|
|
Joined:
February 2005
Posts: 11840
Location: closely held secret | I've been following the news stories about the insanity in France the past couple weeks.
I'm praying our brethern (and sistern) there are safe and keeping their heads down, and that it doesn't spread to the neighboring countries.
Lawlessness can be terrifying. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15654
Location: SoCal | It's horrible. Makes you wonder if we're back in the time preceeding the Crusades.... |
|
| |
|
Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 400
Location: North Texas | What's to wonder? The latest Crusade has been underway for 14 years now, since the Kuwait invasions. It will have as much success as did the previous efforts. Force does not alter beliefs, it only fortifies them. Let's pack up the Hummers and get the heck out of Dodge. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10581
Location: NJ | no body expects the spanish inquisition!!!!!!!!!! |
|
| |
|
Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 400
Location: North Texas | It's like a french version of the Rodney King incident. Some Europeans are kinda edgy right now. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15654
Location: SoCal | The last Crusade did drive the Moors out of Europe. We've been in a war for the last 30 years and are only now waking up to it. We could "get out of Dodge" and embolden the bad guys (which we did, according to Bin Laden), or take a stand. You don't stop bad guys by aquiesing to them.... |
|
| |
|
Joined:
August 2003
Posts: 4619
Location: SoCal | Isn't it interesting that the media is claiming that this is the frustration of the poor? Yet, they loot or destroy all around them indiscriminately while screaming jihad. France is considered part of the Dar al-Harb (land of war) no matter what Jacques Chirac does or doesn't do.
Religion, culture, literacy, immigration, drugs, gangs, etc., are all causing a serious problem. France has allowed almost uncontrolled immigration as part of their social tolerance and to maintain a work force for their industry. Yet, there is intolerable unemployment or under-employment of their arrivals of the last 30 years).
The rioters are the minority but the minority has long controlled the areas from whence the rioters live, whether gangs, "drug lords", or religious extremists.
The question is whether France (and other countries) has the will to address the issue that they created.
Where is the 21st Century Roderigo Diaz de Vivar?? |
|
| |
|
Joined:
May 2004
Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | Originally posted by alpep:
no body expects the spanish inquisition!!!!!!!!!! Thank you, Al, for my laugh of the day. ;) |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2002
Posts: 584
Location: atlanta | OFC to Jerome and Edouard in France: please check in with us....
It seems to be getting worse:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051107/ts_nm/france_riots_dc
pc |
|
| |
|
Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I dearly want to comment on this, but this is a guitar fanclub website. I will say that this seems a little bigger than Rodney King, or have I been reading the wrong newspapers? |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15654
Location: SoCal | No, you've been reading the right newspapers. Feel free to comment. As long as the discussion remains civil, there are no problems. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 13984
Location: Upper Left USA | The pot has been simmering for a while. I hope this recent "boil over" will guide some effort in the right direction.
I would like to hear from our friends in France as well. What is the time difference? |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2004
Posts: 1388
Location: Paris/France | Hi,
Congratulations Tony. Your analyse of the situation is perfect!!! The laxity is one of the cause of all these troubles!!!
I'm going to give you my own opinion in my bad English but I'm sure you will understand the sense of my words.
I'm living exactly in the middle of this "shit" since I'm born. That's why I can have an opinion.
France is getting crazy since a too long time. We have accepted what is inacceptable and now we have to pay for!!
The "politically correct thought" is a religion for our governments and the medias since 30 years.
When there's something wrong in this country, there's always someone to excuse the inacceptable behaviour of some people.
The majority lives in the fear and don't dare to tell his opinion!!!
We've lost our dignity and it's not good now to say that we're proud to be French.
For myself, I'm proud to be French. Not for what you see in your newspapers but for all the good things that we have in this f....g country.
I'm proud to say that I'm a patriot and it's not common to think like this here.
The worst thing of this century is the TV!!
It's only manipulation and a tool for our politicians. They are using to excess of the TV to keep the people in the fear. I hope that we gonna wake up pretty soon!!
I'm working hard every day to live and some people have just one target each morning: to use the system for doing nothing, to sell drugs, and to "sponge off" the rest of the French society!! You can believe in me, it's really a very small minority but very "noisy" and they refuse to lose their privilege.
So, we have problems in this country like everywhere in the world but we also have a good life. Don't trust the medias and please, try to make your own opinion. We're surely not perfect. It's true!! But I'm sure that a solution is possible between repression and education. It's not too late. We just need someone who dare to take the good decisions!!!
We don't have it for the moment...
Vote for me at the next elections... :D
It's the first time that I'm speaking about politic here and surely the last one.
Vive la France!!
