Cowards and Thugs
Yes, the Obama Administration knows its priorities. A billion people living in a Communist gulag simply must be put on the back burner, especially when the corrupt thugs who run that prison of a nation are the ones who have all the dollars that will be lent to the U.S. government to pay for trillion-plus dollar annual budget deficits as far as the eye can see.
For those who have not read any of the numerous articles about foreign trade and debt published here at The Dark Wraith Forums (see, for example, "Foreign Trade and Debt" as a primer), those Chinese mercantilist thugs got all those U.S. dollars by systematically, deliberately, and for years manipulating their currency exchange rate with the United States so their toxic toys, poisoned foods, and other detritus of American consumer tastes would be ridiculously under-priced here, while American goods would be symmetrically over-priced there.
But let us not have uncomfortable conversations just now, at least not with those nice Chinese who, along with all the other nations with which we run trade deficits, will be paying for $787 billion in pork, tax rebate bonus checks, and other treats for which generations after ours will pay, along with that massive debt piled up by those fiscally conservative Republicans during Bush's years. We desperately need that foreign money, even though it really was our money before we sent it overseas in exchange for goodies, oil, and feel-good globalist trade relations.
For the U.S. Secretary of State to call upon the Chinese to face their abysmal, Medieval human rights record would be so undiplomatic. Far better to have our own Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, in his first major speech as head of the U.S. Justice Department, tell the American people that we are "...essentially a nation of cowards" about race relations. This would be the same Eric Holder who, as assistant Attorney General back during the Clinton Administration, ignored an order issued by the Eleventh Circuit Court and went ahead with a paramilitary raid on unarmed Cuban refugees to seize a little boy, quite literally, at the point of automatic weapons. This would also be the same Eric Holder who now waxes mealy-mouthed about hauling personnel of the Bush Administration — from the torturers at GITMO all the way up to former Vice President Dick Cheney and former President George W. Bush, himself — before the bar of justice on indictments for war crimes. This would be the same Eric Holder whose Justice Department has just filed a two-sentence court brief affirming the Bush Administration's position that the Afghan detainees being held at Bagram Airfield have no recourse in U.S. courts.
Yes, lecture the American people about being cowards, but by God let us not offend the foreign and domestic brutes who have automatic weapons or checkbooks.
It seems at least a few of our new President's people have quite the fetish for violent bullies, at least when they have guns or money.
Of course, that's what America gets for electing a guy from Chicago.
Comments
Wrote Peter of Lone Tree:
Wrote Moody Blue:
Nice "framing" by CNN (faux jr).
Mrs. Clinton said:
"Now, that doesn't mean that questions of Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, the whole range of challenges that we often engage on with the Chinese, are not part of the agenda," Clinton told reporters in Seoul before flying to Beijing. "But we pretty much know what they are going to say.
"We have to continue to press them but our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises," she added. "We have to have a dialogue that leads to an understanding and cooperation on each of those."
And she also said:
"We know what they're going to say because I've had those kinds of conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders," she told reporters en route to Beijing, the final stop on her inaugural overseas trip as secretary of state.
No. I am not defending her. I'm just continuing to be darned perturbed that the information we get from our U.S. media is so filtered.
Wrote Minstrel Boy:
so we have lucy, a football, and good old charlie brown.
guess what happens?
Wrote trog69:
guess what happens?
Um, the ball blows up, killing/maiming 14 of the 22 players on the field, and the investigation( Via 1min review ) later finds that the ball was just overinflated?
Wrote Lisa Ranger:
It is amazing. Here are people who would love more freedoms, but we throw them under the bus while ostensibly imposing those "rights" upon people who reject them.
Wrote Minstrel Boy:
we are all wearing the blue dress.
we are all that round headed kid, prone, in mid air, then we realize that gravity's a bitch yo.
Wrote Peter of Lone Tree:
DW! Youse won't has to crittersize Geithner no more!
He's gonna have a helper!:
From REUTERS:
(Steven) Rattner will become a counselor to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on a range of economic and financial issues and will lead the team advising Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers on the auto sector.
Uh, Wraith? You s'pose it'll be Steve's old lady Maureen that'll really be runnin' things?
Wrote Peter of Lone Tree:
I ripped the photo offa Cannonfire
The "title" is mine.
"Agnus Dei, Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis."
Wrote Dark Wraith:
Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus dei qui sedes ad dexteram patris, miserere nobis.
Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
Or perhaps this:
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Hillary semper Virgini, beato Barack Archangelo, beato Biden Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Geithner et Bernanke, omnibus Sanctis, et vobis, fratres (et tibi pater), quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Hillary semper Virginem, beatum Barack Archangelum, Biden Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Geithner et Bernanke, omnes Sanctos, et vos, fratres (et te, pater), orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum. Amen.
The Dark Wraith expects reverential silence during such prayers.
Wrote Peter of Lone Tree:
Reverential silence? Why, shucks!
Introibo ad altare Wraith. Ad Wraith qui laetificat juventutem meam.
Wrote Dark Wraith:
You're just going to my altar to grab some of the snacks in the secret cabinet under the floor boards.
The Dark Wraith knows apostasy when he hears it rummaging.
Wrote Dark Wraith:
And that thing about me and "... laetificat juventutem meam" sort of weirds me out when I think about it on an operational (albeit ecclesiastical) basis.
Wrote Peter of Lone Tree:
Since I have assumed the role of "server" I'll toss a few extra dollops of wine into the chalice to help you through the weirded-out condition. It's my own recipe (don't go tellin' the Bishop!) of MadDog, Wild Irish Rose, and homemade dandelion wine.
Wrote Dark Wraith:
What? No holy water?
The Dark Wraith is not accustomed to non-diluted spirits... Holy or otherwise.
Wrote Moody Blue:
Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis, praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuris ... da propitius pacem in diebus nostris; ut ope misericordiae tuae adjuti, et a peccato simus semper liberi, et ab omin perturbatione securi.
Wrote Peter of Lone Tree:
A Dark Wraith who prefers diluted spirits!?
Sump'n funny goin' on here.
The muses of my youth--
Sister Mary James,
Sister Mary Rosalie,
Sister Mary Finbarr,
Sister Mary Syballina,
Sister Mary Chantal,
Mother Mary Viator--
Where are they now that I really need them?
I'd even settle for advice from Brother Heathcliff.
Wrote Dark Wraith:
I need to hire a hat check lady for this diner.
Wrote Peter of Lone Tree:
"Thanks anyway, lady. This tin foil stays right where it is."
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Mike Shedlock, over at Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis has a post up entitled Inside China: A Sculptor's View. He begins by saying, "I have been exchanging emails with Bill Hopen, a sculptor who frequently travels to China, often for months at a time."
Mish quotes Hopen:
Sorta confirms what a learned colleague replied to me when I asked, "My 8th-grade grandson is learning Chinese in school. Is that because we will soon be telling them what to do or vice-versa?" The reply was, "Vice-versa".