Extra Episode: Jon Shares Thoughts on Media Narrative on Russia/Ukraine

The Conversations That Matter podcast.

My name is John Harris. We're gonna talk today a little bit about the situation going on in Ukraine. I hope you're praying for Ukraine and for the

Christians there. It's very tragic. I have a memory from my teenage years of my dad who's a pastor teaching at the seminary in,

I think it's a seminary connected with Master's Seminary in Ukraine. It's not an extension.

I don't remember exactly what the affiliation is, but he went over there and taught on the Book of Acts, and then he brought back for us not just pictures and memories and things like that, but he brought us back physical, tangible things.

Some chocolate, and I think he has a Ukrainian doll still, or a Russian doll.

I'm not actually sure, but he got it in Ukraine in his office, and then he brought us all back hats, Soviet -era hats.

I still have mine that definitely keep you warm, and I do wear it sometimes.

My wife, she doesn't like it if I wear that in public, but I have my Ukrainian hat, and there are

Christians there. I don't have a strong connection with Ukraine, but I'm just very aware of, through my dad's experience, that there are

Christians there who love the Lord, and the Lord has his people in every place, and all over the world, and just about at every place, and so I pray for the

Christians there in particular. I know that this is a challenging time, I'm sure, for them, and it's going to be challenging for, as things develop, a lot of other countries as well, and we're gonna talk about some of this.

So I want to say two things up front before we get into it. This is kind of a bonus episode. I realize not all of you come to this channel because you want to hear about my thoughts on topics outside of social justice and Christianity, and I'm not going to be talking so much about social justice and Christianity.

I might mention a few things as they come to mind, but that's that's not the purpose of this podcast. I really do want to talk about the geopolitical situation, so if you're here for the social justice and Christianity stuff, and that's it, then, you know, you can feel free to skip this.

It's totally fine. I know I've had some people, very few, I'm only thinking of two, there's probably more at this point, because I don't read all the comments sometimes, but on YouTube and Facebook, who have given me a little pushback for things

I've already posted about this situation, saying really that the American media is lying about it, because they are, and the insinuation that I'm pro -Russian or buying into Russian propaganda, or I'm not staying in the lane that I should be in, that I don't really know what

I'm talking about when I talk about this stuff. So I know that some of that's out there. Some people think that, and if you think that, you know, feel free to skip this one.

You know, that's totally fine, and I'm not pretending to be a expert on geopolitics at all, but I do have a mind.

I do use it, and I do try to exercise the same kinds of discernment, the same filter

I have when I'm looking at the social justice and Christianity stuff. I exercise the same level of discernment,

I try to at least, when I'm looking at other issues as well, including this one. So I also, you know, do have a degree in history.

I did have to study some, at some level, some European history, so I do know a little bit, but I'm certainly not trying to be an expert here or pass myself off as an expert, and if there are resources you think would help me understand this better, please feel free to share them in the comments section.

I would definitely appreciate that, but I want to share with you, the purpose of this podcast is I want to share with you some of the media sources and commentary as well that I'm looking at, because it's a lot different.

I really do think it is important for us to break out of the prevailing narrative that seems to be,

I don't know if it's across the Western world, but it's certainly in the United States, and I suspect across the

Western world, and certainly the English -speaking world, about this whole situation, because it's more nuanced.

Like most situations, it's more complicated than we're being told. There's definitely a white hat, black hat, kind of simple binary going on, good guys, bad guys, and it's just quite, it's not quite that simple.

You know, it is possible to have situations. As Christians, we should totally be fine acknowledging and entertaining the thought that there are situations where you have multiple bad guys, and this may be one of those situations in some ways.

So I want to just flesh out some of the things that I've been researching on this, because I do want to understand it, and my understanding, of course, is not going to be comprehensive in every way, but there are some things that, some holes in the narrative that is playing out on our televisions and radios right now.

I know because I've turned on the radio, and every time I turn it on and I hear about the situation,

I just got to turn it off. I just, I can't believe some of the things I'm hearing, and then it's the same thing on the television for the most part.

So I want to share with you some of the sources that I have found helpful for me in understanding this. What I see right now, let me give you big picture stuff here.

I see a reflexive move, okay? So we're supposed to immediately, without really a lot of conversation about this particular topic and background knowledge, and that seems obvious to me, the media people commenting, and I even,

I was listening to a nationally syndicated talk show host today. I think he's the third most popular, if I'm not mistaken, talk show host on the conservative, in conservative media, and it just, it was obvious to me, this guy has no clue what he's talking about, and not that I'm an expert, but I'm like,

I think I, just in my reading over the past few days on this situation, that it seems like he doesn't know, he's not as quite as informed as even

I am on this, and I don't, I'm not trying to, you know, put myself out there, like I'm, you know, I really don't feel

I know, I have a full grasp on this, but we're getting a lot of ignorance, like real ignorance from our own media.

It's just failing us, and I'm talking about supposed alleged conservative media as well in this.

There's a reflexive move. You have to immediately take a side, and if you don't fully embrace the prevailing narrative that Putin is this horrible aggressor in the vein of Hitler, and he is invading in order to bring back the

Soviet Union, and his intention is to take over the world, and he must be opposed at all costs, if that's not your feeling on this, then it seems like you deviate a little bit.

You are immediately in this pro -Putin camp, or you're just, you must love Putin, you must love

Russia, you're pro -Russian or something, which, that's ridiculous. I wouldn't consider myself at all pro -Putin.

In fact, I, there's a lot of things about Putin that, quite frankly, disturb me to some extent, but I will say this for the guy, and well, we're gonna go through some of this, so I don't want to,

I don't want to talk about, I have a Putin file in my mind I want to share with you, but I'll just kind of give you the, briefly here, the guy does stand up for his people.

He is against the pro -LGBT nonsense coming from the

West. He is also against globalism. He's a nationalist, and what

I mean by that is he is someone who cares about his nation, and puts his nation's interests first, and that is,

I mean, I know we're, this is basic stuff, this should just be kind of, every leader should, in my mind, really be there for the people that elected him, and to serve his constituents.

Every leader should look out for the best things for his people, and they should see through the nonsense of this, this hyper -egalitarian push coming from the

West, and from an America pop culture in particular, that, that's kind of a baseline for me. That doesn't mean

Putin's, like, a really good guy, it just means, like, he's met kind of, like, a baseline here for, like, what we should expect at minimum, but so many of our leaders don't even have that, so it's, it makes

Putin stand out in some ways, and I've seen some, especially social conservatives, like to, they look to Putin as, like, oh, he, maybe he is a good guy, so some people are legitimately thinking that.

I don't know how big of a group that is, I tend to think it's a pretty small group, but there are some social conservatives who do think that, because they read

Putin's speeches, and they see his rhetoric, his pro -family, and it's against some of, even in this situation, it's gonna come up, and I'll show you from the last speech he gave on this, on the

Ukraine situation, it comes up even in that. He sees himself as standing against the decadence streaming from the

West, and, you know, what do you say about that? I mean, maybe, you know, there's some bad qualities,

I'm sure there are, I know there are, but you have that on the other hand, right, and that's not even a base, a basic baseline that most of our leaders can meet, so, so that's, that's

Putin, and I, and I'll flesh that out a little more, I'll bring some more description to that, but we, we can't view him with any positive of any kind.

