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The revenge of the real economy = In 2024, Europe's farmers dealt a righteous blow to the green elites.
Spiked ^ | 29 Dec, 2024 | Tim Black

Posted on 12/29/2024 5:02:54 AM PST by MtnClimber

Europe’s governing classes have long been estranged from the real economy – from the world of production, industry and agriculture. To these green-hued technocrats, the economy appears as little more than a set of figures on a spreadsheet, to be regulated and managed towards a ‘better’, ‘greener’ future. To be redesigned according to a schedule of abstract, arbitrary Net Zero targets. All the while, the actual activity of making the stuff we need and use everyday – from energy to food – has remained out of sight and, above all, out of mind.

That was until this year, when farmers from across Europe took to the streets to protest against measures that threaten their very existence. In doing so, they finally brought this aloof political class face-to-face with the destructive consequences of their policies.

The first stirrings of this continent-wide farmers’ revolt were glimpsed five years ago in the Netherlands. The Dutch government’s plans to cut nitrogen emissions by 45 per cent across all industrial sectors, in order to meet EU-approved targets, might have sounded like a no-brainer for the environment. Yet, in practice, it threatened to devastate Dutch agriculture. Cutting nitrogen emissions would mean vastly reducing the use of fertiliser and slaughtering nearly half of the nation’s livestock. Faced by such a monumental act of self-harm, Dutch farmers understandably fought back. They staged massive protests in 2019, and again in 2021 and 2022, using their tractors to block roads, railways and bridges.

These protests proved overwhelmingly popular, winning the backing of many Dutch citizens well beyond the agricultural industry. Indeed, a farmers’ upstart political party, the Farmers’ and Citizens Movement (BBB), actually won provincial elections in 2023, before picking up several seats later that year in the Dutch General Election.

Elsewhere in Europe, this latent conflict between the policies of a distant ruling class and the needs of those who work the land has exploded into political warfare.

In Germany, fury was sparked by plans to abolish tax breaks on agricultural diesel, and introduce new taxes on farming vehicles. By early January, 30,000 agricultural workers and 5,000 tractors were rounding off a week of nationwide protests by laying siege to Berlin, bringing life in the German capital to a standstill.

A couple of weeks later, French farmers followed suit. Citing the strangulating effect of EU regulations, alongside the prospect of an end to agricultural-diesel subsidies, French farmers decided to blockade Paris, Lyon, Limoges and Toulouse. Days later, Irish farmers, in a show of solidarity with their continental counterparts, staged a series of tractor and truck convoys through towns and along motorways.

At the same time, farmers in Greece were forcing roads to close in protest against the government’s inaction over weather-inflicted damage to property and crops. And in Romania, they were filling the streets with their agricultural vehicles over exorbitant fuel and insurance prices.

By the end of January, it was possible to speak of a Europe-wide farmers’ revolt. Tens of thousands of people were clogging up the arteries of their nations’ roads in protest against the policies of their out-of-touch leaders. The farmers’ specific grievances, from agricultural-diesel taxes to fertiliser limits, may have varied between countries. But there has been little mistaking the common root to their fury – namely, the EU’s green agenda.

In the name of achieving the EU’s target of Net Zero by 2050, the key commitment of the 2020 European Green Deal, national elites have been slowly choking the agricultural industry for years now. They have been issuing demands from up on high, from reductions in fertiliser use to limits on pesticides, in order to meet the EU’s decarbonisation timetable. And this year, those whose livelihoods were about to be decimated at the stroke of a regulators’ pen decided it was time to push back....SNIP


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Food; Society
KEYWORDS: farmers; greenies
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1 posted on 12/29/2024 5:02:54 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

Depopulation by indirect methods is what it is.


2 posted on 12/29/2024 5:03:08 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

European elites are trying to wipe out the Europeans, to make more room for jihadist invaders.

It’s weird.


3 posted on 12/29/2024 5:07:17 AM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: ClearCase_guy

“European elites are trying to wipe out the Europeans, to make more room for jihadist invaders.

