Letters to the Editor

 

September 9, 2021



To the editor,

Whatever your thoughts on the COVID vaccine itself, it’s hard to read something like last week’s article about Columbia County Health System’s vaccine mandate without thinking there was a mistake and a section of “The Gulag Archipelago” was accidently spliced into the Dayton Chronicle. From the Chronicle:

“[CCHS CEO and Chief HR Officer found]...sometimes people have an initial emotional response against being forced to get the vaccination, but that in time, they soften and sometimes with education, change their minds.”

I would imagine that an initial negative response to being forced to do anything you don’t want to do is–whether emotional or not–a very rational response, seeing that someone is forcing you to do something that you consider against your best interest. Oh, but now I get it…it’s them that know what’s in your best interest! You just need to be educated! No, no, no…not with all that misinformation that’s out there, floating around like so much mustard gas in the hollows of Rubeville…you need their facts. You need the Truth!

Another quote:

“In proportion to the development of society, individual life is going to become more circumscribed…Collective will is the highest form.”

Oh, wait… that was Leonid Ramzin, defendant in the Industrial Party Trial of 1930 (documented in the aforementioned Gulag Archipelago), trying to avoid being taken out back and shot after the show trial proceedings were all sewn up. Solzhenitsyn’s description of those closing remarks:

“Although in their last words they begged for their lives, that wasn’t the main thing for them. The main thing for these strange defendants right at the moment, on the threshold of death, was to convince the people and the whole world of the infallibility and farsightedness of the Soviet government.”

Oddly enough, I don’t think they succeeded in convincing other people nearly as much as they did in unconsciously convincing themselves. You can see the slow regression, the “softening”, if you will, in the minds of the defendants as the trial proceeds. They started out simply parroting complete fabrications about themselves, trying to fall on their swords ostentatiously enough that they wouldn’t have to literally fall on their swords. But by the time Ramzin delivered the quote above, I think he was all in, and he actually wasn’t trying to avoid being taken out back and shot. He was just stating the Truth, and that easy little euphemism of “individual life is going to become more circumscribed” did not make him retch as it rolled off his tongue. Why would it? He had been softened enough to actually believe it.

But that was almost a century ago. There’s no way I could splice a 90-year-old snippet of what amounts to little more than Soviet propaganda–advocating collective will over individual autonomy–into a newspaper article on the conditions of employment at the Columbia County Health System…and have it not only make sense, but really capture the spirit of the whole thing.

Right?

Seth Murdock

Dayton, Wash.

To the Editor,

I am writing to express my support for Vicki Zoller as a write-in candidate for Dayton City Council Position No. 5. I’ve gotten to know Vicki pretty well, working with her on various projects and committees over the last few years. I’ve had ample opportunity to admire her leadership and character, and there are three things that I think make her a great choice for the Dayton City Council.

One is that she doesn’t come into a project or decision with an agenda or preconception of what the final solution will be. She is open-minded and interested in what people from all sides have to say. She’s intellectually rigorous and demands the same rigor from others on her team. She asks thoughtful and insightful questions, and does her best to consider the interests of everyone, always with eye toward how to best achieve the project’s goal.

The second is that she’s one of the hardest-working and most energetic people I’ve ever worked with. I’ve often marveled at how she’s able to accomplish so many things in the same 24 hours everyone else has.

Lastly, she has a heart for service. She loves this community and the people in it. She understands that serving the whole community means listening to people she disagrees with, without letting our disagreements become barriers. She believes that our best work comes from listening to diverse perspectives. She values relationships over politics, the things that bring us together and move us forward, while understanding that we aren’t all going to agree.

There are few people I admire and trust more than Vicki Zoller. She works hard every day to serve her community. She would bring that same ethic of open-mindedness, hard work, and heart to serve all of us on the Dayton City Council, position No. 5.

Amy Rosenberg

Dayton, Wash.

 
 

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