Rioting in Paris continues for 9 days and the MSM finally starts covering it. Pay particular attention to Michelle Malkin and Little Green Footballs for daily updates since they have pointers to some excellent analysis pieces. I am still somewhat flabbergasted that this story is receiving so little coverage. The cultural crisis in Europe, as predicted by so many, has finally turned violent. Yet when I read today's CNN story (from Reuters, of course), the denial and lack of understanding is staggering. (see French rioting spreads to new cities).
Quote of ignorance #1:
In a potentially worrying development for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's beleaguered government, police said more cars were set alight outside the greater Paris area than in the capital's suburbs, the epicenter of riots for more than a week.
This is the second paragraph in the story and it has a whopper of an understatement. I think calling anything related to 9 days of car torching and building smashing "potentially worrying" is like referring to Hurricane Katrina as a "cloudy day". If I'm not mistaken, this is the same media that insists that Abu Graib was the most horrific of all war crimes. Just to compare and contrast for fun, I don't think the U.S. military had thousands of soldiers torching cars and destroying property uncontrollably. In fact, I think I remember the military investigating and prosecuting its own.
Quote of ignorance #2:
Rioting by youths, many of whom are Muslims of North African or black African origin, has partly been stoked by their frustration at high unemployment and the perception they lack economic opportunities.
From some reports I've seen, the majority of these rioters are Muslim and the riots are directly related to the fact they are Muslim and they are not going to take it anymore! They could only avoid disclosing the Muslim part of this for so long and now, with begrudging admission, "many of whom" was used to qualify Muslim. It's no wonder cultural problems never get solved since the media is so reluctant to point out the ugly truth and dig deeper than what is presented in overview pieces like this one.
Quote of ignorance #3:
However, the opposition remained critical, with the Socialists attacking the government's response.
"Your government bears part of the responsibility for these events. It is now up to you to take full stock of the crisis," Socialist leaders said in letter to Villepin on Thursday.
In usual fluff-piece style, the last two paragraphs wrapped everything up in a nice little blame package. Disgusting. The reporter here wanted an out and used a single quote from the leadership's opposition party to make a point. Surely, it's okay to riot if there is unemployment or the some nasty man in the government says a mean thing to the helpless little Muslims. I don't buy that for a minute and most normal people don't. Human beings are perfectly capable of behaving and accomplishing great things and until we demand civilized behavior from everybody and quit making excuses for certain groups, this stuff will happen over and over.
My prediction is when this is all over, it will be completely blamed on the government in spite of the fact I have yet to see Dominique de Villepin running around with Molotov cocktails himself. The government will bend over backwards to accommodate any request from the Muslim community and France will have given in to a new form of domestic terrorism. This is only getting worse. Brace yourself.
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Unrest by Parkway Drive