A friend of mine tweeted recently that our world seems broken at the moment. When I jokingly replied I hadn't noticed & that I was feeling okay in mine, he gave me a list of current happenings/politicians as proof of breakage.

With my school debating society background, I can tell a debating challenge when one comes knocking, so here I go down some of the list...

Security agencies (USA & FRG)
The greatest threat to our world first... Yes, it is a great one. But here comes a perhaps specious argument: It's an age-old threat. Current is only Mr. S.'s "leaking" of what they are currently capable of doing, and how foolish we Internet users have been in opening up our public and private lives, right down to the camera pointing at us on every laptop, to these illegal observers. Illegal because of the implicit total foregoing of the presumption of innocence. -- This is a long-term problem truly threatening to break our world, and we need to address it by forcing our governments to put their monies where their big mouths are re privacy protection. And to accept less national security because of it.

Saxony
The police in a major city in this federal German state were handed a likely IS terrorist - by other Syrians! - including plans to set off a (probably suicide) bomb in a near future, that will now not happen, luckily. At first the cops couldn't admit it wasn't them who had brought in the potential culprit. And then they left him alone in a holding cell with enough materials to hang himself. Which he apparently proceeded to do. The home minister of the state apologised, but did not resign. -- I'm sorry but this reminds of me of much worse cases during Apartheid in the 80s in South Africa. In one of them, evidence of major mistreatment of the dead suspect came to light, and the minister of "Law & Order" didn't bother commenting, much less resigning; after a week, the newspapers had dropped the story. As long as German media & the public are as upset about this as they are now, and remain that way for a while, and perhaps even get the Saxon police in line, things are much better here than they have been, or still are, in many other countries.

Syria
Yes, d' accord, that one can't be argued against. One true sad blight on our happy planet. Let's never forget the thousands & thousands of civilian dead.

AfD
This pretty ridiculous party's not going away after a few months is actually a blessing in disguise. It makes Germans - yes, like me - wake up to the real yesteryear (fantasy) thinking in the heads of at least a fifth of the voting population. And it allows those of us who say "never again Nazism" to sharpen our arguments, and build our courage (& muscles if worst comes to worst). Pre-AfD times were just a little too stupidly comfy in Germany.

May
I'm not sure that Mrs. May means all the nationalist tilting she's doing to the British political consensus of recent decades. Perhaps she is just playing a hot poker game right now. Look at the hopeful gist of the next-to-last ECONOMIST's cover (right), for instance. So the new Iron Lady with the Shoes is a potential crack, I agree. But not quite broken through yet, I feel.

Putin
Yes, this guy is a new major Fascist "world leader" waiting to happen, especially after the crazily genocidal bombing sprees in Syria of recent weeks. The new twist is that he keeps calling everyone else - except Assad & his army - fascists. Which will also be his downfall, I feel. Without any friends, an already weak Russia will fail. Soon.

Trump
A badly-smelling dog star already starting to fade again. A longer-term - but not yet current - threat is the wave of anti-elite sentiment he - the biggest gold-fingering member of an elite consisting of only his family - is surfing so profitably. So, to help prevent a future broken world, here I just hand over to the late great s.f. master Kurt Vonnegut (courtesy of the Engl. Wikipedia):

"The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."

If you correspondingly substitute local political parties near the end, applicable more and more to all Western nations at the moment, it seems to me...

P.S.: The older I get, the more local my world gets. So the hardest counter argument I can bring against my friend, my tired mind tells me, is homely-cobbled Friesenstraße near where I live... As I walk up it: Great book shops on the left, the wonderful Brezel Bar - ah, the taste of a truly freshly baked pretzel - on the right, then a great soup joint (only open during work days, not evenings!), further up the best video rental in the world. And if you feel threatened by Cross Mountaineers, the district's police station is at top left...

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