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> it's the result of free, independent reporting, free uncensored social media communication and people coming to their own conclusions. I want to live in the

> it's the result of free, independent reporting, free uncensored social media communication and people coming to their own conclusions. I want to live in the world you live in, because reality seriously disagrees with you. There's no such thing as independent reporting, free uncensored social media communication and people coming to their own conclusions. Not for the masses. No. Of course independent reporting etc exists, but not for the masses, regardless where you're from. So either you deny the existence of propaganda, or you believe that "propaganda only happens everywhere else", or are unaware of the propaganda that influences you personally. Which is it?

simonh 5y ago
Can you give examples of reporting from Ukraine, or on the Ukraine situation being censored in the western media? I was watching an RT broadcast on the 'not a war' yesterday and the major news sources Ive been following regularly report on the Russian media position. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60571737 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60571737 As I pointed out, we're actually discussing the Chinese narrative, which we have full access to, right now. If that stuff was more popular and people freely chose to give it more credibility it would be more widely distributed. That's how that works. This isn't new, back in the 80s I occasionally bought a (cut down, translated but uncensored) copy of Pravda in my local newsagent here in the UK. It was hilarious, and usually right next to Marxism Today which was also highly risible. What doesn't fly well over here is the sort of flat out lying seen on Russian media. Audiences over here are understandably sickened and revulsed by what is happening and what Russian media is saying about it. Hence RT getting dropped from channels all over Europe, but if you still want to know, you can easily find out. As I said, the "western narrative" completely includes and involves discussion and evaluation of all the narratives.
- MrYellowP 5y ago
  I've written so many words. Sorry about that. I'm not sure you'll manage to get through it, but whatever. I haven't really gotten many people to talk about this, especially not in detail. It'd be an insane amount of information to cover, so instead I've used this opportunity to get some of the stuff out of my system. It's not like it's going to change anything anyway ... except for me ... because my frustration is real and quite substantial. Personally, I don't care if you believe me. When you believe that there is independent mass media, then it's extremely unlikely you'll believe someone who doesn't. --- Your post has nothing to do with what I said in regards to your words. It seems you believe you know better, but oh boy, that can not be the case, otherwise you wouldn't have written this: > it's the result of free, independent reporting, free uncensored social media communication and people coming to their own conclusions. This is just insane. Seriously. You think you understand, but you don't. It comes across like the typical hubris of the wannabe intellectuals who believe they're on the good side of the equation. They're not. They're just as easily fooled as some poor, lower class moron who lacks education. Education alone does, in fact, not make intelligent, thoughtful or self reflective. It simply doesn't. If it did, the world wouldn't be in this horrible mess. Propaganda is also not just about censorship. Censorship is actually a really primitive form of propaganda. Far more effective is presenting the people with facts, but omitting details. It's irrelevant if propaganda is about Ukraine, anti-china, anti-russia, pro-vaccine, anti-covid, gays causing aids, open lesbianism causing the downfall of society and whatever else any country anywhere can come up with. Propaganda is extremely complicated and it requires people to be able to reflect a lot more than most are capable of. Fun Fact! Most people will tell you that the electromagnetic waves of mobile phones do not cause any issues. They will tell you that simply because that's what they're being told. Every time I come across someone like that, I could bet them serious money to prove them wrong. I'm what some assholes call "electro-sensible". I can literally feel something downloading at several MBit/sec, in my head, from half a meter away. It's fucking torture. People don't know better, but insist that I am wrong until I prove them first hand that, not only I'm not, but also that they're full of shit. Anyhow. Propaganda! Far more effective than censorship is presenting so called experts, which all parrot the same things, while every other expert with a differing opinion is being blocked out, shouted down or ridiculed. All the wannabe intellectuals eat that up like hot cakes. Like experts telling you that you can not feel the electromagnetic waves caused by whatever is downloading vast amounts of data at high speeds, while there's other experts no one ever gets to hear about, who will tell you the opposite. They're not desired experts, so barely anyone ever gets exposed to what they have to say. If that ever happens, these people get discredited. When there's a stupid mob hating on people who think differently, for good reasons, then that's the result of propaganda. When that stupid mob is unwilling to discuss and only ever engages in attacks, then that's the result of propaganda. These people, including wannabe intellectuals, are doing nothing but parroting a pretend authority. Far more effective than censorship is it to make you believe that there is unbiased and fair reporting. You're being swamp with logically-sounding information and repeat it