it's little stuff like this that pisses me off

i know, i know...it's petty.

but...it's little stuff like this which helps perpetuate myths regarding history which over time become "fact". it's a review in the may 17, 2007 issue of the Gainesvlle (FL) Sun's "Scene" magazine of a production by the Gainesville Community Playhouse of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". everybody KNOWS that the story is a parable of sorts about "mccarthyism" told via a story about the salem witch trials...the thing that really bugs me out is that the author of the article in "Scene", Arline Greer, says this:

"But, it has long been understood that he really was writing about Senator Joe McCarthy's House Un-American Affairs Committee's witch hunt of the 1950s."

is it just me that notices these things? i mean, within the stretch of maybe three words she(?) makes a major innacurate statement which can be caught easily by just simply READING WHAT YOU'RE WRITING (btw, blog title links to story--thanks Doug!). but, of course, it's become almost a point of historical fact that Senator McCarthy (of the US Senate) headed up the House (of Representatives) Un-American Affairs Committee. almost EVERYONE i have ever spoken to believes this to be true. to make matters worse, in all the hoopla over the damage done to individual lives (mostly hollywood types who never missed a day of work due to being "blacklisted", since pen names were utilized) and the country as a whole due to the outrageous abuses of Sen. McCarthy as he headed up the HUAC--people tend to miss a crucial point: there was a bunch of commies in hollywood (which the wonderfully schlocky 70's movie, "The Way We Were", cheerfully illustrates, for example)...and that the extent of the infiltration of, at the very least, communist sympathizers throughout the US gov't was exposed to the people of the US (e.g. Alger Hiss).

i'm not even really condemning people for having communist leanings back then. capitalism, as a system, had not been able to prevent the Great Depression. both capitalism AND communism were and still are very young systems of thought. i just like to see history portrayed correctly, because history that's NOT portrayed in a factual manner--EVEN in a theater review in a stupid small-town paper--can be an insidious agent in regards to the future. brrrrrrrrrrrrr! ...it makes me shiver to think of it...

really, though...am i making too big a deal of this? was it just ignorance on the part of the writer or some sloppy fact-checking at the editorial level? or, should i just totally get with the program and accept the fact that during the 1950s Sen. McCarthy led witch hunts through his toadies in the House of Representatives in the 1940s? help me..