ep. 242 - Paris Isn't Burning

Have you seen the burning buildings in France? How does it make you feel? 

I know how certain people want you to feel. They want you to think that the barbaric hordes are storming the gates of western civilization and that they want to destroy everything you hold beautiful and sacred. France today. America tomorrow. 

The burning of the the town hall in Limoges is the most powerful image to come out of the unrest in France. A fiery blaze of an historic stone building and the crashing of its clock tower is held up and all the people who love things good and beautiful mourn. 

Now, I don’t think it’s the proper thing to burn. It’s bad PR for a movement that isn’t senseless violence, as much as they want you to believe that. They don’t tell you that it’s not as historic as you think. The building is 143 years old, which by European architectural standards is quite young. it was built to look old. but i did not mourn this building. 

Nor did I mourn the arson at Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s vacation home, weeks later. People will say it was a beautiful building with great vistas and a nice cafe! It’s historic! You burned down Hitler’s airbnb! What did he ever do to you! 

It’s funny the things we choose to shed tears of and get all indignant and protective over. I’m trying to think of what the American equivalent might be. If i had to pick one in the news right now, it’s the Cheesecake Factory. That is our Limoges. That is our Eagle’s Nest. 

If you’re not familiar with the discourse, at a recent rally, Obama made a decent joke.

I didn’t think he was making fun of Cheesecake Factory, but conservative operatives took it as an opportunity to yelp and claim that Obama was ridiculing the average American who thinks that Cheesecake Factory is a nice place. 

Now, ive never been to a cheesecake factory. I thought it was a place that sold cheesecakes. Stranger places have stayed in business, but it’s considered to be a modestly fancy place to take your family out for massive caloric meals. Now every conservative poster is taking pictures outside the restaurant and saying this place is great! The liberals are out of touch with our eating establishments and therefore our culture. 

This makes the Cheesecake Factory our cultural monument. Americans get mad when you make fun of their consumer choices, because America is a culture of consumption. It’s like when a trans person enjoys their bud light. It is blasphemy to us because we identify with what we buy. It’s like when an Iranian cleric said their was no equivalent to the murder of Suleimani, “Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spider-Man and SpongeBob? They don't have any heroes.”

So what we choose to mourn says a lot about us. I will not mourn brick and mortar. I will, however, mourn the ancient olive trees that the Israeli occupying forces destroy on a daily basis. Some of these trees are more than a thousand years old and have been tended too by the Palestinian people before France even had stone buildings. One of these trees is worth more than every town hall in all of Europe. So spare me those crocodile tears about a building you've never seen or would never care to learn about until someone tells you to be sad about it. 

So what is really going on in France. To help us understand, reporter Marlon Ettinger, who is on the ground in Paris explains.