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• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/world/europe/russias-rt-network-is-it-more-bbc-or-kgb.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/03/07/world/europe/ap-eu-germany-russia.html
  

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I am extremely busy at the moment and this response is therefore written in some haste. I thank you, sir, for no longer immediately and arbitrarily deleting my every comment on the false pretense that it is not relevant to the content of the article, which is nothing more than your subjective judgment. Specifically, you and your ideologically allied editors engage in the false pretense that issues I've mentioned are of no relevance to understanding this critically important topic - critically important for two overpowering reasons, first that, outside of independent journalists, RT is virtually the only mainstream source communicating to the West the viewpoints of both the Russian people and the Russian government, a point of key relevance in either exacerbating or ameliorating the appallingly dangerous tensions between two world powers, either of whose nuclear arsenal would if used almost certainly cause the extinction of the human species on this planet. Given the importance of this topic, this Talk page should by rights be five times its present length and filled with the views of a diversity of users, but given the undemocratic domination of this Talk page by you and your ideological allies, one can safely assume that any such views have been subjected to the same sort of authoritarian censorship that mine have. Again, specifically, I've made two important points which by any reasonable judgment are of vital relevance to the monumentally important topic I mentioned, namely the hijacking of Misplaced Pages as yet another vehicle to further the campaign of anti-RT, anti-Putin and (given what neutral sources have repeatedly shown is far greater popularity in his own country enjoyed by President Putin among his own people in contrast with the widespread unpopularity of Western politicians in theirs) anti-Russian propaganda and the manufacturing of anti-RT, anti-Russian and anti-Putin hysteria in the West by what Washington veteran Mike Lofgren has called the "Deep State" ), and hence this article, namely that (1) reputable scholars from top American universities, namely Princeton (Professor Martin Gillens) and Harvard (Professor Lawrence Lessig), and others, have pointed out in scholarly papers and lectures that the United States is no longer a functional democracy but an oligarchy "captured" by those whom Ferdinand Lundberg long ago referred to as the "super-rich" and that (2) they do this through a process Professor Lessig aptly calls "Tweedism" (and I would also add the dual citizenship (which would be unthinkable here in Japan, which President Theodore Roosevelt called "a self-evident absurdity," which allows foreign billionaires to effectively buy US citizenship and then exercise far more power than untold numbers of native-born Americans who like myself can trace their descent all the way back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony). This point is of vital relevance to this article because it is only with a full understanding of this wider power context that any fair judgment of RT can be made, and you know it. The latter point in particular has been highlighted among others by Japanese former ambassador to Ukraine Mutsuo Mabuchi, an ultra-conservative by the way, who in his book 「世界を操る支配者の正体」Sekai wo Ayatsuru Shihaisha no Shōtai among others) says it is precisely what the Washington regime did in Ukraine and the reason why the constitutionally elected former president of that country was nearly assassinated and violently overthrown, amid abundant proof of U.S. covert involvement (never mentioned in the corporate media), and replaced with a billionaire. RT is virtually alone as a source through which Americans can learn the Russian side of this critically important issue, but nowhere is that important fact mentioned in this article or even allowed on this Talk page. Former National Defense Academy professor and equally conservative former ambassador to Uzbekistan and Iran Magosaki Ukeru, whom I know personally, has made similar points (as in 「日米同盟の正体」Nichibei Dōmei no Shōtai (The True Nature of the Japan-U.S. Alliance), focusing especially on the long history of false flag and other anti-democratic foreign interventions which the "deep state" has perpetuated abroad while blatantly lying to the American public. To pretend that these issues are not relevant to understanding the rabble-rousing against RT by governments and corporate media sources with a long history of deceiving their own public is disingenuous and borders on willful mendacity, and to use such pretense as a glib excuse to censor other Misplaced Pages editors one disagrees with would be shameful behavior for anyone who truly believes in government of, for and by the people. Thus far, you and your ideologically allied editor have not given other users even the opportunity to consider the relevance of my suggestions so that, following the input of a wide variety of users, I might modify or refine them so they do conform with the consensus view -- once it is reached. Instead, you glibly arrogate all authority to yourself and immediately censor them, an action I do not perpetrate against you even though I obviously disagree with you. It is abundantly obvious that the building of that consensus requires that comments on this page, including this one, to remain long enough for a variety of editors to consider and provide suggestions on. What you and your