It’s weird.”

Yes it is and it is happening right here in America as our government is allowing an invasion from the 3rd World trying to turn America into a giant 3rd World concentration camp hellhole. The very same thing is happening here


4 posted on 12/29/2024 5:16:02 AM PST by wildcard_redneck
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To: MtnClimber

Repopulation


5 posted on 12/29/2024 5:16:06 AM PST by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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To: MtnClimber

[That was until this year, when farmers from across Europe took to the streets to protest against measures that threaten their very existence.]

Pretty stupid when politicians are messing with a nation’s food supply.

IIRC this is EXACTLY why the people of Sri Lanka went after their government “leaders”


6 posted on 12/29/2024 5:20:57 AM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Day's of Lot; They id Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: MtnClimber
Like The Godless United Nations, The Godless World Economic Forum (WEF) also awaits their Antichrist




7 posted on 12/29/2024 5:22:28 AM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Day's of Lot; They id Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: MtnClimber

.


8 posted on 12/29/2024 5:25:21 AM PST by sauropod ("You didn't take a country. You only won a football game!" - Dan Dakich Ne supra crepidam)
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To: ClearCase_guy

The left instinctively sides with evil.


9 posted on 12/29/2024 5:32:10 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

Quite interesting. Thanks for posting.


10 posted on 12/29/2024 5:38:05 AM PST by EliRoom8
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To: MtnClimber

There are those in life who are productive, and then those who connive to take from those who are productive. Politicians are the latter. They are the hyenas of the human race.


11 posted on 12/29/2024 5:41:57 AM PST by neverevergiveup
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To: MtnClimber

They should be demanding their countries exit the EU. These un-elected bodies should not have the authority to set carbon limits, much less anything else.


12 posted on 12/29/2024 5:45:07 AM PST by Twotone ( What's the difference between a politician & a flying pig? The letter "F.")
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To: MtnClimber

Climate Change is a fraud by the elites to enslave and kill the working class.


13 posted on 12/29/2024 5:47:58 AM PST by bray (It's not racist to be racist against races the DNC hates.)
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To: MtnClimber

The USA has about 100 million bovines and about 3 million square miles of land.

That works out to be about one belching bovine per 20 acres.

Could any sensible person that has done the math think that belching bovines could change the climate?


14 posted on 12/29/2024 5:55:28 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: ClearCase_guy
”European elites are trying to wipe out the Europeans, to make more room for jihadist invaders. It’s weird.”

It is NOT weird. It is exactly what we would expect the evil one,Satan, to encourage his evil minions to do in order to wipe out Christians and Jews and replace them with Islam.

We must remember that this is not just a conflict between men. Rather it is a spiritual war for control of the world.

15 posted on 12/29/2024 5:58:04 AM PST by Apple Pan Dowdy (... as American as Apple Pie. Normal is not coming back, but Jesus will. )
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To: SaveFerris

Insane EU BARF!


16 posted on 12/29/2024 6:05:56 AM PST by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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To: SaveFerris
Correction?

Insane EVIL! EU BARF!

17 posted on 12/29/2024 6:13:44 AM PST by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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To: Texas Fossil

Something - lot of weird stuff happening because Leftists are in many governments


18 posted on 12/29/2024 6:29:20 AM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Day's of Lot; They id Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: SaveFerris

Do you read Arir Tsarfati on Telegram? (from Israel)

Some really amazing stuff happening that the media totally refuses to cover.

The reality of the ME is being hidden from us.

Turkey is taking over Assad Syria vacuum. And the Islamists are murdering and destroying all who disagree with them.


19 posted on 12/29/2024 6:33:36 AM PST by Texas Fossil (Texas is not about where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind and Attitude.)
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To: Texas Fossil

I would - just can’t cover all of the bases

But I wish I’d met him when he came last fall

I had no idea - he was at a local church but maybe only on a screen to 4 churches

I had no idea it was happening


20 posted on 12/29/2024 6:35:09 AM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Day's of Lot; They id Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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