Randomness as Acts of God

La Professora is the last to belittle anyone's personal religious beliefs, but even I have a hard time defending the latest pronouncement by Marion 'Pat' Robertson. For those of you not paying attention to the news -- and shame on you -- his zealotness announced that the earthquake in Haiti is part of the curse that hangs over that country as a result of "a pact to the devil." While his spokesperson pointed out that the earthquake itself was not a sign of "God's wrath" against the country, he did continue Robertson's theme: "History, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed".

The Haitian ambassador was not amused. In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Ambassador Raymond Joseph pointed out that, if Haiti had made a pact with the devil in order to become independent from France in the 1800s, and if the US was able to secure the Louisiana Purchase as a result of the conflict Haiti had with the French, then American benefited from that so-called 'pact with the devil' by gaining enough territory to create 13 states.

The White House made it clear that Pat Robertson does not speak for most Americans, if any. Robert Gibbs, the spokesperson for the Obama Administration, said, "It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid. But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity."

And with regularity Pat Robertson does indeed stick his foot in his mouth. Seems that Robertson and his ilk have regularly exploited disasters and attacks for their own ends. What those ends are is anyone's guess, but I'd have to say it's to promote his vision for the proper American way of religious life. What follows is but a small selection of the idiocy produced by the man.

Let us start with the doozyist of them all: The attacks of September 11, 2001 was the fault of the pagans, the abortionists, the feminists, the gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and the People for the American Way. Okay, so it was Jerry Falwell who said, "I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'", but it was on Robertson's show on Robertson's network, and Robertson "totally concur[red]". Seems that defending the freedom from any religious doctrine that might restrict the rest of their liberties, the above named groups made "God mad" and that's why 19 fundamentalist Muslim terrorists used four planes in an attempt to get America to change its foreign policy toward the Middle East.

After the Katrina tragedy, Robertson had his own theory as to the cause. There are some environmentalists who believe the disaster was the result poor land management. For Robertson, it was clearer than that: the Old Testiment says that those who shed innocent blood will find that the land will vomit them out. His take on the situation was that the abortion of 40 million -- his number -- fetuses made God send a hurricane that killed 1,800 innocent people in the Gulf Coast.

Robertson isn't just in the business in laying blame retro-actively, he also has warned of possible future disasters for failing to live up to his idea of God's standards. For Dover, Pennsylvania, he predicted a vague tragedy as a result of voting out the members of the school board who favored intelligent design over evolution. "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city .... I recommend they call on Charles Darwin."

While there was a rumor that Pat Robertson had said Katrina was the result of God's anger over Ellen Degeneres -- a well-known lesbian -- being selected to host the Emmy Awards that year, a rumor that proved to be false, he did 'predict' in 1998 that the Gay Pride Festival flags that Orlando, Florida, had set up around town would result in a hurricane. Specifically he said, "you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you." I'm only guessing, but there are probably more than one member of the gay community that is rather happy Robertson isn't them.

Yet, he is very clearly against people like Ellen Degeneres. In 1992, he wrote in a letter to raise funds to defeat an Equal Rights amendment to the Iowa Constitution, in which he said the feminist movement wasn't really about getting equal rights for all, "it is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Not be out done, fifteen years later, he tells the world that yoga is evil.

Fearing that America was being taken over by secularists, Robertson addressed the need to have more religiously conservative justices on the Supreme Court. "Operation Supreme Court Freedom" was a call to the faithful to pray that John Roberts would get a speedy confirmation to the US Supreme Court. On August 2nd of 2005, his prayer was rather specific: "Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court, and we ask for additional fine people like John Roberts."

Calling for the death of a political figure is hardly unique for Robertson. Turning his eye to the international stage, he weighed in on what the United States should do to leaders of other nations: assassination. Not having the slightest clue of either geography or ideology beyond his own, in 2005 Robertson stated that Venezuela was going to be "the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." Thus, he called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." Being able and being morally and politically justified are two vastly different things.

