I’m ready to vote now in the Minnesota election for governor, aided by a helpful piece of campaign literature.
In today’s mail I received a flyer entitled, “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics”. “Serious” is an interesting choice of adjectives. I have some very good Catholic friends, organizers of the recent Synod of the Baptized, and they certainly are serious about their faith and their Catholic tradition; yet, I don’t think they are the folks this flyer has in mind. In fact, they’re probably too serious and thus not likely to be easily persuaded to vote according to marching orders. I suspect that “serious” in the flyer is a euphemism for “good”, “real”, or “true”. Or, to put a finer point on it, if you don’t vote for this flyer’s endorsed candidate then you’re “bad”, “not a real” Catholic, or a “false” Catholic.
In the midst of the Great Recession, certainly the flyer would offer some insight into the economic policies of the candidates. Or, the candidate views on health care. Or, education. Or, …? Certainly there are “serious” (there’s that word again) issues to be debated, and if this “real” Catholic organization truly wants to inform the electorate, perhaps just a word or two about “serious” issues, but no, nary a peep.
But, they’re expanding. The folks behind this flyer used to be called “single issue”, and that issue was abortion. It’s still abortion, but now they have added a second: “protection of marriage”. I guess they’re branching out, but on both issues they would seek to impose their will on the sexual behavior of others. Through government intrusion.
If you’re interested, the flyer was prepared and paid for by the National Organization for Marriage and the Minnesota Family Council. And their preferred candidate? Republican Tom Emmer.
I’ll be voting for Democrat Mark Dayton.
I’m sensing, Obie, that you react the way I oftentimes do to such flyers – a candidate gets a “stellar” endorsement from an organization that I don’t support, and I vote for the opponent.
I heard some tidbits of the Minnesota governor’s debate last night on CSPAN, and I couldn’t believe it was really a question who should be elected. But then again…I’ve watched a lot of tidbits from debates and consume a lot of political news, and I can’t really believe that it should be much of a question who should be elected in most cases…it would seem that a lot of people do question, though.
Somewhere in my education I had some teaching and learning about identifying propaganda. It is part of critical thinking skills. At the time I had this, the world had just come through a horrible war and the communists were a threat. Things haven’t changed all that much . The politicians still use propaganda to try to influence us. Here in Wisconsin, it can’t be that much different from Minnesota. If you listen to the ads, you won’t know who is telling the truth and who is being bad mouthed. I have given up most TV news watching and am ready to turn off all my phones. Nov.3 can’t come soon enough.
Yesterday I listened as my hairdresser told me about how she felt about her church going LCMC. Uh-huh- could it have been some propaganda that sold the congregation on doing that ?