Party Vibe

I have had to do research of documents in both English and Dutch going back as far as the late 90s. I wouldn’t be at all urprised if there are elements within the Police and others with real authority who would be trying to hurry the ban along even in Amsterdam by finding other laws to stop the sales, same as how mephedrone sales were disrupted in UK before it became illegal. Also because whilst folk from BE do often speak Dutch there are linguistic differences, they are easy enough identified and targeted (at very least they are the butt of jokes).

I agree it is not just a ban on a substance. They (right wing) simply do not want any of the party events including the massive ID&T ones even though they are sponsored by Heineken, Vodafone etc. Nor do they want the “ethnic” music scenes found in most European cities. This is also why ID&T started up the Mystery events with greater wider social conscience, I don’t think its a coincidence these started around the same time as economic depression and social concerns, and that stuff like multiculturalism is highly promoted at a mystery event (more so than other dance events). I think this might be ID&T’s way of fighting back without causing massive problems to themselves or the entire NL music scene.

Also one reason those big events are so prominent is because only by tying up with mobile phone companies and breweries can they get licenses. Of course with too much alcohol/coke then there can be violent incidents, and the right wing seize on these and use them to increase licensing costs. Worse still, a recent trend to include English urban acts (who tend to be from a mixture of racial groups but with more black and Asian people) is another thing the right are subtly using to claim increased risks/concerns, including sadly spreading hate amongst the young.

BTW it also seemed clear one reason paddo’s (magic mushrooms) were banned was because the East Europeans had got a good foothold in this business. FFS these dudes have always grown and processed mushrooms (more commonly the champignons or ones what folk can eat))! so not surprising they did well in this busineses.

Actually the area where I live is very culturally close to NL due to shipping/trade links and I can see much of the same things happening here but on a smaller scale.

if you look more closely at the election results (even more complex as Northern European nations like DK, NL and DE have proportional representation) it is not a complete victory for either side, more a case of nations getting half divided and where there are majorities there are very slim ones.

NL is unique though as historically there are some important issues where they have to abandon party politics because of the requirement to work together on infrastructure what stops the North Sea flooding a large chunk their entire nation. We have the same issues to a extent here but as its not quite as bad (there are higher places) there is a view “let the stubborn buggers all drown”.

In reality though the hard right aren’t in fact as numerous as folk think. What is more worrying politically (and is showm up more in the European nations including the UK) is since the economic depression a shift towards “classic liberalism” rather than “social democracy” which has already fucked up most of the British left and yet because of American influences on our language doesn’t seem too bad on first glance, especially as “liberals” are usually seen as trendier/cool things to be than conservatives, and many of these “liberals” claim to support some form of drugs legalisation.

this politics is in fact “let mehave the freedom to do what I want and fuck everyone else” and is thus appealing to the wannabe alpha males of the dominant race of any nation. Sadly the drugs/party scene has in recent times been contaminated by a lot of this attitude which is why it gets a worse reputation than it deserves (and why smart people like those behind Mysteryland are trying to reverse these problems).