Back into the blog-breach, dear friends, once more,

because there's so much to say about the French conflict; or rather, so many are saying things I can't ignore (please, do take advantage of the links in this post and in the two below). (As ever, Instapundit has proved his invaluability in opening the horizons.)

First, to the Beeb- where I found them doing the serious work of journalism: namely helping faceless old Europe to bash America and kick Bush where it could just please please please God hurt him.

Relatedly, a blog I've always liked has been commenting on BBC double standards and an alarming convergence.

And finally, a retrospective at the French cant which has passed for commentary for so many years, and the European suicidal tendancy to believe that 'the things which happen' in the US (that, is, after they've been magnified and intensified by press bias) could never happen here:

'As the Chicago Sun-Times reported in 1992: "the consensus of French pundits is that something on the scale of the Los Angeles riots could not happen here, mainly because France is a more humane, less racist place with a much stronger commitment to social welfare programs."'

This makes the prescriptions of many for the alienated Islamic youth, to increase social welfare programmes, look just a tad unhelpful.

Deserving of a separate link, Melanie Phillips' post about the violence surfs the web, the press, and the context of it all quite brilliantly.

French Round-Up

Some debate was occasioned at B-BBC by this article from Hugh Schofield. Biased or not, was the question. Francis at the Olive Tree thought it quite good, though demonstrating trademark bias. I think that's close to the mark- what could be more a BBC trademark than saying, for instance, by way of an introduction, that Sarkozy

'normally thrives on the kind of acute law-and-order crisis that the country is currently going through.'

What kind of a ghoul do the BBC think he is? What kind of starting point is it for any sort of impartial and insightful reporting? Answer: no kind, and therefore like so many BBC forays into the real world it's scuppered before launch.

Such things aside, I suppose the analysis that Vilepin and Chirac are manoeuvering to edge Sarkozy into the line of fire is about right- but blindingly obvious to any that has even seen these three men's faces on the TV or internet.

But in any case it could be much more serious than business as usual emanating from the continent's cultural centre. Mark Steyn thinks so. And Helen Samuelzy at the ever informative and stimulating EU Referendum blog, talks a bit about the rottenness that appears to have ignited in the state of Denmark- but only a bit, because the main point is that we're kept in ignorance of it.

This kind of thing illustrates what I mean when I say (as, like a broken record I do say) that the British media, amongst which the BBC is preeminent and draws upon itself maximal responsibility, has utterly failed to carry out its function to inform us about the news that matters to us. That is the great fault which lies in the largely ignorant and visceral coverage of matters American. It's as if the BBC hasn't noticed that Europe is really far more important to us, with regards to social trends and economic and demographic pressures. The US couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't save us from the consequences of our own fatuity. So busy have the British media (amongst which the BBC claims top dog status) always been in saying how important Europe is to us- in order to defend the grande projet of the EU- they have failed to pick up on the fault lines which run through the EU, which threaten us: namely, corruption, massive immigration, demographic decline and spiritual vacuity (to name but four: I could add assimilation of Eastern Europe, reduction of agricultural subsidy and deindustrialisation to the list of Europes's massive problems).

On a wild Blunkett-

Natalie says it all really, but linking to Stephen Pollard was a smart move too. The only thing I'd add is that in reality all Blunkett is guilty of (compared with other ministers in Tony Blair's Government) is getting a little carried away. The modus operandi (please forgive any latin infelicity, I was educated a little late and too cheaply for that stuff) are the same for all Blair's men (and women). What was it Scott was saying? 'Deny, Obfuscate, attack'- and do it together, which may have been Blunkett's biggest error as he'd separated himself from the pack.

People don't talk like this- like this- unless they're at war.

What seems to have passed people by concerning the speech of Amadenajd (whatever), is this comment:


'... They [ask]: 'Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?' But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved… '

I'm betting Prince Charles didn't notice and if he did, he'd think it was a kind of posturing, unrepresentative of the faith he admires.

Sadly he's wrong. The Iranian president was laying out very clearly and, I might say, honestly, the analysis which any genuine muslim must respect if not agree with. prince Charles is heading for America wilfully in ignorance of that reality, hoping(if it crosses his mind) that the Americans won't get an inkling of that reality either. But it is attitudes like that (and if you read the rest, philosophies) which, being held by powerful men with powerful arsenals and terrorist friends, are the reason for the War on Terror. No-one will ever be able to look history in the eye and blame Bush Jnr for the global struggle which Amednejdad is pursuing and facilitating as before him Saddam facilitated it.

It's a tragic resting place of mindless antagonism for failed cultures- but as dangerous as it needs to be to justify all of America's fears and suspicions, and then some.

You have to laugh at this article by A.A. Gill about Englishness. (thx ATW)

It's the way he blends the subtle with the surreal, so that we get juxtapositions like 'The monkey noises at black players, the bellows of abuse at anyone who’s admitted in passing that they read The Guardian; the relentless nailing of ugliness, of weakness, of foreignness'.

You've got to laugh. One wonders just how well he holds in focus the fact that people only do that to Guardian readers to reinforce their ridiculous prejudices about the world, to confirm them in the ever-so-lofty notions of superiority and superior judgement about the world which they so often hold (or, how can they ever read their exactingly stupid doyen Gill from beginning to end without feeling like class snitches?).

I might add that I look English (well, sort of), sound English etc etc... (while being somewhat of a mixture and not even a clearly defined one at that) yet I find that I have no problem with identifying myself as English. Gill has no appreciation that anger and humour are the scylla and charybdis of human emotion. Only the English seem to have grasped this effectively. You might not like the exact synthesis involved, but it seems just about the only practical model out there which, as they say, 'keeps it real' and effective.