HOWEVER. (And here's where we discover if their perfidy is beyond recourse)
Many in the 4th Estate seem to think it a valid course of action to just...ignore it when people call them out. Or, alternatively, gaslight the accuser. "No, YOU are a Russian asset!"
They seem to be unafraid of being caught in their whorish behavior, confident they will be able to ignore, gaslight or handwave it away. Not so many years ago I would have considered that outlandish. Now...I don't know.
Read 1984. They are not afraid of being caught. The whole point is to be caught and called out so they can identify those who will repeat the lie and those in further need of re-education.
Right. Yes, we're serving ourselves and deception is one of our greatest tools, along with cognitive dissonance. The truth is too terrible to believe. WTF are you going to do about it? Like being diagnosed with terminal impotency. Akin to how the mafia wants you to know whose responsible for the killing only GOV is the biggest gang there is.
Yes, this is precisely the problem. Since all of mass and social media are in thrall to the same forces, they can lie with total disregard for consequences, secure in the knowledge that no one will call them out.
I'm interested in watching The New York _Times_ try to figure out how to survive as a newspaper when it loses the subcribers it deserves to lose. The same goes for CNN, MS-NBC, and all the others who sell out the principles of honest journalistic practice.
Honestly, eventually, people shall figure out that they don't _have_ to frequent MacDonald's, belong to Facebook, use Twitter, Google or Amazon, pay to be lied to by cable television or any for-profit press.
When, at a restaurant, you're served crappy food, you can send it back. If the restaurant won't replace it with something good, you can leave--and you don't have to come back. Those who do deserve what they get.
Well, you are more optimistic about woke media implosion than I am. Such a scenario would require critical thinking skills of the readership, which I would suggest is nowhere in evidence. We have had at least six years of this gaslighting from the prestige press and their popularity (if we can use NYT subscription numbers as a proxy) has only grown.
in fact, I'm no more optimistic than are you in your assessment. My "eventually" is nowhere to be found in even the not-so-distant future. What I poject as an eventual correction is, I agree, as you write, currently "nowhere in evidence" today. But my faith is based on the fact that for certain periods of the past--however briefly--people here or there have shown themselves to have been not quite as absurdly stupid as in these, our times.
You would have to be an idiot to take at face value Ukraine reports about Russian problems... and Russian reports of Russian triumphs. It's a war. What you hear may be true. It may be false. Be wary of anyone whose narrative aligns with their interests.
Bit more than? Civilization was an early favorite of mine and that was early 90s.
But in all seriousness, Ace Combat is a goofy Japanese fighter plane game and the whole Ghost thing just felt like one of their plot lines. It was uncanny and weird.
I do know at least one general was killed. Which is very telling. That shows how Russians fight. Their generals are actually leading the troops. Not sitting in bunkers.
Body counts are the kind of things that will get worked out by historians. In conditions like Ukraine no one is keeping reliable counts. The US military is wealthy enough that they try to recover every lost soldier. As a result they do keep good counts, they just don't publish then. As for Russian KIAs, the Ukrainian figure is probably inflated, the NATO/Pentagon. figure seems more reasonable, the Russian MOD figure seems absurdly low. When its is all said and done, the real numbers will emerge. That said, I've seen a lot of images of Russian troops rotting in open fields and woods, or charred in military vehicles. Its anyone counts ting them? There is chaos in war, calamities invite chaos. We still don't have an exact count of the people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. There were people that just vanished but there was simply no body to confirm a death.
Well, of course, with time the fog of war will dissipate and a lot of things will get much clearer.
Where do you think NATO/Pentagon get their numbers? Where does Kiev? How did they arrive at the 15000? Did they count dead Russians? How can they, as they are retreating everywhere?
Did you read the article I provided?
I've seen a lot of images of Azov Nazis rotting in the civilian apartment buildings they holed up in. What does that prove? Besides the claims of them using human shields?
So, it appears that indeed some confirmation bias is at work here somewhere if you think that the US numbers are correct.
To your point about the Americans, I think that US command and communications systems are at play, big time, on the Ukrainian side. It may be the single most important factor in Ukraine’s success to date. Given the best communications technology, I imagine that would give the US the best chance of keeping a reliable tab on casualties. I may be wrong, but given the apparent problems with Russian field communications, I imagine all of their numbers are being pulled out of someone’s ass.
