Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.

Exact full quote from CNN:

“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    47
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    living standards in the ex-soviet countries have improved considerably since joining the EU

    Yeah the living standards sure did improve after one of the worst demographic disasters in that era. Easy for things to get better when you start from the bottom I mean come on do better.

    • renownedballoonthief@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      35
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Have some compassion, some people just want to crank their knob to exploitative porn without questioning why so much of it comes from Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia.

    • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      So, why didn’t Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?

      They both started from the bottom, right?

      • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        So, why didn’t Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?

        If you think that the answer to this is simply “because Russia bad” you have the mind of a child.

        • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Eastern European countries that opened to western trade and diplomatic relationships improved significantly.

          Eastern European countries that became Russian puppets didn’t.

          Explain that.

          • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            30
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            imagine ignoring the absolutely ruthless, western led cannibalization of the former soviet union and pretending history’s baseline started AFTER the largest decline of living standards in global history.

            human trafficking, prostitution, alcoholism, food/energy insecurity, diseases of despair all exploded when the west forced capitalism and privatization onto the former soviet union in the immediate aftermath. Gorbachev thought he was going to get some easy-going nordic social democracy, but instead the west carved up their public sector like a christmas ham. maybe you were too young, but in the 1980s the propaganda portrait the west had of russian women were all heavy-set, ugly babushkas. suddenly, after 1989, the mail order beautiful russian bride phenomenon exploded. they were fleeing the gutting of the public sector and the shattering of the social safety net, which made it near impossible to raise a family in the eastern bloc without becoming a sex worker.

            the west sponsored every retrograde nationalist reactionary psycho to undermine any hint of democratic resistance to economic liberalization schemes and bombed the shit out of infrastructure (Yugoslavia) whenever they could get away with it. the west has the most blood on its hands for the aftermath of the USSR, but people like you want to ignore those early days and then claim credit for the “winners” the west propped up in the aftermath of all that chaos. like a killer who torched a town but kidnapped a few kids and now touts his heroic rescue of them. the most ignorant and disgusting take.

            • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              You seem to be ignoring the fact that after the fall of the USSR, Russia didn’t want their assets to be sold or leased to western companies (understandably), so they let corrupt officials take them for pennies of what they were actually worth. Those officials became the oligarchs.

              Russians cannibalised Russia.

              • ThereRisesARedStar [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                28
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                God you’re just… so fucking close to getting it.

                What would have happened if instead of the Russian capitalists privatizing all the people’s assets the western capitalists did?

                Do you think it wouldn’t just be western oligarchs cannibalizing Russia?

                • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  And yet, tankies still defend this corrupt capitalist state just because it’s not the US.

                  Nevermind political persecution, assassinations, repression of LGBT people, invasion of neighbouring countries, etc. As long as it’s not the US, it’s all good.

                  • ThereRisesARedStar [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    5
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 year ago

                    No, it isnt. We at hexbear say “the illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the Soviet Union was the largest humanitarian disaster of the latter half of the twentieth century” and bemoan the loss for human rights(more notably for women, lgbt people, and ethnic minorities) caused by the destruction of the Eastern block.

                    What we say is that you have to look at the outcomes of weapon distribution by NATO to Ukraine.

                    Ukraine just wasted a lot of material on one last big push and they didn’t do squat. The Ukrainian state has exhausted its ability to conduct offensive operations, and attrition in both absolute quantity and in percentage has been on the Russian’s side since the second stage of the war, so what’s going to happen now is that Russia will slowly encroach on the rest of Ukraine until they meet their military and political objectives.

                    So, do we give them more weapons, make their losing war even bloodier for them and the Russians, or do we accept that they’ve lost, and stop giving the government more time to keep killing conscripts?

              • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                22
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                yes, capitalism is marked by class war, between the class who own things, and the class who labor. liberalizing the Soviet bloc destroyed the prospects of the working class.

      • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        31
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        The Balts were immediately used as forward positions for NATO and were allowed to keep their state programs and industry. Belarus got the same treatment as Russia.

        You should probably know the answer to your own snarky questions before you ask them.

        • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          So, what you’re saying is that the countries that sided with the West got a better deal than the ones that became Russian puppets?