More Propaganda from the NY Times.

[pegasus8]

Heh, they resemble that remark. There is nothing weird in the alternative universe of Faux News.

Does anyone else find it weird that some people seem to really admire Putin as a strong leader but then turn right around and criticize Obama for behaving like an imperial President?

Yep it is throw shit on the wall and see what sticks I always like to say. And then they wonder why most of America hates the republicans. Oh that is right only Americans with conservative values love their country. Sheez. All that Putin is was a little pencil pushing KGB desk jock who has these visions of Tsarist Russian. All from a horse of course. Fregin little Napoleons are the ones who start all the shit all the time. They sell an old VSTOL carrier minus the electronics and planes to China and one would have thought that it was WW 3 all over again in the neo-con hate universe. Putin F him and his funky self.

Peace out

Pegasus

 

[boneyard bill]

If there is any Russian propaganda, we're not getting here. There isn't any msm coverage of the Russian position or of just about anything that Putin has said. If you want the Russian position you have to go to RT which is only on the internet. Even there, however, most of the commentators are Western journalists.

We are getting it from you. You're taking the Russian position as automatically true.

Where in the mainstream media coverage did you learn that Yanukovych was democratically elected? Where in the msm or any official US government source did you learn that Yanukovych's party constituted the majority in the Ukrainian parliament? Where in the msm did you learn that the elections which Yanukovych won were supervised and monitored by international figures so that any charges of corruption were baseless?

International supervision helps, it doesn't ensure an election is fair. Besides, it doesn't do anything to present false flag candidates. (Think of Morsi--ran as a moderate, showed himself to be an Islamist.)

Where in the msm did you learn that most of those parliamentary members fled for the lives the same a Yanukovych did? Where in the msm did you learn that vote by parliament to oust Yanukovych was actually taken by a rump parliament that lacked a quorum because so many of its members fled? Where in the msm media did you learn the many of the protestors on the Maidan were armed? Where is the msm did you learn that many of the protestors came from the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party or the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Right Sector? Where in the msm did you learn that Russia already had 25,000 troops in Crimea under treaty with Ukraine?

Ever notice that one of Moscow's standard tactics is to get a puppet government in power and then use that puppet government to invite the bear in?

And I don't even see the relevance of the troops in the Crimea. This wasn't a conventional invasion.

What you likely did hear from the msm was that protestors were somehow a "democracy movement" with no explanation for why a democracy movement would be needed in a country that was already Democratic and where elections were due in another year in any case. What you did hear from John Kerry was the Crimea was "invaded" even though this was simply not true.

You can have a democracy movement when the "democratic" system is corrupt.

Now all of the things that you didn't hear in the msm are true, and when you know them, then you have to know that coverage of events there was extremely biased here in the US. The spin that the media has put on events there are simply not justified when you know these additional facts.

The problem is your "facts" are more a matter of spin.

If you had been paying the slightest attention to the ongoing events in Ukraine prior to the coup, you would have known form the very beginning that US media coverage didn't make any sense. As it so happens, I was paying the slightest attention and not a whole lot more, but because I was aware of a little bit about the Ukrainian situation I could recognize the spin and so I looked into matters a little more and uncovered a whole lot more omissions in US media coverage and also uncovered some false reporting.

You don't need to embrace propaganda from either side to figure out what is truth and what are lies and distortions. All you have to do is look up the facts.

1) Facts can be cherry-picked to get a very different conclusion.

2) You're taking as binary things that aren't.

- - - Updated - - -

Ukraine is not a country, but a disparate collection of factions, surrounded by a border that came from a gentleman's agreement between long gone leaders from the east and west. Polluted, indebted, shattered with political and social differences that are too great to unify under anything like a legitimate government, it is falling apart regardless of what either Putin or the European Union wants. I can only wonder what Solomon would do with this baby.

Ukraine was a functioning and peaceful democracy until the coup d'état in the Maidan.

Ukraine can hardly be described as functioning.

It was peaceful so long as it did Moscow's bidding. When they threw out the Russian puppets things turned violent.

You didn't answer my questions. From the response you did give, I assume your answers to my questions about what you learned from the msm is "no." But all the points that I made are true and you can verify them on the internet. Ukraine WAS a functioning democracy. It isn't now. Was it corrupt? Yes. But it was also corrupt under Yanukovych's pro-European predecessor as well. But it probably wasn't as corrupt as the US is. And note that Ukraine had a pro-European government that came to power through constitutional means and Putin did nothing to interfere. He only acted in Crimea in response to a coup d'état in Kiev, and he acted, in part, because the Crimean government acted.

Now, the question is, where is the justification for the US government supporting a government which overthrew a democracy by force of arms? And how, especially, is that justified in the name of promoting democracy? It should be very, very clear where the bulk of the propaganda on this issue is coming from. It is coming from the White House and the State Department and is being parroted, uncritically, but the US mainstream media.

