#french farmers protest

[ireton]

French Farmer Protest

[frenchly-anxious]

Talking to a non-french about current events in France: Oh yeah, right now the french farmers are very unhappy about some laws and taxes, so they're protesting by doing a... what's the word for this in english? Oh! A siege. Yes, they're sieging Paris.

Them: I— It's... I don't think that's the right word. A siege is like, an army surrounding a castle or a city.

Me: Yeah yeah, that's it! They cut any access to the biggest highways around Paris with tractors and haystacks. I think they also intercepted some trucks with farm products from other countries and gave the products to charity, so they could protest against their work conditions and how little they're being paid.

Them: Oh my god! Is this a civil war?

Me: What? Of course not!

[confused silence]

[head-post]

French farmers protest Mercosur deal

French farmers have announced a new wave of protests next week against a planned European Union free trade agreement with trade bloc Mercosur, saying increased imports of agricultural products from South America will damage their livelihoods.

Farmers are planning protests on Monday against the EU’s free trade agreement with Mercosur, saying increased imports from South America will damage European Union agriculture, the head of France’s largest farm lobby FNSEA said on Wednesday.

It came after farmers in Belgium called for demonstrations near EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. Several tractors stopped in the European neighbourhood on Schuman Square opposite the European Commission and EU Council buildings.

Farmers in Belgium, which has fallen on hard times, fear that a pending treaty with the Mercosur organisation, which brings together Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, could lead to a further decline in sales for European growers “due to unfair competition.” According to Belgian trade unions, the pact, which has been under discussion for years, could be approved during the upcoming G20 meeting on November 18-19 in Brazil.

The rally in Brussels was coordinated by police, who blocked several streets in Brussels, but traffic congestion was avoided.

“Bad agreement”

FNSEA head Arnaud Rousseau told France Inter radio:

This trade agreement, which links part of the South American states to Europe, risks having dramatic consequences for agriculture. So from Monday for a few days we will be in all regions to make sure that France’s voice is heard during the G20 in Brazil, and we hope that all European countries will join us because it’s not about a country, it’s not about France, it’s about Europe.

But French farmers are not going to block roads and motorways as they did last year, when anger at competition from cheaper imports, including from EU ally Ukraine, and the burden of regulation led to large-scale protests across the EU. He also added:

We are not here to worry the French people, we are here to tell them that we are proud to feed them and to continue to produce in France.

On Sunday, the country’s agriculture minister Annie Genevard called the planned free trade deal between South American countries and the EU a “bad agreement” as it would allow “99,000 tonnes of beef, 180,000 tonnes of sugar and the same amount of poultry” into the country and create damaging competition for local producers.

Weather-ravaged harvests and outbreaks of livestock disease, as well as political deadlock following snap elections earlier this summer, have added to French farmers’ discontent.

Read more HERE

[ecrasonslinfame]

Agriculteurs 13 en colère, Marseille. 19 février 2024.

[diocletianscabbagefarm]

Looks like someone got themselves ratio'd

[gemstarb]

Fed up French farmers spray manure on government buildings in protest

[beeseverywhen]

Not in the US so can't speak for what's happening there, but I've def noticed here that healthcare workers are struggling with dealing with sicker patients than they felt they were getting before covid and lots of them are mentioning a lack of immunity thanks to lockdowns. every time I hear it I can't help but think that the increasing desperation thanks to years of underfunding that's really beginning to have an impact since covid (because the pandemic served as the last straw on the camels back there AND because it showed our government that they could neglect the vulnerable to the degree that they were dying by the thousands and still nobody bothered to blame them.) Is a contributing factor in this and I don't understand why nobody is mentioning it???

We're getting sick because we've spent decades being bled dry and now we're hungry, stressed and being worked to the bone. Meanwhile we aren't getting any kind of return on the money we're pumping in to the healthcare system and our governments aren't doing shit to address health inequalities or any of the factors contributing to everyone's poor health.

If you look at covid death statistics, if you look at which countries are currently suffering from supply problems; a job market bursting with unfilled vacancies, civil unrest and protests, strained healthcare systems, and all the rest; the countries at the top are those that have allowed capitalism to call the shots for the past century, more than the rest. That is why the UK and America have been so badly impacted. Its no accident that we are paying so heavily, this system started with us. We forced it on the rest of the world and now, we're the first to pay the price. There is a direct correlation between the impact being felt post covid and a countries wealth divide and I'm tired of everyone ignoring that.

