Oh, now it's started. Sorry, I'm just a little antsy. Don't worry. You've been doing this a long time, Raj. You'll be fine. Where's your office now, Belmont? Downtown, Union Square. Oh, sweet. Yeah, although I have to swim upstream of all the tourists every day, so that's fun. Yeah. Swimming upstream. Down there, maybe like a month and a half ago, Ashley and I kind of found ourselves down in that area, and it was really cool because I realized that I'd been to Union Square a million times because that was a go-game zone. I had never really spent any time at all when I wasn't working. I didn't have a very specific kind of schedule, so it was like all these little bars or places that I would see and I'd be like, oh yeah, I'd like to go there and I'd never went. I've lived here for like five years and I'd never gone to any of them because I was just walking by and I was like, oh, that seems fun. I guess I'll never do that because I'm going to run this game. Honestly, it's pretty funny. It's very touristy and I wouldn't recommend most of the places in general, but the bars are on point. There are some great bars because they all cater to the after hours kind of crowd. So yeah, Pagan Idol is one that I haven't hit up yet. It's a new Tiki bar. What? You've been to that one? Oh really, you have been? I went there for Graham, not Graham Norden. Graham Hancock's Earth Day or something. How does it compare to Smuggler's Cove? I like Smuggler's Cove because it feels more... The thing about, crap, what's the name of the bar? Pagan Idol. Is it's a little too new and so it feels new? It's like the decor. Smuggler's Cove feels like it's been around the block. What if it smells like I could actually buy an illegal machine gun? I really like Smuggler. It's got a little bit of like, they might actually be selling heroin out of the bag. They may actually be smuggling things. There's no name on the door. That's my jam. Pagan's Idol feels a little too new, clean. Maybe it just needs several hundred rounds of people to come in and out to get that weathered bar feel. Totally. We should do a happy hour, V. Absolutely. Go down there. Come on down. Yeah, alright. Do a podcast? Oh wait, hold on, we have to do it in two minutes. You have to wait? Why do we have to wait? Tom starts early. Tom lets me start the show early. Alright, alright, hold on. I'm just making sure everything works. Yeah, totally. You're comfortable. YouTube is live. Yeah, that's right. Audio. I did this crazy yoga class on Saturday and my legs are so sore now that I have to actually physically lift them to move them. I can't engage the muscles on the tops of my legs.   Basically.  Yeah. It was, I had to kick my feet so imagine this is my body. I had to kick my feet up in the air for like 10 minutes. Oh my God. That was like part of, you just power through and you use your rage and anger. Are you trying to get 40 time up for the combine? Like what the hell? I only know what the combine is from watching ballers by the way. Everything I know about football is from watching ballers. Oh wait. How is, is ballers not terrible? I love it. No, it's one of my favorites. Really? Yeah, it's good. I've heard it was bad like from people that are like Miami people that are predisposed to love it because of Miami and they're like, no, they'll kind of like, it's like late season entourage. Well, I'm predisposed to like anything with the rock in it. So. I mean, listen, we have, we have our first time to have a conversation then at Pagan Idol happy hour. Because. There we go. Put it on the agenda. For sure. Oh, two minutes. One minute. Bird noise. All right. I guess it's two minutes. It's a two minute delay. What do you mean a two minute delay? Oh, for AGR. Oh. I mean, listen, you can't always AGR what you want. You just might find you get AGR. You get a two minute delay on AGR. You get a two minute time delay on AGR. All right. Are we ready? Hey, I'm going to disappear and make sure we have the music. All right. Year. Mm-hmm. Daily tech news show is powered by its audience and not outside organizations. To find out more, head to dailytechnewshow.com slash support. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, August 29, 2016. I'm Justin Robert Young filling in for a vacationing Tom Merritt in Tokyo, Japan. But joining me is your normal Monday co-host. Welcome, Veronica Belmont. Welcome as the co-host, Justin, on Monday. How does it feel being here on a different day of the week? You know, it definitely threw my schedule into a bit of a panic. Definitely double booked like three different things. But I was happy, happy, happy to fill in here for the show. And we got some really, really cool stuff to talk about, including the fact that the Verge-rewarded Apple is holding its next big event, September 7th. Invitations were sent out this morning simply saying, see you on the 7th. But here are some other top stories as well. According to Vanity Fair, a memo was sent to DNC staffers with instructions on how to install and use the encrypted messaging signal, or app signal, two weeks after hacked DNC emails were published on WikiLeaks. Staffers were told that if anybody was going to communicate about RNC candidate Donald Trump, in case you were confused with some of the other Donald Trumps running around over the next few days, it was imperative that they instead used the end-to-end encryption of signal. Of course, this story getting quite a bit of play today, because they referred to it as Snowden Approved. What do you think about that, Belmont? I think they should have been using an end-to-end encrypted chat platform from the very beginning. I think as soon as they learned there was something called end-to-end encryption that protected conversations and text conversations in particular. They should have been using that in the first place. Well, it does kind of bring up one interesting element, because this is obviously in the news now, because you can put Edward Snowden, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a headline and have it not be completely nonsense. But this is part of a growing, dawning understanding that, yeah, no, end-to-end encryption has a place. It's not just there for people who want to do dirty deals and not have the law peeking in. Exactly. And I think that is a hugely, a very, very common misconception going around, not just in the tech community, probably, but in the community at large.  And sometimes the only thing you have to hide is actual legitimate conversations about stuff that you don't want getting into the hands of other people, or sometimes more nefarious things. The DNC is not without fault in this instance. But for sure, I feel like we have to kind of assume that everything we put into writing these days is going to be either made public or seen by the wrong eyes at some point. I think that's an assumption a lot of us are just making now. It is important to understand in the context of this as a political story is that they're saying if you're going to communicate about Donald Trump, then use this app because what they got burnt for was them talking about Bernie Sanders during the primary process. So now, obviously, they are not doing internal conversations that could impart favoritism, but rather who they have on the other side of the aisle. A flash alert bulletin from the FBI's Cyber Division disclosed evidence that foreign hackers penetrated the voter databases of Arizona and Illinois in recent weeks, warning election officials to enhance computer security. The FBI bulletin listed eight separate IP addresses that were the sources of the two attacks, noting that one of the IP addresses was used in both intrusions and use widely available penetration testing tools. Here we go. There's another one. This is our, maybe we got our putting two pack of the government needs to get better of encryption in general, right? I mean this is a similar story. There's no reason why something that is as precious as voter databases and voting in general could be imperiled with something that could easily be cracked and do by widely available penetration tools. I know. I think it's, we'd like to assume that the government is a little more secure, but as it turns out, it's not. In an e-marketer report, Snapchat Director of Revenue Operations, Clemente Zhu revealed that they would be rolling out behavioral targeting capabilities in the third quarter of 2016. Man, right around the corner. The behavioral data will be based on the user's activity inside of the app, although this insider speculates that it could change in the future. Specifically, a business insider believes that this could get even more granular than just saying, well, you look at ESPN's discoverability features and you are following other basketball people so we want to be able to sort you out to advertisers. This seems to me though, Veronica, to be a bit of a fork in the road for Snapchat. Quitter on one hand has never really been able to figure out exactly how to generate the kind of revenue that would make profit, whereas Facebook has. We are both Snapchat users and Snapchat friends. Do you think Snapchat is better positioned to integrate advertising than let's say Twitter was? I do think so. I think there's a lot of the elements of surprise and delight that goes into Snapchat that makes it a little more palatable. I have used sponsored filters in Snapchat time and time again just because they're fun. That sounds like a really kind of silly response, but at the same time, if they can be courting sponsorships in creative and interesting new ways, I think that's really good for them. I have actually been not using Snapchat because of the racist filter situation that happened a while back and they're ongoing. They really need to fix some issues they have over there and I've been testing out Instagram stories feature, which I like, but I miss Snapchat. I miss the good filters and it kind of breaks my heart a little bit, but I do think they have a pretty good take on the advertising model. Plus they also have location data, which all the other apps still do have as well, but they can maybe target based on the user's location as well a lot more specifically. It seems a little weird, but ever since they did the story feature on Snapchat, I feel like I don't care about advertising from them much. All of a sudden it'll be friend, friend, friend, tied, friend, friend, friend, and considering how let's say kindly incremental the updates can be from your friends on Snapchat, a tied commercial doesn't necessarily seem like it's a waste of time compared to what I'm normally seeing on there and I don't mean that in a negative way. It just seems like it is built for and you made a really good point. If all of a sudden I'm looking through my Snapchat and someplace right around the corner says, oh by the way, this is not only here for you in general, but it's here for you right around the corner, I think that is very interesting. Let me ask you this. So when does your Snapchat suspension end? How long have you put Snapchat in the penalty box because of the release's filter? I haven't decided yet. I mean they haven't really come out and said that they're actively trying to fix it or have a process in place for not letting that kind of thing slip through the cracks anymore. So I don't know if I really have an idea of when that's going to happen. But yeah, I agree. One thing I do like about the ads or the sponsored content in Snapchat is that it's still instantly skippable, which I think just in the grand scheme of things, you're still