There, there is no positive in Russia, they are the big villain, they're equivalent to the Nazis, that's, that's what we're hearing, and we have to react kind of reflexively to this.

Immediately, we got to be against them, we got to be willing to make sacrifices, the gas prices go up, well that's just the sacrifice that we got to make for opposing this horrible person.

The other thing is, of course, and I've just already mentioned, is the media is lying about this, and so that's another interest

I have in this, is, this is really the thing that made me, from the beginning, decide, okay, I'll do a little podcast on it, because I've heard, and I haven't listened to a lot of media, but every time

I turn on the radio, I feel like I'm hearing a lie. In Biden's speech today,

I'm recording this on the evening of the 24th, by the way, for those who are curious,

I heard lies in Biden's speech. He actually, he lied about Putin's, the speech

Putin just gave, and talked about Putin's ambitions to invade all these other countries, and Putin doesn't even talk about it in his speech.

He just expects, it's just amazing to me, he expects a roomful of reporters to just buy it, and then they do, they don't even ask him about it, which maybe didn't, some of them didn't have an opportunity, but I heard a

Rome report I turned on a few days ago, I think I might have mentioned this in a previous podcast, that they were, again, they were talking about Putin's speech, and it was,

I was like, I read Putin's speech, like, what, you're just speculating on the thoughts in his mind, and maybe your speculation is correct, but it is speculation, and people, in a straight news report, maybe

I'm old -fashioned, but you shouldn't be inserting speculation into that, or at least tell people you're speculating when you are.

I was listening to a talk show host today, and it was, it was completely reflexive, it was just bashing anyone who would disagree with that prevailing narrative about Russia, and Putin, and their interests in the area, and just the assumption behind all of it was just that this is all due to an attempt at aggressively taking over territory, and it's some kind of imperialism, that's all it is, there's really not much more description or discussion, and maybe there's some websites, or not websites, but there's some talk shows, mainstream news talk shows, that are doing a better job of this.

I know of one, that is, Tucker Carlson, but for the most part, I'm not seeing really educated, nuanced discussions of this, it's just, it's a vilification process, and so that makes me very skeptical of the media,

I'm already skeptical, but it makes me wonder why, why is this narrative so important, this black and white narrative, and then, of course, the other thing that I, that makes me want to do a podcast on this, is the push for globalism, and the use of the term democracy, over and over.

We've seen this with January 6th, we've seen this with Justin Trudeau in Canada now, we've, we see this actually all the time, with the voter law issue, voter idea issue, the constant word that is brought up against Donald Trump, right, against anything right -wing, it seems like is, democracy.

We have to preserve democracy, and it's, the justification for preserving democracy is a blank check.

You must sacrifice everything, that's the assumption that seems to be behind this, is, if we can make whatever purpose we have, whatever cause we have, if we can make it so that it's in the name of democracy, that's our purpose, then nothing else seems to matter, really.

We can just, we can drive that bill up as far as we want, we can sacrifice as much as we want, and if it's in the name of democracy, then it's worth it, and what

I, I see a connection between this and globalism, to be quite honest with you, at this point, I'm not saying it's always been like this, but the way it's being used now, and the reason is because of all the hypocrisy, the people that are deploying this are the same people that don't seem to care about democracy in their own countries.

We just had an election, there was a lot of funny business, and yeah, we don't care about, you know, that, in fact, we'll deploy the word democracy against the quote -unquote conspiracy theorists, who we won't ever engage in argument about that issue.

With the trucker issue going on right now, the, it's, it's, they're against democracy, when it's like, isn't that, isn't what we're seeing, isn't that protest, isn't that a manifestation of democracy in some way?

It's, it's a word that, that is often used, and it's often used when, against national groups, or if the nation doesn't do, or vote, or, you know, support some kind of a globalist agenda thing, then it's like, then all of a sudden, well, in the name of democracy, we need to put an end to this protest against our plan.

We saw it with the COVID stuff, we've seen it with, just, I mean, BLM was democracy in action, apparently, but not the truckers, right?

It's, it's this word that has lost, in my mind, it's kind of lost its meaning, and, and it, and I don't know what it means anymore, other than, does it just mean,

I don't know, global interests must be preserved? Is that what democracy means now? It's, it's deployed in weird ways, and it makes me suspicious of when it's used, to be quite honest, and look, our country's a republic, right?

It's not, it's not a democracy, technically, it is a republic, but, but, but generally, when people have used the word democracy,

I tend to think of, of a vote. People vote, and they have a choice, they have a say, right? Democracy. I'm not, so,

I'm not certain that's what it quite means anymore. That's almost, sometimes it's used that way, but it's, behind it is this assumption that only if the public affirms a certain viewpoint, is it democracy.

If they don't, it's not democracy anymore, somehow. So, if you have a region in Ukraine, that's pro -Russian, right?

In that particular region, if democracy would dictate, that region wants to be part of Russia, let's say, and you can put this in the hypothetical realm, if you prefer, but it's no longer democracy at that point.

It's, it's against, so who, so the popular sovereignty goes out the window, it's, democracy doesn't matter, it's, and it makes me wonder, what's the interest then?

What's behind this shield that's being put up with, our purposes are pure because we love democracy?

So, yes, I'm being critical right now of our media, of American foreign policy, at this moment in time, in some ways,

I'm being, not even critical, I'm being suspicious. It may be somewhat critical. That does not mean, though, and I gotta say this very clearly, it doesn't mean

I'm not critical of Putin. It doesn't, we can look at this situation and see multiple bad guys.

That's very possible. Multiple self -interested people that have nefarious interests, even.

So, I don't have to be a big Putin fan for any of this, and, and I, I see what Putin is doing is, with the limited knowledge

I have, is an aggressive action that we would all prefer he did not do, and we're praying for Ukraine.

So, so why did he do it? Why did he do it? That's what I want to answer. I want to answer some of these questions.

I want to give you some information, and I want to give you links in the info section that, of some things that have helped me, and maybe some sources that you can go to, and just bypass this narrative, okay?

Bypass the simplistic, just black -and -white, shallow narrative, and really understand this issue.

I mean, you can sit there watching Fox News or CNN for your whole afternoon and just have a replay of the same talking points, or you can take that same time, if, in fact, you are doing that kind of thing, and you can put it into actually understanding the situation, and that's kind of what

I believe in. Let's really understand this, and then we're gonna have to make a better educated decision, but if we're not informed, then, then it's very difficult to, and, and, and so,

I realized one other thing before I get into some of the websites I want to show you. This can be stressful for some.

There's a lot of, a lot of things going on, especially in the media. I mean, war with Russia, I mean, even that word harkens back to Cold War -era fears, and I just want to remind everyone, look,

God is in control. It's, I think the media right now wants to drum up fear, and I'm not saying that there aren't things to be afraid of, not afraid of.

There are things to be afraid of. There certainly are, but we only have so much influence, and our votes are our biggest influence.

Hopefully, we, we can petition the people who represent us, because we are a republic. We can seek to convince friends.

We can, but, but I, I, I think understanding the situation helps drive away fear in some ways.

