Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Farmers in the Netherlands have reacted with fury to government demands they cull their herds to help Holland meet their nitrogen emission targets.
Incredible Pictures: Thousands of Tractors Shut Down Highways in Farmer’s Anti-Green Madness Protest
Thousands of farmers shut down highways in a go-slow protest converging on the Dutch capital Monday, as they protested being victimised by a government trying to meet European Union emissions laws by cracking down on agriculture.
…
The day of protest is the thirds of its kind and follows another at the start of October. At the time, Dutch media reported the protests were against a call by the government that herds of animals reared for food should be culled so the nation could meet its European Union-imposed nitrogen emission targets.
…
The Dutch police and army, on the instructions of the centrist-globalist prime minister Mark Rutte, attempted to shut down the main roads leading into the capital Wednesday, but using the off-road capabilities afforded by driving a tractor, the protestors simply drove around the blockades, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports. Rutte called on farmers to “keep the peace” and follow the instructions of police.
…
Read more (Lots of pictures): https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/10/16/incredible-pictures-thousands-of-tractors-shut-down-highways-in-farmers-anti-green-madness-protest/
Telling farmers to cull herds built up over generations, destroy their own livelihoods, just to please some bureaucrats in the EU and meet absurd nitrogen emission targets. Yep, that was always going to work.
The EU nitrogen targets are a heavy handed out of touch bureaucratic effort to tell farmers how to manage their fields. Just as it was in Soviet times, city based EUSSR bureaucrats believe they have a much better understanding of farming than the people who actually work the land, and have no qualms about setting unrealisable targets and making unreasonable demands.
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That is flat our fascism from the EU bureaucrats trying to micromanage the economy.
Somewhere John Galt is shrugging.
Exactly what I thought as I read the story. They are destroying the farmers ability to produce, and will swoop in to nationalize agriculture on account of the farmers obviously not doing their brotherly duty of producing food. Who’s John Galt?
From that’s farming.com 9days ago:
List of demands from protesting farmers:
“We do not want forced further reduction of livestock”
“We want strictly independent measurements of CO2 and nitrogen by an independent party that is supported and accepted by the entire sector. No calculation tools.”
“We want the policy on plant protection products to be based on scientific facts, not on assumptions and emotion. And that clarity about this comes to the citizen.”
“We want unworkable rules to be reviewed in co-ordination with the sector.”
“We want clarity for the long-term in co-ordination with the sector.”
Brexit can’t come quick enough, get us out of the Common Agricultural/Fishing and all other “Common” policies. All things are not the same across Europe but the bureaucrats can’t and won’t see that!
James Bull
Spot on! Last night’s German / Bavarian TV Countryside program themes much of this rubbish too – NEXT TUESDAY, farmers will take to the roads too, all over Bavaria and Bonn. ” without farmers, the Land will Die” was one of their slogans.
They are appealing to ALL farmers since , I understand, their Farmers Union does NOT stand up for them. ( I understand that there like in UK, the Union followss the Gravy for the Benefit of the big “farmers” ).
Power to the farmers, while on hands and knees we eat grass and twigs. (In the future)
It’s hard to imagine anything making them more angry, except perhaps taking their AM radios.
You have limited imagination. Many things are likely to make them angry but threatening their livelihoods is a lot more dangerous than taking their AM radios.
Kerry should have said GPS instead of AM radio. That would hamper all but the poor farmers who can’t afford auto-piloted equipt.
Why do farmers grow food?
Big Hint…
It isn’t for the mountains of cash they make at the market.
Or the glorious fun of working 12- to 16-hour days when the weather is amenable!
“Or the glorious fun of working 12- to 16-hour days when the weather is amenable!”
It’s always nice to see people who’ve never been on a modern farm spout nonsense as if farmers still farm the way they did in 1900.
Ken, farming is not an occupation where 9-to-5 hours will do, however modern and mechanized it might be. Farming is and always will be dependent on weather,
I gather you are a city boy.
Now days, they work around the clock during harvest.
“It isn’t for the mountains of cash they make at the market.”
Uhhh…. false. That is the ONLY reason people go to work at all. And that’s a GOOD thing. Farmers only make a mountain of cash by feeding the rest of us who are happy to pay others to grow our food for us.
