https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/world/europe/us-ukraine-aid-military-pentagon.html
The money is expected to be used to buy new air-defense missile systems and other military equipment.
Who doesn't like their tax dollars being spent on killing people instead of socialist stuff like healthcare, education, social workers and government services that actually serve citizens.
The USA could afford what's being provided to Ukraine and socialized benefits. But chooses not to because of some dumb reason or another.
It's more the hypocrisy of some people. The ones who cheer for a huge defense/foreign aid budget year after year no matter who it's for, and then leave bitchy comments on FB about student loan forgiveness being "unfair" because it uses their tax dollars.
I mean, yeah, they have the biggest money printer on the planet, so they could've socialized almost everything for their citizens if it didn't go all into their black budgets, military, bribery and foreign meddling instead, but here they are, 32T in debt, double the debt from 10 years ago, ~100k of debt per person. If that's not a failed state, I don't know what is.
If that's not a failed state, I don't know what is.
You probably don't know what is it. I mean, look at South Africa for a recent example of a failed state.
perhaps do some research on the colonial history of South Africa and Western exploitation and read up on the definition of the term failed state and then look at some news reports regarding the US. I don't know how some of you people keep on coming up with these cheap rebuttals that you obviously haven't spent more than a minute of thinking on.
So, in your mind, helping to prevent civilians from dying in a war zone and stopping countries being taken over by foreign powers to be exploited is not a worthy humanitarian effort?
European countries are taking somewhat decent care of Ukrainian refugees, which can't be said for refugees that aren't white skinned.
And did you just collate military equipment with a humanitarian effort or am misreading that?
I'm in full support of any real humanitarian aid possible: Support their wounded and sick, support their people with basic needs (generators/energy, food, water, clothing, temporary housing, psych support etc).
Sometimes I'm really surprised at some of these questions you people come up with.
Edit: Typo.
The main difference between Ukrainian refugees and what we usually get is that Ukrainians are, without exception, well-educated enough to start working right away, and not just in unskilled low-income jobs. Compare that with, say, Somalis with virtually no education, and not even able to sit through a class because they never got accustomed to as kids, then competing with natives for a very limited number of those low-income jobs. That's why Ukrainians get working permits straight away while we'd rather pay welfare for the Somalis until they're ready.
I don't know what it is with Seppos and making everything about race. There's actual fucking issues with integrating people from non-developed countries that are completely absent in the case of Ukraine. Ukraine may be piss-poor, yes, but its fundamentals are solid, quite a bit better than Romania and Bulgaria even I'd say and those are EU members.
I was talking about the way they were treated, not which refugee is the better worker drone.
Ukrainians don't burn their passports and refuse to aid in their identification, if that's what you're alluding to because that's the kind of stuff gets you shitcanned in the "You can stay in a camp with full board and meagre pocket money and leave the country at any time but forget starting a life here" way, as the only reason to do that is if you don't actually qualify for refugee status or asylum. But, again, nothing to do with race.
Europe has taken in millions of non-white refugees and taken great care of them. How many have Russia and china taken in? India? Brazil?
India and Brazil, famous white countries. Aren't you people the "this is whataboutism" spam guys?
Look it up. I'm not your personal researcher, sorry. I'm happy to provide sources to backup claims I've brought up myself.
I never compared Europe to other nations in terms of harboring refugees and I didn't even imply that Europe hasn't been taking in refugees. I wish you'd spend a bit more time reading and understanding what people are writing instead of just coming up with cheap rhetorical or whataboutism questions.
My point is people to want to go there. They want to go to Europe because they'll have good opportunities and be treated relatively well.
The US is already spending as much federal tax dollars per capita on healthcare as the UK spends on the NHS. Figures that bailing out hospitals when patients invariably default on their debt is expensive: In the US they have tons of people ending up in ER requiring expensive treatment that would've been way cheaper and easier to treat preventively -- but to do prevention you need to be able to afford a doctor's visit. Sure you can stop spending that money but then you either let hospitals go bankrupt, or you have to allow them to reject patients and have them dying on the streets. Even for Americans that's a bit too much.
I don't really have the numbers for education but one big point there is that in the US, education is largely funded by local taxes, that is, schools in low-income areas are severely underfunded, while those in high-income areas are overfunded. If anything it should be the exact opposite, the worst areas need the best schools to lift them up.
