[HN Gopher] The farmers' protests in Germany: An uprising agains...
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The farmers' protests in Germany: An uprising against the coalition
government
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 15 points
Date : 2024-01-18 20:19 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsws.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsws.org)
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Even though I have had an easy and fun career in tech, I have
| enormous amount of sympathy for farmers, truckers, train workers,
| and other groups that have held very large scale strikes.
| Collectively, they are crucial for 'keeping the lights on' in
| society.
|
| I was amused by the media quotes in the article that dissed on
| the strikers. I think that the global elite, Wall street,
| intelligence agencies, big pharma, military industrial complex,
| etc. all have way too much control over what topics reach the
| news and what the tone is of news.
|
| I consider myself middle of the road politically and I am
| grateful to live where I live, but in re-reading my above
| comments I wonder what fraction of the people living in my
| country (USA) would consider me radical?
| rmason wrote:
| I am a bit surprised that this story hasn't made the news in
| America. Or the earlier farmer strike in the Netherlands.
|
| I don't know if you are aware that American farmers also get a
| discounted tax free diesel fuel which has red coloring added to
| it. That way if a mechanic works on a non-farm vehicle and
| notices that the fuel is colored red then they can report the
| owner.
|
| https://www.ricochetfuel.com/blog/dyed-diesel-fuel-vs-
| regula....
| PaulHoule wrote:
| ... or your truck stops at a weight station.
| tetris11 wrote:
| I sympathise with the rail workers, annoying as their actions
| are to my daily routine, and I do think that Germany should
| just borrow more like other countries to keep their core worker
| base happy....
|
| ... but my sympathy for the farmers goes only so far. In my
| region, most of them are land owners, and most of them are
| landlords getting very pretty rents. No other class of worker
| has it so good except other landlords.
| cuillevel3 wrote:
| These protests are organized by conservative organizations.
| They represent the big farms and the export industry. I'm not
| sure why the "World Socialist Website" thinks this is some
| grass root resistance to austerity politics.
|
| > The coalition in Berlin will stop at nothing to suppress this
| movement and defend the bankrupt capitalist social system
| against any opposition.
|
| Actually, the government already gave into some of the demands
| of the protesting, subsidies-receiving land owners.
|
| But well, maybe that's because the "World Socialist Website"
| has their own Putin-politics to push:
|
| > This is underlined by the brutality with which it is fuelling
| the punitive war against Russia in Ukraine, supporting the
| genocide against Palestinians in Gaza
| gumballindie wrote:
| Both the left and the right in Germany are pro putin. DACH
| countries have a peculiar relationship with Russia for some
| reason. Switzerland and Austria being quite favourable
| despite their "support" for Ukraine. Austria being the worst.
| gumballindie wrote:
| Germany is now learning that building an economy based on energy
| and resources subsidised by a corrupt regime is a bad idea. Some
| say it was Poland that blew the nordstream pipeline - if so, my
| respect for Poland has gone through the roof. Meanwhile Germany
| can be a bit less lazy and work harder to rebuild lost trust,
| both in the country as an ally and in their products, which seem
| to have become alarmingly low quality.
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