• Rottcodd@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    It’s never been about the money.

    The Republicans and their grifters want Putin to win. It’s just that simple.

  • mkwt@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It looks to me like this war is pretty cheap on both American lives, and on the American taxpayers’ pocketbook.

    • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s almost like the real reason they are against aid for Ukraine is that they just parrot whatever their media outlets put out, and they put out being against aid for Ukraine because they want Russia to win and they want lower taxes and reduced regulation for themselves. It’s almost like conservatives are really fucking gullible so long as you pretend you’re on their side and point at somebody for them to blame.

      • Changetheview@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The weirdest part to me is how “support the troops” is always a priority for most in the group opposing Ukrainian support. In fact, military support is usually so critical that they can set aside many of their primary targets of small government and fiscal responsibility.

        I get that this isn’t the “our” troops they usually chant about, but it easily could be, especially if Russia continues its aggressive action. It doesn’t seem that it’s that hard to understand that if you’re willing to give the US military nearly a trillion dollars, it isn’t a bad idea to give support to a country actively fighting against this threat.

        I guess it really does just come down to people convinced that Russia is somehow not a threat to the US, even though the leaders of “our troops” feel differently.

        https://news.usni.org/2021/08/18/russia-is-top-military-threat-to-u-s-homeland-air-force-general-says

        • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m not particularly concerned about Russia militarily threatening the US, but a strong and emboldened Russia putting pressure on Europe is not favorable for us. Eastern Europe generally speaking has less money and power, and therefore with have trouble defending against Russia. As those nations fall, Russia gains land and resources, which makes them more of a threat to Western Europe. Even at a near stalemate in Ukraine, resources are flowing from us and our allies, bottlenecking supply chain, production, logistics, etc. This leads to challenges in receiving resources, and the price is higher if we can even get shit. If you stop thinking right there, I guess I can see how people might oppose aiding Ukraine. But people who think things through realize that Western Europe in direct conflict with a stronger Russia will only make those exact issues even worse. And decent people don’t even need to realize and understand that because the moral implications of indifference to the massive amount of dead civilians is plenty of reason to be on board. But even a sociopath should be able to understand the concept of “a stitch in time saves nine.”

    • Syndic@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      And pretty profitable for the military complex which finally is used for a good cause. Didn’t these republicans receive their yearly lobby cheque?

  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    “The war is cheap in terms of American lives” is a right wing, nationalist sentiment. “American” lives dont have any more value than any other lives.

    • elint@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Sure, but the American government’s entire point is to collect American taxes and provide benefits for Americans. To minimize monetary cost and maximize benefit to American lives is exactly what it should be doing.

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Wait, are you telling me that nations are oriented around nationalism?

        This is why I’m for stateless global communism

          • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s only impossible because people like you refuse to see it’s possibility. If enough people see it’s possibility. It becomes not only possible, but inevitable.

            • Sunfoil@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You would have to overcome the combined political and military might of every country in the world to enact that system. How about you work on getting basic healthcare to people first. That actually might happen in your lifetime.

                • Sunfoil@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Because every effort devoted to unobtainable utopias is effort detracted from being politically effective in the current system and erodes the legitimacy of the left wing. And besides, most communists are hoping for revolution, and not actually helping people.

          • InputZero@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            The best reason there is, to have something to dream for. We see it in tons of our literature, look at how popular Star Trek is. It’s not the crazy sci-fi stories that had people coming back, it was the world the audience wanted to live in. I wouldn’t stomp on someone’s dream like that. Especially when it is widely impossible, like who cares? It’s their dream.

            It’s shortsighted to think that global communism is achievable within a human lifespan just as it is to assume that system won’t be as vulnerable to corruption as current systems are. However that’s beside the point, why advocate for something so widely impossible; because maybe it gives people hope that things may get better. If it was possible I’d definitely take more interest cause I don’t think it’ll work out how a lot of people who advocate for global communism think it will, but it’s not possible.

            • Sunfoil@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Because politics actually matter, and for every person LARPIng about trying to make star trek a reality, is one less person working towards achievable goals making an actual difference in our actual systems. If all of the commies stopped preparing for the revolution and started voting and being proactive in their local party politics, they’d probably be surprised how much they could get done.

  • Leraje
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    1 year ago

    Your current crop of Republicans don’t really care about the US or American values - they want to live in a Margaret Attwood novel.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    The war is cheap in all terms (expect Ukrainian’s). I believe most of the dollar numbers you see includes equipment value when they were going to be scrapped anyway. The accountants have to give it a fair dollar value, but in practical terms it’s zero.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    One has to be a truly deplorable piece of human garbage to say “The war is cheap in terms of American lives”. This is basically an admission that Americans don’t give a fuck about the lives of Ukrainians and re cynically using them as a proxy to fight Russia. Americans continue to expose themselves as the scum of the earth that they are.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yeah to try and advance your own geopolitical position. The actions of your regime resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and a whole country being destroyed all so you chuds could try and weaken Russia in some way. You are utterly deplorable.

        • loutr@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I guess you mean Russia had no choice but to attack Ukraine? Because of the US/NATO? If so could you explain the reasoning behind this please? I genuinely don’t understand this argument. Seems to me that this war is really detrimental to the Russian people, and they absolutely would have been better off not waging it.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            The war happened because NATO kept expanding eastwards. Stoltenberg has now publicly acknowledged that Putin made clear to NATO in a draft treaty before the war that it could avert it if NATO agreed not to keep enlarging. But NATO rejected the offer.

            Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.

