Hillary Clinton and China's human right record

After chastising China over its human rights record in 1995, freshly minted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to China.

And has apparently stopped giving a shit about human right violations.

Making her first trip abroad as secretary of state, Clinton said three of her top priorities in Beijing will be addressing the global economic crisis, climate change and security challenges such as the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

"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.

Oh. OK. As long as we "know that they are going to say" then I guess we can just ignore rampant human right violations.

Because why bother taking a stand when we "know that they are going to say"?

Oh yeah...because of ethics. Morals. Integrity.

All those things the country has been missing for eight years. Those things that were supposed to be restored with the new administration.

I guess...not so much.

"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."

Really? Honestly? The global climate change crises has more value that upholding human rights? Really?

That's kind of fucked.

Question: would Hilary Clinton put the global climate change crises over...say...the Nineteenth Amendment? How about the Thirteenth Amendment? Is that less important than global warming? How about the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp human rights violations? Are those less important that global warming?

Just wondering.

I guess I didn't realize that China had such a sterling and impressive record with greenhouse gases that we can completely overlook their atrocious human rights record. Who cares about little things like China censoring the internet, Tibet, their horrendous record on religious freedom, jailed political dissidents, etc. when they are working on their carbon footprint...right?

The government should be moral and brave enough to do what is right regardless of politics.