This Night is a Time of Pain and Mourning
Ce soir c'est le moment de la douleur, des pleurs, du deuil, mais Paris est là, debout. Je sais que les Parisiens, qui vont souffrir avec ceux qui sont tombés ce soir, sauront aussi se relever pour être d'abord aux côtés des victimes, et pour montrer que cette liberté, cette liberté qu'il y a dans notre ville, cette joie de vivre qu'il y a dans notre ville, ils ne l'atteindront pas - Ann Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris
This night is a time of pain and mourning ... but Paris is still here and standing. ... The freedom, the joyful life that fills this city, [the attackers] have not touched that.
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40 comments:
Nonsense. This wasn't a natural disaster, it was an attack.
I suppose this will lead to a reconsideration of EU inmigration policy?
If this keeps up, it will soon be as dangerous to visit France as the USA.
Fernando,
Pray, what does a terrorist attack by ISIS have to do with refugees fleeing the Islamic State?
I suppose it is too much to expect an immigrant to whom refuge was offered to have sufficient compassion to extend refuge to others. But, hey, then you wouldn't be a conservative.
What snarkrates said.
It seems that one-eyed confirmation bias of ideological fantasy isn't constrained by any particular subject matter.
Syrian refugees are fleeing the same forces who attacked Paris. This is a time for strength and solidarity with refugees, not for fear and rejection. We stand with Paris, we stand with Aleppo, we stand with Beirut.
Fernando Leanme's gleeful response to this attack reveals what is one of the worst effects of this terrorism: a big boost for right wing politics in Europe. Radical right wingers in France are gaining support for their racist, xenophobic views as the populace reacts in horror and looks for simplistic solutions to jihadi terror.
Mass deportations, extra-legal detention and even torture may be seen as acceptable, "emergency" counter-terrorism tactics by enough people to put the right wing in power in France and elsewhere. This will produce a rude shock to citizens who will think they are getting safety but instead will get all sorts of appalling wingnuttery they didn't bargain for.
Aujourd'hui, nous sommes tous Parisien.
I was in France on 9/11/2001, and the kindness of the French towards me and my wife is remembered. On that day, the US had the whole world standing with us...and then we f***ed it up by blindly following an imbecile into a worse than worthless war.
Eli was in the south of France, having been out all day and not having heard anything, when suddenly he and Ms. Rabett were hugged on the street by French folk. It was such an outpouring of sympathy.
If bad men work together to do evil, good men must work together to do good.
ISIS functions as a Warlord. And, there is nothing that a Warlord hates so much, as to have his subjects run off to Paris.
Good men know that Paris is not the problem, the Warlord and the conditions that allowed him to come into power are the problem.
What conditions? A drought that disrupted the agrarian base of Syria. A drought that was affected by AGW. We know that because AGW was consistently and consecutively driving global temperatures higher, and therefor was affecting all weather on Earth. The rise of ISIS was aided and abetted from the political unrest caused by a drought in an agrarian population.
Then it was not the farmers that fled to Europe, but the educated, leaving ISIS without the technocrats and technical skills needed to run a country in the modern world. ISIS knows that without the skills that are flowing into Europe, ISIS will fail. Thus, ISIS will lash out at Europe.
Without the skills that are fleeing into Europe, no amount of support from Russia can keep Syria as a viable state. When Putin went into Syria he did not recognize the issue raised by the exodus of skills to Europe.
What is the most valuable thing in the world today? Smart and determined people with skills. The combination is much more valuable than smarts or determination or skills alone. As an economic resource, the Syrian refugees are worth their weight in gold.
Good men are good because they do good, not because they do nothing.
Culture and religion. Meh. Go ahead, defend culture and religion.
I saw European culture and religion in action when a bunch of dutch soldiers and their high priests put it on display for the whole world after on the tarmacs and in the churches after Russia shot down MH17.
When you tolerate goose stepping national fascism, corporate weapons and armament production for profit, and nutty religious ceremony, this is what you get. I'm surprised the civilized Europeans are still ignorant of that fundamental truth.
Free, you say? How many nuclear weapons does France possess?
I see a lot of denial of reality amongst you liberal folk. The fact is that uncontrolled flow of large numbers of people who aren't carefully vetted and double checked is likely to let trough dozens to hundreds of terrorists. The European political elite is about to find out about reality. They need to grow up in a hurry, or they will be replaced.
