The large theater in the center of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol sheltered large numbers of women and children. Huge signs marked it with the Russian word “CHILDREN” to protect it. The theater was demolished by a bomb. Yesterday President Biden called Putin a “war criminal.” Putin was outraged. He said this insult was “unforgivable.”
The New York Times described the aftermath of the bombing:
Rescuers on Thursday began pulling some survivors from the wreckage of a theater in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol that was struck a day earlier by a Russian attack, according to an adviser to the city’s mayor.
It was not clear how many people survived at the facility, the Drama Theater of Mariupol, which up to 1,000 people had been using as a shelter in recent days, the adviser, Pyotr Andryushchenko, said in a text message.
The recovery efforts were being hampered by continued shelling of the city by Russian forces on Thursday, he said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in an overnight public address that a Russian aircraft had “purposefully dropped a huge bomb” on the theater as crowds sheltered there. “Our hearts are broken by what Russia is doing to our people, to our Mariupol,” he said.
The New York Times reviewed satellite images showing that the word “children” had been written in Russian in large white letters in front of and behind the theater. The words were written around Saturday.
Videos posted to social media on Wednesday show that the theater had been largely destroyed. Walls on two sides of the building and large parts of the roof had collapsed.
The Russian government denied carrying out the attack, calling the allegations “a lie.”
“Our armed forces don’t bomb cities. Everyone is well aware of this,” Maria V. Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said on Thursday.
Russian forces have besieged Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov, for over a week, cutting off civilians from food, water, electricity and heat. Bombs, missiles and artillery have hit apartment blocks, stores and a hospital complex.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder who learned to lie from whom. Did Trump learn from Putin or Putin from Trump?
Donnie is Putin’s dog.
Of course, Trump was always a pathological liar. And breathtakingly stupid and ignorant. And so was KGB Vlad. But no, this is a one-way street. The Idiot was useful to Putin. Still is.
What most surprised me about this invasion of Ukraine is that I always thought of Putin as reptilian, but I didn’t think him stupid or ignorant. There’s a lot of speculation about this: how could he make a mistake this colossal? Partly, of course, it is his creation of a Stalinesque climate of fear around himself in which no one dares contradict him or tell him bad news. But who knows. Dementia? Is he terminally ill and simply doesn’t give AF? One thing is for sure: every day he remains in office is dangerous for the world AND for the Russian people.
Dienne assures us that Putin did not invade Ukraine. It’s all an elaborately staged act to provoke Russophobia. Clever.
I don’t even know that you’ll post this and if you do I’ll probably get attacked as a Russian agent, but anyway, I’d at least ask that you read through to the end.
What I’ve said repeatedly is that the only side of the story Americans are allowed to hear is the Ukrainian side. Yes, the Russians are putting out propaganda, but so is the west, which has a long history of lying in similar circumstances. None of us can know what is going on in Ukraine, but in order to have any remote idea, you have to seek out both sides. The fact that that’s so hard to do should leave you questioning the western narrative.
Anyway, the point is, that it makes no sense that the Russians would bomb civilians in Mariupol. It’s in eastern Ukraine where the vast majority of people are of ethnic Russian descent. One of Putin’s stated reasons for invading was to protect the eastern Donbas region that has been terrorized by Ukrainian forces (heavily infiltrated by Ukrainian nationals/nazis, as even the mainstream media were willing to acknowledge just a few years ago, for instance: https://time.com/5926750/azov-far-right-movement-facebook/ ). There have even been videos on Twitter of convoys of Russian trucks bringing food and medical supplies to the region.
The Donbas region has been in a civil war for 8 years which had killed 14,000 people, with ethnic Russian civilians taking the brunt of it. I have posted numerous sources documenting this, but, again, I’m sure that’s all Russian propaganda.
It is far more likely that this was a false flag attack by Ukrainian forces who consider Russians (including ethnic Russian Ukrainians) to be their mortal enemies. There have been numerous reports (and even videos posted on Twitter) of Ukrainian forces intentionally staging weapons launches from civilian areas, including residential buildings, schools and, yes, the maternity hospital which reports say Ukrainian forces had cleared for the purpose.
