French Farmers, Truckers and Covid Freedom Rallies Astroturfing vs. Science, Environment and EU European Union?

Farmers protesting in France and probably elsewhere are more about astroturfing by Big Ag to oppose the EU European’s Union Green Agenda, threats to CAP Common Agricultural Policy, pesticides and fossil fuels; does not seem to be a genuine issue of small farmers especially with indirect support of Le Pen?

Further, not only have similar protests occurred on the border of Poland and Ukraine, and other points, with allegations of Russian influence, there seems to be resonance with the US fossil fuel Koch Network ‘freedom rallies’ globally against Covid science, vaccinations and health mandates vs. centrist governments.

In Australia the tactics were transparent, promoting a German anti-Covid ‘freedom rally’ website via a climate science denier Jo Nova on an Atlas or Koch Network think tank blog (AIP Australian Institute of Progress) and in at least one rally a senior Murdoch News Corp ‘journalist’ Peta Credlin (former PM’s Chief of Staff of now Fox Board’s Tony Abbott) participated with ‘cosplay’ workers attacking media and the centrist Victorian government in Melbourne.

From Truth Dig:

‘Those EU Farmer Protests Aren’t What They Seem

The “angry farmer” narrative is hiding an agribusiness alliance meant to sabotage Europe’s bold green agenda.

During the last weekend in February, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared at the annual national agricultural fair in Paris. It was his first direct encounter with French farmers since they began blocking roads and driving tractors into city centers in January, and it did not go well. When he tried to speak, he was drowned out by a chorus of boos and whistles that delayed the event’s opening by several hours. Two days after the fair, on Feb. 26, a meeting of European agriculture ministers in Brussels was met by nearly 1,000 tractors in the streets, with farmers lighting tire-and-straw bonfires and shooting fireworks at the police, three of whom were injured. The police responded with tear gas.

Since the beginning of the European farmer protests in January, most media coverage has stuck to a simple story summed up as “the Anger of the Farmers.” In reality, however, much of the anger has been manufactured by industrial agriculture concerns who feel threatened by the European Union’s Green agenda. In France, as in Italy, Germany and elsewhere, the tractor convoys are organized by rich unions with close links to Big Ag, including major landowners, pesticide makers and the finance structures that serve them. The small and independent farmers who are most threatened by EU policy changes seem less “angry” than depressed about being treated as economically irrelevant and politically powerless. 

Since most French people live in cities and only see farmers on television, they have accepted this picture of the generically angry and broadly sympathetic family farmer. Two hundred years ago, France was mainly an agricultural country, and farming is still seen as essential French heritage. The agricultural areas are called “Deep France” (la France profonde) and decades of agricultural policy have firmly established the idea that the farmers need assistance and protection to survive the threats created by modernization and urbanization. Though farming only represents 2% of France’s GDP, its farmers have retained a sterling image…. 

……This wave of faux-populist protest has caught everyone by surprise, but so far it is Marine Le Pen, leader of the Trumpish nationalist movement, the National Rally, who has managed to turn things in her direction. Visiting the national agricultural fair on Feb. 28, she was all smiles and warmly welcomed by the farmers. 

Here in East-Central France, a region called Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, the first signs of trouble appeared on actual signs: The road signs at the entrances to towns and villages were being mysteriously turned upside down. Orchestrated by the agricultural trade unions, the clever PR move started in the Tarn area and quickly spread across rural France. The message was clear: French agricultural policy is turning the world upside down.

Understanding why they might think this requires a detour through the history of European Union farming subsidies. Along with national subsidies, most aid to French farmers runs through the European Union, whose Common Agricultural Policy has, from its beginning in 1962, been engineered to favor the French. In the 1980s, the CAP represented two-thirds of the EU budget, and while it has been declining, it remains a major financial instrument….. 

…..The result is that 80% of subsidies now go mostly to a small number of large, industrialized operations. The first major study on land ownership conducted in 30 years recently found that most French farmland — 16 million hectares — is rented from mostly anonymous investors, including supermarket chains and pension funds. Independent, family-based peasant farmers become tenants if they don’t give up completely, and the CAP becomes yet another mechanism to make rich people even richer. Without family capital, the traditional father-to-son pattern is broken. All that’s left is corporate power. And that power is not at all happy about EU plans to disrupt the status quo. 

