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2005-11-12 Europe

Damage done: riots have tarnished France's image

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Posted by lotp 2005-11-12 07:27|| || Front Page|| [11134 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Damage done: riots have tarnished France's image

Posted by AzCat 2005-11-12 08:01|| 2005-11-12 08:01|| Front Page Top

#2 Damage done: riots have tarnished France's image

Posted by AzCat 2005-11-12 08:01|| 2005-11-12 08:01|| Front Page Top

#3 Damage done: riots have tarnished France's image

More like corrected.

Posted by AzCat 2005-11-12 08:01|| 2005-11-12 08:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Sometimes I hate this laptop. ;)

Posted by AzCat 2005-11-12 08:02|| 2005-11-12 08:02|| Front Page Top

#5 "Image" is one of those bogus concepts touted by those for whom "image is everything". They cannot imagine anything worse than having a down arrow associated with your name in the 'Trends' section of the newspaper.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-11-12 09:15|| 2005-11-12 09:15|| Front Page Top

#6
"Sometimes I hate this laptop. ;)"

It's not the laptop. It's an interface problem between the seat and keyboard.

Posted by Mr. Peanut 2005-11-12 09:25|| 2005-11-12 09:25|| Front Page Top

#7 Naw, I thought France sucked well before the riots started.

Posted by DMFD 2005-11-12 11:19|| 2005-11-12 11:19|| Front Page Top

#8 damn...and we all had such positive thoughts before. Admit it. I say "French waiter" and politeness and a toothy smile come to mind, right?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-11-12 11:55|| 2005-11-12 11:55|| Front Page Top

#9 Like it or not, France is family to America, just go look in NY harbor. It angers me more when family screws up, and the French govt is screwing this up. Just like Clinton letting UBL get out of control, this has been let go for too long. This clash will spread to other nations and now France will have a generation of struggle to get this under control. It's OK to bitch about them, I love to rant, but the issue of Muslim insurgency in France needs a committed approach and one in concert with her neighbors and friends.

Posted by 49 pan">49 pan 2005-11-12 12:00|| 2005-11-12 12:00|| Front Page Top

#10 If the French are like family, they're like the distant relative who did something helpful 50 years ago for purely selfish reasons but must still be invited to Thanksgiving because the senile grandmother wants every one to be there even though no one else does. I'm not sure whether we would be worse off with a France run by Mohammedans, especially if the Franks aren't willing to fight for it.

Posted by Fligum Grise3267 2005-11-12 12:42|| 2005-11-12 12:42|| Front Page Top

#11 I am.

Posted by lotp 2005-11-12 14:50|| 2005-11-12 14:50|| Front Page Top

#12 It's OK to bitch about them, I love to rant, but the issue of Muslim insurgency in France needs a committed approach and one in concert with her neighbors and friends.

I disagree. IIRC, it was Dominique de Villepin, who is a man, who told Colin Powell in the run up to Iraq that if we break it, we bought it; i.e. the US can expect no help from France if it invades Iraq. It seems to me that the same applies on this occasion. Turn about being fair play and all that.

Posted by Scott R">Scott R 2005-11-12 14:54|| http://five24.net]">[http://five24.net] 2005-11-12 14:54|| Front Page Top

#13 Damage done: riots have tarnished France's image

I'm shocked, shocked I say, that no one here caught this glaring bit of puffery. Perhaps France has been exposed to the Muslim mindset for so long that they, too, now encounter similar difficulty with that most enigmatic of scientific principles. Once again, it's that troublesome old Cause & Effect thingummy.

While the riots have done nothing to help France's prestige, they are not the central factor in tarnishing its image. The riots are the EFFECT, not the cause. Chirac and his nancy-boy toadies have proven incapable of stiffening their wrists sufficiently to slap down a blatant threat to the public weal. Therein lies the true CAUSE.

The actual roots go quite a bit deeper, as hinted at by the article's mention of how; "The France of the 21st century makes you think of the ancien rÃ©gime," said Thomas Schidinger of Vienna's Institute of Political Studies, referring to the pre-revolutionary era of wealthy nobility and impoverished populations."

A consistent hallmark of most socialist governments is how they usually mask either a flagrant kleptocracy (communist China, Soviet Russia), or serve the ends of a more subtle yet entrenched power structure (Cuba, Vietnam). All of which, in reality, boils down to ensconcing an elite class in wealth and luxury whilst the toiling masses do exactly that.

France's insufferable cultural chauvinism has let them breathe their own exhaust long enough to where they thought they could do no wrong. Its elitist government, saw in their arrogated privilege and erstwhile success, clear proof that (for them) there could be no better policy.

Mirroring this eliteism, a troublesome underclass has reared its head to spoil the feast. We are now treated to the sordid spectacle of politicians whose reflexes have long adapted to picking Beluga caviar off of their truffled foie gras being confronted with the nasty heavy lifting involved with actual leadership.

It is this profound leadership vacuum that has truly "tarnished France's image". France's Muslim rioters are merely the reciprocal manifestation of rudderless helmsmanship steering according to a long demagnetized moral compass.

Posted by Zenster 2005-11-12 14:59|| 2005-11-12 14:59|| Front Page Top

#14 Repeat after me:

1. France is a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
2. France is still a major economic power, if declining; one of the Group of 7.
#. In France, control of economic, political, military and nuclear power is highly centralized. Whoever is in power controls it all with very few checks and balances.