My point isn't to claim that Putin is altruistic politician, but when you understand the true nature of the context in which he is acting, then the Western parody of him as some kind of mad politician bent on restoring the Soviet Union is easily seen to be yet more propaganda.

 

[boneyard bill]

Does anyone else find it weird that some people seem to really admire Putin as a strong leader but then turn right around and criticize Obama for behaving like an imperial President?

AFAIK Putin got Duma approval for everything that he did. Of course, I didn't check up on every action he took, but I know that the Duma did authorize some of his actions. They weren't ignored.

 

[Ford]

If there is any Russian propaganda, we're not getting here. There isn't any msm coverage of the Russian position or of just about anything that Putin has said. If you want the Russian position you have to go to RT which is only on the internet. Even there, however, most of the commentators are Western journalists.

We are getting it from you. You're taking the Russian position as automatically true.

Maybe it is something more than that...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america

Russia’s campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion of Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training a new cadre of online trolls that have been deployed to spread the Kremlin’s message on the comments section of top American websites.

Not that our little freethinking outpost is a "top American website," but still it strikes me as odd that we've got people basically repeating Kremlin propaganda at the same time the Kremlin has apparently set up an operation to spread pro Kremlin propaganda on the internet...

Several people who follow the Russian internet closely told BuzzFeed the Internet Research Energy is only one of several firms believed to be employing pro-Kremlin comment trolls. That has long been suspected based on the comments under articles about Russia on many other sites, such as Kremlin propaganda network RT’s wildly successful YouTube channel. The editor of The Guardian’s opinion page recently claimed that the site was the victim of an “orchestrated campaign.”

Coincidence?

 

[barbos]

Boy, I wish I was paid to be a Kremlin troll.
Seriusly, Friedman is being paid, why can't I be?

 

[Ford]

Boy, I wish I was paid to be a Kremlin troll.

Well you're in luck, because they're hiring!

But I think you'd be hard pressed to establish that Friedman is being paid by the White House.

You are of course free to make that case.

 

[barbos]

Several people who follow the Russian internet closely told BuzzFeed the Internet Research Energy is only one of several firms believed to be employing pro-Kremlin comment trolls. That has long been suspected based on the comments under articles about Russia on many other sites, such as Kremlin propaganda network RT’s wildly successful YouTube channel. The editor of The Guardian’s opinion page recently claimed that the site was the victim of an “orchestrated campaign.”

Coincidence?

The editor of The Guardian’s opinion page is full of shit, and here is why:
I tried to follow a Russian-Ukrainian discussion on one of the popular russian computer forums.
Do you know how many posts it has so far?
about 180 thousands and most of these posts have been posted in the last few months.
The thread was split 30 times and absolute majority of posters are actual long time users who posts in other threads. There are occasional trolls but they are almost all pro-ukrainian. Everything that appears on youtube is being posted there and you don't need to be NSA analyst to suggest that some of these people comment on that too.
I stopped following it because it was pointless, it was moving so fast that people were posting without reading and a lot of stuff was duplicated because of that.
Stupid guardian editor does not realize that just because this topic (thanks to assholes like him) is not popular in the west does not mean it is not popular in Russia.

 

[barbos]

Boy, I wish I was paid to be a Kremlin troll.

Well you're in luck, because they're hiring!

But I think you'd be hard pressed to establish that Friedman is being paid by the White House.

You are of course free to make that case.

But Friedman is paid by Kremlin. Why would White house pay him for making them look stupid?

 

[dystopian]

Maybe it is something more than that...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america

Oh wow, this explains so many of the comments I've seen online.

Of course, it's been known that companies have been using these sorts of tactics for years to prop up support for their brands (or destroy the reputation of competitors); guess it was only a matter of time before governments started taking notes.

 

[dystopian]

The editor of The Guardian’s opinion page is full of shit, and here is why:
I tried to follow a Russian-Ukrainian discussion on one of the popular russian computer forums.
Do you know how many posts it has so far?
about 180 thousands and most of these posts have been posted in the last few months.

Who the fuck cares that you went to a *Russian* forum and most of the posts there were by long-time posters when we're talking about Russian trolls being paid to go to *western* sites? Besides, I'm really doubtful you actually went through the entire userlist for a forum that produces 180.000 posts in just a few months to verify who were the top posters and how long they've been active; I think it's pretty obvious you just pulled that from your ass. A 180.000 posts total most of which were posted in just the last few months suggests to me the opposite of what you're claiming.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Boy, I wish I was paid to be a Kremlin troll.
Seriusly, Friedman is being paid, why can't I be?

You should be on the calling list if you were paid by Hussein to protest an invasion of Iraq.

