Entitlements are bankrupting us, not Ukraine. We are at 120% debt to gdp. To put it in personal fiscal responsibility, when a persons spending exceeds 100%, they need to cut back and spend on whats most important. Instead of spending $20 a night to watch a ukraine/russia movie, that money would be better spent else where. The question isn't if Debt-to-GDP exceeding 100% is bad. The question is can we ever get it back down. If we don't start spending money to improve the domestic side and start making them legit political issues, the economy simply will not expand fast enough. Bridges falling down and kids of all age are not getting educated properly, the economy will only stagnate. But none of that matters if we can just keep Trump out of office.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/2...y/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921&mc_cid=c7a8d1f16f Ukraine Isn’t Putin’s War—It’s Russia’s War Jade McGlynn’s books paint an unsettling picture of ordinary Russians’ support for the invasion and occupation of Ukraine. Keir GilesFebruary 21, 2024, 3:02 AM A stadium full of people, most wearing red, wave Russian flags. People wave Russian flags as they gather to mark the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea during an event at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on March 18, 2022. Ramil Sitdikov/AFP via Getty Images For years, as Moscow’s intent to challenge the West became clearer, a key question loomed: whether the country as a whole or its leader was at fault—in effect, whether the world had a Russia problem or a Putin problem. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began two years ago, analysts have continued to debate the attitudes of ordinary Russians toward the war. Do a broad majority of Russians genuinely support the crimes and atrocities committed by their country’s armed forces? And if not, why do they give every appearance of doing so? Two books by British historian Jade McGlynn published during 2023 provide uncomfortable answers. Russia’s War gives one of those answers in its title: In direct and conscious contrast to a rash of other current book titles that lay the blame squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin, McGlynn concludes that the Russian state, with the conscious collusion of part or most of its population, has achieved significant and widespread support at home for its war of colonial reconquest in Ukraine. The other book, Memory Makers, gives us more explanation of how this was made possible through Russia’s deliberate and long-term program of hijacking history and shaping the public’s memory by recreating the past in order to shape the present. Together, they paint a portrait of the alternative reality inhabited by Russians, created and nurtured by the state, and explain how it provides a permissive environment for that state’s worst crimes against both its own people and its victims abroad. Russia’s War will upset a lot of people. There’s a substantial group among Russians abroad—or at least, among those who do not wholeheartedly approve of the war—who make their point that not all Russians are to blame for it by attempting to attach that blame to Putin personally. But McGlynn firmly rejects the idea that this is Putin’s war alone. “Russia’s war on Ukraine is popular with large numbers of Russians and acceptable to an even larger number,” she writes. “Putin banked on the population’s approval and he cashed it.” McGlynn’s book is also a direct challenge to those Western journalists, academics, and Russophiles who cling to the belief that the country is a frustrated democracy, as well as the idea that left to their own devices, Russians would install a liberal government that was less inclined to repress its own subjects and wage wars of aggression abroad. That’s a belief that has often been formed in conversation with urban, liberal Russians—the kind who are now largely in exile or jail. But there’s no reason to think that conversations in Moscow and St. Petersburg are any better a guide to Russia’s population as a whole than similar conversations in New York or London were at predicting former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory or the United Kingdom’s Brexit. When the idea of a country has been constructed on sampling that is as unrepresentative as this, it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that the behaviors that the world has witnessed in Ukraine are entirely within the mainstream of social norms in the further reaches of Russia. McGlynn doesn’t rule out the possibility that there may be Russians who disapprove of the war. But in addition to describing an instinct for self-preservation that may constrain many individuals from speaking out, she also argues that silent acquiescence is also the easier path inside their own minds. “Plenty of people believe the Kremlin propaganda because it is easier and preferable to admitting or accepting that you are the bad guys,” McGlynn writes. In the absence of any discernible public opposition, Russians’ attitudes range from complete apathy to the frenzied enthusiasm for the war encouraged by propagandist “Z-channels” on Telegram, urging the military on to commit ever greater savagery in Ukraine. These channels, broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of subscribers—where footage of atrocities receives a joyous reaction—would not be possible in a country where backing for the onslaught on Ukraine was not widespread. Read More Russia’s state-aligned propaganda, McGlynn argues, does not seek to make everyone a warmonger. Instead, it aims to nudge people along a spectrum: It tries to render those in opposition apathetic, to make the apathetic feel attacked and side with their country whether right or wrong, and