The Human Rights Hoax

Every time a US president visits his Chinese counterpart, or vice versa, there’s always the same tired chatter in the media about “human rights,” as in: “President Red White & Blue is expected to give a stern talking-to to President Red over his country’s human rights violations.”  Alas, this time is no different:

The formal White House arrival ceremony – the 21-gun salute is reserved solely for visiting heads of state — was a display of pomp and circumstance that stood in stark contrast with the tough rhetoric the Obama administration is employing in its relationship with China on issues from trade to currency and human rights.

And indeed, Mr. Obama did not entirely abandon that rhetoric Wednesday morning. After promoting the virtues of Chinese and American cooperation, the president – the 2009 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize – used the ceremony to deliver a gentle reminder to China, which is holding the 2010 winner of the prize, Liu Xiaobo, as a political prisoner.

“We also know this,’’ the president said: “History shows that societies are more harmonious, nations are more successful and the world is more just when the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld, including the universal rights of every human being.’’

Ooh, boy.  Watch out for that “tough rhetoric”!  Of course, Hu could just as well have lectured Obama, and Shrub before him, about the human rights violations committed around the world by the United States on a daily basis, otherwise known as US foreign policy, but apparently Chinese politicians don’t have quite the same appetite for hypocrisy that American ones do.  Not to mention that if Obama were really concerned about “the universal rights of every human being,” he might give a little shout-out to, in addition to the political prisoner du jour, the virtual slaves who toil their lives away in Chinese factories so Americans can stay awash in cheap consumer goods.

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Rudy Never Fails

We hear them sayin’
Now first you must cure your temper
Then you find a job in the paper
You need someone for a saviour
Oh, Rudie can’t fail

Rudy thinks it should be easier to involuntarily commit somebody who’s exhibiting “bizarre” or “frightening” behavior.  I have to say, I agree.  I hereby submit that Rudy Giuliani be taken to the nearest psychiatric hospital for an “appraisal.”  I mean, look at the fucker:

Yes, he actually said that

I caught John Kerry being interviewed on BBC World News this morning.  Apparently he’s in Sudan overseeing (yeah, John Kerry is going to personally ensure that there’s no monkey business going on with the vote) the referendum on whether the south will secede.  Anyway, when asked whether the new Republican majority in congress will disrupt the Obama administration’s meddling in the country, he said (paraphrase): “I hope the great American foreign policy tradition of politics ending at the water’s edge will continue.”

Would this be the same “great tradition” that brought us the War on Iraq and other hilarious misadventures in the Middle East and Asia, not to mention all the other places in the world fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of US foreign policy?  And would this be the same Senator from Massachusetts who sorta-kinda, but not really, opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq—or at least how it had been handled by the Bush Administration—in 2004?

So while the fine Senator, who increasingly resembles nothing so much as a cadaver with a voice recorder shoved up his ass, celebrates the great tradition of bipartisan unity when it comes to the killing of foreigners, the rest of the world gets busy building bomb shelters.