So...I previously looked at RT in 2017 after we were in our mccarthyist "Russian propaganda" hysteria post 2016, but I decided, in this conflict against Ukraine, to take another look at it to see how they were spinning it. I didn't watch for super long, I was quite frankly more interested in actual coverage of the war that was legitimate, but I did watch for around an hour.
I happened to catch it right when Lee Camp came on. And he basically happens to be the progressive golden child of the network. And he started pulling out all of the common propagandistic talking points, about how NATO promised to not to expand, and how the US wants to impose its way of life on people, and blah blah blah. And then he basically started attacking the US over issues like that involving forcing nurses to come to work and not take other jobs over poor pay, etc. All of their choices in discussion were quite intentional, and the message was basically US bad, Russia just wants to defend itself.
While I have acknowledged Russia has a valid geopolitical concern over the region, honestly, Russia has brought this upon itself. NATO made no promises to not expand eastward. Russia signed an agreement with NATO under Yeltsin to the contrary, to which he later opposed and criticized because he changed his mind. But by then, it was signed. And since then, Russia has fallen back into authoritarianism. And ironically, Russia's belligerence is what drove a lot of states like Poland to NATO. They feared Russia's aggression.
It should be noted joining NATO is considered totally voluntary. Heck, the standards to join NATO are rather high, requiring significant requirements to conform to to be a contributing nation state, and requiring the approval of every existing nation state that is a part of it. And many European countries are NOT part of NATO, like Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Ireland. Some states just prefer neutrality in such matters, and that is generally respected of them.
So...eastward expansion of NATO has actually been a voluntary thing, with many nation states joining to seek protection....from Russia. Ukraine has been in a weird position of being on and off with the idea, but in recent years has been more serious about joining, which is what drove Russia to attack. Should NATO have not expanded? Well, it depends. If the expansion is voluntary and not coerced, that's fine. If one side is actively courting people to its side and bullying people to join, which is certainly what Russia would argue, then not fine.
Should Russia's security concerns be considered? Well, here's the thing. What is Russia afraid of? The US invading them? Why would we do that? They have the third biggest military in the world and if Napoleon and Nazi Germany of proven anything, invading Russia is generally not a good idea, and it's not a fight I believe is in the US's interests, or that they would actually win. I don't deny we sometimes push around weaker countries for oil or something, but Russia is a nuclear power with a large military and inhospitable terrain. And even more so, the only reason we would want to deal with Russia is because they would be aggressive themselves. Russia has "don't #### with it" written all over it, and honestly, we only want to get involved because they're attacking everyone else. So make no mistake, Russia is unequivocally the bad guy here. If they were an open free democratic society, we'd probably let them be.
And as far as we want to push people around and force our model on people. Sure, we attack other nations, sometimes to impose capitalism and our form of imperialism on them, but let's look at who the alternatives are as far as big fish in the world. Those are Russia and China. Russia is an authoritarian state that is ALSO capitalist. They're not communist any more. They might promote leftist party lines on RT to try to win lefties over to their cause, but make no mistake, they're everything the US is as far as negatives but worse. And China? An authoritarian communist state. These guys are not moral role models to serve as an alternative to the US. The US and Europe might sometimes be hypocritical in their roles in colonialism and neocolonialism over the years, but they're still the best moral leaders the world has. No nation is perfect, and "western values" are still far better than the alternatives.
So, just to debunk that.
To return back to the subject of RT, basically, they're propaganda. They spin things in certain ways to promote certain narratives. Not everything they say is inherently wrong. But it's crafted together in a certain way to create a narrative, and they might have a mix of truth here, some exaggeration there, some bias here, and some flat out convenient lies there. Our own corporate media isn't much better. I noticed this when I last covered RT in my previous article. They spin things in certain ways, and if anything that's why I don't trust them either.
It's important, when looking at ANY news source, to take their biases into account. You gotta keep in mind who is funding these guys, what their interests are, and take note of that when listening. You don't go to CNN if you want fair coverage of anti establishment political candidates like Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang. You don't trust RT if you want coverage on anything related to Russia. Even before this they've always had their own weird biases toward Russian politics. Because it's a Russian propaganda outlet.
On domestic politics, I previously considered RT to be a little better, but they still have an anti US stance and seem to promote leftism in a "hello fellow kids" sort of way to sow discord. This is why left wing criticism of Hillary Clinton was often considered to be "Russian propaganda". Sure, the Russians had a vested interest in sowing discord. But, as I said myself, does that mean we should just support the dems and political establishment out of some jingoistic form of patriotism? Hell no. My convictions are my own. Russia doesn't tell me how to think. And if they happen to agree with me, well, we're NOT the same, as I genuinely want my country to be a better place, and they just wanna screw with the political establishment.
One thing you can tell between the Russians and myself is when RT criticizes America, they don't offer solutions. Their entire message is American bad. And while this often takes a socialist tinge to it, let's not forget, is Russia ANY better of a country than the US? Of course not. They're a terrible place to live. Me? I have explicit goals, and i criticize the country in advancement of getting those explicit goals passed. There's a difference between criticizing your country in order to make it better, and attacking it for its own sake to sow discord. I do the former, they do the latter. Which is when it comes time to criticize Russia, YOU BET i have some choice words. And I support Ukraine in this war 100%. Russia is wrong. Period. End of story.
So...generally speaking? RT spins propaganda. While some things they say might technically be true, they make a lot of embellishments and spin things in certain ways to fit the facts to their narrative. Much like most propaganda. it should be noted most propaganda doesn't outright lie to you. Sometimes it does. But more often it simply spins facts to fit their narrative. And in order to untangle what they're doing, you gotta understand their narrative. I can be biased too, admittedly, but on this issue, i feel like I'm relatively objective. I explained what russia's actual interests are, and broke the issue down into the simplest form of geopolitics and discussion of "who benefits from what?" Russia wants buffer states to protect its security. And those buffer states, wanting to be relatively free liberal democracies, seek protection from Russia. And that's the real issue at stake. In that context, Russia is the aggressor, and is completely in the wrong. Period.
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