From the New York Times on Tuesday evening:
Killings Could Stall Election’s Nationalist Turn
By STEVEN ERLANGER
PARIS — The Jewish school in Toulouse that was terrorized by an unknown gunman on a motorbike will reopen on Wednesday as a statement of courage and continuity. The hundreds of mourners who filled the stone courtyard of the palatial redbrick town hall there on Tuesday morning, joining others across the country in a moment of silence, will return grimly to their daily lives.
But the political debate around the shootings, and whether the deaths of an instructor and three young children were somehow inspired by anti-immigrant political talk, is likely to continue — both as a weapon in the presidential campaign and as a more general soul-searching about the nature of France.
No one is suggesting that the French presidential campaign inspired a serial killer to put a bullet in the head of an 8-year-old Jewish girl. The candidates largely suspended their campaigning and uniformly condemned the killings, as well as the murders of three French soldiers — two Muslims and a black man — apparently by the same man.
But in a period of economic anxiety, high unemployment and concerns about the war in Afghanistan and radical Islam, the far right in Europe has made considerable gains, even in essentially liberal democratic countries like Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and France.
And in the middle of a long and heated presidential campaign, with President Nicolas Sarkozy trying to win back disaffected supporters who have drifted to the far-right National Front party, the shootings at Toulouse have raised new questions about the tone and tenor of the debate here about what it is to be French.
A debate on the role of immigration, assimilation, halal butchering, street prayers, the full veil and other elements of cultural difference is inevitably about French identity — and the nature of tolerance and intolerance. ...
I like Steven Erlanger, the NYT's French correspondent, especially his distaste for Bernard Henri-Levy (here and here). But when you jump the gun due to wishful thinking, somebody needs to call you on it.
I try not to jump the gun because I don't like being wrong. I don't mind when readers comes up with better interpretations than mine. In fact, I like it. But for a big newspaper to get something flat wrong because of bias that they couldn't wait to see if their expectation is confirmed ought to be embarrassing.
From the BBC on Wednesday morning:
Police hunting a gunman suspected of killing seven people in southern France have surrounded a flat in Toulouse.
The man, named as Mohammed Merah, 24, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children".
Police are negotiating with the man, who is still said to be armed but says he may give himself up this afternoon.
Two police officers were injured in exchanges of fire during the raid and there are reports of a fresh blast.
The suspect's brother is under arrest.
The suspect's mother, who is Algerian, has been brought to the scene, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who is in attendance, said she had refused to become involved as "she had little influence on him".
The minister said the suspect had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mr Gueant, at the scene, said the suspect had shot at the door when police arrived
"He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaeda," Mr Gueant said.
"He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions."
The man shot at the door after police arrived, Mr Gueant said, injuring one officer in the knee and "lightly injuring" another.
French media have linked the suspect to a group called Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride) that was banned by Mr Gueant in January.
They also say the suspect had earlier been arrested in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for unspecified, but not terrorist-related, criminal acts and also has a criminal record in France.
The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says investigators report that the suspect was identified because of an e-mail message sent to his first victim about buying a scooter.
The message, sent from the suspect's brother's account, set up an appointment at which the soldier was killed, sources told AFP.
The man had also sought out a garage in Toulouse to have his Yamaha scooter repainted after the first two attacks. A scooter was used in all the attacks.
Posts
92 comments:
sent from the suspect's brother's account
Not exactly a genius.
In the first BBC account I read, the suspect was referred to as a "Frenchman" -- they left off the part about "Algerian origin" (I guess they felt compelled to add that later -- there must be an Orwellian doublespeak alarm at the BBC that goes off on occasion).
Then later the same article said the police had brought his mother to the scene, and she was "Algerian".
I was confused.
In before "Butbutbut breivik!"
This story never did make any sense. Why would someone who's upset about "immigration, assimilation, halal butchering, street prayers, the full veil" shoot up a Jewish school? Have large numbers of Jews been immigrating to France lately and demanding special exceptions to the laws?
There seem to be two explanations: either "journalists" can't tell the difference between two different Middle Eastern-looking groups of people, or they're cynically assuming none of the rest of us can.
Erlanger was following the lynch mob led by Bernard-Henri Lévy in this case:
A "Gigantic" Manhunt
(...)
And left-wing writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, in an article published by Haaretz, took the opportunity to denounce those who favor national identity and immigration restrictions, i.e., Marine Le Pen:
A little over twenty years ago, the entire political class, all families together with the exception of the National Front, was capable of marching behind President François Mitterrand to condemn the profanation of 34 Jewish graves at a cemetery in Carpentras.
Note: Jean-Marie Le Pen was blamed for the Carpentras profanation, but François Mitterand was behind the crime.
Today, we need an equivalent of that demonstration, with Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande in the lead, in grieving Toulouse, at the Place Capitole, this landmark of national memory where General De Gaulle came, on September 16, 1945, to preach the unity of the country to the people of the maquis, FFI, FTP, and survivors of the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. A great, solemn meeting, all political forces attending, to come to say, without nuance, that all of France is being attacked and must take a united stand when its children, whatever they may be and whatever, I repeat, the profile of the killer or his reasons, are massacred like this.
Note: The paragraph below is aimed at the Front National.
A word of advice to the pyromaniacs of the defense of "national identity," perceived as a closed entity, nervous and jittery, feeding on resentment and hatred: it is the social contract that is the victim of assassination in a bloodbath of this kind; it is the very foundation of our common existence that vacillates and gives way when such madness explodes.
There can be no worse blow to French culture, to the soul of our country, its history and when all is said and done, to its grandeur than racism and, today, anti-Semitism.
We're getting upstaged by Euros when it comes to crackpot political violence. I can't even remember the last truly ideology-oriented shooting we had.
