https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-makes-11th-hour-plea-ukraine-war-funds-washington-2023-12-12/
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to make a last-ditch plea to keep military support flowing as he battles Russia, but faced a skeptical reception from some Republicans.
I want to start paying for Ukrainian jobs and schools and renewable energy and hospitals and infrastructure. I want to see them rebuild into a first class developed country while their aggressors sink further into irrelevance
You should want that for your own country. Can you even name a place in Ukraine, without looking it up? Without mentioning a name already spoken of in the news?
You are welcome to your own point of view, but .. It's baffling.
You can be against an immediate global threat without being against better conditions for your country. One does not exclude the other. Nuance and priority.
No no you see that's the "fuck you got mine" mentality...or whataboutism to have an excuse to let Russia take over Ukraine
This is the "it's not guns...it's metal health" argument
When the "mental health" part actually comes up for discussion, it's "radical, socialist, extremist, leftist, unamerican" take your alt reich buzzword pick
The GOP has already decided they will not be giving Ukraine aid and the whole "border reform" is bullshit and a strawman. When the aid "fails" all the pundits will say "the left didn't want to negotiate on the border enough" it's their fault Ukrainians will die, when they damn well know their mind was made up potentially months ago. Putin has them all their pockets likely with dirt ready for airing should they not fall in line
You don't have to be Ukrainian or even be in Europe to be affected by what is happening.
before the war Ukraine made up 9% of global wheat exports, 15% of maize and 44% of sunflower oil.
The Russian invasion is also affecting food prices globally. So those that don't care about the Ukrainians (which they should but hey let's explore the heartless approach to this) but do care about inflation should also want to support Ukraine in getting a speedy end to this war. This is to ensure that Russia does not create any further large scale disruptions:
in the first couple of months after Russia invaded, "food prices were quite high and quite volatile. Wheat futures jumped almost 60%. Corn and soybeans were up 15 to 20% in the first week or so."
while food prices reverted to pre-invasion levels for much of the past year, those levels are still a record high compared to the last decade.
In other words, the world remains in a somewhat precarious situation where, if just one thing goes wrong — a worsening twist to the war in Ukraine, a bad harvest in some important supplying nation – global food prices could spike.
LIE-DEN is WHOLLY RESPONSIBLE for the PRICES!!!! You stupid libtards don't understand. When the PRICES go UP it is because BABY EATING DEMONCRATS are making the ECONOMY WORSE. BUT when the prices go DOWN it's because GOD FEARING REPUBLICANS are FIXING the MESS the DEMONCRATS left.
Some may seriously joke about that "Oh I don't use X foodstuff, it doesn't directly affect me"
Demand for food is quite inelastic. If folks who use sunflower seed oil can't get any, they'll flock to canola oil, peanut oil, or whatever other oil is available and drive it up in price.
Same deal with wheat and other crops.
Heck, we saw the same thing during the GPU shortage! People who would have bought mid or high end GPUs were priced out, so cards like the GTX 1030 we're selling for $250!
Even the GTX 3050 and RX 6400 should have been bottom of the barrel $90 to $150 cards but ended up in the $250 to $300 range instead
It's almost funny how that exact same comic could be used for abortion, just replace the kid with a mother forced to give birth to a child she can't afford and the text in the top panel with their bullshit about thing life is precious.
Yeah I have no idea what the original version of that comic is, but it's been floating around since way before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
You can shoe it into almost any flavor of republican bullshit "Stop ____ so we can take care of our own!" ...they use that argument to oppose funding of basically anything outside the US; but then simultaneously refuse to fund anything in the US either, except ofc guns and churches.
pretend to care about fairness for us, it's a constant amusement for everyone.. the cries of your countrymen dying in ditches in Ukraine don't reach you, but a few words from an honest voice on the internet are too much to bear..
the truth hurts you and you try to attack its source.. it's what cowards do.. you just demonstrate that i was correct..
where is Navalny this afternoon, and what is his crime.. you learn from Putin..
Sounds like the truth hits you harder, my man lol Look at you getting so worked up over this that you're wishing people death.
you learn from Putin..
you try to attack its source.. it's what cowards do
Salty hypocrite.
Literally every other comment from this guy is in the deep negatives. If I were an instance owner I'd instaban people this who have nothing good to contribute.
That would be an easy thing to game and would only encourage upvote farming to keep up while having bot farms mass downvote to silence users.
i just comment on what i see, and you validate what i say.. it's a simple process.. you have obviously learned how to deal with criticism from your coward Putin..
that's the telephone ringing.. it's Vlad, he needs your corpse in a ditch in Ukraine.. better bring your own shovel, just to make sure your corpse actually has a ditch..
breath in -We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel rhythm.
Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Lviv, Zaporizhzhia, and Mariupol, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Sumy, too, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, view anew.
Mykolaiv, Lutsk, and Rivne’s charm, Kherson, Kropyvnytskyi, no alarm, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil’s grace, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, a welcoming place.
(Chorus) Singing for Ukraine, cities shine so bright, From the hills of Uzhhorod to the Black Sea light, We didn’t light the fire, but we carry the flame, In every Ukrainian city, remember the name.