When it came to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke in 2006, Robertson had an answer for that too. God's retribution for "dividing God's land". The same reason, according to Robertson, explains the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. "...I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or United States of America. God said, 'This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone.'"

On the theme of Islam, Robertson continues to show his ignorance of others. Claiming that there's no such thing as a report of Christian extremists killing, he insists that the Koran clearly dictates that Muslims engage in violence against others. "Islam, at least at its core, teaches violence ... those who believe it sincerely in their hearts are those that think Osama bin Laden is their great hero." Not only is he wrong about Islam, he's also wrong about there being no such thing as Christian terrorism. He conveniently forgets about any number of terrorist organizations that have some form of Christianity at its base, the best known of which is the Irish Republican Army.

Four years later, after the Ft Hood attacks, Robertson compounds this stupidity by calling Islam a political system on the same scale as communism and fascism, and that America should treat adherents to the "political system" the same as we would members of a fascist group.

Likewise, following any other faith, especially a 'new-age religion', leads to a "severe price" as death is the penalty for seeking enlightenment outside the bounds of what Robertson believes to be the one true faith.

While Haiti may not actually be cursed, America certainly seems to be so -- with a bedeviling man named Marion 'Pat' Robertson.

Photo Source: http://newsblaze.com/pix/2010/0113/pix/pat-robertson.230.jpg

Crazy Randomness

End of the semester harks the end of the silence of Randomness.

From under the pile of term papers and final exams, out crawls La Professora to see a world that has gone on with its crazy randomness without her.

Case in point: some anti-abortion fundamentalist Christian shot a doctor at his church. For the most part, the leadership of the various anti-abortion groups have been condemning, albeit faintly, the shooting. Perhaps because of where it occurred. One, a preacher and director of Operation Save America, is reported to have said Dr George Tiller "has shed the blood of countless thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of little baby boys and girls and burned them up in his on-premises incinerator. Now this thing has come home to him."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of late term abortions. However, there is something fundamentally wrong about a group of people who believe that it is reprehensible for a doctor to abort a fetus, but it is morally commendable to kill that doctor for doing so. The mind boggles.

There is hope, however. In another part of the world, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, issued a fatwa 'banning' weapons of mass destruction. Seems that WMDs are likely to kill Muslims as indiscriminately as non-Muslims. Not that his ruling will influence the clerics and politicians of Iran.

Speaking of Iran and having things come home, it appears that the nation known for being a supporter of terrorist activities elsewhere in the Middle East is now reaping its own whirlwind of distruction. On May 28, a bomb exploded at a mosque near the eastern portion of that country, where it borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing 25. Of course, Iranian officials claimed that the bombers were American and Israeli, with ties to al-Qaeda. The following day, gunmen attacked the campaign headquarters of the incumbent presidential candidate. Today, a bomb was discovered in the toilet of a domestic airplane. The attacks are believed to be the work of the Jundullah (Allah's Soldiers), a Sunni separatist group. While the links al-Qaeda may be overdone -- yet not inconceivable, there has been disagreement between the likes of the Taliban and the ayatollahs of Iran over the nature of a true Islamic State -- it would appear that there might be some truth to the link with America. Rumors abound that under the Bush administration, there was a $400 million fund for covert operations assisting the religious and ethnic minorities in Iran in their push to destabilize that country. It is, after all, part of the Axis of Evil.

Maybe being under that pile of student work wasn't so bad after all.

Grades are posted. Let the whining begin.

Comparative Randomness

For the love of all that is random, stop with the presidential comparisons.

Ever since it was clear that Barack Obama would win the election this past November, the media has gone wild with the comparisons to previous holders of the office. No one seems to have noticed that the comparisons aren't all that great.

Yes, President Abraham Lincoln was a great American. He did what he could to hold the Union together. His face in on Mount Rushmore. He was even from the same mid-western state of Illinois.

But President Lincoln's term in office did not end well. He was shot by an unhappy Confederate supporter.