A Neo-Nazi wanting to start a possible Race War in France could go to one Banlieue (Ghetto) and kil some of the local Arab/Black "youth", would start a major riot in no time. After crime and riots simpathy to Banlieue dwellers is pretty thin.
Killing Arb/Black soldiers, a Rabbi and his children only will bring simpathy of the people.
All through this story, I kept waiting for some more subconscious telegraphing of the media's wishful thinking: some Gallic equivalent of the "white van" that DC-area police had everyone be on the look out for during the 2002 Beltway Sniper attacks.
(John Allen Muhammad, of course, ended up having never used a white van, but a dark blue Chevrolet Caprice)
Anonymous (3/21/12 2:21 AM) said...
"I guess Jews are still trying to hash out who's worse - White nationalists or Islamic radicals."
The guys at Commentary Magazine -- who seem to be cautiously sticking to the premise that the shooter could be a neo-Nazi (even though it's now pretty obvious that he isn't) -- have an answer for you:
"Over on Twitter, The Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg and COMMENTARY contributor Jamie Kirchick have been debating whether the threat to the Jews from neo-Nazis is worse than that of Muslim Jihadists. This argument was brought up by the allegation, which may now turn out to have been a false lead, that the Toulouse massacre was perpetrated by neo-Nazis rather than Islamists. Goldberg’s point is a good one. The Nazis stand alone in history and ought not to be compared to any other genus of Jew-hater or tyrant. Goldberg is also right that Nazi analogies are almost always wrong since there really is nothing in history that compares to the Holocaust. As bad as Iran or Hamas or Hezbollah might be, and they are deadly threats, they are not the same thing as Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany."
Anonymous (3/21/12 4:24 AM) said...
"All through this story, I kept waiting for some more subconscious telegraphing of the media's wishful thinking: some Gallic equivalent of the "white van" that DC-area police had everyone be on the look out for during the 2002 Beltway Sniper attacks."
(John Allen Muhammad, of course, ended up having never used a white van, but a dark blue Chevrolet Caprice)
Ah yes, the mythical "white man in a white van" that the media was hyperventilating over. Don't forget the key detail that the van was reported to have had a Bush/Cheney 2000 bumper sticker featured prominently on its rear bumper! The cable news networks were full of profilers who knew for sure that the DC sniper had to be a pudgy, balding middle-aged, working class conservative white man who was prompted to shoot people of color out of his hatred for the "other" and because of talk radio and the the post-9/11 mass hysteria and xenophobia in which Bush-era America was drowning.
And then it turned out that everybody was a little bit off with their profiling.
Oh well, the mythical "white man in a white van" sounds like the Great White Defendant that iSteveosphere types are always talking about. The media can be forgiven for their premature exuberance.
BTW, 2002 was about the last time the media talked about alleged criminals who were "white men." In recent years, the media and bien-pensant SWPLs have relied on strict zoological terms to describe heterosexual white guys (i.e., "white males").
Black guys are "African American men." Asian guys are "Asian men." Gay guys are "gay men." But try referring to a straight white guy as anything other than a "white male" at a Georgetown cocktail party and see what happens to your social viability. It's a faux pas that will get you banished from polite society!
When the Oklahoma City bombings happened everyone assumed that it was Islamic terrorists. Israel even told us that it was Hamas and that they could help when it came time for us to attack them. Of course Timothy McVeigh was never a member of Hamas.
Supporting multiculturalism is the worst mistake Jews ever made: it means living with ALL their enemies at the same time.
"Anonymous said...
All through this story, I kept waiting for some more subconscious telegraphing of the media's wishful thinking: some Gallic equivalent of the "white van" that DC-area police had everyone be on the look out for during the 2002 Beltway Sniper attacks."
Why, I almost had forgotten about the infamous white van. Thanks for reminding me. How many white vans did one see on any given day in 2002? Why white vans? Why not silver SUVs? Even white vehicles are racist, it would seem. And the NYT quoted any number of experts assuring us that it was undoubtedly some white neo-nazi who was behind the shootings.
It weren't us, it was your huddled masses wot did it!
The Mayor of Toulose, Pierre Cohen is Jewish and represent a socialist Party
The Telegraph in the UK claimed this was done by disgraced, Nazi, French soldiers. They mentioned that Anders Breivik inspired these crimes (due to a camera on the shooter's chest). The strange thing about all the news coverage was that a description of the shooter was never provided, except that the shooter wore a helmet.
At least the MSM still has that young man who was shot in Florida by a Latino they keep saying is white.
Clearly the only thing to do here is to invade yet another mohammedan country while inviting refugees from that yet-to-be-located conflict to move to the West.
It really does just go to show how strongly confirmation bias operates in the minds of many on the left.
It never made sense to me that it was a right wing nationalist behind these killings. Yet, I realized on the other hand that the world is a complicated place, where the unexpected often happens and in very peculiar ways, so couldn't dismiss such a possibility. Those on the left who immediately concluded they "knew" who must have been responsible could hardly have felt much constrained by the typical recalcitrance of actual fact.
There really is a downside to thinking you know everything, or at least everything of importance.
I don't think it's at all distinctive to be suspicious of white vans.
I think this is just an indication that the ruling elites are losing control and were trying another scare tactic.
But for a big newspaper to get something flat wrong because of bias that they couldn't wait to see if their expectation is confirmed ought to be embarrassing.
Sure, if "news" was all they were about. In the real world the NYT is a quasi political organization (and there's some doubt about the quasi). In this world, there's no edge in waiting for confirmation. Jump in early, blame it on nativists/racists (unless it's Israel, in which case you respectfully refer to it as "the right") and if you're right, you're right and you get the backlash started sooner rather than later; if you're wrong, who cares?
