1)Paradise From the Wall Socket: Why the Left Is Winning the Young, From Berlin to New York — Human dignity is an unconditional right. Prosperity is a conditional achievement. (Frank-Christian Hansel, American Greatness)
From the article — Electricity comes from the wall socket. Money comes from the ATM. Food comes from the store, the pension from the government, the apartment from the landlord. The water runs, the heat works, the ambulance arrives. Nothing about this needs to be understood in order to be used. You are born into it, and it is simply there.
That is the greatest achievement of the modern affluent society and its most dangerous weakness. What has always been there is taken for granted. What is taken for granted seems available. What is available merely needs to be fairly distributed. And whatever does not flow equally to everyone is a scandal.
In that short chain of assumptions sits an entire political worldview. It belongs to a generation that encounters a finished world and sees in it mainly the gaps: the unaffordable apartment, the unequal wealth, the poverty in a rich country. The questions are legitimate. The answer that follows with great regularity is wrong. It says, “all that is missing is political will.”
The better a society works, the less its members have to think about how it works. Nobody has to understand supply chains to buy a phone. Nobody has to know how a power grid is kept stable to switch on a light. This invisibility is a civilizational accomplishment; the division of labor frees the individual from knowing all the preconditions of his own life. But invisibility breeds illusion. What works reliably looks like nature. What has always been there will always be there. And what is there need only be shared out.
So prosperity becomes a pile to be divided. The question “how does this come into being?” disappears behind the question “why doesn’t everyone get the same amount?” And with it disappears the half of reality on which the other half stands.
2) A frenzied assault on French civilisation: The rioters’ targeting of the French Republic’s symbols speaks to their violent estrangement from their nation. (Frank Furedi, spiked!)
From the article — Yet the most striking feature of these riots has been the extent to which they’ve been fuelled by a destructive and disruptive dynamic from the start. This dynamic has encouraged the convergence of different groups with no shared goals – from school and university students to violent bands of casseurs – to hit the streets together and cause havoc. And this, in turn, has led to a loss of self-control and the erosion of the kind of restraint that is usually associated with civilised behaviour. The riots have effectively been decivilising society.
Unlike the well-known revolts of modern times, these riots seem driven by a profound sense of hatred towards France. From the outset, the mob has directed its destructive passions against the symbols of the French Republic and the authority of the state. Schools, police stations and city halls have been targeted and, in many instances, set on fire – including the ornate, 19th-century Limoges city hall, which was gutted and engulfed by flames last Saturday.
The self-conscious desecration of the institutions of the French Republic was captured well by the behaviour of the masked gangs who invaded the city hall in Marseille and hurled the bust of Marianne on to the floor. The desecration of Marianne – the female personification of the French Republic – was not an accidental act of vandalism. The mob was performing a ritual of giving France a good kicking.
Related articles: The French Revolution of the 21st Century: From the Guillotine to the Suicide Vest: The Reign of Terror, Reimagined. (Itxu Díaz, American Spectator), France on fire: the nihilists against the normies: Across the West, a Bonapartist alliance of privileged leftists and lumpen foreigners are setting fire to decency. (Brendan O’Neill, spiked!), BLM-Style French Riots Offer Cautionary Tale to Americans (Joshua Arnold, Washington Stand)
3) Pyromania, from Paris to Palestine (Seth Mandel, Commentary)
From the article — Brad Lander is currently on a selfie tour of Judea and Samaria. Here he is on a comfy bus ride guarded by IDF soldiers—Lander was with a group of foreigners seeking to provoke clashes between Jews and Arabs during the olive harvest, and the IDF accompanied him away from the area where he was trying to start a war.
Lander’s fun trip turned sour, however, when he practically begged the IDF to arrest him and they refused. Lander told the friendly IDF soldiers that he wasn’t yet a congressman, just a candidate for Congress, hoping they would put him in handcuffs or give him some anti-Zionist photo op. But the IDF didn’t care that he wasn’t that important; they treated him with respect anyway. All they required of him was to follow the law.
Lander’s disappointment was palpable. Over the past week or so, a particular pattern has taken place. American activists join Arab Palestinians in rock-throwing attacks and other provocations against Jews in the area, Jews respond with their own acts of violence, the foreign media print only the Jewish violence, and more conflict tourists are incentivized to join a conflict on the other side of the world.
