It would be interesting to compare coverage of gypsies (a.k.a. Roma) in the New York Times versus the Daily Mail. My impression is that you could come up with an equally accurate awareness from both, but that, even though New York Times readers average better reading skills, the average Daily Mail reader winds up better informed because the Daily Mail articles are structured to communicate the key information, while the NYT articles are structured to bury it.
For example, in summer's NYT article "Treatment Still Harsh for Roma in France" by Steven Erlanger, the first five paragraphs are boilerplate about how everybody is mean to the gypsies, but then you get to this, which I'll ellipse like crazy to get the key point across lucidly:
Small, thin, often wearing bright clothing like green pants or a pink scarf, the men are prostitutes, looking for work or waiting for prearranged rendezvous. ... Some are as young as 14, though they insist they are older; some are 16 and married, sometimes with children. ... He and his friends, like Bogdan, 17, and Gutsa, 17, whose wife is pregnant, “do business” at the station, he said;
Homosexual prostitution and heterosexual baby boom all rolled into one!
NYT reporters tend to be bright and they'd prefer not to be boring, but they have to respect the world view of their readers: everything bad is the fault of some majority. So, you start with five paragraphs about how bad the majority treats the minority to imply that the juicy details you finally get to reveal about how hilariously awful is Roma culture must be the fault of the French for trying not to get their pockets picked by gypsies.
In contrast, the Daily Mail structures its articles to put the fun stuff first. From today's Daily Mail:
Roma gypsy gang sold their women for stealing skills and children were used like conscripts in a criminal army, French court told at start trial
Young wives with good looks and stealing skills were traded for £170,000
Police discovered the 'criminal army' through phone tapping
Defendants argue it was illegal intrusion into normal Roma dowry system
The scary word is "normal."
27 people charged are accused of committing 100 robberies in 2011 alone
Offences were carried out in France, Belgium and parts of Germany
Suspected gang leader, a 66-year-old woman to be tried separately
By PETER ALLEN IN PARIS
Children as young as 10 were part of a ‘criminal army’ of Roma immigrants which included 13-year-old wives ‘bought’ for up to 170,000 pounds each, a court heard today.
Details of the sinister network emerged during the trial of 27 men and women aged between 19 and 55 in Nancy, eastern France.
All face up to 10 years in prison after being accused of a wide range of crimes, ranging from robbery to people trafficking.
The case began on the day that France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius declared Romania and Bulgaria should not be allowed into the passport-free Schengen zone due to security fears.
Ultimately run by a 66-year-old woman, the network expected boys and girls to bring in at least 4000 pounds a month through robbing people in the street or in their homes.
It comes as Britain braces itself for an influx of Roma from Bulgaria and Romania when EU labour restrictions are eased next year.
Gilles Weintz, the detective who led the enquiry into the France-based ring, said all those involved were Roma originally from Croatia.
... Male leaders ‘bought young wives’ for the cash equivalent of up to £170,000 each from other families in Croatia, and selected them especially for their stealing skills.
‘The better they were at stealing, the higher the price was,’ said Mr Weintz.
‘Young looking women also commanded higher prices because they had a better chance of passing themselves off as minors.
‘The burglaries were carried out daily all over Europe,’ he added. ‘They never stopped - for the children it was like a form of military service.’
Those running the ring were monitored via tapped phones which revealed a ‘mafia style’ network, with those in charge using their stolen money to buy upmarket properties in Slavonski Brod in Croatia.
... The officer cited the case of a woman identified as Nathalie who had been bought but failed to live up to expectations by bringing in 'only' 200,000 euros over two years. ...
Her family was allegedly ordered to pay back 100,000 euros but the amount was finally reduced to 55,000 to take into account the sexual abuse she had suffered. ...
All argue that their complicated financial transactions were based on traditional Roma dowry arrangements, and that the phone tapping was illegal.
And now we finally get to the boring NYT lede-type stuff:
Defence lawyer Alain Behr also said the current anti-Roma feeling in France meant they could not get a fair trial.
‘I hope there will not be a judicial stigmatisation as there is currently a political stigmatisation,’ said Mr Behr.
