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

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

PARIS INTIFADA - ROOT CAUSES

Readers of this blog know I have followed the "Paris Intifada" since DAY ONE; we are now in Day 6. I have read many reports about the rioting and most of the reports form the MSM make me sick.

I just saw a CNN report by Jim Bitterman about the week of rioting in Paris. It really typifies the approach of the MSM to this story and their "conventional wisdom."


Here's basically what he reported - (I found at CNN in a written version of his "TV package"):
Clichy, northeast of Paris, is crowded and impoverished and with a large Muslim population. Local officials claim the suburb is one of the poorest in France. About 60 percent of the residents of Clichy are immigrants who face discrimination and unemployment that runs to 25 percent -- more than twice the national average. Those who work in the community say young people are frustrated and angry. "There are no factories. There are no jobs for anyone. There are no job centers," said Mark Nadaud, a volunteer youth counselor. "And when you go to look for a job and you say you are from here and they don't want take you."
SO... what we are supposed to believe is that PARIS has so so so SO much DISCRIMINATION against these Muslims that they MUST riot - to express themselves. Hmmmmm.

And yet, there's NO RIOTING elsewhere in France. Hmmm... even though there's high unemployment all over France. Hmmm...

And Paris is a SOCIALIST stronghold - it's mayor a gay Socialist. Hmmm...

And in the parts of France where the right-wing is strongest, where Jean Le Pen and his National Front Party get majorities - there is NO RIOTING AT ALL. Hmmm...

Yet the Left paints Le Pen and these areas as racist. Hmmm... Maybe PARIS and the SOCIALISTS are the REAL racists. It would seem so, if Bitterman's "Conventionally Wise" reportage is accurate.
In other words, IF CNN's Bitterman and the converntional wisdom the "CW" - is correct, then predominantly socialist Paris is actually a major stronghold of racism and discrimination, and it's their racism and discrimination which have CAUSED the rioting. (The rioters themselves are blameless; their automatons who can't control their own behaivior!)

AND THEN THERE'S THIS ANGLE: how can UNEMPLOYMENT be the cause of rioting when France has very VERY high unemployment which cuts across regions and races and creeds, and also has VERY GENEROUS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS!? These benefits mean that these unemployed Muslims are getting generous help from the state. The state they attack.

Perhaps all this "CW" IS REALLY "BS."

Perhaps the TRUE ROOT CAUSE of the rioting is NOT racism or discrimination or high unemployment. I suggest that the root cause is an ideology of hate. An ideology that PROMOTES war against infidels. YES: perhaps the cause of the riots is islamofascism.

It seems to me that if the enlightened Parisians oppose the notion that they are extremely racist -- and that it is that their racism which prevents these otherwise diligent and conscientious Muslims from gaining employment, and that it is this frustration at being unable to work a 40 hours week (and instead get GENEROUS unemployment insurance) which causes riots - that they should then consider my suggested explanation - that the true root cause is islamofascism. And they support Sarkozy's hard-line.

Either they do become more hawkish and less tolerant of islamo-intolerance, or in a decade or two there will be a muezzin atop the Eiffel Tower calling Parisians to prayer 5 times a day at the Mosque du Notre Dame.

The CW explanation of the causes of this rioting should be seen as an affront to ALL unemployed people and to all poor people. Poor people - and people looking for work - are at least as moral as anyone else. All criminals are not poor, and all poor people are not criminals. The worst criminality is not predetermined by economic class, and criminals are not the product of poverty. The worst criminals acts a product of the perp's own socipathy. And horrible ideologies produce similar behaviors.

The CW of the root causes of the Parisian rioting is as ridiculous as blaming a battered wife for the beating she gets at the hands of her abusive husband - who tells the cops that "she had it coming to her." Her failure to do right by him is not the root cause of the battery.

The Left is also like a battered wife - one who has yet to leave her abusive husband and seek help.

The first step is to recognize that the time for making excuses for the abuser MUST END!
Excusing the perps bad acts is another form of appeasement. And France is an arch appeaser. And look what it bought them: a week of rioting. Just like the abused wife who appeases her abusive husband appeasement doesn't work. So... HEY FRANCE! STOP THE ABUSE: CALL A COP!

[UPDATE: I posted this "essay" in the comments over at the INVALUABLE DR. SANITY. And lo and behold: she endorsed my "analysis!" The buttons on my vest are bursting.]

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

actually I believe there is one factual error in your analysis. I believe it is against the law for any Frenchman to work 40 hours a week, even if they want to. trying to spread the unemployment around, I guess.

Reliapundit said...

sacre bleu! you are correct. i think. they have a 35 hour week - or did.

thanks for reading my post SO CAREFULLY.

i think the 35 hour week experiment poinbts out how France is overall a socialist country which still uses socialist ldea/policies which have been proven to fail elsewhere. like the USSR.

they need to get more ANGLO-AMERICAN / more REAGAN/THATCHER in their foreign and economic policies. (as does germany)

NEED PROOF? germany and france have unemployment that;s double that in the UK and the USA.

Anonymous said...

What does the mayors sexual preferance have to do with anything?
His political philosophy I can understand because that affects hi policy, but leave sexual preferance out of an article thats supposed to be anti discrimination and anti hate.

Anonymous said...

I'll go out on a limb here and say that I believe the reason he mentioned the gay mayor is only to point out that by their own analysis, the socially liberal are the ones who are supposedly resposible for the riots. As opposed to the conservatives that EVERYONE knows are the real problem, at least if you're liberal.

Reliapundit said...

i mentioned that the paris mayor is gay becasue (1) it is an OPEN fact; and (2) open-to-activist gayness is a central part od contemporaray chic Left in paris (and elsewhere)which sees itself as liberated from all vestiges of bigotry.

if fact, paris - a very ":progressive" socialist city is ACCORDING TO THE CW a hotbed of racism.

if this seems impossible to you - iif it seems unlikely that progressive socislaist who'd elect an open;y gay socislist as mayor wouldn;t be so racist as to casue riots, thne MAYBE THE SOCIALISTS AREN'T AS RACIST AS THE CW CONTENDS!?

Maybe it's really the opposite: they have appeased the islamofascists TOO MUCH and now the monster is getting almost too big to control.

Anonymous said...

this intifada is being instigated by the axis of evil through small extremist mosques...

Anonymous said...

homosexuality doesn't neccessarly equil socailism. Liberalism yes, accept in a very few rare cases, but not neccessarly socialism.

The reason Homosexuality invites liberalism is because they feel a CHANGE is needed so they are allowed equil rights with others, key word in there is CHANGE, because thats what the liberal philosophy is centered around, not Socialism.

SOCAILISM and LIBERALISM are two seperate things, Liberalism can be either Right WIng or Left wing depending on the issue, and I know your going to go bezerk over that, but it's true, all liberalism is is supporting a Change is social or economic. For Example many Dictaitors are concidered liberal because they suport CHANGE from democracy to Tyranny, yet they are very Right Wing Athoritarian people. In America today Liberalism is very VERY left wing, mostly because The Right holds power and the left wants that to change.

Socialism on the other hand is a Left wing/ Athoritarian philosophy, not alwayse a purly left wing philosophy, left wing Athoritarian, there are several sides to the Political spectrum.

Socialism doesn't alwayse equil Liberalism, therefore Homosexuality doesn't alwayse equil socialism.