It’s déjàvu stupid!
In Bahrain, Manama Republic reminds us that we have the technique and methodology borne of experience to counteract those “Ahdath” or acts of terror in current parlance. While the Religious Policeman exposes the real reason behind these unfortunate events.
Comments
Re(3): Muslim Riots in Paris
At this stage that looks unlikely. My wife is due with our first in late March. That would make Bub about 8-9 months. Probably a bit young for v8 supercars, but we’ll see. If James Courtney doesn’t work out, who knows? =)
Re(8): Muslim Riots in Paris
[quote]Mahmood: “none violently of course”[/quote]
Nonviolently when possible, violently when necessary.
Steve
Re(1): Muslim Riots in Paris
Car torching is fairly rare here except in cases where criminals are erasing evidence of a crime. It’s more common in the Washington, DC housing projects for kids to steal a car and crazily drive it around for a few minutes until they crash it. It’s an epidemic in a few bad neighborhoods.
I do recognize the deep alienation and thug outlook of the Parisian cites. There are small pockets of it in DC and deep pockets of it around other cities, like Chicago and New York.
Mass immigration worked out well in the long term in America with respect to the Chinese, Irish, Italians, and other ethnic groups. They all had problems but none of them came to destroy America or overturn its government. The Chinese were probably the best wave of immigrants, hitting the beach running, working their butts off, being productive immediately. The Irish were bad news for a long time but assimilated. The Italians brought their Mafia with them but in the long run that was not that much of a problem. They were willing to work to make it in America.
They all believed in the American dream, where many Muslims reject an American identity and would prefer our democracy be replaced by a Sharia state, though they don’t actively work for it. It’s something akin to a scenario where the Italians would want our democracy to be replaced by a Mafia state with Al Capone as president. What makes Muslims unique as American immigrants is that they form terror cells to assassinate the President and kill their fellow Americans in terror attacks. That’s unprecedented. Even the Mafia cooperated with the government against hostile forces abroad.
Steve
Re(4): Muslim Riots in Paris
I hope everything goes swimmingly with the delivery of the child and both mother and child pull through healthy and fine. I’m sure that there will be other occasions where I can host you in Bahrain!
And is that a Wilbur Smith influence with the name? 😉
Muslim Riots in Paris
From America, you can not help but notice that where ever in the world Muslims go, violence follows. Everywhere Muslims go, they do not integrate into their host societies, but rather form colonies which seek to dominate their hosts, usually by violence. This is part of a larger pattern of aggression against non-Muslim nations that has gone on since the birth of Islam.
The riots in Paris are nothing new except for the quantity. This excellent article by Theodore Dalrymple, “The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris,” gives excellent background of what the situation in the housing projects, the cités, was a couple years ago. Cars have been burned by Muslim punks there for years. Likewise, the police, fireman, and paramedics have been attacked for years, even when they are saving the lives of the Muslim punks themselves, who recognize no authority but their own. The riot in Paris has been going on at a low level for over a decade. What was happenning a little at at time every day has joined into a general conflagration.
The lesson here is to never allow mass immigration from Muslim countries.
Steve
Re: Muslim Riots in Paris
And the solution of course is to nuke us and rid the world of us “barbarians”?
Re: Muslim Riots in Paris
Steve, you’re a racist cunt. 🙂
Re(1): Muslim Riots in Paris
Muslim is not a race, race-baiter.
And I note that you go to name-calling rather than address the rather straightforward fact that Muslims make war on their hosts, where ever they go. However, if my claim is based on racism, as you foolishly claim, you can easily rebut me by providing the list of nations where Muslims have gone where they have not attacked the locals. According to you, that should be a long list, right? Produce it.
Steve
Re: Muslim Riots in Paris
Stevo, the funny thing here is that I’ve heard the same argument used against African-Americans spewed by KKK supporters and neo-nazi fuck-wads. The only problem is that they never [i]immigrated[/i] to the U.S.
Re(1): Muslim Riots in Paris
The solution it to cherry pick those few Arab Muslims we would want to immigrate while keeping the rest out so that we don’t import the problems of the Arab Muslim world. If they want to tear up a country, let them tear their own up. While the French can be obnoxious, I don’t care to see France turned into a Eurabian Muslim slum. Rather than have the Muslim world pull Europe down to its level, I’d rather see the Muslim world pulled up to Europe’s level.
Read the article, Mahmood, and consider what Dalrymple saw. “Barbarians” perfectly captures the character of the denizens of the cités.
Steve
Re(2): Muslim Riots in Paris
I’m a muslim. I did not ‘make war’ when I studied abroad. Infact, I was met with more hostility from my white ‘hosts’ than anyone else. And why am I using the word ‘white’? Because other americans with different backgrounds, excluding European, understood me in a way you will never be able to understand. However, I’m sure you’re a smart guy, so there’s no need for me to go into the 9-11 ‘conspiracy’ of bush planning it all (which is utter bullshit) or the whole ‘jews control the media’ stuff that you would expect from a muslim (since you like to generalize certain people from certain religions). Thats nonsense. But die hard conservatives like you remind me of the same nut jobs that grace the images of many news programs of ‘islamic fundamentalists’ burning the american flag and blah blah blah blaming others for their hardships. The only difference is that you probably shave and don’t resort to violence yourself. You let [i]el-presidente[/i] do it for you by convincing the enept public that there are WMDs in Iraq . . .
Besides, I thought you hated the french.
‘Freedom Fries’.
Re(1): Muslim Riots in Paris
Yes, anyone who criticizes Muslims is wearing a white sheet. That’s just about the tiredest, lamest rebuttal from the intellectually sterile liberal arsenal of cliches. And it is meant to avoid the hard work of honestly examining the faults of Muslim culture.
Let me point out some obvious discrepancies in your foolish analogy. The Muslims of the cités are not slaves nor have they ever been. Their parents came to France of their own free will to elevate their prospects. While other ethnic groups thrive, the North African Muslims of the cités do not. Why is it that Indians thrive in Europe and steadily improve their lives while Muslims regress into the poverty and ignorance of their mother countries? It looks like a cultural difference to me, perhaps fed by a thousand years of rejectionist Islamic doctrine.
Do you have the courage to take on this subject honestly or do you prefer to hide behind political correctness and fling your intellectually dishonest cow pies?
Steve
Re(2): Muslim Riots in Paris
Every country has its own immigration policies and I have no problem with that. Ours for instance are the most restrictive in the world which is also very flexible and selective when change of demographics is on the cards as has happened in various places in our world including Jizan in Saudi and Bahrain.
So I can’t argue against you electing to cherry-pick who you like.
However my _personal_ belief is that we don’t need passports. The world is small, and should I wish to go the USA to work and live because I find that I can contribute better there than I could here, then there shouldn’t be any restriction. The same goes the other way around as well of course. The proviso that I would have however is that wherever a person ends up must make serious attempts at integrating within the culture s/he has elected while also keeping what they have come with. That’s the best way in my opinion of enriching both and arriving at a good understanding of both.
Re(3): Muslim Riots in Paris
“Freedom fries” was silly little nonsense.
I am aware that most Muslims are OK people who just want to live their lives. But there is a contingent of radicals in your culture who seek to do evil to non-Muslims and they are accepted by the majority. There just is no analogous contingent in other cultures. There are no Hindus coming to America from India who really want to kill as many infidels on the New York subway as they possibly can to the cheers of the folks back home. There is a sickness in the Muslim culture like no other which Muslims refuse to address for a variety of reasons. As long as the Muslim world keeps drawing blood to promote its religion, expect criticism. Lots of it.
Anonymous, I would have an entirely different opinion of Muslims if they added to the quality of life where ever they went. If Muslims went to countries and built hospitals and universities instead of terror cells, I would be advocating that we encourage as much Muslim immigration as we could stand. There are Catholic and Jewish and Protestant universities all over America. Why isn’t there an Islamic one equally known for academic excellence? There are Catholic and Jewish and Protestant hospitals in America. Why isn’t there an Islamic one? If Muslims put all the energy they put into waging jihad against the world into making the world a better place, we’d declare a Muslim Day in America just to celebrate the fact.
