Minus Russian propaganda, what's the real story on the Ukraine?

[Random Rooster]

Yeah, we've already been through this Mighty Mouse. The media that I consume includes diverse opinion. Main Street media does not. One reads articles critically, you should try it.

Anyway it's time for celebration. My grandson debuts for Paddington Colts u/16 v Mascot Jets next weekend. He lives in Vaucluse and attends Cranbrook - up the Working Class!!!!

Yeah i went through it and i checked out the media outlets that you suggested. I came away thinking that perhaps you haven't checked out those media outlets yourself?

How about instead of changing the subject, which i note you do in a lot of your posts when your argument is going nowhere, you critically analyse the articles that i have linked in Crikey & The Conversation ?

[mightyrooster]

Yeah i went through it and i checked out the media outlets that you suggested. I came away thinking that perhaps you haven't checked out those media outlets yourself?

How about instead of changing the subject, which i note you do in a lot of your posts when your argument is going nowhere, you critically analyse the articles that i have linked in Crikey & The Conversation ?

You noticed that too RR? We both must be making good use of our critical thinking skills!

[Paddo Colt 61]

Noticed what? You volunteered to get the thread back on track I merely followed suit.

"When my argument is going nowhere"? It has been consistent - I argue that the cause of this conflict can be sheeted home to the involvement of the US (even Mal Fraser alerted or tried to alert you to the folly of "all the way"). There has been much name calling and ineffective emotional derision in response but I don't at all see that my posts/responses have floundered at any point. So yeah, you do need to think critically, it's good advice. Your kids and grandkids will be grateful.

[mightyrooster]

Noticed what? You volunteered to get the thread back on track I merely followed suit.

"When my argument is going nowhere"? It has been consistent - I argue that the cause of this conflict can be sheeted home to the involvement of the US (even Mal Fraser alerted or tried to alert you to the folly of "all the way"). There has been much name calling and ineffective emotional derision in response but I don't at all see that my posts/responses have floundered at any point. So yeah, you do need to think critically, it's good advice. Your kids and grandkids will be grateful.

Paddo, is that second para directed at me or RR who asked the original question? I've noticed that sometimes when I make a point and ask you to directly respond to it, instead of responding you just ignore me and talk about something else. Perhaps it's a coinicidence, I don't know, but when RR brought it up I just commented that I have noticed this too. Sorry.

[Paddo Colt 61]

With respect some things aren't worth responding to but if you want to specify and repeat the point I will respond, It's a debate after all.

[A Country Member]

This may as well be the Boxing thread. People swinging wildly, flailing away at PC61; but he is too sharp, too agile and has a reeling jab and a solid left. Hasn’t lost a round yet

[Random Rooster]

Noticed what? You volunteered to get the thread back on track I merely followed suit.

"When my argument is going nowhere"? It has been consistent - I argue that the cause of this conflict can be sheeted home to the involvement of the US (even Mal Fraser alerted or tried to alert you to the folly of "all the way"). There has been much name calling and ineffective emotional derision in response but I don't at all see that my posts/responses have floundered at any point. So yeah, you do need to think critically, it's good advice. Your kids and grandkids will be grateful.

Well i don't recall calling you names or getting personal so ill disregard that comment.

I asked you to recommend some independent news sources and when you supplied them then the least i could do is check them out. Now it's not my fault that the majority of the latest articles regarding Putin and Ukraine don't support your views. No amount of critical thinking on my part is going to change that. Nor is it going to change the fact that your views are echoed by a host of Murdoch stooges including Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity and Candice Owens.

When they taught you at Uni about critical thinking did they mention something about credible references? You're yet to show any, but you are very quick to judge where others get their information from. The irony in that is you never even ask were others source their information from, that's because you're only really interested in what you have to say.

Well enjoy your ivory tower of academia. Lets hope there's a mirror or two so you can have a nice debate with yourself!

[ism22]

Summary of Paddo's points...
1. The west should stop provoking Russia and China... they are good people, not aggressive dictatorships. Also, what invasion? Russia isn't attacking anybody!!! [This was pre-invasion].

2. The whole invasion is the USA's fault for aiding some of Russia's neighbours. Russia's just defending itself against the US [Post-invasion].

3. Russia and China are both democracies, not fascist dictatorships.

4. Blame the US for the deaths... not Russia.

5. You're all 'sheeple' if you disagree because my mind is next level analytical shyte. I went to university, smoked a bong, took some LSD and it opened my mind... man!

6. [Irrelevant drivel about other global events in an attempt to distract from the bloody invasion]

[Paddo Colt 61]

Pretty much spot on except for 5&6.

When I went to University there were no drugs in Oz (apart from prescription and Bex) though the Surfers (Mactavish etc ) had brought back weed from Hawaii which rapidly gained popularity in the beach suburbs. I recall a Maroubra surfer pre Bra Boys getting 6 months for possession of one joint. LSD did not appear till the late 60s either.

My time at Uni was good clean fun, just sex and R&R no drugs unforch but, oh the girls! I had hitherto never known their like. Intelligence enhances beauty and back then Uni was reserved for the rich and weekend parties were a real eye opener for me as to the way the other half lived. The girls were bourgeois, confident in a way that working class girls were not, stylish and switched on but unforch, the Pill was not widely available. Can you believe that doctors could only prescribe it to married women and prescription was an embarrassing ordeal for those who were single. The result, in my time, was not a few premature marriages that later came to grief but that was the Australia that I grew up in.

