 It's 11 o'clock. It didn't mean only one thing. Time for What Now America? I'm Tim Apatialio, your host. And today's title is Putin is Stalin. Paranoia lies war crimes. You know, Putin's wars, the invasion and the brutality, no matter where it takes place, whether it be in Aleppo, Syria, Groznia and the Chechen Republic, a grade school, a theater, or in Ukraine. There's one thing you can be sure of. And that is there's going to be total annihilation and zero concern for the citizens who are mercilessly slaughtered and killed. And even his own Russian citizens fall under his power and his spite. And as of this morning, the United States State Department has declared that Putin's war, his actions, Russia's actions, has been determined and declared as war crimes. And if you remember last week, Joe Biden, President Biden said that it was off the cuff remark, but he said, I think President Putin is a war criminal. And to that response, Putin said, that was unforgivable and unforgettable, unacceptable and unforgettable. Well, what we've seen the last month is unacceptable and certainly unforgivable. But what we're seeing is a pattern, be it through Zara Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin, and now Putin, we're seeing a pattern and that is brutality and war crimes. And Stalin said famously, he said, the death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic. And that's what we're seeing right now in Ukraine. And that's what we're going to discuss. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our guests. Today we have Jay Fidel, Karen Buzzard, Cynthia Lees and Claire, and special guest, Mingo Wash. Good morning, everyone. Morning. Morning. Jay, your reaction to the recent Anthony Blinken's announcement that the State Department is declaring Vladimir Putin as a war criminal. Doesn't that change the board on how the rest of the world, the Western world deals with Russia? Are they even allowed to trade with someone if they'd be deemed a war criminal? No, he's so long. I mean, he's charging crimes that have been going on for three weeks. Wish he'd said something earlier, but good that he said it now, good that Biden said it now. You know, the fact is that we have evidence on television every day, hours of it, of war crimes. And I hope that people don't get anesthetized about that. You know, that's the risk. I think that's the game that Putin is playing. Keep on doing it. Keep on doubling down. And people, you know, they get anesthetized. I'm not anesthetized. And I know you guys are either. That's fantastic to watch war crimes, you know, happening. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who is familiar with war crimes and the, you know, the court, the international court that would handle that. And we agree that in this case, right now, if they could get it started, they could have live evidence, live right now as it happens. It's madness. But you know, your point is really well taken, Tim. This is a cultural point. You know, the Russian government back to the times of the Tsars was into murderous activities. You know, I can think of all the programs that took place in Eastern Europe and Russia from back in the 19th century. It was unkind to say the least. And there were a lot of people killed over it. And there was no fun in the Russian Revolution either with Lenin and Trotsky and the boys. And Stalin was a murderous criminal as well. I don't think they were as sensitive in those days to war crimes. But that's what he did for tens of millions of people. And that's what Putin is, you know, KGB, all that. It's part of the same culture point. And I'm sorry to say, but although there are people in Russia that protest this sort of thing, go out in the street or leave the country, the fact is the country has allowed this to happen over hundreds of years. They really ought to stop allowing it to happen. They ought to say something or do something to stop these war crimes. There was an article we posted on the Stink Tech's daily email advisory today, however, about how Putin is losing ground and the people are becoming aware in Russia of what he's doing. Enough news is leaking back into Russia. There are groups of reporters and television commentators and the like who are outside of Russia, who are broadcasting inside of Russia. And, you know, the voice of America has started up again. And it is broadcasting the truth. So maybe we will find a change in perception among the public. But for the moment, Putin is able to continue. And as so many commentators have pointed out, including on this show, the sanctions haven't stopped him. He's still doing it. It's really amazing. It is an extraordinary contradiction that we say no, we do sanctions, we tell the world, we make it clear that he's a war criminal and he will be prosecuted. And he keeps on doing it. You know, part of the focus of this show is to drill some comparisons from Putin to Stalin and vice versa. And part of that has to be psychological composition. And it seems to