Not a good comparison to use, given the current hostile climate created by some members of the political right.


Then there's the comparison with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Yes, the country is currently in the middle of the Great Recession, and, just as was done in the 1930s, the blame can be put on the previous administration's inability or unwillingness to act to reverse the tide of a crashing economy.

Again, that president's term in office did not end well. That time it was of natural causes, but one could say that the stress of trying to solve the world's problems can age a person to the point that those causes aren't really all that natural.

The last comparison being made to the president-elect is that of President John F. Kennedy.

Yes, they both went to Harvard; yes, they were both relatively young when elected; and yes, both had the "enough" problem -- Kennedy was thought to be "not Catholic enough" -- among a whole slew of other comparisons.

And yet, JFK's presidency did not end well. His term in office ended on a cold day in Dallas.

No one seems to have noticed the awful thread that floats through all these comparisons: Presidents whose terms did not end with the election of someone else.

So, please world, stop making these comparisons, before someone takes them the wrong way.

Image Credit:
Obama as Lincoln: http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2007/06/your_turn_betwe.html
FDR and Obama: http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Leftist_Obama_Critics_Should_Study_FDR_6426.html
Kennedy and Obama: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/25/obamathenextjfk

Civil Randomness

Yesterday, I participated in a panel of professors discussing various aspects of Terrorism. Each of us had been given a question to prepare in advance and 15 minutes to present our answers. The question for me was “What is the threat to civil liberties in the War against Terrorism?”

As much as it grieved me to be quoting Justice Rehnquist, he had made a good point: Democracy is a fine balance between freedom and order, and in times of war, Americans have traditionally chosen to have more order than freedom. The trouble now lies in the question of whether or not the “war” on terrorism counts as one of those times.

The thrust of my talk was that civil liberties are each individual’s responsibility to defend. If one fears the government taking away one’s liberties, then one should exercise one’s political power and vote. Yes, vote. With only 19% of the college-age citizens voting, it is hardly fitting that those other 81% complain that the government is trying to restrict their rights.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states quite clearly that the people have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects. However, the Supreme Court, when ruling on whether that right extends to the public interaction, has consistently said that if a person has no expectation of privacy, then the 4th Amendment does not come into play.

Furthermore, the 4th Amendment is not applied to business when it comes to the collecting of personal information. That’s not to say that stealing is perfectly acceptable when done by businesses; stealing is stealing, and is punishable by law. It is not, however, a violation of the Constitution.

What is being discussed here is the collection of data on people’s purchasing habits and other bits of personal information. If you have in your wallet a credit card, a store “loyalty” card, or any other card for which you filled out an application form with your personal data, then a business has your personal information. That business can then sell your information to others.

If you have a MySpace, FaceBook, or any of the numerous other Internet blog-like pages, then you have been giving out free information. Employers are known to surf those sites for information about prospective, and current, employees. Think carefully about what your pages say about you.

I have often been amazed at the conversations I have overheard walking down the street in the vicinity of someone chatting on a cell phone. It is as if T.M.I. Chatter believes there’s some sort of cone of silence and no one can tell that Mr/s Chatter is discussing the most intimate of details. Sorry, there’s no such cone and we really can hear everything. I do mean everything, even the parts most of us would be happier not knowing.

It seems incredible, then, that citizens are complaining of the government wanting to collect the data that they are so wantonly giving away.

The Fifth Amendment only says that the government cannot compel you to give up information that may incriminate you. It does not say that the government can’t collect any information about you at all. If businesses can trade in personal information, if all of your cyber-friends can know every last detail about your life, if you blather loudly on your cell phone on a public street, you do not have an expectation of privacy, and thus should not be concerned about the government collecting your data.

What this has to do with terrorism is simple. To protect the country from those who wish to harm it from within, citizens expect their government, at all levels, to provide security. In order to make the country secure, the government has to know what is going on within the country. Data mining seems the best and easiest way to go about it.