And by the way, they did find WMDs in Iraq. Just not as many as everyone, [u]everyone[/u], thought there would be. They found the covert labs for making WMDs and they have the testimony of Saddam’s lieutenants that he was planning to cook up more WMDs the moment the inspectors left. The only people who believe Iraq was completely free of WMDs are the ones who are inept at reading the paper.
Steve
Re(4): Muslim Riots in Paris
I agree with the first part of your sentence, I do not on the last. The majority does NOT accept Wahabism or the Wahabi death and apostatic culture. This should be pretty evident by now. Muslims for the MOST part are peace-loving people, it is when you get Wahabis in the mix that things go down the drain, and they are detested by their very own as well.
Read John Bradley’s book Saudi Arabia Exposed which has excellent points that he makes when he travelled the length and breadth of Arabia and talked with “normal” people and listened to their thoughts. The book is invaluable in attempting to understand Saudi, its politics and why Wahabism is so perpetuated.
I personally think that 9/11 was the long awaited death knell on this murderous cult, and not a moment too soon.
Re(3): Muslim Riots in Paris
Mahmood, guys like you would be welcome in America. You’re educated, got a couple bucks, and are domesticated by your family. You are just like five million other computer geeks here.
However, sitting in your nice isolated little island nation gives you a different perspective than sitting in America with a two thousand mile border with Mexico. If we opened our borders, most of Mexico, Latin America, and South America would move here. They took a poll of Mexicans about a year ago that said something like 40% would like to move to America. That would mean that all the folks with good jobs would be paying for immigrant benefits, like education and health and so on, not to mention law enforcement costs. It would bankrupt us.
And of course, there is the terrorist problem. The only thing that stopped Sep 11 from being bigger and worse was the difficulty in getting all the skyjackers in the country.
But I absolutely agree you need to blend in with your host country. Learn the lingo and the customs and try to blend in. That goes for Americans abroad as well. I don’t want to hear some guy from Alabama bitching in Budapest that he can’t get hisself a Slurpee.
Steve
Re(5): Muslim Riots in Paris
Mahmood,
I’ve read it. You’re right, it’s good. He does find people who don’t accept Wahhabism right there in Saudi Arabia, but then some of them who don’t support it still seek to cover up for it.
I’m not convinced that the majority oppose the Wahhabi jihad on the world. If they did, the Islamist terrorists would find it hard to operate among the population. They would be turned in by ordinary people. What I see instead is thousands of Pakistanis turning out to honor one of the London Tube bombers as a “hero of Islam.”
From what I see, ordinary Muslims think the Wahhabis are good guys until they take over their town and impose their rules on them and start killing people.
Steve
Re(6): Muslim Riots in Paris
You’re right, we cannot cover the sympathy the Wahabis get in various parts of the world as simply by the “simple” people, nor excuse it or them as they not know what they do.
The only way to put a stop to this farce is the resolute and unquenching demand by intellectuals and governments to call a spade a spade and stop extremists and clerics before they spread their poison. It should be EVERYONE’S responsibility that if they hear a preacher espousing violence or spreading hate in any form then it is that person’s responsibility to make that preacher shut up.
Re(7): Muslim Riots in Paris
none violently of course
Re(4): Muslim Riots in Paris
[quote]I don’t want to hear some guy from Alabama bitching in Budapest that he can’t get hisself a Slurpee.[/quote]
Seen it. Except it was a girl from Utah bitching about not being able to get an American milkshake, which I gather is just like an Aussie milkshake except it has whipped cream in it, in a busy roadhouse in the middle of a stinking, bloody desert. There are enough arseholes here. You can have that one back.
Memo to the French interior minister
What’s the reference to the ‘support and enthusiasm of the Hebraic tribe’ for Sarkozy and his Jewish roots got to do with anything? I get it now – Sarkozy’s a Jew so he must be encouraging the riots to inflame Muslims and make them look bad. Typical of the ‘Hebraic tribe’.
Has there been a post on Manama Republic which isnt based on a conspiracy theory or in this case one supercharged with anti-semitism?
Re: Muslim Riots in Paris
[quote]Cars have been burned by Muslim punks there for years. Likewise, the police, fireman, and paramedics have been attacked for years, even when they are saving the lives of the Muslim punks themselves, who recognize no authority but their own.[/quote]
Sounds like our indigenous population in the capitals – particularly Sydney. I dare say there are parts of the US where you could use a similar description.
[quote]The lesson here is to never allow mass immigration from Muslim countries.[/quote]
A better lesson would be: never allow mass immigration. It’s not just the Muslims that form ghettos. It’s not that long ago that Little Italy and Chinatown were more than just places to dine out on ‘ethnic’ cuisine.
Re(8): Muslim Riots in Paris
“[i]I always say you can accomplish more with a kind word and a piece of four by two than with just a kind word.[/i]”
=)
Re(1): Muslim Riots in Paris
[quote]And the solution of course is to nuke us and rid the world of us “barbarians”?[/quote]
Not until AFTER the V8 Supercars have left. It would mess up the calendar =).
Memo to the French interior minister
The thing I have found out here in my many years is arab muslims mainly saudis and kuwaitis are just like us westerners . The want to drink and screw you think they come here to see the tree of life wake. I went on vacation six months ago for the first time in a few years and all my friends said are you not afraid of these saudis, I said ya I am afraid of gettting smashed by a drunk one on the road, they said but they don’t drink do they it is not allowed, I said we get up two three million a year here from saudi and the majority which is a fact come here for booze and hookers. I said these guys are no diiferent than us there humans with human desires
the real difference is they say it does not happen and we are bad non believers but they do the same. I mean for fucks sake Bahrains economy revolves around prositution and booze and yes I forgot free visas which are very much plentifull and a huge money making buisness.
Memo to the French interior minister
I’ve only briefly scanned the linked article so I’m not sure if this has been covered. The French riots have less to do with Islamic radicals and immigrant slums than entrenched poverty and lack of hope. While they may be linked you don’t need to be Islamic to be oppressed.
We had a similar situation in Sydney where a teenager, from a mainly poverty-stricken indigenous suburb, was allegedly fleeing from the police on his push-bike when he fell off, impaled himself upon a metal fence and subsequently died. The suburb rose up and rioted for a couple of nights – nothing compared to Paris. The media covered it in exactly the same way they’ve covered the Paris riots and like Paris the police claimed they weren’t chasing the kid.
In defense of the media, we live in a global culture that many believe is ‘the best of all possible worlds’. Those in the media in particular are generally on high salaries and large expense accounts. It’s a good life and most in it believe they’ve gone through hell to get where they are. So it is hardly surprising how they treat those that show such distain for that culture by destroying their own neighbourhoods. It’s far easier to cater to established cultural stereotypes in your storytelling – and all ‘news’ reporting is storytelling – than to try to be original. If any originality occurs it will be long after everyone else has covered all the established angles. That’s presuming that the story is big enough, it lasts long enough and the world’s attention isn’t diverted to the next shiny thing.
Re(2): Muslim Riots in Paris
absolutely! you coming?
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
and fatalistic, Muslims are very fatalistic, “It’s God’s willing” that we are poor, destitute etc.
what we need to believe is in ourselves rather than fate.
Memo to the French interior minister
I’m a liberal but I would have called out the army days ago, declared martial law and shot those who violated the curfew. Shows you why the French shouldn’t have a say in the world.
As far as immigrants Muslim or not who the hell said your entitled to a job just because you now live in France. Most immigrants know there isn’t enough jobs to go around yet still immigrate because its better than their countries and the dole is great.
The French president said they need to fix the problem. France I’ve got a great idea start a public works project and give all these fine young men a job, maybe in forest reclamation they can burn em then they can replant them.
There is just no way that France can continue to allow immigration to continue at the present levels. To many people not enough jobs and no country can afford to keep supporting more and more people.
One positive thing to come out of this is that for at least the past week France has taken our place in the scheme of bad government.
billT
Re(9): Muslim Riots in Paris
Poor Marcus. I miss that show
Aliandra
Re: Muslim Riots in Paris
Steve’
[quote]From America, you can not help but notice that where ever in the world Muslims go, violence follows. Everywhere Muslims go, they do not integrate into their host societies,[/quote]
This has nothing to do with the religion of the rioters and everything to do with marginalized, disenfranchised young men (Note that women or old people aren’t taking part in the mayhem). A large demographic of restless and unemployed young males means trouble in any society.