until you believe it, regardless of reality disagreeing with it. It might even be logical, but that does not - in no way or form - mean that it is also correct! Things can be logical and still be wrong. Here's the story of a propaganda-victim I know: There's a guy who had two issues with his vaccination. One for each shot he got. He got an mRNA based one, but I forgot which one. A day after the first one he started walking weird. It looked like he had a stroke. Half his body was kind of limp and he stopped using it properly. I've made him aware of this, because stroke victims don't necessarily notice that they had one. Shortly after his second shot he felt like something literally exploded in his hip, causing all sorts of other issues. Talking about it, he insisted that "the doctor said the first thing was just a coincidence.". That's dumb, short sighted and appealing to authority, meaning ... ... because doctors are doctors, regardless of said doctors complete incapability of having all the information (which simply did not exist at that point and still doesn't for most people) he simply accepts the words of the doctor as fundamental truth. He does so, because that man's a doctor! Obviously a doctor must, at any moment in time, always know everything about every single medical thing ever! Right!? That doctor was doing nothing else but parroting what he's been told. Nothing else. That's all. Because of "experts" telling him "how it is", he believed he knew "how it is", without any questioning. Even after that guy I knew got his second shot he still insisted that the issue after the first one was just a coincidence and there was no way of getting him to even consider the alternative, which is a surefire way of identifying a victim of propaganda. The insisting on being right, without questioning it. Do you understand? There is no critical thought among the masses. None. Zero. If that wasn't the case, propaganda wouldn't be so insanely effective. You think the lying in Russia is bad, but do you think of all the lies you believe simply because you don't know better? The lies you believe because you're not capable of questioning what you're being fed? The only reason why people are talking about lies in russian media is because their own media wants people to talk about it! If it didn't, people wouldn't be exposed to it! That's propaganda! Have you forgotten all the lies the US used to go to war? Have you forgotten what the CIA did and likely still keeps doing? Forgotten Afghanistan? Iraq? Iran? How the US funded and weaponized "freedom fighters" only to end up calling them terrorists? Do you ever consider that, when your country has a history of bullshitting it's people, that it's extremely unlikely that they're telling you the truth now? Do you have any idea of the MASSIVE amount of state propaganda that happened in Austria? We're basically a banana republic! Our so called governmental corona experts were all paid by Pfizer! Parts of the government had ties to companies producing hygiene products, FFP2 masks, which have been made mandatory. Did you know that the only two countries in europe, which mandated FFP2 masks, were germany and austria? You probably didn't! And how would you? How would most people know, unless they read it from somewhere? But the mass media did not talk about this! At all! And why was that the case? Because someone got paid to make that happen, so other people were able to make big bucks! People didn't get to know if other countries actually used FFP2 masks! No! Everyone just blindly believed that everyone else also used FFP2 masks! Paid experts by Pfizer. Dozens of millions of shots coming from Pfizer. But hey, iT's AlL jUsT a CoInCiDeNcE! People believing it really is a coincidence ... that's the result of propaganda! You can also not be sure if RT isn't actually telling more truth than your own mass media news sources. You simply can NOT! It is NOT possible! You believing otherwise just underlines how effective propaganda is! If you believe that your side is better than the other, then that's the result of propaganda! Your side is at least equally shit as the other side and, when you take this statement personally, it further proves that you are a propaganda victim and NOT a critical thinker! Considerig all factors gathered over decades of observing the meta, I can guarantee you that the so called western and "civilized" part of the world is actually the worst! > Audiences over here are understandably sickened and revulsed by what is happening No! Audiences are sickened and revulsed by what the mass media is presenting them. If the mass media didn't present them information in a way that causes such reactions, such reactions wouldn't happen! When the mass media wants people to feel a certain way, then that will happen. This is the norm everywhere, including Austria, the US, China, Germany and every other place. No, they don't present you with this to inform you. They present you with this, to manipulate you. Not only do they want your money, but they also want you to fall in line. Propaganda! Look at the US! In the US only few people control 99% of the media. These few people are the super rich, always in bed with the currently running publicly exposed politicians. Whatever muppet's currently occupying the spot. Or the other way round, if you prefer. From my perspective it's the "Rich people" club, which covers them all. They all know each other, they all feed off of each other, they all benefit from each other. This isn't a conspiracy theory, you can look up who owns what all by yourself. If you're from the US believing in independent mass media, then you're a fool who's being played. You can look up which sides feeds which part of the population, too. You just need to figure out the demographics. 1/2
  - MrYellowP 5y ago