When you, you tend to fear the things you don't understand, and if Russia's is, there's this mysterious Nazi -esque country with a horrible thug dictator who is bent on controlling the world and has nuclear weapons, if that's all you know, then, yeah,

I mean, you're gonna be pretty scared. I think understanding the situation, helps us not be quite as fearful as well.

So, trust the Lord, and then understand the situation, which is what we're gonna be doing some. So, what are the reasons for this?

I'm gonna get into it, and I will also be pointing out, I have a list of, like, eight or nine hypocritical things coming from the narrative that I see in our media with some of, some of the, and some of the people who are propagating it, but we'll, we'll get there.

Let's, let's start here, if I may. Let's see, actually, I have so many websites pulled up right now,

I'm trying to debate where I want to start with all this. We'll start here. This is a book that you can get on Audible, that's where I got it.

I'm not sure if there's a print version. There probably is, but I found it very helpful if you're trying to understand this situation.

It's called, Ukraine, What Everyone Needs to Know by Serhii Yakelchik.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but, and then it's narrated by Joel Richards. You can get it on Audible, and it is kind of like an encyclopedia, but very suited.

It came out in 2020, the end of 2020, actually. It is very suited for the conflict that is going on right now, and so it'll bring you to the present, and I just found it very helpful in understanding this whole entire situation.

So, if you have the time, and I know for working class people who like to listen to Audible, audiobooks,

I would recommend just getting this, and just on, you know, listening to it. And if you listen to it at like double or triple speed, you get through it faster, and you'll just get a basic understanding.

It's just a foundation for understanding the rest of it, and I realize sometimes this can be dangerous, depending on the bias that you're getting from the author.

To me, this seemed very fair -minded to me. This seemed like someone who I'm sure has a bias, because everyone does, but seemed really bent on trying to give the facts, and not being too anti -Russian or anti -Ukraine, but just here's the situation, and it's a messy situation.

I mean, Ukraine's borders have been drawn and redrawn, and it's, you have different segments of the population in different regions that feel differently, and are, there's different ethnic makeups, and linguistic makeups, and religious makeups, and you have that complication mixed with a political situation that pits them between the

East and the West. And the question right now, one of the big ones is, who are they going to be pawns for?

And, and, you know, John, why would you say that about a sovereign country? Well, because Ukraine also, one things you'll learn in going through this, is they, especially in the last few decades, have been known, they are known to be extremely dysfunctional and corrupt.

And it's no surprise that our own president and his son got into issues in Ukraine specifically, because that's, that's the reputation

Ukraine has. So I would just recommend, download this book if you have the time, and read it, and you'll have a lot more educated discussions with people.

There has been, one of the things that you'll learn, is there has been a war in Donbass, which is the region that Putin is very concerned about.

It's got, I believe it, the population is, it's a Russian plurality, not meaning, not a majority, but a plurality,

I believe. But there's, but more importantly than that, there's a, there seems to be at least, according to some, a pro -Russian majority there.

So even people who might not be ethnically Russian, they identify with Russia. It was an, one of the regions that was more pro -Soviet during the

Cold War. And this region has been in conflict, really, since 2014.

And if you remember, in 2014, that whole kerfuffle that took place, and we might talk about that a little more later, because if you understand that, you see, this is an extension of that, this, this current situation.

And I find it super ironic, do you not find the super ironic, that we have in 2014, the whole situation with Russia and Ukraine, and the

U .S. got very involved in that. Of course, we didn't come in with military, we threatened a lot.

We did the same thing that Biden's doing now, right? Sanctions, Obama put sanctions on Russia, same kind of thing.

And there was a pause. During Donald Trump, that didn't happen.

And now all of a sudden, Biden's president, now it's happening again. I just, I'm just pointing this out. Seems like Putin didn't want to poke the bear when

Trump was in office. Isn't that a little ironic to you? The pro -Russian president, right?

It wasn't, I thought Donald Trump was supposed to be controlled by Moscow. He was, it was

Russiagate, right? But of course, Putin doesn't take advantage of his friendship with Trump.

I'm just telling you, there's a narrative that's not working here. And the same people, some of the same people,

I should say, like CNN and MSNBC, the same people giving you the current narrative are the same ones that fed you the Russiagate narrative.

So we, it just seems like there's a hole already there in some ways, or it could be, there could be.

So anyway, there's been conflict there for a while. And I'll be honest with you,

I haven't been able to have the time to dig deeply into, I mean, look how complicated this is.

This is just the Wikipedia page for this particular conflict. This is complicated. There are a lot of different battles and facets and, or just situations, and there are battles.

This has been going on for a while. And there have been casualties and children have been casualties.

And it's just interesting to me that Putin seemed to indicate in his last speech, there were millions, right?

In the book that I showed you, the estimates are range from like 5 ,000 to 50 ,000, as far as how many people have died.

I really don't know. I haven't looked into it enough. But there, the point is, though, there is a conflict, and it hasn't been resolved.

And the status quo is that it hasn't been resolved in that particular region. And that's not the only region, but that's one of the regions in contention right now.

So that's one thing you have to understand. I mean, how many media outlets are even reporting about this?

I mean, it seems like unprovoked, you know, the Russians just moved in. Well, here's the thing, like out of nowhere, there was no reason for it as just completely greedy about territory and bringing back the glory of the

Soviet Union. Yeah, I'm not saying that couldn't be a factor in this. But there's more immediate things that Putin's actually talking about.

And this is one of them. And I don't see media outlets, at least the ones that I've frequented in the mainstream talking about it.

So I just want you to be aware of that. The other thing that to be aware of is that the US gives an incredible amount of foreign aid to Ukraine, including military, 40 % of their foreign aid is military.

And this is before this whole incident, you can look at this chart here, and it's increased. Here's 2014.

Okay. And look how much it's increased since then. I mean, it's increased a lot. We're at 679.

Actually, it's a roundup. It's almost 680 million in 2020 total US foreign aid to Ukraine.

40 % of that's military. Why? Why are they giving so much aid to Ukraine in this way?

Well, I mean, it's obvious. It's because Russia's right there. That's a big part of it. And the fear that Putin has is that Ukraine is going is under the orbit of the

United States. In fact, we were meaning the United States was very much behind a coup in 2014.

And I'll get to that. But there Ukraine is, there was an opportunity for Ukraine to kind of be more in Russia's orbit.

And there was an open question. And since 2014, especially it has been more the government at least in the orbit of the

United States and possibly NATO. And that's one of Putin's big fears.

So and we'll get to that. Now, here's where I like to go to for reporting on the issues.

In fact, I'll even refresh it now to see if there's something new coming up. There is actually one hour

Ukraine orders general mobilization announces new death toll. So I'll click on that.

I'll read the story. This is the Epoch Times. I do pay for subscription to the Epoch Times.

Because and it says, let's see here. Allow. Let's see, where's the death?

I'm looking for the death toll. By the time I you're listening to this, though, it'll probably be says local time that 137 people have been killed.

It's very tragic and 316 were wounded. Now, that's,

I don't want to downplay this, but that is for an invasion. That's, that's not a high number, necessarily.

That's so we can see perhaps a silver lining there.

But it doesn't take away from the fact that the 137 people have died. So please be in prayer for their families.

