France Alight (Again), Germany's "Deplorables", The Durham Report "Fix", The Censorship Industrial Complex London, UK Event, US Politicians' Links to Slavery
At least they're temporary but the platform is literally unusable in this state
Makes some sense why he limited reading rather than posting if it's bots that he's fighting. Still, I prefer a usable platform with bots to an unusable platform without them
It might be something to do with Nitter. I usually use an instance to browse as don't really want to participate. But they've been unusable the last 24 hours. Don't know how widespread it is or what damage it does do the site.
Unverified accounts will temporarily be restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000. If you really want to go through more than 600 posts a day, get verified.
Friends in France have been telling me that it has been on the precipice for well over a decade now. If any country in Europe blows up, it'll be that one.
But its as if the ruling classes WANT us all to explode.
And yes there’s the 4D chess theory that they think they will then crush the uprising bwah cackle hah hah ... but that’s INSANE. In fairness the American elites are insane.
Jul 1, 2023·edited Jul 1, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo
I think the preferred phrases are "far right extremists" or "domestic terrorist" for those who think rioting is ....may I say "wrong"? Unless it is the Left who is rioting? Some think the riots are not as spontaneous and organic as the Left says.
In addition to the AfD's recent performance, Greece's center right absolutely destroyed the left recently and the drubbing also brought a few far right parties to the threshold of being in government, including a few old Golden Dawn guys. Vox still looks necessary in Spain for the center right to govern as well and they're finally getting over their reservations about that coalition. While the American establishment looks quite cozy, to the point of being willing to allow discussions of election fraud on Youtube and seemingly cooling on their desire to crush Elon Musk, I imagine Europe wants to ratchet the screws on censorship as much as humanly possible to counter these political trends
Shellenberger makes me cringe at times but I've realized it's because he's just so earnest. And he does good work. Leighton is a powerhouse now. Glad you got the invite
I was refreshing Substack the entire day to get Niccolo’s point of view :)
Looking at what’s happening in France I have to say Netherlands also is starting to feel a bit awkward, especially if you end up without battery and cycle yourself into entirely non-Caucasian parts, shall we say. I do agree this will blow over (as in riots), but I do think and hope it also ends up pushing Frenchmen and women to really do something about this in next elections.
I also have mixed feelings about the concept of integration and assimilation, but as a country you can’t function if you have de-facto multiple systems of values that are utterly irreconcilable with each other. We can debate to death who did what and when and if this is universe paying back some colonial shit, but this is coming down to us vs them unfortunately.
I wonder how long before even the hardest of critics of Israel start craving ethno-states.
Yeah, I picked up on that immediately with the situation. Right down to the grieving mother doing the "he wuz a gud boi" meme. Some people on Twitter (mostly Cernovich) are saying how it's a CIA backed color revolution? I think that's giving the US govt less credit than it deserves. There's nothing to really suggest outside intervention here. I think American progressive consciousness has simply embedded itself so deeply in France, and these things just happen automatically as a result. Minority gets clapped by the police? Riots.
That and mass importing the third world. But I think it's mostly American psycho-social influence driving this
Believe it or not, but the US State Dep't had a training program for foreign politicians and activists to teach them things like how to insert Critical Theory into their country's politics. One of the countries where academics were invited from? France. A fucking US ally.
" In 2010, the U.S. State Department invited French politicians and activists to a leadership program to help them strengthen the voice and representation of ethnic groups that have been excluded from government. Rokhaya Diallo attended, which many of her critics still use as evidence that she is a trained proselytizer of American social-justice propaganda. (In 2017, under pressure from both the left and the right, Macron’s government asked for her removal—as Diallo put it to me, it “canceled” her—from a government advisory council, seemingly on the grounds that race- and religious-based political organizing contradicts key principles of French republicanism and secularism, or laïcité.)
But in a classified memo published on WikiLeaks, former U.S. Ambassador Charles H. Rivkin laid out the pragmatic, self-interested rationale for the program, part of what was called a “Minority Engagement Strategy”:
French institutions have not proven themselves flexible enough to adjust to an increasingly heterodox demography. We believe that if France, over the long run, does not successfully increase opportunity and provide genuine political representation for its minority populations, France could become a weaker, more divided country, perhaps more crisis-prone and inward-looking, and consequently a less capable ally."
