Beijing is re-writing the Ukraine narrative
axios.com
axios.com
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-bo...
https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Beijing-'eating-up'-Siberia-...
and get nuked?
Napoleon sold a large chunk of North America for "$11.25 million, plus the forgiveness of $3.75 million in French debt".
https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about...
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/7/china-s-unusu...
They also are turning against Ukraine, although they mentioned something different in the past:
> The Chinese Government has constantly opposed the practice of exerting political, economic or other pressure in international relations. It maintains that disputes and differences should be settled peacefully through consultations on an equal footing. Abiding by the spirit of the Sino-Ukrainian joint communiqué of January 4, 1992 on the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Sino-Ukrainian joint communiqué of October 31, 1992 and the Sino-Ukrainian joint statement of September 6, 1994, China recognizes and respects the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and stands ready to further develop friendly and cooperative Sino-Ukraine relations on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#Fr...
At most times in history before the advent of nukes, a geographical/political situation of a hugely populated major power being right below the vast, sparsely populated but resource rich territory of another large nation with a tenth the population would have absolutely resulted in a war of conquest and annexation by the former. Now it simply doesn't, partly no doubt because of international laws around wars of aggression and threats of international condemnation or economic sanction, but mostly I suspect just because the weaker power happens to be almost uniquely strong on having a shitload of nukes with which it can annihilate the other country regardless of the size of the latter's population, armies and economy.
Before the 1940's Russia had no nukes and the two were in the same geographical situation, but China was then extremely weak, unlike now. Today's economic and political situation between the two translated to a pre-nuclear world would be very different I think.
The world would be such a nicer place if we could recreate the Japan post WW2 success story with Russia.
Or at least, one can dream...
Democracy just doesn't work as intended without popular support and faith in the institutions. In fact, Russia is one of the better examples of what happens when that is missing from the equation.
I don't think, however, that the (very conservative) Chinese leadership is very interested in Russia destabilizing. They aren't very happy about uncertain, and Russia imploding would lead to very uncertain outcomes. In that sense, they probably find the war in Ukraine very annoying but are going along with Russia since they burned too many bridges with the west recently. They would be just as happy with a very thankful Russia as a stable trading partner and military ally. They can (and are) simply colonize the far east via trade and investment.
And then wait a few years and see how this one comes out.
Be that as it may, their 'news' on China is completely removed from reality, and they've been predicting the imminent collapse of the Chinese economy for well over a decade.
[0] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ntd-tv-new-tang-dynasty/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-epoch-times/
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/stepping-into... https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-abc-is-right-that-falun-...
It is independently supported by people like me, just another American. I don't care about Falun Gong, but the news on China Uncensored has been revelatory and useful.
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/slavic-review/articl...
The USSR was caught completely flat footed, Red Army Officers even participated at balls and other social events the night before the invasion, on the other side of the soon-to-be front line. And Stalin ignored all intel pointing at an imminent invasion.
Nobody puts actually this large formations next to the border where the enemy could easily annihilate them.
Russia is know to fabricate evidence and spread lies to avoid their crimes. It has been especially evident under current regime where archives were again closed for historians.
Saying Stalin prepared an attack on Germany, implying Barbarossa was a pre-emptive attack, is spreading Nazi propaganda. Nothing else.
Hitler and Stalin made a pact to divide countries in Europe and split Poland. When Hitler attacked Poland, Stalin waited two weeks instead and attacked only when Hitler had become the bad guy. After attacking Poland Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, so Hitler had to occupy France.
Stalin had a plan to wait until Hitler is done in Europe and then attack from rear but Hitler's intelligence service got sniff of this and Germans made a half cooked plan to attack Russia instead and destroy their forces when they were not expecting it. The amount of equipment next to the border destroyed by Germans was horrifyingly huge for Germans.
I am not saying that Hitler was not the bad guy. He definitely was but Stalin was an equal player and because he got more time and more people to kill, he actually ended up mass murdering more people than Hitler did.
Fortunate for us at least one bad guy was stopped but the world would be much better place right now when Americans would have destroyed also Stalin as they initially planned when they realized what kind of monster he is.
Instead we have to live in the world where Russia is glorifying a mass murderer and is dreaming to annex at least the same amount of land as Stalin did.
The German invasion of the Soviets was incredibly brutal and hardly a sweep for either side, e.g. Stalingrad. Your account of history feels way off to me. You don’t endure Stalingrad and come out of it thinking that you played them.