This is a good website, though the Epoch Times, in my opinion. I think there's there, there's good information.

They are definitely, they have a bias against communism, right? But that's a, that's certainly a bias

I'm aware of. And that's, I want to support them because I think their voice is important to be out there.

I can listen to the pro -communist voices all day, but I don't get a lot of anti -communist voices.

And they're very aware of what's happening in China, which I appreciate. Because China, in my mind, is the big geopolitical threat.

Not Russia quite as much. It's, it really is China. So we'll talk about that too later.

But the Epoch Times, great place to just get general reports. You know, here's what happened. Now, I am a big believer, big believer, that we need to go to primary sources.

As much as I, I'm really am big on this. If you really want to understand an issue in history, but it applies today to journalism in current situations, go to the primary sources.

Okay, if there was a speech, we don't all have time to listen to every speech. So it's sometimes good to find a good secondary source.

I mean, that's what you're doing listening to me. You're listening to someone who's giving you information. But if you really want to understand the issue, don't listen to me.

Go to the primary sources. Look at the websites. The problem is right now, if this was going pretty well until today, multiple government websites in Russia, including the

Kremlin and the state Duma, have fallen offline. And the incident comes amid a spate of cyber attacks targeting neighboring

Ukraine. So both our websites are down. Now fortunately, I have some, some of these websites.

On the Wayback Machine, I was able to get the latest from, actually, oh, this is

February 25th. So that would be, so it's actually, this isn't that long ago. Earlier in the day, I was able to get some of the statements from the president of Ukraine.

And, and they're, they're very short. They're, and you can get them in English, which is great.

And they're very simple. He compares them to Nazis. It's actually very similar to the narrative that I hear in the

American media, interestingly enough. And there's really not a whole lot of, I don't know, there's, he's not making much of a case or an argument.

Not saying that he doesn't in other places, but most of, this is pretty much what you can expect. It's this short, generally, and it's, it's trying to get support for Ukraine and boost morale against Russia and really vilify

Russia. And it's very similar to the news reports that we're hearing in our country. Now, the one thing that's not down is their

Twitter account. So you can go to their Twitter account and you can see their, and it's the same kind of thing.

It's, you know, they're trying to petition Twitter to remove Russia from the platform. They want to get

Russia canceled from Twitter. They, that's, that's their, like, man, that's interesting.

It's weird, it's a little weird to me, I'll be honest with you. I don't know who runs Ukraine's Twitter, but, like, that wouldn't be the first thing on my mind.

I'm not saying that, that, I don't even, I don't know. I don't know. It's like, getting Russia removed from Twitter seems kind of low on the priority list, but that's, that's what we're seeing.

There's other, like, for instance, this. They posted this less than a day ago. Here's Hitler giving

Putin a, well, acting like he's proud of Putin. He's kind of looking at him the way an uncle would look at his nephew or something.

I don't know, and, I mean, it's weird to me because this is an official government website, and Ukraine says this is not a meme, but our, but our and your reality right now.

I don't know what to say about this. I, I'm not, certainly not anti -Ukraine, but I am wondering why in the world their social media looks this unprofessional, and I don't know what their,

I don't know. It seems like it's someone who's, it just doesn't seem very mature to me.

I don't, I'm trying to struggle to even come up with the words to describe this. I mean, if your country's being invaded, you fear for your life.

I don't know why you'd be posting stuff like this and trying to get Russia booted off Twitter. I mean, is

Russia doing so much damage on Twitter? I mean, let's go to Russia's Twitter, actually. We'll go there. Let's go there right now. President of Russia.

Here's their Twitter. If, I mean, if you click on, here's the latest one from seven hours ago.

I mean, look, I mean, it's, it's people, it's people, the people commenting are all against Putin.

They hate Putin. So, it's, it's not like Russia's Twitter is being, is making much of a difference in this conflict,

I wouldn't think, but Ukraine's, whoever's running Ukraine's Twitter seems to think so, but that is going to the primary source, at least.

You're at least looking at what is Ukraine saying, what is Russia saying, right? And I think you get a better idea that way of the purposes of each particular country.

Now, Putin, he has, he's been putting speeches out, and the one from, the last one from February 24th, where he talks about the military action, there, people have been saying this is a declaration of war, it's and, and, and that may be the case, but he, he doesn't come out and really say that.

The media is, whenever they reference his speech, and I've heard references to it, they don't seem to accurately depict it, in my mind.

There's two issues that come out of this. One is that there's a fear that Ukraine is going to be used by the

European Union, and the corruption and, and the coup that happened in 2014, backed by us, in some ways, and the, the neo -Nazi, he talks about, actually, the neo -Nazi contingent in Ukraine that Russians are afraid of, an anti -Russian neo -Nazi contingent, and that gets more interesting.

I read some articles talking about how, in 2014, the United States actually backed some neo -Nazi groups in Ukraine.

I'll show you the groups later, and they, they are the big anti -Russian groups, apparently, political groups, and I just find it interesting,

Ukraine's trying to say that Putin's Hitler, and then Putin is saying, well, you have actually neo -Nazi groups in your country, and they're both kind of, like, calling each other

Nazis, which, it's just, okay, like, that, that's where we're at, but Putin thinks that it's, it's unsafe for Russia, because if you are part of NATO, and one country, if, if you go to war, you know, let's say, if, if there's a conflict between Russia and, and there already is, right,

I already showed you, there is a conflict already going on, it's unresolved, but if, if it escalates, and you have a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and that Ukraine is part of NATO, then the

NATO countries all have to pretty much go to war with Russia, and so Ukraine isn't in NATO at this point, but there's a strong pressure, the

United States, actually, their interest is to, what it seems like, at least, is they really do want to push

NATO farther east, and they want Ukraine in NATO, so that's one of the big deals going on here, one of the issues, and so where do you come down on that?

That's, that's a big question, this, do you think that Ukraine should be part of NATO? Do you think that Ukraine shouldn't be part of NATO, that that would be a threat to Russia, that, you know, that's, depending on where you come down on that question can determine a lot about who you think is in the right or the wrong in this particular situation, or you could just think that everyone's kind of in the wrong.

That is also a legitimate option here, so I'm just trying to, as best

I can, just give you what I understand to be the situation. There's, there's an interesting section in this speech, he gives a whole history lesson, by the way, and, and I will say this, okay,

I just got done reading a very long biography on Hitler by John Toland, and one of the things that Hitler tended to do in his speech is sometimes, and this isn't wrong, this isn't, doesn't make you

Hitler to do this, but he would give these history lessons sometimes about, and, and, you know, German greatness would be very much part of it, and I do see something in Putin that is similar to that, but it doesn't mean

Putin's Hitler, it just, that is a, it did jump out at me a little bit, and, and Putin may have some ambitions that are similar.

