With fake news, propaganda, media distortions, and un-confirmable stories flooding social media and 24/7 news outlets, how do you watch the war in Ukraine? Is there a way to filter through the fog of war, and get some accurate sense of what’s happening?
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39 replies on “Watching War: With a Flood of Fake News from Russia and Ukraine, How Do You Filter for Truth?”
If you’re watching MSM for ‘news’, know that their version of the news is highly propagandized…
I watch/subscribe several internet channels (non-youtube, they’ve mostly been kicked off of youtube for telling their version of the truth) for my news… they have access to the same raw info that MSM does, but interpret it differently.
The war in Ukraine was perfectly timed to obscure what is happening in this country, i.e. the economy, Durham, the People’s Convoy, etc, etc… If they continually talk about the war, they don’t have to talk about the other stuff…
The advice to check in maybe two times a day, three tops — is great. Scott, MAKE yourself do that for a week and then see if you feel like you’re less informed. (Spoiler: you won’t be).
Scott … kudos for the Steven Wright reference. You’ve now gone up a full two notches in my estimation 🙂
You see a video and a narrative of what that is a video of …. and you have the visual version of “Bart Simpson Bouncing”
“The best of you are dead, the worst of you are here. Go home.”
That sounds like bad propaganda if you’re trying to demoralize people. I think if I were a Chechen, I’d be pissed enough to show whomever said that how wrong they were.
Maybe the answer to the question posed in the title can be found in a variation of a story Bill told in a separate conversation (with Paul Leslie?). If the weight of an ox can be estimated almost to the pound by averaging all the guesses of the participants, perhaps the truth can emerge from crashing together all the propaganda from all the participating “news” outlets.
False equivalency. The people guessing the weight of the ox are trying to find a truth. The people in the propaganda generating “news” outlets are trying to obscure the truth and if they can’t obscure it then manipulate it.
That’s why that comparison fails. If it was a true equivalency then the majority of the people guessing the weight of the ox would be undershooting the weight to try to drive the price down. Fewer pounds of ox on the hoof being cheaper than more. They would be manipulating the truth for their own agenda, which is what the propagandists do.
Would the objectives of the participants, for good or ill, really matter if the observer had access to all sides?
In Mr. Whittle’s story being accurate (truthful) happened to be pertinent, because the result of the truest guess was the winner got to own the ox. The observation he was highlighting was the totality of the data gave an almost perfect answer, in this story as well as in any other, regardless of any particular objective involved.
If I want to know what is actually happening while a war is underway I know, first, that it is all fog, and whoever presumes to tell me he can cut through it and give me truth will be, at least, biased and may well be a propagandist. If the goal of the propagandist is to “direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”, the truth might not always be important to that goal.
But if I have access to every source, from every side, telling me what’s out there in that fog, isn’t that the best way to get to the truth? How else to do it?
(Shrug)
There might be some validity to your “ox weight” analogy if it were not for the fact that a huge preponderance of those “every source from every side” media venues you’re referring to were not leftist media.
The problem with the assumption of averaging information across all available sources is that there are many more of one type of source than the other. If there were equal volumes from both sides it might apply but we all know that’s not the case.
I suppose much would depend on what sources you’re willing to consider and how much weight you want to allow any given source but that would still introduce your own bias.
A random sampling of all available sources is going to lean heavily left if you don’t have some way to compensate for the obvious bias of most of the sources you’re looking at. So looking at every source from every side is going to strongly lean towards Leftist disinformation and away from the truth. That’s pretty much guaranteed to yield a false picture.
In which case a more accurate analogy would be “GIGO”, Garbage in, Garbage out.
It’s my experience that is not the way to go about a search for accurate, actionable information. Which I’ve already addressed elsewhere in a post on this page.
This is an interesting premise and it’s enjoyable to discuss it. I often get accused of being less-than-friendly because my manner of looking at and speaking (or in this case writing) are pretty blunt. I’m not slagging on your nor your idea so don’t make that mistake. I just don’t see the “ox weight” analogy as being applicable because it assumes an equal degree of error on both sides and I don’t think that’s the case when it comes to the conveyance of information.
If you can point out why there’s not likely to be a staggering, skewing slant on the sources of information favoring one side then I’d like to hear that.
In thinking about this subject it occurs to me I’m coming at it from the perspective of an historian (I’m not one). A good historian (I think) would start with primary sources. He would look to memoirs of generals and political leaders, soldiers and civilians on the ground, embedded reporters, statistics compiled by each side, etc.
Then he might go to secondary sources – people whose judgment he trusts, personally – who have collated the material just as he is doing, to get their perspectives (biases) on what actually happened.
My objective would be to find the truth, but I know a certain percentage of others will be apologists, obfuscators, etc., with different objectives for whatever reason. In this context they would be the garbage-spewers. The garbage is out there, it’s part of the scene whether I like it or not. Aside from being aware of that and trying not to step in it I don’t know what else to do about it.
I write, when I write, to clarify my own thoughts more than anything so I appreciate bluntness. It gets right to the point, which is were I like to stay. If someone gets overly personal or troll-ish I just stop responding. Just words on a page, anonymous, which seems to negatively affect so many, compared to if they were face-to-face and within arms reach, if you know what I mean.
