Hillary Blasts China on “Human Rights”

Now That’s Chutzpah!

By MIKE WHITNEY | May 11, 2011

Is there anything more irritating than listening to US officials blabber about “human rights”?

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.

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. The United States is the biggest human rights abuser in the world today. Clinton’s in no position to be giving other people lectures.

Just look at Falluja; a city of 300,000 that had about 40,000 of its people wiped out by US bombs, 80 per cent  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  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 the arrogance? 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?

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 you hop 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!

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.

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 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?

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

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