How the fuck you wrapped your last sentence in is beyond me, but anywho…

Dissent is not spouting off Russian propaganda verbatim. You know, like quoting every single line vomited out by every Russian state media source. (OP)

Dissent is also not searching for every internet based opinion piece with a flashy headline that aligns with a specific view. I could find a hundred more that align with my views, as an example. (re: link-boy in this thread.)

We all should know that Russia invading Ukraine “because Nazis” is complete bullshit. If you didn’t notice Russian media and government officials repeating that justification is just that: repeating things enough so people begin to believe it. (That is easy with state controlled media, btw.)

What we have is a failed case of seeing the forest through the trees and what Russian Putin’s goals have obviously been for years now: Rebuilding the USSR. (Nevermind that Crimea was not ethnic Russian until the local population just disappeared, somehow.)

Dissent is actually showing, to the best of ones abilities, real cause for action. A person could actually read all of the source articles they post, compare figures and assemble something that might be worth something in an argument. This takes a fuck ton of work, actually. All sources need to be considered and not just select articles that are vomited out in these kinds of posts.

What link-boy is doing is just flooding threads with data, regardless of it is correct or not. It’s not proving any points and likely just posted to flash out headlines, which people notoriously take at face value.

Then we need to loop back to the “reputable sources” bit. Nearly anyone can submit articles to these places with little review because “content”. To properly use these articles, you have to dig. You need to understand the authors, the sources and the motivation. Again, link-boy is likely not doing this. If he is, it’s still shitty referencing.

Above all else, this conflict has proven that Russia is a paper tiger, mainly by showing their wonder-weapons are crap. This is not actually about the tech itself: It’s shown how Russian government has overstated just about everything about their capabilities. Not only did the world start to believe their own propaganda, Russians drank their own cool aid and thought they could just roll Ukraine in a couple of days, with or without western interference.

We don’t need shit-memes or walls of old links to show how Russia has manipulated the narrative over the last few years. All we need to do is watch how poorly they are performing on the battlefield against a country a tenth their size. We can watch Russian media and how they continue to posture and threaten with nukes. (That is a stupid play, and they know it.)

What’s even funnier, is that Lukashenko actually dumped out a couple weeks ago that Ukraine was already “denazified”. Oops. If that is actually “true”, why hasn’t this “special military operation” been called off? Why is Russia at a full wartime economy now for what is likely illegal to call a “war”?

Fucking grow up, is my point. You want to get all script-flippy about “sPeAkiG diSsEnT” when the people “dissenting” don’t know what the actual fuck they are posting with.