Me too, I’m writing more to process my own thoughts than I am to engage in a debate. Though my own thoughts often involve debating an idea that I feel I know enough about to have an opinion on and either don’t agree with or do and want to discuss or learn more.
I’m generally not trying to be overly personal or troll-ish but an overly personal or troll-ish way to deal with something I say that someone doesn’t like — Is to accuse me of that. Though that’s not my aim I give as good as I get. If I’m trying to discuss something and come across with my characteristic bluntness, then someone takes offense at that and accuses me of being overly personal or troll-ish … The they get from me what they gave. I never open fire on someone else first but I won’t hold back if I’m fired upon either.
That opens the whole can of worms and we either come to an understanding or we fight. I have no problem with fighting, never have and never will. What I say to anyone on this site I would say to their face exactly the same. If that means a fight then it does.
Being offended, especially when I know I meant no real offense and when it seems clear to me that someone chose to read what I said in a manner (a “voice”) that they could get offended over, is just trying to shut me up. I’m not going to shut up so when someone does that they kind of back me into a corner. Either I let them shut me up or I refuse to allow that.
All that said and back to the ox analogy, historian’s processes and trying to find the truth …
The ox weight analogy only holds if the people guessing are knowledgeable and honestly trying to make a genuine estimate of the weight of that ox.
If they’re all 13 year old kids who never saw an ox before, never guessed a weight of anything at all, and generally have no basis to set an estimate on … The ox weight analogy is meaningless. It is a conglomeration of null data based on ignorance and the average will not reflect anything close to the true weight of the ox if they all think 1,000 lbs. is a big number for an ox to weigh. Having worked with cattle in my younger life I can personally vouch for the fact that guessing live weight on the hoof is not something just anyone can be counted on to do with any sort of accuracy.
That situation comprises an honest error derived by ignorance. The same error may not be a result of ignorance but of personal dishonesty. It doesn’t really matter how the error occurs, it’s the fact that it’s an error that counts.
What you said about how an historian attempts to arrive at the truth is a lot like what I said elsewhere on this page. You’re just coming at it from a different angle. It’s important to get verification from multiple independent sources. Even if those sources are wildly differing in motivation and agenda, if they all say the same thing then confidence in the information can be bumped up a notch or two.
For instance, if CNN and Fox News both say there’s a 40 mile long convoy stalled and not moving on the highway north of Kiev, there’s a good chance that there’s a convoy stalled and not moving on the highway north of Kiev. Even if CNN frames the information as “Putin is readying himself for a decisive blow that he’ll deliver when he’s ready.” and Fox News says “It’s our impression that many of the vehicles are broken down and have flat tires from neglect and poor maintenance.” … The fact of the convoy existing where it is reported to exist is a fairly reliable datum. Why it exists and what exactly it’s doing is a whole different thing and a matter for speculation, not fact, until the facts are reported by multiple independent sources.
In that example it’s possible to know a thing is very likely true (the convoy exists) but not know what to expect (what it is doing there) because in the first case we have real information and in the second we have unsupported speculation.
In a way this is the ox weight analogy but what can be known is the fact that the ox is big, not exactly how much it weighs. We can know that the ox exists but not have any reason to believe that it weighs a given amount.
We know we have an ox to weigh, it’s standing right there in front of us. We don’t know how much the ox weighs until we get information in that regard from reliable, multiple, qualified observers. Once that occurs it’s reasonable to strike a working average.
I, for one, enjoyed “talking” with you. Good day, sir.
Same here and a good day to you too.
Step one assume the Russians bit off more than they can chew because every dictator does that. Assume for every piece of aid the world is publicly sending they are secretly sending twice as much and better. Assume casualty numbers are wrong and don’t include those lost in the more remote regions. Badly made and obvious propaganda can be ignored. Well made propaganda is to be respected but disbelieved. The most crazy and outlandish story is either true or deserves an award later. Everything has a function.
I suspect the Russians had three plans: Bluff to success. Putin or one of his generals got impatient and crossed the border before they were ready. The second plan was a two day blitz on Kyiv. The main plan was a 6 week campaign to take the country slowly.
Russians really did believe the Ukrainian government is a bunch of NAZI’s. There is one or two in the parliament but not in Zelenskyy’s party. The Russians did not expect strong resistance or non state volunteers or such a big move to supplying Ukraine with lethal aide. Russia is leaving corridors out of the country open so the Ukrainians leave the county and never return. Putin thought China would back him; it hasn’t. Much of the Ukrainian population in the far east have already been evacuated to the far west so if the area east of Kharkov and Mariupol is lost it may be sacrificed. The Ukrainians will hold Kyiv and Odessa and every thing west with continuous but non state reinforcements.
Some of what is happening in this war is because of grievances between different factions that have never, and probably will never, be resolved. Some of it is as recent as the lead up to WW2 and the war itself. There were Ukrainians who fought on both sides during WW2. The Nazis invaded and occupied Ukraine and at first some saw them as liberators from the Soviets who had carried out purges against them. Some of these Ukrainians joined the Waffen SS and participated in horrible war crimes. Other Ukrainians saw the atrocities the Nazis were committing and set up a Partisan Resistance. The Resistance was also split into Soviet Ukrainian and Ukrainian Nationalist factions, and they killed and brutalized each other and any civilians who gave aid to their opposite side. Those wounds are still fresh in the culture, even after all these decades.
