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[Vector]

Yes, you're right.  Please tell me the truth.

You can do it in my Progressive Rage Thread, where all the other people I haven't made a space for don't get to talk about corruption and what's going on in this country, and instead just sit around being silent.

[Nadaka]

The fact is, America the way it is now isn't following the core beliefs of the original constitution and Bill of Rights.
The America you're thinking of is one not run by private interest groups, oil companies, and pharmaceutical agencies.
And for the beliefs of freedom, equality, and justice for all, I would gladly give my life for.

That is the difference between a nationalist and a patriot. The nationalist supports his nations action without regard to its idealistic failure. The patriot supports his nations ideals and seeks to shape its actions to match those ideals.

[LoneTophat]

The fact is, America the way it is now isn't following the core beliefs of the original constitution and Bill of Rights.
The America you're thinking of is one not run by private interest groups, oil companies, and pharmaceutical agencies.
And for the beliefs of freedom, equality, and justice for all, I would gladly give my life for.

That is the difference between a nationalist and a patriot. The nationalist supports his nations action without regard to its idealistic failure. The patriot supports his nations ideals and seeks to shape its actions to match those ideals.

Also; Nationalism is a double edged sword. Most folks just see it as a negative because our society has bred us to think of things like socialism as a vulgar word for a trouble maker. Really, it's dependent on finding a middle ground in all the issues, with most political theories. One isn't the bestest evar.

As the pendulum swings back and forth, our world suffers. That's my point. We need to find that equilibrium.

[Truean]

I think the important thing is the police in full riot gear walking in singles and small numbers through the crowd.  That is definitely a big no-no in crowd control, which to me is a sign that they are utterly confident in things not turning violent, that they're just following procedure.  The taking down tents is an interesting move, but I'll wait for a statement.

Hmm, now they're "seizing property", and uh oh, cheering just broke out.  I wish I could hear the PA.

Dome-tents are really hard to dismantle in a timely fashion.

I'm telling you guys.... (Edit: Please take that as a sort of friendly, joking tone). Permits, paperwork, support structure, getting attorneys on your side.... It has been seen to that they will remove neither the protesters, nor the tents in Cleveland . Let's say you've got a situation like Aqizzar mentioned where you have the city demanding $1,000,000 bond to give you a permit.... A good lawyer will know how to squeeze approval out of a city councilman or 8 by pointing out that all of those people vote.... It's not far off from using the more moral of the old ward boss tactics. Threaten them in an election year with a crapload of votes against them and they suddenly bend.... I've seen you guys use signed petitions.

If I had taken pictures of the looks on their faces and had 12 instead of 8 councilmen, I'd have a calendar made

Recent law school graduates are quite screwed. There's a potential gold mine of  a recruiting pool of younger people who know how to fill out paperwork like this.... At least you only want the ones who do....

[Bauglir]

China is stealing our jobs, is double crossing us as a supposed ally, much like Pakistan, and is most likely going to start another Cold War with the super powers of the world.

Okay, I am going to admit that this post is going to come off pretty condescendingly. For that, I apologize, but you used the words "stealing our jobs". I can no longer take you seriously because of that.

Now, to begin with, China is not stealing our jobs - Americans are selling those jobs to them because it is more cost-effective. This is how capitalism works, and it's a fairly major drawback. Americans can earn those jobs back, but we'll have to accept lives as basically slave labor. Note that it is, almost universally, American executives making the decision to construct factories in other nations, because it is more efficient and allows them to pass goods on to Americans at lower prices (something we, as a nation, demand). This applies to manufacturing, which is (I assume) what you're referring to. Now, if you're referring to research, you'll have to take it up with our failing education system. I, for one, am not going to fault China for not being completely moronic about schooling. If you're referring to service industries that don't require physical presence, you'll have to take it up with India. If you're referring to just about anything else, you're a crackpot. In short, this entire point assumes a couple of things that aren't true - the most important of which is that any other nation in the world should intentionally hurt itself just to avoid competition with the United States. Ally or no, that's just ridiculous.

