Too much of a good thing; this could be one way to explain the discontent sweeping the country.
There is, all things considered, a dark side to abundance.
So in Brooklyn, the other day, groups of rich kids stormed the subway turnstiles to protest something, and there must always be something, or anything, when you need to explain, if only to yourself, why you are part of a riot. No, on that day it was not global warming. That was yesterday and tomorrow.
On that particular day, it was “police brutality” and “racism,” shades of the 1960s when that generation, the counterculture, had something else to protest, the Vietnam war.
Since these days there is no war, or nothing nearly like Vietnam, howls of racism and police brutality will do.
Particularly, this event of last week was in response to increased police presence at the subways to subvert turnstile jumpers.
Well, it is a cause. AOC wasted no time giving it her blessing. Scofflaws always welcome. This is her time, a time of restlessness, resentment and discontent.
Yet there is no war, and there is no famine, and America has never had it so good, so good that some people don’t know what to do with themselves. Those would be the university types and other deep thinkers who have enough time on their hands to offer Socialism as the utopia that would have us all starving together.
Working people have no time to protest, or riot, not for Socialism, nor even for utopia, because they are busy working. What a concept!
They haven’t the leisure or the convenience to be miserable. They are busy for their families, which leaves hardly much time for lending a hand to make “the world a better place.”
Compare, then, our millennials to Israel’s millennials, or to Israelis of any generation.
Over there, there is war, and when it is not armies in pitched battle, it could be the next missile falling from the sky, so when Israelis look up it is not for fear of climate change.
Over there, there is war, and when it is not armies in pitched battle, it could be the next missile falling from the sky, so when Israelis look up it is not for fear of climate change.
Lucky for us to have the weather forecast as our fixation.
Rather, the Israelis have enemies at all sides, and it has been so since the beginning, and for that reason service in the military is (with exemptions) compulsory.
Especially along the Gaza border, those Israelis do not worry too much that because of the rise in global temperature, the world will end in a fireball in 12 years.
That’s the warning from a 16-year-old climate change crusader from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, therefore it must be so.
For fireballs from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Israelis don’t get 12 years, but 12 seconds to run to a shelter.
Yet visiting Israel, you would hardly notice the tension. The Israelis are a happy people, but disciplined to expect the worst.
When the time comes, all Israelis are expected to fight.
There is nothing like that in America today. There is no compulsory military service. Nothing is asked of us except to pursue a good life.
So what’s the beef?
Back in the 1960s, the James Dean movie had it as, “Rebel Without a Cause.” In “The Wild One,” asked what he’s rebelling against, Brando sneers, “What have you got?”
The black leather jacket was the symbol of 1960s resistance. Poets and hipsters of all kinds were at odds against the System and the Establishment.
For the full story, “The Days of the Bitter End.”
Bob Dylan was at the forefront. Greenwich Village was at the leading edge. Lenny Bruce was the voice, and even rock and roll was a cry to tear everything down and start all over again.
Much of it was in reaction to the malaise of the 1950s.
Ironically, the guys coming home from the wars wanted no part of this; only peace and quiet and to settle down with their sweethearts.
But malaise…that is pretty much the tempo of this moment, at this time. When people have it so good, they figure there must be something wrong.
So they insist on plans to fix what ain’t broken. They invent crises. Zealots who trample our freedoms, and seek to crush this period of affluence, will always be among us.
The supermarket shelves are full. Why is that a problem?
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” His Holocaust to Montreal memoir “Escape from Mount Moriah” has been honored from page to screen at CANNES. His Inside Journalism thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” is being prepared for the movies. Contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com