I remember this memo. Macron's response is definitely American-influenced. Despite his few token anti-woke stances, when push comes to shove he reveals his own elite tendencies. This reminds me that Obama's 2008 campaign was quite moderate, but Steve Sailer predicted based on his wife's politics that he would be extreme the moment he thought he could get away with it
These riots don't seem artificial though they seem very real. The optics are terrible, for example they defaced a Holocaust memorial. That alone suggests they are truly spontaneous. In America, the CNN office got ransacked a few days after May Twenty-Floydth, but from that moment on it was exclusively targets acceptable to the establishment that got burned
America's rioting population was a demographic with its own history here, looking to establish with the help of the elites a new version of history where they got to have an outsized importance at the expense of their oppressors, as well as to get corporate and government handouts for the riot organizers. African immigrants in Europe are I think just looking to make a new home and have no reverence for the country they inherited or revisionist history to impose. I don't even think they care to change the government in any identifiable way. It just seems like a race riot. America's riots were an organized revolution
The key difference between these riots and blm 2020 was that you had newscasters and roughly half of the political establishment encouraging them and refusing to even call them riots. I'm not seeing that in France, which is why I don't think we're seeing Floyd-style engineered takeover.
And yet there are still some people who think that Russia or China is a threat to Europe. Actually it's the USA which requires European people's to dissolve themselves in order to remain a US "ally".
The witch-hunting over US leaders with slave-owning ancestors strikes me as thoroughly sinister. There is no purpose for this other than to collectively shame white Americans. It put me in mind of Helen Andrews' words:
"The defining characteristic of white South Africans today is their lack of moral standing. They have been so discredited over apartheid that they have no basis for making claims in the public sphere. This lack of moral authority is more important than their being demographically outnumbered, a fate that is still a long way off for whites in the U.S. (but not unthinkable, as they’ve gone from 89% of the country to 58% in two generations). It should be obvious to everyone by now that this lack of moral standing is what Black Lives Matter and the 1619 Project have in mind for white Americans. They want to take the same moral certainty with which we condemn Jim Crow and extend it to everything white Americans have ever done until, like white South Africans, we feel grateful just to have our continuing presence tolerated."
Jul 1, 2023·edited Jul 1, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo
Neat? Hardly. It could well be used to set people up for intimidation, shake-downs or even (at least potentially) violence.
Furthermore, reducing people's political/ideological character to their ancestry is a watered-down form of racism. It is classic identity politics: clumsy, stupid and expresses preference for simplicity over complexity and nuance.
It is also historically dubious because it tells us nothing about the nature of the ancestral connection to slavery. Did they inherit their slaves? Buy them? Or acquire them via foreclosure on a loan in default? How many of the owners emancipated their slaves?
Also, how do those with slave-owning ancestors compare to those whose ancestors had indentured servants? How many of the slave-owners listed in the article also owned whites enslaved by the British Crown?
Just write about what is interesting to you. The concern about what others may do with that information - or how it may prompt negative feelings about categories of people - is part of what got us into the censorship-industrial-complex to begin with.
It was disgusting that Trump used it to score points, but a fun search for this topic on Twitter (when it becomes usable again) is "N---a Trump"
The blacks who Trump courted (and he was actually more successful than expected even if it resulted in bad policies) say hysterical things in his defense and naturally they love that he never owned any slaves
I have mixed feelings about Trump on this one. Race-pandering is better than race-baiting but America needs less of both.
OTOH Trump's transracial appeal must horrify the Democrats. It is also kind of funny, because Trump's love of bling, his boasting and his verbal aggression are kind of 'ghetto'. In a sense he is a better black man than Obama, who has a stick up his ####.
Perhaps Trump is the forerunner of a new type...the Black Man's Wigger? Apologies in advance if I offend anyone with this formulation.
Unfortunately Trump didn't realize that he could have just kept his persona and not changed much policy wise and made notable gains. Kushner and co. thought he needed to let the rioters walk all over him
As an aside we rarely hear when politicians have family members who fought for the Union. It is quite common for those with deep roots here to have family members who were on both sides of that conflict but you only ever hear about one side. Of course the Union didn't fight for antiracism but that is the popular version of history and no one has tried to exploit it
Also, both slaveowners and abolitionists were minorities, the majority were neither and held any number of varied and nuanced opinions (if they bothered to form them or were able to express them) on these topics. And the slaves were themselves obtained from cultures in Africa in which slavery was an established norm and in which the institution was suppressed by force by the British.