be the common thread, it certainly was Stalin. It was extremely paranoid. And it seems to me that Vladimir Putin's approach to everything that he's done is based out of paranoia, be it the murder of his rivals or certainly the way he invades every country with total brutality. Your thoughts about the paranoia aspect and how that has kind of manifested itself on his invasion into Ukraine and the suppression of his citizens in Russia over this issue? I don't know enough about the psychology. I think you could find people on both sides of that question that think he's a mental, and maybe he is a mental in any rational approach to it. But the bottom line is power. And it's intoxicating. And it has been intoxicating for others in Russia. And as we have discussed, it was intoxicating for Stalin too. And the people in the Russian Revolution who did not achieve peace or fairness or representative of government or anything like that, they murdered a lot of people and desire. So I think he's just operating in a way that he can. He does it because he can. He does it because he's intoxicated by power. Whether he's a psychopath, I think all educations are that he is a psychopath in our time. But I don't know enough to say what the diagnosis is. Okay. Thank you, Jay. Mingo, to you. You look at Ukraine after it broke away from Russia. And at that time, they immediately surrendered all their nuclear weapons. They certainly became a member of the non-proliferation of nations and a signatory of those treaties, not agreeing to expand their nuclear capabilities. Their military never was a real threat to Russia, and certainly by quantity or capabilities. Yet we have Putin, which I get and I personally tie it to his paranoia. I have decided to invade a completely non-aggressive country and invade it for what purpose? Well, his purpose is he wants it. I mean, the ego of the man is astounding and you can just boil it down to that. He invaded because he wants it and he wants it because he thinks that they don't matter. In his own words, he said they're not a real country. They're our creation. And that is one of the most astounding lies in a huge litany of lies the man has told recently. If you go back anywhere in history, you can see that that's certainly not true. I mean, Kiev was a thriving city for 500 years before Moscow was founded. And the Kievan Rus was actually the genesis of the early Russian culture. So for him to say that they're not a real country and they're our creation is absolute fabrication. But Putin is a master at fabrication, manipulation, and propaganda. You've got to give the man props. From the standpoint of those of us with ancestors who left, you know, one of my great grandfathers left at the end of the Tsar's reign and it was brutal. And then another one left when the Bolsheviks and Ukraine had a bloody war and then Stalin took over and that was unbelievable. But what Putin has managed to do is he's taken that brutality and all that history off of grandma's dinner table and all the stories we were told growing up. And he's plopped it right into the 21st century. And he's created a new hatred because you go back in history and you look at the hundreds of years of oppression where Ukrainians were not allowed to speak their own language inside their own country. Now, Native Hawaiians can certainly relate to that. You know, when your whole culture is treated as if it's a joke, when your entire educational system is not even allowed to be taught in your native language, professors were imprisoned, they were beaten, they were assassinated for simply teaching a course in Ukrainian inside Ukraine. So when you've dehumanized an entire people that way, he feels completely justified in saying, well, we want it for a reason. X, Y, and Z, we're going to go take it. We're not going to call it a war. We're going to call it a special military operation. All right. Thank you, Mingo. Sharon, to you, as Mingo pointed out, I mean, this campaign is based on lies. And if you really look at the disinformation campaign that Putin has displayed before the world, it is quite something. And he's very good at it as a former KGB agent. Let's look at some of those some of those lies, if you will. Certainly, if you remember before the invasion, remember the buildup of hundreds of thousands of troops on three points on the border to Ukraine. And remember Putin's response, it was, we're just we're just doing military exercises. And that's the sovereign right of Russia to do so. You know, there's the new laws that he's made up for Russian citizens, you know, imprisonment up to 15 years. Any protests, any criticism, no can't use the words invasion. So the lies that he's perpetuating to the world that somehow whatever is said as criticism is not tolerated. And that's the big lie. That's the big lie before the world, including the fact that his invasion of Ukraine itself is nothing more than a police action. Your thoughts on that, your thoughts on his his ability of his disinformation