You Can't Make Mistakes.

Liberation Theology for the 21st Century

I caught this article from the Christian Science monitor this morning on the trepidation of Arab states over reacting to the current situation in Iran. They cited the “voice of a disenfranchised [Iranian] people” as the mechanism for the current political and social unrest and that this is the biggest political crisis facing Iran since the 1979 revolution.*

I have been reading a great deal of late about the 1979 Iranian revolution and have begun to understand that the socially and economically disenfranchised in 1970s Iran were not actually active participants in the revolution, nor did they derive any particular benefit from it. Neither the poor nor the merchant class were particularly involved in the rise of the Khomeini movement. It was a revolution apparently driven by an increasingly religiously motivated middle-class and the urban intellectual class which drove the development of an opposition to the Shah. That there was little involvement on the part of the rural poor is quite surprising considering that the themes employed in the revolutionary rhetoric on the part of Khomeini and his supporters was seemingly socialism wrapped up in Islamic topoi or terminology.

In other words, the revolutionaries of 1970s Iran employed a specifically crafted rhetorical framework based on sort of liberation theology in order to galvanize certain parts of the population and pulled support from the most unlikely sectors of Iranian society, all the while setting the stage for continuing the disenfranchisement of the already disenfranchised. Many of the secular intellectual socialists and Marxists went up against the wall when Khomeini’s revolutionaries seized control, many succumbed to the pressure being exerted around them and conformed to the newly political and religiously-mapped social environment around them.

It would seem that all of the seeds of disenfranchisement sewn by the 1979 revolution are now coming to fruition. The intellectual class is no longer happy to be subjugated, the poor are fighting back, not in line with the religious elite who are waiving the liberation-theology around—still, and again—but against them. In 1979 it was that same—then very young—urban middle class who were becoming more religious who built the revolutionary movement. They made Kohmeini into a a figurehead, and he tacitly accepted the role allowing them to drive the revolution forward.

The funny—or maybe “horrifying” is a better word—thing about revolutions, and revolutionaries, is that they cease to function as a revolution the moment they are no longer the opposition. That is unless there is a political mechanism established at the same time for limiting the authority of the revolutionary leaders. This was never the case in Iran. Indeed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had to die before his position as the leader of the revolution—and therefore the Iranian government after the revolution—would be questioned. After his death he was replaced by another revolutionary leader who had become entrenched in the “new” political system in Iran in the 1980s.

Now that “revolution” is being called into question, mostly because it is no longer a revolution. Just as Castro’s revolution lost its meaning the moment that he took power in Cuba and Che Guevarra—the real revolutionary—went on his way, as is the preferred role of the true revolutionary. How to ensure then that the revolutionaries live up to the ideals of the revolution and not their own desires for power? How to keep the bitterness of their previous disenfranchisement from their policy and administration and marginalizing those that they once sought to free from disenfranchisement?

I am loathe to cite the American political system as a standard for post-revolutionary political development—and indeed it has its problems, not least of which is the unabashed power-squabbles of our present party-system—but it worked. When the first Americans called for the revolutionary leaders to retain their power, they stepped aside and had an election. The established a set of rules, the interpretation of which has changed over time, but which are still the rules, nonetheless. Those rules, for better or for worse, continue to keep the political system as fair as we can make it. There is still power-grabbing.

There is still lying, cheating, and stealing. Indeed, more than a few of us have been concerned that the administrative regime of President Bush and his cronies would have a deep effect on the way business was done after they left office. It seems, though, that this is not the case. We shall see, but it seems that we are moving back to normal after years of opacity and circumvention of the Constitution to protect the interests of the few at all possible costs.

Perhaps another revolution in Iran is what is called for. Perhaps not. Perhaps the present regime is learning something from the political strife that is now boiling throughout Iran. Likely not. If there is another revolution, it cannot continue as normal. It has to live up to the ideals which galvanize and excite it in the first place rather than simply serving the interests of those who do the exciting.

Khomeini’s liberation theology still applies in Iran, possibly now more than it did before. The present regime had better hope that the people never get their hands on copies of his book, Islamic Government as they would find themselves out the door in very short order. The principles which are outlined therein are a far sight more fair and reasonable than those under which the present regime operates.

For more information about the Iranian political system and the 1979 revolution, I suggest the following:

• Islam and Revolution: Writing and Declarations of Imam Khomeini by Hamid Algar.
• Khomenism: Essays on the Islamic Republic by Evrand Abrahamian.
• The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran by Said Amir Ajromand.
• Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi. Or for the more visually inclined, the film version.

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* In solidarity with that voice, the background of this blog is now a picture of Naqsh-e Jahan Square in breathtaking Isfahan.

To the losers.

Hot on the heels of my last post, Tim Krieder, cartoonist and the brains behind “The Pain” comic series, posted this piece, which reflected my very strange dream quite a bit. The comic itself is not the important part of that link, however. Please make sure that you continue on a read the article below it.

