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thatswhywelovegermany · 7 months

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October 9, 1989: The day the dictatorial GDR regime broke

Throughout the 1980s, discontent among the population of the GDR about the economical and political situation kept growing. Nonetheless, the ruling party SED (Socialist Union Party of Germany) upheld its role as the only governing part of the state, continuing the process of the "socialist revolution" in the state. People started protesting against oppression of dissidents.

The situation became explosive after the rigged local elections on May 7, 1989. People didn't have the choice between multiple options. Instead, there was only one list of the "National Front", which was automatically counted as "yes" as soon as the ballot was dropped into the urn. The only way to vote "no" was to strike all entries in the list through with a straight line. Although this was a tedious proces that could easily be traced by the Stasi officers in the polling stations, many people made use of this way of voting "no". For the first time, citizens gathered in the polling stations to observe the process of counting. Althouth this was explicitly allowed by law (§ 37 of the voting act), access was denied in almost all cases. Nonetheless, members of the church documented electoral fraud and made it public. This led to the first protests, which the Stasi and regular police forced tried to quench. Around the same time, a mass exodus through neighboring countries to West Germany started.

These protests attracted more and more people. In many cases, the demonstrations started after peace prayers in the protestant churches throughout the country. But still, the oppressive system of the state held the upper hand. On October 7, 1989, the police forces, workers' militia, and Stasi arrested thousands of protesters in Leipzig and arrested them in horse stables on the grounds of the agricultural fair.

This led pastor Christoph Wonneberger to publish a plea for non-violence, which was agreed to by some SED secretaries read out loud over the city's public announcement system (by Leipzig's Gewandhaus Orchestra's conductor Kurt Masur) and during the peace prayers. On October 9, 1989, the situation was tense as approx. 130,000 people took to the streets, marching past the Stasi central. A massive presence of state forces was also present, and people feared a "Chinese solution", referring to the violent Tiananmen Square massacre earlier that year. However, the plea for non-violence by the power of its wording kept both protesters and state forces from violent actions and the protests ended peacefully and without any arrests.

This was the first time the GDR authorities gave in to the masses of protesters. The word spread, and protests sprang up in more and more cities throughout the country, leading to state leader Erich Honecker's demise on October 18 and culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, which ultimately led to the German reunification.

#german history #october 9; 1989 #leipzig monday demonstrations

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ireton · 4 months

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21 Dec 2023 - Massive farmer protest in Berlin - City completely locked down.

#Farmer Protest #Germany #Berlin #Food Security #Adocate for Agriculture #Support Local Farmers #No Farms - No Food #No Farmers - No Food - No Future #Like Minded People #Make Tumblr Great Again

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months

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To save the news, ban surveillance ads

Tonight (May 31) at 6:30PM, I’m at the MANCHESTER Waterstones with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Ian Forrester.

Tomorrow (Jun 1), I’m giving the Peter Kirstein Lecture for UCL Computer Science in LONDON.

Then it’s Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

Big Tech steals from the news, but what it steals isn’t content — it steals money. That matters, because if we create pseudo-copyrights over the facts of the news, or headlines, or snippets to help news companies bargain with tech companies, we make the news partners with the tech companies, rather than watchdogs.

How does tech steal money from the news? Lots of ways! One important one: tech steals ad revenue. 51% of every ad dollar gets gobbled up by tech companies — primarily the cozy, collusive ad-tech duopoly of Google/Facebook (AKA Googbook). If we can shatter the market power of the concentrated ad-tech industry, news companies would go back to getting 80–90% of the ad revenue their reporting generated, which would pay for more reporting.

There’s lots to like about fixing ads. For one thing, a fair ad marketplace would benefit all news reporting, not just the largest news companies — which are dominated by private equity-backed chains and right-wing billionaires who have repeatedly shown that any additional revenues will go to pay shareholders, not more reporters. Fair ads would also provide an income for reporters who strike out on their own, covering local politics or specific beats, without making themselves sharecroppers for Big Media.

One way to fix ads would be to break up the ad-tech “stacks.” Googbook both operate impossibly conflicted ad-placement businesses in which they bargain with themselves on behalf of both advertisers and publishers, with the winners always being the tech companies. The AMERICA Act from Senator Mike Lee would force ad giants to divest themselves of business units that create conflicts of interest. It’s popular, bipartisan legislation — and I do mean bipartisan; its backers include Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz! I wrote about the AMERICA Act and the role it will play in saving news from tech for EFF’s Deeplinks Blog last week:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

This week, I’ve got a followup on Deeplinks about another important way to unrig the ad market: banning surveillance ads:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Even if we break up the ad-tech stacks, ads will still be bad for the news — and for the public. That’s because the dominant form of digital ads is “behavioral advertising” — the ad-tech sector’s polite euphemism for ads based on spying. You know these ads: you search for shoes and then every website you land on is plastered in shoe ads.

Surveillance ads require a massive, multi-billion-dollar surveillance dragnet, one that tracks you as you physically move through the world, and digitally, as you move through the web. Your apps, your phone and your browser are constantly gathering data on your activities to feed the ad-tech industry.