Despite the name, the Green Deal is not primarily concerned with agriculture. Its aim is to turn Europe into a zero-emission continent based on renewable energy — the so-called Green Transition to carbon-neutral growth. Electric vehicles, electric ships and reduced use of aviation fuel are important elements, but national and international infrastructure projects are the big money-spinners, plus schemes to compensate heavy industry for the expense of adopting green policies. 

All farmers, large or small, hate the growing EU bureaucracy associated with the new green policies. But the real issue is not paperwork. It’s the EU’s bold plans to save the planet. Indeed, the ambitions are revolutionary. “We have proposed stronger rules on industrial emissions, ambient air, surface and groundwater pollutants, treatment of urban wastewater and soil. They will ensure a significant pollution reduction by 2030 as a step towards the long-term objective of zero pollution in 2050,” said Maroš Šefčovič, executive vice president for the European Green Deal. “The plan will strengthen the EU green leadership, whilst creating a healthier, socially fairer Europe.” 

The EU reforms seemed to be moving smoothly forward until the protests. On Feb. 1, the day European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced new restrictions on pesticides and other climate-related targets, more than a thousand tractors blocked the streets of Brussels. After the protests swept through Europe, the EU backed down. Before the end of the week, von der Leyen had declared that the Union was dropping the goal of halving pesticide use by 2030. 

It is often said that the EU has no reverse gear, and von der Leyen’s announcement was the first time that an organized agricultural lobby has attempted — and succeeded — to force Brussels to perform such a humiliating U-turn. 

The loss to the environment was significant. The next phase of the Green Deal and Farm to Fork was supposed to include a number of other impressive targets for 2030, including a 50% reduction of “nutrient losses” (meaning slurry pollution of groundwater); a reduction of chemical fertilizers by at least 20%; a 50% reduction in antibiotics for farmed animals and fish; and an increase of organic farming to 25% of agricultural land.

But the defeat on the pesticides target was a major blow to the entire project. The European branch of the Pesticide Action Network called the decision a victory for “for an appalling opposition led by the agro-chemical industry, against a more healthy, future-proof agriculture for the EU.”

My corner of la France profonde is full of farms, so when the protests started, I thought it would be easy to find some of the farmer anger that everyone was talking about. However, what I mostly discovered talking to local farmers was indifference. “Oh no, I’m too old for that.” “Who cares?” “I don’t have time.” I approached the mayor of the next village, Serge Boitard, to see if he could suggest someone involved in the resistance. He tried to put it diplomatically. “They all have work to do. They can’t just stop everything to go and build barricades.” When I pointed out that there were about 100 trucks backed up by a blockade of tractors just 10 miles down the road, Boitard shrugged. “We don’t know who they are,” he said. 

Many of the machines blocking local traffic were hugely expensive new models from John Deere, Fendt, Claas and other international manufacturers. These are a far cry from the 40- or 50-year-old tractors driven by most small farmers in my area. The ones leading the current protests are mostly luxury-class, with comfortable, air-conditioned cabs and state-of-the-art computerized engines. The biggest and most powerful models — such as the Fendt 933 that led a protest convoy in Italy — cost more than a new Lamborghini, often reaching upwards of a quarter-million dollars. The next generation of fully autonomous AI robot tractors cost twice as much….

……“The FNSEA are interested in protecting an agricultural system that is set up and maintained by [themselves] and the agro-industrial lobby,” said Maurice from the Peasant Confederation. “This system creates privileged people, as we clearly saw during the demonstrations: Grain growers. Pig farmers. Anything on an industrial, international scale.”

But there are signs of greener and more authentic grassroots resistance in the Europe-wide protests. According to France’s leading progressive newspaper, Libération, the FNSEA union is struggling to maintain control and undisputed leadership of the nation’s farmers, some of whom support the thrust of EU policy. Macron and his ministers are talking to the Peasant Confederation and other smaller regional organizations who want to challenge the FNSEA stranglehold. 