All the farmers I know have second jobs to pay the bills. I lease acreage to the farmer whose property is north of me, and his family has farmed that land for over 200 years. He is barely able to pay taxes on his property and keep his vehicles running. Believe it or not, some people do what they love, it’s not always about the money.
My brother’s in-laws are all farmers, and the only decent money (per hour) that they make is on their secondary jobs as carpenters and truck drivers. None of them are what anyone would ever call wealthy.
Well, Ken,
You exposed yourself as a clueless non-farmer!
Your view of the profession is so opaque that it’s comical!
I raise cows and fruit trees!
What do you raise except questions about your integrity or knowledge on the subject?
Its a beginning of starvation of the masses in the name of “saving” the planet.
Banning fossil fuels will have the same effect ie make farming impossible, make it impossible to import food, kill distribution of food and other essential and therefore kill the economy so people starve.
For now, the refrain “we have to eat the babies” is satire. But, for how much longer. Just look back at the Holodomor to see. We’re all Kulaks now.
Or just stop following the laws made by these idiots. Society is a contract. We agreed to the contract when laws were fair and equitable. We don’t have to agree to the contract when they are not. But it looks like the farmers have already figured this out, so good for them.
But without fossil fuels we will have full/fool employments
The government financed and run climate movement, and make no mistake it is a movement with socio/politcal roots, has from the beginning, been about population control and the control of limited resources.
The wealthy elites have bought the politicians to appoint the bureaucrats to carry out their takeover plan of the citizenry despite any and all protests. they then used the bureaucrats to brainwash the Children and enlist them in the army of activists to hand over control to central planning.
Note that the government will send out the police to proactively stop farmers from protesting the government. But the government only sends out police to clean up when the activist children protest the people.
some time ago I wrote this
(about the roots of climate activism)
http://www.davdata.nl/math/piedpiper.html
Note that the NY times ran this story, but took it from their website soon after.
It also seems to me that both the EU and the Dutch government are insane!
Cheers
Roger
Probably part of the long term project to get beef off the menu.
Nice ad hominem dude.
It’s not really an “ad hominem”, it’s just a straight-up insult.
I thought it was an objective evaluation of their mental state!
What government would be so brash as to put unsubstantiated limits supporting a silly environmental religion above the survival of its citizens??
The EU makes Greta Thunberg look like Einstein by comparison and remember Einstein’s definition of insanity?
(I use my pseudo name for a reason!)
They are using a young girl for political purpose. I hope she lives long enough to see she has been used. 500 scientist said the weather is always changing .
And God said, all The earth is mine and all the gold and silver and all that is within it.
He has not given the lease to any one . No one can save the planet , it’s not going any where , it’s the shedding of innocents blood that is destroying the planet. I get really annoyed to hear pastors , jumping on the bang wagon singing the sane tune on Climate change. Surely the elect will be deceived . I wonder What book Are the reading? , it’s not written in the bible !
Kerry son of Fanny Eubanks of Omaha.
Taking away their coffee pot would send them insane though.
No lace it with Monsanto weed killer!
War is coming, worldwide. The insanity will peak and the sane people will have to remove the insane.
Foooh, may-be. but at peak insanity, will there be enough resources in the hands of the Sane to remove the insane. ( implying too that there are too many ‘sane’ DumLibs around to be just more gadflies)
Any politician can calculate a number. It takes a farmer to show him just how big sh*tload that is.
Typical politician: to stop protests from heading to the capital they block the road… as if farmers needs roads to drive tractors. It’s an indication of how utterly out-of-touch these idiots are.
Our government can’t successfully run the post office. Can’t imagine them running anything as complex as a single farm let alone an industrial sized farm system. We would certainly starve.
They seem to think we should eat grass.
Why should we expect any other government to be successful? There are plenty of past and present examples of total failure and starvation.
I just hope voters put a cork in this before the 2nd amendment folks do.
Where will the govenment workers get their near from? All imported right? Because other countries can do.as they please, yet dutch farmers have to save the planet themselves 😐 Honestly This is all very depressing now… The greens have mass media and try to control everything, all while the common man/woman have to suffer the constant climate change rubbish. The u.n. and ipcc are cancerous, they fly and drive everywhere, they even gave the recent ice levels report from Monaco 😐 Wasting our tax money on ugly windfarms etc etc.. Its boring and depressing.
