Sherry Allen – 2/16/10

This page was last updated on February 16, 2010.

Practicing small acts of kindness; Sherry Allen; Beaver County Times; February 16, 2010.

Ms. Allen wrote three previous letters I didn’t critique. One (“Conserving water for future,” 1/13/08) asked us to conserve water (primarily by not eating meat) and another (“Say ‘no’ to push polling,” 2/10/08) complained about alleged telephone “push polls” by Republicans, and the third was (“Plant a garden to offset oil usage,” 8/1/08). In one letter I did critique, Ms. Allen gushed about a book she found “that has hundreds of ideas on how to save our planet.” In a partisan letter, Ms. Allen concluded with “Let’s endeavor to walk together peacefully.” In one letter, Ms. Allen related a story of disaffected Republicans voting for Mr. Obama. In another letter, Ms. Allen tried to compare abortion and war in an effort to promote Barack Obama over John McCain. Other letters from Ms. Allen were entitled “Let’s be proactive on the environment,” “Arena a valuable community asset,” “Time to get behind health-care reform,” and “A state budget we can all live with,” “Keep pushing for a public option,” and “Election ruling terrible for nation.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I was sad we lost a national treasure last month.

“Howard Zinn was a great historian and social activist. He was best known for writing a book that illuminated American history, and inspired many teachers and students.”

[RWC] In case Ms. Allen’s letter-writing body of work and/or her description of Mr. Zinn as a “social activist” weren’t clues, Mr. Zinn was a leftist. There’s nothing wrong with being a leftist (other than being incorrect <g>), but it is relevant to Ms. Allen’s eulogy.

Ms. Allen’s assertion Mr. Zinn “inspired many teachers and students” should be a concern. In my mind, historians should simply report the facts about what happened. While parts of history may or may not inspire “many teachers and students,” the guy reporting the facts should not. If Mr. Zinn “inspired many teachers and students,” it’s likely he did so by injecting his personal biases and positions into his “reporting” of history. That position appears to confirmed by a column posted on Beaver County Blue about Mr. Zinn, “For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. ‘A People’s History of the United States’ (1980), his best-known book, had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers — many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out — but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and union organizers of the 1930s.”

“He said, ‘Hope is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness.’”

[RWC] Here’s another Zinn quote Ms. Allen would probably like. “Let’s talk about socialism. … I think it’s very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country … Socialism basically said, hey, let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.” As for Mr. Zinn’s comment that “the Soviet Union gave [socialism] a bad name,” he failed to include the Nazis, Mao, et al. Of course the problem with socialism isn’t “a bad name,” it’s that socialism elevates government at the expense of individual liberty and it always ends badly.

“Our country is fearful of new terrorists being born everyday. However, men like Zinn are also arising.

“He witnessed and believed that small acts by individuals can multiply, and can transform our world.

“Imagine the changes we could make by practicing small acts of kindness.”

[RWC] If you think this letter is about “practicing small acts of kindness,” I believe you’re mistaken. This letter is simply a eulogy for a lefty Ms. Allen liked and she made sure not to say anything that would describe Mr. Zinn’s position on the economic, political, and social spectrum.