The rioters are saying they are hindered from assimilating. The French say the immigrant community doesn’t want to assimilate. Looks like the problem is on both sides.
These people could have found a more civilized way of voicing their grievances. It’s not like the anyone in France is averse to demonstrations.
Aliandra
Re(5): Muslim Riots in Paris
[quote]And is that a Wilbur Smith influence with the name?[/quote]
It’s Nyoongar – the local Indigenous people – for unborn child who’s gender has not yet been determined. I think we find out tomorrow.
Thanks for your well-wishes. Both are doing fine so far, the only problem is that my wife has started eating like a horse. I’ve tried getting her to use utensils again but she insists on having the bag around the neck so she can graze =).
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
billT quote “I would have called out the army days ago, declared martial law and shot those who violated the curfew. Shows you why the French shouldn’t have a say in the world.”
And then round up the rest of the culprits and deport them plain and simple. That is the FIX to the problem. It is not up to France or any nation to assimilate immigrants. It is up to the immigrants to assimilate themselves into their “new” nation. This isn’t “Star Trek” and the BORG. This behavior cannot be tolerated and the French by not moving swiftly to put a stop to this has allowed a canker sore to fester into a full blown case of herpes.
http://cerebralwaste.blogspot.com/
Re(1): Muslim Riots in Paris
Aliandra,
I disagree. First, the rioters are mostly Muslims, not some composite of religions. That makes it a Muslim issue. Second, riots are a dumb, young male thing. Women and old people usually stay home, off the streets, where it is safe, until the wild young men are done.
Third, I strongly disagree that riots are rational things that have a logical agenda, that they are some sort of social statement or presentation of a grievance. They are not. In the words of one rioter from a race riot in Dallas, “It’s fun.” For undisciplined young hoodlums, the chance to tear things up, smash windows, and set things on fire is fun. There is no higher thought in it than that. Usually, later the local political hacks sympathetic to whatever constituency the rioters represent attempt to interpret it in some sort of socially semi-acceptable way. However, when the rioters are torching cars, they are not discussing how this burnt car may reintegrate them into French society. What they are thinking is that they are having the time of their lives. Let’s burn more.
From the article I posted earlier by Dalrymple, it’s pretty clear the Muslim punks of the cites have no interest in assimilating into French society, which they plainly hate. That is the standard approach of Muslims to the non-Muslim world as documented in the Koran: Do not befriend unbelievers. The rejection of French society by the Muslim punks of the housing projects is no different in quality than the rejection of American society preached in Saudi-run Muslim academies here in Washington, DC. Or the rejection of Western society preached in madrassas in Pakistan, in Indonesia. It’s of a piece with the regular bombing of McDonald’s, the dreaded symbol of Western oppression, in Middle Eastern countries. Underlying this are a thousand years of fatwas condemning the West, the “Frankish” in their words, and the non-Muslim world in general.
What the French have done wrong to inflame this situation is to subsidize a hostile alien population in their midst with free food and shelter in the form of welfare. Governments get more of whatever they subsidize. The French have tried to avoid the hard work of assimilating a rejectionist Muslim population by feeding the Muslim alligator. All they got was a bigger alligator to deal with without improving its disposition. Instead of working on the problem when it was smaller, they avoided dealing with it and so stored up trouble for the future.
This is a problem throughout Europe, where Muslims migrate to take advantage of the over-generous welfare of naive quasi-socialist states and use that money to set up Muslim colonies. Within those enclaves, Muslims demand their own separate laws, basically their own sovereignty within their host nations. The Europeans need to wise up before they become dhimmis in their own homes.
The rioting punks of Paris could indeed have found a more civilized way to voice their grievances. So could the London Tube bombers. So could the Bali bombers, the Madrid train bombers, the skyjackers of Sep 11, and the latest crop of Muslims arrested yesterday in Australia in the midst of yet another bombing plot. The radical Muslims do not believe in dialogue with infidels. They believe in the sword.
Steve
Re(2): Muslim Riots in Paris
[quote]They all had problems but none of them came to destroy America or overturn its government.[/quote]
It’s unwise to tar all Islamics with that brush. I’d have a hard time believing even many are that way inclined. Even if just one percent felt that way then there would be nothing Australia could do to stop the tide of 4 million screaming martyrs, crossing the narrow straits to our north, hell-bent on taking over our sweet little oasis. You certainly wouldn’t need cells of 5 or so dedicated to “blowin’ things up”. Just raise an army and invade. I’m sure we’d put up a good fight but we can’t even stop the 8000+ illegal fishermen coming from that direction.
[quote]Even the Mafia cooperated with the government against hostile forces abroad.[/quote]
Of course. Fascism was bad for business.
Re(6): Muslim Riots in Paris
Seems it lost my login.
Re(6): Muslim Riots in Paris
How interesting! I wonder why indiginous people who presumebly don’t go with Christian names would choose a name like that for an unborn child. Weird.
In the local culture as every man is called after his eldest son (yeah, I hate it, I gave that twit life so that I can be called after him? no thanks, they can call me by my name :)) as a mark of respect, so I would be called “Abu Arif” or “Arif’s father” (see what I mean?) but almost never after your eldest daughter, they do sometimes but that is if you only have daughters but still rare.
However if you don’t have any children then you’re called “Abu Ghayib” – Ghayib means lost, not available, or disappeared or really “fill in the blanks”.
Same thing for mothers of course, so my mother would be called “Umm Mahmood” which of course is “Mahmood’s Mother”.
It’s all as a measure of respect for the elders which we hold in very high regard, or should do.
Re(1): Memo to the French interior minister
That’s a quite disappointing attitude.
The responsibility is on both the émigrés and the country and society that received them to make the experience work and learn the best each has to offer and assimilate. Throwing the responsibility purely on the émigrés alone doesn’t work.
Just imagine if America adopted the attitude you espouse 200 year ago. Would you be where you are now?
Memo to the French interior minister
Mahmood, you’re right in that both immigrants and the host country *should* work to make the assimilation experience a positive one and that would be nice, but usually the burden is mostly upon the immigrants. Always has been, always will be. Yeah, even in America 200 years later. It was much more difficult 200 years ago. In America we figure if you wanted to come here, you want to be a part of America – otherwise why would you go through all the trouble to come here? It is encumbant upon the immigrant to learn our language, laws and get a job and work to fit into the establishment. Our “melting pot.” You don’t have to give up your language or your religion or your traditions, but you do have to “join” our club. All of our forefathers did so, leaving their homelands for whatever reason, coming here, many, as children, not speaking the language, having no money. My family came from Germany and England, originally. My husband’s from Ireland.
Actually, the “fitting in” process IS and has always been somewhat discriminatory and therefore you do have your Little Italy, Chinatown, Vietnam City, etc. even today. Birds of a feather flock together. But then, little by little, as you learn the language and move about in society, you move out of your protected areas and into the American way of life, or should. Each new wave seems to have to start at the bottom and sort of “prove” themselves, as unfair as that sounds it is the way it is and has always been, as politically incorrect as that is. Everyone’s gone thru it, the Irish, Dutch, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Cajuns, Swedes, etc. .. everyone. I remember when Kennedy was running for president and it was said that he’d never make it because he was – OMG – both Irish and Catholic! That sounds almost funny now, but that was only 40-odd years ago. Thing is, everyone just pitched in and kept on working at it .. it wasn’t, “Oh, poor us. We have no job, no money, no future .. so we’ll burn down our cities and homes and riot.” That seems rather counter-productive, I should think.
Regards,
Betsy
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
I agree that self pitty doesn’t serve anyone and is very counter productive. I believe completely that the only way to reach success is smart hard work! Sitting on your ass waiting for a payout won’t cut it. In order to work smart and hard, you have to get involved in the community YOU adopted in learning the way it thinks and its ideosyncracies.
But it is also up to that community to open up to allow that emegre into it, rather than keep shutting doors in their faces.