(Verse 2) Bakhmut, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk, Sevastopol, Simferopol, history talks, Luhansk, Donetsk, amidst the strife, Khmelnytskyi, Berdiansk, full of life.
(Chorus) Singing for Ukraine, in unity and might, From the streets of Kamianske to the starry night, We didn’t light the fire, but we’re here to claim, In every Ukrainian city, honor and fame
Verse 3) Zakarpattia, Lysychansk, in the fray, Horlivka, Pavlohrad, by the bay, Yalta, Yuzhne, Kerch, in the sun, Melitopol, Alchevsk, on the run.
Nikopol, Bila Tserkva, ancient tales, Brovary, Berdyansk, where the sea prevails, Kremenchuk, Mukachevo, in the hills, Sieverodonetsk, Artemivsk, for the thrills.
(Chorus) Singing for Ukraine, in the dawn’s new light, From the peace of Drohobych to the heroic fight, We didn’t light the fire, it’s been always burning, In every Ukrainian city, the world keeps turning.
Before the war in Ukraine, the poor here were still poor, the homeless still unhoused, the hungry still aching. Americans were destitute before, they still are, and they will be after. Nobody with any amount of influence or power actually gives a fuck about the dregs. Stop acting like if it werent for this or that, just stop. Its disingenuous and would not be fixed either way. They want the threat of destitution, they want you to see these people and fear you will suffer like them so you go to work and make those shareholders money.
Well, I've been to Donetsk and Mariupol a decade prior to the Putin's invasion (in 2014). Those two towns (less than a days drive part by slow Ukrainian bus, the latter on the coast) are now smoking craters thanks to shitbag loser Putin. All the cool people I met at the churches (now rubble) and the ones that went with us to see the Sea of Azov on a gray day including that dude showing off his Lada Niva.. are probably all dead now.
I've heard the same Putin song and dance already. I bet he'd love it we actually bought into this bullshit and cut funding to Ukraine. And his Trumper lackeys seem to be serving him well.
This! This right here is how we combat anonymous shitweasels like this fucknugget above. Learn about the world, find the common thread, cultivate a personal connection to your fellow humans' well-being. Also, by largely ignoring these tired and poorly-worded attempts at adversarial "commentary". (Blocking works well, I hear.)
Imagine thinking a dictator gaining power is a good thing for our country. That's what is baffling.
I would much rather pay for a missile that Ukraine fires against a Russian tank in Ukraine, than pay for a missile I have to fire against the Russian tank myself after it rolled through Ukraine and to my doorstep.
I would also much rather pay to educate the world (using Russia as an example) that the international community isn't putting up with wars of aggression and won't let you get away with them, than have the world thrown into disarray when the next country decides to disrupt global supply chains with their war of aggression.
Supporting Ukraine is a smart thing regardless of what you think of Ukraine. It's also the morally right thing, but if you don't care about that, egoism should drive you to the same decision.
Supporting Ukraine is a smart thing regardless of what you think of Ukraine. It’s also the morally right thing, but if you don’t care about that, egoism should drive you to the same decision.
Mood. I'm generally an idealist in terms of motivations, but fuck, it's hard to take people seriously who pick the decision that's both morally wrong AND stupid.
"We should worry about FOOD prices going up, not Ukraine!" - Person who doesn't realize that two of the world's largest wheat producers are currently at war because one of them is led by a fascist dipshit
Wait using federal funds to ensure that the less fortunate and clothed and fed?...isn't that socialism?
Oh right...it's not actually about the well-being of your fellow man is it..
How about we do both? Continue to fund Ukraine in order to provide a stopgap against Russian encroachment and destabilization of Eastern Europe, as well as take care of people in America? It wouldn't even be that hard.
Tax the rich so they pay their fair share. Use that money to fund social programs and boost the economy for the middle class and lower. Tax businesses to the point where it's more lucrative to reinvest in their own companies than it is to make massive profits - this promotes raising wages. Cap executive pay to a fixed rate above the lowest-paid employee. Just like that, the 'richest country in the world' can act like it and not relegate their poorest to third-world conditions.
But you weren't interested in a real answer, were you? Just shilling for the alt-right and Russia.
The funny thing is...we don't even need to tax the rich...we just need to stop spending like the CC has no limit...so much wasted funding goes through middle man style private companies and just gets abused... it's insane.
I mean, I'm not really interested in reigning in spending on things like social programs. I do think the military could get slashed by a very large amount, however. Especially considering how much military contractors over-inflate the cost of absolutely everything they sell the US government. Instead, I'd rather we just pay for the stuff we want to do by decreasing the wage gap by a VERY large margin and fixing the business tax code.
Over half the budget is social programs though, they're just no effective because they're dolled out to a lot of private businesses.
You ready to raise taxes on higher income brackets to make it happen, cap'n? ESPECIALLY motherfuckers like the Waltons, Musk, and Bezos.
I have a feeling you won't agree to that.
You should want that for your own country.
My country, the USA, could easily accomplish both if the political will was there.
Are you so fucking ignorant that you can’t name Kyiv or Sevastopol or Odessa?!? Do you really not understand the significance of these cities? Or Lviv? Chernobyl? Chernivtsi?
