“Traditional” Values?

Joni Woolf is one of my favorite people. A writer and editor, Joni has blazed more trails for women than I can count. For years, Macon was Joni’s home, but recently, she moved back to her beautifully renovated farm house in Schley County. During her tenure in Macon, Joni served was one of the founders of Macon Magazine, served on planning and zoning, worked tirelessly for the Tubman Museum and back before women were allowed to be members of the Chamber of Commerce started a separate organization just for women business owners. Yesterday, she put pen to paper to challenge none other than Glenn Beck to come clean about exactly which “traditional values” he’s talking about. The piece is on the op-ed page of the Macon Telegraph, and here’s a tease. It’s well, well, worth the “click.”

What ‘traditional values’?

I read with interest the story of Glenn Beck’s march on Washington and how he and his crowd of loyal supporters want us to return to “traditional values.” Now I’m wondering just which traditional values he wants to return to:

The traditional value from our recent history that let white men lynch a black man for whistling at a white woman, then go to the church the next Sunday morning with his family, like any good upstanding citizen might do?

Or the traditional value that allowed early-20th century industrialists to work men, women and children in sweat shops, cotton mills and coal mines for whatever amount they wished to pay, with no insurance coverage, no safety regulations, no vacation time and an almost guaranteed early death?

Or perhaps the traditional value that enabled the magistrates in colonial Massachusetts in the 17th century to hang those who were accused of witchcraft? Or crush them to death with stones if they refused to ‘confess?’….

Okay, I couldn’t help it. The rest is below the fold, with her permission:

Or, going back to the 12th century, perhaps the traditional value displayed by the armies of Christian Crusaders, when the victims were Muslims and Jews?

We need to be very careful when we wish for a return to “traditional values.” All of those “traditional values” mentioned above were accepted in their time as the only way to deal with perceived problems. We discriminated against and terrorized Jews, African Americans, Irish, Mormons, Catholics — any group that didn’t look or act or worship quite like the rest of us. And here we are in this day, in this time, with fearmongers stirring up the same kinds of fear — fear of those who are not just like us — and using these fears to divide us.

Better to fear the zealot who has simplistic answers to all of life’s problems. Identify the zealots around you and beware of them. And do not be fooled by them. They want power. Then they want your rights. And just for good measure, know your history, and keep a copy of the U.S. Constitution in your pocket.

— Joni Woolf

Ellaville