going to get a lot of eyeballs on it even if a large percentage of those content is skipping that content just by the sheer user-based numbers. And one more thing about the Snapchat issue, especially when you talk about their controversies, because it's not a viral platform, a controversy about Snapchat can't really blow up on Snapchat. People can't know about it, but it's gone in a day. It's not like you're going to have one tweet or a Facebook post that then lingers around for days and months in the future so I can see where they put themselves in a little bit of a secluded circle to say, oh, I don't know. Sure, people were upset about it for a day, but I don't think it's the end of the world. That's a very good point I hadn't thought about, vaguely depressing as well. Mac Rumors reports that according to the Financial Times, the European Commission will rule tomorrow that Apple received illegal state aid from Ireland. The Commission will ask Ireland to raise a new tax assessment against Apple, meaning the company could owe what J.P. Morgan estimates to be up to 19 billion euros in back taxes. EU competition commissioner, Margarith Vestigar? I think that's good. Sure, we'll provide the actual amount tomorrow. Margarith, Margarith, Margarith Vestigar. Man, now that is somebody that would be the protagonist of a book you guys would review on Apple's current laser. This obviously leading back to the fact that Apple has had elements of their wealth in Ireland. The fact that they have used Ireland from what some have said, and now it seems like the competition committee agrees was a bit of a tax haven for the company has been a little controversial. Although, from Apple's point of view, they've said they wanted to bring money back to the United States, but it is a prohibitively expensive thing to do. You've got to wonder if now this is not a free ride for them anymore, whether or not that seems like more of a cost-effective solution. That's a lot of money. 19 billion euro, that's a lot of money. Yeah, no, it certainly is. And man, from somebody planning a vacation to the UK, I would like to have just a fraction. Just a billion, just a quarter billion, quarter billion euros, help me out. Are you pulling a Kanye right now? Are you just legit asking companies for money? All right, real quick, and I know this is something that Tom would never do. Can Kanye just perform? I don't think we need the yearly state of the Kanye address sponsored by MTV. Go and perform, he just put out a great album. The FAA's rules on commercial drones come into effect today. Operators must keep their drones within visual line of sight and fly only during the day. Permitted if the drone has anti-collision lights, no flights higher than 400 feet above the ground, nor over people who are not directly participating. Maximum speed is 100 miles an hour and drones can carry packages as long as the combined weight of the drone and the load is less than 55 pounds. Waivers are available for those who need to fly outside of those restrictions. So, certainly not exactly everything that drone folk wanted, but at least it seems like we are moving inch by inch closer to common sense drone regulation. I mean, I think all of these make very good sense. I'm curious how they arrived at the 55 pound number, because that still seems like if a drone and a package were 55 pounds, that could still hurt if it fell on you. Yeah, I mean, certainly if it was a surprise, right, you know, maybe that's just like the smallest anvil that you would see in like an acme anvil in a cartoon. It only comes at 55 pounds. I know people were making like a big, big stink about this when these were initially proposed, but I strongly believe that there have to be some regulations in place. It just doesn't make sense to not, especially with the number of issues from drones flying near wildfires, for example, and potentially like getting in the way of firefighting helicopters, and there's just a lot of potential issues that can happen by not following these very basic regulations. So, I'm frankly pretty happy they're in place. Yeah, I mean, I think the question is not that drone enthusiasts don't want to be regulating. I think it's more that let's just move it forward. Let's go and let's get these things out here so we can talk about them, we can see in real time so people aren't breaking the law whether or not these make sense, if they can be expanded, if they need to be retracted, let's just get them out there instead of talking about it and putting it in subcommittee after subcommittee after holding pattern after holding pattern. Exactly. Next up, in response to the Facebook measures to activate security safety check rather for emergency situations, at a town hall at Louis University in Rome, an audience member asked, will users be able to activate it on their own? Which Zuckerberg confirmed. Yes, we're working on that already. He added, quote, the next thing we need to do is make it so that communities can trigger it themselves when there is some disaster. Venture Beat Notes Facebook activated the check following the massive earthquake in Italy last week. So I wonder whether or not opening this up and we're going to get into a story that involves Facebook kind of making some larger top-down decisions and what their role should be in communicating with its user base. But whether or not turning this over specifically is just to initiate something and maybe if they get enough people saying no, I want to turn on my safety check whether or not Facebook has put out there that okay, this is about this earthquake can then help them find emergencies that they should be marking or whether or not this is more of an ad hoc situation where if the bear gets loose down in a small town whether or not that's something that they want to open up, something that would never really bubble up on their radar because the population centers are not big enough. I like the idea of setting off essentially flags that would alert Facebook to the fact that something is going on but that still might not even happen quickly enough. I'm very torn with the idea of not wanting to kind of cause false concern if something isn't actually happening or if someone does it by accident or if someone does it maliciously versus having the kind of response time in place that actually would help fix some kind of alert people to a situation happening and letting their families and loved ones know that they're okay. I guess my biggest question with this is safety check for your neighbor or is it for your on to lives across the country or the world because if it's for that, if it's for the second layer then only having specific things that like you want your aunt to be okay if there's a forest fire near where she knows where you live, right? Not necessarily the person who's next to you because you'll be able to tell them in other ways oh my god there's a forest fire we need to leave. Are you okay? I'm okay. I'm okay right now hold on let me check in on safety check and not to make light of it because I think that these are important but I guess I'm curious to know what Facebook thinks the intended audience of the and finally opera is warning users that it has uncovered an attack on its sync system possibly giving up login details although all synced passwords are encrypted opera is resetting all synced account passwords and recommends that users change any linked third party passwords just in case roughly 1.7 million of the 350 million users take advantage of opera sync. That's pretty frightening because I think a lot of people consider opera to be a pretty secure browser. I guess this kind of goes into our common theme of nothing is safe anymore. Nothing is safe and the wolves come for us all. Thanks to Hobbitraula Condulci, refused to speak Jeff Rose and TM204 and all those who participate in our subreddit submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow. reddit.com and now to our discussion story course reports that multiple sources said Facebook laid off its entire trending team editorial staff at 4pm Friday classic corporate training. The 15 to 18 people were contractors hired through a third party in a press release by Facebook. The company has said that the descriptions for trending topics will be automated and now no longer require people to write them. Story topics will now be simplified topic headlines followed by the number of people talking about the story. A little background on this specific team in case you forget this was quite a controversial group Gawker, remember them? They broke a story about how with quotes from inside this team saying that they routinely suppressed conservative news that led to an emergency meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and various conservative media leaders including those from Glenn Beck's The Blaze including Glenn Beck himself, CNN and Breitbart. Veronica do you think that this represents any kind of material loss to Facebook? I think it definitely it's making a strong statement. It's saying now you know we are trying to be as unbiased as possible this is what they're saying publicly we're using bots essentially we're using an algorithm to decide what things float to the top and using that same system in place to write a very small blurb about what that story means. So of course when you have technology that can do that you don't necessarily need people to do that. The other side of the coin however is that someone is still programming the algorithm someone is still creating the technology that's picking the stories and it's almost impossible to do that without some kind of inherent bias in place. So I still don't think it's a perfect solution but maybe a step in the right direction I just know that you know when you're writing language for bots or when you're writing creating algorithms like this it still has to wait certain values. So I don't know if we're going to be totally free of bias even in this scenario. So then let's noodle on that for a second because part of what the issue with the initial story was is that you had these 15 to 18 people in a warehouse somewhere in New York City right. They felt isolated there's a reason why they wound up going off to journalists and talking about things because they wanted to embarrass the parent company that they felt cut away from. So it's really not a shock that these guys are getting axed considering the fact that they went outside the tent and pitched to another publication about it. But what their point was was that it's not like they were being particularly like oh we got to keep conservative news down. They had an institutional bias against conservative sources because they had their own political leanings and they felt that sites like the blaze and bright part just for examples were not as credible as let's say the New York Times or other sites that people would assume or can assume have a liberal bias or that certain threads of thought just did not have the merit to make the trending list. So they were looking at a list of things that were organically trending and then saying well yeah well we need to have that okay yes yes yes yes yes that doesn't make sense and that would be harmful if that was on the sidebar or things that were not there organically they would say oh no but a lot of people are talking about this it would be bad for us if this did not show up on our trending topic list. So let's organically put it up there. I'm saying that bots can have the same exact biases as the people that were making these fairly