The sun is blazing down on me and sweat drips from my forehead. The West Virginia air is humid and thick as storm clouds cluster in unpredictable colonies in the sky. I have been working as a petitioner on the Ralph Nader ballot-access campaign for almost a week now and although the work is exhausting it has helped me to truly understand the role that third parties play in American politics. At first I was terrified of approaching total strangers and talking to them about their politics; but now my words are more fluid, more familiar, and my self-esteem is less attached to the many rejections, blow-offs, and rude comments that I endued on a day to day basis.
Today I am stationed in front of a super market on the outskirts of Charleston. A woman with an empty cart approaches the store front and I say “Are you registered to vote in West Virginia ma’am?” to which I hear a sharp “No thank you, I’m in a hurry.” Just one of the literally hundreds of people I have talked to today. The rejection fades as I approach another couple, rejection, and then an elderly man. He stops slowly on my left, eyes skeptical as most are, and listens as I tell him that the clipboard in my hands is filled with the signatures of registered voters like him, who believe that third party candidates have the right to be on the ballot. He signs, and nods as he slowly adds “there ought’a be more choices.”
“Sign a quick petition for me today sir?” “Who’s on it? What! You have got to be kidding me! Ralph Nader! I don’t want him on the ballot! He’ll steal votes away from the democrats!” a typical democrat reply. But, this man seems interested in my response, which I appreciate. “Well sir, don’t you think that a candidate should win an election based on their own merit and not simply because there are only two choices? And if the two major parties are losing votes to independents, doesn’t that just mean they have lost touch with their constituents? Isn’t democracy about choice and doesn’t Nader have the right to be on the ballot?” He pauses, to digest my words, nods his head and says, “I see your point…ok I’ll sign.” I think to myself: I’m getting good at this! When I started petitioning for the campaign, I expected we would meet up with the bitter Democrats who believe that Nader lost them the elections in 2000 and 2004. The irony of course is that in opposing Nader’s access to the ballot they are sanctioning the ever narrowing scope of political dialogue. If the democrats are losing constituents to third party candidates like Nader, it is because they are not adequately representing progressive values not because Ralph is a spoiler. Having third parties like the greens and Ralph Nader, can only serve to make the Democratic party more accountable to its constituents, because they if they are not, they will lose more people like me, who believe that the Democrats are just as beholden to the special interests that are clogging the authenticity of our democracy as the republicans.
I am standing at a small pedestrian walkway between a mall and a bus stop. A man with bad legs, a shaved head, and no front teeth slurring a thick New Jersey accent storms through the alley yelling: “They can’t deny me food when I am hungry!” He asks if he can use my phone to call the train station, saying “I’m getting out of this place, I’m going back to Philly!” I hand him the phone. As he makes his call, I catch pedestrians on their lunch breaks and reflect on the previous day in front of the super market—it had ended with us being kicked out by the store manager for “soliciting.” There is a certain feeling of despair that comes over you when on top of all the apathy, rudeness, and opposition to our cause, we have the rug literally swept out from under us. One of Ralph Nader’s key issues is to end ballot access obstructionism, where state ballot access laws make it near impossible to run a candidate on the state general election ballots. On top of this already unfair and unjust obstacle, we live in a society where public spaces are rapidly being converted in to private spaces. Many Americans can go through their entire day without interacting with anyone: from the suburban home to the car, to the cubicle, to a self-check-out grocery store. Private shopping malls and “Town Centers” have become the public space of our time, yet they do not allow the same rights as genuine public spaces. Our lives have become so dependent on technology and dispersed that public spaces are becoming a rarity. A development in Huntington, West Virginia—one of our petitioning locations—is a prime example. “Pullman’s Square” is a recent development that has revitalized the down town with new shops and business locations (after sprawl and manufacturing job losses destroyed them). There is even what appears to be a public park with a fountain and lawn. On a Friday night this square is bustling with teenagers, couples, and families; but due to the fact that the area is owned by a development company, it was off limits to us petitioners, who had to stay a safe distance from it all as security guards watched us like hawks.
As the man finishes the phone call, he thanks me and stumbles off. I continue to petition the small pedestrian walkway that leads to the mall entrance until the sun begins to set behind the large apartment and commercial buildings and decide to call it a day. Being a petitioner is not easy, but it can certainly be rewarding when you run into people who understand the importance of third party candidates and appreciate Ralph Nader’s years of tireless service to consumers and democracy. As I finish the day my feet are tired and my throat raw. Sometimes it is difficult, but what keeps me going is the idea that third parties are an essential part of our democracy, and that our democracy is in great peril. This is what democracy looks like, people in the streets promoting a cause, fighting for change, raising their voices.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
A Navajo Man
Since April 25th, I have been on a ranch in New Mexico, enrolled in a three week Permaculture Design Course. As I drove from Provo, Utah to Las Vegas, New Mexico, I passed through a number of Native American reservations. Growing up in Orange County California, Native American issues were practically unknown to me. The native populations of the South Coast we all but wiped out by disease, slave labor, and forced integration. So, in traveling through many Native American reservations, I began to see that in many cases the third world we romanticize as being in Latin America or Africa is really in our own back yard. Conditions were squalor, and the air was filled with depression and hopelessness. How is it that my culture could simply roll over these first peoples with such reckless abandon?
