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

[Somey]

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.

Well, I for one will miss her sweet, sunny disposition.

[Hell Freezes Over]

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...

Telling of what?

"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.

I'm not saying you needed to log in. I'm saying it's odd that so many other BLP issues get noticed, but the sustained (four years long roughly) attack on Berlet not only didn't get commented on in his favour -- it was added to here by Herschel, Nobs, and a couple of others, without anyone here saying, "Hang on, those are vicious attacks on someone already under vicious attack on Wikipedia *by the same people*, and we don't encourage that here." No, you *do* encourage it here, because one of the people doing it was promoted to staff.

"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.

Berlet wasn't being used as a source, so far as I know, when Herschel created the BLP on him in May 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...t&oldid=3597556 And you didn't use that argument when it came to Brandt -- that because he was a source for WP, we needed an article on him.

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.

Herschel suggested in Berlet's BLP that he was corrupt. Nobs posted some awful stuff on the article's talk page that I won't repeat here, and as I recall tried to get some of it into the article too.

... 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."

I suppose I wonder how much LaRouche you've read, Somey. You don't have to read much to find some very depressing material about Jews (as well as about gays and women), notwithstanding that he denies any antisemitism himself. And to dismiss him as a crackpot, as though he's a harmless one, is wrong-headed. The LaRouche movement used to be very good at cultivating young reporters in an effort to get its propaganda spread. An enormous number of prominent political conspiracy theories have been started or in some way spread by the LaRouche movement's ability to influence naive journalists. Over time, the origins of the rumours get lost, and they take on a life of their own. The LaRouchies then use those stories to spread the memes even further, trumpeting them as evidence of something they've been claiming for a long time, when in fact they made them up, and using their supposedly astonishing predictive power to bolster their credibility with the next generation of befuddled reporters.

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.

I wonder how it would be possible to be a true expert on LaRouche, yet remain impartial.

[Kato]

I wonder how it would be possible to be a true expert on LaRouche, yet remain impartial.

Perhaps by not distributing propaganda leaflets comparing LaRouche to Hitler, which carry crude caricatures of LaRouche as Superman wearing a swastika on his chest? That might be a start.

http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/

[Somey]

Telling of what?

Sorry, that was just a knee-jerk reaction on my part. It's just that I would have written it more like, "Berlet asked to have the article deleted, but he was unwilling or unable to back up his request with a massive lawsuit when a small group of mostly-anonymous revenge-obsessed cybergoons inevitably refused to delete it, and the actual publisher of the article decided (as per usual) to hide behind Section 230 of the CDA to deny all responsibility and accountability for the situation." Or something along those lines.

...I'm saying it's odd that so many other BLP issues get noticed, but the sustained (four years long roughly) attack on Berlet not only didn't get commented on in his favour -- it was added to here by Herschel, Nobs, and a couple of others, without anyone here saying, "Hang on, those are vicious attacks on someone already under vicious attack on Wikipedia *by the same people*, and we don't encourage that here."

Well, it's hardly "odd," given some of the things he's said about us, and as for the rest of it, I think most people here have always seen him as a WP editor more than anything else. Certainly I'd never heard of him before I joined WR, and it's not like I'm oblivious to left-leaning political stuff in the US and elsewhere.

...And you didn't use that argument when it came to Brandt -- that because he was a source for WP, we needed an article on him.

We might have, if Brandt hadn't declared almost immediately that he wanted his article deleted and stuck to it. Berlet, OTOH, became a rather active Wikipedian in his own right, and remained one for a good 2-3 years before finally coming to his senses.

Herschel suggested in Berlet's BLP that he was corrupt.

I get called "corrupt" all the time, and I've decided it's not so bad really. It's probably just a USA-idiom sort of thing - it's actually considered a compliment here. I don't know about Canada...?

Anyway, I assume you're referring to this edit? The fact is, a whole bunch of reporters have been paid by Mellon-Scaife et al for doing all sorts of dirty tricks, most notably the Whitewater "scandal" and the effort to impeach Bill Clinton. It might be nice if the claim were cited, of course, but it's not all that hard to believe - and he did use the word "allegedly," at least. Surely no self-respecting vandal would be so equivocal as that?

I suppose I wonder how much LaRouche you've read, Somey. You don't have to read much to find some very depressing material about Jews (as well as about gays and women), notwithstanding that he denies any antisemitism himself.

