The Herschelkrustofsky ban revisited, SV and her posse at work Options

[Kato]

I think Berlet is a Reliable Source on Larouche.

Berlet is a third-rate specialist in innuendo, demonization, quote-cooking, and the other black arts of propaganda. His talents are not much in demand these days, which is why he spent so much time link-spamming his website on Wikipedia, in hopes of drumming up some business.

Berlet's first edits of any significance were to tone down or remove the hatchet job elements of his biography which was created some 6 months or so earlier. Which seems pretty reasonable.

Despite the madness which ensued, it's unfair to suggest that Berlet appeared out of the blue to link spam Wikipedia.

[Hell Freezes Over]

I think Berlet is a Reliable Source on Larouche.

Berlet is a third-rate specialist in innuendo, demonization, quote-cooking, and the other black arts of propaganda. His talents are not much in demand these days, which is why he spent so much time link-spamming his website on Wikipedia, in hopes of drumming up some business.

This is exactly what I mean. It was *not* his website. [[Political Research Associates]] is a company. It is not owned by Berlet. He is an employee, a professional researcher. It is a company used by journalists who are investigating PRA's area of expertise.

[nobs]

...Nobs even implied Chip had some connection to a very serious criminal offence, at one point -- I won't post details here because it would be libel....

Patently false, and definitely repeating Berlet tripe & smears. All my information was properly sourced per WP citation policies at the time, and the specific example you, Mr. Hell Freezes Over, cite here was most definitely cited to the Washington Post. And Berlet made the claim in ArbCom that I said it, whereas with a click anyone can see for themselves on the Evidence page the cite was to the Washington Post.

Did anyone here, anyone who cares about BLP so much, help him, even once?

Interesting. BLP didn't exist in those days. And I believe my actions & case in some small measure helped force the issue -- particularly since Wikipedia was routinely used by Berlet, and Slim, and Will Beback to regulalry demonize and denounce thier imaginery political enemies.

[Kato]

Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

Chip Berlet shouldn't have been anywhere near the LaRouche articles - certainly not adding himself as a source. Nor should Hersch for that matter.

Why shouldn't Berlet be editing them?

Good grief. If you don't know that, then you have learned nothing from the absolute chaos of the past four years.

Slim, people here told me you were smart.

You're not. Earlier in the thread you seemed to wilfully ignore evidence presented of the LaRouche witchunts - after I posted it twice.

Now, you think it is perfectly reasonable for someone to edit articles on a BLP subject whom they've had open legal battles with in the Courts?!? You don't think that is a fucking Conflict Of Interest?!?!

Get out of here.

[GlassBeadGame]

Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

Chip Berlet shouldn't have been anywhere near the LaRouche articles - certainly not adding himself as a source. Nor should Hersch for that matter.

Why shouldn't Berlet be editing them?

COI. He's very much an involved party.

Much worse than that. Once he set himself up as the expert interpreter of LaRouchie "code talk" he lost all ability to engage in reasoned discussion. His adversary's very words mean anything he says they mean. He is now able to carry on both sides of the dialog and take it anywhere he wants. He no longer needs an encyclopedia, just a mirror.

[Rhindle]

Ok, let's see if I have this straight.

HK: LaRouche fanboy (just to keep it simple)

Cberlet: anti-LaRouche activist.

HK, at worst, wants LaRouche-related subjects to show glowing support of LaRouche and purge any negative content. In essence, a promotional wp puffpiece.

Cberlet, at worst, wants to show how bad of a man this LaRouche guy is and wants to make sure that anything that looks positive toward LaRouche is never, ever portrayed anywhere on wikipedia.

Cberlet is praised by "the Cabal" for keeping out all that "pro-LaRouche propaganda" but is allowed to have his published anti-LaRouche propaganda used as a source for wikipedia. His involvement sounds like COI to me.

I'm never been involved in this issue but it seems like keeping pro-LaRouche POV out of the article is of utmost importance for NPOV presentation while anti-LaRouche POV is all fine and dandy and conforms to an NPOV presentation. This seems inconsistent to me.

What if I, or anyone for that matter, was similar in notability as Berlet and published information critical of say, Barack Obama? How successful would I be if wanted to source my material of all the bad things Obama did (if no other source mentioned these things)? Probably not a WP:SNOW chance.

This is just another example of inconsistent treatment that I've seen on WP. This seems like a major theme to why this board exists. One side on wp is portrayed the bad guy while the other comes out smelling like roses in wikiland until the real facts show otherwise and it takes a long time for some to swallow their pride and admit a mistake was made.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I think Berlet is a Reliable Source on Larouche.