It was ultra conservative American religious nutjobs and Russian and American weapons that created this problem, Fernandino.
The first step to solve this problem? Tax the churches. If they are going to profit from religious nuttery, then they need to pay for it.
When you tolerate religion, you lose. Every time. History is clear on that.
I am very tolerant, and I like to study religions to understand that unusual Homo sapiens mental condition.
So, I tend to think of this basing myself on the majestic sweep of history, which means we could go as far back as the fictional Moses leading Hebrew illegal immigrants to invade the holy land. Or maybe it was the Crusades.? Or president Wilson entering WWI? Or Zionism triggering a Muslim blowback? Or Bush invading Iraq? Or Obama fiddling global warming ballads as Paris was getting ready to meet reality?
For a truly vile attempt to make political capital out of these dreadful events have a look at Roy Spencer, PhD's Facebook page, archived at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3vgLnArj2aXSGhRNmJ1MER5Ym8/view?usp=sharing
Well there is physics and chemistry as well Fern. I think that was at the root of the problem here. Getting back to the subject, wasn't it 240 or so last week? Or did that crash out in the middle of nowhere.
Fernando, do you seriously contend that the refugees fleeing ISIS had anything to do with this attack? Really?
Should we have made your daddy stay on the boat for 3 years when he fled Uncle Fidel's Communist Utopia?
Dude, grow some empathy. Grow some understanding and stop relying on just-so stories to quench your curiosity. And ferchrissake, grow a pair and stop reacting to every news event out of your fear.
@snarkbites
Do you read the papers? Did you miss the fact that a least one of the attackers was apparently a Syrian "refugee".
It is a plausible guess that most or all of the attackers are refugees or descended from from refugees from Islamic countries.
- Syrian "refugee" -
What's the difference? Let's see, human beings, violent cultural upbringings, nutty religious beliefs, easy access to weapons and explosives, no reasonable social and economic prospects, yeah, it sounds like a normal Friday night in the hood.
So, based on one person, you consign millions fleeing ISIS to the trash heap. How "Christian" of you.
Er, snarkrates, the Syrian passport of one of the late gunmen tells of his arriving as a refugee in Leros , Greece, on October 3rd.
That's terrible, Russell. Fidel Castro did the same thing in the Mariel and there wasn't even a terrible war to flee. Just pleasant socialism.
A white Anglo Saxon protestant American patriot just can't get by anymore. And now we have central American gangs courtesy of Bush Sr.
Saturday Night Fever in the hood, coming soon to an American slum near you. Don't worry, you can lock them all up on bogus marijuana charges.
Do France a favor : hop over to Latakia and assist Cuba in its internationalist duty by piloting a few shiploads to Havana.
I've got an idea, let's ban gunpowder and make only liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen legal, and then give these guys some good engineering jobs at the local underground reusable space ship factories. Maybe they'll figure out that religion and gangsterism isn't accurately represented by the tourist brochures they read.
I'm not exactly sure where primary hydroponic plant nutrients fit in that legal framework, but if we keep it at the nitrate level it shouldn't be too bad for people who just like to eat regularly. Since ammonia is a poor plant nutrient anyways, juar ban ammonium nitrate. Make them work for it. If they want a gun that bad, they'll just have to build it from scratch in their basement.
Is not the fall of civilization exciting, Russell?
Think of the possibilities!
Do you want me to write another ammonium nitrate op-ed for the Times ?
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/16/opinion/doom-at-8-cents-a-pound.html
So you see how easy it is to prevent human frustration and entertainment problems in the hood at night when you separate the fuel from the oxidizer? Pure genius. Forcing them to carry the liquids around in bulk at cryogenic temperatures should slow them down quite a bit as well. At least long enough to allow for a family intervention.
This issue of refugees and potential for danger is probably worth consideration by someone more informed about the numbers than are most of us, but think about the fact that of the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the Middle East one (or maybe two) were apparently IS operatives involves in the Paris horror.
The rest were home-grown, or legitimate migrants, and possibly radicalised by people on valid visas. So what should the response be to these demographies? Deport all non-Caucasians from Europe? Ban international travel? Philosophically banning refugees would seem to be no different to those alternatives - but with the added factor of a lack of compassion and responsibility...
