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Hillary Clinton Gives 'Shameless Pitch' for Crooked Corporation in Russia
On a recent visit to Moscow, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was there to deliver a "shameless pitch" to the start-up Russian airline Rosavia to sign a major contract with Boeing to purchase a new fleet of aircraft from the US aerospace giant. "This has been a consistent commitment on the part of the United States Government here in Moscow to promote this, because it really does illustrate very powerfully what we can do together," Clinton said during an October 13 visit to Boeing Design Center Moscow. She said the Export-Import Bank of the United States "would welcome an application for financing from Rosavia to support its purchase of Boeing Aircraft, and I hope that on a future visit I'll see a lot of new Rosavia-Boeing planes when I land in Moscow."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends a news conference in Moscow, October 13, 2009.
(REUTERS/Ivan Sekretarev/Pool) Boeing is the leading aerospace company in the world
and a major US defense contractor. Overall, it is the third largest US
government contractor with some $24 billion in annual federal
contracts. The company does more than $60 billion in annual sales.
Boeing is also a major recidivist corporate crook.
Since 1995, Boeing has paid $1.5 billion in fines to settle more than 30 instances of misconduct, according to the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight. According to POGO, these include multiple violations of the Arms Export Control Act, including selling defense technology to Russia and China showing "blatant disregard" for State Department directives. According to POGO, Boeing settled cases with the US government for:
- In 1995-96, violating the Arms Export Control Act, involving the transfer of rocket data to China.
- In 1998, violating the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations by exporting technical data and defense services to Russia, the Ukraine, Norway and Germany "without the required approvals from the Department [of State] and, in other circumstances, violated the terms and conditions of approvals that were provided by the Department."
- In 2001, violating the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations in connection with its involvement in the Australian military's Wedgetail project "by violating the express terms and conditions of Department of State munitions license and other authorizations, by exporting defense articles and defense services without a munitions license or other authorization, and by omitting material facts from its applications for munitions licenses or other authorizations."
- Between 2000 and 2003, violating the Arms Export Control Act. According to the State Department, Boeing sold to China and other countries 94 commercial jets with the gyrochip embedded in the flight boxes without obtaining an export license and in "blatant disregard" of State Department directives.
Other misconduct by Boeing, according to POGO, includes "unauthorized possession of defense information," gender discrimination, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, the False Claims Act and anti-trust laws, water pollution in California, contaminating thousands of homes in Colorado with radioactive waste from the Department of Energy's Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, radioactive and toxic contamination near Los Angeles, over-billing and illegal hiring of government officials.
In Moscow, Clinton said: "During his last visit to Moscow in July, President Obama said that when our economies grow more intertwined, all of us can make progress. And I can't think of a better illustration than what we see here at the Boeing Design Center." Perhaps Boeing's victims and the prosecutors that pursued the company's repeated violations of US laws may have a different perspective from Clinton on that comment. But when said she was engaged in a "shameless pitch," Clinton was telling the truth: A shameless pitch for a shameless corporation.
69 Comments so far
Show Allfor a shameless corporation by a shameless woman and a
shameless government. even john mc cain hates them and
folks that really says something!
The acroynm fits. POGO Said: We have found the enemy and he is us!
I would say WTF, but I'm not surprised.
Corporate Fascism!
Finally someone tells it like it is!! Thanks ftm1776
If you have any doubt that our capitalist society
has blatantly morphed into a Fascist society with barely
a grumble from its populace, you'd better take a closer look.
The Corporations are runnin' the show, folks...
(with the help of our government, of course)
Smells like fascism to me.
Nope, just smells like what it is ... monopoly-capitalism.
Judging by the photograph, Hillary is trying out for the sequel to "I Walked With a Zombie".
hey mordechai, good to see you around...........
before i read the comments i looked at that photo and thought, omg, she looks really old and haggard.............
working/walking with 'zombies' must do that to you............
This isn't the first time I've noticed that the real job of secretary of state is sales rep for american multinational corporations.
I've always thought the idea of a Department of Peace, as proposed by Dennis Kucinich was a bit trite but mostly, unnecessary. Isn't it the responsibility of the State Department to handle this sort of thing? I can see I've been naive (again), apparently the State Department's job entails traveling about the globe whoring US wares and services. My mistake.
Dennis doesn't do TRITE. Remember that in 2012.
the forces of darkness are making you look pretty baggy these days hill!
