Rural Catholic Parishes- Bishops’ “faithful citizenship” programs

ONE ISSUE VOTERS, or HOW TO MAKE MY COMPLEX LIFE SO SIMPLE…..

I have to hand it to the Catholic Church and the Bishops.  They are trying quite hard to have their flock get over their simplistic litmus test voting that put George W. Bush into the White House twice.  The Catholics know they got snookered TWICE now……but, they’re scratching their collective heads….just not quite sure how we got snookered and we’re too full of stiff necked pride to ask anyone

……..fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, but, what about FOOL ME THRICE   ?????

WHAT IS A LITMUS TEST and how does it apply to VOTING ????

A litmus test harkens way back to your high school chemistry or biology class. If you don’t remember, here’s a little refresher. A piece of LITMUS PAPER was inserted into a chemical solution and based on the COLOR of the Litmus Paper, you could INFER or CONCLUDE facts about that chemical solution.

litmust paper right out of the bottle

HERE is LITMUS PAPER after BEING DIPPED INTO DIFFERENT CHEMICALS

Catholics like LITMUS TEST VOTING. They use a very simple short test to decide whether or not to vote for somebody. The test is SHORT, takes little time, takes little thought, and produces a clear result. Oh if life were only so SIMPLE.
The Way Catholics have been voting is to simply ask ONE QUESTION:
THIS SIMPLE QUESTION is the CATHOLICS’ litmus paper.

” Is this candidate Pro-Life or Pro-Choice”????

Catholics don’t have to do anything else.
They don’t have to educate themselves or learn about other issues.

SIMPLY, they can take 2 MINUTES every FOUR YEARS and use this incredibly unsophisticated method of voting.

NOT THIS TIME THOUGH.

TWO MINUTES every 4 YEARS is a NO GO

THE BISHOPS have promulgated an extensive church teaching called “Faithful Citizenship” and have called on Catholics to stop this simplistic approach to voting and have called on the faithful to FORM THEIR CONSCIENCES. This is really really hard work. It takes hundreds or thousands of hours or actually, the remainder of your life and is not so simple.

Obama’s Challenge in Rural America

I have been assigned to the mountainous rural areas of Appalachia

I am volunteering for Obama in rural America after working for the Obama Campaign this past winter/primary season in Vermont and New York State and Pennsylvania.  I live in Western Maryland now located 3 hours West of Baltimore, 30 miles from West Virginia and 2 miles from Pennsylvania’s Somerset County.  Volunteering in rural America is the biggest challenge I have faced in all the “community organizing” work I have done.

Paid Staffers are dropped in here by the campaign and are asked to lead local neighborhood teams of local people.  Oftentimes, these staffers are young, inexperienced, working on their first campaign and are totally unfamiliar with the environs which they are placed.  Also, they arrive at their assignment with no tools other than a laptop.  They depend on finding a local supporter or Democrat organization for their housing and/or office space.  They are frequently in touch with the campaign hierarchy via conference calls but are also taking direction from that hierarchy in a very top-down approach.  Thus, tactics used in urban areas like door-to-door canvassing are forced upon people living in rural areas where the distances between houses and farms can be quite large……….

OBAMA SUPPORTERS ARE AFRAID TO COME OUT

In rural counties, often RED counties, solid Republican, Obama supporters, whether they be independent, Democrats, Republicans or other, are reluctant to COME OUT VISIBLY for Obama.  I could write a book about the reasons but suffice it to say that life in rural America is very inter-dependent and there is a total lack of anonymity.  Everyone knows everybody and every one knows everyone’s business.

WHAT IS NEEDED IS AN “ICEBREAKER” type EVENT

Although one might admit to another in private that we support Obama and our reasons why, it becomes much more difficult to do in public venues.  This is oftentimes due to REACTIONS by folks, even backlash, against people or symbols that largely have been absent from their milieu.  This can be the image of a black man, it can be the Democrat logo donkey, or something that impinges on what they thought was THEIR world under THEIR control. Having a DEMOCRAT booth exhibit at the local County Agricultural Fair was a real shocker for some of these folks as the local Democrats have never had the spine to show themselves before.

An event that MAKES THE DEMOCRATS VISIBLE is what is needed as a necessary first step in initiating a DIALOGUE in rural America.

AN EXHIBIT BOOTH IN REPUBLICAN RED NECKED APPALACHIA at a COUNTY FAIR

Rednecks had cognitive dissonance seeing this white man wearing an OBAMA SHIRT.

Jennifer Dougherty is running for Congress against a Republican incumbent