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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?

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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (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.