Asan Bibi, 9, burned when a US helicopter fired into her family's tent.The U.S. rulers claim to be champions of “human rights” and throw around charges against China and other countries which they say are violating “human rights.” This is a sick joke. The “human rights” movement was created by the ruling class to divert workers’ anger away from blaming the bosses for the atrocities of capitalism.  

Eleanor Roosevelt and other prominent U.S. ruling-class figures initiated the modern “human rights” movement in the form of a U.N. resolution in 1949. It was part of the U.S. rulers’ attempts to build all-class unity — when the ruling class tries to convince workers that they have the same interest — out of fear of the growing world communist movement. The movement was based on the lie that there are “human rights” that are not based on class struggle, and people who wanted to fight for a decent life for all people didn’t have to join the communist movement to do that.

Today the bosses use the “human rights” movements to mobilize people to fight other capitalists. Whoever is the main competitor of the U.S. these days, China, Russia, Iran and a few others, are endlessly charged with “human rights” violations. While friends of the U.S. rulers, like Saudi Arabia, get a free pass.

Now after sixty years we can see where following the capitalists “human rights” movement has been selective. They plan demonstrations and mass outcry about atrocities in Darfur, where China has oil interests, while ignoring imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where U.S. interests lie. 

A glance at “life in these United States” shows any tears the U.S. rulers’ shed over the condition of the working class to be a farce:

• Racist attacks against and murders of black, Latino, Arab and south Asian workers are increasing. They are openly encouraged by “conservative” radio and TV;

• Workers have few rights to organize unions. When they do, the unions are bought off by the bosses, and end up representing the unions’ and bosses’ interests, not “their” members;

• Forty percent of the population, and the majority of the working class, have little or no health care;

• Unemployment is over 20% (when underemployed, the military “economic draft” and those no longer looking for work are counted). Loss of a job is a threat hanging over every worker’s head;

• Essential public services — such as public schools, recreation, unemployment insurance, retirement pensions, and the ability to go to college — all are being dismantled. These cuts amount to a huge DECREASE in the real wages of all workers;

• U.S. jails and prisons hold more than two million, 25% of all the prisoners in the world. Most of them were convicted of non-violent “crimes,” for possession of tiny amounts of drugs and are in jail because they’re black or Latino. (In Western Europe such people are directed to rehab programs.) The difference between jail or no jail often rests with the racist views of the cops and judges, and the ability to pay for a high-priced defense lawyer. Prisoners work for pennies a day, producing goods that, through competition, lower the wages of all other workers and make billions for bosses off this cheap labor;

• Immigrants from Latin America, South Asia, and the Mid-East are being swept up and indefinitely locked away in a growing network of immigration prisons.

Internationally the U.S. is the most murderous, aggressive power in the post-Hitler period:

• Over 2.5 million Koreans killed during the Korean War, 1950-1953, most of them by U.S. carpet bombing of North Korea;

• Between 3 to 4 million Vietnamese killed by the U.S. and allies during the Vietnam War, 1961-1975;

• A million or more civilians killed by U.S.-funded death squads, military and police to make Latin America “safe for democracy,” 1950-1990;

• One million Iraqis dead because of the U.S. blockade and sanctions, 1991-2003, including medical supplies and water-purification equipment;

• Over 1.5 million Iraqis killed as a result of the U.S. invasion and “war on terror,” against civilians, 2003-2009; four million more have been displaced and are refugees.

• More than 30,000 Afghan civilians killed (the racist U.S. media do not report these figures);

• The U.S. “renders” — kidnaps for secret torture — hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people and uses “drone” missiles to kill anybody it suspects of being hostile.

These figures do not include millions killed by U.S.-backed and –funded allies, such as the over one million Indonesians killed by the fascist regime in the 1960s to 1970s.

An even bigger holocaust is the millions — mostly children — who die of completely preventable hunger and disease throughout the world every year, preventable because the world produces enough food and medicine to stop this slaughter. But since half the world’s six billion people live in brutal poverty, they can’t pay for what they need, and these children die.

From U.S. to China, Capitalism
is the Enemy

Today the U.S. government is attacking the Chinese capitalists for what they call “violations of human rights.” Chinese bosses certainly are guilty of exploiting workers. Socialism has long been overthrown in China and replaced by a very brutal form of state capitalism. Behind this “holier-than-thou” performance are the growing economic and political contradictions between the U.S. and Chinese ruling classes.

Workers in China have few rights. Workers’ and farmers’ protests are severely repressed by the Chinese state. Right-wing, nationalist misleaders try to direct non-Han workers’ and farmers’ anger against Han workers, instead of uniting with them.

Farmers are driven off their land with little compensation to make way for industrial projects that make billions for capitalists while polluting the earth, air, and water. Education and medical care are only for those who can pay, which means most workers get far too little of either.

Sound Familiar? Workers in the U.S. Face Similar Conditions!

U.S. bosses claim that the U.S. is “democratic” while China is not. Western capitalists long ago figured out that permitting workers to “vote” is helpful in disguising the fact that the country is really a dictatorship. It is a dictatorship because the capitalists run the country in their own class interest. Workers can vote because the capitalists control everything — all the political parties, plus the mass media, plus the money needed to carry on elections.

A communist society, run by the workers, would be based on production for need rather than production for profits. Only communism can possibly provide these basic needs for the working people of the world. Only under communism will every person be a worker, contributing towards the common good.