simple decisions. I mean it can certainly be a lot better but then we have to take into account Facebook being a business and Facebook has to decide well if I recognize that this person on Facebook is inherently liberal for example based on their previous choices and reading if I start posting links to bright part for example that user is probably going to be annoyed. So how do you find that balance between wanting to expose them to non-bias content or to give them the full spectrum of available content versus choosing the kinds of things that they might find offensive in some way and not want to read and therefore not click on those links. So it's kind of a confusing situation and I certainly don't know what the right answer is. Does Facebook have a role in news? Like what if they just wash their hands of all of this and said you want to know what? Get your news from your crazy aunt we made her so nice earlier in the example about safety check now we're going to reveal that she's crazy you can get your news there we don't care we're here to connect we're not necessarily here to inform or educate. That'd be great. So you think that that's a better position for them is to be more hands-off? I would say more hands-off would be better. If they did without the trending topics like in one hand sometimes I find things that my friends and family aren't talking about and that could be good but at the same time I'm not really there to read world news I'm there to share with friends and chat with friends maybe I'm an edge case I don't know but I think that perhaps they should maybe not be in the business of deciding what content people see. Or just make it all whatever Kylie Jenner said and I think that that's 90% of what it is anyway and they might as well just have it be a rotating Kylie Jenner said what sidebar I mean listen just my two cents Perfect. Now to some messages of the day on last Friday's episode we talked about VR's potential impact on eSports Peter wrote in to point out that Valve also has an in-game VR spectating demonstration at the international in July so more than just silver are working on this type of spectator mode. Thank you to Peter for the heads up. Of course you can always email us feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com That's about it for us today Veronica thank you so much for shepherding me through as I try to muck around You did a very good job and I think people are going to be mad at me for some of my comments about Facebook but that's fine just take it to the internet don't take it out on Justin or Tom he's not there to protect us anymore No you want to know what take it to Snapchat because it's going to be gone in 24 hours Perfect. Is there anything else that you want to get out there? Not really at Veronica on Twitter at TryGrobot for my company's Twitter account that I'm currently managing and at Sword & Laser if you like sci-fi fantasy Awesome. Alright we want to thank everybody who supports the show on our Patreon you can do it there or through many other factors DailyTechNewsShow.com Remember to thank a boss buy a mug tell a friend Patreon.com If you just won the headlines of the day in less than 10 minutes you can subscribe to DailyTech headlines at DailyTechHeadlines.com but until next time my name is Justin Robert Young filling in for a vacationing Tom Merritt if you find him in Tokyo give him a high five we will see you tomorrow Simon Club hopes you have enjoyed this rover We're out Man I just heard about Gene Wilder What? No! Yes! Sad 83 You know what? He had a good run He had a good run He's so great I remember listening to an interview once there was a director who did a bunch of Disney movies like recent ones like in the last like 10 or 15 years but he used to be Gene Wilder's assistant and was talking about how it was like the most boring assistant job on the planet because they would just send him all these scripts and he would just say no to all of them but he still wanted an assistant to do odds and ends and stuff like that but he got so many scripts that were basically just another version of movies that he made that he never really went out there and did anything because he didn't want to do anything that was a retread on something he'd done before which is kind of amazing considering like that's all he normally does, especially actors of his generation because there were so many opportunities Yeah, wow It's very sad Yeah, no, Mega said Wow, it was diagnosed with lymphoma in 89 Yeah, it's just from complications from Alzheimer's I mean that's that's he had a, that is a good run for someone with lymphoma I mean 1989, like 1989 Yeah, 1989 I mean, jeez what can you say? Listen, the guy was a muse for Mel Brooks, he's my favorite director and writer of all time, he was able to stand up as a comedic partner to Richard Pryor you know, there's really not a whole lot that he couldn't do comedically I hate to change the topics 2016, man Show titles Common Sense Kanye reform is pretty funny Well, what about politics make strange snow no, Snowden Fellows The safety check dance hacking the election I think that's really funny Is that Duke Alice? Which one? The safety check dance Oh, yeah Politics make strange Snowden Fellows I kind of like Snowden Snowden approved, I feel like is kind of on the nose that's a direct quote, I kind of like that Snowden approved You know, I if he ever makes it back to the US and gets acquitted or whatever, he could totally have a career as like kind of a billy maze for software security You know, I kind of wonder whether or not you know, there's always those things at the end of a presidency where there's like all those super questionable like pardons What happened? You mean like four pardoning Nixon? Well, I mean, that was kind of a fate of complete when he got the gig That was part of getting Nixon off the stage But in general, like Clinton did and Bush did Whenever you're at the end you just pay off basically a bunch of money that you'd gotten on the way there by pardoning a few people that somebody who really really gave you a bunch of cash is obsessed about I would not be shocked if probably not Obama because it happened on Obama's term but at some point Snowden just got the pardon The problem is he hasn't been he hasn't been formally like he hasn't formally gone through the process Thanks Veronica, thanks I'll see you later, bye Alright Justin So I'm going with Snowden approved Snowden approved Snowden approved And you have the audio of just the show, right? I do It starts at the beginning Audience and not outside organizations And then you stopped it right at the end Perfect You can either upload it or you can send it to me I'm going to send it to you It probably needs to run through level 8 Yes, I can do all that If you want to send it to me through Does Slack do that? I think Slack It has a Slack it to me Unless it has a size limit Oh, does it? I mean, it's in the gigabytes, isn't it? I mean, how big is that file? I don't know Let's see Should be like 500 Crap, you want to know what? I bumped Hotline Monday I guess if I was a real I was a real masochist, I probably could still do Hotline Monday But that is now Out of the question Slack it to me 20 terabytes You did a great job Thank you so much Saving everyone's bacon You are on Next week Because you're actually traveling the rest of this week Yeah Thursday Thursday we are off to DragonCon I really like that event It's just in a location that's very expensive and awkward for me to get to Yeah I didn't want to bring it up with Veronica because it's so sad that she's not going I love it I love being in the south on Labor Day I love Atlanta I love everybody that's able to get there But it is definitely a little bit of a bummer when it loses critical mass when everybody's not going Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Exponentially All of a sudden the stress to get there becomes more visual when everybody you know isn't going to be there It is It's so funny because I originally started going to conventions like comic books, sci-fi, whatever It was just to go see things but I met a bunch of people and I kept running into them and so it became more of a ritual to go meet people I needed an excuse to meet because we don't live next to each other Hey, we'll meet each other in San Diego or hey, we'll meet each other in Atlanta But as you get older and you get more responsibilities especially when you have a child it's a little more complicated to get things like that done but the thing I really I really I kind of was always annoyed with about Atlanta is that like downtown Atlanta does not have anything great to eat Oh no food is food is legitimately garbage like like maybe the best even like southern food is pitypats porch and that's like good but it's like you can definitely get better food just a little bit outside of that downtown area there's actually there's a good restaurant that Ashley and I found and I don't even want to say where it is because I do not want it to get more popular and have the kitchen get slammed like everything else does it was the most disappointing thing because like I would think like it's a south it would be like really good food and someone told me it's like I had to get anything really decent you have to go to the outskirts of the city or the suburbs outside of Atlanta Yeah, I mean that's the problem is that Atlanta's not you know Atlanta's not Miami where there's like a cultural center and then everything else radiates right Atlanta's a lot more like Charlotte where a lot of the neighborhoods are cool around it and downtown is primarily for business and so you are you're taking over a place that's primarily for business which is kind of a bummer because there is not like all like the really cool restaurant that gets made because people are really into it and they want to work hard like they don't have the money to have it there, you know I'm gonna stop you right there just a little bit thanks everyone for watching we'll see you tomorrow with Patrick Beja and hopefully Jeff Conata if he doesn't have to render the hospital. Alright, thank you very much stop in the broadcast now


How long does it take you to pray? Five times five, 25 minutes, half an hour, times 60 years, you're barely meeting Allah with a year and a half of worship out of 60 years, that's a problem that needs fixing. Before you go to sleep, you make dua, you intend your sleep for Allah, there goes 8 hours added to the worship.  In the name of Allah, may Allah bless this food that you've given us, because what kills us, what gives us sick, the food that you eat. So you're saying, may Allah make this food blessing and take the sickness away from it. That's what means, may Allah take the sickness and put the blessing. This poor person, I was paying attention like, why may Allah bless us, and it occurred to me, a billion people out of 1 billion to 2 billion people are under poverty line in the world. All what they can afford is a piece of bread. Where is the mineral, and the proteins, and the vitamins, and the faties, acids, and the fats, they tell you, you have to have these, all of this.  And you're going to eat it, and that's all what you can afford. You say, Allahumma barik lana fee ma razaqtana. I say, Allah, your razaq to me is this piece of bread. I'm not going to be unhappy with you, just bless it. Bismillah, and you eat.  What's happening? Allahumma barik lana fee ma razaqtana. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, milk and dates for days, for months, how is he surviving?