The FNSEA naturally sees things differently. In their telling, they are the true voice of French agriculture. The regional head for this département, Jacques de Loisy, 51, explained by telephone that the influence of the “ecologist ideology and its lobby” is to “lower production and revenues with no sufficient scientific basis. There has never been any health scandal or crisis associated with cereal farming in France, but now we are their number one target.” 

He singles out the Farm to Fork project in Brussels, but his real anger is directed at the French government and its policies. 

“There are thousands of regulatory texts now, and it’s not just the paperwork. It’s the content and the implementation,” de Loisy told me. “In Belgium, cleaning out ditches is compulsory. If we want to do it, we have to apply for a certificate, and the bureaucratic process takes several months. We’re not allowed to keep forest roads clear for our tractors. It’s all just designed to punish us. One thing that makes my members really angry is the OFB [French Biodiversity Office]. They send inspectors round and they carry guns. We’re not bandits!”

Ecologists see the OFB as an emergency police force, necessary to protect what’s left of Europe’s biodiversity. The new breed of small farmers, educated and idealistic younger people, agree. But the older generation, still real peasants, don’t engage in any of this. Our next-door neighbor, Marie-Françoise, at 75 years old, keeps chickens and rabbits and milks her cow by hand every day to make cream cheese for the village. Her life is not so different from that of her ancestors 500 years ago. When she dies, her little farm will probably be absorbed into the same global food industry that is paying for the fancy tractors blocking traffic and burning tires on the nearest highway.’

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Covid-19 Climate Science Vaccination Misinformation PR and Astro Turfing

Posted on May 6, 2020

In recent months there has been an increase in confusion, misrepresentation and misunderstanding in news and social media round Covid-19 using same techniques as in tobacco, climate science denialism and anti-vaccination movements that seem to benefit US radical right libertarians’ preferred ideology and politics.

Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories and Radical Right Libertarians

Posted on August 13, 2020

Covid-19 restrictions have seen a rise in those viewing any measures e.g. wearing face masks, lock downs etc. as unnecessary, not supported by science and constraining their democratic rights.  However, while many of those who support this view have no expertise in medical science nor data, they seem to be inadvertently masking a deep seated radical right libertarian movement, masquerading as ‘common sense’ or scepticism that favours the economy over humanity.  

Whether they are anti-maskers, sovereign citizens, conspiracy theorists, climate science denialists, QAnon or white nationalist alt right, the common underlying denominator and outcome is both promotion of libertarian views or actions, disrupting the status quo (sensible centre consensus giving way to radical right ideas), denigration of both science and education, and dismissal of duty of care, especially of vulnerable people

Covid Misinformation – Gut Instinct & Beliefs vs. Science & Critical Thinking

Posted on October 6, 2021

Underlying narrative round Covid is something deeper, simpler and somewhat disturbing, the promotion and preservation of personal beliefs and ‘freedom’ over rational analysis, science and societal well-being i.e. business and political elites disregarding the social contract; pre-enlightenment values?

Why are Vaccinated GOP Republicans and Fox Media Killing their Constituents through Covid Denial?

Posted on December 28, 2021

Like the UK and Australia, Fox or NewsCorp is influential amongst media and politics of the right in promoting forms of eugenics and aggressive radical right libertarian socioeconomics, as conservative voter friendly issues.  

Themselves, with neither an ethical nor moral compass to guide them?  

Why is the self appointed Anglosphere of the US, UK and Australia so frivolous with life when many of the same conservatives claim, often hypocritically, that they are conservative Christian guardians of life, by controlling women’s bodies; now with Covid there should be no constraints.

EU European Union Model for Future Global Standards and Regulation

EU European Union Model for Future Global Standards and Regulation

The EU European Union has attracted much criticism and pessimism on its future, mostly by outsiders and e.g. the Anglosphere with Brexit, being encouraged by ideologues and selected corporate entities plus donors, in the US, with libertarian economic interests trying to avoid constraints of trade blocs like the EU.

In fact, according to the following essay by Ullrich Fichtner with excerpts and overview from Der Spiegel magazine, and keeping in mind the local, regional, national and global positives, often via the ‘Brussels Effect’, the EU should have a both an economically and socially productive future; this essay should be compulsory reading for decision makers in the Anglo world.