This data is incredibly dangerous. There’s so much of it, and it’s so loosely regulated, that every spy, cop, griefer, stalker, harasser, and identity thief can get it for pennies and use it however they see fit. The ad-tech industry poses a risk to protesters, to people seeking reproductive care, to union organizers, and to vulnerable people targeted by scammers.

Ad-tech maintains the laughable pretense that all this spying is consensual, because you clicked “I agree” on some garbage-novella of impenatrable legalese that no one — not even the ad-tech companies’ lawyers — has ever read from start to finish. But when people are given a real choice to opt out of digital spying, they do. Apple gave Ios users a one-click opt-out of in-app tracking and 96% of users clicked it (the other 4% must have been confused — or on Facebook’s payroll). The decision cost Facebook $10b in the first year. You love to see it:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

But here’s the real punchline: Apple blocked Facebook from spying on its customers, but Apple kept spying on them, just as invasively as Facebook had, in order to target them with Apple’s own ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The thing that stops companies from spying on us isn’t the strength of their character, it’s the discipline imposed by regulation and competition — the fear that they’ll get fined more than they make from spying, and the fear that they’ll lose so much business from spying that they’ll end up in the red.

Which is why we need a legal ban on ads, not mere platitudes on billboards advertising companies’ “respect” for our privacy. The US is way overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action, which would let you and me sue the companies who violated it, even if no public prosecutor was willing to go to bat for us:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

A privacy law that required companies to get your affirmative, enthusiastic, ongoing, specific, informed consent to gather and process your personal data would end surveillance ads forever. Despite the self-serving nonsense the ad-tech industry serves up about people “liking relevant ads,” no one wants to be spied on. 96% of Ios users don’t lie.

A ban on surveillance ads wouldn’t just serve the public, it would also save the news. The alternative to surveillance ads is context ads: ads based on what a reader is reading, rather than what that reader was doing. Context-based ad marketplaces ask, “What am I bid for this Pixel 6 user in Boise who is reading about banana farming?” instead of “What am I bid for this 22 year old man who recently searched for information about suicidal ideation and bankruptcy protection?”

Context ads perform a little worse than surveillance ads — by about 5%:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/29/taken-in-context/#creep-me-not

So presumably advertisers won’t pay as much for context ads as they do for behavioral targeting. But that doesn’t mean that the news will lose money. Because context ads favor publishers over ad-tech platforms — no publisher will ever know as much about internet users as spying ad-tech giants do, but no tech company will ever know as much about a publisher’s content as the publisher does.

Behavioral ad marketplaces have high barriers to entry, requiring troves of surveillance data on billions of internet users. They are naturally anticompetitive and able to command a much higher share of each ad dollar than a contextual ad service (which would have much more competiition) could.

On top of that: if behavioral advertising was limited to people who truly consented to it, 96% of users would never see an ad!

So contextual ads will show up for more users, and more of the money they generate will land in news publishers’ pockets. If context ads fetch less money per ad, the losses will be felt by ad-tech companies, not publishers.

Finally: publishers who join the fight against surveillance ads won’t be alone — they’ll be joining with a massive, popular movement against commercial surveillance. The news business is — and always has been — a niche subject, of burning interest to publishers, reporters, and a small minority of news junkies. The news on its own is a small fry in policy debates. But when it comes to killing surveillance ads, the news has a class alliance with the mass movement for privacy, and together, they’re a force to reckon with.

My article on killing surveillance ads is part three of an ongoing, five-part series for EFF on how we save the news from tech. The introduction, which sets out the whole series, is here:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The final two parts will come out over the next two weeks, and then we’re going to publish the whole thing as a PDF that suitable for sharing. Watch this space!

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: EFF's banner for the save news series; the word 'NEWS' appears in pixelated, gothic script in the style of a newspaper masthead. Beneath it in four entwined circles are logos for breaking up ad-tech, ending surveillance ads, opening app stores, and end-to-end delivery. All the icons except for 'ending surveillance ads' are greyed out.]

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/31/context-ads/#class-formation

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #class formation #ad-tech #context ads #news #gdpr #big tech #eff #monopoly #how to save the news #link taxes

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workersolidarity · 14 hours

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[ 📹 The moment a Palestinian man in Gaza is found and rescued from under the rubble of his civilian home following the bombardment of the Zionist occupation army using American-made munitions. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

ENDLESS BOMBINGS MARK THE 205TH DAY OF ISRAELI OCCUPATION'S GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP

On the 205th day of "Israel's" ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 6 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 66 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while another 138 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

As the Israeli occupation army continues its genocide of Palestinians, major cities across the world saw a massive increase in protests over the last week.

Protest movements in solidarity with Palestinians under siege, blockade and bombardment in the Gaza Strip have spread to Western capitals and Major cities such as Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Helsingborg, Vienna, and Tunis, where protesters demanded an end to the genocide and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, while in the United States, student protesters have wreaked havoc for administrators on campuses across the country, demanding their divestment from Israeli interests.