Therefore, it is not in our interests to have France collapse and be taken over by Islamacists any sooner than is inevitable, if it is inevitable.

Posted by lotp 2005-11-12 14:59|| 2005-11-12 14:59|| Front Page Top

#15 the thing is, lopt, that there really isn't anything we can do to help France at this point. Helping France would do no more good at this point than giving an alcoholic a drink to help rid them of the shakes. It doesn't solve the underlying illness. They have to save themselves. Sometimes the change has to come from within.

Besides, what would you propose we do? There is nothing we can do at this point to help them.

First they have to acknowlege that they have a problem and they haven't come close to hitting rock bottom yet.

Posted by 2b 2005-11-12 15:48|| 2005-11-12 15:48|| Front Page Top

#16 All fine points, lotp. I have great difficulty seeing where outside help can be of any avail when it comes to resolving the issues confronting France.

French eliteism is largely responsible for creating the underclass that now besets them. As Old Patriot mentioned in the "The next revolt on French estates will use military weapons" thread;

"The Muslim immigrants CANNOT make such adaptations because their culture claims that's "apostacy". They also don't WANT to make that adaptation, and the idiot French refuse to accept those who do try."

Perhaps it is here where we get to the crux of the matter. France and Islam represent two of the most ingrown chauvinistic cultural motifs on the face of this earth, possibly exceeded only by the Chinese.

Muslims obdurately refuse to assimilate at the cost of even one iota of their calcified throwback religion's tenets and France has shown itself to be entirely incapable of embracing anything not French. These two monopoles are on a catastrophic collision course and the recent riots are merely separated rails that foretell the horrendous trainwreck to come.

1. France is a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.

This one single point may serve to indicate where America's best interests lie.

Possession of nuclear weapons aside. Should Islamists somehow manage to gain ascendancy and impose sharia law in France it would serve the ends of jihadist terrorism like nothing else imaginable. The occupation of Iraq pales in comparison with respect to being a putative recruiting tool. Such encouragement would redouble Islamist terrorism against the West.

Add into this equation accession to nuclear weapons and it becomes obvious that external military intervention would most likely be the outcome if France succumbed to Islamist control. If Chirac cannot put his house in order his days are numbered.

Posted by Zenster 2005-11-12 16:05|| 2005-11-12 16:05|| Front Page Top

#17 Chirac's already toast...I hope De Villepin also goes up in flames (is he a man?), so to speak. The question I have is whether a rightist (not Le Pen) will take over and put down the urban guerrillas, or will the same weak shit be continued. We will have to let them twist in teh wind - it'll be a cold day in hell before the French welcome or ask for our intervention in their "internal affairs"......perhaps there's an American Lafayette?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-11-12 16:57|| 2005-11-12 16:57|| Front Page Top

#18 Frank, the intervention I was alluding to wasn't of the "invited" sort. If push comes to shove, better that we forcibly wrest control of France from the hands of Islamists than permit them such a catastrophic victory over Western interests.

Posted by Zenster 2005-11-12 17:16|| 2005-11-12 17:16|| Front Page Top

#19 There is already a plan in place in the Pentagon's Special Planning Division for dealing with a France that has been overthrown and whose nuclear weapons have been taken by hostile forces : cleansing by "bottled sunshine". In other words, we get to nuke a European state.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2005-11-12 17:43|| 2005-11-12 17:43|| Front Page Top

#20 lol. If When France goes Mohammedan, we'll grin and bear it, just like Pakistan. Though I doubt it will be for at least 30 years. Germany will fall shortly thereafter. Poland, always Poland, is where the rubber will meet the road.

Posted by Snavitle Hupitle4157 2005-11-12 17:48|| 2005-11-12 17:48|| Front Page Top

#21 hmmm...don't really disagree, but I just don't see us wresting military control of France. I think Germany and all of the other European countries have to be put into play here too as they have a far greater stake in what happens in France than we do. While Belgium will just roll, I'm not so sure about Germany and the others. Depending on how violent current events play out in France, we are going to see changes in the way the other European countries respond to their own immigration/terrorist problems. It will change the way we address our own. Like after 911, these riots have already changed the course of future events in ways we can not yet predict.

The bottom line is this: Terrorist states are going to get access to nukes. Take your pick of North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, SA ..etc. It's just a matter of time. By the time France falls to Islam, if it ever does, there will be plenty of rogue states with nukes - so we will have to find other ways to fight the threat than to just relying on MAD...which simply won't work with Jihadis.

Other than providing arms and assistance to ordinary French citizens should they ever choose to revolt - I don't ever see us doing anything different than our current menu choice for countries like Iran and Korea.

Posted by 2b 2005-11-12 17:58|| 2005-11-12 17:58|| Front Page Top

#22 a new Crusades!

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-11-12 17:58|| 2005-11-12 17:58|| Front Page Top

#23 ...and when the 5th Republic falls, we have what? Countdown to Kosovo in 5, 4, 3, 2, ...

Posted by Jim">Jim 2005-11-12 20:39|| http://Technochitlins.com]">[http://Technochitlins.com] 2005-11-12 20:39|| Front Page Top

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