February 2009

Sometimes progress may be more than slow and hard to notice, but it’s there—Last Monday a Chinese delegation led by Ambassador Li Baodong appeared before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. It was a first. It told the council that people in China could voice their opinions and that the government opposes torture. In a statement before the proceedings the Chinese emphasized that human rights are related to economic growth and went on to say that the standard of living has improved, so have the judicial system and political participation. Many argue with the delegation’s presentation to the council and point to many facts painting a dismal picture of human rights in China. And yet the very fact they would agree to make this historic appearance before the UN body and answer their questions is, at the very least, worth notice. Progress is slow, comes by the millimeter, and is not always in a straight line. What matters is that it comes. One must say the Chinese delegation sent to Geneva is a good sign.
Later that week the Chinese government barred foreigners from traveling to regions with large Tibetan populations, given the approaching 50th anniversary of Tibet’s failed rebellion. There will surely be other news items somehow restricting people’s freedom. And yet none will undo the tiny progress represented by the agreement to answer the questions of the UN Human Rights Council.

–better pay a price for freedom than have it curtailed—-It looks like Nadya Suleman, the mother of the octuplets, could have only made her choice in a free society. To the mind of most she chose wrongly. She’s using food stamps, three of her children have disabilities and collect some social security disability payments, and given the prognosis for octuplets in general, possibly more. As a person it may well be that she’s selfish, stubborn, short-sighted, obsessed and unrealistic (if so she’s far from alone) and all this adds up to the fact that since public monies are bound to be involved we are all affected. One can make a case for the fact that she is no different than the Wall Street companies and bankers who after a series of bad judgments required public money not to fail. It does look like nothing but a variation of the same theme. Regardless, I’d rather live in a society where freedom leads to mistakes we all pay for, rather than in one where it may be so curtailed our choices are no longer ours and we no longer have the freedom to make any.

We can’t de-humanize inmates without de-humanizing ourselves–A while back the state of California’s health care for prisoners was so lacking and so deficient, it was turned over to a receiver. The receiver then went to court to ask for $8bil to fix the problem. But California is in a financial hole, even more so than most other states, so now various officials, some with political ambitions, are criticizing the plans of the receiver. The latest attack is a recreation room with space for such things as yoga and art therapy. Calling it spa like, holistic, a gold plated Utopian hospital plan among other descriptions, the governor, along with several other state officials, is strongly objecting. While their objections have to do with the cost, they also have to do with providing criminals with amenities that are much too homelike. The receiver explains it this way, “I’d rather have inmates sitting in a small, relatively empty room practicing yoga than engaging in race riots or gang violence. I’m not exaggerating when I say that’s what can happen when you have overcrowded conditions and don’t provide medical care.” Regardless of consequences, the resistance to providing inmates with amenities continues and some threaten going to court to stop it.
It’s easy to treat inmates as sub-human, and it’s just as easy to forget that when we do, we de-humanize ourselves as well–because the measure of our humanity lies in how we treat each other.