Any number of parties profit to some degree. The Latin American states and the drug cartels most of all. Plutocrats who want to pick up assets on the cheap during any turmoil. Multinationals competing with firms that are close to Washington.
China and Russia probably prefer a stable US with whom to negotiate.
The socio-economic comfort that enabled indulgence of any kind has all but disappeared. When that reality sinks in indulgence becomes truly problematic. I get the feeling that we are now looking at months rather years.
The New Hotness is tbat somehow Russia is responsible. Because everyone knows that blacks and Arabs have no agency but are just puppets, the way the White Citizens League used wail about how "Outside Communist agitators are stirring up our negroes!"
Seen a version of this French move a few times in India. Islamic mobs gather by thousands over insane bigoted sh*t, starting stone pelting and riots, destroying lives and property. When the authorities push back, the global liberal NGO-media-academia-activist complex starts shrieking "Democratic backsliding", "minorities in danger" and other such nonsense.
Without a Hindu majority the many minority Muslim sects across India would find themselves under the heel of the shariah just like their peers in Pakistan. Not an enviable position.
There is a saying in Indian right wing circles, that I tend to agree with which goes something like "India is not a secular country because it says so in the constitution, rather because it is in Hindu ethos to be inclusive". All forms of worship, form hardcore monotheist (like the Abrahamic religions) to animist/polytheist and everything in between find a space in its umbrella.
That truly is an extraordinary statement from the French Police Union. Being an amateur French translator I took a look at the original and I think the English introduction in the quoted section is misleading.
The main issue concerns the last two sentences of the English translation, which are the last two lines set off in bold in the originial. The given translation isn't inaccurate, but I've translated it to try to convey a particular meaning:
"Today the Police are fighting becaue we are at war."
"Tomorrow we will be in resistance and the government better pay attention."
The question is, what does "resistance" mean exactly in the case. The English intro says it means the police union is in "the resistance against the government", thus there is now a civil war between the government and police, with the "rioters" being against both, presumably.
I checked out a franceinfo article (link at the bottom) to check out what other perspectives were. Here's (far-)left politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon in response: "Les 'syndicats' qui appellent à la guerre civile doivent apprendre à se taire." "The 'unions' that call for civil war should learn how to be quiet."
What seems obvious to me is that the war the police union refers to is the one against the "rioters". They see themselves as being in a war with a certain class of people. JLM clearly isn't afraid of the police union coming to get him.
After everyone had their say on how horrible this communique was, the union responded with some clarifications (two excerpts):
"Some explanations of the text for those of bad faith: 'We are at war' is an image relating what our colleagues go through each day in the field. We are faced with an urban guerilla war and not simply just urban violence, it is thus against urban war that our colleagues fight to win."
"When our organisations evoke resistance, we speak of trade-union resistance, union battles to come, resistance which our colleagues demonstrate faced with the lightning bolt of those who want to spread choas. Choas wanted by the pests, those who want to cause harm to the values of our republic."
The unions feel they are literally at war, perhaps they are...I suppose that may have led to an atmosphere wherein a police officer might seem to randomly or unnecessarily kill someone?
The police union isn't threatening to overturn the government (yet), but they may make it hell for the government at a time of the union's choosing, in a normal union way. I say yet, however, because if the resistance that they show the "pests" is turned into syndical action...who knows? Could the police take over France?
Jul 1, 2023·edited Jul 1, 2023Liked by Niccolo Soldo
The only thing I know of French politics is that LePen is generally known as the French Hilary Clinton ie; a shameless, immoral opportunist. I have no idea if this is true or not.
Even though it's now 40 years old Yes Minister is still the perfect guide to political machination. It's hilarious and hasn't aged at all.
They won’t
No, we accept that politics has moved past elections and act like men.
Hit the like button at the very top of the page to like this entry and use the share button to share this across social media.
Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so (be nice!), and please consider subscribing if you haven't done so already.
...and don't forget to join me on Substack Notes - https://niccolo.substack.com/p/introducing-substack-notes
While I was writing this up, Leighton Woodhouse posted another episode of the Public Podcast where I appeared to discuss the Wagner Mutiny.
