14 Comments

Yes to really get to grips with the China of today, a historical (as ever) understanding of 19th century China is vital, particularly the humiliating (for them) Opium Wars and the Taiping Revolution. This is where there fanatical desire to regain great power status makes a lot of sense! Take care as I'm about to catch my flight, John

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Tai Ping is even more interesting and it explains the fear of China for Christianity (and muslim) faith today. It is a foreign, uncontrollable factor of soft power, or at least dissonance. The Japanese expelled and tortured the rest of Christianity under the Tokugawa reign, but some of it resurfaced (apparently never extinguished passed across the generations) in Meiji.

Christian resistance to Roe versus Wade easily held for 52 years to ultimate success.

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Yes the Taiping Civil War, one of the bloodiest conflicts ever, is shamefully understudied and utterly fascinating. Like the Lakota with the Ghost Dance, it was an effort to fuse Christianity with native culture, in an effort to overcome obvious (and to them terrible) western domination. I think we should do a historical series on these 19th century revolts, which explain much of our modern world. Thanks Erik!

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Agree its not just fentanyl; there is surely a larger drug problem. But of course its also fentanyl. And the Chinese (as you say they know about this historically (our community strength) from the Opium wars) have been spectacularly unhelpful.

But what a day for the administration; immediate movement on both Panama and Mexico.

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Also, audio perfect!! Have a great week!!

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Hey Terri, thanks so much! I'll be sure to let Sara know so I can keep the studio sacrosanct!

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It's not just fentanyl (and isn't that a nice revenge from the Chinese for the opium catastrophe we dumped on them in the 19th century and made money off, besides destroying their resistance to us).

More and more of the US youth, teenagers and twenties is badly addicted to marijuana, legally sold to them by none other than former Republican House leader Boehner (what a disgrace!)

Most certainly marijuana has nil medical benefit (it was argued into respectability with that argument but that is entirely bunk). There is a massive addictive pull and the analgesics are far less effective than better, more focused pain killers. The likelihood of lung cancer and other illnesses is higher than for tobacco (yes!)

New York today stinks at ground level. You take the elevator down from your condo and it stinks. It's the marijuana. Second hand smoke seems to make an exception for marijuana?

That's an own goal, the Chinese have nothing to do with it.

It's cool? But it's sick!

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Great pod as always, John, and looking forward to tonight - 5.30pm or so at the Langham, see you there (I may or may not have my copy of The Last Best Hope in hand for your autograph, so be warned!)

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With respect to South Africa, I suspect the confiscation and garage sale of farmland is the last bit of functioning economy the ANC can rip off and launder out of the country.

Zimbabwe knocking on the door? Angola?

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Another success..Canada just started to cave in, what an absolutely great week. And, I was I the only one who did not know about the six hostages in Venezuela? Rick G. picked them up and returned them home this past week.

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Hey Dianne, Greetings from my hoke away from home (the BA lounge in Milan) where i’ll soon (fingers crossed) be boarding my flight to London. Yes, great minds think alike! Our next susbtack takes up your theme, about why Trump is sinning so much so quickly across the board; it turns out Realism works! But there is method to his madness (to quote Shakespeare) which will go into. Take care and onwards! John

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Trump has adversaries heads spinning. And, Elon with his six mini me's( 19-22 year olds) doing amazing work over the last 4 or 5 day at USAID. Hopefully they will also be part of a new "USA Cyber Security Unit". They broke the codes in a couple of days.. no wonder why China and the world has hacked our systems consistently.

Yes indeed, "Realism" works, and so dose Leadership and Competence.

Happy, safe, and productive travels John!

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Have to read about the opium catastrophe

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Thank you John! Tell Sara this podcast is the greatest thing since sliced bread!

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