China's claim on Taiwan is based on the principle that it is legally still Chinese territory. Crimea is still legally Ukrainian territory, so Russia's annexation is a real problem for China. They can't support it because that would undermine the basis of their claim on Taiwan. Similarly with the invasion of Ukraine, any principle China could use to support Russian's military intervention in Ukraine could also be used to justify US military intervention in Taiwan.
On the other hand big countries muscling in on little countries to take their stuff is a hobby China would love to take up if they get the chance. However their domestic promotion of Russian propaganda is more about the fact that they hate the west than it is about them actually supporting Russia at all.
The legal details are of lesser importance I think.
"In the current environment, it is not in the best interest of NATO or the US that [Eastern European] states be granted full NATO membership and its security guarantees," according to a State Department memorandum in 1990, while those states were still emerging from Soviet control as the Warsaw Pact disintegrated. "[We] do not, in any case, wish to organize an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border. Such a coalition would be perceived very negatively by the Soviets."
https://m.dw.com/en/nato-why-russia-has-a-problem-with-its-e...
A large contingent of the western media is pretending that the documents referred to above by deutsche welle simply do not exist partly because A) Gorbachev apparently doesnt remember the assurances and B) because the repeated diplomatic assurances were never codified into a treaty.
Also the phrase "purely defensive military alliance" is a lie. A lie viscerally disproven by bayonet thrust up Khafaffi's backside in 2011 by NATO allies after he was "welcomed back" into the international community.
Neither of these facts are popular, but they are nonetheless still facts.
In fact you can tell from the current lack of even minimal military spending below agreed NATO standards that Europe did not view Russia as the enemy. We simply didn't even consider it likely enough to have enough resources for an effective land defense, let alone an attack.
Of course this invasion put Russia back on the villain map with increasing spending accordingly. Of course NATO will now reinforce the borders, probably Sweden and Finland will join...
As it was Ukraine was not going to join NATO anyway. This whole thing had the opposite effect.
It's been there for years.
>As it was Ukraine was not going to join NATO anyway
I really cant fathom why people say this when they said that they wanted to join & NATO said that they wanted them to join and they were taking concrete steps toward joining.
Well, not really in geopolitical terms. Russia was a bad actor globally especially in the cyber sphere but they weren't considered a serious threat to Europe. If they had been we would have had more defense spending and more military personnel around the borders.
Also, consider they have Koningsberg which is basically the equivalent of Cuba in the missile crisis days to Europe. And we didn't make a big point of that (and still don't)
> I really cant fathom why people say this when they said that they wanted to join & NATO said that they wanted them to join and they were taking concrete steps toward joining.
Well, first of all, the reason they wanted to join was protection against Russian agression. Russia has now proven this to be a very valid concern (and they already had in the eastern areas).
Secondly, there was no real talk. Especially due to the unresolved situation in the east it was impossible for Ukraine to join anyway. A nation can't join NATO with unresolved military conflicts within their border.
IMO the talk about Ukraine joining was more political flirting rather than serious talk. I do think Ukraine would have joined the EU eventually (after they cleaned up a lot of their corruption), but probably not NATO.
Trying to join is exactly what provoked this invasion. Putin may br evil but the one thing you cant say is that he wasnt absolutely crystal clear on this being Russia's one red line. Zelensky announcing that he was hell bent on joining NATO as Russian troops pulled away was probably the final trigger.
Putin is still being clear that renouncing NATO membership will stop the war. This is literally 100% what Ukrainians are dying for - the ability to join NATO. I hope they consider it worth it. Washington does. I dont.
It seems fairly plausible that Libya is a model for what NATO wants to see happen to Russia as it creeps up to its most exposed border. Theyd rather mariupol be a smoking radioactive crater than be a host for NATO forces along their jugular.
Zelensky is more right than he can imagine as he says that hes fighting our war. It is a geopolitical coup for the west to have a smaller weaker country on the border of foreign powers fight and die in our wars. It was the British Empire's main trick.
>Secondly, there was no real talk. Especially due to the unresolved situation in the east it was impossible for Ukraine to join anyway.
Ukraine was about to try and "resolve" the situation in the East and it had already started military cooperation. Frankly Russia would probably let them if it could get Ukraine to stay out of NATO.
If it was impossible to join the cost of saying "we wont join" would be zero and it would have prevented the worst war in Europe since WW2.
Either thats the biggest own goal ever or it isnt what happened at all.
