Progressive Policies For The 21st Century.

 

Roberto Matta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Matta 

There was an election on 12 September to elect a new government, so far there is no news who will be forming the new coalition government.

At the moment there are negotiations between the VVD which is the right wing Dutch Liberal party and the PVDA which is the Dutch Labour party.

I was hopeful that the elections and a new government would mean that they are not going to pursue the plan to restrict the use of coffee shops.

By making it law that everyone who wants to use a cannabis coffee shop has to register in order to get a pass to permit the use of one coffee shop only.

I can imagine the uproar if a law was passed that makes people register and get a permit to use one bar/cafe only or being allowed to go to only one supermarket.

Apparently this ridiculous proposal has not fallen along with the last failed coalition government, which was made up of ragtag parties.

One of these was the SGP, which is the Strict Protestant Reformed party, who do not allow women to be full members. T

They wanted to restrict the use of cannabis coffee shops, in fact they wanted them banned.

As neither the VVD, the right wing liberals and the CDA, the Christian Democrats had enough votes.

They had to accept parties like the SGP and their ridiculous policies so that they could form a government, they didn't care as long as they were in government.

They also needed parties such as the PVV, the party of freedom, the leader is Geert Wilders who once was a member of the VVD.

Until he decided to leave and form his own party, he is an opportunist who will play any card as long as it gets him power.

He likes to play the anti-Muslim card, and is also anti-Eastern Europeans especially Polish people as well as anti Turkish people and Moroccans.

Geert Wilders is a liability for any government, as he was for the last government which fell because he was alienating many of the Netherlands trading partners.

One of his policies was for the Netherlands to leave the European Union, this was in order to pursue his discriminatory policies.

Against immigrants, and anyone Wilders perceived as vulnerable these discriminatory policies are not tolerated in the European Union.

Which is why the PVV did not do well in the elections, as nobody agreed with anti-European Union ideas, not even members of their own party.

the SPG did very badly in the elections because of their policies concerning cannabis coffee shops as well as them being anti-Sunday trading.

The CDA did badly, because of the ill-fated coalition government, now we will all have to wait and see who is going to be the new government.

Hopefully the new government will have the moral courage to get rid of the proposal to bring in the restrictions on the use of cannabis coffee shops.

In the current climate it would seem to be an economic disaster to restrict the use of cannabis coffee shop is to either tourists or residents of the Netherlands.

In the meantime I and everybody else will just have to wait and see what happens, hopefully progressive policies will win again backward policies.

Freedom From Intolerance.

 

Roberto Matta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Matta 

The recently resigned Dutch coalition government, which had included a rag bag of political parties so that the Christian Democrats and the Liberal party, the VVD could form the government.

The strict Reformed Church Party, the SPG, the party of Geert Wilders called the PVV, which means the Party of Freedom were some of those willing to support the two main parties; anything to get into government.

Far from being the Party of Freedom, the PVV only seem to want to restrict freedom, especially for the sick, vulnerable, handicapped, unemployed and all Muslims as well as Eastern Europeans.

The PVV recently had an anti-Polish website where they actively encourage all people to report any antisocial behaviour by Polish people.

The President of the European Union criticised the PVV and called for the immediate removal of this provocative anti-Eastern European website.

This also caused a lot of tension between the Netherlands and Poland which could have escalated; Poland was already discussing cessation of any trade between the countries.

This was narrowly avoided when the PVV were ordered to remove it immediately by the Dutch government, which they did.

Wilders then had a go at Turkey and Turkish people, totally forgetting the strong bonds between the Netherlands and Turkey.

His timing for these attacks could not have been worse, as it coincided with a formal State visit of the Turkish President Gul to the Netherlands.

Because of these actions of Geert Wilders and the PVV, the government lost their mandate and they had to hand in their resignation.

Wilders is against the European Union, because as long as the Netherlands is signed up to the EU Treaty he cannot proceed with his racist and fascist agenda.         

The main parties of the now defunct government had been so desperate for power that they tolerated the smaller more extreme party’s agendas.

One of which was to curtail the use of Coffee Shops, where cannabis is sold; it was to stop tourists using them as well as to restrict the number of customers each shop could sell to.

Researchers have already discovered a lot of problems with this new policy; the biggest is that people are starting to buy from street dealers.

