I'd like to be the first to blame Boosh for these riots.
Deth to Amreeka!

Quote from operator0 :

Am I to believe that the French would rather see all the Muslism out of their country?

Only if you'd believe that the French muslims want to take over France.

Quote :

We haven't heard any of this here in America. The portait that is painted of Western European countries is that the they are all the pinical of social harmony.

There are alot of things people in the US of A haven't heard as there are alot of things that go on in the US that people in Europe haven't heard. However, there are certain situations where European countries can be the pinnacle of social harmony just like in the US and in any multicultural society. The difference lies in the fact that France acted and acts for years, sometimes succesfully and sometimes not so much, as a socialist lay state - creating and managing a trully socialist lay state is a very hard task since it's partly a sort of utopia. In the core of the idea is that there is no room for multiculturalism, everyone is equal and there are no discriminations. I hope you understand how difficult it is to balance something like this and why, due to human nature, it's rather natural it should fail.

Quote :

Are you telling me that the U.S. press has lied to us all these years? To tell you the truth, I wouldn't be surprised if they have been lieing.

The US press has been caught "lying" many times, as has the press all over the world and that won't change. However, instead of relying on the press to tell you about another continent, why don't you read a book instead (history books are great for this sort of insight - if you can, get a copy of Will and Ariel Durant's "Story of Civilization", you'll be surprised as to how much is covered of our modern times in books about times gone by) or watch a documentary or even better, save up some money and come visiting (with your eyes and mind open, please)?

OT:
to operator0:
I would just like to add that some people really dislike USA because some of the very strange things we see in TV and read from newspapers. As I have even never been in USA and have therefore very little experience I can't really comment the events I hear.

But the documents about FOX news channel, documents about american justice, documents about the right to carry firearms (even heavy assault weaponry...), poverty, murder rates...I could list 10 more...

When you hear only these kind of things and see only this kind of things reported from USA it's easy to be anti-USA. I'm not anti-USA but not for-USA either. Therefore I understand the Yugo's point, but it could have been said much better. I'm not sure what you know about my country, but I bet that most of it isn't positive

Sorry, OT...

Quote from Hyperactive :

OT:
to operator0:
I would just like to add that some people really dislike USA because some of the very strange things we see in TV and read from newspapers. As I have even never been in USA and have therefore very little experience I can't really comment the events I hear.

But the documents about FOX news channel, documents about american justice, documents about the right to carry firearms (even heavy assault weaponry...), poverty, murder rates...I could list 10 more...

When you hear only these kind of things and see only this kind of things reported from USA it's easy to be anti-USA. I'm not anti-USA but not for-USA either. Therefore I understand the Yugo's point, but it could have been said much better. I'm not sure what you know about my country, but I bet that most of it isn't positive

Sorry, OT...

That is the major problem. Too much of one side of the story. Like when you hear that the NRA got it legalised so that anyone can buy armor pearcing ammunition for hunting... What the hell are they hunting? Have deer got wise and started wearing kevlar? But it makes you think that Americans are gun toting nut cases.

But the media on general should be banned imho. All they do is cause paranoia and try too hard to get the best story, usally leaving out all the facts. I mean, this whole CIA Leaking thingy. The media was too willing to print the information, rather then asking "Why do I have top secret information?".

ITV over here for one cause paranoia, as they was ranting about the bird flu killing a human here. Yet when looked into it, all that has died here was that pariot.

But really riots happen all the time, just most never this long, or just not printed. Back home we used to have a riot every time there was a football match at home. In the end the police started escorting both sides too and from the stadium which cut down most. But we had countless race based fights, and gang wars. My street sucked balls because one side we had the "black drug lords" and the other we had the "white drug lords", both fighting for the same area, which would turn bloody. In the end both sides got moved out of town.

Just to make things straight, I dont hate every living american! But sometimes I get the feeling some of them really think they own the hole damn planet illepall I met a lot of people from the US and not everyone thinks this way, nor do all of them back up their politicions.

Its their foreign policy that really pisses me off!

All of their efforts, all of their bombings and wars are totally ILLEGAL!

They should look up in the dictionary and find the words "sovereign" and "state"!

Let me just set an example:

If the mexicans (no offence) come up with an idea in twenty years time to take the state of California for their own, would you just say "shour why not, hear you go"? Is the whole world gonna bombard the US if they start killing "freedom fighters"?

Some of you may recall a simular situation that happend in ´99 (it wasnt in the US, but they were the one that were doing the bombing).

Hope they dont do something stupid AGAIN with Iran, because if they do we are all in big trouble!

I am not starting an anti-american campaign here, its my opionen.

Sorry about the OT.

Quote from YUGO45 :

All of their efforts, all of their bombings and wars are totally ILLEGAL!

