It’s also worth noting that this aid is all lend-leased. Ukraine has to pay for it all at some point. How? By selling the country out to private US capital. In a similar fashion lend-lease agreements were used by the US to become the dominant world power between the world wars and to expropriate the British empire after WWII.
I have a bridge to sell to anybody who thinks they’re going to see any of that money back. There simply won’t be an Ukraine left at the end of all this, and obviously Russia isn’t going to honor any of these debts. This money is gone forever. However, lots of people are currently getting rich from this since the whole thing is basically a giant money laundering scheme.
I was just about to ask about this. lol. What if there is no more Ukraine? But here’s the thing, I don’t think Russia will ever take ALL of Ukraine. They stated before they don’t want it all. Just these two areas that have proclaimed themselves Russian and to eliminate the Ukrainian Fascists. The US is banking on this. So they will just pilfer what’s left. Although it would be pretty great for the US to get burned even harder than it already is.
Something something the cost of empire.
I doubt Russia would take all of Ukraine as well. Western Ukraine has very little value for Russia because most of the industry and agricultural land is in the east. What’s most likely is that Russia will leave a rump western Ukraine which the west is going to have to keep pouring money into in order for it not to collapse and result in a massive refugee crisis in Europe.
Not to mention (as has been discussed in other threads here) Galicia-Volhynia at least, is the heartland of Banderism and general ultra-nationalist sentiment. It wouldn’t just be a bad idea to try and hold it from an economic point of view, but in terms of the local sentiment there being nothing but russophobia+nazi worship.
Exactly, much better to offload that nightmare onto the Poles.
Now I can’t remember where I read or heard this, but the Americans offered Russia some sort of “peace deal” in which LPR and DPR would be recognized as part of Russia if they also took on some of the lend-lease debt incurred by Ukraine. The tone deaf audacity!
With the context of lend-lease it’s also all the more clear why private capital firms like Blackrock are all up in Ukraine’s business. Not that capitalist ghouls need an excuse to rape and pillage an entire nation.
A Swedish paper printed an article about this, but US obviously denied it. At this point Russia doesn’t really have much of an incentive to make any deals with US. Now the only sensible thing to do is to break Ukrainian military once and for all then ensure it stays demilitarized going forward.
Fun fact: the tank used in that infographic is nazi Panzer IV.
Apparently the Author is German and writes for the World Economic Forum too so yknow also “Fun” facts
Does the “average” USian feel this? No? Does the “average” USian bourgeosie feel this? No? Then it won’t stop.
Oh they feel it alright. US economy is in a terrible state right now. Over half of the population has no savings, and many people are in debt up to their ears. Lots of people are working two full-time jobs just to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the inflation isn’t going down and latest consumer price index is showing that people are cutting spending. This is just the start, things are going to get a lot worse by the end of the year.
- https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/could-you-handle-more-than-one-full-time-job-37-of-workers-do
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/05/multiple-jobs-census-data-inflation-us
- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/08/as-prices-rise-64-percent-of-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html
- https://archive.ph/pqaRp
Are there riots? Protests? Is the ruling class inconvinienced at all?
There are protests and actions around the country periodically, but it’s just leftists showing up to them. The left is growing fast here. More labor unions are being founded by the day and better yet, these unions all seem to have socialist orientations, rather than being reactionary like in the past. But we still aren’t close to the numbers we need to be a major political force in Amerikkka.
The problem isn’t that the average USian isn’t feeling it. Things are going to shit here more and more quickly. It’s just that there are SO many things to protest and care about here that people are fatigued and many have tuned out from that fatigue. Seriously, we are overwhelmed and assaulted by never-ending stream of bullshit on a 24/7 loop. “Spy balloon” “Ohio train derailment” “Gendered M&Ms” “The Grammy’s are racist” “JK Rowling” “Abortion rights get repealed.” Every day it’s another thing.