Moving on to double crossing us, I'm afraid you're going to have to clarify that. Economically, China is as much or more dependent on the United States economy as the United States is on its, so that avenue of betrayal is absurd. Politically, I don't believe the United States has had very much in the way of differences with China lately, aside from on a variety of humanitarian issues (which can hardly be described as China betraying the United States so much as its own citizens) and the existence of Taiwan (which is basically a non-issue at this point) - I could be wrong on that, and RedKing could correct me if he's reading this thread, most likely. We probably have some native Chinese members as well.

As for a Cold War coming soon, I'm doubtful. I mean, I haven't seen any evidence of that, and I just plain don't know how to respond to that since it seems so off-the-wall. Could you post a link or two, I'm genuinely curious.

[Reiina]

China is stealing our jobs, is double crossing us as a supposed ally, much like Pakistan, and is most likely going to start another Cold War with the super powers of the world.

Okay, I am going to admit that this post is going to come off pretty condescendingly. For that, I apologize, but you used the words "stealing our jobs". I can no longer take you seriously because of that.

Now, to begin with, China is not stealing our jobs - Americans are selling those jobs to them because it is more cost-effective. This is how capitalism works, and it's a fairly major drawback. Americans can earn those jobs back, but we'll have to accept lives as basically slave labor. Note that it is, almost universally, American executives making the decision to construct factories in other nations, because it is more efficient and allows them to pass goods on to Americans at lower prices (something we, as a nation, demand). This applies to manufacturing, which is (I assume) what you're referring to. Now, if you're referring to research, you'll have to take it up with our failing education system. I, for one, am not going to fault China for not being completely moronic about schooling. If you're referring to service industries that don't require physical presence, you'll have to take it up with India. If you're referring to just about anything else, you're a crackpot. In short, this entire point assumes a couple of things that aren't true - the most important of which is that any other nation in the world should intentionally hurt itself just to avoid competition with the United States. Ally or no, that's just ridiculous.

Moving on to double crossing us, I'm afraid you're going to have to clarify that. Economically, China is as much or more dependent on the United States economy as the United States is on its, so that avenue of betrayal is absurd. Politically, I don't believe the United States has had very much in the way of differences with China lately, aside from on a variety of humanitarian issues (which can hardly be described as China betraying the United States so much as its own citizens) and the existence of Taiwan (which is basically a non-issue at this point) - I could be wrong on that, and RedKing could correct me if he's reading this thread, most likely. We probably have some native Chinese members as well.

As for a Cold War coming soon, I'm doubtful. I mean, I haven't seen any evidence of that, and I just plain don't know how to respond to that since it seems so off-the-wall. Could you post a link or two, I'm genuinely curious.

I was about to answer that same sentence when I saw your answer which was better than mine :p.
As for the labour condition in china, I have faith it will reach an equilibrium at some point. As more people get more money, they will require better working conditions(already starting to happen in some regions). Of course at the moment some of the working conditions are only slightly better than slavery...

And about china betraying the us I don't get it either. If anything they've played the capitalism game and won at it :p.

As for a coming war, the only one I can imagine is a war over resources, but as china is actively making alliances with african countries to ensure their supplies, I doubt they would be the ones to start it(especially since they're the ones getting the most benefits of the actual state of the world).

[Aqizzar]

Went by the Dallas place, but I didn't hang around, didn't look like much.  Their removal order has been pushed back to noon Sunday, and is still in court.  Their public permit has been revoked, pending them providing that million dollar insurance bond.  The problem seems to be that no qualified company is willing to offer a policy; their legal defense seems to be that being barred from public demonstration because they can't get a private insurance broker to do business with them is unlawfully onerous.

I also got steaming mad while driving around, because I was listening to my favorite local radio show, and the host started talking about the people there, and went off on a tirade about how anyone under 40 complaining about college debt or not being able to find a job is a filthy hippie.  His headline call-in guest was a wealthy immigrant from England who did make some good points about how ill-informed real hippies are (don't have to tell me anything), but refused to see a distinction between the one bong-smoking anarchist he ran into and the other two hundred people.

[Andrew425]

I think one of the main problems are that you are viewing the bankers as one homogeneous group and they are looking at you the same.

I think the main problem for the protesters will be to continue to claim the moral high ground like the tea party did until they got taken over by the extremists.

