“Major changes” in Beijing’s national security situation
Paul Joseph Watson
The recent spate of bellicose militaristic rhetoric emanating out of Chinese state media has continued in the form of a 7,500 word Xinhua editorial which outlines how Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for war.
Image: Chinese Troops (Wikimedia Commons).
According to a summary of the editorial, China’s “Mission Action 2013″ exercise was part of a move, “to deepen preparations for potential conflict to ensure that the troops are ready if called upon not only to fight, but to win.”
President Xi’s increased number of visits to PLA military zones over the past year are part of military reforms in order “to prepare his troops in the event of war,” the editorial stated.
The editorial cited the threats posed by Japan over the disputed Senkaku Islands, domestic terrorist attacks, and the increased US military presence in the Asia Pacific. These issues have caused “major changes” in China’s national security situation and warrant strengthening and increasing the “battle-readiness” of the PLA.
As we have highlighted, via its media mouthpieces, Beijing has recently engaged in a spate of announcements and commentaries that observers have noted for their aggressively jingoistic tone.
After Chinese state-run media released a map showing the locations of major U.S. cities and how they would be impacted by a nuclear attack launched from the PLA’s strategic submarine force, follow-up reports bragged of how China’s new H-6K strategic bomber can target US military bases in the Western Pacific with nuclear missiles.
Following discussion in state media about plans to to turn the moon into a Star Wars-style “death star” from which the PLA could launch missiles against any target on Earth, a display to promote China’s Jade Rabbit Moon rover also included a background photograph of a mushroom cloud over Europe.
China has becoming increasingly irate over the United States’ growing presence in the East China Sea and recently retaliated by sailing a surveillance ship through Hawaiian waters for the very first time in an unprecedented and provocative move.
Earlier this month, a PLA military website also bragged that China’s first aircraft carrier combat task force was close to rivaling the U.S. Navy.
Following up on the latest stunning revelations released yesterday by German Spiegel which exposed the spy agency's 50 page catalog of "backdoor penetration techniques", today during a speech given by Jacob Applebaum (@ioerror) at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress, a new bombshell emerged: specifically the complete and detailed description of how the NSA bugs,remotely, your iPhone. The way the NSA accomplishes this is using software known as Dropout Jeep, which it describes as follows: "DROPOUT JEEP is a software implant for the Apple iPhone that utilizes modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality. This functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted."
The flowchart of how the NSA makes your iPhone its iPhone is presented below:
NSA ROC operator
Load specified module
Send data request
iPhone accepts request
Retrieves required SIGINT data
Encrypt and send exfil data
Rinse repeat
And visually:
What is perhaps just as disturbing is the following rhetorical sequence from Applebaum:
"Do you think Apple helped them build that? I don't know. I hope Apple will clarify that. Here's the problem: I don't really believe that Apple didn't help them, I can't really prove it but [the NSA] literally claim that anytime they target an iOS device that it will succeed for implantation. Either they have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning that they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves. Not sure which one it is. I'd like to believe that since Apple didn't join the PRISM program until after Steve Jobs died, that maybe it's just that they write shitty software. We know that's true."
Or, Apple's software is hardly "shitty" even if it seems like that to the vast majority of experts (kinda like the Fed's various programs), and in fact it achieves precisely what it is meant to achieve.
How ironic would it be if Blackberry, left for dead by virtually everyone, began marketing its products as the only smartphone that does not allow the NSA access to one's data (and did so accordingly). Since pretty much everything else it has tried has failed, we don't see the downside to this hail mary attempt to strike back at Big Brother and maybe make some money, by doing the right thing for once.
We urge readers to watch the full one hour speech by Jacob Applebaum to realize just how massive Big Brother truly is, but those who want to just listen to the section on Apple can do so beginning 44 minutes 30 seconds in the presentation below.