Today we're on step three of seven on how to build your brand from scratch. It was a brilliant question that Claire from Leeds asked. If you wanna hear the question and the first two steps, make sure you go back and watch those in this channel as well. This is all part of how to build your brand from scratch. In step one, we've already looked at how do you do your research properly? Not just ask a few questions, but how do you do the right research and really build up your listening muscle? We're going to the listening gym when you are going through this process. So how do you do that in a really effective way that you get the answers that you want? So we looked at that in step one. In step two, we looked at how do you craft your offer? In step three, which is where we are now, I'm assuming you've done those two pieces and now we're just gonna put that offer together. So, sorry, you've created the offer. Now we're gonna look at the launch. You're putting the soft launch together so that you're getting that offer in front of more people. So there are a few things that I gave you in step two to be able to start going through this process, but in step three, it's very simple. This is about you getting together either a focus group or jumping on Zoom or Skype or FaceTime for an hour. You know, I would suggest that you do it as part of a group instead of doing it one to one. You can do it one to one. It just obviously takes more time. I'm more a fan of jumping on Zoom or jumping on Skype and getting a small group of people together, like a focus group and asking questions and getting all of the answers that I possibly can get within that hour. And you can get people together for an hour pretty easily. If you go beyond that, then it can get a bit tricky. So an example of that is recently one of our Brand Builders Club members, Judith Quinn. She put a post into the Brand Builders Club group and said she was looking for six people to jump on Zoom for her to test a process with them. And hers was around public speaking. She said, I want to test this process around public speaking. I want to test it on six people so that I can work out, what else do I need to add to this program? And I'd love your ideas on what else I can be including that would really create a finished product for somebody and really help them with their public speaking. And she got six people pretty much immediately, said, yeah, I'll definitely do that as a result of that. She held a little focus group on Zoom and they all gave her a feedback and actually she ended up selling a couple of places onto her public speaking program as a result of doing that little focus group. And we've had several members that have gone through that and said how excellent it was. So, and that's really the point of Brand Builders is to make sure you've got a loving, supportive group of people that will go through the process for you to give you that feedback, but also quite a lot of the time there are Brand Builders around the world who will then pay you to go through the actual process itself. That's where the championship of each other at all times comes in, that's our highest value at Brand Builders. So re-think about who's your list gonna be?  Are you going to, like I did with a seven step brand Kickstarter, put a post out and say, I'm looking for 21 people to go through this online process and catch any errors or glitches or things that are missing or give me feedback so that I can improve it and craft it even better. So the next people that go through it, it's even better for them. So you could do that. And I advise that whatever that number is of people that you want to go through your process or to give you feedback on that process, I advise that you make sure you can deliver on that promise. It's no good you saying I'm looking for 100 people and then 100 people go through it and then you can't keep up with the amends or the changes that need to be made or you just can't reach out to everybody and then they're gonna be feeling pretty left out. So then you've created brandalism. They're not gonna be feeling good about your brand if you've promised something and then you're not delivering it. And if you're not doing that with something that's free then they're not getting the vibe that when they pay you to go through that process then they're gonna get treated any better. So this is your opportunity of first, last and lasting impressions, right? So I want you to make your list where that's five, 10, 20, however many that list is and decide on what process you're going to use to get that feedback. Are you going to get them to go through the whole program? Are you gonna get them to go through the first couple of steps? Are you going to, as Judith did, just create a one hour of brand building power on Zoom and get all the feedback you can in that hour. And then that's it. You know, I mean, that's, as Judith did, a perfect opportunity to say, well, look, if I create this, how many of you would want to actually go through it? And what would you be prepared to invest in it to have received this transformation? That's when you can do even more testing around the price and everything. That's when you're putting out something that really, really does make a difference to people and that they're prepared to pay for. And that's before you've even created it. So that's the perfect early adopter process, getting people who want to get in early because they're getting more support, they're getting more one-on-one, more hands-on feedback than anybody else that ever goes through that program. So you can go through that process of really charging and valuing what you're worth. So that's your task for today.  And if you can, I would go through all of your, hello, Bob, I would go through all of your friends that are on Facebook or LinkedIn, look at the people you're connected to on Instagram, look at all the different places that people are and come on in and make a list. And if you can make a list of a hundred, that would be brilliant. It's going to take you about an hour because you're just going through and you're looking at friends. You don't need to have their numbers. You don't even need to have their email addresses. If you're connected on social media, that's enough. So then you can just make that list of a hundred. You might only reach out to five or 10 or 20 of them. But if you've got a list of a hundred, that means you've now got a hundred potential ambassadors who can help you to get the message out there when you are ready to launch. And we're going to talk about your launch in part four. If you've enjoyed this show and you're enjoying the series, please do make sure that you subscribe. And I'd really be appreciative if you could share it with others. Who could you share the how to build a brand channel with that it's going to really help and support them? Because I'm on a mission to help and support and create as many one drops as I possibly can. I'm making this one drop movement matter. And if you wanna go and see what I'm doing with one drop movement, go to onedropmovement.com. And you'll see this is actually a thing. This is a thing that I'm doing where I'm building a whole universe full of championship and collaboration to unite instead of fight and to collaborate instead of compete. And there's a whole world of amazing juicy stuff that's going on at onedropmovement.com. And there are lots of brand building resources and articles and there's loads of support and some great programs at samiblindel.com. So if you want some more support and you want me as your mentor, do go across the samiblindel.com and you can look at the various different ways that I can jump in and help you with your business. So take care, have fun, be happy, be that drop you want to see in the world. I'll see you in step four. But before we go, I have a question for you. As always, I've got a question. Here is your question for this show. If you could have one great thing happen in your business over this next week, what would it be? If you could have one thing happen in your business, one great thing happen in your business this week, what would it be? Pop it in the comments below and I'll see you in the next show.


