Back in 1975, our family received a present we’ll never forget. The U.S. government cleaned out its public bomb shelters, including one in the cellar of our neighborhood grade school. It had been stockpiled with tons of emergency supplies since the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s: 12 years later, even mice wouldn’t touch the stuff. A school janitor gave us a 20-gallon drum of sugar-coated candy, which we considered a veritable jackpot. A few days later, our heads aching from nonstop crunching, we’d had enough. We didn’t fare much better on the other supplies like government issue peanut butter, dusty tasting canned water and actual hardtack, a frontier-era breadstuff similar to saltine crackers crossed with drywall sheeting. More disturbing than the taste was the realization that our nation’s leaders fully expected us to survive on this diet had a nuclear war occurred. Fed this stuff, you couldn’t help but wonder if surrendering to the Russians might not been a fair alternative. At least we would have gotten borscht and pickled herrings for our troubles. Then again, we’d grown to expect as much from the government. These were the same knucklehead bureaucrats who tried to convince a generation of schoolchildren that their creaky little wood and pot-metal desks would offer protection from a thermonuclear blast. If the feds really believed this, their buddies in the defense industry would be bilking the taxpayers for new lift-top desks, not $30 billion missile-defense shields. The folks in Washington are still intent of having the public prepared for nuclear or terrorist attacks, only now, the onus falls on average Americans. This time, we’re instructed to stow away our own peanut butter and water, and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge says duct tape and plastic sheeting will help us survive a terrorist attack. This is just as silly, dishonest and downright phony as convincing people that schoolhouse cellars were impervious to the 3,000 mph winds and 1,600 degree temperatures of a nuclear blast. What Americans really need is intelligent, accountable information about terrorism and realistic assessments of what, if any threats exist. Instead we’re deluged with vague, color-coded warnings that only serve to scare little old ladies and pump the coffers of area hardware stores. You can’t really blame Ridge for his reticence when it comes to cluing us in on the real facts; his job right now is to scare us silly because a frightened public is more likely to buy whatever is being sold — be it duct tape, jawbreakers or entire wars. Meanwhile, when local authorities do apprehend a genuine terrorist, they treat him like a teenage shoplifter. Washington County Ku Klux Klan leader David Hull was arrested last week after attempting to buy explosives from FBI agents. He planned to bomb local abortion clinics and had stockpiled weapons and rigged his car to explode. But instead of being imprisoned alongside other terrorists, Hull was granted bail by U.S. Magistrate Ervin Swearingen. Maybe he has a stockpile of old school desks in his cellar. If all this hysteria, misinformation and thick-headedness gives you the impression our elected and appointed leaders wouldn’t know a terrorist from a terrier, you’re right. I’d bet a three-year supply of hardtack on it.

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