Is democratic chaos the opposite of organized repression? If we agree that the French Revolution was the beginning of modern history with the first popular revolution against rigid totalitarianism, then we can see that popular unrest is unavoidable in large and diverse societies. The Revolutions of 1848 in Europe led to uprisings throughout Europe, and they initially failed, but they did bring about the ascent of labor movements and a merchant and factory worker middle class. These uprisings were the cost of progress. But even in Revolutions, just causes can mutate into a beehive of destructive and mindless frenzy. Civil protest is good for a society, but what about uncivil protest? The black inner city riots of large American cities in the 1960’s resulted in white flight and the decay of many great cities. Did such destruction serve the needs of any group except for the fringe left that believed in destroying society before rebuilding it? As historical Monday morning quarterback, I think city and state governments should have called out the National Guard and calmed things down with water cannon once the fires and destruction began. Too many politicians are afraid of their legacy and there desire to be reelected. The French in the current riots should have brought out the water cannon. The governors of Washington state and Minnesota should have called out the guard and water cannon for the BLM vandalism and breakdown in social order in city centers. It is abominable that a police station was surrendered to communards in Seattle and set afire. France, like the US, is a polarized society with political extremes. Jean-Marie Le Pen must be pondering a return to the fray.
Interesting piece. I think the author is correct that today's mass protesters are essentially spoiled brats & ingrates (Though he's too polite to put it that way). The irony of all their self-congratulation (they are the "resistance," authorities are "fascists," etc., is that if Western governments were really committing genocide, smashing skulls, etc., most of them would scram and hide--as most victims of history's worst have tried to do. Don't underestimate the role of Islamist fanaticism and general dysfunction here--these are the same people who spawned the murderers of 9-11; who tortured Ilan Halimim may he rest in peace; who have not allowed Israelis one day of peace since modern Israel was reborn and who, given a chance, will wreck civilization. It isn't every Arab Muslim and there are good people in every society, but on the whole, let's get real, France made a giant error in letting masses of them in. That's the obvious and sad truth--their way of life is simply not congruent with Western democracy. Time for the West to batten down the hatches, wish the Third world well, and finally get it that these people's problems are not our responsibility.
"When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything." G. K. Chesterton
I think the point about the decline of religious belief being inversely proportional to the rise in mass protests and riots is valid - loss of a "divine" perspective leads to the search for other causes to attach oneself to, to provide meaning and purpose. Even poverty in Western countries is more about the widening gulf between the haves and have nots, rather than extreme poverty as seen quite recently in human history. In Australia, for instance, the poor are much more likely to be obese, so not suffering from caloric insufficiency, unlike the poor not so long ago. In Australia we have mini-riots regarding protection of rights of biological women for instance, as well as some protests, rather than riots, when aboriginal people die in police custody, even though statistics show that aboriginal people are no more likely to die in police custody than the rest of the population, but are much more likely to die from domestic violence situations. Humans need a spiritual foundation to their lives, I believe, but due to obvious issues with the older Faith Traditions, a new religion is needed.
Excellent article. If everyone had to grow their own food, and store it to survive the winter, I feel confident that society wouldn’t be concerned about 90% of the issues we read about today.
But in the U. S. the majority of immigrants do not sit around as they do in France. You don’t see Hispanic people rioting. The majority are hard working, picking fruits and vegetables in our fields that we feed our families with and doing the jobs that poor Americans refuse to do.
Part of this new protest culture has to do with wealth and too much time on the hands of young people. In the late 60’s and 70’s we had a serious war to think abt. Young people wrote music with meaning not misogynistic rap and went to orderly Be Ins where Speakers presented new ideas. Young people thought about issues. Now if you want to hear ideas you go to TedX and buy an expensive ticket to listen. Society is all about having money. It is Global.
Riots are abt society with a growing Have and Have Nots. We all need to wake up.
All these immigrants so “oppressed” by western countries have not decided to build back better in their native lands and refused to assimilate and established “no go zones.” But they attack churches, synagogues, white and Asian women and Jews with near impunity, and groom thousands of non Muslim girls. Look at the number of bombings in Sweden just the first 6 months of 2023. Read a Douglas Murray book or Mark Steyn’s decade old After America. Way more useful and predictive than this drek.
I believe the lack of meaning is the reason things are so ugly...I like to believe that this is a time of growth, but it feels like a time of decay.. I believe good triumphs over evil, but it's a very uncomfortable time that seems to be getting worse...I do like to try to see a bright side..