40 mins - https://public.substack.com/p/niccolo-soldo-the-coup-that-wasnt
I saw that. Michael Shellenberger has earned his credibility and his endorsement widens your influence. Good to see your perspective.
TYVM! An excellent 20-minute "teaser", that echoes much of what I've read/heard elsewhere (Big Serge Thought, RWA, etc.).
You 'appeared to discuss' ??
appeared on it to discuss...sorry...sloppy writing from me
No, my fault entirely, had just pressed post when I realised what you meant. Long day at work, sorry!
And seeing snaking double speak everywhere...
Oh Jesus. Delete that Niccolo. It was an appearance in which you discussed the Wagner mutiny. Not some snakish double speak
Elon is limiting tweet-viewing for non verified accounts. Which means I'll get a lot more book-readin' and movie-watchin' done in the near future
Is it really a Twitter Blue thing? I can't refresh Twitter to even find out if that's the case. If so that's a massive error on Elon's part
Here's what Elon tweeted:
To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:
- Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day
- Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day
- New unverified accounts to 300/day
wow
At least they're temporary but the platform is literally unusable in this state
Makes some sense why he limited reading rather than posting if it's bots that he's fighting. Still, I prefer a usable platform with bots to an unusable platform without them
Mailing lists were the superior technology all this time.
It might be something to do with Nitter. I usually use an instance to browse as don't really want to participate. But they've been unusable the last 24 hours. Don't know how widespread it is or what damage it does do the site.
Unverified accounts will temporarily be restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000. If you really want to go through more than 600 posts a day, get verified.
“1387 days (I think) until the next French Presidential Election. Something will happen on that day.”
Niccolo called it.
Friends in France have been telling me that it has been on the precipice for well over a decade now. If any country in Europe blows up, it'll be that one.
But its as if the ruling classes WANT us all to explode.
And yes there’s the 4D chess theory that they think they will then crush the uprising bwah cackle hah hah ... but that’s INSANE. In fairness the American elites are insane.
I think the preferred phrases are "far right extremists" or "domestic terrorist" for those who think rioting is ....may I say "wrong"? Unless it is the Left who is rioting? Some think the riots are not as spontaneous and organic as the Left says.
In addition to the AfD's recent performance, Greece's center right absolutely destroyed the left recently and the drubbing also brought a few far right parties to the threshold of being in government, including a few old Golden Dawn guys. Vox still looks necessary in Spain for the center right to govern as well and they're finally getting over their reservations about that coalition. While the American establishment looks quite cozy, to the point of being willing to allow discussions of election fraud on Youtube and seemingly cooling on their desire to crush Elon Musk, I imagine Europe wants to ratchet the screws on censorship as much as humanly possible to counter these political trends
Shellenberger makes me cringe at times but I've realized it's because he's just so earnest. And he does good work. Leighton is a powerhouse now. Glad you got the invite
EU is gonna clamp down on speech big time in the near future. It's already in the works.
"European Values(R)"
In other words, the dogs won't eat the dog food.
Look at the hate speech bill in Ireland. We're the best boys in the whole class. We'll be held up to show the rest of the EU qhat to aspire too
I was refreshing Substack the entire day to get Niccolo’s point of view :)
Looking at what’s happening in France I have to say Netherlands also is starting to feel a bit awkward, especially if you end up without battery and cycle yourself into entirely non-Caucasian parts, shall we say. I do agree this will blow over (as in riots), but I do think and hope it also ends up pushing Frenchmen and women to really do something about this in next elections.
I also have mixed feelings about the concept of integration and assimilation, but as a country you can’t function if you have de-facto multiple systems of values that are utterly irreconcilable with each other. We can debate to death who did what and when and if this is universe paying back some colonial shit, but this is coming down to us vs them unfortunately.
I wonder how long before even the hardest of critics of Israel start craving ethno-states.
On France's Americanization
Yeah, I picked up on that immediately with the situation. Right down to the grieving mother doing the "he wuz a gud boi" meme. Some people on Twitter (mostly Cernovich) are saying how it's a CIA backed color revolution? I think that's giving the US govt less credit than it deserves. There's nothing to really suggest outside intervention here. I think American progressive consciousness has simply embedded itself so deeply in France, and these things just happen automatically as a result. Minority gets clapped by the police? Riots.
