Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

The Fine print: The following are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

When sources are more important than facts

Journal by khallow
I've been keeping up with the Ukraine conflict. I find it interesting how the proponents of the Russian side rely heavily on fallacies, whataboutism, and other dishonest rhetoric.

One of the more peculiar stances is an ad hominem where the news media of most of the developed world is partially or completely disregarded. Here's an example:

[Pav:] You don't seem to want to realise no mainstream source will ever give you a reason to believe anything that would make you less willing to pay taxes to defence companies. Perhaps you own some shares, or feel you benefit in some other way? I suppose it IS within the realm of possibility, though only by cosmic accident. It IS strangely fascinating and amusing talking to someone who is a true believer in the broken window fallacy (probably in the form of post WWII parables).

If you look at Pav's other postings on this, it's a remarkable dysfunctional chain of this crap. Even when he cites links, not a one supports his claims. For example:

[Pav:] Right.

This post contains Pav's defective arguments in a nutshell. It's just a story about the Ukrainian Prime Minister whining about his allies' statements with counterwhining from sources associated with the allies. What we actually had been speaking about at that point in the thread was violence, psychopaths, and corrupt oligarchs, none of which found their way into Pav's source.

Here's another example. MSNBC gets photobombed (they showed uncritically neo-nazi symbols on the uniforms of the soldiers involved in the video) by the Azov Battallion, which a genuine neo-nazi military unit in the Ukrainian military. So what? This is far from the first time covert product placement has been a thing in military news.

Another example is a blogger link from this post. It's just a few pages of pulling stuff out of the author's ass confidently. For example:

Ukraine’s President Zelensky told visiting US Senators in early June that the country’s military defense against Russia and the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline are inextricably intertwined.

Once the project is completed, Ukraine will be deprived of the funds required to fund defense spending and defend Europe’s eastern border.

“Nord Stream 2 will cut Ukraine off from gas supplies, which will cost us at least USD 3 billion per year.”

Zelensky, always the joker, wants Russia to pay $3 billion per year so he personally can defend Europe from Russia who is paying him.

Notice how the author smoothly transitions from a fact - that Zelensky stated that closing a particular pipeline would cost the Ukraine a lot of money - to the unsubstantiated claim that Zelensky then wants Russia to pay for it. This is then further logically mangled into the idea that it somehow explains the Ukraine-Russian friction we're seeing now.

Zelensky’s Ukraine is shuffling Europe, NATO, and the US closer and closer to the line where one mistake in diplomacy, one stupid move by any of Ukraine’s infamous Neanderthal nationalist volunteers, and bang!

Let us further note that such infamy is only on the Russian supporters side. Somehow everyone else has come to grips with the reality that there's a small number of fascists/neo-nazis in the Ukraine military. My favorite quote of this batch:

In response to this, Ukraine mobilized over ½ its army or over 170,000 troops to the frontline with all the heavy weapons at its disposal accompanying them.

This force was a supposed counter to the Russian invasion army, which again, was just over the border.

In reality, the Russian army staged planned war games near the city of Yelnya, 160 miles (257 kilometers) from the Ukrainian border. You read that right, the Russian army was160 miles away from the Ukrainian border even though every major western publication made it sound like they were already in Kiev.

As I noted at the time, now those "war games" are inside the borders of the Ukraine. Looks like the Ukraine was right on that one!

While I didn't say it at the time, if the author is so horribly wrong about the "war games" and the infamy of Ukrainian troops what else is he horribly wrong about? This isn't the alternate media source I'm looking for.

Then there's the king of one liner putdowns:

[fustakrakich:] "Your" take is just mass media propaganda. Nobody wants war but the US

And yet we see Russia making those aggressive moves towards war. It also furthers the propaganda narrative that this is merely a showdown between Russia and US with Ukraine interests being completely irrelevant.

Also that Runaway journal was about some academic blaming the US or possibly the Western world for the conflict. At one point Runaway claimed:

[Runaway1956:] You didn't listen to the man, did ya? The "west" engineered that coup. Mearsheimer doesn't say so, but I'm aware that the Koch brothers were prime movers in the coup. We quite literally backed fascists and neo-Nazis in the coup.

In other words, there was no support for Runaway's assertion there from his source. In fact, I've googled this subject a bit and never found Runaway linking to a source for the Koch brothers accusation - though if he had, I would have stated that it shows good taste in revolutions on their part.

