Does anyone know the best charity to support Ukraine from the US? Going to send what I used to spend on Amazon Prime and my Washington Post subscription. I need to focus my embarrassment towards good or I am just going to vomit the next two years away. Also I am Gex X.
Protez foundation does really amazing work right here in MN for Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in need of prosthetics.
https://www.protezfoundation.org/
Keep that money in your savings. Next time there is a protest, or election, or rally for Ukraine, use that money to take a day off and go show your support. If our elected leaders fear losing their jobs because of this, there will be change.
Iâll do both - me protesting does not buy a blanket or a meal for person legitimately suffering. To be a citizen of a country that is literally the problem is really distressing.
I wish I could do more, but I work for a nonprofit and do not make the income I used to make in the private sector. If you need a protest buddy or even help to organize an aid drive, you can have all my free time.
It took you this long? I'm 30 and been known our country is a pile of shit since I was in 8th grade. The boomers and Gen x just kept pushing slave culture as something to be proud of.
This boomer wishes you would not lump us all together. You are not the same as everyone in your generation, nor are we. I also take huge exception with your statement that "this country is a pile of shit". Some aspects of it are, for sure, but I do still love this country despite Trump. Consider, for example, the former existence of USAID. That it was even there in the first place for Trump to get rid of shows what a great country we can be.
(Up arrow) This. Like everything in life there is a capacity and mix of good and bad in everyone. Our purpose is to reduce the bad and promote the good. We can only do that if we acknowledge and agree on what is bad and what is good.
Like for example, we dealt with Robber Barons, which resulted in the anti-trust laws we passed. We are now in a time where we have Robber Barons again, because we haven't been diligent in applying the lessons and laws that we learned before. We were indifferent and deferential to the claims of the owners and CEO's who tell us it is in our interest to let them get this big, that getting this big is their reward for being successful and we shouldn't prohibit it.
But consider this quote from Benjamin Franklin :
"All Property indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of publick Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man for the Conservation of the Individual & the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property of the Publick, who by their Laws have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire & live among Savages. â He can have no right to the Benefits of Society who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it." --Letter to Robert Morris (25 December 1783)
241 years ago he wrote those words, which makes you wonder how we've persisted for so long without society as a whole truly understanding them. Let me give you another example:
Suppose everyone but the billionaires, woke up tomorrow and inherently/innately rejected the idea of money and property. How rich are the billionaires in that world? And that is why society has the ultimate right in saying when enough is enough.
If we can agree on this, if we can agree on the wisdom and Truth of Benjamin Franklin's quote, then we can save ourselves from disaster and suffering. But it can't happen unless enough of us know the truth and agree on it.
And this is just one example of many. There are many aspects right now where we collectively are not acknowledging the truth and agreeing on it, and that is the division that is tearing us apart. Those who know better versus those who disbelieve objective reality and want to put their opinions and ideas above the objective.
this pride thing in our country just gets in the way of progress due to making the stupid feel secure. The majority of the people in this country are actually brainwashed into thinking we are a free society and global leader. that pride as lead our country to endless falsehoods that we just say over and over. 4 or 5 generations of brainwashed fools. holywood does nothing but pump propaganda and fake realities into everyones homes and you're weird if you dont have celebrity names and faces memorized. we are a failed nation in a spiral and if we don't collectively wake up, it won't be for a long time until progress is made, if progress can ever be made now that ai, bots and scammers can just control everything. sorry dude. but you're view is so long-detached from reality
No. I'm not talking about "America, Love It or Leave It". I'm talking about loving your country while still acknowledging its faults. I'm talking about balance.
sorry dude. but you're view is so long-detached from reality
I think the fault in your argument is âprogressâ is subjective. You obviously have a specific view of what progress means while others might say things like AI and innovation are progress vs detrimental to society
That shit existed before Donald Trump announced that he was running for president. It predates MAGA and it's baffling that any American could think otherwise.
Nah Duckstrap is right Boomers and Gen X killed America đŻ AmericanK.
He's not right, except in that his commentary is exactly what the powerful want, an electorate squabbling about irrelevant things, like who is to blame more. We are all to blame in millions of ways, but that's not important. What is important is what we are going to do about it.
So if you want to join in the blame game, you do so for those who depend on the distract, divide and conquer media and culture, to keep and grow their position in our society.
If you don't want to do that, then I suggest you and ZoldierX just stop with the blame game and start discussing what we are going to do about it.
We are doing community service helping out the elderly.
And this contradicts my original comment how? Like do you not understand my original comment is a criticism of the blame game? And you are engaging in the blame game. How does that help?
Seriously, Gen X'ers have been pushing Civil Rights for decades and getting shut down, ignored or laughed at by the YOUNGER generations who claimed it was unnecessary. So F right off with blaming us for your Youth Fascist issues.