>IMO the talk about Ukraine joining was more political flirting rather than serious talk.
I really hope that isnt the case because the result of that "flirting" is tens of thousands dead.
Likewise Zelensky's "flirting" about getting nuclear weapons.
If the goal was to provoke the sleeping bear into mauling the baby then mission accomplished.
This didn't help but Putin does do the same to NATO (e.g. Koningsberg). Which is even said to host nuclear missiles. There was no talk of that in Ukraine at all and there aren't any in other CEE countries like Poland.
Personally as a European I would not have approved of Ukraine joining NATO and I also voted against them joining the EU (the association treaty), though the latter was more because I felt they weren't ready. Ukraine in the early 2010s was just as much an oligarchy and corruption quagmire as Russia is today. We already have too many issues with emerging corporate oligarchy ourselves (aka neoliberalism).
However, the Ukraine that will emerge out of this crisis will probably have a very different identity, I imagine. I would imagine a more united people more aligned with the EU. A bit like the Baltic states which are doing really well. Though I imagine this is also what prompts Putin to continue this war. When he leaves the situation for him will be worse than it was.
> Putin is still being clear that renouncing NATO membership will stop the war. This is literally 100% what Ukrainians are dying for - the ability to join NATO. I hope they consider it worth it. Washington does. I dont.
Personally I also think they should, though we should be careful at trusting Putin at his word. Remember him saying there was absolutely no preparation going on and forces were leaving the border?
Why would his word on this count as much? Remember he has also said he's not happy until everything is reverted back to 1997 standards. There's a lot of Eastern European countries that have embraced democracy since then that will have very different feelings about that.
However, having said that, if there is a way to set this in stone (Ukraine not joining NATO but getting some protection in case Russia change their minds) I would be all for it if it would make Russia pull back. I think they would be too, after all NATO is not a means to an end, it's the promise of protection that matters.
> It seems fairly plausible that Libya is a model for what NATO wants to see happen to Russia as it creeps up to its most exposed border. Theyd rather mariupol be a smoking radioactive crater than be a host for NATO forces along their jugular.
Well I think Libya is not much of a model for anything. I don't think civilians are a lot better off there as they were under Khadaffi. The Arab spring was a big failure and led to the emergence of things like ISIS. Same in Iraq and Afghanistan. I opposed my country's joining of those wars too. I'm not saying the west is perfect.
> Zelensky is more right than he can imagine as he says that hes fighting our war. It is a geopolitical coup for the west to have a smaller weaker country on the border of foreign powers fight and die in our wars. It was the British Empire's main trick.
In Europe we don't want any fighting. We just want peace and trade.
And Zelensky would never get nukes. Most EU countries don't even have them. Some have some caches but they're owned and armed by the Americans. And they're all tactical weapons which are not permissible in NATO doctrine. They're more of symbolic value (and I wish they would just remove them as they do represent real contamination risk in case of accidents).
But I feel in all this there is a lot more going on geopolitically behind the scenes. Similarly to the way I don't believe Putin's agression is only about Ukraine potentially joining NATO and nothing else, I'm sure the west's leadership has more interests than they are willing to admit. Just like with the middle-east invasions which like I said I didn't support.
I like how you admit that there was no such treaty, just vague promises to a country (USSR) which doesn't exist anymore. Usually, you russian bots say that NATO was bound to not accept new members.
Do you see any promise here? I don't. Nothing to see here move along.
Was Deutsche Welle lying when they wrote this?
It's a simple question. Theres something to see here youre pretending doesnt exist.
So they told in 1990, right after the fortunate collapse of Soviet Union, that the countries previously occupied by Russians will be not YET ready to join NATO.
Guess what, a little over 10 years later they were ready.
The other thing that happened? Putin happened.
Nothing was promised to Russians.
"In the current environment" -- environments change. 1990 was 32 years ago.
> [We] do not, in any case, wish to organize an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border. Such a coalition would be perceived very negatively by the Soviets.
The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact don't exist anymore; no one cares what they think. There were never promises made, and even if there were, those countries / alliances aren't around to complain. Hell, several WARPACT members are in NATO now, and it's clear that several (like the Czechoslovaks) didn't really want to be in WARPACT anyways.
> Also the phrase "purely defensive military alliance" is a lie. A lie viscerally disproven by bayonet thrust up Khafaffi's backside in 2011 by NATO allies after he was "welcomed back" into the international community.
