I grew up in a former Soviet Union Republic under a man who was the president since before my birth, and until his own death in 2016. The economy suffered and my mom was forced to seek employment in Russia. Thanks to the internet and multiple Russian media outlets both abroad and within Russia, we were well aware of the corruption and the dire state of Russia. It was not a secret that everyone who did not believe the state media disliked Putin. And it seemed to me I was no stranger to looking at everything critically and seeing past the large media narrative.
Seeing things for how they are proved a lot harder in the US and it took me a lot longer to figure out. There seemed to be so many different news channels with such differing opinions! Only by finding independent news channels on youtube and reading formerly classified information did my perspective change.
I am no longer gullible enough (and I have been and can be very gullible) to be susceptible to the fearmongering and false claims. Even if I don't listen to the channels that spread it, I see and hear it from the people who have. I feel there is a loss of critical discernment. Many people grab and run with something that they heard and now blindly take as a fact. I understand that we all do this because we are human and our psychology can be influenced. Still, some "facts" that lead to very large dire consequences deserve to be questioned, I think. I am not gullible enough to accept war. I will never knowingly support it. And I wish more people would not support the normalization of war.