In America today, there are close to 50 million people living in poverty and there are more than 100 million people that get money from the federal government every month. As the middle class disintegrates, poverty is climbing tounprecedented levels. Even though the stock market has been setting record high after record high, the amount of anger and frustration boiling just under the surface in our nation grows with each passing day. And now extended unemployment benefits have been cut off for 1.3 millionunemployed Americans, and it is being projected that a total of 5 million unemployed Americans will lose their benefits by the end of 2014. In addition, as I have written about previously, 47 million Americans recently had their food stamp benefits reduced. The conditions for a "perfect storm" are certainly being created. So how much longer will it be until we see all of this anger and frustration boil over in the streets of our major cities? Is America about to reach a breaking point?
If you think that the title of this article is "alarmist", you probably have not been paying attention to what has been happening over the past few weeks. For example, a 600 person brawl broke out at at movie theater in Jacksonville, Florida just the other day...
Five teenagers were arrested when a 600-person brawl broke out in a Florida movie theater’s parking lot on Christmas night.
Described by police as a “melee,” the fight occurred around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday outside the Hollywood River City 14 movie theater in Jacksonville when a group tried to storm the theater’s doors without purchasing tickets, police said. Several had rushed an off-duty police officer working as a security guard.
The officer “administered pepper spray to disperse the group, locked the doors and called for backup, following protocol,” said Lauri-Ellen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Soon after the pepper spray was used, “upward of 600 people moving throughout a parking lot about the size of a football field began fighting, disrupting and jumping on cars,” she said.
And a "flash mob" of "400 crazed teens" was so violent that it forced a mall in Brooklyn to shut down just a few days ago...
A wild flash mob stormed and trashed a Brooklyn mall, causing so much chaos that the shopping center was forced to close during post-Christmas sales, sources said Friday.
More than 400 crazed teens — who mistakenly thought the rapper Fabolous would perform — erupted into brawls all over Kings Plaza Shopping Center in Mill Basin on Thursday at 5 p.m., sources said.
The troublemakers looted and ransacked several stores as panicked shoppers ran for the exits and clerks scrambled to pull down metal gates.
In addition, the release of new Air Jordan sneakers caused mini-riots and brawls to break out all over the country just before Christmas.
So why is all of this happening?
Of course people will come up with all sorts of theories to explain these outbreaks of violence, but what pretty much everyone should be able to agree on is that we are seeing levels of anger and frustration rise to very dangerous levels in this country.
Right now, there are approximately 6 million Americans in the 16 to 24-year-old age group that are not in school and that are not working either. What that means is that we have an alarmingly high number of very frustrated young people that do not have anything better to do than to cause trouble.
In some of our largest cities this has become a massive problem. In fact, quite a few major U.S. cities actually have more than 100,000 "idle youth" living in them…
Just look at some of the nation’s largest cities. Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Riverside, Calif., all have more than 100,000 idle youth, the Opportunity Nation report found.
But the Obama administration says that this should not be a problem. In fact, the Obama administration tells us that the unemployment rate has been steadily "declining" and that there are plenty of opportunities for everyone.
Of course that is a giant lie. Just before the last recession, about 63 percent of all working age Americans had a job. During the recession that number fell below 59 percent and it has stayed there ever since...
So the notion that we are experiencing an "employment recovery" is absolutely laughable.
But most of our politicians appear to believe this lie, and it is being used as justification to cut off extended unemployment benefits.
And the funny thing is that by cutting off these benefits, it is going to make it appear as though unemployment has gone down even more. Millions of unemployed workers that are being forced into the streets will now be counted as having "left the labor force", and it is being projected that the unemployment rate could decline by as much as half a percentage point as a result.
What a joke.
A lot of the people that are having their benefits cut off are really hurting. For instance, consider the case of 63-year-old paralegal Laura Walker...
“Not all of us have savings and a lot of us have to take care of family because of what happened in the economy,” said Walker, of Santa Clarita, who said she has applied for at least three jobs a week and shares an apartment with her unemployed son, his wife and two children. “It’s going to put my family and me out on the streets.”
So what is she going to do?
Well, at this point she appears to be down to just one option...