Speaking on France Inter radio today, foreign minister Laurent Fabius said France is not in favour of allowing Romania and Bulgaria into Europe's passport-free Schengen zone for now due to concerns about border security.
He said: 'If there is not a change in conditions, we won't be in favour.' ...
Romanian and Bulgarian citizens currently have the right to travel with a passport throughout the Schengen zone, which removes border controls among most EU countries as well as non-members such as Switzerland and Norway. ...
Fabius fears lax immigration laws in those countries could mean any nationality could gain French access.
... Last week, Interior Minister Manuel Valls caused uproar in the left-wing governing coalition by saying most immigrant Roma could not be integrated into society and should go home.
The far-right National Front has made the issue a top campaign theme for March's municipal elections, warning of a new influx of immigrants if Romanian and Bulgarian citizens are allowed to travel freely without passports in the Schengen zone.
Slats Grobnik vs Slick Globolitz.
ReplyDelete"...everything bad is the fault of some majority."
ReplyDeleteExcept in South Africa, of course.
meanwhile, in america...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-kl7Ow_FPM
fight at wal-mart over the last copy of grand theft auto.
not sure whether this is california or texas, but that's what the average people look like now. no need to invoke gypsy populations to see that the US has got some serious long term problems ahead. if only gypsies were all it had to worry about.
Smackdown, huh?
ReplyDelete2-3 generations of exogamous marriage helped to wreck the Sicilian mafia. Of course Mafia wives were never part of the "life". Status was gained by marrying women were at worse "Jersey Shore" but more often than not convent (or Hebrew, think Goodfellas) school.
ReplyDeleteI remember a Senior FBI official saying that law enforcement had only a minor role in the decline of the mafia. He attributed the bulk of reason the Sicilian mob fell apart was that next generation was substantially less violent and "sociopathic" then its predecessor due to the overall eugenic selection of proper parochial school girls as marriage partners.
More should be written about how the Roma/Gypsies have enforced a clearly disgenic anti-social endogamous breeding tradition across the centuries.
Romania and Bulgaria are part of EU. Their citizens can travel, as tourists, without a passport, in any of the EU-member states. They still need work visas if they intend to stay and work. This is not a huge hurdle, but it's there.
ReplyDeleteThe acceptance into Schengen space would allow Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to work in any EU state with much less restrictions (maybe zero?).
The main (official) argument in the West is that these 2 states have un-secured borders which would allow an influx of non-EU citizens into EU states.
The real reason may be , at least in part, that they are sick-and-tired of the Gypsies that got into West EU states (legally, as citizens of EU-member states), but stayed (illegally) and "worked" in these very lucrative (for them , the Gypsies) "businesses".
well, if we admit that 'racist' depictions of gypsies have any basis in fact.. well, guess what other shoe will drop? Who have been the two most 'persecuted' groups in Europe.. the gypsies and the ... ?
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you ask Bryan Caplan for a guest post on the subject of how civilized countries ought to deal with Gypsy immigration?
ReplyDeleteThen there is Dmitri Orlov's take on the gypsies, from his latest book. Basically its that the gypsies are guilty of everything the Daily Mail accuses them of (and he had not entirely positive dealings with these people as a child), but hey, good for them!
ReplyDeleteEverything bad is the fault of the majority". Should be on a bumper sticker.
ReplyDeleteLet's see... gypsy stories... I have a few...
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked at a retail store, 4 gypsy women and one little girl, about 11, came into the store, did the old "hey, I gave you a fifty dollar bill, and you gave me change for a twenty" bullshit.
While the arguing ensued with another employee, I noticed the little girl had disappeared. I thought, "she's gone around to the back of the store to rip us off..." I jogged back there, and sure enough she was in the back storage room looking around.
I said, "go back to your mom, and don't come back here again."
She runs out.
I go back to the front of the store, she's not there. I jog back to the back room, and there she is again, looking in a box.
I say, "get the fuck out of here, and if you come back, you're in deep shit."
She runs out.
I go back to the front of the store, AGAIN she's not there.
I run to the back, and she's in another part of the storage room, looking in a box.
I bent down to her level and said, "you see this fist? If I see you in here one more time, I'm going to punch you so hard, your heart will go out the back of your chest, and stick to that fucking wall!"