The tragedy of the U.S. body-counts of the Viet Cong (K.I.A.) _wasn't_ their acccuracy. The figures were _accurate_ and there was really no need to have falsely inflated them. Indeed, the problem was that the war's leaders' placed such total faith in the _significance_ of that accuracy--being the Harvard and Yale accountancy-trained bean-counters that they were. McNamara (Harvard M.B.A.) came from Ford Motors' executive ranks: "McNamara's style of 'scientific management' with his use of computer spreadsheets featuring graphs showing trends in the auto industry were regarded as extremely innovative in the 1950s and were much copied by other executives in the following decades." Wikipedia)
Great points and it makes you wonder when the US will stop relying on Ivy’s business or international relations schools - and now law schools. Related was the huge push for Japans’s group management style which ultimately leaves no one accountable - hence our public health debacles recently and the franchising of MacMayo and Cleveland Clinics to Internal Medicine practices.
The history of Mariupol will be written some day soon. The internal communication between military units will become public. There are masses of images. Survivors will explain their experiences. Soldiers will reminisce. A war trial tribunal might even take depositions. I tend to put a lot more store in the Ukrainian narrative these days because there are hundreds of independent journalists at loose behind Ukrainian lines. Not so behind Russian Lines. I may be mistaken but all the journos I’ve seen with the Russians are embedded. When the US invaded Iraq, only embedded reporters were allowed in. It turned out, not surprisingly, that these reporters had a very skewed, pro-US military bias. As for Mariupol, I consider Russian military strategy in Aleppo and Grozny to be somewhat typical of the Russian strategic approach to war, i.e., bomb the shit out of everything so that you can have clear, levels fields of fire when you send in the tanks. Sounds like Mariupol. I don’t believe Azov had the wherewithal to level Mariupol the way the satellite images show. Anyway, all of the independent journalists in Mariupol are gone. All information from there is suspect. As for deaths, the Russians are claiming 40,000 Ukrainian Army deaths. I believe that to be a bullshit figure. They have also indicated that they may be shifting their forces to Donbas because they are stalled elsewhere. The Russians may be claiming 40,000 Ukrainian military deaths to sell back to the home crowds, claiming that they lost a shitload of men but the Ukes lost a shitload more. Such is war. You package victory any way you can.
There is credible evidence that it was Azov who blew up the theater.
If you want survivor accounts - ethnic Greek who escaped Azov from Mariupol are giving accounts on Greek TV.
There are videos of civilians shot and killed as they are trying to drive away. Do you honestly believe it were Russians shooting at them?
Whatever journalists may be behind the Ukrainian lines are reporting exactly what is expected of them - see the main article we are commenting on. As Chomsky said - if they had a different opinion they wouldn't be allowed to be there. Do you truly think a counternarrative would be printed if provided?
There are reporters on the Russian side, even on YouTube. Telegram has tons more.
Russian strategy is to surround a city, establish a humanitarian corridor, let civilians and deserters leave. Whoever is left - that's their date with the destiny.
Unlike what the US did in Raqqa.
There are reports from civilians claiming Ukrainians shooting at apartment buildings before retreating. True? Why not? They've been shelling civilians for almost 8 years.
My understanding is that Russians are claiming 30000 casualties (11%). 14,000 (5%) dead, 16,000 (6%) wounded.
Equipment losses are staggering. 73% aircraft. 97% Turkish drones (a new one was just delivered; Hungary didn't let the plane carrying it fly over its territory). Air defense 82%.
If that means Ukraine is winning and Russians have stalled, what does losing look like?
As for the 'stalling' - nobody except the Russian leadership knows the real plan. I can guess they are not interested in leveling Kiev. They are interested in having the current government sign certain documents. Kinda hard to do when they are all dead.
Who writes the history? Whose history? The version that you'll be allowed to consume. You likely won't live long enough to find any objective truth, even if your possessed and dedicated enough to seek it. You might like spending that time on other interests. History is being rewritten all the time.
Btw, do the freelance reporters write about the depraved shit Ukronazis do? They dial mothers of dead Russian soldiers and talk all kinds of shit. Western values. Right?
As I've explained to you before on more than one occasion, one piece of information - a single news story - should not be believed without corroboration. Your posts lead me to believe you have some type of cognitive disability. I won't be answering any more of your posts until you can give me a number of bill. I'm not your therapist.
