Thread by @JBelcourt73

So in a couple hours I have to go rent a trailer to make a trip to the dump and pick up a couple of roll-around shelving units. We are moving the dinning area into the second living room just off the kitchen and adding more storage to the storage room. Later today its going to

be time for a Travellers game. Such things are routine for the middle class in a first world country. I live better than any Roman emperor by almost any metric. While much of thew world does not have, and likely will never have the level of comfort enjoyed by the American middle

class, overall human access to food, medicine, information, entertainment and security has been going up for the last 200 years and even faster since the end of WWII. The planet by all objective measures is in a "golden age". Yet there is still so much farther to go. Most of the

world still lives in poverty even if the floor is rising. The is a warning here though. Extreme imbalances can lead to unsettled outcomes like mass migration. The planet is in the midst of a great migration wave, as great as any ever seen in terms numbers and scale. History is

full of examples of societies that managed the waves successfully, and those that did not. That however is not the point of the essay. Rather the other risk caused by extreme imbalances. The great tragedy of mass poverty is the rise of leaders who are (or think they are)

militarily powerful but who preside over populations that are (or think they are) dirt poor in relation to their neighbors. It creates opportunity for envy and ill intent. How many cultures from Sargon The Great to today had to deal with invading barbarians? Who would have

thought that we would be dealing with a horror from ancient times in Europe today? Thats how far backwards Russia is today. Her leaders think Russia is powerful and tell her people that they are special with a special role to play on the world stage but at the same time are the

victims of conspiracy. Russian media is chock full of this meme and it undergirds the invasion of Ukraine. War is advertised as both a way to right a wrong and as a means to gain enrichment. Both of these themes promise a way to redress the balance in Russia's favor and thus by

extension "solve" Russia's problems with poverty. The cost is not mentioned. Conquest is expensive. How many Russian's would be in favor of the war today if they knew that 6 months in nearly 200,000 of their sons would be dead, wounded, prisoner or denied veterans benefits

because they broke contract as the last means of saving their lives? Even Putin for all his evil intent would likely have not pulled the trigger had he known. Yet here we are and now Russia is stuck in the sunken costs fallacy. She should stop and go home. Thats the rational

thing to do. Yet she presses on convinced by her own toxic vapors that victory is still achievable. She is wrecking herself on a massive scale. By any measure the Russia that emerges on the other side will be even poorer and have even less agency from the individual to the state

whole. This does not sadden me. What saddens me is that her failure is costing everyone else so much. In the West, Putin's efforts to shape the situation by causing divisions and distrust over decades have born some really malicious fruit like #@jasinskm who is using my tax

dollars as a professor of @uwpolisci turning a state land grant university into #gneocideU. Or the political divisions between right and left, elite capture, bots and trolls spreading disinformation. These things all have costs to our societies. Yet every failure also has an

opposite success. #WeAreNAFO is bonking the hell out of the trolls, and western leaders have rallied to #SupportUkraine so maybe we can enter an age where once again we are free to find an equilibrium and redevelop neighborly affection. That too will have costs that will ripple

for a long time. @JohnBoozman, @SenTomCotton, @RepFrenchHill, and @RepKinzinger know full well how divided America is as a result of the extreme right and left of the spectrums being given way too much air. Yet as damaging as Putin's psyops have been in the west it is just an

echo of a shadow compared to the horrors unleashed on Ukraine. Political strife was not enough, once The Maidan protests threw out Yanukovich, Putin decided on direct action. The result is burned out cities, untold numbers of dead and flirting with global disaster that will end

our golden age. As bad as the damage Russia is doing to Russia is, as bad as the strife Russia caused in the West, the horrors visited on Ukraine and her people are the worst. Western arms are permitting Ukrainians to kill the invaders and we can all feel the change in the air,

so its time to start talking about what's next? Once Ukraine wins on her terms, what do we do then? While heavy fighting remains to be done because Ukraine is not yet liberated. It is still time to start planning a new Marshall Plan. Ukraine needs firm commitments on help

rebuilding, plans to get Europe off Russian energy need the force of law and any doors leading to status quo antebellum with Russia need to be closed, locked and walled over so long as Putin and his cliche are in charge. #RussiaIsATerroristState and should be treated as such. She

has unleashed a #GenocideOfUkrainians. Until Russia is defeated we need to keep our private donations flowing to groups like @MriyaAid and the @georgian_legion (hopefully Georgia will free herself after Putin's defeat) and stay informed via sources like @MriyaReport but there

be a day when the combat has ended. Thats when the relationships we have formed during this war will really be able to shine. I promote Ukrainian voices like @OTorvaldson, @krides, @MrKovalenko, and @katalina_ada and post war I will listen to them and support efforts to rebuild

their nation. I have made friends across Europe and North America and hope to have a coffee or meal with some of them at some point. I don't care if they are Left or Right where they fall on any issue because we are united in support for Ukraine and that is enough to build real

comity. Until Ukraine wins on Ukraine's terms, Slava Ukraini! #Ukrainewillwin @mfa_russia <--- still losing but no Marshall plan for you.