She bolts. I went to the front, and she was there hugging her mother, staring at me with eyes like saucers.
Didn't say a word, and she didn't go back.
As for the yelling gypsy women, I took our phone off the hook, and said, "Don't go anywhere. Stay right there, okay? Just stay right there."
Assuming I was calling the police, they took off, cursing us out as the left. Didn't come back for another 2 months. When they did, they tried the same scam. Same results. They didn't even remember me.
Never get into debates, or "reason" with gypsies when you know they're pulling a scam. It only works when you play their game.
Gypsies probably have the worst culture in the world. Just criminal parasitism. Where are the Gypsy scholars, Nobel prize winners, great authors, doctors, captains of industry, philosophers, etc? I can't think of a more non-contributory people in the world, to making the world a better place.
ReplyDeleteI went to work in the former East Germany in the summer of 1994. In many shops and autobahn service stations, I noticed, an old fashioned stick broom would stand beside the door or be laid across the threshold. Finally, I asked someone what this was all about and was told that it was to keep out Gypsies, who have a real fear of crossing a broom, sort of like not walking under a ladder or avoiding black cats. Brooms, apparently signified the approach of death.
ReplyDeleteAfter some months the brooms disappeared. I was told that the human rights operation was against the practice and it had to stop.
There was a large villa in a small town outside of Leipzig in which a Gypsy head man or king or whatever lived. A bunch of about thirty skinheads decided to do some ethnic cleansing and paid a visit to the villa. They were met with some fifty Gypsies there, who did a fair bit of skinhead cleansing.
Don't let 'em rob you, but don't mess with 'em, either.
Yes -- exactly right about the NYT burying the good stuff. Their story about Germans dealing with illegal immigration was like that. Just piles of bullshit before they got to the point. That's actually when I first noticed that this what they were doing: Burying the point, while still ostensibly covering the news.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, there is one thing gypsies are genuinely good at: music. The best street musicians in Europe are gypsies. I usually give them a buck ...
Steve, do you think Howard Gutman, the US ambassador to Belgium, whose case you noted earlier this year, was soliciting Roma male prostitutes when he "routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children"?
ReplyDeleteI should note Ambassador Gutman denied that accusation, and explained, "I live on a beautiful park in Brussels that you walk through to get to many locations and at no point have I ever engaged in any improper activity."
Fifteen comments in and no one as taken the cheap shot of "Nancy boys"?
ReplyDeleteDo not try to shrink me, gypsy. I serious.
ReplyDeleteGypsies probably have the worst culture in the world. Just criminal parasitism. Where are the Gypsy scholars, Nobel prize winners, great authors, doctors, captains of industry, philosophers, etc? I can't think of a more non-contributory people in the world, to making the world a better place.
ReplyDeleteWell, Gypsies had more influence on the culture of Europe than Spaniards, for example. In fact, Gypsies influenced Spanish culture to a much greater degree the Spanish culture influenced the rest of Europe. The entire South East is permeated with Gypsy influence and the whole flamenco thing would never exist without Gypsy musical genius and the proto-Indian dance moves.
I long ago decided that the desire to not be called a racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe/hate-filled, hating, hate-hate-hate/etc, is not a good enough reason to willfully decide to not notice or accept reality.
ReplyDeleteHere's some reality: Gypsies are bad news. I stay away from them, I encourage everyone I care about to stay away from them, I don't blame anyone else who wants to stay away from them one bit.
>Romania and Bulgaria are part of EU. Their citizens can travel, as tourists, without a passport, in any of the EU-member states.
ReplyDeleteThey need a passport or equivalent travel document. EU members don't have visas. There are also fast-tracks for EU members at borders. (Of course countries might accept driving licenses etc as equivalent travel documents, but this needs additional agreements)
>The acceptance into Schengen space would allow Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to work in any EU state with much less restrictions (maybe zero?).
Main effect of schengen is a united visa area. Flights between schengen countries are like domestic flights and you can walk between belgium, netherlands and germany for example. This is true even for tourists as there is no border control. For example Dutch Maastricht and German Aachen share an airport. You can land in a schengen country and catch a "domestic" train or bus to your destination.
