Mark Steyn: "Fire and Faith"

When the iconic house of worship at the heart of French Christianity decides to mark Holy Week by going up in flames, it's too obviously symbolic of something ...but of what exactly? Two thousand churches have been vandalized in the last two years: Valérie Boyer, who represents Bouches-du-Rhône in the National Assembly, said earlier this month that "every day at least two churches are profaned" - by which she means arson, smashed statutes of Jesus and Mary, and protestors who leave human fecal matter in the shape of a cross. This is a fact of life in modern France.

The Yellow Jackets Revolt and The Future of America

The media has been so quiet on the Yellow Jackets in France that you could be excused for thinking my title refers to some kind of invasion by weird wasps.

Well, for the record, it doesn’t. It refers to the ongoing revolt in France by various groups but mostly, honestly, middle aged, middle class people who have just had middle-class enough and are now setting fires to things and making life hell in the ritzy districts of Paris (and elsewhere.)

You probably thought that was all over and done with, and you’d be excused for thinking it, because our media has worked so hard not to report it.

The Revolution is not being televised - France is burning and UK media is covering it up

If a riot occurs in France but it's not on the news, did it really occur?

There is no footage of this on the BBC website.
There is no footage of this on the ITV website.
There is no footage of this on the Sky News website.
Check any of the traditional media sources websites, none of them are showing this footage.

They'll show photos of protestors, maybe a few flares, maybe a fire or two.

None of them will play footage of riot police getting completely over run. None will show footage of the motorways being barricaded and shut down for the 8th week running.

That's because they don't want anyone getting ideas.

It's about optics, mainly. About packaging the story in such a way that they can say they reported it.

But if you arent reporting the over run police, the shut down motorways or the protestors getting sniped, are you really reporting it?

When the Green revolution went through Iran, we got that, footage and all.
When the orange revolution went through the Ukraine, we got that, footage and all.
When the Arab Spring rose up, we got that, footage and all.

When it happens just next door in France, we don't get that.

Why do you think that is? Why the difference in editorial?

French Police Search for Clues of Motive of Man Who Attacked Orly Airport While Shouting That He Was Ready to "Die for Allah"

Via Ace of Spades

Police questioned and then released relatives of a man shot dead at a Paris airport, as investigators sought clues on why he attacked an army patrol in an incident that has pushed security to the forefront of France's election campaign.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said late on Saturday that the man, named as 39-year-old Ziyed Ben Belgacem, had shouted he was there to "die for Allah" when he tried to seize a gun from a woman air force member on patrol at Orly airport.

After throwing down a bag containing a can of petrol and putting an air pistol to the head of the soldier, he was shot three times by her colleagues.

...A federal judge in Hawaii issued an order that Trump immediately grant this Mystery Man US citizenship and also a pilot's license.

There is no fixing stupid.

Les Déplorables The French right is discovering that there are more and more things you can't say

A country is heading for trouble when its most popular writers worry that their words will land them in jail. France is that way now. Two years ago, TV commentator and journalist Éric Zemmour published Le Suicide français, an erudite, embittered, and nostalgic essay about the unraveling, starting in the 1970s, of the political system set up under the leadership of World War II hero Charles de Gaulle. (See "French Curtains," The Weekly Standard, December 8, 2014.) The book sold 500,000 copies. Since then, it seems, Zemmour has spent half his time collecting prizes and the other half defending himself in court.

In September, he was let off by a French tribunal for a 2014 remark he made on the radio station RTL. "The Normans, the Huns, the Arabs, the great invasions that followed the fall of Rome," Zemmour had said, "have their modern equivalents in the gangs of Chechens, Roma, Kosovars, Africans, and North Africans who mug, rob, and rape." The French court decided his words were not so extremist that Zemmour needed to be punished, but France's media authority, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, issued a warning to RTL. Over the summer, Zemmour was fined by a Belgian court for making similar statements.

Free speech is no longer possible ...

France ‘Suppressed Reports of Gruesome Torture’ at Bataclan Massacre

There are some things that the ruling Class don't want you to know.  It would not be good for the narrative that Islam is the Religion of Peace. That massacres have nothing to do with Islam.

Remember the Bataclan Massacre?  In 2015:

A black Volkswagen Polo pulled up outside the Bataclan concert hall at 21:40 (20:40 GMT) on Friday 13 November, and three heavily armed gunmen got out. Less than three hours later they were dead, having killed 90 people at the venue and critically injured many others. What happened in between?

"It looked like an abattoir,"

Hidden from the public was what really happened during the three hours the Islamists were able to go on their killing spree.  They couldn't hide the fact that 90 people were killed.  But they could hide the way they were killed.