It's simply not true that "We don’t know much about the world in which Nahel Merzouk grew up—at least not yet." Sure we do. There are recordings of the Imam's hate preachings against (infidel) Western civilization. There are so many ravings against the West recorded on social media every day by young Muslim immigrants. It's baffling why this is not acknowledged in the piece. Abe?
Reminds me of this Dostoyevsky quote from Notes from Underground:
“Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself--as though that were so necessary-- that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive sufferings of all sorts, only to gain his point!”
I think the time when Dostoyevsky wrote this was not all that different from own. Rapid change, loss of traditional sources of meaning, globalization, new mass media, were all happening then too, to the same sorts of results we see now. Perhaps we should expect things to get worse before they get better if history is any indicator.
The main problem, as I see it, with the young rioters and protesters, in Europe and the U.S., is they have no memory of life before the millennium and how much worse off racial minorities, gays and women used to be than they are now. These groups are the least "oppressed" than they have been in all of history, at least in the West. But these kids have no one who has taught them these things, certainly not the public schools and universities, and they are spoon-fed a steady diet of toxic social media telling them they are supposed to be discontent, so they actively look for things to be discontent and agitated about. The author is correct that a large part of it is a religion substitute that fills the void where faith and family life used to occupy.
Where does the immigration pathway lead for new arrivals? (1: Deportation or Not; 2: Residency status; 3: Citizenship status equal to (Or not?) Those born in Gra
Greenwald claims "U.S. (1960-2023), per capita GDP rose from $3,007 to $70,249. That would mean we are 23.4 times richer. Actually we are only 3.2 times richer. I'm sure he is just as wrong about France. (I have a Ph.D. in econ, not that you would need one to eyeball his numbers and know they were crazy.)
Where did he go wrong? Apparently he has either not heard of inflation or he thinks it makes us richer.
But my real complaint is with Bari (who I love). MSM botches science because they don't fact check, but that's no excuse for you. Stop publishing Scientific Nonsense (this is not the first case).
Is democratic chaos the opposite of organized repression? If we agree that the French Revolution was the beginning of modern history with the first popular revolution against rigid totalitarianism, then we can see that popular unrest is unavoidable in large and diverse societies. The Revolutions of 1848 in Europe led to uprisings throughout Europe, and they initially failed, but they did bring about the ascent of labor movements and a merchant and factory worker middle class. These uprisings were the cost of progress. But even in Revolutions, just causes can mutate into a beehive of destructive and mindless frenzy. Civil protest is good for a society, but what about uncivil protest? The black inner city riots of large American cities in the 1960’s resulted in white flight and the decay of many great cities. Did such destruction serve the needs of any group except for the fringe left that believed in destroying society before rebuilding it? As historical Monday morning quarterback, I think city and state governments should have called out the National Guard and calmed things down with water cannon once the fires and destruction began. Too many politicians are afraid of their legacy and there desire to be reelected. The French in the current riots should have brought out the water cannon. The governors of Washington state and Minnesota should have called out the guard and water cannon for the BLM vandalism and breakdown in social order in city centers. It is abominable that a police station was surrendered to communards in Seattle and set afire. France, like the US, is a polarized society with political extremes. Jean-Marie Le Pen must be pondering a return to the fray.
Interesting piece. I think the author is correct that today's mass protesters are essentially spoiled brats & ingrates (Though he's too polite to put it that way). The irony of all their self-congratulation (they are the "resistance," authorities are "fascists," etc., is that if Western governments were really committing genocide, smashing skulls, etc., most of them would scram and hide--as most victims of history's worst have tried to do. Don't underestimate the role of Islamist fanaticism and general dysfunction here--these are the same people who spawned the murderers of 9-11; who tortured Ilan Halimim may he rest in peace; who have not allowed Israelis one day of peace since modern Israel was reborn and who, given a chance, will wreck civilization. It isn't every Arab Muslim and there are good people in every society, but on the whole, let's get real, France made a giant error in letting masses of them in. That's the obvious and sad truth--their way of life is simply not congruent with Western democracy. Time for the West to batten down the hatches, wish the Third world well, and finally get it that these people's problems are not our responsibility.
