COULD BE ME, COULD BE YOU

My sister-in-law's father was imprisoned, beaten, tortured and eventually murdered by the government of Iran in the 1980's only because he was a Baha'i, the country's largest religious minority. Her and her mother and sister escaped to Turkey, then gained asylum in Germany before emigrating to the US and becoming citizens. And now her uncle is being beaten and tortured in Evin prison in Iran for the same reason. Two years ago I was dating a girl who was doing her dissertation on the online university that Baha'is set up for themselves because they were being denied admittance into state run schools. Then one day she was alerted that those involved were being arrested, computers confiscated and servers shut down. After a short time, she could no longer get in touch with her contacts, people who were putting themselves at risk simply by talking to her. People who she, and to a lesser extent, I, had developed relationships with. And I just don't know what to say about all of this. I guess I'm just trying to get the point across that these are real people, not just news stories. We take education and religious freedom for granted. I dropped out of college 11 times. I feel like a dipshit for squandering opportunities that others are dying for. I don't know what to do about it other than going to the DMV Thursday morning, finally replacing my Tennessee license with an Oregon one, changing my voter registration to Oregon, and writing my Congressmen.