I look around me and People are going hungry, the food they can afford to buy is lacking in basic nutrients, of course people are sicker! Even if you can afford them, the shops keep running out of vegetables! Our health system was already breaking and then, we were hit by a pandemic it was completely unprepared for (tho it should have been) and now, people are getting way more ill than they need to before they finally reach hospital. When they get there, the hospitals are understaffed (thanks to years of underfunded budgets and the extreme stress so many health care workers were put under), we keep having drug shortages because our country keep straight up refusing to pay how much things cost, and what they are willing to pay, goes to pay about ten profiteering middle men at each stage of the supply chain.

People are massively stressed thanks to the cumulative weight of a completely broken capitalist system and those in charge are more worried about lining their pockets for as long as they can until the whole thing collapses, rather than actually trying to address any problems. Stress IS something that's known to weaken immune systems so why are we blaming something that MAY affect them??? Extreme rises in energy costs have meant everyone's spent a winter without adequate heating (even those that can afford it are revolting at the increase and so are trying to cut costs by using less energy.) Again, insufficiently heated homes are also known to affect immunity. And that's just the people who still have safe homes! Masses of people have been made homeless recently thanks to rising rents and mortgages which were already unaffordable, our housing stock is largely dangerous, with homes falling in to disrepair because landlords are barely regulated and when they do break laws they go unprotected.

Is anyone surprised that so many people are getting so ill and not getting better? Cause I'm not.

It's startlingly obvious when you start looking at the health divide between those who have spent 40 years subject to the whims of poorly restricted capitalism and those able to opt out. Medical technology is improving, but healthy life expectancy is now dropping year on year, because there are more people living here without the capital to turn away from jobs that will break them, than there are those whose inherited wealth opens doors away from employers that'll ask you to pay the price of bodily health, so they might strengthen profit margins. Its just basic averages. 1% of our citizens are standing on the backs of 99% of us and wondering why more and more of that 99% are getting sicker and sicker. The labour market for working class people has been allowed to drain its workers dry for years now. The progress made in the early to mid 20th century has slowly been worn away at, with the labour laws we fought for, only being accessible for an ever decreasing number of people. The laws are still in place but no low wage employer bothers to follow them any more than they have to. Do you know how many people I know who've been working without breaks, going unpaid for extra hours, been forced to follow unsafe working practices that they know are illegal and then being forced to lie to protect the employer that put them in that position? The people being broken by companies raking in billions, as they flaunt labour laws, don't have any means to access justice! If you complain, you lose your job. If you take them to court that costs money and that company is willing to drag out proceedings for years till you run out of the money needed to keep things going.

When i look at how much money is being wasted in government budgets, while the people responsible for making that money, see little return; I can't help but think of various theories for why certain societies in history have collapsed. (If you want to be really worried about the state of things, read the Wikipedia page on societal collapse. Spoiler: most of the potential causes of societal collapse have already begun in America and the UK. That guy who wrote that article saying America was already past the point of collapse might have been right.) One theory behind the bronze age collapse is just that... societies became too complex. A society where the 1% are given too much power over the 99% becomes one great big pyramid scheme. Unnecessary burecracy at every level (designed to squeeze as much wealth possible for the person overseeing that level) results in those at the bottom, working themselves to death and still going hungry. The theory goes that there comes a point, in societies like that, where the workers look at how they are living and just...walk away. They decide that the security once offered by that society isn't worth what it's costing them and fuck off to become farmers, preferring a life of hard work and little security, to what they had been living. Without the workers, the system breaks down. The only people getting fed are the ones growing the food. All this stupid stratification. Allowing every supply chain, business and institution to become unnecessarily complex just so on each level the people in charge can let their mates get a foot in on the profits. All these middlemen. Business consultants. Supply chains allow for a product to be sent back and forth from country to country just so more people get a cut. Its no different to any other pyramid scheme so why the hell are we allowing it.

We need to start telling our politicians to show some goddamn accountability for this shit. Stop accepting them skirting responsibility for being at best: Inept and at worst deliberately negligent. We all need to stop supporting a system that's hurting us all. In the hope that we might be one of the lucky ones. That's not the reality of things. We'll only get out of this hole we've inadvertently dug ourselves in to, if we stop fighting each other and work together to demand change.

You know how sometimes you catch someone in a lie, and so they tell an even bigger lie to try and cover up the first lie they told?

Well, that’s happening right now.

Last winter, a handful of celebrity doctors went on mainstream news networks to assure us that Omicron was “mild.” They carpet-bombed us with articles and tweets, doing their best to brainwash everyone.

They were wrong.