I know this is a thorny issue, and I know that it won’t disappear any time soon. It is natural for people to flock together and protect what they see is theirs and close ranks against foreigners and their ways, however, a society only develops and continues to innovate only when it ebraces new ideas and ideals.
Re(1): Memo to the French interior minister
In America, the immigrant communities are temporary phase for the first and second generation. Gradually, the communities integrate with society. The first generation lives with other immigrants because they have a language barrier that prevents them from fully participating in their host society. Often, their children serve as interpreters and liaisons with the host society and stay close to their parents to help them out. The third generation is completely acculturated and feels free to leave their immigrant community. So bit by bit the Italian side of town becomes less Italian, the Polish less Polish, the Yugoslavian less Yugoslavian. Right now, here in Washington, DC, there is some little distress because Chinatown is Chinese in name only. Almost all the old Chinese shopkeepers and restaurateurs have departed, leaving only Chinese-themed corporate franchises to replace them. People are worried that Chinatown without Chinese will lose its character. But that’s how the melting pot works.
What’s troubling about Muslim immigration in Europe is that they resist assimilation and create permanent Muslim ghettos instead. They go to European nations where there are more opportunities for them, but then they seek to overturn the society that produces the opportunities to recreate the Muslim hellhole they just fled.
Steve
Re(3): Muslim Riots in Paris
[quote]Skribe: “It’s unwise to tar all Islamics with that brush. I’d have a hard time believing even many are that way inclined.”[/quote]
A local Muslim lawyer tried to organize a Muslim anti-terror demonstration here in DC this year. Only 50 people showed up. He got no support from Muslim organizations, but a fair amount of criticism. He said that part of the problem was that the leaders of the local mosques support the goal of terrorists to establish Sharia states, if not their violent means. If the leaders of the mosques think a Sharia state is preferable to democracy, it seems fair to say that is the mainstream sentiment in the local Muslim community.
The way I’ve read it expressed by a few American Muslims is that when the Muslim population in America becomes a majority by higher birthrates and immigration, it would be fair to vote out democracy and vote in a Sharia state.
I don’t know of any other ethnic group that immigrated to America with the expectation of overturning its government.
Steve
Re(2): Memo to the French interior minister
America never had this kind of problem with immigrants.Immigrants to the US took pride in living here and overcame the problems they faced and worked for a better future. They didn’t set barns and horses on fire when the going got tough.AND THINGS GOT TOUGH and still are tough. They hitched up their pants, swallowed hard and pressed on.
Look at what happened in Auastralia today, Now the problems have spread into Germany and Belgium. Who’s causing the problem Mahmood? Have all three European nations failed? The host country has opened their doors to these “tired, poor and huddled” masses who yearn to be “FREE” and they repay this with terror threats, riots and civil unrest.
I am all for immigration. I am a decendant of immagrants. No people should tolorate is this kind of disrepsect towards their country. The primary responsability is on the emigres to insert themselves into society. Causing riots and planning acts of terror cannot be excused.
Re(3): Memo to the French interior minister
Totally agree. Find the bastards who go outside of the law to show their grievances and throw the book at them. Hard.
I do not condone the use of violence to fix a situation. There are better ways of getting things done.
Identifying the root of the problem and then fixing it at the root is much better than short term start-stops. I recognise that as far as the rioters in France are concerned and the way that the situation exploded, martial law must be imposed (it has) so that the mess gets stopped and then look for the whys and whats and whatfors and try to fix them.
If the fix mandates the repatriation of illegal immigrants, then so be it. If it mandates better attempts at integration between the various communities, then so much the better.
I do not have the fix nor the answer that will fix the situation, but hope that reason will prevail.
Re(4): Muslim Riots in Paris
The vast majority of Muslim countries don’t base their constitution on general Islam, let alone exclusively make it Shari’a-based. The single country who attempted to do so (Afghanistan) proved that experiment a disaster.
Even Saudi doesn’t have full Shari’a laws although they want you to believe them. If they did, they wouldn’t go with the Solar calendar EXCLUSIVELY for their fiscal operations!
So dim-witted imams can call for a Shari’a based country until they go blue in the face, but they themselves know that it cannot and will not happen. Not in their miserable lifetime nor their descendants. They mouth off about it because they wrongly think that it is they job to do so, but WE just brush them off as all idiots should be.
Semantics my friend is everything. Especially in our Muslim/Arab world.
Memo to the French interior minister
Some of my relatives and forebears were poor and/or orphaned but that didn’t give them an exemption from the law.
No amount of feel good social programmes will cure this problem.
it’s one thing – get off your ass and do some work. Plumbers earn more than I do. Even a decent gardner is hard to find in Europe.
It’s lack of self-belief and a desire to point the finger away from oneself that is the issue.
Nothing else.
The Johnster
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
Leif,
The Wahhabi extremism would not be accepted by the Muslim community abroad were there not a preexisting disposition toward it, regardless of how much Saudi cash backed it up. Killing infidels is just not that big of a deal for Muslims, an attitude you can easily discern from the lack of Muslim public reaction to most Muslim atrocities. Muslims beheaded three Christian girls in Indonesia last week and shot two in the head this week. Where’s the outrage? Nowhere to be found. It’s acceptable to Muslims. They were just infidels.
I am familiar with the recent history of the Saudis you present and agree that the Saudi princes have facilitated the Wahhabi terror campaign. And we strongly agree that the same solution to the Nazis would solve the Saudi menace to the world as well.
Steve
Re(2): Muslim Riots in Paris
No Steve, not everyone who criticizes Muslims is wearing a white sheet. But anyone who uses an argument that “group X is inherently toxic to civilized culture” is pretty suspect. Your argument looks almost exactly like the garbage spewed by antisemites, and is just as valid:
“Jews have both a genetic and cultural desire to subvert and destroy their host civilizations – it is part of their survival instinct and it is what has caused their genetic strain and culture to survive for millennia.” http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed42.html
“The Jews are incapable of actualizing their influence and control for a simple reason, and that is that they are a demographic minority in every society in the world. For this reason, the Jews are trying by means of their trickery to weaken the national identity [of the non-Jews] and thus take over affairs and direct them to serve their interests.” http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP32101
Then, when you are called on this, you backpedal and say no, only the BAD muslims are doing this, I was only talking about BAD muslims, I can’t be a bigot if I only hate BAD muslims. Shades of Tuturro’s “Good Blacks” bit in “Do the Right Thing” there, but maybe it just means you’re more incoherent than bigoted. Either way, your original comment had nothing in it to characterize it as “honestly examining the faults of Muslim culture”. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Mahmood himself, who frequently does just that, also thought it was extreme.
Re(1): Memo to the French interior minister
I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve by continuously repeating the same lines Steve. You stopped contributing anything new for at least a few months and I – as I’m sure quote a lot of us here – am fed up of your tired lines. What I read now (again in a continuous loop) is the evidence of your hate. Nothing else.
What do you actually want by doing that in this particular site?
– do you want us to believe that Islam is the worst religion on Earth? No, we won’t because it isn’t.
– do you want us to believe that every single Muslim on earth is a terrorist? No, we won’t because they aren’t.
– do you just want to rid the world of Muslims and shape it into your own version of Utopia? That won’t happen on both counts.
What you fail to realise is that the ONLY way to fight extremism is by tolerance, not by more extremism, killing and eradicating.
Now go away, calm down for a few days or weeks if need be, re-evaluate where you want to go and then come back in the hope that you would have discovered that WE are human beings too who are absolutely as disgusted as you are with all extremists in the world which we KNOW at the moment is constituted by a majority of purported Muslims of one shade or another.
Memo to the French interior minister
Steve:
1. One of the girls shot in the street today was Muslim the other was Christian.
2. Arab and African Muslims are VERY EDUCATED in france. More than half have college degrees. Do you think people travel far and wide study all those years to get a degree just to sit on their arse and get a hand out, so you can call them lazy? You need to think again.
3. Have you ever been to France? not that you would even think about this but if you go into 99% of the corporate offices in France you are lucky to see one Black or Arab France in the board room. Do you think thats an accident? You think all these people with degrees only apply for meger civil servant jobs? Come to think of if France in theory should have just as many minority faces in the government work force as we do in Washington, D.C.. Have you walked into a government building in France latly?
