Sunday, November 14, 2021

The 'Bring Them to a Standstill' Threat

 In the last day or two....the SPD Chancellor candidate (yet to be sworn in)....Olaaf Scholz....went and held a face-to-face meeting with a couple of the Fridays-for-the-Future 'kids'.

There's been a lot of hype recently, and he wanted to reassure them that things were going down the right path.

Well....you can go and view five or six different news sites, and there's one single message from this face-to-face meeting.

The 'kids' came out of the meeting unhappy.  

They say (you have to wonder how this would all play out)....that two priorities are on the their list presently.  They want the new SPD-Green-FDP government to hype up regulations on food waste and climate-damaging agriculture.  

Failure to act in quick fashion (like they expect serious efforts quickly)....then they say they will bring the 'Federal Republic to a standstill'.  

'Standstill'?  It sounds like they'd go and block autobahns, roads and streets.  I sat and pondered over this idea.

So, starting this in the month of January....with the typical harsh weather that occurs....would be interesting to watch.  Frostbite, slick roads/streets, etc.

They might get a free-pass for a day or two, but eventually....cops are going to start detaining them.  If under 18 (most are), their parents will get phonecalls and have to pick them up.  You might suddenly see a huge negativity tidal wave build up where parents ask 'what the hell are you getting into'.  

Skipping school?  Well....that matter comes up as well.  

But lets go back to these two key demands: food waste and climate-changing agriculture.  

If you wanted to pick out a hot-topic which gets farmers in Germany all pepped-up and angry....it's government regulation on their back presently.  The push on climate-changing agriculture?  The selling point of this agenda is CO2 production and the 'kids' put the farmers on the blame side of this agenda.

When you go and browse through this chatter on climate-changing agriculture....there's not a lot of alternate suggestions....it's mostly chatter about the evils of CO2 and the Earth is dissolving away.  

A fair number of people believe that with massive regulation....you'd just produce less and thus less CO2 gets injected into the system.  

Odds of the SPD, Greens and FDP injecting massive regulation into the system?  Zero.  The Greens might be fully for this, but they are utterly dependent on farm votes in the SW and Bavaria.....if you added more regulation....your regional support would go away. 

As for the term 'food waste'?  This has been hyped up via public TV over the past three or four years.  So the angle of this....goes to the idea that grocery stores have spoiled food...restaurants end up throwing spoiled food away....that maybe one-third of whatever we grow or import....might end up in some waste bin.

I've watched the news angles to this food waste hype and might agree that grocery stores do dump food every night into some bin.  Some grocery 'bosses' will tell you that some deliveries occur, and within 48 to 72 hours, if not sold, the items start to rot.  

How to write regulation to forbid/prevent 'food waste'?   I've pondered over this a bit, and can only say that you'd have to lessen the flow of vegetables/fruit into stores....maybe cutting one-third out.  How you'd write this regulation?  Unknown.

In this fantasy, you'd walk into a German grocery....expecting to get some salad, a watermelon, grapes, and turnips.  In the normal display area would be one-third less there.  You'd swoop in at 9 AM and buy what you needed.  If you didn't show up by 4 PM.....the odds are that some of these items wouldn't be stocked.  You'd create a trend where grocery shoppers all want to hit the store between 7 and 10 AM....to get what they want. 

Yes, this would sort of resemble old DDR/Soviet Union where they had a dozen bins for fruit and vegetables and rarely had enough for people.  Just getting bananas or fresh salad....was a wishful thing.

So all of this chatter by the Fridays-for-the Future 'kids' just BS?  They perceive a problem and they want regulation to resolve this.  

Frankly, I'll just say this....this threat made here doesn't win voter approval or support.  If anything, it might be time to review missed class time, and funnel some of these kids to a gifted program for physical labor jobs.  

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