Without schengen Romanian authorities may refuse to issue travel documents to felons (Most problem people should already have multiple theft records). Charge fees for passport (I suspect many gypsies have passports). French may refuse re-entry to people previously deported (If there is not a legal barrier that i do not know of, that is). With schengen they cannot not do zip.
It seems to be BAD nowadays to refer to them as Gypsies in Britain. "Travellers" is the currently preferred designation.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Django Reinhardt.
I'd like to be able to buy a good looking wife. Do they stay bought?
ReplyDeleteThe Daily Mail should be the "newspaper of record" for the English speaking world and the NYT should be relegated to regional, provincial status.
ReplyDeleteI was in Germany and Austria recently. The Berlin, Munich and Vienna subways are full of panhandlers and petty crooks, mostly women with children, most of whom appear to be Gypsies. When they approached us, I would scowl and say something nasty, and I never had another problem with them.
ReplyDeleteGypsies probably have the worst culture in the world. Just criminal parasitism. Where are the Gypsy scholars, Nobel prize winners, great authors, doctors, captains of industry, philosophers, etc? I can't think of a more non-contributory people in the world, to making the world a better place.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably the best thing about gypsies. God willing, we'll never have to see any cultural "contributions" from them.
Yes.
ReplyDeleteThe Daily Mail is a nasty little paper, and in Britain it's got something of the reputation of being a national joke/embarrassment.
Who else could straighfacedly run an anti-porn campaign alongside a website that is chock-full of semi-nude women?
Anyway, the reputaion is of right-wing, bigotted, narrow-mended nastiness - the image conjured up is of lower middle class English people in such purlieus as Purley, Surrey, twitching the net curtains to see if Mrs Jones next-door has got in by 8pm. ie anal-retentive, stodgy, bigotted, snobbish, Penelope Keith (sorry Penelope!), tory-voting, unfriendly, cold, hostile, stingy, unpleasant, anti-human, damaged individuals from the Surrey commuter belt, barking in clipped tones and hating Arthur Scargill, the Labour Party and foreigners whilst simultaneously seeping out 'small parcels of wind' from the anal fixation.
However, the NYT in its own way is just as bad, if I may continue my belabored caricature, the farts are all belched out on the front page as symbols of the writers' trendiness and lefty credentials.
From the NYT article:
ReplyDelete...
Small, thin, often wearing bright clothing like green pants or a pink scarf, the men are prostitutes, looking for work or waiting for prearranged rendezvous. ... Some are as young as 14..
I have to wonder if the use of the word "camp" to mean the garishly homosexual has its origins in the Gypsy scene? In the bad old patriarchal Dark Ages of the pre-1970s West, did the homosexual and Gypsy worlds overlap far more than now? Clearly they still overlap today, judging by the fact that someone is paying those guys to wear green pants with a pink scarf.
The demi-monde of "actors, circus and fairground showmen, merchant navy sailors, criminals, prostitutes and the gay subculture" produced the British slang lingo called Polari. Apart from the merchant seaman, everyone else on that list have sky-rocketed in status over the last 50yrs. I'm almost surprised Tony Blair didn't make speeches as PM sprinkled with Polari pixie dust.
Is interesting how the ''mèrdia'' try to show gypsies in a ''good light'' but probably is very complicated and difficult make it. In contrast, they get-to show black people like a ''wronged'' and future builders of civilization by way of the ''mimic and magic blacks''. Some people say that blacks are very good to imitate other behaviors and animal sounds.
ReplyDeletethe putridcists should be create also a one mimic or magic gypsy (the preference a one handsome gypsie man with iq above 80) to captivate the zombie whitopic people and make them believe into a brave new world.
everything bad is the fault of some majority
ReplyDeleteYeah, they could be more subtle about that. For example, by adopting your everything bad is the fault of "white", ahem, "whiter people" schtick.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the reputaion is of right-wing, bigotted, narrow-mended nastiness - the image conjured up is of lower middle class English people in such purlieus as Purley, Surrey, twitching the net curtains to see if Mrs Jones next-door has got in by 8pm. ie anal-retentive, stodgy, bigotted, snobbish, Penelope Keith (sorry Penelope!), tory-voting, unfriendly, cold, hostile, stingy, unpleasant, anti-human, damaged individuals from the Surrey commuter belt, barking in clipped tones and hating Arthur Scargill, the Labour Party and foreigners whilst simultaneously seeping out 'small parcels of wind' from the anal fixation.
