How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

51 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

In your previous post, you directly stated that this film is propaganda, as are the two Ukrainian films (as I understand that you have watched these Ukrainian films if you make such conclusions). And in the next post you state that we cannot establish that the Russian film is propaganda. All this seems very strange to me.

As for the attacks on forum participants, I have been watching for several weeks now how you attack various forum participants who disagree with your opinion, insulting them in the process.

Sorry, I think you have misread, I am really undecided as to whether this constitutes pro-Russian propaganda...I have not seen the film. All my posts call the absolute as Russian propaganda into question. From some neutral write ups it does not look pro-Russian but I would need to see the film in order to really decide.

I am more than willing to attack misinformation or pure opinion without factual basis. In fact, we need to do this in healthy discourse, it is called "challenging." It can get heated but if a poster comes onto this thread pushing biases, skewing or outright lies...they need to be challenged. I have gone after pro-Russian and MAGA drive bys just as vigorously.

I am not going to agree with a position just because a poster is Ukrainian or is pushing a pro-Ukrainian point, if it is based on misinformation or lies. "NATO warplanes escort Russian drones to strikes on Odessa" was an outright lie. If the poster who posted it felt insulted by my calling them out...well then they are insulted.

I have no problem with disagreeing, but if my opposition wraps themselves in the blanket of uninformed biased opinions, they are going to get called on it. For example, openly calling out Canada for supporting Russia in this war is twisting events at best but you have shown no restraint or consideration before making that accusation. Is that an insult to you? Or is it what I have seen happen this morning?  

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Offshoot said:

The main charge seems to be that the film attempts to portray Russian soldiers as victims despite the fact they are present in another sovereign country with the full intent to kill the citizens of that country. Of course, they repeat Russian lines that Ukraine is really Russia.

Russia as a nation is about as wrong as it can be in this war. It will be a historic stain on them that may never wash off. Yet, not every Russian citizen is a baby-killing monster, gleefully participating in open war crimes. Some are likely stupid kids, others draftees. True believers and merchs. And some are truly horrific, needing to be removed from the gene pool. I am confident of this because it fits the profile of just about every war fought in human history.

Portraying a bunch of dumb kids going to off to war is not propaganda, so long as it does not try and portray their actions as righteous. Showing us what they believe and think throughout their journey (ie young soldiers saying they think Ukraine is part of Russia, is very different than the film saying it.) is important. In fact it provides insight as to what is going on inside the Russian head - something we have wrestled with. Showing their decent into a hell their government has created after humanizing them is in fact anti-Russian.

How well it has been handled is really a matter of opinion...again, need to see the film first.

I get Ukrainian blind-hatred by this point, trust me I very much do. But I am not comfortable in letting that hatred blind me too. Russia has zero justification for this war. They have perpetrated crimes for which they need to be held accountable. But we cannot cancel the entirety of the Russian people in all this...down that road darkness lies. 

[Eug85]

29 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Sorry, I think you have misread, I am really undecided as to whether this constitutes pro-Russian propaganda...I have not seen the film. All my posts call the absolute as Russian propaganda into question. From some neutral write ups it does not look pro-Russian but I would need to see the film in order to really decide.

I am more than willing to attack misinformation or pure opinion without factual basis. In fact, we need to do this in healthy discourse, it is called "challenging." It can get heated but if a poster comes onto this thread pushing biases, skewing or outright lies...they need to be challenged. I have gone after pro-Russian and MAGA drive bys just as vigorously.

I am not going to agree with a position just because a poster is Ukrainian or is pushing a pro-Ukrainian point, if it is based on misinformation or lies. "NATO warplanes escort Russian drones to strikes on Odessa" was an outright lie. If the poster who posted it felt insulted by my calling them out...well then they are insulted.

I have no problem with disagreeing, but if my opposition wraps themselves in the blanket of uninformed biased opinions, they are going to get called on it. For example, openly calling out Canada for supporting Russia in this war is twisting events at best but you have shown no restraint or consideration before making that accusation. Is that an insult to you? Or is it what I have seen happen this morning?  

So you don't think Canada financed this propaganda film?

[Eug85]

All this makes me remember the propaganda films of the Third Reich, or the Red Army, where there is no mention of enemies at all. In these films, cheerful and brave soldiers sing songs, hang out with girls, and make progress in learning their military profession. Watching such films, you involuntarily catch yourself thinking that you begin to empathize with these guys. Are these films propaganda, despite the fact that there are no cruel and inhuman enemies in them? Absolutely yes. After all, thanks to these films, people form a positive impression of the army.

[acrashb]

15 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

So you don't think Canada financed this propaganda film?

Canada did not.  TVO did - so that's an Ontario (province of Canada) public television station / funding apparatus - using a portion of its share of the Canada Media Fund.

