This is, without a doubt, a tragedy. While I write this, details are still being hammered out about the attacks which have so far only been confirmed as being the products of ISIS.





I'm sure that no matter what we find, who the culprits are, no amount of answers will sooth the pain of those who have lost loved ones, and nor should it. Once again we are witnesses and victims to a senseless assault propagated by an organization that condemns all that it disagrees with and believes that any display of violence is justified in the context of its holy book. The sentiment is becoming exhausting, and frankly, I fail to understand how we as a society are permitting this to continue on.

Let this first be a stance on that I am by no means an Islamaphobe, no more than I am a Christian-aphobe or Juda-phobe (two terms that I'm surprised have not been coined in recent years, though I suppose the latter is more or less just called anti-semitism, which I am definitely against - I state this only because it is a second entry in a new blog and that you likely know nothing about me.) I understand that not all practicing Muslims, in fact a great many, are not of the extremist ilk that fools the likes of these attackers (all but one now claimed to be dead by Parisian police). Nevertheless, it was Christopher Hitchens who said it best by saying that Islam, and all religions in turn, are totalitarian by default. The very nature of the world's leading faiths is to convert the unbelievers lest they be punished for their unworthiness. For those of you who are practicing in any faith and ignore this facet while practicing, brava! You are of the minority that needs to speak up so that your beliefs not be trod over and made to look even more foolish by the fundamentalists who claim that they speak for you.

But to my point. The headline of this post is 'Why Praying for Paris Won't Work' - it's because praying for Paris is what got them here in the first place. Prayers to the prophet, prayers to Allah, prayers to undermine the Jews that currently live in France. Prayers for victory against the religious and economic strife that has faced France for so many years. Prayers of all sorts have been rampant in France, but what wasn't enacted during this time? Education and reform.

France's current president, Hollande, was too busy fucking women and his people to do anything of merit for the downward economic slope of his country which even back in 2013 was being referred to as "the sick man of Europe" even as Greece and other countries followed the slide into national debt.

With the national unemployment of 11% as of 2014 (only a mild increase form 2013) and minimal reforms not going further than the table they were placed upon since Hollande's election back in 2012, who can really say that they are surprised that these attacks are taking place? ISIS is striking where people are vulnerable and inattentive, because they know they will find sympathizers where a society is weakest. And if they can inflame more anti-Jewish rhetoric in the process, all the better.

But Islam is not blameless in this endeavor. That hate groups like this have been allowed not only to continue but to permeate in western culture is the fault of all. Conservative religious groups are becoming a danger everywhere, and it is up to moderates and seculars alike to stand up in true solidarity lest we all be brought down by war-mongering bigots hell bent on bringing about their idea of the apocalypse.