Sioux Rose
FREEDOM: A lot can be told from the eyes of an individual, and in this photo, the vacuousness is captured. She looks like a broken soul, one who now just goes along with the masquerade because probably every ideal she ever entertained has been so long ago placed on the auction block, that nothing CAN matter. I suppose the sexual betrayal of her husband on stage for all eyes to see was part of what splintered her faith in anything, beginning with a promise, covenant, or commitment based on the trust of intimacy, left broken. Given her political affiliations and the boards (like Wallmart) that she's served on, the capacity to sell-out may have been innate to her and her fellow "pragmatists" that flock to Capital Hill like vultures. Still, there is a poingnancy to this photo, the shadow of a semblance of caring that once was ascendant, but now like a lost bird has left its nest never to return.
Sioux Rose, you've made me feel sorry for her just as Oliver Stone made me pity Nixon! I always read your posts with relish and take inspiration from them. Maybe you're right about her "caring that once was ascendant." It's so difficult (for me)not to be cynical and bitter; I can't remember her being anything but ambitious, hard and shrewd, the consummate politician, especially in the way she long ago sold out to the Israel lobby. But I guess only a handful of "Democrats" haven't. This photo is certainly striking: I see her utterly exhausted and disappointed, as a result of her high-pitched but finally losing presidential campaign.
Sioux Rose
DESMOULINS: Thank you for the compliment! I do feel compassion for her, and I'd like to think she was once a young woman who entertained ideals. So much got taken or misplaced along the way. Ambition can be a dark god. How many can retain the inner poise to balance ambition with compassion for others? If a new Statute of Liberty was designed using Hillary as model, her expression would fit the state (or should I say status?) of America today. Any form of human waste is a tragedy; but there is the hope that "the fallen" can regain Salvation as given in the allegory of the Prodigal Son (or daughter). We are all here on earth to evolve and grow our spirits, although most people have been taught the opposite: that they're here to shore up assets. I'm sure you've seen the bumper sticker that goes something like, "Whoever gets the most toys before he dies wins." Although I realize much of the Bible is little more than HUMAN rules, there are occasional luminous quotes and one is, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else will be added unto you." Many take that literally and think they must "follow Jesus," but from a metaphysical perspective, it really advises that a person consider the merits of any act judging its spiritual value first and foremost.
All around us we currently see "The worst of these" (persons) accumulating embarassments of riches, while their brother and sister citizens are left without the security of food or a roof over their heads. Then, too, there's the health care debacle which places into evidence as "state's exhibit A" the piss poor priorities of this care-less nation. Selling bombs to finance war, borrowing money that doesn't go to schools and clinics, but instead is used to finance war. No one can tell me this is not about homage to Mar, the god of war, taken for a quite OTHER entity. It IS satanic. Plus it's been stated in the Bible that evil's greatest tool is deception. Is there are a greater deception than using the name of Creator as rationale for one people developing weapons to destroy another? It's a sorry state of affairs, and maybe Mrs. Clinton's eyes and expression tell that story the way the Mona Lisa timelessly points to a more obscure mystery.
u know this , by SiouxRose really speaks to my heart about many things and about hillary in particular - as an example of someone any of US can reasonably be forgiven to have ONCE considered that Hillary could have been a fine, fine leader with truly exemplary actions . but it is true. she is now a sad character. that "tiredness" is not just from "trips" - it is a sadness of SOUL..a kind of emptiness..that for all her ambition, or BECAME ambition as her life, all she has now is empty rhetoric - really similar to the USA she now represents and still tries to prop up.
but deep inside - i do think that she realizes how wrong it all has become
"A lot can be told from the eyes of an individual, and in this photo, the vacuousness is captured."
Oh, really. "W" looked into Vlad Putin's eyes and saw a 'good man'. Whoo!
Do you suppose it is possible to get a bad picture of anyone when they are stressed and tired? I'll bet you can look into a man's eyes and see anything that you want to see...
Hillary wanted more than anything else early on to mirror the work and the soul of Eleanor Roosevelt. Along the way unfortunately, Hillary sold her soul for all the many reasons that she did. But let us be kind. Somewhere in there is that very bright girl to woman who had the right ideals.
Ambition can be the insatiable drive that looks temptation in the eye, and then despite one's self opens one's mouth and drinks the poison potion, and then it's very difficult to go back.
Yeah ... the eyes tell it and the mouth too.