    2/2 Fun Fact! When you want to control your population, you have to cover a wide range of opinions, meaning that you need to own several news outlets not necessarily agreeing with each other. Edit: Same goes for parties. When you want to cover a lot of people, you must have several parties under your belt, making sure that no matter which party wins, it's you who always wins. Just like how megacorporations have several daughter corporations releasing "competing" brands. In reality it's the same corp, but there's an illusion of choice. That's a propaganda machine! There is no critically thinking mass. You are not a critical thinker. You believe you are a critical thinker, but there is a massive amount of people who call themselves intellectuals and academics, which are constantly being played simply because narcissists are easily fooled! All it takes is making them feel like they're rooting for the smarter side. They're all happily appealing to authority, because "obviously this person knows what he's talking about." No critical thinking, no actual fact checking. Just mindless, idiotic parroting ... and you can't have a serious discussion with these people whatsoever. Makes them, at least, really easy to spot. The "western narrative" including discussions and evaluation is nothing more than a part of the propaganda machine. People talk about what mass media presenta them. There is no critical, or even original, thought. None. People talk about what they see/hear/read. That includes all the wannabe intellectuals. Don't believe it? Spend a month reading all the major daily newspapers and, after that month, start finding people to talk about it. Not close friends. Go outside of your biased social circle. When you're smart enough, you will be able to tell who reads what simply based on the perspective they parrot. It's not even hard spotting the people who are easily misled, but first you have to let go of the idea that... a) ... you're on the good side. You're not. Everyone believes that. It's dumb and part of the propaganda machine. b) ... you know better. You don't. Your sources are worth just as much as the sources of the other side. c) ... you're ever unbiased as long as you consume any of the mass media. You're not. Your feelings are being played, causing you to come to desired conclusions. Not objective conclusions, desired conclusions. All mass media are equal. It's a science! The only difference is how they sell themselves.
    - simonh 5y ago
      That’s quite a lot, but that’s ok. You’re using the word propaganda to just mean ‘what most people believe’, which just isn’t useful. That’s mainly because in many, many issues there are different widely held beliefs. Take coronavirus. More than a third of the US population think it’s just the flu and vaccines are dangerous. There is no consensus as there is in Europe. On your specific points on vaccination, its a fact that vaccinations of any kind are not free or risk. I have a persistent pain in my left arm since my second vaccination, probably due to the jab going into a joint membrane. I really need to get it checked out. There are real cases of adverse effects. Yes you will read about people denying it, and you will read people saying the vaccines are a con. The truth is as usual more complex, no the vaccines aren’t a con, yes they do work and have transformed life here in the UK, but that did come at a cost of some side effects. Nevertheless they’ve saved tens of thousands of lives in the UK alone. On radio sensitivity, I worked in telecoms with radio engineers in the late 90s and quite a few of them believed mobile phone transmissions might be dangerous. There was a mix if opinions in the industry. However large scale trials and studies settled the issue conclusively, there was no correlation between active antenna deployment and reported side effects. How do we know? Because they compared reported side effects in areas with active transmitting antennas with reports in areas where the antennas hadn’t yet been activated and there was no difference. Yes there were more reports of headaches and such near antennas than areas without antennas, but that also applied to inactive ones so it had nothing to do with radio waves. It was entirely psychological. As people got used to antennas being around the reports died down. That doesn’t mean there is no issue, it may be that a small number of people really are sensitive, too few people to show up in statistics, but every such case I’m aware of that’s been investigated has been disproven. That’s not propaganda or just expert opinion, that’s actual results from many, many real world studies. On Ukraine are the TikTok, twitter, instagram and YouTube uploads by ordinary Ukrainians propaganda? There’s a vast torrent of uncensored, unedited, sometimes live reporting by ordinary people coming out of Ukraine every day. You don’t even need to watch or read the mainstream media these days, you can seek out primary sources on the ground yourself. You can talk to them yourself on livestreams. My kids play internet video games and you can chat with Ukrainian kids on game chat servers and Twitch. It’s a different world now. You can go that here. You can’t do that in Russia or China. Yes there is a kind of consensus that often forms on subjects in the west. There’s a mass consensus on Coronavirus here in the UK, dissenters are a small minority, but they are a very large minority in the US. So large that they dominate one of the two main political parties. Nobody, no one central authority controls the narrative on this in the west. People choose the narrative they prefer. Sometimes they get it wrong, sure, but they have access to alternative voices if they want to hear them, and they do have a genuine choice. You have access to dissenting opinions and you have made a choice, and your opinion is getting free air and a chance to be heard. Its all part of the narrative.

