He who lies first lies best - Opinions often become set in concrete

Left wing or right wing, we see examples of how
people hold Political Opinions and Beliefs despite
contrary evidence.

When the present hot stage of the conflict in
Ukraine arrived in Feb 19th and 24th 2022 I had
already seen you tubes by Patrick Lancaster from
inside Donetsk of the few artillery shells arriving
daily from positions to the west.

Determined to avoid making a wrong judgement
as I do discuss politics with a few people, I typed
out all possible opinions from what I had seen and
then as Joe Biden had already given his speech,
what I had just heard.

When I mentioned I had collected 15 narratives
including variants of them to a couple of people
I knew, they shouted "Russia started it".

And everyone I know has continued to hold their
initial opinions through over two years since
forming their opinions.

 

There is a difference between opinion and fact, and its rare for people to discard facts and 'believe' opinions instead. Russia did start the war, and hopefully one day the Russian murderers and rapists will be held accountable.

Russia also started the Winter War in 1939, although they insist Finland, - a country of 4 million attacked the Soviet Union, a country of 186 million. They lie. They have always been liars.

 

The Russian Federation gained it's sovereignty and independence from the
USSR on June 12 1990 and Ukraine on Aug 24 1991 and the USSR
formally dissolved on December 26 1991.

Both had to negotiate issues of control and ownership of resources because
the dividing lines had been drawn as administrative divisions and some as
national divisions.

Peaceful negotiations were not going well after Biden gave permission for
the US State Department official Victoria Nuland to guide regime change
process carried out by a department of the CIA mainly during Feb 2014,
and the now Azov battalion in Ukraine started erratic shelling and killing
of Russian-speaking people mostly in Donetsk, in October 2014.

The shipment of 700 million dollars of 'aid' in mid 2021 after the Biden
administration was elected, arrived in early 2022 and occasional
bombardment became a heavy bombardment by Feb 19 2022 and
Vladmir Putin made good on his promise to protect Donetsk and other
areas on Feb 24th 2022.

As for Biden's Feb 24t 2022 claim: "Sorry to keep you waiting

The Russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of Ukraine without provocation, without justification, without necessity. ..."

Look at a map. Russian forces have formed a defensive line west of
Donbass and other areas the Kyiv forces are attacking.

 

Russian forces attacked from the North and tried to take Kiev and were stopped. Kiev is the capital of Ukraine and is far away from the Donbass. I don't see that as a defensive line. We also should not overlook the fact that Russia annexed the Crimea using military force.
Putin does not have the right to dictate what happens in the Ukraine. It is a sovereign nation.
Please feel free to correct me in places I may have erred.

 

I'll just pick one item because I'm in the middle of a domestic
repair:

Was it true that the USSR did nothing wrong when they placed
missiles in with the permission of Cuba because Cuba
is a sovereign nation?

 

oops, I was in too much of a hurry when I wrote that,
I left out a word:

 

Opinions are only accurate in so far as they, are based on objective reality.

Reality is not some flexible thing, which you mold into it's final form, with your opinions. It either is, or it isn't.

If your opinion is specifically based on fact, your opinion is now no longer residing in the realm of opinions.

 

But the facts have to be verified, Biden saying something to
the press one afternoon in the middle of a whole pile of lies
and half truths, doesn't count as verified or proven.

 

Then you agree with my statemen as factual because you appear to be changing the subject. Biden had no part in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

People won't change their opinion when posting on an anonymous internet forum, no matter how much evidence to the contrary of the "facts" they believe in is supplied.

That doesn't mean that people cannot change their opinion. However, it takes a real change in perspective to achieve this. I would imagine someone spending a couple of months in Ukraine or Gaza will come back a changed person.

Unfortunately, in the US, instead of broadening one's horizons, the trend is that people rather seek out environments that immerse them in like-mindedness, providing constant confirmation bias. If you live in a community that is 80% Republican or Democrat, and you are with the local majority, it is easy to believe that your opinion is mainstream and the only valid one. People need to travel more.....

 

I'm not selecting right or left for who lies first but Trump wins this (first), hands up/down/all around. Now which direction, left/right, is significantly more gullible. I'm picking "right"....

But, to clarify, I don't even consider MAGA, "the right" but more of a c***.

 

That is not changing the subject, the Cuban missile crisis was when the
US was threatened by a country on our border.

The wikipedia article seems a pretty good indication of what was going on.

So you can get an insight into what we did when faced with the US
weapons in Ukraine, Romania and Poland.

While you are in wikipedia also look at the article on the Gulf of Tonkin
because that is a pretty good summary of the American invasion of
Vietnam, when we did the invading.

 

The situation when we faced USSR missiles in Cuba was I would
suggest parallel to the situation Russia faced with weapons in
Ukraine, and the US/NATO stated that Ukraine is a sovereign
country and has the right to host US missiles.

The final statement by the US was Ukraine would host US
Aegis Ashore missile launchers, which are currently anti missile
systems but could be changed to hold nuclear armed Tomahawk
missiles. It would require a lot of alterations but not externally
visible changes I understand.

The situation right now is fairly close to a reversal of the situation
in the Cuban missile crisis, but with the sides reversed.

 

Should say 'what Russia did when faced with the US weapons in
Ukraine, Romania and Poland.'

- by looking at what we did when faced with Soviet weapons in Cuba.

 

1. When this struggle started there were no US or NATO weapons in the Ukraine.
2. When the Crimea was invaded and annexed there were no US or NATO weapons there either.
2. There was no plan to put them in either place.
3. During the Cuban Missile crisis the US dealt directly with the Soviet Union, not Cuba. It did not use the crisis as a pretext to invade and it was resolved by hard negotiations with the USSR.

 

1. When?? If you mean when Joe Biden claimed it started,
there were 680,000 NATO trained and equipped troops in Ukraine
2. Who invaded Crimea? A useful question would be whether Crimea
left Ukraine or Ukraine dumped Crimea?
2. ?
3. Are you claiming Washington did not feel threatened by
the missiles in Cuba?

 

The people I know don't change their minds about much of anything,
but as you say, a couple of months in a war zone might produce an effect.

But there are a lot of veterans in this area who have spent a lot of time
in war zones, and although they see war they have no interest in who
started the war or why. Whatever they heard first lodges in their brain
and occupies the place and there is no need to think about it after that.

 

Being with like-minded people is emotionally easy, but there is another
problem behind that one, which is the news at present has the goal
of persuading people to vote money for the weapons makers, who own
the news, and therefore every war is a good war or 'the good war'.

Five years later everyone works out they've been had, but then falls
for the next war and decides 'they got it right' this time because all
the news says so.

The news has no motivation for telling the truth and even less to supply
useful ways of understanding politics.

On another forum I asked the question: what does Left Wing mean?
I got a whole bunch of different answers and no consensus of opinion,
and that I think is why political discussions usually get nowhere.

The categories supplied by the news are misleading and ambiguous.

 

I couldn't agree more! The left wing MSM has mastered this! FOX is getting there. Many people still view Brett Kavanaugh as an evil rapist because he supposedly dry humped a leg while totally trashed at a frat party 1000s of years ago. YUP! This concept is real. I think when something is misrepresented they should BY LAW have to spend equal amount of coverage on explaining their error and making sure everyone knows (but I also think this should mean they get less in a lawsuit because the lawsuits are usually about reputation). False info like that can lead to murders!

 

False info does lead to murders.
In the case of Vietnam, over 3 million dead Vietnamese peasant
farmers, lots of dead Afghans about 1 million dead Iraqis, heading
for a million dead in Ukraine, and the news will stir up the public
and getting them voting money to kill Iranians.