because no one else will pay for it - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

theophite.bsky.social • 1 day ago

because no one else will pay for it

Reposted from B

Remind me again why people all over the world are dependent on the US to provide basic medical care and the necessities of life at the whim of whichever gagle of billionaires decided your last election?

Comments

b0t.bsky.social•10 hours ago

it's also a power thing, no? having people dependent on you is a control structure

dslakter.bsky.social•1 day ago

Sigh. "Harm reduction" in profile.

ennui.org•1 day ago

"pull yourself up by the bootstraps" but from the left

presidentgoku.bsky.social•1 day ago

it's worth the money even if you are demented nationalist who doesn't value foreign lives. disease doesn't care about borders, and neither do people escaping mass starvation and instability

rycarson.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don’t support cutting this type of aid, but there ought to be way more pressure on these governments to provide basic services to their people.

myrrlyn.net•11 hours ago

we are the reason those governments can’t and/or are filled with people who won’t

eikopf.dev•10 hours ago

every discussion about foreign aid is doomed to people whining about "they're not doing their fair share!!!" as though fairness has ever helped to prevent starvation

eikopf.dev•10 hours ago

same argument with people who think we should completely eradicate any kind of government inefficiency tbh

myrrlyn.net•10 hours ago

i think joel osteen should be forced to finish the phrase “to whom much is given” at gunpoint

eikopf.dev•10 hours ago

christians utterly btfoed in the practice of christian virtue by literally everyone else for the trillionth time

eikopf.dev•10 hours ago

"there but for the grace of god go i" is clearly about how we should all be very grateful that we're the good virtuous people who deserve to live!!!

rycarson.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Turns out propping up all those tin pot dictators had consequences, eh?

myrrlyn.net•10 hours ago

and i think those consequences should be visited on us more than their people, yes

rycarson.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Agreed. I worry that in crushing any nascent or extant democratically responsible governments in these countries, the CIA is not going to stand back and allow them to re-form and replace it's favored little juntas.

schnufflerowner.bsky.social•1 day ago

Also because the global world order that the United States created and is dependent on for our standard of living is itself dependent on having few global disruptions.

walmsley.bsky.social•1 day ago

one of the neat things about the modern (or, I suppose, "up to 2025") international order was that it aligned to at least some degree the cynical and selfish motivations of states with noble ends

walmsley.bsky.social•1 day ago

yes, the US intelligence community doesn't want countries to be stable democracies because it especially cares about their people. but stable democracies are better trade partners and less likely to produce wars or refugee crisis, which comes to about the same thing

schnufflerowner.bsky.social•1 day ago

One part of USAID’s work, especially in Central & South America, is to prevent the sort of humanitarian crises that we have seen in Venezuela and in the Northern Triangle which have caused large amounts of migration. It’s not purely humanitarian, but kids are getting fed, so let’s call it a win win

walmsley.bsky.social•1 day ago

and a year ago I would've told you this was in some ways *more* stable than an international order based purely on morally noble higher callings, because it could maintain itself even if someone purely self-interested was in charge, but it turns out some people will do evil for evil's sake

cantorsdust.bsky.social•1 day ago

Because the US can do good things, if it wants to. I refuse to be the kind of leftist that believes that anything the US does is automatically bad. We can and do do good things. We could do great things, if we had the will.

viscousboredom.bsky.social•1 day ago

One of the obstacles to this is - and I'm as frustrated and mystified by this as anyone else - is that apparently my fellow Americans don't even recognize when they do good things or grasp that it's in their interest to do them

omg-wtf-gtfo.bsky.social•1 day ago

Frankly, some fellow Americans get irate when you tell them we do good things so you never get to the part where they learn why doing good things in the world is good for us. Everything is zero sum.

apogean.bsky.social•1 day ago

not disagreeing with your argument but just would like to point out

you said doodoo

neilnotes.bsky.social•1 day ago

Is it “will”? My math may be off, but at a 10% annual rate of return, someone with $335 B (Musk) gains approx $63,667 per min. (7% return, $44,500) + there are other billionaires, pulling away from tax paying, buying media, politicians, making our lives precarious & fragmenting our time & attention

neilnotes.bsky.social•1 day ago

Every billionaire could be benevolent, but if this skewed way of life stays in place, I expect about as much effective social decision making and implementation, and suffering/damage/socioeconomic externalities to land pretty much where and as we see it. “Will” within this system won’t steer it much

neilnotes.bsky.social•1 day ago

That big wealth-sucking machine is just *going* to skew everything if left in place

walmsley.bsky.social•1 day ago

do not understand the mindset of looking at America doing an unambiguously good thing and trying to make that an "America Bad" story. who gives a shit *why* we were treating people with HIV, the point is them not dying of AIDS

dmitt.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Once upon a time the religious right actually gave a shit about the "help the downtrodden" part of their religion and so building a political consensus on this was easier. You don't have religious leaders condemning these cuts now, that's what changed.

nickforbrains.bsky.social•1 day ago

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the rest of the world is ripping us off but the American taxpayer has traditionally paid for a hell of a lot of shit that no one else does. And that leaves the rest of the world vulnerable to American oligarchs. It is what it is.

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