So Canadians funded it, but Canada didn't, TVO / Ontario did.

We don't know why it was funded, TVO has not said.
TVO has "pulled its support" and our Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland said it's "not right" that Canadian money supported the 'documentary'.

So as to why it was funded, it's either:

- the film was positioned as a piece of propaganda and some TVO apparatchik liked that, or

- the film was positioned as a documentary and it checked the right boxes on some TVO apparatchik's intake forms, so it was automatically funded.

The most likely outcome either way is more boxes on the intake forms to screen for propaganda - if that's what it is.  Which seems likely (Anastasia Trofimova has worked for RT), but as @The_Capt keeps saying, we haven't seen it yet.

As a Canadian I'm mildly embarrassed - even if it is a documentary, it was bound to become a lighting rod and should not have been funded.  If it is propaganda, then it definitely should not have been funded.

TIFF is still going to air it, so we'll have no shortage of opinion pieces when that's done.

 

 

Edited Friday at 02:07 PM by acrashb

[Battlefront.com]

29 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

So you don't think Canada financed this propaganda film?

No, it did not.  And I think this is the source of The_Capt's frustration with these sorts of discussions.  Some, like yourself, are taking a highly simplified view of something you don't fully understand and coming to a very solid conclusion.  That is not good analysis, but it is even more troubled when someone who does understand the topic better is ignored when trying to improve the level of understanding.

Acrashb and Alison just helped out, but I'll go further.

In the West there's funding made available by the government for the arts.  For the most part the money is raised blindly and allocated to organizations to make decisions about who gets the money and how much.  These organizations are usually, by design, *NOT* government officials.  This very nicely avoids conflicts between the arts and government control.  And here in the US, as it likely does elsewhere, this can cause the right and the left to go absolutely bonkers about art that they view as harmful to their view.  In the US the right constantly tries to kill off *ALL* funding for the arts because, in their view, it's spent on left wing propaganda.

So, factually, the Canadian government did not fund this movie.  It's funds were used for it, but that's not the same thing.  It's like government funds buying a truck and one of its employees runs over your dog.  The government did not buy a truck or pay the driver to run over your dog.

For many things, such as this film the decisions are made BEFORE the product is produced.  We do not know what the film makers said this film was going to be, but I am pretty sure they didn't say "we intend to portray Russia in a positive light".

My assumption is that the people who decided to allocate the money to this film maker failed in their "due diligence".  The fact this was about Russia from the Russian perspective by someone who so clearly worked for a Russian government propaganda outline should have disqualified the film from funding considerations.  Plain and simple.  It is akin to a film maker asking for money to portray Nazi death camp guards and finding out the film maker is a holocaust denier.  It's just really dumb to move ahead with funding.

Steve

[billbindc]

16 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ya, that tracks. I recall Biden inherited the mess. The messy end to that war is a pet peeve for many of us. But it is really not OT. Goes to show how politics gets played when it comes to wars.

What's very much on topic is how much more complicated supporting Ukraine would have been for the US if it were still ensnared in Afghanistan and too little attention is paid to the fact that the Biden administration had already concluded Russia was invading as it was finalizing a withdrawal. Messily done, certainly, but the die had been cast by the previous administration and their eyes were on the much bigger challenge to come.

[billbindc]

I have my problems with Kofman but he brings up an extremely important point here about what expanded targeting means and why it is such a complicated escalation issue: 

 

[Billy Ringo]

Without a doubt, Canada should be economically sanctioned for their total disregard for humanity and their support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Hit them where it hurts, the Maple Leafs, Canadians, Oilers, Celine Dion, Michael J Fox, Tim Horton's legacy--all of them.  Hard. Shut them down.

Seriously, has this horse not been beaten to death?

[Battlefront.com]

As for Oliver Stone's involvement in a film... his name on there is all I need to know in order to judge it.  That guy has a track record and it is not a good one.  Another case of a very talented person that has, over time, become less and less familiar with objective reality.  Who could forget his pre-war sanitizing of Putin's image?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Putin_Interviews

To be fair to Stone, as much as he thinks that the West goaded Russia into this war (insert Russian talking points here), he did express disapproval of the war and (correctly) predicted it would turn out poorly for Russia.  This was after the war started.  Before that he was saying the West was paranoid and that Russia would never attack.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Billy Ringo said:

Without a doubt, Canada should be economically sanctioned for their total disregard for humanity and their support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Hit them where it hurts, the Maple Leafs, Canadians, Oilers, Celine Dion, Michael J Fox, Tim Horton's legacy--all of them.  Hard. Shut them down.

Seriously, has this horse not been beaten to death?

