Munrock ☭

If someone has “stolen a march” on you, it means they anticipated your next move and preemptively countered it, i.e. while you were planning to march your army to them, they marched to you instead. They stole your march.

It’s another way of saying the U.S. Activated Geng Shuang’s trap card.

It just so happens that under Russian rule, Russian rulers will be making profit instead of Ukrainian rulers.

I think we’re missing a couple of nuances here, no? Although it’s a stretch to call them nuance. The way Ukrainian rulers have been making money has been through privatization. And because there’s so much privatization we need to look at who owns Ukraine’s economy. It’s only escalated since Russia invaded, with national assets being sold off to foreign private sectors so cheaply that one has to wonder why they did it when the gains are a drop in the bucket compared to the direct aid they’ve been getting from Western public sectors.

If Ukraine emerges from this conflict with its own sovereignty, it’ll be sovereignty over a flag, a presidential palace and a state framework that protects foreign companies’ investments from hungry Ukrainians.

The president of a miscellaneous Global South nation was walking along the beach with Xi Jinping.

“Xi,” said the President, sometimes it feels like you’re there for us, but sometimes it feels like you’ve abandoned us.

Xi bade the President to look back along the two sets of tracks they had made on the beach.

“My like-minded good friend,” said Xi Jinping, “the Chinese people have been walking hand-in-hand with you ever since we stood up in 1949.”

“But Xi,” said the President again, “sometimes one pair of footsteps veers away.”

“Those are the times you turned to the Americans.” Xi pointed to where the straying footsteps came to an abrupt stop at an ice cream truck. “But we have always been here to resume walking together once your people grew weary of being fed junk food.”

What’s people’s opinion on Wagenknecht here?

All I know of her is that some liberals I know have called her ‘problematic,’ a term which is bereft of any meaning when it passes from a liberal’s lips.

And people ask me why I never want to go back

“Oh no, China might economically bully us so we’re going to have to probbly block imports of their electric vehicles. On no, I guess that means we’ll be relying on our privately-owned fossil-fuel burning automotive industry still. Oh no, I guess that means we’ll have to import more oil from privately-owned companies in the markets of our good kind friends, the Americans. Dear citizens of EU, I guess there’s a price you have to pay to live in the free world where everyone has political agency and their voice matters, and that price is sometimes we ignore your voice and have to do stuff that seems like it’s not in your interests. Please remember that this situation is China’s fault for [checks notes] having a strong economy.”