Participants waved Palestinian flags, occupied campus administrative buildings, and condemned the atrocities committed by the Zionist occupation army.

Meanwhile, reading the tea leaves on the future actions of the Israeli entity has become difficult due to contradictory remarks by different ministers in the government.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant continues to vow that the IOF will "eliminate Hamas," and will continue the war for "as long as it takes."

“In Gaza, we are obligated to eliminate Hamas and also to return the hostages, we are working on these two tasks and I am determined to accomplish both things. It will take as long as it takes, but we must do this task,” Gallant is quoted as saying in the Zionist media.

While at the same time, War Cabinet Minister without a Portfolio, Benny Gantz, said that if the government doesn't sign a hostage exchange deal negotiated with Hamas for the return of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, if it is backed by the entity's security services, than the government would "have no right to continue to exist."

“The return of our hostages, abandoned by the October 7 government, is urgent,” Gantz wrote on his Telegram channel, later quoted in the occupation media.

"If a responsible outline is reached for the return of the hostages with the backing of the entire security establishment — which does not involve ending the war — and the ministers who led the government on October 7 prevent it, the government will have no right to continue to exist and lead the campaign."

It should be noted that both the biggest hardliners and the more "moderate" ministers want to see the war continue, with neither willing to sign deals in which the war would come to an end.

In other news, the Israeli entity's government is also making efforts to thwart warrants expected to be issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

According to the Zionist media, the Israeli occupation's National Security Council, with the assistance of the Foreign Ministry, is leading the campaign to thwart any ICC warrants issued for the arrest of Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli occupation expects any warrants to reflect allegations that the occupation "deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza," according to an anonymous Foreign Ministry source speaking with the Times of Israel.

Over the weekend, Israeli analyst Ben Caspit wrote on the Hebrew media site "Walla" that Netanyahu is "under unusual stress" over the prospected arrest warrant for himself and other Zionist ministers by a UN tribunal at The Hague.

According to Caspit, Netanyahu leads a "nonstop push over the telephone" to undermine any prospective warrants, focusing mainly on the Biden administration in the United States.

A Haaretz analyst named Amos Harel similarly wrote that the Israeli occupation continues to work under the assumption that the ICC's headline prosecutor, Karim Khan, is likely to issue arrest warrants this week targeting Prime Minister Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IOF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi.

Meanwhile, the Zionist army continued bombing and shelling civilian areas of Gaza, targeting the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis in Gaza's south, as well as Gaza City in the north and various areas of central Gaza.

In central Gaza, Zionist occupation warplanes bombed agricultural lands in Abu Hujair, to the north of the Bureij Refugee Camp, while at the same time, occupation jets hammered areas northeast of the Nuseirat Refugee Camp with repeated airstrikes.

Israeli air forces additionally bombarded the town of Al-Zawaida, also in the central Gaza Strip.

Similarly, Zionist artillery forces shelled neighborhoods to the east of Rafah City, in the southern Gaza Strip, as well as the outskirts of the town of Khuza'a, east of Khan Yunis.

In Gaza's south, occupation fighter jets were seen bombing the Brazil neighborhood of Rafah City, targeting a residential home, while Zionist artillery detatchments shelled the city of Beit Lahiya, in Gaza's north.

The Israeli occupation army also dropped an American-made bomb on a gathering of civilians in the New Camp area, west of the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, murdering at least one civilian, while several others were wounded in the strike.

IOF artillery forces also shelled neighborhoods to the east of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, while at the same time, IOF warplanes bombed a residential home belonging to the Balha family on Al-Jalaa Street, adjacent to the Al-Zaharna building in Gaza City.

Previously on Saturday evening, Zionist warplanes bombed a residential building in the al-Nasr neighborhood, northeast of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, massacreing 7 Palestinians and wounding dozens of others.

Occupation air forces also bombarded a house east of the Al-Bureij Refugee Camp, in central Gaza, killing a civilian and wounding a number of others, while yet another airstrike targeted a residential home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, killing two more civilians.

As a result of "Israel's" ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the local population has risen further still, exceeding 34'454 Palestinians killed, including over 14'690 children and 9'680 women, while another 77'575 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

April 28th, 2024

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#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

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summer-fruits-and-cream · 6 months

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🥹

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #palestine #my post

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moki-dokie · 6 months

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a collection of pro-palestine rallies and protests happening right now, all over the world.

auckland, new zealand

washington dc, US

texas, US

berlin, germany

santiago, chile

tokyo, japan

paris, france

london, great britain

toronto, canada

edinburgh, scotland

rome, italy

#free palestine #march4palestine #palestine rally #protest #palestinian march #ceasefire now #please add more if you want!#especially if tumblr video #since twt media doesn't like to load anymore

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beardedmrbean · 3 months

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Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was met with massive crowds of protesters Saturday, after a report revealed it had discussed deporting millions of immigrants, including German citizens, late last year.

Investigative journalism group Correctiv published a report Wednesday on the meeting between AfD and the Identitarian Movement (IM) in November, claiming IM member Martin Sellner presented a plan for "re-migration" of immigrants out of Germany, including those who already have citizenship, but have failed to integrate.

