This is where you lose all credibility. The nutcases. If it were just the nutcases, then fine. But I question if masks are appropriate in schools, and I’m suddenly a anti-vax covid-denying fox news worshipping mindless covidiot who at all costs must be stopped from spreading such terrible misinformation. We could be 90% in agreement, but that 10% gets me labeled as a terrible horrible no good very bad villian who is ok with sacrificing your children and killing your grandma and you couldnt possibly be remotely associated with because you’re so much better than me.
I participated in a sports site, at a time when a football player was being raked over the coals for not being vaccinated, and “not doing everything he could to ensure he’d be available for his team”. I merely pointed out that all the vaccinated players walking around the locker room without masks were also not doing everything they could to ensure they’d be available for their team, and I was banned for spreading covid misinformation. I kid you not. That is why every gets so pissed off about it. It isnt “tech companies deciding they dont want to associate with the nutcases”. It’s tech companies indulging the nutcases to prop up a questionable political narrative.
I watch some youtube channels from Russian folks. Nothing political, just traveling through Russian cities and showing cuisine, old architecture, banyas, ASMR, …This past week several of them deleted old videos, turned-off the comments section, etc. and explained they risked 10 years in prison if posters were to say the wrong things.
Last I saw, nobody in the States ends up sentenced to prison for criticizing, ridiculing, of pointing out wrongs in the government whether it’s about GOP administrations or Dems administrations.
Please, let’s not equate the abuses of a tyrant megalomaniac with what takes place as part of political discourse in the West.
I was just taking a shot at CNN because they’ve been so bad and overtly political in recent years, and their agenda takes a back seat to accuracy. For example, calling Rogan’s ivermectin “horse dewormer” when they knew full well he took the human proscribed version after he told them, etc. Even the leftists are sick of their lies -
But I’m all for them dying under the free market as they lose more and more subscribers, as they seem to be doing just fine on their own. Of course if Biden’s going to criminalize spreading “misinformation” under his new DOJ, let’s see them justify their stances just as much Fox News or whoever else they might want to target.
I didn’t. I equated the setting of standards for acceptable rhetoric. Im pretty sure I made no mention about the punishments for violating those standards. Not allowing potentially damning commentary is not allowing potentially damning commentary, whether the consequence of doing so is a strongly worded warning or decades in prison.
Exactly. I have been behind the Iron Curtain. We had a run-in with the police, entirely their mistake and once we got past the language barrier (it ended up being my mother and the official communicating in very broken German, a language neither had used since school) they realized it also. Then came the hard part–they needed to document things and needed a report filled out. In Romanian. Oops–that’s a police matter, nobody would translate for us. (Finally a businessman from Vienna overheard our problem and offered to help, knowing we wouldn’t find any local help.) That’s a police state.
What is? A country that that doesn’t provide translators in every police station? I’m not saying Romania (if that’s where you were) is not a police state, but don’t see the specific problem that got your knickers in a twist.
Dude or dudette or Californian, if that screams police state to you, I grew up in a police state and didn’t even know it. I can also take you to a couple of dozen zip codes today that fit your definition (or screams) of a police state.
Do you also think that Pres Joseph Biden turned the U.S. into a police state with all of his mandates related to the China (not Chinese) virus? There were lots of places outside of urban areas which didn’t want to have anything to do with mask police.
You misunderstand. This wasn’t a case of don’t talk to the police. This was a case of refusing to help translate because it was a police form. The cops would never even know who helped translate it, but they were still afraid.
our betters at Facebook decided that calls for violence against Russian or death to Putin are allowed as long as they’re in the context of the Ukraine conflict.
Facebook - If we didn’t have double standards, we’d have no standards at all
You’re also allowed to praise the Nazi Ukrainian forces. Thank goodness for Facebook telling me, otherwise I would have thought we hated Nazis. But here, we sided with the Nazis in Ukraine against the Russians back in the 2014 coup so they’re the good guys now.
You’ve got to stop believing and spreading Russian propaganda. I already mentioned that I’m sure there were/are a few Nazis in Ukraine, but they didn’t have any real power. Putin took a tiny bit of truth and made it look like Ukraine’s government is all Nazis.
Even the good leftists at Salon tell me about them, but maybe they’re just a branch of Izvestia these days? Heck, their leader was elected to parliament there for a number of years after the coup we lead.
Right Sector formed a battalion, and neo-Nazis also dominated the Azov Battalion, which was founded by Andriy Biletsky, an avowed white supremacist who claimed that Ukraine’s national purpose was to rid the country of Jews and other inferior races. It was the Azov battalion that led the post-coup government’s assault on the self-declared republics and retook the city of Mariupol from separatist forces.
And one of their commanders lead had senior positions in the police and defense ministry of the Ukrainian government until just a few months ago.
I get that Putin doesn’t actually care about Nazis (as opposed to NATO aggression), but they’re definitely there and fighting the Russians (including the Russians in eastern Ukraine before this invasion) and have been for nearly a decade now.
A small group with no political power or support from voters. Ukraine would have dealt with them on their own, without Russia’s “help”. Russia put Ukraine between a rock and a hard place, since these neo-nazis were willing to fight against the Russian incursion. The enemy of my enemy.
I think Biden is currently operating under “the friend of my enemy is my friend” as long as they might have oil for sale, ie Venezuela, Iran, Saudi. meanwhile, the Iranian deal must be close if they’re already shooting missiles at our military in Iraq in celebration - “Death to American!”
BREAKING: Iranian Revolutionary Guards claim responsibility for Erbil missile attack, call targeted area the ‘center of the Zionist conspiracy’
The only reason they’re all “friends” with Russia is because they’re all communists or autocrats or otherwise destabilizing or antithetical to democracy, and we’ve been their enemy. It’s a friendship of convenience. But at this point they’re much less of a threat to us than Russia, so maybe we can buy their friendship, even if temporarily.
Touching on censorship as well as some of the facts regarding Ukraine conflict.
This is an interview with the guy who made the political mistake of telling the truth about no WMDs in Iraq when the US wanted a war. Here he’s interviewed about Russia / Ukraine.
Interestingly, YouTube banned the video and the whole channel just a day or two after it came out, with the error saying “not available in your country”, but apparently multiple VPN locations still didn’t work so I think it’s banned globally and they’re just saying this to make it look less obvious.
CIA running a disinformation campaign trying to push for regime change in Russia, which is where a lot of the pro-Ukraine stuff is coming from
Russian army has been moderate in their methods so far, trying to avoid fighting or killing civilians to the extent possible (but that didn’t go so well since the Ukrainians decided to fight)
Ukrainian forces are losing badly and will lose for sure in the end
Expects EU to cave on sanctions and such if it gets bad enough Russia stops selling them energy and their costs explode
Ukraine had been a red line for NATO expansion for over a decade and we’d been training them with NATO forces, equipping them, etc, for a while now
The Nazis in Ukraine have a fair bit of power even if not a huge group, mentioned they killed a prior Ukraine diplomat who suggested a more pro Russian stance than they wanted
Very interesting, and very much aligned with Putin’s point of view. Remember to take it with a grain bucket of salt, since Scott Ritter has been writing op-eds for Russia’s RT for the past 2 years.