In the end, real science junked that idea. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that Omicron killed more people than previous variants, even when adjusting for other factors. Another study by doctors at Massachusetts General and Harvard Medical found that Omicron was just as deadly. In fact, “the risks of hospitalization and mortality were nearly identical.” As it turns out, the entire idea of “mild” Omicron was based on an old, flawed idea known as the law of declining virulence, developed by a doctor who was studying tick-borne disease in cows. It was debunked decades ago.

Most epidemiologists know that viruses don’t magically evolve to become milder. Virus evolution is random and chaotic.

In some cases, viruses evolve to become more deadly.

A handful of actual scientists tried to explain all this last winter, including disease experts at Johns Hopkins. A handful of other established experts spoke out against this myth. As a microbiologist at Penn State told Politifact, “You can’t just say it’s going to become nicer.” They were largely ignored, because everyone already sort of believed the misinformation. If they knew it was based on a study about cows, they probably would’ve thought twice.

This year, the makers of “it’s mild” are back.

They’re selling “immunity debt.”

We should be skeptical.

Schools and daycares are sending letters home to parents talking about this “immunity debt.” They’re saying that healthy children are getting sicker, even dying, because they weren’t exposed to enough germs over the last two years. Newspapers and TV stations across the country are running with it, proposing it as a “possible reason” for this year’s explosion in pediatric hospitalizations. Meanwhile, major medical organizations have sent a letter to President Biden urging him to declare an emergency over an “alarming surge of pediatric hospitalizations” due to a range of respiratory viruses, including Covid.

A lot of people are drinking the “immunity debt” kool-aid.

After all, Americans have believed for generations that getting sick is “good for you.” We think our immune system behaves like a muscle. We worry that if we’re not giving it a workout, we’ll get weak.

It’s a myth, just like the law of declining virulence.

Here’s why.

[seema-dassi]

#विश्व_का_सबसे_बड़ा_भंडारा

Saint Rampal Ji Maharaj is a true Satguru who by giving evidence from the scriptures and giving complete information and true devotion of Supreme God Kabir Saheb Ji to the entire human society,

1Day Left For Bodh Diwas

[petar1989]

Farmers Protest France T-Shirt

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/57458105-farmers-protest-france?store_id=2123844

[liberty1776]

The FARMERS PROTESTS are INTENSIFYING

Support the Farmers! In USA lets all unite aginst Biden and the rich!

[radiohart]

tumblr dot com bay bee

[beekeeperspicnic]

Can't believe this blog has existed THIS long, and I've somehow never shared this Sherlock Holmes fanfic by PG Wodehouse. As far as I know it predates Conan Doyle publishing any stories which mention Holmes retiring to keep bees, which presents the delightful possibility that ACD discussed his future plans for Holmes with his young friend Plum, whose first reaction was to go off and write (and publish) a cute parody of it.

The Adventure of the Missing Bee

Sherlock Holmes is to retire from public life after Christmas, and take to bee-farming in the country.

"It is a little hard, my dear Watson," said Holmes, stretching his long form on the sofa, and injecting another half-pint of morphia with the little jewelled syringe which the Prince of Piedmont had insisted on presenting to him as a reward for discovering who had stolen his nice new rattle; "it is just a little hard that an exhausted, overworked private detective, coming down to the country in search of peace and quiet, should be confronted in the first week by a problem so weird, so sinister, that for the moment it seems incapable of solution."

"You refer—?" I said.

"To the singular adventure of the missing bee, as anybody but an ex-army surgeon equipped with a brain of dough would have known without my telling him."

I readily forgave him his irritability, for the loss of his bee had had a terrible effect on his nerves. It was a black business. Immediately after arriving at our cottage, Holmes had purchased from the Army and Navy Stores a fine bee. It was docile, busy, and intelligent, and soon made itself quite a pet with us. Our consternation may, therefore, be imagined when, on going to take it out for its morning run, we found the hive empty. The bee had disappeared, collar and all. A glance at its bed showed that it had not been slept in that night. On the floor of the hive was a portion of the insect's steel chain, snapped. Everything pointed to sinister violence.

Holmes' first move had been to send me into the house while he examined the ground near the hive for footsteps. His search produced no result. Except for the small, neat tracks of the bee, the ground bore no marks. The mystery seemed one of those which are destined to remain unsolved through eternity.

But Holmes was ever a man of action.

"Watson," he said to me, about a week after the incident, "the plot thickens. What does the fact that a Frenchman has taken rooms at Farmer Scroggins' suggest to you?"

"That Farmer Scroggins is anxious to learn French," I hazarded.

"Idiot!" said Holmes, scornfully. "You've got a mind like a railway bun. No. If you wish to know the true significance of that Frenchman's visit, I will tell you. But, in the first place, can you name any eminent Frenchman who is interested in bees?"

I could answer that.