Sunny
*meat from
Thanks. I was wondering…
Where do they think meat comes from? From the supermarket, of course.
And McDonalds
Same as milk, silly!
I hope the police realize that with some of the four wheel drive tractors in that parade, up and over was another completely viable alternative at the road block.
Road block, who needs a road to operate a New Holland T9?
Take it to the turf, kameraad!
Way to go farmers!!!
Meanwhile, North Dakota farmers who were accused of contributing to the global warming suffered an early nasty blizzard that destroyed crops and caused general havoc. At least the warming could be warming, you know. That was and IS the theory, no matter how much the cult tries to lie its way out. We want our promised warming, Michael Mann, and we want it NOW!
We want our warming, MANN! We Want IT Now!!!
Very tee-shirtable!!! Thank you, Sheri!!
Cold off of the NWS :
…FROST ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM EDT /1 AM CDT/ TO
9 AM EDT /8 AM CDT/ FRIDAY…
* WHAT…Low temperatures of 30 to 35 degrees away from Lake
Michigan. Expect widespread frost and possibly a light freeze
in localized colder drainage areas late tonight into Friday
morning.
* WHERE…Portions of northern Indiana, southwest Michigan and
northwest Ohio.
* WHEN…From 2 AM EDT /1 AM CDT/ to 9 AM EDT /8 AM CDT/ Friday.
* IMPACTS…Frost could kill sensitive outdoor vegetation if
left uncovered. Late season crops not harvested may be damaged
or killed.
Friday, 18 October. Heavy frost Cincinnati. Scraped the windshield this morning.
Time to get out the swampers Yooper?
The analogy to the USSR is right on the spot. EU bureaucrats are the equivalent of the old politburo
The USSR solved its protest problems by murdering the farmers who resisted collectivization.
What do you think the EU will do?
You mistyped EUSSR
I remind you people that 61.6% of voters rejected the European Constitution, yet The Netherlands form part of the European Community.
That is a major corcern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constitution_referendum
Nitrogen leeching into deep reservoirs flowing underground to the ocean from the southern alps in New Zealand is a becoming a real problem. What was pure drinking water, the best available, is now becoming of great concern. Applied fertilizer during rapid dairy farming expansion is a real problem.
How to address it is the key question.
Regards
Hey Martin there is nitrates in the water as it runs off the alps from vegetation decomposition and other naturally occurring elements like autumn leaves in river beds.
Sure agriculture adds to the nitrate levels as the food it produces keeps the rampant growing population alive…..but you will surely eat more nitrates from your garden veges than you could ever achieve from the water you drink
Dairy farming in NZ ALPS?
Must be pretty good farmers over the ditch. We use mostly flat ground here.
Nope. The water from the alps flows underground through wide alluvial plains to the sea. The nitrogen contamination occurs on the plains.
“Applied fertilizer during rapid dairy farming expansion is a real problem.”
You apply fertilizer to cows? I learn something new every day.
You apply it to the fields that the cows graze on.
I thought the cows provided their own fertiliser as a by product of the wonderful milk and meat they make for us from plain old grass? It worked that way when I grew up, anyway… That’s why wellies were required wearing for country walks.
I’ve never seen anyone fertilize range land. Cows don’t use the loo, they go right on the grass. Then there are prescribed burns.
In Europe (and presumably N Z) grazing is frequently fertilized.
I believe it comes out of the cows ?
A few years ago the main worry was that Holland may be getting near to floating on Cow and Pig schist. So this new approach seems to be a re branding of an existing problem. I doubt the new packaging will have any effect, as anybody who has driven through the Netherlands will realise how seriously they take their farming activities.
Off topic Martin Cropp. We are talking about methane. Not nitrogen in the aquafers. You are trying to conflate two different elements. Many northern hemisphere readers here have little understanding of our pastoral ways of feeding cows and other ruminants.
Apologies Martin, they were talking about nitrogen, which makes it even more absurd!
No, they’re talking about nitrogen, not carbon.
They are referring to ammonia in the air. Even more likely to be a brainfart.