ideological allies arrogantly ignore is that the issues of relevancy and the interpretation of what sources conform to Misplaced Pages's requirement of reliability are themselves precisely the kind of issues which require exactly this kind of good-faith consensus to be built. You, sir, do not have the authority to make that call on your own as if you were the judge in a courtroom and the rest of us mere observers entitled to offer our views only by your leave. To smugly arrogate the authority to make this judgment yourself and immediately and delete and glibly dismiss the comments of other editors acting in good faith instead of waiting for input from a variety of viewpoints is undemocratic and anti-intellectual behavior which by any judgment disqualifies a person as a Misplaced Pages editor. As I noted in a comment which you or your allied editors immediately censored, it is precisely for this reason that I have never - ever - engaged in such behavior in my fifteen to twenty years of using Misplaced Pages. You ask me to make specific suggestions, and I most certainly promise you I will do so. For the present, however, since I am not quite retired at the age of sixty-four and must still work for my living, I have a mountain of work due Monday morning which I must immediately get back to and must also address the fact that I've received warnings that someone has made failed attempts to log into my Misplaced Pages account and my main computer (I'm using a backup system now) has just the other day mysteriously become unable to access the Internet and the company which provides the routers for the building I occupy is at a loss to explain or solve the problem even after attempting for half the day. But in answer to your question, I will mention a couple points which I will elaborate on in coming weeks when I have a break from work and have certain surgery completed which will put my left hand out of commission for a couple weeks. The first point includes reaffirmation of the point made by editors such as one unsigned editor and Editor Reollun, namely that an double standard is being applied with RT which is not being applied to the Western corporate media. I don't have to tell you that Rupert Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal and Jeff Bezos (who like other tech billionaires has close ties with the Pentagon) owns the Washington Post. Virtually all of the "reliable" Western media outlets are in the hands of billionaires. Above you've dismissed my input as an interpolation into a discussion initiated one year ago as a justification for deleting it. But as I've noted above, it takes time and the input from a variety of editors before a consensus can be built regarding relevance and reliability. It is therefore obvious that such input will be added over time. Your argument that my comment concerned an issue already "settled" is therefore false. But it is false for yet another important reason, namely because the above editor's concerns, despite being abundantly reasonable and relevant, have still not been reflected in the body of the article. The second point I would raise is one I alluded to above, namely that in the context of this dangerous revival of Cold War hysteria being created by frenetic politicians (even though Russia is no longer communist and Putin is openly supporting a vibrant renaissance of the Christian faith in Russia after decades of communist oppression), RT is virtually alone in providing the Russian point of view. This latter point is specifically relevant precisely because the ignoring or distortion of this revival of Christian faith is one of the best examples of the biased coverage of Russia and Putin. When the female punk rock group "Pu**y Riot" engaged in disrupting and obscene behavior while trespassing the inside the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a shrine holy and sacred to Christians, what was the universal reaction of the Western corporate media, pundits and politicians in the U.S. and the West but to totally overlook the illegal and blasphemous behavior of the members of this punk group (one of whom participated in group sex in a pornographic movie) even as they insulted the Christian religion and infringed on the precious rights of Christians to worship at the shrine. Amazingly, the Western corporate media went even further to attack the Russian government and Putin by characterizing their defense of the rights of Christians to worship at the sacred shrine as "suppression" of the free speech of these criminals. Yet there is no mention in this article of this appalling example of bias by the corporate media, nor so much a peep about it or the many other examples on this Talk page, obviously because any such comments will be immediately censored by you and your ideological allies. At last resort I appeal to your own self-interest: You yourself and all those you love will not survive if even one of Russia or the United States are tipped into a nuclear war, perhaps an accidental one precipitated by the dangerous tensions created by the hostility against Russia which saturates the Western media. Thus one vital addition needed in this article is the point that RT, with the exception of independent journalists still accessible online or on YouTube (even as "Big Brother" Erich Schmidt of Google (notorious for his "If you have something to hide you shouldn't be doing it" quip threatens to censor RT and other Russian content on Google and YouTube), is that RT is virtually alone in the West not only in providing the Russian viewpoint but a platform for reputable Western voices who question the amid the vast archipelago of billionaire-controlled media and billionaire-funded "think tanks" churning