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0 pointsBugBrother11y ago0 comments

Note that the democratic world's media are very heterogeneous. It isn't often they agree on much (see the Viernam war, Israel, Iraq war, etc in European media).

On this subject, most everyone do agree. Again note -- that is unusual. Maybe unique. And you claim that is a conspiracy, based on that there are lots of spin used on every subject by everyone with a finger in a pie?

That is exactly what Putin's media writes -- the whole [non dictatorial] world is in a conspiracy against Russia. Because they hate Russia!

(I can tell you how unanimous this is in Sweden: Most of the left wing extremists don't support Putin re Ukraine. These people in Sweden are USA haters which have never supported a democracy in a conflict with a democracy...)

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mike_hearn11y ago· 4 in thread

Both Iraq and Israel are absolutely notorious for being subjects where all major western news outlets toe or toed the political line.

Whilst Israel is treated somewhat neutrally outside the USA, the puppy-like behaviour of American media is so extreme it is itself worthy of news articles:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/america...

The runup to the war in Iraq is widely considered to be one of the western media's biggest and most damaging failures, including by those outlets themselves:

http://www.salon.com/2007/04/10/media_failure/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War

With respect to your assertion that "most everyone do agree", did you read my comment? It's very much NOT the case that everyone agrees on this. Here's the Guardian's view:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/30/guardia...

Hardly a ringing endorsement of sanctions.

Now go look at the comments section. Pick comments pointing out western hypocrisy and take a look at the posting history of those accounts. For instance, check out TheGreatRonRafferty. Posting on the site for years, thousands of comments. Many other views like his expressed there. If you think this is all the work of the FSB you're delusional, I don't know how else to say it.

BugBrotherOP11y ago

You are arguing -- hey all these cats are grey, so all are the same. All are grey, but there is a very large difference in how dark some are.

Let me discuss your examples:

Israel handled neutral in Europe?!

With all due respect, you have just a clue about English media? I can talk about Swedish media. There, Pallywood was never mentioned in the major news outlets. Torture between Palestinians was straight out censored, even when it was front page news on BBC/NY Times. Negative news for Israel was/are consistently front page.

(I can go check my bookmarks, there are lots of cases.)

There were lots of criticism in Swedish of the Iraq invasion. And especially after the occupation was so incredibly mismanaged.

Whichever, this was my point -- the Western media is heterogenous.

Was the Guardian article the most pro Putin on Ukraine you could find [in major English language media]? :-) It basically said: We can't get rid of Putin, let's try "Peace in our time" and be careful with sanctions, Russia is a smaller problem now than 1989.

That article specifically didn't discuss how nice Putin's regime is. What is the Guardian's position there? No link?

Do you think it is a western conspiracy that Russia is classified as authocratic these days by democracy indexes?

And so on.

huhtenberg11y ago

You can't say these things on HN. It's not nice. Putin is a villain, period. Who are you to spoil the bashing with your rational arguments?

cell30311y ago

I personally enjoyed this comment and this type of humor in general. It was witty, critical and open about it's satirical nature, distinguishing it from a troll post (which would disguise itself as genuine extremist view). Unfortunately the community doesn't seem to enjoy it as much as I do. Quite the opposite actually.

The comment specifically touches the following issues.

* The community's overall pro-western tendency

* Pointing out that the parent comment has been one of the few moderate ones in a thread that has otherwise been rather 'emotionally charged'

As much as I enjoy the content and the discussions here, the lack of appreciation of satire has always puzzled me.

VMG11y ago

For sarcasm to work it must mock something that does exist.

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