Hi,
Actually, you are looking at the wrong block of text.
Here is the text inserted by the LaRouche supporters (as modified slightly by other editors to make it clear these are unverified claims:
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He claims to have pioneered such ideas as the International Development Bank, the [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] or "Star Wars," and the so-called Eurasian Land-Bridge. It also claimed that he was used by the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration as a "back-channel" for negotiations with the [[Soviet Union]].
According to a speech made by LaRouche science advisor Paul Gallagher[http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3110sdi_timeline.html], LaRouche and his representatives met with Reagan administration Energy Secretary [[Donald Hodel]], Interior Secretary [[James Watt]], Science Adviser Dr. [[George Keyworth]], and State Department official [[Richard Morris]] in early [[1981]]. Gallagher also claims that later that year Lyndon and Helga Zepp-LaRouche met with [[CIA]] Deputy Director [[Bobby Ray Inman]], and cites the following remarks, made in early [[1993]] at the National Press Club by former head of German Military Intelligence, Gen. Paul-Albert Scherer:
:"In the Spring of 1982 here in the Soviet Embassy there were very important secret talks that were held.... The question was: Did the United States and the Soviet Union wish jointly to develop an anti-ballistic missile defense that would have made nuclear war impossible? Then, in August, you had this very sharp Soviet rejection of the entire idea.... I have discussed this thoroughly with the developer, the originator of this idea, who is the scientific-technological strategic expert, Lyndon LaRouche. The [Soviet] rejection came in August, and at that point the American President Reagan decided to push this entire thing out into the public eye, so he made his speech of March 1983."
:::<small>Press Conference at the National Press Club, Washington, DC., May 6, 1992; video of Scherer's remarks was broadcast on the "LaRouche Connection" cable TV program throughout the U.S.[http://www.larouchepub.com/tv/tlc_programs_1991-1995.html]</small>
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Here is the text I inserted to provide balance:
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In his book, Dennis King identifies Scherer as a long-time LaRouche supporter.<!--See index to King's book-->
According to an article by Chip Berlet: "New Right military specialist, retired General Daniel O. Graham, says LaRouche followers have significantly hampered his work. Graham, Director of Project High Frontier which supports and helped develop President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative plan for anti-missile defense, says the LaRouche groups have 'caused a lot of problems by adopting our issue in an effort to sieze credit for the idea.' 'They also mounted a furious attack on me personally,' says Graham. 'Even today I get mail asking if I'm in league with LaRouche,' he adds wearily."[http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclc3.html]
[Later pro-Larouche addition here]
There is no independent verification outside of LaRouche group media, however, of the claim that LaRouche originated or played a major role in the development of "Star Wars" missile defense.
===
Then the LaRouchites added this [Later pro-Larouche addition]:
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LaRouche countered, "President Reagan's initial version of SDI was consistent with what I had introduced into U.S.-Soviet back-channel discussions over the period beginning February 1982. However, immediately thereafter, the mice went to work. Daniel Graham, the leading opponent of SDI up to that time, now proclaimed himself the virtual author of the policy, and was used, thereafter, to remove all of the crucial elements from the original policy."[http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2000/2750_teller.html]
===
And on and on and on.
What is happening is that the pro-LaRouche editors insert an ever-increasing amount of pro-LaRouche text from LaRouchite publications, forcing additional text to be added for balance, then more from the pro-LaRouche editors. On the discussion page (especially on Talk: Political Views of Lyndon LaRouche) you can see that HK especially protests every single insertion of material critical of LaRouche. Claims (falsely) that quotes are invented, then says they are cooked or misrepresented, then demands context, then demand actual image files. Then, if the critical sentence remains, HK and other pro-LaRouche editors adds another unverified quote from a LaRouche publication.
When the article gets too big, a subsection is spawned, and another LaRouche-linked page starts to grow like a virus.
In a serious encyclopedia like Wikipedia, LaRouche would get one small page that represented the majority view of reality, offered a disclaimer that LaRouche disagrees and claims vast conspiracies against him, and then linked to several fo the LaRouceh web pages.
Wikipedia has become a propaganda arm of the LaRouche network because the pro-LaRouche editors are manipulating the system.
Cberlet
Chip Berlet said:
What is happening is that the pro-LaRouche editors insert an ever-increasing amount of pro-LaRouche text from LaRouchite publications,
So what? It's transparent rubbish.
forcing additional text to be added for balance,
Bilge. Let them quote their own sources forever. The minute they pretend an external source endorses this nonsense, politely correct the edit. You could manage this group of pages with one eye shut.