I'm glad you did not put Poutine on that list.  It might be an example of a "total disregard for humanity", but by gawd I do love me some genuine Quebec Poutine.  In fact, I don't know why I'm not having Poutine right now (let's see how many get that Canadian reference).

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Kraft said:

Inside Romanian economic zone too. Fortunately no one was injured.

https://romania.europalibera.org/a/o-racheta-ruseasca-a-lovit-in-marea-neagra-o-nava-cu-cereale-pentru-egipt-/33117547.html

 

I think the timing of this is not accidental.  Russia very often does something provocative right before the West makes a decision that Russia is worried about.  They don't say that is what they did, they just leave it for the West to draw their own conclusions.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

20 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I have my problems with Kofman but he brings up an extremely important point here about what expanded targeting means and why it is such a complicated escalation issue: 

 

It is a good point, but the end comments sum up my feelings about this which is Russia has been waging a war of aggression against it's neighbors and the West for decades.  It's done absolutely nothing to show that it will behave better under any circumstances, only worse.  Which leaves us with the very unpleasant reality that the best course of action is to defeat Russia in such a way that it, at the very least, has a reduced capacity to continue it's campaign abroad.  I have no idea how that is possible without the Russian people suddenly becoming a lot more enlightened and active.

Steve

[billbindc]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It is a good point, but the end comments sum up my feelings about this which is Russia has been waging a war of aggression against it's neighbors and the West for decades.  It's done absolutely nothing to show that it will behave better under any circumstances, only worse.  Which leaves us with the very unpleasant reality that the best course of action is to defeat Russia in such a way that it, at the very least, has a reduced capacity to continue it's campaign abroad.  I have no idea how that is possible without the Russian people suddenly becoming a lot more enlightened and active.

Steve

Sure. To be clear, Kofman is generally in favor of giving Ukraine more scope of action. He just wants to make it clear that it's far more complicated than advocates often contend.

[Eug85]

43 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Without a doubt, Canada should be economically sanctioned for their total disregard for humanity and their support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Hit them where it hurts, the Maple Leafs, Canadians, Oilers, Celine Dion, Michael J Fox, Tim Horton's legacy--all of them.  Hard. Shut them down.

Seriously, has this horse not been beaten to death?

Thanks buddy, at least someone on this forum understands me correctly.

[Sequoia]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm glad you did not put Poutine on that list.  It might be an example of a "total disregard for humanity", but by gawd I do love me some genuine Quebec Poutine.  In fact, I don't know why I'm not having Poutine right now (let's see how many get that Canadian reference).

Steve

17 hours ago, Sequoia said:

 I think Steve himself will tell you he would feel more at home in New Brunswick than, say, Florida. 

 

Told you so. 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

No, it did not.  And I think this is the source of The_Capt's frustration with these sorts of discussions.  Some, like yourself, are taking a highly simplified view of something you don't fully understand and coming to a very solid conclusion.  That is not good analysis, but it is even more troubled when someone who does understand the topic better is ignored when trying to improve the level of understanding.

Acrashb and Alison just helped out, but I'll go further.

In the West there's funding made available by the government for the arts.  For the most part the money is raised blindly and allocated to organizations to make decisions about who gets the money and how much.  These organizations are usually, by design, *NOT* government officials.  This very nicely avoids conflicts between the arts and government control.  And here in the US, as it likely does elsewhere, this can cause the right and the left to go absolutely bonkers about art that they view as harmful to their view.  In the US the right constantly tries to kill off *ALL* funding for the arts because, in their view, it's spent on left wing propaganda.

So, factually, the Canadian government did not fund this movie.  It's funds were used for it, but that's not the same thing.  It's like government funds buying a truck and one of its employees runs over your dog.  The government did not buy a truck or pay the driver to run over your dog.

For many things, such as this film the decisions are made BEFORE the product is produced.  We do not know what the film makers said this film was going to be, but I am pretty sure they didn't say "we intend to portray Russia in a positive light".

My assumption is that the people who decided to allocate the money to this film maker failed in their "due diligence".  The fact this was about Russia from the Russian perspective by someone who so clearly worked for a Russian government propaganda outline should have disqualified the film from funding considerations.  Plain and simple.  It is akin to a film maker asking for money to portray Nazi death camp guards and finding out the film maker is a holocaust denier.  It's just really dumb to move ahead with funding.

Steve

Thanks Steve, going to walk away from this one. What is really disheartening is that these are the exact same tactics used by the far right to try and stop support to Ukraine for this war.

Make a false conclusion and treat it as universal truth...and then twist it into a question:

"So you support global elitist who want to drag the US into another hopeless foreign war?"

