So, what we have is this. Someone who had access to anthrax, and the know-how to grow it up and refine it so that it would be highly deadly, remains at large. The letters were mailed from Trenton, New Jersey, so either that person lives in the country or at least had the ability to enter our borders. And, as far as we can tell, s/he (or, potentially, they) are still out there somewhere. In the meantime, a number of shortsighted approaches to security have been applied, such as this week's limitation on fluids in carry-on. As pointed out by Bruce Schneier,

Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won't make us safer, either. It's not just that there are ways around the rules, it's that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

We need a severe overhaul, and we need to keep the unsolved anthrax attacks in the public eye. Someone out there has the technology to kill us--potentially, lots of us. We don't know when, where, or if he'll strike again, but the answer to the problem certainly isn't to react in a knee-jerk fashion. Instead of throwing a lot of money at problems without any rational underpinning for how it should be spent, we need to improve infrastructure--especially law enforcement and other emergency responders and public health--so that we can respond in a concerted and logical manner to threats like this.

Now that the Jon Benet Ramsay case has apparently been broken, perhaps we might look forward to some advances in the anthrax case? Maybe not -- according to Wikipedia:

As of 2006, the anthrax investigation seems to have gone cold. Authorities have traveled to four different continents, interviewed more than 8,000 individuals and have issued over 5,000 subpoenas. The number of FBI agents assigned to the case is now 21, ten fewer than a year ago. The number of postal inspectors investigating the case is nine.

The FBI and postal inspectors are in the process of preparing an internal report reviewing the history of the investigation. The report will include a list of "persons of interest" and the latest on the scientific tests used on the anthrax material. Investigators still have not determined the lab used to make the anthrax.

I've generally found that when the authorities start to enumerate, they're at a dead end.

The school board in Harrison County, West Virginia has decided to fight a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Americans United over a large portrait of Jesus that hangs in the hallway of the high school there. They had vowed not to use public money to fight the suit, but a fund raising campaign raised over $150,000 for a defense fund, prompting the board to vote to fight rather than settle the case...

That a government entity such as a local school board could so badly misunderstand the concept of the separation of church and state so as to believe that there's nothing wrong with putting up a portrait of Jesus in a public high school is appalling. It means that the educational system is doing a terrible job of teaching what our government is, how it works, and the principles upon which it is built (which is likely) or that, once again, ideological preconceptions have overwhelmed everything else, or both.

To a local resident's complaint that the ACLU is trying to take away his freedom, Brayton says:

[T]his has precisely nothing to do with your freedom. Freedom exists at an individual level only. As an individual, you have an unquestioned right to hang a picture of anyone you wish on your own property, and the ACLU will be the first ones to defend that freedom. But this is a government facility, paid for with public tax money. Decisions made there are not a matter of individual rights, but of government authority.

[...]

I also think that this is, again, a perfect situation in which to examine the basic hypocrisy of so many anti-separation advocates. Change the situation just slightly: imagine that instead of a picture of Jesus, the school hung a picture of Muhammed. Would [the local resident] still be arguing that their "freedom" was being taken away? Not a chance. Even if the public there supported such a picture completely, do you suppose [a local minister] would be saying that the ACLU has no right to overturn the will of the majority? Of course not. Would anyone claim that hanging such a picture exclusively does not amount to an endorsement of Islam? I can't imagine anyone would.

Is this an endorsement? Of course it is, and anyone who argues otherwise is either lying or delusional.

If the people of Harrison County want large portraits of Jesus to be displayed in their community, there must be property owned by churches, fraternal organizations or private citizens where such portraits could be accomodated without causing any constitutional problem whatsoever.

Saw a screening of a documentary called Jesus Camp. It focuses on a woman preacher (Becky Fischer) who indoctrinates children in a summer camp in North Dakota. Right wing political agendas and slogans are mixed with born again rituals that end with most of the kids in tears. Tears of release and joy, they would claim — the children are not physically abused. The kids are around 9 or 10 years old, recruited from various churches, and are pliant willing receptacles. They are instructed that evolution is being forced upon us by evil Godless secular humanists, that abortion must be stopped at all costs, that we must form an “army” to defeat the Godless influences, that we must band together to insure that the right judges and politicians get into the courts and office and that global warming is a lie. (This last one is a puzzle — how did accepting the evidence for climate change and global warming become anti-Jesus? Did someone simply conflate all corporate agendas with Jesus and God and these folks accept that? Would Jesus drive an SUV? Is every conclusion responsible scientists make now suspect?)

