Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at home. I can probably write anything here and nobody will notice. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
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istg farmers in western europe are the most insufferable bunch. Same in Switzerland. Yeah, sorry that the evil urbanites won’t let you completely disregard biodiversity and sustainability for the sake of your short term profits.
and they also always use that patronizing “the cities forgot that WE grow food” argument as if 1. urban dwellers think supermarkets just make the food 2. they themselves aren’t just one part of the supply chain who’s equally worthless without the others.
add to that that due to rural life they tend to be racist, homophobic and generally ultraconservatives, and you get a lovely bunch.
The best part is: most of the pollution comes from meat farms. 75% of their production is meant for export, with a total value of 9 billion euro’s a year. Which is 1,5% of our total export value as a country.
So farmers who control 1,5% of our export value now managed to influence a majority of the country to vote for a party that benefits them and goes against the interests of the vast majority of our country.
Due to emission caps we can’t build houses for example because farmers take up a majority of our nitrogen limits, so the housing crisis gets worse because of them. Immigrants are blamed though.
And our politicians knew for over a decade that this would happen but they don’t feel like doing anything. And now it’s too late. The Farmers’ Party is taking control and will make the next few years very difficult for the rest.
Shit that sounds bleak. How did they even manage to get to that point? How are they outvoting the urban centers the likes of Amsterdam or Rotterdam? Is it just mainstream right wing populism with a coat of “farmer’s interests” paint?
My two cents is that it worked because they are there. There are a lot of angry and disappointed people in The Netherlands. The country is facing many different crises and faith in the traditional parties is low after years of scandals.
Last year we saw a lot of protests and even strikes, which is huge for The Netherlands as no one ever strikes over there. The one party who was everywhere to lure people in was the BBB (Farmers’ Party). They are led by a down to earth looking woman who ‘tells it like it is’ and she managed to persuade the people.
Green and Labour Party weren’t there. They weren’t with their voter base. They have elite, educated looking politicians at the top. They are socdem at best and don’t really care for the people outside of the Western urbanized part of the country it seems. That’s where they lost.
I sometimes joke about our Belgian marxist party being everywhere, but that’s how you reach out to the people. Be at the picket lines, protests, strikes, actions etc. Go door to door to talk to the people. Reach out. Dutch left didn’t, and now many potential voters fell into a right wing trap.
Ruralites produce the food and urbanites produce the machines with which they produce the food, this is why historically Marxism advocated for a reappacification of country and city, one can’t survive/work without the other