Stop Putin, Block Russia from Swift
openpetition.eu
openpetition.eu
I'm thinking especially of people in Europe castigating politicians for not wanting to clamp down hard on the Russian energy sector. The way I see it, the europols are in a no-win situation. If they go easy on Russia and keep the gas and oil flowing, they look like weak and waffling appeasers, which yes, they are. If they cut off the Russian gas supply, will the people posting Ukrainian flags on Twitter remember or care about the noble root causes when faced with unprecedented energy prices?
I.e. the politicians know their people better than they know themselves, and they're well aware that showing support on social media is one thing, but being asked to make drastic sacrifices is quite another. These politicians will not survive if they do what their voters are clamoring for them to do.
Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there.
How does this make sense? If anything getting rid of the dependence on fossil fuels would have helped immensely now.
Don’t claim deep knowledge and happy to be educated.
Also nuclear energy is mostly CO2 neutral so I don't see how this is related.
This is my current understanding and an interesting topic I would love to learn more.
And if that's the case, they might have capacity they can bring back online:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-ge...
> January 3, 2022, 8:18 AM
> BERLIN -- Germany on Friday shut down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power.
That's only two months ago. Hopefully the plants are simply shut down and they haven't started dismantling them.
That seems like it's a false choice. Couldn't they cut off the gas supply while simultaneously implementing other policies to keep "unprecedented energy prices" from falling to hard on everyday people? Maybe even rally people around making some collective sacrifices?
We often see a trendy referendum being launched because of an event. Years later when we finally have to vote about it, we realize that it was only an historical parenthesis.
Not trusting the people because we think that most are too dumb means that we praise a census suffrage or indirect form of it.
I am Swiss. I am often disappointed by vote results. The system is not perfect. But at least we decided.
Germany is having issues delivering the 5,000 promised helmets, let alone any arms deal to Ukrainians. Lets start with a more reasonable goal, like NATO countries standing together and actually arming the Ukrainians?
------
Ukrainians need more missiles to keep up their defenses. Politically speaking, that's where the discussion lies for now. Its unreasonable to expect the various world powers to give more than that right now... and seems like a political battle to even ask for this much.
What's important here is to maintain the moral upper ground. China won't be able to withstand public opinion swaying to the side of the Ukrainians as more and more video evidence surfaces of massacres. If we offer real military support to the Ukrainians, China would use any video of our success as justification to begin helping the Russian side.
Protip: If you want to research the effects of sanctions, go to Google News search and set the time period to exclude articles from after 2020ish. You'll get higher-quality articles.
[0]https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-sanctions-stop-putin/
I suspect you might have stopped reading the article at the first paragraph - which presents a thesis that the rest of the article then proceeds to analyze and disprove.
If I'd linked you an article that said the Russian people wouldn't be hurt but that the sanctions were likely to change Putin's policies, then would you feel the opposite? It seems like you're trying to play both sides of the coin here.
We can only control the financial damage of the Russian people with our sanctions in the hopes that their public opinion will sway the opinion of Putin's cabinet and we've accomplished that here. There is no intervention on Earth that would guarantee the changing of Putin's mind short of a gun to his head. I'd go so far as to say you've erected a straw man.
Of course.
> It seems like you're trying to play both sides of the coin here.
It seems like your telepathy machine is broken.
> There is no intervention on Earth that would guarantee the changing of Putin's mind short of a gun to his head.
That might be the case. But if you think that is the case, why are you suggesting a different, ineffective but cruel intervention? An uncharitable interpretation of your proposal is that you want to hurt ordinary Russian people because you want to see someone suffer for Putin's actions.
Are you so sure it would escalate like that, or is it a bluff?
And if it's a bluff, should Putin be able to bluff his tanks all the way to Berlin?
Both Europe and US leaders are still asleep. There is a different dynamic going on and many are still in denial.
Also, consider for a moment where NATO gets its intelligence from, and then compare that to whatever sources your views are based on.
The West came to the game thinking it was tic tac toe...
I don't think blocking swift will achieve the expected result, Putin will have a move against this.
There's ultimately no war to be won against Russia, Putin knows this unfortunately, but that's what it is.