That and mass importing the third world. But I think it's mostly American psycho-social influence driving this
Believe it or not, but the US State Dep't had a training program for foreign politicians and activists to teach them things like how to insert Critical Theory into their country's politics. One of the countries where academics were invited from? France. A fucking US ally.
" In 2010, the U.S. State Department invited French politicians and activists to a leadership program to help them strengthen the voice and representation of ethnic groups that have been excluded from government. Rokhaya Diallo attended, which many of her critics still use as evidence that she is a trained proselytizer of American social-justice propaganda. (In 2017, under pressure from both the left and the right, Macron’s government asked for her removal—as Diallo put it to me, it “canceled” her—from a government advisory council, seemingly on the grounds that race- and religious-based political organizing contradicts key principles of French republicanism and secularism, or laïcité.)
But in a classified memo published on WikiLeaks, former U.S. Ambassador Charles H. Rivkin laid out the pragmatic, self-interested rationale for the program, part of what was called a “Minority Engagement Strategy”:
French institutions have not proven themselves flexible enough to adjust to an increasingly heterodox demography. We believe that if France, over the long run, does not successfully increase opportunity and provide genuine political representation for its minority populations, France could become a weaker, more divided country, perhaps more crisis-prone and inward-looking, and consequently a less capable ally."
See here - https://niccolo.substack.com/p/saturday-commentary-and-review-112
Everything in the current moment feels hilarious or horrifying, without a lot left in between.
Good line. Might steal.
I 100% can believe that lol.
"The US is more dangerous as a friend than an enemy" or whatever that quote is
I remember this memo. Macron's response is definitely American-influenced. Despite his few token anti-woke stances, when push comes to shove he reveals his own elite tendencies. This reminds me that Obama's 2008 campaign was quite moderate, but Steve Sailer predicted based on his wife's politics that he would be extreme the moment he thought he could get away with it
These riots don't seem artificial though they seem very real. The optics are terrible, for example they defaced a Holocaust memorial. That alone suggests they are truly spontaneous. In America, the CNN office got ransacked a few days after May Twenty-Floydth, but from that moment on it was exclusively targets acceptable to the establishment that got burned
America's rioting population was a demographic with its own history here, looking to establish with the help of the elites a new version of history where they got to have an outsized importance at the expense of their oppressors, as well as to get corporate and government handouts for the riot organizers. African immigrants in Europe are I think just looking to make a new home and have no reverence for the country they inherited or revisionist history to impose. I don't even think they care to change the government in any identifiable way. It just seems like a race riot. America's riots were an organized revolution
Fair assessment.
The key difference between these riots and blm 2020 was that you had newscasters and roughly half of the political establishment encouraging them and refusing to even call them riots. I'm not seeing that in France, which is why I don't think we're seeing Floyd-style engineered takeover.
Critical Theory increasingly feels like the US version of Wahhabism except that the Americans are better at spreading it than the Saudis.
I like this take.
And yet there are still some people who think that Russia or China is a threat to Europe. Actually it's the USA which requires European people's to dissolve themselves in order to remain a US "ally".
Mind you, a grieving mother claiming her son was a good boy is probably pretty universal
It's a lot healthier than a child being killed and the parents rushing to make excuses for the perpetrator(s).
A Progressive American instinct.
Here you go - https://niccolo.substack.com/p/us-state-department-trained-french
You inspired a short piece
Of course, it's always those Americans. Waaaaa!
The witch-hunting over US leaders with slave-owning ancestors strikes me as thoroughly sinister. There is no purpose for this other than to collectively shame white Americans. It put me in mind of Helen Andrews' words:
"The defining characteristic of white South Africans today is their lack of moral standing. They have been so discredited over apartheid that they have no basis for making claims in the public sphere. This lack of moral authority is more important than their being demographically outnumbered, a fate that is still a long way off for whites in the U.S. (but not unthinkable, as they’ve gone from 89% of the country to 58% in two generations). It should be obvious to everyone by now that this lack of moral standing is what Black Lives Matter and the 1619 Project have in mind for white Americans. They want to take the same moral certainty with which we condemn Jim Crow and extend it to everything white Americans have ever done until, like white South Africans, we feel grateful just to have our continuing presence tolerated."
