The Return of Nader-bot

by Paul Salamone

If it didn't mean our collective asses were on the line, it's tempting to view Campaign 2004 as a very long, red-white-and-blue episode of Robot Wars. Yet in this version, a competitor does not succeed by slashing tires, ramming giant spikes through gearboxes, or pushing other robots into the path of a flamethrower or a circular saw, but by replicating his programmed subroutine throughout the minds of as many audience members as possible. It is these subroutines -- often simple, binary command strings used to define an "in" group and an "out" group -- that are found in Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, and Racial Nationalist alike, and have in fact been the driving force throughout human history since the invention of language.

Ralph Nader is no different.

When Nader announced his '04 presidential bid the other day, the true danger of giving robots social power in the 21st Century became apparent. Yet while his announcement drew the ire of countless anti-Bushies still furious over the Green Party's disruptive influence in the 2000 debacle (let's not forget that Bush won by a tiny margin in Florida, the same state where Ralph Nader took home 97,488 votes otherwise meant for Gore), you have to feel sorry for Ralph: he's only doing what he was designed to do.

Programmed sometime in the late 20th century with the command string "CORPORATIONS = BAD," Nader-Bot performed his specific function very well: air bags, seat belts, clean air -- the citizens of the United States have much to for which to thank this loyal consumer advocate.

But in 2000, Nader-Bot chipped off his restraining bolt and fled the bot-barn, ending up at the helm of the millions-strong Green Party, where he could replicate his "CORPORATIONS = BAD" subroutine throughout the minds of legions of tofu-eating Voter-Bots. That he might have been remotely controlled by the more sinister Karl Rove-Bot to help with the latter's campaign against Gore-Bot 2000, was besides the point: Nader-Bot was a dangerous weapon on the loose.

See, the problem is, the world is a bit more complex than "CORPORATIONS = BAD", yet the structure of Nader-Bot's sensory apparatus could only detect the presence of corporate influence, and nothing else. That you would never catch Gore-Bot 2000 dead (er, deactivated) declaring war on Iraq, authoring the Patriot Act, reading the Left Behind series, or putting John Ashcroft in charge of anything did not compute to Nader nor his Green Robot army. Corporate hands plied both parties, and all a Green could think was "TERMINATE."

Yet compared to an archaic subroutine like "MY KIN > YOUR KIN" or "MY SKIN COLOR > YOUR SKIN COLOR" (shared by frightening majority of robots on this planet), Nader-Bot is a benign, doddering old 'droid in a rumpled suit. But while his programming will never permit him to nuke the village of a rival clan, or carry out experiments on another race, he's still dangerous.

Of course, Nader-Bot is not the only powerful android running the narrow-minded "CORPORATIONS = BAD" subroutine. A far more militant Green-Bot, one Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of Adbusters, is calling for a World War in the name of his own limited perspective:

-- "World War IV," Adbusters March/April 2004

Like Nader, Lasn's sensory apparatus is blind to the other types of subroutines the robots of this planet play host to. His coding fails to recognize that his "more than six billion" population of supposed anti-capitalists includes robots running other even scarier subroutines like "AMERICA = THE GREAT SATAN," "MEN > WOMEN," and "MURDER = FUN."

Yet this sort of pie-in-the-sky idealism seems endemic throughout the ranks of so-called "Progressive-Bots."

My friend Rob recently attended a public showing of the Election 2000 documentary Unprecedented at Columbia College in Chicago, followed by a Q&A with one of this year's Green Party candidate-bots. At one point, Rob stood up to address the audience, recounted in an email the next day:

Rob was then surrounded by gnashing metal teeth and serrated claws and devoured on the spot. But before his untimely demise, he did manage a conversation with the candidate himself:

Translation: "iNPUT STRING DOES NOT COMPUTE."

Like all robots, the Green-bots have a hard time diverging from their programmed subroutine, which is often reinforced by cultural context and the increased difficulty of getting re-programmed once one reaches adulthood (read: 25+ years after the date of manufacture).

Yet all is not lost. Even robots stumping for office CAN be reprogrammed, as was the case with a far more strident Politi-Bot, one Malcolm X.

Fresh from the 'bot factories of the Deep South, Mr. X-Bot began his career running the "ME > YOU" subroutine of pleasure-seeking Gangsta-bots everywhere, working wonders as a part-time thief, which put food on his table and blow in his nose before sending him to jail. Inside prison, X met a reprogramming specialist working for Elijah Muhammed, who helped him download an islamic strain of the more advanced "BLACK > WHITE" program and gave X a transcendent purpose in life and a means of leaving prison. X quickly set to replicating this subroutine across legions of other listless black twenty-somethings, and soon had a Robot Army of his own intent on the destruction of white robots everywhere. But this subroutine would be replaced during an experience while on pilgrimage to the holy Myth-Bot city of Mecca, wherein X downloaded the more benign "ALL MEN = BROTHERS" which allowed him to stop picking fights with other less-militant Civil Rights-bots, and even the previously-despised Cracker-bots.

One could imagine X running an even more advanced subroutine had he not been laid low by the bullets of the "BLACK > WHITE" assassins who felt betrayed by his new upgrade.

Yet Ralph Nader is no Malcolm X, and at this point -- with his bony joints showing signs of rust and his skinny grey armor covered in dents -- we can't expect him to upgrade anytime soon.

And so we must call for the development of a new type of leadership-bot to end these robot wars once and for all. Programmed with the macro-routine "ALL SUBROUTINES = NECESSARY," this robot will have multi-lens cameras for eyes and a memorized catalog of all the other subroutines -- from the archaic to the traditional to the modern to the postmodern -- running the gears of robots across the planet. It will find a place for all robots to do what they do best, from providing for themselves to giving other robots hope to declaiming the short-sightedness of robot-led corporations -- without letting them beat the crap out of each other.

It is only when all robots start working together as a single planetary Voltron that the robot wars will end and we may explore the universe in peace. Just don't expect it to happen this year.

Paul Salamone is a former BEAST editor who now combs his hair in Colorado, where he edits The Manifest (http://www.the-manifest.org) . This article first appeared in Knot Magazine (http://www.knotmag.com) .