But also worth pointing out is that despite very uncritical propaganda from the regime about what happens in Russia, RT is one of the only mass media (non-independent publication) where you can have decent news about social uproar in France (gilets jaunes, anti-police-abuse riots, etc).

We haven't reached the point where posts to RT are censored on social media (where it's most popular) so i can't exactly say we have "one side" to the news yet but it's getting closer.

This message is both a fuck you to french ISPs engaging in censorship (remember Sci-Hub? TPB?) and a reminder to all the Putin fanboys around here what "there's only one side to the news" really means: Russia is already there (there's a few independent publications but they've been struggling for years with State censorship and journalist assassinations) and France is getting closer (on the other side of the narrative). The rest of you who live in countries with more free speech can't even realize what information control means so please don't take these words lightly.

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[–] obbeel@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

People who can't see what's wrong with this are brainwashed beyond repair.

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] UnreliantGiant@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Countries joining NATO want to join NATO. The majority of people in Ukraine want to join NATO. Russia is currently demonstrating to the world exactly why Ukraine wants to join NATO. Also Russia knows exactly NATO would never dare to attack Russia, just like NATO knows exactly Russia would never dare to attack them. Russia (Putin) is not scared about a NATO attack, he's scared he won't be able to insert a puppet government in Ukraine ever again. Let's not pretend it's about something else.

NATOs eastward expansion (in the past 30 years, not 60) is the product of those countries wanting to be in NATO. The Warsaw Pact was with the Soviet Union. Not sure if you noticed, but the Soviet Union does not exist anymore. Oops. I want to introduce my own whataboutism here: what about the Budapest Memorandum that Russia broke in 2014 by annexing Crimea?

Yes NATO did bad things and will do bad things in the future. This does not legitimize Russias invasion at all.

And sorry for being silent about things going on in the world years ago, I was too young to understand shit at the time. But anyway, when there's police fatally shooting hundreds of protesters, it's a sign the Maidan revolution was absolutely necessary.

Even Chinese state media (CGTN) is criticizing the invasion.

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] UnreliantGiant@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

USA bad != Russia good
I come from Germany, we hate both of them here.

Where have I been the last 60 years? Nonexistent, mostly. Probably just like you. Stop this whataboutism

Again, NATOs eastward "expansion" is going on for 30 years, and it doesn't happen by force but by those countries voluntarily joining it. And Russia is still doing great advertisements showing why someone should join NATO. They do this to themselves. The only thing forbidding this expansion is an old agreement with the Soviet Union, which still doesn't exist.

And where is the 0.2% Nazis nonsense coming from

Good question, I don't know where it's coming from either. I don't see it anywhere in this entire thread, so it must be coming from you. I already explained in another comment what a straw man is, thanks for the great example. You even combined it with Godwin's law.
But since you bring it up, why doesn't Russia bother getting rid of their own Nazis first? The Wagner Group? Why do they not-so-covertly sponsor many far-right parties in European countries? Why does a presence of Nazis even warrant an invasion? If Russia just never bothered annexing their land and sponsoring seperatists, things like Azov (which I assume is what you're on about here) would have never even existed in the first place.

I didn't suddenly "wake up" to this war by the way. I have friends and relatives in Ukraine, I have actually been there and seen the country and the people. Did you? I talked to people who were fighting the separatists, and who are fighting in Kiev now. The parents of a friend are stuck in Sumi right now, a shop next to their home was bombed a few days ago. They sure love being "liberated" by Russian artillery.
And before you say "whAt AboUT tHe USa??!": yes they invade countries too and it's bad too. Finally something we can agree on

I won't feed this discussion any further

[–] AppleCider@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Agreed 100%

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] nachtigall@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wrong facts. NATO's eastward expansion has been going on since 1959, and we are not living in 1989.

Between 1959 and 1998 only Spain became a new NATO member (see your own graphic) which I would hardly call eastward expansion 🤨

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] nachtigall@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You calling something "hardly" does not matter. After all, Ukraine is also just 1 country by your logic, just like Spain, right?

My point was rather that Spain is in the far west of Europe and therefore I would hardly call it eastward expansion.

I meant 1949 and not 1959 to demonstrate NATO expansion

Makes more sense in that case, especially considering Greece and Turkey.