Awareness of the rest of the world is curtailed — one can only view or read that which agrees with the agenda.

Naturally, the kids being so young, there is no questioning of any kind — they simply accept what grownups Fischer and the others say — they get pumped up, agitated, they memorize right wing and Jesus slogans and shout them back obediently. They become part of a support group — a warm, safe, comfortable feeling for anyone, for any social animal, for you and me. No one strays or gets out of line even the slightest bit.

Get 'em while they're young -- that's the ticket! I complained about such under-age indoctrination to my CCD teacher when I was barely a teen-ager, but he didn't see anything wrong in it -- but, of course, the kids in catechism class weren't sequestered from the rest of the world, as the kids in the camp seem to have been. In any case, the technique is used by just about everybody -- think of all those "red diaper babies" in socialist summer camps -- because it's the best way to insure a lifetime of devotion. So few people ever challenge the precepts drummed into them as a child (and some of those who do flip from one extreme to the other).

(It works pretty good on young adults as well.)

Interestingly, Magnolia Pictures, the U.S. distributor of the film Byrne's referring to (Jesus Camp), says that they're going to "target both conservative Christian and liberal [documentary] audiences alike."

[via The Scientific Activist]

* The problem with "centrism" is that over the years the political center has moved consistently to the right, thanks to the extremism of the Republican party. Ideas which 40 years ago were only espoused by fringe loonies like the John Birch Society, are now part of the mainstream Republican agenda, and this has gradually but inexorably dragged the center to the right. That's the biggest flaw in the DLC/mainstream media call for "moving to the center" or "triangulation" or "bipartisanship" or "non-partisanship" or whatever it's currently being called.

Not only that, but the "move to the center" trope is the constant refrain of the DLCers no matter what the circumstances or the political weather. Like the man with the hammer to whom everything looks like a nail, the self-proclaimed "centrists" never have another thought except trying to pretend that Democrats are Republicans. (To their credit, they don't mean like current Republicans, they mean something much more like the Rockefeller "liberal" Republican, of whom there are only a very few left -- primarily the New England Republican Senators.)

Because of this, because their analysis always presents the same suggested solution (rather like Amy Sullivan's regarding the way Democrats should deal with religion), their advice is suspect and can be safely ignored -- at least in the current circumstances, where Democrats lead Republicans in generic polling, where Bush's popularity continues to be at an extremely low level, where a majority of the people now think Bush's war is a bad idea and should be folded, and when we're in a mid-term election in a second-term presidency. There's no logical reason to think that moving to the center is a better political strategy than pounding on Bush, pounding on the war, pounding on the failures, pounding on the economy, pounding on the unpopularity of Republicans in general.

Update: Josh Marshall's post (which I linked to above) about the hardening of his stance to become a "partisanized moderate" was not actually the genesis of this post of mine. I started it in the afternoon, before I had read Marshall's piece, then put it aside when household distractions were preventing me from concentrating on it. Later, I read TPM and realized the two had a connection.

Kevin Drum has a thought:

[J]ust recently I've been thinking about what a genuinely profound story this is, one that the mainstream media ought to be more interested in. Instead of writing incessantly about "angry bloggers," they ought to be asking why so many mild-mannered moderate liberals have become so radicalized during George Bush's tenure. It deserves attention beyond the level of cliches and slogans.

Unfortunately, it's not likely to happen, because answering his question would require having a clear understanding of the nature of the Bush/Cheney Administration, the actions of which are the ultimate cause of the transformation. Having been complict (willingly or not) in the construction of the false front that the Administration hides behind, the mainstream media is unlikely to be inclined to examine it too closely -- but if by some miracle, pushed by the change in the political winds, they do and "discover" its falseness, you can be sure that they will somehow fail to recognize their own part in helping to create it, and in enabling the ongoing misdeeds of Bush's government.