Bollocks. Libya had a long history of trying to attack NATO members. Quaddafi's Libya blew up western airplanes (e.g Lockerbie), fired missiles at western aircraft and ships (Gulf of Sidra), and openly supported terrorists attacks elsewhere (the La Belle bombing in Western Germany). He wasn't just some random bystander. Plus his own people did the thrusting; NATO only gave them enough air cover to rebel.
If that's America's bar for "invading for defensive purposes" then NATO might as well just admit it's sole purpose for existence is the destruction of Russia.
America was flying planes over sidra in an attempt to provoke them. If Libyan jets were shot down "testing" the borders in the gulf of mexico would you really claim that the US was acting offensively? I wouldnt.
The US empire wanted Libya destroyed from day one pretty much. It clearly wants Russia destroyed too. Ukrainian women and children are dying precisely because provoking a conflict on Russia's border aligns with Western imperial objectives. Like it or not their blood isnt just on Putins hands.
Why is it that the western narrative is primary and Beijing rewrites it? It's all narratives. They're all primary in their own sphere. The idea that the US has a history of objectively writing the narrative is laughable, so so what if Beijing is full of it too.
The fact that I can write this without fearing for my life or my "social score" is the difference.
- the west, with a nominally "democratic" system which has the tendency to be gamed by an in-crowd, leading to essentially the same people taking turns in controlling the countries. They use this control both for personal gain as well as to drive their (party) ideologies which are not always true to what they wrote on their election posters. The populace is generally free to do what they like as long as they pay taxes. The justice departments tend to err on the side of justice, not on that of the will of the ruling parties.
- China, with an autocratic system described as "communism" but in reality closer to an oligarchy where "the leader" has an outsized amount of power to get through his will and as such gets to decide which course the country follows. Under Mao this was bloodshed and oppression, under Deng - who was wedged between the Soviet and Western blocks - it was aimed at loosening the reins a little bit in an attempt to overcome the damage caused by Mao, now under Xi is it again more towards Mao's ideology but this time backed by 21st century technology. The populace has undoubtedly become richer in the process but they are not free to display their displeasure, those who stick their heads up above the field tend to disappear. The justice system is on the side of the party which wrote the law books.
- Russia, with a kleptocratic system described as "democratic" but in reality mostly a show meant to fool the outside world. From Czar through Commissar to would-be Czar, all leaders have convinced the Russian people that they are both destined for greatness as well as that they are under constant attack from all sides which explains the empty shelves in the stores - the motherland is surrounded by enemies. Also from Czar through Commissar to Putin, they enrich themselves and their chosen (but disposable) lackeys in the process, funnelling off funds which were meant to "defend the motherland" or "build those bridges" or "improve those roads". The populace has been brewed in this system for so long that especially the older generations don't know any better than that this is the way it works - Russia has always been at war with Eurasia after all. The justice system is on the side of the one with the largest bribes.
I choose the west, warts and all. You?
Take the German government supporting kicking Russia off SWIFT. This was a decision almost entirely forced on the German government by public pressure. There was no government narrative driving that. In fact the Russian and Chinese narratives are widely distributed, published and discussed in the West. We're doing it right now. The western narrative includes all the other narratives too, so there really isn't a western narrative in the same way at all.
As for the US, until literally a few days ago half the US political establishment was very much pro-Putin. They played down the threat he posed and trivialised his interference even in US politics. At the recent Republican conference, which was a few days after the invasion of Ukraine started, criticism of Putin was almost completely absent, although some of them did wobble a bit on the subject. Since then they have quickly reversed direction.
In contrast the Beijing narrative is entirely, exclusively a government narrative. No other narrative within China is tolerated. Hence the linked article points out we don't actually know what ordinary Chinese think about any of this because their narratives are utterly suppressed, only what the government says.
I want to live in the world you live in, because reality seriously disagrees with you. There's no such thing as independent reporting, free uncensored social media communication and people coming to their own conclusions.
Not for the masses. No. Of course independent reporting etc exists, but not for the masses, regardless where you're from.
So either you deny the existence of propaganda, or you believe that "propaganda only happens everywhere else", or are unaware of the propaganda that influences you personally.
Which is it?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60571737
As I pointed out, we're actually discussing the Chinese narrative, which we have full access to, right now.
If that stuff was more popular and people freely chose to give it more credibility it would be more widely distributed. That's how that works. This isn't new, back in the 80s I occasionally bought a (cut down, translated but uncensored) copy of Pravda in my local newsagent here in the UK. It was hilarious, and usually right next to Marxism Today which was also highly risible.