‘From Brussels to the Rest of the World – How Europe Became a Model for the 21st Century

An Essay by Ullrich Fichtner

Despite its long list of crises in recent years – including the most recent vaccine snafu – the European Union has become a global pacesetter. Its laws and regulations have established global norms. This has made the bloc a 21st century model.

I. Dog Whistling the EU, Europe and the Continent

………The Continent has been portrayed as a barren mountain range of EU summits, as a garbage dump of files, as a befouled land of plenty with lakes of milk and wine. Europe in caricature is a house of cards, a ramshackle home, a burning hut, a crumbling temple. It is always in ruins……

……the EU often looks as broken as its worst enemies describe it. Cyprus single-handedly blocking European sanctions against the Belarusian dictatorship. The governments of Hungary and Poland ruthlessly undermining the rule of law. Agonizing negotiations on a common refugee policy for the Continent repeatedly concluding in shabby nothingness. A common agricultural policy – one that has been wrong for decades – cemented once again. The procurement of coronavirus vaccines descending into acrimonious, backbiting chaos, fueled by the national interests of 27 member states. In our imaginations, that is truly not what a global power looks like.

II.  The EU Continues

There have been several times in the past 10 or 12 years that the EU has been so close to the abyss that the fall seemed inevitable. The great financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 became the Greek crisis and a European sovereign debt crisis. Significant doubts were raised about the basic structures of the federation of nations – and they weren’t just coming from the right-wing populists emerging across the Continent. Financial crises became identity crises and refugee crises spiraled into existential crises. In 2016, the decision by the British to leave the EU seemed like the final nail in the coffin of a historic experiment that the peoples of Europe never learned to love.

That the situation has since become less fraught is not least due to the fact that Brexit, by not destroying it, has actually saved the EU for the time being…..

III.  Top Three Global Market

……. In terms of the EU and its 27 members, it doesn’t really matter which metric you apply: It always ranks among the top three in the world by all criteria. It is even ahead of the United States in many fields and will be able to outperform China in many respects for decades to come.

The EU is the most important export market for the U.S., India, South Africa and Russia. It is the second-largest market for China and Brazil and the third largest for Japan and South Korea.

IV.  Brussels Effect on Global Standards

Every day, miraculous things are happening around the globe of which most Europeans take no notice. Technology companies in California build their devices according to EU regulations….. ……. Regional blocs of countries in South America are organizing themselves along the lines of the EU. Laws drafted in Europe are adopted almost verbatim into national law in countries around the world…..

…..Europe’s view of data protection, as laid out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has quickly become a global standard that no company and no country can ignore….. America’s 500 largest companies are continually spending billions of dollars to implement EU rules, and the situation is no different for the largest Asian, African and South American companies. The smartest among them are already working to reduce their carbon emissions, with an eye on the “carbon tax,” that the EU has been working on for years.

These examples lead to the equally unbelievable and correct conclusion that globalization today is actually a “Europeanization”………

V. Good EU and Global Standards and Regulations

A global player like today’s Europe has never existed in this form in the history of the world. By regulating the affairs of its internal market step by step, the EU is formulating globally effective standards along the way. Whether it’s chemicals, hazardous waste, hormone-treated meat, electronic waste, emissions standards, animal testing, antitrust, privacy, crop protection, competition or air pollution control – the EU is always somehow already there.

It sets standards and criteria worldwide based on scientific findings and equipped with recognized scientific, legal and also moral competence – even in areas where, by law, it would actually have no say. It’s not a stretch to say that the European Union makes the world a little bit better every day, a little bit cleaner, a little bit healthier, safer and more sustainable…..

VI. Smart Power

The distinction between a “soft” and “hard” power originates from Joseph Nye, the Harvard professor  ………  hard power is an absolute necessity, but adds that military power is a blunt instrument. For today’s powers, he wrote, the point is to combine soft and hard power to create “smart” power.

Nye argues that missiles and warships don’t help fight global warming, protect privacy or regulate banking……

VII. Foreign Policies

The current EU high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell of Spain, has compared today’s EU foreign policy with the introduction of the euro, when – for a time – the old national currencies existed side-by-side with the new European currency. For the moment, Borrell told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper shortly before taking office a little over a year ago, EU foreign policy must coexist with national foreign policies. The point, though, is that the intersections will grow over time….