Sorry, but you can't judge a war by it's legal aspect. War is war - it wouldn't be nicer if it was legal... what is a "legal" war anyway? ...

Personally I wouldn't give a flying bavarian beerkeg if the bomb that's coming down on my head is recognized by international treaties, it's still a bomb.

Wars are insane, illogical, needless. Wars are not legal or illegal - screw that.

Wars are very good for economies generally though

Quote from xaotik :

what is a "legal" war anyway?

Well, there is this little document called the UN Charter which defines various situations and circumstances where a nation would be entitled to take military action against another. Examples of "permitted" military action include acting in self-defence/retaliation as a result of there being an aggressor nation, or striking first if, say, 400,000 troops appeared on your border from a hostile nation and posed an immediate threat to your country. I don't, however, believe it extends to pre-emptive destruction and occupation of a country based on made-up/cherry-picked evidence implying that mushroom clouds were about to appear over New York City.

Last time I checked, the US had indeed signed up to the UN Charter.

Quote from tristan :

Wars are very good for economies generally though

Well, let's not be too vague here. Although "good" for an economy, to be more specific, wars are even better for the military/defence/industrial/energy corporations which may or may not have bankrolled your election campaign.

But back OT: why the hell haven't the French deployed the army yet? It's been going on a couple of weeks and the police still don't appear in control of the streets, except in Paris where it's died down, hopefully permanently.

OH no. It seems we got pretty sidetracked here...

What's going on in France now?

Quote from STROBE :

Well, there is this little document called the UN Charter which defines various situations and circumstances where a nation would be entitled to take military action against another.

Yes, which was signed in 1945 in San Francisco and has been violated multiple times by multiple nations ever since and still does ziltch in justifying any sort of aggressive act from and towards any group of people before or after it's existence. What I was trying to say previously is that there is no excuse, legal or not for aggression which will curb the effect the act would have.

And back on topic:
Bringing the army in to deal with domestic problems of that sort doesn't sound like a good idea, IMHO, and not a policy that I would like to see revived in a modern Europe....

Latest news I heard is that the French government called off the state of emergiency (is it called that way, thats how it's called in dutch anyway) so they can set an evening clock and search people's homes without warranty.

Apparently these riots don't come out of nothing, given that there is a movie from 1995 about these suburbs. I havent seen it, will try to remember it when I am at the shop next time. But maybe these riots have something to do with the fact that the extreme-right party has won a large amount of votes in the last election in France? I am not so much into the political situation of France, but there are also small riots reported in Belgium, and Belgium also saw a large increase in extreme-right voters in the last elections. Maybe the people in the suburbs feel really put aside as 3rd rang citizens by that?

I could make a comparison to what is happening in Holland at the moment. I don't think it is the same, but I think it is 'alike'. The cabinet that was installed about 2,5 years ago came with a ministry for Integration and immigration. They decided to take a lot of actions to limit the amount of immigrants and to send a lot of immigrants (who did not have a legal status yet, altough some lived in Holland for more then 5 years already) back to their native country. These measures really didnt make this cabinet very popular amongst the immigrants that came here in the last 50 years. The people that came from non-european countries feel treated as second rang civilians, even tough they can stay in Holland.
I think some groups feel attacked very fast or something, at least I dont think violence is the correct way to fight your situation, no matter how bad that situation is. Some people even found it necessary to threaten the minister to death, so she had to wear a bulletproof vest at the memoriam of Theo van Gogh last week (who was by the way slaughtered on the street by an extremist muslim 1 year ago).


Oh and about the American press... The difference with the dutch press is huge. I read an article a few weeks ago about some survey of freedom of speech. Altough American's act like they invented the word (same for democraty), the US was somewhere on the 25st spot. I think Holland, Norway, Denmark, Finnland and some other North European countries were top of the list with no 'penalty-points'. And indeed, the image we have of the US is that of FOX news. I mean, I can remember that they had an item about wether Spongebob squarepants was gay or not... illepall


Oh btw, I see CNN International has some coverage of the riots now, but I am not sure people in the US can get that (probably not).

Some articles that actually make sense:

<<
WHY PARIS IS BURNING
By AMIR TAHERI Fri Nov 4, 6:00 AM ET

AS THE night falls, the "troubles" start — and the pattern is always the same.
ADVERTISEMENT

Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones and ransack cinemas, libraries and schools. When the police arrive on the scene, the rioters attack them with stones, knives and baseball bats.

The police respond by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasions, blank shots in the air. Sometimes the youths fire back — with real bullets.

These scenes are not from the
West Bank but from 20 French cities, mostly close to Paris, that have been plunged into a European version of the intifada that at the time of writing appears beyond control.

