Comments by "Lynott Parris" (@DenUitvreter) on "DW News" channel.

The gasfield was closed so Shell and Exxon could get out without paying for the expensive reinforcement of the buildings in the area, while getting out of paying for cracks and stuff too by mounting a bureaucratic wall for over 20 years, including denying causation on all levels. So it all could have been reinforced by now but the international shareholder interests were more important than the Dutch citizens or geopolitics.
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@jadoei13 Spreading the problem is just an excuse to no solve it. I heard the EU negotiators proudly stating that they had worked on some immigration deal for 7 years. But in those 7 years mass immigration continued, erosion of social cohesion continued, housing shortages increased and about 300.000 asylum seekers, at an average cost of 0.8 million per person to the Dutch tax payer were added. The more long term the solution is, the bigger that problem that needs to be solved because it keeps growing with every week without a solution.
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If it wasn't for the internet we just had to believe that this was a 15.000 extreme right protest after which the neonazi's stormed the Reichstag.
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I have objected to the use of the word populist for anybody who wanted change through democracy, but in case of Wilders populism is indeed a big part of his style.
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I'm not opposed to civil obedience if it means that much to them, which it doesn't since the protest was led by frequent flyers and other hypocrites, but that includes facing the consequences. They were lucky the police is highly politicized in favour of them and wasn't using their normal tactics.
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@Philippe_Gruijthuijzen Maybe it's in the parliament committee hearing on asylum/immigration he was in. But if you calculate for yourself, it's quite clear he can't be that far off.
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I don't fully agree, allthough I do agree that neocolonialism is not an improvement on the late colonial era. Actually the Dutch trade empire resembled the current American empire most, only it was far less bloody. These problems exist not so much because of the seeds, but because of the interests of people in those seeds and what might grow out of it. I noticed a perspective difference that is used for that. I as a Western European (Dutch) I've been raised with the idea that the past was terrible and it is or should get better by the decade, and I feel part of that, believe in can play a role in that and my country the Netherlands always has. But most Africans had history happening to them, they tend to think less in terms of progress over time, but in continents and races that are bad, not just the past. They also tend not to have internalized capitalism and 'value added'. For me as a European is completely logical that the one who adds the most value, whether that's through a process or bringing it to the rich people who can pay more for it, earns the most. Many Africans on the internet still think in zero sum, like African slave labour or modern African labour makes people in the West rich. You want to get wealth, you have to take something from another. It doesn't, it was and is the processing of sugar or cacao and selling it to rich people that makes the money. Sugar and cacao at the plantation are cheap, in the harbour already a bit more expensive, but when made into pralines the value of the ingredients goes up thousands of times. That has not changed after colonialism.
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@honeheke4554 I never claimed it's a fair world. Yes it is a bit condascending but at the same time I am understanding of a different perspective from a different history. I see a lot of Africans complaining we are getting their cobalt or cacao too cheap. But it is cheap because the value has to be added yet. My point is that Africans should do more of the value adding to their raw materials themselves. Of course labour is cheap, anyone can pick cacao and dig for cobalt, and Western medicine has reduced child mortality to a degree there is an abundance of labour on top of it. Many Europeans want fairness for Africans but they simply are incapable of delivering it because captialism does lower prices much better than fairness. The fair trade products I buy won't fundamentally change that. Africans will have to carve out their own paradises in the big bad world that is capitalist. With the raw materials and natural resources they have the leverage to do that. The good people of Europe like you and me aren't calling the shots either. We also have to play the game by the rules of people less good with much more power. Exxon, BlackRock, Apple, the people behind Biden and Macron, we get a better deal from them than most Africans, but we don't have power over them either.
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Without the Dutch we would still have absolute catholic rule in Europe and therefore all over the world and you would get a red hot spike up your butt from the Spanish Inquisition for not bellieving the right way in the right god. The Dutch gave the British their current constitutional monarchy, bill of rights and religious tolerance, the USA it's DOI and upward social mobility, the American dream, and the world modern capitalism, free trade, religious freedom, freedom of the printing press and therefore the kickstart of the enlightenment. And of course microbiology, gay marriage and a few hundred other important inventions. The dark pages of this beacon of light were never ignored, it's the beacon of light itself that is ignored.
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The word is often used to dismiss any party that wants change through the democratic process, even Omtzigt from NSC was called a populist while being a quite boring politician with complex and extremely substantial speech. But Wilders is indeed a populist. That's his rethoric style. Not any more than Yesilgoz VVD or PvdA-GroenLinks, but still a populist.
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