Speak up; The Republicans can't hear you over the sound of them licking Putin's boots.
Honest question from someone who wants to see Ukraine not be overrun by orcs: Why is the US always the one who has to fund wars? There are some countries in the EU that have given a bit of suport, but the guys who are across the ocean seem to be the ones everyone looks to for money. Aren't you clever enlightened boys and girls from the European Union able to take care of this?
Every single time there is some conflict the idiots in charge here have to get big hard-ons and start getting involved. And we are told to stay out of it. But now Ukraine needs money and for some reason everyone focuses on the US providing it. Same with Israel, why are we the ones who have to prop them up?
I'd really like to know. Everyone hates the US until they want money or weapons. We aren't the ones next door to russia, the EU is. And we aren't anywhere near the middle east, so why are we wasting so much money on israel?
USA has to respect the nuclear arms treaty... Ukraine was promised protection in return for giving up nuclear weapons.
Is the EU bound by any such treaty?
Treaties aside, my issue is that it's always the US that everyone begs money from in these situations. We get shit on constantly for a bunch of reasons, some valid, but when someone comes along and starts making threats the question is always "What will the US do about this?"
Have you checked how many military bases the USA has in other countries? The USA doesn't give money for nothing. They have military presence in every timezone/hemisphere.
The UK is I believe. Russia should be but they've clearly ripped that up. It's the Budapest Memorandums if you want to look more into it.
I have to think our government in the US sees all kinds of strategic, political, and intelligence benefits from having our military spread all over the world. And our money too.
Plus the concept of proxy wars to hurt our enemies without putting ourselves in the line of fire and/or ending the human race.
Regardless of the EU support not being what it should be, it is in the best interest of the USA to support Ukraine. Russia is a systemic rival and will not stop its aggressive expansion into other countries if they are not stopped in Ukraine. Slightly cynical, but even if Russia wins in the end, dragging this war out by supplying Ukraine also weakens Russia more than the current support weakens the USA.
This is why we've got such a large defense budget. Our military strength isn't just to protect ourselves, it's so we can also project our influence around the world. It's like if your neighbor has a bunch of guns, and you hear zombies are headed towards you. If there was ever a time their ridiculous spending had a use, it was now.
I do think though European countries should contribute more. They benefit immensely from American influence around the world, don't pay a dime towards it, and then criticize the US for spending so much on defense.
As a Euro, I am qualified to speak for all of Europe on this. TLDR; Decades of poor preparation.
Macron did talk recently about the USA reliance, which I'm sure a search would turn up. Unfortunately it isn't a quick thing to solve, so here we are.
I wish we could provide a fraction of what the USA does.
It is the situation we find ourselves in when none of our countries are investing in the military to any significant levels. Other countries are investing what they can afford, but have no where near the GDP of the USA. I remember Poland provided all they could, but had to say that's all we can do because we have to think about ourselves in case we are next.
I also think that you make most of the weapons in your country, so you are best placed to help.
Long term, I expect the EU to learn nothing from this and the next time someone starts a war it will be the same situation.
Please don't resent us for the situation, because we don't like it either.
Reading it back, I forgot to acknowledge 'everyone hates america'
I wouldn't worry about that, where I'm from we hate everyone, even our selves. It's a form of affection.
If you get the reference; bloody Scott's, they ruined Scotland!
What everyone else has said. To add on to that, we also update our own military by sending our oldest or outdated equipment. A big reason is that it's still way better stuff than what Russia has. Russia did the opposite but believed they had up to date equipment, they are paying the price for their corruption.
But it isn't? Many countries are supporting Ukraine, and there are more ways than shipping weapons there to do it.
Check out https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
The thing is, the US is just so fucking big and it also has the biggest military industrial complex by far, so who else should do it? Proportional to GDP, it's not that much.
Also, in the past, other nations have contributed to America's wars. Japan paid something like 10 billion USD to the US for the Gulf War in 1991, which I think was around 20% of the total cost.
I didn't say we are the only ones, i said we are alwsys expected to throw money and equipment at any of the EU's little scares, while being shit on the rest of the time.
It's because the US wants to preserve it's empire. So they need to project power all over the world.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to make a last-ditch plea to keep military support flowing as he battles Russia, but faced a skeptical reception from some Republicans.
Heading into winter, with tens of thousands of Ukrainians dead, a yawning budget deficit and Russian advances in the east, Zelenskiy is asking Washington to provide badly needed support.
Wearing a black shirt and olive drab trousers, Zelenskiy was met with sustained applause as he entered a closed-door meeting with U.S. senators, and the chamber's Democratic and Republican leaders pledged their support.
There are just three days before Congress recesses for the year on Friday, and Republicans in the House have until now refused to pass a spending package bill that contains $61.4 billion in Ukraine aid without fiercely disputed changes to U.S. immigration.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who is leading the talks, said he thought lawmakers could reach an immigration deal and pass the spending package before the end of the year.
Ultimately, U.S. troops could be forced to fight Russia, Biden and others warn, if an unchecked Putin invades a European ally covered by NATO's mutual defense commitments.
The original article contains 785 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