AfD has confirmed the meeting, which was allegedly captured on hidden cameras, took place but rejected assertions that it reflects their party policy.

"The AfD won't change its position on immigration policy because of a single opinion at a non-AfD meeting," a spokesperson told Reuters.

Protesters across Germany held signs on Saturday that read "Never Again is Now," "Defend Democracy" and "Against Hate" as the meeting garners comparisons with the Nazis.

A protest in Frankfurt on Saturday had around 35,000 people and one in Hamburg had around 50,000, police said. Others took place in cities like Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Hannover.

Hamburg’s demonstration ended early over crowd size safety concerns.

Large protests in cities like Berlin and Munich are also planned for Sunday.

The report and subsequent protests have also renewed calls for a ban on the AfD in the country.

The AfD was founded in 2013 and polling suggests it has around 23% support in the country.

AfD was the first right-wing party since the Nazis to win a mayoral and district council election when it did last year. It has also made significant gains in state elections in Bavaria and Hesse.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the AfD and Identarian Movement in a statement on social media last week, comparing them to the Third Reich.

"We protect everyone — regardless of origin, skin color or how uncomfortable someone is for fanatics with assimilation fantasies," said Scholz.

Although immigration is a top issue in the country, Scholz himself previously admitted "too many are coming."

#nunyas news #hmmmmmm

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edithhaimbergernotebook · 2 months

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Tibetan Uprising Day 2024 and a Half-Forgotten Human Rights Disaster

"Tibetans inside Tibet: We are with you!"

— sign at Berlin protest on March 10, 2024

The red, yellow and blue colours of Tibet's flag flew across the Pariser Platz square behind Brandenburg Gate on Sunday as some 80 protesters gathered for Tibetan Uprising Day.

Reeducation camps for Uyghur Muslims in China, more rarely developments in Hong Kong, and controversies around the Dalai Lama who is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, may dominate international news headlines.

But the plight of inhabitants in the Tibetan region that the protestors portrayed in signs, speeches, and information panels yesterday is no longer common knowledge.

A youngish man in jeans and a puffer jacket, who was walking across the square on Sunday, asked the police officer beside him who had mentioned Tibet, "Was ist das?" ('What is it?') The police officer, at least, knew the answer.

Miniature History In 1950 the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded the remote region bordering Nepal. Ever since then, the autonomy or even the independence of Tibet has been hotly disputed, as well as the measures through which the ruling Chinese Communist Party governs the country. Tibetan Uprising Day marks the anniversary of a revolt in 1959.

Image: "Tibetexpedition, Kloster in Samada." (Tibet Expedition, Convent [or Monastery] in Samada.) Photo taken by Ernst Krause in 1938. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archives.

'Many of us standing here today,' a speaker wearing traditional embroidered clothing told the crowd in Berlin, 'have never been in Tibet.'

Instead the protesters on Sunday were often exiles, many second-generation.

Their relatives in Tibet face systematic repression.

"Menschenrechte für Tibet" "Freiheit für Tibet"

— 'Human rights for Tibet' and 'Freedom for Tibet.' Signs at the Berlin protest on March 10, 2024.

The Berlin speakers accused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of cultural genocide. Children as young as 5 years old are sent to residential boarding schools where they are educated as Chinese, while Tibetan language and culture are forbidden.

Monasteries and convents that were destroyed in the mid-20th century and only partly rebuilt in the 1980s remain vulnerable.

The Chinese government has been building massive hydroelectric dams in Tibet. Permission from Tibetans is not asked, a reporter from Tibet.tv said at the protest in Berlin. Instead, entire villages and monasteries, dating back even to the times where Europe was in the Middle Ages, are destroyed.

Local Tibetans who protest mega-dam projects are arrested and, at times, beaten.

A-Nya Sengdra, a nomad in Qinghai province, is in the middle of a 7-year prison sentence on charges like 'provoking trouble.' In a 2020 press release from the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, experts say that he had been active for example against "illegal hunting and poaching of endangered animals."

As his prison sentence continues, friends are worried for his health.

Outside Tibet, in his Indian exile of Dharamshala, the Dalai Lama has also spoken enigmatically about his successor as spiritual leader. He is 88 years old. The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama has a spiritual dimension for Tibetan Buddhists, but the Chinese Communist Party — a secular body —wants the next Dalai Lama to be approved by them first.

But, also explaining why Tibet is seldom in news headlines, it is difficult to obtain information from within the region. Writing for the Human Rights Watch website in 2022, an expert spoke of

draconian controls on the flow of information between Tibet and the outside world *

The Heyday of International Awareness of Tibet In the 1980s and 90s and early 2000s, Tibet was a cause célèbre. Actress Sharon Stone and actor Richard Gere, who are Tibetan Buddhist, spoke out in favour of its independence. The Tibet-inspired American fantasy film The Golden Child (1986) earned $149.4 million at the box office. In 1997, two films followed: Kundun, directed by Martin Scorsese, and Seven Years in Tibet . When this reporter arrived in Germany in 2006, a string of Tibetan prayer flags crossed above a neighbourhood street. Tourists were drawn to Tibet — this has not changed: it is estimated that 15 million of them visited in 2015. But Tibet was not just famous in cultural spheres. In 1989, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Tenuous links exist between Tibetans in countries like Germany and Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. But the CCP's surveillance extends beyond international borders. Telephone calls may be monitored, participation in protests by Tibetans in exile become a problem for relatives.