Good evening. I would like to welcome you to tonight's ninth and last educational webinar sponsored by the Coalition Peace Initiative and co-sponsored by 11 other organizations. My name is Don Tao, and I'll serve as your host for tonight's program. Whose topic is China is not United States enemy. As you know, we have organized a series of nine webinars to promote peace between the United States and China. This series of webinars revolve around the three topics of Chinese American experience in the United States, modern Chinese history, relationship between the United States and China. We chose these three topics because we believe that the most important question facing the world today is whether our world is moving toward war or peace. And the key to answering that question is the relationship between the United States and China. To understand the current United States-China relationship, we need to understand the historical relationship between US and China and the evolution of that relationship and how the world has changed during the last 50 years or so. To understand the historical development of US-China relationship, we also need to understand how China was treated by the foreign powers, including the United States. Therefore, we need to discuss modern Chinese history in particular starting with the 19th century. How China is treated by the United States is very much related to how Chinese Americans are treated in the United States. That's why we also need to discuss the experience of Chinese Americans in the United States. We hope that these educational webinars would help people understand that the current US policy of demonization of China is not based on facts, but mostly on fabrications. And that such fabricated demonization of China is not good for Americans and also not good for all the people of the world. Because it will move the world toward war instead of peace. The consequences will be that critical funding will be allocated to the military and for wars, instead of using those valuable resources to solve many critical global problems. Furthermore, the most serious consequence is that it will lead to nuclear war that could destroy the world as we know it. Tonight's webinar is really the crux of this webinar series. It builds on the previous eight webinars to discuss why China is not the enemy of the United States. Thank you. That's the introduction. Now we will start tonight's program. As I said, it's the culmination of this webinar series. We have a very packed program tonight with two speakers.  They will have a 15 minute Q&A. Then I'll wrap up the whole webinar program with a five minute summary. And also three announcements. Now I introduce our two speakers. Sheila Zhao is a researcher, data scientist and community organizer based in Los Angeles. A second generation Chinese American who was raised in San Francisco, California, and studied in University of California, Uruguay. She is a tireless advocate for communities of color. And the co-founder of the organization, Pivot to Peace. KJ No is a South Korean scholar, educator and journalist focusing on the political economy and geopolitics of the Asia Pacific. He writes regularly for several publications, including Counterpunch, Asia Times, and LA Progressive. He also does frequent commentary and analysis of various news programs, including the critical hour, political misfits, KPFA flashpoints, and breakthrough news. Sheila and KJ, the floor is yours. I believe you two agree that KJ will speak first, is that correct? Correct. Okay. Correct. Now the floor is yours. You can share the screen if you want. Thank you. Hi everybody. So I'm delighted to be here. And I thank the Coalition Peace Initiative for inviting me. I wanted to give a quick overview of the China quote unquote threat and say a little bit of why this is completely misguided and mistaken. Clearly, in the elite discourse, and among the political class, the US is saying that China is a threat. It has said, it has labeled China a revisionist power, which is just a fancy word for official enemy in the national security strategy in the national defense strategy. Kurt Campbell, who is the Asia star for the Biden administration says the era of engagement has ended. Eli Ratner, who is seconded to the Defense Department on China says everything must be oriented around China. And of course all the think tanks and discourse elites are talking about the China threat. The longer telegram says that China is a threat and that the US should consider regime change. And of course Mark Miley recently said to the Chinese military. He said, if we're going to attack, I'm going to call you he didn't say we're not going to attack you. He didn't say it's absurd that we're going to attack you he said, if we're going to attack, I'm going to call you. So clearly, China is a threat for the ruling class. The threat inflation has many different dimensions they see it as a threat to the rules based international order. It is an existential threat. It is a bio warfare threat it's a nuclear threat it's a genocidal threat. And of course China is responsible for global warming and threatens planetary echo side. Of course, the elite say to themselves that China is not a threat they know that it is not a threat. The military sources say that China has no first strike capacity. And all this language of imminent danger pacing threat is not true. However, the public discourse is about existential threats. Most recently they've spoken about China as being a nuclear threat. Now remember the US has 5500 nuclear warheads 3750 on hair trigger. Possibly 200 at maximum 300, none of which are on hair trigger alert and China does not have a first straight first strike policy, but this is the kind of public threat inflation that we are seeing. There's also this talk about Xinjiang, that China is some kind of genocidal threat. And all of this, don't know and many, many others have shown that is completely and totally fraudulent, but the threat inflation goes on. There's also the threat of quote unquote digital authoritarianism. Donald Trump famously said that China was raping the US how brands in a recent Atlantic article said that China will attack soon, and we should prepare to attack preemptively. Therefore, the US must combat take down China, Biden and Trump that said we have to get tougher on China and they actually had a contest between the two of them saying that the other one was too weak on China. This goes back to the 1990 defense planning guidance document which is the neocon plan for global domination this becomes the Bush doctrine and then it becomes the Obama doctrine, and then it becomes the Trump doctrine, and then it comes the Biden doctrine, which continues to this time and it's a continual escalation. These ideas themselves are built on the yellow pearl pearl trope, which is a colonial war trope. It's built on the red care, red scare trope, which is the Cold War trope. Of course, Hillary Clinton said famously I don't want my grandchildren to grow up in a world dominated by China Kyron Skinner said it's the first time that we have had a non Western competitor. All of this threat inflation falls apart. There was a recent article in Palladium magazine which was very well written, and they state the obvious that no great power in history has risen as peacefully as China China has been to war since 1979 and even that was just in defense of an ally, which was being colonized by Vietnam. And if China were a member of NATO, it would be sanctioned for not spending enough on its military. So it has had no kinetic conflict since 1979 it wants peaceful reunification with Taiwan has offered a one country two systems approach. It wants peaceful resolution of the South China Sea disputes wants to overcome coven and help other countries do the same. It has an exemplary policy towards minorities, in particular, in Xinjiang. It has gives preferential treatment there is no genocide no slave labor and minorities in China have preferential treatment and representation at the highest levels of government this is written into the Constitution. Also assist Africa with development with no strings attached unlike the World Bank or the IMF. It's not a threat through espionage. And it's not even an ideological threat. Certainly it's not a biological threat.  It's not a threat in the South China Sea disputes over bodies of water are very, very common. This is a dispute between Switzerland, Germany and Austria over Lake Constance. And without, if the US were to go in there with gunboats, then that would be a completely different story, but disputes over water are not uncommon. So there's so many lies to refute and it's a little bit like playing whack-a-mole, but essentially we're looking at the elite version of QAnon. That is to say, the elites are constantly telling us lies, and we're constantly trying to back bat them down. Some of these lies, Chinese human rights abuses, concentration camp, stolen our jobs, etc, destroying the planet threat to the world. So, you know, let's say this for the record, China is not a threat in the South China Sea. It's not a threat to Taiwan, it wants peaceful reunification with Taiwan. And the Taiwanese themselves have not declared independence because they can't. It's in their constitution that they see themselves as one China. China is not a threat to your freedom. It certainly is not a nuclear threat. As I said, it does not have hair trigger alert. It has no first use policy, and it has a miniscule fraction of the number of warheads that the United States has. It's not a bio warfare threat. In fact, it's done everything humanly possible to protect itself and the countries around it, including giving the information about the genetic sequence, which it uploaded on January 5th, to Gen Bank. That's how quickly it worked. And once we had that information, it was an open book exam for everybody else. There's no reason or excuse for the kind of casualties that we're seeing all around the world, especially in the developed west. It's not a threat to your lifestyle. And it's certainly not a threat to Hillary Clinton's grandchildren. But we have to ask why is China considered a threat. And it's considered an economic threat because it has the biggest economy in the world and pardon my graphic images, but China was developing its economy, rather than bombing countries, and therefore it grew big. And size matters in the economic sphere. And this is one thing that the West and the US finds intolerable. A multi polarity itself is a threat. It creates a different pole of development. It creates choice in a multi polar world. That is, there are opportunities to develop in a non Western, a non capitalist way. And it also poses an ideological threat, the ideological threat of a good example such as Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, North Korea, China, etc. that you can become wealthy and have a developed society without becoming a Western capitalist vassal state. So essentially, the US sees it as a threat to the world system, and China is breaking out of the global system of extractive subservience to the global north. From 1960 about 150 hundred and 60 trillions was extracted from the global south, and the wealth of the West, including the wealth of the quote unquote social democratic countries is dependent on extraordinary extraction from the global south. And these countries have become developed Taiwan and Korea and they were given special exemptions to offshore havens and one or two city states, all the others have remained subservient to the US led global system. And China did not stay in its junior subservient position. And this is why it has been reformulated into an all domain threat. And it also is a threat to US geostrategic hegemony.  