Is it possible that the videos I referenced are staged? That it’s all Russian propaganda? Of course. Like I’ve said, both sides have motivation to lie. But please at least consider that the information you are being fed is also manufactured.
I don’t know what else to say except to beg you all to consider other points of view. The “Mad Vlad” narrative you are being fed makes no sense. Putin is supposedly so insane and meglomaniacal, yet he’s ruled one of the biggest and most powerful countries on earth for 20 years. Try to see it from his point of view. Look at where U.S./NATO bases and weapons are staged – practically ringing every one of Russia’s borders. Do you think the U.S. would tolerate that?
This drive to war and the related blackout of contradictory evidence and silencing of opposing viewpoints is so very alarming, especially for a supposedly free country. If we don’t watch out, we’re going end up in nuclear war and wipe all life off the planet – is it worth it to you? Or might it just possibly be better to consider some of Russia’s demands: Ukrainian neutrality, peace in the Donbas?
Okay, go ahead and tell me that I’m a Putin pawn paid in rubles and an enemy of America and whatever else you want to say. I won’t be back.
Dienne,
I don’t think you are a Russian agent. I think you are what Lenin called “a useful idiot,” a westerner who believes Russian propaganda.
You do know that people in Russia are subject to 15 years in prison if they say that Russia invaded Ukraine or that Russia is at war with Ukraine.
You do know that Putin has criminalized speaking the truth.
You do know that even neutral, non-NATO nations like Switzerland and Finland have condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But you choose to believe that Ukraine is blowing up its own apartment buildings and hospitals.
Believe what you want.
If you lived in Russia, you would be in prison now unless you were spouting Putin’s line, which you are doing here.
And of course, it’s pointless to be “paid in rubles” since they are now worthless. You sincerely believe that Putin is speaking truth and that he’s liberating Ukraine from the control of fascists like Zelensky. That’s your right. You live in a free country.
Putin now positions himself as champion of a Russian Empire and a Russian Orthodox Church both headquartered in Moscow. He told Fox News’s Megyn Kelley that the hacking of American elections in 2016 could have been the work of “Ukrainians, Tartars, or Jews.” His exact words. So, Putin is not only a fascist, but he’s also an anti-Semite.
Dienne
The Putin poisoning of his political enemies, that manufactured too?
The facts: Russia invaded Ukraine and is bombing civilian targets in Ukraine as we type. Ukraine is not bombing or invading Russia, it is not killing Russians in Russia. Russia could have taken its concerns to the UN and to the world in general rather than invading a much smaller country with a much smaller military. Are we on the verge of WWIII with the possibility of a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia? I hope not, the biggest risk being someone goofs on any side and accidentally launches a nuclear-tipped missile. Will the US look like scenes from the Ukraine or even Syria? I hope I am 100% off base, wrong and all bollixed up.
Yes, there are indications that Russia is attempting to minimize civilian casualties, but Dienne, here is the fact: RUSSIA INVADED A SOVEREIGN NATION. And, because it is a kleptocratic state, its military leaders siphoned off billions that were supposed to go into military upgrades, and their weapons, it turns out, are not modern in the sense of being precise in their targeting. And so, they end up bombing civilians. AND, Putin has shown in the past that he is quite willing to turn civilian populations into ash. He is a cold-blooded KGB killer.
How many Ukrainian babies’ lives will it take, Dienne, for you to wake TF out of your ideological slumber?
I have seen no evidence that Russia is trying to minimize civilian casualties. Every time there is an agreement on a humanitarian evacuation route, Russia attacks those routes. That’s why so many people are trapped in Mariupol: no food, no water, no heat. They can’t get out. Why? Many hospitals have been bombed. Why? Many apartment buildings have been targeted. Why?
Good points, Diane.