Anon. said: We're getting upstaged by Euros when it comes to crackpot political violence. I can't even remember the last truly ideology-oriented shooting we had.
George Wallace?
"We're getting upstaged by Euros when it comes to crackpot political violence. I can't even remember the last truly ideology-oriented shooting we had."
Does "Fort Hood" ring any bells? (Helpful hint: occurred in November 2009.)
"But for a big newspaper to get something flat wrong because of bias that they couldn't wait to see if their expectation is confirmed ought to be embarrassing."
That is so last century.
Last truly ideology oriented shooting?
Fort Hood?
Much as the administration would like us to forget it [and apparently many have] that shooting seemed ideology oriented.
What does 'alua akbar' mean again? Nothing to do with ideology, surely...
of course no mention of 1000s of cars burnt by black and african youths every year or all the frenchmen robbed, raped, and murdered by african thugs. indeed, even to discuss the racial dynamic of such violence is deemed 'racist', but it's not a problem when the victims are non-white and the perpetrator is THOUGHT or PRESUMED to be white.
and where is NY Times on the racial violence in South Africa? Zero interest.
Anyway, whoever the real killer is, none of this would be happening if not for massive invasion/immigration to Europe, and that goes for the Norway killer too. When Frenchmen invaded Algeria, it led to massive violence between Frenchmen and Algerians. Algerians didn't mind some number of Frenchmen working and living in France. What they objected to was Frenchmen displacing Algerians as the main power in Algeria. Similarly, immigration was not a problem for Europeans as long as it was limited and immigrants longed to go along and get along. But when immigration turns massive, it turns into an invasion. Similarly, Arabs didn't mind some Jews in Palestine. They began to fear when massive numbers of Jews turned into an invasion. If NY Times Jews haven't figured this out yet, they are dumb. But of course, they know exactly what is happening and want it to happen since they wanna break the spine of white power in EU and US. Jews know they gained the power, control the power, and own the power. Now, they are trying to SECURE the power, and that means making sure that whites in the future would never form into a majority bloc to oppose or challenge Jewish power.
duke lacrosse all over again?
Hey, maybe if the guy is indeed a Pallie, maybe NY Times can give him the benefit of a doubt and the Omar Thorton treatment. You see, HE is the victim and merely struck out against people who had put him down.
We do this in the USA. The media jumped to the conclusion that the assassins of JFK and RFK were "right-wing extremists" upset over Civil Rights and De-segregation.
When Leftists kill, they're just "lone nut".
Re Drunk Idiot:
"The guys at Commentary Magazine -- who seem to be cautiously sticking to the premise that the shooter could be a neo-Nazi (even though it's now pretty obvious that he isn't) -- have an answer for you:"
Sure, here's the rest of the article:
"However, if we are discussing what Jews and other civilized persons should be worrying most about today, the idea that there is any comparison between the danger posed by the scattered bands of neo-Nazi extremists and that of Islamism is not a serious proposition. The neo-Nazis are a nasty bunch and capable of violence. But Islamist terror has at its command, terrorist armies, control of sovereign territories (Gaza, Lebanon and a major state such as Iran) as well as the resources to finance a nuclear weapons project. While the persistence of Nazism, even in its current truncated form is upsetting and makes us wonder whether Western civilization really is in trouble, Islamism is a real threat, not a symbolic one.
While we may dismiss this argument as the sort of thing that is, as Goldberg joked, for people with nothing better to do, the fact is, a lot of liberal Jews really are more scared of the dangers that existed in the past than they are of their people’s current foes.
For many liberal Jews (a group that I should stipulate does not include Goldberg), raising the question of Islamist hate for Jews — something that is the source of the rising tide of anti-Semitic agitation around the globe — is somehow in bad taste if not evidence of the dread charge of Islamophobia. They are so conditioned to believe that Muslim distaste for Israel’s actions is the reason for enmity that they ignore the vicious stream of Jew-hatred coming out of the Middle East and prefer to worry about an altogether mythical post 9/11 backlash against Muslims.
Instead, they prefer to dwell on the far less potent danger posed by the tiny groups of Hitler-lovers who are generally too weak and isolated to do anything more than disturb the peace. While such groups are despicable and deserve the attention of law enforcement, to focus on them is to re-fight the last war.
We don’t know yet who committed the Toulouse massacre but we do know that it was the work of a Jew-hater who sought out and murdered Jewish children in cold blood solely because they were Jewish. It would have been reassuring in some ways to think that this crime was only the work of outliers like the neo-Nazis. The thought that it is part of a rising trend of Islamist hate — which has been aided and abetted by the anti-Zionist attitudes of European elites — is far more troubling.
Worrying about Nazis is an exercise that is far less distressing than forcing ourselves to deal with the real dilemmas of our age. Chasing ghosts may be of little utility for contemporary Jewish security, but it is easier to think about than coping with real live Muslim terror."
I'm not fond of the Iraq Attaq either, but if you suborn the Jews you just might win the war.
You notice too how the gunman was cunning enough to avoid killing any ethnic French gentile civilians.
Firstly as an immigrant or descendant of immigrants he wouldn't have a leg to stand on killing Frenchmen in their native land.Secondly, this would have generated the most almighty anti-immigrant backlash in France - possibly leading to a Le Pen victory.
"This story never did make any sense. Why would someone who's upset about "immigration, assimilation, halal butchering, street prayers, the full veil" shoot up a Jewish school? Have large numbers of Jews been immigrating to France lately and demanding special exceptions to the laws?"
Because European Jews are at the forefront of liberal policies such as massive immigration.
The victims were black soldiers and Jews. Suppose victims were whites and the killer was non-white. The news would be suppressed, and if rightwing groups tried to use it politically, they would have been denounced of 'racism'. So, Jews can mourn over dead Jews, but whites cannot mourn over dead whites.
but white men did burn Korans and shoot 16 Afghani civilians. and white men did drop tons of bombs on Libya. but... who did they take orders from?
