4 ms·

You're missing the point- negative coverage on Russia is ALL you hear coming from the major Western media outlets, this is my complaint.

smtddr 13y ago
I understand. Africa(-Americans) & Oakland can almost never catch a break either... trying to explain the imbalance is an uphill battle. If you only got your world-view from western-TV, you'd think America is paradise with perfect people, aside from blacks & mexicans. Everyone outside of it are savages not worthy of respect or consideration; perhaps a bit of pity though...
- mogrim 13y ago
  > If you only got your world-view from western-TV, you'd think America is paradise with perfect people, aside from blacks & mexicans. That's not the view of the US I get from Spanish news: there's a /lot/ of coverage of gun crime, obesity, etc. This is "balanced" by the amount of US TV shows that are imported, of course.
  - kristofferR 13y ago
    Yeah, it's the same here in Norway too. The US gets a lot of bad press here. Obesity, corruption, disfunctional government, inequality, surveillance, religion, puritanism, gay hate, gun violence etc are much more in the focus in the news about the US than the positive sides of the US are. Most Norwegians thinks of the US as this slightly weird, ignorant country that believes it's still the best at everything and doesn't bother with the rest of the world.
    - Mikeb85 13y ago
      > Most Norwegians thinks of the US as this slightly weird, ignorant country that believes it's still the best at everything and doesn't bother with the rest of the world. Most Canadians think the same. Visiting the US several times, having family that lives there and listening to Bloomberg radio every morning and afternoon during my commute reinforces that opinion... While I have no doubt the US has some benefits (high pay in certain industries), overall it seems like a strange, ignorant, backwards place. The fact that the Republicans have shut down the government to block health care (which is pretty much universally regarded as a good thing) makes it seem even more backwards (especially when watching a protest on TV in which someone was waving a confederate flag in front of the White House...).
      - cobrausn 13y ago
        Of course 'health care' is a good thing, that's a fairly meaningless platitude. This particular implementation being good or bad has yet to be determined. I personally don't find the ACA to be a 'good' system, but I wish they would just shut up and let it succeed or fail in production. Also, a large part of why you have cheap healthcare and access to lots of drugs because we paid the cost to research and make them. With the ACA, a lot of that (potentially) goes away, though from the look of the early prices it seems the cost of healthcare has gone up for most, and near free for some, meaning the healthcare industry still gets massive profits. I'm wondering if it was good for the rest of the world to have our healthcare system be so expensive. Hopefully not, I'm pretty tired of being terrified of becoming sick enough to need medical care.
        Mikeb85 13y ago
        > Also, a large part of why you have cheap healthcare and access to lots of drugs because we paid the cost to research and make them. Not entirely sure about that. It seems like many (most?) of the 'important' drugs worldwide were either developed by educational institutions or laboratories (some belonging to corporations) from a wide variety of countries, not just the US.
        cobrausn 13y ago
        The only reason it is currently profitable to make drugs at all (and the reason we've seen research in so many) is that US consumers will buy them at market rate with IP protection, i.e., too expensive for most places. If we didn't exist as that profit center, many would not have been put through clinical trials and brought to market. http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-truly-staggering-cost-of-inventing-new-drugs/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-tru...
        smtddr 13y ago
        I'm scared to get into healthcare debate, but I will say that while I understand the importance of clinical trials, if there wasn't any.... then the drugs would just be brought to market regardless even if it means people die. In Nigeria; even just in ChinaTown San Francisco, you can get some questionable origins drugs. But indeed, all bets are off when you take that stuff. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, maybe DOOM! Not saying this is a good thing, but the drug market would continue without USA, IMHO.
daliusd 13y ago
It does not look like Russia tries really hard to do something positive recently. There are many smart and interesting people in Russia or from Russia (I speak about culture and science) but they are only small part of Russia (I don't even speak about culture and science people who work for evil side). Putin, FSB and oligarchs is Russia. IMHO Western media could be even more negative but that's most probably because I'm from one of Baltic states and we really have got (and still are getting) a lot of injustice from Russia.