I offer no easy answer. But when I arrived at the Wind River Ranch, I noticed there was a Navajo man in our class. I have been to Latin America, and have spent many hours in the presence of the First Peoples of Guatemala, but there was something very personal about being in the presence of a Navajo man. It was my ancestors that conquered his. During the first week of the course, we learned each other’s names, covered the course material, and dug our hands into the soft red sandy soil of a grass land flood plain. In our class discussions, the Navajo man would make long, slow, and deliberate commentary related to his people and to Native Americans in general. His insights were good, and everyone respected him; but I could not bring myself to talk with him. One day as we were both in the kitchen on separate tasks, he spoke to me in a quiet voice, asking where I would go next. I replied, and we started a conversation. At one point I told him about a friend that was doing her field work for her anthropology degree on the Navajo reservation. I told him that I was an anthropologist, and wondered what he thought of them. He took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. He was kind, and said that there were some that are good, but that some take without asking, and disturb things that were not meant to be disturbed. I asked how I, as a white person could be in closer solidarity with Native American movements. To this, there was no easy answer, and in response he began to recount to me his journey, one that would take him through a small kitchen in New Mexico, talking to an ignorant white kid from California.
He had grown up on the reservation. And as a young man realized that he had quite a talent for baseball, he could run fast and hit far. But whenever his team would play border towns—meaning towns on the border with the reservation—he would always ask himself why the other teams had bleachers, dugouts, clean uniforms, and nice equipment. All he ever had was a dusty field. He would ask his parents and his grandparents why, and they would simply reply that that was the way things were. Gerry had more questions, and only ever received “I don’t know” answers. All these unanswered questions led him to doubt the wisdom of his people. He began to notice how the blacks and the Latinos were treated by the whites, and began to understand. This was something he felt was real, and he began to direct his hatred toward whites, and started getting into fights. He showed me the scar on his wrist, his nose, and his eye brow. He felt that his situation was hopeless, and began to drink heavily. He was in and out of jail many times, and had to rely on family members to bail him out. At some point he began to tire of the never ending cycle of destruction that he had put himself in, and one night while in jail, made a promise to God that he would turn his life around in order to help others. He faced many trials along the way, but eventually gave up alcohol and drugs, fighting, and most of all hatred. He began to understand why things were the way they were, and began looking for ways to make them better.
The Navajo man’s pedagogy utilized his whole body and face to express the emotions of others, and to illustrate his frustration. I didn’t really get a straight answer to my question that day, but we had many more conversations throughout the two week course and the wisdom of his stories became apparent. Solidarity is understanding the other so that they do not seem so other anymore. It was teaching me his ways. He had taken a life that was destined for ruin, and turned it into one that was successful. He shifted from draining society, to regenerating it; a paradigm of consumption, to one of production. Which is illustrated perfectly by something he said one day in class when we were getting a little apocalyptic. My Navajo friend raised his hand and said: we may be surrounded by shit, but it is our job to turn it into compost. His life is a perfect example of what Permaculture is all about. Shepparding a society that is on a crash course with disaster, to one that is sane, rational, and above all sustainable.
One night we kneeled over stones and made hurricanes with our hands to make fire in the ancient way. In my mind, a hand drill was almost fictional, could anyone really actually do that? But he could, with large calloused hands he drew smoke from the charring wood beneath his drill and turned it into fire. When I tried it, well, there was less smoke and no fire.
One day when the class had planned a day hike to see some petro glyphs in a nearby cave, my friend decided to stay behind out of respect for the tribes that had left them. I approached him quietly, and asked if it offended him that we were going. He was kind, and said no, that for us it was a learning experience. But for him, he had been taught that there are places one must not go. That there are spaces that are sacred, a concern that must have been at the heart of his ambivalence toward anthropologists; they came in handy sometimes, but mostly they were just whites looking for an adventure, a place to dig, a people to study. Sacredness and boundaries really are foreign concepts to the Western mind, which is dominated by a history of frontier, discovery, and invention.