Despite what Hollywood has fed us over the decades, terrorists are not evil geniuses. They have not figured out how to exist outside modern society and the reach of all its technology. If Barnes and Nobles can know what reading materials terrorists have purchased by tracking that information on their B&N membership card, if Visa can know what reading materials terrorists purchased at Barnes and Noble using that credit card, it should surprise no one that the U.S. government would also like to know.

In the continuing effort to keep terrorists from flying, the government has a “no fly” list of suspects, or, if you’d like, persons of interest. If your name is on the list because you are unlucky enough to share that name with someone else out there in the world who is of interest to the U.S. government, life is about to become simpler: soon, when you purchase a airline ticket, you will be asked for your birthdate. If you don’t want to share that information, do not be surprised that you will have difficulty getting through security at the airport. Furthermore, this data – your name, birthdate, and flight information – will be shared with the U.S. government. If you don’t want it to know, don’t fly; I hear the train is a lovely way to see the country, even if it is usually late.

As for me, I am La Professora; I know how to keep my technological profile low and my personal information private.

Applying Randomness

I worked rather hard on my application for a fellowship, but in the end it was probably my lack of a tenure track position that kept me from getting it.

Bummer.

The hardest part of the application was the essay portion. Applicants had to write no more than 250 words for each of the three topics. No academic is ever that concise. It is rather difficult to cover such complex issues in so little space. But I was up to the endeavor. See for yourself:

1. Define terrorism and explain how it constitutes a legitimate or illegitimate use of force. Please provide one or more real world examples about the use of terrorism to make your case.

Terrorism is a tactic used by organizations and institutions to influence or modify the behavior of a populace or a government through the use of fear or, as the term implies, terror. When this tactic is used by non-state actors, it cannot be considered to be the legitimate use of force, as this is the purview of governments. That is not to say that all acts of terrorism are de facto illegitimatized. There have been cases where governments have overstepped the bounds of the use of force to cow a population of a conquered territory and have been met with armed resistance. This resistance is then labeled ‘terrorism’. The early years of the Irish Republican Army is an example of this. However, most groups resorting to terrorism do not directly attack agents of a government, but rather the innocent non-combatant in hopes of using fear on the part of the whole population to drive the government into complying with the demands of the group. This is the case of the more recent activities of the IRA. While some groups attempt to maintain their legitimacy by attacking solely military or governmental targets, a degree of innocent civilian causalities can be expected. The likelihood of this depends on the type of
attack used. The more indiscriminate the attack – the use of bombing a clear example of this – the more likely a by-stander will be harmed. This in turn decreases the credibility and legitimacy of the organization engaging in terrorism.

2. If you could make one policy prescription to bring the war on terrorism to a successful conclusion, what would it be and what would a successful conclusion look like?

Terrorism is a tactic, thus it is diffi cult to have a ‘war’ against a tactic. To successfully bring an end to terrorism, those fi ghting against it must understand the underlying cause that drives rank-and-fi le members of terrorist organizations to see it as an acceptable tactic. Only when terrorism is seen as a symptom of a societal ill can progress be made.

Most terrorist organizations are driven by economic realities. When unemployment is unnaturally high within a segment society, that segment will engage in violence. One need only look at the gang activity within the US to see this. The solution is not to combat terrorist activities with traditional military methods, but rather go to the heart of the problem – the economic imbalance. Repression by the state, rather than economic engagement, will merely create another generation of the disenfranchised who will turn to violence as a means of self-expression. When the community has a vested interest in protecting their own economic well-being in the face of violent activities by fellow community members, a mode of self-policing can begin. The necessary weapon against the development of terrorism is economic development, not merely humanitarian aid. The current situation in Palestine is a case in point. Álvaro de Soto pointed out that there is ‘cause for alarm’1 in the dependency on handouts in that there is little in the way of self-reliance in the region. Without economic development, there will be little need for the Palestinians bring about an end to the terrorism by a portion of their society.