So basically isteve readers. well except for the Arthur Scargill part. Horn-handed sons of the soil istevers seem to love them some unions.
Also if you are going to mention farts twice in a post maybe don't call other people anal fixated.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteYes.
The Daily Mail is a nasty little paper, and in Britain it's got something of the reputation of being a national joke/embarrassment."
Say what you will, but the Mail reports stories from America that American media outlets won't touch because those stories do not support the racial narrative that the media wishes to foist off on the public.
"- the image conjured up is of lower middle class English people in such purlieus as Purley, Surrey, twitching the net curtains to see if Mrs Jones next-door has got in by 8pm. ie anal-retentive, stodgy, bigotted, snobbish, Penelope Keith (sorry Penelope!), tory-voting, unfriendly, cold, hostile, stingy, unpleasant,..."
Isn't Penelope Keith actually a rather left-wing laborite?
"Anyway, the reputaion is of right-wing, bigotted, narrow-mended nastiness - the image conjured up is of lower middle class English people in such purlieus as Purley, Surrey, twitching the net curtains"
ReplyDeleteBeen to Purley lately? While it's still (relatively) peaceful, the Croydon disaster zone creeps ever southwards.
http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/10707675.Murder_detectives_reopen_inquiry_into_2011_fire_death_in_Croham_Hurst_Woods/
I'm afraid the caricatures of net curtain twitchers are 30 or more years out of date. London suburbs like Croydon, Bexley Heath, Ealing, which within living memory summoned up images of well-cut lawns and Dad washing the car each weekend, are places where people get stabbed and buildings get torched.
Stories like this have replaced net curtains. Note the picture of a white youth with a knife - and the comments.
http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/10700769.Rival_gang_members_to_meet_at_mediation_sessions_to_stop_violence/
Anon: "I can't think of a more non-contributory people in the world..."
ReplyDeleteI can. Is being good at basketball considered a contribution to the world?
"In many ways, Gypsies are a superlative parasitic race. In darwinian terms, they are fitter than most of us."
ReplyDeleteSo true. My gut instinct tells me the hyenas will be roaming long after the elephants are gone. Nature has no respect for Nobels.
Lawrence Auster called this "news coverupage". http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/022608.html
ReplyDelete"The Berlin, Munich and Vienna subways are full of panhandlers and petty crooks, mostly women with children, most of whom appear to be Gypsies."
ReplyDeleteThey appeared in the NYC subway out of nowhere a couple of years ago. I never saw that particular kind of beggar in the subway before a certain point, then suddenly I started seeing them daily. That testifies to a certain amount of organization.
Somebody has to post the obvious. Yes, it's the Cher song.
ReplyDeleteJust make an israel for gypsies.
ReplyDeleteOr send them all to Israel.
The thing about Gypsies is that it really only takes one encounter to destroy one's touchy-feely notions about them. I've quoted, linked, and riffed here:
ReplyDeleteHere we go with Gypsies again
The Wail has just kicked up a hornet's nest by insulting Ed Miliband's father as being anti-British.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435751/Red-Eds-pledge-bring-socialism-homage-Marxist-father-Ralph-Miliband-says-GEOFFREY-LEVY.html
"As Miliband's biographer Michael Newman explains, this was in honour of his father's American friend, the sociologist C. Wright Mills, whose 1956 book, The Power Elite, suggested that the political, military and economic elites control power at the expense of ordinary people."
Well, they do.
"Ralph Miliband himself, in his 1969 book The State In Capitalist Society, declared: 'Advanced capitalism is all but synonymous with giant enterprise; and nothing about the economic organisation of these countries is more basically important than the increasing domination of key sectors ... industrial, financial and commercial ... by a relatively small number of giant firms, often interlinked."
Sounds like a smart guy. If this is Marxism, I'm a Marxist.
He's saying it's all a fix, and he's right.
"Everything bad is the fault of the majority". Should be on a bumper sticker. " - Minoritarianism in a nutshell.
ReplyDelete