But fixing either would cut into corporate profits and/or severely alleviate income equality (and, in the US, thereby, race inequality) so, yeah, don't hold your breath.
To be global authoritarian you have to be the wealthiest and most powerful. And currently there is only one government and its army that takes this title.
authoritarian threats
This is a meaningless term used in this way. Every state is authoritarian, by definition. The only "state" that isn't authoritarian is anarchy, and that's only not an authoritarian state because it's not a state. Use more accurate terms if you want to make a point.
Countries are ignoring global authoritarian threats, by ignoring themselves, but that's probably not the point you were trying to make.
rejection of political plurality,
Like when so much money is funnelled into US politics that only two capitalist 'parties' are able to compete, and they have almost identical policies except for some window dressing?
the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo,
Like when the republicans block democrat legislation, even though the democrats are in power?
and reductions in the rule of law,
What happened to Roe v Wade and how?
separation of powers,
Like when the previous POTUS secures a GOP majority on the Supreme Court, which the current POTUS can't change?
and democratic voting.
Like suppressing votes by criminalising being black and requiring voter ID?
The problem with the term 'authoritarian' is that it's either meaningless and applies to everybody or nobody and is used as a weak rhetorical device, or it's given some theoretical basis and it applies to every state and is used to shed light on state relations. Either way, it's not a coherent criticism in an of itself.
criminalizing being black
Not much fun or use "debating" someone who says this kind of thing.
They have no need for healthcare, education and stuff. They are afraid of their own shadows, they just need guns to defend themselves. In the end, they can just eat those bullets to survive. ...or shoot some skool.
First time in my lifetime I've seen the US military might truly used for something good.
Thanks for replying. This one made me think. I've written a longer response here, https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1022436, the start of which is not intended to be passive aggressive. I just wanted to frame it so as to deal with the issues rather than your personal interpretation.
For one thing, this is a violent land grab. For another, this the effort and will of what... 50 countries? Vs about five: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela. And those 50 countries are on average much more democratic than Russia and it's allies.
Lol imagine thinking you have an iota of democracy when you can't even get a broken leg fixed without dying from debt. You can't even be unemployed without it being a literal death sentence.
Imagine thinking China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela were not made into the countries they are today through the direct interference into their political systems by the some of the 50 ciuntries you mentioned.
You've been brainwashed. The world stands with Russia on this and is opposed to America's war in Ukraine. The most provoked war in living memory.
No, the world really doesn't stand with Russia, if you have any understanding of international relations you would see that. Even the countries that have voted to support Russia are represented by relatively authoritarian governments.
The UN has consistently voted against Russia on this. There are a handful of authoritarian that back Russia but globally support for Ukraine is unparalleled.
Democracy Now! Is a 501(c)3 non-profit news organization that was founded in 1996... What are you talking about? They are one of the oldest and one of the few non corporate news agencies in the country...
But keep getting your news from black rock backed sources I guess.
YouTube hosts videos. It doesn't directly create content of it's own. The video in question, which merely happens to be hosted on YouTube, was produced by a media organisation, Democracy Now.
No, base your "worldview" on the echo chamber in these Ukraine threads, they all learned their "worldview" in Crusader Kings 3. Some of em in "Mein Kampf" it would seem.
A lot of people are propagandized as fuck (and I do not mean that as an insult on their intelligence or anyting, good propaganda works really well, even on smart people) and I don't think most of these comments would survive if the posters spent a bit more time thinking about what they're actually saying.
Obviously I don't know everyone's political histories. But most people around me IRL who supported the idea of going into Iraq and Afghanistan (they were kind of blurred into one conflict) said, 'never again' and have been quite anti-war ever since.
A few of those backtracked and said, 'well, maybe one more time' when it came to Libya. Then afterwards, they said, 'we really mean "never again" this time'.
But Ukraine has sent almost everyone into a frenzy for war. I had assumed that after Iraq, especially—which exposed the depth of lying that NATO is willing to sink to—that nobody would believe NATO's version of the truth again. How naive I was.
I wouldn't even mind if they (not necessarily Jaysyn, whom I don't know) still disbelieved Russia's narrative. In fact, I'd welcome it. A little healthy skepticism would lead to far better politics. All I see is skepticism against Russia but total faith in NATO. Where has critical thinking gone?
To disbelieve Russia's narrative only to accept NATO's? Wtf did I miss? I don't think gullibility covers it. As you say, it must be constant and clever propaganda. I suppose they have the money for it, considering how much they have to gain if they can beat the drum of war.
