We´re all going down...

I´m on my 3rd Martini, and I just realized that these are the last days of the Western Liberal World as we know and enjoy it. I was watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Brian Williams was his guest, and at first they were just playing with each other, tempting and daring, but all of a sudden Jon  just said it and Brian agreed - that our system for solving problems has completely broken down.
Yes, I´m well aware  that y'all are professionell cynics these days and y'all can´t just believe how naive I must be, and that's just so obvious and anybody who knows anything knows that.
I know. And the feeling, the realisation, the epiphany is fleeting and fading already. But for a second or two  I could sense that Cormack McCarthy´s ´TheRoad´ is just around the next corner.
A few weeks from now we all might be protagonists in a version of that country of last things that Paul Auster once wrote about.
And it is, no fooling. I can see myself right now in this perfect, 14th floor, UN-World Architecture Heritage penthouse style apartment, expensive psychedelic wallpapers all around me, fine furniture and a beautyful, sleepdrunken, halfnaked lady in the door frame who is my wife,a martini in my hand and I´m looking out  the panorama window facing west, amidst the worst financial catastrophy since the invention of money.
Well, how´s that for vivid symbolism? Hot enough for ya?
The german government under UNSERE GELIEBTE FUEHRERIN ANGELA MERKEL is currently aiming for a hyperinflation to annihilate all debts and push the rest of Europe back into submission. They did it before, in the 90´s, with Russia. Over 100,000 people starved or froze to their deaths as a direct consequence of the hyperinflation triggered by that last big financial crisis. (Google Hegdefonds, junkbonds, 1990´s and you should find it, Try the Archives of The Economist)
And our beloved Chancellorette believes that only a few foreigners and poor people will starve and freeze in Germany, and that our discipline and police force are strong enough to stopp any madness along the way short of a civil war.
Of course, some places in Europe might not be so lucky. They will, once more, have to listen to their strong and disciplined neighbours, after they´ve picked up their shattered reamains from the rubble. And if they won´t, well they can just go fuck up and die. Which is, of course, just fine.

Woah. How did we get here? That third Martini really took us beyond the gravity well.
Still. It´s been just three weeks since I stumbled across a year-old documentary about how the food industry eliminated all government control over their products and produce and how the increasing numbers of infections with deadly E-coli bacteria and the continous rise of food scandals are direct and well known side effects of that loss of control; and then two weathered, experienced political junkies like Brian Williams and Jon Stewart just blurt out the obvious - that the western liberal system of democracy has been smashed beyond reproach by greed, opportunism and populism - that old immortal belief that there are simple solutions to complex problems. Halle-fucking-baba.
Selah.
Call it a drunken man´s rant. Call it obvious. Tell me that there´s nothing you can do. Tell me it´s gonna be all right.

I know that you know that this is bad.
In Germany the extreme right wing is on the rise again. Yes, it´s the Nazis! In some places in former communist Germany they are already providing social services like kindergardens and sportclubs.
And why not? These are the new times. History never repeats itself. Nu-uh!

In Greece there are strong votes for both the communists and the fascists. Since Greece is both the cradle of modern democracy and of liberal values, at least as far as gay rights and general intoxication go, I dare say that this has to have some meaning, if not a lot.

Ok. Time to calm down. In exactly 5 hours and 30 minutes my alarmclock will go of, mercyless and powerful. I will once more get up at the unholy hour of 2:15 a.m. to take care of the public transportation needs of my fellow citizens by driving the subway.
I will enjoy it, knowing that soon this will all be over and then I will find myself gnawing on the bones of my useless, weak and, most importantly, unarmed neighbour.
I might be a poof, a weakling, a coward and bald. But at least I have a gun. Hallebaba.

Sela. Mahalo. Ke aloha nô, me ka mahalo kauâ !

Ps : If you haven´t read any of the above mentioned books yet, do yourself a favor and don´t read them. Ever. And if you do, take some Valium or some Vodka first, preferably both. You might even want to hit yourself over the head with the Vodka-bottle, too. Just to be on the safe side.