Will Beback's passive-aggressive approach, and Cberlet, just plain aggressive Options

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Get a load of this. Note how deftly Will avoids addressing the actual issue at hand.

[Somey]

Well, that's just pure obfuscation and wear-down technique - he isn't even bothering to try and come up with a logical counter-argument. He'll try to get this User:Niels_Gade fella to post something that can be vaguely misinterpreted as "incivility" so that he can give him at least a 48-hour block, followed by full protection of the article "until further notice."

I guess when you've been doing something for several years, you get to be fairly deft at it, eh.

WP:SOP

[Herschelkrustofsky]

WP:SOP

I'd never seen this before. I think it should be renamed WP:SOP...NOT! But Jimbo links to another interesting page, Backbone Cabal (redirected from There Is No Cabal,) where it says the following:

During most of its existence, the cabal (sometimes capitalized) steadfastly denied its own existence; those involved would often respond "There is no Cabal" (sometimes abbreviated as "TINC"), whenever the existence or activities of the group were speculated on in public. It is sometimes used humorously to dispel cabal-like organizational conspiracy theories, or as an ironic statement, indicating one who knows the existence of "the cabal" will invariably deny there is one.

And meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Chipster has come in to do his geek act. This is part of the classic tag-team strategy that Will Beback and Cberlet have developed over time, where Beback bogs down the discussion with constipated technical evasions, and then Chip goes apeshit. It's soft cop/hard cop.

[Merzbow]

Honestly that whole argument about that single paragraph seemed kind of pointless to me. As I made clear on the page I thought that it was already clear enough the views were King's, because the surrounding text was already scattered with "according to King" and the like. The rewrite I proposed is basically a copyedit for precision and clarity; hopefully it will get approved.

Although I am on the opposite side of the political spectrum from Chip on most issues, his published writings on LaRouche appear mostly accurate to me, and I don't see a conflict in him adding his own published stuff. Note how I say "published", not "self-published". I've spoken against other editors who try to cite their own blog posts in Wikipedia, for example; unfortunately I was ignored. This probably stems from the fact that people who do police the orthodox viewpoint on controversial issues do get cut more slack. This is probably the way it should be, since otherwise stuff like the 9/11 article space would just get devastated by those who can't get their fringe views published elsewhere; but everybody has one "orthodox" viewpoint somewhere that they take issue with, and it is painful to see slack cut there to the "other side"...

This post has been edited by Merzbow:

[Kato]

Listen, Chip Berlet is a professional political writer dedicated to "exposing" Lyndon LaRouche. Which amounts to writing highly charged journals demonizing the bloke. Here he writes that LaRouche is a "fascist demagogue". Dennis King is similarly a professional writer who compares LaRouche to Hitler in a variety of loosely sourced attack pieces. They spend their lives on this.

These guys -- especially Berlet -- have been controlling the articles on LaRouche for several years now.

Anyone who can't see this Conflict Of Interest and why this has caused so many problems is out of their minds.

The LaRouche articles form an axis of several areas, including the whole Overstock thing, where individuals with blatant conflicts of interest parked up and began OWNING the information they wanted the world to read. Carefully ingratiating themselves with powerful admins to easier bully off other editors who try and salvage / neutralize the biased content.

[Milton Roe]

Get a load of this. Note how deftly Will avoids addressing the actual issue at hand.

Read the whole page. You will see Chip Berlet as one of those Star Trekish creatures who feeds on strong emotion. In Berlet's case, he needs antisemitism and homophobia and neonazis like he needs oxygen.

Drama queens like this guy are amazing. They'll can find the hot button issue in any community, then go down and push it, then feed, feed, feed, on the back reaction. If it's the South and they're having problems with race, folks like Berlet will go down as freedom riders and see if they can integrate your schools, and bus your kids down to where they can get their lunch money stolen. Ah, the Southern Poverty Law Center, spreading good will. If somebody has homophobia and worries about their kids being turned onto "alternative lifestyles" (however unlikely this may be in fact), guys like Chip have a gay pride parade for you, just to get you outraged at however's behind it. Are you a Christian? There's the ACLU to be your Grinch. And if you worry about Jews controlling the media, there are folks like Chip and his friends controlling the media (as in this example on Wikipedia) to prove that you're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Seems to me that more Jews should be totally outraged at this kind of friendly fire (in the David Horowitz style), which tends to actually create antisemitism where it didn't even exist previously. But then, they'd be called self-hating Jews, would they not? Drama, drama, drama. And hatred. Stay off that ship, Captain Kirk! Refuse to fight with that Klingon and start laughing! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Although I am on the opposite side of the political spectrum from Chip on most issues, his published writings on LaRouche appear mostly accurate to me, and I don't see a conflict in him adding his own published stuff.

