Since Washington doesn't do diplomacy anymore, we only have two tools left: a) sanctions, and b) military force.
It appears that sanctions will soon be a tool of the past, which means that our violent foreign policy will become even more violent.
Take for example, Nord Stream 2.

It finally happened. Mexico will have a leftist ruling party for the first time in memory.

There are no Maginot Lines in politics, no permanent positions. Politics is swordfighting, a swirling dance of thrust and parry. Before JFK, the Democratic Party was the home of Southern racists. Republicans started as the party of Lincoln. More recently, liberals used to be FDR New Dealers, before they became Clintonite corporate neoliberals. My point is that, in the current world, political labels are meaningless (if not downright misleading), policy papers and talking points are meaningless. It is by their actions that you know politicians.

Over the past decades, commuting to work or driving around, as well as at home, I often tuned into National Public Radio (NPR) and listened as it changed from a somewhat decent source of information and news into just yet another establishment mouthpiece funded by conservative think tanks, the Koch machine, etc. It was the only place I knew to get any semblance of "real" news, even though I knew it was heavily biased. I mean, where else was there to go?!? Talk radio? Good luck there!

Since the 1980’s, part of the Conservative creed has been the belief that greater good would arise from giving our wealthiest even more wealth. The assumption was that it would eventually “trickle down,” to everyone’s benefit. But there’s evidence that the belief was wrong and the creed was harmful.

Tolerance, Purity, and Hypocrisy

We're all hypocrites...and bigots. I'm intolerant of intolerance, and bigoted against bigots. It's easy to find fault in others..in part to make our own faults more palatable. You can't expect purity from imperfect creatures. Our biology drives us toward greed in a cycle of hunger and acquisition and reward (so be careful what you hunger for). Purity is a rare condition on our planet. The Earth is all mixed up...air a mixture of gases, oceans a solution of salts and life, rocks a matrix of minerals. There are small rare pure mineral deposits, but most materials must be refined toward purity...and even Ivory soap is only 99.9% pure. The world isn't black or white, but various shades of gray. There are no perfect politicians, movements, policies, nor nations. However there are politicians, movements, policies, and nations working in the right direction. So what is the best approach...to encourage the forward momentum or cast aspersions about the inevitable imperfections?

At some point I will write a sequel to this diary, published a month ago, which suggested that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk were blowing smoke about exploring outer space. The idea that capitalists won't do it was already picked up by Richard Seymour in 2013.

I happened to run across a Fox News article from 2010 titled:
What socialism? Private sector still dominates Venezuelan economy despite Chavez crusade