Et vive les Ovation!!! ;)
J :) |
|
| |
|
Joined:
August 2003
Posts: 4619
Location: SoCal | re: "I'm proud to be French" and "Don't trust the medias and please, try to make your own opinion."
as we honor and respect the French people...as an Acadian, Charlemagne, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Capet descendent, etc. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2004
Posts: 241
Location: Le Havre (France) | I totally agree with Jérôme.
Switch off your TV and open your eyes.
Peace. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | When there's something wrong in this country, there's always someone to excuse the inacceptable behaviour of some people.
The majority lives in the fear and don't dare to tell his opinion!!! That bears to be repeated Jerome. There is a lesson in that statement for "us" also.
I'm glad you posted on this topic. I was hoping you would. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 13984
Location: Upper Left USA | Thank you! Good leadership is getting harder to find these days. Fences weren't made to be ridden.
I believe the phrase is (click). |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | As posted by paulmac:
France is getting crazy since a too long time. We have accepted what is inacceptable and now we have to pay for!!
The "politically correct thought" is a religion for our governments and the medias since 30 years.
When there's something wrong in this country, there's always someone to excuse the inacceptable behaviour of some people.
The majority lives in the fear and don't dare to tell his opinion!!!
We've lost our dignity and it's not good now to say that we're proud to be French.
I believe if I changed the word "France" to The United States and "French" to American it would describe how a lot of Americans feel. :(
Jerome stay safe. :) When all else fails, Pick your guitar and play a lick or two. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 140
Location: Spain | sat here in southern spain as an english imigrant thinking the same could happen here too . So many different nationalities both legal and illegal problems will always occur .The main problem here is the system can not cope with the rapid increase in population . 10 years ago "pedro rode a donkey " now he,s sold his land ,drives a big 4 x 4 and complains about all the immigrants coming here. Life goes on |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 1116
Location: Keller, TX | I add my prayers for our French brethern. You usually don't get much political banter out of me. Here is one.
I agree with all the above. Same here in the US, it just hasn't boiled over to a national level. Our problem in the US is that noone will or can lead. If someone makes a stand, they are shunned by the public as a heretic, zealot, unconstitutional, or are just plain crazy.
It is not just the leaders, it is everyone. Someone needs to make a stand and have the majority of the population stand with them.
To quote Barbara W. Tuchman:
Said she: “When it comes to leaders we have, if anything, a superabundance—hundreds of Pied Pipers … —ready and anxious to lead the population. They are scurrying around, collecting consensus, gathering as wide an acceptance as possible. But what they are not doing, very notably, is standing still and saying, ‘This is what I believe. This I will do and that I will not do. This is my code of behavior and that is outside it. This is excellent and that is trash.’ There is an abdication of moral leadership in the sense of a general unwillingness to state standards.”
She continued: “Of all the ills that our poor … society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards. We are too unsure of ourselves to assert them, to stick by them, if necessary in the case of persons who occupy positions of authority, to impose them. We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.” |
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2004
Posts: 338
Location: SE Michigan | Yes the same thing can happen, has happened, and probably will happen again here in the USA. Take a ghetto full of poorly-parented angry testosterone-filled teenagers, add a 50% unemployment rate, mix in some hopelessness and add a dash of cultural and religious intolerance and bingo, instant riot.
When I was visiting Africa, I was amazed that impoverished people living in tin shacks earning 30 bucks a month still managed to watch television. I kid you not, in a little shed in the village square or in a bar or pub there would always be a TV. I thought how painful for these people to be watching American and European television shows, seeing houses, cars, clothes, and careers that are so un-obtainable they might as well be on the moon. No wonder they hate us.
I think that is what is happening to kids in the ghettos of more affluent countries. They are saturated by media images of things that for most are totally out of reach. And they get pissed off, loot stores, throw bricks, and burn cars and buildings.
I'm not defending the behavior or saying it’s the smart way for them to behave, just explaining it. I think the best thing France and other countries could do is draft them into the Army or form a Civilian Improvement Corp and put the troublemakers to work building roads or something. If that’s not do-able try shutting down all the TV stations. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | OK, my 2 cents
The French elites have failed to integrate these ghetto youths. France used to have mandatory military service and as far as I can tell was the only way they integrated these kids. After a year in the army they felt french and had a skill.
The elites stopped conscription. The problem brewed, and now they have to deal with it.
The worst thing they can do is give any power to the so called religious leaders. Islam operates as a political movement cloaked as a religion. It would be like rome paying off the barbarians, eventually it doesn't work and then you're overrun.
The solution is bring back French national service, and strengthen other institutions, to make these kids love France and give them a skill.
I also have to say that I disagree with certain French things, like direct action against property, such as when that farmer smashed up a McDonalds. These kids see this kind of thing and turn it around against those who they percieve as the oppressor. So I guess it's a two step program. Integrate the kids, and then change the society's attitude towards property rights. The former may be easier. |
|
| |
France
