The blunt sword of anonymity

I have been thinking about anonymous posts on this blog and, especially, on LANL: the .....

Anonymous posts serve a very useful purpose. They give a voice and an outlet to people who, for reasons of employment or personality, cannot post under their own name.

My postings are never anonymous. Someone might claim that labeled postings are easy for me because I know about the Lab but do not work there. This is not true. There are risks to me personally with every posting that I make. The risks, currently, are tolerable; but there are risks.

The reason that anonymous posting is a blunt sword is that people with the power to change the environment for the better do not lose anything by ignoring anonymous posts. There is no person, no adversary, no combatant to best. So the environment continues as before. If I remember correctly, not long ago, there was an anonymous letter to Congress complaining about problems at LANL. As far as I know, nothing happened as a result of this letter.

So, my feeling is that unless some people have the courage to become named (no longer anonymous) at least to each other and then do something effective LANL will continue on its present course.