So, as seen as a threat the US is escalating on all fronts to contain rollback, take down China. It's creating alliances. The US is engaging in hybrid warfare warfare regime change information warfare, as well as preparations for kinetic war. And of course there is a constant and ongoing attempt to destroy China's development and economy. So this is just a short list of some of the warfare or hybrid warfare that the US is engaging against China. None of this so far has been dialed down it's ongoing, sometimes different elements are accentuated at different moments, but it's a kind of all domain full spectrum warfare. Of course the key thing we can note is the encirclement of China with 400 bases, a specific plan to take China down through block blockading its sea routes where 77% of its fossil fuels go through and 5.3 trillion worth of its trade travels to this would bring China's economy down in an instant. So it's trying to block China's advances in technology it's surrounding its periphery spurring unrest in various regions, it's weaponizing Taiwan, it's lobbying allies and building coalitions against it. It wants to contain China. Now Chinese Americans here are at risk this is why we see the random attacks on Asians, when you have this kind of global policy demonization that will trickle down into retail violence on the streets you cannot prepare to attack people over here, without having people who are Asian people over here become collateral damage. Okay, now there's a small subset of Asians that are trying to manage this oppression by distinguishing themselves from the Chinese or the Chinese Communist Party they say, you know we're not Chinese Americans, but in the end this is a false distinction. It's a false sense of safety. It's similar to what the youth and rat attempt to do during World War two against Jewish oppression. Ultimately, it's a full scale. Everybody, you know there are no innocence here. And I encourage people, if you're not convinced about this to watch a film called the garden of the fancy continuous which tells the story of an elite or aristocratic Jewish family that believe that they're so cultured so wealthy, and so elite that they will be safe. Why does the US think China is a threat. We can go over the history with the history of racism the history of the Chinese in the US the history of US China relations, but to put it in a nutshell China is a threat to capitalism imperialism and let's name it for what it is white supremacy. China's system is a challenge to those who believe that poverty and suffering are intractable that the poor should and always will be with us. It's a challenge to those who believe in a system that engenders poverty and suffering for profit. And it's a challenge to those who believe the third world and people of color of those countries should be kept in submission. China is an enemy of the ruling imperial elite class. It is a challenge the capitalist elite profit driven system it's a threat to the global order the rules based international order the Western imposed caste system on the world it's a threat to white Western Atlantic supremacy. It's a challenge to those who think development has to be Western or Western led as a challenge to those would keep people of color in their place. And of course it is an enemy of those who see China as an enemy. This is the state of affairs. Once again, once subjugated people arise. This creates a dilemma for the oppressing class. It's very similar to the idea of policing where anything that challenges a sense of superiority and total domination is seen as a lethal threat and treated accordingly. The example is the Korean War, which was considered to be a police action and the US has police the world in a similar way that it polices its internal colonies. This is just one example I'm from Korea. These were the border league massacres hundreds of thousands of people killed in weeks for the simple crime of wanting an independent country that was socialist we saw the same thing in Indonesia. We saw massive wars in Vietnam and all over the world.  The US is a threat to the rest of the world. It's also a threat to itself. There's much work that we need to do inside the US itself to bring it back up to a developing world status, and we have to work for peace together. I'll finish with the words of Asata Shakur, who says, only a fool, let somebody else tell them who their enemy is. Never let your enemies choose your enemies for you. China is not an enemy. China is not a threat. And I would like to finish with immortal words of Gil Scott Heron, who exhorted all of us to work for peace. Thank you. Thank you very much, KJ, for giving us many examples, specific examples of why China is not United States enemy. Sheila, now it's your turn. Okay, the floor is yours, Sheila. Yeah. Well, thank you so much everyone for having me. And KJ for that great presentation. It is an honor to be able to speak at this final webinar of this nine part series this series in my opinion is super, super important because it really lays the groundwork for the real task at hand. Which KJ of course primed us on which is to demand that the US end its aggression towards China, that war with China bears no interest to normal working class people here in the US, normal working class people in China, nor anywhere else in the world. And we've seen how catastrophic wars colonialism, racist scapegoating has been used to aid the agenda for profit expansion and global hegemony at all at the expense of our humanity. So watching this agenda for war being built bit by bit right in front of our eyes in in the very different ways of hybrid warfare that KJ outlined earlier. And the mainstream media, of course paints this picture of China that is very, very far from the troops, right. And I think that this webinar series opens a space in which people can engage in a fair and open and balance discourse about China without political interference, or since a sensationalization or demonization of China. The fact of the matter is anti China sentiment is echoed in all chambers of mainstream culture, including everything from academia to news to pop culture. And what we're up against is a highly perfected form of propaganda war that begins as a well funded marketing campaign that again pervades our institutions of learning the news we consume the social media we engage in pop culture, where a particular portrayal, no distorted becomes quote unquote the truth. And any discourse outside of the narrow parameters is to be condemned right this leaves little to no room for genuine debate. And we see this in the case of Shenzhen of Hong Kong, Tibet, and of course most recently Taiwan. And we are up against the situation where any ounce of doubt about the mainstream narrative is to be condemned. And isn't that ironic for a country that boasts about freedom of speech. The US military is encircling China with the chain of air bases and military ports, where more than 400,000 US military personnel are now prepositioned in the region. And the coming air sea battles are being actively prepared. Most Americans today have seen this country engage in war for our entire lives and that is certainly true for my life. My entire life this country has been in war training our tax dollars on these endless wars destabilizing and destroying other countries and we just saw the US after a decades long war be defeated by a minor force like the Taliban in Afghanistan. So what sense does it make for the US to believe that confrontation with the people's Republic of China, a country nearly a fifth of the world's population with with stellar popular support with strong military is a good idea. Of course it's a terrible idea. And so most Americans no matter their opinion of China the country, understand that aggression and confrontation with China is a catastrophic mistake. While the powers that be are actively manufacturing consent for potential confrontation. It is our job to continue to grow support for the position of peace. There is no other choice. And many of us who have been doing this work for years now, including the folks in pivot to peace. Since we found a pivot to piece a year and a half ago I can tell you that the efforts of our collective peace movement, which includes China is not our enemy coalition peace initiative and so many other organizations is gaining momentum, and has moved a lot of discussion on China, even in the mainstream. Of course there's a lot of work to be done right this week, the meeting between Biden and she President she was a signal that there is an avenue for the lessening of tensions and a pledge for greater cooperation. So there is yet to be any evidence of the US backing down. This nonetheless indicates a turn away from the Cavalier all out aggression that we've seen in the previous administration and of course the previous months and our message of peace and more importantly, the message against this new Cold War is ever growing. As I mentioned, the unexpected joint declaration between the US and China on cooperation on the climate issues at COP26. As the climate disasters become increasingly catastrophic and threatening to life on earth, global cooperation is absolutely necessary. Every time will tell what this will achieve, given that the US and mainstream media still consistently and falsely point the finger at China as a largest source of emissions globally without any historical context. And this is despite the fact that China has invested double the amount of money on renewable energy than the US between 2010 and 2019, and that the US is per capita emissions is 2.7 times higher than that of China. So the joint statement. While we consider it a step towards progress we still have such a long way to go and so we must speak beyond our immediate peace movement and we must move the millions, the people of this country to actively oppose the idea of war with China. The demonization campaign against China that has been rolled out in the past few years is primarily designed to mute or overcome the threat of public opposition to the drive toward war and confrontation. To accomplish the goal sections of the US ruling class and the intelligence services with the corporate on media playing their part have developed a longer sophisticated and multifaceted campaign to teach the people of this country to both hate and fear China and this goes back to this hybrid warfare that cage and those of us who oppose this coming war need to wage equally an effective multifaceted truth telling campaign to win over the American people, not only to tell the truth and provide a counter narrative to counter the demonizing lies about China, but to focus public action on the real purpose of the demonization campaign, which is to prepare the public, ultimately, to accept the rationale for a new military conflict. Our campaign must be able to convince people that China is in fact not our enemy and that we stand to gain so much more through cooperation with China, and quite frankly aren't we sick of our country being at war. We must be able to speak directly to the people of the United States in a way that pulls them away from accepting this dominant anti China narrative. One thing that's important to consider is that demonization is like any caricature. It's like challenging a stereotype and the reason we're directing ourselves and must direct ourselves towards the people the US is that outside of China's own military prowess, the attitude and consciousness of the American people is the only other possible break on the rush towards war with China. We must gain popular support on our position of peace. There are different pillars of the imperial demonization campaign, many of which we have already covered in the course of the series. And the purpose of this webinar series is to arm ourselves with the facts to tell the truth about the reality of this war drive against China and we have to both specifically address the lies, or the caricatures that are dominant themes within the pillars and at the same time, unmask the fact that each pillar of the campaign is in fact nothing more than a pretext to win the population over towards the need to adopt a confrontational stance towards China. I, I have six points of these pillars, which KJ already sort of covered but I'll just go through them again, which is one that Hong Kong has had its freedom stripped from it right this this is a part of the US narrative. To that the people of Western China specifically in the weaker population in Xinjiang are the victims of genocide and forced assimilation. Three, that the people of Tibet have been denied their rights to be independent and to safeguard their culture and religion. For that Taiwan is really an independent country and its independence must be safeguarded by foreign assistance, including foreign armaments. Five that China is a totalitarian police state without any semblance of democracy. Six that China is an imperial power bullying its neighbors seizing disputed territories and waters and engage in colonial type exploitation in Africa and elsewhere. So one of the challenges in the truth telling efforts of people inside the United States who seek to challenge these falsehoods and any of these six areas is that those who present even factual arguments that counter the dominant narrative are labeled as apologists or agents of the People's Republic of China. US propaganda positions the six pillars by presenting China as a violator of human rights and the broadest sense of the term, and that the US is a champion of these threatened rights. In other words, the US is motivated by a noble cause and China is just pure evil. The real irony about this is that today we are caught between two clear examples of how the US really views human rights.   Amon Arbery's killers are on trial for for his murder as we speak, but the defense team has a very clear racist agenda to ensure that there is no justice served for Amon Arbery.  