DennisL09

Thank you and welcome to a flood of new followers ! Thanks son :)  I hope to keep it interesting and real. I have also received a number of private messages. Please forgive me for not responding individually, but I will try to answer some in this blog.  
I’m neither praising nor condemning China. I’m merely acknowledging China’s phenomenal ascendancy. Certainly China’s record on human rights is dismal, Tibet and Nepal are sore subjects, and I have personally seen air pollution in Chinese cities that is way worse than anything I’ve ever seen in Los Angeles, New York, Houston or any US city. 
But since 1980, China has raised 250 million people from abject poverty into the middle class. Say that again. In just 30 years, 250,000,000 Chinese have gone from abject poverty to the middle class. That is not only astonishing, it also forgives many of the sins needed to get there. Note that 1980 generally marks the end of the hard-line Maoists that led the Chinese Revolution in 1949, and the implementation of many free market reforms under Deng Xiaoping.  
As a side note, the number of people in poverty in the USA has gone from 26 million in 1979 to 43 million in 2009. That’s an increase of 65% according to the US Census Bureau.
I’m flattered that so many of you reblogged the post from @hitRECordJoe and me. I’ve read some of the comments, and found many of them very interesting, including HelloVivienne.
The drawing with this post? No, it doesn’t have anything to do with this post. I just really liked it, and thought you should know about this great collaboration at hitRECord :)