What ‘moral values’?

>Archive - PWW Print Edition Archive - 2004 Editions - Nov 13, 2004


 

Workers’ Correspondence

Political commentators are making “moral values” the issue that squeaked President Bush back into the White House.

I think we need to look a bit further into “moral values.”

My first year in college was in a small school in central Mississippi. It was located in Congressman Bilbo’s district, the heart of the “Bible belt” with the reputation for being the headquarters of Jim Crow. It later got even worse recognition when three civil rights workers were lynched there during the civil rights struggle.

There was absolute segregation. The section where Black people lived was complete poverty. White male students would harass any Black young woman who came into the little town to shop. One of my professors boasted in class of attacking a Black woman bus rider in New York City when she sat near the front of the bus.

The Christian right, which had a decisive part in the election Nov. 2, is the heir to that tradition. Civil rights is just one target of religious fundamentalism. Science, particularly the scientific method, is in their sights. Some of them have graduated from the Flat Earth Society. They oppose the use of science in important fields of research. Many of them reject the concept of evolution.

These folks are being manipulated by corporate wealth. They have been blinded to their own self-interest by religious flim-flam. Unfortunately it is not just they who will suffer the consequences of their political decisions. The corporate agenda will destroy Social Security, civil and human rights and a decent standard of living for our citizenry.

There are more important ‘moral values’ than those promoted by the religious right.

— George Edwards

The writer is the editor of OldTimer magazine, published by the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees. He worked 39 years at the USX Lorain Works in Lorain, Ohio, USWA Local 1104.