"Maeterlinck," I replied. "Only he is a Belgian."

"It is immaterial. You are quite right. M. Maeterlinck was the man I had in my mind. With him bees are a craze. Watson, that Frenchman is M. Maeterlinck's agent. He and Farmer Scroggins have conspired, and stolen that bee."

"Holmes!" I said, horrified. "But M. Maeterlinck is a man of the most rigid honesty."

"Nobody, my dear Watson, is entirely honest. He may seem so, because he never meets with just that temptation which would break through his honesty. I once knew a bishop who could not keep himself from stealing pins. Every man has his price. M. Maeterlinck's is bees. Pass the morphia."

"But Farmer Scroggins!" I protested. "A bluff, hearty English yeoman of the best type."

"May not his heartiness be all bluff?" said Holmes, keenly. "You may take it from me that there is literally nothing that that man would stick at. Murder? I have seen him kill a wasp with a spade, and he looked as if he enjoyed it. Arson? He has a fire in his kitchen every day. You have only to look at the knuckle of the third finger of his left hand to see him as he is. If he is an honest man, why does he wear a made-up tie on Sundays? If he is an upright man, why does he stoop when he digs potatoes? No, Watson, nothing that you can say can convince me that Farmer Scroggins has not a black heart. The visit of this Frenchman—who, as you can see in an instant if you look at his left shoulder-blade, has not only deserted his wife and a large family, but is at this very moment carrying on a clandestine correspondence with an American widow, who lives in Kalamazoo, Mich. — convinces me that I have arrived at the true solution of the mystery. I have written a short note to Farmer Scroggins, requesting him to send back the bee and explaining that all is discovered. And that," he broke off, "is, if I mistake not, his knock. Come in."

The door opened. There was a scuffling in the passage, and in bounded our missing bee, frisking with delight. Our housekeeper followed, bearing a letter. Holmes opened it.

"Listen to this, Watson," said Holmes, in a voice of triumph.

"'Mr. Giles Scroggins sends his compliments to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, an' it's quite true, I did steal that there bee, though how Mr. Holmes found out, Mr. G. Scroggins bean't able to understand. I am flying the country as requested. Please find enclosed 1 (one) bee, and kindly acknowledge receipt to 'Your obedient servant, 'G. Scroggins.

'Enclosure.'?"

"Holmes," I whispered, awe-struck, "you are one of the most remarkable men I ever met."

He smiled, lit his hookah, seized his violin, and to the slow music of that instrument turned once more to the examination of his test tubes.

Three days later we saw the following announcement in the papers: "M. Maeterlinck, the distinguished Belgian essayist, wishes it to be known that he has given up collecting bees, and has taken instead to picture postcards."

[sexhaver]

French farmers are so fucking disappointing because they'll do some innovative Direct Action like rolling hay bales into a business or dumping a literal truckload of manure on a city official's desk and then you look up why they did that and the answer is always something like "they were protesting against agriculture import bills that would lose them money" or "they were protesting against agriculture import bills that would lose them money, asked a nearby mcdonalds for free coffee, and then got ripshit mad when they said no". fantastic execution with absolutely dogshit political theory behind it

[head-post]

Spanish, French farmers block border to “put pressure” on EU elections

French and Spanish farmers again blocked two major border crossings in the Pyrenees on Monday evening to “influence” next Sunday’s European elections and demand, among other things, cheaper energy, Le Monde reports.

According to Luis Francisco del Acqua, a cereal producer from the Valladolid region of northern Spain who was present at the Biriatu (Pyrenees-Atlantics) toll road, the protest of farmers and cattle breeders, which began on Monday morning, will continue “all night, until tomorrow” on Tuesday. Eloi Huguet, a goat farmer in the Girona region (northeastern Spain) who took part in blocking the A9 Montpellier-Barcelona motorway at Le Pertuis, on the French-Spanish border, told Agence France-Presse on Monday evening:

“We will stay until 10 a.m. tomorrow [Tuesday].”

For its part, Vinci Autoroutes confirmed that the A9 remained blocked on Monday evening, adding that in Biriatu a “filter” allows some light vehicles to pass on the A63.

By 10 a.m. on Monday morning, a long queue of dozens of Spanish tractors had joined the few French farmers standing at the A9’s junction with the border in the Pyrenees-Orientales.

As with the blockade of the A9 motorway, protesters blocked seven other border crossings between Spain and France along the Pyrenees, from Catalonia to the Basque Country on Monday.

