Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
These updates have been really good for finally burning away the last of any brainworms I had about the media's truthfulness and legitimacy, particularly the stuff I put in Dipshittery and Cope. The fog of war has re-shrouded itself now that Mariupol has wrapped up and the main hyperfocus of the western media, the Kiev front, has long since relocated - and I think due to Ukraine's propensity to twist events and massively exaggerate and make shit up for various reasons, that no news is bad news, at least along these fronts. The alternate reality that the media has constructed with this relative lack of information is becoming truly breathtaking.
Of course, the endless repetition of points about Russian incompetency or Ukrainian bravery or Putin's sanity is designed to hammer home this alternate reality, and set up a situation where there is nothing Russia could do where they would be seen as having won the war, in the media's eyes. There's an article to that exact effect, saying how even if Ukraine loses territory (not sure why they'd suggest that, when Ukraine is winning so hard to them), they'd still probably be winners.
It's one thing, for me at least, to read about manufacturing consent or inventing reality in, say, the coups in Central America, and another to have your eyes sealed open as you watch it happening in real time.
But a bloomer I remain, and I have hope that the material reality that has always existed will come back into the fore, as European citizens slowly realize that their governments have sanctioned and declared war on them as much, if not more so, than they have on Russia. It might still be decades before we see real change in that regard, and perhaps we have to go through a phase of far-right wing governance and rhetoric, but fascism is unsustainable, and communism will win.
It's truly unreal and causes me to experience dissociation. The re-writing of recent history and gaslighting is at insanity inducing levels. I still glance at the "news" every day because I'm curious what my liberal friends and family are being exposed to. But, there is no possible way to counter any of it without being :pepe-silvia:
I opened a front page :reddit-logo: thread last night, sorted by controversial and NATO bootlickers have their list of talking points nailed. I talked to a couple of family members during the first week and explained how NATO and the US was responsible for this conflict, I regret it. They have a seemingly unbreakable trust in the NPR/NYT narratives.
These media sources lead one from point A: this is information that is correct and smart, gathered by smart people who are better than you/ you are a good and successful person for using these sources to point B: op eds explaining how some people (uneducated, poor, probably racist) succumb to the mindless hysterical pitfalls of countering western liberal media and how they are paid and controlled by anti-democracy genocidal authoritarians who wage information wars on you and your children, eat their pets, fantasize about nuking babies etc.
anyway, thanks for all your hard work, I hope you are taking care of yourself and getting some nice weather wherever you are.
Even leftists. Western leftists telling Western leftists they need to "listen to Eastern lefitsts" while cherry picking hard exactly which Eastern leftists they "listen to" (and often even clipping the convenient bits of what they say) is out of this fucking world.
I've pretty much stopped discussing this shit in leftist Discord servers (including "Dirtbag HQ"). The propagandized and ad-hominem-laden dogpiling is intense. Thank goodness this seems to be a mostly online phenomenon.
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While I'm maybe not quite as positive about Russian accounts of progress as you (mostly I think they've taken heavier losses, and they were trying initially for a decapitation strike in Kiev as a secondary objective, one that very nearly succeeded), we're broadly in agreement.
The recent Russian advances in areas so fortified that they make the Verdun Salient look undefended indicate that Ukrainian forces are finally falling apart despite putting up a better fight than I frankly expected, something they probably would have done weeks ago if not for throwing 14-year-old boys and old men with 60-year-old western equipment into battle and every US spysat pointing out Russian troop movements in real time for them.
Let’s just hope the fascists don’t exterminate us all when they inevitably take power