That's just it, SV - I don't like Lyndon Larouche any more than you do, but I think you're the one who hasn't read enough, or else you'd be appalled at how often he agrees with you - on quite a few ideological issues. The fact is, Larouche either despises or distrusts just about everybody, including people who despise and distrust each other. For example, I keep pointing out how he totally agrees with you on Martin Luther's ultimate responsibility for the rise of the Nazis, which I (and IMO most people) would consider to be a grossly exaggerated and unfair claim, even in light of the fact that Luther was both German and a known anti-semite. But you never seem to "take the bait" on that one, for some reason...

Admittedly, Larouche also despises environmentalists, and I believe he lumps the Animal Rights people in with them. So you've got a perfectly legitimate reason there to oppose him, if not hate his guts - I'll give you that, at least.

Oh, and don't forget hippies. Larouche really hates hippies!

[Jon Awbrey]

Of all the Whopping Idiocies in Wikiputia one of the Whoppingest Idiocies has got to be the Very Idea that an organization can have any sane policies about Conflict of Interest with members who will not disclose so much as their real names.

It's just one more area of Wikiputia where dishonest people get rewarded in proportion to their dishonesty and honest people get screwed in proportion to their honesty.

The same thing goes for all the members of this Review who operate under pseudonyms. They can spout generalities about Conflict of Interest all they want, but they cannot add anything but nonsense to any specific dispute until they are willing to make the pertinent disclosures, beginning at minimum with their real names.

Jon Awbrey

[CharlotteWebb]

Or, more generally:

I wonder how it would be possible to be a true expert on [INSERT TOPIC HERE], yet remain impartial.

[Sarcasticidealist]

Of all the Whopping Idiocies in Wikiputia one of the Whoppingest Idiocies has got to be the Very Idea that an organization can have any sane policies about Conflict of Interest with members who will not disclose so much as their real names.

Hey, look, I'm agreeing with Jon Awbrey!

(Though you'll note that as worded, Wikipedia's COI policy isn't binding in any way - it merely advises people to avoid editing where they might have a COI. Understanding of this by admins is, ah, uneven.)

[Jon Awbrey]

Of all the Whopping Idiocies in Wikiputia one of the Whoppingest Idiocies has got to be the Very Idea that an organization can have any sane policies about Conflict of Interest with members who will not disclose so much as their real names.

Hey, look, I'm agreeing with Jon Awbrey!

(Though you'll note that as worded, Wikipedia's COI policy isn't binding in any way — it merely advises people to avoid editing where they might have a COI. Understanding of this by admins is, ah, uneven.)

Pertinent Disclosure. I'm a card-carrying Pragmatist (or Peircean Pragmaticist if you wanna get picky). Among other things this means that I reckon the meaning of a policy according to its practical effects, which may be hard to guess from the cloud of dust that's often as not raised by its words.

Hi Ho, Sliver, Away !!!

Jon Awbrey

[Cla68]

Don't forget homophobic!

Wow:

Revert: read the quote - it is an accurate summary of a vicious statement by a homophobic bigot

SV, you asked me for an edit by CBerlet that is as bad as HK's. I think this edit summary is much worse. It's a clear violation of BLP. I checked CBerlet's talk page for the days following that edit summary and saw nary a warning or block from you or anyone else who I assume were closely watching that article to make sure no pro-LaRouche editors touched it.

To be fair, SV's name is missing from what I believe was the last pro-LaRouche editor witchhunt, but notice in that thread that Jayjg performed the checkuser, and JzG, Tom Harrison, and John Nevard were all active in pushing for action, in addition to Will Beback.

I suppose I wonder how much LaRouche you've read, Somey. You don't have to read much to find some very depressing material about Jews (as well as about gays and women), notwithstanding that he denies any antisemitism himself. And to dismiss him as a crackpot, as though he's a harmless one, is wrong-headed. The LaRouche movement used to be very good at cultivating young reporters in an effort to get its propaganda spread. An enormous number of prominent political conspiracy theories have been started or in some way spread by the LaRouche movement's ability to influence naive journalists. Over time, the origins of the rumours get lost, and they take on a life of their own. The LaRouchies then use those stories to spread the memes even further, trumpeting them as evidence of something they've been claiming for a long time, when in fact they made them up, and using their supposedly astonishing predictive power to bolster their credibility with the next generation of befuddled reporters.

I wonder how it would be possible to be a true expert on LaRouche, yet remain impartial.

