Gasbag Hillary Blasts China on "Human Rights"
by Mike Whitney
Is there anything more irritating than listening to US officials blabber about "human rights"?
I mean, really, doesn't it drive you crazy?
Here's Hillary Clinton bashing China for their "deplorable" human rights
record, and meanwhile Bradley Manning sits naked and freezing in a 6'
by 8' cinderblock cell in some far-flung American gulag waiting to get
fingernails yanked out. Can you see the hypocrisy?
And that's just for starters. What about Gitmo,
Abu Ghraib, Bagram and the myriad other dungeons, concentration camps
and black sites the US has scattered across the planet. Seriously, the
United States is the biggest human rights abuser in the world today. No
one else even comes close. Clinton's in no position to be giving other
people lectures.
Remember, all the phony indignation over Saddam
gassing his people in Halabja? What a joke. Obama probably kills more
people in his sleep every night than Hussein killed in a year. And
Halabja's small potatoes anyway. Just look at Falluja; a city of 300,000
that had about 40,000 of its people wiped out by US bombs, 80% of its
buildings and infrastructure reduced to rubble, and a legacy of cancers
and birth defects until the end of time.
Now that's how you kill people!
And then there's the drone attacks. In fact,
another 5 people were killed on Tuesday when US missiles blew up their
vehicle in northwest Pakistan. What about their human rights? And what
about the rights of the other 957 people who've been killed in 2010
alone? Don't they count?
And, can we please stop talking about democracy?
Everyone knows it's just shorthand for capitalism. And--not even
capitalism really, but slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth
predatory capitalism, the hybrid strain of the virus that's particular
to America's 'oligarchy of racketeers'. So, can we just put a sock in it
for a while?
Here's a clip of Hillary moaning about the "repressive Chinese system of government."
“We have made very clear, publicly and privately,
our concern about human rights. We see reports of people, including
public interest lawyers, writers, artists, and others, who are detained
or disappeared. And we know over the long arch of history that societies
that work toward respecting human rights are going to be more
prosperous, stable, and successful."
Can you believe this gibberish? The United States
has a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other
country in the world. And, Clinton dares to scold China about "detained
or disappeared" people? Now that's the pot calling the kettle black.
But, yes, it's true; the Chinese haven't mastered
democracy like we have in the good old USA, where 5 right-wing jurists
pick the president, and where the government taps your phoneline, sifts
through your e mail, and gropes your scrotum before hopping on a flight
to Boise. That's capital "D" democracy; land of the free and home of the
Ponzi-scamster. We might boot you out of your home, kick you out of
your job, and fleece you out of your retirement, but we've got our
principles, dammit!
Can you see how crazy this is?
But, let's cut to the chase. Do you know what
this is really all about, all this duplicitous foot-stomping and
pontificating by Ms. Clinton?
The Obama team is trying to pressure China into
opening their markets to Wall Street so Big Finance can peddle their
garbage paper to 1.5 billion new suckers. That's what it's all about.
I'll bet you even-money that Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon spent the
better part of Sunday evening quaffing single malt scotch and
high-fiving while they put the finishing touches on Clinton's speech.
That's how incestuous the Obama-Wall Street relationship is now.
Just take a look at this report from Bloomberg and decide for yourself.
Bloomberg: "Geithner will say China should relax
controls on the financial system and give foreign banks and insurers
more access, said David Loevinger, the Treasury Department’s senior
coordinator for China. Officials from both nations are meeting in
Washington today and tomorrow as part of the annual Strategic and
Economic Dialogue.
....Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Jeff
Merkley of Oregon called May 6 for a “rebalancing” in the U.S.-China
economic relationship. The two lawmakers, who just returned from a trip
to China, said the Chinese need to open their financial sector, address
“abnormally low deposit and lending rates” and allow broader market
access to foreign firms....
The American Chamber of Commerce in China said
last month that foreign banks play an “insignificant role” in China.
Foreign lenders’ market share in China has
dropped since the government first opened the industry in December 2006.
Banks such as New York-based Citigroup Inc. (C) and London-based HSBC
Holdings Plc (HSBA) want to tap household and corporate savings that
reached $10 trillion in January as China overtook Japan to become the
world’s second-biggest economy" ("U.S. Will Urge China to Boost Interest
Rates as Talks Start", Bloomberg)
Repeat: "Banks.... want to tap household and corporate savings that reached $10 trillion in January."
That says it all, doesn't it? Wall Street is
already licking its chops over its next victim. They can't wait to sink
their teeth into all that luscious money that Chinese workers have been
scrimping and saving for the last decade or so. That's why they've
ordered Clinton to castigate China's leaders in public, because they
think it will help them pry the door open wide enough to set up shop in
the world's fastest growing market.
So this isn't about "human rights" at all. It's
about coercion; forcing China to do what we want so Wall Street can rake
in even bigger profits.
Are you surprised?
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