It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of
a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into
privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing
algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the
planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times. At it Yet AGAIN!
The practice of Republican plagiarism continues with a new and particularly pernicious instance. In previous instances of astroturf, the Republican National Committee recruited non-journalists to commit plagiarism for them. But this time, the Republicans have gone further. After the Republican National Committee wrote a polemical letter (the text of which you can read here), the very same words miraculously ended up as letters to the editor of the Robertson County Times (April 23, 2003) and the Southeastern Louisiana University Lion's Roar (April 17, 2003).
As far as regular astroturf goes, this is small potatoes. But then on May 15 of 2003 a columnist for the Weirs Times, a weekly newspaper distributed across New Hampshire, decided he'd take up the pen -- or rather, the copy machine. W.R. Carr is his name, although he prefers to be called Bill. He wrote the column as a representative of the New Hampshire Business Council, effectively localizing and hiding the true national source of the Republican Party's words.
After noting the similarities, I decided to contact Weirs Times directly. What happened next? Read here for the full skinny. ![]() ![]() ![]() |