I guess you've confirmed that you have a personal stake in seeing that the content about LaRouche in Wikipedia is negative in nature. Do you see any problem with that?

This post has been edited by Cla68: Tue 14th April 2009, 3:45am

[Lar]

I guess you've confirmed that you have a personal stake in seeing that the content about LaRouche in Wikipedia is negative in nature. Do you see any problem with that?

Why, exactly, do you expect her to answer this one? She hasn't answered anything substantive so far, just led everyone on one rhetorical wild goose chase after another. Why would this be different?

[Daniel Brandt]

Anyway, I assume you're referring to this edit? The fact is, a whole bunch of reporters have been paid by Mellon-Scaife et al for doing all sorts of dirty tricks, most notably the Whitewater "scandal" and the effort to impeach Bill Clinton. It might be nice if the claim were cited, of course, but it's not all that hard to believe - and he did use the word "allegedly," at least. Surely no self-respecting vandal would be so equivocal as that?

Doug Birch, "Master of the Politics of Paranoia," Baltimore Sun Magazine, 5 June 1988, p. 27:

Mr. Berlet, of Political Research Associates, says Mr. Rees' network is made up of John Birch Society members who quietly attend meetings of left-wing or suspected left-wing groups...

Information Digest and its network couldn't continue, Mr. Rees says, without a little help from unnamed "patrons." Mr. Berlet says he doesn't know who they are. But he adds he was introduced by Mr. Rees to Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative multimillionaire from Pittsburgh, at a recent conference about extremist Lyndon LaRouche staged by Information Digest.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, from a mainstream journalist. If you spend time digging into more obscure sources, there's a lot about Berlet's collusion with the right-wing — such as that domestic spy agency, the Anti-Defamation League, which has publicly thanked Political Research Associates for passing along information for its files. As long as a right-winger or a CIA-connected person (such as Roy Godson) is anti-LaRouche, that person is potentially someone Berlet is happy to work with.

He's a wannabe spy, or maybe a real one. I can see why Slim has an affinity for him. Yes, that fits my definition of "corrupt."

[Somey]

He's a wannabe spy, or maybe a real one. I can see why Slim has an affinity for him. Yes, that fits my definition of "corrupt."

Okay, but we haven't yet learned from SV that the diff we're referring to is the diff she's referring to, or if she's even referring to a particular diff at all. She's been associated with WP for a long time, so you have to wonder if she actually meant that Herschel accused Mr. Berlet of using a "sock puppet."

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Doug Birch, "Master of the Politics of Paranoia," Baltimore Sun Magazine, 5 June 1988, p. 27:

Mr. Berlet, of Political Research Associates, says Mr. Rees' network is made up of John Birch Society members who quietly attend meetings of left-wing or suspected left-wing groups...

Information Digest and its network couldn't continue, Mr. Rees says, without a little help from unnamed "patrons." Mr. Berlet says he doesn't know who they are. But he adds he was introduced by Mr. Rees to Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative multimillionaire from Pittsburgh, at a recent conference about extremist Lyndon LaRouche staged by Information Digest.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, from a mainstream journalist.

Here's a significant piece of the iceberg.

The fact is, Larouche either despises or distrusts just about everybody, including people who despise and distrust each other. For example, I keep pointing out how he totally agrees with you on Martin Luther's ultimate responsibility for the rise of the Nazis, which I (and IMO most people) would consider to be a grossly exaggerated and unfair claim, even in light of the fact that Luther was both German and a known anti-semite.

I must admit that although I have probably read as much LaRouche as anyone here, I'm drawing a blank on this one.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

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

Although I can see that you wrote "at worst," I don't think that the actual record reflects anything like that. My battles over LaRouche went through several stages. My first major opponent was Adam Carr (T-C-L-K-R-D) , who was certainly the most lunatic POV-pusher of them all. He seemed to think that he had a divine dispensation to write whatever he damn well pleased, and when he didn't get what he wanted, his tantrums were spectacular. He stopped editing the LaRouche articles due to tantrum-fatigue.

That left another anti-LaRouche editor, whose name went through several changes and wound up as Formeruser-81 (T-C-L-K-R-D) . By my best recollection, Formeruser was a clean fighter; he didn't try to game the system, did not try to recruit admins to ban his opponents, etc. The other thing about the period that followed, which in retrospect seems remarkable now, is that Snowspinner AKA Phil Sandifer offered to mediate the conflict, and was an honest broker. The conflict was actually resolved to everyone's relative satisfaction, producing this compromise version, which I believe will stand up to scrutiny as not a "puff piece."