smtddr 13y ago

I understand. Africa(-Americans) & Oakland can almost never catch a break either... trying to explain the imbalance is an uphill battle. If you only got your world-view from western-TV, you'd think America is paradise with perfect people, aside from blacks & mexicans. Everyone outside of it are savages not worthy of respect or consideration; perhaps a bit of pity though...

mogrim 13y ago
> If you only got your world-view from western-TV, you'd think America is paradise with perfect people, aside from blacks & mexicans. That's not the view of the US I get from Spanish news: there's a /lot/ of coverage of gun crime, obesity, etc. This is "balanced" by the amount of US TV shows that are imported, of course.
- kristofferR 13y ago
  Yeah, it's the same here in Norway too. The US gets a lot of bad press here. Obesity, corruption, disfunctional government, inequality, surveillance, religion, puritanism, gay hate, gun violence etc are much more in the focus in the news about the US than the positive sides of the US are. Most Norwegians thinks of the US as this slightly weird, ignorant country that believes it's still the best at everything and doesn't bother with the rest of the world.
  - Mikeb85 13y ago
    > Most Norwegians thinks of the US as this slightly weird, ignorant country that believes it's still the best at everything and doesn't bother with the rest of the world. Most Canadians think the same. Visiting the US several times, having family that lives there and listening to Bloomberg radio every morning and afternoon during my commute reinforces that opinion... While I have no doubt the US has some benefits (high pay in certain industries), overall it seems like a strange, ignorant, backwards place. The fact that the Republicans have shut down the government to block health care (which is pretty much universally regarded as a good thing) makes it seem even more backwards (especially when watching a protest on TV in which someone was waving a confederate flag in front of the White House...).
    - cobrausn 13y ago
      Of course 'health care' is a good thing, that's a fairly meaningless platitude. This particular implementation being good or bad has yet to be determined. I personally don't find the ACA to be a 'good' system, but I wish they would just shut up and let it succeed or fail in production. Also, a large part of why you have cheap healthcare and access to lots of drugs because we paid the cost to research and make them. With the ACA, a lot of that (potentially) goes away, though from the look of the early prices it seems the cost of healthcare has gone up for most, and near free for some, meaning the healthcare industry still gets massive profits. I'm wondering if it was good for the rest of the world to have our healthcare system be so expensive. Hopefully not, I'm pretty tired of being terrified of becoming sick enough to need medical care.
      - Mikeb85 13y ago
        > Also, a large part of why you have cheap healthcare and access to lots of drugs because we paid the cost to research and make them. Not entirely sure about that. It seems like many (most?) of the 'important' drugs worldwide were either developed by educational institutions or laboratories (some belonging to corporations) from a wide variety of countries, not just the US.
        cobrausn 13y ago
        The only reason it is currently profitable to make drugs at all (and the reason we've seen research in so many) is that US consumers will buy them at market rate with IP protection, i.e., too expensive for most places. If we didn't exist as that profit center, many would not have been put through clinical trials and brought to market. http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-truly-staggering-cost-of-inventing-new-drugs/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/02/10/the-tru...
        smtddr 13y ago
        I'm scared to get into healthcare debate, but I will say that while I understand the importance of clinical trials, if there wasn't any.... then the drugs would just be brought to market regardless even if it means people die. In Nigeria; even just in ChinaTown San Francisco, you can get some questionable origins drugs. But indeed, all bets are off when you take that stuff. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, maybe DOOM! Not saying this is a good thing, but the drug market would continue without USA, IMHO.

daliusd 13y ago

It does not look like Russia tries really hard to do something positive recently. There are many smart and interesting people in Russia or from Russia (I speak about culture and science) but they are only small part of Russia (I don't even speak about culture and science people who work for evil side). Putin, FSB and oligarchs is Russia. IMHO Western media could be even more negative but that's most probably because I'm from one of Baltic states and we really have got (and still are getting) a lot of injustice from Russia.