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here is our interview with chris fenton

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the name of the book inside the trillion

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dollar dilemma facing hollywood the nba

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and american business so

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describe for us what you think see as

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the dilemma

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well i think a perfect example i don't

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know if you've been following the peng

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shui um chinese tennis player who

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disappeared in china after coming out

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for uh with john galley's accusation

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that he he sexually harassed her um and

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there was all kinds of other stuff that

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was sort of a me too type of uh um you

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know stance by the way let's just make

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sure everybody knows so this is the

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tennis player that went missing she was

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a i guess primarily a doubles player i'd

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never heard of her but but quite a

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successful double doubles chinese player

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accusing a high-level official of sexual

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misconduct

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his name kind of rolled off off your

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tongue is this somebody that

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that you had heard of before this

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official

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kyung gao lee was yeah of course because

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well first of all peng shui was number

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one in the world at doubles um and then

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she i think she got as high as maybe 13

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or 14 as a singles player so she was a

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major player um and she was also a first

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coming out of china like there was a big

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you know she was sort of a yao ming type

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of um idol there but if you look at jean

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galli he was a

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a member of the standing committee of

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the of the chinese communist party and

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um the standing committee is

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the most important part of the chinese

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communist party other than whoever's

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running that which at at this time is xi

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jinping before that was hujiang tao um

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there's only seven members of the

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standing committee so you're looking at

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xi jinping and six others that's how

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powerful they are and that's out of um

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92 million chinese communist party

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members and out of a country of 1.4

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billion so you're talking about the

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highest point of the pyramid and uh to

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come out and say something against a

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standing committee a member is is

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probably a guarantee of being

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disappeared or jailed forever or even

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killed

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and peng shui was not immune to that and

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we've even seen it with

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less harsh criticism of the chinese

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communist party from very very high

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profile people like jack ma so

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going back to your question about the

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trillion dollar dilemma when peng shui

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disappeared and the chinese and the

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tennis community started to get worried

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um they brought what i think the chinese

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communist party was looking to do which

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was sort of brush something under the

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rug keep it a tempest and a teapot you

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know no one talks about it you know

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there's too much business in china in

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order to criticize that and companies

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and individuals know that that's a

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problem if you do it so hopefully it all

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goes away

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but feng shui was beloved by the

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particularly the women's tennis

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community and they would not give up on

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it they they were like this is crazy

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they sort of came out and supported it

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they demanded to see her um it became

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not a tempest in a t-bot but expanding

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beyond that and

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what was amazing is that the momentum

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the sheer momentum of all that i think

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became so strong

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that the wta the women's tennis

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association had no dilemma right their

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dilemma

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without all that momentum would be

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oh geez

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a member of our community is missing

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disappeared or now under arrest

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for things that

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she is

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you know didn't break a crime you know

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you know commit a crime for she was

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actually speaking out about a crime

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against her

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that's a problem

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but what do we do as the wta we have 10

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11 events over there some of our highest

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profile and most um you know biggest

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budgeted and biggest prize money events

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are in china what do we do do we

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you know come out in support of our

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which means we're going to destroy our

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business in china or do we just turn a

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blind eye to it and pretend like we

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don't notice it right and that's the

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trillion dollar dilemma that every

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company entity celebrity athlete is

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constantly facing if they have business

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in china

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and

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i would say is the right thing by

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pulling out of china in light of what

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what happened to her but in addition

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you've got a bunch of superstar athletes

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in the wta for instance serena and venus

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williams that have to make their own

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decisions do you happen to know um have

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individuals come out and said they're

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pulling out of china for instance serena

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oh um most of the women players have

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come out i mean uh i think osaka was the

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first one and then you know everybody

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from

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martinez chris ever to all the the the

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modern day players to a lot of the men's

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players um came out in support and that

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momentum essentially took the dilemma

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away from the wta because they really

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had no choice now i'd like to believe

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they did what was right because that's

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what they wanted to do and maybe that is

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the case

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but

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they didn't really have a choice they

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had to come out and support and boom

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their business is gone okay um the nba

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you know when daryl mori came out and

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and in 2019 in october and tweeted his

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support for the hong kong protesters the

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nba was faced with that same dilemma and

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what did they do well initially they

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came out and said hey he has a right to

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say that and

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boom nba off of cctv their broadcast

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networks and today it's still off

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like two years right i mean

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the numbers are very low that i see out

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their estimates but yeah you're talking