If NY Times said Terreblanche got what he deserved because of the evil of South African Apartheid system, then why couldn't one use the same moral logic and say it's justified for Muslims to target Zionists over the horrible state of affairs in the Middle East?
I remember white vans at the time with signs posted, "I AM NOT THE GUY. STOP PULLING ME OVER. I HAVE WORK TO DO".
The media spins like a dervish, doesn't it? Nice stuff, as usual. I've linked to this and related it to that other evil White guy, George Zimmerman, here:
Whitey Didn't Do It After All, Alas!
Several commenters here have said they found the initial suggestion, that the perpetrator might be white motivated by racial animus, questionable. Are they aware that before the school attack of this week, on two occassions there have been attacks on non-white soldiers?
If the man who did this was indeed a Jihadist then we have to assume he targeted those non-whites because he viewed them as traitors.
When Gabrielle Giffords and the others were shot the political spinmeisters moved with lightning speed to set up a hue and cry that blamed conservatives, gun owners, talk radio, etc. Apparently there are large groups of hirelings who are on standby at any moment ready to jump into action at any time to exploit situations like this when they arise.
It's really repulsive to see them try to benefit from other people's tragedies, such as in the Giffords and French cases, using it to further their political agendas. These people have no shame, no scruples, they are disgusting and have brought the already low nature of politics even further down.
TGGP,
Awesome "white van" link.
Police urge everyone to “stay alert”, but refused to comment when asked if they believe, as some do, that falling into a reverie causes the white vans to appear.
Funny how the Jewish killings were supposedly "caused" by talk about, or against, immigration, when the killer was not a Frenchman but an immigrant.
How naive are you? You think a little thing like the fact that the killer is a jihadist is going to discourage The System from using this as a weapon against whites? Look at the Trayvon Martin story in the U.S. It was known that the shooter wasn't white since before this became nation news, yet that didn't stop the media from twisting it into an orgy of white-hating racism. Having total media power means never having to say we were wrong.
a couple of observations:
this is an all too typical pattern now - a bomb attempt in times square bloomberg (The fat corrupt mayor) said 'it's probably a tea party member mad about health care'
as soon as he found out it was a muslim "let's be calm, not blame groups, ect"
Frankly, i hope Bloomberg, Erlangers, and who-everstiens of the world get what they deserve, one gets tired of putting up with their nonsense.
So this shooting of school children- I don't support it, but how indifferent are Zionists to the shooting of Palestinian school children, mothers, innocents, that occurs on a daily basis?
A jewish cemetary gets a spray painted with a swastika - page 1 of the new york times. Simon W. Inc, builds a 'tolerance center' on top of a muslim graveyard - barely a whisper from the media.
My memory of the DC-area sniper shootings is somewhat different than most seem to recall.
The vehicle wasn't described as a "van" in the most usual sense of that word presently. Rather, though technically a van, it was described as what many of us would call a "box van" or, sometimes, a "straight job," of the type the rental outfits have in box lengths from 12-24 feet. My visualization was of the rear door raised a few inches to accomodate a well-aimed shot from a prone shooter. That might certainly have been applicable to a specific, targeted
(assassination) killing.
But when the second (or third) took place, I surmised that the vehicle description was in error--it was just too noticeable (and too cumbersome) to be selected for numerous, repeated, spree-type killings.
But the vision of a driver paired with a prone shooter so impressed me, that I called the FBI "tip" line and explained my theory that the vehicle would be a more or less ordinary sedan with the rear seat removed or removable, to permit a shooter to lie prone and fire through a hole in the trunk lid (while the driver remsained in position both as driver and observer). Of course, what I was "downloading" wasn't, technically, a "tip" but the FBI guy seemed to listen dutifully (and it's almost certainly on record somewhere).
Once I'd expressed myself on that score, I volunteered my idea of how to catch the perps. It involved check points along the major freeways surrounding the city, each requiring two officers: one to engage each vehicle carrying 1 or 2 for a moment while the other, as surreptitiously as possible and from some distance to the side and rear, scanned each trunk lid for sign of an aperture through which shots could be fired.
That was that--I'd done what I could. But it wasn't the end.
They shot a woman (coincidentally, an FBI employee) on a mall parking lot in northern VA and left a note (contents published). Within a few minutes, I called the FBI again and gave them specific advice, including how to catch 'em:
1. Shooters were certainly black
(ascertainable from language
and usage in the letter).
2. Shooters' plan was to kill
Chief Moose when he made a call
(directed in the letter) from
a pay phone(number given in
letter).
3. My advice: locate a good place
(roadside)from which the phone
could be surveyed and, then
STAY AWAY FROM THAT SPOT,
instead, selecting another spot
from which that surveillance
spot could be surveyed: the
shooters would take the spot
and could there be easily
apprehended.
One further note: I cautioned
they shouldn't pay attention to
or interfere with anyone trying
to use the phone--that would
give away the set-up and would
certainly not be the perps.
As it worked out, they paid no attention whatever (and the perps were located and apprehended after having been reported as suspicious by someone noticing them later, in a rest stop).
And, though they obviously hadn't paid attention, they'd managed to have photo surveillance that included the place selected by the two from which to survey that pay phone. Photos released after the arrest quite clearly show the two just where I said they'd be--surveying the phone from a place affording a good shot at Chief Moose (or other police personnel) if he tried to make the phone call.
And the jerks even "tipped their hand" by arresting two Salvadorean illegals who tried to use the phone (during which the perps can be seen laughing). But for that observant truck driver (in the rest stop), they might have killed more (or even escaped entirely).