VIII. Future of the EU

Around 20 years ago, professors from Germany and elsewhere issued incessant criticism of the euro and the appalling consequences it would have for the prosperity of everyone in Europe. Now that the euro has established itself as the world’s second-most reliable hard currency, it is a position that has been essentially abandoned today.

Nor has the eternal fear of a Brussels kraken sucking all the democracy out of the member states borne out. And despite myriad predictions of the EU’s demise, that hasn’t happened either….

…..But the European Union – and in this sense it is a lot like the United Nations – is often only scrutinized for its shortcomings. The EU is frequently judged solely on its ability to act quickly and too rarely on its ability to pursue a goal step by step, with calm and perseverance. And people also often forget that the EU is a federation of 27 countries. When they are united, Europe is strong. When they disagree, even the best EU is of little help.

In the long term – meaning years and decades – the EU will be judged by whether it achieves its objectives, and it only ever sets grand goals for itself. Preserving peace, saving the world’s climate, ending the destruction of nature, protecting people, increasing prosperity, improving lives, seeking happiness.….’

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Impact of EU Regulations and Standards on Global Markets

The Brussels Effect – The EU’s Impact upon Global Markets

In her important new book, Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford argues the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image. By promulgating regulations that shape the international business environment, elevating standards worldwide, and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce, the EU has managed to shape policy in areas such as data privacy, consumer health and safety, environmental protection, antitrust, and online hate speech.

 

The Brussels Effect shows how the EU has acquired such power, why multinational companies use EU standards as global standards, and why the EU’s role as the world’s regulator is likely to outlive its gradual economic decline, extending the EU’s influence long into the future.

 

From Politico EU on The Brussels Effect:
THE BRUSSELS EFFECT: Anu Bradford, a professor at Columbia Law School, wrote the book on EU influence — literally. In early 2020, she published “The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World.” It details how the European Union manages to unilaterally regulate the global market.

 

“All the EU needs to do is to regulate [its internal] single market, and it is then the global companies that globalize those EU rules,” she told me during a pre-coronavirus trip to Brussels in early March. The most obvious example of this phenomenon, she said, is the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

 

Global influence: As international awareness of the EU’s regulatory power has grown, there’s been “a massive increase in the presence of foreign companies in Brussels” and their efforts to lobby institutions, said Bradford. “Because when you think about it, if you manage to influence the regulatory process in the EU, you can influence the regulations across the world.”

 

Despite the increased international lobbying effort, “we don’t see that lobbying [has] led to weak regulations,” according to Bradford. She contrasts this with the U.S. where corporate influence often undermines U.S. regulations. She chalks up this difference to the comparatively stronger influence of civil society in the legislative and rule-making process in the EU.

 

Bradford said this leads to “a more balanced outcome in the end, but certainly there is an awareness and attempt on behalf of the corporations to influence the outcomes.”

 

Civil society strength: Alberto Alemanno, founder of civil society NGO The Good Lobby, offers a slightly different view. He says that corporate influence in the EU, as well as the U.S., “is on average more successful in bureaucratic arenas” compared to NGOs and citizen groups. But, he added, “the different role EU civil society plays in shaping policymaking may have more to do with institutional features (EU technocratic apparatus’ incentives to engage with civil society, European Parliament’s increased power, lesser role of money in politics) than with NGOs’ inherent strength.”

 

And what about the coronavirus? Of course, Bradford’s “Brussels effect” will be tested by the pandemic. She believes that “unless globalization comes to a drastic halt (which it likely will not), the Brussels Effect will continue,” she wrote to me more recently via email.

 

But she is monitoring a few developments. This includes whether the crisis leads to more or less regulation, depending on whether there is an appetite for more or less EU after things settle down.

 

She also believes the technocratic nature of EU rule-making “insulates it to some degree from the crises.” But the uncertainty and disruption “will likely slow down the regulatory process in the immediate future.” This includes the EU’s new digital strategy, where the crisis may force officials to rethink its regulation of data and technology more broadly.

 

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