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Indybay Feature

Not Forever

by Sudhama Ranganathan (uconnharassment [at] gmail.com)
Life, and nature are in constant state of flux. Nothing ever stays the same – not forever. As things change, so do our responses to the things around us, because what was is no more, what is needs to be addressed and what is to come needs to be prepared for. As humans, we get comfortable, feeling as though things will stay as they are. Just when we feel things are the way they will be forever, life splashes cold water on our faces, waking us up. Friends that were are no more, people that were in our lives are no more, relationships that we thought could not be broken, dissolve more easily than we felt possible and people we once knew have passed away.

Smiley face

Life itself is a finite thing we believe we can hold on to, and by fooling ourselves thus, become sad when confronted by the truth of our own mortality. Things in life come and things in life go away. The where and the when of such things are not always known, and the mystery can be just as scary as it can be intriguing. Things that were once thought of as lasting forever, change into something else. When they are things that we are a part of, or in the midst of, if we do not change with them and adapt, we can become a victim of our circumstances, rather than a master of being a part of them. Of course none of us can escape age. People that were once the image of young and fresh can look old, or out of sorts quickly, when they do not accept the changes that have happened, or that are happening.

What we once felt about something, quite often changes throughout our life, even if the changes have to do with minor details, as opposed to our overall opinion. All things will change, even to which we feel most passionately, whatever our view on those things, and so ,even if overall we stay either positive or negative on whatever the issue may be, the nuances of that view will have to shift, as that thing morphs.

For example, we may have loved a tree in the first house our family lived in. When we go back to visit after having moved away, we may very well still love it. It holds memories for us, that, if we love it, were obviously dear to us. However, that tree will not be the same. Every year it grows, branches fall off, old leaves fall off and new ones sprout. There will be things we don't recognize and things we do, but it will be our own memories that make certain aspects of it more prominent, as we gaze upon it, to help facilitate the feelings toward the tree we hold so dear. But, the reality of that tree is as different, at that point in the timeline of our lives, as is the reality of ourselves.

If we are adults when we revisit the place, the free climbing and young experience kind of relationship we would have to that tree will no longer be the same as the one we had to it as children, though it may please us it to think of it the same way when we look at it.

Politically things change also. There was a time people of all colors thought the idea of a person of color being president of the United States was an impossibility. I remember being in social studies in 9th grade and a teacher asking us if we thought we would ever see an African American president in our lifetimes, and a lot of people were not sure. They felt racism and bigotry were strong forces that ran deep and could very well prevent such a reality.

Heck, there were times people could not see people of color being treated as equals to whites even thought they were legally “free.” Times have changed, things are not gone completely, but things in many instances are very much better – certainly than those days. Jim Crow is almost unimaginable as a reality to many in America today. They can't imagine treating people like that, simply because of the color of their skin. Can't use the bathroom, eat outside around back of the restaurant by the dumpster and can't even drink from the same water fountain? Can't own property, and when they did, oftentimes, all hell broke loose. Can't leave free and peacefully due to no more than bigotry. Yet it happened.

It happened in South Africa with Apartheid. I can remember watching a piece on 60 minutes where a woman of Boer decent said essentially that they would fight integration tooth and nail, because otherwise they would all become “chocolate skinned.” I wonder what that woman thinks now, as today, the laws that once held Apartheid in place were dismantled, and they aren't all “chocolate skinned.” Of course a majority of the country is, but even then it was, apparently that was a difficult thing to face.

I would guess it was also difficult for Germans of Aryan decent to imagine their government would fall during the peak of the Nazi movement. I would guess many caught up in the bigotry of trying to wipe out Jews, Gays and others on the to-purge list, never expected their movement and quest to subjugate the world would collapse. But hatred has a way of causing failures, especially as it does give rise to a sort of myopic blindness, radicalism and an all consuming hatred that often ends up consuming its bearer eventually. People get tired of conflict, and at some point a generation that seeks peace rather than violent conflict arises, that is if others do not act, either to intervene, or to withdraw from their intervention first, especially when that intervention becomes the enabling of awful behavior and crimes against humanity. The Nazi's did meet intervention, and so were faced with having to pay for their crimes, and life's inevitable changes. Nothing lasts forever. Not forever.

We give foreign aid to many nations and people that we should not. Some have been tyrants, others dictators, religious zealots and intolerant theocracies, and, often enough, we are forced in such circumstances to reassess our relationships with those nations. A good case would be right now with our relationships with both Palestine and Israel.

We have gone from helping people to establish themselves, to enabling oppression, terrorism, race based bigotry and murder, religion based bigotry and murder, culturally based bigotry and murder and so on. What was once a good deed, a humanitarian deed, has become the enabling of the attempted wiping out and destruction of an entire people - and that is on the part of both sides, Palestinians and Israelis.

By financial aid, approved of by the Pentagon (responsible for most foreign aid now, as opposed to the State Department), the same people that approved $43 million in aid to the Taliban in May of 2001, we have funded the mutual attempts at a slow genocide from both sides looking to stamp the other out. (http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-washington-funded-taliban) One side referring to the other as the such and such “problem.” That is the same way the Ku Klux Klan in America's Deep South used to refer to black people, as their “Nigger problem.” It's the same way the South African Apartheid system's proponents referred to blacks in that nation, as their “Kaffir problem.” The same way Nazis referred to Judaism's faithful as their “Jew problem.”

We are supporting it financially and otherwise. Do we feel it's right? Are we supporters of mutual racial extinction? Does doing so bring us benefit? Has it brought us any problems, as things have grown twisted and perverted in that place? Are we sticking to the American principle of separation of church and state, free will and the support of liberty and justice for all, by funding killing fields in the desert, where groups are trying to wipe each other out unabated?

Does it make your life easier to do so? Does it enrich your life to do so? Is the money better spent murdering children there as opposed to funding your child's increasingly decreasing standard of education? Is it worth sending all those dollars over there as the American Middle Class is becoming poorer and poorer while the wealthy get wealthier? (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/21/news/economy/middle_class_income/index.htm) If we have become significantly poorer over the last decade plus, and we have been funding their mutual wars all that time, then how has it benefitted you or I? Where's the payoff? Israel has been caught spying on us and Hamas has made terrorist threats against us. (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4705539&page=1)(http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131569&page=1)

Is that bang for our buck? We have been funding them and holding their hands, but all children must grow up and leave the nest at some point becoming self sufficient, otherwise they become rotten, selfish and spoiled and can lead to numerous sorts of terrible behaviors. All things change, and nothing lasts forever. Not forever. Not endlessly. It isn't fair to do otherwise, when times have obviously changed, both abroad and for us back home.

To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.

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