There are still ongoing protests by farmers in Germany. Just two days ago there was a big crowd protesting in Berlin. While they caused some traffic interruption, and for three days the railway workers also joined the strike, causing even more confusion, most people seem to support the farmers.
Apparently the workers of big companies such as Amazon, who complain about bad working conditions in the German warehouses, joined in too.
Some protesters were beaten by the police. Anger is growing. Some even say that a few politicians might resign. Others say it’s getting close to a revolution.
But you wouldn’t know any of it from the media.
Even Deutsche Welle, which is the main news media site about Germany in English, had nothing about it on its main screen for days, even as the crowds took over Berlin. (Tageschau and other German-language sites were a bit better)
Other mainstream media sites, such as as CNN and the BBC, did post about the protests, but associating them with some kind of “dangerous far-right movement”. Which is, of course, mostly nonsense. While some parties such as the AfD want to take political advantage of it, this seems to be mostly a grassroots movement. And it is interesting that it is taking place just as Davos starts.
What are the farmers protesting?
The Scholz government is instituting several austerity measures which include cutting subsidies for farmers, most importantly, a subside that they receive for buying diesel for their tractors and other machines.
The economy in Germany is not doing very well lately. I guess you can understand why. Germany, once the major European powerhouse, has been shooting itself in the foot for years.
Let’s see — first there was the first large migrant wave in 2016, with the government spending billions to “welcome refugees”.
Then there were the Covid lockdowns, which were extremely harsh in the country and led to the closure of many small businesses.
Then the whole “climate change” activism, which is very strong in Germany and made the government close nuclear plants and even coal plants.
And then, of course, the Russia-Ukraine war, which led to sanctions against Russia, which, however, mostly harmed Germany as its economy depended a lot on Russian gas.
And yet… Germany is still sending a lot of money and weapons to the Ukraine. They have no idea where the money or the weapons are going, but they are sending it.
They are even sending a ship to Yemen. And some more weapons to Israel too, just in case.
And they are still spending a lot of money hosting their millions of refugees — now not just Syrian or Afghani, but Ukrainian too.
But who pays the price for all that reckless spending?
Well, you, the taxpayer, of course. Who else?
If the farmers lose their subsidies, they will just try to pass the extra cost to the consumers. Food will become more expensive. In fact, it already is.
Of course, all that is “according to plan”. After all, it’s not just Germany. The Netherlands, France, and even Canada and the U.S., have been in the same bandwagon of passing several laws that are not so great for farmers, and protests have happened or are happening in some of those countries too.
See, if the food gets more expensive, or even if there’s no more food, more people will get poor, and as they get poorer, they will get even more indebted. Eventually, they will lose their land or their house.
And then a few rich people can buy it all. Same old, same old.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The orders might have come directly from Davos.
And, in fact, just next door in Switzerland, as farmers and workers protest, several rich people and world leaders are partying and boozing, at the same time that they give speeches about austerity and about the importance of sending even more weapons to the Ukraine, just as they buy all they can buy there, on the cheap. Blackrock owns the country by now. But it’s not enough. They want France, Germany, Italy, Spain too.
The friendly folks at Davos — always so concerned with our health — are also starting again with the scare-mongering about a new pandemic: something they call, for now “Disease X”. (Hmm. Is that a plug in for Musk’s new name for Twitter?)
As long as they can, they will keep on saying:
“You will get poor.
You will own nothing.
You will stay in your room.
You will pay for war.
You will have no food.
You will eat the bugs.
And you will be happy.”