A French government committee has heard testimony, suppressed by the French government at the time and not published online until this week, that the killers in the Bataclan appear to have tortured their victims on the second floor of the club....

According to this testimony, Wahhabist killers reportedly gouged out eyes, castrated victims, and shoved their testicles in their mouths. They may also have disemboweled some poor souls. Women were reportedly stabbed in the genitals – and the torture was, victims told police, filmed for Daesh or Islamic State propaganda. For that reason, medics did not release the bodies of torture victims to the families, investigators said.

Read the whole thing if you have a strong stomach.  The problem we have is that the people in government are keeping the nature of the enemy from us either because they don't want to have to do what must be done or because they want to protect the groups that breed these murderers.

Trucks Rampaging in France

Virginian Pilot headline this morning:  “80 Dead After Truck Rams Crowd In France”

It seems that a truck’s at fault.  Just as, after each mass shooting, it’s the gun’s fault - going on a rampage is what guns do while the person holding it is it's helpless prisoner.

Just to underscore the point there is a subhead: “French leader calls it terrorist attack.”  The French leader's jumping to conclusions again.  The editors of the Virginian Pilot are not so sure that the truck is actually a terrorist.  They are withholding judgement until President Obama opines on the subject.  

Of one thing you can be sure, to Obama, the press and the Virginian Pilot the motives of the truck – the driver's mentioned as an afterthought – will be a puzzlement.  But it won’t be Muslim terrorism.  The truck was probably not even religious.

Picture of the aftermath of the rampaging truck.

 

Belgium reintroduces border controls with France to prevent influx of Calais migrants

Who could have seen this coming (other than me)?

Paris. The Gods of the Copybook Headings With Terror and Slaughter Return

Tell Barack Obama that vicious attacks happen in other places too ... oh, and mention this to CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, NY Times, Washington Post

Decapitated head hung on fence...
Covered with Arabic writing...
Multiple wounded in explosion...
Islamist flag raised...
UPDATES...

BEHEADING AT FRENCH FACTORY
'ISLAMIST ATTACK'

Charlie Hebdo were all true to life followers of the Church of Leftism

The Left and cultural suicide.

The employees, artists, writers and editors of Charlie Hebdo were all true to life followers of the Church of Leftism. They were devout atheists and eagerly embraced all the tenets of liberalism. They, like so many of their fellow countrymen, voted to implement those policies that are the hallmark of the modern leftist. Among them being gun control and unfettered immigration.

The plot thickens, and we begin to see how they set themselves up for a reality check on the nature of evil in our world. By being proponents of an all-inclusive, “Everybody’s Welcome” immigration policy, and averting their eyes from the insular, closed and secretive communities of their new Muslim neighbors, France eagerly opened the front door and invited it’s executioner to dinner. The French hen-house believed with every ounce of its leftist being that it could live in peaceful harmony with the Islamic fox.

But then, with a force of will usually reserved for the truly suicidal, France has a long-standing philosophy, voted on and demanded by the people, of civilian disarmament. There is no concept of a Second Amendment in France. If the police do not get there in time, Pierre is dead. Jacques is dead.

And oftentimes, the regular beat cop in France is also disarmed, so as not to upset the populace with scary guns. As such, we witnessed the execution of a French Police Officer. Imagine that in America, a cop completely unable to defend himself; all of the authority of a badge, but none of the necessary force to back it up. The French people have purposefully and collectively decided that the concept of self-defense does not belong to them; instead, abdicating their rights to the government elite to protect them. And a government will always fail as it can only respond after the fact.

So what we saw last week was a truly gruesome, horrific series of murders, perpetrated to silence critics of Muhammad. It was a truly despicable murderous rampage by demon-possessed monsters. It was also a suicide. A suicide performed by a nation and a culture who thinks so little of themselves that they will eagerly allow monsters to be their neighbors and lay down their weapons as a gesture of submission.

Although it was Muhammad that pulled the trigger, it was Charlie that handed him a loaded gun.

Why I am a Conservative

Stacy McCain has a great essay on the horrors visited on people by "progressives" and Liberal philosophers.

What is remarkable is the extent to which French intellectuals have caused this endless tide of human misery.

“We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. We know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity.”

— Edmund Burke, 1790

Burke’s insight into the fundamental error of the French Revolution — its inspiration by such philosophes as Rousseau and Voltaire — could be extended to every “progressive” movement ever since.