"When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything." G. K. Chesterton
I think the point about the decline of religious belief being inversely proportional to the rise in mass protests and riots is valid - loss of a "divine" perspective leads to the search for other causes to attach oneself to, to provide meaning and purpose. Even poverty in Western countries is more about the widening gulf between the haves and have nots, rather than extreme poverty as seen quite recently in human history. In Australia, for instance, the poor are much more likely to be obese, so not suffering from caloric insufficiency, unlike the poor not so long ago. In Australia we have mini-riots regarding protection of rights of biological women for instance, as well as some protests, rather than riots, when aboriginal people die in police custody, even though statistics show that aboriginal people are no more likely to die in police custody than the rest of the population, but are much more likely to die from domestic violence situations. Humans need a spiritual foundation to their lives, I believe, but due to obvious issues with the older Faith Traditions, a new religion is needed.
Excellent article. If everyone had to grow their own food, and store it to survive the winter, I feel confident that society wouldn’t be concerned about 90% of the issues we read about today.
But in the U. S. the majority of immigrants do not sit around as they do in France. You don’t see Hispanic people rioting. The majority are hard working, picking fruits and vegetables in our fields that we feed our families with and doing the jobs that poor Americans refuse to do.
Part of this new protest culture has to do with wealth and too much time on the hands of young people. In the late 60’s and 70’s we had a serious war to think abt. Young people wrote music with meaning not misogynistic rap and went to orderly Be Ins where Speakers presented new ideas. Young people thought about issues. Now if you want to hear ideas you go to TedX and buy an expensive ticket to listen. Society is all about having money. It is Global.
Riots are abt society with a growing Have and Have Nots. We all need to wake up.
France on the Verge of Chaos? :: Gatestone Institute
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19798/france-chaos
Why did Ave Greenwald so mischaracterize the riots?
I'm really not sure how the decline in religion overall in the West squares up with this particular protest consisting of these particular people.
All these immigrants so “oppressed” by western countries have not decided to build back better in their native lands and refused to assimilate and established “no go zones.” But they attack churches, synagogues, white and Asian women and Jews with near impunity, and groom thousands of non Muslim girls. Look at the number of bombings in Sweden just the first 6 months of 2023. Read a Douglas Murray book or Mark Steyn’s decade old After America. Way more useful and predictive than this drek.
I believe the lack of meaning is the reason things are so ugly...I like to believe that this is a time of growth, but it feels like a time of decay.. I believe good triumphs over evil, but it's a very uncomfortable time that seems to be getting worse...I do like to try to see a bright side..
A fantastic piece that has it exactly correct, down to the search to replace meaning after religion was abandoned.
It's simply not true that "We don’t know much about the world in which Nahel Merzouk grew up—at least not yet." Sure we do. There are recordings of the Imam's hate preachings against (infidel) Western civilization. There are so many ravings against the West recorded on social media every day by young Muslim immigrants. It's baffling why this is not acknowledged in the piece. Abe?
Reminds me of this Dostoyevsky quote from Notes from Underground:
“Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself--as though that were so necessary-- that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive sufferings of all sorts, only to gain his point!”
I think the time when Dostoyevsky wrote this was not all that different from own. Rapid change, loss of traditional sources of meaning, globalization, new mass media, were all happening then too, to the same sorts of results we see now. Perhaps we should expect things to get worse before they get better if history is any indicator.
The main problem, as I see it, with the young rioters and protesters, in Europe and the U.S., is they have no memory of life before the millennium and how much worse off racial minorities, gays and women used to be than they are now. These groups are the least "oppressed" than they have been in all of history, at least in the West. But these kids have no one who has taught them these things, certainly not the public schools and universities, and they are spoon-fed a steady diet of toxic social media telling them they are supposed to be discontent, so they actively look for things to be discontent and agitated about. The author is correct that a large part of it is a religion substitute that fills the void where faith and family life used to occupy.
Where does the immigration pathway lead for new arrivals? (1: Deportation or Not; 2: Residency status; 3: Citizenship status equal to (Or not?) Those born in Gra
"... aimless activists protest and riot and embrace causes that they hope will bring needed shape to their moral lives. "
Bingo.
Greenwald claims "U.S. (1960-2023), per capita GDP rose from $3,007 to $70,249. That would mean we are 23.4 times richer. Actually we are only 3.2 times richer. I'm sure he is just as wrong about France. (I have a Ph.D. in econ, not that you would need one to eyeball his numbers and know they were crazy.)
Where did he go wrong? Apparently he has either not heard of inflation or he thinks it makes us richer.
But my real complaint is with Bari (who I love). MSM botches science because they don't fact check, but that's no excuse for you. Stop publishing Scientific Nonsense (this is not the first case).