Bottom line, the Ukrainians are fighters, even against their own countrymen, if they believe there’s a need to fight they fight to the death to defend what they believe is right.
This is interesting and it discusses the same problem. https://youtu.be/g4ql6fxzuQM
Russian corruption means the vehicles and weapon systems do not work. A large number of those abandoned vehicles may have simply broken down because no one cared enough to do the maintenance. I would add if this is true for something as simple as truck tires then what are we to think about all the other systems including their nuclear arsenals? Yes if you live at a base with a Nuke you will do the basic safety stuff but what motivates you to do more? Are the launch silo doors rusted shut?
They also comment about cell phones. The Russians marched with their cell phones on and google maps tracking them?!? Wow.
We live in interesting times.
Take a moment and reflect. If all of the people that you hate; that have tortured you; have canceled you, censored you, humiliated you. If all of those people are unanimously supporting one side. Then …. maybe you should support the other side……
Too bad Scott thinks the body counts in Chicago are recycled, rehashed news. New shooting “NEWS” are mostly unique.
filtering the truth is easy. if it’s an american politician…whatever they say, the truth is just the opposite.
Sometimes you see a move and you think “that’s insane! He’s insane!”. Well, maybe. But maybe you don’t have all the perspective to evaluate the situation. My (Russian) wife of 24 years informed me a piece history most of us don’t know about. Lenin wanted to add Ukraine as a formal region but they didn’t meet the official requirements by area or population. So he took Crimea and Donbas, which were Russia, and said “now you are Ukraine”. But they just kept living the way already were. Then in 2014, Ukraine said Ukrainian is the official language. All government offices, schools, and business is to speak Ukrainian and only Ukrainian. All signs are to be in Ukrainian. Those areas didn’t want to do that. So that’s the origin of that conflict.
How do you watch a war? Well …
You start with a healthy dose of skepticism. My learned experience is not to trust any information until it’s been verified by several independent sources. That’s not something you see in today’s media a lot. Mostly they just feed off each other and repeat whatever new information one source digs up among all the other outlets. That’s not verification, it’s parroting.
Note that “unverified” and “untrue” are not the same thing. Something that is unverified might be true or it might not. It’s best to understand that distinction.
Don’t get caught up in the details. It’s more important to understand what’s going on in the larger picture than it is to obsess about smaller human interest ephemera.
I.E. — Several independent sources have provided verification that there is a 40 mile long military convoy stalled on the highway north of Kiev. That’s a verified, provable “big picture” item.
On the other hand it turns out that the photo of Miss Ukraine holding a weapon was taken significantly prior to the conflict and the weapon she’s holding is an airsoft gun not an actual battle rifle. That’s a “small detail” that turned out to be untrue and not verified by several independent sources. More on that in a bit.
Do your due diligence on the conflict and what/who are involved in it.
For instance, it’s important to understand that Ukrainians are Russians. I don’t mean politically, though that’s a factor. I mean that Ukrainians are Russians in the same sense that Swedes, Norwegians and Danes are all Scandinavians. Sweden, Norway and Denmark are not a solitary, unified political entity, they are not a solid bloc governed by the same people and system. They’re independent nations and none of those three countries is contemplating “liberating” the Norse People of any of the others.
In understanding this you can then understand that Vladimir Putin making some absurd claim on another territory in order to “liberate” ethnic Russians is without merit. There’s no imperative to do that or that sort of thing would be happening in other parts of the world. It’s not or at least is no more considered a valid reason for conflict than the lack of a common ethnicity. Ethnicity and politics are not the same thing either.
However, self determination is a political consideration and it overrides ethnicity in Western thought. Just because America is culturally and linguistically founded on English historicity does not mean that we have a right to “liberate” Great Britain or vice-versa.
The very idea is preposterous and gives the lie to Putin’s claims in that regard.
Ukrainians being Russian does however mean that those people on both sides of the border share some commonalities. Just as we do with the Brits.
The Ukrainians were equipped, trained and instructed by the Russian military model. They use Russian Kalashnikov rifles not a Western variant firing the 5.56mm NATO round. They think like Russians.
Russia both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union has/had a lot more control over internal media sources than the West. The State controls the press. So propaganda is a very significant portion of Russian military thought. The control of information is a weapon and the Russian people know how to wield that weapon no matter which side of the Ukrainian border those Russians happen to be living.
So a lot of what is coming out of Ukraine is nothing but propaganda designed to promote sympathy from the West because the West is Ukraine’s only hope to withstand and repel an invasion from Russia. In short, the Ukrainians lie intentionally with a purpose. They do not consider this immoral or improper any more than they would see a Ukrainian Russian shooting a Russian Russian with an AK to be a problem. It is what it is and that’s all it is.
This makes anything released to the world media by Ukraine suspicious. This has been proven to be so. The Ukrainians on Snake Island were not slaughtered wholesale for an act of defiance against a Russian warship (and I’m glad they weren’t while still greatly admiring their moxy). The photos of Ukrainian President Zelensky in body armor and cammie uniform were taken well before the fight started. Miss Ukraine did not pick up a rifle and head to the front lines, at least not in the manner we have been told she did. Etc.