Young women at the Tibetan protest in Berlin, Germany, speak out against the Chinese Communist Party's gathering of DNA as part of a surveillance programme. Photograph taken by me (Edith Haimberger), on Sunday, March 10, 2024. All rights reserved.

Surveillance within Tibet is so severe that human rights organizations and activists reported in 2022 that the CCP are gathering DNA on a large scale — of hundreds of thousands of people, including schoolchildren — to track dissidents.

The Tibet Initiative Deutschland and the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, two non-governmental groups, co-organized the Berlin protest on March 10.

The Gesellschaft noted on their social media that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to China in April.

In Tibetan communities in the country and abroad there are conflicting opinions on how to resist the Chinese Communist Party. Peacefully, through classic forms of protest? Through self-immolation?

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

— Quoted during the March 10 protest. From Martin Luther King, Jr.: Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963) [Wikiquote]

A speaker from the Tibet Initiative Deutschland described his group's campaign to persuade municipalities across Germany to raise the flag of Tibet over their town halls for Tibetan Uprising Day in solidarity. Over 400, he said, had agreed.

Efforts at the federal level by the German chancellor, foreign minister, and others on behalf of minorities' civil and political rights, however, are apparently often undermined by German corporations.

A representative of the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker told the crowd in front of the German Foreign Ministry yesterday:

Corporations doing business within China — the German foreign ministry reports in its China-Strategie publication that there are 5,000 of these — lobby for silence, fearing financial losses.

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mariacallous · 2 months

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After months of protests by outraged farmers in cities across the continent, European lawmakers are struggling with how to quell the anger sparked in part by new green agricultural regulations—a backlash that has underscored the difficult trade-offs confronting governments as they navigate the energy transition.

To hit ambitious climate targets, European leaders have unveiled a raft of measures that would overhaul the agricultural sector, an industry that accounts for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet those policies have infuriated tens of thousands of European farmers, who have staged massive protests to voice their frustrations with the economic strains of the latest climate regulations; soaring production costs; and cheap foreign imports, particularly from countries with less stringent rules.

Demonstrations continued to roil Europe this week as hundreds of Czech and Greek farmers poured into the streets of Prague and Athens, the latest in a wave of protests that has swept all but four European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. In some cities, enraged farmers have resorted to dumping loads of manure and hurling eggs at city buildings; others have used their tractors to blockade ports and roads.

“As you’re imposing these stricter climate regulations on farmers, there’s a cost, and the cost has to be borne somewhere,” said Caitlin Welsh, a global food security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If the cost is imposed on the farmer, well then the farmer is going to produce less. The farmer is going to protest. There are going to be ramifications.”

Those ramifications are now coming into sharper focus as lawmakers—worried that far-right groups will exploit the farmers’ outrage ahead of European Parliament elections in June—cave to some of their demands. But even as lawmakers make new concessions, some farmers have vowed to ramp up their fight.

Wait, let’s back up. Why are farmers protesting?

While exact grievances vary by country, Europe’s farmers broadly say they are being pounded by a storm of converging pressures: a surge in production costs and drop in global food prices; cheap agricultural imports that have flooded their markets, namely from Ukraine; and now also a mix of national and European Union agricultural regulations targeting the farmers’ subsidies and use of pesticide and fertilizer.

When it comes to EU-wide policies, much of the farmers’ frustrations is directed toward the European Green Deal, Brussels’s plan to slash emissions by overhauling the continent’s food, transportation, and energy systems. The deal set ambitious targets for the agricultural sector to meet by 2030, including cutting chemical pesticide and antimicrobial use in half and reducing fertilizer use by 20 percent.

Yet the European farmers’ frustrations are also part of a larger global picture, said Christopher Barrett, an agricultural economist at Cornell University. “Farmers all over the world are under considerable stress right now,” he said. At the same time as falling global commodity prices and rising input costs are squeezing farmers, he said, governments are increasingly turning away from direct agricultural subsidies and instead supporting greener production practices.

In Europe, where one-third of the EU budget traditionally goes to the agricultural sector, many farmers are also accustomed to generous state support, and lawmakers’ proposed overhauls have sparked fierce resistance. In Germany, for example, protests erupted over Berlin’s plans to slash fuel subsidies to farmers, while French demonstrations have centered on a pesticide ban. Nitrogen taxation has been a key issue in the Netherlands, and an income tax break was one of the focal points of Italy’s protests.

“Add it all up, and farmers in Europe and here in the United States are increasingly feeling under political attack—like support the government has long provided them is getting pulled back,” Barrett said. “Understandably, that concerns them.”

How are European leaders responding?

