Anthrax? I Know Nothing of Anthrax?

Yes the anthrax attack has been forgotten by the media, the government and the nation as whole. Probably because it wasn’t as dramatic as its big brother, 9/11. And, you know, it didn’t involve scary brown people trying to take away our freedoms or whatever.

But while many wonder why the anthrax attacks were erased from the national consciousness, I’ve long maintained that every other domestic terrorist attack has pretty much suffered the same fate because they don’t fit the xenophobic, us-against-them mold. Arguably what could be considered the second and third worst terror attacks in recent history (Oklahoma City and the 1996 Olympics) were done by rightwing white males that were U.S. citizens.*

We don’t know who pulled off the anthrax attacks, but considering the targets were mostly liberal politicians and members of the “liberal” media, I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe the mastermind could also have been an angry conservative white male. And as we all know, conservative white males are “good” relative to the scary dark-skinned foreigners. Therefore, we just forget about those other incidents. They don’t fit the post 9/11 storyline, and are thus discounted. Note too that there are still those looking to make the anthrax attacks foreign in origin even though law enforcement and other experts pretty much universally contend the evidence discounts that. But again, for some it’s more convenient to blame outsiders.
*When I bring this up to some on the right, they often dismiss these guys as just being “crazy” and move on. Look, anyone who engages in this stuff is, at some level, crazy in my opinion. But they were driven by ideology, and acted just as the 9/11 hijackers did. Sorry, I’m not letting them off the hook that easily. I’m not saying rightwing = terrorist, but it’s also worth noting that Muslin doesn’t = terrorist either, something those on the right have a hard time coming to grips with.