To the best of my knowledge, Earth’s atmosphere 1s 78% (780,000 ppm) nitrogen and the nucleotides that make up human DNA also contain nitrogen. Without nitrogen, there is no life.
But but but NZ has a carbon tax!!
You ridiculous blather is pretty funny to read, given how wrong you guys have ALWAYS been. You never consider the obvious fact you are wrong. Once your predicted environmental catastrophe is proven false and everyone who believed it stupid, rather than face the fact you’re stupid, you simply move on to the next made up environmental catastrophe fad.
wtf?
you have decent soils and pastures dont get much fertilisers anyway
and with all the cowpoop shouldnt use any
if its going underground to oceans then how is that a drinking waterproblem as youd use lakes n rivers anyway
NOT borewater like aussies have to
if you go full retard and try n ruin the dairy and lamb producers kiss your asses and economy goodbye
ardern already screwed any oil/gas income for you all
In the Netherlands at more than 200 locations groundwater is extracted for drinking water production. Between 2000 and 2015 at 89 of those locations higher doses of fertilizer were measured than allowed (50 pm/l, WHO norm). In recent years 21 locations were closed as it became to expensive to purify the water. The WHO norm of 50 pm/l is probably to high, as it is described that already below 25pm/l (EU norm) risk for cancer is increased. (Carla Koen in NRC-H, October 17, 2019).
First off, can we have a link to what is happening. Next, Im a farmer, I graze sheep and cattle. Fertilizer is really REALLY expensive. What one can buy for $30-$40,000 is a surprisingly tiny pile. There is NO WAY that I would waste it on a watercourse. The idea that the tiny pile of it I can afford would make any negative impact on “the environment” is not sensible. One of the only ways I can tell that the superphosphate is doing any good at all is that the kangaroos are thicker on the ground where we put it. I think the use of superphosphate is one of the “wars” that go along with the hole in the ozone layer, cholesterol in food, Great Barrier Reef dying, CO2 causing global warming etc etc etc. I can see how cesspits from dairy farms located on river banks can cause a local problem. That superphosphate would contaminate a whole aquifer system I would be very skeptical of unless there was very good direct evidence, not the sort of evidence that set off the Montreal Protocol. Farmers just cant pay for the amount of wasted super it would take to contaminate any thing on a landscape scale.
Thick Kangaroos, eh? 🙂 Oh I know what you mean and fully agree with most of what you say. Crikey, we even were told that the freshwater algae growing in mounain streams was caused by excess fertiliser use! Eh? up in the rockie mountains where only trees grow? This is the nonsense that is promoted without question …. like the ozone hole etc. Acid Rain also springs to mind – no word of the serious densely planted conifers monocultures. Some of these plantations were instigated through necessity afer the Wars, but later, were a form of TaxHaven… not realising it was a(“carbon”) Bank. Then they burnt hydrocarbons to ear them down again to give us mosquito & Midge infested Bog. But now we are encouraged to plant trees again – Where?
My very first thought in the ’90s when Global Warming started to become an issue about curbing world-wide CO2 emissions was, “Who’s army is going to force people to stop burning things? Fire is the hallmark of our species, and we have to stop using it? You’ve got to be kidding.” Well they’re not kidding and resistance is going to happen when they actually try to legislate this crap.
The Russians are also joining the “party”….the anti-Green Party……
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/russia-scraps-carbon-trading-system-pollution-penalties-after-uproar-businesses
Those pesky Ruskies. Not prepared to join the madness of Lysenkoism Mark II.
Looks like it’s time for someone to post some of those “You have two cows. Under Socialism ….” analogies.
(Maybe we need a new one for “Under Environmentalism, you just “bought the farm””?)
Climatism: You wish you had two cows.
😎
oh please do
I really like it
Under Climatism:
You have two cows.
You make up your own Bull.
Or
Under Climatism:
You have two cows.
Mann (Et Al.) make up the Bull for you.
Or
Under Climatism:
You have two cows.
You are declared to be an enemy of the Planet and “culled”.
I also wonder what the PeTA people have to say about this?
Under PeTAism:
You have two cows.
PeTA sues on behalf of the cows.
Now:
Two cows have one human …
Farmers are realists.