4. No mater how much money you have if your face doesn’t look Euro-white you can’t move just anywhere in France. They don’t have job/house discrimination laws like we have in the states. They are blantant about their discrimination. Most muslims women go to school and try to get degrees. I have read stories of women who can’t get jobs and they have PHD’s in France because they dont fit the look or cover there hair. Which after a while doesn’t give them much of an option except to be house wives.
5. Have you ever been asked your faith, exsactly where you live, your race at a job interview? It happens to africans and arabs all the time there.
6. Did you know that in France you can be 2nd or 3rd generation born and still be called a immigrant? Thats Insane!!! We don’t do that here in USA (Thank God) They still call arabs and africans “boy” in France. They are in the 50’s in terms of mindset.
7. If you try to open a store and not sell liqiour they give you the hardest time. They say you’re trying to pull the image of the city down! Here in DC we pray that they don’t open up another liqiour store!
Both have a duty towards each other. One side has to assimilate and side hase to provide opportunities. You can’t think people will stay content doing meger jobs generation after generation. The more and more education the yourth recieve the more they will expect for the glass ceiling to be lifted. THEY ARE MANY MANY EDUCATED Arabs and Africans there. No one dedicates all that time to education for shyts and giggles. They want a peice of the pie too.
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
Leif,
I have a prejudice against people who spread their religion through violence. There are many people who have a phobia about having their heads cut off for Islam. When Muslims cease their campaign of terror around the world I will revise my negative opinion of their religion. I advise you to look at your religion soberly and change it to work and play well with non-Muslims.
Steve
Memo to the French interior minister
Steve
First of all, I disagree with you, when you say that most Arab immigrants in Europe tend to form their own ghettos and refuse to integrate into society. I myself Bahraini-Swede and I live in Malmö-Sweden where we have a mass of Muslim immigrants and most of them have actually started their own business and learnt the language. I am not denying that there are a few that have a difficulty with integrating into society. But this has to do with the people in general that have a problem accepting them and their religion. Also, the irresponsible media that sends negative news that creates a phobia among the people, which has increased the segregation among Muslims. It seems that you have prejudice against Muslims and I advice you to take a course in semiotics.
Leif
Memo to the French interior minister
Steve
First of all, I do not consider myself a Muslim, but I do understand your concerns about the religion. The reason for the spread of suni extremism simply has to do with the funding it gets from Saudi Arabia, which is an ally to the states. And if you look back at the history of the Middle East through the sixties and seventies you will notice that this type of religious extremism was non existent. I’m not saying that the ideology did not exist, which is Qutbi and also Wahabi. But it simply did not have the support to spread it self. It started to spread after the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The reason why it has spread among a lot of people is because the Saudi rulers had to increase their support for these fanatics in order to stay in power. If you have read about Saudi history you will find that the Grand Mosque was seized by fanatics in 1979. And the reason why it was captured was because the fanatics found their rulers to be corrupt and that they were distancing themselves from their religion. That is why the Al Saud supported these fanatics and preached intolerance in their country. The only solution to eliminate extremism is use the same solutions that the Americans or Europeans do with the Nazis.
Leif
Re(2): Memo to the French interior minister
Hear hear.
Re(3): Memo to the French interior minister
[quote]They didn’t set barns and horses on fire when the going got tough.AND THINGS GOT TOUGH and still are tough.[/quote]
Cough, Rodney King, cough, LA Riots, cough
[quote] Look at what happened in Auastralia today[/quote]
What happened in Australia was the arrest of a group of people allegedly – innocent until proven guilty (we do remember that concept, don’t we?) – planning terrorist incidents. Now the guy who allegedly shot the cop will probably go away for a very long time, but the others are less certain of spending significant time in one of Her Majesty’s finer establishments. There is some debate over whether some of the laws that they were arrested under are constitutional. Legal opinions differ. It’s not cut and dried. There is also suspicion that the raids were done to ward off attacks against the Prime Minister after he urgently recalled parliament to change some of the anti-terrorism laws. It was done very publically – some say needlessly – and he attracted a lot of citicism, particulalrly amongst law enforcement whom felt that he had possibily compromised their investigations. There’s a lot of politics involved here. Don’t get caught up in the rhetoric.
[quote]Causing riots and planning acts of terror cannot be excused.[/quote]
It certainly can’t be excused in a modern, democratic country with an abundant welfare system and where freedom-of-expression is not only allowed but encouraged. I’m not so sure, however, that those living in Warsaw in 1943 or Basra 1991 or even the thirteen British North-American colonies in 1775 would agree that a violent uprising can’t be excused. They just don’t seem to have a good record of working. At least not without significant outside assistance.
skribe
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
[quote]THEY ARE MANY MANY EDUCATED Arabs and Africans there.[/quote]
One of the main problems that immigrants find here is that their tertiary qualifications are rarely accepted or require additional training to come up to ‘Australian standards’. I have a good friend from Liberia who used to be a doctor before he immigrated. He’s not allowed to practise here because his qualifications aren’t accepted and he can’t get into university to bring them up to standard because he is deemed to be too old – he’s in his 50s – unless he pays for it himself. That’s an extra burden for a family – he has teenage children – to cope with after moving half-way around the world. He hasn’t been able to find work – other than occasional part-time/casual stuff – and so instead of investing in getting this guy up to spec, and reducing our doctor shortage, the government pay him to sit on his arse living on welfare. Stupid! And it’s got to be incredibly frustrating.
skribe
Re(3): Muslim Riots in Paris
Anonymous,
The difference between my arguments criticizing Muslims and the arguments of your anti-semitics are: 1) The anti-semitics lie to make their point, a la “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” My arguments are based on current events and documented history. The POTEOZ are false. The Paris riots and Al Qaeda are real. There are no Jews killing Muslim children to sprinkle their blood on their Passover matzah. There are Muslims beheading innocents for their religion, which they have helpfully documented in their snuff videos.
2) The anti-semitic comments above are speculative. Mine are straightforward conclusions based on Muslim behavior. Now you may be offended by those conclusions, but free speech means people will be offended. If the argument is false, then you should be able to easily disprove it with facts and logic. If the argument is true, then your best bet is an irrational rebuttal, such as an ad hominem attack that criticism of Moslems is just like anti-semitism.
3) All Muslims are involved in the bad behavior of the most radical Muslims because virtually every Muslim supports them in varying degrees. There is a tiny minority of terrorists who do the bombing and head-cutting. If you take Hitler’s opinion on organizing radical movements, for every active member, there are ten inactive members. That means that for every Muslim terrorist, there are ten Muslim supporters who agree with them but won’t inform on them. Perhaps they provide indirect support in the way of money, food, and shelter without asking any questions. Beyond that is the general population, which sympathizes with the terrorists. Those are all the Muslims who celebrated the Sep 11 attacks, probably the majority of Muslims. There are a few people, the minority, who oppose the terrorists in words generally, but still feel some sympathy for them. Even Mahmood, who seems like a good guy, wants the Bahraini Al Qaeda in Gitmo to be set loose.
Mao said that guerrillas swim like fish in a sea of the people, by which he meant that guerrillas can not survive without the support of the people. The same thing goes for terrorists. A large terrorist movement can not survive without the support of the locals. It cannot project itself in numbers to other countries without support of a government. If the Muslim world rejected terrorism, Al Qaeda and all its like-minded jihadis could not survive a week. They would be starved of recruits, starved of funds, starved of weapons, friendless, with no place to hide.
Such is not the case. The jihadis are well-equipped and suffer no shortage of arms. Saudis arrive in Iraq with big rolls of cash to fund suicide bombings. The jihadis in Afghanistan had the best Gore-Tex camping gear. In Fallujah, the jihadis had so many weapons that they did not carry personal weapons, but cached clusters of weapons at various sites, dropping them as they ran out of ammo to fall back to another cache. The Muslim bombing campaign extends around the world and has no shortage of funds to support terror cells or buy explosives. The terror cells suffer no shortage of recruits, but rather spontaneous terror cells sprout in Muslim communities everywhere: France, Germany, England, America, Australia, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Morrocco, Russia, and on and on.