" I can't even remember the last truly ideology-oriented shooting we had."
that's because obama, and the national television news networks, don't want you to remember that nidal malik hasan is still alive, and we're paying to feed him and shelter him and defend him from the 150 grain bullet that should have blown his brains out in a military execution 1 month after his rampage in texas.
incredibly, this hasan guy will live to see the entirety of obama's first 4 years as commander in chief.
america has become a weak, weak nation.
I wrote the following about a year ago, though it's worth reiterating occasionally...
The media does not exist to report news or facts. The notion is manifestly absurd. Rather its purpose is to validate those in power and vilify those out. And as whites have insanely relinquished not only their power but their fundamental rights as well, the media has become proportionally more hostile. We may expect this trend to continue.
It really doesn't matter. Part of the benefit of being on the Left is never having to say you're sorry. The storyline of the evil right-wingers, though incorrect in this specific instance, is still a credible threat no doubt as can be attested to by esteemed groups like the $PLC.
It's sort of like all those collegiate racial hate hoaxes that turn out to be orchestrated by a minority trying to get attention. Usually this person of color is not disciplined because even though no actual hate crime was committed, they did society a favor by bringing to its attention the fact such a crime could occur unless we take action to change the climate.
So my guess is no one is going to be losing sleep tonight over inaccurate reporting from yesterday. If anything they will toss and turn over not being able to haul in their big white whale. Oh well, they still got SSG Bales.
I didn't follow this story much and am surprised to find that there was so much media speculation about right wing whatever suspects.
When I read the original story about shooting of soldiers, then the Jewish school shootup, I immediately assumed it was a jihadist.
It also reminded me of what I've wondered ever since living through the sniper panic here in DC. That is, why haven't the jihadists taken this approach? It is cheap and very effective in tying up tons of enemy resources and doesn't require lots of moving parts like some grandiose Dr. Evil scheme.
I guess Jews are still trying to hash out who's worse - White nationalists or Islamic radicals. The latter are double plus ungood when they're in their own countries but on the domestic front the former are still the big boogeyman.
It starts to make more sense if you look at who they see as real competition (in the broad sense). Muslims? Not so much. Whites, on the other hand...
"George Wallace?"
Arthur Bremer shot Wallace because he wanted to shoot someone famous.
"As bad as Iran or Hamas or Hezbollah might be, and they are deadly threats, they are not the same thing as Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany."
LOL
Yeah because Arabs are more likely to be incompetent.
They may want to do what Hitler did, but they aren't organized enough to do it.
Much as the administration would like us to forget it [and apparently many have] that shooting seemed ideology oriented.
Watching Rachel Maddow's show the night of the Ft. Hood shootings (it was on at the gym, I hadn't much choice) I discovered to her that the issue was about "Murder in the Military."
"In before "Butbutbut breivik!"
Breivik's only claim to fame is that he was more successful in his murderous rampage than any of the recent terrorists. Oh, except for the 9/11 hijackers, who averaged about 150 deaths and $1-3 billion in damage apiece.
There are far more fifth columnists in our society sympathetic to men like Merah than there are to men like Breivik. And when you adjust for relative population size - 1% Muslims vs. 68% whites - Muslims are far, far worse. The relative numbers is what you especially need to consider when you're discussing immigration.
"As bad as Iran or Hamas or Hezbollah might be, and they are deadly threats, they are not the same thing as Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany."
So the suggestion is...that the French whites are like Nazis?
France stood against the Nazis. Great Britain stood against the Nazis. Poland stood against the Nazis. The Benelux countries stood against the Nazis.
Why are all Europeans suddenly Nazis - because they're ethnic cousins to the Germans? Hell, Jews are ethnic cousins to both Muslims and Germans.
Both of my grandfathers fought in the European theatre in World War II. I grow tired of Jews openly questioning the tolerance of white conservatives. There hasn't been a pogrom in the Anglosphere in over 700 years.
And I grow tired of the fact that Jews are allowed to openly question whether Islamic immigration is a threat to them, while I am not allowed to ask whether it is a threat to me.
I've been following this story as it unfolded for 48+ hours on France24 TV. The desire to use this tragedy to cripple the LePen candidacy is palpable. All the commentators are now crestfallen that the murderer has been exposed as a Muslim.
Not to be thwarted by facts, they now imply that anti-immigration rhetoric by the right may be responsible for setting the poor guy off. LePen MUST be responsible somehow!
Another aspect of this is the shocking intelligence that the shooter and hundreds of other young Muslims are known to have been to AFPAC for training but are allowed to reside in France. It seems that the UK and Germany all have AFPAC trained terrorists living among the public. Of course these human land mines are adjudged Frenchmen, Brits', and Germans due to our stupid multi-cultural, self defeating orthodoxy.
If these countries insist on being "Propositional Nations," would it be too much to ask that terrorist training overseas would count as a No to the proposition and thus cause to revoke citizenship?
Goto The Guardian's live coverage of this incident and look at the entries at 6:44pm
Basically they are slamming Le Pen for stating that the death penalty should be brought back. They are accusing her of trying to use these attacks for political gain. They quote other candidates and political people in France. Yet, they don't mention how EVERYBODY was using this incident against Le Pen just 24 hours ago.
Here are two dandy quotes:
"The extreme right is trying to exploit this situation," he said. "Nobody has the right to let the political debate run off the rails."
...
"Our first duty from this point is to prevent this situation being used as a pretext to promote hateful approximations and stigmatisation,"
Whoever did it, it doesn't negate the fact that there is a real problem with 'diversity' and massive immigration in Europe.
After all, the massive roundup of Japanese Americans during WWII didn't negate the right of Americans to be angry with Japan for attacking the US.
And the violence of the Algerian rebels against French civilians didn't negate the desire of Algerians to be liberated from French rule.