It were you, my friend who was all giddy with the reports from Ukrainian propagandists about the number of Russian generals killed. You don't seem to want to acknowledge the reports that prick your balloon.
Please submit a copy of your insurance. Once we get the billing settled, we will get to work on your diagnosis. Until you provide that information, we are unable to continue on your therapy. Thank you.
Unfortunately, the insurance information that you provided was not valid. Please doublecheck the information you sent. Without valid billing information we cannot continue to provide you with treatment. If you do not have insurance, or your own funds, we would be happy to forward a list of providers who are willing to accept indigence cases on a pro bono basis. Good luck in the future.
I really want to hear what the Intercept editors have to say for themselves. How can they ever show themselves in public after this? I'd love to hear from Ryan too.
The Intercept is a hollowed out shell. The Trump years ripped the mask of objectivity away from very wide swaths of the US media and academe. If you read the comment sections of the NYT and the WaPo these days, it is largely filled with kool-aid drinkers. You can read a recipe in cooking omelets, for example, and there will be assholes complaining that eggs just don’t taste right anymore since Trump was President and how Jared Kushner is responsible. Sadly these comments get a lot of likes.
This is 24/7 news cycle. Ignoring failures has become the industry norm. Highly insulated. Getting paid for different reasons. Clicks and likes and macro narratives. The truth is subjective. Bigger fish to fry. Winning elections, for example.
I agree, calling them out by name is important. That’s the beauty of the internet, liars have a hard time denying their sins.
HOWEVER. (And here's where we discover if their perfidy is beyond recourse)
Many in the 4th Estate seem to think it a valid course of action to just...ignore it when people call them out. Or, alternatively, gaslight the accuser. "No, YOU are a Russian asset!"
They seem to be unafraid of being caught in their whorish behavior, confident they will be able to ignore, gaslight or handwave it away. Not so many years ago I would have considered that outlandish. Now...I don't know.
Read 1984. They are not afraid of being caught. The whole point is to be caught and called out so they can identify those who will repeat the lie and those in further need of re-education.
Right. Yes, we're serving ourselves and deception is one of our greatest tools, along with cognitive dissonance. The truth is too terrible to believe. WTF are you going to do about it? Like being diagnosed with terminal impotency. Akin to how the mafia wants you to know whose responsible for the killing only GOV is the biggest gang there is.
Absolutely no accountability in late stage America(except disorderly tourists)
Yes, this is precisely the problem. Since all of mass and social media are in thrall to the same forces, they can lie with total disregard for consequences, secure in the knowledge that no one will call them out.
I'm interested in watching The New York _Times_ try to figure out how to survive as a newspaper when it loses the subcribers it deserves to lose. The same goes for CNN, MS-NBC, and all the others who sell out the principles of honest journalistic practice.
Honestly, eventually, people shall figure out that they don't _have_ to frequent MacDonald's, belong to Facebook, use Twitter, Google or Amazon, pay to be lied to by cable television or any for-profit press.
When, at a restaurant, you're served crappy food, you can send it back. If the restaurant won't replace it with something good, you can leave--and you don't have to come back. Those who do deserve what they get.
Well, you are more optimistic about woke media implosion than I am. Such a scenario would require critical thinking skills of the readership, which I would suggest is nowhere in evidence. We have had at least six years of this gaslighting from the prestige press and their popularity (if we can use NYT subscription numbers as a proxy) has only grown.
in fact, I'm no more optimistic than are you in your assessment. My "eventually" is nowhere to be found in even the not-so-distant future. What I poject as an eventual correction is, I agree, as you write, currently "nowhere in evidence" today. But my faith is based on the fact that for certain periods of the past--however briefly--people here or there have shown themselves to have been not quite as absurdly stupid as in these, our times.
Are you, in fact, ready to denounce the Ghost of Kiev?
You would have to be an idiot to take at face value Ukraine reports about Russian problems... and Russian reports of Russian triumphs. It's a war. What you hear may be true. It may be false. Be wary of anyone whose narrative aligns with their interests.
Indeed. each side distributes propaganda. Fortunately, there is more than just the official sources.
Every bad actor writing their own scripts. Hollywood's gift to the global community. Can't wait for the awards ceremonies.
It strikes me that the worst Ace Combat game was Assault Horizon. It was placed in the real world too, just like the Ghost.
Can't say I can relate. The last game I played was Quake ||. Oh and after that I played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. That was what, 20 years ago?