“I just don’t know what to do, except pray.”
And of course the unemployed are not the only ones that have had their benefits cut. As I mentioned above, all 47 million Americans that are currently on food stamps recently had their benefits reduced. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Mac Slavo...
Earlier this year government benefits for nutritional assistance were reduced after the expiration of emergency legislation that was enacted following the 2008 financial collapse. Nearly all of the 48 million people receiving food stamp distributions were affected. The move led to warnings from food pantries and recipients around the country who said that the $40 billion in cuts would leave many American families without the ability to put food on dinner tables across America. According to Feed America, the roughly $29 per family that would no longer appear on their EBT cards will amount to about1.5 billion meals in 2014.
The fact that government dependence has soared to all-time highs even in the midst of this so-called "economic recovery" is just another sign that the middle class is dying. For years, middle class families have tried strategy after strategy in an attempt to survive, but now it has become apparent that the middle class is rapidly approaching a breaking point...
Rising income inequality is starting to hit home for many American households as they run short of places to reach for a few extra bucks.
As the gap between the rich and poor widened over the last three decades, families at the bottom found ways to deal with the squeeze on earnings. Housewives joined the workforce. Husbands took second jobs and labored longer hours. Homeowners tapped into the rising value of their properties to borrow money to spend.
Those strategies finally may have run their course as women’s participation in the labor force has peaked and the bursting of the house-price bubble has left many Americans underwater on their mortgages.
And even though the Obama administration and the mainstream media have tried to convince us over and over that the economy is "getting better", most Americans are not buying it. In fact, according to a newCNN poll, 70 percent of all Americans believe that "the economy is generally in poor shape".
As the economy continues to decline, not all Americans will respond to their desperate situations by getting violent. Many suffer quietly, hoping that things will eventually turn around for them. Unfortunately, the ranks of the suffering grow with each passing year. For example, a recentCNN article discussed the continued growth of "tent cities" all over America...
The total number of homeless people residing in tents and makeshift homes is unknown. Many of these communities are small and hidden from public view, while others claim hundreds of residents and are sprinkled through major urban areas.
Some, like those tucked under roadways, are temporary and relocate frequently. Their conditions are vile, unsanitary and fail to provide refuge from storms and winds. Then there are communities, such as Dignity Village in Portland, Oregon, that have a more sustained presence. The 13-year-old "ecovillage" set up by homeless people is hygienic and self-sufficient.
Preliminary findings by The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty show that tent cities have been documented in almost every state, and they're growing.
So how do we solve these problems?
Are there any solutions that could get us out of this mess?
Of course there are. But don't hold your breath waiting for any of them to be adopted. In fact, the American people continue to express great support for the very people that got us into this mess in the first place. For example, according to a Gallup survey that was just released, Barack Obama is the most admired man in America by a very wide margin and Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America by a very wide margin.
And the mainstream media will continue to tell all of us that "leaders" like Obama, Clinton, Reid, Boehner, McConnell and Pelosi can be trusted to get us out of this mess.
If you believe that, there is a bridge that I would like to sell you.
The American people need to stop having blind faith in the relentless propaganda that is being spewed at them through their televisions screens. The pretty faces that you see "reporting the news" do not care about you and they are not watching out for your best interests. Thecorporate-controlled news is highly scripted and it is pretty much the same whatever channel you turn to. If you have any doubt that "the news" is scripted, just check out this video...
WARNING: On top of the GMO high fructose corn syrup,the ingredients inside this imitation fruit beverage pose the risk of forming a known carcinogen inside the bottle – just waiting for you to drink it.
It’s been more than 20 years since the FDA and beverage industry first learned that sodium benzoate and citric acid or ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) can create the carcinogen benzene while in the bottle together. The public was informed just seven years ago, and yet, many makers of artificial fruit drinks and sodas still frequently (and shamefully) use these ingredients in this risky combination on the market today, or with variant formulas like potassium benzoate, which has the same effect.