So, the demagoguery is really on the part of liberals. They are trying to use one possible instance of rightwing violence to smear the desire of patriotic Frenchmen to keep France French.
If this is so, then Jewish violence in the Middle East negates all of Zionism.
And black violence in America negates all of the Civil Rights movement. And didn't Mandela start out as a terrorist?
Speaking of violence negating entire movements, how about the fact that so many terrorists in the 60s and 70s were leftists such as Baader Meinhof gang and Red Brigade? And wasn't the May 68 movement a violent attempt to overthrow the liberal democratic order? Yet, the very people who indulged in such violence--and cheer led third world violence of national liberation--are now decrying the violence of the far right(when it wasn't even by the far right)?
btw, there is no greater violence than wholesale invasion of another people, race, and culture. What is appalling is not right wing violence but lack of such given the horrible problems faced by most Europeans as they look to the demographic future.
When someone claims America (or any other Western country) is a "propositional nation," I'm inclined to ask "What is the proposition? Where is it written in law? How does one prove he believes in the 'proposition,' and what is the penalty for disbelief?"
Of course we are all required to presume that anyone who comes to America automatically buys into the so-called proposition, and couldn't be coming here for anything crass, like monetary gain.
Matthew said, "When someone claims America (or any other Western country) is a "propositional nation," I'm inclined to ask "What is the proposition? Where is it written in law?"
Matthew, the newly born republic propositioned a certain group of people in 1790. Those receiving that offer are described here.
How quickly will this story change from: the Left blatantly exploiting it for political gain ==> saying French nationalists are mean, nasty bigots for exploiting it for political gain?
From: "French conservatives are all racists!" ==> "How dare you characterize all Muslims as terrorists?"
5,4,3,2...
What began as a pretext to stigmatize Whites is now giving way to other pretexts to continue stigmatizing Whites.
It really doesn't matter. Part of the benefit of being on the Left is never having to say you're sorry. The storyline of the evil right-wingers, though incorrect in this specific instance, is still a credible threat no doubt as can be attested to by esteemed groups like the $PLC.
That's mostly true, but I think it's more accurate to say that the Left never has to say sorry to whites.
Imagine some hardcore lefty saying something that ticked off blacks collectively in the wake of the California "gay marriage" thing a couple of years ago. I think we can all imagine a scenario in which the leftists responsible could have been forced to apologize to any blacks they offended with their outbursts.
But try imagining leftists (indeed, anyone) apologizing to whites for anything, no matter how grave the offense. It's literally unimaginable isn't it. Whites are the only group of people in America (indeed, anywhere on earth) who cannot force an apology out of anyone, which is really extraordinary when you consider that whites are vastly more sinned against than sinning.
The wacko who shot up Giffords' appearance and the nut who shot up Ft Hood were both politically motivated, as well as apparently pretty seriously mentally ill. There have been a few abortionists murdered by guys who were probably not crazy, and who had an unambiguous political motive.
Political motives arent all that common a reason for mass shootings (I think the usual motive is some combination of crazy and revenge against an ex-wife or ex-coworkers.), but it does happen. They're probably the easiest kind of terrorist attack to successfully pull off, because guns aren't all that hard to come by, and it takes no great talent or training to manage to kill a bunch of people with a gun--a bunch of bloody mass shootings have been carried out by unemployably crazy/inept nuts.
Former Israeli Prime-Minister Menachem Begin from the conservative Likud party was a terrorist during the British Mandate of Palestine, killing British soldiers in the most brutal ways.
When I read the media speculating that the killer must be a Nazi, at first I thought they must be right. Then I thought about his initial target of black and Muslim Paratroopers, and what kind of terrorist would attack them? Well, it seemed strongly reminiscent of the IRA tactic of targetting Catholic police officers in Northern Ireland. Which made me doubt the media narrative and think he might well be an Islamist killer.
I'm quite proud of having used a bit of ratiocination to get it right, for once.
But try imagining leftists (indeed, anyone) apologizing to whites for anything, no matter how grave the offense. It's literally unimaginable isn't it. Whites are the only group of people in America (indeed, anywhere on earth) who cannot force an apology out of anyone, which is really extraordinary when you consider that whites are vastly more sinned against than sinning.
I think to an average Joe off the street who doesn't read blogs like this, that statement sounds odd. After all, aren't we really complaining about whites being mean to whites since all the people in power pushing what we would call anti-white policies are in fact white?
Maybe we need to come up with a new ethnic group based upon political orientation. I know many on blogs like this will say Jews are not white. But that is not fair because there are some Jews that are actually pretty much on our side like Paul Gottfried. And there are many white gentiles who do more harm than any nonwhite would ever dream.
Whatever we call them, they clearly don't identify with European peoples and actively promote policies to diminish and destroy European peoples and their culture despite their shared genetic history.
The question I have is are these post racial whites gone forever from the fold and thus should be treated as a hostile ethnic group, or are some capable of reembracing their heritage pending some major shock? I am coming to believe it is the former, for if it is the latter, I don't know what else has to to happen to make these people come to their senses.
Most of the MSM got it wrong. Interestingly, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on 20 March that Neo-Nazis were no longer suspected and that the authorities were thinking in terms of Islamists, but a full day later a lot of other newspapers were still clinging stubbornly to the Neo-Nazi story. Wishful thinking.
Incidentally, one of the North African-origin soldiers killed was not Muslim but Catholic.
The Guardian yesterday:
"Politicians across the continent have found a new magic formula for electoral success and survival by playing on fears of foreigners and particularly of Islam – the wink and a nod that says that immigration has been the root of our social and economic decline.
Until today, they might have tried to argue that there was no harm in it..."
