Berkeley Recruiting Station

[Delfos]

military personnel, no matter how ranked they are, will never have as much rights as civil personnel, or at least they should never have, that's logical to all western civilizations, there may be some exceptions...for all cases I know the most, specially around Europe, a military beyond their duties has no citizenship rights, and they must be allowed by the ruling government to do anything in the civilian areas.

I can compare the Islamic Brotherhood recruitment system as legal as the USMC recruitment, they serve the same purpose. If you disallowed the Islamic Brotherhood to even exist because of your concern about terrorism (which they are officially not considered terrorists), so should Muslims disallow USMC from recruiting more men to slaughter those faithful followers of Allah.

[Myroria]

In America they are. And last time I checked, Berkeley is part of America.

And to compare the USMC to a bunch of terrorists is an insult. I don't care if Portugal's army's two soldiers are the most elite in the country, the USMC is the most modern and terrific fighting force since the Spartans and to call the Islamic Brotherhood on par with them is an insult to the fine men who saved our, and your, nation.

[Delfos]

You have been misinformed about the Islamic Brotherhood, they aren't a "bunch of terrorists", they're not even considered a terrorist organization by the US government. Although, they do use Islamic Brotherhood channels to recruit for Islamic terrorist organizations. Still the comparison would be the same, USMC kills Muslims, Islamic "terrorist organizations" kill Americans, I would say it's fair square.

Those "hippies" just tend to see there's no point in supporting military or killing Muslims/terrorists while Americans kill/steal/corrupt their land, it's a vicing circle, like Israeli military killing Palestinians. Either we all stop shooting each other, or it will only stop when one of the sides redeems themselves or is totally annihilated. I doubt we will ever be able to achieve redeeming or total annihilation by one of the parts involved in the current military problems, so it's logically simpler to just stop shooting each other and start to respect each other too.

[Xyrael]

Marines, the most terrific fighting force since the Spartans... oh hah hah hah. Hah. I call it the advantage of the American economy being able to produce superior hardware, and not the skills of the training. Marines are ignorant dumbasses who need a minimum score of something like 30% on their entry exam to join the marines. If they're so awesome then why haven't they solved the Iraqi problem, or found Osama (you know, the real reason we went to war).

Delfos, war doesn't end, there is never a victor. It just phases. Peace is time to reload your guns. Any man who thinks that one side will totally be annihilated forever is a bit naive (not saying you, saying those dumbasses who called the First World War the 'War to end all Wars')

Myro... If the USMC aren't on par with the Islamic terrorists but instead they're better, why haven't they won? They've had what, five years now? At least. Shit, World War One was fought in less time. If we push a decade it's gonna look exactly like the Soviets in Afghanistan I swear.

[Meridianland]

Since the invasion of iraq, as of this date,  82,078 – 89,573 civilians have died from violence there.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
(This is not taking into account deaths associated with the war.  Around 655,000 have died there since the war started that estimates say would have not otherwise died from things like disease that war causes.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html  The US government has previously estimated this number to be 50k.)

The USMC is a huge part of the US killing machine.  There are other parts of the military that do things like drop bombs and sniper away at distant targets, but Marines do a good portion of the killing grunt work.

To call any individual Marine a mass murderer is probably mistaken.  Even though we've heard alot of news about crazy soldiers that rape village women and kill the men, etc, most individual soldiers aren't like that.

But to think that The Marines is anything but a mass murdering machine is naive.  That's what it's designed to be.  Are there honorable individuals?  There sure are.  Does the institution have honorable goals?  Absolutely, within the context of a warring nation.  Is it mass murder?  If it isn't, it's not a far cry from that.  The US, in it's current role as world police, needs its military to be like that.

As far as those protesting hippies go: there are hella better ways to go about undermining the recruiting machine than hollering outside the office.  Education works great.

As far as whether that recruiting office has a right to be in that particular place:  if not there, then where?  It's gonna be somewhere.  Why not there?  If those hippies really care about this issue, they would be better off spending their time helping economically disadvantaged kids find better job prospects than the Marines.  Most people that join are just looking for training and better pay than they can get at Wendy's.

