It comes down to what you genuinely believe in and it scares me tremendously, I believe no life is worth more than another and weāre all the same, with that thought I think why should we be ok and live and go about our business when Ukrainians who want what we have are dying at the hands of a fascist tyrant, why is it right that we stand by so they can be sacrificed? Is that fair?
The Russian people are prisoners in this also but can we seriously sell out Ukraine so we can live? What sort of democracy or standard is that?
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Astonishing
Equally, there are some concerns about that. The Geneva Convention for one.
Regarding protecting identity of captives etc.
But we are old enough to have watched images of John Nichol & other cptives in Iraq t realise this is a different level
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How old is this guy? Looks well over 40.
Yeah, I saw that earlier, not convinced TBHā¦
Looks pretty convincing to me. Sounds like a decent guy talks a lot of sense. But you never know. Fear for his family in Russia and him if he ever goes back.
Like something I put up just up there?
If Ukraine borders go back to where they were pre 2014 and elections were held in those regions for self determination with outside observers seeing theyāre open to all and transparent that could open the way for Ukraine to join if they cede as itāll give Russia the buffer they supposedly want, itāll call out Putin on his true intentions for sure.
If Donbas, Luhansk and Crimea all went to independent states of their own (in reality satellites of Russia) there could be a linked in time lined accession to votes on the EU and NATO.
That is of course if Russia wouldnāt create another war/invasion to stop democracy.
This will have to be verified, Ukraine are winning the information war as you would expect as Russia internally only has their mouthpieces now and nothing outside, the very fact that all news sources arenāt now available, protests daily and sanctions are so wide ranging even the average non political Russian will be able to see there is something at play here and maybe they instigated the whole thing.
Some interesting stuff on Timcast concerning RT America.
The station has just laid off all its staff in the US after being shut down on account of the invasion.
I think closing down media stations, whether done by us or Putin, is a load of shit and makes me wonder what the leaders are worried about what people might hear.
Some of the stuff here is even more concerning. Lee Camp, presenter of Redacted Tonight, has had his personal podcast taken off Spotify. Itās guilt by association and black listing, folks. Twenty first century neo-McCarthyism.
Itās like everyone is playing a gigantic game of āwho can forget the most lessons of historyā.
For balance youāve got to add you get 15 years for spreading news in Russia from the west, RT is a dreadful laughable mouthpiece for Putin, that and Fox.
Yeah, but thatās better than being shot for being a journalist in post-2014 Ukraine.
RT is like every other state-owned outlet. It is propaganda of the state. Now those of us that realise that and can keep that in mind can get some value out of it.
People used to be able to watch them all and make their own assessments with that āitās all propagandaā mantra in mind.
If you want dirt on somebody, you donāt ask their best friend. You ask their worst enemy.
It is propaganda and serves no purpose other than to further Putins agenda, why would you what to be a part of that?
Journalists are shot, killed and go missing everywhere Pap, another Russian bullet they like to shoot with, the thing is I could list lots of killed journalists under Putins regime, again letās be fair and no one is making out Ukraine isnāt a bastion of civil rights and freedoms, they want to be become better though, Putin wants to drag them back.
Thatās the trouble though isnāt it, and not that I agree with them being pulled, there are people out there that canāt make that assessment and take everything at face value.
People take their news sources for confirmation bias, and theyāll believe what they see because they want to.
So if Russia says that the Ukraine PM is a modern day Nazi they will believe it.
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Well you could argue, with decades of evidence, that despite the claims of impartiality, that the BBC has no other agenda than to prop up the British state. Should we bin that for the same reasons as RT?
Also, for someone who complains about āwhatabouttteryā, Iām loving your response to journalists being killed in Ukraine.
Itās actually quite an outrage for a journalist to be killed, Barry. When it has happened here, such as with Jill Dando, it dominated the news for months.
The consequences of that outrage do seem rather selective though. No-one seems to be taking the Ukrainians or Saudis to task for it.
Iād love to reply telling you that people are more intelligent, but in general, they arenāt. Iām just back from Southampton and the old dear and her mates are lapping it up.
That is why it is important to have the argument. People canāt take two competing views at face value. Theyāll either have to reject one of the accounts or reconcile them.
All you achieve when you remove TV stations (I donāt agree with the removal of Press TV either) is to remove a voice from the argument.
Of course itās an outrage, itās a disgrace, warrants being invaded by another nation? The whataboutery is a nation gets invaded Pap and people say journalists were murdered after 2014, thats whatsboutery.
But you banned my brother as he disagreed with you over Begum, seems hypocritical or viewing things through a narrow view.
No, I banned him because he was a tedious cunt.
He spent all his waking hours screaming about a very narrow agenda, abusing people who didnāt agree with him and pissing half the site off.
To be fair I think it was more than half.
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