Never ceases to amaze how quick people are to launch into 'Pro Putin/Assad/etc' insults and smears when confronted by a thought process that strays outside of the propaganda-established consensus. Apart from a natural aversion to throwing out insults, I think I'd need to feel so completely secure in the knowledge that I was right and they were wrong, and then 100% confident that it was deliberate dishonesty rather than ignorance. And yet to multiple people in these threads it comes so easily to accuse others of lying, spreading enemy propaganda, being anti-democracy, supporters of authoritarianism, just hating the west etc etc. I can't imagine being that incurious and that hostile to an opposing viewpoint that it's immediately a case of reaching for the rhetorical weapons to beat it back down. A peculiar kind of cowardice, I think, knowing that this is the narrative the powerful have adopted, therefore you know you're under their umbrella of protection and will never face any real consequences for lashing out at those who challenge it. Its an accusation of being a traitor to your country, basically - a deep smear and something with potentially dire consequences in the wrong situation, not that they give a sh!t...

Two legs baaaaaad!

jeers,
I