Those are all “small picture” minor human interest ephemera. They don’t really matter in the larger scheme of the conflict.
I rarely pay much attention to today’s news. Usually I get my news a day after it happens. This prevents me from making the most obvious mistakes supported by propaganda rather than facts. I do keep a screen playing the latest news but that’s not so I can catch the small picture stuff. I figure if something astounding is happening or just did then I’ll get that information ASAP so I can begin the multiple independent source verification process.
There is little that is so vital to know that I need to know it the moment it happens but there’s a great big probability that something sensational will turn out to be bogus. So I let that “news” settle for a day (or more) and see what comes of it.
If the situation would escalate to war between the US/NATO and Russia I’ll know about it soon enough. If things were actually drastic enough that I needed to take some immediate action the nuclear fireballs would be obvious from where I sit and write this. A little patience goes a long way towards understanding what’s really going on.
Because of all of this I have refrained from commenting on here about the war for the most part. I’m not certain what I can trust so I’m not saying much about events that are happening at the moment. I am most certainly monitoring the situation in the attempt to glean as much useful, accurate information as possible. I don’t have my head in the sand but I’m not sticking it up to draw fire either.
This is how I watch a war. Your mileage may vary.
At the end of the day we have to be content with whatever we decide is the most accurate information. Your description of the process of getting to that conclusion is very good. Thank you for taking the time to lay it out.
I’ve noticed that in any ‘breaking’ news story, beyond the immediate alert that something happened, the news is seldom accurate. If all they are airing is the same looped videos and then parading a group of ‘experts’ to tell you what MIGHT be happening then I tune out for a few hours and check back in. Reports from on-the-scene reporters also need to be taken with a grain of salt. They can report on their experiences and give us some quotes they’ve heard, but it all has to be cobbled together to get an accurate picture. And most of the time reporters give us their own spin on what is happening instead of just telling us bare facts.
There is no war in history that has ever been told as a unanimous narrative. Historians report facts as interpreted by others. They listen to these personal accounts and interpret based on their own views and experiences at the time. Hind sight may be 20/20, but if you’re not looking at something from the same vantage point as everyone else (which is not possible), you’ll still get different reports of different realities. Nearly all of which swear theirs is the “True Story”.
I have a hard time listening to any of this because the whole perspective fails to take into account the years of ongoing attacks by the Ukrainian army on the Dombass region of Ukraine. That region contains many pro-Russian citizens and a conflict has been going on since March 2014. Schools, hospitals, houses have been bombed by the Ukrainian army and many citizens have been killed.
I admit that I don’t know a lot about this except that the Ukrainian army has been attacking this region for several years. The Ukrainian “appear” to be the aggressors and the recent intervention by Russia is probably related to this situation.
The world seems to be pretending that none of the aggression by the Ukrainians has ever occurred and that Putin just woke up one day and decided to attack Ukraine. I may be totally wrong here, but it sure seems like we are getting a very one-sided view which idolizes Zelensky and demonizes Putin.
That’s a very unique way of looking at the historic conflict in the Donbas (only one ‘s’). In 2014 Russia attacked and took Crimea. Strange that you neglect to mention that the fighting in the Donbas was directly related to a broader Russian incursion of Ukrainian territory and the seizure of Crimea. Is there a reason for that? If so I fail to see it.
At the same time as the Crimean incident Russia used an ongoing skirmish between Ukrainian Russian separatists and the legitimately established armed forces of Ukraine as an excuse to invade the northeast portion of Ukraine known as the Donbas. This is an area far from Crimea and a separate though linked action.
Prior to that, Ukrainian Russian partisan separatists had seized various public properties and declared their “oblasts” (sort of like a state, sort of like a region) as independent nationalites. That’s a civil war at best and terrorism at worst and was initiated by Ukrainian Russians. The same people you’re claiming to be victims of the Ukrainian Army …
Russia then used that as an excuse/cover to send Russian combat elements across the Russia-Ukrainian border into Ukrainian sovereign territory.
Not surprisingly Russia didn’t honor the declared sovereignty of the oblasts, either.
The situation there is very complex. There was/is a lot of corruption in the Ukrainian government and the upshot was that the sitting Ukrainian President, named by some watchdog organizations as “the most corrupt man in the world”, being forced out of his office.
There’s plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the Ukrainian unrest in the Donbas above and beyond any Russian actions. However, there’s no doubt that the unrest in those regions was encouraged and exploited by Russia. Russia may or may not have been the real instigators of the situation you’re referring to but in any event Vladimir Putin’s hands are far from clean in the ongoing problems in that area.
Nor are all the related atrocities solely the actions of the Ukrainian Army. The separatist partisans loyal to Russia and not the nation they live in have committed their fair share of that sort of thing too. I’m all for identifying the bad actors and holding them to account. I’m not interested in turning a blind eye in either direction in a partisan squabble where both sides are bad actors. So …
You said you find it hard to listen to any of this because the perspective doesn’t take the whole situation into account. Yet it seems to me if there’s a bias here it is you exhibiting it.
I find that strange.
You sound more like a Donetsk or Luhansk separatist partisan than an uninvested objective third party observer and … I’d really appreciate it if you’d explain why that seems to be the case.