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/look-back-in-anger/
Definitely a political element to this being published. For me, it's a neat bit of history.
Neat? Hardly. It could well be used to set people up for intimidation, shake-downs or even (at least potentially) violence.
Furthermore, reducing people's political/ideological character to their ancestry is a watered-down form of racism. It is classic identity politics: clumsy, stupid and expresses preference for simplicity over complexity and nuance.
It is also historically dubious because it tells us nothing about the nature of the ancestral connection to slavery. Did they inherit their slaves? Buy them? Or acquire them via foreclosure on a loan in default? How many of the owners emancipated their slaves?
Also, how do those with slave-owning ancestors compare to those whose ancestors had indentured servants? How many of the slave-owners listed in the article also owned whites enslaved by the British Crown?
Whites talk too much.
Need to black it up some
(Bang)
Just write about what is interesting to you. The concern about what others may do with that information - or how it may prompt negative feelings about categories of people - is part of what got us into the censorship-industrial-complex to begin with.
It was disgusting that Trump used it to score points, but a fun search for this topic on Twitter (when it becomes usable again) is "N---a Trump"
The blacks who Trump courted (and he was actually more successful than expected even if it resulted in bad policies) say hysterical things in his defense and naturally they love that he never owned any slaves
I have mixed feelings about Trump on this one. Race-pandering is better than race-baiting but America needs less of both.
OTOH Trump's transracial appeal must horrify the Democrats. It is also kind of funny, because Trump's love of bling, his boasting and his verbal aggression are kind of 'ghetto'. In a sense he is a better black man than Obama, who has a stick up his ####.
Perhaps Trump is the forerunner of a new type...the Black Man's Wigger? Apologies in advance if I offend anyone with this formulation.
Unfortunately Trump didn't realize that he could have just kept his persona and not changed much policy wise and made notable gains. Kushner and co. thought he needed to let the rioters walk all over him
As an aside we rarely hear when politicians have family members who fought for the Union. It is quite common for those with deep roots here to have family members who were on both sides of that conflict but you only ever hear about one side. Of course the Union didn't fight for antiracism but that is the popular version of history and no one has tried to exploit it
When people speak poorly about Trump, it's always about his personality not his policies. Why is that?
Because his policies are centrist, not extremist. The only shocking thing about Trump is his honesty and his Rodney Dangerfield vibe.
5 generations removed, any person has dozens of ancestors.
Alongside the slave owners (obv bad) there are likely murderers (arguably worse,) abolitionists and everything in between.
The implied requirement for moral outrage is perfidious.
Did you notice how lazy they got by only naming one slaveholder ancestor? As for the rest, you're spot on.
Also, both slaveowners and abolitionists were minorities, the majority were neither and held any number of varied and nuanced opinions (if they bothered to form them or were able to express them) on these topics. And the slaves were themselves obtained from cultures in Africa in which slavery was an established norm and in which the institution was suppressed by force by the British.
Slavery being outlawed is 19th century, we are ALL descendants of slaves and slave owners.
Who profits from a destabilized United States? Cui Bono?
Any number of parties profit to some degree. The Latin American states and the drug cartels most of all. Plutocrats who want to pick up assets on the cheap during any turmoil. Multinationals competing with firms that are close to Washington.
China and Russia probably prefer a stable US with whom to negotiate.
If we or the white South Africans take it, we deserve it.
Blacks would laugh if you asked them to feel shame for the past, or the present.
Shame is a white thing, and we’re damned fools for indulging it, and it IS an INDULGENCE.
The socio-economic comfort that enabled indulgence of any kind has all but disappeared. When that reality sinks in indulgence becomes truly problematic. I get the feeling that we are now looking at months rather years.
I wish they had these slave-holder descendants as baseball cards. You could trade ‘em and shit.
Better yet: baseball cards themed around politicians and corruption...or politicians and sex-scandals.
😂
That’s actually brilliant
And
cafe press ?
The New Hotness is tbat somehow Russia is responsible. Because everyone knows that blacks and Arabs have no agency but are just puppets, the way the White Citizens League used wail about how "Outside Communist agitators are stirring up our negroes!"
