As Ithers See Us

I can't be the only person left on tinternet wondering why the human beings who are using it haven't managed to keep up.

There's the American gun lobby, stuck in 1740 as far as I can see and in a state of total denial, telling us: guns don't kill people - people do. Forgetting that since the US constitution that guaranteed their right to bear arms was first written, a few things have changed. These days we have atom bombs, computers, and the carpet bombing of places like Syria. But - I suppose the argument goes - none of these kill people. People k...but you know the rest.

Then there's the Spanish national police force and the Guardia Civil, who don't seem to have realised that everything, every act of violence - and dear me, there have been more than a few in Catalunya this week - is filmed on people's phones and sent in a flash to TV stations, youtube and every blogger, Facebook page and twitter feed in the entire world. And that's what has happened this week. 

It was wonderful to watch Donald Trump chucking rolls of kitchen towel to homeless, jobless and possibly hungry US citizens in Puerto Rico, all the while thinking: Here's the lead item on tonight's news. But don't thank us, Donald. This fiasco is all of your own making. And is it true you didn't even know till last week that Puerto Rico was part of the USA?

Or seeing letters falling off the backdrop behind Treeza May as she spluttered her way through her speech at the Tory Party conference. Just knowing her cabinet would spring to her defence - and knowing why: who the hell wants to be PM right now, when you can hang the person who got them into this mess out to dry? Well, Boris Johnston does, but after his comment about clearing dead bodies out of Idlib in Libya (a gift from the Western powers) to make room for oil installations went round tinternet, he's maybe not what's needed right now.

Life used to be so simple, before tinternet. We could all find something to laugh at:
- the French didn't wash enough so they smelled
- the Spanish liked bullfights and sangria
- Swiss people made cuckoo clocks
- Australians were just like crocodile Dundee, only maybe more uncouth
- the Muslims, well, every one of them was a terrorist

Now the French government is quaking but keeping very quiet because it has a few regions that would like to do a Catalunya. The Spanish send guys in riot gear to have a go at civilians trying to vote. And the first people to offer to mediate in Spain are the Swiss who - you will remember - are not even in the EU. Australians are denying their own citizens the right to marry and allowing refugees to be held in a hellhole called Nauru where they are routinely raped and murdered. 

But at least we have a common enemy: the Muslims. If any of my readers are dealing in English as a 2nd or 3rd language, take my word for it: I am being not even ironic here - just downright sarcastic. Of course, Muslims are the problem in the west, although I'm prepared to accept that, since there are just under one billion Muslims in the world, if they wished evil on us in the west, well, we'd be dead.

It would be so good if we could all work together. Earth is a lovely place to live. We could all live in peace if we tried. We could let people decide how they want to live. Will it happen? Well, what can I tell you? It happens in Star Trek.