• BlackSheep@lemmy.ca
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    17 hours ago

    Have you been to Europe? They have “walking” cities. You really don’t need a car to get around. My kids backpacked through Europe. The furthest they had to travel from a hostel was outside Amsterdam. 8 km on bicycles! My son just came back from Japan (I know, not Europe). He talked a lot about the “Shinkansen”. A high speed train that travels 280 km/h. They were able to travel all over Japan “without” a car.

    • Ronno@feddit.nl
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      17 hours ago

      As a Dutchman, I agree we have great infrastructure and “walking” cities. But you’ve only seen Amsterdam. Outside of the cities, The Netherlands is more dependent on cars than you might think. I live on the border of the country and public transport is basically non existent and cycling is not viable due to travel distances, every adult has a car in my area. A family of 4 adults (children over 18 living at home) have 4 cars parked in front of their house here. We’re not as car dependent as the US, but we don’t live in a fairytale either.

    • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Try to go to an anti-genocide protest in EU and see how fast you get violently beat up, arrested or get cops at your door to have “a chat”. All tose things in Amsterdam you mentioned too.

      • DimlyLitFlutteringMoth@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        15 hours ago

        Still not happened to me yet, and that is in the UK which has the far more authoritarian Policing Bill looming over us. That doesn’t make as interesting a soundbite though.

        • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Your individual experiences don’t negate all the things I mentioned, they are on video.
          And whatever bill you’re under doesn’t matter to other countries, they always find a reason or ‘special circumstances’ to break their own laws and act like hired goons for the zionist apartheid state.

          • DimlyLitFlutteringMoth@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            9 hours ago

            Yeah, Israel is shit, but unless you have a video for each of these protests being shut down in this way, that just isn’t the norm. Plenty of pro-Palestine protests and meetings here; outside Barclays, protesting specific businesses, sharing information in our most popular streets for tourism and shopping, musical protests at art galleries. Plenty going on, never even seen a police presence at these.

            Not to say it isn’t happening, but trying to paint Europe as some pro-Zionist totality is weird.