This version of the article remained stable until the advent of Slim, Berlet and Will.

[Kato]

The main things I'm getting from this thread are:

1. Herschel, or whoever it was, shouldn't have started the biography on Chip Berlet. That was a real mistake. That biography should be deleted at the subject's request, and for other valid reasons.
2. Chip Berlet shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the LaRouche articles. He's been in litigation with LaRouche for starters, has a massive conflict of interest, and openly talks about his quest to counter LaRouche whom he regularly compares to Hitler. It was inevitable that his presence would cause major problems.
3. The clique of admins and users who are openly anti-LaRouche, who rallied round to protect Berlet, showed blatant double standards; dragged a large area of Wikipedia through the mud - further discredited the place. They have shown they cannot be trusted any more than any of the other disruptive forces at the site.

[Heat]

I wonder how it would be possible to be a true expert on LaRouche, yet remain impartial.

You're conflating two different questions 1) Can Chris Berlet be used as a source 2) can he edit articles in which he is a source (and about whom he's been involved in litigation).

I think the answer to 1) is yes - at least in the case of his book and interviews he's done with major media and to 2) is no.

Also, I think you're exaggerating Larouche's importance. He did have some influence in the Reagan Administration and then there were those fluke primary victories by Larouche supporters, also in the 1980s but since the late 1980s when he was exposed in the major media and the early 1990s when he was incarcerated he's been a spent force. Yes, the Larouche movement can still recruit people (fewer than they used to) and wreck their lives like any cult can but their impact in the real world is negligible. The Scientologists and Moonies are a greater threat.

This post has been edited by Heat: Tue 14th April 2009, 1:15pm

[Herschelkrustofsky]

nobody likes Larouche, and Larouche doesn't like anybody else either.

You've said this three or four times now, so I assume that you mean it. Ms. Hell may be correct in assuming that you haven't read much LaRouche. Permit me to give you a capsule summary of who and what LaRouche likes:

LaRouche likes the Renaissance, because it was the first movement to break with the millennia-old practice of affording the mass of humanity the same rights and dignity afforded to the livestock. He likes the American Revolution, because it was the first attempt to build a nation-state around those ideas of the Renaissance, instead of just institutionalizing the rule of some gang that managed to seize power. And although the commitment of the USA to those ideas was a bit shaky, there have been leaders who reaffirmed them and attempted to share them with the rest of the world: Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, for example. LaRouche likes them, too. And the Non-Aligned Movement. These are examples of humanitarian action, an unselfish commitment to giving the vast majority of humans, who live without much hope, a chance.

Now in the late 1960s, there was a big change in American culture. I think it was manipulated, and you are free to dismiss that claim as a conspiracy theory. But regardless, the outcome was clear: Americans of all persuasions were soon frantically Doing Their Own Thing™ and any humanitarian impulse was pretty much lost. People in my age group tend to have their egos heavily invested in that Paradigm Shift™ and they get their backs up when LaRouche stridently tells them that it sucks.

One last thing: I take offense when Ms. Hell claims that the LaRouche movement is "right wing." It is a calculated, cynical insult to people such as myself. I got involved in presidential politics as a high school student, supporting Eugene McCarthy in 1968, George McGovern in 1972, and then LaRouche in subsequent elections. I believe this demonstrates a preference on my part for humanitarian candidates, and the coherence of my choices is underscored by the fact that Gene McCarthy, late in his life, became a close friend of LaRouche, while McGovern, last time I heard, was still alive and on cordial terms with the LaRouche movement.

[Hell Freezes Over]

Now in the late 1960s, there was a big change in American culture. I think it was manipulated, and you are free to dismiss that claim as a conspiracy theory.

Who do you believe manipulated it?

[Jon Awbrey]

Now in the late 1960s, there was a big change in American culture. I think it was manipulated, and you are free to dismiss that claim as a conspiracy theory.

Who do you believe manipulated it?

Levi-Strauss

Ja Ja

[Son of a Yeti]

Now in the late 1960s, there was a big change in American culture. I think it was manipulated, and you are free to dismiss that claim as a conspiracy theory.

Who do you believe manipulated it?

That's projection (in the psychological sense).

You are manipulating everyone you meet and therefore you assume that everything must be the result of some manipulation.



This post has been edited by Son of a Yeti: Tue 14th April 2009, 7:01pm