Shifting the Power Base.

On the day that a UN aid convoy was destroyed in Syria by (presumably) Russian or Syrian army air strikes, thus consigning thousands of innocent people who are already living in hell to a winter without food, blankets or adequate clothing, Donald Trump Jr had this to say about Syrian refugees:

If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you, would you take a handful?

That’s our Syrian refugee problem.

This image (of a bowlful of Skittles) says it all. Let’s end the politically correct agenda that doesn’t put America first.

This doesn’t merely amount to a one-way ticket to the nearest dumpster for the Trump family, this has much wider implications. This vindicates what I’ve been saying for a long time about the pre-eminence of the nation state and the parlous condition of world leadership.

The American Presidential Election is of relatively little importance in the general scheme of things. Trump and his nasty little brood are merely the sad, ethically impoverished rearguard trying to maintain the old ways. What’s needed is a massive sea change in perceptions, and that isn’t going to come from the American Establishment. Neither will it flow from the darkness of religious fundamentalism. It will have to come from people everywhere demanding that humanity be placed above the narrow confines of national interest and ideological dogma. Is that an impossible dream? I don't know, but I have noticed that today's young people seem to be moving in that direction, and I like to think they might begin the movement for change.