Anyway, I think this illustrates some of the weirder failures of the pro-Russian side in this conflict. Namely, obsessing over sources of evidence rather than the evidence itself. But given how unflattering that evidence is, maybe this is the best they can do?

All I can say is that it's probably a lot safer to complain about media bias than to defend Putin only to have him stab you in the back a few weeks later. But it begs the question: why is imaginary CIA/MIC involvement enough to completely torpedo a media source, but not being horribly wrong and/or irrelevant?

When sources are more important than facts | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 151 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Reply to Comment Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 24 2022, @12:11AM (24 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 24 2022, @12:11AM (#1224296) Homepage Journal

    But, when the source is on target, you use it despite it's communist/Marxist affiliation.

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/01/25/pers-j25.html [wsws.org]

    Why the US and NATO want war with Russia

    The World Socialist Web Site condemns the escalating provocations by the United States and NATO against Russia. Their aim is to manufacture a pretext for war. These reckless actions threaten to trigger a global conflagration that would cost the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

    The Biden administration announced yesterday that it is placing 8,500 troops on standby for deployment to countries in Central and Eastern Europe, on Russia’s border. This follows a report in the New York Times that the US government is developing plans to send up to 50,000 troops to the region.

    US Colonel Alexander Vindman, who is involved in top-level US talks with the Ukrainian regime, declared: “Why is this important to the American public? It’s important because we’re about to have the largest war in Europe since World War II. There’s going to be a massive deployment of air power, long-range artillery, cruise missiles, things that we haven’t seen unfold on the European landscape for more than 80 years, and it is not going to be a clean or sterile environment.”

    Like the disastrous US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the road to war with Russia is paved with lies. The military build-up in Eastern Europe is being justified with media-hyped claims that an invasion of Ukraine is imminent, which even the Ukrainian government has questioned. This has been supplemented by warnings, without any factual basis, that Russia is planning to stage a “false flag” operation. If such an operation takes place, one can be certain that its authors will be in Washington, not Moscow.

    The latest lie is the claim, manufactured by the British government, that Russia aims to forcibly install a puppet regime in Ukraine—precisely what Washington, Berlin and the NATO alliance did in 2014, backing a far-right putsch that seized power in Kiev. This lie has already exploded in London’s face. The man identified as the putative leader of a Russian puppet regime in Ukraine, businessman and former parliamentarian Yevhen Murayev, is in fact banned from Russia, which has seized his assets.

    The biggest lie of all is that the US and NATO are engaged in a defense of “democracy” and against “foreign aggression.” The Ukrainian government and state apparatus is riddled with neo-Nazi paramilitary forces who played a central role in the 2014 putsch. This includes the Svoboda party, which the European Parliament had formally condemned for its “racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic views,” and the neo-Nazi Right Sector militia and Azov Battalion.

    As for the Biden administration’s claims that it is defending the sanctity of Ukraine’s national sovereignty against “foreign aggression,” the list of countries invaded and/or bombed by the US in the last 30 years includes Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya and Syria.

    Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the NATO military alliance has extended its borders 800 miles to the east, incorporating Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. In 2021, NATO officially recognized Ukraine itself as an “aspiring member,” and Sweden and Finland are also considering joining the anti-Russia alliance. Both Finland and Estonia are less than 200 kilometers (125 miles) from St. Petersburg, and Ukraine’s eastern border is less than 750 kilometers (465 miles) from Moscow.

    While the US and European powers are denouncing Russia for alleged troop movements within its own borders, billions of dollars in arms have been supplied by the US to the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia which are now being shipped to Ukraine. The US already has more than 150 military advisers in Ukraine, including Special Operations Forces, joining advisers from the UK, Canada, Lithuania and Poland. Under these conditions, how could Russia not assume that it is the target of a military attack?

    While the lies used to justify imperialist aggression are no more credible than the claims of Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction,” the new lies, as with the old, are presented by the media as absolute truth.

    Neither the Biden administration nor its NATO allies have explained what they believe will be the outcome of the escalating confrontation. What is their worst case scenario?

    The US claims that it will not be directly involved in a military conflict with Russia. This is a lie. The United States, pouring arms into Ukraine and stationing American military advisers in the country, is—in law and in practice—already engaged in hostile action against Russia.

    What do the US and NATO plan to do if their actions lead Russia to take military action not only against the Ukrainian puppets but also the American and Western European puppet masters? And does the Biden administration and the CIA really believe that a war with Russia will be a small and easily contained localized conflict? If so, they should think again.