campaign and his constant lying in this invasion. Well, I thought I haven't to read some articles about Turkey is trying to negotiate a, you know, peace between the two countries, Ukraine and Russia. And I wrote down what Putin says he wants. So just to get some clarity on what he he wants Ukraine to renounce NATO and for Ukraine to remain neutral. He wants a disarmament and neutral guarantees of security. So there's no US naval or army bases or military bases put in Ukraine. He wants the D what's he called the de-nausification of basically it's in Maripole. I looked this up because I didn't know what it was. There's a ASO battalion you can maybe speak to this mingo, AZOV battalion that is comprised of right wing extremists. And that's where he's attacking right now. If you look at what's going on, he wants allowing the use of the Russian language. In 2019, there was a law passed. Apparently, you can speak to this too, where they cannot speak Russian there now. And even though there's provinces of Russia that are of Ukraine that do speak Russian, they can't teach in Russian anymore, you can't in any official capacity, you cannot use Russian. So that's been an issue for him. And he wants this article, Karen, is this an academic article or what? It was in the newspaper about Turkey's trying to negotiate with as a kind of intermediary to the two countries. And the last point you want. What newspaper was it? It's online. I don't know. I didn't really write it down, but I can find it for you. Let's see if we can find that because these points I find bizarre and offensive. But what's your last point, Karen? Well, the last point is not my last point, but the last point that I'm negotiating is recognition of Crimea. Because according to Crimea, from what I found is they've taken a number of polls since it became Russian or whatever they did, annexed it. And people prefer to remain with Russia according to a lot of the polls. And this is polls from our country too. So they say they don't regret deciding to go with Russia. Apparently, there was a vote and they decided they would prefer to remain with. I think they're also one of the Russian speaking areas. You can speak to this. I would like to know the newspaper in which that appeared because a lot of what you're saying, if not most of it, is I've never read it or heard it. So it's fresh. So Cynthia, I'm going to get right back to you in a minute. I'm going to get to you in a minute. But I want to go to Mingo and Mingo, do you have a response to the points of what Putin wants at the negotiation table? And to what degree is this unreasonable? Well, I mean, it all sounds unreasonable because it's not his country. So Putin has no right to dictate what goes on in somebody else's country. He just marched in there and said, here I am. I'm taking over. So when Zelensky says, you know, these points are not negotiable for us, he's got a valid point. And you know, you hear a lot of chatter on the internet right now about people trying to justify his invasion because of the Azat battalion, which I researched extensively. The Azat battalion is a far right group. In Ukraine, we have to be completely transparent. They do have a problem. They do have a problem just like the United States has a problem. The truth is there's more neo-Nazis in the United States than there is in Ukraine. And Ukraine is not a Nazi country. They've got a Jewish president. They had a Jewish prime minister and a president at the same time before the former prime minister's term was out. There's an Israeli website. It's called Jewish Unpacked. And they did an article on this and they said, does Ukraine have a problem with neo-Nazis? Yes, it's true. There are about 10,000 members of the Azat battalion. By comparison, there's over 8,000 members of the KKK in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi and the Aryan nations and other groups in the USA. So if you want to dictate what an entire country's reputation should be based on a tiny minority of the population, then we're just as guilty as Ukraine. But they're not innocent. We can't pretend that every Ukrainian is a saint. That is not true. But what he is doing is he's going in and he's dictating, he's taking the role of the bully and saying, everybody back up, I'm beating up my victim here and nobody gets to say anything about how I beat up my victim. And that is garbage. Good point. Thank you. Cynthia, I want to again drill some parallels but on Stalin's disinformation campaign and that which Vladimir Putin has pulled off fairly well, particularly before the Russian people. One of them I think is interesting is the different information and the plant of biochemical weapons in Ukraine. That was massively done in some of these right wing websites. Then that's picked up by social media and social media starts picking it up. And that's planted also by bots. And then before you know it, recognize media, be it TV and radio, pick it up. And then before you know it, it's displayed for the consumption