The pervasiveness of Muslim terrorist groups throughout the Muslim world and beyond demonstrates the appeal of violent jihad to the general Muslim world. If there were only one Muslim terror cell, or even a handful, they could be dismissed as anomalies. When terrorists and riots and bloody murder are present where ever Muslims go, it’s fair to conclude that they are a feature of Islam.
Steve
Re(4): Muslim Riots in Paris
Ah Steve, what would we do without your insane hatred to give us a few laughs for the day? God bless you Steve!
Re(4): Memo to the French interior minister
[quote]Anon: They didn’t set barns and horses on fire when the going got tough.AND THINGS GOT TOUGH and still are tough.
Skribe: Cough, Rodney King, cough, LA Riots, cough[/quote]
The neighborhood where the LA riots started had an average household income of $50,000. I interpret that to mean that most of those households had two working adults. I don’t consider that a particularly low income. That sounds like a nice middle class income. It’s not ghetto wages. This was not a housing project. It was a middle class neighborhood.
The LA riot did not turn into a riot until the looters broke into a liquor store and the gangbangers started getting drunk. That’s when the windows started getting smashed, cars attacked, stores burned, people killed. That’s when the social fabric broke down.
Reporters interviewed many of the looters as they picked the stores clean. A great many of them, perhaps a majority, did not know who Rodney King was. When asked, one looter said that he didn’t follow sports much. One looter, arrested by the police, was the previous winner of a state lottery, a millionaire.
If the rioters don’t know about Rodney King, the purported reason for the riot, can you honestly say they were tearing up their neighborhood to protest his treatment? If the rioters were middle class kids, even a millionaire, can you honestly claim that they were stealing to gain goods they couldn’t buy themselves?
The real reason motivating the LA riots was this: It was fun. It’s fun for gangbangers to run wild, shooting guns in the street like maniacs, breaking windows, beating people up, torching buildings. There was no higher motivation.
[quote]Anon: Look at what happened in Auastralia today
Skribe: What happened in Australia was the arrest of a group of people allegedly – innocent until proven guilty (we do remember that concept, don’t we?) – planning terrorist incidents. [/quote]
Good point, Skribe. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions that these guys are guilty just because one of them shot at the police. That’s something you’d expect any innocent person to do if the police passed by. And really, don’t we all have large stocks of PVC piping and hydrochloric acid to make nail bombs in our homes? Heck, how would people expect you to get rid of the infidels, er, I mean gophers in your lawn? Nothing like a nail bomb to stop those pesky gophers from tearing up your yard. Again, that’s perfectly innocent behavior.
And be honest, don’t you have instructions to make explosives like TATP somewhere in your computer’s memory? I know my friends and I like to case possible targets for terror bombings just for sport, kind of a like a game. But, everyone does stuff like that. It’s certainly no cause for alarm. Neither is that arsenal of weapons at home.
So I guess I agree with you, Skribe. There’s nothing these guys did that any innocent person wouldn’t do, that we all haven’t done. Obviously, we are all jumping to conclusions that these guys might be up to something bad. The Aussies should probably release them with a note of apology and a gift basket for their trouble.
Steve
Re(5): Muslim Riots in Paris
I guess you would just continue to live in your nice safe world of denial.
Glad you got a laugh, though. It’s certainly easier and more fun than making a serious rebuttal.
Steve
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
[quote]Anon: 1. One of the girls shot in the street today was Muslim the other was Christian.[/quote]
Fair enough. The initial reports say they were Christian. Most of the Internet sources reporting they were both Christian are Christian media, which may have an agenda. They may not necessarily be lying, but they may be willing to stop at the first reports which favor their bias. One local source says one of the shot girls may be Muslim.
[quote]Anon: 2. Arab and African Muslims are VERY EDUCATED in france. More than half have college degrees. Do you think people travel far and wide study all those years to get a degree just to sit on their arse and get a hand out, so you can call them lazy? You need to think again.[/quote]
Those educated Muslims do not seem to include the Muslim punks rioting in the cités, who take particular care to burn down their local schools. However, I can accept that there is a different category of Muslims who come to France for a higher education, apart from those in the cités, who are seeking a good job and better life. Yet, that does not address my criticism of the Muslim punks of the cités who are not seeking to improve themselves but rather to drag France down to their level.
[quote]Anon: 3. Have you ever been to France? not that you would even think about this but if you go into 99% of the corporate offices in France you are lucky to see one Black or Arab France in the board room. Do you think thats an accident? You think all these people with degrees only apply for meger civil servant jobs? Come to think of if France in theory should have just as many minority faces in the government work force as we do in Washington, D.C.. Have you walked into a government building in France latly?[/quote]
Yes, I’ve been to France but for only a couple weekends in Paris. They wouldn’t let our flight of American fighters fly over France on our way to Germany although they had no similar objection to my great uncles traversing France to chase the Nazis back to Germany. I can believe that the French lag behind Americans in social evolution, largely based on the account of a female friend who worked as a sales manager in Paris and encountered intolerable sexism from her male counterparts, bad enough for her to pack her bags and return to America within a year.
I got an idea of the distance the French need to go in their relations with the races when I walked into a neighborhood bakery in Paris and found tête de nègre for sale. It’s a confection made of black and white chocolate which translates into polite English as Negro Head.
If you are looking for somebody to defend the French, you’ve come to the wrong guy. I am happy to bash them, too.
[quote]Anon: Both have a duty towards each other. One side has to assimilate and side hase to provide opportunities. You can’t think people will stay content doing meger jobs generation after generation. The more and more education the yourth recieve the more they will expect for the glass ceiling to be lifted. THEY ARE MANY MANY EDUCATED Arabs and Africans there. No one dedicates all that time to education for shyts and giggles. They want a peice of the pie too.[/quote]
I agree the the French are racist, as are the Europeans in general. It is fair to say that is part of the problem. Yet, the Muslim punks of the the cités are not rioting because they are overeducated. They are not interested in education. They are likewise not interested in getting jobs in French society. They feel entitled to welfare. Their demands are to be left alone by French society so that they may freely pursue their criminal careers in drug-trafficking.
Your argument is a red herring in that sense. Your educated Muslims were probably not among the Muslim punks torching sixty cars each night in France before the riots started, 29,000 total in France this year. So far.
France is foolish to squander such skilled labor, which is probably one of the reasons why their economy lags behind ours. By contrast, educated and uneducated Africans seem to find jobs rather easily in America. Nigerians and Somalians work as computer people in my office. The shops at the mall are full of cute Ethiopian girls working as clerks. The taxis at the airport are driven by Nigerians. There are no barriers to their success here.
It’s interesting to contrast the experience of immigrant labor in the US and France. Mexicans come across the borders in large numbers to perform unskilled labor in America. While they do not aggressively seek schooling, they do work hard and move steadily up into the middle class. They aspire to become middle class Americans. They do not seek to remain separate from America as the North African Muslim immigrants to France do. They do not seek to establish separate states of their own within America as the Muslims seek to do in France.
While the French certainly don’t seem willing to accept the Muslim culture, the Muslim immigrants do not seem willing to tolerate French culture. It appears to me to be a case of neither side willing to accept the Other.
Steve
Re(2): Memo to the French interior minister
[quote]Mahmood: I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve by continuously repeating the same lines Steve. You stopped contributing anything new for at least a few months and I – as I’m sure quote a lot of us here – am fed up of your tired lines. What I read now (again in a continuous loop) is the evidence of your hate. Nothing else.[/quote]
I disagree that it’s hate. I would call it intense criticism. I’ve been frustrated with enough unfair criticism of America to have some empathy for you when you feel your particular sacred cows are being gored.
[quote]Mahmood: What do you actually want by doing that in this particular site?
– do you want us to believe that Islam is the worst religion on Earth? No, we won’t because it isn’t.[/quote]
We disagree here, Mahmood. Islam is the worst major religion on Earth. It’s a supremacist, expansionary, intolerant faith which is waging war on non-Muslims around the world and holding Muslims hostage in poverty and ignorance. It is in dire need of major reform.