Also, can someone explain why a person who is about to commit such atrocities would conveniently put an incriminating passport in his pocket? If the flow of refugees is such a lucrative entry point for these people the last thing that they should want to do is to advertise where their cannon folder is coming in. Unless of course they want refugees to be banned from entering Europe? Apparently Al Assad is getting worried about the exodus of the most talented from his country, and IS is also pondering this problem, so one wonders...
Or you could go the conspiracy route and claim that it was planted. Left wing conpsiracy nuts would love that one.
Facetiousness aside, the truth of the whole issue of refugees is far more complex, and it behoves us to be as nuanced about the complexities as we expect people to be about the intricacies of the science of climate change. Any Bush/Blair/Howard-style response to these types of attacks is likely to end only in yet more tears.
"Unless of course they want refugees to be banned from entering Europe? Apparently Al Assad is getting worried about the exodus of the most talented from his country, and IS is also pondering this problem, so one wonders..."
how Lewandowsky could have missed you in his poll demographic ?
@snarkrats
It's not one person, it's 129 dead and hundreds more wounded - in this attack alone. Nearly all these attacks have been committed by Islamic migrants to Europe or their 1st and 2nd generation descendants. You rail against those who would exclude them on grounds of compassion, but for most people, compassion doesn't include putting their own children at needless risk.
"how Lewandowsky could have missed you in his poll demographic"
Don't be coy Russell; spit it out!
OK, Bernard, what exactly are your views on telluric currents?
CIP, So I presume you'll be voting for Donald Trump in the next election--and you'll be out digging to turn the Rio Grande into a croc-infested moat.
Most of the terrorists were home grown. Most of the terrorist attacks here in the US are home grown--and most not even Muslim.
It is not just compassion I want to preserve, but humanity. Living in fear is not a life worth living.
Eh, what's that you say Russell? I'm not reading you - I seem to have some interference from the static arising from the ley line under my house.
Wait a moment, I'll get some foil from the kitchen...
The Airport at Sharm el-Sheikh must be really hard up for workers, eh, Pig?
@Snarkrates - I fear that you and the Donald will be disappointed in my vote, but I notice that you are less than astute in interpreting your targets motives and inclinations.
I must admit, though, that I have a bit of a fancy for a sea level canal from San Diego to Brownsville - I imagine the spectacle of the Rio Bravo's magnificent four thousand foot plunge in El Paso.
Annexing the rest of Mexico is also tempting. We've had great success with the first half that we already stole - why not go whole hog?
@*df1 -
I fear I find your arguments as opaque as your name.
Let me clarify. There are Muslim terrorists. There are Xtian terrorists (Remember Timmy McVeigh?). There are Hindu terrorists (as Rajiv Gandhi found out). There are Buddhist terrorists (viz. Burma and Sri Lanka). There are atheist terrorists. Shall we retreat into a bunker and not let anyone in?
There are 700000 souls fleeing IS. Do we consign them to death merely because someone who claims to be practicing their faith is a terrorist?
IS is not a modern Muslim movement. They are a criminal enterprise masquerading as a the worst of medieval marauders. They are more pre-Islamic than Islamic.
And according to Europol the number of religiously inspired terrorist attacks in Europe in 2014 was.... 2. On the other hand there were 67 ethno-nationalist and separatist attacks and 13 left-wing and anarchist attacks. Letting the side down badly, right wing extremists didn't pull off any attacks in 2014. There were also 116 not specified attacks.
https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publications/p_europol_tsat15_09jun15_low-rev.pdf
Oops, the first bit of my post went missing:
"1 Since 9/11, Muslim-American terrorism has claimed 37 lives in the United States (Figure 3), out of more than 190,000 murders during this period."
http://sites.duke.edu/tcths/files/2013/06/Kurzman_Muslim-American_Terrorism_in_2013.pdf
We are all human. Thanks be for an intelligent and rational president, who knows what it is like to send soldiers to death, and what it is to be a struggling human being living with the human condition.
Hating solves nothing. So if my love is worth anything, on behalf of Paris, I offer it to you all, including those whose opinions I deplore. We are all in danger, and if we are to work our way though this, we need to remember that we are part of the family of humankind. As Krugman affirms, climate change threatens (and has produced) far more deaths ...
Isis is a product of our willingness to overreact as extremists thought we would. How little they had to spend to get us to operate as a recruiting engine for teh stupid.
"Purity" has a long to answer for. I shit, therefore I am. When I was younger, I didn't realize seeking the unattainable was a distraction from the real business of living.
/snark off
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