Robocop the movie was prescient in predicting social chaos bordering on civil war in Mexico. This World documentary broadcast late on Sunday night showed the communal disorder where even young children are purposely gunned down (to avoid leaving witnesses of killings committed in the vicinity). The floor in a house in Ciudad Juarez, the murder capital of the world, was murky red and I half-joked to myself that it was blood all over the floor, then the camera panned to an undiscoloured part of the floor and, horrifically, it proved to actually be blood – the slaughter was so great that it was spread over the ground from room to room. The drug warlords are audaciously bidding to seize control of the country – not so much going loco in Acapulco, but everywhere, having infiltrated nearly 80% of the legal economy too – and though the government is fighting back, with federal troops in many cases, the outcome is still in the balance with many top criminals seemingly untouchable by law enforcement.
What is fuelling this nightmare? American liberals’ love of weed and Americans conservatives’ love of guns. Generalisations yes, for there will be US right-wingers who like a toke and left-wingers who enjoy holding weapons, but the facts speak for themselves. Marijuana is the chief drug the Mexican cartels export over the Rio Grande to the biggest junkie in the world (more drugs consumed in the Land of the Brave than anywhere else), while 90% of illegal firearms have registration numbers linking them to purchase in the USA (as gun ownership is outlawed) – one border agency’s prize seize was a high-powered machine gun that has to be mounted (on a truck, a bunker, etc.) and can penetrate armoured cars and house walls. Why should the US care about this Mexican standoff? Well, it is the third point of this triangulated gunfight and I’m sure most Americans don’t want a narco or failed state on their doorstep. Having a Columbia or a Pakistan as a next door neighbour is hardly an appealing prospect.
I’ve been aware that Mexico has been in a bad way for a long time in its battle against the cartels, but to see it makes it clear that the government there has to prevail. This is something the whole world should hope for.

Following This World’s strand, was the ‘comedy’ The Persuasionists. The Greeks may think the years of current and forthcoming austerity will be bad, but at least they don’t have this commissioned by their television networks. It first got showed near primetime at 10pm on Wednesday but so unremittingly awful has it been – no doubt a ratings black hole, to boot – that is has been shunted to the graveyard shift on Sunday night/Monday morning. I watched the first 20 minutes of the first episode before switching over and I’m a bit of a completist liking to see things through to the end. I had enough of wasting my time. One of the characters said comedy is based on truth, but in truth, I laughed only once and that was it. Adam Buxton deserves better material than this.