Edit: grammar
I'm in the same boat as you are. What has me really shocked is how my European friends are in full "support the troops" mode now. What's really surprising is how all their arguments almost always follow the same simplistic dualist thinking ("so you think Ukraine should just give up?", "but it's a democracy", "but pUtLeR will take Poland next", "you're just spurting Russian propaganda") and how people basically ignore all of your arguments just to call you a supporter of an "evil imperialist terror regime".
I wish people would've learned their lesson by abandoning the media that's obviously been lying to everyone for the past decades.
European friends are in full “support the troops” mode now
After laughing at USians for nigh on twenty years while saying, 'those guys never learn their lesson, they love guns and spend ridiculous amounts of money on wars of their own making yet they can't afford schools or hospitals.' Turns out, Europeans aren't so exceptional; when it comes to the crunch, all it takes is one month of news cycle and many people are happy to let themselves be fooled, once, twice, as many times as it takes. For shame.
Who knew this guy was an inspiring philosopher. Tbf to most irl people I know, most people are just aghast at the war and would like it to stop. Their opinion on NATO hasn't changed; they just believe what NATO and it's mouthpieces say about Russia.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=rQ6N-sb7SVQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
What's striking about it is how they have no comebacks, they have no arguments at all expect name-calling. You can show them all the evidence in the world and they'll just call you names. Simple minded morons. Normies.
Nah, no need for name calling. It's just effective propaganda and it works best on normies.
Where's your evidence for people being ethnically cleansed in Ukraine, that Russia only invaded to free these people, and that they managed to free millions of people from ethnic cleansing? Show several sources for each claim, please.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article184430.html
https://twitter.com/JohnEdgarCarter/status/1627231891345514498
https://twitter.com/Kanthan2030/status/1632366929745940480
https://thesaker.is/a-disturbing-trend-in-the-ukraine/
https://twitter.com/ricwe123/status/1673686231064952834
I have more if you want.
I mean to insult their intelligence. These people believe what they hear on the news. They're stupid af.
How is this different from someone saying "let's just give Hitler Poland"
Are you saying the Ukrainians should stop fighting? Is that what you would do if someone invaded your home?
This rhetoric reminds of the German military's questioning when pacifists refused mandatory military service. "You say you're against violence but what if someone threatened your family and you had a gun?" Great intellectual company you're keeping here.
How does mandatory military service relate to helping to fund another country from an invading force?
Should the other European nations not fight against the Nazis when they invaded other countries in order to not 'prolong' the war?
What's the point of comparing rhetoric that has nothing to do with each other? The comment you replied to compared it giving Poland away to Hitler since it both connected by the act of giving in to the demands of a dictator to avoid war, which WW2 has proven doesn't work. Your comment instead is comparing the act of giving into Putin's demand is equal to pacifists refusing mandatory military service, which sounds ridiculous.
However it’s not rhetoric. It’s cold hard history. Allowing a fascist dictator to invade a sovereign country led to WW2.
They liberated millions of people who were being ethnically cleansed by Ukraine's Nazis. That required invasion.
How did the countries (excepting Poland) who currently make up NATO respond when Hitler invaded Poland?
Yes, I am saying Ukraine should stop fighting. That's what hoping for an end of the war means. Ukraine should stop fighting and Russia should stop fighting. That's what peace entails. Or at least a ceasefire. Maybe the peace can come later, after peace talks.
In the meantime, NATO needs to stop sending weapons. Because it can't hope to supply Ukraine with enough to turn Russia around. And it can't hope to supply Ukraine with enough to maintain current lines until at least a year or two. So the alternative to stopping the fighting seems to be to prolongue a devastating and drawn out fight.
Is that what you would do if someone invaded your home?
That's the wrong question in the context. Ukraine was in civil war before the invasion. So either way, you're faced with a logic of both sides fighting off 'invaders'. You don't have to agree with the other side's claims (the separatists, for you, I imagine), but it's hard to deny that they would make that claim.
Further, were I empowered to make such decisions in similar circumstances in my country, I would never have (i) flirted with the US/NATO, (ii) given up my nukes only to later hint to NATO that I would host NATO nukes in my country, and (iii) have ignored the international treaties that I had signed, such as at Minsk or in Turkey.