of the American public. How can we counter Putin's disinformation campaign, not only in the United States, but around the world? Well, like Mingo said, the truth, you know, those are lies. There's lies and there's truth and there is no gray area in between. It's either a lie or it's fact. And I think that's important. I want to speak to one thing that you had asked Jay a bit ago first. And then I have a really great example about Stalin's connection. But and that is that the more he gets isolated, Putin, the more he gets isolated, the more he is paranoid. And Fiona Hill was just the other night being interviewed. And I was listening as she was talking about a dinner that she went to, and she sat right next to Putin at the dinner. He did not touch anything, not his water, not his tea, not his food, nothing. So and that was back in 20, I think it was 18, it might have been 2019. So, you know, that sort of speak. Well, that could be because there's been multiple attempts on his life. And most of them botched horribly, very immature assassination attempts. Right. And so we can only hope that the Russian people are going to rise up because that's really the only hope. So I have a little bit of a parallel. And it is in 1939, on November 26, Stalin attacks a troop, his own troops, that were right near the border of Finland. And he says that the Finns attacked his troops. Well, he's the one who did it. But he's, you know, blames the Finns, and then starts to invade. Well, the Finns reacted immediately. So have you ever heard of the Mannerheim line? The Mannerheim line is what the Finns did immediately. And they went out and basically shoulder to shoulder, stood on that barrier line and defeated, pushed him back. He did not, was not allowed. Well, I shouldn't say not allowed, but he didn't, he wasn't successful, and he had to withdraw. So I see that similarities here with Ukraine, as far as, you know, Putin does this false flag thing to say, he's got to go kill the Nazis, you know, because they're killing Russians, which is a lie. And just like the Stalin lie, right. So this misinformation has been going on for so long. And we know that from our 2016 election, all the way straight through till today, we have had a serious problem with the rise of misinformation here in America. And, and that's what just like you said a minute ago, Tim, that the main trickles down to mainstream media. I've been tuning into Fox quite a bit over this last week since last week's show. And I am shocked and dismayed and angry when I listen to them, absolutely just spouting all these Russian talking points and trying to justify the fact that he's there and trying to tell Americans that he's out there killing Nazis, and to try to, I mean, and this is mainstream media. This is some of the, you know, we know, we always say, well, Tucker Carlson, whoever believes him, even his own studio said, you'd have to be an idiot to believe him. But it's not just Tucker, I'm hearing it from all of them. They all have a little blurb about it. I don't know what Linda, what the Ingram, Laura Ingram, I can't handle her voice, so I don't ever listen to her. But, but all the rest of them, I try to tune in at least for a little while to get a glimpse of what they're talking about. And every single one of them, they're talking about how America is the reason why Putin has done this. That's another thing that I keep hearing in this misinformation. It's our fault that he did this. Well, I think the thing that I've recently pointed it, honed in on is, is that America's trying to cancel Russia. Now, the term cancel is strictly an American terminology, cancel culture, I mean, and he's using that terminology. So he knows his words are working and filtering its way through the social media websites, the major ones, and then into mainstream media. And it's working. So Cynthia, I appreciate that point. I actually want to direct that same thought to you, Jay. And that is, how is Putin doing with his disinformation campaign? And do you see any similarities to former Russian presidents and dictators? Oh, he's taking it to a new level. He's good. He's perfected it. You know, there was an article in The Times last week about, not even last week, just a few days ago about the kids in school. Now, Hitler properly rightly decided that if he could influence the kids in school, in 10 years time, he would have an army of people who believed in him. And he did. Exactly that. That's what happened. Putin is taking a page out of his book on this. He's going to the great schools, the elementary schools, and he's showing them that, telling them repeatedly, as he does on state television, that this is all the fault of America, that we want to, I don't know, cancel culture. We want to stop their style of life, their quality of life. We want to bring them down. And he's got all these kids believing that. And so in a few years time, those kids are going to be older. Those kids are going to incorporate that into their worldview. And if