[Delfos]

Entirely true Meri, and more now than ever, they found their skills better suitable for private security, they're payed much more and they have more resources. Mercenaries, the army of the future lol

Still you haven't commented about the comparison to "terrorist organizations". Calling them terrorists is already a fashion word, like the old one Americans used to call "Communists". It's still used by kids like Myroria. Same thing, they're just selling a word to the public, and the public buys it quickly in US.

Yes, they're just following orders or complying with their duties, but then I would think it's more logical, more intelligent and more romantic if you follow your believes instead a command chain. Those "terrorists" are protecting their land, their property, their oil, their faith, what are USMC protecting? USA? I don't think so, it's an excuse to continue raping property in the middle east, and support corrupt governments.
I don't even know how corrupt they are, but being placed by the American democracy, just doesn't smell any good out of it, specially when oil keeps going around the world.

Thank god even Republicans acknowledge they can't have any more oil from there. I hope whoever wins starts some green revolution, US can't continue to spend more than 75% of the world's oil.

I agree with you, Xyrael, that there are no victors, but I believe it's possible to just stop shooting, I believe in Peace, US just has lack of friends right now due to the unbelievable foreign policy being practiced since Nixon, or even before. It's logically perceptive that US will always be a target of "terrorism", if you know history, you would know how pissed some people are, specially in the Middle East. It's time to start making friendships, apart from what US makes European countries of NATO join wars, we're in peace since WWII, it worked.

[Xyrael]

I doubt peace in Europe will last. The French, for all their good intentions, tend to be zealous for the cause of the EU. The British tend to oppose a true union with a Constitution, probably because the dude's got Bush's puppeteering hand so far up his ass. Russia is centralizing and developing advanced military hardware, and the youth are quite nationalistic if not nostalgiac. After two World Wars there would always be a long period of peace. Like there was in Germany after the 30 years war. People go to war when they get the idea their economy is better than their foe, and right now the US Economy can't be challenged by anyone. When it can, we'll have a true war. And the amount of wars fought around the world since World War 2 hasn't diminished, actually I'd argue it's increased since the Cold War and it's end with America as a superpower. In the 90's we had Balkan Wars, Kosovo War, the first gulf war, Somalia, Rwandan Genocide, Two Chechen Wars, Kargil War, First and Second Congo War, there's probably a few others if you want to count ongoing wars.

And meridianland, hippies already teach. Most teachers who teach liberal art are ex-hippies who participated in the previous anti-war movement and now teach students anti-war movements work even though there has never been a successful anti-war movement in US History.

BTW Delfos, a green revolution would force many millions of people into absolute poverty. The Middle East doesn't have a proper manufacturing economy, mostly relying on oil revenues. To abandon oil would put these countries into mass poverty they'd have trouble recovering from considering generally low education (beyond literacy). I'm against green revolutions. You know what's funny, the first car ever made (made in germany in the 1890's and looked like a horse drawn cart) ran off of vegetable oil. P.S. Russia produces 30% of the worlds oil.

[kor]

The US economy can't be challenged?!?!?!?!?! Are you mad?! Have you looked around lately? The economy is in the toilet. The USD is near collapse. When it does(and at the current rate of decline it will) the US will fall into a depression(not recession, we're already in one of those regardless of what we're told) with little hope of fast recovery. The US has no manufacturing base anymore. To gauge how well the Dollar is you only need to look at three things. Milk, bread, and eggs. These things are indicators and all I know is when I go into the grocery store I see milk at $4.09, bread at over $1, and eggs are $2 a dozen. Bad karma my friends. These three have skyrocketed in the past few years. Now OPEC says they haven't increased the price of oil in months and it's directely related to the falling dollar. Plus the dollar hit an all time low against the Yen today. The Yen! Silvers value jumped $1 to the USD in one day as well. The significance of that alone is astounding. So to say the US economy can't be challenged is ignorant and foolish.

[Delfos]

korni you're right but don't call him ignorant and foolish, I think he meant as strenght in the world's economy, there's 2 factors to base the western world's economy on, the British Brent and the American oil, and the dollar is still as green as before. True more and more countries tend to base their economy through Euro, but still USD has the upper hand...not for long. Yes I tried to discuss about preventing crash and how dollar was in decline, jerks, but anyway, here we are.