out vast mountains of what can only be described as anti-Russian propaganda (as painstakingly documented in Lofgren's book), propaganda for precisely the same reasons this very article as it currently stands is just more anti-Russian propaganda. Importantly, now that the U.S. government has censored RT as a "foreign agent," RT videos on YouTube, for instance, are virtually the only place where Americans and other Westerner citizens can listen to President Putin's speeches and interviews so they can form their own judgments of him. Using the expression "Western partners" to describe those who insultingly characterize him as a "thug" or a "dictator," he never fails in my judgment to conduct himself as a gentleman and, in my view, far more like a statesman than any Western pundit or politician. You may disagree, but even as the Western corporate media gives many hours of airtime to all those Western politicians who vilify Putin, RT is virtually alone in providing Western citizens with the means to hear Putin so they can formulate their own judgments about him. But of course, this is precisely why RT is being censored and Putin vilified by Western politicians and the billionaire-controlled media. This important point, like the other objections I've raised above, goes unmentioned in this article because you and your ideologically allied editors consider it "irrelevant." I have no doubt at this point that if I were to attempt to edit the article to this effect my contribution would immediately be censored in the same way that the corporate media would and doubtless does censor any attempt by staff reporters to dissent from the "Putin-as-dictatorial-thug" narrative. So I will touch on these and other points in future comments as soon as I finish this pile of work I have, solve this mysterious problem with my Internet connection and get out of the hospital for hand surgery. Meanwhile, I am an editor of many years standing and do not make comments lightly. I've made many lengthy and thoughtful contributions on other pages that are many years standing and take my responsibilities as a Misplaced Pages editor seriously. As I mentioned, I have never even once arrogated the authority to immediately delete comments by other editors on the Talk page even when I disagreed with them. No individual or small minority of editors has the right to arrogate the authority to censor this or my other comments on this Talk page until a broad consensus has been reached regarding their relevancy. I note that you appealed to a Misplaced Pages Administrator whom you call by first name, characterizing me as being completely in the wrong. I'm afraid I am not as technically inclined as you and in any case have never before felt the need to work my way up in the Misplaced Pages hierarchy or appeal to an Administrator whom I address on a first-name basis. I hope it does not come to that. Gunnermanz (talk) 05:50, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

To save others the pain of reading this TEXTWALL, absolutely none of it is relevant to improving this article. Just a particularly rambling version of the usual pro-Russian stuff about the corrupt West and the political / corporate media conspiracy to vilify the wonderful Vladimir Putin, with the odd threat of nuclear holocaust. Gunnermanz I don't know how many times this must have been explained to you over your "fifteen to twenty years of using Misplaced Pages" but the (more complete) articles are the product of content published in reliable sources and written in a way that complies with the Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. As this is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, the quality of different articles varies according to skill level of those who contributed to it. Generally the more important the subject, the more experienced the editors who get involved, therefore the more stringent adherence to policy. As article talkpages are not forums for our opinions on the world, the removal of your previous comments is justified. If you want is article to change significantly you are going to need sources about RT not opinions. And finally we have heard it all before, is talkpage currently has nine archives!TiB chat 10:28, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Uhhhhhhh thanks Gunnermanz. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:58, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank God this was "written in some haste"! — JFG 06:36, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Dear Friends, Hello from Japan in the summer of 2018. The fireworks and sounds of Japanese folk music blaring tonight from the festival in the distance make me sad that I must soon leave this country I love so much. Anyway, regarding my recent posts, I ask all of you to forgive the fact that, emotional as they were, the comments I made upon landing on this page for the first time expressed the kind of shock I felt many years ago upon hearing Rush Limbaugh on the Far East Network for the first time (FYI: FEN is a 'propaganda' radio station operated by the US military). Despite my curiosity as to why certain people seem to have unlimited time to instantly edit Misplaced Pages pages about Russia they disagree with while the rest of us have to work for a living, I will not raise such concerns here again and will instead pursue other avenues. But I do respectfully ask the Administrator in control of this page, in light of the gravity of US-Russia relations and the potential dangers to the survival of our species attending any further exacerbation of US-Russia relations, to allow much more freedom of discussion on this page. I have been using and editing Misplaced Pages responsibly