It's possible, I'm not ruling that out at all, but he gives this whole history lesson, and talks about Ukraine, and the, and he talks about the

United States, and how the United States has gone back on their word on different things, and they've destabilized regions, especially in the

Middle East, but also in Europe through their intervention, and it's been unhealthy, and they're using, basically they're using

Ukraine, that's what he's saying, that's what he's implying, they're using Ukraine, and they're, they don't care about the people dying in the

Donbas area, they, and basically Putin's saying, you know, we're gonna protect these people, we identify with them, they're, they're, they're pro -Russian, they're, there are people, and he's taking ownership of this, and, you know, we've tried all the diplomatic situation, ways of dealing with this, and it's not working, and you have these far -right nationalists, and neo -Nazis in Ukraine, and, and you're gonna, what,

NATO's gonna now have a far -right nationalist, a neo -Nazi regime, that's, and make no mistake about it,

Ukraine is not this, you know, great Western democracy in every way, I mean, Ukraine does jail dissidents, it's not, it is, it is not quite what it's being painted to be, and, and, and I'm not getting that from Putin, by the way,

I'm just saying that, that you'll, you'll find out some about that when you read that book, but, but Putin is complaining about some of these things, and saying there, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, and if, he says, in the name of freedom, at the end of this, you know, he says even right here, everyone's in the name of freedom, every, everyone in this whole conflict is saying it, they're pro, they're pro -freedom, but he says, in the name of freedom, that they're, they need to defend their homeland against aggressive forces, and so that's what he thinks is happening, and so he thinks that, you know, there's already a conflict, it can escalate and get worse, and so that's a big part of this, and, and, and so really,

I, I see two things, I see the, the Doombass area as an area that Putin identifies with, and, and hears the cries of his people, and, you know, wants to help them, and, and there's no solution, and the other thing is, that he cites is this being used by NATO, and the

United States in particular, and if, if they have a in Ukraine, that NATO puts there,

I mean, it can get to Russia in no time, I mean, you're right next to Russia, so it's, it's like, it's kind of like, think about it this way, actually, because people are comparing this to Hitler, and saying, it's like Hitler going into the

Sudetenland, well, it's, you could also say, it's a little bit like the Cuban Missile Crisis, in some ways, it's, it's like, you know, there's, you have a country, and a, an alliance,

NATO, that has expressed, at least, or implied intentions to have

Ukraine as a member state, there's already military funding from the United States going to Ukraine, and the possibility of a nuclear weapon there, and, and forces that could do something to Russia, when there's already an open wound that's been going on now for eight years, is a daunting prospect, and so, so you could, you could see almost a parallel that direction, as well, and so, so, so Putin, that, that's kind of how he feels about this, but there's an interesting section,

I'm trying to find it, and I'm having a hard time now, where he talks about the whole LGBT type stuff in his speech,

I'm like, how did he work that into this, but he did, and it's fascinating to see how he views this, he talks about global, globalism, he says those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated

Russia as their enemy, they did so with impunity, make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way, it is true that they have considerable financial, scientific, technological, and military capabilities, we are aware of this, and have an objective view of the economic threats we have been hearing, just as our ability to counter this brash and never -ending blackmail, let me reiterate that we have no illusions in this regard, and are extremely realistic in our assessments, meaning he knows that he's going to be sanctioned, and he is, and they're totally ready for it.

He talks about NATO inching eastwards, this really happened since the Clinton administration, NATO moving more eastwards, even by an inch, he reiterates their,

Russia's commitment to respect the post -Soviet states, with respect, to treat them with respect, and he's gonna respect their sovereignty, so, which is, you know, that's, maybe he's lying, it's very possible, but that's what he's saying, he talks about the purpose of the operation, like I said, is to protect the people who for eight years have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetuated by the

Kiev regime, to this end we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, that's his purpose, actually, you really want to boil it down, he wants to demilitarize and denazify

Ukraine, as well as bring trial to those who perpetuated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the

Russian Federation, and that would be in the, probably the Donbass region there, Russia, there are

Russian nationals who work there, it is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory, we do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force, at the same time we've been hearing an increasing number of statements coming from the

West, that there is no need anymore to abide by the document setting forth the outcomes of World War II, as signed by the totalitarian

Soviet regime, how can we respond to this, so they fear that treaties will be broken, and they want the freedom to independently choose their future from these threats, that's what he's, that's the stated purpose that he has in all of this, here's the section on the

LGBT stuff, he says, it's a little paragraph and you would wonder why would this be inserted in a statement about a military action that Russia is taking against Ukraine, this is what he says, he says, properly speaking the attempts to use us in their own interests never ceased until quite recently, and they sought, and the they he's talking about is the

United States and Western partners, they sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature, this is not going to happen, no one has ever succeeded in doing this, nor will they succeed now,

I just thought this was fascinating to me that this, he is setting himself against the

West and the United States in particular, and if you looked at any of other Putin's speeches where he talks about this, that's his, he brings that up when he brings up LGBT stuff, that it's unnatural, and you, and that's, that's exactly what he's talking about here, he's saying that they are not going to abide by the egalitarian standards of the

West, and, and so this this is all, can you see the baggage, can you, that's what

I want you to see how big this is, can you see all the baggage that's being brought to this, it's not as simple as I just want territory and I'm invading, and it's, it's for Ukraine, it's not just as simple as we're defending ourselves from invaders, those two things may very well be true, there's, there's a lot of other stuff though, it's what the

West represents to Russia and to Putin, it, it's decadence, it's evil, it's aggression against them, it's globalism, it's

LGBT stuff, that, that's what Putin's seeing, and he sees, and he can't work with the West, that's what he thinks, and, and of course

Ukraine is wanting to, at least the government of Ukraine, seems to want to be more in a

Western orbit, on the LGBT stuff, Ukraine, at least their, their government protects gay pride marches and these kinds of things,

I don't think the population's in favor of that stuff, but there is a government in place, at least, that is very, much more pro -NATO and, and, and the

West in general, and, and maybe they should, maybe that's what they, would be good for their country, but that's, that's the clash you're seeing here, and I don't hear this kind of analysis very much.

So that's what you get if you go to primary sources on this subject, and there's others you could go to as well.

I want to show you some commentators that I like on this, and of course I read the primary stuff before I would, generally it's good to read the primary stuff before listening to commentary, of course

I did say read this book first just to get a foundation, a general foundation on Ukraine, but the, the commentators that I like on this particular situation that I've been reading today, and I can't,

I can't pronounce this guy's name, I'm sorry, but this gentleman is a foreign affairs editor at the

Chronicles magazine, and I, I think Chronicles has some good stuff on this, to be honest with you,

I don't, I haven't read a lot of Chronicles, I've been aware of them for a few years, but I've come to like them more and more, and it doesn't mean

I'd agree with everything Chronicles puts out there, but it's a different perspective, it's, they're more paleo -conservative, whereas on Fox News you're gonna get more of a neo -conservative outlook, and then of course in the other networks you're gonna get just a progressive outlook, so I tend to view myself

I think more and more as a paleo -conservative, a Burkean conservative, kind of in the

Russell Kirk vein, and I, I appreciate what Chronicles puts out there, so there's some really good, some articles, here's one that really just talks about the three scenarios that could play out in this whole situation, and I'm sure by tomorrow we'll know more of what those situations, what those, what's going on there, which scenario is going to take place, and then you have another gentleman at Chronicles magazine,

Tom Piotek, and he has some good articles here, this is one that, that I thought was good,

Winning the War Against War, and, and he talks about, you like, look, I am not pro -Russian, like, he's just like,

I, look, I, I think what Russian's doing is wrong, but guess what, I really don't want to commit American blood to this,

