I'd hope there is something to think about in my statement; that's why I wrote it.
Re China, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Are you admitting China pumps out propaganda? Everyone here knows that. Are you trying to analogize between a nation with a free press and one without?
You said yourself that the media aren't particularly accurate. Everyone's just buying into the narrative -- all with so little understanding or even knowledge of China. One Singaporean diplomat always complains that whenever he visits the US, he is reminded of how parochial the press is. Or how they feel about each other's narrative -- without questioning.
Its a rehash of the Red Scare -- first it was Japan and now its China.
Most people have short term memories or arent really serious -- its all gamified. Taught to think of it in terms of Good v evil, Blue v red.
You are batting for sides only and not based on knowledge or any understanding of all sides.
And judging others based on your own criteria only -- with no understanding or acceptance of differences. That's either hubris or ignorance.
I have been responsible for operations in various jobs/projects for 20+ countries. You need to know each country pretty well, or at least understand how it works. Eventually, you stop judging. Its not whether one side is better than the other -- like a game, with binary choices. When you have some depth and knowledge, you make your own judgement and how you work within that context.
There are no good actors or bad actors --- everyone is bad but only to varying degrees.
Let me remind you that it was the 21st anniversary of the illegal war in Iraq just last week -- where 400–600,000 civilians died due to some BS information that was clearly made up and pushed into the UN. And most, if not all, of the press supported it. Where's the WMD? Yet there has been no accountability. Still the good guys?
And yet you believe the current narrative on this phoney tension that is being created in the Asia-Pacific? Like I mentioned earlier, its military keynesian. A sad but effective way to boost the economy.
People must be delusional, have selective memories, or have gamified this geopolitical space and therefore aren't really serious thinkers. You need a dollop of self-criticism and awareness, -- with some acknowledgement of past mistakes or sins, if things are to be improved. You need an understanding of why people do the things they do ie empathy when you do strategic planning.
Like any AA meeting. Acknowledgement is the very first step. But instead, the same mistakes are being made over & over again.
Tell me one serious war that the country has 'won' since WW2? All these wars, whether kinetic or proxy, have almost all landed in failure. Backing the wrong people and then later realising the mistake, attempt to remove the very same person!!
Look at life as an entire spread sheet with the bottom-line -- rather than looking at life, arguing over each line item. Then you may actually start to see a pattern.
Fyi. The US is ranked 45th globally in terms of press freedom.