simonh 5y ago

Can you give examples of reporting from Ukraine, or on the Ukraine situation being censored in the western media? I was watching an RT broadcast on the 'not a war' yesterday and the major news sources Ive been following regularly report on the Russian media position. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60571737 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60571737 As I pointed out, we're actually discussing the Chinese narrative, which we have full access to, right now. If that stuff was more popular and people freely chose to give it more credibility it would be more widely distributed. That's how that works. This isn't new, back in the 80s I occasionally bought a (cut down, translated but uncensored) copy of Pravda in my local newsagent here in the UK. It was hilarious, and usually right next to Marxism Today which was also highly risible. What doesn't fly well over here is the sort of flat out lying seen on Russian media. Audiences over here are understandably sickened and revulsed by what is happening and what Russian media is saying about it. Hence RT getting dropped from channels all over Europe, but if you still want to know, you can easily find out. As I said, the "western narrative" completely includes and involves discussion and evaluation of all the narratives.

MrYellowP 5y ago
I've written so many words. Sorry about that. I'm not sure you'll manage to get through it, but whatever. I haven't really gotten many people to talk about this, especially not in detail. It'd be an insane amount of information to cover, so instead I've used this opportunity to get some of the stuff out of my system. It's not like it's going to change anything anyway ... except for me ... because my frustration is real and quite substantial. Personally, I don't care if you believe me. When you believe that there is independent mass media, then it's extremely unlikely you'll believe someone who doesn't. --- Your post has nothing to do with what I said in regards to your words. It seems you believe you know better, but oh boy, that can not be the case, otherwise you wouldn't have written this: > it's the result of free, independent reporting, free uncensored social media communication and people coming to their own conclusions. This is just insane. Seriously. You think you understand, but you don't. It comes across like the typical hubris of the wannabe intellectuals who believe they're on the good side of the equation. They're not. They're just as easily fooled as some poor, lower class moron who lacks education. Education alone does, in fact, not make intelligent, thoughtful or self reflective. It simply doesn't. If it did, the world wouldn't be in this horrible mess. Propaganda is also not just about censorship. Censorship is actually a really primitive form of propaganda. Far more effective is presenting the people with facts, but omitting details. It's irrelevant if propaganda is about Ukraine, anti-china, anti-russia, pro-vaccine, anti-covid, gays causing aids, open lesbianism causing the downfall of society and whatever else any country anywhere can come up with. Propaganda is extremely complicated and it requires people to be able to reflect a lot more than most are capable of. Fun Fact! Most people will tell you that the electromagnetic waves of mobile phones do not cause any issues. They will tell you that simply because that's what they're being told. Every time I come across someone like that, I could bet them serious money to prove them wrong. I'm what some assholes call "electro-sensible". I can literally feel something downloading at several MBit/sec, in my head, from half a meter away. It's fucking torture. People don't know better, but insist that I am wrong until I prove them first hand that, not only I'm not, but also that they're full of shit. Anyhow. Propaganda! Far more effective than censorship is presenting so called experts, which all parrot the same things, while every other expert with a differing opinion is being blocked out, shouted down or ridiculed. All the wannabe intellectuals eat that up like hot cakes. Like experts telling you that you can not feel the electromagnetic waves caused by whatever is downloading vast amounts of data at high speeds, while there's other experts no one ever gets to hear about, who will tell you the opposite. They're not desired experts, so barely anyone ever gets exposed to what they have to say. If that ever happens, these people get discredited. When there's a stupid mob hating on people who think differently, for good reasons, then that's the result of propaganda. When that stupid mob is unwilling to discuss and only ever engages in attacks, then that's the result of propaganda. These people, including wannabe intellectuals, are doing nothing but parroting a pretend authority. Far more effective than censorship is it to make you believe that there is unbiased and fair reporting. You're being swamp with logically-sounding information and repeat it until you believe it, regardless of reality disagreeing with it. It might even be logical, but that does not - in no way or form - mean that it is also correct! Things can be logical and still be wrong. Here's the story of a propaganda-victim I know: There's a guy who had two issues with his vaccination. One for each shot he got. He got an mRNA based one, but I forgot which one. A day after the first one he started walking weird. It looked like he had a stroke. Half his body was kind of limp and he stopped using it properly. I've made him aware of this, because stroke victims don't