XPost: uk.politics.misc, alt.politics.british, uk.media   
   XPost: uk.media.newspapers   
   From: banana@REMOVE_THIS.borve.demon.co.uk   
      
   In article <1131932391.989009.104200@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,   
   ib011f9545i@blueyonder.co.uk writes   
      
   >so why do so many people from France come here to work?   
      
   Many people from the UK go to France to work too (and Germany and many   
   other places).   
      
   >I know about the sickness issue,but there are lots of jobs for people   
   >who want to work,unlike France.   
      
   Do you think all of the unemployed people living in areas of the UK   
   where there is mass unemployment (whether officially recognised as   
   unemployed or classified under under the ridiculous label of 'NEET' -   
   'Not in Education, Employment, or Training') have got jobs waiting for   
   them to walk into?, if only they could be bothered to apply?   
      
   >You do not comment on the idea that ethnic minorities are better of in   
   >France than Britain.   
      
   I do not think the ongoing struggles in France have much to do with   
   ethnicity.   
      
   The idea that they have is of course being trumpeted in the UK, to help   
   middle class people feel 'clever' about backing Americanisation or   
   Blatcherism or whatever you want to call it. 'The American social   
   model', maybe? Backing the government (and implicitly, the war effort),   
   basically. And bringing their own racism a bit closer to the surface,   
   albeit in a schizoid way but what else would one expect?   
      
   The denial of formal citizenship in France to many older residents of   
   Arab extraction is certainly racist, and has not happened to older   
   non-white residents in the UK to anything like the same extent.   
      
   >France has high unemployment,worst of all in the ethnic minorities,this   
   >is a fact.   
      
   France does indeed have high unemployment, not as high as in the UK for   
   what it's worth.   
      
   >The people rioting in France are part of an ignored group,this is not   
   >the French revolution and they are not progressive people.   
      
   'Not progressive'? I don't know what you mean by that, but it's what a   
   lot of middle-class people in the UK are saying, aimed at Muslims, as a   
   sort of 'Abigail's Party' (or should that be 'social workerist'?)   
   analogue of a neo-Nazi skinhead saying 'I hate P*kis'. Are Hollywood,   
   Christianity, Judaism, Richard Dawkins's atheism, Leo Strauss, and   
   Michael Ledeen 'progressive', and if not, what is?   
      
   Many white people have been participating in the insurgency in France.   
   These riots are most certainly NOT race riots [*] (Not that you said   
   they were; I am just making the point).   
      
      
   (*) AFAIAA, there haven't been any race riots in Birmingham, England,   
   recently either. A race riot involves violent attacks on people purely   
   because of their ethnicity. E.g. people walking down the street, who may   
   be elderly, may be young, whatever, may have this view, that view, or no   
   particular view, on any particular recent events, getting violently   
   assaulted because their skin is the wrong shade. If you have got two   
   crowds fighting each other, which happen to be of different ethnicities,   
   or mainly so, as in Birmingham recently, that does not necessarily make   
   a race riot. I am not sure there have been any race riots in the UK   
   since 1958).   
      
   --   
   banana     "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you   
               give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to   
               Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the   
               rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)