Worried about alienating a major base ahead of European Parliament elections in June, lawmakers have rushed to make concessions to appease the farmers. In one of the sharpest reversals, the EU this month abandoned its major proposal to slash pesticide use by 50 percent, while top officials stressed that Brussels and the farmers share the same objectives. France, Germany, Greece, and Italy have also all diluted their original plans.

“We want to make sure that in this process, the farmers remain in the driving seat,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament in early February. “Only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together will farmers be able to continue to make a living.”

But Europe’s far-right parties are also hoping to align themselves with the farmers and leverage their anger to score political points ahead of the June vote. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, for example, has already harnessed the French demonstrations to criticize French President Emmanuel Macron; the Dutch populist Farmer-Citizen Movement has also capitalized on the farmers’ frustrations to rail against “radical environmentalism.”

“Long live the farmers, whose tractors are forcing Europe to take back the nonsense imposed by multinationals and the left,” said Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, in response to the EU decision to shelve the pesticide restrictions.

“The rising radical right is really exploiting these protests,” said Rosa Balfour, the director of Carnegie Europe. “Because we’re moving toward the European Parliament elections, everybody is very alarmed by this.”

Still, experts warn that making too many concessions could also backfire.

“The risk is that if they give in to some of these demands, or if they continue giving into some of these demands, those young people who showed up to vote in 2019 will not show up again in 2024,” Balfour said.

What does this mean for the green energy transition?

Europe’s current conundrum highlights the difficult economic and political trade-offs that all governments will inevitably confront in shifting away from fossil fuels, particularly when it comes to overhauling the agricultural sector. As the energy transition gains momentum around the world, experts say Europe’s wave of protests may be a harbinger of what’s to come.

“The EU might be hitting this problem right now most acutely, but other countries aren’t far behind,” said Barrett of Cornell University. “We will all have to adjust agricultural support policies to attend to environmental and health effects of our agrifood systems, and we have to ensure that farmers and rural communities aren’t deserted in the process.”

Farmers across Europe, in the meantime, have vowed to continue the fight. Greek farmers recently rejected Athens’s proposed concessions, while Polish farmers continued to chuck eggs at government offices and Bulgarian protesters ramped up resignation calls for the country’s top agriculture minister last week. And in France, where hundreds of farmers recently called for a “siege” of Paris, the head of the largest French farming union has warned that demonstrations could restart if government efforts do not go far enough.

And the more that governments back down, the further the protests may spread.

When farmers see a protest that is successful, “they say, ‘OK, well this is what we have to do. This is the way we mobilize. This works, and it actually gets people on our side,’” said Scott Reynolds Nelson, a historian at the University of Georgia and the author of Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World. “So I think it’s going to explode.”

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bedtimestoriesforbrokengirls · 1 year

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This... Is BGNN

Things you might want to know, for Mar 19, 2023:

'Jurassic Park' Star Sam Neill Treated for Stage-Three Blood Cancer: 'I'm Not Afraid of Dying, but It Would Annoy Me' — Why I love Sam Neill: Peaky Blinders, The Tudors, Restoration, The Hunt for Red October, Sirens, and “Dying would annoy me.” I wish for your lasting recovery, sir.

The FBI took her life savings. Now she’s fighting to help others get theirs back. — Hey, look, the Fox News crowd has discovered civil forfeiture! I know, it’s taken them long enough, and it’s only happening because they’re now even more paranoid about law enforcement than the rest of us, but still, on balance… a good thing.

Woman, after being told it's fine for man to film in public, argues with cop — Bitch, please. 🙄

Trump Says He Believes He Will Be Arrested On Tuesday, Calls On Supporters To Protest — It’s going to be difficult for his jailers, since it’s impossible to know where the orange jumpsuit begins and ends.

I used an incredible X-ray machine to look inside my gadgets — let me show you — I want someone to buy one of these things and use it to scan everything in the world.

38 years and 9 months ago, Tetris is officially released in the Soviet Union on the Electronika 60, closer to World War II than to today — Ugh. I am really, really old.

Will Vladimir Putin Actually Be Arrested for ICC Warrant? — SPOILER: No. No he will not.

The Jubalaires - Noah (First RAP Performance) — I’m not sure I get the “rap” part, but it’s still a good listen.

Disney Plus’ Willow isn’t canceled, just paused for at least a year, says producer — The fallout from the massive, post-COVID streaming contraction will be felt for years to come, and will impact projects that aren’t faltering… they’re just expensive. (RIP, Batgirl.)

Maybe stop with the uncomfortable Pedro Pascal thirst edits — Maybe chill the fuck out, Polygon writer. Pedro’s a grown-up, girls are horny, and until someone tries to Rebecca Schaefer him, let the fans have their fun.

The 20-year-old metaverse game 'Second Life' is getting a mobile app — I would say that Dwight is very excited by this, but let’s face it, by now he’s already in Berlin with the chandelier.

RUMOR: Sacha Baron Cohen to Star as Marvel's Mephisto in Disney+ Special — Okay, this could be very good. Because Mephisto is a ridiculous character that is taken seriously, and that’s, well… that’s pretty much SBC’s whole thing.