I have no idea what your taste in music is but I have just seen Yaroslav Dronov's new music video. It cheered me up no end and I am not Russian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAPwIEWzqJE
I've seen. I'll raise you:
https://youtu.be/6vSjrAsn1Io
Years ago, I led an impromptu chorus of Russians and Ukrainians in a Berlin bar, singing this song.
большое спасибо
I love Pelageya! Opera's loss has been the gain of popular music.
Or look up the Zhanna Bichevskaya version of the song.
Seen a version of this French move a few times in India. Islamic mobs gather by thousands over insane bigoted sh*t, starting stone pelting and riots, destroying lives and property. When the authorities push back, the global liberal NGO-media-academia-activist complex starts shrieking "Democratic backsliding", "minorities in danger" and other such nonsense.
Without a Hindu majority the many minority Muslim sects across India would find themselves under the heel of the shariah just like their peers in Pakistan. Not an enviable position.
There is a saying in Indian right wing circles, that I tend to agree with which goes something like "India is not a secular country because it says so in the constitution, rather because it is in Hindu ethos to be inclusive". All forms of worship, form hardcore monotheist (like the Abrahamic religions) to animist/polytheist and everything in between find a space in its umbrella.
Legal or constitutional formalism is vastly less relevant than the weight of history or experience over millennia.
That truly is an extraordinary statement from the French Police Union. Being an amateur French translator I took a look at the original and I think the English introduction in the quoted section is misleading.
The main issue concerns the last two sentences of the English translation, which are the last two lines set off in bold in the originial. The given translation isn't inaccurate, but I've translated it to try to convey a particular meaning:
"Today the Police are fighting becaue we are at war."
"Tomorrow we will be in resistance and the government better pay attention."
The question is, what does "resistance" mean exactly in the case. The English intro says it means the police union is in "the resistance against the government", thus there is now a civil war between the government and police, with the "rioters" being against both, presumably.
I checked out a franceinfo article (link at the bottom) to check out what other perspectives were. Here's (far-)left politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon in response: "Les 'syndicats' qui appellent à la guerre civile doivent apprendre à se taire." "The 'unions' that call for civil war should learn how to be quiet."
What seems obvious to me is that the war the police union refers to is the one against the "rioters". They see themselves as being in a war with a certain class of people. JLM clearly isn't afraid of the police union coming to get him.
After everyone had their say on how horrible this communique was, the union responded with some clarifications (two excerpts):
"Some explanations of the text for those of bad faith: 'We are at war' is an image relating what our colleagues go through each day in the field. We are faced with an urban guerilla war and not simply just urban violence, it is thus against urban war that our colleagues fight to win."
"When our organisations evoke resistance, we speak of trade-union resistance, union battles to come, resistance which our colleagues demonstrate faced with the lightning bolt of those who want to spread choas. Choas wanted by the pests, those who want to cause harm to the values of our republic."
The unions feel they are literally at war, perhaps they are...I suppose that may have led to an atmosphere wherein a police officer might seem to randomly or unnecessarily kill someone?
The police union isn't threatening to overturn the government (yet), but they may make it hell for the government at a time of the union's choosing, in a normal union way. I say yet, however, because if the resistance that they show the "pests" is turned into syndical action...who knows? Could the police take over France?
(https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/adolescent-tue-par-un-policier-a-nanterre/violences-apres-la-mort-de-nahel-on-vous-resume-la-polemique-autour-d-un-communique-de-syndicats-de-police-en-cinq-actes_5923997.html)
For a police union to use such rhetoric is outrageous. Then again, the heavy-handed mentality of the French police has been in evidence for decades.
Heh heh
Need help?
Call the Left...
Heh heh
💀😱🤡
If those areas were to become 'no-go' zones, who would step in to replace the police?
1. Gangs
2. Vigilantes
Bois cale coming to a banlieue near you?
Thank you for this. I was hoping that someone would provide some clarification.
The only thing I know of French politics is that LePen is generally known as the French Hilary Clinton ie; a shameless, immoral opportunist. I have no idea if this is true or not.
Even though it's now 40 years old Yes Minister is still the perfect guide to political machination. It's hilarious and hasn't aged at all.
If you like political satire, try The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970). It is one of the very best political comedies ever made.
The link to the full movie is below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=WT_prfYb6DE
She’s much better looking
“When the Left riots, it’s a civil war. When the Right riots, it’s a French styled revolution.” –Ulysses Hensworth Warbuck