If you want to pick a side to support, that’s also your business and welcome to it. However, if you have to slant the truth and skew reality to do that you might have a look at why that is. That’s called “rationalization” and it’s something that happens inside your own head. It doesn’t keep well and spoils quickly when you try to spread it around.
As far as “idolizing Zelensky and demonizing Putin” goes … Zelensky, whatever else may be true, is valiantly defending his homeland. Putin is invading and attempting to conquer that same nation, all of it and not just the disputed Donbas, without provocation or justification. This is not surprising coming from Putin, a man who more often than not sides with global bad guys like Iran, Syria’s Assad, Venezuelan Communists, Cuban Communists etc.
Putin is the clear aggressor here. People are dying and property is being pulverized where neither would be occurring without Putin’s aggression. It’s not “demonization” if it’s truth. If you have verifiable information to the contrary I’d love to see it.
The first half of your post is exactly what I was looking for.
I said in my post that I don’t know what is going on over there but I know there was an ongoing conflict between the Ukrainian govt. and pro-Russia separatists in Donbass (the spelling is acceptable with 1 s or 2) and, I wondered if that conflict was related to the current situation. So the first half of your post was very welcome.
However, throw the second half of your post away. In the second half, you mostly just make personal comments and insults about me. It’s unbecoming and inappropriate but, I will not speculate what motivates you.
Meanwhile, I did not choose up sides. I am not a separatists. I did not slant the truth or rationalize any conclusions. I simply asked why something very close to an ongoing civil war is not ever mentioned or considered relevant.
As you acknowledged in your post, the situation in Ukraine is complicated. I agree that it is complicated and I even stated that I know very little about it.
My objection is that, given the complexity, so many opinions about this conflict are just black and white. Russia bad, Ukraine good.
Furthermore, (and not related to your post) this world-wide Russia Bad sentiment hurts and punishes many innocent Russian citizens. Innocent Russian people have been cut off from many resources and opportunities while in the West, people seem to be gleeful about it.
No, I did not. I asked you why you thought the way you do and and asked you to clarify yourself. More than once. There would be no reason to ask you to do that if all I wanted to do was insult you. That was an invitation not an insult.
I speculated about why say what you did because I’m sorry but you do sound like Donbas separatists when you complain that “you have a hard time listening to this” and make comments about abuse that one side has committed while ignoring the faults of the other and wholly out of context of the entire situation.
Clearly you do know something about the situation because your comment mentioned what amounts to a half truth about the problems in that particular area. Still, half of something is more than most people know so what you said puzzled me.
One of the problems with text based conversation is you don’t get the nuances I’m sending and it’s really, really easy for you to misinterpret what I’m saying in a negative way. If you want to be offended then you do and I can’t help that. I write (informally) the way I talk and this is just the way I talk. I would speak to you in person exactly as I write to you in a comment. I’m no more concerned about you taking offense in a face-to-face conversation than I am about you taking offense at something I write in a comment. I just don’t care about your feelings, they’re your problem not mine.
Russia is bad. Russia has been bad for generations. Russia tried to take over the world with global communism.
Russia killed millions and enslaved millions more of its own people for political differences, often over things we wouldn’t think twice about. Very few of the people who were sent to gulags or drew their last breath in the basement of Lubyanka Prison were genuine, active threats to the Soviet State.
I don’t know what you call bad but that’s a very good definition as far as I’m concerned.
When all that didn’t work out for them they didn’t seem to learn their lesson, they just went right on being bad. Russia sides with rogue and dangerous nations like Iran and North Korea, Russia always chooses for friends those who oppose good. Sleep with the dogs and guess what? You get fleas.
It’s too bad, and I mean that sympathetically, that the actions of Russian leadership always cause so much hardship and trouble for “innocent Russian citizens” but … Those citizens are responsible for their own government the same as we are responsible for ours. It would be a huge mistake to allow Russia to do evil in the world just because some, or even most, of the people in Russia are “innocent”.
If we were to take that position then a lot more innocents than those who live in Russia would suffer. That’s just the way it is. That’s the way it will be until the Russians themselves decide to change that.
America set an example for them in throwing off a tyrant’s yolk hundreds of years ago. Until the Russian people decide to do the same and join the modern world, they’re not innocent and they’re not victims of their own leadership. They’re culpable and hopefully when one day they get tired of being abused and exploited by their leaders, when they finally decide to stop letting their leadership do evil in the name of the Russian People — They will do something responsible and stop following people who do that to them.
Until that happens, Russia is an enemy that cannot be placated, appeased or trusted. Invading another country unprovoked is just the latest example of why that is so but if the Russian people do not take control of their nation it will not be the last. In which case they will continue to suffer for their lack of accountability from their leadership.
All of that said, I don’t see Ukraine as being particularly good either. Putin’s nonsense about Ukraine joining NATO is just absurd. There’s little to no danger of that and the reason is that Ukraine is a very, very corrupt country. That kind of political corruption cannot be allowed into NATO and until Ukraine stops that kind of thing they’re not welcome.
The difference in the current conflict is that while Ukraine might be politically rotten, they’re internally rotten and that rot is not spreading outside their borders. (Unless you take into account the lure of a lot of easy money to the Biden Crime Family and their like.)
