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I used to respect Maître Eloas, but...
https://tass.com/defense/1420885
by Tom2 on Sun Mar 13th, 2022 at 11:33:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Ha. So we have Twitter references in common. I respect Maître Eolas.

When someone I respect reaches diametrically different conclusions to my own, I try to understand why; and it's not unknown that I change my view (it's all part of growing up / not growing old)

You appear to respect Tass more. Bonne route, camarade.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Sun Mar 13th, 2022 at 11:56:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
A reason for the democracy crisis we live through is the difficulty for the elites to understand the difference between a reliable source and one which is not. In this case, Tass has more journalists in the countries mentioned in the despatch than any other. And it is not as if Western Europe had no interest and various businesses with the mentioned countries (remember Hollande and his chapka?). In addition to that, there is a context: China has been asking the US to come clean about covid since the beginning. Many countries have asked for an enquiry in China, in what happened to be a very international laboratory (https://www.franceculture.fr/sciences/le-laboratoire-p4-de-wuhan-une-histoire-francaise) which included, as you know, some fishy US business.
Eloas is a lawyer who builds his reputation on the quest for truth. But Twitter has never been about that, and posting cheap pictures to bark with the crowd does not help anyone.
Again, the debate about being for or against any war should be left to the people who are actually fighting it (and possibly to their parents), and to no one else.
by Tom2 on Sun Mar 13th, 2022 at 01:42:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I absolutely agree that one of the fundamental problems with democracy (and it's far from being a recent one!) is the difficulty for everyone ("elites" or not) to understand difference between a reliable source and one which is not.

In reality, there is no such thing as a reliable source. Every source is pushing its own interests to some degree.  A fundamental problem is that people are not trained in critical thinking from an early age; it's a fundamental requirement if a society is to move in the direction of effective democracy.

In the "old days" (I'm taking France as an example, as the "media market" I best understand), people who wished to be informed would choose a newspaper and stick to it (they were generally aware of the political orientation of the paper, which informed their choice).
In the TV age, people got standard government-sanctioned information. Then private TV broadened (arguably) the offering, but subjected information to commercial interests (those of the owners and/or advertisers).

In the internet age, people in general without critical thinking skills quickly fall into tribal or herd behaviour, ready to believe anything if they believe it comes from their tribe...

To come back to Maître Eolas and Tass...

I'm not sure what to make of your Tass link : meeting of Soviet-bloc countries (which the current war is intended by its author to enlarge to include the Ukraine) in order to form a special unit for defense against chemical and biological weapons. It's undoubtedly factual, but lacks the context and interpretation to be useful.

It seems that there are biolabs in Ukraine, US funded, which it is claimed are researching biological warfare. I won't look for factual information about this on Tass (nor in the NY times); I am at a loss to find an informed view of the subject.

As for Eolas, he expresses opinions on a range of subjects outside his domain of competence (notably, about this weekend's rugby). If you intend to boycott him in the future, that's your call.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Sun Mar 13th, 2022 at 02:37:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It is not about a meeting but about "joint (military?) exercises". From the Tass despatch, it is easy to check the local newspapers of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan in the coming days to see what is going on. That was the only reason of my posting.

As to the biolabs, I think that Oui has posted a whole shelf of literature in the past days.

by Tom2 on Sun Mar 13th, 2022 at 02:43:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
From today in the American Conservative
https:/www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/questions-about-ukrainian-biolabs
by Tom2 on Sun Mar 13th, 2022 at 03:19:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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