The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns: The Riotous French

Contributed by Sense of Soot

Thanks to Sam et al for allowing me to guest blog. I try not to cover what’s already been covered by better minds than mine, but sometimes no one’s saying exactly what I mean. Therefore, I bring you my take on The Riotous French. Like Lileks, the bleat.

I’m unconvinced that all these youths are devout 5-times-a-day Mecca facers. And the drug gangs are peeved at Sarkozy’s crackdown and hope to spark his ouster. It also hasn’t been well publicised that on a normal pre-riot night, there were usually enough torched autos to melt S’mores for an entire Boy Scout Jamboree.

Some people point out that the price of employment for life in France is ignoring a permanent underclass anchored to your divinely-shod leg like the revenants under the fur of Christmas Present. And while, in turn, the gray-haired Burgundian Moribundians hold their own positions in a death grip, there’s no room for anyone else to be employed, especially those kind of people. Add to that the difficulties in starting new ventures in France (ask all the graduates of Le Cordon Bleu with cafes in Miami if you don’t believe me) and you wind up with the jihadis, drug gangs, and bored boys as temporary fellow travelers, all marching together looking for something different from the Wizard.

Like Johnathan Pearce of Samizdata and Guillaume Parmentier, I do think the lousy architecture of the storage units-cum-housing makes people inherently more prone to revolt. Of course, I, too, live in an aesthetically repugnant building, but they change the flower arrangements weekly, put braid on the doormen’s sleeves, and charge obscene rent to make it seem more desirable.

We Americans know how to put the lipstick on the pig, n’est pas?

Yet, in itself, being trapped in a concrete hive isn’t enough reason for the turmoil either, is it? Of course, actual honeybee drones and even the Borg have duties upon which to vent their freaky genderless energy. But these disgrunts are young men, the most vigorous physical resource of a nation being stockpiled. Without compulsory military or public service or other socially acceptable way to exhaust themselves and earn some pride, they’re stacked in forgotten corners like surplus odd-sized batteries, and it’s no surprise if a few corrode and ruin their neighbors.

And yet, I find I also agree with Bernard Henri-Levy’s analysis of the mob’s spiraling momentum that likens it to an enraged, drunken spree. However, when he’s all like “what’s really needed now is arbitration and talk,�? stop the carousel, I’m off. Am I the only one who admires their untrammelled, can-do spirit? Am I alone in perceiving the dreams clenched in their raised fists? For young men, physical action is communication, and their desires are as plain as they can be. What moxy! Dare I suggest chutzpah?

Where no space for these active and ambitious fellows exists currently in the statist, socialist state, they are boldly and freely creating a new market for themselves, opportunistically piggybacking on the general French reluctance to prosecute property crimes outside the Louvre. With an exclusive Euro-Paint product all ready to launch overseas, I believe soon enough, most of the flames we’ll be seeing will be on super-sweet paint jobs, and the real nationwide explosion will be in owner-operated Viscomte de Scheib franchise locations. Sign me up for a quarter panel, and Vive La France, ya’ll!

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This article contributed by Sense of Soot

Comments

"I’m unconvinced that all these youths are devout 5-times-a-day Mecca facers. And the drug gangs are peeved at Sarkozy’s crackdown and hope to spark his ouster. It also hasn’t been well publicised that on a normal pre-riot night, there were usually enough torched autos to melt S’mores for an entire Boy Scout Jamboree."

All quite true, but it does not take "all these youths are devout 5-times-a-day Mecca facers."

and they passed the riot paradigm, when they stated using the internet and cell phones to coordinate raids on outlaying areas, and moved up the scale from rampaging randomly torching cars in the streets to hiting subways, super stores churches schools etc.

The Revolutionary swims in the Sea of the People, along with the it is true, justified frustrations of the street, we probably have those who were waiting to direct such actions for political gain,

Posted by: Dan Kauffman | November 11, 2005 07:55 AM

Oh, sure there's always someone who starts the IM swarm (is it all SMS there?) and who'll use the momentum to promote his own purposes, but if you're saying Muslims don't want cool, tricked-out cars, I must strenuously disagree.

Posted by: Henway | November 11, 2005 09:33 AM