I expect somebody to announce he or she is running for the White House. When? The day after we inaugurate the next president in January. Welcome to the permanent campaign.
You don’t need a welcome, I guess. You have been subjected to it for over three years. Romney has been running forever. Imagine supping, lunching and breakfasting every day for years on campaign slogans.
And the President has been running again since he was elected. He has already held more re-election fundraisers than the previous five presidents combined.
Not only does he speak to fundraiser crowds. He sticks a bit of campaigning into every other kind of speech he makes. Does not matter if the subject is defense, the war, the economy, the weather. He weaves in a campaign message or two. He even pitched his re-election to kiddies. It seems as if every photo and video he allows is targeted for a bloc of voters.
This constant campaigning makes sense if you look at it in a certain perspective. That is the perspective of religion. Some of these guys are true believers. As such, everything they do and say is colored by their ideology.
Islam is a good example of an ideology that imposes itself on everything. Truly devout followers embrace the teaching that Islam is all, everything. To them it is not merely a religion. They don’t turn it on solely for prayers and weekly visit to the mosque. Islam is life itself to them. It governs their every activity and imbues their every thought.
This concept is taught in the Koran. I don’t know if it is also taught in the Bible. But most extreme followers of any religion allow most of what they do, say and think to be influenced by their religion.
Devout followers of communism bought into the same concept. They brainwashed their people. Blasted propaganda from loud speakers day and night. Forced people to read Mao’s lil’ red book. Banned thoughts and books and entertainment, even music, from those outside the ideology. They force-fed communism to people. Every bulletin they got at the pajama factory was laced with propaganda. Ditto every school textbook. And even the opera.
Well, our textbooks and entertainment certainly contain a lot of propaganda from true believers these days. Hollywood and TV-land blackball ideas that don’t conform to the preferred ideology. Kids come home spouting as much propaganda as information. From kindergarten to masters degree candidates. And if you don’t think the news you get from mass media is not biased, slanted and colored you are kidding yourself.
In other words, the permanent campaign is an all-enveloping one, waged on many fronts. The true believers don’t teach history and economics and then deal with their ideology. They blend the two. They teach politically biased stuff. Sometimes you cannot get a weather forecast without a gust of hot air. About how sheep belches cause climate change.
True believers are besotted with their ideology. They try to pass it along to the rest of us.
Just as candidates no longer do their work, then campaign for office. They campaign from the moment they tug their socks on in the morning.
Everyone sing along now: Good mornin’, good mornin’ How’d you like to vote for me?
From Tom ... as in Morgan.
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