Edit: grammar
And one of the worst uses of the 2 brain cells you have left. Your tax dollars are the driving force for war and misery across the globe for decades now, the only difference is that your government isn't hiding it anymore, because they know now that you zombies will give all your money for some entertainment on the news after shooting up a school.
if you want to call attention to the fucked up shit that the USA and NATO has done in the last couple of decades, comparing it with supplying weapons to a democracy to defend itself against an invading bunch of fascist war criminals is definitely NOT helping your case
edit: I have been informed that Ukraine isn't perfect, and that therefor the invasion and the long list of war crimes perpetrated by the invaders are justified
Democracy? The US and NATO aren't fighting for democracy. They are losing a cheap sex tourist destination in Eastern Europe because of this war. That's worth all those Billions! Don't give me the "defending democracy" excuse!
A democracy that recently announced that it postponed elections, a year after declaring the opposition parties as illegal.
You know that postponing elections during a war is : a, fucking logical, because how to fuck are you going to get a representative vote if half of the country has fled or is on the frontline and b, their constitution says there can’t be elections during martial law. source Every fucking pro Russian troll arguments in this thread need to be ousted here before this place gets to be a Russian troll pit as well.
Just the reply I was expecting, thanks for walking right into the trap where you conveniently failed to even mention the opposition part.
And I'm the troll.
Edit:
Even Foreign Policy isn't as one-sided as you are in their portrayal of the situation:
Concern over the decision to postpone Ukraine’s elections has come from both Ukraine’s friends and foes. [...] On the other hand, PACE President Tiny Kox said that while he recognizes the enormity of the struggle Ukraine faces, the country must uphold its obligations under international agreements to hold elections. “It is up to [Ukraine] how to solve this challenge,” he told a Council of Europe summit in May, adding that “there will be no complaints against Ukraine if the elections are not ideal. But if you do not hold elections, then everyone will have questions about you … without elections, democracy is impossible.”
Unless PACE is also just a Russian troll. 🤡
But indeed, elections during war/state of emergency are unconstitutional and highly impractible. Still funny you dodged the opposition point I made.
Untill you give me a source that states that the opposition isn’t able to function, I’m going to treat that part of your argument as blatant misinformation.
It's crazy how some people can have such strong opinions about this conflict while being so uninformed at the same time.
At least you're open about your complete lack of awareness of this war. It's shocking you're even participating in this discussion though. The arrogance of offloading basic research of topics from a year ago to someone else to prove that I'm not spreading misinformation is quite something though.
Ukraine has had to take extraordinary measures to fight Russia's invasion. Among them, the government has consolidated the country's television outlets and dissolved rival political parties.
Source is NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110577439/zelenskyy-has-consolidated-ukraines-tv-outlets-and-dissolved-rival-political-par
They were banning opposition parties and arresting their members a long time before last year.
I mean, it's an apartheid state killing and looting brown people, so that's typical US foreign policy.
No paywall link
Link without paywall, first was fubar
This war is the best thing to happen to the military industrial complex since the cold war.
Countries are still increasing their defence spending. My investment in Raytheon that was done over 6 months ago has netted me a negative increase of -2,42%.
It's never late enough for you to beat that.
But you still have to pay back your student loans and pay a small fortune for healthcare because fuck you.
Two have basically nothing to do with each other.
We are still the richest nation in the world. 2.3 billion sounds like a lot, but its nothing to the us gov, it's nothing to the defense budget alone, and it is actively wrecking the military capabilities of one of our top geopolitical rivals.
I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of the Russia/Ukraine situation, but I know this is peanuts compared to what it could cost us, and we don't even have boots on the ground. This is the deal of a century.
Be mad at the corrupt piece of shit republicans forcing you to go into crippling debt for healthcare and education, not the innocent Ukrainians fighting for their lives and democracy.
American pays mores per capita for healthcare than most countries with a single payer system.
You'd actually save money if you changed.
I get your point, but I’m not sure if that’s true. Americans in general are very unhealthy. I think that might explain why it’s more expensive at least somewhat.
Do you not see the chicken-or-egg situation here? They're more unhealthy because of bad healthcare. That (bad) healthcare is more expensive because they're more unhealthy.
Moreover, much of the reason the healthcare is so expensive is because of insurance overhead, for-profit middlemen (including hospitals, private equity owning doctors offices, etc), massive prescription medication markups because people can't go without medication, and other inefficiencies in the system. Even with an unhealthy population, it doesn't need to be nearly as expensive as it is.
a lot of your food is just really unhealthy. I know from the keto subs that many basic ingredients have added sugar for no good reason, and that’s not even going into that whole HFC thing.