Dienne, one of the craziest things I have read in my lifetime is your assertion that it is “likely” that Ukraine bombed a theatre full of its own citizens. That’s just flat-out nuts. Completely off the deep end. And note that the Russian pretext for this invasion is a moving target (as was the US pretext for the Second Iraq War). First it was Nazis (Ukraine is led by a Jew) and genocide (no evidence of this whatsoever). Now it is biological weapons (no evidence of this either).
This is an unprovoked and illegal attack of one sovereign UN nation on another member nation’s territory and citizenry. It’s a violation of international law on two kinds: it’s a crime of aggression, and it’s war crime.
Mad Vlad has repeatedly shown himself to be a cold-blooded killer and repressive in the extreme of free speech and dissent and democratic processes. An example of this: After his second Chechen War, in which he turned whole cities full of civilians into smoke and ash, he changed Russian election law so that members of the lower parliament, the Duma, were appointed BY HIM and elections were held only to acclaim the appointments. That’s the man you are so willing to believe–a KGB killer, a mass murderer, and a fascist.
What Putin did to Chechnya was a crime against humanity.
It was. Literally a violation of the Rome Statute and of the Geneva Conventions. And for that alone, he should be standing in the dock at the International Court of Criminal Justice.
Here’s what the Chinese ambassador to Ukraine is saying about this now, according to a report by The Hill:
China is a “friendly country for the Ukrainian people” and would “never attack Ukraine,” Ambassador Fan Xianrong told Maksym Kozytskyi, the governor of Lviv, Ukraine, on Monday.
“I, as an ambassador, can say with responsibility that China will always be a force for good for Ukraine in the economic and in the political sense,” Fan said. “We will always respect your state, will develop relations on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. We will respect the path chosen by Ukrainians because this is the sovereign right of every nation.”
Time for you, too, to respect the path chosen by Ukrainians because this is the sovereign right of every nation, Dienne.
Time for Putin to respect the path chosen by the Ukrainian people. Zelenskyy was elected in a contest with many candidates. When was the last time Outin was elected in a free and fair election. The last guy who challenged him is in prison. The one before that was murdered.
Exactly. Putin, Stalin. I don’t see the difference.
I hope that the ambassador’s statement is a signal that China is not willing to embrace this Old World nationalist insanity, this international lawlessness, and wishes to go forward as a lawful member of the international community. Not holding my breath there for lots of reasons that I won’t go into, but I hope that this good thing comes of the horror in Ukraine: the recognition that the old way represented by the reptilian Putin is no longer acceptable in the modern world. China benefits enormously from being an equal partner in world commerce, trade, banking, etc., from acting lawfully outside its own borders, and I hope that this is a wake-up call to the Chinese leadership about what makes sense going forward.
The UN General Assembly needs to override the Security Council and announce a UN-enforced no-fly zone above Ukraine. This would be a historic first, but it’s what the UN is supposed to be about–enforcing the peace.
Imagine that someone fires into a house and kills three of its residents. He then tries to make the argument that he was just trying to hit the radio in the house because the neighbor was playing it too loud. This is the kind of argument that Russia is making. It’s patently ridiculous, and it’s pathological to think it reasonable. Russia is murdering civilians in Ukraine, right now, by the thousands. It’s war crime, and Putin and his deputies are war criminals.
Oops, I missed, would not be a defense. This is mass murder. And defending it is unconscionable.
Dienne seems to think that Ukraine is murdering its own citizens and destroying its infrastructure. For what purpose, it’s not clear.
Nuts. Totally freaking nuts.
What Dienne writes does not conform to reality. She may be similar to a subset of people who are attracted to abusive, white, “bad boys.”
Dienne, yes Mariupol is Russian-speaking, probably due to having been part of Russian Empire 1700-1900 (later USSR). Not dominated by Russian ethnics however; it has a highly diverse population historically; Russians & Ukranians became the two largest groups more recently. In 2002 Russians were at a high [48%, to Ukrainians’ 44%], but by 2017 it was Ukranians 59%, Russians 33%. I expect Putin doesn’t care about the 1/3 Russian ethnics he’s bombing? And the ‘false flag Ukranian’ idea doesn’t make sense when 60% of the locals are Ukrainian ethnics.