At the end of the two weeks, I was grateful for my Navajo friend’s wisdom though still unsure how to proceed. I told him that perhaps I could help raise some money for the ailing schools, or for the local baseball teams. He smiled and nodded appreciating the effort. As we said our goodbyes, I looked at him and said, ‘The irony of the situation is that for 400 years whites have been trying to save your people in one way or another. But when the shit hits the fan, it will be your people who save us.’ He liked this idea, laughed, and disappeared into his large Dodge truck.
I offer no easy answer. But when I arrived at the Wind River Ranch, I noticed there was a Navajo man in our class. I have been to Latin America, and have spent many hours in the presence of the First Peoples of Guatemala, but there was something very personal about being in the presence of a Navajo man. It was my ancestors that conquered his. During the first week of the course, we learned each other’s names, covered the course material, and dug our hands into the soft red sandy soil of a grass land flood plain. In our class discussions, the Navajo man would make long, slow, and deliberate commentary related to his people and to Native Americans in general. His insights were good, and everyone respected him; but I could not bring myself to talk with him. One day as we were both in the kitchen on separate tasks, he spoke to me in a quiet voice, asking where I would go next. I replied, and we started a conversation. At one point I told him about a friend that was doing her field work for her anthropology degree on the Navajo reservation. I told him that I was an anthropologist, and wondered what he thought of them. He took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. He was kind, and said that there were some that are good, but that some take without asking, and disturb things that were not meant to be disturbed. I asked how I, as a white person could be in closer solidarity with Native American movements. To this, there was no easy answer, and in response he began to recount to me his journey, one that would take him through a small kitchen in New Mexico, talking to an ignorant white kid from California.
He had grown up on the reservation. And as a young man realized that he had quite a talent for baseball, he could run fast and hit far. But whenever his team would play border towns—meaning towns on the border with the reservation—he would always ask himself why the other teams had bleachers, dugouts, clean uniforms, and nice equipment. All he ever had was a dusty field. He would ask his parents and his grandparents why, and they would simply reply that that was the way things were. Gerry had more questions, and only ever received “I don’t know” answers. All these unanswered questions led him to doubt the wisdom of his people. He began to notice how the blacks and the Latinos were treated by the whites, and began to understand. This was something he felt was real, and he began to direct his hatred toward whites, and started getting into fights. He showed me the scar on his wrist, his nose, and his eye brow. He felt that his situation was hopeless, and began to drink heavily. He was in and out of jail many times, and had to rely on family members to bail him out. At some point he began to tire of the never ending cycle of destruction that he had put himself in, and one night while in jail, made a promise to God that he would turn his life around in order to help others. He faced many trials along the way, but eventually gave up alcohol and drugs, fighting, and most of all hatred. He began to understand why things were the way they were, and began looking for ways to make them better.
The Navajo man’s pedagogy utilized his whole body and face to express the emotions of others, and to illustrate his frustration. I didn’t really get a straight answer to my question that day, but we had many more conversations throughout the two week course and the wisdom of his stories became apparent. Solidarity is understanding the other so that they do not seem so other anymore. It was teaching me his ways. He had taken a life that was destined for ruin, and turned it into one that was successful. He shifted from draining society, to regenerating it; a paradigm of consumption, to one of production. Which is illustrated perfectly by something he said one day in class when we were getting a little apocalyptic. My Navajo friend raised his hand and said: we may be surrounded by shit, but it is our job to turn it into compost. His life is a perfect example of what Permaculture is all about. Shepparding a society that is on a crash course with disaster, to one that is sane, rational, and above all sustainable.
One night we kneeled over stones and made hurricanes with our hands to make fire in the ancient way. In my mind, a hand drill was almost fictional, could anyone really actually do that? But he could, with large calloused hands he drew smoke from the charring wood beneath his drill and turned it into fire. When I tried it, well, there was less smoke and no fire.
One day when the class had planned a day hike to see some petro glyphs in a nearby cave, my friend decided to stay behind out of respect for the tribes that had left them. I approached him quietly, and asked if it offended him that we were going. He was kind, and said no, that for us it was a learning experience. But for him, he had been taught that there are places one must not go. That there are spaces that are sacred, a concern that must have been at the heart of his ambivalence toward anthropologists; they came in handy sometimes, but mostly they were just whites looking for an adventure, a place to dig, a people to study. Sacredness and boundaries really are foreign concepts to the Western mind, which is dominated by a history of frontier, discovery, and invention.
At the end of the two weeks, I was grateful for my Navajo friend’s wisdom though still unsure how to proceed. I told him that perhaps I could help raise some money for the ailing schools, or for the local baseball teams. He smiled and nodded appreciating the effort. As we said our goodbyes, I looked at him and said, ‘The irony of the situation is that for 400 years whites have been trying to save your people in one way or another. But when the shit hits the fan, it will be your people who save us.’ He liked this idea, laughed, and disappeared into his large Dodge truck.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Politics and the Spirit
Today I participated in a protest against the war in Iraq. It was not unlike many other rallies I have attended in Salt Lake City’s downtown. In the past, I have been skeptical of the purpose and effectiveness of anti-war demonstration, but today my mind turned to an experience I had during the summer of 2006 and the special circumstances of the Salt Lake City rally.
