There is a crowd out there calling themselves Avaaz.

They seem to claim to be the voice of the new generation – the sheeple – the Twitter Gang – the mob who are so easily led.

They spend their time sending out breathless petitions telling us that we only have days or hours left to save the world and that we must sign their petitions.  Their portfolio is far reaching, going from Warble Gloaming [one of their favourites] through to some individual who has to be saved [usually in India].  I made the grave mistake of signing one of their petitions a very long time ago [about freedom on the Interwebs – I told you their portfolio was far reaching].

Since then I get their breathless emails on a regular basis.  I could unsubscribe, but then I realised it would be more fun to see what they are up to.

Their latest propped into my in-tray this morning.

Dear friends,

The unimaginable has happened. President Trump.

And worse, there are Trumps in every town. Threatening all our democracies.

Oh dear.  Someone who was democratically elected is threatening all “our” democracies.  They really do speak for the entire world, don’t they?  As for being “unimaginable”, that just stems from a lack of imagination.

What’s most important now is to build a global movement to stop them. Over 2 million of us have signed the open letter, below, from the world to Trump, and it’s been covered across major media. Now it’s a manifesto for the next 4 years — one that will run as a full page ad in major papers and project onto Trump Tower in New York. Help it become an even more powerful message — forward it widely and sign below:

A global movement to stop who?  And two million haven’t signed the petition.  Two million have clicked a button on a fucking email which is hardly putting themselves out?  These are the same people incidentally who think that clicking a “like” on Farcebook will somehow save a kids life, or show we love Jesus.

And what do they hope to achieve?  Is Trump going to stand down in the face of a fucking email?  Do they not realise that all he has to do is put a simple filter on his mail – “If sender contains @avaaz them delete” [He could even ask Clinton to do it for him, as she knows all about mail servers?].

The letter itself is grandiose in its ambitions:

Dear Mr. Trump,

This is not what greatness looks like.

The world rejects your fear, hate-mongering, and bigotry. We reject your support for torture, your calls for murdering civilians, and your general encouragement of violence. We reject your denigration of women, Muslims, Mexicans, and millions of others who don’t look like you, talk like you, or pray to the same god as you.

Facing your fear we choose compassion. Hearing your despair we choose hope. Seeing your ignorance we choose understanding.

As citizens of the world, we stand united against your brand of division.

Sincerely,

Er, the world?  What has the world got to do with it?  He was elected by Americans to be their president not the president of the world. 

I might point out that Trump was elected by a majority, which by my feeble understanding of these matters means more than half the people.  Yet Avaaz claims to represent seven billion with a mere two million votes?  A mere 0.0003%?  Hardly democratic?  Yes – I know it’s a petition, not a vote but the principle stands.

Dear Avaaz,

To win an election you need more than 50% of the electorate to vote for your cause.  0.0003% doesn’t quite cut the mustard.

An election is the sole concern of the citizens involved.  The world is not the electorate.  It is not your business.

Got that?

Now fuck off and go back to playing with your selfies and your Pokemon and leave the grown ups alone.

Grandad