Russia is every bit as rotten, and more, politically but it is trying to spread that rot. Ukraine cannot even be hoped to fix its corruption problems unless they have self-determination. Which they will never have as a Russian satellite state.
In short, Ukraine is improving under self-determination and making efforts to correct the problems of the past while Russia is regressing intentionally to an evil past.
That makes Russia bad and Ukraine, as far as it goes so far, good.
If Ukraine does not win this war and maintain their independence from Russia then we’re going to end up with Russian tanks on the Polish, Slovakian, Hungarian and Romanian borders AGAIN when Ukraine falls to Russia. Which means that we can all just hang out and wait until Russia finds some excuse or suddenly discovers a desire to possess one or more of those nations too. Then wash, rinse and repeat until we do end up with a real global war.
Contrary to Putin’s claims, he does not need a buffer from NATO to his west, NATO needs a buffer against Russian aggression to its east.
Putin has said he wants to establish the power that the Soviet Union used to wield. He has not said a damn word about being a responsible global neighbor and an asset to humanity. Because that’s not what he wants. He’s happy as hell just to reconstitute an evil empire that it took generations of blood and trillions of dollars to overcome.
Russia is a threat to humanity… and that is because Russia is bad.
Lastly — Your offense is not my problem, I don’t sugar coat things for fear of someone else’s sensitivities and you have no business expecting that from me. We’re talking about world affairs where people are dying for their own nation right this moment, people that should be trying to solve their own problems with help and guidance from The Good Guys. People who while not as successful at it as we might like want to be like us. Not dying horribly in an unprovoked, undeserved war.
That’s serious and I’m very, very serious about things like this. I’ve been to Eastern Europe and a lot of other places where bad men were doing horrible things. Very often at the behest of Russians. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting at home in America pursuing performing arts and I didn’t ask for nor want that sort of luxury. I was what you would think of as a Cold War Warrior and I still have nightmares to this day about the things I’ve seen done by bastards like Vladimir Putin. I don’t care if you won’t “speculate what motivates me” … That’s what motivates me.
You might take that into account the next time you go spouting half truths out of context and getting offended when offense isn’t actually intended. Feel free to stick your tender feelings and bruised psyche somewhere dark, dank and odiferous. Yes, that time I meant to be offensive. Now you should know the difference.
Why do you insist on making everything so damned personal? We could sit here and trade our Russian, Ukrainian and Soviet experiences all day but, that’s not the point.
I was a cold war warrior too and have been personally involved in bringing several Soviet-era and post-Soviet-era refugees/immigrants here to the US from both Ukraine and Russia. Some of these people were VERY high-profile citizens and I’ve personally spent many tens of thousands of my own dollars to get them here. But that’s not the point, either. Except to say that the many Russian and Ukrainian people that I know are very fine and wonderful people and I know for certain that all Russians are not, as you claim, evil.
I am convinced, after your last screed that I have no interest in what you have to say. I hope you have no interest in what I have to say either because exchanging ad hominems all day is not productive. I know you don’t think you are offensive (because you said so), but I find your manner very offensive and that’s why I don’t wish to discuss anything with you. I have given you “thumbs up” several times when I think you have made a good post but, a dialog with you seems to be quite impractical.
Rephrasing my whole question, I’m simply asking why, after at least six years of the media lying to us 24/7 are we all suddenly in lock-step, accepting the the narrative presented by the Democrats, the MSM, Big Tech, and even George Soros? Why are we ‘ok’ with a total black-out and censorship of Russian perspectives? I’m not supporting Russia’s actions here but, I don’t think the Ukrainians are blameless either. Why is that conversation disallowed? There IS no conversation if we can’t consider both sides.
I didn’t say that at all. I know that, no matter where in the world you go, be it the old Soviet Union or the City of Los Angles — There are good people. Regardless of the political system they live under.
You’re putting words in my mouth and/or you’re intentionally not reading correctly what I’m saying. That’s nothing but a tactic. Then you wonder why I make things “so personal”. When you do things like that it irritates the living crap out of me and completely diminishes my respect for what YOU have to say.
While I have addressed most of the points you have made, you refuse to address my points at all. I.E. I said quite a lot about what makes Russia evil and I’m going to say more on that subject. I didn’t say that all Russians are universally evil. It’s just not the same thing.
Putting words in my mouth is not the same thing as arguing my points. Instead you choose to get all butthurt about the way I say things. You don’t seem to realize you’re not conversing in any meaningful way. More loss of respect accrues to that too.
99.99% of what I have said to you could not be construed as “so personal” in any stretch of the imagination. That you choose to make an issue of the 0.01% which might be and even then most is not “so personal” also results in a loss of respect and regard. You’re doing this to yourself and complaining about me. I’m not at all impressed by that kind of baloney.
Before I say anything else, if you think there’s no point in talking to me then don’t. I’m not going to be told to shut up no matter which way you go about trying to tell me that. If you want to terminate this conversation that’s your call, just don’t reply to me and I won’t have anything more to reply to you about. As long as you keep posting things I want to respond to, I’m going to respond.
Which I will now continue to do and you are welcome to have a conversation about this with me. Or not …
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Who is this “we” you’re talking about? Clearly if you read what I said I’m not included in that group and it appears neither are you. I said in a separate post above that I don’t believe a thing the media says unless I can verify it.
