The BlogBorg Candidate

“All your base operating systems
are belong to us.”

Why all the guessing about the high RPM Lazy-Susan smorgasbord of Howard Dean’s positions these days? What’s up with the professed puzzlement of mainline Democrats about Dean’s need to commit public seppuku with his mouth over and over again?

There’s no mystery about where Howard’s coming from. All you have to do is follow the money to find out what’s manipulating Howard Dean. Dean is a creature of the BlogBorg; a man thrown up by the Matrix; a Matrix Reloaded and a Matrix Revolution.

In the end, Howard Dean, given his origins and the sources of his energy, is the First BlogBorg Candidate for President. He has been, quite simply, assimilated by his machine.

Once you understand that Dean’s positions are not his but the positions of the BlogBorg, everything becomes clear.

'George Bush knew about and was the hidden hand that drove the planes into the towers on 9/11?' Very popular BlogBorg theory.

'We’ve to protect Osama’s right to a fair trial?' The BlogBorg will not stand for any crushing of dissent and stands always ready to guard every mass-murderers right to a fair trial.

"I don't know where they're going to go, but they're certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician," says Dean of his supporters and he is right. They’re going to vote for the BlogBorg.

Jesus is just all right with Howard, but He's not the Son of God? Lots of the BlogBorg subscribes to the idea of Jesus as a really nice human being.

Dean's religion is Congregationalism. Why? Because "there is no centralized -- almost no centralized authority structure -- and I like that." The BlogBorg likes that too.

“"I'm just like every other American, I think the Osama is outrageous." Well, perhaps like every 20th online American posting at indymedia. Every other American considers the man just plain evil. But the BlogBorg reserves judgment until 26,745 postings on the issue in Slate's forums, and an email interview on Salon.

"We need a system of instant traceability for all cattle," says Dean trying to pin the Mad Cow tail on Bush. Implant chips are big on the

Net.In the future, everything and everyone will have implant chips and be instantly IM-able.

In a recent email from a prescient friend on a different subject, he made this remark:

“.. .a common theme in science fiction, concerns people wittingly or unwittingly playing the role of electronic batteries, components, or computational units of a greater machine. In fact, in some ways, you can spot this in Orwell's 1984, where party members are unwitting "cells" in the organism known as "The Party" with the designated "brain" of Big Brother.

"We've also seen themes where the emergence of this organism has been unintended, and went unrecognized until it was too late, in the various incarnations of the Terminator and countless science fiction stories.

"Well, folks, it's already here, and it's too late.”

He was referring to another Internet phenomenon but it is easy to see this operating in the Dean Campaign as well.

It has become a commonplace that the Internet has “made Howard Dean,” but people have been slow to look at exactly what that means.

Many acknowledge that a politician becomes beholding to his sources of funding in an unconscious, or not so unconscious, symbiotic relationship. In the case of Dean, however, much has been made of the fact that he has opted-out of traditional funding sources in lieu of BlogBorg funding. This, however, does not mean he has opted out of being beholding to his funding. It just means he is beholding to funding from the BlogBorg -- and as such has to become a creature of the BlogBorg. He has opted-out only to be co-opted in. He has been assimilated.

And since the BlogBorg operates at the speed of the BlogBorg, his positions have to reflect the positions of the BlogBorg that has become his primary fuel source.

“People wittingly or unwittingly playing the role of electronic batteries, components, or computational units of a greater machine....” Dean as the clone of his websites.

“Where party members are unwitting ‘cells’ in the organism known as ‘The Party’ with the designated ‘brain’ of Big Brother.” But who, exactly, is Big Brother and who is an unwitting cell?

“We've also seen themes where the emergence of this organism has been unintended, and went unrecognized until it was too late...” Is it too late for the Democratic Party? History will tell, but the signs are all over the Dean Websites:

The Catechism of the BlogBorg:

I believe in words spoken at gas stations and in the movie lines, in SUBWAY SERENADE, in http://www.seniorsfordean.org, in Deanspace, Joe Trippi, Frank Capra, the Sting, and in the gritty, messy, confused conversations of all kinds of people arguing over flyer names. I believe Sam sometimes says people are trolls just to donate to the troll goal. I believe in donating before the end of the quarter.

I believe in precinct walking and Howard Dean business cards, in the Howard Dean Dance Mix, the soul of Johnny Cash, and in exclamation points in long rows when they are used by Sally in SF.

I believe in fact-based decisionmaking, international leadership, the Geneva Conventions, fair trade, animal husbandry, family planning, and demanding more of everyone.

The Goal:

C'mon. You want a White House blog, don't you?

Creepy. But then who said the BlogBorg wouldn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand up a bit. Dean represents a future where political candidates are embraced not by their supporters but by the soul of their new machines.

“Well, folks, it's already here, and it's too late.......”

In the word of Glenn Reynolds:
“Indeed.”

Posted by Vanderleun at December 31, 2003 4:14 PM