Also, I think, one can debate whether German reunification in 1990 counts as expansion since the 2+4 treaty states that no NATO troops may be placed permanently in eastern Germany and as far as I know this was not violated yet.

[–] Liwott@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

when I meant 1949 and not 1959 to demonstrate NATO expansion

there's a huge difference between "since the 60's" (as is continuously) and "in the 50's then since the 90's". Depicting what happened in the early 50's as agressive western expansion against peaceful eastern block is at the very least unfair, both sides were preparing for the eventuality of war at that time.

[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's hilarious that the Azov Battalion was formed from a bunch of racist rednecks because Russia invaded Crimea. And now you use it as the justification to for another invasion? Russia needs to learn to stay in it's lane.

As for Wagner Group, it is directly operated as a thinly veiled proxy army. They are a Kremlin asset whose leaders flash Nazi insignia as much as those Azov yokels. I wonder how the Ukrainian denazifacation of Wagner is going in Kyiv? Three foiled assassination attempts so far...

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What the west should have done was Marshal Plan eastern Europe. Build them up with loans and investments rather let them wallow in corruption and poverty. Look at Japan and Germany today, compared to Russia. It was a cruel, conscious choice to use them as a cheap labor stock. And now we have to deal with the results: peace in our time? Or checking an aggressor before he starts World War III.

[–] southerntofu@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What the west should have done was Marshal Plan eastern Europe.

I'm not sure the Marshal Plan was a good deal for western Europe, although for sure it accelerated reconstruction greatly. But i'm sure eastern european countries could have fared better without western powers imposing that they must privatize everything, which was not a condition imposed on western european countries post-WWII.

I'm very much against Putin and this is not a defense of him, but the USA establishment basically created the Russian oligarchy overnight (after the collapse of the USSR) by pushing (forcing?) local authorities to sell every State asset as quickly as possible to the highest bidder while the economy is in ruins. So you end up with a handful of people owning the entire country while ordinary people need a bag of bank notes to buy bread. It's the very same technique they used in Iraq/Afghanistan after, and in many other places: it's a widely documented process, but i would personally recommend Naomi Klein's The shock doctrine and Adam Curtis' documentaries.

Once again, i'm not sure a eastern european "marshal plan" would have done better, but lack of western intervention post-USSR-collapse is certainly not what led to Russia being a capitalist hellhole.

[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I agree, certainly, that the fire sale was terrible and we're living the karma from that today. Maybe leaving them alone would have been better? It's doubtful, though. Look at Africa. Western capital avoided it like the plague and they simply suffered in stagnation until China's investment today.

How did Vietnam independently become the economic power it is today? Free trade and public investment in education. That's how it could have gone in Russia. Instead people traded their shares of the newly privatized infrastructure for boxes of vodka. And thus, the oligarchs came to own it all.

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ha ha, yep, NATO scared Putin so much he invaded an unaligned nation in response. Nobody cares to invade Russia. Russia would be a NATO member, if it wasn't trapped in the cold war mentality of Putin. What do you get in return? Finland 2.0? Afghanistan 2.0? And a new batch of EU and NATO members. Putin has outmaneuvered himself.

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] southerntofu@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ukraine would have become Afghanistan 2.0 if NATO was allowed to take over.

Are you saying that western powers were planning a military invasion of Ukraine? This makes no sense, as there was no major military deployment indicating it, nor was there any psyops in the west to mount a narrative justifying such invasion.

[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As strong North Korea? They're totally dependent on China, too. Ukraine is Russia's next Afghanistan. Remember that fiasco? When American made Stingers cleared the sky of Spetsnaz helicopters? Does that sound familiar?

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] southerntofu@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Who genocided the muslim populations of the USSR? Was it the USA and western colonizers too? Does that ring any bells? From the wikipedia page on Deportation of Chechens and Ingush:

The deportation was prepared from at least October 1943 and 19,000 officers as well as 100,000 NKVD soldiers from all over the USSR participated in this operation. The deportation encompassed their entire nations, as well as the liquidation of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The demographic consequences of this eviction were catastrophic and far reaching: of the 496,000 Chechens and Ingush who were deported (according to Soviet archives; Chechen sources put the deportees at 650,000[1]), at least a quarter perished. In total, the archive records show that over a hundred thousand people died or were killed during the round-ups and transportation, and during their early years in exile in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR as well as Russian SFSR where they were sent to the many forced settlements. Chechen sources claim that 400,000 died, while presuming a higher number of deportees.

