French veneer peeling a bit?

[DGhost]

ALBPM - was that a factory paint job or did you do it yourself? pretty nice, either way

[Dr Mordrid]

You haven't heard on this story because a lot of the national media is in the pocket of the pro-immegrationists....legal or illegal. Basically the damned illegals have more representation, both in Congress and in terms of political action committees, than most US citizens do and the media isn't any better.

About the only media outlet broadcasting these stories regularly is FOX, esp. Bill O'Reilly, with CNN and NBC only doing a few minutes worth a month.

Think what you want about them but FOX and Bill R. are doing jouneymans service on this story.

Dr. Mordrid

[schmosef]

Lou Dobbs on CNN seems to talk about this issue a lot.

I used to have a lot of respect for the guy but some recent comments he made about US assistance to Israel not of benefit in the WOT pissed me off.

[KvHagedorn]

GWB is a suckup-wuss to corporate interests. The American people are no concern of his. This is the same with every other Washington politician. They simply can not/will not do their jobs.

Denmark's men need to find their balls if they haven't already ground them up and handed them to the invaders on a silver platter.. "here.. we don't need them. Please come screw our women for us, too. We have no pride. We want to be all nice and social liberal in your service, oh hateful invaders who spit on us."

[ALBPM]

ALBPM - was that a factory paint job or did you do it yourself? pretty nice, either way

Sent it to Arizona Expert Arms for the paint job. He removed the old finish then Parked and painted for $300.00

[DGhost]

ooohh, shiny!

[ALBPM]

[DGhost]

VERY shiny. any time i've done similar usually takes about 30 seconds and two or three colors of spray paint. i'm not that sophisticated

[Dr Mordrid]

DON'T like shiny guns.

Shiny = high reflectivity = high visibility.

Not good if you're trying to avoid return fire.

Mine get the matte treatment in woodland colors (remember: Michigan) and flat white tape in snow conditions.

Dr. Mordrid

[Tjalfe]

DON'T like shiny guns.

Shiny = high reflectivity = high visibility.

Not good if you're trying to avoid return fire.

Mine get the matte treatment in woodland colors (remember: Michigan) and flat white tape in snow conditions.

Dr. Mordrid

So the deer can't see you when they decide to shoot back?

[DGhost]

So the deer can't see you when they decide to shoot back?

it's a common problem in the mid-west

[Brian Ellis]

To get back on topic, I've been looking hard at the French media and various other documents, some of them dating well back, even by years, including some research reports. These riots are neither a war of religion nor one of race. In fact, this time, the youths are mainly of sub-saharan African origin as the 2 kids who died initially as the spark in the tinderbox were such, although 2nd or 3rd generation French. However, there were also a number of Muslim North African and Christian whites involved. What united them to react?

Undoubtedly, the real spark came from the French authorities. Clichy-sous-bois is the worst kind of slum imaginable: tower blocks built cheaply, with zero maintenance in the 1970s. Families with an apartment may number 4 or more per small room, often with no running water and sanitation canals blocked. Many young ones have attempted to escape this squalor and simply sleep on the streets. But the real error is the fact that these huge dormitories were built without a thought to providing work for the inhabitants, who are of mixed races (a deliberate policy for decades to improve integration). The result is unemployment rates of over 50% and dire poverty, a multi-racial ghetto (sorry for the oxymoron), with the obvious corollary of high crime rates.

Against this background, there are the police, gendarmerie and CRS (special anti-riot police), plus local authorities who have no funding to improve anything. All three forces are not noted for kindness, but service in the "Département 93" (the county where all this is happening) is reserved for the worst elements of the services, tough, violent types, themselves, often as a punishment for excesses in the course of their duty.

So, on the one hand, you have an impoverished youth, steeped in crime. On the other hand, you have violent, trigger-happy "flics". Both fear for their lives from each other. However, there is a difference: the "poulets" have body armour, shields, tear gas, rubber and real bullets and even grenades, as well as armoured vehicles. The youth are mainly armed with granite setts from the roads, rocks, stones and weapons of fortune, such as Molotov cocktails. What they lack in weaponry, they make up in anger for their sort: squalor, hunger, poverty and a total incomprehension by the authorities.

Then you have Minister of the Interior Sarkozy, a henchman of the extreme right, declaring war on these Frenchmen, his own compatriots, threatening violence on this "gangrène", "racaille" (scum) and "ordures" (garbage), without any hint of lifting them from their impotent poverty. This can only help the abcess to burst, spreading the infection. One document compared his statements with Marie Antoinette's "let them eat brioches".

Quite frankly, I don't know where this is likely to end. It could turn out very serious or it could fizzle out with the majority of the youths bowing before the superior forces of the authorities, even though this will do nothing to alleviate their problems and the safety valve will blow again and again in the future, as it has done many times in the past. This is not a problem unique to the outer suburbs of Paris like Clichy and Aulnay, but to many of the major cities; Lyon, Strasbourg, Lille and Marseille, in particular, spring to mind.

Finally, for those of you who can read French (including the Québecois ) there is an interesting politico-socialogical study entitled "Concerning violence of youths" at http://www.conflits.org/document.php?id=672 This is not specifically French but it does describe fairly well how situations like at Clichy-sous-bois could escalate and get out of hand. Reading these reports (and there are many others at the same web site) makes me realise that the French veneer is peeling off by the authorities simply being out of touch with the poorer elements of the citizens.

[ALBPM]

Don't worry DOC it's a flat "Paracoat" paint. I don't think Dghost was using shiny in that context. it may look a bit shiny from a bit of oil on the paint.


I need a couple 5 rnd .308 mags for hunting purposes now. Don't want to scare anyone running around the mountains with 20 rnd mags in the .308s.....LOL

[KvHagedorn]

If that's the worst kind of slum imaginable, Brian, would they not have been better off remaining in their sub-Saharan homelands? Perhaps a free ticket back there would solve everyone's problems.

[Dr Mordrid]

Sounds like a winner to me.

If you don't like where you are, GO HOME

Dr. Mordrid