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. Republican DeForest B. Soaries, whom George W. Bush appointed to chair the Federal Election Assistance Commission, has publicly called for the government to draw up plans to cancel or reschedule elections in the event of a terrorist strike against the United States. That's so typical of a Bush appointee: prioritize fear over the constitution and democracy. Of course, not long after Soaries made his public calls for the rescheduling of elections, it came out that George W. Bush's Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department are working together to determine how to go about rescheduling elections in the event that a terrorist strike were to take place in the United States. This is, of course, beyond stupid: what better way to invite an attack, for Pete's sake, than to advertise that a successful attack will be rewarded with the postponing of American democracy! Beyond that, it now appears to be the official Bush Administration position to let the terrorists win by turning an attack by a few violent losers into the crumbling of a cornerstone of democracy. (Sources: Reuters July 11, 2004; Associated Press June 25, 2004) Return to the Irregular Times Main Page
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