[quote]Mahmood: “- do you want us to believe that every single Muslim on earth is a terrorist? No, we won’t because they aren’t.”[/quote]
Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but Muslims hold a near monopoly on terrorism. Far too many Muslims support terrorism to greater or lesser degree and Islam itself promotes such violence.
[quote]Mahmood: “- do you just want to rid the world of Muslims and shape it into your own version of Utopia? That won’t happen on both counts.”[/quote]
I’d like the Muslims to rid the world of bad Muslims and reform their religion to work and play well with the rest of the world.
[quote]Mahmood: “What you fail to realise is that the ONLY way to fight extremism is by tolerance, not by more extremism, killing and eradicating.”[/quote]
We disagree here, Mahmood. It’s pretty clear that tolerance encourages extremists, who view it as weakness. Osama and his ilk can not be rehabilitated by tolerance. They have to be exterminated. It’s only when the extremists are taught by brutal experience that their views lead to catastrophe that they reform. That is the lesson of the Japanese in WWII.
That said, tolerance has a better chance with the moderates. The burden of tolerance of other cultures, religions, and philosophies clearly falls on the Muslim world, which has historically been intolerant.
[quote]Mahmood: “Now go away, calm down for a few days or weeks if need be, re-evaluate where you want to go and then come back in the hope that you would have discovered that WE are human beings too who are absolutely as disgusted as you are with all extremists in the world which we KNOW at the moment is constituted by a majority of purported Muslims of one shade or another.”[/quote]
Mahmood, if you were disgusted with extremists you would not be lobbying to spring the Bahraini boys from Gitmo. Right now, five Marines are being held for a gang rape in the Philippines. My guess is that they are probably guilty as hell. If so, some time in a Philippine jail would serve them right. You won’t see me lobbying to spring them. It would be OK with me if the Philippines keeps them forever because I doubt they will lose their taste for rape when they come home. I doubt your Bahraini boys will lose their taste for jihad when they return home.
However, if the host and posters of this forum have wearied of my particular brand of grating dissent, I won’t wear out my welcome further. It is a large world, a world suffering from a desperate shortage of my opinion. I can find new audiences to torture with my views, masochistic audiences who are grateful for the intellectual pain I deliver.
Steve
Re(5): Memo to the French interior minister
[quote]And be honest, don’t you have instructions to make explosives like TATP somewhere in your computer’s memory?[/quote]
Actually, I do.
Re(3): Memo to the French interior minister
Steve I’m going to leave everything you’ve said as I don’t wish to enter into a futile debate with you, however, this statement is inexcusable
as I did not, nor will I ever ask you or anyone else to pardon criminals. I have never asked for them to be sprung, if you would kindly go back and look at my posts and comments, you will see quite clearly and unambiguously that I have continuously asked for a fair trial of the prisoners and should they be found innocent then they should be released, else they should rot in their cells for the rest of their lives for all I care.
You can bend the truth a little sometimes, but what you’re doing Steve is comprehensively lying to support your own narrow mind and positions. I would ask you not to drag me there with you.
Re: Memo to the French interior minister
[quote]“If today’s black family structure were what it was in 1960, the overall black poverty rate would be in or near single digits.”[/quote]
This part is absolutely correct. My uncle worked in a prison and he said about 70% of the inmates grew up without a father. Some came from households where the parents had divorced, but in most cases the parents had never married.
Illegitimacy is bad for the whole society.
[quote]I guess Mr. Williams failed to consider the proof that demonstrates blacks are denied opportunities in forms of employment, education and even human treatment.[/quote]
This part is absolute crap. If employment opportunities were denied to black people, why were almost all the black engineers I worked with immigrants? Why so few US born black people in professional positions? Do you think, Anon, that the culture of the black underclass, where studying hard in school – or “acting white” – is “dissed”, might have something to do with it??
[quote]in fact, the best example of the 13 percent of the United States’ (black) population still living chained in by a Bush presidency[/quote]
Please. The problems of the black underclass go back to the the 1960s when Moynihan first wrote his report on the wreckage of the inner cities. Nothing to do with George Bush.
Memo to the French interior minister
http://www.kstreetfriend.blogspot.com writes:
Paris riots coming to America. . . What is the plight of America’s black males. Consider this.
I write the following because Tom Birdsong, Assistant Managing Editor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on Wednesday, November 9, 2005, said, “No one is going to write about your family’s plight.� Thereafter, Mrs. Estelle B. Richman’s staff (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania‘s Secretary of Welfare) became very rude and indifferent to our emergency situation. In fact, Ms. Richman’s chief of staff, Linda Hicks no longer accepted our calls. Christian Bowser actually laughed about our situation. Inez Titus, became even more stubborn with her unlawful position. The Executive Director for Western Pennsylvania Department of Welfare, Tim Cornell (Mrs. Titus’ supervisor) has yet to return any of our calls.
Nonetheless, a man was shot to death in a cinema lobby shootout after watching gangsta rapper 50 cent’s movie “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,� prompting the Loews Cineplex at the Waterfront in West Homestead (just east of Pittsburgh) to stop showing the film. I was there with my family (common-law wife and three minor children). That is, although determined eligible, my family has again been denied the Low Income Heating Assistance Program (“LIHEAP�) federal entitlement for the fourth or fifth straight year. Without heat during the cold winter months a theater provides temporary shelter (allowing my family opportunity to give relatives “a break� from our nightly sleep-overs).
What happened at the Waterfront? Shelton Flowers, 30, of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, was shot three times and died later at a local hospital. Flowers had just watched the movie and got into a confrontation with three men in the bathroom. A fight ensued and spilled out into the concessions area, where Flowers was shot. Immediately, Loews Cineplex pulled the movie as a precaution. The R-rated movie is based on Curtis “50-cent� Jackson’s own life which includes drug dealing, time in prison, and getting shot nine times. Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom, Inc., removed billboards for the movie near some inner-city schools after Los Angeles area community leaders complained last month.
Wilkinsburg, just east of Pittsburgh, is a town that was once synonymous with white supremacy. It is a town that had a mere 502 black residents in 1950 when its population hit 31,000, and only 224 more black residents 10 years later. But, over the next few decades, almost like a prophecy, the black population rose to 90 percent. That is, just a little more than 200 years ago Andrew Levi Levy, Sr. named the town “Africa.�
The borough grew from Levy’s land and other plots (such as the curiously named “Pious Purchase,â€? and others called Rippeyville, McNairsville and Sterrett Township). It was incorporated some 118 years ago and given the name Wilkinsburg after Judge William Wilkins, the Secretary of War under President John Tyler. Nonetheless, many of its current residents still believe Wilkinsburg is no different today than it was in the 1920’s when hooded knights of the Ku Klux Klan cavorted. They say whites still control the town with black “puppetsâ€? politicians.
While other cities the size of Pittsburgh has seen a steady growth in gun crime, our gun violence trajectory appears to have exploded. Community activists, politicians and crime experts all have brainstorm strategies for stemming violence. The residents here had hoped for a comprehensive plan of action that would have addressed part of the root causes that lead our neighbors to take up guns. But, the answer given is more of the same. The local politicians have taken a page from the George W. Bush handbook (Madison Avenue to sell our reputation).
We have our three rivers, a beautiful skyline, a romantic culture district, a few of the country’s best hospitals, excellent universities, and the like. But, there’s never anything mentioned about our blighted downtown business district, the high unemployment rate of black males, increased gun violence, and the growth of conservative republican complacency.
It’s no secret any more that economic conditions for blacks in Pittsburgh and its surrounding communities is precarious. Black residents rank low compared to the national average of income, employment, and education. We have chronic problems of gang and drug violence, family breakdowns, soaring incarceration rates for young black males, and abysmally failing public schools. Wilkinsburg residents are, in fact, the best example of the 13 percent of the United States’ (black) population still living chained in by a Bush presidency, with our eyes riveted on the wall of the white media (Madison Avenue) in front of us, where we see nothing but shadows made by powerless leaders hiding behind us.
We could debate endlessly the role of such squeamishness in concealing and exacerbating the problem with race relations in both Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. We could also discuss the minor role played by gangsta rap music. But, what we should consider is how right-wing conservatives, such as Senator Rick Santorum, have convinced so many blacks that shadows from behind (self-indulgent grab for expensive cars, clothes and money of black republican conservatives living in our affluent North Hills neighborhoods) are reality.