to induce quiet patriots to lend full-throated support. A further twist, McGlynn suggests, is that we should not assume that the ideal outcome for the Kremlin is widespread pro-war activism. The Kremlin distrusts any spontaneous political act even if it is in support of the regime, she reminds us. So it sets clear boundaries for what is and is not an acceptable way to show allegiance, and is content if the support shown is no more than lip service. But still, criticism of the war, where it does exist, primarily focuses on the competence with which it is being fought as opposed to whether it should be fought in the first place. Many of the state narratives around the West and Ukraine are not Putinist inventions, but instead are excuses for Russian state crimes that date back to Soviet and tsarist times. By tapping into the familiar tropes of Russia’s artificial history, the Kremlin provides the basis for new and still-evolving fictions about the world outside, brought together in what McGlynn calls “a time-worn ritual whereby Russian media and politicians slowly dismantle the truth and then replace it with a forgery.” That ritual is examined in detail in Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia. Appearing later than Russia’s War, Memory Makers nonetheless lays the groundwork for it, exploring how Russia rewrote its history to provide justification for its present. History is explicitly defined as a battleground in Russia’s national security strategy and other doctrinal documents. But as ever in Russia’s perverse newspeak, goals such as the “defence of historical truth,” the “preservation of memory,” and “counteraction to the falsification of history” translate to the construction and defense of a fabricated version of Russian and Soviet history, accompanied by the denunciation of news and information from abroad as fake, all intended to protect and bolster Russia’s alternative reality. As McGlynn explains, Russia’s reworking of history builds a narrative that “distracts from government failings, promotes government policies and reinforces the Kremlin’s view of current events.” The two books together offer an understanding of how Russia fostered the mentality that enables the war. Memory Makers explains how it was done; Russia’s War describes the effect. Across the two books, McGlynn considers the role of state propaganda in forming the attitude that she describes and the cumulative impact of more than a decade of bombardment with relentless war propaganda that dehumanizes Ukrainians and sells the idea of a hostile West. Her conclusion is that the war propaganda fell on fertile ground. Russians were eager to be guided toward the state-approved attitude that tied in closely with many of their preconceptions about the world and Russia’s place in it. continued...
...continued: And this has had practical and tragic results. McGlynn helps explain why Russia’s horrific casualty toll—with estimates varying widely but none smaller than the hundreds of thousands—has had less impact on popular support for the war than was widely and optimistically expected; and why Russia’s soldiers are still fighting, despite their leadership’s palpable indifference to the scale of the slaughter. Meanwhile, the dehumanization of Ukrainians that forms an integral part of the propaganda made atrocities in Ukraine not just likely, but also inevitable. In contrast with multiple books on Russia that have been produced swiftly after February 2022, both Russia’s War and Memory Makers have long been in gestation. They draw on close to a decade of research, including data analysis of television, print and social media, extensive interviews, and—while it was still possible—firsthand investigation within Russia itself. Perhaps inevitably, that means neither book offers simple answers. Optimists among academics, journalists, and even government officials cling to the belief that if only Russians could be reached with the truth about the outside world, including the horrors committed in their name in Ukraine, they would turn against their leadership. But McGlynn’s books and a mass of associated research show that far deeper and more radical societal change within Russia would be essential to reverse the effects of two decades of state propaganda. Since the end of the Soviet Union, early hopes that new generations might embrace democracy and liberalism have faded to invisibility. Instead, Russian social development is accelerating in reverse. McGlynn’s research undercuts suggestions that this is being done to Russians against their will, and instead highlights attitudes ranging from complicity to enthusiasm. The result is that Russia looks almost exclusively to the past to define its vision for the future. The tragic implication is that Russia’s war against Ukraine cannot be ended in or by Ukraine. Its roots lie in Russians’ political and societal imagination of what their own country is and what it must be. That imagination, McGlynn shows, has been encouraged and facilitated—but not created—by a propaganda campaign that has lasted a generation. Jade McGlynn has assembled the evidence for a conclusion that will disturb optimists hoping for a better Russia: The campaign would not have succeeded without a willing and complicit population, and too many ordinary Russians are entirely content to back their country’s most horrific actions.
if Mike Johnson caves the republicans need to never ever run on any sort of america first platform ever again. Help our veterans and citizens at home first.
Republicans hate our veterans and citizens at home. They'd much rather do a tax cut and support Ukraine than support any welfare programs.
Gradually even the NYT is reporting that it is not just Ukraine kicking ass. Time to sell "defense" stocks?
