Who's unpatriotic here?

[UnseenParticipant]

Yes, Jimmy Dore again. This is about US-operated biolabs in Ukraine, Americans basically calling for suspending the First Amendment so that other Americans can be tried for treason, and social media censoring users.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen, that last guy you linked made perfect sense to me in terms of the intentions of Putin invading other nations. I never bought that. And the case for it is much weaker now. The old cameo how history repeats itself is a generalization with some validity. However, this aint your ancestor’s Genghis or Alexander or Europeans fighting to outdo each other in exploiting indigenous people or Hitler’s Europe.

It is not a chemical reaction in which a particular stimulus produces a particular result each time. It reminds me of the common refrain how it is insanity to do same stuff and expect different result. Tell that to someone who plays the slots.

[_Robert_Participant]

I can’t respect anyone who defends a murderous dictator that subjugates millions of his people (who have no freedom of expression) and blatantly attacks cities of another country that poses no threat, murders dissidents and then justifies all this by comparing himself to Peter the Great.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert I assume you are referring to someone in a video as opposed to one of us. I can’t imagine anyone of us defending Putin.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

I can’t respect anyone who defends a murderous dictator that subjugates millions of his people (who have no freedom of expression) and blatantly attacks cities of another country that poses no threat, murders dissidents and then justifies all this by comparing himself to Peter the Great.

You are implying I “respect” Putin, or that anyone who finds fault with the other side is “respecting” Putin.

Well, that’s poppycock. The world isn’t quite so simple. I hope you watched the Mearsheimer video where he shows that the current analysis being pumped out by the establishment media ignores history.

I do think Putin is a bad guy but that he remembers the problems the USSR had subjugating Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, etc., and is smart enough not to want to replicate that debacle by rebuilding the USSR. He is dangerous, though, because he has nukes, and so does it make sense to surround him with hostile states and  hold military exercises (preparations) right on Russia’s borders?

Anyway, there’s a lot to this video you didn’t comment on, like the fact that there are/were 10 or 12 biohazard labs in Ukraine that we claim were left by Russia and need to be cleaned up, only the evidence is that we have been operating them. If we really wanted to clean them up, we’ve had decades to do so. Compliant media like the major news outlets and influencers like the women on The View parrot the government line and are basically calling for rounding the opposition up and trying them as traitors “like we used to do” (when WAS that?). Tulsi Gabbard has been slandered as a Russia sympathizer for some of her contrarian views so many times that most people have accepted proof by repetition (aka “the Big Lie Technique”).

You may dislike Dore, but he doesn’t make shit up. He’s always got documentation.

[_Robert_Participant]

Whole level of idiocy with Gabbard, now a Fox news commentator. Because Fox tells the truth!

Look, these countries that border Russia are done with dictators and their ass kissing oligarchs that just enrich themselves on resources. That’s why they want to be in the EU and NATO. They want to vote, get good jobs and have good lives. They want toilets and washing machines and real internet. They have a right to their own destiny, their own governments. Fuck Putin and his brain-dead Russians, if they don’t like it, tough shit. This is “special operation” is gonna go down in military history books as the biggest lame-brain war plan ever.

Oh, but Putin has his buddies too. Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader. Assad the butcher, and that Belarus ass kisser. Let’s not forget the Ayatollah. Good folk. And the Dore fans, most who are QANON. Oh, look they do their own research! They have documents! Ukraine is Nazis! His fans that live off of social security while voting themselves into extreme poverty. Brilliant.

I’ll refrain from this topic at this point. I would like to see the Russians wake up and get their shit together. It could be such a great nation. Dictatorships are not the way forward. And all Westerners who support dictatorships, including Trumpers should hide their faces in shame.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

Dictatorship? It is such a sad commentary on our species that there is no apparent effort to change our trajectory. How is it that we still have em? To give license to 1 person to cause untold damage is insanity. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim, Putin and on and on. They should have been emasculated. Nay, they never should have come to power. Without support they’re just buffoons.

Even in USA there are way too many simple minded worshippers who are fodder for charismatic leaders and would gladly have made Trump a dictator. I suppose Germany with its authoritarian tradition and desire for revenge was the perfect storm. How N. Korea got there I do not know. Russia did not lose its last Czar until 1918. So it has the tradition. I am sure that churches and governments, tradition and the general cultural millieu of obedience and conformity set the stage.

The networks pounce on the sycophants and the lionization of celebrity. It just sells cuz it appeals to the small minded. The coverage of the Queen’s death and the Buffalo player who collapsed demonstrates the proven business model. And it is really sick cuz implicity it shows that athletes, royalty, stars are more important than Dick, Joe, Ned, Jack-no fanfare in coffins of black.