for at least ten years and over that time I and many other users have made extensive comments and expressed a great variety of sometimes emotional views on Talk pages, for after all, that is what they are for. Over these many years, I have never seen comments on any Misplaced Pages Talk page deleted so instantaneously or freedom of discussion controlled so strictly as I have seen on this RT Talk page. I've made extensive comments over these years and I have never had - nor heard of any - comments on the Talk pages deleted. The Talk pages should be a place where users of Misplaced Pages can come to see the controversy behind the articles so they can read them in order to judge the article for themselves. Yes, I've been emotional in my previous posts. I tend to get emotional when the survival of our children, grandchildren and the human race itself is at stake. It means nothing if the US can flatten Russia with nuclear weapons 25 times over even if not a single Russian strike reaches the US since, as scientists warn, the environmental consequences from the US nuclear destruction of Russia alone will result in climate changes that almost certainly spell the end not only of America and the West but of the human species itself (excepting those billionaires who are building rockets to try to survive on Mars while leaving the rest of us to be destroyed here on earth). It is critical that we talk stop this hysteria about Russia created by irresponsible politicians and the billionaires whose slaves they are. All of the points I've made here are directly - directly - related to the issues raised in this RT article and many other Misplaced Pages articles like it. What we need is not simplistic, broad-brush dismissal of all comments as "disruptive editing" but freedom of speech, open and lively discussion. I sincerely welcome comments from users with different viewpoints, but we can't have a discussion unless we have it here and unless everyone can see it so that a consensus can be built. Please consider this. (I may not be able to post for a while since it's back to the hospital again soon for more surgery - but at least pretty Japanese nurses....) Gunnermanz (talk) 11:58, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

PS: In support of my view, I refer you to Jefferson's comment to Marc Auguste Pictet of February 5th, 1803: "the abuses of the freedom of the press here have been carried to a length never before known or borne by any civilized nation. but it is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth & falsehood. and hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness." https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-39-02-0391 Gunnermanz (talk) 12:11, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

As you've been around for a long time, surely you know about our WP:NOTFORUM guideline. Talk pages are not a free-expression medium about article subjects, however interesting such discussions may be. Instead, the goal of talk pages is to sort out differences among various editors about specific proposals for article text and subject coverage. If you post along these lines, I'm sure your suggestions will not be erased. Enjoy what remains of Japan! — JFG 12:50, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

>JFG. Many thanks for your kind comments and instructions. They are duly noted. You alluded to 'what remains of Japan,' by which I assume you refer to Fukushima? It is a big concern. Time will tell. Your points about editing this page are duly noted. Many thanks, and again I apologize for any violations on my part. My only request is that I think Jefferson's point was well made. As you know, Jefferson detested the media, which in this context means posts from anyone and anybody on this Talk page - provided, as you say, that they focus on improving the article in question in line with the goals of Misplaced Pages. I strongly support these values. My only request, as I poorly expressed in past comments, is that I beg everyone interested in the survival of our children and grandchildren, to understand the gravity of US-Russia relations and especially the background issues that are involved. We need to discuss these background issues on this Talk page. I strongly believe the vast majority of our human race are good people. Let us learn from each other. Let us practice empathy as the ancient sages East and West have advised. The factions (I use Madison's definition in Federalist X) that opposed Jefferson went way overboard with all the tricks of rhetoric that we are all familiar with and now becoming sick of. Yet, he understood that censorship of any views was not so much a denial of the right of the speaker but the listener. This point bears repeating. Freedom of speech is not just a right of the speaker but of the listener. Any scientist wants to hear the views of other scientists with contrary views. We should follow this scientific attitude. Jefferson trusted democracy because he believed that, if only citizens could be given a chance with a good education and a fair and viable system of electing representatives, they would be able to sort things out. But how can they do so if any citizen's speech is deleted immediately, or for that matter, if one powerful individual and his 'faction' are able to drown out all other opinions? So on this page, I look forward to hearing the those who vehemently oppose my views on this RT article, and I will answer them, and they me. Is that not what this Talk page should be about, and it can not be if we delete each others posts immediately. Again, many thanks for your instructions and I look forward to a lively discussion on this page. Gunnermanz (talk) 05:05, 27 August 2018 (UTC)