necessarily notice that they had one. Shortly after his second shot he felt like something literally exploded in his hip, causing all sorts of other issues. Talking about it, he insisted that "the doctor said the first thing was just a coincidence.". That's dumb, short sighted and appealing to authority, meaning ... ... because doctors are doctors, regardless of said doctors complete incapability of having all the information (which simply did not exist at that point and still doesn't for most people) he simply accepts the words of the doctor as fundamental truth. He does so, because that man's a doctor! Obviously a doctor must, at any moment in time, always know everything about every single medical thing ever! Right!? That doctor was doing nothing else but parroting what he's been told. Nothing else. That's all. Because of "experts" telling him "how it is", he believed he knew "how it is", without any questioning. Even after that guy I knew got his second shot he still insisted that the issue after the first one was just a coincidence and there was no way of getting him to even consider the alternative, which is a surefire way of identifying a victim of propaganda. The insisting on being right, without questioning it. Do you understand? There is no critical thought among the masses. None. Zero. If that wasn't the case, propaganda wouldn't be so insanely effective. You think the lying in Russia is bad, but do you think of all the lies you believe simply because you don't know better? The lies you believe because you're not capable of questioning what you're being fed? The only reason why people are talking about lies in russian media is because their own media wants people to talk about it! If it didn't, people wouldn't be exposed to it! That's propaganda! Have you forgotten all the lies the US used to go to war? Have you forgotten what the CIA did and likely still keeps doing? Forgotten Afghanistan? Iraq? Iran? How the US funded and weaponized "freedom fighters" only to end up calling them terrorists? Do you ever consider that, when your country has a history of bullshitting it's people, that it's extremely unlikely that they're telling you the truth now? Do you have any idea of the MASSIVE amount of state propaganda that happened in Austria? We're basically a banana republic! Our so called governmental corona experts were all paid by Pfizer! Parts of the government had ties to companies producing hygiene products, FFP2 masks, which have been made mandatory. Did you know that the only two countries in europe, which mandated FFP2 masks, were germany and austria? You probably didn't! And how would you? How would most people know, unless they read it from somewhere? But the mass media did not talk about this! At all! And why was that the case? Because someone got paid to make that happen, so other people were able to make big bucks! People didn't get to know if other countries actually used FFP2 masks! No! Everyone just blindly believed that everyone else also used FFP2 masks! Paid experts by Pfizer. Dozens of millions of shots coming from Pfizer. But hey, iT's AlL jUsT a CoInCiDeNcE! People believing it really is a coincidence ... that's the result of propaganda! You can also not be sure if RT isn't actually telling more truth than your own mass media news sources. You simply can NOT! It is NOT possible! You believing otherwise just underlines how effective propaganda is! If you believe that your side is better than the other, then that's the result of propaganda! Your side is at least equally shit as the other side and, when you take this statement personally, it further proves that you are a propaganda victim and NOT a critical thinker! Considerig all factors gathered over decades of observing the meta, I can guarantee you that the so called western and "civilized" part of the world is actually the worst! > Audiences over here are understandably sickened and revulsed by what is happening No! Audiences are sickened and revulsed by what the mass media is presenting them. If the mass media didn't present them information in a way that causes such reactions, such reactions wouldn't happen! When the mass media wants people to feel a certain way, then that will happen. This is the norm everywhere, including Austria, the US, China, Germany and every other place. No, they don't present you with this to inform you. They present you with this, to manipulate you. Not only do they want your money, but they also want you to fall in line. Propaganda! Look at the US! In the US only few people control 99% of the media. These few people are the super rich, always in bed with the currently running publicly exposed politicians. Whatever muppet's currently occupying the spot. Or the other way round, if you prefer. From my perspective it's the "Rich people" club, which covers them all. They all know each other, they all feed off of each other, they all benefit from each other. This isn't a conspiracy theory, you can look up who owns what all by yourself. If you're from the US believing in independent mass media, then you're a fool who's being played. You can look up which sides feeds which part of the population, too. You just need to figure out the demographics. 1/2
- MrYellowP 5y ago
