Jones Beene wrote:
Paris is burning...
A little more precision seems called for.
For the most part, it's the suburbs, not Paris itself -- in particular,
it's the poor Muslim suburbs, not the well-to-do Catholic city.
"Banlieue de paris", not "ville de paris". As usual, the angry youth of
the underclass are destroying their own neighborhoods in the riots,
without doing much damage to those against whom their anger is directed.
And at that, it's mostly the cars, not the buildings, not the living
quarters. However, businesses is the Muslim areas have also been hit
(and are most likely moving out, never to return -- who does this hurt?).
So, "Paris is burning" is a bit of an exaggeration. In fact, the riots
are very VERY reminiscent of the race riots we had here in the U.S. back
in the 60's, save that in that era, it would have been far more accurate
to say, for instance, "New York is burning" or "Philadelphia is burning"
than it is today to say "Paris is burning".
One advantage France has is that they have Villepin, who, hateful as he
is to many Americans, appears to have at least half a brain on board,
and in their whacky system, they've also got Sarkozy, whom I can't
figure out but who also seems to have some amount of sense. Back during
the riots in this country, we had Johnson, about whom the less said the
better...
To the political cynic, even though some of this anger has obvious
roots in the socio-political situation in France vis-a-vis the Arab
world (plus a bit of down-home Franco-arrogance) ... hmmm.. there is
still the possibility that some it has the faint "odeur nauséabonde"
of what the yanks call "payback" and the French "vengeance ".
So France made the mistake of letting in a large number of Muslim
immigrants and now they're having vengeance visited on them on account
of that? This is along the lines of "No good turn goes unpunished", eh?
And speaking of the "lords of vengeance", I can almost see smug-grins
in smoke-filled rooms, as Warbuck-Euros are being passed around...
unless... and even worse, as is Kennedy claim, the payback to the
Marseilles-mafia, which has long-time connections to the CIA, was in
heroin seized in Afghanistan.
... as they say in Bayonne, "where there's smoke, there's fire" or to
Creole another idiom, it pays "Avoir le bras long".
Jacques Chirac and his close ally, Dominique de Villepin, have long
stoked French nationalism and proclaimed France to be the strategic
enemy of "American power", no?
Paris has openly yearned to lead the European Union to its rightful
post-Napoleonic superpower status, and in order to accomplish this -
must undermine American “hegemony,” and above all, do it for the
eternal grandeur of la belle France,no?
.
De Villepin has written many books vilifying the United States in
terms you wouldn't call you dog, no?
In particular, the situation with the Iraq war betrayal and treachery
was absolutely deplorable to Cheney, Rummy & Co. - even though
Chirac's judgment proved to be correct (adding insult to injury) -
this is certainly a buildup for a certain kind of behind-the-scenes
"vengeance ".
How on Earth do you get off claiming they "betrayed" Cheney et al? They
never promised to follow the USA into any war no matter how stupid, and
they never said they believed in the WMDs and then backed out -- in
short they did nothing to "betray" Cheney. They just didn't _support_
him. So what? I didn't either, and neither did a lot of other people.
Obviously, we did not necessarily instigate the current situation of
anarchy in Paris...but when opportunity knocks ...one wonders to what
extent the flames are "being fanned" by some outside influence, with
'vengeance' as 'le motivation'?
No need to assume anything of the sort, IMHO. It's a tinderbox
situation. The taux de chaumage is sky-high in the poor 'burbs and has
been for ages, and all the government's done so far (rather, all they've
done which is visible to the poor youths of the "outer city") is bring
in Sarkozy as minister of the interior, amd he's been saying all
undocumented aliens must leave _NOW_ because _THEY_ are the problem ...
and, of course, in fits and starts, fuel prices are heading for the sky,
which is not helping anything, I'm sure. And I don't know what-all else
has been going wrong, but in that charged atmosphere a couple of
accidental electrocutions were enough to touch off an explosion. (Of
course, the cops say the electrocutions were accidental, but the poor
folks on the ground where the kids died don't believe it, and, assuming
cops are the same all over the world, I would not hazard to guess from
3000 miles away who's right...)
Jones
Even if this is not true, don't be surprised if the French start
blaming US interests for the unrest.
Pfui. The French-language press is doing no such thing.
The problem in Paris stems from the existence of poor Muslim ghettos
which are a hangover from the French colonial era, and the United States
had nothing to do with that. Furthermore, the event which touched off
the riots was, as I already mentioned, the accidental electrocution of a
couple of Muslim youths who were being chased by the police. They were
French police, not United States police, and French youths, and it was a
French power main, and it's absurd to think anyone sees the hand of the
United States anywhere in that incident.
There is absolutely no need to assume anything more is present than
meets the eye, because the situation which meets the eye is bad enough
all by itself to explain all that's going on.
And, incidentally, some of the same things have been going on in eastern
Germany, though on a much smaller scale, and some of the same problems
exist in other parts of Europe as well.
After all, they have their "spin doctors" too.
