Posted on 11/13/2005 6:15:48 AM PST by baystaterebel
It's harder to ignore the elephant in the living room when the elephant is setting fire to it.
The elephant in France -- whose name begins with the dreaded M-word journalists dare not mention -- hasn't been allowed in the living room. He's been locked in the shed out back.
This gives liberals an excuse to blame the rioting in France -- which has finally died down after two weeks -- on the standard liberal villains, poverty and racism.
But if racism is a cause of the rioting, poverty isn't. As Theodore Dalrymple noted in a prescient article in the City Journal three years ago ("The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris"), those whom the media choose to describe as "French youths" have cell phones, cars, boom boxes, gold chains around their necks. "They enjoy a far higher standard of living than they would in the countries of their parents' or grandparents' origin, even if they labored there 14 hours a day."
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
I mentioned the Paris riots to a couple of guys at work, yesterday. They didn't know a thing about it. Bet they wonder about their news sources. If French Christians were doing this rioting, there would be hourly news flashes cutting into every show.
BTW, the car burnings increased yesterday, while French news editors are reportedly blacking out some of the coverage. It's now difficult to know for certain whether the riots are actually quieting down now or not.
I was sitting in the lunch room the other day watching Fox news. A breaking news flash came across talking about the French muslims rioting, the boss was sitting at the table with me and he looked shocked. He didn't realize they were muslims.
Do you have any links to any news reports from last night? It's mid-afternoon in France, we should have some indication on how much it has really "died down", *if* it has.
Glad to help. Had it handy.
[copy of another post I made on another thread]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1521202/posts
13 Nov 2005 | BBC News
[TODAY]
Curfew fails to stop French riot (Scorecard du jour)
"...More than 370 cars were burned overnight, down from 502 the previous night..." [snip]
There's some headway after yesterday's setback, but it's still worse than a few days ago.
The burnings were almost down to 200 a few days ago. Yesterday was a severe setback, and today is only marginally better. So, burned-vehicles-per-day is not clearly dropping as yet.
And....
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/13/wfran13.xml
"...Officers at the forefront of attempts to control the wave of riots and arson attacks across France are furious at moves to prosecute policemen accused of assaulting a youth...Police officers, who have been targeted with stones, missiles and Molotov cocktails since the trouble broke out, said they were "stupefied" by the action taken against their colleagues ...The French interior ministry said the victim had suffered cuts to his face and right foot, but had been declared fit for work...."
Can you imagine if 500 cars a day were being burned in, say, Chicago, for two weeks straight? The MSM would be on 24 hr coverage with Anderson Cooper, Rita Cosby, Geraldo, etc camped out in the city doing live reprots every 15 minutes, just like they did with Katrina. But because it is France, the French press, in cohorts with their gov't, can minimize the coverage. Shameful
Thanks!
Heh! In case you missed this, from the other thread:
The Cowering Inferno
http://forum.subversiv.com/uploads/103633_1.jpg
The last I heard, the French government had put the rioters on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION. That should get things under control shorty.
"He didn't realize they were muslims."
Right. A jaw-dropping moment for the Old Media holdouts. Did you notice that newspaper sales dropped 2.5% in the wake of Katrina? I think they are linked. 2.5% is no small percentage for a single event like Katrina. This could result in another 2.5% drop. The Old Media is committing suicide with a piece of paper, death through a thousand paper cuts.
I'm trying to form a concept: the Shame Factor. Peoples' belief structure in what media to trust has been something on my mind for a long time. I visualized an onion-peeling of peoples' loyalty to the Old Media. But it's not always an onion. Sometimes, it's like a lightning bolt that pierces through someone's belief structure. One person might feel that lightning bolt from NOLA. Someone else might feel it from the Swiftboat Vets. A third might feel it from the Paris Riot. Others, of course, have a more onion-like peeling of loyalty. A combination of things strips their loyalties.
But when your news source completely shames you through making you look ignorant and uninformed, a day or more behind the 'enemy' media, or completely getting it wrong, you feel betrayed. This can work both ways, BTW. If Fox News, for example, were to fail to mention Scooter Libby's indictment, or fail to report Libby's ties with Clinton's Pardongate scandal, you might feel betrayed by Fox News and shift accordingly.
Once someone is stung badly enough, he or she will change his or her news gathering routine. And that is the key to political power, more so even than a child's education.
Bottom line: NO ONE should ever try to suppress the Truth, no matter where it leads. Truth is critical in the New Media Age, and that includes the New Media. Getting it right is very important. Deliberate deceit and 'muddying the waters' is for losers.
It would take a Christian happening to be on the other side of the street smoking an after dinner cigar to put the MSM into a frenzy of religious concern and report it.
Wise words, from Jack Kelly.
Now if we can somehow get that lesson across to uncountable myriads of Liberals we might start to make some headway in gaining support for this "War on Terror" (another misnomer).
This ritual needs a name. Auto de feu? Auto de fez? Renault flambe du Alger?
"Toleration of intolerance isn't sophistication, it's suicide."
That is a very clever quip there. Notable and will likely be the most popular conservative response to the word, "muliculterism".
Who let the Frog out!
Riddup! Ri-dup, riddup, riddup...
[Sorry, couldn't resist.]
The French police are out in force, guarding Paris landmarks. This is the line in the sand. Don't touch the Eiffel Tower, youts!
Yeah the same to you, Bub. Mea no comprende.
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