Chirac: Israeli prime minister not welcome in Paris

[OverdueSpy]

Originally posted here by MURACU
Like I said -- 1984 He who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future.

Now hang on here. The Democrats have had the monopoly on information disemination in the USA for the last 30 years. And now you want to bring up a 1984 type of environment? Even though Fox News (which is decidedly more Republican than any other major news outlet) is beating CNN hands down as the most wathced News program on television, Democratic biased newspapers and news television programs far exceed Republican biased venues of the same. Which I attribute to Democrats finding Fox News to be more entertaining than CNN, and a general shift in understanding of exactly what Democrats and Republicans claim to represent.

As for Talk Radio - Yes Republican biased programming far exceeds Democratic based programming. I like to think this is due to Republicans desiring to be informed rather than entertained. Jab Jab.

[RoadClosed]

I think he was agreeing.

[MURACU]

I was agreeing. The thing I find the most frighting in 1984 is not the fact everyone is watched but the idea of the power controling the media has. I have no real interest weather it is the democrats or the republicains who control 51% of the media sources in the states. Already the fact that it can be said is a bad sign. It means that for the vast majority of people their information source is controled by the political machine. Most people will believe almost blindly what the are told. Hence my referance to 1984. I would love to continue this but I am taking my son to ireland tomorrow for three weeks so I wont be really checking the internet. Going to spend the time sailing. So have fun all.

[RoadClosed]

That is true. But we can go and look at both sides and make some kind of educated decision. Look now; a movie from Hollywood is seeking to change the course of American thinking to rally behind a group of personal political views. They are even going to time the DVD release to coincide with the election. People will vote based on nothing more than a movie and a few web sites. The enemy isn't the government. It's Dan Rather and Hollywood icons people follow like deities and the like. But we, well a lot of us (I hope) know that.

It's been a long time since I read or saw 1984. Perhaps we just assume it's a soviet like socialist government. Maybe it was just a media corporation with forced subscription on their network?

Perhaps the media bias in this country IS the reason it's number 15 and not censorship of the government at all. Those behind the camera do practice censorship; locally and on purpose. Is it a problem? Hell yes. Is it as scary as Al Queda? Yep, almost.

See ya when you get back.

[AngelicKnight]

Hoo boy, I'm staying out of this one!

But I do want to throw my opinion on this in:

I'm really tired of how cliche the term "antisemitism" has become. It's simply a trendy term to throw out to serve a political agenda nowadays. If I sneeze too hard in the general direction of a jewish individual, I'm antisemitic.

[KorpDeath]

Originally posted here by AngelicKnight
Hoo boy, I'm staying out of this one!

But I do want to throw my opinion on this in:

I'm really tired of how cliche the term "antisemitism" has become. It's simply a trendy term to throw out to serve a political agenda nowadays. If I sneeze too hard in the general direction of a jewish individual, I'm antisemitic.

Sorry but I disagree completely, I think you mean racism. Antisemitism is not thrown around like racism these days. To even try to pass that off as an intelligent comment is B.S.

Back on track. France and Germany have both shown that you can burn down synagogues and destroy Jewish cemetaries with impunity. They don't care. They certainly haven't been tripping over themselves to find the culprits and so Sharon made his comments. Chirac is a puke and he plays politics to appease the masses, he's an insignificant leader of an insignificant country and now that he knows it he's pissed.

[AngelicKnight]

Well I have to completely disagree with your completely disagreeing. Hardly B.S. You may just not have been on the receiving end of it as much as I have, but I've had it thrown at me to the point it's just sickening to hear the term (and I'm anything but antisemitic). But yeah, racism is much more thrown around.

This is very interesting seeing the opinions of our Europeans in here. I don't know much about how the British view the French and vice versa on these issues, so I'm enjoying taking in your opinions. Very interesting stuff.

[Negative]

Here's an interesting article about that, Korp

...
These lists, based on reports from communal organisations, need some reservations. They include incidents not properly verified. The fire in the synagogue at Trappes (2), which was burnt to the ground, acquired symbolic importance, but was in fact an accident (3). And the motives of the perpetrators of real incidents were not always clear. Upon arrest some proved to have no antisemitic intentions. The use of the terms Arab and Maghrebi in the lists is misleading, since private security guards do not know the origins or identity of suspects.

And more interesting stuff at

Time Europe

When French president Jacques Chirac learned on Nov. 15 that a Jewish school had been set ablaze in the Paris suburb of Gagny, he sounded the tocsin. Officials flocked to the scene of the fire, and, 48 hours later, Chirac summoned his closest advisers to the Elysée Palace to brainstorm new ways to fight anti-Semitism. "When one attacks a Jew in France, it's France in its entirety that is attacked," he told reporters. "Anti-Semitism is contrary to all the values of France."

France has the largest Jew population in Europe (600,000), but also one of the largest muslim ones (5 million). The number of incidents is relatively low if you look at those figures, imo...

[darkes]

As the latest take on this, try this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3932313.stm

especially the comment at the end: "The BBC's correspondent in Paris says the number of threats and attacks on Jews in France has risen sharply in the wake of the second Palestinian uprising."

[RoadClosed]

Underplaying French problems?

600 reported cases of abuse by Jews

1000 Jews leaving France this year headed to Isreal? I listened to an interview from a woman leaving because she is scared to live in France, very cute Frech accent.

500 reported cases last year?

More and more muslims each year.
And I haven't even looked at a Jewish paper.

Some hopefully unbiased sources. I can post biased one's if needed. In these the French downplay issues.

http://www.iht.com/articles/527883.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2683783.stm