But the forces of darkness and gabardine were not yet defeated. There is a war going on, a war for our closet space. In these times of economic uncertainty, a shadowy group of Luddites known as the Men's Apparel Alliance (MAA) is seeking to turn the clock back to the Bad Old Days of suits, ties, and feudalism. If they had their way, we serfs of the workplace would be forced to crawl about installing Ethernet cables while clad in English wool suits, getting our ties caught in laser printers, and soiling our Oxford linen shirts with printer toner. Our female compatriots would have it worse, being compelled to wear burquas or face public stoning in the break room.

Not surprisingly, the MAA is composed, mainly, of business-dress retailers, who have seen their profits decline even as Dockers' climbed. I imagine these guys as being something like the Imperial fleet admirals gathered together in the Death Star's briefing room in Star Wars, only instead of those cool uniforms they're all wearing Brooks Brothers suits, and instead of plotting to blow up Alderaan, they're trying to squeeze us all back into the hated suit.

"A lot of CEOs were lured into relaxing their (dress) codes but they woke up to find a more relaxed worker who comes in later and chats about games," James Ammeen, executive director of the MAA and, not coincidentally, president of the monkey-suit manufacturing firm Neema Worldwide was quoted as saying in a recent Lubbock Online article calling for a return to antiquarian dress codes. "The motto now is 'dress for success.' Look serious; look like you care." (You can read the Google cache of a similar ABC news article here.)

Needless to say, just as the Death Star had its fatal flaw, so, too does the MAA's Josef Goebbels-like scheme to Bring Back the Suit, namely, that the vast majority of American workers have realized that formal dress is superfluous to their ability to do their jobs. In fact, for those in IT, computer geeks' innate mistrust of their suit-wearing natural enemies can actually work to their detriment. As "Someguy" from Georgia posted on the Fark.com message boards, "One person in the company where I work, a very high-level executive, was very strongly opposed to 'business casual' before we implemented it. He wrote memo after memo saying how our productivity would drop, we'd lose customers, etc. Then our two largest customers went business casual year-round (previously it had only been in the summer). Our customers' reps started complaining that our people were making them feel underdressed at meetings."

"ZzeusS" of Kansas City agreed: "Clothes definitely define attitude. But as an engineer I find I'm more able to concentrate on my computer systems crap if I don't have to worry about my slacks getting dirty or my shirt being creased oh just so. . . If I was a boardroom exec, sure I'd pay for a new wardrobe and dry cleaning, but those are tools of the trade."

"Gurney Halleck" of Boston, MA, however, perhaps put it best when he said, "Fuck the Men's Apparel Alliance and fuck this Ammeen guy. Casual dress codes were killing their little empire based on corporate uniforms and tight-assed executives who can AFFORD to pay for that overpriced shit. Heaven forbid that the people working 60-hour workweeks so those same executives can buy a new house on Cape Cod should feel comfortable at work. I'll dress like I care when corporations stop putting money before people."

Armies throughout the centuries have known there is nothing like putting men in uniform to build an espirit de corps. If management is indeed trying to mold our hearts and minds into obedient little production-units, then squeezing us into three-piece uniforms is but part of the struggle. We can ill-afford to trade our precious freedom for security.

Gentlemen: Stand up and make your voices heard. You gotta fight for your right to khaki.

The preceding was a work of satire. If you haven't figured this out already, please get the fuck out of the gene pool.