The modern Cult of Progress, the characteristic “presumption” of the intelligentsia in their belief in their own superiority, has repeatedly afflicted humanity with enthusiastic schemes for political, social and economic change. Always these innovations require us first to destroy “hitherto existing society” (to quote the Communist Manifesto), and to entrust our future to the control of elites. Always the result is the same. From the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France to the Bolshevik Terror in revolutionary Russia, from Kristallnacht in Germany to the “Great Leap Forward” in China to the “Killing Fields” in Cambodia, the path of “progress” is a trail painted in blood, littered with the corpses of those murdered or starved to death for the sake of political theories.

The French revolution was followed by the Terror, followed by Napoleon Bonaparte who plunged Europe into decades of war which left between 3 and 5 million people dead.  

The "philosophers" who followed the French model managed to kill about 100 times more.  Many in "peacetime."  It's this thing about breaking a few eggs to make an omelet.    

One of the most satisfying things about the French Revolution is the death of Robespierre.  

DRUDGE In Paris Terror Ending

THREE DAYS OF TERROR COMES TO END IN FRANCE...

'Wife' of Kosher supermarket killer becomes most wanted woman after going on run...

MURDOCH: Muslims Responsible for 'Jihadist Cancer'...



PARIS WARZONE...

LE FIGARO...

L'HUMANITE...

Britain's MI5: Al Qaeda planning mass attacks on West...

Landmark synagogue shut on Shabbat first time since WWII...

FBI, State Dept issue new terror bulletins for Americans...

The future belongs to those who have a better idea

Barack H. Obama and his acolytes have now been reminded numerous times of his famous words before the United Nations General Assembly when he blamed a video which no one had ever seen for the attack in Benghazi.  “The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam” 

The Islamist followers of the Prophet agreed wholeheartedly with Barack H. Obama and killed 12 "infidels" to underscore their agreement.

The Washington Times today led with the headline

 Paris newspaper shooting exposes rift in Muslim-Europe relationships 

 and went on to say ...

The grisly Islamist terrorist assault that left 12 people dead at a French satirical magazine Wednesday came against a backdrop of mounting xenophobia and tension boiling over Western Europe, where traditionally secular societies are struggling to absorb surging Muslim immigrant populations ...

Mr. Landis said the attackers mostly likely sought to feed rising European fears of what some anti-Muslim groups have dubbed a rising “Eurabia.”

The rise of the term coincides with a wider question about whether nations like France have simply failed to successfully absorb such immigrants, either economically or culturally.

God bless the Washington Times but this bit of news analysis is incredibly wrong-headed stupid.

In the first place, that "surging Muslim population" does not wish to assimilate. There are portions of Paris where police dare not go and throughout Europe Muslims are importing their customs and enforcing them by killing those who disagree.   Authorities in England turned a blind eye to Muslims gang-raping young girls in accord with Qur’anic allowance for the sexual enslavement of infidel women.  Google "Muslim trouble in" and up will pop a list of countries including France, Germany, England, Sweden, Australia, even the US.  

The governments in Europe, as well as cultural leaders in the US have worked to help Muslims enforce their cultural standards.

The murders in Paris are only the latest atrocities in a longstanding war against anyone making critical comments regarding anything Islamic, which began during Mohammad’s lifetime and has been especially troublesome since the fatwa was issued by the mullahs of Iran against Salman Rushdie in 1989. Since then the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh has been brutally murdered, the publishers of a Danish publication have gone in hiding, riots have raged through Egypt over a rarely seen YouTube video, and now 12 brave Frenchmen are dead. The response from the same western civilization that once protected free speech as a foremost value has thus far been acquiescent. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders was tried under his country’s restrictive “hate speech” laws for questioning the wisdom of unfettered immigration from Muslim countries, the masterful essayist Mark Steyn has found himself on trial before a Canadian “Human Rights Commission,” and Van Gogh’s courageously outspoken collaborator Aayan Hirsi Ali has been forced to leave the country for America and been banned from the graduation ceremonies of this country, where the maker of that rarely seen YouTube video was also sent to prison on questionable parole violations after the government officially condemned his views and falsely blamed him for the murder of four Americans at a consulate in Libya.

The Washington Times reporter, Guy Taylor,  then goes on to label the concerns of native Europeans as "xenophobia."  Referring to Europe as a secular society makes it appear that what's going on is Europe is similar to the dispute we have between people who want to put the baby Jesus on the courthouse lawn at Christmas and the ACLU.  Blaming France for failing to absorb immigrants who are culturally and religiously the opposite of Frenchmen - and wish to stay that way - is the kind of thing that is altogether too typical of members of the media.   