/cm
this is what i feel about hillary too.
maybe i too am just being naive for thinking or "wishing" that she WAS ONCE a soul that had sincerity - that when she saw things that were not right long ago - she DID resolve to try to be a good citizen , leader and use her abilities towards doing the greatest good for all ...but that somehow the quest's challenges and obstacles simply defeated her and rather than find other means - she resolved to make a pact with the devil - become the corporate whore, be the warrior princess, become who she needed to be for power - thinking perhaps, even at the last, that it was the "way" to do what she once might have sincerely wished to do ..to do good. real good, truly, without ulterior motives for her own satisfaction or benefit until the only thing that mattered was power..and even that doesn't have real meaning anymore..because - i think, of her inner realization, deny as she will -- that it has all been wrong...because she chose to descend into what can only be described as evil.
she is truly an example , a living example of "power corrupting"...or turning what might once have been a promise of a beautiful flower - CRUSHED in the mud so wastefully.
what a waste of intelligence, accomplishment and spirit.
she's like a zombie walking with no discernible purpose in life but just "exists". it's like all the humanity and love that was in her as a human being - just got sucked out completely.
Insightful face reading. So many people in politics eyes have become either voracious or blank.
But I wonder about the "caring" having once been ascendant.
Joe
SiouxRose
you expressed my thoughts so precisely! your words perfectly describe her , through her appearance, but more importantly what that truly reflects within her:
"vacousness"
broken soul
masquerade
splintered
vultures
poingnancy
shadow
semblance
lost bird
never to return
those and the way you phrased everything sums up EVERYTHING about hillary..and perhaps even the "causes" she goes along with now - of america's.
LOST, BROKEN, SPLINTERED, VACUOUS. EMPTY
HOLLOW, Lost Soul.
maybe that is why - in just about everything done - domestic policies , decisions, foreign acts - they all just look like a bunch of wildly gesticulating and screaming people...
it all reminds me of that classic, famous painting at the turn of the last century - many decades ago - by the painter
Munch - called "THE SCREAM"...epitomizing the war-ridden century's "modernity" and "terror" and emptiness...
http://www.printsandstuff.com/eur24005162.html
Well the Russians make great airplanes too.
I wonder if she sold any?
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is another loser in my opinion....
All this woman knows how to do in the arena of foreign affairs is to be a hawk like all the other neocons and Bushites.....
With US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the helm, you should expect World War III to break out when America starts bombing Iran and Russia and China back the Islamic Republic.
Iran is already throwing the American dollar away. Iran has told Japan already it wants them to trade in the Yen rather than the dollar.....
America is getting its butt kicked with the present currency war yet still thinks it can dictate to the rest of the world.....
Hillary and Obama still have not got it through their thick skulls than the world does not want America to say anything regarding "morality" or any other issue.....The world is being polite to America as it continues to dump the American dollar as the world's reserve currency......
You don't hear the pundits tackling this issue though do ya?
The 787 Dreamliner is two years behind taking it's first flight - this is both sad and dangerous.
Ideals always end on the auction block not so every idea.
Does this invitation to corruption matter in the Russian context, not much. It is just another indicator of the decline in American power as seen by those who wield it. Selling planes to the Russian's asking the Chinese government for loans. Over committed and under resourced. Its a good photograph. A drained face devoid of hope. An expression that has become rigid over time. Goals that have become petty. Just another conference on a journey to nowhere. Didn't the Beatles do a song about it?
A 'shameless pitch for a shameless corporation' made by a recidivist politician from a 'shameless nation the USA'
At least she is 'keeping in practice', she will make a 'great president'--- someday--- and one that the USA 'deserves'.
"If the USA were another nation the USA would invade the USA to keep the world safe; and they would be justified."
and the progressives would have voted for her last Nov too. We got the change and hope we were promised.
and the progressives would have voted for her last Nov too. We got the change and hope we were promised.
and the progressives would have voted for her last Nov too. We got the change and hope we were promised.
What can the State Department do except go around the world begging for subsidies? The Russians aren't exactly fooled that the US is in any way abandoning the program to keep them encircled . . .
How about a weekly confession from Hillary telling us how much Bubba has taken in, and the companies that he collects from.
Well, we all know what Hillary is and now we know what she charges for an "around the world". Hope she's had her shots.
Ever notice how much HRC looks like Gary Oldman's Dracula?
http://www.movieactors.com/freezes1/Dracula6.jpg
Check the link and see for yourselves.
Does she like her job selling expensive war equipment to undemocratic, poor and stressed countries around the world? Does that explain the look? What a waste, in every way.
Joe
Also recall her stint on the board of Walmart, and her backing of the coup leaders in Honduras. She's like the undead.
-TIA
she's trying very hard to be the Number one "american amazon"....she thinks the world will tremble at her presence...
it's her lonely way of trying to still "win" the election she lost..and show she's more manly than obama...i think hillary simply is trying to fill in a huge hole in her own life..finding some kind of "importance" by choosing to be "tough"....
she's basically fearful of one thing:
becoming irrelevant..but her portfolio , thus far, because of US behavior - has left her not too many cards to play, if at all, and she's trapped in acting tough with nothing much to show for it, except to just add to the USA "chorus" of more "toughness" , intimidation, warmaking, threats....
but hardly any countries REALLY listen anymore. so , she and by extension the "empire" cheerleaders - go around the world trying to get countries to "get back in line"...
