Comment by pprotas
1 day ago
Likely organized by farmer protest groups (FDF for example) to protest against emission restriction regulation. They are known for their dangerous stunts, including driving their tractors on the highway and spraying manure on government buildings. These actions are tolerated by the Dutch police, which willingly and purposefully refuses to punish these acts.
It's crazy how much deference is given to farmers compared to every other occupation.
If the garbage men started dumping the contents of garbage bags in public places I bet they will not be given a free pass.
Look to Birmingham in the UK for evidence of the same deference. Many have been on strike since 2025. The city was a rat infested public waste dump for nearly 3 months until the government hired private firms to do the waste handling while the public worker strike action continued.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Birmingham_b...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqxlxv0vvnxo
You can go a long while without your trash being taken away for you.. you can't go very long without food.
Most of the food the farmers produce in the Netherlands is exported.
Meanwhile, trash piles up quickly: https://nltimes.nl/2023/02/07/utrecht-garbage-strike-comes-e...
I think this deference is largely inspired by the police not knowing how to deal with these huge tractors.
Rubbish. They don't want to. The tractors have license plates, allowing them to be pursued after the fact, and the NL police have firearms if they want to get spicy.
There have been a number of attacks in Europe of the form "deranged person drives vehicle into crowd". I'm sure the police wouldn't sit back and shrug if that was done with a tractor. The vehicle doesn't have magic properties, the driver has police protection.
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> If the garbage men started dumping the contents of garbage bags in public places I bet they will not be given a free pass.
I mean, they wouldn't have to, they just need to stop cleaning it up. Such an action likely will be given a free pass, anything other than that is strikebreaking which is either illegal or heavily discouraged depending on jurisdiction.
It's almost as if food security is much more important than most other jobs.
Don't believe everything you read.
This is russian sabotage + russian trolls now trying to make it look like it's something else
Who's the troll here? Do you even know what you're talking about?
Farmers and right wing people in all of Europe are actively being disinformed by Russian intelligence service and either wilfully ignores it or too incompetent to realize it.
We are all being disinformed, whether it's by a foreign or our own government. This is not a problem unique to Europe, right-wingers, farmers or Russia. The goal is to have us fight while the powerful become even more powerful. It is important to be aware of this fact, it is not just "the other side I don't agree with" that are affected, and thinking of them as willfully ignorant or incompetent is what the powerful would like you to think (infighting is the goal).
You are right in the sense that there is likely an underlying meddling causing these farmers to act this way. It does not excuse their actions.
can you explain how Dutch farmers are being disinformed by Russian intelligence services? I am REALLy curious.
Russia spends a huge amount on manipulating western citizens via the internet, let's not play dumb about that. You may not think that it has any effect, but apparently Russian intelligence does.
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We're all being misinformed by various interest groups. If you think you're immune and have some perfect understanding of reality, you're kidding yourself.