So the US has no place to police any other country about human rights, when something as simple as justice for senseless racist killings cannot be served, at least not easily. My hearing contradictions may seem obvious to those of us who are here today but we do have to take note of the major issue that we're facing. If it were simply, if it were just easy to convince people that US imperialism is creating pretextual arguments to mask and camouflage its predatory objectives, we would have popular support. But this camouflage because it's being reinforced day in and day out by corporate media is considered to be the truth by tens of millions of people in the US. So even though it's difficult and it's hard and even though it takes courage to go against the stream. We have no other option but to engage in a fact based truth telling campaign, and we don't need to convince everyone that China is the greatest or that China doesn't have its own internal contradictions. But we do need to expose that the demonization campaign and propaganda is based on cherry picking certain facts, or just made up lies. So in order to wage this campaign. Again, we need a strong factual based presentation that is persuasive and is conducted with a strong sense of objective faculty. We need to be able to tell the truth about China and all of its social advances refuting the lies and the demonization. And at the same time make it quite clear that we are representatives of the people here in the United States and not the voice of the Chinese embassy. We started pivot to peace, we felt that we were almost alone in the United States doing this work. But in the last 18 months what's become clear is that more and more organizations are taking up this work. And the more we go against the stream the more we have the courage to speak up the more people are inspired to speak out against this war agenda. And our hope is that this grows into an ever larger movement, and it is growing. Ultimately the principle need is to convince millions of people that the military industrial complex and the war machine and the politicians who represent them are creating false excuses to bring the country and the world to the brink of catastrophic war. And we have to unmask the war drive for what it really is. According to the Brown University's Watson Institute, the US has spent $6.7 trillion and the so called war on terror since 2001. Now the US is preparing to spend an even larger sum of money in preparation for a confrontation with China. At the same time one out of every two people in the US live either in near poverty or in poverty. 50% of all personal bankruptcies are due to individuals inability to pay medical bills, and 8 million families are facing imminent eviction or foreclosures from their homes because of unpaid debts. This is the reality we live in this is the richest country in the world. We must make the argument that the security of the people in the United States, especially working class and poor people means to spend trillions of dollars to meet human needs rather than to prepare for a war with China. We will not buy the excuse that there is no money for healthcare education housing jobs there is money. It's just being plundered for for more war. And the imperialist demonization campaign, of course it may seem all powerful because it is, and the media is marching in lockstep. But their weakness is that the demonization campaign is literally premised on lies. The war planners cannot actually tell the people the truth about what this is all about and if people learn the truth if we are effective in our work. And if we are committed to making this not a small effort with a small segment of the population but a massive, massive effort reaching the millions, we believe that we can create a powerful movement for peace. I know that this is possible because history has shown us that this is possible the truth is on our side. And when we are in the motions of building and organizing it is hard to see just how far we've moved the needle. In my personal opinion, I think that our small but mighty and ever growing movement is making gains as I talked about before. And we should indeed celebrate this, but this also means that we can and must push ahead, convincing our fellow Americans that China is not an enemy that we want to live in a world of global cooperation for the sake of the planet and for the sake of our future. Thank you. Sheila, especially for reminding us your six points of contention or accusation that the United States has made against China. Before I continue, I want to say that if you have questions that you want to ask, make sure you use the question and answer box. I have a lot of comments on the chat box, but until just now actually, I did not see any question, although I see a question now. So, I want to give you the opportunity to put in your question and the question and answer box. Now I would like to open the floor for a question and answer. Since the question just pop up, maybe I can start out with one question. AJ, you are a journalist and you've been involved in a lot of media and mass media. So one question I want to ask you is that, you know, the United States and in general the Western mass media has been basically in sync with the United States policy towards China, especially the United States fabricated accusations against China. So how does the Western mass media work so closely and in close steps, basically echoing whatever the United States government is saying. Can you comment on that, AJ, from your experience with the mass media. Yes, it's a pretty sophisticated system that is set up. The first thing we have to understand is that quote unquote Western democracies, all about manufacturing consent, and one of the key asymmetrical strengths that they have is in their advertising and PR systems and advertising and PR ecology. So this work starts initially in think tanks, which serve as kind of like shadow governments, then it's doled out to the elite journals and some of the elite magazines, and then there's a system of trickle and as well as you know the organizations like AP and Reuters that then circulated on mass.  It's a very, very complex and sophisticated system. And as I said, we call it information warfare because it literally is a form of warfare, and the terrain of combat is your brain, they're occupying and overtaking your capacity to think independently. And so this is why individual efforts, as well as, you know, telling the truth and sharing good information is so important. Your brain, your mind itself is a battlefield, and it's incumbent on all of us to do what we can to struggle against this indoctrination. There are key few tactics that they use. One is intense emotionality, mass repetition, multiple sources that come at you, and then playing on, you know, very, very emotionally manipulative techniques. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. I noticed there's one question in the question and answer box. Actually, it's not a question so much as more like a comment. Maybe KJ and Sheila, maybe you can take a look at that. It's a comment by Gerald Belsky. It's a fairly long comment. Maybe you can take a look at it and see if you want to comment on it. And I just noticed another question just popped up. The contradict by Jeffrey Ho, the contradiction agreement about Xinjiang genocide has manifested in disagreements between journalists within peace groups. They're journalists or researchers that feel strongly about atrocities toward Waker Muslims. What would be the perspective that this one to have strong concerns. KJ or Sheila, do you want to comment on that? This is a question from Jeffrey Ho. I'll give you a chance to take a look at it and see if you want to answer that in some capacity. I'll take Jeffrey's question on the Xinjiang genocide. Actually, you know, I'll put it this way. There is no there there. I've been researching this for years. I've been looking at it from all angles. There are experts who have looked at it from all angles, and I'm talking about the State Department lawyers themselves. There is no genocide. The International Criminal Court had reams of information thrown at it. The International Criminal Court, which has universal jurisdiction to open investigations, regardless of the strength of an allegation, chose not to. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation said we commend China's treatment of its Islamic Islamic population, and this is this makes perfect sense. China has no history of oppressing Islam inside its own borders. It developed Islam indigenously. There are four indigenous schools of Islam that are Chinese. They're Sufi schools that are all Chinese. And of course, we can look at the bear facts, the fact that the population has doubled in 40 years. It has increased 25% in the last eight years from 2010 to 2018. Excuse me, 150 million people visit Xinjiang on a regular basis. None of them have come back with any stories of mass incarceration or concentration camps. Now that said, is there some kind of program of de-radicalization going on? That is true. And that is because the US, since the late 90s, has been weaponizing Xinjiang against the Chinese. They're essentially funding terrorists to wage a separatist war. And the Chinese have taken a very, very global approach of reeducation, de-radicalization, which seems to have worked and comes out. It looks much more effective and certainly less violating of human rights than anything that you see in Western Europe, including what you see in the UK and France. I'm sure Don may have some thoughts about this. I'm sure Sheila has thoughts about this. Thank you, okay. Yeah, Jeffrey, regarding your question, I would like to make a comment on a lot of the Western journalists who make all these reports, newspaper articles about Xinjiang. Actually, most of them have never visited Xinjiang. But however, we know quite a few people, not only Chinese Westerners, Americans, Canadians, British, Australians, French people who have visited Xinjiang as recent as the last year or the last two years. And some of them have visited them many times during the last 10 years. And they come back with these reports, which are completely different from a lot of these Western journalists who have never visited Xinjiang. So therefore, you say, oh, there are two different camps, two different types of opinion on what they write about Xinjiang. You have to look at their experience and where did they get the information. I think if you look at that, and then you come to the conclusion that KJ mentioned earlier. And I also mentioned it several weeks ago in my article in my talk on Xinjiang. And I also want to mention one thing. Several weeks ago, Julie Tang also gave a very good talk on Hong Kong. Julie gave us a website which shows you the funding that this organization provided to a lot of organizations in Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, in the same reference, not only can you find national endowment for democracy, okay. National endowment for democracy, NED, okay. Not only that they have provided funding for Hong Kong, you can also find in the same website funding for the United States government that NED has provided to various organizations in Xinjiang. Does anybody want to make any comment on a couple of questions, a couple of comments made by the Gerald Belsky. Gerald, respect your second question. Let me make a comment on that. Okay, you asked the Silver Institute has advocated the idea that the way to enter dynamic to war is peace through development. So the both sides benefit through development as cooperation, the Belt and Road Initiative. And could that cooperation be the real United States interest? Yes, in my opinion, that real cooperation is, could be in the United States interest. But however, United States is not taking that position because United States doesn't want to make China stronger. They look at it as a competitor, but not only as a competitor, but as a competitor, which I'll mention again later. They're following a policy, foreign policy of tiny harding policy, instead of competing against each other in a peaceful way and in a normal way, they are attacking the opponent unjustly. Okay. We have, we have time for a couple more comments or questions. One of the comments I saw in the tech box, I think it's by Madison Tang, she said that through the peace movement, we actually have made some progress recently. And that is, we have successfully kept the Eagle Act from being voted on. The Eagle Act is a $7.5 billion for military spending. So that's one of the successes that the peace movement has accomplished recently. I don't know Madison, do you want to make any more comment on that? I'm sure. Thank you. I, we have basically been educating folks in our coalition, including with Pivot to Peace. I am at CodePink, the China's Not Our Enemy campaign on these very large packages of legislation being pushed through Congress in bipartisan ways that include, they're just littered with 300, 400 mentions of China, and the threat of China to justify all kinds of spending but primarily we're focused on the military spending and the dangers of that including nuclear weapons. So a lot of people haven't been