Third, the killers motives are pretty clear.  They stated them as they killed the 12 people who died in the attack.  They were avenging the honor of the prophet.  Feeding fears of "Eurabia" may be the outcome but the idea that they were murdering people with the express purpose to heighten fears of the Islamization of Europe has it exactly backward.   The attack was a warning not to oppose them, not to mock them and to defer to them.  

It remains to be seen whose side the ruling class in these countries are on.  And whose side will win. 

Mainstream baffled as French turn to far right

AFP - France's mainstream political parties were Monday scratching their heads over what to do about a surge by the Front National (FN) after a breakthrough by-election win for the far-right party.

The ruling Socialist party and the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, face humiliating reverses in municipal and European elections next year if the FN can sustain its current standing in the eyes of an electorate thoroughly fed-up with record unemployment, rising taxes and a perceived increase in crime and insecurity.

Like the mainstream press in the US, the French press can't figure out why the people would finally get tired of a bad economy, high unemployment, runaway government spending and a leisure underclass.  And that "far right" crap doesn't work when its candidate gets over 50% of the vote.  That looks mainstream to me.

 

It's why the press, and that includes FOX, doesn't understand what Cruz is doing.

Fascism, French Style

From the UK Telegraph.

 

Marine Le Pen to face prosecution for comparing Muslims to Nazis

How long will it be before the Left in the US tells us that we need to follow the lead of Europe and imprison those with whose speech we disagree. If we can sic the IRS on them, it's just a small step to putting them in jail.

A group of skinheads beat a French far-left activist to death in the heart of Paris' shopping district

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said a fight broke out Wednesday evening between two groups of young people in a pedestrian street just steps away from the famous Printemps department store. At one point, the 19-year-old leftist activist was beaten by several skinheads, according to Valls, a widely respected, center-leaning member of President Francois Hollande's Socialist government.

Millions Take Part As Traditional Marriage Movement Sweeps Through France

AMAZING

"He who must not be named."

Richard Fernandez says it's like a scene from Marvel comics.  Actually it's like a scene from Harry Potter where it's forbidden to actually refer to Lord Voldemort by name.

We have the President of France tell us that we should not jump to conclusions about who stabbed a French soldier.

“The lone attacker was described as a young man wearing a Muslim prayer cap and a North African-style robe called a jellabah. According to a police account, he was monitored on security cameras and seen shedding his robe and fleeing in European clothes before disappearing into the crowd in a subway and suburban train entrance.”

Who could this be? the French leader is baffled.  In Sweden the police have adopted a policy of passive bystanding, except if some Swedes try to protect their property, then they swing into action with clubs and riot gear.

The same kind of bizarre game is being played by the press in the coverage of the riots in Stockholm, now going for almost a week. The Washington Post sets out five charts to explain Sweden’s “youth riots.” “The violent youth riots that spread across Stockholm’s suburbs this week seem at odds with the public perception of Sweden as one of the world’s most liberal and tolerant countries.” We are told the “youth riots” are due to the relative underprivilege of the “foreign born.” But does the Post mean Chinese immigrants then? No they don’t. The Washington Post knows what it means and we are supposed to know what it means, but we are not supposed to admit that we know what it means.

One can only conclude that the authorities themselves jumped to conclusions before anyone else. That they were sure from the first instant what they were dealing with since they knew exactly what words or phrases nobody could refer to. And you can’t do that unless you yourself have jumped to the same conclusions nobody else should jump to.

Thus, references to Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, or Mexicans appeared little censored. Why, you can chaff these people with no consequence. But words referring to certain identities we are not supposed to associate with the news stories are quickly punished such that the UK authorities, who lack the manpower to monitor individuals with terror files at MI5 as long as one’s arm, can still find an ample number of policemen to track down on Facebook and Twitter.

What is it that these lying weasels who head the West's democracies fear? Are they prisoners of their own delusions?

In some paradoxical way, the enemies of the West are now freer than their targets; free, by virtue of their defiance, from the mind-boggling hypocrisy and doublethink that encumber anyone who still subscribes to conventional wisdom. If radical Islamism has any merit at all, it lies in seeing a supine and defenseless culture for what it really is: a fat, idiotic target waiting to be plundered.

Lagerfeld calls French president an 'idiot'

Lagerfeld is the German-born, Paris based creative director of French fashion house Chanel.

Lagerfeld in an interview to the Spanish edition of Marie-Claire called Hollande -- who famously said he does not like the rich -- an idiot for imposing a 75 percent tax on incomes exceeding one million euros ($1.3 million) annually.

"This idiot will be as disastrous as Zapatero," Lagerfeld said, referring to Spanish former prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero whose term witnessed the country's economic bust.

Boot licking supporters of Hollande called for Lagerfeld to apologize.