Tourists in the south of the Netherlands where the cannabis passports have already been introduced are buying from the street.

The other group are residents that are not willing to have their details registered in a database which is kept for many years.

The police have access to this database, which they seem to use to check whether anybody has outstanding fines.

The negative effects of driving people away from legal Coffee shops is that they will buy from street dealers, who also sell illegal drugs such as heroin, speed, crack, ecstasy and cocaine.

As well as all these hard drugs, there is no guarantee that the cannabis and hashish the street sellers have is not mixed with other things.

It is not unusual to get hashish from a street dealer, which has been mixed with various things such as rubber; smoking hashish which is contaminated like that can have unpleasant side-effects.

In September there will be new elections and other parties will get in, who do not have the right wing agenda that the last coalition government had.

The new government will hopefully be realistic and pragmatic enough to realise that they cannot afford to lose the tax money which is generated by the Coffee Shops and tourism.

    

    

Turning Back The Clock 40 Years.

Pierre Roy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Roy_%28painter%29

Really noticed how down I have been since the news, on Saturday, that the right wing Dutch government has turned back the clock 40 years by criminalising skunk, strong cannabis.

Amazing that after leading the way in decriminalising and tolerating the personal use of cannabis they have now decided that if the THC is stronger than 15 % it’s now illegal.

Couldn’t believe my ears when I heard, however this news is not so surprising, considering the composition of this right wing government.           

The Coalition Government is: the VVD: Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy, the Christian Democratic Alliance, PVV: Party for Freedom.

They are also supported by the SGP:The Reformed Political Party (Dutch: Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, SGP).

It is no wonder that the right wing government knowing they are restricted in what they can do have decided to go for the coffee shops.

They made an arbitrary decision that strong cannabis, called skunk will now be reclassified as a class A drug, along with Ecstasy and Heroin, suddenly it became illegal.

A strange decision as this country makes a lot of money from cannabis, from tourists coming here to enjoy the coffee shops.

This decision is like the Netherlands scoring an own goal in the World Cup, tourists will now go to other countries instead like Portugal, guaranteed warm weather and cannabis.

                  

Crystal Ball.

Australian Art.

Still no sign of the good weather that was promised at the end of the week, instead it has been cool, grey and overcast with continual steady rain all day.

The seating was brought back all smartly covered; we were given an extra cover which is very handy as it would be good to be able to wash it from time to time.

It gave us both such a boost when Ruud from Summit turned up this morning, right on time at 10 am and brought the seating back nicely covered.

It was noticeable right away that it was easier for Richie to get the straps on me prior to being hoisted out of the wheelchair.

The seat cover will make a big difference indeed, it also looks good and it feels better sitting in it so it is a win, win situation all round.

Shame about all the rain again today and it is also windy and cool enough to have the heating on briefly this morning.

Well I did not win big in the lottery here last night, shame had such good plans, think I won 4,50 instead of a couple of million.

Sadder than the lottery is the results of the General Election here, the voters were obviously extremely unhappy with the CDA(Conservative)/PVDA (Labour Party)/ Coalition.

The voters were very dissatisfied with the CDA taking them into what they saw as George Bush Junior and Tony Blair’s illegal war in Iraq.

The CDA paid for this heavily, they lost 20 seats, the Labour Party lost one seat but worse of all the Geert Wilders Party, called the PVV, the Party for Freedom won 15 seats from the CDA.

Geert Wilders is a right wing populist xenophobe, who cashes in wherever he can, all that concerns him is promoting himself and his career.

The VVD, the Liberal Democrats have got 3 seats more than the PVDA and will form the government; the prospect is that they will do this with the PVV.

Could be unpleasant times ahead as they will make cuts to the budget, Welfare Benefits and Health Care are bound to suffer plus they will no doubt try to close the coffee shops.

And they will most likely start harassing people deemed to be foreigners by their skin colour; Geert Wilders would like to stop the Immigration of all people of colour.

He has no compunction in stirring up anti Moroccan sentiments conveniently forgetting that the Moroccan community have lived here for many years, they came here on invitation and work hard and pay their taxes.

This General Election has taken away the last remnants of tolerance and liberalism The Netherlands has been famous for.

Oh well we shall see, I have no crystal ball and it is not possible to see into the future so I will not try to do so, living here and now is enough for me