I do get Putin’s POV on being ringed on the West by NATO countries/ installations. But I also get former USSR satellites POV on seeking NATO’s protection against the untrustworthy, territorially aggressive Russia. If you caught this week’s hearing with leaders from the Baltic states, you got an earful of that.
Though you say there’s a ‘blackout’ on the opposing POV, I just saw on BBC part of a Russian TV broadcast claiming that the bombing of this theatre did not happen & the videos were photoshopped.
Talk about a media blackout! Russians think that Putin is cleaning out the Nazis in Ukraine. They have no access to western media.
Great title, Diane. Right to the point.
Ilya Shapiro (birthplace, Moscow) hired from a Koch network organization by the Georgetown Catholic University for its law school administration, has he weighed in on Putin’s war against Ukraine? I’d like to read a reporter’s interview with Shapiro about that topic and to learn more about Shapiro’s expressed appreciation for the writing of Ayn Rand.
Koch industries continues operations in Russia. Peter Thiel’s Rumble platform aids Putin.
Jonathan Tapin’s site posted, “Triumph of the Reactionaries, Move Fast and Break Things…cornered culture and undermined democracy” (1-12-2018). His writing brings together influencers, Thiel and Koch. Tapin elaborates on GOP mantras, “men over women, whites over non-whites, Christians over non-Christians, straights above gays.” Taplin discuses Ayn Rand’s book, the Fountainhead, in which a man blows up his own building “to keep his ideas from being polluted by the ‘demos’ ” (social democracy).
Taplin
What does Ilya Shapiro have to do with the Ukraine invasion?
It seems odd, given Shapiro’s work at the Koch think tank, Cato, and his nation of birth, that he would have no opinion about a situation that may lead to WWIII. We are all interested and we haven’t worked in think tanks for a long time creating spin and we don’t have twitter feeds where we pontificate to thousands.
People from Koch linked groups- AIER, Stand Together, Concerned Veterans for America, etc. are all towing the company line.
4 hours ago, Shapiro, who was(is?) part of Koch team, “liberty”, tweeted that he liked the comedy, “Servant of the People.” So, he does have some awareness that Zelensky is in the news.
Who cares about Ilya Shapiro? Seems like a very inconsequential thing to focus on.
And why do you think he has no view on the conflict? Have you looked at his Twitter feed?
His twitter feed has 41,400 followers (yes, to question). Charles Koch is of great consequence. We learn and deduce about his continued involvement in Russia through his funded network.
Ignoring Georgetown and the Federalist society’s influence on D.C. decisions is unwise.
Fascinating reports today that the Chinese ambassador to Ukraine has stated China’s support for a free Ukraine and for the existing economic cooperation and trade between the two countries. China is Ukraine’s biggest trading partner. Really interesting and important!!!
Also, another report today that a high-level Russian diplomat’s plane, headed to China, reversed course and flew back to Moscow.
Americans with likely the most influence on Putin – Charles Koch and Peter Thiel (Rumble platform)
Was such detailed reports seen when the US was busy destroying Iraq? Or Libya? Or Yugoslavia (NATO) or any other place where the US has left it’s indelible mark??? Two wrongs don’t make a right but let us not keep burying inconvenient truths to whitewash our conscience.
Yes, such sights were regularly reported by American media.
I know it is shameful.
Yes. I read these every day in the US media. Horrific.
The Second Iraq War was conducted, like the war against Ukraine, under Trumped-up, false pretexts. It was a crime of aggression in which horrific war crimes against civilians were committed, and the perpetrators who cooked up this war have not yet been brought to justice for their clear violations of international law. But there is no paucity of information about this available in the free press of the United States. Unfortunately, there is little interest from U.S. citizens–in particular, from the almost half of U.S. voters who cast ballots for Putin’s dog, Trump. This is shameful. No question about it.
This makes the crimes now being committed against the brave, free people of Ukraine no less horrific, no less criminal. If anything, it’s a freaking wake-up call–this keeps happening, and IT MUST STOP HERE, NOW!!!