This guy, Krieder, is an obvious cynic, and with any likelihood a total asshole—I don’t mean that as an insult, some of my best friends are assholes—but sometimes he writes things that touch me in a way that I am not expecting. I got a little choked up and teary reading this article, for instance. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a total sap. I cry while reading sci-fi, I give money to street kids and widows, I talk about love and friendship in a non-ironic way. Usually though, I am typically a realist—read: pessimist—with regard to government/political/social stuff. It seems now with all that has happened, I have fallen into the camp of sad, sappy, suckers—as I might have previously viewed them—who believe that everything is going to get better.

On this point particularly, I think that Krieder is spot-on when he says:

“that the last eight wretched years had occupied so large a chunk of our adulthoods that we’d forgotten that nothing lasts forever, we’d thought that this was just how the world was: mean-spirited shitheads would always win and we would always lose. It was hard to believe it was really over.” [Krieder, link]

It is hard to believe that it is over. It is hard to shift gears into thinking that things might work out. I’m not so naïve as to believe that everything will change overnight, or that President Obama will change the world single-handedly, but I do feel like I am rubbing the sleep out of my eyes after a really terrible dream. Not a nightmare, per se, but just a really bad dream where nothing works and nothing makes any sense.

Maybe that is what is happening. It does feel like everyone woke up all at once, not a little pissed-off, and took action. If that is so, then I raise a glass and a still-angry fist in toast and say again, “Here’s to you, and here’s to me, best of friends we’ll ever be. But, should we ever disagree…”

Well, you know the rest.

And now the real work begins.

Well America, as a collective, we chose well. We were faced with the most important set of decisions that we have made in a long time and we made the right ones. I, for one, am thrilled. I actually cried out of relief this morning.

While President Elect Obama is positioned to be able to effect change in a significant way, what with being backed by a Congress which will support the directives of the new administration, there are a few things which didn’t go so well.

Michigan passed the stem cell research and medical marijuana ballot initiatives, both of which are positive things for people who suffer debilitating and painful diseases, and their respective ratifications are a step away from maligned points of view that these things stand in moral opposition to goodness and rightness. They will hopefully help many people.

I said above that we chose well and we did, for the most part. However, in this time of celebrating immanent changes for the better and positive steps forward, it is important to point out our failings, lest we forget ourselves. I would like to point out, for instance, that—at the time of writing—in Florida and Arizona have decisively banned gay marriage, and Arkansas has decisively banned adoption for gay people. California is still uncertain at this time—with only 20% of the polls reporting results from their ballot initiative—though it doesn’t look good there either, which saddens me.

Update 21:51 EET: With 95% of the precincts reporting, California has passed the gay marriage amendment ban. 52% Yes, 48% No.

Why are these things important? First, they indicate that even in seemingly liberal or progressive places, conservative/bigoted rhetoric is still very powerful in convincing people to make decisions about social issues. Second, at a time when things are looking up and we have a new golden-boy—who actually speaks in a positive way about gay people in his rhetoric—we obviously still have some work to do.

What do I mean by this? I mean that we have reached a new echelon of civil rights issues. We now will have a President who is part of a formerly legally disenfranchised—currently practically disenfranchised, in many ways—section of the American populace. This being the case, we now have an even greater chance to chip away at the bigotry which still lives in our law code. This was less possible over the past 8 years during a time when the dominant political thread was busy pandering to the very people who support that bigotry in their daily lives.

We have a chance now to rectify the mistakes that were made in the past 8 years, and in some cases 16 years—let us not forget that it was President Clinton who signed the Defense of Marriage act into law. The current President Elect is quite a bit more progressive than President Clinton was, but it won’t mean a hill of beans if we don’t actually progress. We can only hope that in the coming years, we will be able to overturn these bigoted state constitutional amendments and have a new kind of civil rights revolution in which people are treated equally again under the eyes of the law.

God Damned Right It’s Time

Well, if you haven’t voted already, since there seemed to be a great trend toward voting early or absentee—likely because Americans are leaving the United States like rats from a burning ship: it’s time.

The Economist finally published their endorsement for a U.S. Presidential candidate this week. I will let you guess who they chose. Or, you can read it for yourself.

I have to say that, in all honesty, I was thrilled to read it. I think that they made the right decision, so now maybe you all can make the right decision. Jeff and I voted via absentee write-in ballots, which don’t even get counted unless there is some electoral problem—which wouldn’t shock me in the least. So, if you haven’t planned on voting, or if you feel like you are too busy, or some other thing: please go and cast your vote for Barack Obama on our behalf. If you can’t vote for Obama, then Bob Barr is a good second choice.

Anyway, those are my two cents on the matter. I don’t have a whole lot of words for you right now as most of my words are being given to my papers and coursework. But I will say that I would greatly appreciate if you went and did your part and set the ball in motion for the United States to right itself a little bit. I’ll thank God one way or another when this is over, but I hope that it is thanks that I will be able to come back to the United States someday because it is the place that I remember, rather than having to stay away from it because increasingly resembles places that I would never want to go.

Thank you.

Don’t forget to wear a condom.

The comic this morning on xkcd is a good example of arguments for and against electronic voting.