            The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.

            https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm#:~:text=The background was that President,condition for not invade Ukraine

            • loutr@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Yeah sorry but that doesn’t make any sense to me.

              I get that Putin hates NATO, and that NATO expansion weakens his foreign influence. So he… invades Ukraine? Which is officially the precise reason why Finland pulled the trigger and joined NATO.

              So I still have the same questions: How does the war benefit the Russian people? How is it a good response to NATO expansion? And what would have happened to Russia if Putin didn’t declare war? Would it have been worse than global economic sanctions and Finland joining NATO (not to mention the cost of war itself)?

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                NATO now openly admits that it’s running low on weapons and that it lacks industrial capacity to keep up with Russia. European economies are in a crisis, and pro western governments are starting to fall as we just saw in Slovakia. If you still don’t understand what a massive strategic defeat for NATO this proxy war was, then you’re going to see a lot of surprises in the near future. The BRICS is now a bigger economic bloc than the G7, and there’s a whole alternative economy now developing outside western control.

                Meanwhile, Russia is in a far stronger geopolitical position today and majority of the world supports Russia against the west:

                Russian economy is now projected to grow by 2.5% and industrial output in Russia is surging while it’s collapsing in the west and Europe is now in a recession.

                https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/b7141fc969fc4475bd6e1e2d4e16609e

                What would have happened was that NATO was going to absorb Ukraine and put nuclear weapons on Russian border. This was a red line that was very clearly communicated to NATO. It all comes down to the fact that NATO decided that it could act unilaterally and ignore concerns of all other countries. Now, Russia says that it is willing to challenge NATO militarily.

                Thinking that this has been anything other than an utter debacle for NATO illustrates profound lack of understanding of what’s actually happening.

                • loutr@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  The BRICS is now a bigger economic bloc than the G7

                  Yeah that’s mostly China (and India) though.

                  Russia says that it is willing to challenge NATO militarily.

                  Russia also said the war would last 3 days. And that they were freeing the Ukrainians from nazi jews.

                  OK so the reason is fear of nuclear weapons creeping closer? But NATO already has dozens of nuclear warheads in range of Russia, doesn’t it? Seems like bullshit to me, and seeing you gloating about the rise of BRICS vs the west makes me think I’m right.

            • RedBaronHarkonnen@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              The war happened because Russia does not comply with international agreements.

              Everybody agreed to Ukraine’s borders.

              Russia is not trustworthy and if they were allowed to get away with this they’d not stop.

              Appeasing Putin results in an actual WW3.

    • lennybird@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Wouldn’t it be nice if all these tyrants like Putin would just stay in their own homes…?

      If only it were that simple to look the other way from your neighbor getting attacked and raped.

      As if such persons ever stop after their first successful house…

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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        1 year ago

        I absolutely love any Russian conscript brave enough to desert, and wish them the best.

        The rest can die in a ditch, like the gullible tools of fascism their grandparents once fought themselves.

        • Kushan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Do you regularly try to win arguments by putting words in people’s mouth? How is that working for you?

        • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Just the ones supporting Putin & to be honest, no reason to limit that to just Russians.

        • Syndic@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          All Russians in Ukraine? Yes, that’s usually the answer how to defend yourself against an unjust invasion.

          Heck Ukraine is doing even better and provides very good resources to guide Russian soldiers how to surrender.

        • shottymcb@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Just the ones murdering children in Ukraine. So all of the Russians invading the sovereign country ofUkraine.

        • Nougat@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          People are dying because of Russia. As soon as Russia goes home with you, people stop dying.

          • xrtxn@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            War should not be an option. People are dying because two idiots won’t give up. No country should support either side.

            • Nougat@kbin.social
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              And yet, Russia has invaded another sovereign state. You are suggesting that there should be no response to that, that Russian soldiers should be left alone to do whatever they want within the borders of Ukraine.

              I hope someone breaks into your house with a gun and starts threatening you with it, just to give you the opportunity to follow your principles and not call the police.

              Seriously, go home Russian propaganda. You’re not even good at it.

                • Nougat@kbin.social
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                  Are you daft? I support people defending their sovereign nation against invasion, and defending themselves against being killed by invaders.

                  When the aforementioned gun-toting invader breaks into your house, what is your response? Shrug your shoulders and leave, just give up your house and possessions therein? Where will you live? What will you eat?

            • teuast@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              You know, if someone is trying to kill you, you don’t have to let them. You’re allowed to take any necessary actions to defend yourself, up to and including killing them.

              In this metaphor, Russia is trying to “kill” (take over) Ukraine. Everyone including me would love it if they stopped, because war is in fact bad, but as long as they don’t, Ukraine is acting in self defense, and thus supporting them is morally justified.

              You would have a point if they’d both been pointlessly agitating against each other for ages. But in cases where both sides are not morally equal, arguing that they are runs cover for those in the wrong. That’s what you’re doing.

            • Syndic@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              So you think Russia should win and be able to do whatever they want to the Ukrainian civilians in the future? Especially those who not meekly accept this? Resulting in bloody crackdowns just as they do to their own citizens?

              And then of course in a few years they just go and invade the next country like Moldavia and you then again think everyone should just stop fighting, resulting in Russia to win again?

              That would be the result of you naive approach to Russia’s continuing aggressive imperialistic expansion!

            • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              They only think in binary choices. Us versus them. They want the false dichotomy because it’s easier. The thought that both sides are bad can’t even enter the conversation.

  • harmonea@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Come on now, you know the left panels would have said something about tax breaks for “job creators.” You only wish they fumbled on their absurd message.