aware of these bills and we've just been trying to educate so that folks know that's where their tax money is going and the Eagle Act is one of those bills, HR3524. There could be many reasons including disagreements within the House that it hasn't been put to a vote. But I think one of the reasons is that people are more aware and there's been some active advocating against the bill. We had some, we had a rally at Nancy Pelosi's house at Senator Markey's house in Boston. We have a couple of petitions on the bill. But right now we are also focused on the Innovation and Competition Act, which was the Eagle was meant to be a companion bill to it. There's few search for all the bills right now there are so many focused on China. Another thing is that the Innovation and Competition Act was supposed to be folded into the NDAA and the Pentagon budget. Just today there was word of it, and they're not going to be doing that so it's going to be argued and amended I think before it potentially passes. Hopefully it won't. I also wanted to pose a question I added into the chat to either of the panelists. Let's see, in what ways are the US's claims about maintaining a free and open Indo Pacific disingenuous. Can you repeat that question again Madison. Yeah, in what ways are the US's claims about maintaining a free and open Indo Pacific disingenuous. That's a great question Madison. The first thing I'll note is the term Indo Pacific that's a neologism that's created by the United States we used to call it the Asia Pacific but this is an attempt to corral India into the quad to combat China. The whole notion of a free and open Indo Pacific is absurd, because as I said before, 5.3 trillion dollars worth of goods are shipped through the South China Sea, most of it headed towards China. So there is absolutely no reason why China would seek to impede any of this shipping or any of this trade. That said, the US is a naval power, and the Imperial West has always controlled the world through its navies. And so therefore what they mean by a free and open Indo Pacific means an ocean or Indo Pacific, which is free of China's capacity to defend itself free of China's capacity to interfere with the US and the Western imperialist control of naval sea lanes. Thank you. That's a very good answer. Let me just add a comment to that. In the United States, one of the United States accusations is that there's a freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. There's a problem of freedom of navigation. There's never been a freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. All of that is all focused, all makeup on the United States.  Come on, if you own an island, international laws allows you to fill some of the land around the island. We have seen that happen all over the world, and the United States has never complained about that. So the freedom of navigation is completely focused issue. Okay, in light of the shortest time we already passed nine o'clock, I just want to, first of all, I want to thank Sheila and KJ for wrapping up this webinar program and pointing out many, giving many specific examples of why China is not the enemy of the United States. I want to take a few minutes to summarize this series of webinars. As we have emphasized repeatedly, the most important question facing the world today is whether the world's moving toward war or peace. And the answer key to the answer to that question is the relationship between the United States and China. There are many critical global problems that the world is facing. It's absolutely critical that the world's two most important and most powerful countries will cooperate to solve these problems. Okay, that could lead to a win-win situation for all the people of the world. I think today pointed out that China is not the enemy of the United States. As a matter of fact, if China were the United States enemy, China would have many military bases surrounding the United States. China does not. But the United States does have many military bases all around China. If China were the enemy of the United States, China would have alliances with countries around and near the United States. China does not. But the United States does have many alliances, including military alliances with various countries around and near China. If China were the United States enemy, China will be fabricating accusations against the United States in order to psychologically prepare its citizens when conflicts and wars break out between the two countries. China has not done that. But the United States has repeatedly done that, as we have discussed throughout this whole webinar series, series. If China were the United States enemy, China would be boycotting United States companies and arresting United States business leaders and trump up charges. China has not done that. But the United States has done that. If China were the United States enemy, China would try to destabilize the United States and try to encourage secession activities within the United States. China has not done that. But the United States has repeatedly done that. If China were the United States enemy, China would provide encouragement, financial support, and perhaps even military support to those organizations or parties in the United States who are differences opinion from the United States government. China has not done that. But the United States has repeatedly done that. In summary, China has not taken any of the actions which are enemy of the United States would likely be taking. However, on the other hand, the United States is repeatedly taking all of those actions. That's why in this webinar program, we have repeatedly emphasized that the United States governments demonization of China is essentially based on fabrications and not based on facts. In the United States and China, we also need to compete against each other. As a matter of fact, we believe that it's healthy to a competition between the United States and China. But that competition should be based on decency and fair play. As we said earlier, the United States foreign policy should not adopt a tiny hardening like foreign policy to unfairly attack its major competitor. On the other hand, it's equally important to recognize that the United States policy and actions all reflect the United States government believe that China is United States enemy. The United States must look within itself, instead of bringing others for its problems. This is the most important attitude that needs to be changed. If that's not changed, we will not be able to solve internal problems. Our United States internal problems, and we will not be able to help the world to solve many critical global problems, and we will move the world closer to war instead of peace. Before we end this webinar program, I just want to make three announcements. The replay links for all the webinars can be found in the Coalition PC Initiative website, whose link has been posted in the chat box. And that information, the link was also sent this morning to all the registrants of this webinar program totaling around 300. Of course, tonight's webinar, the replay link will not be available until early next week. Also this morning when we send out the replay links for the eighth webinar, we also included a very simple survey to complete online. The survey is to be done completely online and will take no more than five minutes to complete. The survey will provide information to us on what future programs which may be of interest to you and how we can improve our program. Please complete the survey online before the deadline of Saturday, November 20. Finally, if you believe that the activities of the Coalition PC Initiative are worthwhile, please sign the Coalition PC Initiative petition. The link has also been posted in the chat box tonight, and it was also included in this morning's email. I'm happy to announce that since our previous webinar just last Wednesday, on November 10, we have received another 62 new signatures to the petition. Finally, I want to thank all the speakers of this whole webinar series. I especially want to express my appreciation for all the participants, especially those who attended multiple webinars. Let's all work together harder for peace in order that our children and grandchildren with a livable world to grow up in. Thank you and good night.


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Thank you all for being here. On behalf of my fellow citizens, it's a pleasure once again to welcome all of you to the United States. As we gather for this, the 39th session of the United Nations General Assembly, we look forward to the upcoming 40th anniversary. It will be commemorated by a series of events across the United States. Much has been achieved in these last 39 years working together through this institution. The governments of the world have made great efforts toward peace and improving the well-being of their peoples. But we also remain mindful of the failures we've witnessed of the world community to live up to the commitments in the charter. Some of the trends have been particularly discouraging in recent years. The basic principles of the UN, nonetheless, remain as worthy and as vital now as they were 39 years ago. Working together, the family of nations can and must improve its efforts to combat international lawlessness and to promote freedom, humane values, and social and economic progress. For our part, we in the United States still hold firm to the belief that within the structure of this institution, we can improve the chances for peace on this planet. And whether we succeed in doing so is not dependent on luck or on any inevitable pattern of history. We have it within our power to make history, let's not be afraid to do so. We should never fear to attempt to do that which the pessimists call impossible. Let us be optimistic about the potential for peace and let us never, never be afraid to speak with one another. In this era of electronic communications and high-tech wizardry, time and distance can no longer impede constructive dialogue. Only people can do that. So let us on the eve of a new UN General Assembly pledge again to one another in the names of our peoples and for the good of all humankind that we will continue to seek the kind of open and frank discussion which will help us to create a safer world. This does not minimize the serious challenges and tangible differences that exist within our world body politic. Those differences are real and will require hard work and a large dose of goodwill to overcome. Yet there is reason for optimism. And my country will not shirk the hard work or rationalist goodwill in our effort to deal with differences peacefully. And we call upon other nations to make the same commitment. For example, the United States wants nothing less than a realistic, constructive, long-term relationship with the Soviet Union, a relationship which would permit each of us to reduce, not increase the number of our weapons, especially those nuclear weapons which threaten all humanity. The ultimate goals of the United States are not so different now as 150 years ago when Andrew Jackson was president. And Jackson said, peace and friendly intercourse with all nations are as much the desire of our government as they are the interest of the people. In a time of nuclear bombs and overwhelmingly expensive weapons, President Jackson's words ring even more true today. The United States, as I will detail in my remarks tomorrow, is moving with renewed confidence and vigor in the arena of international affairs. We endeavor to further the prospects for peace, prosperity, and democracy, goals reflecting the desire and interest of our people. I'll be stressing our commitment to these goals throughout this week, starting already in meetings with heads of state and government today, and in my speaking tomorrow to the General Assembly and on Tuesday to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and with a number of other world leaders back in Washington. This intense diplomatic activity complements your own diplomatic efforts. The United States will continue through our much-admired Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick and others to be firm in advancing our interests and forceful in the advocacy of our democratic way of life. We will at the same time remain fair in approaching the interests of others. We expect nothing less of you. You should expect nothing less of us. The United States will continue to work in the United Nations to promote peace and international security, reconciliation among nations, economic prosperity, human rights, and the rule of law. Our own commitment to the goals of the Charter remains steadfast. One of the advantages of having the United Nations in our country is the advantage for us in that it gives you a chance to better understand the American people. When you return to your countries, I hope you will convey to them our best wishes. I wish you all success in your upcoming session.