The “total black-out and censorship of Russian perspectives” and dearth of coverage of what the Russian People have to say about this is mostly due to … Russian censorship. Russia is not allowing news about dissent to escape Russia. But that’s not the only factor.
The Democrat Left and their media lackeys are also involved. They’re trying to make a puppet President with the intellect of a baked potato look good. He’s done a lot to make himself, his party and their agenda look bad so that’s not surprising. That is what media lackeys are for.
I think we all know that. I’m sure most of the people here at Bill Whittle’s site know that and I suspect that there are a lot of otherwise non-influenced people who know that too.
So please explain what you mean by “we” and that’s a genuine inquiry not an ad hominem attack. Because it doesn’t look to me like “we” are doing any such thing so I don’t get your point.
Neither do I and I said so very clearly., Again, I don’t get your point.
The thing is, no one is ever totally blameless. The question is does blame rise to the level of provocation?
For instance and for perspective; Mexico is allowing a lot of very bad actors to enter the United States of America. Those bad actors are killing Americans in many ways, from bullets to illicit dangerous narcotics to hacking people to death with edged weapons. Mexico turns a blind eye and I don’t think there can be any serious doubt that members of the Mexican government are being paid off in large sums to allow that situation to continue. Mexico is anything but blameless in this situation.
Does that rise to the level of provocation? Should we do what Putin has done and use those deaths and that culpability as an excuse to invade Mexico?
The only real difference is that Mexican perfidy is a matter financial not political. Mexican cartels are acting for profit not politics but a lot more Americans have died as a result of their actions than any pre-invasion casualties were caused by political differences in Ukraine.
Making matters worse yet, not only does Mexico allow this to continue, it refuses to accept U.S. guidance, material and financial help to do something significant about the problem.
As a result, many of the “good people” of Mexico suffer horribly from the actions of the cartels and their own government. The cartels do not stop being evil until they cross the southern border of the U.S.
So would the U.S. be justified in invading Mexico? If not then Russia is likewise not justified in invading Ukraine.
It seems clear to me that Russian “justification” is nothing more than a plausible excuse for Russian expansion. It’s not that Ukraine never did a thing that might chafe Russian sensibilities, it’s that this invasion is nothing but an excuse.
It also seems clear to me that after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia didn’t change one bit. The same type of people that ran the old Soviet Union are running Russia today. Not the same persons but the same kind of persons. They adapted to circumstances and are trying to pick up where they left off. In an effort to regain and continue their vile policies and agenda.
That skunk changed its stripes but not its odor.
This is going to be more than detrimental, in fact horrible, to those “good people” who live in Russia. It can easily lead to a global thermonuclear war and the proof of that is the threats Putin is making in that regard right now to prevent support for Ukraine so that he can execute his military conquest successfully.
If we allow things to get that far, those good people in Russia that you’re concerned about are going to get flash fried to a crispy crunch along with a whole lot of good people outside Russia.
I think that part of the problem we’re having in discussing this is a tactical vs. strategic argument. You’re taking the side of the un-powerful good people and I’m looking at this from a perspective of global concern.
From my viewpoint Russia must be stopped because nothing really significant has changed in Russian Leadership except the names and faces. That Russia be stopped is to me so imperative that the lesser situations of the Donbas are inconsequential though worth pointing out just to get some perspective.
If you have the perspective you claim to have, I’d love to discuss this with you but …
I’m not going to be nice about it. Especially if you try to put words in my mouth, ignore the points I make and advance viewpoints in the name of “fairness” that do not include context and are nothing approaching a genuinely balanced viewpoint taking into account that we’re talking about two sides and including why both sides are not totally blameless..
If you want to have a fair conversation, be fair about it. If you want me to be “so personal” then don’t.
No. I don’t want to have a conversation with you.
In your previous post, everything you said from “You’re putting words in my mouth…” to “…or not.” is well stated. However, it looks like projection to me because I feel much the same from you. It is very frustrating because I don’t want the conversation to be about me or you.
It is true that I have not addressed most of your points. That is because those points were a distraction from the original query which you did not address.
All I was interested in, in this entire thread, is why does everyone seem to be happily accepting the entire mainstream narrative and all of the censorship associated with it? Why is there no in depth analysis as to why Putin may be justified in his actions (other than the knee-jerk assertion that Putin is simply a monster and doesn’t need a reason)?
Earlier, you asked if I have any basis for thinking that Putin is justified. I didn’t claim that he was. I was claiming ignorance! I was asking why no one else is asking.
However, I did finally find someone who WAS asking those questions and you might find his perspective much more interesting than mine.
I am assuming that you are familiar with Viva Frei and Robert Barns.
Please check out the comments by Robert Barns in Ep#103 Viva and Barns Live on YouTube or Rumble. Barns gives most of his comments about Russia/Ukraine between the 20 min and 60 min time marks. If you have the time, the whole stream is good.
That’s weird, then why continue to converse with me? You contradict your words with your actions. That is puzzling because I told you if you don’t want to talk to me, then just stop talking to me. That seems pretty simple to me.
I cited examples when I had something critical to say about something you said so that there could be no doubt about my point. I don’t see where you can justify this statement. I didn’t put any words in your mouth though you had no problem doing that to me. I did say “you sound like” and asked you to clarify your meaning. That’s not the same thing as accusing you of saying something you did not.