The Guardian today:
"In the middle of a heated presidential campaign, politicians and their supporters will inevitably point the finger at the political and religious identity of the killer, questioning the place of Islam and Muslims in the country... I fear a surge of islamophobia and anti-Semitism, raising doubts on the place of both Jews and Arabs in French society."
they look at moorish spain as their 'golden age' and pretty much blame all their woes on Christians.
OT but not really:
http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/top_stories/158031/advocates-demand-justice-for-trayvon-martin-shooting-at-union-square-rally
Advocates Demand Justice For Trayvon Martin Shooting At Union Square Rally
i went by here today- its amazing how the left can get aggresive, mass mobs at the drop of the hat. conservatives just can't do that.. Of course it would be reported in the media very differenetly
As we all know, the shooter should have been a Neo-Nazi.
The wacko who shot up Giffords' appearance and the nut who shot up Ft Hood were both politically motivated, as well as apparently pretty seriously mentally ill
We know the Ft. Hood guy is nuts because he's a psychiatrist. The fact that he's a field grade officer in a loony left-wing outfit like the US Army doesn't say much for his sanity either.
i saw some videos of the gunman making "rodeo" with a car in a french ghetto.
The french ghettos created a sub-culture that mix the worst of both worlds, hip-hop ghetto gangsta with islamic tribalism.
Just now on France24: "The suspect has been to Afghanistan... TWICE... where he has been ARRESTED and SENT BACK to France".
I... I lack words for how I feel right now about Europe.
But Sarkozy has a plan - cut immigration from 200K to 100K - that will do yah!
Experience has taught me that it's best to wait for the facts to appear ... but when I first heard about the Toulouse synagogue killings, I asked myself just when was the last time an extreme-rightist-neo-nazi-reactionary-yadda actually shot up a synagogue. I honestly can't remember a recent case, but off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen Muslim fanatic attacks in places as far apart as Seattle and Buenos Aires. Our media are not simply biased, they're stupid. The synagogue murders really should have been a red flashing light that this was more jihad.
One thought I did have, that turned out to be wrong -- I thought maybe this was revenge for the American sergeant who killed the Afghan civilians. Instead, we find that it's once again about the Palestinians, a group that is by the way sanctified 24/7/365 in French media.
When the Oklahoma City bombings happened everyone assumed that it was Islamic terrorists.
No. I assumed it was a domestic anti-government anti-corporate group with no ties to Islam.
There was also James von Brunn. Remember him? An old guy who shot up the Museum of Holocaust killing a guard. That was in 2009 too.
And the synagogue attacks in the US are not as rare as you think. Just last month they arrested a guy (not a Muslim) who firebombed two synagogues in Jersey.
No. I assumed it was a domestic anti-government anti-corporate group with no ties to Islam.
Yeah, back in those days a lot of people were angry about the federal murders at Ruby Ridge and Waco and the cover-ups and the promotions and awards for the perps that followed.
Are you still out there Lon Horiuchi?
Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio at antiwar.com has a lot of interviews about the likely foreknowledge of the bombing by FBI and (yes) SPLC informers. It's been a while since I've listened , but there may also have been someone representing ATF.
This story is just crazy. I live in France, and a crazy journalist "Nicolas Chapuis" is upset because the culprit is actually not a nazi. He wrote : "putain je suis dégoûté que ça soit pas un nazi"
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/806707twitternicolaschapuis.png
Journalist Nicolas Chapuis' tweet:
F**k, I'm digusted this not a nazi.
@Meng Hu :
there's more detail at the fdesouche blog, for those who read french. It's truly disgusting! That leftard would probably have loved to be able to write about some "blond, blue eyed, christian, tall ethnic frenchman"!
"The man, named as Mohammed"
Why is it always the same guy? why hasn't somebody stopped him yet?
"The wacko who shot up Giffords' appearance and the nut who shot up Ft Hood were both politically motivated"
I don't think the Giffords shooter was politically motivated in any way that we comprehend here on earth. The dude was just whacked. He had some bizarre sort of ideology, sure, which is why he shot a congresscritter, but he probably couldn't have gotten anyone to know what the hell he meant.
"And the synagogue attacks in the US are not as rare as you think. Just last month they arrested a guy (not a Muslim) who firebombed two synagogues in Jersey."
You can't just look at total numbers, but at relative numbers. Muslims are maybe 1-2% of the US population. Non-Jewish whites are around 65%. Yet there are still more politically-oriented acts of violence by Muslims than by non-Jewish whites.
"Matthew said...
France stood against the Nazis. Great Britain stood against the Nazis. Poland stood against the Nazis. The Benelux countries stood against the Nazis.
Why are all Europeans suddenly Nazis - because they're ethnic cousins to the Germans? Hell, Jews are ethnic cousins to both Muslims and Germans.
Both of my grandfathers fought in the European theatre in World War II. I grow tired of Jews openly questioning the tolerance of white conservatives. There hasn't been a pogrom in the Anglosphere in over 700 years.
And I grow tired of the fact that Jews are allowed to openly question whether Islamic immigration is a threat to them, while I am not allowed to ask whether it is a threat to me."
Well said, sir.
T. O . Meehan (3/21/12 12:17 PM) --
> Not to be thwarted by facts, [France24's commentators] now imply that anti-immigration rhetoric by the right may be responsible for setting the poor guy off. LePen MUST be responsible somehow!
Us anglophones can get a taste of the sensibility that T.O. Meehan describes by listening to US public radio show "The World," produced by the NPR-like PRI network. Their segment on the Toulouse killings from the evening of Wednesday 3/21/12 is easy to access, thanks to good archiving.
At this page, anchor Lisa Mullins introduces reporter Gerry Hadden at 9 min 43 sec.
From Mullins' lead-in: "The murders in Toulouse have inflamed an already controversial presidential campaign in France, one that's filled with rhetoric that some have labeled racist."