[Chaoswizkid]

As for the whole revolution thing, I honestly can't begin to see it. At least not at this stage. That's being way too optimistic about how many people who support the Occupy Protests align with your personal ideology. I'd have to say there's a incredibly small portion of true anarchists (which is, in my opinion, a horrible idea since we don't live in a perfect world), an incredibly small portion of Communists, etc. There might be political reform, but the government will remain a democracy. There might be economic reform, but Capitalism will still be a large factor. Anything less than that is a softer 'revolution', which then depends on your own definition.

As for the idea of a new Cold War between USA and China...  well, I was going to call complete BS on that (China doesn't want to mess with us, and we don't want to mess with them), but I can't since you didn't say just 'war'. I think a 'Cold War' is possible. There has been a lot of talks about trade/economic wars and there has been some progress in US National Defense agencies to realize that cyber-attacks are a definite threat and a lot of the danger there comes from China (or whoever reeeaaalllly loves running connections through China). However, the likelihood that it will be as intense as the actual Cold War is very, very small. No one likes M.A.D. unless it's inevitable, and the world is a far more global place now that the internet is so dominant. If things really get that dangerous, you'll definitely see a much stronger populist movement: "THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? PLAY NICE OR WE'LL STEAL YOUR SHINY CHAIR. WE REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME." If it's between the US and China, both governments would be susceptible to that. China operates under a more Communistic "People's Republic", and if all the people are saying that they don't want to be a part of it, then the concept becomes self-defeating (Whether or not the government is more closely aligned to the original concept or not is debatable). America is susceptible due to the Democracy and the strong ideological foundation "Of the people, by the people, for the people."

[mainiac]

As for a coming war, the only one I can imagine is a war over resources, but as china is actively making alliances with african countries to ensure their supplies, I doubt they would be the ones to start it(especially since they're the ones getting the most benefits of the actual state of the world).

Those alliances wouldn't count for a fart in the event of a resource war.  You have to cross a lot of water to sail from China to Africa and there are a lot of american friendly countries in between.  China isn't making those alliances in case of war, they are making them in case of peace.

[sluissa]

As for a coming war, the only one I can imagine is a war over resources, but as china is actively making alliances with african countries to ensure their supplies, I doubt they would be the ones to start it(especially since they're the ones getting the most benefits of the actual state of the world).

Those alliances wouldn't count for a fart in the event of a resource war.  You have to cross a lot of water to sail from China to Africa and there are a lot of american friendly countries in between.  China isn't making those alliances in case of war, they are making them in case of peace.

Wait what? I suppose you've got India, arguably. And maybe one or two middle eastern countries which could change their mind at any time, but since when is water a barrier to trade? Last I checked a water route is the most efficient way to transport large amounts of goods and the distance between China and Africa by water is less, by about a thousand miles if you can do something as simple as cut across Myanmar. (Not really sure what those relations are like.) Even if not, it's only about 800 miles more than US to Africa to go completely around Malaysia by water. Still, we're talking about roughly 5000 miles in these cases. China and the US already regularly trade across distances greater than 6000 miles over the Pacific.

Now, if you're talking military presence. Well. That old idea of water being a serious barrier to warfare is a bit old now. Either China or the US could airlift an entire base almost anywhere in the world in less than a day or two, giving themselves a beachhead almost anywhere they want, within reason. Granted, the US probably has a bit more experience with it by now, so it might go a bit smoother, but both countries are completely capable of doing it. I doubt any sort of serious fighting will occur though. There's too much money wrapped up in it all to start fighting. hostile negotiations, maybe, even some covert stuff, but I doubt open warfare.

[mainiac]

800 miles might as well be the other end of the universe for their odds of beating the american navy in the middle of the Indian ocean.  Close to shore Chinese air power would chase away the big scary american navy.  But that stops working once you go past Taiwan, Indonesia, etc.  The only possible projection they have into the Indian ocean would be their  attack submarines.  Decent submarines at that, but subs are neither used for nor capable of protecting surface shipping from air power across hundreds of miles of open water.

So if a hypothetical resource war breaks out between the US and China, on day 1, all traffic between China and Africa stops.