What doesn't fly well over here is the sort of flat out lying seen on Russian media. Audiences over here are understandably sickened and revulsed by what is happening and what Russian media is saying about it. Hence RT getting dropped from channels all over Europe, but if you still want to know, you can easily find out.
As I said, the "western narrative" completely includes and involves discussion and evaluation of all the narratives.
It's not like it's going to change anything anyway ... except for me ... because my frustration is real and quite substantial. Personally, I don't care if you believe me. When you believe that there is independent mass media, then it's extremely unlikely you'll believe someone who doesn't.
---
Your post has nothing to do with what I said in regards to your words. It seems you believe you know better, but oh boy, that can not be the case, otherwise you wouldn't have written this:
> it's the result of free, independent reporting, free uncensored social media communication and people coming to their own conclusions.
This is just insane. Seriously.
You think you understand, but you don't. It comes across like the typical hubris of the wannabe intellectuals who believe they're on the good side of the equation. They're not. They're just as easily fooled as some poor, lower class moron who lacks education. Education alone does, in fact, not make intelligent, thoughtful or self reflective. It simply doesn't. If it did, the world wouldn't be in this horrible mess.
Propaganda is also not just about censorship. Censorship is actually a really primitive form of propaganda. Far more effective is presenting the people with facts, but omitting details.
It's irrelevant if propaganda is about Ukraine, anti-china, anti-russia, pro-vaccine, anti-covid, gays causing aids, open lesbianism causing the downfall of society and whatever else any country anywhere can come up with.
Propaganda is extremely complicated and it requires people to be able to reflect a lot more than most are capable of.
Fun Fact! Most people will tell you that the electromagnetic waves of mobile phones do not cause any issues. They will tell you that simply because that's what they're being told. Every time I come across someone like that, I could bet them serious money to prove them wrong. I'm what some assholes call "electro-sensible". I can literally feel something downloading at several MBit/sec, in my head, from half a meter away. It's fucking torture.
People don't know better, but insist that I am wrong until I prove them first hand that, not only I'm not, but also that they're full of shit.
Anyhow. Propaganda!
Far more effective than censorship is presenting so called experts, which all parrot the same things, while every other expert with a differing opinion is being blocked out, shouted down or ridiculed. All the wannabe intellectuals eat that up like hot cakes.
Like experts telling you that you can not feel the electromagnetic waves caused by whatever is downloading vast amounts of data at high speeds, while there's other experts no one ever gets to hear about, who will tell you the opposite. They're not desired experts, so barely anyone ever gets exposed to what they have to say. If that ever happens, these people get discredited.
When there's a stupid mob hating on people who think differently, for good reasons, then that's the result of propaganda. When that stupid mob is unwilling to discuss and only ever engages in attacks, then that's the result of propaganda. These people, including wannabe intellectuals, are doing nothing but parroting a pretend authority.
Far more effective than censorship is it to make you believe that there is unbiased and fair reporting. You're being swamp with logically-sounding information and repeat it until you believe it, regardless of reality disagreeing with it. It might even be logical, but that does not - in no way or form - mean that it is also correct! Things can be logical and still be wrong.
Here's the story of a propaganda-victim I know:
There's a guy who had two issues with his vaccination. One for each shot he got. He got an mRNA based one, but I forgot which one. A day after the first one he started walking weird. It looked like he had a stroke. Half his body was kind of limp and he stopped using it properly. I've made him aware of this, because stroke victims don't necessarily notice that they had one.
Shortly after his second shot he felt like something literally exploded in his hip, causing all sorts of other issues.
Talking about it, he insisted that "the doctor said the first thing was just a coincidence.". That's dumb, short sighted and appealing to authority, meaning ...
... because doctors are doctors, regardless of said doctors complete incapability of having all the information (which simply did not exist at that point and still doesn't for most people) he simply accepts the words of the doctor as fundamental truth. He does so, because that man's a doctor! Obviously a doctor must, at any moment in time, always know everything about every single medical thing ever! Right!?
That doctor was doing nothing else but parroting what he's been told. Nothing else. That's all. Because of "experts" telling him "how it is", he believed he knew "how it is", without any questioning.
Even after that guy I knew got his second shot he still insisted that the issue after the first one was just a coincidence and there was no way of getting him to even consider the alternative, which is a surefire way of identifying a victim of propaganda. The insisting on being right, without questioning it.