you're fed this information on state television all day long, repeated, repeated, repeated, you know, mater studio, it's going to stick. He understands this. And he's doing it in every part of Russia. And he's got a great line, which is lies. And I think he's having a pretty good effect. I mentioned before that there are newscasters and the like who are leaving town and people who are protesting, many of whom are already in jail for an indeterminate period of time. That's really not enough to countervail what Putin is doing. Okay. Last point is that don't forget the internet research agency, which is the agency that was spreading lies and this information in 2016 about Trump helped him get elected with Mark Zuckerberg's assistance on social media. And they've been doing it ever since. Why would they stop? Why would Putin stop? He's been in office ever since. His inclinations and sensibilities are the same. In fact, they're worse. And so I think he's going to do it in the election this fall. He's going to do it in the election in 2014. And he's doing it right now. He's entered the theater. He's in the theater on the stage through social media with the internet research agency, which is coming out of Moscow. So just as you said, or Cynthia, this has a way of filtering through, of permeating the media, permeating the public opinion. And he knows about that. He's doing that. And finally, he's a double down guy just like Trump. You catch him on something. He does it again. You score him on war crimes. You'll just do more. And so what we have is somebody who, you know, it's part of the playbook. Never admit he's wrong. Never stop doing it. The worse it is, the more he continues to do it. And the worst the lies are, the more it continues to lie. So I think we're saddled with, we the world are saddled with this kind of lying. And other dictators do it too. Maybe they learn from Putin. Maybe Putin learns from them. It's hard to maintain representative government and the liberal global order if you have great power leaders, leaders of bad worry, lying to us. All right. Thank you, Jay. Mingo, we have only a couple of minutes left, but I want to get this question to you. And that is, we've talked about the immense amount of disinformation Putin has displayed before the world and expects us to eat it up and buy it. And this is the first time I've never heard, you know, usually media accounts are blaming Russia, Russia. But this time it's really Putin's war, not Russia's war. And so the question is, how do we break through to the Russian people the truth? Someone mentioned that the voice of America has recently started up again. But with all the social media accounts blocked, how do the Russian people find out the truth about what's happening in Ukraine and the war crimes that are happening in Ukraine? That's a great question, Tim. I saw two accounts recently that were just heartbreaking. And it was Ukrainians in Ukraine that got through to relatives in Russia, because a lot of people in those countries have relatives in the other country. One woman was telling her aunt about her building being bombed. And her aunt said, oh, no, no, no, that's not happening. She said, Auntie, I'm in the building now. My wall is gone. My home is destroyed. No, no, no, no. That's not true. And her aunt hung up and blocked her on social media. She refused to believe her own niece about the truth. Another man owned a restaurant, and he told his father, who was in Russia, about the same sort of situation in his hometown, and his own father didn't believe him. But what is going to happen with social media is you've got a lot of Russians living in the United States and Canada and all over the West who will get the message through. As Jay pointed out, there's a lot of Russians. I would hazard to say most Russians are not supporting this war. Nobody likes to see human cards. Who could stomach seeing little children and babies blown to pieces by missiles? And it will get through eventually. The question is, will it get through in time? Okay. Thank you very much. I know that in Grosnia, in the Chechen affair, it was the mothers of the dead soldiers, of the Russian soldiers, that got together and formed an alliance and became the mouthpiece of the atrocities that were being committed in Chechnya. And so that actually was a primary source of blunting further atrocities. So we've run out of time, but I do want to go around the table and get last thoughts. We're going to start with you, Cynthia. Okay. I have a quote from Putin's speech that he did the other day. And it's just shocking. And I think it really sums up where he is. All the things we're talking about. The Russian people will be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths, spit them on the pavement. I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society. I'm going to say that twice. He said that. A natural and necessary self-purification of society. Hey, cleansing. I thought you said cleansing there for a minute. Pardon