Republicans: we have to spend our money on Americans first
Also Republicans: fuck you, no more student load help
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Republicans don't want to help all Americans, just their own class.
Not even that they'll gladly sell each other out if it can benefit their personal business interests.
Okay, fine. Then let's spend our money on healthcare for Americans.
No? Then what about green technologies to keep us competitive, create jobs, and help the environment? Also no?
Oh, I see. We should spend the money on payments to the wealthy in the hopes that they would let a few pennies spill out of their pockets and be too lazy to pick them up before the poor people scramble to get them. Got it.
spend our money on Americans first
Well that's actually true! It's just that they want it spent on a very small and select group of Americans first.
You can't call yourself a true patriot if you don't relish the thought of an old adversary perishing in a war against someone else. Its gotta be obvious the Republican party is compromised at this point, especially after allegations over the years.
Nationalism doesn’t usually end well.
They are self ascribed patriots. I'm just calling them out. Please, don't start a nationalist party.
I’d rather start an Internationalist party. ;)
Eh I wouldn't go that far. I have no desire for the UK nor Germany to perish in a war for instance. And I don't want to see Russia perish in war. But they must absolutely lose in Ukraine, unequivocally.
I would've preferred to see them be a thriving democracy, perhaps one that had figured out how to better mix capitalism and communism. We could have shared our cultures and combined our knowledge to make massive scientific advancements.
But Russia didn't choose that path. And now they have to be defeated. They promoted far right candidates in the West with the intent of destabilizing countries, and they actively spread COVID misinformation. If there's to be a hope for democracy and a free Russian people, we have to do everything we can to defeat the Putin regime.
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Why couldn't we have helped Russia after the collapse of the USSR instead of letting it languish and turn into what it has become today? That would've saved a lot of lives, but I suppose then you couldn't have that eternal enemy to show off how much of a patriot you are.
I both agree and disagree, but you are blaming the US/West far too much. Russia was not a US colony, and there is no manual on how to fix a country when it collapses. It's not entirely clear how we could've helped, especially in a manner that didn't just look like enriching private corporations or wealthy Russian oligarchs.
What happened in the end is a very common story -- a place is having economic hardship and struggle, a strongman leader restores stability, the strongman rules as a tyrant. The tyrant longs for old days of glory, and so forth.
I disagree with the commenter above that we should relish the thought of Russia's defeat because they were a former adversary. I wish things had happened far differently. My disdain is largely for Putin, not for Russia itself. We can learn from the past, but the fact remains -- Putin and Russia must fail in Ukraine for peace to be established, innocent lives to be saved, and sovereignty to be respected. Ukraine is not Russia's colony, and Putin needs to be punished for forgetting that.
Say Russia loses and Putin is deposed. What do you think the US and West should do in that situation? This isn't some gotcha question, I'm genuinely interested in what you think would be the best path forward for the Russian people to thrive and have a peaceful democracy.
There is a manual on how to fix a country when it collapses and it was written after world war 2. We saw how Germany was punished after world war 1 and how it didn't solve the underlying problems. The problem was solved when Germany got proper support instead of being let to fester in economic misery. It takes a village to raise to raise a child and a world to raise a country. Instead, the US sought to exploit the fall of the USSR with "free market" BS and laundering money for the wealthy to maximize wealth extraction.
When this war has ended, my hope is that the world extends a hand to help Russia diversify its economy and become more stable. We should also dismantle cold war era organizations like NATO, whose only goal is to act as an adversary. We need to emphasize cooperation.
That's the thing though, proper support and enriching the wealthy aren't mutually exclusive here. Whatever aid we provide, some big companies will benefit and oligarchs will get richer. Either way though, I think we can agree that while the West was not obligated to do more, they should have done more. And I am completely with you on a global effort to rebuild and stabilize Russia as a liberal democracy. We need to make sure the country doesn't fall into ruin again and give us Putin 2.0.
I will have to disagree on NATO though, largely because countries like Ukraine are going to want defensive assurances for a very long time after this. It provides peace of mind to the smaller nations that we won't allow them to be conquered by neo imperialist upstarts. What I do think though is NATO needs to expand into a general defensive pact. Perhaps it should become an agreement by the largest military powers that they will defend all democracies from attack, or something.
Things like NATO will naturally die when they are no longer relevant. People really didn't care as much about it before the Ukraine invasion, and much of the left questioned why we even had it. Russia has made it relevant again. In a hundred years, it may exist only on paper, if Russia and the West have jolly cooperation.
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We could have, and we should have. But those choices were made by different people than us. Maybe if we had made some other choices instead of just nationalist ones we could have had an ally by now. But as you said, we'd have no eternal enemy to point to, and imperialists love state enemies.
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Also it's not a bad we're aligning "the bread basket of Europe" with the west at a time when food insecurity in rising all around the world.
For no other reason than: if poor = no food for you.
They don't want a weak Russia. They want a strong Russia. Because that's what Putin wants and Putin now controls their party as much as Trump does.
Remember when a bunch of high profile Republicans went on a trip to Moscow and tried to get an audience with Putin on Independence Day?
The republican traitor filth are owned by the blyats. That’s why they can’t acknowledge the obvious: Western interests, and especially American interests, are perfectly aligned with helping Ukraine. We’re getting another century of American-led Western dominance by destroying the pathological russian state. And at a steep discount, compared to direct action.
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$10b would provide meals for kids in schools and eliminate school food debt. We did it for one year during COVID but now lunch ladies get to go back to debt collection. Just to put these figures in perspective. The US govt doesn't care about its own people.
$10b is nothing, a rounding error in the federal budget. It's a sad day when you come to the realization that people go hungry and homeless simply because we allow it. Both problems could be solved in under a year if we had the will to do so.
That said, Ukraine is worth supporting, it's definitely not an either/or situation.
In Afghanistan and Iraq ... Washington spent more than $8 trillion
Never let anyone say we (America) don't have the money do to things. That's bullshit. If this country could spend $8 trillion dollars on a war that accomplished nothing, we can spend money to help those that need it.
To do the right thing for Ukraine, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will now have to go against a growing portion of the Republican base.
Aaaand he's gone the very next day.
Weakening the enemy and getting Intel at a fraction of the cost with someone else's boots on the ground. Then there's looking good on the world stage and strengthening relationships with allies. They're also getting rid of old gear to swap for new. It's cheaper giving it away then dismantling it.
This isn't "world police" bullshit. The US is taking advantage it.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The bad news is that billions of dollars of funding for Ukraine were stripped from the continuing resolution as a sop to House Republicans who want to cut off the embattled democracy altogether.
To do the right thing for Ukraine, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will now have to go against a growing portion of the Republican base.
It is, nevertheless, imperative that he show a modicum of backbone and bring a Ukraine funding bill to the floor immediately.
In fact, it is hard to think of any U.S. foreign policy initiative since the end of the Cold War that has been more successful or more important than U.S. aid to Ukraine.
We are funding a free people fighting to preserve a liberal democracy that will be a stalwart member of the Western community for years to come.
Republicans often complain that the United States is doing the heavy lifting and our European allies aren’t doing their fair share.
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