    A war with Russia would rapidly escalate into a global conflagration, inevitably involving China and, for that matter, every country in the world. The US-NATO provocations have made the danger of a nuclear war greater than at any point since the height of the Cold War conflict between the US and the Soviet Union.

    It may appear that only the insane would provoke a war with such potentially catastrophic consequences. There is, however, a logic to this madness.

    First, there are the geopolitical calculations of US imperialism. The reference by Biden at his recent press conference to Russia’s eight time zones and immense resources indicate the criminal calculations that motivate US military planning.

    US and European imperialism view Russia, as Hitler did in 1941, as a vast arena for plunder. Through a combination of war and internal destabilization, imperialism seeks to instigate the breakup of Russia. Their aim is to carve up Russia into numerous puppet states that would exist as colonies of the major imperialist powers.

    Further, the United States views the integration of Russia into its sphere of influence as essential to preparations for war with China.

    But all of this is taking place within the framework of a catastrophe produced by the ruling class’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 900,000 Americans are dead from COVID-19, according to official figures. As the Omicron variant spreads without restraint, the ruling class has abandoned any pretense of containing, let alone eliminating, the virus. Schools and workplaces are being kept open, guaranteeing mass infection on a scale that has not been seen throughout the entire pandemic.

    In the UK, the principal co-conspirator with the US in the war drive against Russia, the government of Boris Johnson, is hanging by a thread. But Johnson, the political and social lowlife who infamously declared, “let the bodies pile up in their thousands,” only exemplifies the degeneration of European bourgeois politics as a whole.

    --
    Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Troll=2, Informative=3, Total=5
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:16AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:16AM (#1224309)

    Hey cowardly traitor, still being stupid? Awesome bro, keep up the bad work!

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:23AM (#1224311)

      Maybe people stick with Trump for so long because the Democratic Party is just that disgusting.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:38AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:38AM (#1224320)

      Kamala still hasn't taken away his guns but he'll still post anything to discredit the Democrats.

      What would Donald do (WWDD)?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:52AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:52AM (#1224323)

        WWSJD?

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @01:20AM (#1224310)

    Fraternal greetings, comrade! The rest of the socialist news:

    CWI: European capitalism’s insoluble problems and the state of the workers’ movement [socialistworld.net] - Putin recognises ‘independence’ of Donetsk and Luhansk [socialistworld.net]

    TFFI: Recognizing Two “Independent Republics” in Eastern Ukraine: What Does Putin’s Declaration Mean? [leftvoice.org] - Putin, Lenin, and Ukrainian Self-Determination [leftvoice.org]

    ISA/Sotsialisticheskaya Alternativa: What Now for Ukrainian Conflict? [socialistalternative.org]

    IMT/Socialist Appeal: Ukraine: Putin ups the ante [socialist.net]

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 24 2022, @02:01AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 24 2022, @02:01AM (#1224326) Journal
    Once again, we hear about the neo-nazis.

    The Ukrainian government and state apparatus is riddled with neo-Nazi paramilitary forces who played a central role in the 2014 putsch.

    Then where are these neo-nazis, if they're so common? Last I checked, there's an identifiable military unit, the Azov Battallion that's neo-nazi and some weak fascist/far right political parties that can pull microscopic support from voters. None of that was responsible for the 2014 coup/putsch. Half a million or more Ukrainians going out on the streets did that.

    This narrative is long past its expiration date.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @04:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24 2022, @04:16PM (#1224518)

    “Let me review your draft before you first put it out,” stated the Weibo post, which has since been removed. Commentaries, it added, must be “carefully selected and controlled,” while topic selections should follow the lead of People’s Daily, Xinhua, and CCTV—three of the country’s foremost Party mouthpieces.

    “Whoever publishes them will be held responsible,” the post stated, noting that each post should be monitored for at least two days.

    - Chinese State Media Accidentally Releases Censorship Rules On Russia–Ukraine Coverage [zerohedge.com]

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 24 2022, @04:50PM (16 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 24 2022, @04:50PM (#1224537) Journal
    I see that story also downplayed the rumors of invasion. Well, they're not rumors anymore!

    Like the disastrous US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the road to war with Russia is paved with lies. The military build-up in Eastern Europe is being justified with media-hyped claims that an invasion of Ukraine is imminent, which even the Ukrainian government has questioned. This has been supplemented by warnings, without any factual basis, that Russia is planning to stage a “false flag” operation. If such an operation takes place, one can be certain that its authors will be in Washington, not Moscow.

    Just remember when you're hyping this, that Russia shot first. Again.