The trademark technique of the Chip 'n' King team is the process of divining "hidden meanings" in their quarry's writings. LaRouche is somewhat vulnerable to this sort of thing, because his writing contains many obscure references which may tend to baffle the layman, and Chip 'n' King exploit this to insinuate that every reference to a banker, an aristocratic family, or for that matter, the U.K. or Venice, is an instance of veiled anti-Semitism. Ironically, of course, this really does trivialize anti-Semitism. It is also a technique that ought to trigger every BLP alarm at Wikipedia, regardless of whether Chip 'n' King have been published. Back in my WP days, I argued before the ArbCom that there ought to be a simple "filter" whereby Chip could quote himself only when the writing in question had appeared in a mainstream source. PRA has no editorial oversight whatsoever -- Jean Hardisty, the nominal head of the operation, will authorize anything Chip wants, no matter how bizarrely defamatory. The ArbCom took no note of my proposal.

Read the whole page. You will see Chip Berlet as one of those Star Trekish creatures who feeds on strong emotion. In Berlet's case, he needs antisemitism and homophobia and neonazis like he needs oxygen.

I agree in part, but I also think that there is a lot of calculation involved. Chip creates bogus antisemitism, homophobia etc. in part to intimidate his opponents. Notice how quickly he resorted to implying that BoodlesTheCat was antisemitic, as soon as BTC began to challenge him on the talk page. You'd be surprised how often this tactic works.

On the face of it, Chip's entire output looks like a parody of real investigative journalism. But, the big bucks from the Ford Foundation keep rolling in to PRA, so I think there is a method to the madness. Chip has learned how to exploit the residue of Political Correctness, which has largely become passé, to create a new sort of McCarthyism, for which there is clearly a market. I think that he is using Wikipedia to create a veneer of pseudo-scholarly legitimacy for himself and PRA.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The rewrite I proposed is basically a copyedit for precision and clarity; hopefully it will get approved.

That seems likely, although Alison is going for simple deletion of the paragraph in question.

This debate marks a big change in the way Wikipedia has handled the LaRouche question. Until last summer, SlimVirgin personally OWNed every LaRouche article, and any editor that got in Chip's way was summarily banned without a fig leaf of due process. Will Beback was content to play Igor to her Dr. Frankenstein (with Chip being the monster.) However, for reasons that undoubtably have to do with her own changing fortunes at WP, Slim bowed out (although she made a brief reprise as Sunsplash until we at the Review blew her cover.) Now Will is forced to act alone as Chip's campaign manager.

Things might have gone their way, until Chip made a typically impetuous tactical error of calling an article RfC. Then things got interesting. Editors like Cla68 showed up and noticed, evidently for the first time, that the Chipster has a massive COI problem. I think this may lead to further action by the "community."

(Merzbow on the Wikipedia talk page)
Given that reliable sources universally take a negative view of LaRouche and his career, this does indeed appear to be the neutral formulation of such.

As some editors pointed out on that talk page some months ago, this is a good example of WP:BIAS. "Reliable sources," which I think is a highly dubious concept when applied uncritically to the press, condemn LaRouche "universally" only if you restrict your view (as Wikipedia typically does) to the publications of the WASP establishment on both sides of the Atlantic. LaRouche gets high marks from Russian, Chinese and Third World publications, which are typically ignored or treated scornfully by WP.

[Moulton]

... summarily banned without a fig leaf of due process.

This observation seems to be sufficiently repeated in so many cases that Lar is almost certainly telling it like it is when he summarily concedes that Wikipedia simply doesn't do Due Process, full stop.

[Merzbow]

The rewrite I proposed is basically a copyedit for precision and clarity; hopefully it will get approved.

That seems likely, although Alison is going for simple deletion of the paragraph in question.