While I was traveling though Chiapas, Mexico during the summer of 2006, we happened upon a flyer that announced a Zapatista march and rally for later that day. We decided to attend, despite cautious feelings about being outsiders and avoiding trouble. The meeting place for the march was in a church yard and the march route was proposed and then agreed upon by all in attendance. Before we formed rank, an organizer offered a solemn and simple prayer. I felt real and sincere energy emanating from the protesters as we were welcomed and marched and sang protest songs in unison through the dusk-shadowed streets of San Cristobal. There were processions of indigenous women and mothers with children lashed to their backs and clusters of men in cowboy hats, brightly colored woven cloth and worn shoes; some were even barefooted. They marched in solidarity with another community that was being threatened with the expansion of an airport near Mexico City. The air was filled with feelings of urgency, solidarity, and hope. In Chiapas, rallies and protests have become a part of the social fabric, part of an ongoing struggle over life and death issues such as access to arable land, political representation, and social equality.
The Salt Lake protest happened to be during the LDS General Conference. As we marched down 400 south, our signs and slogans met the eyes of conference goers as their cars moped through congested streets. A few waved, cheered, or honked. The rest jeered, looked away, or laughed. I had listened to the first session of conference before coming to the protest and felt no spiritual contradiction in worshiping God with my fellow saints around the world in conference and raising my fist to oppose an unjust, ruinous, and costly war. I felt a longing for those feelings I had felt in Chiapas: urgency, solidarity, and hope. There was no urgency because the bombs are falling over someone else’s homeland. But they are our bombs. Our tax dollars paid for them. There is no solidarity because the Mormons scoff at the liberals and the liberals roll their eyes at the Mormons. Unfortunately, protesting the war is seen as a cultural activity. Only liberal peace-mongers protest because, in many people’s minds, there are certain kinds of people that protest, as if it were a pastime or a hobby. And those that do attend rallies are so steeped in post modern irony, that they can hardly take seriously the cliché of marching or chanting. But as I recalled that cobble stone church yard in Chiapas filled with bowed heads as we prepared to march down the streets of San Cristobal, my heart longed for a Mormonism that was more deeply engaged with the world from which it seeks acceptance. In Chiapas, politics and the spirit are connected.
While I was traveling though Chiapas, Mexico during the summer of 2006, we happened upon a flyer that announced a Zapatista march and rally for later that day. We decided to attend, despite cautious feelings about being outsiders and avoiding trouble. The meeting place for the march was in a church yard and the march route was proposed and then agreed upon by all in attendance. Before we formed rank, an organizer offered a solemn and simple prayer. I felt real and sincere energy emanating from the protesters as we were welcomed and marched and sang protest songs in unison through the dusk-shadowed streets of San Cristobal. There were processions of indigenous women and mothers with children lashed to their backs and clusters of men in cowboy hats, brightly colored woven cloth and worn shoes; some were even barefooted. They marched in solidarity with another community that was being threatened with the expansion of an airport near Mexico City. The air was filled with feelings of urgency, solidarity, and hope. In Chiapas, rallies and protests have become a part of the social fabric, part of an ongoing struggle over life and death issues such as access to arable land, political representation, and social equality.
The Salt Lake protest happened to be during the LDS General Conference. As we marched down 400 south, our signs and slogans met the eyes of conference goers as their cars moped through congested streets. A few waved, cheered, or honked. The rest jeered, looked away, or laughed. I had listened to the first session of conference before coming to the protest and felt no spiritual contradiction in worshiping God with my fellow saints around the world in conference and raising my fist to oppose an unjust, ruinous, and costly war. I felt a longing for those feelings I had felt in Chiapas: urgency, solidarity, and hope. There was no urgency because the bombs are falling over someone else’s homeland. But they are our bombs. Our tax dollars paid for them. There is no solidarity because the Mormons scoff at the liberals and the liberals roll their eyes at the Mormons. Unfortunately, protesting the war is seen as a cultural activity. Only liberal peace-mongers protest because, in many people’s minds, there are certain kinds of people that protest, as if it were a pastime or a hobby. And those that do attend rallies are so steeped in post modern irony, that they can hardly take seriously the cliché of marching or chanting. But as I recalled that cobble stone church yard in Chiapas filled with bowed heads as we prepared to march down the streets of San Cristobal, my heart longed for a Mormonism that was more deeply engaged with the world from which it seeks acceptance. In Chiapas, politics and the spirit are connected.
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