"...because it really does illustrate very powerfully what we can do..."
Read below article and become aware how and why the US financial caretakers have collapsed the Ruble in 1991 and then orchestrated the buy-out of key Russian industries for pennies on the dollar.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg, which will sink our country in similar fashion. Once I began reading I wasn’t able to put it down. The revelations contained were a shock to me.
“Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
She hasn't been given anything really important to do as SOS-- ever notice when she's in the news it's always about something relatively trivial. Not exactly the big power player she was hoping to be. That's probably another reason why she looks so sad and tired.
Ducking bullets at the Sarajevo Airport is hard work.
lol. she does look so tired and "used up"...from trying so hard to be "like a man" , trying so hard to be "warriorlike"...trying so hard to be "one of the guys - but tougher"
but whenever she goes abroad to be "with the guys" ...like
Hu Jintao of China or putin or even "just" medvedev or lavrov...she always gets "screwed".....why does hillary do it? does she LIKE being whored-out by her beloved MIC of the USA?
maybe this is her payback to her "bubba" - show him for all his pecadillos that "i can more of a man than you could ever be..i can even bomb more countries than you ever did, and it's not just the WEAK SMALL countries...i can even make russia and china quake in fear..and i'm going to be the TZARINA of Russia and the Dowager Empress of China ...
and just to spite you for what you've done...
i'll even change my name to
HILARINA KLINTONOVA
but my nickname will be
HIAO-WEI-LI KUO-LINTAO
and I'll out russian the russians and outchinese the chinese coz i'll bring the American way of doing it, just you watch me Bubba" ...
Wow, I'm just getting to this thread-- not much to add that hasn't already been said, except that I'm shocked that Perry Logan hasn't turned up to set us all straight!
However, this is the perfect place to recommend this most excellent and pitch-perfect report; if you like it the first time, I also recommend repeated viewing to pick up all of the details:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/u_s_condemned_for_pre_emptive_use
· Yr Obd't Servant
I loved that video when it came out. But substitute "Hillary Clinton" for "nuclear weapons" and it's a little scary, and all too realistic.
She was there to pitch Boeing because that aging MIC whore is going broke domestically.
Nobody in the world is buying Boeing products because of the continuing economic collapse. Boeing is desperate for new contracts in a bid to keep their facilities out from under the auctioneer's hammer.
So HRC is turning to the criminal oligarchs in Russia, one of the few groups with remaining stocks of liquid cash, in order to boost a collapsing industry at home.
With the price of oil and related derivative products climbing back into the stratosphere, air travel will once again take a massive hit, the aerospace industry will contract to an even smaller number of companies, and the romance of flight will return to being the purview of the obscenely wealthy.
Quite apart from the Boeing issue .. . I have to ask ... is it possible for our society to criticize female politicians without being viciously sexist?
Of course "commondreams" invites the various comments with the weird photo. Really sinking, guys and gals. A disappointment. Like the sojourns into antisemitism when Israel comes up for discussion.
When you criticize Obama -- whose policies Clinton now reflects -- that is, this is really about Obama now and not Clinton -- the elections boys and girls and you only have Barack to blame for this -- are you going to put up some sambo/mambo pictures?
Are you really ignorant enough to think it's that different? "Woman is Nigger of the World" and as usual, the Left can have Hillary as their Nigger.
You do know there have been female SecStates before Hillary, right? I don't remember any sexist attacks against Rice, just always pointing out she had a fricking oil tanker named after her. And Madeline Albright was a bit before my time.
Edit:
Before someone else points out the fault of my response, I noted it. Rice and Albright never ran for office, so they weren't politicians, while Hillary surely is. Oh well.
You know that there will be other black presidents after Barack, right? I suppose if someone posts a Sambo with white lips 12 years hence, it won't be racist if it hasn't been done before.
And yes, young one, Madeline Albright and Condeleeza Rice were subjected to sexism, too. Even if you liked or didn't like them.
"You know that there will be other black presidents after Barack, right?"
Hopefully.
And I'm sorry I wasn't around, at least least paying attention during the time of Rice and Albright. If I was aware of sexist attacks on them, do you think I would support them?
Could you be referring to my post?
I only found a picture that compares one pale, haggard, parasitic predatory aristocrat to another...
When is the current US president going to have the guts to fire this war mongering neo con who is easily as far to the right as any Pentagon hard liners?
AD
When is the current US president going to have the guts to fire this war mongering neo con who is easily as far to the right as any Pentagon hard liners?
AD