Bilge. Let them quote their own sources forever. The minute they pretend an external source endorses this nonsense, politely correct the edit. You could manage this group of pages with one eye shut.
Why don't you go for it Tony? Manage the LaRouche pages "with one eye shut" for the next couple of weeks, and see exactly how easy it is?
Jay.
Some of the LaRouche insertions are transparent rubbish, Tony, but some not. I only cited the Star Wars example because it was an obvious one. Less obvious examples of propaganda are: The LaRouche movement claims the only reason LaRouche has a bad name is that a series of meetings took place in the 80s between intelligence officers and journalists in order to plan a "Get LaRouche" black operation, which resulted in a barrage of negative media reports about him. There's no evidence other than LaRouche claims that this campaign existed. The LaRouche editors tried to edit this information into the LaRouche articles. Of course, they are allowed to do that because the pages are about LaRouche and his beliefs, but they expanded on it and inserted details that were absurd and links which seemed to verify it. A group of editors opposed them, so the LaRouche editors created a new page about these meetings and inserted the information there instead, and linked to it from the LaRouche page.
Another tactic that LaRouche has is to sign up respectable people to be officers or members of his organization. Why these people agree to become involved is beyond me, but some do. The LaRouche editors then create Wikipedia pages about these people, who would otherwise not be written about, extol their virtues, and link to them from the LaRouche pages, thereby creating the impression to the casual, non-LaRouche expert that "Hey, this LaRouche guy can't be all bad. Look at how nice some of his officers are."
The only reason this stuff hasn't spread like wildfire throughout Wikipedia is because a number of editors have opposed them since they first started last May (not always the same group of editors, because editors get worn out and give up) and so the material is reasonably contained. But it's an exhausting job. If you want to join in, you are more than welcome, because one or two of us could do with a break.
Slim
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 19:59:47 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
So what? It's transparent rubbish. <snip> Let them quote their own sources forever. The minute they pretend an external source endorses this nonsense, politely correct the edit. You could manage this group of pages with one eye shut.
--- slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The only reason this stuff hasn't spread like wildfire throughout Wikipedia is because a number of editors have opposed them since they first started last May (not always the same group of editors, because editors get worn out and give up) and so the material is reasonably contained. But it's an exhausting job. If you want to join in, you are more than welcome, because one or two of us could do with a
break.
This discussion points up what seems to be the greatest hazard and roadblock to Wikipedia: the current editorial model simply cannot cope with determined agenda promotion.
In the absence of agenda promotion, Wikipedia works great. For 99% (or more) of the articles, the "anyone can edit anytime" policy works just fine, and produces good content.
However some of the most important (or popular, at least) articles fall in that tiny fraction. GW Bush, Reagan, Israel and Palestine come to mind. What I see is that WP can get in the neighborhood of a great article, but can't ever get there. It's like driving across town to see a movie only to have edit warriors grabbing the steering wheel every time you try to park, so you end up circling the block forever.
Since Wikipedia isn't an experiment in participatory democracy, there shouldn't be any problem in modifying the "anyone can edit anytime" policy, since it is not always serving the larger goal of creating an encyclopedia. My own proposal is that contentious pages (and only those) be controlled by editorial boards staffed by demonstrably boring bureaucrats. I'm sure there are a multitude of proposals -- I'd certainly like to hear about them.
For what it's worth, Robert Dodier
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Wikipedia can be considered an exercise in participatory democracy engaged in the task of creating an encyclopedia. Its purpose is not to refine and perfect particatory demococracy, but wiki software is premised on wide and more or less equal participation by the publics.
One may change that premise, but one should know that is what you are discussing doing.
Fred
From: Robert Dodier robert_dodier@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:24:12 -0800 (PST) To: slimvirgin@gmail.com, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] agenda promotion, was: Re: Original Research versus Point of View
Since Wikipedia isn't an experiment in participatory democracy, there shouldn't be any problem in modifying the "anyone can edit anytime" policy, since it is not always serving the larger goal of creating an encyclopedia. My own proposal is that contentious pages (and only those) be controlled by editorial boards staffed by demonstrably boring bureaucrats. I'm sure there are a multitude of proposals -- I'd certainly like to hear about them.
