Wal, that ABC clip about "trucks, tires, and [smthg]" was a lot to stomach and should have come with a barf bag warning. The interviewee maybe had something interesting to say but the journalitsъ were so busy trying to ENTERTAIN rather than INFORM that his words all got lost in the mix. That's probably the biggest problem with our "media," that they think their job is to entertain, and they actually enjoy entertaining, regardless of their true role. Kudos, I guess, to you, for watching and reporting back to us on that trash, so we don't have to.
Reporting from Moscow, I can tell you that ALL COVID restrictions were dropped on 3/16, probably much to Mayor Sobyanin's chagrin.
And after many informal interactions and conversations, it seems that amongst Russians the opinions about this military operation break along city/country, blue/white collar, intelligentsia/average man, etc lines. As I've said before, I don't think it's ideologies or nations that define us anymore, so much as the cosmopolitan/country divide within countries. i.e. an American urbanite and Muscovite probably agree on a lot more than they do with their American flyover country / Russian from the regions fellow countryman.
Somebody help me out; how else can the Russian military operation in Ukraine be analyzed, beyond this?
1. The gubmints and media lied about COVID to benefit themselves for two years (at least!!), so why all of a sudden trust them now?
Right!? You don't actually BELIEVE them, do you?
(There are plenty of hilarious memes out there about how so many country-loving, media-distrusting "Conservatives" fell right in line with The Narrative after simply being shown dead civilians and bombed-out buildings)
2. Having established that we cannot trust them, whose side do you think they're more likely to lie about, as far as inflating civilian casualties and making motives seem saintly, Ukraine's or Russia's?
3.. If Russians really wanted to engage in genocide and kill lots of Ukrainians, don't you think they'd be killing LOTS more? Or do they suck as much at killing people as the USSR sucked at concocting Coca Cola?
4. If Russia wanted to kill as many as possible without being noticed for it, do you really think they'd be doing as bad a job of not getting noticed as the lying, [globohomo] western MSM is implying now?
5. If a hostile press had been hounding US (the Western powers) for our "atrocities" in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya, exaggerating every single unintended, unfortunate incident of civilian collateral damage, would not that reporting look a lot like what our western press is putting out about Russia right now?
So, what's your analysis of all this; why are so many falling for The Narrative while I am not; am I really simply a Putin lackey?
But if you cannot get beyond my point one, if you think the media is being more honest now, after having just blatantly lied to us for two years about COVID (and BTW about the election fraud, and the tea party, and proud Boys, and Hillarygate and Nick Sullivan, and BLM, etc. etc., before that), then I don't think we can get very far on this conversation.