• Hmm [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    We literally have a user named @Z_Poster365 who said yesterday "I’m [sic] yet to see a single instance of official Russian sources saying anything false or deceptive since the start of this operation."

    https://hexbear.net/post/197669/comment/2488038

    In that comment chain they then sarcastically said "All information is the same and it’s all propaganda and trying to make any sense of it is futile, nothing can be known." But then further down in the same chain they also said "How about you learn your place as westoids, your role is to destroy your empire from within. That’s it. It is never, ever to criticize the targets of your imperialist empire and align with them. To use rhetorical tricks to obfuscate the truth of the one-sided evil that must be destroyed"

    So which is it? Is it true that westerners can somehow gain truth through critical assessment of sources, or that westerners are unable to be critical of the positions of those struggling against western empire? If both these statements are simultaneously true, then the seeking out the truth about the situation is purely an academic and recreational exercise since the application of that knowledge (i.e. making a critique) is considered unacceptable.

    It's an incoherent framing with the goal of portraying Russia positively and shielding it from criticism.

    • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Vaguely implying all Russian media is propaganda is not assessing any truth. It’s repeating Liberal ideology. It’s mystifying, it does not lead to any further understanding but is a thought-terminating knee-jerk Liberal chauvinist reflex

      • Hmm [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Except I'm not vaguely implying anything about Russian media. You made a strong statement that you have seen no false or deceptive reporting about what's been happening. Those are your words.

        Some of the responses to you in that comment chain clearly show that isn't the case with the example of the Moskva coverage.

        • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          The original comment that started that thread was implying it by calling Russian media propaganda that was just as bad as western propaganda.

          It’s not “just as bad” and if you think that you are a chauvinist. It’s that simple

          • space_comrade [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            What makes you think it's not just as bad? Every time I've touched pro-Russian news sourced they always presented info that makes Russia seem like the good guy and as the clearly winning side.

            How am I, with limited knowledge of how warfare works, supposed to ascertain what is propaganda and what isn't?

            • D61 [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Its all going to be propaganda. That's not the problem, we're all smart enough to realize this.

              But which propaganda is more truthful and which is less truthful is where the money is. Western sources are doing a bang up job of making shit up whole cloth right now and Russian sources have less reason to.

              • anoncpc [comrade/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Russian source exaggerated event, while western source put up ghost of Kiev, snake island, glorifying Nazi and put them on the front page, give Ukraine hope that they going to take back crimea. I know which is worst out of the two

                • D61 [any]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  I just don't think trying to figure out which is "worse" is useful. I think we can get more utility out of trying to figure out "what the propaganda is for" from our sources.

            • anoncpc [comrade/them]
              ·
              3 years ago

              I touched pro Russian propaganda and most of them is just exaggerating event, not fabricated ghost of Kiev, snake island , put up illusion that Ukraine going to take back crimea and Donbass, put video games footage as war footage. At that point, western propaganda just putting up fake news

              • space_comrade [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                I asked a legitimate question. It seems you're just biased and don't really have the answer.

                • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  My bias is pro-colonized of the world and anti-imperialist, you got me. I should be more neutral and consider the empire the same as it’s colonies, you are right! Why didn’t I think of that?

                  Next time I’ll make sure I don’t prioritize the interests of the workers over that of the bourgeois either

                  • Hmm [none/use name]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 years ago

                    It's interesting how you didn't respond to the second half of my first comment in this chain.

                    Allow me to pose a different question: How can you distinguish between anti-imperialism and countries trying to make plays for being an empire? For example, after the end of Japanese isolationism in the 19th century, by way of US Gunboat Diplomacy, a common position among those with political power in Japan became that the country needed to become an empire in order to avoid becoming a colony.

                    If we can't make the distinction between the two then we're just going to fall into conflating being against a specific empire with anti-imperialism more broadly. Iirc one of the lines of thinking of German Social Democrats in supporting the war effort during World War I was that a German victory was preferable to the triumph of the at-the-time dominant British Empire, which was the center of global finance capital. I think we want to avoid a mistake like that being repeated.

                  • space_comrade [he/him]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 years ago

                    I literally just asked how do you personally distinguish fact from propaganda and you immediately started acting like a little bitch about it.

                • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Ok so if Iran and Hezbollah invaded and liberated Palestine you would call them “imperialist capitalists” and condemn their “aggressive invasion”?

                  Or is that different somehow? Because you have internalized Russophobia

          • Hmm [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I'm not saying anything about one being more bad than the other or them being equally bad.

            You're allowed to say that your claim that I linked is too strong in retrospect but that we nonetheless should consider Russian media coverage to be better than Western coverage. (Whether or not I agree with that is a different question.)