For what it's worth, Robert Dodier
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Robert Dodier wrote:
--- slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The only reason this stuff hasn't spread like wildfire throughout Wikipedia is because a number of editors have opposed them since they first started last May (not always the same group of editors, because editors get worn out and give up) and so the material is reasonably contained. But it's an exhausting job. If you want to join in, you are more than welcome, because one or two of us could do with a
break.
This discussion points up what seems to be the greatest hazard and roadblock to Wikipedia: the current editorial model simply cannot cope with determined agenda promotion.
In the absence of agenda promotion, Wikipedia works great. For 99% (or more) of the articles, the "anyone can edit anytime" policy works just fine, and produces good content.
However some of the most important (or popular, at least) articles fall in that tiny fraction. GW Bush, Reagan, Israel and Palestine come to mind. What I see is that WP can get in the neighborhood of a great article, but can't ever get there. It's like driving across town to see a movie only to have edit warriors grabbing the steering wheel every time you try to park, so you end up circling the block forever.
I had much the same thought today. After all, we mark a number of articles with {{NPOV}} or {{disptued}}, so why not create a category for articles where the normal rules of behavior on Wikipedia are replaced with more stringent ones actively monitored to enforce compliance?
Articles would then be moved in & out of that category much as we vote on articles at {{VfD}} or for Featured Article status. The more stringent rules would then be set up with the goal of hammering out compromise language & ending these interminable disputes -- while adhering to the goals of NPOV.
At the same time, this new approach should only be done if it adds a negligible amount -- or no -- extra burden to the ArbCom.
I've spun out a few different mechanisms for how these zones could work, but it's far more important to see if there's a consensus on Wikipedia that this is an idea worth trying first. And I have to admit I'm not entirely keen on the idea myself: telling people that certain parts of Wikipedia are under "martial law" somehow just doesn't fit with the image *I* have for this project.
Geoff
Geoff Burling (llywrch@agora.rdrop.com) [050121 20:31]:
I had much the same thought today. After all, we mark a number of articles with {{NPOV}} or {{disptued}}, so why not create a category for articles where the normal rules of behavior on Wikipedia are replaced with more stringent ones actively monitored to enforce compliance? Articles would then be moved in & out of that category much as we vote on articles at {{VfD}} or for Featured Article status. The more stringent rules would then be set up with the goal of hammering out compromise language & ending these interminable disputes -- while adhering to the goals of NPOV. At the same time, this new approach should only be done if it adds a negligible amount -- or no -- extra burden to the ArbCom.
I must say I've been tempted to propose that all edits on en: from the Middle East in general be blocked ...
(though it turns out the worst POV-warriors edit from the US. Bah!)
I've spun out a few different mechanisms for how these zones could work, but it's far more important to see if there's a consensus on Wikipedia that this is an idea worth trying first. And I have to admit I'm not entirely keen on the idea myself: telling people that certain parts of Wikipedia are under "martial law" somehow just doesn't fit with the image *I* have for this project.
Per-article would lead to article forks (even tho' forks get a rapid "redirect or delete" response from VFD).
Per-category is susceptible to people removing an obvious categorisation.
Per-topic is a bit subjective; the ArbCom places such restrictions on troublesome individuals as needed, but not as yet on given topics even for well-behaved editors.
Having (whatever)s voted in and out of such restrictions is an interesting and plausible idea, though. If we can work out a way to do it.
- d.
--- Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
I had much the same thought today. After all, we mark a number of articles with {{NPOV}} or {{disptued}}, so why not create a category for articles where the normal rules of behavior on Wikipedia are replaced with more stringent ones actively monitored to enforce compliance?
I think the developers are working on a delayed edit function that might be useful for controversial articles. BTW, there is already a {{controversial}} tag for talk pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Controversial
Adding a category to that would be easy.
-- mav
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Slim Virgin wrote
The only reason this stuff hasn't spread like wildfire throughout Wikipedia is because a number of editors have opposed them since they first started last May (not always the same group of editors, because editors get worn out and give up) and so the material is reasonably contained. But it's an exhausting job. If you want to join in, you are more than welcome, because one or two of us could do with a break.
David Gerard will be able to verify that I'm not talking out of my hat when I say I do have some experience of dealing with this kind of stuff, and in a much, much less sympathetic forum. I was involved in some of the early alt.religion.scientology skirmishes but threw in the towel after I appreciate the work that you do.
As you're probably aware, I've joined in. Just think of me as the backup guy. I don't want wikipedia to lose people like you.