And I can say this, Vera, with no fear that I will be arrested and thrown into prison for 15 years for not calling the Second Iraq War criminal, for not referring to it as a “special military operation.” That’s what freedom means, and it matters. It matters so much that I would willingly fight and die for it, for the sake of preserving it for my grandchildren.
Yikes. An error in that. Let me correct it:
And I can say this, Vera, with no fear that I will be arrested and thrown into prison for 15 years for calling the Second Iraq War a war an d for calling it criminal, for not referring to it as a “special military operation.” That’s what freedom means, and it matters. It matters so much that I would willingly fight and die for it, for the sake of preserving it for my grandchildren.
There are forces in the United States, Vera, unfortunately, that would like to see that freedom erased. Putin’s dog, Trump, wanted to use the U.S. military to shoot down protestors calling for an end to systemic racism. Secretary Esper and Head of the Joint Chiefs Milley wouldn’t let him. Trump wanted the U.S. border patrol to shoot to kill innocent asylum seekers at our border and literally SCREAMED at his head of the Department of Homeland Security for refusing to do this. Those are dark forces indeed. Trump’s enablers and some of the far-right Repugnican 2024 Presidential candidates remind me of Putin’s siloviki, and we must defeat them. But we know that those people are Putin-supported and in his mold. Putin is the guy who sends agents into the United States, like Maria Butina, to support “gun rights” nuts and so build up the American Right. We fought a war in the middle of the last century to stop fascism. I never thought we would have to face this again on our own soil. I have a great love for Russian culture and for the Russian people whom I have known. How strongly, how bitterly, I wish for us to live together in respectful, lawful peace. But Putin has chosen the criminal course.
ребёнок Child/Children дети
The Russian word for CHILDREN was plainly written on the ground, in LARGE WHITE Russian LETTERS, outside the front and back of the Mariupol Theater Building where residents sheltered in an underground bunker. Bombing buried everyone under the debris.
!!!!!!!
These evil @#&@#&#@**&&&&!!!! murderous criminals. I hope that the ones who ordered this invasion are tried and hanged for the deaths of these children.
Okay, I lied, I’m back. CNN (and other western media) are reporting that people survived by hiding in the bomb shelter in the theater. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/17/europe/ukraine-mariupol-bombing-theater-russia-intl/index.html
I’m really confused. What theater has a bomb shelter? Unless, of course, it’s been there for a while because the “Russian propaganda” about the civil war against the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine for the past 8 years is … true? Nah, couldn’t be. I’m sure every theater on Broadway has a bomb shelter just in case, right?
I spent a good part of my early life working in theatre, Comrade Dienne. Theatres (and especially opera houses) often have either large basements or extensive off-site storage (less desirable) for vast amounts of old costumes, set pieces, furniture, properties, tools, construction tools and supplies, etc., which are often repurposed for later productions. If people are sheltering in a theatrical storage facility or a metro underground, then that becomes an improvised bomb shelter. Duh.
Back in the Cold War 1960s, bomb shelters were everywhere, marked with yellow and black signs–schools, stores, theaters, any public place with a large basement.
Hey, Dienne, don’t waste your time on CNN. I watch only CSPAN and BBC World News. I’ve been watching a lot, and never heard it once referred to as a ‘bomb shelter.’ There was lots of selfie video to be seen of the folks squished into that space. It looked like a large basement, with low-ish ceiling but fancy-ish columns, such as I imagine a theatre might have [built 1960]. Average Mariupol winter low in the low 20’s degF now, & was 5degF lower in 1960, so it figures the bldg would have a basement. And not a huge theatre, so undoubtedly used for storing sets & even changing costumes.
p.s., I’ve also heard a number of times, including from a local opera singer who often performed there [interviewed via laptop while escaping in auto from Mariupol] that the basement held and so far (as of yesterday) no deaths reported.
Why would Russia bomb civilians in allied areas? What would they have to gain from it? All it would do is turn more people against them and – as we’re seeing – ignite worldwide anger against them. But who does have motive not only to kill ethnic Russian civilians but to ignite worldwide anger against Russia? Cui bono?