Do you understand? There is no critical thought among the masses. None. Zero. If that wasn't the case, propaganda wouldn't be so insanely effective.
You think the lying in Russia is bad, but do you think of all the lies you believe simply because you don't know better? The lies you believe because you're not capable of questioning what you're being fed?
The only reason why people are talking about lies in russian media is because their own media wants people to talk about it! If it didn't, people wouldn't be exposed to it!
That's propaganda!
Have you forgotten all the lies the US used to go to war? Have you forgotten what the CIA did and likely still keeps doing? Forgotten Afghanistan? Iraq? Iran? How the US funded and weaponized "freedom fighters" only to end up calling them terrorists?
Do you ever consider that, when your country has a history of bullshitting it's people, that it's extremely unlikely that they're telling you the truth now?
Do you have any idea of the MASSIVE amount of state propaganda that happened in Austria? We're basically a banana republic! Our so called governmental corona experts were all paid by Pfizer!
Parts of the government had ties to companies producing hygiene products, FFP2 masks, which have been made mandatory. Did you know that the only two countries in europe, which mandated FFP2 masks, were germany and austria?
You probably didn't! And how would you? How would most people know, unless they read it from somewhere? But the mass media did not talk about this! At all!
And why was that the case? Because someone got paid to make that happen, so other people were able to make big bucks! People didn't get to know if other countries actually used FFP2 masks! No! Everyone just blindly believed that everyone else also used FFP2 masks!
Paid experts by Pfizer. Dozens of millions of shots coming from Pfizer.
But hey, iT's AlL jUsT a CoInCiDeNcE!
People believing it really is a coincidence ... that's the result of propaganda!
You can also not be sure if RT isn't actually telling more truth than your own mass media news sources. You simply can NOT! It is NOT possible! You believing otherwise just underlines how effective propaganda is!
If you believe that your side is better than the other, then that's the result of propaganda! Your side is at least equally shit as the other side and, when you take this statement personally, it further proves that you are a propaganda victim and NOT a critical thinker!
Considerig all factors gathered over decades of observing the meta, I can guarantee you that the so called western and "civilized" part of the world is actually the worst!
> Audiences over here are understandably sickened and revulsed by what is happening
No! Audiences are sickened and revulsed by what the mass media is presenting them. If the mass media didn't present them information in a way that causes such reactions, such reactions wouldn't happen! When the mass media wants people to feel a certain way, then that will happen. This is the norm everywhere, including Austria, the US, China, Germany and every other place.
No, they don't present you with this to inform you. They present you with this, to manipulate you. Not only do they want your money, but they also want you to fall in line.
Propaganda!
Look at the US! In the US only few people control 99% of the media. These few people are the super rich, always in bed with the currently running publicly exposed politicians. Whatever muppet's currently occupying the spot. Or the other way round, if you prefer. From my perspective it's the "Rich people" club, which covers them all. They all know each other, they all feed off of each other, they all benefit from each other.
This isn't a conspiracy theory, you can look up who owns what all by yourself. If you're from the US believing in independent mass media, then you're a fool who's being played. You can look up which sides feeds which part of the population, too. You just need to figure out the demographics.
1/2
Fun Fact! When you want to control your population, you have to cover a wide range of opinions, meaning that you need to own several news outlets not necessarily agreeing with each other.
Edit: Same goes for parties. When you want to cover a lot of people, you must have several parties under your belt, making sure that no matter which party wins, it's you who always wins.
Just like how megacorporations have several daughter corporations releasing "competing" brands. In reality it's the same corp, but there's an illusion of choice.
That's a propaganda machine!
There is no critically thinking mass. You are not a critical thinker. You believe you are a critical thinker, but there is a massive amount of people who call themselves intellectuals and academics, which are constantly being played simply because narcissists are easily fooled!
All it takes is making them feel like they're rooting for the smarter side. They're all happily appealing to authority, because "obviously this person knows what he's talking about." No critical thinking, no actual fact checking. Just mindless, idiotic parroting ... and you can't have a serious discussion with these people whatsoever. Makes them, at least, really easy to spot.
The "western narrative" including discussions and evaluation is nothing more than a part of the propaganda machine. People talk about what mass media presenta them. There is no critical, or even original, thought. None. People talk about what they see/hear/read. That includes all the wannabe intellectuals.
Don't believe it?