Bit more than? Civilization was an early favorite of mine and that was early 90s.
But in all seriousness, Ace Combat is a goofy Japanese fighter plane game and the whole Ghost thing just felt like one of their plot lines. It was uncanny and weird.
I don’t suppose you believe the reported body count of Russian generals either.
Reported by who?
No. Of course I do not. I don't believe the narrative spun about the Russian body count. Do see the link below.
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/03/i-know-it-hurts-but.html
https://waronfakes.com/
I do know at least one general was killed. Which is very telling. That shows how Russians fight. Their generals are actually leading the troops. Not sitting in bunkers.
Body counts are the kind of things that will get worked out by historians. In conditions like Ukraine no one is keeping reliable counts. The US military is wealthy enough that they try to recover every lost soldier. As a result they do keep good counts, they just don't publish then. As for Russian KIAs, the Ukrainian figure is probably inflated, the NATO/Pentagon. figure seems more reasonable, the Russian MOD figure seems absurdly low. When its is all said and done, the real numbers will emerge. That said, I've seen a lot of images of Russian troops rotting in open fields and woods, or charred in military vehicles. Its anyone counts ting them? There is chaos in war, calamities invite chaos. We still don't have an exact count of the people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. There were people that just vanished but there was simply no body to confirm a death.
Still innocent. Touching.
Well, of course, with time the fog of war will dissipate and a lot of things will get much clearer.
Where do you think NATO/Pentagon get their numbers? Where does Kiev? How did they arrive at the 15000? Did they count dead Russians? How can they, as they are retreating everywhere?
Did you read the article I provided?
I've seen a lot of images of Azov Nazis rotting in the civilian apartment buildings they holed up in. What does that prove? Besides the claims of them using human shields?
So, it appears that indeed some confirmation bias is at work here somewhere if you think that the US numbers are correct.
To your point about the Americans, I think that US command and communications systems are at play, big time, on the Ukrainian side. It may be the single most important factor in Ukraine’s success to date. Given the best communications technology, I imagine that would give the US the best chance of keeping a reliable tab on casualties. I may be wrong, but given the apparent problems with Russian field communications, I imagine all of their numbers are being pulled out of someone’s ass.
What communication problems? For Russians?
Didn't they take out most of the field communication gear of Ukronazis?
Yes, please refer to IS Viet Nam body counts that were sh*t
Quite right! You make a good point.
The tragedy of the U.S. body-counts of the Viet Cong (K.I.A.) _wasn't_ their acccuracy. The figures were _accurate_ and there was really no need to have falsely inflated them. Indeed, the problem was that the war's leaders' placed such total faith in the _significance_ of that accuracy--being the Harvard and Yale accountancy-trained bean-counters that they were. McNamara (Harvard M.B.A.) came from Ford Motors' executive ranks: "McNamara's style of 'scientific management' with his use of computer spreadsheets featuring graphs showing trends in the auto industry were regarded as extremely innovative in the 1950s and were much copied by other executives in the following decades." Wikipedia)
Great points and it makes you wonder when the US will stop relying on Ivy’s business or international relations schools - and now law schools. Related was the huge push for Japans’s group management style which ultimately leaves no one accountable - hence our public health debacles recently and the franchising of MacMayo and Cleveland Clinics to Internal Medicine practices.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/ukraine-nato-united-states-russian-casualties/
I don’t trust the US govt. history of lying.
The history of Mariupol will be written some day soon. The internal communication between military units will become public. There are masses of images. Survivors will explain their experiences. Soldiers will reminisce. A war trial tribunal might even take depositions. I tend to put a lot more store in the Ukrainian narrative these days because there are hundreds of independent journalists at loose behind Ukrainian lines. Not so behind Russian Lines. I may be mistaken but all the journos I’ve seen with the Russians are embedded. When the US invaded Iraq, only embedded reporters were allowed in. It turned out, not surprisingly, that these reporters had a very skewed, pro-US military bias. As for Mariupol, I consider Russian military strategy in Aleppo and Grozny to be somewhat typical of the Russian strategic approach to war, i.e., bomb the shit out of everything so that you can have clear, levels fields of fire when you send in the tanks. Sounds like Mariupol. I don’t believe Azov had the wherewithal to level Mariupol the way the satellite images show. Anyway, all of the independent journalists in Mariupol are gone. All information from there is suspect. As for deaths, the Russians are claiming 40,000 Ukrainian Army deaths. I believe that to be a bullshit figure. They have also indicated that they may be shifting their forces to Donbas because they are stalled elsewhere. The Russians may be claiming 40,000 Ukrainian military deaths to sell back to the home crowds, claiming that they lost a shitload of men but the Ukes lost a shitload more. Such is war. You package victory any way you can.
