Why Marsha is Wrong about Chinese History

Senator Blackburn’s recent tweet attacking China’s history for “5,000 years of stealing and cheating” is not only wrong because it is blatantly racist and plays into a dangerous stereotype, but there are many reasons why it is factually incorrect. Well, that’s unless Marsha could explain what China did in 3,000 B.C. that offended her so much in the present day.

China as an imperial state did not officially exist until 226 B.C. Before that, there were thousands of years of history of Chinese people and culture, such as Confucius (551 B.C.) and your favorite Chinese food, but not as a unified state. So history 101 would tell Marsha that China has 2,000 years of history of “stealing and cheating,” instead of 5,000. But this is also not true. There was not much for China to steal from when Rome, England, Russia, or America did not exist. Jumping forward another 1,800 years, when Marsha’s home Mississippi gained statehood with a population of 30,000 in 1817, China accounted for roughly half of the global GDP (the U.S. now accounts for 24%.). Basic logic, which might or might not apply to Marsha, would reduce China’s “stealing” to at least after 1817.

The last 200 years of Chinese history is more complicated than the widest brush can paint. Even though relations between America and China haven’t always been cordial, there is still a history of cooperation between the nations that goes back for years. Americans helped build the first modern university, Tsinghua, the first modern hospital, Hunan-Yale, in China, and educated the first Chinese woman justice (at the University of Michigan) and the first Chinese railway engineer (at Yale University). During WWI and WWII, Americans and Chinese fought side by side. Marsha doesn’t seem to understand that foreign policy is complex and that the probability of having a populace consisting of good and bad people is undiscriminating of race or nation.

Now Marsha’s ground has shrunk from 5,000 years to the past few decades. She might try to claim victory for only 1.5% of her statement having validity, although this would still continue to play into a racist stereotype. She is learning from the “best,” other racists who mock a generation of people who rode bicycles together in the alleyways of Beijing and called Chinese people their friends.

I suspect many Americans, living and dead, will be insulted by Marsha’s racist “stealing” comment; Chinese immigrants have contributed much to American life and don’t get the recognition they deserve. I know of such Americans. Pearl Buck, writing about China based on her life experience, “paved the way to a human sympathy passing over widely separated racial boundaries and for the studies of human ideals” (per Nobel Committee). Scott and Beth from Brentwood, missionary kids who met in China, speak Chinese, and love China despite the flaws of the Chinese government. George and Ophelia from Nashville, without speaking a word of Chinese, always open their house and host Chinese law students for Thanksgiving so that they don’t feel lonely on holiday. There are dozens if not hundreds of Tennesseans that marry Chinese spouses or adopt Chinese children. The only “stealing” that these cherished Chinese Americans do is steal your heart. So Marsha, when you are not too busy courting the ignorant and the angry, you should get to know all of the loving and kind Chinese Americans too, whose votes also count.

Seth Dawson of Brentwood, Tennessee

Re-Entering the Iran Nuclear Deal

Former Lt. Gen. Glad Castellaw with @Wade Munday on A Case of the Mundays talking about the importance of re-entering the Iran Nuclear Deal.

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you like to listen.

Who Has The Power

We’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety lately, so we decided to get real with y’all in this episode. Hosts Owen and Cassie talk about the fear we’ve been experiencing during this tumultuous time and how that anxiety relates to our overall political theory. We cover some tricky topics, but we hope you’ll hear the nuance of our worldview and understand that we are all in this fight together. There’s a lot to be anxious about but we still have so much hope for a better world. Please note that the views expressed in this episode are the views of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sunrise Movement or The Tennessee Holler.

Find out what Native Land you are living on.

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INTERVIEW: Former White House Middle East Policy Advisor DANIEL BENAIM

Holler co-founder Justin Kanew talks to‬ ‪White House Middle East advisor during the Iran Deal Daniel Benaim about how Trump made the Iran situation more dangerous, and put Americans in harm’s way unnecessarily. ‬

PODCAST ON ITUNES

FULL FACEBOOK LIVE INTERVIEW

CLIP: “I get what’s in it for him… what’s in it for us?”

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: VOICES from the Nashville Kurds Protest

‪NEW PODCAST EPISODE: “Voices From The NASHVILLE Kurds Protest” ‬

Kurds lost 11,000 lives in the fight against ISIS. Over 1500 people turned out to protest Trump’s betrayal of them in downtown Nashville on Friday.

Nashville has the largest population of Kurdish-Americans in the country. Listen to what they had to say:

“They’re killing all of my people right now.”

Watch our VIDEO here.

On ITUNES HERE.

VIDEO: NASHVILLE Protests Trump’s Betrayal of Our Kurdish Allies

Trump has left our Kurdish allies to die, even after they lost 11,000 in our fight against ISIS. The Protest of Trump’s betrayal of our Kurdish allies in Nashville was massive.

Watch and share our video – also on Facebook and Twitter.

Congressman Jim Cooper was also there.

“More War!” – All 7 TN GOP Congressmen Vote to Keep Fueling Humanitarian Nightmare in Yemen

In another bipartisan rebuke of Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East, the House passed a bill yesterday to halt U.S. involvement in Yemen’s civil war, where the United States has been lending our support to a Saudi Arabian war effort that has created the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.

All 7 Republican Congressmen from Tennessee: Mark Green, Tim Burchett, Phil Roe, John Rose, Scott Desjarlais, David Kustoff, and Charles Fleischmann voted against the bill.

Both Democratic congressmen – Jim Cooper and Steve Cohen – voted for it.

18 Republicans voted with the Democrats to stop American assistance in the Yemeni war.

According to a Worldwide Threat Assessment report, Of the nearly 29 million people in the country, about 22 million — nearly 76 percent of the population — need some form of humanitarian assistance. Among them, 16 million don’t have reliable access to drinking water or food, and more than 1 million Yemenis now suffer from cholera.

Dave Harden, a former US official leading humanitarian development response to Yemen, told Vox:

“The only losers are the people — their grave suffering presents generational risk to Yemen’s future.”

Democratic Rep. Jim Mcgovern had this to say about the vote:

“Nearly all of the bombs that have fallen say the same thing, `Made in the United States of America’. They fall on weddings. They fall on hospitals and on homes. They fall on funerals, refugee camps and school buses. It is an aerial bombing campaign that hammers civilians every single day.”

Last year, a bomb that originated in the U.S. landed on a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 children.

The vote is yet another bipartisan rebuke of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. The resolution would force the administration to withdraw troops from involvement in Yemen, in a rebuke of Trump’s alliance with the Saudi-led coalition.

Previously the Senate had passed a similar bill, but it was stopped in the house of representatives which was then controlled by the Republicans. If the senate were to take up this bill, it would land on the President’s desk.

This new resolution was introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), who said in a statement:

“Today is historic. This is the culmination of several years of legislative efforts to end our involvement in the Saudi war in Yemen. I’m encouraged by the direction people are pushing our party to take on foreign policy, promoting restraint and human rights and with the sense they want Congress to play a much larger role.”

Meanwhile the Saudi government still refuses to acknowledge its role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi despite all the evidence, and President Trump has still stopped short of blaming or taking action against Saudi Arabia for it.

In related news, there are many questions about the president and his family’s financial ties to Saudi Arabia, and what role that may be playing in these foreign policy discussions.

As the President himself once said:

“Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.

Holler at Mark Green, Tim Burchett, Phil Roe, John Rose, Scott Desjarlais, David Kustoff, and Charles Fleischmann and let them know if you feel their vote to perpetuate this war flies in the face of human decency.