Spend a month reading all the major daily newspapers and, after that month, start finding people to talk about it. Not close friends. Go outside of your biased social circle.
When you're smart enough, you will be able to tell who reads what simply based on the perspective they parrot. It's not even hard spotting the people who are easily misled, but first you have to let go of the idea that...
a) ... you're on the good side. You're not. Everyone believes that. It's dumb and part of the propaganda machine.
b) ... you know better. You don't. Your sources are worth just as much as the sources of the other side.
c) ... you're ever unbiased as long as you consume any of the mass media. You're not. Your feelings are being played, causing you to come to desired conclusions. Not objective conclusions, desired conclusions.
All mass media are equal. It's a science!
The only difference is how they sell themselves.
You’re using the word propaganda to just mean ‘what most people believe’, which just isn’t useful. That’s mainly because in many, many issues there are different widely held beliefs. Take coronavirus. More than a third of the US population think it’s just the flu and vaccines are dangerous. There is no consensus as there is in Europe.
On your specific points on vaccination, its a fact that vaccinations of any kind are not free or risk. I have a persistent pain in my left arm since my second vaccination, probably due to the jab going into a joint membrane. I really need to get it checked out. There are real cases of adverse effects. Yes you will read about people denying it, and you will read people saying the vaccines are a con. The truth is as usual more complex, no the vaccines aren’t a con, yes they do work and have transformed life here in the UK, but that did come at a cost of some side effects. Nevertheless they’ve saved tens of thousands of lives in the UK alone.
On radio sensitivity, I worked in telecoms with radio engineers in the late 90s and quite a few of them believed mobile phone transmissions might be dangerous. There was a mix if opinions in the industry. However large scale trials and studies settled the issue conclusively, there was no correlation between active antenna deployment and reported side effects. How do we know? Because they compared reported side effects in areas with active transmitting antennas with reports in areas where the antennas hadn’t yet been activated and there was no difference. Yes there were more reports of headaches and such near antennas than areas without antennas, but that also applied to inactive ones so it had nothing to do with radio waves. It was entirely psychological. As people got used to antennas being around the reports died down.
That doesn’t mean there is no issue, it may be that a small number of people really are sensitive, too few people to show up in statistics, but every such case I’m aware of that’s been investigated has been disproven. That’s not propaganda or just expert opinion, that’s actual results from many, many real world studies.
On Ukraine are the TikTok, twitter, instagram and YouTube uploads by ordinary Ukrainians propaganda? There’s a vast torrent of uncensored, unedited, sometimes live reporting by ordinary people coming out of Ukraine every day. You don’t even need to watch or read the mainstream media these days, you can seek out primary sources on the ground yourself. You can talk to them yourself on livestreams. My kids play internet video games and you can chat with Ukrainian kids on game chat servers and Twitch. It’s a different world now. You can go that here. You can’t do that in Russia or China.
Yes there is a kind of consensus that often forms on subjects in the west. There’s a mass consensus on Coronavirus here in the UK, dissenters are a small minority, but they are a very large minority in the US. So large that they dominate one of the two main political parties. Nobody, no one central authority controls the narrative on this in the west. People choose the narrative they prefer. Sometimes they get it wrong, sure, but they have access to alternative voices if they want to hear them, and they do have a genuine choice. You have access to dissenting opinions and you have made a choice, and your opinion is getting free air and a chance to be heard. Its all part of the narrative.
The main difference between us and China/Russia is that we have access to way more information, and thus false narratives are created differently, either through information overload or information bias, but not by simply forbidding the reporting of facts.
That's actually not true. RT, Sputnik and other Russian sources have been taken down. While this censorship may not be as stark as what is happening in China, the pattern of censoring soft targets before moving on to hard targets is concerning.
This sentence makes zero sense.
Unrelatedly, I would love to see an unbiased comparison to e.g. US media doing effectively the same thing. Not going to happen, of course (understandbly, for both countries, given their respective foreign policies and handle on their mainstream media, albeit in different ways).
I'm very surprised, e.g., that throughout this, nobody has yet to make a comparison to the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. To me it looks like the mirror image of what's happening in Ukraine right now (minus the international outrage/sanctions/boycotting element -- different times before the internet, I suppose)
Let me kindly remind you that secretary Hillary considered selling Taiwan to China, it's a real thing, you should google it up.
Please stop spreading misinformation.
[0]: I was wrong, it was the UN.
The irony of propagandists calling each other awful propagandists.