After losing the 2 Conscription referenda in 1917, the resentful Labor turncoat Billy Hughes set about constructing the glorified cult of ANZAC. One of his disastrous decisions was to give public service employment preference to ex servicemen ( the most conservative cohort in any population). Ex WW1 officers filled the highest ranks of the bureaucracy and so began an era of quite incredible interference in the lives of people. Books like Lady Chatterley (D H Lawrence), Portnoy's Complaint (Roth) and Ulysses ( Samuel Beckett) were banned, Special Branches (later ASIO) kept files on Trade Unions and Community leaders deemed leftist, police had draconian power, one had to stand for the British National anthem at the movies (then called the Pictures) and public morality was quite rigidly overseen. The Pill was officially unwelcome. Whitlam changed all that for good in 1974, he opened the sun roof but the shock of that was too great for the reactionary power elite in Australia.

[A Country Member]

Ulysses was Joyce. An absolute masterpiece

[Paddo Colt 61]

Yep right on CM - Joyce. Got my Irishmen mixed up.

Lolita was another of the many banned here and the Catholic Church had its own extra set of bannings. I can't remember the name but one movie (Maybe "And God Created Women") was banned because Bardot's nipples could be glimpsed among the bubbles in a bath. It is still a very erotic movie btw.

The US had its Christian League of Decency which kept a close OFFICIAL eye on movies and books but it didn't seem to see any indecency at all in the 2 A-Bombs dropped on human beings a few years before. Ah, the US that we all know and love, the home of hypocrisy. No wonder the mid to late 60s happened, who said drugs were a bad thing?

Of course not all Aussies felt the sunlight of the 60s. The sheeple went on to not only accept Conscription for a US war in Vietnam but to vote for it in the next two elections. That was our Vietnam generation the now over 65s who resolutely vote Tory still. Though Scomo is 10% behind in the current polls, the Boomers remain the only demographic yet unmoved. The very definition of Sheeple.

[Random Rooster]

Summary of Paddo's points...
1. The west should stop provoking Russia and China... they are good people, not aggressive dictatorships. Also, what invasion? Russia isn't attacking anybody!!! [This was pre-invasion].

2. The whole invasion is the USA's fault for aiding some of Russia's neighbours. Russia's just defending itself against the US [Post-invasion].

3. Russia and China are both democracies, not fascist dictatorships.

4. Blame the US for the deaths... not Russia.

5. You're all 'sheeple' if you disagree because my mind is next level analytical shyte. I went to university, smoked a bong, took some LSD and it opened my mind... man!

6. [Irrelevant drivel about other global events in an attempt to distract from the bloody invasion]

hehehe - its a bit like a rant from Grandpa Simpson

[A Country Member]

Speaking of censorship, I see that the nrl is getting in on the act.

The NRL will wipe Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s high shot from a library of tackles to help judiciary members assess the grading for on-field offences after admitting the match review committee erred in not suspending the Storm forward.

Under the NRL’s new judiciary code, the game will compile a video collection of illegal tackles which have been assigned a grading.

“I think there’s every possibility that this tackle will not be included in that library,” Annesley said. “That’s not for any other reason than for incidents, when they’re compared, are truly comparable.

“Our view of this incident is we’re confident the match review committee has been through the right process, they’ve considered all of the right factors, but we don’t think they’ve placed enough emphasis on the degree of force. They’ve assessed it as low to moderate, in management we’re of the view it was more than that.

Vlandys does have dictator ways I spose.

[ism22]

With respect some things aren't worth responding to but if you want to specify and repeat the point I will respond, It's a debate after all.

I think that's the problem. None of your Russian/Chinese propaganda is worthy of a response. However, you keep getting offended (and calling people 'sheeple') when they try to explain to you that lobbing missiles at a neighbouring country in an attempt to capture their cities is kinda rude/violent to say the least.

You keep stepping away from that fact and asserting your analytical skills are next level, so you're onto something that the 'sheeple' are too stupid to understand. I find your approach farcical to say the least.

[Paddo Colt 61]

I'm not propagandising at all. I'm simply suggesting that "Western" propaganda masks Western responsibility. I'm saying that there is another side to the Ukraine situation which is ignored or suppressed outright. Stan Grant's high dudgeon at a the temerity of someone on Q&A attempting balance is not a lot different to yours. (Look, I already said that I was sorry for dissing your Viet fishermen mates).

"Lobbing missiles at a neighbouring country" is precisely what Russia is trying to avoid. Having NATO bases up to the border gives Russia little cause for joy, they've been through armageddon in the lifetime of many of them. You seem to believe that their concerns don't matter. Because they're Boogie Man Russians? Communists? The US tells you?

When I learned to think at the University that I was privileged and fortunate enough to attend (I actually went there disappointed that the Bay of Pigs had failed, I read tabloids and watched commercial TV) one of the fundamentals imparted was that when one stoops to ad hominem the argument is lost. Asserting that your opponent thinks that he's superior or "full of himself" (the term Howard ironically used to criticise others) is a well trodden path by those who wear ignorance as a badge of honour or worse, are trying to influence others by using foul means. I works a treat in Football argument and it's stock in trade on the main forum but it really has no place in serious debate. Are you really a lawyer?

I mostly use the term Sheeple more in sorrow and frustration than in anger or disdain. The research tells us that 85% have no interest in the way that national/international affairs are conducted and it is just fortunate indeed that half of them instinctively realise that the rich are not really on their side. Other than that they're not so much "stupid" (they function effectively in their societal roles) as uninterested but that uninterest is mostly due to the complexity of issues. I was a high school educator long enough to see that avoiding focused thought was a majority inclination. You yourself illustrate that and with a Murdoch dominated media "informing" the Sheeple we are in big trouble.