The soda companies and the FDA knew back in the early 1990s; the public didn’t find out until it made headlines in 2006 that these ingredients were creating a public health hazard no one wanted to address.
Supporting evidence: From the American Chemical Society in 1993 – Benzene production from decarboxylation of benzoic acid in the presence of ascorbic acid and a transition-metal catalyst. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf00029a001
Meanwhile, the same ingredient – added to your food as a preservative – also poses another admitted risk: the 40-year-old thesis that artificial color dyes & additives – including sodium benzoate – were making kids hyperactive and/or ADHD and irritating allergies was officially confirmed and publicly recognized, prompting EU bans, in the 2007 Southampton study.
Supporting evidence:
Sodium Benzoate, Artificial Colors & ADHD/Hyperactivity in Children: Key Southampton Study from 2007 – Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607613063/abstract
Artificial Food Colorings & Benzoate Preservative, from 2004: The effects of a double blind, placebo controlled, artificial food colourings and benzoate preservative challenge on hyperactivity in a general population sample of preschool children. http://adc.bmj.com/content/89/6/506.short
This artificial beverage – one of the least enlightened products anywhere on store shelves, and marketed directly to Hispanics already at a higher risk for food-derived health decline – not only gives its customer base the literal formula for creating benzene, a known toxin, inside the bottle [sodium benzoate + citric acid + ascorbic acid (Vitamin C extract likely derived from corn)], but it also provides consumers with every opportunity for hyperactivity with ingredients Yellow #5 & Yellow #6 and sodium benzoate all in one batch, as well as every opportunity for obesity, diabetes, et al. via the ‘contains no juice’ yet filled with loads of high fructose corn syrup approach to refreshment.
With ingredients this good, why not just go into a science lab and guzzle down any random yellow liquid you find?
Further supporting evidence on this complex social issue may help address several concerns with no easy answer (or alternately no easy solution):
Should oligopolistic cartels control the “free market”? Should Michael Bloomberg lead the way in dictatorial nanny state calorie control just because the majority of the food supply is laced with dangerous additives? Should U.S. taxpayers be forced to subsidize GMO corn & soy by the billions, along with filthy, toxic CAFO feedlots to produce beef & chicken, etc. et al. and pay Big Agra to effectively poison the population?SLAVE MARKET FOODS: Studies, and a bit of common sense, show that classifications on the socio-economical scale such as low income, inner city and/or ethnic minority [Hispanic/Black] predisposes consumers (who are equal under the law to protections against harm) to diabetes, obesity and other health risks as grocery stores in their area tend to sell lower qualities foods while food producers price high quality (or even halfway decent) foods out of reach.
Choosing to eat unhealthy junk foods rather then choosing healthy foods and living a healthy lifestyle at the individual level may be important and significant to the outcome of our life’s work, but there is no denying that the system is making a lot of these choices for people without their consent or full knowledge.
The poverty cycle cannot be explained just by irresponsible individuals; clearly many sectors of society are trapped in it, and a market-driven conspiracy to keep them down with shitty food is apparent. Sadly, this is a de facto reality, no matter whether “the elite” have planned it this way, or just failed to correct it…
Planned or not, there are clearly elements of dumbing down the population through diet, essentially social engineering sectors of the population to create a strata of efficient worker bees, subservient functionaries and helpless hoards of jellyfish consumers through targeted metabolisms (just as the queen bee is fed royal jelly all her life, and the drones and workers only get royal jelly in the first days of their lives…) that change the character of people and malnourish thoughts of liberation and creative prosperity.
Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so. – Lord Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society(1951)Humans are capable of so much more, but the diet modern society has lived off of will not allow the population to attain this potential. Instead, people are treated as human capital/cattle. Think about it… you are what you eat holds as true as ever!
Aaron Dykes is a co-founder of TruthstreamMedia.com, where this first appeared. As a writer, researcher and video producer who has worked on numerous documentaries and investigative reports, he uses history as a guide to decode current events, uncover obscure agendas and contrast them with the dignity afforded individuals as recognized in documents like the Bill of Rights.