Just because western empires are evil does not mean other empires have to be good.

[+] TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] southerntofu@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Can we talk about French genocide of Algeria? Or USA’s ongoing genocide of Yemen since many years?

Please do. We've been talking about it for years, but more conversation/information is always welcome.

[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml -2 points 2 years ago

Here's some more whataboutism for you: Aleppo. Grozny. Go all the way back to Afghanistan, where this "non-genocidal" state carpet bombed during the planting season to starve the population. Projection, indeed.

[–] obbeel@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's true. Sorry for not knowing how fucked up this world was back then.

It's because I was told that in times of pressure, freedom of information or civil liberties wouldn't be affected. But this was just dumb thinking.

I was told that this was better, and that this would lead us to an answer. That's why I believed that this wouldn't happen.

[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

RT was actually useful back in 2006. It provided alternate viewpoints in American politics. But it's morphed into a blatant mouth piece for Russian propaganda since then. It's not even subtle. Nor, at that rate, useful.

It is hard to find independent news these days. But I am enjoying the sudden drop in anti-vax noise as soon as the cyber war was kicked off by the Russian invasion. So, until Russia goes back to their strategy of highlighting western hypocrisy, rather than actively subverting our institutions with fake news, I'm fine with turning off the spigot of disinformation and lies.

[–] arbocenc@lemmy.ml -2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

RT is useful today to get rid of western misinformation. For example, in Catalonia today misinformation (western aligned) media talk about a Russian attack to a Ukrainian nuclear plant. It would be a stupid action, obviously, but our media spread this stupid info.

Instead, RT, first talk just about an explosion and, finally, when facts were clear, from a combat between a Ukrainian sabotage unit and the Russian patrol who has taking care for the security of the Central since Ukrainian army left it.

But, OK, you prefer just have one "information" source?? lol

[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Actually, I prefer as many sources as possible. But Russia has decided that it's cheaper to bring the world down to it's level with lies, rather than build itself up with anti-corruption reforms. Currently, the cost of wading through Russian disinformation is more than it's worth. The pandemic would be over already, but for Russia's funding anti-vax lies. in a classic case of blowback, that operation has come back home, been translated to Russian, and their wormtongue memes are crippling Russia's own response to Covid.

[–] ziproot@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

That's what FAIR is for

[–] guojing@lemmy.ml -2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If countries can get away with blocking RT, they will follow by blocking more and more inconvenient websites.

[–] Julianus@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They can get away with it. That's why it's important to have distributed servers like Lemmy.

[–] guojing@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

Yes definitely. But not enough people use Lemmy yet.

[–] JoeBidet@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Just out of sheer anti-censorship curiosity: are RT streams still available somewhere on the Internet?

[–] UnreliantGiant@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe just changing the DNS Servers would be sufficient in this case. Alternatively you might be able to play the stream by the direct playlist link: https://rt-glb.rttv.com/live/rtnews/playlist_4500Kb.m3u8 (in a media player like VLC or mpv). If all fails a VPN or Tor might still work.

Watching this stream shows great examples of straw men and whataboutisms

[–] a_Ha@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes. & i had to look it up (eli5) :
whataboutisms : A propaganda technique where criticisms are deflected by raising corresponding criticisms of the opposite side.
Please, add a note on "straw men"

[–] UnreliantGiant@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

"A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)

Basically I claim that X is true, and someone debunks my claim by saying Y is false, while Y is actually something I never said

[–] the_tech_beast@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

I don't know if their official website is blocked in your country. But I am able to watch RT Live on their website. Here is the link https://www.rt.com/on-air/rt-player/.

[–] arbocenc@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

Use Tor Browser and/or a VPN: https://privacyguides.org/providers/vpn/

[–] obbeel@lemmy.ml -2 points 2 years ago

It doesn't do any good if all privacy groups that govern Tor end nodes are in US and Europe, because that's exactly the places where things will get banned.

Imagine advocating against authoritarian censorship and having it on your own home.