How to Get ChatGPT on Your Apple Watch

#news

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aktionfsa-blog-blog · 9 months

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Gedenken und Protest gegen Atomwaffen

Atomwaffenverbotsvertrag umsetzen!

Angesichts der 78. Wiederkehr des verbrecherischen Abwurfs der Atombombe über Hiroshima ist es an der Zeit, die Atommächte aufzufordern dem völkerrechtlich bindenden Vertrag über das Verbot der Lagerung, des Besitzes und der Drohung mit Atomwaffen beizutreten. Auch Deutschland steht seit dem 22.1.21 auf der dunklen Seite der Macht. Der Atomwaffenverbotsvertrag ist seitdem gültiges Völkerrecht und Deutschland verstößt Tag für Tag dagegen. Entwicklung, Herstellung, Lagerung, Weitergabe, Erwerb, Besitz, Testung und der Einsatz von Atomwaffen sind verboten.

An vielen Orten in Deutschland finden heute Mahnwachen, Kundgebungen und Demonstrationen statt.

In Berlin hat die Friedenglockengesellschaft zu einer Kundgebung aufgerufen,

in Frankfurt findet die Hiroshima-Mahnwache am 6. August auf dem Paulsplatz statt,

vor der Urananreicherungsanlage (UUA) in Gronau beginnt um 13:30h die Mahnwache Stoppt die Atomanlagen

...

Insbesondere die letztgenannte Veranstaltung verknüpft die zivile und militärische Nutzung der Atomkraft. Die Veranstalter vom Aktionsbündnis Münsterland gegen Atomanlagen, Arbeitskreis Umwelt (AKU) Gronau, Bundesverband Bürgerinitiativen Umweltschutz (BBU), IPPNW Münster, Natur- und Umweltschutzverein Gronau (NUG) argumentieren, warum die zivile Nutzung überhaupt ein notwendiger Schritt zur militärischen ist und, dass damit gegen die zivile Nutzung ebenso vorgegangen werden muss. Diese Erkenntnis hat uns bereits 2010 zu der Aussage Atomstaat = Überwachungsstaat gebracht.

Die Veranstalter in Gronau schreiben:

Gedenk- und Protestmahnwache in Gronau an der Urananreicherungsanlage (UAA) Stoppt die Atomanlagen in Gronau, Lingen und anderswo!

Am Sonntag, 6. August 2023, veranstaltet der Arbeitskreis Umwelt (AKU) Gronau am 78. Jahrestag des Atombombenabwurfs über der japanischen Stadt Hiroshima vor der bundesweit einzigen Urananreicherungsanlage (UAA) eine Mahnwache (Röntgenstraße 4, Gronau). Die Aktion findet von 13.30 Uhr bis 14.30 Uhr statt. Mit der Mahnwache wird an die Opfer der Atombombenabwürfe über Hiroshima und Nagasaki (6. und 9.8.1945) erinnert. Gleichzeitig wird besonders vor den Gefahren der Uranfabriken in Gronau, Lingen und Almelo (NL) gewarnt. Unterstützt werden die Aktion und die Proteste gegen die Uranfabriken u. a. vom Natur- und Umweltschutzverein Gronau (NUG), vom Aktionsbündnis Münsterland gegen Atomanlagen und vom Bundesverband Bürgerinitiativen Umweltschutz (BBU). Der AKU Gronau und die anderen Organisationen fordern die Vernichtung aller Atomwaffen weltweit und die sofortige Stilllegung aller Atomkraftwerke und Uranfabriken. Gefordert wird auch, dass die Bundesrepublik endlich den Atomwaffenverbotsvertrag unterzeichnet, den bereits rund 90 Staaten unterschrieben haben. Um den Forderungen Nachdruck zu verleihen, sind alle Bürgerinnen und Bürger zur Teilnahme an der Mahnwache eingeladen. Urananreicherung bietet technische Grundlage zur Herstellung von Atomwaffen Die Urananreicherungsanlage Gronau des Urenco-Konzerns bietet, ebenso wie die niederländische Schwester-Anlage in Almelo, die technische Grundlage zur Herstellung von Atomwaffen. Schon in den 70er Jahren entwendete ein pakistanischer Wissenschaftler in Almelo Unterlagen zum Bau der Zentrifugen, in denen Uran für Atomkraftwerke, aber auch zur Atomwaffenproduktion, angereichert werden kann. Auf dieser Basis wurde in Pakistan das Atomprogramm aufgebaut und die Technik wurde weiter verbreitet. Massiv umstritten ist die Urananreicherung im Iran, die über den Weg von Almelo / Pakistan in den Iran gelangt ist und dort im Verdacht steht, dem Atomwaffenbau zu dienen. Die UAA Gronau ist bereits 38 Jahre in Betrieb (seit dem 15. August 1985) und birgt viele Gefahren; der bisher schwerste Störfall in der Anlage hat sich 2010 ereignet. Der Uranmüll, der in der Anlage anfällt (abgereichertes Uranhexafluorid) wird in Containern unter freiem Himmel neben der Urananreicherungsanlage gelagert, wurde aber auch(unter Protest) in großen Mengen nach Russland exportiert. Dort hat sich jüngst in einer Atomfabrik in Novouralsk ein Störfall ereignet. Es gab bei einem Urancontainer eine Leckage. Ein Mitarbeiter der Anlage wurde getötet, rund einhundert weitere Arbeiter wurden verletzt. Es ist denkbar, dass der Container aus den Uranfabriken der Urenco in Gronau oder Almelo stammte. Die Initiativen und der BBU kritisieren, dass es für die Urananreicherungsanlagen in Gronau und Almelo, sowie für die Brennelementefabrik in Lingen, keinerlei Laufzeitbegrenzungen gibt und dass mit Hilfe des staatlich-russischen Atomkonzerns Rosatom in Lingen neue Brennelemente für den osteuropäischen AKW-Markt gefertigt werden sollen. Alle Atomkraftwerke und Uranfabriken stilllegen. Weltweit und sofort Die Mahnwache an der Gronauer Uranfabrik findet im Zusammenhang mit bundesweiten Gedenkveranstaltungen der Friedensbewegung anlässlich der Jahrestage der Atombombenabwürfe über Hiroshima und Nagasaki statt. Der Arbeitskreis Umwelt (AKU) Gronau betont: "Es gibt viele Gründe, um am Sonntag an der Mahnwache in Gronau teilzunehmen. Die Opfer der Atombombenabwürfe und der langjährigen Atombombenversuche dürfen nicht in Vergessenheit geraten. Und gerade im Dreiländereck von Nordrhein-Westfalen, Niedersachsachsen und den Niederlanden muss immer wieder vor den Gefahren jeglicher Nutzung der Atomenergie gewarnt werden. Unsere Kernforderung: Alle Atomkraftwerke und Uranfabriken stilllegen. Weltweit und sofort." Hintergrundinformationen zu den Atombombenabwürfen über Hiroshima und Nagasaki, sowie über die bundesweiten Gedenk- und Mahnveranstaltungen, findet man unter den folgenden Links

