Lite Brite Is Not a Bomb

Sorry. I just don't get it. Much ado about nothing, I say.

The Boston guerrilla marketing campaign gone wrong falls upon the perceivers rather than the stimulus. When I saw the thing, I thought, "it's a bleepin' Lite Brite." Then I read this quotation on CNN.com:

"It's so not threatening -- it's a Lite Brite," said twenty-two-year-old Todd Venderlin, a design student at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, saw one of the devices two weeks ago as he left a lounge in south Boston, according to The Boston Globe.

Seriously, the whole terror threat thing is absolutely out-of-control. I tried pretty hard not to think about this whole deal, but two e-mails from my dad forced it into my conscious perception.

My dad, Samuel D. Bradley version 2.0, wrote: "During the golden years of local radio (1950 to 1975), hiding things for the public to find was a widespread promotion practice. In 1954 or 1955, WHB radio in Kansas City held a "Treasure Hunt", with a paltry first prize of $1,000. They broadcast clues to where the prize was hidden. Huge traffic jams blocked major streets leading to the hiding place. But no one thought of a law suit. It was all great fun for everyone but those of us working for competitor stations -- we kicked ourselves for not thinking of the idea first.

"In 1963, the station where I worked increased transmitter power from 1,000 to 5,000 watts. As part of our promotional efforts, we acquired dozens of little battery operated, transistor clock radios. We turned each one on, tuned to our station, put them in plastic bags and 'hid' them all over the city. Imagine walking through a park, hearing music coming out of a tree, and finding a plastic bag sitting in a fork of the tree. People picked them up, saw what they were, and stole them.

"Boston says they spent a half million dollars trying to solve the problem of the little blinking thing. The mayor is demanding stiff penalties, lawyers are talking about class action lawsuits, competitors of Turner Broadcasting are dancing in the streets and some of us are shedding a tear for what we have lost in America."

If the first amendment protects flag burning and the Klan, surely a Lite Brite is protected speech. A hidden Lite Brite is not quite shouting "fire" in movie theatre.

Political Strategies of Terrorists

A story in today's New York Times suggests that the Pentagon and CIA are looking into Americans' bank records in terrorism-related investigations (read about it here to avoid NYT logon). Privacy-related concerns will have many balking. The begs the question of how to crack down on would-be terrorists without turning citizens against their own government.

As much as I hate waiting for the future, I enjoy looking back at the past. I like the twists and turns my life has taken.

In the early 1990s, I was a political science major. At New Mexico State, they called it government ... like Harvard. I ended up changing my major, but I completed the coursework for a minor in government (however, due to an oversight apparently on my part that was discovered years after graduation, I took a required class pass/fail and did not officially "get" the minor).

One of the first courses I took at NMSU was introduction to political science (GOVT 110G) with Neil Harvey, Ph.D.

Harvey's research focus, in part, involves Chiapas, Mexico, and we talked a lot about Latin America in that class.

Although it was fall 1994, I think a lot about that class these days. One of the things that we talked about in that class was the goals of terrorism. It seemed largely tangential at the time, but I learned something that I remember these many years later.

Most Americans, it seems, feel that the true goal of terrorism is evil. Among other things, this is illogical. Many evil people fill the history books, but few of them achieved evil for evil's sake.

Consider the Sept. 11th attacks on World Trade Center, Pentagon, and flight 93. Although the means could not be more deplorable, the goals are legitimate political goals. The means are evil. But the end is not evil. Instead terrorism is a political weapon of the weak.

I am a pack rat, and I save things. I still have all my notes from my undergraduate career. Thinking through 12+ years of haze, I looked up my notes on terrorism from Prof. Harvey.

On Nov. 14, 1994, I wrote in my notes, "What are the tactics? Small groups with few resources: bombing train terminals, kidnapping, blowing up airlines. Puts fear into people and makes the government more repressive. Single, young, better educated males. Misfits. Can't see the different between the good and the bad within the system. Fanaticism based on hatred. The cause may not be so relevant. Democracies are particularly susceptible to terrorism."

The part that stuck with me is in the middle. Terrorism makes the government more repressive. In a free and open society such as the United States, it is easy to move around. This freedom makes us susceptible to terrorism. When a major terrorist attack occurs, fear spreads. More importantly, however, the government almost inevitably begins to constrict.

Patriot Act.

Wiretapping.

Sound familiar?

Terrorism puts an administration in an extremely unenviable position. With no restrictions, it is difficult to curtail vulnerability to terrorism. Suffer a repeat attack, and public opinion is sure to turn against the administration.

Hence the fact that most governments will begin to become more repressive. As the fear from an eminent terrorist attack subsides, citizens begin to chafe at the new restrictions. Their ire drifts away from the terrorism and toward their own government.

In a small Latin American country, this discontent might be sufficient to lead to an overthrow of the state. This is virtually impossible within the United States; however, recent mid-term elections suggest that a vote-based coup may be under way.

Consider that a recent news release from the Gallup organization reported, "But in the latest poll, his approval rating on terrorism (44%) is roughly the same as his 45% rating on the economy. The 44% terrorism approval rating is one of the worst of his presidency ..."

As a communications and cognitive science scholar, I will leave it to others to debate the policies. My over-arching question is that if even I can remember this terrorism-repression-discontent link, why was that not a major talking point from Washington?

Instead of pushing the Patriot Act (for example) as a necessary evil, it seems to me that a more effective communication strategy would have been to come out saying, "One of the goals of terrorists is to drive a wedge between a government and its people over security policies. We are going to make our country safer, but we are going to balance safety with the civil liberties of our citizens."

I understand that hindsight is 20/20, but it seems with all of the hundreds of advisors in Washington, someone could have done a better job.