me. This isn't a different part. I thought you said cleansing. Well, that is what he said, but it's self-purification. He says a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country and our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges. In another part of this same speech, he does refer to it as a cleansing. Cleansing. Yeah. Cause we use that quote. Yes. Last show. And yeah, specifically cleansing is there straight out of the mouth of Stalin, straight out of the mouths of every despot dictator that's been in the 20th century. Thank you, Cynthia. Karen, your last thoughts, please. Well, I would say that there's a huge disinformation campaign going on on both sides, not just Putin's side and the US too. I just want to remind us of the run up to the rock war where we were fed millions of lies that there was weapons of mass destruction and that was this, that he was an evil dictator. Tony Blair called him Adolf Hitler. That's kind of, Karen, isn't that a what aboutism? How does that pertain to Iraq and the atrocities to Iraq? I'm sorry. Isn't that about what you're mentioning right now is a what aboutism? What about that? What about this? We're talking about Ukraine and the atrocities in Ukraine. We killed 900,000 people. They're estimating in Iraq and nobody was declared a war criminal. So I think we have to be very careful about media. My point is you have to be very careful about media usage. Are you implying, Karen, that we are lying about what's happening in Ukraine? Are you implying that the media, all the newspapers and all the TV stations that covering this are lying about what's happening in Ukraine? Are you saying that the woman whose wall fell down in a building that was bombed and missile by the Russians? That didn't happen. Are you saying that you sound like state TV in Russia? Well, I don't think calling people names and calling Kim Hitler or Stalin or whoever is very helpful because it just leads to more aggression. So I think you have to step back and kind of look at really kind of, you know, what Putin wants. Like I saying that they're lying when they show us these children and women and men being destroyed and torn up in pieces. Is that a lie? Is that misinformation? New York Times lied during the run-up to the war with weapons of mass destruction. You're not talking about this war though, right? I know, but I'm saying it's not. That's a what about it. I don't think you're talking about the same war and I don't think it's relevant in any way. Well, go ahead, Karen, finish. I said that's your opinion, but I think it's important that in this country we have freedom of speech so everybody can have their own opinion. Yes, it's true. But the topic of the day is what's happening in Ukraine. And when I start hearing other examples of other wars, yes, I agree that the Iraq war was ginned up, but that does not detract from what atrocities and war crimes are occurring in Ukraine now. And that's what this topic is about now. So I get your point, but it's not pertaining to now. Let's move on, Tim. Let's move on. I want Karen to finish up. I want her to get a last point. I'm just saying I'm not defending any of the atrocities. You can try to understand why somebody is doing what they're doing without defending the atrocities. I think that's two different things. Okay. Okay. Point taken. Thank you, Karen. Mingo, you get the last word for today. Thanks, Tim. Well, what I would conclude with is that we have got to stop letting the tyrant drive the narrative because Putin's entire premise for going in in the first place was based on a lie. And his lie was, I'm going to free the Ukrainian people from their Nazified government. It's garbage and it's untrue. I'll give you a perfect example of why it's untrue. He drove the narrative that Ukrainian fascists were murdering Russian Ukrainians in the Donbas. But if you look at the timeline, he helped himself to Crimea in March of 2014. In April of 2014, he's behind the sidelines starting the civil war in the Donbas with weapons, with very, very expert troops and commanders and feeding them all their propaganda because he wanted that region, this productive region. And so when he started the narrative that they're being murdering their own people and it was a civil war because the Donbas was trying to leave Ukraine. If they wanted to leave Ukraine, why don't they just move to Russia? And if you follow Putin's own logic, then I guess the fascist Abe Lankin had no right to keep the union intact when the slave states decided they wanted to leave the United States of America. All right, you get the final word. We've run out of time. I'd like to thank Jay Fidel, our special guest, Mingo Wash, Karen Buzzard, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Thank you for joining us for What Now America? Come and check us out next Wednesday at 11 o'clock. And until then, I'm Tim Eppichell, your host, and we hope to see you then. Aloha. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com. Mahalo.