Jewish shepherds and farmers have had their animals stolen, others have seen their animals poisoned. Settlers have blocked roads, trapped Palestinians inside their houses, and committed their own disreputable acts of violence and provocation. It’s a genuine cycle of violence, with a complicated back story: The Palestinian rejection of statehood has left Judea and Samaria in a state of limbo. Jews and Arabs thus try to create facts on the ground in a competition over land.
The other day, a Palestinian appeared to be caught on video trying to kill Knesset candidate Fleur Hassan by throwing a football-sized jagged rock through her car window while she and others were driving through Judea and Samaria. Brad Lander did not volunteer to drive Fleur Hassan around in an act of protective solidarity because such anti-Israel activists are there to provoke, not prevent, violence.
4) The Damage Weak Leaders Can Do To Their Own Countries (Nils A. Haug, Gatestone Institute)
From the article — Why are France and other parts of Europe going up in flames? No one tried to stop the marauders when they could. Many people, apparently, would rather be conquered by rapists, stabbers, car-rammers and beheaders than be called a racist.
There also seems to be a slight confusion about who are actually the racists here: the Westerners who incomprehensibly seem not to appreciate being raped, stabbed, car-rammed or beheaded, or the rioters and those who told them exactly which homes and businesses to smash, loot and burn. By a miraculous coincidence, it seems, not one Muslim shop in Marseille was damaged.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out this week, the Jews have lived on that land for more than 3,000 years. Part of it is actually called Judea. How can you “occupy” land if you are its indigenous people?
If anyone is committing ethnic cleansing or genocide — not just of Israelis, but of all Jews — it is the Palestinians. Hamas states it quite plainly in its original covenant: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” – Hamas Covenant, Article 7, 1988.
5) Europe: Ready for the Antichrist (Jan Markell, Harbinger’s Daily)
From the article — We’re seeing Europe’s globalists paving the way for the Antichrist. They are throwing out the welcome mat.
No, the title of Antichrist doesn’t belong to bumbling Emmanuel Macron, but in 2016, even The Economist magazine was calling him Europe’s savior. How God humbles the proud. As the head of France, no European leader today should be as ashamed as Emmanuel Macron, who casually enjoyed a Celine Dion concert while policemen were on fire in Paris and elsewhere.
Now the world knows he’s no savior. But there is one standing by somewhere. He will rise from obscurity.
There have been riots and demonstrations in Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, and beyond, but began in mid-September in France.
Be He God or Devil, We Will Receive Him! Seriously?
Europe has cried for a savior in days gone by. Paul Henri Spaak—a Belgian politician called “Mr. Europe”, was Secretary General of NATO in 1957. At that time, he made a statement that lingers and should haunt Europeans today:
“What we need is a man of sufficient stature to hold the
allegiance of all people, and to lift us out of the
economic morass into which we are sinking.
Send us such a man, and be he god or devil, we
will receive him.”
Daniel 9 suggests the Antichrist will come from the region that destroyed the Temple in 70 AD. And while the Roman Empire was huge, most scholars suggest this “little horn” will arise from what is today, the European Union.
Welcoming the Stranger??
Europe has reeked with the familiar mantras of “free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea” since October 7, 2023. Could that be a judgment? Decades ago, Europe killed most of its Jews and then began welcoming Islamic immigrants to the point of collapse today.
Now, they need a savior, and according to Spaak and almost all of today’s globalists, be he god or devil, they will receive him.
Other Excellent Articles
* High Time For A History Lesson: Who Is The Greatest Obstacle To Peace Between Israelis And Arabs? (Chris Katulka, Harbinger’s Daily)
* Crazy Colorado: It’s no California, but it’s getting there. (Tom Raabe, American Spectator)
* The Emperor’s New Running Shoes: A Washington cross-country runner’s sudden success puts the hypocrisy of progressive feminism on full display. (Sarah Kendis, American Spectator)
* Pedophilia Proliferates in U.S. Schools: The federal government has intensified efforts to curb rampant sexual abuse of students in the nation’s schools and to end the despicable practice of “passing the trash.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness)
* Your Browser Might Be Spying On You To Change The Price Of Items You Purchase (Sarah Westall, Federalist)