Greta’s plan (‘climate’ emergency …. Dutch implementation …. Forced Dutch CO2 emissions, 95% by 2050 … that will require shutting down country and agriculture industry for no purpose
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-climatechange-law/dutch-parliament-to-set-target-of-95-percent-co2-reduction-by-2050-idUSKBN1JN1X5
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – The Dutch parliament will approve a law requiring the Netherlands to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 95 percent by 2050, compared with the level in 1990, lawmakers representing 75 percent of the seats in the Dutch Lower House said on Wednesday.
The law also targets a 49 percent reduction in emissions by 2030, and requires the electricity supply to become carbon neutral by 2050.
The proposed bill, expected to come into effect next year, did not give an estimate for the cost of reaching the goals, nor an indication of how they might be achieved.
Windmills!!! The Dutch have been using them for centuries.
The dutch used windmills to move water as opposed to pushing shit up hill.
+++++++ well said;-)))
Until they discovered electricity and diesel and now the windmills just look pretty for the tourists.
our ancestors used their windmills for non-time-critical work such as pumping water and milling grains.
A larger windmill generated 15HP saving 60 acres of land otherwise needed for horsefood.
Funny is that the windmills appeared outside the economic center (Amsterdam) . The guilds blocked the mills because they destroyed labour.
The obvious failure of such a law will ultimately lead to the Brussels’s Marxists demanding the European governments then abolish private farming and enter into collectivization of farms and agricultural holdings when they face the stiffest resistance to their thinly-veiled Marxist demands.
We know how they think because that’s exactly what Stalin did starting 1928 when the Moscow’s communists were unhappy with rural farmers from the Ukraine to the Urals not giving up their grain harvests essentially for free to the city workers and urban dwellers. The effect of the collectivization efforts was of course opposite of what was the stated intent. The outcome was control of the rural population (aka, the peasants, which today’s Leftists see these Dutch farmers in the same way) and smashing their resistance to centralized control, through control of the then limited food supplies, with the outcome being mass starvation.
History will repeat itself for Europe with Brussels being the Moscow of 100 years ago if the people stand idly by whilst the power hungry Marxists there scheme their coming plunder of the West’s energy and now clearly their domestic food production.
Agenda 21
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/outcomedocuments/agenda21
https://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/
https://www.disclose.tv/agenda-21-the-plan-to-depopulate-95-of-the-world-by-2030-313560
7.8 to 11 million people dead… pah.. drop in the ocean compared to the billions leftists want to dispose of..
As horrific as Hitler’s Final Solution (killing camps) was along with the purposeful starvation in the “non-killing” concentrations camps with 5+ million Jews and gypsies dead, JUST THAT ONE starvation period brought by Stalin killed 2X more of his fellow Russians 10 years earlier.
Today’s Leftists are determined for the current 21st Century to one-up by at least 1 order of magnitude all the the genocidal despots of the 20th Century genocides combined.
What if Dutch farmers went on strike?
Seriously, just how utterly stupid are those politicians, that they don’t have even a faint idea of how agriculture works?
Now there’s a thought. Stop taking cattle to slaughter for a few weeks and leave the harvest in cold storage for a while. Then just wait for the fun to begin.
I have said to famers I know, join together ban ALL off farm sales bar to hospitals and schools for just a week ,maybe a fortnight
it would bring a nation to attention PDQ!
and the mil takeover to run farms laws
ha ha ha yeah sure we have nowhere near enough mil people or machinery able to replace what farmers do in a day let alone any longer than that.
and youd be damned safe in betting exreb n and the rest couldntm get their bums in gear to go work either
Quite agree with you – i’s been said manys a time before over the farm gate or tractor bonnet. Sadly the bonnet is too high to lean on and few farmers actually drive them and have time for a thursday night natter. Rush rush rush. can’t see the wood for the trees………
It would give the Marxists from Amsterdam to Brussels the excuse and the claim to a moral high ground they want to seize the farms under a “collectivization for the common good.”
And starving city dwellers would cheer it on-wards.
Sounds like a premise to an Ayn Rand novel
Sara,
“…they don’t have even a faint idea of how agriculture works?” and neither do the IPCC.
According to the UNFCCC, who dictate the rules on how to calculate emissions from livestock, this makes them (livestock) the second largest ‘emitters’ of CO2 after energy.
