I got as an email today.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Progress Report: Chalabi Returns to Scene of the Crime
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 08:34:15 -0800
From: American Progress Action Fund <progress@americanprogressaction.org>
Reply-To: progress@americanprogressaction.org
To: xxxxx
CONSERVATISM
What to Make of the Riots in France Rioting that began almost two weeks ago in the "seething outer suburbs" of Paris has "intensified and spread to other French cities," becoming the country's "worst civil unrest in decades." As political observers weigh in, the gulf between conservatism and progressivism could not be more clear. The divide is not over the violence itself, of which there can be no condoning, but rather over the causes of the strife, and the best way to address them. The right's response has demonstrated several prominent strains of conservative thought: their tendency to see in virtually any conflict involving Muslims the sparks of a "clash of civilizations"; the growing resistance to immigration and embrace of isolationism (evidenced by, among other signs, the vigilante Minuteman Project and the call by House conservatives this week to end birthright citizenship); and the firm unwillingness to consider the lack of social and economic opportunity as a factor in the unrest.
BACKGROUND ON THE RIOTS: The violence began on October 27 after two Muslim teenagers from the northern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois "were electrocuted in a power substation where they were hiding from police who they believed were chasing them. French officials have said police were not pursuing the youths." Most of those who took to the streets were "French-born children of African and Arab immigrants, the most neglected of the country's citizens." The center-right government led by President Jacques Chirac was caught entirely unprepared; Chirac did not even address the country on the matter until Sunday, 11 days into the riots. The same cannot be said of Chirac's Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who early on engaged in "shameful name-calling demagogy," including a hysterical call to "karcherise" the ghettos, referring to "Karcher," the "well-known brand name of a system of cleaning surfaces by super-high-pressure sand-blasting or water-blasting."
A RUSH TO BLAME ISLAM: President Bush has said that Islam inspires its followers "to lead lives based on honesty, and justice, and compassion," and Americans overwhelmingly agree that the violent strains of radical Islam represent a minute minority. But the conservative responses to the French riots belie this idea. Pat Buchanan declared yesterday that the "soaring Muslim population is a Fifth Column inside Europe." Bill O'Reilly's segment last night focused on the "Muslim insurrection," and spoke of "insurgent Muslims" in France. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Steyn claimed that the "Eurabian civil war appears to have started." He added, "The French have been here before," referring, incredulously, to 732 A.D., when "the Muslims had advanced a thousand miles north of Gibraltar to control Spain and southern France up to the banks of the Loire." The truth is far more complex than conservative analysis would suggest. Indeed, "Muslim leaders of African and Arab communities have...issued a fatwa, or religious order, against the riots." As one Parisian told the Washington Post: "This has nothing to do with religion. But non-Muslims are afraid of people like me with a beard. I look suspicious to them. Discrimination is all around us. We live it every day. It's become a habit. It's in the air."
REFUSING TO CONSIDER SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY: A core progressive value is a belief in the importance of opportunity, and the basic idea that every hard-working person should be able to realize their goals through education, decent work, and fair pay. Those rioting in France have unquestionably been denied that opportunity. Average unemployment in the suburbs suffering from violence is 21 percent, "more than twice the national average—and going up." Among men younger than 25 -- i.e., the "vast majority of rioters" -- the rate jumps to 36 percent. "Health care and schooling are far below national levels," and residents are "largely confined to grim suburban housing estates." In other words, as the Economist put it, "the ingredients for social explosion have long been brewing." Yet such talk is counterproductive to conservatives. Victor Davis Hanson acknowledged yesterday that while social and economic conditions are poor, "nevertheless, during a riot, you don't want talk about them," since trying "to find so-called root causes" of the riots is to "appease" the rioters. Others were more abrasive. After comparing the Parisian suburbs to "housing projects in America," conservative Thomas Sowell criticized the "squeamishness...and the accompanying refusal to face blatant realities" of those who failed to identify this "underclass" as "barbarians" and "scum."
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