Still developing. Many people dead. Truck driver rams crowd during Bastille Day celebrations. Nice, France, truck attack kills 73, official tells French TV - CNN.com
And my mood just changed from 'Banana' back to 'Anxious'. The little faith in humanity I once had seems to be slipping from my grasp this year… I'm not sure if the worlds always been like this or if I just recently started paying more attention, but damn, am I frustrated right now.
I caught just part of this on the TV news earlier .. I thought it was an accident :eek: not a purposeful attack :eek: .wow.
It still baffles me that someone can be so brainwashed by their religion or other ideology to think it's okay to murder 73 innocent people. Those people were friends, mothers, fathers, brothers and sister. And now they're dead.
What is wrong with this world? Like, seriously, what is wrong with this world? I'm tired of hearing of all those attacks everywhere...
I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with humanity as a whole with all these senseless acts of violence and yet it's not like anything will be done about it.
I heard that the attack was carried out by a muslim. So either an ISIS member or ISIS sympathiser. I don't think it's fair to blame humanity as whole.
I wonder how quick people will change their avatars to the French flag and engage in other meaningless and empty virtue signalling gestures to feel good about themselves?
I wonder how quickly some cynical young person with a penchant for "edginess" denounces people for the means by which they express their condolences about the attack. Oh wait...
What has this world come to. It breaks my heart every time I hear about an attack like this. These attacks are happening far too often. I hear the death toll is now up to 80 people with another 100 injured with 50 of those in serious condition. My condolences go out to all the victims and their families in this tragedy.
One thing that people should also realize is that as humans we are highly ritualistic and we derive comfort from protocol, a sense of calm during turbulent times. Does changing an avatar help "fix" the problems: I'm pretty sure they don't, just as much as funerals help resuscitate the dead. Yet, for what it's worth, they each offer a measure of comfort and a collective sense of grief and unity in the face of loss.
Were the crowds gathering on Bastille Day to acknowledge their love for the French Republic, sense of national identity and history and connection to the principle of democracy also engaging in 'meaningless and empty virtue signalling to feel good about themselves'? What is significantly less valuable in a profile picture than in a statement of condolences? Alamo hit the nail on the head. -- France is obviously in crisis, though it would be worthwhile to remember that it has gone through similar instability in its history, so as not to believe this poses an existential threat to the French state. The forging of of the First Republic caused the Terror and the brutal civil war in the Vendée, among other horrors. The risk of terror from groups such as the Charbonerrie and repressive counter-terror measures of the 1820s defined the development of French society, increasing the pressure to democratise the state for half a century until it happened, usually with the presence of violence lingering behind every step. France went through similarly dispiriting anarchist terror in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and almost collapsed in the 1960s, under pressure from both young leftist forces and a reactionary right. The war in Algeria almost rent French society in two. North African and Palestinian terrorists targeted France for decades towards the end of the last century. Yet every time it has stabilised and got on with things. France continues to be a beacon of democracy, a country that generally still values intellectual rigour and good governing principles. The extension of the state of emergency concerns me. Retreating into a state of fear and allowing the state to overstep its mark in responding to terror could erode the fundamental freedoms that Bastille Day has come to represent. Police and intelligence reforms are vital, yes. They are currently too inefficient and cumbersome to respond adequately to the level of threat France faces. But the Government's abortive attempts to alter the fundamental rights of citizens through constitutional reform and the risk of an indefinite continuance of the state of emergency, which allows police raids without warrants, arrests without due process and a reduced role for the judiciary are perhaps even more pernicious than terrorism itself. These measures are not guaranteed to save lives; as we saw with this attack, even the most rudimentary, undetectable methods can wreak havoc. But these measures are guaranteed to chip away at liberty and rule of law. Reductions in judicial oversight of an increasingly powerful police and intelligence community, the conditionality of citizenship that was thankfully shelved last year, the martial measures and culture of fear such measures foster are all worrying for France. These things end up being counterproductive. Democratic states which suspend fundamental liberties and the rule of law in order to protect their citizens quickly become confused as to the purpose of the state. Is it to protect the people physically, even if it means to oppress them, or is it to survive as an open and free cultural institution? The measures also alienate those most in need of integration. Treating the banlieues as enemy territory to patrol and subdue (which is so far something the Government has dealt with relatively well considering the level of public panic, unlike Belgium) turns people away from supporting the French state. If poor Muslims do not feel that they benefit from the existence of the French state, why should they continue to put up with it? Nice cannot be an excuse to repeat the Government's missteps of November. To do so would not only alienate more people, pushing them into the arms of radicalism, but to tear at the fabric of French democracy. That must not happen, if the war on terror is to be won with the values it was designed to protect intact.
Also, any French speakers (the article doesn't appear to have an English version, I'm afraid, but it's just about the best I've found) might be interested in this article published by The Conversation France in January, describing the social conditions which breed radical islamism. It's neither condemning nor exculpatory, seeking to explain what circumstances give rise to the djihadisme maison which is afflicting France and to a lesser extent English Islamic terror. I think the best course when these sorts of events happen is to combine mourning with understanding. It need not mean forgiveness (to suggest those who have lost loved ones to barbarity should happily forgive such murderers is patronising and stretches the patience of even the most compassionate people) and it might not reduce the pain. But it does help craft a response and allow the inherently political nature of these attacks to be debated civilly and factually, with the goal of putting a stop to the carnage. My heart really goes out to the victims and their loved ones and to France, as a country in great distress.
Not trying to be insensitive, but can I lighten the mood just a little by saying that wasn't very NICE of them? No? Sorry... There's no excuse for what happened. I hope the families affected recover swiftly and aren't permanently scarred by the tragedies they've suffered.
I wish these *&&&*78 sss would blow themselves up if there not happy with the world...instead of killing innocent people all the time.. :icon_sad::icon_sad::icon_sad::tears::***::***: