Hey guys, since my last post on politics, identity, and identity politics stirred the pot a bit, I thought I’d stay in a similar vein. A few disclaimers: there is no Sex and the City, no Super Mario Bros., and no mentions of Feminism in this post. Next week’s topic is why I don’t like reading dharma books. Hope you show some love and get the conversation rolling, because they’re at least a few folks reading this who are about to get called Dumbasses. In the most loving sense of the word.
Anyway, on the afternoon of February 5th, as I was trying to get out the vote in Brooklyn for the 2008 primary outside my local polling stations, I sent a text to about 100 friends to remind them to vote in the day’s primary. I was shocked at the number of responses I got that said: “Can’t Vote. Registered Independent.” (I also got a bunch that said “Can’t Vote: Not Registered Here.” And, to be fair, I got a bunch that said: “Already Voted.”) New York State has a closed primary (for the uninitiated this means we only let you vote in a party’s primary if you are registered with that party). In fact, New York State has an archaically closed primary. For some strange (read: mafioso) reason, the deadline to change party affiliation on an existing registration comes up much sooner than the deadline for brand new voter registrations. Does that seem a bit nefarious? Isn’t it easier for a clerk to just click a box on an existing database file than enter a whole new file? I don’t get it.
Anyway, the end result was that a lot of people (mostly gen x or gen y people, for whom the Indy label seems particularly popular) I know who had something to say in beer-induced conversation regarding Hillary vs. Barack (or for that matter, had a lot to say in the Republican races, or even the local races) had absolutely nothing to say in the voter’s booth.
Nada. Silence. Tree. Falling. In. The. Forest.
The same thing has come up recently as I plunge deeper into local politics.
A bit of news: I think I’m running for office. Well, actually, it’s a largely defunct office called the Brooklyn County Committee. The idea was started by a couple of young Brooklyn Obama organizers who started this cool website, to get young progressives into elected office at the very ground level and exert grassroots pressure on the local democratic part. I would represent a three block radius of about 800-1000 voters in my neighborhood. All I have to do is get 20 signatures to get on the ballot, run unopposed (because most of the seats are vacant), and voila, I am an elected official in the Democratic party. The position is a bit odd, because each three block district is meant to have a male and a female representative, so I’ve been scouring my female friends in the area, looking for an electoral prom queen to my king, a fellow progressive lady who wants to collect twenty signatures with me and start a fruitful career in politics. But every progressively minded lady in my hood I’ve asked to join me is well…currently registered Independent…and therefore can’t run with me.
Finally, I’m trying to help my friend Dan Squadron, a 28 year old progressive, running for New York State Senate. Dan is running in the Democratic Primary against an entrenched politician who has been in office longer than Dan’s been alive. The guy is also, just by the looks of his quotes in this article, kind of a jerk. And when I try to get friends who live in the district to remember to turn out to vote for Dan in September 9th’s primary, I very often hear the response that they can’t vote in the primary because, well, yes, they are registered Indy.
I have no statistical data to back this up (I couldn’t find it on the NY Board of Elections site), but I think the number of progressives who are registered as Indy is quite a large voting bloc indeed.
And here’s the crazy part about all these Indy voters who’ve eliminated themselves from the full democratic process in our closed primary state. The freaky part is they sort of like it that way. When I try to start a conversation and tell them that almost ALL meaningful elections are decided in the primary, they often say they don’t care. It’s a matter of principle, they say, a matter of staying free of labels with which you don’t agree, not pinning yourself down. Who wants to identify as a Democrat or a Republican? They don’t want to fit themselves into a narrow box (especially such a distastefully confining box like our two major political parties). Who would want to identify with the democratic party of the last generation? And who, in this postmodern age, wants to define themselves with such binary code? Indy is the only label they want. The only label that quasi-keeps it real. And even the status of the Indy label is now tenuous, even its vague, all-encompassing nonentity is too tight of a box for some. I know some people who can’t even bring themselves to label themselves Indy. Those folks aren’t even registered. And I also know a few who just haven’t bothered to figure out how to register to vote. They self-identify as Dumbass. Or they should.
When the ancient Buddhist master Nagarjuna unveiled his philosophy of nonidentity (sorry Post-Structuralists, you got beaten to the punch by 2000 years), he was trying to rigorously and systematically demonstrate to human beings the suffering and misunderstanding that was bound up in the process of labeling. He was trying to show that when we attempt to pin down a fluid reality with static labels, we will always cause problems for ourselves and others. He was trying to develop a method of empowering the individual to wisdom and compassion through conquering the ignorant process of boxing and packaging phenomena in ways that could never adequately communicate the ever-changing nature of experience . Contemporary deconstructionists, post-structuralists, and other identity-theorists who call into question the notion of fixed identity are also trying – if we give them the benefit of the doubt – to do the same thing with their methods: empower us to see the wisdom and compassion of not getting caught in the labels of this or that, up and down, left and right.
But, alas, ye foolish hipsters (and face it, the virus has spread, it must be airborne, for we are all hipsters now), the principle of nonfixed identity has to exist within the practical sphere of cause and effect. Because in the end, fluid as our identity is, identity is not a nonentity. What we do or don’t do matters. Whether we get to vote or not matters. Practicality is a principal above all other principals. Understanding cause and effect is the source of all principals. And if we choose a mode of (non)identity that only has the effect of eliminating our participation in a process of collective action, then we are disempowered. If we knowingly disempower ourselves, we must identify as Dumbasses. If we are registered Indy in a state with closed primaries, then we are a Dumbass. And this is not a good thing, Dumbasses.
In a general election, vote for whomever you want. Vote Working Family’s Party. Vote Green. Vote Cylon. Vote Republican. Or Vote Obama with me (I ain’t no Democrat neither, but you best believe that’s what my voter registration card says now!). But if you live in a state with closed primaries, you better make sure you can participate in the primary elections next time around. To not do so is deeply irresponsible. And don’t pretend it’s because you don’t like to identify. And definitely don’t pretend that your desire not to identify is some kind of spiritual or postmodern wisdom. Because it’s just stupid. And you’re a dumbass. Nagarjuna said so. And that cat was practically Yoda.
And Now, Your Moment of Zen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ume-fM1iqj8