This debate marks a big change in the way Wikipedia has handled the LaRouche question. Until last summer, SlimVirgin personally OWNed every LaRouche article, and any editor that got in Chip's way was summarily banned without a fig leaf of due process. Will Beback was content to play Igor to her Dr. Frankenstein (with Chip being the monster.) However, for reasons that undoubtably have to do with her own changing fortunes at WP, Slim bowed out (although she made a brief reprise as Sunsplash until we at the Review blew her cover.) Now Will is forced to act alone as Chip's campaign manager.

Things might have gone their way, until Chip made a typically impetuous tactical error of calling an article RfC. Then things got interesting. Editors like Cla68 showed up and noticed, evidently for the first time, that the Chipster has a massive COI problem. I think this may lead to further action by the "community."

There are a couple more admins coming in and saying that there is a COI problem, so I think something will eventually happen. I've suggested on talk that maybe a compromise would be to stick to Chip's published books and articles, and avoid cites to material produced by his employer. ArbCom seems to be punting on making any substantive precedent in the Prem Rawat ArbCom COI case, BTW.

(Merzbow on the Wikipedia talk page)
Given that reliable sources universally take a negative view of LaRouche and his career, this does indeed appear to be the neutral formulation of such.

As some editors pointed out on that talk page some months ago, this is a good example of WP:BIAS. "Reliable sources," which I think is a highly dubious concept when applied uncritically to the press, condemn LaRouche "universally" only if you restrict your view (as Wikipedia typically does) to the publications of the WASP establishment on both sides of the Atlantic. LaRouche gets high marks from Russian, Chinese and Third World publications, which are typically ignored or treated scornfully by WP.

You don't seriously think those publications are reliable sources? Any non-scientific publication from a country without freedom of the press is prima facie garbage, IMHO.

[Moulton]

Are unregistered guests privileged to post? The last time I forgot to log in (just a few days ago), the system wouldn't let me post.

[Kato]

Are unregistered guests privileged to post? The last time I forgot to log in (just a few days ago), the system wouldn't let me post.

It looks like a glitch in this thread. I shifted the post over and deleted the other.

[Kato]

The outrageous history of the article Views of Lyndon LaRouche is there for all to see.

That nit-wit GeorgeWilliamHerbert weighed in as he always does. He re-added the contentious, and frankly absurd defamatory material "according to Dennis King" who is an anti-LaRouche campaigner and an editor on the damn page no less. Then Herbert locked the article so it could only be edited by administrators with the endorsement of Berlet, claiming a previous "edit war" which isn't apparent from the diffs.

It has remained locked for 5 months.

If anyone complains they get accused of being "in league with LaRouche" or a sockpuppet of Herschelkrustofsky. At least Hersch actually is a follower of LaRouche, whether that matters.

I've been complaining on these pages for months and I've got no time for LaRouche at all, and zero interest in any of his ideas. But the antics of Wiki-adminions in this case is simply too appalling to ignore.

[Somey]

The trademark technique of the Chip 'n' King team is the process of divining "hidden meanings" in their quarry's writings. LaRouche is somewhat vulnerable to this sort of thing, because his writing contains many obscure references which may tend to baffle the layman, and Chip 'n' King exploit this to insinuate that every reference to a banker, an aristocratic family, or for that matter, the U.K. or Venice, is an instance of veiled anti-Semitism. Ironically, of course, this really does trivialize anti-Semitism.

I'm not sure it trivializes anti-semitism itself, so much as it trivializes anti-anti-semitism... which in some ways is even more tragic, if only because it's so unnecessary, so self-defeating, and there's so few people actually doing it relative to the amount of damage they're causing. And of course, WP allows them to do the damage without even having to pay their own web-hosting fees.

I've pointed all this out before, but IMO it bears repeating: Larouche has so many targets of derision, and so few figures of admiration, that to accuse him of "anti-semitism" is a little like accusing Darth Vader of "anti-Ewokism." It really amounts to ideological cherry-picking.

I could cite passages where Larouche bashes Martin Luther too, in essentially the same way that SlimVirgin, Mantanmoreland, and the rest of 'em have done on Wikipedia for years. So why aren't they accused of being "Larouchies"?

Maybe I'll catch hell for saying this, but excessive demonization of anti-semites, and making everyone think they're some sort of huge threat to everything, only attracts people who want to be demonic and hugely threatening into the cause of anti-semitism. It really just empowers them, when it's actually far better to make fun of them (assuming you can't simply throw them all in jail). Lots of people want to be evil and scary, but very few people want to be buffoons... And attempting to demonize people like Larouche, while it may give folks like Chip Berlet a nice, warm, self-satisfied feeling, really just brings Larouche and his followers more useless attention. I mean, the guy runs for President every four years and gets what, 200 votes?

