Headlines:

I know that of the sad old Earth’s 7.5 billion people, only a tiny, tiny fraction of one percent will have done anything ghastly to their fellow human beings today. (If you look at our fellow species, those so many dismiss as ‘mere animals’, that’s an entirely different and ghastly story of terror, blood and pain.)

Now, I’m a bit under the weather at the moment, no big deal but it’s been off and on for a while and is making me somewhat ‘out of sorts’ and probably a self-pitying son of a bitch. Poor me! This is why I’m not going to be chatting on FB. You’re better off without it at the moment!

So, I’ve been thinking about the world, the state of Planet A.

We’ve got Trump,

We’ve got Brexit,

We’ve got Syria,

We’ve got Yemen,

We’ve got Venezuela,

We’ve got North Korea,

We’ve got occupied Palestine.

We’ve got loads of miserable shit, the vast majority avoidable but for the vaunting egos of certain men – and it is mostly men – and the ability of the rich and powerful to so cushion themselves from reality that we normal human beings aren’t quite real. .

I had a quick look at the BBC headlines for today, to see how my fellow human beings are getting on, homo sapiens sapiens, wise, wise man. This is what I found.

We’ve got, ‘Man dies after robbed on mobility scooter in Crawley street.’ Who would do that? What kind of monsters? They tipped him out and the poor soul floundered around on the sidewalk like a fish out of water and had a heart attack. I’ll concede that if the folk who tipped him out weren’t very bright they might not have considered the consequences, but really, attacking somebody in a mobility scooter to start with is just woefully shitty.

We’ve got, ‘Toronto shooting: Gunman kills two in Greektown district.’ We don’t know why this happened. Thank God he was white, is all, so people of colour won’t automatically suffer abuse. How sad that last comment is, but I can almost hear the sigh of relief. I had many staff of different colours, faiths and attire and the only ones who weren’t relieved that the perpetrator was white in any crime were the white folk, where it represented no racist threat.

We’ve got, ‘Trump and Iran's Rouhani trade angry threats.’ It’s is thought the lunatic in the White House merely wants to shift attention from the Finland debacle and doesn’t realise that if Rouhani goes, Iran will have a more extreme leader. It is increasingly incomprehensible to me how this dangerous madman is still in charge of the world’s only superpower which has more armaments than it would need to blow up the entire bloody solar system as far as I can see.

On a tangential point, in 2016 the world spent $1,570,000,000,000 (Nearly 1.6 trillion) on arms. It’s higher now, especially in the US. While people are hungry and homeless, the US is spending $622bn, this year, with China in second place at $191.8bn and the UK in third at £53.8bn. That’ll make us all sleep soundly in our beds tonight, won’t it!

We’ve got, ‘Islamic State 'Beatles' duo: UK stance 'a rare decision.' This means the Tory Government is sending two people to a trial that will almost certainly end with the death sentence which the UK outlawed decades ago and, at last, even a majority of the general public disapprove of it. I suppose now the UK is leaving the EU it no longer has to live by the moral principles of membership. They can do a bit of arse-licking and adopt American so called ‘justice’ instead.

We’ve got, ‘Acid attack on three-year-old boy: Three men arrested.’ Three men? Three men are so damaged and cruel that they are prepared to scar a 3 year old boy, with a possibility of blinding. What kind of people are these? Seriously. Could you ever imagine yourself in such a situation that you would even vaguely contemplate that? Are these people sane?

We’ve got, ‘Homeless men seriously injured after being set on fire at Berlin train station.’ They are German citizens, not that it should matter. The same question applies. What kind of people? To set somebody on fire, for God’s sake. It’s appalling. It’s devoid of humanity. How can fellow human beings become devoid of that which makes us human?

We’ve got, ‘Beetham Tower: Woman attacked in Manchester Hilton hotel. Four men, a woman and a teenage girl have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.’ Judas Priest. It takes 5/6 people to attack an unarmed woman. Anyway, why, why? As above and below!

We’ve got, ‘Grangetown stabbing: Murder probe after man dies in Cardiff.’ He’s already joined some statistics. Please God they find the people who did it and send them down forever, but once a crime becomes a statistic, it seems to me that it is no longer the responsibility of any one person in authority. It becomes part of a rising or falling trend, not a personal tragedy that provides wreckage for anybody associated with the victim.

We’ve got, 'It was right to report rape even though my attacker was cleared.' This poor lass was put through the wringer. I know there are false claims but the majority, tragically, are not. It’s the ultimate form of dominance and personal violation, and most victims are mentally scarred for life, with potentially huge difficulties ahead in having a normal loving, let alone sexual relationship.

We’ve got, ‘Bob Higgins trial: Ex-football coach guilty of sex assault charge.’ It’s sickening, isn’t it? Betrayal of trust is the least of it. It is the maiming of young people’s capability to believe in the goodness in life, and the potential joy of consenting and loving sex. In some ways it is stealing the trust that people need to form relationships with the world. It is dreadful, and how the hell do these people get turned on by raping little boys to start with? It’s deviance beyond comprehension and locking them up forever is spot on. But why, a thousand times, why?

We’ve got, ‘More than half of homeless families in work, says Shelter.’ Food banks, rise in knife crime … none of it has anything to do with the Tories’ austerity agenda. The Hell they haven’t!

Really, this isn’t ‘just’ depressing. We have to wonder how the human race has developed with there still being these sorts of deviant behaviours surviving as part of its warp and weft, still part of our DNA. I understand why humanity is still capable of violence. I don’t understand why we are capable of the sorts of violence about which 99.9% recurring of us look at and are unable to comprehend. Do we need to redefine ‘sanity’? Do we need to remodel our education systems? Do we need all parents to have parenting classes?

There are a multitude of questions but we’re unlikely to find any answers which will help us to change things if we do not - and we really do not at the moment – accept personal responsibility, or at the very least recognition of the blood-red thread which links all this behaviour. Lack of empathy. Not putting ourselves in the other person’s position. Not walking even a few metres in their shoes.

This lack of empathy explains so much behaviour, and it isn’t only in murderers or the like. Society, the media and politicians almost encourage it, divisions between human beings who are actually almost the same. Thus the homophobia etc. etc. Islamophobia etc. etc. racism etc etc sexism etc etc – you require no more for we are all aware of all these things and sometimes guilty of them, even if it is ‘just’ by not speaking out against a racist joke in the pub. It isn’t easy but if we don’t oppose, our silence condones.

As Niemöller said:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Peace, love and empathy.