1 Steven Erlanger; “Aid to Palestinians Rose Despite an Embargo”, New York Times; March 21, 2007; A1

3. Discuss some of America’s successes and/or failures in fighting terrorism at home and abroad.

The lack of attacks against American soil is often offered as proof of our success in combating terrorism domestically. However, the diffi culty lies in trying to prove a negative: is the lack due to our preventative measures or their lack of attempts. Internationally, our successes have been a little more identifiable. A large number of countries have joined the United States in blocking the use of the world’s fi nancial systems by terrorist organizations, making it harder for those organizations to raise funding. Likewise, Libya, once a notorious sponsor of global terrorism, has dismantled its weapons program and distanced itself from groups such as
al-Qaeda as a result of economic sanctions.

Failures, however, are easier to identify. As Jessica Stern noted, “[The] bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was the latest evidence that America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one.”1 The sponsorship of Hezbullah on the part of Syria and Iran has markedly increased since the start of the war against global acts of terrorism. Al-Qaeda has become a hydra, in that each time the American military succeeds in capturing or killing a high-ranking member of that organization, two or three members step into the breach. Likewise, on the domestic front, the passage of laws that decreased the civil liberties of citizens can only be seen as a failure if the purpose of fighting the war on terrorism is to promote civil liberties globally.

1 Jessica Stern; “How America Created a Terrorist Haven”, New York Times; August 20, 2003; A21

Much thanks is due to my Sanity Touchstone -- BM, you know of whom I speak -- for letting me go through my mental meltdown on his shoulder. Spring Break is over and now it's back to torturing students with homework....

Having Your Randomness and Eating It Too

Those in the know are aware that La Professora has, for some time, been studying Spanish Politics and Nationalistic Terrorism. So, it should come as no surprise to them that I would write a blog entry about the recent ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna -- Basque Homeland and Liberty) bombing in Madrid, Spain.

Last spring, when I traveled to Spain to do some research on terrorism in that country, it was only days after the group had declared a "permanent" ceasefire. My goal at the time was to write on the relationship between the democratization process and the end of nationalistic terrorism in that country. The point of the effort was a paper that countered the Bush Administration's assertation that bringing democracy to Iraq would bring an end to insurgency in that country. The ceasefire in Spain gave me at least an end point: roughly 27 years after the constitution was passed; 24 years after the Socialist Party won office away from the former regimists.

And now it seems that the permanency of the ceasefire is questionable. The Spanish government had been negotiating with the political wing of the terrorist group to bring the nationalists in line with the democratic process and a true end to the violence, and with the bombing the government has put an end to those negotiations. Juan Carlos I himself called the attack "cowardly and vile".

On the other hand, the political leader of the organization is running on the assumption that the negotiations will continue. Arnaldo Ortegi claims that peace is still at hand if "we all act responsibly". Seems that the ETA was upset that the negotiation process was not speedy enough for their liking and the bombing was, if you'll pardon the analogy, to light fire under the government. In the statement issued by the terrorists, they expressed their condolences to the families of the two victims; however, they placed the blame for those deaths on the government and the security forces -- after all, the ETA called three times to warn of the bomb. It seems only fair, the political leadership seems to be saying, that the government continue the discussions as the group is only responsible for the bombing, not the deaths that resulted from that bomb. Now, says ETA, the government will stop "constantly putting obstacles in the way of the democratic process" because they've been reminded of what's at stake. As far as the group is concerned, the "permanent" ceasefire is still valid. A clear case of the ETA believing it can have its cake and eat it too.

This bombing is just one more in the long list of terroristic acts carried out by the Basques. Whether there will ever be real peace in democratic Spain is a question that will not be answered anytime soon. But the situation does answer the question as to whether there will be a cessation of violence in Iraq if the US is successful in establishing a truly democratic state there. If Spain is still trying after nearly three decades then I can with some certainty say that there will be no quick end to the violence in Iraq, whether the U.S. Boys in Fatigues are there or not.

Photo Credit: http://www.elmundo.es/albumes/2006/03/22/tregua/index.html