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a billion dollars in business right lost

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banished and market value of teams like

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the houston rockets to the boston

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celtics to the philadelphia 76ers all

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three do not exist in china in any form

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merchandise on

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streaming platforms you name it they are

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persona non grata the amount of market

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cap that each one of those teams lost

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from china

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um losing that business is huge right

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but the nba essentially took a stand and

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then they backed off it and by the way

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they're still getting penalized for it

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but they they saw the dilemma they went

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in the right direction it backfired now

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they went in the wrong direction stay

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quiet i mean enos canter's out there

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continuing to talk about it no one's

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really backing him other than the boston

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celtic team

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um so you see this dilemma and the way

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corporate america is working with it

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and for the most part no one's going the

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direction of the wta and that is the

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dilemma the dilemma is how much money

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are we making there how much money do we

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lose

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and what

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is the sacrifice in order to do the

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right thing and um i'm sorry i got a lot

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to talk about on this one so oh i know i

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mean it goes all over the place because

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one thing i was gonna say is when we

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talk about the dilemma well you know why

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is it a dilemma well there's multiple

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reasons why it's a dilemma right so

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you've got the human rights issues

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you've got the fact that they're out

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there china's out there stealing stuff

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so if you're doing business there

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whatever you're doing potentially

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they're stealing and the fact that we

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are

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feeding the dragon as you as you title

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your book in the sense that

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they're our geopolitical enemy china is

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our is our key geopolitical enemy

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yet we're making them bigger and bigger

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by doing all this business with them and

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we didn't do this kind of business with

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the soviet union there was probably

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virtually no business with the soviet

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union and yet here we are

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making our geopolitical enemy uh

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wealthier and wealthier yeah and by the

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way i got to give credit to my wife

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because there's a moment like when you

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when you write a book like i did or you

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look back at

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you know after the daryl mori tweet is

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really where i woke up to the insanity

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of what i was involved with and how

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misguided it was and i'm going oh my god

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i'm just as complicit as the nba

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um that's the moment but

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as i wrote the book i thought of the

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moments you know in hindsight where i

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should have seen it and one of them was

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my wife

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when we were when i was trying to get

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marveled to do

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um some

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extra inputting of china relevancy into

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iron man 3 my wife overheard a phone

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call i was having with one of the head

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creatives at marvel and she was like

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wow that's you're being pretty

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hardcore when what you're trying to push

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it seems almost like you're slamming

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china propaganda into the movie and i

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was like no no what we're trying to do

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is open up the market to a products and

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services

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you know of hollywood and of america it

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creates jobs grows gdp growth and it

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spreads the aspirational qualities of

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democracy like you you you i love you

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hun but like

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this is my my territory and she's like

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are you sure it's the right thing to do

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and i was like yeah and she's like well

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it seems to me like you're feeding the

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beast and you know what happens when you

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feed the bees too much it becomes

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uncontrollable and i was like

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oh that's century i was like oh we're

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actually feeding the dragon

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but um i said that's interesting and

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she's like well

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you're going to get there someday where

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you can't control it anymore and that's

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where we are right we have fed it for so

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long that now it's our biggest

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competitor on the global stage whether

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military economy um you know in the

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political sphere i mean the amount of

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influence they're pushing around the

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world um in their narrative in their

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soft power influence in what they want

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the rest of the world to see as china is

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massive like we have fed this beast for

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too long and we need to be careful

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moving forward that we don't continue

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this crazy reckless engagement

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yeah and and does that need to happen

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kind of company by company

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recognizing this and changing behavior

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or is it something that has to happen

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more at the washington dc level

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well if it happens company by company it

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becomes a bunch of sacrificial lamps

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right like

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you know lebron james as much as we all

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want him to stand up and say you know i

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don't stand for what china's doing x y

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and z well you know what he'll loses 30

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million a year somebody else will come

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in take those deals and life moves on

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right and he loses everything

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it's only a united we stand sort of

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leverage point that's going to get this

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done thank you again to chris fenton you

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can check out his book feeding the

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dragon inside the trillion dollar

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dilemma facing hollywood the nba in

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american business

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you can find it just about anywhere

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books are sold thank you to our producer

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michael parker thank you all for

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listening we'll be back soon with

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another episode of the hidden truth show

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thank you for listening to the truth

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show with jim breslow

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you can find us at hiddentruthshow.com

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follow us on facebook twitter and

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instagram the hidden truth show

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join us again next week for another