WTF is up in France?

[Evil Dave]

Fourth Night of riots in Paris


*edit*
Where is the media?
Four days and this is the first I\'ve heard of it.
In fact, I only caught it in passing.

 

[Zora]

It\'s the \"I only care what happens to ME\" syndrome...I\'d heard nothing about this, either.

Whilst that would make it seem like I suffer from the above syndrome, that is not actually the case...

I don\'t like the news. It\'s depressing.

-Zora

 

[green stuff]

We\'ve had news about this every day.

Let me make a summary of the situation :

*) Immigration problems;
*) Housing problems;
*) Power-mongering politicians;
*) Presidential elections coming up;
*) Most of the french are sick and tired of their politicians.

The situation is so sur-realist, it would almost be comical if it weren\'t real .

 

[Evil Dave]

I\'m an avid news hound, I probably surf 2 hours a day through many news sources, and it strikes me odd, that the place I found a link to this was the \"Drudge Report\"
Nothing on ABC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, and it\'s at the bottom of the list on CNN.

 

[Disturbed1]

\"*) Immigration problems;
*) Housing problems;
*) Power-mongering politicians;
*) Presidential elections coming up;
*) Most of the french are sick and tired of their politicians.\"

I think it\'s fair to say, that most, if not all countries suffer these same issues.

Thankfully, our riots seem limited to cancelled Metallica concerts, championship sporting events, and Los Angeles on any given day.

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Evil Dave
I\'m an avid news hound, I probably surf 2 hours a day through many news sources, and it strikes me odd, that the place I found a link to this was the \"Drudge Report\"
Nothing on ABC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, and it\'s at the bottom of the list on CNN.

Major media these days have become globalised and centralised so much that most international news are the same wherever you look. Most newspapers in Sweden have gotten rid of their own foreign reporters and buy news from international news bueraus (sp?). If you look at foreign news sites on the Internet you can often spot the exact same news. When I followed the Katrina hurricane news coverage, the articles I read on CNN and such had the exact same information as the ones in our papers here.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Wow, I tend to be a bit of a news hound and this is the first I have heard of it. I have found the selective reporting over the years to be interesting. I agree with Zora though, it all gets to be depressing. So much grief that dosent even remotely involve me and mine. While alot of the news is important, I\'m just one guy and can affect just a bit of what is around me. Getting all worked up about stuff halfway around the world, which I can do nothing about wears me out.

 

[supervike]

it really makes you wonder....is the real enemy we should all be fighting the Media?

They shape the opinion and decide what is important on so many, if not every, major issue in the world.

The media has in in their power to decide elections, ignore atrocities, and make Pauly Shore a freaking celebrity...

Who watches the watchmen?

 

[paintingploddy]

Who creates the power the media has? The media shows us what it thinks we want to watch. No detail, lots of flashy photos/footage, an inane commentary and then move onto the next story. It is like a snake swallowing its own tail. They decide based on their own experience what the public want and they serve it up. Riots in Paris I find out about on a miniatures forum, but the love life of a local footballer will dominate (at its height) 18 pages of a newspaper, every day for two weeks.???

 

[PF]

Message original : green stuff
Let me make a summary of the situation :

*) Immigration problems;
*) Housing problems;
*) Power-mongering politicians;
*) Presidential elections coming up;
*) Most of the french are sick and tired of their politicians.

In fact,it\'s a summary of the paper yes.

And it seems to me your media don\'t work that bad.We hear in France news from Los Angeles only when people get killed and only if there is a \"significant\" number of deaths...

 

[Evil Dave]

@PF
The problem is that I actually caught this by luck.
When there was looting in New Orleans the whole world knew about it.
The riot has lasted four days that\'s an incredible story.
I don\'t recall a riot ever lasting that long.
Why was this kept so quiet?

 

[PF]

Hard to answer Evil dave as I don\'t work for CNN.
But as I said,no deaths during these riots. Perhaps it is the reason you look for and if this hadn\'t lasted that long,you \'d probably hadn\'t heard of this at all.
I just read the CNN paper and I think you should all read it instead of the summary.
Just to be sure cause I\'m not fluent in english.People got electrocuted \"apparently\" when they were pursued by police...That is apparently what say rioters...I repeat,they don\'t need that kind of excuse every time they make trouble.It happens every 31 december night in the french city of Strasbourg just for the fun of it for example.

To be honest,I wish none of these rioters know even America is listening or watching them on tv.Yesterday ,another riot started in another suburb it seems...Speaking of them encourages them just more and more...They feel like heroes...

PS:I recall very bad riots in L.A when I was young but I can be wrong.

 

[G-nome]

Heres a bbc link I found

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4392126.stm

 

[Shawn R. L.]

PS:I recall very bad riots in L.A when I was young but I can be wrong.

About 35 years or so ago there were bad riots in a section of LA called Watts. The community has never been the same.
About 10 years ago there were what are called The Rodney King riots after the cops that beat a fellow (Rodney King - not a shining example of citizenry) to a pulp and were let off.

 

[Sithtainius]

I wasy gonna say, Shawn, we haven\'t had a real good riot since \'92.....


\"April 26th 1992 there was a riot on my street where were you?.....\" - Sublime

although I can\'t for the life of me remember the name of the song

 

[Evil Dave]

Just to clear up some things about the Rodney King incident. I was there.

1.) The video they showed in LA, and what the rest of the country saw slightly differs. In LA they showed it from the begining where Rodney King leaped out of his car towards the police keeping his hands out of sight.
When told to get down he refused and kept charging towards the police.

2.) The cops in LA had computers in the cars and knew exactly who they were pulling over and previous arrests. Rodney King had a huge rap sheet mainly for PCP use and distribution, but also illegal weapons arrests.

3.) Rodney King was severely cranked on PCP.
Watch the video, he was tasered and still kept trying to get back up. A Taser can drop a 2000 lb. Brahma Bull, locking it\'s limbs so that it can\'t move. Yet Rodney King was getting up. Google Taser and watch the videos on what a taser can do to someone.

4) They tried to make it a racist issue, but there was one little known fact, there were two passengers in the car with Rodney King, both black, who did exactly as told and nothing happened to them.

Now you add 1 & 2, anywhere else in the country the cops could have shot him dead and been justified.
You combine 3, and the plain and simple fact was those cops were scared of letting him get up.

I always here people talk about how they could\'ve tackled him, blah,blah, blah.
These people have never dealt with a crazed PCP user, nor were the cops absolutely sure he wasn\'t carrying a weapon until they had him down and still and could search him.
All in all had it been me as one of those cops, Rodney King would\'ve been shot.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

@evildave - Thanx for that. I had heard that the \'facts\' as presented were far from the whole story. I didnt feel too bad for Rodney once I heard what was left out of the story. BTW, his rap sheet has grown longer since the \'event\'. \"cant we all just get along\"?

 

[paintingploddy]

The jury heard the facts. More importantly they weren\'t persuaded regardless of background.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

The jury heard the facts

Mark Furman\'s life story?

Lance Ito lost control of his own courtroom. The Jonny Cocoran show commenced in full snow job mode and was able to throw enough dust in the air that the Juice walked.

 

[eastman]

doesn\'t everyone go to their minis forum of choice to see the news stories about foreign riots?

Will it make it to the other 2 minis forums I read before I see the story in the newspaper here? (probably)