  2/2 Fun Fact! When you want to control your population, you have to cover a wide range of opinions, meaning that you need to own several news outlets not necessarily agreeing with each other. Edit: Same goes for parties. When you want to cover a lot of people, you must have several parties under your belt, making sure that no matter which party wins, it's you who always wins. Just like how megacorporations have several daughter corporations releasing "competing" brands. In reality it's the same corp, but there's an illusion of choice. That's a propaganda machine! There is no critically thinking mass. You are not a critical thinker. You believe you are a critical thinker, but there is a massive amount of people who call themselves intellectuals and academics, which are constantly being played simply because narcissists are easily fooled! All it takes is making them feel like they're rooting for the smarter side. They're all happily appealing to authority, because "obviously this person knows what he's talking about." No critical thinking, no actual fact checking. Just mindless, idiotic parroting ... and you can't have a serious discussion with these people whatsoever. Makes them, at least, really easy to spot. The "western narrative" including discussions and evaluation is nothing more than a part of the propaganda machine. People talk about what mass media presenta them. There is no critical, or even original, thought. None. People talk about what they see/hear/read. That includes all the wannabe intellectuals. Don't believe it? Spend a month reading all the major daily newspapers and, after that month, start finding people to talk about it. Not close friends. Go outside of your biased social circle. When you're smart enough, you will be able to tell who reads what simply based on the perspective they parrot. It's not even hard spotting the people who are easily misled, but first you have to let go of the idea that... a) ... you're on the good side. You're not. Everyone believes that. It's dumb and part of the propaganda machine. b) ... you know better. You don't. Your sources are worth just as much as the sources of the other side. c) ... you're ever unbiased as long as you consume any of the mass media. You're not. Your feelings are being played, causing you to come to desired conclusions. Not objective conclusions, desired conclusions. All mass media are equal. It's a science! The only difference is how they sell themselves.
  - simonh 5y ago
    That’s quite a lot, but that’s ok. You’re using the word propaganda to just mean ‘what most people believe’, which just isn’t useful. That’s mainly because in many, many issues there are different widely held beliefs. Take coronavirus. More than a third of the US population think it’s just the flu and vaccines are dangerous. There is no consensus as there is in Europe. On your specific points on vaccination, its a fact that vaccinations of any kind are not free or risk. I have a persistent pain in my left arm since my second vaccination, probably due to the jab going into a joint membrane. I really need to get it checked out. There are real cases of adverse effects. Yes you will read about people denying it, and you will read people saying the vaccines are a con. The truth is as usual more complex, no the vaccines aren’t a con, yes they do work and have transformed life here in the UK, but that did come at a cost of some side effects. Nevertheless they’ve saved tens of thousands of lives in the UK alone. On radio sensitivity, I worked in telecoms with radio engineers in the late 90s and quite a few of them believed mobile phone transmissions might be dangerous. There was a mix if opinions in the industry. However large scale trials and studies settled the issue conclusively, there was no correlation between active antenna deployment and reported side effects. How do we know? Because they compared reported side effects in areas with active transmitting antennas with reports in areas where the antennas hadn’t yet been activated and there was no difference. Yes there were more reports of headaches and such near antennas than areas without antennas, but that also applied to inactive ones so it had nothing to do with radio waves. It was entirely psychological. As people got used to antennas being around the reports died down. That doesn’t mean there is no issue, it may be that a small number of people really are sensitive, too few people to show up in statistics, but every such case I’m aware of that’s been investigated has been disproven. That’s not propaganda or just expert opinion, that’s actual results from many, many real world studies. On Ukraine are the TikTok, twitter, instagram and YouTube uploads by ordinary Ukrainians propaganda? There’s a vast torrent of uncensored, unedited, sometimes live reporting by ordinary people coming out of Ukraine every day. You don’t even need to watch or read the mainstream media these days, you can seek out primary sources on the ground yourself. You can talk to them yourself on livestreams. My kids play internet video games and you can chat with Ukrainian kids on game chat servers and Twitch. It’s a different world now. You can go that here. You can’t do that in Russia or China. Yes there is a kind of consensus that often forms on subjects in the west. There’s a mass consensus on Coronavirus here in the UK, dissenters are a small minority, but they are a very large minority in the US. So large that they dominate one of the two main political parties. Nobody, no one central authority controls the narrative on this in the west. People choose the narrative they prefer. Sometimes they get it wrong, sure, but they have access to alternative voices if they want to hear them, and they do have a genuine choice. You have access to dissenting opinions and you have made a choice, and your opinion is getting free air and a chance to be heard. Its all part of the narrative.