Update: Digby and Meteor Blades

Prof. Groeteschele: In my opinion [the Russians] will take no action at all.

Gen. Stark: They're not going to just sit there, Professor

Prof. Groeteschele: I think if our bombers get through the Russians will surrender.

Gen. Bogan: Who's this professor, Mr. Secretary? What's he doing there?

Defense Secretary Swenson: Professor Groeteschele is a civilian advisor to the Pentagon, General. Will you explain your statement, Professor?

Prof. Groeteschele: The Russian aim is to dominate the world. They think that Communism must succeed eventually if the Soviet Union is left reasonably intact. They know that a war would leave the Soviet Union utterly destroyed. Therefore, they would surrender.

Gen. Stark: But suppose they feel they can knock us off first?

Prof. Groeteschele: They know we might have a doomsday system, missiles that would go into action days, even weeks after a war is over and destroy an enemy even after that enemy has already destroyed us.

Brigadier General Warren A. Black: Maybe they'll think that even capitalists aren't that insane, to want to kill after they themselves have been killed.

Prof. Groeteschele: These are Marxist fanatics, not normal people. They do not reason they way you reason, General Black. They're not motivated by human emotions such as rage and pity. They are calculating machines. They will look at the balance sheet, and they will see they cannot win.

Defense Secretary Swenson: Then you suggest doing what?

Prof. Groeteschele: [leans forward] Nothing.

Defense Secretary Swenson: Nothing?

Prof. Groeteschele: The Russians will surrender, and the threat of Communism will be over, forever.

Gen. Bogan: That's a lot of hogwash. Don't kid yourself, there'll be Russian generals who will react just as I would -- the best defense is a good offense. They see trouble coming up, take my word for it, they'll attack, and they won't give a damn what Marx said.

Prof. Groeteschele: Mr. Secretary, I am convinced that the moment the Russians know bombs will fall on Moscow, they will surrender. They know that whatever they do then, they cannot escape destruction. Don't you see, sir, this our chance. We never would have made the first move deliberately, but Group 6 has made it for us, by accident. We must take advantage of it -- history demands it. We must advise the President not to recall those planes.

Fail-Safe (film, 1964)
screenplay by Walter Bernstein
based on the novel by
Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler
directed by Sidney Lumet

In Walter Matthau's Prof. Groeteschele, I think we get a taste of the kind of advice, based on grossly mistaken premises and drastic misunderstanding of the psychology of non-Americans, which formed the basis for the neo-con belief that the invasion of Iraq would be a cakewalk, that we would be welcomed with roses and open arms, that there would be no need for a long-term occupation, and no possibility of a widespread insurgency.

In the film, Groeteschele's advice does not prevail, being overridden by the good sense of civilians and generals alike. It's a shame that in our own time, people who think like Groeteschele are the ones in charge, at the White House and in the Pentagon.

Update: DarkSyde points out what many of us who lived through the Cold War know -- that the threat from radical Islamists like Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda pales in comparison to the threat of nuclear annihilation we were under back then. To compare the two is ludicrous, since "the odds of falling victim to Al Qaeda rank somewhere between falling off a ladder to your death and being struck by lightning inside your home," while the result of a Soviet nuclear missile attack would have been "convert[ing] some 20 million US citizens into plasma."

Update: I see that the right is (as usual, *yawn*) framing this as meaning that liberals are soft on terrorism and don't think it's necessary or important to prevent further terrorist attacks. What it actually means is that comparisons of the threat of radical Islamist terrorist to the Cold War or to World War II, so popular among wingers at the moment, are ludicrously inapt, and the strategies and tactics which were appropriate then aren't the best way to protect us now.

Knowing the precise parameters of the situation you're in and the capabilities and inclinations of your enemy, to the extent that you can do so, and then planning one's actions and responses in light of that information, is tremendously important. Unfortunately for the right, that requires seeing things as clearly as possible, without ideological blinders and filters -- which is something they apparently cannot do.