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Notes -
As I remember, the disputes were principally about factual questions that were relevant for the moral dimension - whether and how significantly the 2014 revolution was orchestrated by Western countries, to what extent neo-Nazi movements were a driving political force on the Ukrainian side, whether and to what extent the Ukrainians committed actions that ought to lower their moral standing by Western standards before and after the Russian invasion (extrajudicial killings, ethnic and political persecution, various forms of corruption...), and to what extent either of the two armies was "clean" or engaged in atrocities (targeting civilians vs. using civilians as shields, allegations of massacres (Bucha) vs. allegations of false-flag massacres (Kupiansk), abuse/killing of POWs and whether it is systemic, both sides accusing the other of using "barrier troops" with orders to shoot those who retreat or surrender).
The thing is, manipulative advancement of a moral case for some cause through selective reporting/FUD/editorializing is exactly what most of the resident witches would accuse the Western media of in contexts where they are at odds with it. The NYT and WaPo were not disputing that BLM protests were happening, or that property damage occurred as part of the protests, but (were charged by those opposed to BLM to be) distorting the reporting on the scale of the property damage, amplifying information that made anti-BLM look bad and pro-BLM look good and thereby misrepresenting the moral qualities of the protesters and those they were protesting against to the point that someone who read their coverage would come to the opposite conclusion regarding which side deserved support from what those opposed to it thought was right. This is the shape of basically every progressive media establishment vs. basket of heterodox deplorables dispute, whether it is about added punctuation in Biden transcripts vs. removed punctuation in Trump transcripts or grifters sleeping around for reviews=?women artists trying to spread high culture to video games and getting a torrent of death threats trying to put them in their place. Yet, the same people who have no problem coming down on the media conspiracy theory side, and bemoaning the impenetrable wall of argument-by-authority and social pressure defending the official narrative, in each of those would then happily insinuate that you are a brainrotten conspiracy theorist if for example you expressed doubt about the Bucha story.
It may be a question of asymmetrical enthusiasm then. I don't think the overwhelming majority of the forum bought the mainstream narrative, but a disproportionate amount of skeptics may have decided to sit this one out. From what I recall of your posts, I'm pretty sympathetic to your perspective, but I didn't really bother debating the details of Ukraine's politics.
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