Thanks for the reply choggie. I know that my last comment was curt and provocative, but I can elaborate on what I was getting at.

I re-read your post, and I can't eek out anything besides a rehashing of tired arguments against globalization. Yes, I'm projecting a little bit, but you've alluded to an increasingly common reactionary position. If you can be more specific about who your post is aimed at I can make a more constructive comment.

When I write "global economic development", I mean development for anyone and everyone in the world. Granting greater access to worldwide markets is one way to achieve this, but it's a nuanced process which I can't go into further without writing an essay (I'd be glad to offer links though).

You wrote that you hate seeing "MADE IN CHINA", and that "We can no longer abide, your manufacture and distribution of useless plastic crap". Those parts in particular are why your claim that China is outside the blast radius of your rant is a stretch. It was in poor taste for me to use the x-word, but I honestly don't know of a word that means "undirected fear of other countries' economic growth".

Lamenting that people buy large volumes of low quality goods is a fine thing to rant about, so why not stop there?

Xenophobic?? Big word used subjectively by someone who thinks they know when to apply it's meaning, and implying incorrectly here, that I don't love Chinese folks.....No fissionchip, that word you toss about smugly in an attempt to conveniently label, does not apply here.

I hate seeing "MADE IN CHINA" on anyting....the stuff of any value made by Chinese, has no such stamp or injection-molded raised letters.....
The power to exercise one's freedom of choice with regards to where they place their investments, be they small or large, is a manipulated confabulation. The availability of goods and services to Americans, the result of feeding the corporate beast is the reason why availability of quality merchandise and service is the exception, rather than the rule.

Your phrase, "Global economic development" with regards to what I am talking about, borders on oxi-moronic. Development for whom, and to what end??

We have the power, as the people who slave for shit-tickets, to demand more from ourselves, and our herders. They suck, and we don't. Always remember that, the measure of a man is not how much monopoly money is represented in a ledger.....money has NO value. Especially if the Fed printed it......

If I had my way, we'd start reshaping government, by actively disrupting the economy.

>> ^choggie:
If anyone is to blame, it's the wide-asleep masses who have all the power and give it away, having been groomed to do so.

Blame for what? Also, calling global economic development 'giving up power' is a tad bit xenophobic, don't you think?

It's a system, youse guys. The bastard-stepchild of the insanity of a world being force-fed another system, that of global economic conformity.....this is a great time in human history, we get a front row seat to some very interesting cause and effect. Imagine a world controlled by an elite few.....be they Scientologists or hidden financiers, out of control military governments, etc., everyone of these defects of the human condition have their symptomology, and recognizable patterns, and all are as dangerous as Ol Adolf, Joe Stalin or Jim Jones....

The simple truth contained in all world religions, "Love yer neighbor as yerself??...that shit never stops being the most succinct truth on the planet. We're doomed I tells ya, cause we never remember how to clean up after ourselves.......

Military escalation would only be viewed as an expansion of the forces, you do forget that while here in the west we put up with rhetoric, Iraqis are the ones who see massive military bases established in the Iraqi green zones. It would only drive more people into militias and various insurgent forces, the American presence creates this, there is a common enemy to attack by all sides.

From our perspective it looks like we are helping them out, but you forget that Iraqis were welcoming coalition forces in 1991, only to see them stop, pull back impose sanctions and empower Saddam to the point that you had to be in support of him or face certain death. Saddam is gone, the Americans are sticking around, Haliburton is making billions, while we are losing valuable voluntary troops. What's more sickening is that military presence is now little based on honor or duty, but economic reasons, going to small cities and communities to people who have nothing and hunting them down to recruit them into the army. Blackwater and other PMCs run around Iraq with no Army R.O.E. oversight or rules, they can take up any offensive position against Iraqis, the rules of the army don't apply to them.

More forces, more bullish positions would only strengthen and create the very Islamic army against the west. The only reason the American goverment will never pullout or do anything on it's own within this administration would be admitting defeat in their eyes, working multilaterally seems like such a horrible idea. However the fast pace of global economic interlinking must force the American people to reconsider their position, there is a chance now for a possible turnaround, but it will not happen, it takes a certain man to try and recover what has happened and that man is not in the White house. Nor has any candidate really proven themselves so much either.