I don't, I don't think it's our business, that's his argument, now I'm not even saying that I completely am agreeing with everything,

I, I'm, I'm a little unsure about where, I, I'm still figuring it out, that's what I should say, I'm still figuring out, but I'm very sympathetic to this,

I, I'm in a process I think myself, in some ways, I think I tended towards a more neocon understanding of foreign policy, and I'm, I'm changing a little bit myself, and that's been a process, so, but he has some, a good article, and it's short, just bringing up all the reasons he thinks this would be a bad idea, and so he says the

American public needs to be reminded instead that one can oppose war with Russia and still think that Russia is wrong to threaten its neighbors, amen, that's a, that's how

I feel about this, I think most Americans feel this, this way, one can oppose war with Russia and still think its claim to being threatened by a handful of American troops in Poland is a believable as the old czarist and communist claims of being threatened by the very existence of Poland, one can oppose war with Russia yet believe that on the whole

Russia's role in world politics has been malign, and I, I sympathize with this,

I'm like yeah, that's kind of how I see it, so, so he says he realizes the only reason for America to go to war is to defend

America and Americans, this position reframes the war debate in a way, anyway, that, that's his feeling, that's his rule, he talks about the domestic issues going on in America, and he makes a great case, we're broke, we are, we're not in a good position, we're not in a strong position right now to be going to war, really, and that's kind of a problem, we have domestic issues that are pretty big right now, and it's just, we need to strengthen ourselves, and I tend to agree, at the same time, when you look at the way that people are at each other's throats in this country, you wonder how we're gonna solve these domestic issues before being able to be ready for a threat from a nuclear power, it's, we're in trouble, we're in trouble, but, the other one, here's, many of you have heard of Pat Buchanan, he ran for president years ago, but he put out an article, and I think this one's actually worth reading, it's pretty short, let me, let me read parts of it at least to you, he says

Vladimir Putin demanded the US rule out Ukraine as a future member of the NATO alliance, and the US replied NATO is an open -door policy, any nation including

Ukraine may apply for membership and be admitted, we're not changing that, and the Bucharest declaration of 2008,

NATO put Ukraine and Georgia even farther east, on a path to membership in NATO, and the coverage under article 5 of the treaty, which declares that an attack on anyone member is an attack on all, unable to get satisfactory answer to his demand,

Putin invaded and settled the issue, neither Ukraine or Georgia will become members of NATO, to prevent that,

Russia will go to war, so as Russia did last night, so this is what it's about too, it's, it's about preventing

Ukraine from becoming part of NATO, Putin did exactly what he had warned us he would do, whatever the character the

Russian president, now being hotly debated here in the USA, he has established his credibility, when Putin warns that he will do something, he does it, kind of like Trump, right, 36 hours into his

Russia -Ukraine war, potentially the worst in Europe since 1945, two questions need to be answered here, how do we get here, and where do we go from here, how do we get to, to where Russia, believing its back is against a wall in the

United States, by moving NATO even closer, put it there, reached a point, where it chose war with Ukraine, rather than accepting the fate and future, it believes the

West has in store for mother Russia, consider between 1989 and 91, when Gorbachev let the

Berlin Wall be pulled down, Germany to be reunited, and all the captive nations of Eastern Europe to go free, so he's tracing it back to 89, saying having collapsed the

Soviet Empire, Gorbachev allowed the Soviet Union to dissolve itself into the independent nations, right, and Gorbachev called off the

Cold War, Putin, a former KGB colonel, came to power in 99, and after Boris Yeltsin, and Putin watched as America conducted a 78 -day bombing campaign in Serbia, and Balkan nation, which had historically been a protectorate of mother

Russia, that year, also three former Warsaw Pact nations, the Warsaw Pact is the, the counter to NATO, that's

Russia's alliance during the Soviet time, former Warsaw Pact nations, the

Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, were brought into NATO, against whom were these countries to be protected by US arms, and the

NATO alliance, the question was fairly asked, the question seemed to be answered fully in 2004, when Slovania, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria were admitted into NATO, a grouping that included three former republics of the

USSR itself, as well as three former Warsaw Pact nations, then in 2008 came the

Bucharest declaration, that, so anyway, what he, what he's tracing out, is he's saying, look, after the Cold War, that's why, you know,

NATO was around to, to counteract Russia, and communism, and, and what happens? Cold War ends, and they keep growing

NATO, so he's saying there's a globalist march going on, and, and, and so he's saying that's the issue, as Russia's watching this, he's saying, look, the

West is trying to swallow up all these former satellite states, and the former NATO countries that were previously in Russia, and now, now

Ukraine, right on our front door here, that, you know, that's what he's saying, is like, this is what's partially instigated this, or created the situation where Putin feels threatened.

2014, a democratically elected pro -Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in Kiev, and replaced by a pro -Western regime, okay, that, some people would sell, call that a coup.

Rather than lose Sevastopol, Russia's historic naval base in Crimea, and by the way, they've had that base since the 1700s,

Putin seized the peninsula and declared it Russia territory. Teddy Roosevelt stole

Panama in a similar, in a similar, so he's, he's poking, he's saying that the United States has done similar things to what

Putin's doing. He says, Putin is not irrational, he's a nationalist, patriot, traditionalist, and a cold and ruthless realist, looking out to preserve

Russia. So, you know, I don't know if Pat Buchanan's pro -Putin or not, and, you know, he may also be a thug, and an evil person, and, you know, all those kinds of negative pejoratives as well, but, you know, this is a fair article, at least, describing what has led to this.

I think that's, this is a, this is fair, I mean, and it's really, again, how do you know this is fair? Well, it, it actually jives with the primary sources we've looked at.

You know, this gives further description to what Putin was talking about himself. It's not speculating about what's in Putin's mind, it's, it's describing, it's, it's talking about the situation

Putin has talked about himself. So, I find this helpful. I find Peter Hitchens, by the way, helpful from the

UK. That's Christopher Hitchens' brother. He says, we have pointlessly made an enemy of Russia. I find,

I find this to be a helpful article, in some ways, and, and he talks about living in Russia as a journalist, and the moment that the

Soviet Union fell, the opportunity that exists, and the hope that was just in the air when he was there, and that instead of the

Americans and the West taking advantage of this situation for the purpose of bringing

Russia into the world community, because the gripe was not with Russia, it, the Russian people, it was with the Soviet government.

Instead, they, what is his quote, he says, what was unleashed instead was an army of carpetbaggers from the

West shouting about the free market, who quickly found their match in the crooks and corrupt, corruption experts, many of them high communist officials, who rushed to exploit and fool them.

At the same time, formal democracy was introduced, that is to say, there were some elections, which were, of course, rigged by big money, and in the minds of Russians, whose savings were vaporized, who turned, who were turned off their homes by thugs who lost their jobs and pensions, democracy became a swear word.

People in governments who now claim to despise Vladimir Putin for his aggression, for his suppression of freedom, and for his corruption, did not seem to be bothered by these things when his forerunner

Boris Yeltsin did them. It is a fascinating contrast, and that is a really good point.

That is a really good point. People who were pro -Soviet, in some ways, are very sympathetic to actual human rights abuse,

Soviet dictators, right, who, you know, did even more than Putin to abuse human rights, are now, all of a sudden, really against Putin.

