RT: Americans Would Nuke Russia, Not The Other Way Around

[Replay]

Russia Today sent out a mock journalist to do a mock poll.

The findings: basically that most Americans are eager to nuke Russia; and correspondingly that most Russians think nuking America would be heartless and insane.

http://rt.com/news/266848-russia-nuke-america-poll/

And some of you wonder why I oppose our endless militarism? This is a bad bad sign about how stupid America has gotten, folks.

In fact it is a sign that one of the fundamental predicates of the Cold War - that Russians hated Americans "for our freedoms" and would eagerly have started a nuclear war with us - was nothing but a lie. As Gore Vidal so capably noted; the anti-Russian rhetoric of the Cold War, the paranoia and McCarthyism - it all began at a point when America had nuclear weapons and Russia had none. Given this, I find it entirely possible that most of Russia's anti-Americanism during the period was a direct result of our own policy against them.

[ManaMan]

I'd take anything from the Russian media with a HUGE grain of salt. Most likely just pro-Russian, anti-American propaganda: "Russians are the good guys, America is out to destroy us!"

[Don]

We're pretty sure that countries don't make their nuclear policy based on popular opinion. It is quite possible the Russian population fears nukes from US than the other way around but neither are charge of their nation's nuclear policies. The US (and most of the world) is worried about Russia's nukes because Putin seems like more trigger happy than Obama. The fact that Russians may indeed perceive themselves as victim of western aggression makes it harder to predict how Putin will act. The US has an unmatched conventional army and they're certainly doing fine overall so they don't really have any grievances against other nations, and even if Obama decides to go to war with everyone, the American military is the strongest in the world so there's no reason for him to think 'better nuke those guys first' because of MAD.

[Replay]

I do take anything from RT with a grain of salt. Contrary to what some may believe, I take anything from any media source with a grain of salt. There is no such thing as a fair, unbiased news source anywhere in sentient existence. All beings have bias.

I also don't subscribe to the prevailing American opinion "anything Russian is propaganda", which in my opinion probably correlates highly with the portion of America that wants to nuke everyone else on Earth in case of any problem that is not zero.

Please don't try to tell me those people don't exist, Mana. I've met far too many of them myself.

[ManaMan]

Don't get me wrong, certainly a lot of belligerent nuts in the US of A who love to say flippant, obnoxious jingoistic crap.

[Replay]

As long as we can have that discussion!

Trust me, I am quite sure RT engages in...let us say approximately as much propaganda as, say, Fox News (which has been funded by the CIA, quietly, for its entire existence).

I don't disbelieve however that the portion of jingoistic nuts is actually higher here. The "normal" Russians I have talked to generally over the course of my life are just rather boisterous, happy-go-lucky sorts - not bad people at all, and indeed peaceful. And I just met someone in a bar last month HERE who cheerfully said he thought nuking all the Muslims was a great idea.

Yes, the FSB/KGB and Putin and all of those are massive murderous fuckheads, but I think it's long past time to get over our PEOPLE hating each other in both countries.