Berlet is a third-rate specialist in innuendo, demonization, quote-cooking, and the other black arts of propaganda. His talents are not much in demand these days, which is why he spent so much time link-spamming his website on Wikipedia, in hopes of drumming up some business.

This is exactly what I mean. It was *not* his website. [[Political Research Associates]] is a company. It is not owned by Berlet. He is an employee, a professional researcher. It is a company used by journalists who are investigating PRA's area of expertise.

We've been over this before.

[Hell Freezes Over]

Much worse than that. Once he set himself up as the expert interpreter of LaRouchie "code talk" he lost all ability to engage in reasoned discussion. His adversary's very words mean anything he says they mean. He is now able to carry on both sides of the dialog and take it anywhere he wants. He no longer needs an encyclopedia, just a mirror.

What you're saying is that material published by a reliable publisher, and used all over the world by journalists, including very credible news programs such as the BBC's Panorama, may not be used as a source on Wikipedia because (a) a bunch of people such as yourself have been persuaded by the LaRouche movement that the authors are evil, and (b) the authors dared to defend themselves when trashed by the LaRouche movment, which made it a personal dispute.

Normally, this board laughs about stuff like this, where WP postures in ways not recognized by the real world.

As horribly time-consuming as it is, if you want to comment in an informed way, you really ought to go through Berlet's edits, including posts to talk and to the ArbCom; then go through Hersch's and Nobs's, including Hersch's socks and IP addresses, and compare the quality of their edits and the sources. No more would need to be said.

[GlassBeadGame]

Much worse than that. Once he set himself up as the expert interpreter of LaRouchie "code talk" he lost all ability to engage in reasoned discussion. His adversary's very words mean anything he says they mean. He is now able to carry on both sides of the dialog and take it anywhere he wants. He no longer needs an encyclopedia, just a mirror.

What you're saying is that material published by a reliable publisher, and used all over the world by journalists, including very credible news programs such as the BBC's Panorama, may not be used as a source on Wikipedia because (a) a bunch of people such as yourself have been persuaded by the LaRouche movement that the authors are evil, and (b) the authors dared to defend themselves when trashed by the LaRouche movment, which made it a personal dispute.

Normally, this board laughs about stuff like this, where WP postures in ways not recognized by the real world.

As horribly time-consuming as it is, if you want to comment in an informed way, you really ought to go through Berlet's edits, including posts to talk and to the ArbCom; then go through Hersch's and Nobs's, including Hersch's socks and IP addresses, and compare the quality of their edits and the sources. No more would need to be said.

I'm not surprised that you would approve of a method that deprives people you disagree with a voice.

[Kato]

Cberlet is praised by "the Cabal" for keeping out all that "pro-LaRouche propaganda" but is allowed to have his published anti-LaRouche propaganda used as a source for wikipedia. His involvement sounds like COI to me.

In a nutshell. Yes.

There really is nothing more to be said.

I'll leave it to Chip Berlet, allowed to control content on WP about LaRouche for the best part of 3 years. Try reading this with a straight face. It's difficult to tell who are more ridiculous, the LaRouchies or the Anti-LaRouchies.

Lyndon LaRouche: Fascist Demagogue, by Chip (No Conflict of Interest) Berlet

Includes Downloadable Flyer!

Counteract the LaRouche network's propaganda and recruitment. This double-sided, legal-sized flyer exposes LaRouche's record on sexism, racism, homophobia, antisemitism & neofascism, and anti-environmentalism as well as his crackpot conspiracies and criminal background. A great tool for leafleting campuses and anti-war rallies. Download the PDF Flier

[nobs]

Slim: Let's cut to the quick (I just been informed who you are).

When Jimbo Wales told Editor & Publisher on December 5, 2005, two weeks prior to BLP being considered,

I don't consider him (Brandt) an expert about anything at all.

I think we can safely surmise the only possible "reliable sources" for this inane statement are Chip Berlet, and SlimVirgin. Then all suckups in the Admin community got into the act. And look at the damage to both Wikipedia & Jimbo's credibility it wrought.

As horribly time-consuming as it is, if you want to comment in an informed way, you really ought to go through Berlet's edits, including posts to talk and to the ArbCom; then go through Hersch's and Nobs's, including Hersch's socks and IP addresses, and compare the quality of their edits and the sources. No more would need to be said.

Let's not confuse the cause of anti-communism with LaRouchism. This is an assinine path to pursue, even for you. It won't work. Let's not go there.

This post has been edited by nobs: Mon 13th April 2009, 11:44pm

[dtobias]

Mr. Hell Freezes Over

That's Ms. Hell Freezes Over.

