"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Friday, November 04, 2005

KATRINA AND THE PARIS INTIFADA

Back in the 1990s, the French sneered at America for the Los Angeles riots. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported in 1992: "the consensus of French pundits is that something on the scale of the Los Angeles riots could not happen here, mainly because France is a more humane, less racist place with a much stronger commitment to social welfare programs." President Mitterrand, the Washington Post reported in 1992, blamed the riots on the "conservative society" that Presidents Reagan and Bush had created and said France is different because it "is the country where the level of social protection is the highest in the world." How the times have changed. Muslims in Paris's suburbs are out shooting at police and firefighters, burning cars and buildings, and throwing rocks at commuter trains.
I think we DON'T have to go bac as far as the 1992 LA riots to expose Euroleftie hypocxrist, anti-Americanism, and utter inanity: they said basically the same things about Bush and Katrina - because it took 4 days for the state, local an federal authorities to get meaningful aid into the worst hit areas, becasue of the scenes of underclass people suffering at the Superdome, and because of the looting in New Orleans. Here are a few reminders:

MSNBC: The French daily Liberation described the scenes of devastation as a cruel spectacle for President Bush, “the champion of security.” Criticizing the disorder in the evacuation of hospitals, the editorial called Hurricane Katrina a “natural disaster with political implications.” Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden “must be dying of laughter,” it said. Astonishment at ‘anarchy and chaos’ -- In Italy, several newspapers said mounting criticism of Bush’s handling of the relief effort was damaging his credibility. And Germany’s Die Tageszeitung said the world was “seeing scenes otherwise only known in African capitals. The forces of order are absent. Anarchy and chaos reign. Supermarkets are plundered, helicopters shot at.” Some said perceived U.S. indifference to global warming was coming home to roost.“What’s absent is a debate over the climate, over Kyoto, over the human-caused warming of the earth,” said an editorial in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich-based daily. “But the oil shortage caused by the disaster will hurt Bush more than gaps in climate policy will.”

DER SPIEGEL: After Hurricane Katrina bashed America's Gulf States and left New Orleans a sunken wasteland, [German Environmental Minister Jürgen] Trittin wrote an editorial lashing out at US President George W. Bush for "closing his eyes" to the dangers of global warming. The polemic began with the line, "Recently in the theaters, now in real life," and went on to compare the scenes of Hurricane Katrina to Roland Emmerich's Hollywood blockbuster "The Day after Tomorrow."

French TV stations were among the MOST vicious in their attacks on the USA: The ultimate in intellectual journalism. Jean-Marie Colombani, editorial director of the newspaper of record Le Monde, in the company of his distinguished colleague Alain Frachon, informed in real time by their man in New Orleans, broadcasting on the elegantissimo radio station appropriately named France Culture. The program is called “Rumeurs du Monde.” (Got it? Le Monde the newspaper, le monde the world!) It’s the cat’s pajamas. And the subject of a recent episode was, you guessed it, Katrina or, more exactly, the failure of the United States Government to predict, react, succor, and repair the damage caused to the hapless victims of Katrina. Listen in as themes that had been crudely developed in the mass media are now suavely treated in the stratosphere of France Culture:

They are so knowing! Seen from here, my dear friend, it is all too obvious. We would have known what was coming, and what to do about it. But Bush, my goodness, what a failure. No wonder his ratings crashed. Hmm, yes, crashed, truly crashed. Hmm yes, no wonder.
Well, last time I checked NO CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE HAS EVER HIT PARIS OR FRANCE (DESTROYING AN AREA THE SIZE OF THE UK), AND YET THEY'VE HAD MORE THAN A WEEK OF EXTREMELY SERIOUS RIOTING! And in the past NINE (9) days, the French have yet to make a single move to thwart the riots, and they grow in severity and breadth everday.

The French hypocrites and appeasers - the "more enlightened" and chic Euro appeaserati are getting EXACTLY what appeasers and hypocrites ALWAYS get: a severe dose of REALITY. Maybe it will wake them up, and turn them away from appeasement? (Well... I can dream, can't I??)

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