So you think it must be Ukrainians who sent in tanks and are dropping bombs across the nation. It must be Ukrainians—nearly 200,00 of them—dressed as Russian soldiers. I don’t follow your thinking. Did Russia invade Ukraine? You think not. It’s all a false flag operation. Why are you so protective of Putin?
IKR? The arguments just keep getting more ridiculous.
She’s one of the subset who is attracted to bad boys?
Even Charles Manson had female followers.
But Comrade Dienne, Putin the Reptilian Tsar doesn’t need any help turning the entire world (with a few insane exceptions) against him. He has shown himself more than capable of doing that on his own via extrajudicial killing, economic rape of his country, and mass murder of babies and grandmothers.
Dienne, Russia is the aggressor. It is bombing cities into submission. Their submission, that is what they think they have to gain from this. This is so freaking obvious that one shouldn’t have to explain it to you. You are not a third grader.
Here is the mayor of “allied” Mariupol:
Why did Putin bomb civilians in Grozny, Chechnya? Why did he destroy Grozny and level every building, making the city uninhabitable? Could it be because he is a vicious monster who needs to parade his toxic masculinity to the world. He is doing now to Ukraine what he did to Grozny.
Dienne asks, incredulous, “Why would Russia bomb civilians in allied areas? What would they have to gain from it?”
I am no longer surprised by the naivete of Dienne’s postings about terror that Russia is inflicting upon Ukraine. But I will answer this question. Russia expected to take out key Ukrainian infrastructure from the air in a couple days and then to conduct a quick ground assault on Ukrainian cities and overwhelm them with its superior forces. These ground assaults failed for many reasons–poor equipment maintenance, superior training of Ukrainian forces, low morale among Russian conscripts who were lied to about what they were doing in Ukraine, intense fighting spirit among Ukrainian forces and ordinary Ukrainian citizens who are defending their homes, terrible logistics for resupply, surprisingly effective Ukrainian arms (drones, javelins), secure and continuing Ukrainian communications ability, and so on, the Russians couldn’t simply use their air superiority in areas where there were Russian tanks and troops, so, the Russians have had to retreat, pull back, and then bomb areas into submission before sending the occupying ground forces back in. So, that’s the situation right now, as I understand it, from the interviews and commentary by experienced military leaders. The Russians have retreated from the villages around these outlying villages, bombed TF out of them, and then sent their ground forces back in.
cx: Having met with surprising and effective resistance, the Russian ground forces have been forced to retreat from villages surrounding the major cities, bombed TF out of those villages to break the resistance, and then send their ground forces back in. This has been a bloody and costly mess for them in terms of dead Russian teenaged soldiers and expensive Russian machinery for murder.
Dienne– It strikes me you view things through such a cynical lens that you can’t see truth because you no longer believe anyone tells it. That you would imagine Ukrainians are destroying their own infrastructure and killing off their countrymen in some sort of reverse power play beggers belief.
There is plenty of logic in Putin attacking this area: he wants Ukraine back, the Southeast is particularly vulnerable geographically—even ecologically [insufficient local sources of drinking water]– and the Russian populace is enthusiastically behind him. [Got the last bit from the Baltic leaders interviewed by Congress this week. They listen to Russian media & have ears on the ground.] Also as I said above, Mariupol is only 1/3 Russian ethnics– if that matters at all to Putin (get real). This game is being played with a different kind of logic than you are applying to it.
Education-related, but interesting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/17/dc-schools-achievement-gap-pandemic-reading/
Thanks– good article
Perhaps Putin sees his sun setting. Why else would he strike out in a way that makes him a pariah on the international stage? He must have thought it was now or never.
The now will haunt him. Like Hitler, who tried his technique in Spain to aid Franco, Putin had his Syria. Like Hitler, Putin knew he could not forever have his war and the continued support of his people. Hitler told his generals he had to go into Russia before Germany got tired of war.
Is that Putin’s thinking? Soon, he is an old man. Is he thinking of his legacy?
