With regard to the OP's comments, sure China is gunning for the west. They need the resources. Money be damned, if you have rocks trees and water you have it all.

But the real war is being waged through commerce. With all of the money that is owed to China, what if China decides to swap the port of Baltimore, or Seattle for loan forgiveness? Or maybe they get Alaska. Or maybe they just buy a few major companies like Exxon Mobil.

China has tried to buy the tar sands in Alberta and Noranda Forest Products. If offered enough money, the capitalist businessman would sell his mother, and his country down the river.

Say what you will about government regulation being a bad thing, but there are times when the government needs to get in the way of capitalism.

You've got my attention, Rank. That's a piece of the puzzle that is missing for me right now. Oh sure, I know about individuals- Danny Jowenko, the one Frenchman, Hufschmidt a German?, others... what I haven't come across is the sense that the everyman in all these various countries are looking at those buildings thinking to themselves, 'damn, who blew them up!?' Or, maybe they have an idea...

The evidence is so clear and abundant to me, it sure seems like it would be clear to all the rest of the world. I just haven't heard it, though.

I've heard from fair atheists before, and you aren't fair, Rank. Someone brought up the Bible in regard to the Palestinian conflict and a lot of people scoffed. The Jewish atheist Norman Finkelstein was the person being addressed, and he kind of backed everyone off a little, saying he wasn't a believer himself but that he had respect for those who are. It was really awesome. He doesn't believe, but he was touched and he saw fit to defend the individual who did.

Rank, you're no Norman Finkelstein :P GMAN expressed no desire to MAKE anyone believe anything.

I believe there is only one true God. Then again, I suppose anything that you worship is a god. The thing about this country is that we have freedom of religion. We are free to worship any way we see fit, or not.

I am not saying that we don't need any government regulations. In order for a society to function we need laws that all must abide. Government should serve the people rather than the people serving the government. We have such a bloated government that we are ceasing to effectively function as a nation. Unless we start cutting the size of this government, and quickly, we may not have a country much longer. A debtor soon becomes the slave to the lender.

lowrange, as was explained to me, the great wall of china was built to keep Tibet out. It was their insistence on trade with the chineze, that china didn't want...

It seems Tibetans could out-organize, out-maneuver and out-think the chineze, with great success. I don't know the real history, but this fellow seemed to know his stuff.

GMAN, I've struggled trying to identify the turning point for the USA, going from greatness to great decline. I've always thought it was the mid-60's.

On reflection, I think that is when my young mind started to recognize the visible evidence, regardless of the Big Media reports.

Our house burned, and we rebuilt. I remember watching the Kennedy funeral on TV, as we started moving into the new house. More and more, I believe things were not as presented.

As for clinton, I too would not be surprised that he got a little of the gdp, under the table, for giving the chineze that technology. It was no open secret that the clintons viewed the military as house boys.

To top it off, I think the chineze also control the Panama Canal, now....

I recently did a job for fema. I left the trailer at their hotel, for a couple of days, then relocated to a highly visible spot at a truckstop.

For a couple of days after relocating, I noticed a few un-marked cars filled with technology, just a few feet away. One SUV repositioned in the lot, a couple of times. Otherwise, I would have paid any attention to him.

If you pay attention, you will see a lot of gov't vehicles. They aren't bothering the public, yet....

But, I think you are almost right, regarding homeland security. Plus, fema and other agencies.
I think that bite in the butt is going be very noticeable - sooner rather than later.

We The People are gov't servants, now.
That is an indisputable fact.
Not only are the Establishment politicians raising taxes, at every level of gov't, the heavy hand of gov't oppresses us citizens, while giving a free pass, if not out right support, to illegal aliens.

Beware the heavy hand of gov't.

There were several events which occurred during the 1960's that effected this country like no other time in our history. The Vietnam War was paramount with most people. Thousands of people died. It was not a popular war. There were 3 assassinations which greatly touched people. JFK was the youngest president in history, as I recall. He had a young wife and 2 small children. His brother Robert was also assassinated while running for President under mysterious circumstances. Another was Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a Baptist minister in Atlanta and started the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960's. All three were young and assassinated during the prime of their career's. All three had young wives and small children. These events happened during a very short time frame. Most of us still have questions concerning the facts, as presented by our government. Some of the explanations given simply don't make sense. We were also lied to about things that were going on in Vietnam. So many events in such a short period of time and he explanations we were given make many of us very distrustful of our government. Events since that time have reinforced our distrust. Lyndon Johnson was Vice President under JFK. He escalated the Vietnam War and started an unprecedented growth in the government with his massive welfare spending programs.

I am no Fink, nor am I an amethyst but I am open minded. As I recall, the honourable Gman posted a theory that people look to Government when they should be looking to God. I thought this was a bit presumptuous. That is all.

The Great Wall was built to keep the Mongols out. Mongolia is north of China. Tibet is in the SW of China in the Himalayas.

Today, neither Tibet nor Mongolia poses any kind of military threat to China. Sure, some Tibetans want to separate from China, just as some Muslim Uighurs want to separate in Western China. Like I said, though, it is the Han Chinese (the core group of China's 53 ethnic groups) who have overrun Tibet, and the Tibetans have little power.

I don't know what you mean by amethyst.

GMAN and I both believe people should ulitimately look to God for their answers, we prefer that government be limited to those functions that people can't do individually (police force, roads, national defense, courts...) It's our personal opinion that people should look to God, I'm sure GMAN agrees with me that you can't make anyone do that.