Many of the black residents of Pittsburgh and the surrounding communities believe a lot of the Madison Avenue nonsense. They believe things that are just not true. And, the Republicans gets their strength from this.
The bottom line: The root cause of the shooting at the Loews Cineplex is the apparent political cleansing of true democrats from local politics. Gerrymandering and electoral manipulation (just plan “punk ass� democrats) have left the city with zones of endemic poverty, an absence of social services, crumbling infrastructure, and appalling schools. After the radicalized poverty of black America was laid bare in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina almost everyone expected some change from white America. But quickly the Bush administration and the Republican party have lapsed back into policies to further divide America.
In the 1990’s white America built prisons to house the disproportionately black inmates it had planned to toss into jail (in the years that followed) to reassure the affluent majority it complacency with race issues. One of every eight black males between 25 and 29 years old is behind bars on any given day according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group that seeks to reduce incarceration rates. If this rate continues, one of three black males born today will be imprisoned at some point in their lifetimes.
A local daily “conservative rightâ€? newspaper, “The Pittsburgh Tribune Reviewâ€? recently feature an article written by Walter Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University. In the article “Ammunition for Poverty Pimpsâ€? Mr. William suggested the Census Bureau’s 2004 current Population Survey found two segments of the black community. One segment suffers only 9.9 percent poverty rate and another suffers 39.5. He surmised that one would be a lunatic if they believed white people practice discrimination. He concluded, among other things, that the only distinction between the two segments was marriage. Adding, “If today’s black family structure were what it was in 1960, the overall black poverty rate would be in or near single digits.”
I guess Mr. Williams failed to consider the proof that demonstrates blacks are denied opportunities in forms of employment, education and even human treatment. For example, on October 18, I borrowed a little more than $50 to buy a bus ticket to travel halfway across the state for an oral test given by the Pennsylvania Civil Service Commission. I was well dressed in a dark business suit and could have been easily mistaken as a black republican conservative. However, while on the elevator headed for the floor for the testing, a white woman asked me if I was allowed on the floor where the testing was being held. She suggested that because I was black, “I had no business on their elevator.” She ordered me off the elevator on a lower floor and said that she would have to call up stairs to let the staff know I was on my way.
Soon thereafter she was advised that I was scheduled for an oral test on the floor I was trying to get to. But, she still refused to compromise. She announced that I wasn’t permitted to travel through their office without an escort. Interestingly, it was additionally odd that the State required a monitor to sit in with me during my testing.
Nonetheless, getting back to the LIHEAP issue, the federal entitlement program provides waivers and reduced heating rates to low-income households. It is a federal program that assists those who cannot pay their bills. Eligible households can receive assistance through a direct payment to energy vendors that supply their fuel, or through a crisis component during weather-related emergencies. To be eligible for the program, household income cannot exceed 135 percent of the federal poverty income guidelines: $12,920 for a one-person household; $17,321 for two persons; $21,722 for three persons; $26,123 for four persons; $30,524 for five persons. For larger households, the guidelines increase by $4,401 for each additional person. Homeowners, renters (including those whose rent includes heat), roomers and subsidized housing tenants may be eligible.
I have a good understanding of the program because I was previously employed by Allegheny County as a planner and wrote grant applications for the agency that implements the program. However, in 1989, I was fired in retaliation for organizing a union. The political sub-division said I was terminated for being tardy four times in a four-month period. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (“PHRC”)identified a white female working in the same office as having been tardy 71 times during the same time period and not disciplined. But, the PHRC ruled it was bad management and not discrimination.
Ever since my termination the political-subdivision has found some way to retaliate against my household, i.e., always reaches from any available loophole to frustrate the process and deny my family the federal entitlement. In the past, I have complained to the State, federal government (FBI), courts and media to no avail.
Consider this, when the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan passed through Western Pennsylvania in September 2004, the LIHEAP offered free water heaters and furnaces. Income restrictions were waived allowing the affluent to participate. My family was denied relief because the deed to our house is recorded in our minor son’s name. But, LIHEAP allows renters and other non-homeowners to participate.
The current issue involves Duquense Light Company’s termination of our electric service immediately following the close of last year’s LIHEAP program (March 31, 2005). Although they already had $371 as a security deposit the utility company terminated service and demanded $866.01. And, despite the fact that we didn’t have any electrical service, the next month we received an unexplained bill for almost twice that amount actually due: $1,646.17. Because we are current living on “food stamps� we were forced to go without electric until the start of the 2005-2006 LIHEAP program.
As a “food stamp� participant we received our LIHEAP application early and returned it weeks before the November 7 start. In fact, as we do each year, we contacted Mr. Cornell’s office to advise him of our situation (requested that he process our application to allow the electrical service to be restored on November 7 without a 72-hour wait). Mr. Cornell didn’t respond.
Mrs. Titus, Mr. Cornell’s assistant did call on November 7, just before the closing (3:00 p.m.) of her office. She advised our application would be denied – “Duquense Light now demanded $2,600.â€? To memorialize the outrageous response I requested permission from Mrs. Titus to allow a “three-way” connect with the local media (Channel 4). I called Channel 4 because I was given its “gold medalâ€? for outstanding community service in 1989. However, during the three-way conversation Ms. Titus refused to acknowledge her previous position (Duquense Light demand of $2,600). She would only say our family was being denied the federal entitlement. Immediately, I voiced a complaint to Mr. Cornell’s secretary. She suggested that I call Harrisburg (Department of Welfare’s main office). She provided me the number.
Precious Perry answered the Secretary of Welfare’s telephone. She transferred me to Ms. Richman’s chief of staff (Linda Hicks). Mrs. Hicks promised to have Christian Bowser call before five p.m.. But, it never happened. At 9:00 a.m. the next morning (November 8), I called Mr. Cornell’s office and left another message requesting a return call. I also called Mrs. Hicks again and questioned why Mrs. Bowser never called.
This time, Mrs. Hicks promised to have Ms. Bowser call before 11 a.m.. Mrs. Hicks asked us to “call back if Mrs. Bowser failed to call.� It never happened.
I did call Ms. Hicks at 12:00 noon but she rushed me off the phone. She gave me Mrs. Bowser’s telephone number and requested that I call her directly. I called the number but got Mrs. Bowser’s voice mail. I left a message explaining the situation. Mrs. Bowser never called back.
On November 9, 2005, I called Mrs. Hicks again to advise Mrs. Bowser’ failure to call. But, Mrs. Hicks quickly rushed me off the phone again. She said that she would no longer address the issue. She said “communicate with Ms. Bowser from that point.â€?
Thereafter, I called Mrs. Bowser’s and spoke with her secretary. I left another message. Even more frustrated now, I called the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I spoke with Mr. Tom Birdsong. I advised him of our situation and asked if he would investigate the issue in a “confidential� manner. He said that he would forward the information to Larry Walsh. I informed him that in the previous years I have communicated with Mr. Walsh but nothing was done. I even told Mr. Birdsong that I once connected a Post-Gazette columnist, Tony Norman, and allowed him to participated with a three-way telephone call (allowed him opportunity to monitor a call to prove how rude the LIHEAP program staff was acting). Mr. Birdsong said he would have Mr. Walsh call.
At approximately 4:00 p.m., I was finally able to get Mrs. Bowser on the telephone. She laughed at our situation!
After laughing, Mrs. Bowser would only reiterated Mrs. Titus position, “Duquense Light can demand funds that are not owed.� She added, “Mrs. Titus’ position is final.� She said she would have Mrs. Titus send us a rejection letter.
Immediately, I called Mr. Birdsong. But, he became rude. The conversation concluded with Mr. Birdsong saying “No one is going to write about your family’s plight.�
50 cents, during an interview on ABC’s “The View,� said he was saddened by the fatal shooting: “I feel for the victim’s family in this situation.� He added, “But you know, these weren’t kids. This was a 30-year-old man (who) had a dispute with three other guys.�
I’m older than 30. But, what is rage? How come I’m able to control my anger? Would I have controlled my anger if one of my family members was hit by a stray bullet during the shootout?
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