Où sont les neiges d'antan?

I was so glad to read this opinion post by Hugo Camps this morning, a legendary columnist of the 'De Morgen' paper in Flanders, Belgium. Enjoy a free translation of mine...

"In a fierce poem Günter Grass empathizes with the Greeks. He talks about "Europe's shame". "Greeks were handed the hemlock."
IMF top woman Christine Lagarde doesn't bother about this though. In a interview she expressed herself disapprovingly about attempts by Greece to still escape from the draconian austerity measures. She turned the jaws of the vise quite a bit harder.
A parachuted lady (into her current job) who always reminds me of a bat. In you, ma'am, I can hardly see a human being. You are drained by numbers, probably.
Où sont les Neiges d'Antan? (Where are the snows of yesteryear?)
Those days, the entire Europe has been following the Greeks. When Melina Mercouri and Mikis Theodorakis were welcomed as heroes in the fight against the colonels, at party congresses shown on TV. Exiled who didn't abandon their people. Icons for eternity, after the fall of the military dictatorship.
These days Greeks undergo a new type of dictatorship, that of the IMF and the EU.
Mikis is old, Melina has passed.
On their behalf Günter Grass published last weekend, his poem "Europe's shame". Because in Greece there are very few poems written these days, or songs to be sung.
Even journalists go on strike.
Our (international) economist Paul De Grauwe says that Greeks are deliberately being roasted. He finds that a pure disgrace.
Hugo Camps" 

Here's to you Hugo! I wish there were more like you, like Günter and yourself, in this old and tormented by abusers continent. Your thoughts feel like a smooth breeze to our minds and souls. Thank God we still have you to thank for the few bits of 'clean air' after parachuted polluters like Lagarde and Baroso passed by. Not to forget our own 'haiku' Van Rompuy. Regrettably, our so called 'European leaders' are so amazingly useless. It's fascinating how much abuse and incompetence found its way to the top of all but a few European governments. Add to that those muppets of the European Commission and we got full house! Such a waste of space! All of them!  All they care about is how to prolong their miserable, 'offered on a platter', careers in government, and make sure their offsprings do the same. Appealing demagogically to lame duck electorates is all they care about. What can one say? I've grown too tired with that suicidal mess! Really...