That is true. It is possible to eat only healthy options if you make a concerted effort to, but if you casually just eat what's convenient, or eat at restaurants, you will be consuming astronomical portions and really wacky macro ratios.
People in the USA make the "well unhealthy food is cheap" argument which is only partially true; the more accurate claim is "convenient food is unhealthy". I spend significantly less money on healthy ingredients and make my own food than someone who is buying convenient microwavable and prepared meals; but, it takes me a decent amount of time each day to cook versus a minute watching a microwave. I think cultural aspects of being overworked sneak in to this situation as well: when you have so little free time, and have worn yourself out at work, unless you really enjoy the act of cooking, you are likely to just reach for convenience rather than putting in effort to cook something healthy. Then, you have the interaction of eating unhealthy foods to self-soothe as a method of coping with the reality of being overworked.
There are a lot of moving pieces but, all else being equal (that is, the population eats the same things and keeps the same activity level): the healthcare system in the USA could have a lot less waste and overhead (read: siphoned profits) and thus be a lot less costly to interact with.
I see it. It makes sense. I just don’t know if it’d initially be cheaper. I still think it’s the right thing to do, but it might take a generation for the savings to start happening.
That doesn't help, but there's genuinely a huge amount of money being siphoned off in the form of profits along the way.
Americans aren't that much worse than other countries.
Anyone know the total in lethal aid sent this year? I know last year it exceeded the entire Russian military budget.
Russia sits on a big ass stock of equipment. Of course Ukraine needs more in aid than Russia budgets to keep their stuff working.
What's the Russian output? Can it keep up if NATO is sending ammunition? Or is Russia just dwindling it's reserves?
They lost the upper hand in regards of tanks, they lose artillery at an unsustainable rate and they produced like 20 planes in a year. They still have a huge advantage in the air and that's where there has to be found a solution to get Ukraine on a more equal level. I doubt that Russia will gain any significant amount of land anymore but idk when or if Ukraine can push them back beyond 2014 borders.
Btw I'm dumb as shit and not a qualified source for any of the statements I made.
I wouldn't put yourself down. There's the ordinary fog of war and rather developed systems for spreading misinformation. I had a quick Google search and many of the results are… contradictory to say the least. The only thing that seems to be confirmed is that NATO can't adequately supply Ukraine without stripping it's own militaries of equipment. It seems to have run out of the arms that it's willing to 'give' away (except for the nasty stuff that nobody should be using) and doesn't have the capacity to ramp up production for a year or two at least.
It won't help anything. It's over, America lost its latest war. Now it'll move on to Iran because it hasn't a hope against China. It can't even beat a bunch of goat herders in Afghanistan and now the world knows its military strategists are incompetent, its military equipment is shit. All it's got now is these protection rackets in fascist Ukraine and Taiwan. Losers. The world hates America.
You think that's enough? Or do we still need to give them more money?
(Let's take note that the citizens are still poor, and Ukraine is still losing, reportedly still being outgunned as well)
Uhh, wat? Ukraine is currently regaining territory from Russia, how are they losing?
Fucking tankies.
Unfortunately this is lemmy.ml, which means the place is crawling with tankies. The admins of this instance are openly tankies, and I've seen so many braindead stupid takes from people who can't see anything beyond "USA bad".
Lemmy.world, lemmy.ee, and beehaw.org are options. Note that Beehaw is really aiming for a nice, curated community, so that effects the availability of content.
The instances you join might still federate with lemmygrad.ml or lemmy.ml, but thankfully you can block garbage instances like those and exploding heads.
Idk where you got this from, but Ukraine won in Kyiv, Kherson and Kharkiv. Currently the front moves very slowly towards Russia. No, the offensive isn‘t a huge success and I would even consider it a failure, but the fact that Ukraine can even start an offensive is proving that the weapon deliveries are working.
I wouldn't call it anything yet, Ukrainians haven't even used the bulk of their fresh troops and equipment.
No doubt it's complicated, but some key factors are
It doesn't cost them much to do things slowly, but keeping the Kremlin on its toes and embarrassed is good. The longer Ukraine holds on, the more equipment they get, like F-16s, Abrams, and ATACMS.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/wjU-ve4Pn4k?t=2124
https://piped.video/wjU-ve4Pn4k?t=2124
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.