Meanwhile most people are living paycheck to paycheck and are an hospital incident away from bankruptcy and homelessness. Yet we’re all still expected to participate in this system that hates us. As much as the past few years have radicalized some, it’s made probably more people default to being apolitical. People have to go through a lot of mental steps and learning to see Ukraine as something that harms them and they just don’t have the patience or fortitude for it anymore.
Yeah I think fatigue prevents people from taking the time to learn what’s going on. And frustratingly, this information gap lets the US transform American discontent into support for the war instead of protest against it. Because they can turn things around and pin the blame for people’s problems on Russia.
High gas prices? Russia’s fault.
Can’t buy food? Russia’s fault.
Political turmoil? It’s all because of Russia!!
Therefore the USA must keep this war going until we regime change Russia for liberty and democracy amen.
Makes me want to bash my head in sometimes.
Or you’ve got the people discontent with the war and its consequences that take a different route entirely. Good Ole Marjorie Titan Greene wanting to invade Mexico and pull out of Ukraine. Can’t point your fingers at Washington or Wall Street tho.
Yeah, that’s extra extra frustrating. Because the GOP co-opts anti-war rhetoric when it comes to Ukraine, it only obfuscates the left’s position too. A bunch of well-meaning but ignorant progressive people associate leftist criticism of the US-Ukraine relationship with “right wing” or “Putin” propaganda. It’s just one more way that revolutionary potential gets funneled into the Democratic Party to die.
The barriers to class consciousness here in the US are almost immeasurable. I understand and sympathize with the disappointment that comrades outside of the US have with the indifference of people inside the US, but I hope y’all can at least understand what we’re up against. It really is the fucking Matrix over here.
You have expressed a lot of what I have been trying to about the unique issues we have here. Fucking Matrix man. There’s no easy way. I guess it was probably just as hard convincing peasants that the king and queen weren’t actually appointed by God…but really how much has things really changed from THAT.
I keep trying to think of the perfect radicalization one-size-fits-all. It’s definitely why I will always advocate for truth but simplicity because it’s like trying to de-brainwash the most perfectly, beautifully, self-replicatingly brainwashed populace in human history, no joke I don’t even think I’m being American Exceptionalist when I say that like name a place that gives its people 10 layers deep a set of tools to resist taking the “red pill.”
It’s like how I know this girl who she went to therapy. She’s a narcissist. And all the for-profit therapist–aka yes-man–does, is give her woke-sounding intellectual-sounding self-love-sounding tools to continue to be a piece of shit now completely impenetrable to criticism. It’s like that but on a multifaceted national scale where people are made to be NPCs and given 50 different subcultures brainwash themselves into a perfect little niche that the algorithm determined was the perfect fit to keep you stunted and anticommunist and pro capitalist at all costs.
I’m ranting but yeah.
I think that people are definitely hella clocked out, 2020 scared them there was a tension and people really thought to themselves “oh shits about to get a little too real. Oops” and they came crawling back to Capitalist Brainwashing Daddy promising to never stray again in exchange for comfort and a “return to normalcy” which of course is shittier than the previous iteration of “normal” (as they have been for decades and decades of new “normals”) but not as shitty as what they feel is death. They blew off their steam and now everybody is too scared shitless of apocalypse either worldwide or personally to do anything. I fear it may be a whole nother cycle of capitalism here before the steam can build up again…but I also think Brainwashing Daddy has officially ran out of new tricks and is having to rely increasingly, comically dystopian lengths to go to keep the deception. Americans love us some deception but damn does it taste too rank these days for people stomach it. Problem is is that fascism of many flavors seems sexy to many, as does many variants of doomerism and of Compatible Leftism. But as China continues to rise peacefully, how long before people are willing to hear about the Rosetta Stone, AES? I can tell you I’ve had more success talking to normal people about Russia/Ukraine than I anticipated…many who definitely don’t like the “left” as presented to them but who don’t care for the fascist death cult too much despite being corralled towards it.
Okay holy shit I’m done writing stfu ahhhHHHKK