What if I told you that defense spending saved the lives of who knows how many military personnel, and potentially citizens by avoiding what would be a massive war that we'd get pulled into one way or another?? If you think Putin will stop at Kyiv then you haven't been paying attention to what Putin himself has been telling you. Ukraine aid might actually be the best way to support our troops to keep them out of war. I'm sure you'll reply to that in a way that tries to downplay how much of a threat Putin actually is etc etc. But even if I'm being hyperbolic, it's at least worth considering at some level or cost rather than just risking it. .... As I've said many times our defense spending and military industrial complex sucks. I hate that we have to see trillions of tax payer dollars go to countries around the world while we cannot even have a public option for our healthcare. It's horrible. However there's context here. We do not live in an island in this world, and there's lesson after lesson after lesson in human history of countries that ignored outside threats that ended up being much more costly in the longrun had their leadership, and people taken the threat seriously and prepared for it. Use your head man, and think things through. It's not black and white, but we have a clear and present threat. No we don't need to freak out and prepare for Nuclear War with Russia, and China.... but we need to at least do what we can to de-escalate situations where it could drag us in. The easiest call here is to make it not worth the cost of invading Ukraine. We were successful there for almost two years. Ukraine has been a disaster for Putin in the short run. Why all the sudden pivot completely, and hand it to him on a silver platter? Makes no sense.
Wait. I thought we weren't suppose to listen to Putin because its all propaganda. Or are we selectively choosing what we listen to. Because he said he would not attack a NATO nation unless it attacked Russia first. He said he would not use nuclear weapons unless Russia was attacked.
You play dumb so well one might even be inclined to think you are actually dumb. Putin's propaganda and what he says can be viewed at through the filter of dissecting his intent. It's pretty easy actually to hear what he says both while lying, and when he's chest bumping directly, and interpret. If you do not see a direct threat to Poland next then you just either aren't paying attention, are dumber than a sack of rocks, or a Putin shill.
No, there is not a direct threat to poland. You are fear mongering. Again, one moment Putin is incompetent, Russian economy is about to collapse and their military is in shambles. The next moment, Poland is going to fall to Russia because of Putin's ingenious military strategy and superior military. The Russian economy and war efforts can not sustain any form of operation against a NATO country. China and India would stop supporting Russia.
Putin said he would not invade Ukraine. You should never take someone like Putin at face value. Of course, not only should you pay close attention to what Putin said, but also analyze it along with his actions. Selective choosing (which includes not listening to his stated goals) is willful blindness. Poles think differently. They see Russia as a direct and major threat and they are acting as if Russia is one. https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News...lands-threat-assessment-deepened-not-changed/ The current “Defence Concept of the Republic of Poland,” published in May 2017,2 provides an example of Polish leaders’ perception of Russia as the main source of instab ility on NATO’s eastern flank as well as playing a destabilizing role in the Middle East and North Africa. It states that the aggressive policy of the Russian Federation poses a direct threat to the security of Poland and other countries of NATO’s eastern flank.3 It anticipates Russia maintaining an aggressive stance in foreign and security policy and considers the Russian use of armed forces to pursue political goals, destabilizing neighboring countries, and undermining their territorial integrity to be particularly dangerous. The Defence Concept also recognizes hybrid activities and proxy conflicts as threats.4 It acknowledges that Russia might cause a regional conflict involving one or more NATO allies and that the buildup of Russian armed forces in the Western Military District and aggressive scenarios of the Russian military exercises such as Zapad 2009—which ended with a simulated nuclear attack on Warsaw—validate their assessment of threats from the Russian Federation.5 Poland’s May 2020 National Security Strategy (NSS)6 confirmed the assessment that Russian neo-imperialist policies are the most severe threat to Poland’s security, citing Russia’s 2008 aggression against Georgia, the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, and ongoing actions in eastern Ukraine as violating international law and undermining the European security system. The allocation of military spending has significantly changed since February 2022. Already in 2023, the defense budget will reach 97.4 billion Polish Zloty (PLN) or 3.0 percent of GDP, with the apportionment of 27.3 billion PLN, or 28 percent for the TMP .... https://news.yahoo.com/poland-preparing-threat-war-russia-152700704.html February 5, 2024 Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said that his country must urgently prepare for the threat of war with Russia, in an interview published on Monday. Kosiniak-Kamysz was asked by the newspaper Super Express whether he considered Russia's military defeat of Ukraine and a subsequent invasion of Polish territory a possibility. "I expect every scenario and take the worst ones most seriously. That is the task of a defence minister in the situation we find ourselves in today," the conservative politician replied. Kosiniak-Kamysz, 42, said that he had "not just said these words out of the blue," but had weighed them up carefully. Poland is a member of the European Union and the NATO military alliance. He said Poland's Defence Ministry has already begun concrete steps to prepare for the threat, including examining gaps in armaments supplies for the military. Although large-scale armaments procurements are very important, the individual equipment of each soldier must be taken just as seriously, he said. He said that Poland intends to play a very important role in the common defence of the European Union. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/...ia-surge-but-ratings-for-u-s-nato-eu-improve/