Mehr zu den heutigen Aktionen bei https://www.friedenskooperative.de und alle unsere Artikel zum Atomwaffenverbotsvertrag https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/cgi-bin/searchart.pl?suche=Atomwaffenverbotsvertrag&sel=meta

Kategorie[25]: Schule ohne Militär Short-Link dieser Seite: a-fsa.de/d/3vw Link zu dieser Seite: https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/de/articles/8483-20230806-gedenken-und-protest-gegen-atomwaffen.htm

#Gedenken #Protest #Atomwaffenverbotsvertrag #Hiroshima #Nagasaki #SchuleohneMilitär #Militär #Bundeswehr #Aufrüstung #Waffenexporte #Drohnen #Frieden #Krieg #Friedenserziehung #Menschenrechte #Zivilklauseln

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queen-mabs-revenge · 1 year

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our branch meeting tonight is on sportswashing and the world cup, and i've been reading all about the international workers olympiads from 1921-1937 and the people's olympiad which was supposed to take place in barcelona in 1936 (cancelled bc of the fascist coup and ensuing civil war), bc i know it's gonna be a litany of the absolute horror that is FIFA's corruption and the specifics of qatar's violence against migrant workers. so, i'm hoping to inject a bit of 'we could have it so much better' into the mix, yanno?

like did you know that the 1931 workers' summer olympiad had 100K athlete participants and 250K spectators -- far oustripping the parallel bourgeois olympics the following year in LA? (1,332 athletes and 100K spectators)? the workers' olympiads were "opposed all kinds of chauvinism, sexism, racism and social exclusiveness. The Olympic Games were based in rivalry between the nations, but the Workers' Olympiads stressed internationalism, friendship, solidarity and peace". a new world record in the women’s 100 metres relay was broken during the 1925 worker's summer olympiad.

did you know that the 1936 people's olympiad was set up as a direct challenge to the 1936 olympics being held in nazi berlin (despite massive protest demanding it be moved). its manifesto was explicitly anti-fascist, anti-war, anti-racism, and anti-sexism:

Fascism changes the true spirit of sport, turning a progressive movement for peace and brotherhood between peoples into a cog in the machinery of war. The People’s Olympiad of Barcelona revives the original spirit of the Games and accomplishes this great task under the banner of the brother-hood of men and races. [...] That sport, and above all sport of a general, popular character, is one of the best and most important means of achieving women’s freedom, cannot be open to doubt. The People's Olympiad in Barcelona, which in its manifesto stands for the freedom of mankind, the freedom of all oppressed peoples and races, cannot pass unheeded the position of woman.

we truly can have it so much better than the atrocities of the ioc and fifa if we do it ourselves.

#so interesting that the 1936 olympiad was slated to be incredibly popular in the face of a failed boycot of the berlin games #it's like....offering an alternative is always going to be the thing that wins people over #that expands the imagination of what's possible #that's the positive move forward instead of the negative 'just don't

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