Please block Dienne. She is not a useful idiot she is a manipulative, false, trolling fake pseudo-leftist who only cares about her ego.
It’s literally grotesque now that she is accusing Ukrainians of killing their own children.
Shame!
Dienne is in moderation, meaning that I review her comments and decide whether to post them. I decided to let her speak because, 1) I don’t want her to accuse me of censoring her views; and 2) I believe that her views are refuted by reality. The very fact that she can defend Putin and attack our government is a demonstration of the freedom that we take for granted. In Russia, if she didn’t slavishly spout Putin propaganda, she would be silenced or imprisoned. This is a teachable moment for all of us. The Putin sympathizers on the left are agreeing with the Putin wing of the GOP. The same statements come from Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Tonight they were denounced by Lindsay Graham as ”outliers” in the Republican Party. There are also outliers in the Democratic Party. We can all remember Trump’s slavish obsequiousness to Putin. Remember their “bromance”? Remember how Trump believed Putin, not his own intelligence services? Maybe this terrible war will help the Republicans break free of their fear of Trump. Sometimes history sends a loud wake-up call.
Bravo, Diane!
And as far as Dienne’s comments about Russia in Ukraine go, they are so obviously wrong, in both senses (factually false and morally repugnant) that they are easily refuted, and via free media and network effects, the refutations can travel. Putin can undo democracy in Russia, close down independent media, poison dissenters, jail opposition party leaders, but in a world where network effects operate, people can see for themselves. Here is the child, the pregnant mom, murdered by Putin’s war machine. Here are the weeping parents. Here, the bombed-out maternity wards, hospitals, schools, playgrounds, apartment buildings, bread lines, old folks’ homes, theatres.
Milton asked us to consider whether, when truth and falsehood grappled, truth ever failed to triumph. I think he was right about that. Dienne serves a useful purpose because she keeps serving up the ever-changing Russian disinformation. She’s a sort of clipping service for the reptilian Putin’s propaganda.
The fascists like Trump and Putin want to stifle speech and spread misinformation and disinformation and create with this a fog in which there is no separating truth and falsehood, a post-truth world, where actual dead babies don’t matter, where there is always deniability, where all that matters is which side you are on. How often in the past few days has Putin used Trump’s “fake news” line? It is in the interest of these creatures of darkness like the little KGB man for everyone to live in a shadow world, where truth can be fiction, fiction can be truth, where 1 + 1 is equal to 5 if the Great Leader at the oh so large table says it is.
I met an interesting lady the other day. She told me she had been a constitutional lawyer in Atlanta for the ACLU in 1981. Her first case was a defense of the right of the Klan to demonstrate in Atlanta. Of course, being from the Gullah-Gechee culture of Savannah,
This was abhorrent to her and she approached her new boss. He told her she had to defend the Klan. She won the right to demonstrate for the Klan on one street corner, the NAACP on another, and two more anti-Klan groups on the remaining two corners. I think I sort of remember this incident.
Modern conservatives want to restrict thought. They perceive argument as threat. Truth is bigger than opinion. But evidence is always pointing us at the truth.
Roy, my father was from the Gullah culture in Savannah. Never lost that accent. Funny for a Jew.
There is a synagogue there that keeps a museum of the Holocaust.
It’s fine not to censor dienne and allow her the freedom to post her manipulative propaganda explaining why she doesn’t have any objections to Putin targeting and murdering civilians and lay waste to a country.
But it is not fine for people to give her any credibility on any subject until she refutes her lies and admits to the reality. But that is what folks do here. dienne can post something else that isn’t full of lies, and people treat her as someone respectable and worthy. The fact that she will spew lies over and over again in other posts does nothing to diminish her credibility. And that is the problem. If you can lie and lie and lie and respectable people will still treat you with respect as a truthful person if you happen to say something they agree with that happens to be true, then democracy is in real danger.
I criticize the so-called liberal media because it does that all the time, and this blog should be better. William Barr can be totally dishonest one day and yet he is afforded the utmost credibility on another day when he says something else. The same is true for most Republicans who can spew lies on one topic and still get quoted on some other topic where what they say happens to be true. So could most Trump officials. If one can lie with impunity, why wouldn’t they keep lying when it suits them? They lose no credibility if they do.