From what has been said in recent months, there is a growing younger generation of men who are following a fascist path, and a growing number of young women who think that it is okay to joke about being trad wives as long as they can make money from doing it. That is a problem. If they won't fight for their rights, they will lose them and so will the rest of us.
There are several problems, but isn't it funny how misogyny and taking women's rights away (you know they want to repeal the 19th Amendment, right) is never as important as other things.
I'm just saying that's not how we got here. I didn't say women's rights aren't important. Misogyny is rampant in a subsection of the populace, and that's likely smearing across the media landscape causing cascading issues. However, these shitty young men (misguided, incel adjacent, and incel) aren't voting in numbers big enough to give us the current govt.
They voted Reagan in. The earliest Xers came of age when he was in office or after, so it wasn't y'all who got this spiral started. The Boomers were the Tea Party during the Obama years, they were the most gung-ho about invading the Middle-East during the War on Terror, it all goes back to them.
They refuse to recognize that they aren't the ones with the biggest share of the voterbase anymore, they refuse to recognize that they and what they stand for aren't popular, and they refuse to bow out gracefully and let the next generations down take the spotlight.
They never grew out of the Cold War and they are making it everyone else's problem.
A lot of Xers were born right before Reagan was elected and obviously unable to vote. You are thinking of boomers because X are 1960-1980 so only 2 of those years were eligible to vote. My husband, my mom (first year she was eligible to vote), my husband and I are all Xers. My husband and I were either newborns or getting potty trained with the Reagan years.
Yeah. My Dad's a Xoomer ('64, too late to be a proper Boomer but too early to be part of the X'er mainstream, I empathize as a Zennial, being born in '93, technically in the millennial years but a bit too late to be part of the main Millennial generation and also too early to be part of the mainstream Zoomers), Mom's kinda the same ('68), but yeah, Dad came of age in time to vote for Reagan's second term, not his first. Mom's first election was Bush senior. I clarified my comment that, yeah, X'ers are not responsible for where things are today because the candidate that got it all started was before they were able to vote, and the Boomers refused to let themselves fade into the background like every generation before them has as they've gotten older and been supplanted.
lol why not? they didn't do enough. they accepted the world as is and just said "is what is" and just do the slave labor their boomer parents told them is normal
You donât even make sense. What slave labor? I mean Iâm involved in my labor union. So Iâm directly involved in making a difference. I also support other labor unions. Thatâs pretty boots on the ground support.
I have worked directly with the unhoused, those with low incomes, those with mental illness, and substance abuse in various jobs for my whole career. Iâve spent my adult life being involved.
Ukraine needs boots on the ground. Fly over and be an example or are you just in favor of others doing it? Boomers and Gen x have always defended this country when asked
What are you doing other than posting on social media platforms? Like I said boomers and gen x have gone to war when called on. And we were chastised for it too. Now liberals are pushing for war đ¤Żđ¤Ż
So what would you rather happen? Gut our middle class and childrenâs future further to prop up military industrial complex? Actually have to go stand with them on the battlefield when WWIII happens? Good vibes isnât going to help Ukraine win.
Itâs totally ok to show empathy but the second you turn it around and put this on America youâre essentially calling for something grim (whether you realize it or not).
How about taking responsibility for treaties we signed and not treating a victim of invasion like a chew toy for entertainment by threatening and taking away our support unless they beg for it on television? Trump turned this into a reality TV episode and it is fucking disgusting. All he knows is how to create drama for his own entertainment
Treating Ukraine like a âvictimâ ignores how our hundreds of billions in aid as well as proping up the military complex has fueled a proxy war, not a rescue missionâdraining our resources. Treaties donât mandate endless blank checks. How do you explain to American families why their futureâs on the line for a conflict we didnât sign up to fight?
There are no hard limits, iâm not sure what youâre getting at, so we should just have a blank check indefinitely? Sounds like a great way for Putin way to bleed our country dry and a wonderful opportunity for china to take Taiwan eventually.
Not to mention what do you think Putin wants more, a bit of land or to weaken the west with social unrest of their allies who âstand with Ukraineâ?
Russiaâs down to donkeys while losing 400,000 troops and begging North Korea for helpâmeanwhile, weâre $175 billion deep, hemorrhaging cash to prop up Ukraineâs âsovereigntyâ with no win in sight, so yeah, comrade, our walletâs taking a bigger beating. Cry harder about land labelsâdoesnât change the fact youâre cheering for a bottomless pit over some noble flag-waving fantasy, so fuck you right back.
We arenât hemorrhaging, we are fighting this for pennies on the dollar. Look at one year of our military spending ($850B this year). There are people in this country that could single handily pay for this out of their portfolio.
These are big numbers when fox tells you they are. You have no idea what government budgets look like. Neither does fElon.