These in theory they are meant to be ‘net emissions’ but in practice they only calculate emissions of methane (CH4) which rapidly breaks down in the atmosphere into CO2 and water vapour, but do not offset this by the CO2 that was captured from the atmosphere by the plants that the livestock ate.
For every tonne of methane emitted by livestock, 2.75 tonnes of carbon dioxide has already been sequestered from the atmosphere by the plants the livestock ate.
This is part of the well accepted ‘carbon cycle’, and ignoring it highlights their ignorance, or more likely their hidden intent.
Livestock, if the carbon cycle was correctly calculated would be at least ‘carbon neutral’ and probably slightly ‘carbon positive’.
Carbon dioxide however is essential for all life as we know it, including our own.
More of it is in fact highly beneficial.
One more fact, if the livestock don’t eat the vegetation, wild life, or termites will, or it will rot.
No matter what happens it is going to give off it’s CO2 regardless.
The widespread conflict and violence that is coming fast is the result of bone-headed politicians listening to and believing lunatic fairy tales about how the climate works. When society starts to break down, the politicians will blame their victims for the disorder and cease only when they are swept from office or defenestrated by the angry voters.
“…when society breaks down…” Thats what Leftists want.
Or, more likely, some prominent ones dangle from lampposts.
I don’t know what the Dutch translation is for “Can you eat Cucks?”, but their farmers have clearly woken up and may know the answer.
(Perhaps “Let them eat Cucks” is the answer).
The people want green, not Green, including rumors of ozone holes, obfuscation and shared environmental disruption, prophecies of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and other industry maneuvers. They are anti-Greeen with a capital “G”, and pro-green… life.
I live i nthe Netherlands and the only thing that keeps going through my head is “where the hell did these regulations come from in Brussels, and why did nobody sanity check them ?”
It’s almost as if they were tailor made to destroy agriculture and development (a lot of building permits (ironically including the renovation of the government seat) is being put in jeopardy by these rules … and why are they are problem ?
Because some activist won a court case forcing the government to act on them.
Exact same tactic as the “Urgenda” case forcing the government to confirm to impossible co2 emissions targets
I share these thoughts.
Spineless politicians could not resist activists.
Moral superiority and raising panic are the new weapons to gain power.
Our democracy fails.
You think that you are the only ones with that problem? Welcome to BREXIT land – you need a Nlexit – Why do you think so many of us are so fed up with OUR OWN Politico /MSM elites always “cheerleading” an undemocratic ‘thing’. ?
These great farmers know that when push comes to squeeze then lily-livered politicians, like their farm animals, are just full of pi$$ and wind, and they will capitulate.
More power to these farmers 🙂
Wonder what roast politician tastes like?
Well sauced pork…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism
Last time I had some in the freezer, it had turned rancid before it was cooked. Mind you I was warned that with rich lefty politicians the fat/lean ratio means that this will often happen, especially when incorrectly stripped of moral high-handedness.
I was looking forward to some cassoulet de politician stewed in humility sauce served on a bed humble salad, and a compote of compromised sweet nuts to off-set the sourness of the meat.
Instead of FF of A, future farmers of America it is FF of N, it is furious farmers of Netherlands.
Everyone wants to save the world until they are asked to actually do something contrary to their lifestyle instead of just agreeing. This, along with the yellow vests, are just the beginning of push backs. Did they really believe it possible for people to forgo their standard of living for some unproven theory? I’m waiting for people to actually start challenging the AGW dogma instead of believing it because the MSM and politicians say so.
So here we have Dutch farmers and livestock owners protesting government policies that were being driven down from Brussels EU bureaucrats. This Dutch farmers protest is a loosely organized, grassroots (bottom-up organized) protest. Those are the hardest for governments to deal with since there is no one organizing voice.
France had its Yellow Vest, aka gilets jaunes, protests that started in November 2018… that also was originally the rural folks upset at proposed fuel tax hikes. The gilets jaunes movement eventually morphed into protesting a lot of other things, but the original trigger were the EU’s Climate Change policies from Brussels to cause Macron’s government to propose the higher fuel taxes that would severely penalize France’s rural dwellers.
What was considered “unique” about the gilets jaunes protest movement for France was that it was a grass roots, bottom-up protest. Macron finally had to concede by delaying and then cancelling the fuel tax increase, although the protest was also wanting his resignation that didn’t happen obviously.
