, whether you like it or not.
  • KF, it is obvious that in the political area you have by far no "Neutral point of view". For all politicans of the SPÖ you add praises of their politics and want to remove all critical points while for politicans of the ÖVP you want just to mention critical points.
First of all I must say I'm glad that this is the impression you got. For example, I personally consider Viktor Klima one of the most stupid and incompetent politicians that have ever appeared in the Austrian political arena. (I even hated his looks, with those XXXL teeth sticking out of his mouth.) When I wrote his biography I of course tried to suppress my prejudice, and I take your comment as proof that it worked. For details, have a look at the "writing for the enemy" concept.
Secondly, if A criticizes B for publishing biased writing and vice versa, why not step back and let a third party finish the job or decide who is "right"? I have suggested this particular course of action several times now, the only problem being that, on a global scale, Austrian politicians are such unimportant figures that no one from the English-speaking world wants to have a look at those articles. Let's keep on waiting.
  • Examples of critical points ommited at Kreisky's page:
    • Kreiskys first gouvernment was silently supported by the FPÖ which was headed at that time by a former member of the SS. Kreisky just said: "I decide who is a NAZI".
True. Should/Could be added. I don't know why it is not already there, but two reasons appear logical: (a) Adam Carr, who wrote the biography, did not know. Or, much more likely, (b) he did know but chose not to mention it because what he was writing was an encyclopaedia article rather than a monograph on Kreisky.
    • Kreisky did not reduce the military service to six months. He promised to do this before an election and after the election reduced it to eight months (when done at once) or six months plus eight weeks later on. As I mentioned elsewhere the real reduction to six months was proposed by a commission headed by Helmut Zilk and is sceduled by Schüssel for (I think) 2006.
So what? Why would that be important?
TM: If Kreisky really had reduced the military service to six months, the reduction sceduled now would not be necessary. So if both reductions are mentioned they should contain the real and not the promised numbers. And second: It is also a good example of an election promise (I know, done by all politicans).
    • Kreisky ignored a voting of 1.3 million people (Volksabstimmung) aggainst the "Konferenzzentrum" (1.3 million people is by far the all time high of this sort of votings). This gave all later gouvernment's excuses to ignore such votings.
Even if this is true, I think the sentence, "Voters were reacting against what they saw as Kreisky's complacency and preoccupation with international issues" says it all. You just can't go into greater detail in an encyclopaedia article.
TM: Excuse me, it was a "Volksbegehren" (my fault). I guess you are to young to remember (not your fault), but "the ignoring of the voters will" by Kreisky (for a "Volksbegehren" you have to show your passport and write your name and address) is really true and should be seen in the context of the protesters aggainst Schüssel (both politicans refer to their majority in the parlament and the majority voters (I know: In the case of Schüssel there is a coalition). So if a big picture and a lot of text about protesters is shown at Schüssels page, the weak points of Kreisky (in this case ignoring 1,3 millon voters of the "Konferenzzentrum Volksbegehren") should at least be mentioned.
If you did, you would probably confuse readers from, say, the United Kingdom or Finland. Just have a look at the biographies of James Callaghan and Kalevi Sorsa, which are relatively short.
TM: If praises for a person are added, critical points should be added as well.
    • Kreisky not only raised a lot of taxes (for example the "Umsatzsteuer" which was 8% in the year 1970 and was raised by Kreisky to 10%) but also invented whole new taxes like the "Luxussteuer" (30% on cars for example) which also is not mentioned.
But in spite of that more and more people could afford more and more things so most of them didn't really mind. Also, the idea of a Luxussteuer is appealing, isn't it: If you want to live in luxury, by all means go ahead if (a) you have the money and (b) your conscience is not protesting, but don't expect tax deductions for it.
TM: If you can afford more and have to pay more taxes the total effect is not so big. This is the politic of taking money from your right pocket and giving money to your left pocket. The critic is: If the gifts of Kreisky have been smaller, the tax raises could have been avoided.
TM: Of course there are pro and contra arguments for the "Luxussteuer" but this are not facts, but depend on your point of view. The EU does not allow such tax and most people do not see a car as luxury.
Again, this is irrelevant in an encyclopaedia article.
TM: You see massive tax raises as irrelevant. Can it be that you do not pay tax. Introducing of study fees you see as extremely bad (Just to show my POV: I also think they should be avoided). But this is something depending on the point of view. A student sees study fees as bad and a employee sees the income taxes ("Lohnsteuer") as too high. (Btw. Schüssel did raise several fees, but the income taxes remaind unchanged) Conclusion: Mention Tax and fee raises in the same detail for all politicans (when mentioning positive things) or omit all tax and fee raises. There is no distinction between good (left party) and bad (right party) tax or fee raises.
    • Kreisky's politic of supporting gouvernment owned companys (vor example VÖST) with lots of money (deficit spending) did just postpone worker layoffs for a few years and was done before elections. After Kreisky this politic had to be stopped because of financial reasions. The subsequent economic problems (which in your opinion do not exist) where layoffs in the supported companys, which where necessary, in the time after Kreisky. So the enormous sums given to companys had only a short effect on the employment but a very long and negative effect on the budgets.
One of the richest countries in the world cannot have serious "economic problems". Let's adopt a global perspective, shall we? While Austria has lots of problems, they are nothing to do with the economy of the country.
TM: I did not write of serious economic problems. But if you loose your job it is serious for you. The heavy industry shrinked at the end of the Kreisky area and there where big layoffs. This has nothing to do with a country beeing rich or not. If you loose your job, you want it back or something new and probably do not care about the country beeing rich. Kreisky tried to avoid layoffs by giving money to gouvernment owned companys. If you praise Kreisky for this, you should also write how it worked out: For the huge amounts of money only a short postpone of the layoffs could be reached. His approach just did not work very well (other countrys took a different and more successful approach: E.g.: Giving the money to new growing industries instead of a dying one). And this funding was only done for companys with close connections to the gouvernment, For layoffs in privately owned companys Kreisky did not care very much. The fact that Kreisky gave only money to "red" companys and before elections is also a good example for an election gift (I know other politicans ... ).
    • You insist that the raises of fees that Schüssels gouvernment did and all the protests aggainst them should be mentioned in detail, while the heavy tax raises of Kreisky's time should not be mentioned.
As I pointed out above, in the 1970s people did not experience any particular feelings of deprivation. Rather the opposite was true: Study fees were abolished, for Christ's sake, not re-introduced. The only parallel I can see is that Herta Firnberg was just as haughty as Minister as Elisabeth Gehrer is today.
TM: If somebody feels deprivated or not depends totally on the point of view. In your point of view there was no deprivation under Kreisky (certainly not NPOV). I guess the name "Mallorca-Paket" is unknown to you. Older people know: Kreisky invented several of them, and they contained a lot of fee and tax raises. I guess the "Sparbuchsteuer" is also unknown to you. The good Kreisky who did not make mistakes and had just gifts and never raised taxes is just a dream of his hard core followers. To your denying of Kreiskys tax, fee and deficit raises I can only cite him: "Lernen Sie Geschichte" (In english: learn history).

