Do Dead People Count?

Steve Stajich
Mirror contributing writer

   While media often play up the first day of summer, because it helps lubricate the selling of warm weather goods and bloated action movies, the 4th of July actually locks summer into place. Now we feel we are falling behind if we aren’t buying our rubber sandals, our plastic blow-up air mattresses, our beach balls, our little radios, our funky straw hats… most of which comes to us, these days, from China. China, where they execute 21.2 people a day in the name of maintaining a kind of peace in which those goods can keep flowing. 
   Yes, I’ve made a huge jump from your beach ball to dead prisoners. Or have I?
   Last week, Amnesty International reported that in the last 3 months China has put 1,781 citizens to death in a law enforcement crackdown, a tough campaign during an economic period that has brought with it a widening of the gap in incomes and the lay-off of workers from failing state enterprises. The Chinese are reportedly dissatisfied with the state of public safety, even though there is far less violent crime there than there is in, say, Texas. I don’t why I would pick on Texas. Can you think of any reason I would pick on Texas? Or Florida?
   In fairness, let’s remember that China is also bearing down on Internet freedoms, its news media (why can’t they take over the local news here?), and of course, spy planes. So you have to see the bloodshed in perspective, right?
   This column has raged against China’s interpretation of human rights before, so I won’t fatigue you with a review of what’s wrong over there. Let’s say for the sake of this argument that it’s better to get a little tear gas in your eyes while you’re acting out in Seattle against globalism than to get a bullet in your head. Which is how they execute over there. You get a bullet in the back of the head. They are “experimenting” (LA Times language) with lethal injection, but they seem to like this bullet thing. 
   It gets worse. The numbers, while stunning, are probably higher because Amnesty International compiled them by monitoring media and individual cases. There’s reason to believe that many cases go unreported and it’s known that the Chinese government conceals exact information on the number of executions, claiming they are a “state secret.”
   Now that you love China, let me ask you: Would you go there for the Olympics? The International Olympic Committee, now known to be a bastion of ethics thanks to some blabbermouths in Salt Lake City, is leaning heavily on Beijing as the site of the 2008 summer games. Games that might be less than representative if China shoots too many of its better athletes. 
   There’s going to be something just plain nuts about all that tussle over Salt Lake City, if the Olympic Committee now picks China, don’t you think? Or, do dead people count in something like the Olympics?
   When the spy plane (which wasn’t a “spy” plane, remember?) was brought down, we subsequently learned more about attitude of many young Chinese toward the U.S. The accidental U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and other events were causing youthful Chinese to see the U.S. as an uncaring world bully. We seemed, to them, without enough remorse. That apparently played into the need for a full-bodied apology for the non-spy plane spy plane incident.
   Lately, the U.S. has been getting heat abroad for its capitol punishment appetites and so we may not be the right guys to get an attitude about the Olympic decision. And I’m sure we’re not being fed this information about China as part of some larger anti-China propaganda effort on the part of a conflict-hungry White House. In fact, the days of propaganda are behind us, aren’t they? We don’t have propaganda any more. No, now we have Fox News Channel. It’s much faster, and you can benefit from the instant analysis of such genius types as Bill O’ Reilly, who did reports on Bigfoot sightings and breast implants for tabloid TV before he became a learned voice of the people.
   But to isolate those numbers for a second...Let’s say that Amnesty International is giving us figures on the low end. Conservatively speaking, won’t it ruin your viewing of the TV coverage knowing that in the two hours you spent watching Olympic volleyball, the host country executed 2 or 3 people for tax fraud, counterfeiting, drug dealing, pandering, and even reckless driving? 
   Man, I hope it ruins your viewing. Because if something with the scope of the Olympics can’t be used as a lever to take governments to task for human rights, we’re never going get anywhere with my proposed beach ball boycott. Yes, it’s terrible that the Olympics has to be “used” in any way other than as the event of unity and global sharing that it historically should be. But that’s the very reason we need to utilize it as a stick for poking this bear of Chinese inhumanity. It’s patently wrong if we don’t.
   Will that play right into George W. Cheney’s strategy of stirring up anti-China sentiment? Unavoidably, it will. But nothing in the White House is guided by anything other than economic self-interest (feels good saying that out loud, doesn’t it?), so forget about it. Don’t look to Texas for guidance on human rights, be it the state of Texas or its Washington bureau. Even as we speak, they’re lost on this stem cell debate. If China would conveniently provide the embryos, thus avoiding the sticky issues in using domestic sources, you can bet Ernest T. Dub would take a more genial tone on the occasional downed not-a-spy-plane.
   Currently in China, 68 types of offenses, including many non-violent ones, can command the death penalty. Yet here, we backed off of the death penalty for self-confessed FBI spy Robert Hanssen. I like to think there was some thread of humanity in the fabric that caused U.S. authorities to deal him back his life. I like to think that here, dead people count.

This Week’s “Know Your News” Quiz

1. Bush wants to label a fetus an “unborn child” 
   a. so state insurance will pay for 
   prenatal care.
   b. in hopes of swaying the pregnant 
   teen vote. 
   c. in a bizarre plan to lower the drinking 
   age in Texas.
2. 114, 000 jobs were lost in June,
   a. significantly more than expected.
   b. all as puppeteers for “Cats and 
   Dogs.”
   c. all as PR wranglers for Gary Condit.
3. Scientists announced a new theory of
   a. how matter was created.
   b. how “Spy TV” was created.
   c. How “Spy TV” doesn’t matter.

Answer Key

(a) Yeah, right, that’s the reason.
(a) The tax break will fix it. 
(a) It was a bigger bang than we thought.