Why? What's the standard there? If they're gonna be consistent, they should be against both, right? So, he basically says that the

West failed in the aftermath. They tried to take advantage of Russia, in a way, economically, and he says that's still happening.

There was an article that I read, that I thought was interesting, as well. Let's see if that's, that's not next on the list.

I'm gonna get there. Actually, let's just go there real quick. There's two articles by a guy named Eric Zuse, who's written for the

Huffington Post and another of the other publications that are actually, you know, more on the left, we would say, but he writes, and these are on some, some, some not mainstream websites, these articles, but he has an article from 2018's

How and Why the U .S. Government Perpetuated a 2014 Coup in Ukraine. Fascinating.

I just recommend people check it out, and maybe, I don't know if everything is completely a hundred percent, but there's, there's certainly some of the things he cites, and he gives some sources, are worth looking into, and then you have the real history behind Ukraine, Putin, and the

EU, gas, and Donbass, that he wrote today from the U .S .S .A. News. This one's interesting, because he, he makes an economic argument for what's going on, and just talks about how, you know, this could be related to a pipeline, and, and the

U .S. want, not wanting Russia to have influence, economic influence, with Western Europe through supplying them with gas.

Instead, they want the natural gas from the United States. So that, that's the argument here.

Now look, I, I'm gonna be honest with you guys, these are just, these articles from, from Eric Zeus are ones

I'm just throwing out there, as these are interesting. I'm not saying I buy all this, and I'm not sure exactly to what extent.

I just don't know a lot about them, so I'm not putting my name behind them, I'm not endorsing them, other than to say they're interesting to look at, and maybe, you know, some of you might take it farther, and if you're into this kind of thing, they may give you some leads.

But it goes along with what Peter Hitchens was saying in this, about trying to take advantage of Russia economically, and to keep them as a weak state that supplies certain needed things for the

West, but not letting them grow past a certain point. So that's Peter Hitchens.

I think Tucker Carlson, by the way, is doing a pretty good job on this stuff, from what I can tell, and so I wouldn't,

I wouldn't watch Fox News, to be honest, or listen to their reporting on this situation on the radio, but I think

Tucker Carlson actually is, is looking at this fairly. And then, I wanted to show you, so, the political parties.

I said that there were some neo -Nazi political parties. I was a little skeptical at first, and then I started, I looked into it, and here's the

Wikipedia pages for the three big ones. So, there's

Sovoboda, I guess is how you pronounce it, and that's the

All -Ukrainian Union. They are, they're one of these groups. You have the

Right Sector, is another one of these groups, and then the National Corps. And these are,

I think they're all political parties in Ukraine, and so that's what

Putin was talking about when he was talking about the Nazi, neo -Nazi stuff in Ukraine. I haven't looked into them deeply, but apparently they do exist, and they do have way more prominence than any kind of a neo -Nazi group in the

United States would. And then you have what I think is the big, the really what to look for right now, the bigger threat in my mind to the

United States. Russia and China agreed to a no -limits relationship at the Beijing Olympics. This is from the Blaze, February 5th, 2022, earlier in the month, and it talks about Vladimir Putin meeting with President Xi Jinping.

And let's just say they had a good conversation, and they talked about Taiwan, and they talked about Ukraine, and to me, this tells you a lot of what you need to know about Putin, right there, right there.

I don't think this is a, yeah, be careful of this guy. At the same time, he may feel like his options are limited, and if he wants his, if he wants

Russian greatness, and a good economy, and his people to prosper, he may feel that he's got to go to China, because the

West doesn't want him. I don't know, maybe that's going on in this as well, but certainly concerning, and Xi Jinping, you know, that's a bad dude.

That is definitely a bad dude, and birds of a do tend to flock together sometimes, and I don't know to what extent their relationship is, if maybe it's just a, the beginning of just being cordial to one another, but it looks deeper than that, does look deeper to that, than that to me, and so, of course, when you're a president, you do have to meet with other presidents.

That doesn't mean you're endorsing everything they do, but, but this article seems to indicate that there's, there's deeper connections forming, and then you have this.

This is the 24th, so, Taiwan reporter, reports nine Chinese aircraft in defense zone.

Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Seriously, is this making any news?

It's on the hill, but, I mean, this is concerning to me, is, is,

I had that thought as soon as everything started going down with Russia, is China going to try to take advantage of this, and say, well, we're going into Taiwan now.

That could very well be the case. Well, I want to read something for you. This is from George Washington's farewell address, and this is often quoted by, and I don't know if I want to say anti -war, sometimes it's anti -war, sometimes it's just people who, you know, they could be isolationists, but it's also,

I think, just also people, because I wouldn't put myself in either of those categories at all. We, war is a fact of life, and it, it happens.

It's throughout the all of human history, including the, in the Bible, if you open it up, you're going to find a lot of war, and it's unavoidable.

It's, sometimes, so, I, I don't think that George Washington, who is a general, is making an anti -war claim, and what

I'm about to read for you, but what he is doing, is he's warning about the, what could be an entangling alliance, a situation where the

United States can, it gets involved in business which really isn't its own, and this is something

I think we need to think about more. Now, maybe it is our business to be more involved in Ukraine, but maybe it's not, and, and perhaps this situation has been somewhat instigated, or not helped along by some of the actions taken in previous administrations.

So, this is what George Washington said, our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course.

If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance, when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may, at any time, resolve upon to be scrumptiously respected.

When belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation, when we may choose peace or war as our interests, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand up upon foreign ground?

Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far

I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it, for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements.

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honestly is always the best policy.

I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense, but in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

George Washington warned about getting involved in the affairs of Europe, that this would tie us into things that could hurt us, that wouldn't be in our best interest, and I'm seeing the wisdom in this more and more.

I didn't used to see it as much, I remember hearing it quoted all the time, but I used to think, well that was back then, you know, we live in a different time, and we do, but I'm seeing that this, there was something underneath this, there was a bigger principle at work here, and some of the things that are, some of the wise things that scripture even tells us about individual relationships, such as not to get involved in things that aren't our business, can apply in a foreign context, or a much larger context,

I believe, as well. There's general principles of wisdom, and that's one of them. In fact, it's foolish to get involved with things that are not in, that we can't really do much good about, we can sometimes make it worse, and things that are really, that have a cost, there's a big cost that comes with this kind of thing.

The Bible says that in Proverbs 26 17, whoever meddles in a quarrel, not his own, is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.

That's just a general truth, and so I wonder whether or not that applies in a situation like this.

Now, we may be past that, with all the involvement we've had, with the funding we've given to Ukraine, we may have a responsibility there at this point, and I'm totally open to that, but this is some wisdom that I wish would be taken more seriously in foreign policy in general.

And with that said, and I know there's many, I can sense already, the people listening, some of you out there may be saying,

John, I totally understand, this is the way I feel about it. Others may be saying, we need to, you know, there's human rights abuses, there's people dying, we got to get involved.

And two, I'd say, how much? How, where? What's the responsibility of the government?

It's to its own people. We have limited resources. We can't, in fact, in this situation, we really don't have the resources at this point to get involved with a conflict with the nuclear power in the way that I think some would like to, perhaps.