That is as bad as what is happening here.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

I have my problems with Kofman but he brings up an extremely important point here about what expanded targeting means and why it is such a complicated escalation issue: 

 

Well he is right about blood on US hands with respect to targeting, I think we brought this up before. As to horizontal escalation, I am kind of in the "too late" camp. Russia has been horizontally escalating for about a decade. Holding the deep strike stick may be holding that back but I am not so sure.

 

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Billy Ringo said:

Without a doubt, Canada should be economically sanctioned for their total disregard for humanity and their support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Hit them where it hurts, the Maple Leafs, Canadians, Oilers, Celine Dion, Michael J Fox, Tim Horton's legacy--all of them.  Hard. Shut them down.

Seriously, has this horse not been beaten to death?

 

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Thanks Steve, going to walk away from this one. What is really disheartening is that these are the exact same tactics used by the far right to try and stop support to Ukraine for this war.

Make a false conclusion and treat it as universal truth...and then twist it into a question:

"So you support global elitist who want to drag the US into another hopeless foreign war?"

That is as bad as what is happening here.

Proper analysis breaks things down into the component pieces and then figures out how to build up an understanding from there.  Sometimes we can shortcut and draw reasonable conclusions, but those only work if they are carefully based on known facts and parameters.  In the case of this movie, I think it's safe to conclude that an arts council should not have advanced any money to the movie makers based on fairly obvious "red flags" that the end result would likely be some form of propaganda messaging.  What we don't know is how this specific bad decision came about, although we can totally rule out some sort of official stamp of approval from the Canadian government.  The facts of how such funding happens clearly is against such a conclusion.

Steve

[Blazing 88's]

Counter attack of the counter attack!! So says this report:

 

[Butschi]

3 hours ago, Eug85 said:

All this makes me remember the propaganda films of the Third Reich, or the Red Army, where there is no mention of enemies at all. In these films, cheerful and brave soldiers sing songs, hang out with girls, and make progress in learning their military profession. Watching such films, you involuntarily catch yourself thinking that you begin to empathize with these guys. Are these films propaganda, despite the fact that there are no cruel and inhuman enemies in them? Absolutely yes. After all, thanks to these films, people form a positive impression of the army.

Can we just be done with all this preaching, virtue signaling, the whole holier than thou attitude, and this "if you are not for me you are against me" stuff? Your country has not declared war against Russia, yet? Put your face into the dirt and apologize on behalf your whole country!

Last time I looked, the purpose of this thread was to discuss the war and not ensuring everyone knows that we 105% support Ukraine and despise Russia.

Edited Friday at 05:33 PM by Butschi

[sburke]

8 hours ago, Carolus said:

A Turkish merchant vessel was hit by a Russian Kh-22.

 

 

Quote

 

Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk, the spokesman for Ukraine’s southern command, said in a telephone interview that the ship had been hit by a missile from a Russian military jet while it was in “the exclusive economic zone waters of Romania. It was not in the grain corridor of Ukraine.”

That is an important distinction. Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, Romania claims a sovereign territorial zone of 12 miles and an exclusive economic zone of 200 miles. Had the attack occurred in the sovereign zone it would have carried far more serious implications than in the exclusive economic zone, which is considered to be international waters.

 

 

This sounds to me like a legitimate basis for an international task force to protect shipping in international waters.  We do it versus Yemen, don't see this as any different.

Russia seems to be making some direct messages to Romania.  If I were Romania I'd ask for some international support to defend legitimate civilian traffic in international waters.  

[danfrodo]

2 hours ago, Billy Ringo said:

Without a doubt, Canada should be economically sanctioned for their total disregard for humanity and their support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Hit them where it hurts, the Maple Leafs, Canadians, Oilers, Celine Dion, Michael J Fox, Tim Horton's legacy--all of them.  Hard. Shut them down.

Seriously, has this horse not been beaten to death?

Can the Tragically Hip and Frasey Ford be exempt, please?  Oh, plus Neil Young and Rush.  I think it's gonna need to be a big list of sanction exemptions.

If not, I am definitely gonna be arrested for violations.

Edited Friday at 05:50 PM by danfrodo

[Eug85]

15 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Can we just be done with all this preaching, virtue signaling, the whole holier than thou attitude, and this "if you are not for me you are against me" stuff? Your country has not declared war against Russia, yet? Put your face into the dirt and apologize on behalf your whole country!

Last time I looked, the purpose of this thread was to discuss the war and not ensuring everyone knows that we 105% support Ukraine and despise Russia.

To be honest, I don't quite understand how my post about the propaganda of the Second World War, which you cite, is connected with your opus about the debt of other countries to Ukraine. By the way, we finished this discussion a few hours ago, so I don't understand why you brought it up again. I wasn't trying to prove that the whole world should help Ukraine. I just noted that it would be wiser for Western countries to help Ukraine rather than Russia, which constantly threatens to destroy the West.