    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 24 2022, @06:46PM (15 children)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday February 24 2022, @06:46PM (#1224579) Journal

      Russia shot first

      Oh? And you know this how exactly?

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 24 2022, @07:24PM (14 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 24 2022, @07:24PM (#1224586) Journal
        Because they're the ones over the border.

        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 24 2022, @07:26PM (13 children)

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday February 24 2022, @07:26PM (#1224589) Journal

          Uh huh... and? You still haven't told me how you know they drew first blood

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 24 2022, @08:11PM (10 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 24 2022, @08:11PM (#1224604) Journal
            Because they're in the Ukraine rather than the other way around. It's interesting how your narrative is a vague and philosophical "how do you know?" rather than a genuine argument based on facts. Well it's far from the first time you've defended the tyrants of the world.

            • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 24 2022, @08:43PM (9 children)

              by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday February 24 2022, @08:43PM (#1224622) Journal

              :-) Your "facts" come from questionable sources.

              Well it's far from the first time you've defended the tyrants of the world.

              And now you lie. I guess you need to the strawman

              --
              La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 24 2022, @10:20PM (8 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 24 2022, @10:20PM (#1224663) Journal
                Thanks for illustrating my point. You can't argue the facts, so it's bullshitting about the source. For anyone still reading along, notice that dusty doesn't actually disagree, he just disputes the source.

                • (Score: 0, Troll) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 24 2022, @11:00PM (7 children)

                  by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday February 24 2022, @11:00PM (#1224680) Journal

                  To argue the facts, you have to provide some. For now your "facts" remain in question. You do not know who drew first blood. You only have hearsay. And your claim of an unprovoked attack is clearly in dispute.

                  --
                  La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 25 2022, @03:24PM (6 children)

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 25 2022, @03:24PM (#1224839) Journal
                    And I did provide such facts. In addition, let's note that it probably required months of planning to develop this invasion strategy, including the propaganda like that the war games thing, and organizing the invasion and its logistics. This demonstrates intent to draw blood long before it happened.

                    Again thank you for showing the fundamental dishonesty of your position. It's not about whether my argument was accurate, but casting shade in a feeble attempt to discredit the argument. At no point have you actually claimed it is wrong.

                    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday February 25 2022, @06:40PM (5 children)

                      by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday February 25 2022, @06:40PM (#1224903) Journal

                      And I did provide such facts.

                      :-) From highly biased questionable sources, that puts the accuracy of your "facts" into question also. Get your facts right and maybe you might have something worth arguing.

                      --
                      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 25 2022, @07:38PM (4 children)

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 25 2022, @07:38PM (#1224922) Journal

                        From highly biased questionable sources

                        Are you going to question these alleged sources or merely claim that you are? I find it bizarre how little questioning you actually do on questionable sources.

                        Get your facts right and maybe you might have something worth arguing.

                        Similarly, you claim my facts are wrong, but don't actually present an alternate set of facts to back your claim.

                        Saying someone is wrong isn't disagreement. Saying that they're wrong, and then arguing why with evidence and reason is disagreement.

                        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday February 25 2022, @07:52PM (3 children)

                          by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday February 25 2022, @07:52PM (#1224927) Journal

                          ... but don't actually present an alternate set of facts

                          :-) Not worth the repeated effort when you don't read the links and just blow off the ones you do allegedly read. Come back when you're prepared...

                          --
                          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

                          • (Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday February 25 2022, @08:20PM

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 25 2022, @08:20PM (#1224934) Journal
                            In order to do this repeatedly, you need to have done it once. Where is your once?

                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 25 2022, @10:06PM (1 child)

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 25 2022, @10:06PM (#1224947) Journal
                            As an aside, I read this story a few hours earlier while googling for news on the Ukraine. It's just a story about fake photos, that's it. Being completely irrelevant to your argument, of course I blew it off. I'm quite prepared - it just happened here that blowing off yet more of your bullshit was the rational choice.

                            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 25 2022, @11:45PM

                              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 25 2022, @11:45PM (#1224967) Journal
                              The fake photographs story here [soylentnews.org]. Notice that fusty titled this "When "sources" provide false info" even though it did nothing of the kind. As I noted at the time, I didn't base my judgments on photographs so it had nothing to do with my sources.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 24 2022, @08:14PM (1 child)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 24 2022, @08:14PM (#1224608) Journal
            That is first blood.

            • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25 2022, @10:03AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25 2022, @10:03AM (#1224768)

              No, it isn't. It's only a flesh wound.