Alright, I read and understood your account.
There are also many, many mainland Chinese right here on US soil that don't go along with the thesis of your two (and forthcoming third) books.
I don't think I'm being a pollyanna about this, either. What amazes me most is that some Americans look at our impoverished enemies from around the world and insist that if they had gumption, hard work, and a little elbow grease they'd start accumulating property, wealth, and education and start being lots more agreeable people. After all, people that have something to lose -- like a good life and a family -- don't want to see harm come to it, correct?
On the other hand, when some of our counterparts that aren't genuine 'enemies' do accumulate property, wealth, education, modern lifestyles, and families -- there are some guys out there who will insist that it's all a dirty commie trick and they're just biding their time ...until ... until the iron-fisted General Chu can assemble his nuclear arsenal to wipe out 'Merica!
It's exasperating: If America didn't have enemies, we'd invent them. When America finally does have enemies, we can't identify them. We have real honest to God enemies in the Islamic world, and you're looking at the guys who are making a money for the first time ever by stocking Wal-Mart. Oil we cannot do without, 'Made in China' we can. They know that.
Sure, I bet the most pessimistic premise sells well with the Fred's M-14 Rifle Stocks book club. I subscribe to Shotgun News too, Jeff. I read his paranoiac insanity all the time: "You aim at the APC's vision ports while my 15-year old daughter throws the molotov at the hatch, and we'll shoot those blue helmets when they come out on fire just like we practiced'.
Sorry, what General Chu is really doing is using his retirement money from the People's Liberation Army reserve to start up his chain of Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises, or trading minerals to the Dutch. The Chinese people don't want General Chu's chicken, they want Colonel Sanders' with the big American logo on it. They can afford it too; Unlike the Arabs, the Chinese leaders don't hoard their wealth which makes their populace enraged -- usually at "America and it's puppetmasters, the Jews".
Not that I'm against you or your literary pursuits, Jeff. You know I've messaged you in agreement on several occasions on various issues. I'm just not ready to call you a prophet.
I do apologize if you think I've gone too far, but I'm just not ready to subscribe to the most pessimistic view possible.
I do have concerns, very serious ones ... and they are based more on what I have seen over there then what I have read about it.
The people in power there are not our friends KG9 and they are decidedly not our counteprarts.
The peasents by the hundreds of millions are also certainly not our enemeis ... and I am praying they rise up. Before we stopped supporting the Republic of China ... and I am talking back in the 1940's ... there was a real chance that they would. They wanted a republic IMHO and they had one before the Japanese invasion. Mao and his revolution put an end to all of that in some very harsh times after WW II and MAo ultimately became one of the bloodiest butchers the world has known.
The people in power ... and its not just the really old guys either ... are trying to hold on to that power. They have demonstrated over and over to what lengths they are willing to go to do just that.
Anyhow, it is not my intent to get into a tinkling contest with you over this. I respect your opinion and want the same thing for the people of China. I am almost certain it will take a major regimn change for that to occur ... and I am almost equally certain that it will not come about any time soon if we continue to throw money, resource and most particularly our critical manufacturing capability at them for them to eat up. All that will do in my estimation is feed the ones in power and ensure their contiunued tyranny over the rest.
Those people in power put on a great show to impress CEO's and the politcally powerful ... I have seen it ... and I have also seen how the masses live.
In my estimation the best thing we could do is handle them the same way Reagan hanled the Soviets ... and I do not say that lightly.
But that is my opinion.
My books are unashamedly a message regarding what I believe it is that makes our nation strong, even in the very most severe of circumstances. I pray to God that those circumstances remain just what they are in my books ... fictional.
Fregards.