Before wrapping up at 14 min 00 sec, Hadden has found many ways to validate Mullin's frame.
His interviews are accompanied by disdain towards the benighted anti-immigrant extremists like Sarkozy, who have visited this tragedy on France with their racism.
It's the gentility of Hadden's sneers that make this a pitch-perfect exercise in SWPL sensibility.
Anonymous (3/21/12 4:05 PM) said...
Advocates Demand Justice For Trayvon Martin Shooting At Union Square Rally
"i went by here today- its amazing how the left can get aggresive, mass mobs at the drop of the hat. conservatives just can't do that.. Of course it would be reported in the media very differenetly"
Last weekend, there were 37 separate shootings of blacks and Hispanics in Chicago. All of the shootings took place in high crime black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
The victims of the shootings were either killed or severely wounded. Among the dead is a 6 year old girl who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Hey, it was 85° on Friday and Saturday in Chicago. Summer came early this year, and since there's been a citywide gang war raging on for the last 3 summers (where dozens are killed each weekend), it's no surprise that the unseasonably warm weather ushered in the 2012 gang war with abandon.
But nobody's protesting. And there aren't any calls for the DOJ to do anything about the gun violence that's killing dozens of young brothaz on the Southside of Chicago.
Not to worry though -- the next time a white cop shoots an armed black assailant in self defense, the protesters will awake from their mass slumber.
BTW, a little-known factor in Chicago's recent explosion of violence is the Feds' decimation of Chicago's Italian mob (known as the "Outfit") over the last 5-6 years.
The Italian mob owned the
city for decades. Even the black street gangs had to stay in line (as much as they're inclined to 'stay in line'). But now the mob is so weak, they can't even keep ghetto thugs from coming in and causing trouble in wiseguy neighborhoods. The tough guys are either in prison, 6 feet under, out of the business, or they're in the suburbs.
And in their absence, the city's on fire.
Anonymous (3/21/12 6:23 PM) said...
"There was also James von Brunn. Remember him? An old guy who shot up the Museum of Holocaust killing a guard. That was in 2009 too."
And how did the media play the von Brunn story?
Ah yes, the media "reported" that talk radio and the climate of hate generated by conservative politicians caused the octogenarian neo-Nazi to commit his crimes. Then they found out that the old man had been keeping up with the times and had taken to the web to post his neo-Nazi writings.
In his manifesto, von Brunn called for the overthrow of the American system of government, to be replaced by socialism (National Socialism!). And he repeatedly stated that whites should abandon Christianity and return to pre-Christian Teutonic pagan forms of worship, since in his view, Christianity was an illegitimate creed conspiratorially created by Jews (Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc.) to subjugate white men. He saw Christianity as a Jewish ploy to undermine white power by forcing white men to live under some semblance of Jewish laws.
But the media pushed the line that von Brunn was a right wing conservative and an ardent Christian who was motivated to kill Jews (and a black security guard) by his right wing conservative Christian ideology.
Meng Hu said...
"This story is just crazy. I live in France, and a crazy journalist 'Nicolas Chapuis' is upset because the culprit is actually not a nazi. He wrote : 'putain je suis dégoûté que ça soit pas un nazi'"
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/806707twitternicolaschapuis.png
That kind of stuff is par for the course.
In New York, after it became clear that the "Times Square Bomber" was a Muslim, and not a right wing, conservative "Tea Party" terrorist -- as Mayor Bloomberg had initially claimed, and as the media had breathlessly reported for days -- an exceptionally dimwitted MSNBC News anchor named Contessa Brewer lamented that the bomber was a Muslim and not a conservative white male.
BTW, a little-known factor in Chicago's recent explosion of violence is the Feds' decimation of Chicago's Italian mob (known as the "Outfit") over the last 5-6 years.
The Italian mob owned the
city for decades. Even the black street gangs had to stay in line (as much as they're inclined to 'stay in line').
This sounds like Providence in the 1980s under Cianci and Paolino, and it calls to mind the brilliant Mancur Olson's discussion of stationary and roving bandits.
A stationary bandit, like the USG or an entrenched mafia, has incentives to protect the people from roving bandits.
The notion of anarchotyranny describes the present situation in which the formerly overarching stationary bandit has been replaced by a giant roving bandit with a destructive level of virulence evolved through horizontal transmission.
Yeah, the holocaust museum shooter is another case. And there was some guy who shot up the El Al ticket counter at LAX, though I think his motivation was wanting to kill his ex wife or something.
Political and tribal motivations are part of the normal human equipment. There's no reason to think that some subset of people won't be motivated by them to do awful things, especially when their beliefs are combined with a nice dollop of crazy.
The hunt for the Great White Defendant continues!
"If the man who did this was indeed a Jihadist then we have to assume he targeted those non-whites because he viewed them as traitors."
There was already a failed jihadist plot in the UK to kill Muslim soldiers. That's the first thing I though of when I heard about the initial shootings.
Chapuis' tweet seems to be a quote from "redac".
Has Chicago actually gotten more violent in the past 5-6 years? I thought crime had been dropping, like the rest of the country.
I found this reaction to Tolouse interesting, because the Jewish writer seems more motivated by American anti-secularism than the immigration politics of France. The argument (if you can even call it that) tying in French laicism to the actions of the shooter is also among the more ridiculous I have heard in a while.
I found Rachael Levy's association of laicite with jihadism bizarre enough that I checked out her twitter page, where she claimed her original essay was cut for space. The full version at her personal blog isn't much more informative. She also cites someone complaining that Europe is too tolerant of anti-semitism from pro-palestianians. That person claims "The earlier confusion in Toulouse is understandable. After all, when Jews are murdered, the killer could come from the left or from the right.", but offers no actual examples from the "right".
Post a Comment