"I think the Iraq is better off with the U.S. there as opposed with S.H."

The US and UN are responsible are responsible for the deaths of some 1.5 million Iraqis (over 10,000 alone from the current excursion). Hussein could only have wet dreams about those figures.

"The U.S. could have become a empire to battle the Spanish, English, or the Russians."

The United States has been an empire of sorts since 1898 when we had are first blatantly imperialist war as opposed to the generally expansionist ones we had before. We have military bases in over 100 countries, have veto power in the only international politcal organization with representation worldwide and control the world's two largest lending institutions. What's not an empire about that?

"Tell me if i'm wrong... if Greenpeace (and their surporters) bought chunks of Ford, Exxon, or Wal-Mart, could they not change thing things faster than politics?"

You're wrong (in my not particulary humble opinion). The problem of it is systemic. Corporations are not democratic, they're tyrannies (Wal-Mart doesn't really apply because it's not publicly traded and cannot be bought into). It's kind of like trying to change the military from the inside. If you are not interested in perpertuating a system, you probably will not succeed in that system. There's a principle in physics called The Principle of Asymmetric Transitions. A simplification would translate itself as such: Systems tend to move towards perpetuating efficiency which is generally applicable to economic systems and sub-systems like public corporations. Systems like publicly traded corporations are not changed to a progressive political end from the inside because it is often not in their maximum economic interest but they often bend to outside pressure. It's not impossible, but it's quite improbable that greenpeace could purchase enough shares of Exxon to make a difference. Also, because of the way the public trading system is subject to forces other than economic viability the very purchase of any shares in a quantity worth mentioning by a conspicuously left-wing group would be catastrophic to the stock value thereby hurting greenpeace more than helping it, unless the goal was to economically destroy the company and not change it.

"Money is power."

Which to me is part of the problem, not the solution.

Not yet. I was trying to decide if it would be better to post one general postiing like the one above or search out all events and post them individually for local groups.