Read it. Careful though: it is funny, so the humorless fascists for whom you work may have blocked the site and also be in the business of firing anyone who tries to access it.

Regardless of that, it is a little ridiculous to have anti-virus software on a voting machine. A voting machine should probably not be network connected. If it is in fact network connected, then we shouldn’t have had the problems that we did with corrupted SD cards not having the voting data when needed. These things each indicate other problems as well.

First, if a voting machine is online, it is immediately insecure. All computers are prone to attack through either a network interface or by way of physical access to a machine. That said, some computers are more secure than others. Those computers used for high-profile applications—such as, I don’t know, off the top of my head, uh, VOTING—will of course be more delectable targets. So, possible operating principle number one: keep voting machines off-line.

Then, if a voting machine is off-line, why does it need virus protection software? The SD cards used for transporting data—the insecurity of which we will get to in a moment—should be checked for any virus or malware IMMEDIATELY BEFORE they are being placed into a machine. Ergo, there should never have been any need for virus protection software on these machines.

On to the point of XKCD this morning: What operating system is running on these voting machines and what is it doing? I am not sure, but I am just going to take a gander that is was Windows XP, or some-such. Now, Windows is known for: crashing, being-virus prone, being entirely insecure in the case of physical access to a machine, and a laundry-list of other fun things. Firstly, Windows should not be the operating system of choice for this application. There are more than enough compelling reasons to take that right off the table. Therefore, we should assume that there was a contract—read: set of payouts, kicks-backs, or other reward perks—involved between Premier Election Solutions (a.k.a. – Diebold) and Microsoft.

Let’s look at this again. Logically, so far, we have decided that: 1) voting machines should be using a secure, robust operating system, 2) voting machines should not be networked.

Or should they?

Is it secure to have votes stored in .xls (Microsoft Access) files and then transported on SD cards to a computer terminal by some flunkie (read: election official or Premier Election Solutions Employee) for transmitting over what one would hope are secure channels?

No, is the only answer to that question, by the way. PHYSICAL ACCESS to data is the point of least security. Swapping cards is just the easiest way to corrupt/alter the voting data.

The alternative: a networked voting machine which is connected to several sets of voting servers around the country—redundancy, in this case, is security, or at least accountability—via port/transport-encrypted connection protocols. The data is transmitted and tabulated at these central sites, plural. The data that is transmitted is stored on a separate physical disk from the operating system. That disk is encrypted and, if it is an SD card, there is no physical access to it—like a slot that it plugs into. Screwdrivers with weird noses are in order if you want it out.

When the data is transmitted, it can be in the form of an encrypted binary image of the disk. This is more secure than an .xls stored on an SD card. All of this will happen when the decentralized server farms call the data in at the end of the election. Also, at the end of the election, a printout could have a per-transaction list of the data received from the voters at each site. There are a number of ways to maintain the anonymity of the voters. Remove names, randomize times, etc. This printout would also be output electronically so that it can be stored for checking results, if there is a dispute.

Votes are tabulated/reported faster. The security is better—though only as good as its worst implementer. Everyone goes home happy-ish. Or at least as happy as they were before the election.

Back to the original topic: virus software. Here’s a fun thing: often, these days, viruses are written to attack and corrupt the virus protection software itself. Like real-world pathogens, they have adapted to attack the defenses first, and then go for the soft belly. So, if your computer is riddled with viruses, start over. This time, don’t use the virus software. Just use a malware detector like Spybot – Search & Destroy. In the distant past, when I still bothered with Windows, this was my virus-protection scheme, and it worked like a charm. My dad has been doing the same thing for years, and it works like a charm.

Again, back to the original topic: voting machines should not have Windows on them. Neither should servers. Linux is working all over the computing world on servers and in embedded devices for applications which require a great deal of security and require the OS to be robust—i.e. – not crashy. It comes in all sorts of flavors. It is scalable, customizable, and the source code is open. In other words, the kernel—most basic part of the operating system—can be fully customized to run exactly what is needed in the hardware, which also limits security gaps. It is also good at all the things that we talked about above: transport encryption, disk encryption, complicated networking schemes, redundancy, binary image backups. It also doesn’t have that nasty habit of crashing and dying forever. If it crashes, it can reboot, and it will be fine. This can even happen automatically since parts of the system can be restarted without your ever having to know about it in a user interface.

I don’t want to sound like an evangelical Linux user, but I am. And I will also admit that Linux is not for everyone—a statement that I do not fully believe, but which I will allow at present. It is however, perfect for an application like running voting systems. Even if you ran a Linux system comparable to what is running now on these silly machines, the problems would scale back immediately.

So, take that for what it’s worth. I felt that the comic was funny, but might need a little further explanation. There you go.

Oh yah, disclosure: This post was written from a laptop running an unnecessarily secure Ubuntu install, backed up on a server in my house running Debian and transmitted to the internet via a router running the Linux-based DD-WRT to a—you guessed it—Linux web-server share running WordPress. This blog post is delivered to you using only open-source operating systems and applications on our end. I can’t vouch for what you used to view it, but if you used Firefox, it’s a step in the right direction.