Rather than discuss and clarify you opted to take offense where none was intended nor implied. So here we are …
I specifically made the point that not “everyone” is doing that. I notice that this time you didn’t say “we” but you might as well have.
I also made the point that David Pimental is making below — That such a thing is irrelevant because it does not rise to the level of justification for Putin’s actions.
For example and to use a different analogy than David does …
If someone steals a pair of jeans from a Walmart it really doesn’t matter whether they meant to wear the jeans because they needed them for work, or sell them, or return them to the store for a refund they don’t have coming to them. Whatever reason or excuse they offer is irrelevant, they did the wrong thing whatever motivation they claim.
Yet rather than discuss Putin’s motivations and getting them all out here where we can discuss them, you just make the claim that those motivations are not even being made available to the public. Which is clearly not so because you yourself cited a video where you claim those things can be found. So obviously not everyone is doing what you claim everyone is doing.
Your own lack of research isn’t anyone’s problem but yours.
OK, so now you’ve actually found something that you said no one was doing then if this is a concern to you enough to talk about then talk about it. I have little desire to follow web links or references to videos that someone else posted. If you have a point you’d like to make then make it and we can all talk about it.
If you feel strongly enough about the topic and don’t want it buried down here at the end of our exchange then post a new comment. Then we can all have a look and see if there’s something we want to say and YOU can be the one countering what you see as censorship of the motivations Putin claims led to his military actions across a foreign border.
There’s some fairly smart people in here so I think a discussion of that nature would be very interesting. Interesting enough that I’d be willing to ignore and forget what we’ve said to each other so far and discuss the merits of the topic.
So go for it.
I seriously doubt that anyone here on BW.com wants to be bothered with this personal conflict between you and me.
Therefore, I’m going to reply to you with a personal message because, I think that things like this can be worked out much better privately rather than in public.
As you say, it would be nice if we could resolve the friction that we have and perhaps have civil discussions in the future.
Stipulating that the attacks of which you speak by Ukraine occurred (I have no opinion to offer as I don’t know) that would have started under the previous administration in Ukraine. Zelensky took office in 2019. Do you think that this justifies Putin sending armored columns and bombing cities fairly far from those areas in 2022?
If it is as you say, the appropriate forum was redress and bringing this to light is the UN (as little as I think of the UN, it is the forum that exists for nations to bring areas of conflict).
Instead, Putin has used this to roll tanks and the citizens of Ukraine and citizens of Russia will suffer.
Objectively, those “reasons” look like rationalization of Putin saying I want the Ukraine back.
I’m not justify anything. I’m ASKING if these conflicts have anything to do with it. Also, those attacks were still going on at the time of the Russian invasion. You can argue that other options were available and may have been better. But that’s the whole point of a discussion. What looks like a rationalization to you right now, might look different with the benefit of an open discussion.
I don’t know and I’m not the one to have the discussion with because I know very little about it. However, one of the reasons I know very little is because ALL Russian voices are being censored.
Only one narrative is allowed and everything else is called misinformation. I don’t have the answers, but maybe you can see why I’m asking questions and why I feel uncomfortable when everyone is repeating the standard narrative.
Ultimately, none of these questions matter within the context of Putin’s current aggression. What matters is that he is stopped so that the people of both Ukraine and Russia can get back to their own affairs, which may even include putting leaders in positions to improve their countries. Asking such questions is for peacetime. During a time of war, they are nothing but distractions/deflections from what needs to be accomplished.
For those that disagree, I propose a thought experiment. What would you do if someone invaded your house and threatened the lives of its occupants? Would you ask about the motivations of the invader, or would you forcibly eject the aggressor?
What would be your response if your neighbors, while doing little to nothing to aid in your defense, started harping about your past offenses, or, worse, the past offenses of any former residents of your house?
The parallels can be drawn to this small metaphorical scenario, and I use it only to reinforce the fact that such questions are irrelevant to the current situation.
I totally agree with your post within the context of the analogy that you presented.
However, I think one of these questions is still relevant: Because of all of the censorship that is going on in order to promote one and only one narrative, how can we trust what we think we see?
Maybe the house was invaded because the invaders were retrieving there property because the home owner had previously invaded the invader’s home. Or, maybe the invaders were the police and the home was a drug lab. So, when we are only allowed one side of the story, questions *should* be asked.
My example here is only in the spirit of your analogy if only one side has been allowed to present.
Two genders you say Steve? Just TWO? Surely we must have three, otherwise either men or women must admit that Justine Trudeau is one of their own, and I for one don’t want that panda snuggling freak on Team Bloke.
Watching the news, I don’t see time/date stamps on most video; is it today, or yesterday, or stock footage from 2012, or ??. I see and hear a great deal of opinion, mixed with what appears to be fact. Sometimes, a piece on Biden shows a moderately aged man of some vigor; and then (someone slips?) I see a Biden who is much older, much frailer. Is bomb/rocket damage fresh, or not? I’m left to wonder.
Most of what I know re: Russia I learned from the tomes by Robert k Massie about Peter, Catherine and Nicholas.
… which probably puts your understanding of Russia well ahead of most Americans.