This protest in support of cheaper energy and compliance with mirror regulations (which would impose the same environmental standards on third-country farmers as in Europe) was unique in that it was not organised by traditional farmers’ unions. Xabi Dallemane, one of the organisers of the “no label” action in the Basque Country, explains:

“It’s not normal to have standards imposed on us that are not respected for the products we import.”

For this cattle and duck farmer in Bidach, the action is “peaceful” and aims to “put pressure on our future MEPs.”

Read more HERE

[dailyanarchistposts]

From September 20 to 27, tens of thousands will take to the streets to denounce the causes of climate change and call on governments to address what may be the most drastic crisis facing humanity in the 21st century. These mass actions will showcase the growing anger of a new generation that has known nothing but crisis, war, and the threat of environmental collapse. We have prepared the following text as a flier encouraging climate activists to consider how to interrupt the causes of climate change via direct action rather than petitioning the state to solve the problem for us. Please print these out and distribute them at climate protests and everywhere else you can.

Finally, people are filling the streets to call on governments to address the climate crisis, the most serious threat facing humanity in the 21st century. This is long overdue. But what good will it do to petition the same sector of society that created this problem? Time and again, we have learned that the state does not exist to serve our needs but to protect those who are profiting on the causes of this crisis.

The most effective way to pressure politicians and executives to address the climate crisis is to show that whatever they fail to do, we will do ourselves. This means moving beyond symbolic displays of “non-violence” to build the capacity to shut down the fossil fuel economy ourselves. No amount of media attention or progressive rhetoric can substitute for this. If we fail to build this capacity, we can be sure that the timeline for the transition to less destructive technologies will be set by those who profit on the fossil fuel economy.

Several examples from recent social movements show that we have the power to shut down the economy ourselves.

In 2011–2012, the Occupy Movement demonstrated that tens of thousands of people could make decisions without top-down organization, meeting their needs collectively and carrying out massive demonstrations. On one day of action, participants shut down ports up and down the West Coast, confirming that coordinated blockades can disrupt the global supply chain of energy and commodities.

In 2016, people converged to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline, a corporate project threatening Native land and water. Tens of thousands established a network of camps to block construction, demonstrating a new way to live and fight together. The Obama administration canceled the pipeline, causing many occupiers to go home, but the Trump administration reinstated it—confirming that we must never count on the government to do anything for us.

In France, occupiers blocked the construction of a new airport at la ZAD, the “Zone to Defend.” Farmers teamed up with anarchists and environmentalists, establishing an autonomous village that provided infrastructure for the struggle. After years of struggle, the French government gave up and canceled the airport.

We have seen train blockades in a variety of struggles. In Olympia, Washington, anarchists blocked trains carrying fracking proppants in 2016 and in 2017, forcing the company to stop transporting the commodity. In Harlan County, Kentucky, coal miners have blocked a coal-carrying train after the Black Jewel company refused to pay wages they owed to workers. It only takes a few dozen people to shut down a key node in the supply chains of the global fossil fuel economy. Imagine what we could do on a bigger scale!

Governments serve to protect the economy from those it exploits. The state exists to evict, to police, to wage war, to oppress, and above all to defend the property of the wealthy few. The perils of climate change have been known for years, but governments have done little in response, focusing instead on fighting wars for oil, militarizing their borders to keep out climate refugees, and attacking the social movements that could bring about the sort of systemic change that is our only hope of survival.

The capitalist economy is literally killing us. Let’s begin the process of shutting it down.

Another end of the world is possible!

[stupittmoran]

Top 10 headlines the media didn't tell you this week, Repost & FoIIow for more.

Hunter Biden has been indicted in California on 9 charges.

Federal judge dismisses case to remove Trump from Arizona’s 2024 presidential ballot.

Facebook and Instagram enabled child sexual abuse, trafficking; companies boycotting 𝕏 have ads on both.

Speaker Mike Johnson tells the Biden administration no new funding for Ukraine without an audit.

French farmers sprayed manure on government buildings in protest of taxes and regulations meant to put them out of business.

Senator Rand Paul says he will debate the merit of sending our troops overseas.

University of Pennsylvania President told to resign by the board of Penn for refusing to condemn the genocide of Jews.

According to an Arizona Sheriff, illegal immigrants are being Handed $5,000 Visa gift cards, cell phones, plane tickets.

Elon Musk to bring Alex Jones back to 𝕏 after Tucker Carlson interview exposed what the establishment media, CIA have done to him.

Biden Administration's defense secretary threatens to send US families to fight in Ukraine if we do not send more aid.

Who else thinks it's time to audit the funds being sent overseas? 👀

If you appreciate this Top 10 recap, remember to Repost and FoIIow me for another week in a clown world 🤡🌎

TaraBull @TaraBull808 on Twitter/X