[sluissa]

800 miles might as well be the other end of the universe for their odds of beating the american navy in the middle of the Indian ocean.  Close to shore Chinese air power would chase away the big scary american navy.  But that stops working once you go past Taiwan, Indonesia, etc.  The only possible projection they have into the Indian ocean would be their  attack submarines.  Decent submarines at that, but subs are neither used for nor capable of protecting surface shipping from air power across hundreds of miles of open water.

So if a hypothetical resource war breaks out between the US and China, on day 1, all traffic between China and Africa stops.

Again, I say, I seriously doubt any major battles would happen between the US and China and all China would have to do to continue shipping even in that case would be to reflag any Chinese flagged vessels. (An extremely easy task). At that point, only a complete blockade of the entire Chinese coastline would be effective. Even then, any bordering nation sympathetic to China (or dependent economically) could potentially allow the ships to dock there to unload their goods for further transport into China.

The US does have substantial naval power, but it's hardly enough to carry out what you suggest and even if they tried, there would be significant international backlash.

Even during the Cold War you rarely saw freight vessels interrupted by either side. If they were, it was more to be a nuisance than anything else, stopping, inspecting, wasting their time. (Edit: I believe international law forbids military action against civilian vessels as long as they aren't carrying military personnel or supplies. I could be wrong though, and it's arguable how enforceable it'd be if it came up.)

A much more likely scenario would be both sides building up chosen factions within Africa. Much as was seen during the Cold War. In these cases, it'd be possibly Americans fighting Chinese backed African forces. Or Chinese fighting American backed African forces. Or likely American backed African forces fighting Chinese backed African forces. Naturally these scenarios all make me grimace at the complete immorality of it all, but it's been done before...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahadeen#US.2C_Pakistani_and_other_financing_and_support

I still think we're a long way from any sort of war of that kind.

Back on topic: What're everyone's plans for Oct 15th? I've got somethings to take care of, so even if there were any sizable organized event in my area, I'd probably not be able to do much, but I'll keep my eye out tomorrow and if I have any spare time and see anything going on, I might stop.

[SalmonGod]

I'll be at work 

But I'll be following events closely all day

---

A couple updates.

Attempts to evict protesters are heating up at various locations.  Mass confiscation of property has happened in at least two other locations in the day following the Denver incident.  San Diego aaaand I can't find it now, but I'm pretty sure I saw New Jersey.  There are rumors that mayors are coming under direct pressure from corporate sponsors to start cracking down.

The police are starting to get actually brutal in NY.  I thought the police were misbehaving the first few weeks, but nothing really terrible.  Now apparently there have been multiple incidents of ramming into people with their bikes.  In the most personal attack by an officer I've seen so far, one white-shirt walked up behind a protester, tapped him on the shoulder, and then punched him in the face... hard.  The two people were immediately swarmed by protesters and cops... dozens of cameras... and there was a brief tug of war over the poor guy who got punched, which the protesters won.

Seems like things are escalating.

Also, it looks like a bunch of arrests were eventually made at that Denver raid, three hours after it had begun... which they probably thought was enough time for a good portion of the live viewers to lose interest (worked on me).

[mainiac]

Again, I say, I seriously doubt any major battles would happen between the US and China and all China would have to do to continue shipping even in that case would be to reflag any Chinese flagged vessels. (An extremely easy task).

What exactly would that accomplish?  The US would still impound all the vessels at sea.  And if there was an actual shooting war going on nobody would be the least bit surprised.  That's the way things are done.  It doesn't even matter if the vessels are Chinese, if they are shipping wartime supplies, they are belligerents and are subject to wartime seizure.

The geopolitics of a resource war are completely outside the international norms of today.  We live in an age of relatively high cooperation and that's why things like seizing other nations shipping leads to outcry.  If the geopolitical order broke down and there was an actual shooting war, those rules would no longer exist.  It's those rules that allow for things like changing the flag to actually have any relevance.

In fact, changing a flag has even less importance then it used to.  Once upon a time, you wouldn't know where a ship was going or what it carried without having special information or performing a search.  But that information is readily accessible now and every ship on the sea could easily be tracked by satellite.  So where before there were the consequences of antagonizing mistargeted neutrals, with modern capabilities, the US is capable of tracking exactly what cargo is going where.  Not even the US even.  Any blue water navy would be capable of cutting off a huge amount of enemy traffic on the open seas.