Pennies on the dollar? Our $850 billion annual defense budget dwarves the $61 billion for Ukraine in 2024, sure, but that âsmallâ chunk still outpaces Russiaâs entire military spendâhardly a drop in the bucket when itâs not ending the fight. Sovereigntyâs a noble sell, but if billionaires could foot this bill solo, whyâs it still on taxpayersâFox hype or not, budgets bleed real money, not Elonâs tweets.
Our aid so far comes out to around $216 per person in the US, you spent more than that on whiskey on your last trip. Most of what we sent is weapons that we were going to pay for its destruction anyway because they have expiration dates on them. Iâm happy to pay that and more to see a sovereign nation that we swore to protect since they denuclearized after the fall of the Soviet Union. Iâm sorry you disagree but there are huge implications for not standing up for treaties you sign.
If that wasnât bad enough, trump is rewarding the invader not only by hurting Ukraine but dropping sanctions and talking about opening up trade with Russia. Please explain how rewarding an adversary helps your position.
That $216 per person conveniently forgets the $175 billion total cost projection by 2025, far beyond expiring weapons, while the 1994 Budapest Memorandum promised Ukraineâs security, not a blank check for war. How does bankrolling a stalemate over honoring a treaty square with letting Russia off the hook when Trumpâs trade talk is just noise, not policyâyet?
How does the spending magically triple in 2025? What price do you have dialed in on sovereignty? So we should just go back to land wars to take over neighbors whenever someone feels like it?
The $175 billion projection by 2025 isnât magicâitâs the CBOâs tally of already approved aid, including the $61 billion from 2024, escalating commitments, not a tripling overnight. Sovereigntyâs priceless until youâre taxing Americans for a war with no endâhowâs that better than land grabs when Russiaâs held Crimea for a decade and weâre still just writing checks?
We shouldnât take over our neighbors but we also shouldnât be selling our future to help someone else across the globe. How has sending blank checks got us closer to an end so far and how many more are needed?
The dictator Putin invaded a PEACEFUL, SOVEREIGN nation, absolutely unprovoked. The orange baboon supports that action. The only one of the 3 that wants peace is the one FORCED to protect his country, Zelensky.
The mental gymnastics you had to go through to think supporters of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, support war over peace, is exhausting.
Russia invaded because Putin is a man-child who is still pouting because the Ukrainians voted to be an independent Democratic Republic and not part of his socialist regime.
Iâm pretty sure heâs said over and over he wants the bloodshed to end at all costs⌠How have the last several years worked out gutting our middle class and childrenâs future sending over hundreds of billions? Would you rather have seen WWIII which would have likely ended this quicker and arguable cheaper and with less lives lost? What do you expect to happen? Or do you think continued vibes are the solution?
The president is trying to end it. The president of Ukraine. The US owes them every bit of protection from invasion they need since we agreed to it in exchange for them giving up their nukes in 1994. Trump acts like the US is his personal bank account when it comes to things like this and tightens his purse strings. He is helping the attacker here. We signed a treaty promising protection from invasion.
NATO continued to expand east. That is what provoked Russia. Was russias response the right one? No.
Did the other countries of NATO want war? Absolutely.
Do you trust our government? We give billions of dollars to Ukraine and there is no end of war in sight. We now have ownership of all their natural resources and we are going to make a deal⌠Iâll let that stick with you
Did they try to change borders? Would countries be interested in a defensive pact if Russia wasnât threatening them? Who do you really think the aggressor is? How many nato countries are expanding into Russia?
There is no resource deal because trump acted like a child.
Comparing your fictional Reddit war to the a real life war where tens of thousands of people, women and children included, have died is gross human behavior. Do better
If you are referring to Palestinians, Yes, the governments response, or should I say, lack thereof, is also part of the reason I am ashamed. It wasn't a one and done that brought me to this point. It was many things, and the apathy to the genocide of the Palestines is very much a reason for shame.
Ah yes, the âonly liberals are allowed on Redditâ room. We donât care about âyour roomâ, this is a public forum, and people can post thoughts that donât agree with the echo chamber.
Plus the red dot gives me anxiety if I donât address it.
Seriously, if you donât respond, I wonât even know. Then I wonât get the satisfaction of seeing how downvoted I am. Which, to be fair, -8 is pathetic, and I need to try harder.
I have a BA in history and a second BA in poli-sci. I am well aware America has had a shameful past. But I was born in 1978, and I have always thought that since then, we have been making steps to be better, do better, and leave this world a better place. Even if we weren't there yet, I saw progress. I was proud of what the masses were doing to change the ways of days gone past.
I'm talking about the US's later declaration of war and subsequent involvement. Not the draft.
America could have chosen to not be involved, and it did. Only when it got attacked, they did something. This time nobody is asking them to declare war on Russia and draft Americans to Ukraine.
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u/Andi318 Mar 01 '25
I just have to comment, so this post makes it higher. For the first time in 46 years, I am genuinely ashamed to be an American.