Overexposed Minority

China has leveled further accusations against the United States for violation of the basic rights of individuals; the current accusation is one that China has described as having "deep historical roots" and called it "an unspoken agreement between people and government to oppress a silent majority."

After exchanging diplomatic blows earlier in the year over human rights issues, a further riposte from China was inevitable. What has stunned international authorities is the sheer breadth of the claim. China claims that common, infectious diseases are being deliberately oppressed. These "colony based individuals," they say, have been systematically ignored by every government of the United States except when genocide was chosen as the only option to prevent the masses from rising up to retake what was rightfully theirs. The move has baffled scientists.

"They've gone mad! Bacteria are not sapient, for God's sake. They are little micro-manufacturing bodies that can and do, as often as not, cause harm to their hosts. We've adapted to live with certain types of bacteria in our systems," Geoff Landshead, MD, "What they're saying is that every time you take an antibiotic, you're committing genocide. It's preposterous!"

Stateside activists have seized Doctor Landshead's statement as proving China's claim. Calling themselves the "Friends of Dysentery," these activists have engaged in systematic sit-ins at various clinics and hospitals in an attempt to acquire as many diseases as possible. Worried doctors have attempted to convince the men and women of the FoD against their course of action to no avail. Forcible attempts to remove them have lead to cries of "Right to assembly" and no one has been able to provide a legally satisfying reason for their removal.

Their founder, the late Heather Jones, began the FoD back in 1967 after an experience at a Grateful Dead concert. After taking a large dose of LSD and antibiotics to fight a case of dysentery, Jones claimed to have heard the bacteria screaming in terror within her body. She woke the next day with a new purpose. Five months later, she founded the FoD with her then partner, Robert Fisk. Together they gathered followers, and refined the FoD's signature protests. Fisk died seven months later from a case of dysentery and assorted veneral diseases. While Jones would outlast her partner for another three years, her declining health would eventually confine her to a wheelchair. Today, the FoD is lead by the optimisitc Dylan Ford.

"I really feel we are at a turning point in history. Bacteria are the last group it is okay to discriminate against, and we've made great progress towards equality as a society over the last decade. I truly feel that this unwarranted genocide against our single-celled cousins will come to an end," said Ford.

In response to China's allegations, the FoD have not only redoubled their recruiting drives and protests, but they have also begun production of a heretofore unknown play penned by their founder. "I Am Dysentery" will chronicle the troubled life of a single cell of the eponymous bacteria as it struggles against the twin threats of the oppressive immune system and antibiotics along its path to becoming a fully realized infection as a single mother. In what promises to be a moving finale, the cast will celebrate Dysentery's triumph with a final song, "Shits and Giggles."

The United Nations has dismissed China's claims as "assuredly insane," but promises they will be reconsidered in 2053.