Approved News: a rant.

 The Russian news media are in a hundred per cent agreement about the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine. So, as everyone is in agreement, then there's no reason to question any of the facts.

Apparently, everything is going splendidly.

In a world of doubt and disagreement, all it took to establish that consensus was: 

a) getting rid of all protest marchers and banners (even blank ones) by means of arrests and violence; 

b) threatening people who disagree with the official narrative with up to fifteen years in prison; 

c) establishing systems for people to report their neighbours, colleagues and family to the authorities for expressing any private doubts; 

d) publicising those systems; 

e) shutting down all independent news outlets; 

and 

f) banning unfriendly foreign news.

**

Good heavens. 

If the truth is so plain, and so consensual, it really makes you wonder why they bothered. 

Word To Use Today: consensus. Someone used this word in the 1500s to describe the way various parts of the body work together to create functioning systems, but the word didn't really catch on as a way to describe other kinds of agreement until the middle of the 1800s. Consensus is a Latin word which means agreement. Consentire means to feel together.