Picture the Canadian or American driving in his/her car listening to a radio report on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and mumbling something like, "Fucking Putin! We'll sanction your ass. See how you like that!" The Western motorist activates his/her right turn signal to pull off the road. "Where you gonna keep your billion-dollar yacht now, you crafty Cossack?" Our hero pulls up to the pump. "You like murdering kids? How 'bout we give those kids anti-tank missiles so they're not so helpless any more?" The oil addict removes the nozzle from the pump and roughly pushes the arm across the hole to reset the pump. "Where you gonna buy your vodka now? Or whatever you drink you teetotalling sociopath. A Russian who doesn't drink. How did we miss this?" Our protagonist opens the small door, unscrews the gas cap and slams the nozzle into the hole. "And how you gonna pay for your juicebox, you savage? What's that? Your bank machine won't give you any Rubles? And they're not worth shit anyway?" The junkie squeezes the nozzle and watches the numbers blur into their rocket-like climb. "And don't be surprised to see your own tanks shooting back at you, you bastard. Sure, your soldiers are just abandoning them with full tanks of gas and operating manuals in Ukrainian on the dashboards." The motorist loudly re-hangs the nozzle and shoves a card into a slot. "We'll Charlie Wilson your ass, you weasel-lookin' despot." The motorist punches a few buttons and receives a receipt equal to what his/her car payments used to be. "We should have done something about this LOOONG ago!" The motorist signals to get back onto the road as a commercial message for Norilsk Nickel plays on the car radio. "SOMETHING..."
Now picture a European speaking German or Swedish or some European language mumbling similar threats against Vladimir Putin as he/she waits in line at the bank to pay his/her natural gas bill and a Gazprom commercial passes through Earpods into a nicely washed brain. "Yoptvayoo mat, we'll spank your ass somehow! SOMEHOW..." the European vows in European.
Heavens to mergatroid! What, oh WHAT can we do? We need to do something, somehow, but what?
In the US, the most studied and publicized country in the world, it was calculated some time ago that spending a million dollars within the American economy would create 26 jobs in the education sector, 16 jobs in the renewable energy sector, 11 military jobs and a measly 5.3 jobs in fossil fuel. Robert Pollin founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts, who supplied the above figures, says, "Clean energy investment will create a lot more jobs than maintaining the existing dirty energy infrastructure - in the range of two to four times more jobs per dollar in spending in all of the countries that we have studied, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, and, (of course), the US."
"Well that's interesting. Anyway, how are we going to stop Putin?"
Long before Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, Europe was well aware of the virtual monopoly this raging Putocrat had on the natural gas market across Europe. AFTER, they were still aware. It's been 8 years at the very least of European energy complacency that has brought the continent to this point. Now, surprise, surprise, Russia invades Ukraine and European leaders are all mealy mouthing about perhaps it might just be a pretty good idea to stop dragging ass on energy changeover... but it's going to hurt for a while. Prepare for some belt tightening and austerity measures.
Back in 2014, Poland's PM Donald Tusk said, "Excessive dependence on Russian energy makes Europe weak." You'd be hard pressed to find a leader in the continent who hasn't gained public support by blathering on about "overcoming import dependency," (Germany) or moving toward "energy independence," (pretty much the whole continent) but DOING anything has been the hard part. Meanwhile, you'd be hard pressed to find a regular citizen of Europe who doesn't think this is long overdue. Here's an article from 5 months ago about how Putin is just getting richer and richer using his energy monopoly as a weapon against the EU while maintaining that his weaponization of oil and natural gas supplies is just "politically motivated chatter with no basis whatsoever." I know you are, but what am I?
"That may all be true, but how are we going to stop Putin?"
Perhaps Putin is shooting himself in the face with this latest move. Europe (and the world) seems to have largely stood idly by while Russian aggression against Moldova, Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, Crimea, and now Ukraine took place. Yeah, they've been busy! All of this since the 90's! So it may be hard to believe they'll FINALLY pull the trigger in earnest on their Green Deal plan, but for some reason, Ukraine looks like it might have shaken Europe out of its stupor. MAY have. HERE is what we can do to stop Putin.
GIANT "however" here. Remember the oligarchs and plutocrats I talked about being too lazy to make lots and lots MORE money a few posts back? (Raise A Little (Constructive) Hell) I talked about Dan Price and how he shows that you can make MORE money by paying your workers more money. We all knew this. It's just basic Keynes. The problem, the reason why Dan Price is the one and only guy doing this is basic Smith. That's right, Adam Smith, a guy we all THINK we might know, but most of us really don't. The "Masters of Mankind" as Smith put it, pursuing their "vile maxim" has been the problem. What is that "vile maxim?" "All for ourselves and nothing for others." Basic greed. It's a package deal. Greed comes with stupidity. They are too greedy (stupid) to satisfy their greed. Fascinating!
Like all of the Masters of Mankind, Putin is stupidly doing the opposite of what he should to satiate his Wendigoian appetite for money and power. As established last post, Putin is widely considered to be the richest guy in Europe. I think he is a good bet to be one of or even THE richest in the world. And STILL he will take all these risks! I suppose he hasn't been given much of a reason to cease and desist. Through all the aggression listed above, Europe has continued to buy energy from him. But, with any luck, Ukraine will be his demise. It's the ultimate realization that he needs to be stopped. It's already quite clear that his aggression won't end with Ukraine if it isn't halted. As Stephen Colbert told us, "The invasion of Moldova is being... Moldova." And who knows where else his unchecked aggression will lead him?
So while we are all waving blue and yellow flags, tinting Facebook photos blue and yellow and wearing blue and yellow to support Ukraine, not to mention paying outrageous prices for fossil fuels...
...let's think about what the combination of blue and yellow makes. I think it's highly poetic that the solution to the war in Ukraine is right there in its flag. You can't make this up folks!
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