For the record, I agree with you, lol.

I was purposefully asking this person who seems to disagree. I wanted to know what they see in western media that seems more convincing, if anything.

So if both are just saying what their leaders want them to say, what do people do who want to find the truth?

Tom Cruise is just Tom Cruise to me, I never feel like he disappears into any kind of role - he’s just Tom Cruise pretending to be someone else who happens to look and act similarly to Tom Cruise.

With one exception, that being Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder 😆

All g. Sometimes it’s nice to rant openly about such things in a place where people feel similarly rather than look at you like you’re some kind of conspiracy theorist doomsayer.

BUT AT WHAT COST

Democracy is good when it can’t be completely subverted by a couple of rich international oligarchs spending billions of dollars in a dedicated mass media campaign over a period of decades that beams a literal firehose of lies, half-truths, and the glazing of any person/organization that willingly assists them and does everything in their power to destroy and denigrate anything that even comes close to undermining them at the cost of factual reality directly into the eyeballs of anyone who owns a screen…

But other than that democracy is generally preferred, yes.