There is credible evidence that it was Azov who blew up the theater.
If you want survivor accounts - ethnic Greek who escaped Azov from Mariupol are giving accounts on Greek TV.
There are videos of civilians shot and killed as they are trying to drive away. Do you honestly believe it were Russians shooting at them?
Whatever journalists may be behind the Ukrainian lines are reporting exactly what is expected of them - see the main article we are commenting on. As Chomsky said - if they had a different opinion they wouldn't be allowed to be there. Do you truly think a counternarrative would be printed if provided?
There are reporters on the Russian side, even on YouTube. Telegram has tons more.
Russian strategy is to surround a city, establish a humanitarian corridor, let civilians and deserters leave. Whoever is left - that's their date with the destiny.
Unlike what the US did in Raqqa.
There are reports from civilians claiming Ukrainians shooting at apartment buildings before retreating. True? Why not? They've been shelling civilians for almost 8 years.
My understanding is that Russians are claiming 30000 casualties (11%). 14,000 (5%) dead, 16,000 (6%) wounded.
Equipment losses are staggering. 73% aircraft. 97% Turkish drones (a new one was just delivered; Hungary didn't let the plane carrying it fly over its territory). Air defense 82%.
If that means Ukraine is winning and Russians have stalled, what does losing look like?
As for the 'stalling' - nobody except the Russian leadership knows the real plan. I can guess they are not interested in leveling Kiev. They are interested in having the current government sign certain documents. Kinda hard to do when they are all dead.
Too soon to tell.
Only when it's your side.
Good one, Finster. I’m gonna use that comeback if I ever go back to 5th grade.
Who writes the history? Whose history? The version that you'll be allowed to consume. You likely won't live long enough to find any objective truth, even if your possessed and dedicated enough to seek it. You might like spending that time on other interests. History is being rewritten all the time.
Even harder to do when one seeks only his/her preferred version of a history.
Btw, do the freelance reporters write about the depraved shit Ukronazis do? They dial mothers of dead Russian soldiers and talk all kinds of shit. Western values. Right?
Fog of war. Clarity will take years/decades if ever
Turns out at least one of the dead generals is alive and well. I saw a video of him from yesterday. Probably a Russian fake, eh?
As I've explained to you before on more than one occasion, one piece of information - a single news story - should not be believed without corroboration. Your posts lead me to believe you have some type of cognitive disability. I won't be answering any more of your posts until you can give me a number of bill. I'm not your therapist.
It were you, my friend who was all giddy with the reports from Ukrainian propagandists about the number of Russian generals killed. You don't seem to want to acknowledge the reports that prick your balloon.
Please submit a copy of your insurance. Once we get the billing settled, we will get to work on your diagnosis. Until you provide that information, we are unable to continue on your therapy. Thank you.
You are funny, Mr. Kopek. Will you be posting corrections to your 'just one story' posts online depicting One General Mordvichev as killed?
Unfortunately, the insurance information that you provided was not valid. Please doublecheck the information you sent. Without valid billing information we cannot continue to provide you with treatment. If you do not have insurance, or your own funds, we would be happy to forward a list of providers who are willing to accept indigence cases on a pro bono basis. Good luck in the future.
I guess you will continue to flaunt the blatantly false information. Your choice.
You do. That's what's important.
I really want to hear what the Intercept editors have to say for themselves. How can they ever show themselves in public after this? I'd love to hear from Ryan too.
The Intercept is a hollowed out shell. The Trump years ripped the mask of objectivity away from very wide swaths of the US media and academe. If you read the comment sections of the NYT and the WaPo these days, it is largely filled with kool-aid drinkers. You can read a recipe in cooking omelets, for example, and there will be assholes complaining that eggs just don’t taste right anymore since Trump was President and how Jared Kushner is responsible. Sadly these comments get a lot of likes.
This is 24/7 news cycle. Ignoring failures has become the industry norm. Highly insulated. Getting paid for different reasons. Clicks and likes and macro narratives. The truth is subjective. Bigger fish to fry. Winning elections, for example.