[Somey]

He did ask that it be deleted, but it was kept.

The fact that it was "kept" is completely irrelevant to the discussion, obviously, but the fact that you mention it is somewhat telling...

But for years before that, at least two posters here (HK and Nobs) used Wikipedia as a platform to attack him via his BLP and its talk page, and I don't recall anyone here objecting.

Well I did, sort of, but it sounded earlier as though you were calling us "hypocrites" for not logging into Wikipedia and defending the guy's article. That's not something I would ever do, but as for the rest of the membership here, we're not some sort of cyber-vigilante organization (AFAIK). Even if Berlet was someone we actually liked, which might have been possible if he wasn't being protected by a substantial group of WP admins, that would have been a bit much to ask.

One of the people who was attacking him, and who created the BLP in the first place, is one of only four staff members here.

Well, shame on him, then. Then again, like Rhindle says, if you're going to use him as a source in a highly contentious group of articles, you really should have an article on him, at the very least. Now, if you weren't using him as a source, maybe I could see it.

He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

I don't think so. As I recall, most of the "attack" edits to his article were attempts to suggest, if not actually prove, his conflicts of interest with regard to Larouche-related material, and to point out criticism of him by conservative groups. At no time did anyone here (to my knowlege) edit his article to claim or even vaguely suggest that Berlet is, or was, a "pedophile," a "wife-beater," a "faggot," a "child-molester," or that he fathered multiple children out of wedlock with an Albanian prostitute. Those are the kinds of things we tend to object to around here when it comes to BLP's. I'm not saying the "attack" edits in question were fair, or even factual, but there's just no equivalence for them - beyond the fact that Berlet himself objected to them.

As for him being an expert, let me give you a "hypothetical." Let's say that for the next 25 years, I make a career out of trying to convince the world that US President Barack Obama is an anti-semite, and to do so I not only use innuendo, selective interpretation, and references to "coded phraseology" in obscure Obama speeches that I worked out all by myself, but I also totally ignore published material written by Obama in which he writes or says things like "anti-semitism is one of the most despicable ideologies in human history." Or, when I don't simply ignore such statements, I dismiss them as "lies" and "rhetorical trickery."

So where am I, after 25 years? Am I considered an "expert on Barack Obama"? Of course not. I'm considered, quite rightly, a crank, a crackpot, an idiot, maybe even a traitor (if there's any justice). And yet there's no real difference between this and what Berlet has done with Larouche for the last 25 years, except for the fact that nobody likes Larouche, and Larouche doesn't like anybody else either. Larouche himself is widely considered a crackpot, as we all know. He is, basically, an "easy target," someone nobody cares much for, outside of his immediate circle of followers.

Regardless, the point here isn't that Berlet is dishonest or unethical, or even that he isn't really an "expert" on Lyndon Larouche in the sense that, say, Steven Hawking is an expert on advanced astrophysics, or even that Phil Sandifer is an expert on Doctor Who. I don't think anybody should have the right to demand that "experts" on them be impartial, though it would be nice if they were. The point is that Wikipedia ought to be able to discern whether or not any given expert is impartial, and if he isn't, don't let him control the articles in question. That didn't happen in this case.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

To be fair, Cberlet didn't control the articles in question. Slim and Will Beback did. Berlet served at their pleasure.

[Cla68]

Much worse than that. Once he set himself up as the expert interpreter of LaRouchie "code talk" he lost all ability to engage in reasoned discussion. His adversary's very words mean anything he says they mean. He is now able to carry on both sides of the dialog and take it anywhere he wants. He no longer needs an encyclopedia, just a mirror.

What you're saying is that material published by a reliable publisher, and used all over the world by journalists, including very credible news programs such as the BBC's Panorama, may not be used as a source on Wikipedia because (a) a bunch of people such as yourself have been persuaded by the LaRouche movement that the authors are evil, and (b) the authors dared to defend themselves when trashed by the LaRouche movment, which made it a personal dispute.

Normally, this board laughs about stuff like this, where WP postures in ways not recognized by the real world.

As horribly time-consuming as it is, if you want to comment in an informed way, you really ought to go through Berlet's edits, including posts to talk and to the ArbCom; then go through Hersch's and Nobs's, including Hersch's socks and IP addresses, and compare the quality of their edits and the sources. No more would need to be said.