If someone is known to post manipulative, false, trolling fake pseudo-leftist propaganda, they should be identified as someone who has no credibility on ANY topic, and the only comment that should come after their other posts – regardless of whether that post isn’t one of their propaganda posts – is a comment that says “This person is a known spreader of falsehoods, look elsewhere for discussion.” Then they can be ignored until they decide to retract their lies.
There are some other folks on here who repeatedly post manipulative, false, trolling propaganda. And other times they post something true and are treated with respect instead of with the comment “This person is a known spreader of falsehoods, look elsewhere for discussion.” Since they pay no price for posting the manipulative, false, trolling propaganda, they continue to do it.
dienne gives people on the left and progressives a very bad name. She is not a progressive – she is a right wing toady masquerading as a leftist. She bends over backward to defend Putin, but just this week attacked the Squad! She won’t criticize Putin, she won’t criticize Trump, but dienne will post the ugliest lies saying we shouldn’t trust AOC, Aryanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman.
The person who shouldn’t be trusted is dienne herself.
If she deserved our trust, she would be able to criticize Putin and Trump as frequently as she criticizes the Squad.
And those who frequently post lies and manipulative and dishonest propaganda should not be treated with respect just because they happen to be saying something true in another post. They should lose credibility entirely.
Credibility should be earned. If you post lies and manipulative propaganda and it is called out, you can correct what you posted and regain your credibility. If you don’t retract it, then your credibility should be gone until you do, regardless of what you happen to post a comment elsewhere that isn’t full of lies.
This is exactly correct-
“ dienne gives people on the left and progressives a very bad name. She is not a progressive – she is a right wing toady masquerading as a leftist. She bends over backward to defend Putin, but just this week attacked the Squad! She won’t criticize Putin, she won’t criticize Trump, but dienne will post the ugliest lies saying we shouldn’t trust AOC, Aryanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman.”
When someone posts something true, it is perfectly acceptable to say, yes, that’s true. When someone posts something false, it is a duty to refute the falsehood. What, exactly, NYPSP, is the problem with that? This is what happens in a democracy. It isn’t pretty, but it’s real and valuable.
Bob, stop making sense.
Bob Shepherd,
I hope you teach your students about credibility.
The lesson of the boy who cried wolf is not supposed to be that we should all condemn the townspeople for not understanding that we must always treat the utterances of people who constantly lie and mislead as if they are telling the truth this time.
It is that the credibility of people who lie a lot is shot and that is their own fault. The townspeople were right to marginalize – to ignore – the boy who cried wolf after he kept lying and lying. That is the consequence of his lying. He stopped being believed about EVERYTHING.
(Trying to imagine the lesson being that just because the boy lied constantly, it was the townsfolks duty to always believe him.)
You incentivize students to lie if they never get any consequences except “oh dear, you aren’t telling the truth this time, and so many times, but sometimes you do tell the truth when the truth happens to serve your interests so we appreciate that you sometimes tell the truth.”
If you want to incentivize someone to lie when it serves their purpose, you amplify the fact that they tell the truth (not mentioning that they only tell the truth when that serves their purposes.) You minimize their lies by saying it should not affect their credibility at all.
This is what has happened to the Republicans and they now lie with abandon, knowing the media may get around to correcting that lie or not, but many people will believe it because that same media presents this person as if he is a credible person because sometimes (when it suits his purposes) he tells the truth.
I had great history and English teachers and high school who taught us about credible sources. Credible sources make mistakes but they correct them. Sources that keep promoting lies should not be considered credible about anything. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but that doesn’t make it a credible clock.
Trump was Putin’s useful idiot.
Putin relies on people like Charles Koch and Peter Thiel to continue their business operations in Russia and he relies on the American political sphere that they control.
Whether Fox is merely pivoting from Russian support in order to politically live another day, is something to watch for going forward.
If Fox continues to foment a race war which is Putin’s strategy, it will inform us.