Roger Waters

Pointing out the fact that there are Jews who are against what Israel is doing in Palestine is not only useless information,  ~ e.g. there were Americans against the colonies during the Revolution, and English who supported Nazi Germany (not a great thing to hang a debate point on) ~ it is the ultimate in selfishness and shortsightedness.   What of the "Jews" who actually live in Israel?   I have a suggestion: why don't you go over there, stand on the street, and explain to them how misled they are... y'know like the preachers with bullhorns on any given city corner.  

No?  Aw.  The arrogance around here is incredible.

What's going on in the Netherlands is a bit more nuanced.

The nitrogen problem (we call it stikstofcrisis) is real. There are parties in the Netherlands who try to claim that the measurements are all wrong and such, but it's undsiputed if you look at actual credible sources. It's similar to how some people will deny climate change on the basis of some technicality - it's an unscientific stance to think the nitrogen problem isn't real. There's also a lot of other misinformation being spread, e.g. supposedly farmers aren't the biggest source of nitrogen, whereas in reality they are.

The problem is, we have a massive amount of bioindustry/farming going on, and this has been stimulated by the government for years and years, and stimulated by one of the Netherlands' biggest banks (Rabobank iirc). Despite the government knowing that this wasn't sustainable in the long run (and in fact, there basically has been alternating stimulation and discouragement of growth from the government). So for the sake of both this nitrogen stuff and just the environmental/global warming issues we're all facing worldwide in general, something's gotta change, and the sheer amount of farming going on in our country isn't sustainable.

So farmers are not only upset by the fact that farming has to be scaled back, but by how the government has been handling this. And this is something that even people who disagree with farmers on everything else probably agree with. The government is fumbling the ball pretty badly currently, but also their history of stimulating growth irresponsibly wasn't giving farmers a fair treatment (of course that goes back to previous governments than our current one). Being stimulated to grow and then suddenly hearing the opposite must be very frustrating.

So the BBB has become very big, in part because farmers have been very prolific in the news (and especially the BBB's leader has had many media appearances I've noticed). You could say they hijacked the media a bit the last few years, as there are IMO, other groups in the Netherlands that deserve attention just as much, but haven't been able to work the media game as successfully (e.g. teachers and medical professions). Part of all this protest and attention has been funded and organized by big agricultural companies, so it's not as wholesome and inspiring as it all seems on the surface level.

The BBB also has benefited from the fact that our current government isn't very popular to start with, so a lot of protest votes helped them. The BBB has been the loudest in this regard, so naturally it's the first choice for many people who don't really care about this election other than to stick it to the government. On the plus side, the last time that happened the loudest (and most popular) protest-vote-oriented party was Forum voor Democratie (FvD), a literal fascist party, so the farmers are an improvement. People from that party have also been making appearances at farmer protests, for what it's worth (but they failed to properly benefit from this, it seems). Part of it is also right-wing reactionary stuff. E.g., people who were really against the covid vaccine are now really pro-farmer, because that's the current anti-government thing that's going on. It's unfortunate how the movement has been hijacked a bit - farmers deserve better than to be associated with what we call "wappies".

But again, what the BBB is proposing (nitrogen supposedly not being a problem) is unscientific and IMO isn't treating farmers fairly. It's pretending that everything can just go on as is, which it can't, so it's ultimately not in the best interest of farmers. There's also the obvious problem that we're part of the EU and we can't just ignore those agreements. Farming in the Netherlands has to change, and farmers who are confronted with that need to be treated and compensated fairly. As long as that isn't happening, we're going to have too many people pretending everything's all fine and dandy, and our environment isn't going to benefit from that.

It's easier for David, concerned with albums, the music, not thinking much about the musicians themselves - definitely 

not having idols. 

Actually, I have no knowledge of this Dutch farmers issue, I just can't imagine, it's comparable with what has been 

going on in Israel.

Yeah, I kinda forgot this thread isn't in the off-topic section...but I feel it's important to clear up regardless.

Almost as heated as a discussion of 'Lennon or McCartney?' just to show both bands' status

About boycotting Israel, at least two years ago, the party I'm member of found it best with this political action,

and I have a lot of confidence concerning the rightousness of their politics.

I think it's better to criticize the people who violate the rules.

Hi,

I really would like to suggest that it is time we close and lock down this thread. I'm worried that we are giving him more credit than he deserves and that he is taking advantage of his riches to think he can say anything he wants.

What Roger wants, Roger gets ... switching a word ... it's not worth the effort, when someone is so out there in nowhere's land. He has a right to say it, but then, we can go around so can ___ and ___ and ___ ... not to mention advertising of this or that owned by _____ etc, etc, etc ...