You never addressed my question from yesterday, which is if you have a personal interest in making LaRouche look bad on Wikipedia? Here's why I ask:

- The LaRouche ArbCom case you were a party to found that you had committed personal attacks.
- You admit that you somehow know Herschel's name, living location, and place of work.
- You defend two rabidly (no, this word isn't an exaggeration, see the evidence others like Kato have presented in this thread) anti-LaRouche journalists' access to edit LaRouche articles while helping Jayjg and a few other admins ban all editors who appear even slightly pro-LaRouche
- You kept a secret page in your userspace that extensively documented suspected pro-LaRouche editors and sources related to the LaRouche articles.
- You often used to edit articles, frequently with Jayjg, about right-wing and anti-semitic topics, like New Anti-Semitism.
- Your editing almost, if not completely, always agreed with Jayjg's POV on those topics.
- Jayjg, as documented in a recent thread in his section in WR, is often quick and active at labeling BLP subjects as anti-semitic or anti-zionist, including, evidently, LaRouche
- You became irritated in a previous post in this thread, calling me a hypocrite, for asking why you never called-out Jayjg for POV-pushing or didn't advocate topic banning DKing and CBerlet

Now, it could be that LaRouche followers are trying to push POV on Wikipedia. But, it seems to me that what you, Jayjg, DKing, or CBerlet were doing was worse, which was pushing POV while pretending to be upholding the rules and using administrative privileges and wiki-political gaming to support your agenda. I'll give you a chance to answer before I go any further with my opinion on the issue.

This post has been edited by Cla68: Tue 14th April 2009, 12:38am

[Random832]

Cberlet didn't control the articles in question. Slim and Will Beback did. Berlet served at their pleasure.

Says you.

[Milton Roe]

Cberlet didn't control the articles in question. Slim and Will Beback did. Berlet served at their pleasure.

Says you.

It's true that Berlet didn't have the block-button and the others did. However, due to his subject matter, he was given free reign.

I believe it has been mentioned that the fastest way to climb the WP social ladder is much like how to climb it in in the modern media: play on Jewish paranoia, and attack in all directions outward from the NeoCon/pro-Israeli/vaguely squishy liberal center. Just use the terms neo-fascist, racist, white supremicist, and new-antisemitism a lot. Most of the time they can be interchangable.

That's what Berlet did for a living before he came to WP anyway, and it's still what he's doing after he's gone. It's also more or less what Jayjg does for a living, apparently, and Slim has edited that way for years (without using the terms, there's still not a playing card worth of difference between SlimVirgin's wiki-politics and Berlet or Jayjg's).

As to how Will Beback got any of this pineapple up his rear, I have no idea. There must be a story, there, but I don't know it.

[Somey]

I believe it has been mentioned that the fastest way to climb the WP social ladder is much like how to climb it in in the modern media: play on Jewish paranoia, and attack in all directions outward from the NeoCon/pro-Israeli/vaguely squishy liberal center. Just use the terms neo-fascist, racist, white supremicist, and new-antisemitism a lot. Most of the time they can be interchangable.

Don't forget homophobic!

In fact, we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion right now, if it weren't for the homophobia of one of our (now former) members.

Ironically enough...

[It's the blimp, Frank]

You never addressed my question from yesterday, which is if you have a personal interest in making LaRouche look bad on Wikipedia? Here's why I ask:

- The LaRouche ArbCom case you were a party to found that you had committed personal attacks.
- You admit that you somehow know Herschel's name, living location, and place of work.
- You defend two rabidly (no, this word isn't an exaggeration, see the evidence others like Kato have presented in this thread) anti-LaRouche journalists' access to edit LaRouche articles while helping Jayjg and a few other admins ban all editors who appear even slightly pro-LaRouche
- You kept a secret page in your userspace that extensively documented suspected pro-LaRouche editors and sources related to the LaRouche articles.
- You often used to edit articles, frequently with Jayjg, about right-wing and anti-semitic topics, like New Anti-Semitism.
- Your editing almost, if not completely, always agreed with Jayjg's POV on those topics.
- Jayjg, as documented in a recent thread in his section in WR, is often quick and active at labeling BLP subjects as anti-semitic or anti-zionist, including, evidently, LaRouche
- You became irritated in a previous post in this thread, calling me a hypocrite, for asking why you never called-out Jayjg for POV-pushing or didn't advocate topic banning DKing and CBerlet

A good question, deserving of an answer. And don't forget mine:

Slimvirgin: Please address, in a non-evasive way, your relationship to the Sunsplash and Sweet Blue Water accounts.

This post has been edited by It's the blimp, Frank: Tue 14th April 2009, 1:04am

[EricBarbour]

Let's not confuse the cause of anti-communism with LaRouchism. This is an assinine path to pursue, even for you. It won't work. Let's not go there.

Don't worry, she'll keep going there.

This is merely daytime entertainment, while she waits to get her admin power back
next month. Then you'll see a lot less of her on this forum.