And maybe we still will, but it's, we're in bad shape economically. When you just look at the national debt, we have a housing bubble right now.

We have gas prices that are just going up. We have domestic strife.

We have a bigger problem with China. We have a lot of things going on right now that make it very difficult to get involved in a foreign conflict like this.

We only have limited resources. And so there's been bloodshed going on in Ukraine for the last eight years.

And I mean, if that's the way you feel, then maybe, why didn't we just do something about it then?

And, but we left some things unresolved. We left, even the borders of Ukraine are pretty much unresolved at this point.

And that's been a problem for eight years now. Eight years. So I want to talk about the hypocrisy

I see in all this. You have a crowd in the United States that likes open borders at our own southern border, won't defend our own sovereignty, but somehow thinks it's important to do all we can to defend

Ukraine's sovereignty and protect her borders. I find that interesting. I find it interesting that we live in a country where there's a large contingent of people who call anyone a

Nazi who disagrees with them, but then think it's so important to defend Ukraine when there, when there's a large, larger, much larger contingent of neo -Nazi types that are in the anti -Russian side.

And that Vladimir Putin is actually kind of declaring war on. He wants to de -Nazify Ukraine. I just find that interesting.

Would that make Vladimir Putin Antifa? He's anti -fascist. He's going in to take care of the fascists.

But, you know, we have a whole group of people that are, you know, totally in their minds, anti -fascist, anti -Nazi, anti -nationalist.

And then they want to support Ukrainian nationalists and, and Nazis in a sense, in some way.

Now, look, I'm not, I'm not saying it's wrong to support Ukraine. What I'm saying is I'm pointing out hypocrisy here.

And, and the, and they're just trying to call Putin Hitler. It's interesting to me that they have to turn even the person who's saying

I'm against the Nazis into the Nazi. And I, you know,

Soviet Union and Germany did have an alliance for a short time, but actually the Soviet Union was instrumental in defeating

Nazi Germany. Ukraine historically, hate to say it, but they were not on the same side as Russia in that conflict.

And then you have popular sovereignty. A lot of people believe that people should choose democracy, popular sovereignty.

And yet they don't, they want popular sovereignty, sovereignty for Crimea, Crimea or the

Donbass region. You have a coup in 2014, a tampering with the situation.

There's a lot of corruption in Ukraine. The oligarchs, it's kind of a fusion of the

Ukrainian mob, big business, and politicians. And, I mean, this has been, this oligarchy, it's not really a democracy so much as an oligarchy, has been in place for decades.

And so that's the defending democracy, I guess. But the U .S. has been involved with corruption, even our own president in Ukraine, and tampering with the government there.

And somehow if Putin does it, though, it's, in any way, he's an aggressor.

And I'm not saying he's not. I'm just saying we've got some problems here. I'm not, what

I'm trying to say is, I'm not so sure the United States is the good guy in all of this, in everything.

I know there's a certain crowd out there, I know. Rah, rah, rah, America, America is right or wrong.

They're all, you know, I'm not there, guys. I can see what our government's done domestically, and I'm not under any illusion that they're not doing the same kind of things across the ocean somewhere.

I mean, the things we fund, the trying to pressure African nations to embrace

LGBT, I mean, that's one of the things Putin complained about. We're not a righteous country anymore.

We're not characterized. And I should say our government, our government is not a righteous government. There's corruption there, there's evil there.

So that we're pure as the driven snow, and Ukraine's pure as the driven snow, and Putin's black, it could be that we're both have some problems here.

But there's some hypocrisy. The other thing, we, in this one,

I already mentioned this, the pro -Boris Yeltsin but anti -Putin thing. I've also noticed, and this is the only comment

I'm really gonna make about the social justice and Christianity stuff, I have noticed there are evangelical leaders who are very pro -Ukraine right now, who didn't say much about Canada and the situation going on up there.

And I'm just saying there's a selectivity that seems to be happening with what countries and what situations to pray for.

I think we should pray for Ukraine, absolutely. I'm also praying for Canada. I think we should also pray for our country right now.

I think we should be praying for China and all our Christian brothers who are being persecuted there and in the

Muslim world. And certainly Ukraine is on that list. Consequences for us, gas prices are gonna go up.

There may be more dire economic consequences, I'm not entirely sure. It won't stop

Putin. Sanctions have been tried before. I watched

Biden's speech and it was actually one of his more lucid speeches in my mind, the one he gave today.

But it lacked strength. It was vague. What Biden seems to want to do is to create a peer pressure that the whole world is against Putin.

And then when he's asked afterward, what about China? He has no comment on it because, and that's the real question, because China and Putin are forming a relationship.

And Biden is trying to get a global community to oppose

Putin and that Putin's gonna really, Putin's gonna bend to this because that's what Biden would bend to probably.

John Kerry was out on some some some

Middle Eastern, I think, station of some kind and they were interviewing him and he was just saying, man I hope Putin remembers that global warming and climate change, global climate change is the big problem right now.

I hope he doesn't stop, you know, being concerned with climate change. That was his whole concern with all this, which

I thought was interesting. These are the kind of things that aren't gonna work. Putin's not thinking about that.

One of the things you have to understand is if you have an enemy, you gotta know your enemy. You have to understand what kinds of things are important to your enemy.

And these are not the pri - Putin doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks. He cares about Russia. That's kind of who he is.

And he'll get allies wherever, that will serve him. It lacks strength.

It lacked, look if you're if you're gonna, I think that's one of the reasons this didn't happen under Trump. Trump would have threatened probably a military action and he would have meant it.

And to be honest with you, it probably wouldn't have gotten to this point with Russia. There probably would have been a better negotiation process

I haven't, I don't know exactly what's gone on with those the negotiation process, but my suspicion is it hadn't been going too well.

And that's what's led to a lot of this. So there are my thoughts for you on this whole situation in Ukraine and with Russia.

And I know this is probably, at the time you're listening, this has probably developed even further. But this is what

I've been thinking about in regards to this. I don't plan on spending a lot more time on it, but the situation, like I said, it may develop quite a bit.

So we may talk about a little bit next week. I understand this isn't what I primarily focus on. And I need to say this,

I'm totally open to changing perspectives on things if there's more information provided.

So certainly if you disagree or if you have other websites or information that you want to share, please do so in the comments section.

And I may or may not, but I'll try to read what I can. And this is a situation that is interesting me at the moment because I think it is important.

But those hopefully understand the way I'm looking at it and what my principles are when

I look at any situations. I really want to go back to the primary sources and then find secondary sources and commentary from people who are knowledgeable and steeped in those primary sources and able to provide analysis from a worldview that's at least somewhat similar to mine.

And so not someone who is, their worldview is so far out there that they don't recognize that humans are evil, let's say, or they don't recognize what actually, you know, is driving someone like a

Putin to do what he does. There's something called sin. We need to understand that. So I like to find, like,

Peter Hitchens is a Christian and he knows something about the Soviet Union. He lived there, you know, so that's someone

I find his opinion interesting, right? So those are the kinds of people I like to listen to on these topics.

The mainstream media right now, I think, is failing us. And so that's the reason I wanted to make this podcast.

I hope it was helpful for some of you. And if you disagree, I'm sorry. But send me the sources that you like and make your case.