Gary² and the Chipster: the bullying! the lying! Options

[Piperdown]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=158758673

Cliffb reverted as "sockpuppet of banned user". Nevermind that a quick wikipedia review of Cliffb's editing reveals no such thing.

Samiharris is out of control.

Good thing tag teamer Gary...er...um...Mantanmoreland is there to revert, so "samiharris" doesn't get a 3RR.

[Kato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=158758673

Cliffb reverted as "sockpuppet of banned user". Nevermind that a quick wikipedia review of Cliffb's editing reveals no such thing.

Samiharris is out of control.

Good thing tag teamer Gary...er...um...Mantanmoreland is there to revert, so "samiharris" doesn't get a 3RR.

You're right. This is deeply corrupt and something needs to be done. Like... yesterday. Once someone like Cliffb gets reverted as a Wordbomb sock puppet by stooges, then the situation has clearly gone way too far.

I haven't paid much attention to this business, but it is obvious now that Mantanmoreland, who as far as we know is still protected by shadowy admins at WP, is given carte blanche to manipulate the public's perception of naked short selling via the use of wikipedia. Why? I'd like to know.

Somey recently concluded that Gary Weiss was largely the reason the Review exists. Weiss and Chip Berlet, who is also given special protection on WP for reasons that have never been explained, have debased any ideals other WP editors might have had when they embarked on editing. Of course, we all know the name of the high profile female Canadian admin who implemented this duel protection racket. Again, why? I don't know.

Attempts to rfc these situations, and bring them to eyes of "the community" have been immediately deleted and silenced. See this and this if you don't believe it. Why? I don't know.

[Somey]

Somey recently concluded that Gary Weiss was largely the reason the Review exists.

I wouldn't go quite that far - WR was started before Weiss even appeared on Wikipedia, from what I gather. What I would say is that the combined influence of Weiss and Berlet has been so disruptive and divisive - and these two people are extremely good at that, probably better than any of us here could ever hope to be - that the need to expose their malfeasance, for the good of Wikipedia and the collaborative web in general, has led to WR's being branded an enemy site. After all, don't forget that when WR first started, Erik Moeller himself was a regular poster. Even Dave Gerard posted here a few times... Not that most of us really miss those guys, of course. But their accounts are still active!

Weiss and Chip Berlet, who is also given special protection on WP for reasons that have never been explained, have debased any ideals other WP editors might have had when they embarked on editing.

At one point I had a theory which suggested that the folks in the SlimVirgin "cabal" felt that Berlet was useful because he was a leftist with a penchant for bashing other leftists. So, if they wanted to make a POV assertion somewhere in favor of, say, Israeli militarism, and include citations showing support from both "left" and right, they simply had to ask the ol' Chipster to write something up - and presto-bingo, a ready-made reliable source! And if they wanted to bash someone like Noam Chomsky for the same reason, Chip would be up for that too. In return, Chip's personal bio would always read like hagiography, in spite of the efforts of folks like Nobs et al to inject non-hagiographic (to say the least?) material.

I know it sounds a little elaborate, even for them... but if Berlet actively offered his services in that area, then who would they have been to refuse?

[Herschelkrustofsky]

At one point I had a theory which suggested that the folks in the SlimVirgin "cabal" felt that Berlet was useful because he was a leftist with a penchant for bashing other leftists.

I will interject here, as I have in the past when you raised this theory, that I don't believe that Berlet was ever a leftist in any legitimate sense. See below.

I believe that the "identity politics" that emerged in the 1970s was funded from above as a means of countering the "power structure research" that was beginning to become popular among New Left veterans. These New Left veterans like myself were almost all white males, who figured out very early that U.S. policy in Vietnam could not withstand scrutiny at any level whatsoever. A connection was becoming evident between U.S. corporate capitalism and U.S. foreign policy. The same people were running both. (It's easier to make this point now than it was a few years ago. All you have to do is look at U.S. policy in Iraq.)

The white male U.S. New Left was crushed by "identity politics" in the 1970s. It only took a few years before the feminists chased us out of our offices. We were left in the street with a confused look on our faces, hanging on to our research files, and muttering phrases such as "interlocking corporate directorates."

I think that you are generally on the right track here, but let me suggest a slightly different approach. One of the appealing features of the Marxist version of leftism was the notion of a universal human identity, defined by a shared interest in the general progress of humanity. The purpose of "identity politics" was to annihilate that notion, along with the notion of progress, and replace it with a Hobbesian battle of competing particularist interests.

[GlassBeadGame]

At one point I had a theory which suggested that the folks in the SlimVirgin "cabal" felt that Berlet was useful because he was a leftist with a penchant for bashing other leftists.

I will interject here, as I have in the past when you raised this theory, that I don't believe that Berlet was ever a leftist in any legitimate sense. See below.

I believe that the "identity politics" that emerged in the 1970s was funded from above as a means of countering the "power structure research" that was beginning to become popular among New Left veterans. These New Left veterans like myself were almost all white males, who figured out very early that U.S. policy in Vietnam could not withstand scrutiny at any level whatsoever. A connection was becoming evident between U.S. corporate capitalism and U.S. foreign policy. The same people were running both. (It's easier to make this point now than it was a few years ago. All you have to do is look at U.S. policy in Iraq.)

The white male U.S. New Left was crushed by "identity politics" in the 1970s. It only took a few years before the feminists chased us out of our offices. We were left in the street with a confused look on our faces, hanging on to our research files, and muttering phrases such as "interlocking corporate directorates."

I think that you are generally on the right track here, but let me suggest a slightly different approach. One of the appealing features of the Marxist version of leftism was the notion of a universal human identity, defined by a shared interest in the general progress of humanity. The purpose of "identity politics" was to annihilate that notion, along with the notion of progress, and replace it with a Hobbesian battle of competing particularist interests.

I've been trying to get my mind around this idea ever since DB recently voiced it. It might have great value. My biggest problem is that it ignores the role Black revolutionary organizations in 60s, especially Malcolm type nationalists and the Panthers. There is empirical evidence, in the form of body counts that that these folks were not part of any plot to co-opt a wider social movement. They in fact often played a leadership and inspirational role in the most dynamic aspects of the New Left. I suppose you could say that these Black revolutionary were not pursuing identity politics at all, but were addressing racism (along with the Vietnam War) as one of the central concerns of the entire left. I'm not saying that DB idea is without merit, but it needs to incorporate this reality.