I might even go so far as to say that Jewish people, and Jewish-Americans in particular, were probably better off when Hogan's Heroes was still on TV than they are now, at least as far as cultural attitudes are concerned. Who would want to be a Nazi when your role models are Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz, and your own guard dogs like your prisoners more than they like you?

[Moulton]

I second the motion that over-zealous demonization tends to backfire. Artful parody, lampoon, and satire are probably a better strategy, and much more fun to perfect and perform.

[Random832]

ArbCom seems to be punting

Also, the sky is blue.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

(Merzbow on the Wikipedia talk page)
Given that reliable sources universally take a negative view of LaRouche and his career, this does indeed appear to be the neutral formulation of such.

As some editors pointed out on that talk page some months ago, this is a good example of WP:BIAS. "Reliable sources," which I think is a highly dubious concept when applied uncritically to the press, condemn LaRouche "universally" only if you restrict your view (as Wikipedia typically does) to the publications of the WASP establishment on both sides of the Atlantic. LaRouche gets high marks from Russian, Chinese and Third World publications, which are typically ignored or treated scornfully by WP.

You don't seriously think those publications are reliable sources? Any non-scientific publication from a country without freedom of the press is prima facie garbage, IMHO.

I wouldn't say that any press is either prima facie garbage, or prima facie reliable, on sensitive BLP issues. I can imagine a debate taking place in Russia or China as to whether anyone should take the American press seriously, when it is owned by cartels like the Rupert Murdoch apparatus, who use it to lend credence to patently false claims like the famous Iraqi WMDs.

The trademark technique of the Chip 'n' King team is the process of divining "hidden meanings" in their quarry's writings. LaRouche is somewhat vulnerable to this sort of thing, because his writing contains many obscure references which may tend to baffle the layman, and Chip 'n' King exploit this to insinuate that every reference to a banker, an aristocratic family, or for that matter, the U.K. or Venice, is an instance of veiled anti-Semitism. Ironically, of course, this really does trivialize anti-Semitism.

I'm not sure it trivializes anti-semitism itself, so much as it trivializes anti-anti-semitism...

Anti-Semitism is a serious matter, about which people are rightfully concerned. But people like Berlet (and he's not the only one) seek to exploit this concern and harness it to other agendas, which does in fact trivialize it. For example, the friends of Meyer Lansky and Mo Dalitz made the claim that people who criticized them for being mobsters were motivated by anti-Semitism. I am interested in the work of Norman Finkelstein, who has criticized the ADL and similar bodies for this sort of thing.

[guy]

Norman Finkelstein, who has criticized the ADL and similar bodies for this sort of thing.

In my experience, Norman Finkelstein criticises most people, and certainly anyone who dares say anything not 100% laudatory of someone he likes.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The LaRouche articles form an axis of several areas, including the whole Overstock thing, where individuals with blatant conflicts of interest parked up and began OWNING the information they wanted the world to read.

That's an interesting observation. In the past 24 hours there is a sudden spate of edits on LaRouche-related topics by User:John Nevard, who seems to be thick with both the Gary Weiss sock drawer and the MONGO brigade.

[Kato]

Norman Finkelstein, who has criticized the ADL and similar bodies for this sort of thing.

In my experience, Norman Finkelstein criticises most people, and certainly anyone who dares say anything not 100% laudatory of someone he likes.

That's not true. For example, Finkelstein makes no criticisms of the British establishment, British colonialism, the Royal family and so on. Which make up the main targets of LaRouche from what I can gather.

Finkelstein criticizes the relationship between the US and Israel, right-wing Israeli aggression in the Middle East, and other topics related the Zionist right. For this he is demonized by Right Wing pro-Israeli figures.

This allegation unites the Protocols, Nazism and the so-called "New Anti-semitism" which at its worst treats America and the western media generally as puppets of Israel and the "Jewish lobby."

I generally agree with that. I've written this a few times here but I'll repeat it. The so called "Jewish lobby" have no real impact on US foreign policy and the subject is tedious. The support of Israel is almost entirely strategic. The US government have been supporting places like Colombia and Turkey quite happily without some lobbyists telling them to do so. Likewise Israel.