[Alex]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Unless I miss what you're trying to say, this seems to be a point you make to others but avoid yourself.

Hi Steve,

That's fair from you to ask yourself about that.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The point I take is that this gentleman (and you yourself) advises everyone to see American and European propaganda (which I don't deny exists) while ignoring that this very article is propaganda of the strongest sort.

No, Sir. Especially NOT. First, I'd like to mention I live on the same side of the world as you do, and so I'm forced to eat and accept the same things/news as the truth. And in fact, I started my post with some rant related to the lack of neutrality of the news (coming from all sides) in order for everyone to take in consideration the fact that absolutely everything needs to be taken with that pinch of salt I'm talking about : so that article had to be considered the same way as I consider western news.
Living in the world we do, I must be honest with you, and would like to say I tend to feel sympathy for traditionalists countries still working with the one and only ultimate authority over everyone and everything, making a country able to act the fairest way towards most things and people around : God (and let me free to stay neutral here, keeping aside the way our beloved western media is doing its best to make us see a big part of the Middle East and northern Africa : that part of the world being populated only by no more than Al-Qaeda militants believing in a certain god whose only interest is to make all Muslims go for the Jihad).

As to what anyone is supposed to consider as truth and propaganda...

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Russia has crossed the borders of a sovereign nation and imposed what is tantamount to martial law. What does "western aggression have to do with that? Is Putin protecing Ukraine from America? The Ukrainians don't seem to think so.

I was indeed expecting someone to react that way, but I didn't suppose you were going to be that one, Steve.
We're on the internet now, and you're free to check out the news as to what's happening in western Ukraine these days, when it comes to IMF and all, so I won't even take the trouble to speak about that actually.
I'll let you think the way you like, out of respect for yourself, just as I would towards anyone else. But accepting as truth any kind of news coming from one side, without cross-checking with news from the other side, is what any authority needs you to do, so to be able to send your youth to the abattoir on any foreign soil which you are needed to consider as the enemy so for you to end up sticking out your chest considering it a noble thing from yourself to have let your children (not talking about your own children here, Steve) leave their beloved homeland never to see it again.
Feel free to take some little time now and then to check out the news from some other sites not standing up for western values only, I'm sure you'll end up being a little bit surprised by the way the other side/"the enemy" sees the situation, and I won't say more actually.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

So Alex, you warn us against swallowing certain propaganda, and rightly so, but you then seem to accept the opposite propaganda as Gospel Truth, and push it on us without questioning your own cherished beliefs. That "pinch of salt" works both ways.

That is absolutely right.
I'm not considering anything as Gospel Truth, Steve.
Speaking about the West here, as I just said : to me, most people just live everyday with a certain degree of credulity and ingenuousness making them think everything their politics/army/country's elite do gets to be done with no more than their national interest in mind.
And the only thing I'm saying here is that it is not the case all the time [I'll keep things short here, or our good Tribesman - who's a well-educated man whose opinion I value more than a bit - will react the same way once again towards myself, for the simple reason he's certainly got his mind filled with anti-racism **** to the point he doesn't even dare to keep his ears open when it comes to what kind of people is reaping the benefits of unrests happening here and there in the world].
Watching tv everyday or so, most people from the West got their brain lying down in their bathtub filled with self-righteousness, caring only about what they think themselves, just as if the West was more virtuous than any other part of the world. And you've reacted the way I expected any Western guy to while reading this kind of article I've posted above : anyone living in the West gets to be very surprised and pretty much shocked, thinking something going along the lines of "hey, wtf, wth is that, so you can find people thinking another way than we do in the West... Incredible ! How the hell is it possible, I can't believe that, that's propaganda".
I don't hold any opinion on that article myself, really : the only thing I know is that its author has got to write it trying to see things from a certain point of view which is not the West's. And since I can't pretend to know exactly where propaganda starts, personally the only thing I do is no more than trying to rise up a little bit checking news from both sides, in order to be as neutral as anyone can be, instead of doing no more than eating bbc and daily mail news everyday as if it came from the skies.

May be more than a bit OT, so I guess we better stop there or switch to PM eventually.