213.229.1.114 13:16, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC) "Sparbuchsteuer" (tax on savings) clearly is a propaganda slogan from the ÖVP. To imply that a capital gains tax is a tax on the savings itself is grossly misleading. And to your denying that the government Schüssel produced the highest overall quota of taxation in the Second Republic I can only say that Kreisky managed to do much more reasonable things with a lower quota of taxation.

Answer from TM to the Message from 213.229.1.114 above: I used the word "Sparbuchsteuer" because it was used widely and the official name "ZEST" (=Zinsertragssteuer) was almost not in use and nobody would remember. I do not deny that the taxation quota was high for some time under Schüssel, but 2004 it was lower than under Klima and the tax reform of 2005 makes this even better (Contraty to the description on the main (Schüssel) page employees are also relieved by the 2005 tax reform). But of course taxes are always to high. Comparing Schüssel with Kreisky is not so simple: Kreisky started from a much better position than Schüssel. E.g.: Kreisky got an almost balanced budget from his predecessor and the total amount of gouvernment loans (German: Staatsverschuldung) was also much much smaller. Such a comparison is not easy. It is like comparing CEOs of companys in different (economic) times. It is easy to be a CEO when the economy runs well and the marked expands. But a good CEO can also save a company and its employees in hard times when a company runs out of money. Kreisky however showed how he handled budget problems: With tax raises.
  • KF, this are just some examples which come into my mind quickly, but they show that your point of view (in the political area) is by far not neutral.
  • This leads to the following conclusion:
KF, when you start to generally remove all my changes, I have to mark some of this pages as having no "Neutral point of view". I hope this is not necessary, but when neccessary I will do this very carefully and document all the reasons for this decision.
Think about it again before doing anything rash. All the best, <KF> 11:24, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
TM: I will follow your advice and calm down. Now that there is an new Schüssel article which is IMHO in general an improvement over your (KF) and my (TM) version of the article. Greetings TM

[edit] Removal of vandalism by DrogenNeger

I just removed several changes by DrogenNeger due to subtle vandalism, such as changing the image of Wolfgang Schüssel. As this user has a history of vandalising articles, and has been given a warning, he or her should now be blocked from editing on Wikipedia. PaiTrakt 22:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)