Lately i have been ruminating in astonishment as it seems to me the world is blindfolded. It is myopic to dissect this war in Ukraine without any focus on the greater picture. There must be near unanimity among decent and educated folks on some of the most pressing and egregious issues. Even Sam Harris i aint heard nuttin. Nobody discusses it. Is it verbotten or are we all just monkeys who parrot each other? Seems to me it is the pink and purple elephant in the living room.

[UnseenParticipant]

@robert

Gabbard is on Fox because the mainstream media (other than Fox) exists to serve the Democratic Party, which has people who hate her ever since she nominated Bernie Sanders at a Democratic Party convention. I don’t agree with her on everything, but she’s right about many things.

Dore and Qanan? Document that, please. I know what Qanon shills and I’ve never heard one of their crazy conspiracy theories promoted on Dore’s channel. About 50% of the time he’s criticizing the left for not being far enough to the left. Qanon is to the far far right. The rest of the time he uncovers some of the shady stuff done by the CDC, Dept. of Health, the World Economic Forum, and the social Media (are you following the releases of Twitter internal documents?).

You seem to think I’m somehow praising Putin. That’s not me. What I am promoting is an understanding of the Ukraine conflict in a historical perspective. If you see a man taking a valuable work of art out of a home, it can look like a theft. Until, that is, you find out he was saving it from a fire. I

f you haven’t absorbed the Mearsheimer piece you can’t talk intelligently about Ukraine.

Putin seeks help from some people we see as bad but our associations haven’t been exactly angelic, either, and our sanctions more or less drive him to U.S. antagonists.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

How is it that we still have em?

Sadly, people are enchanted by narcissists and “strong men”.  Even seemingly sensible people can fall for it.  Then, they give power to coalitions, and the coalitions do their dirty work of keeping themselves in power.

I guess they tell people what they want to hear.  For example, Trump corrupted the right-wing evangelists (if they weren’t corrupt already) by promising them power and anti-abortion laws.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

I don’t think people on the other side are traitors. Treason has a high bar to pass under our Constitution and requires acts and not mere thoughts. But people on the other side are thoroughly delusional about Putin as a legitimate actor on the world stage who can be appeased with just a little sliver of real estate called the Donbass. And John Meersheimer’s verbose CV does not impress.

[DavisModerator]

Gabbard is on Fox because the mainstream media (other than Fox) exists to serve the Democratic Party

This is extreme Unseen, and a parroting of conservative talking points. MSNBC and to a lesser extent CNN do (or at least can be like that) ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS are not. And even the blatant partisan networks (FOX and MSNBC) do not serve a party, their viewers, journalists and self-interest align with favourable reporting on them.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

PBS is very good. I try to listen to the Brooks and Capehart section at least twice a week. Brooks has the ability to explain a situation with just one sentence.

[UnseenParticipant]

More than the Dems, the mainstream media seem to have a symbiotic relationship with the PR arm of the government.

In early 2020, the mainstream media, including the main social media, spread misinformation about Covid. The source of this misinformation was the U.S. government (CDC, HHS, and others). To make matters worse, they actively suppressed dissenting voices—even highly credible voices such as peer reviewed medical studies, health departments of other countries, and other learned observers. Dissenters were slandered as mis/disinformers and often were deplatformed.

Here’s the record. What the government through the mainstream sources was telling us about Covid in 2020 vs. what turned out to be true:

March 2020: No Need to Panic. The Flu Is Worse
March 2021: It’s Worse Than the Flu

March 2020: Masks Aren’t Necessary
March 2021: Consider Wearing Two

March 2020: Asymptomatic Spread Is Rare
March 2021: 40% of New Cases Come From People Without Symptoms

March 2020: Covid isn’t a Threat to Young People
March 2021: Oops!

March 2020: The Virus Stays in the Air for Long
March 2021: It’s Definitely Airborne

We were also told originally that the vaccine would protect us from (a) becoming infected and that (b) we wouldn’t be capable of spreading Covid, and anyone who said otherwise was branded a mis/disinformer who might be deplatformed. Actually, it turned out that vaccinated people can become positive (“breakthrough infections”) and that fully vaccinated and boosted asymptomatic people can spread Covid.

The mainstream media does the same with virtually everything, parroting without question much of what the government puts out on, oh, the Ukraine conflict for example. Our government promotes the notion that the Nordstream pipelines were sabotaged by Russia, which makes no logical sense at all. If one “follows the money,” you don’t find Russia, you find the U.S. and its allies. There is evidence that the pipelines were sabotaged by British special forces. More evidence than there is indicating that Russia did it.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by  Unseen.

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