It's understandable but wrong .....what happens if the Fire Nation shows up on their air baloons right over the walls once that happens the cit will be in fear and they won't know of it so there pretty screwed if Long Feng doesn't do anything about it.

My question is this: the war's been going on for 100 years. Long Feng and his men haven't been alive for that long. Who sheilded the people from the war then? And If someone else did, how did Feng end up hearing about it?

maybe his grandfather started it 100years ago maybe we'll find out later, the only thing we do know for sure is that this system of controlling people has been around for 100years those where Long Fengs own words.
Though i do wonder how it was before they changed it all cuz aang said that he never went to that place since it was so very different then what the monks taught him....

It didn't have to start with Long Feng. According to the Nick site, he was from the Middle Ring and probably worked his way up through the ranks to the position he holds today. The system could've been in place and he just secured his control of it with his Dai Li agents, whom he personally picked and trained.

On another part of the Nick site, I read that Joo Dee is a product of the brainwashing that was used on Jet, so maybe we'll see him become a Joo Dee (or whatever the male equivalent name is) too?

Okay... dug this thread up because when rewatching episodes you always seem to notice details. And I've read thru the thread and honestly got lost on some of the posts... so here it goes.

When Toph and Katara were apprehended at the Ball, what exactly did the Dai Le guards do to capture them. Unless they are able to control rock gloves, I would have to say that was airbending (i.e. in this same episode during the fight scene with Zuko and Jet, Jet swings his Hook Sword and it "clangs" against a guard's hand).?? But there was no movement of the glove in this scene, it just appeared to be hardened earth to protect the hand.

At the ball, if you freeze frame and watch the capturing of Katara and Toph, the guards gloves "fly" off their hands, cover Katara's and Toph's mouths and then they draw them back to them. The only time we have ever seen anything similar to this is when Aang draws his staff to himself. We have seen earthbenders propel earth but never bring the same earth they have propelled forward back to them? Now we have seen earthbenders move earth around in a suspended state, such as the ones that used the coal in the episode "Imprisoned" to shift the Firebenders over the water.????But the gloves during this scene don't look very much like hardened earth like it did during the Zuko and Jet scene.

Need further opinions please...

The gloves are made of earth-bendable material. It is analogous to Katara carrying water in a small sack; instead of launching rocks from the ground, they bring rocks with them. All they need to do is bend the gloves to get them to hit or grasp something within range.