I don't think a green revolution will do that Xyrael, look at Iran, with all the embargo, they have plenty of oil, and the country is one of the most powerful economically in the region, driving it's population out of the common Middle Eastern gutter. The only ones profiting from the oil going around the world are the Saudi Arabia, and we're not just building fortunes over there, we're also financing terrorism and other foes.

Europe is fine, France has an unethical man in the power and as foreign minister, they're being advised by many European Union agents to be more careful with what they say and do. Germany ain't letting any war between members of the EU, and as I told before, UK is an exception of it, and all the tension with Russia is truly bilateral, unless we start counting with Bush's pressure to install missile silos in Poland among other American gadgets, now that is threatening European peace.
The Balkans is normal to had have those wars, they're all different, and when USSR was dismantled, they all wanted their own corner, happens Yugoslavia had too many corners, there's ethnic groups still yelling now to get land the size of a finger tip.
So any other military incident you mentioned was either caused directly/indirectly by USA, one of the reasons why there's so many people pissed, even in the Balkans. Split to rule, but don't forget MacDonald's will be a target of an angry mob.

[Mahasoor]

hippies already teach. Most teachers who teach liberal art are ex-hippies who participated in the previous anti-war movement and now teach students anti-war movements work even though there has never been a successful anti-war movement in US History.

Prove that statement, please.  I've  been in the liberal arts program for two degrees.  I may label some of my professors as washed up hippies but they're certainly not the norm in my experience and it's definitely not being openly taught in the classroom. 

[kor]

Delfos, I never called him ignorant and foolish. I said to believe that was ignorant and foolish. Also on the oil subject. Usually the rule is "The country who uses the most oil, wields the most power". The US no longer uses the most oil. China passed the US in oil consumption a while back.  Also, about preventing the collapse of the dollar. There is really only one way. The US needs to start by controlling it's spending, stop policing the world and change it's foreign policy. Then the US needs to change it's monetary policy by making competing currencies legal, reopen the treasury and print it's own money and let the people decide what money they want. Personally I am partial to the Gold Standard, but that requires a gold audit and when that happened many would be shocked when they learned we have no gold anymore. A Silver Standard would have to be the competing currency.

[Delfos]

Controlling it's spending? You mean cut wastes? Like cut down half of the presidency bs agents? free the military bases on foreign countries? green revolution includes cutting down waste, cut down oil consumption? cut down energy consumption? cut down water consumption? more public transport?

Maybe after this election...still doesn't seem that's going to happen soon.

Do you know why the Swiss are rich? They turn off the street lights after midnight, that's one in a billion saving actions they do.

[kor]

By control spending I meant recalling all foreign based troops, kill many of the needless Deparments, and kill subsidy programs.

[AWP_PSRDirector]

man this has gotten off topic, for me personally Competing currency FTL, to complicated, dont want it wont support it, and for any arguments supporting it, I could care less, they all are bad ones and mine is the best .

For protesting, they can protest in any public building or location dont need a permit, the day they do need one is the day this nation dies a bit more.

As for recruiters, Ive delt with them, They where at my high-school and every kid in school was forced to walk right in front of them every bloody day of school. And they tried to recruite me a few times, the last time I told them They could recruit me when I was dead and not a moment before then so bugger off.

as for the USMC Muscles are Required intelligence not Expected.

Also my friend in the Marines loved that one and he was die hard, not any more actually going greatly jaded him cause they where not a new sparten force or anything like that so he wasnt happy.

[Eientei]

I'm for pulling out of Iraq, but recalling all foreign-based troops seems a little extreme.  We just have to be much more measured in our military operations from now on.  Imagine how much we would have saved in the last five years if the Bush Administration hadn't been all FOREIGN IMPERIALIST ADVENTURE YIPPIE-KI-YAY on us.  What a bunch of jackasses.  I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but we really need to put the leading Administration officials and head neocon theorists who pushed these disastrous policies on trial and exile them from American soil forever.