The troubles first began in Clichy-sous-Bois, an underprivileged suburb east of Paris, a week ago. France's bombastic interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, responded by sending over 400 heavily armed policemen to "impose the laws of the republic," and promised to crush "the louts and hooligans" within the day. Within a few days, however, it had dawned on anyone who wanted to know that this was no "outburst by criminal elements" that could be handled with a mixture of braggadocio and batons.

By Monday, everyone in Paris was speaking of "an unprecedented crisis." Both Sarkozy and his boss, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, had to cancel foreign trips to deal with the riots.

How did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week, a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: stealing parts of parked cars.

Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened, as the police have not been present in that suburb for years.

The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something — which meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them.

Once the police arrived on the scene, the youths — who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years — got really angry. A brief chase took place in the street, and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned-off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted.

Once news of their deaths was out, Clichy was all up in arms.

With cries of "God is great," bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee.

The French authorities could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from French territory. So they hit back — sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.

Within hours, the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the "occupied territories." By midweek, the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris, with a population of 5.5 million.

But who lives in the affected areas? In Clichy itself, more than 80 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim immigrants or their children, mostly from Arab and black Africa. In other affected towns, the Muslim immigrant community accounts for 30 percent to 60 percent of the population. But these are not the only figures that matter. Average unemployment in the affected areas is estimated at around 30 percent and, when it comes to young would-be workers, reaches 60 percent.

In these suburban towns, built in the 1950s in imitation of the Soviet social housing of the Stalinist era, people live in crammed conditions, sometimes several generations in a tiny apartment, and see "real French life" only on television.

The French used to flatter themselves for the success of their policy of assimilation, which was supposed to turn immigrants from any background into "proper Frenchmen" within a generation at most.

That policy worked as long as immigrants came to France in drips and drops and thus could merge into a much larger mainstream. Assimilation, however, cannot work when in most schools in the affected areas, fewer than 20 percent of the pupils are native French speakers.

France has also lost another powerful mechanism for assimilation: the obligatory military service abolished in the 1990s.

As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for "calmer places," thus making assimilation still more difficult.

In some areas, it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French, let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.

The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid.

Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be reorganized on the basis of the "millet" system of the Ottoman Empire: Each religious community (millet) would enjoy the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.

In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place. In these areas, all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheiks.

The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin," such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, to close down, and seized control of much of the local administration.

A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out.

"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheiks, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of
Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community.

That illusion has now been shattered — and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb."

It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture," but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life to which all mankind should aspire.

So what is the solution? One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an adviser to Chirac on Islamic affairs, is the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis.

The problem with Kepel's vision, however, is that it does not address the important issue of political power. Who will rule this new Andalusia: Muslims or the largely secularist Frenchmen?


Suddenly, French politics has become worth watching again, even though for the wrong reasons.

Amir Taheri, editor of the French quarterly "Politique internationale," is a member of Benador Associates.
>>


also:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008897.php

Quote from Frankmd :

...I think Holland, Norway, Denmark, Finnland and some other North European countries were top of the list with no 'penalty-points'...

It's with one n, Finland

Here's the ranking I referred too:

http://www.freedomhouse.org/re ... essurvey/allscore2005.pdf

So actually the Netherlands was on place 6 (or place 3, but they count on). And USA is down on 24.

Quote from Breizh :

Some articles that actually make sense:

.........

Thank You so much for posting that!!!! Now that I actually have an idea of what's going on, stuff makes a lot more sense. :up:

Quote from Frankmd :

Here's the ranking I referred too:

http://www.freedomhouse.org/re ... essurvey/allscore2005.pdf

So actually the Netherlands was on place 6 (or place 3, but they count on). And USA is down on 24.

Imho that kind of surveys arent very reliable. See anything common in lets say top 24? Those are all small countries with small population. The big media in those countries is limited to only few companies, which are run in most cases by the elite. So basically what Im saying is that the press is quite onesided when compared to USA where there are more bigger media companies which are competing
against each other (and more independent press aswell). Its bit like the corruption survey that was made recently. The result in that was same: small, mostly European countries were the top countries and again the same reason. The people who takes pribes and all is a very small group of people (compared to USA, UK or any other bigger country) so they dont give up their "friends" that easily and so the misconception of not that much of corruption is created.

Quote from 96 GTS :

Thank You so much for posting that!!!! Now that I actually have an idea of what's going on, stuff makes a lot more sense. :up:

If I were you I'd also search for more unbiased articles. Mr Taheri is notorious for his rather black & white view on things (which isn't necessarily bad, but not necessarily right either) and a site that goes by the name "jihad watch" might just be a tad uhm... absolute? (to put it midly)... just my two drachmas.

That's true, I only skimmed the articles before posting, sorry.
I grew up in Saint-Denis, and I haven't seen (haven't looked otoh) an unbiased article yet.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=343258
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=343332
http://episteme.arstechnica.co ... f/28609695/m/146007616731