 

[Togo]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

 

[Deadend]

If the US government now can make all the world's* news media spout US propaganda, why are we even talking about the Ukraine? Surely the death of independent media would be more important to talk about than everything else?

And won't the US government be pissed they didn't have these powers back when Snowden's revelations were published. At least from now on surely no more stories will surface which will embarrass the US government.

* apart for brave little Russia

 

[barbos]

The editor of The Guardian’s opinion page is full of shit, and here is why:
I tried to follow a Russian-Ukrainian discussion on one of the popular russian computer forums.
Do you know how many posts it has so far?
about 180 thousands and most of these posts have been posted in the last few months.

Who the fuck cares that you went to a *Russian* forum and most of the posts there were by long-time posters when we're talking about Russian trolls being paid to go to *western* sites?

Why pay when people are doing it for free?
And what evidence do you have anyway?
Is it coming from somebody's ass?

Besides, I'm really doubtful you actually went through the entire userlist for a forum that produces 180.000 posts in just a few months to verify who were the top posters and how long they've been active; I think it's pretty obvious you just pulled that from your ass. A 180.000 posts total most of which were posted in just the last few months suggests to me the opposite of what you're claiming.

No, it's you who pulls facts from your ass.
I merely took a random sample of people there and none of them were trolls.
You don't need to check every damn poster.
And forums with large percentage of trolls are rarity nowdays anyway.

 

[barbos]

If the US government now can make all the world's* news media spout US propaganda, why are we even talking about the Ukraine? Surely the death of independent media would be more important to talk about than everything else?

And won't the US government be pissed they didn't have these powers back when Snowden's revelations were published. At least from now on surely no more stories will surface which will embarrass the US government.

* apart for brave little Russia

Who is Snowden?
I am kidding but is not in convenient that with all this crap in Ukraine Europe forgot about NSA spying?
So in a way US did use their power to make Europe to forget about Snowden.

 

[barbos]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

You keep forgetting that Maidan was before Crimea going back to Russia.
And US was all over Maidan talking and coordinating over unsecure cell phones
And no, for the millionth's time, there was no invasion of Crimea and no gun point referendum.
They voted and left Ukraine, the end.

One more thing, long live Kosovo!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

You keep forgetting that Maidan was before Crimea going back to Russia.
And US was all over Maidan talking and coordinating over unsecure cell phones
And no, for the millionth's time, there was no invasion of Crimea and no gun point referendum.
They voted and left Ukraine, the end.

One more thing, long live Kosovo!

Kosovo did vote for independence. Last time I checked, they didn't vote while unmarked foreign soldiers were in their territory, and then join the nation those soldiers belonged to.

 

[Togo]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

You keep forgetting that Maidan was before Crimea going back to Russia.

Irrelevent to my point.

And no, for the millionth's time, there was no invasion of Crimea and no gun point referendum.

Yes, there was. Russian soldiers took over roads, bridges, governement buildings, and blockaded military installations. Armed soliders then ran a referendum. What part of this is not an invasion?

And this doesn't address my point, so I'll repeat it.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

 

[barbos]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

You keep forgetting that Maidan was before Crimea going back to Russia.
And US was all over Maidan talking and coordinating over unsecure cell phones
And no, for the millionth's time, there was no invasion of Crimea and no gun point referendum.
They voted and left Ukraine, the end.

One more thing, long live Kosovo!

Kosovo did vote for independence. Last time I checked,

So did Crimea.

they didn't vote while unmarked foreign soldiers were in their territory, and then join the nation those soldiers belonged to.

Yes, there was foreign soldiers there too. And Yes these soldiers were clearly for separating Kosovo from Serbia.
So what's the difference again?

 

[barbos]

What do you mean by taken? The parliament and the public in Crimea both voted for it. Was it a "fair" election? Who knows. But the outcome isn't what want wouldn't have expected under the circumstances.

So let's get this straight.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there, and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

You keep forgetting that Maidan was before Crimea going back to Russia.

Irrelevent to my point.

And no, for the millionth's time, there was no invasion of Crimea and no gun point referendum.

Yes, there was. Russian soldiers took over roads, bridges, governement buildings, and blockaded military installations. Armed soliders then ran a referendum. What part of this is not an invasion?

And this doesn't address my point, so I'll repeat it.

You're saying that the invasion of Crimea wasn't an invasion, because there was a referendum afterwards? And it doesn't matter that the referendum was held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers, because the result is sort of what you would have expected anyway?

Fuck! How many times times I have to repeat the same thing?
I am not saying that at all. Give me a favor and read actually what I post.

But the change of power in Kiev, that was a coup d'état by the US, even though the US didn't have any troops there,

Troops are not required. Coup in Iran was done without US troops, just with the help of CIA. and whatever they have in Britain.

and the result was remarkably similar to what happened in the elections in March of this year?

Is there not a consistency problem here?

Yes, you do have consistency problem.