These governments do not know how to handle these grassroots protests. These grassroots protests are a far more serious threat to elitist’s attempts at globalization and control of the populace through energy and food production than the stupid childish XR gluing themselves to trains and streets and looking like idiots to the world. We saw similar grassroots uprisings in the US with the Tea Party movement in 2009-2010, that helped turn the House of representatives back to Republican control.
Except for Germany where German’s simply rolled over for their government’s two decades-long destruction of domestic farming/food production and outsourcing their agriculture produce needs to other countries, there are lessons occurring everywhere that the Socialists are ignoring in their quest for globalization of the Marxist policies.
The Brussels Marxists simply seem to think the rest of Europe would follow like Germans did. To the east, Hungary’s President Orbán has recently threatened use of force to stop Syrian War migrants flowing from Turkey into central Europe, that has probably also set off alarm bells for the Brussels Marxist bureaucrats.
Now with the UK maybe in the final stages of Brexit, the EU is actually looking shakier than it did during the Greek financial crisis.
And the in the US, the Democrat’s demand for economically destructive Green New Deal destruction of affordable energy will likely end up re-electing Donald Trump.
Somewhere you think they have clue light turn on. But unlikely.
Also, take into account that 61.6% of Dutch voters rejected the European Constitution, as well as 57% of French voters. France and The Netherlands are part of the European Community, despite the fact that its constitution was rejected by their citizens. (or should I use a different name instead of citizens?)
These Global Warming nuts need to starve in the dark.
“The EU nitrogen targets are a heavy handed out of touch bureaucratic effort to tell farmers how to manage their fields. Just as it was in Soviet times, city based EUSSR bureaucrats believe they have a much better understanding of farming than the people who actually work the land, and have no qualms about setting unrealisable targets and making unreasonable demands.”
The same is true of city-dweller environmentalists who never spent one day in the hot sun tending plants. They think they know the best way to grow crops. In fact, the only time they ever stayed in the hot sun was probably on days they want a tan. All the other times, they spend pent up in a concrete enclave where the food just magically appears even when it is not in season.
Cull your farm animals to satisfy EU loonocrats dictats?
What is this, the Dutch Delinquisition?
As for the police road blocks and brain dead Extinct Rebels, in the famous words of the one time Governor of New South Wales, “run the bastards over”.
Just culling the EuroPrats would be a satisfactory solution. Failing that just start a NEXIT movement in the Netherlands.
The UK has shown up all the possible problems with leaving the EU. First thing to do is to clear out all the EuroQuislings and those who suck on the EU money teat from your countries establishment. This will make negotiating leaving the EU much less difficult.
I was there yesterday in The Hague, the farners respected the road blocks.
Btw it was a police road block, but military trucks were provided to block The Hague city center entry for agricultural vehicles. As police did not have the needed equipment themselves.
It eas a nice oarty with overwhelming support from the “towns people”.
My main source of surprise was to hear the Dutch have a military. I wonder if service is still compulsory. I was found to be “voorgoed ongeschicht” due to my myopia. Forever unsuitable. I had better things to do with my time back then, so it was just as well.
geschikt
Bulldust, consription has ended, there is a voluntary professional army, navy and airforce. The Netherlands is part of NATO.
Hans,
Please, could you give us more information on what you saw?
Search “dutch farmers youtube”
Seeing this happen gives me some relieve of my frustrations caused by the climate idiocy. As I live in The Hague, I notice a heart-warming solidarity with the inhabitants about these protests. It makes you wonder if some common sense is going to return at last. Let us hope so.
John,
I traveled without problems by train to The Hague to attend a presentation about geothermal energy. I walked from the central railway station to the royal institute of engineers KIVI. On Koekamp was a gathering of a few thousand farmers who listened to speeches of politicians from parties who are on their side. There were fastfood trucks and there was beer and a lot of mostly jolly farmers. The entrance of Lange Voorhout was blocked by military trucks with riot police lined up in front of them, the farmers stayed away from the police line. On Malieveld there were hundreds of tractors parked. It was a well organized demonstration. Pity that the Cirque du Soleil show had to be cancelled, because their tent is on the Malieveld too.