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Charges of fascism and charges of communism

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TL;DR

A user tries to add endless columns on charges of fascism and charges of communism in New Deal. Does it comply with wikipedia policy (fringe theories, undue weight)? (There has been a discussion already [1]). --Pass3456 (talk) 21:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC) Constructing material out of quotes is a sure sign of bad writing, poor scholarship, and coatracking. Abductive (reasoning) 02:59, 21 February 2013 (UTC) That kind of charges have in general been part of political propaganda in the states for one century now, up to the present day. This special historical, most probably agree even ongoing, phenomenon even created its own term: red scare. Unfortunatly this is missing in the article in contrast to the rather dominant role of propaganda in that time. This white spot should simply be filled and frame up according to npov and the, in this case, existing solid base of established history literature so this phenomenon is presented completely in its common instead of partly its biased essence. --Kharon2 (talk) 07:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC) A number of prominent historians have indicated that comparisons of the New Deal to radical ideologies in regards to antidepression policies is neither fringe nor propaganda (I'm the accused). James Q. Whitman said that by the late 1980s it was "almost routine for New Deal historians to list resemblances between the New Deal and fascist governments." John Garraty wrote that in total the New Deal and the Nazis were vastly different, but in terms of antidepression economic policies they had "striking simlarities." Garraty said that it was "neither capricious nor perverse" to make these comparisons. According to Whitman, Ellis Hawley was another historian who found a lot of similarities. This obituary has a high-level summary of Garraty's findings: "Especially controversial was his assertion that Roosevelt's depression policies resembled those of the Nazis: 'Roosevelt and Hitler, the one essentially benign, the other malevolent, justified far-reaching constitutional changes as being necessary for the improvement of economic institutions in a grave emergency' (p. 207)" Garraty wrote the book in the late 1980s. Garraty was vice president of the American Historical Association. He was president of the Society of American Historians. Garraty was selected to edit the Dictionary of American Biography. His textbook on American history was widely used. Its 1979 edition said that the National Industrial Recovery Administration, a key New Deal law, "was also similar to experiments being carried out by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and by the Nazis in Adolf Hitler's Germany. It did not, of course, turn America into a fascist state, but it did herald an increasing concentration of economic power in the hands of interest groups, both industrialists' organizations and labor unions." My attempts to quote the Garraty article on the subject have frequently been reverted, even though it's relevant to the topic and comes from a very distinguished secondary source. The quote from the Garraty textbook indicates that the notion of radical influences on the New Deal isn't fringe theory, but standard textbook material. German author Wolfgand Schivelbuschwrote a book called The Three New Deals. It finds that the New Deal's economic policies resembled Germany's and Italy's. This book is cited elsewhere in Wikipedia. The Lewis Feuer article I used was published by a Johns Hopkins University publication. It was published by American Quarterly, a Johns Hopkins University publication. According to Wikipedia "His edited collection, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy ( 1959) is one of the most widely used readers on Marxian thought ever published." Feuer would have known as much as anyone if the Soviet Union's economic policies influenced New Deal ideology. Feuer is cited in other Wikipedia articles, such as the one on Imperialism. Garraty and Feuer probably researched the New Deal and radicalism as much as the sources currently cited in the subarticles. Garraty was a liberal who admired Roosevelt and the New Deal. Feuer was a liberal at the time he wrote his article. If anything, the subarticles rely too much on orginal research providing block quotes from Hoover and Roosevelt. Hoover felt animosity towards Roosevelt and the New Deal. Roosevelt's denial is directly contradicted by statements he made at other times. I could provide plenty of other evidence, sources and quotes. To say that radical influences on the New Deal is a fringe theory is to say that Garraty, Feuer, Schivelbusch, and others wrote fringe material and were taken in by propaganda. It would be to say that Johns Hopkins, the American Historical Review, and other organizations publish fringe work and propaganda. It also means that the University of California, Columbia University, the Society of American Historians and other organizations hire fringe people. Finally, it means that New Dealers, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, made multiple fringe statements about their policies and generated propaganda against themselves. The noticeboard says "Discussion of fringe theories will depend entirely on their notability and reliable coverage in popular media. Above all, fringe theories should never be presented as fact." Everything I have provided here is a fact. With the exception of one possible misquote of a single sentence in an Alan Brinkley work, all of my edits in the New Deal article are established facts. I have cited multiple reliable and often eminent sources and publications. The information I provided isn't fringe. Thank you for your consideration. LesLein (talk) 03:17, 27 February 2013 (UTC) The complaining editor says that I try to insert "endless columns" into the subarticles. I don't know what endless columns are. I have been persistent and bold. There's nothing wrong with persistence, making the subarticles NPOV takes precedence over cconsensus. Wikipedia recommends boldness. One of the reasons I have to keep trying is that edits get removed for reasons I consider invalid. One Edit Summary said that the title of my secondary source didn't pass his or her "BS detector." Another falsely said that I was using a primary source when I was using a secondary source. Another left the reason blank. Another said that my quote was "ominous" and out of context. It wasn't out of context. "Ominous" is future tense; the term doesn't apply to a quote almost 80 years old. At the article's talk page an editor agreed that an intelligent layman would understand my edit (odd for a fringe theory) but a high school student wouldn't. One editor said on the talk page that my edits violated some rule about the ratio of quoted text to other text. There is no such rule. An editor said that my edits were suitable for a related article (again strange for a fringe theory). The biggest complaint about my edits is a two sentence quote. I indicated that on October 5, 1933, Harold Ickes recorded a private conversation in his diary. Roosevelt told Ickes that “what we were doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some things that were being done under Hitler in Germany. But we were doing them in an orderly way.” This appears in page 104 of the Ickes diary. At least three secondary sources use it. It originated from FDR himself. I can provide plenty of similar quotes published by reliable secondary sources. FDR, Ickes, and the secondary sources have no motive to push fringe theory propaganda. I'm sorry to go on, but this information is not fringe and is notable. Again, thank you for your consideration. LesLein (talk) 10:42, 27 February 2013 (UTC) "One of the reasons I have to keep trying is that edits get removed for reasons I consider invalid." That would seem to me to instead suggest bringing better arguments. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 13:30, 27 February 2013 (UTC) As I suggested several times it would be a good idea to start with the result of academic research. To start with @LesLein could read the blurb of Schivelbuschs The Three New Deals which actually clarifies that it is "Far from equating Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini". There have been academic comparisons between New Deal and fascism but these were comparisons without equation just as one can compare apples and oranges or the United States Army and the Wehrmacht. Schivelbusch et. alt. are not making "charges of fascism". @LesLein ignores the intentions of the authors by simply quoting out of context and fabricating a false analogy. Futhermore I whant to point out that David M. Kennedy (historian) has written a pulitzer price winning book on that subject called Freedom From Fear. It does not make charges of communism or charges of fascism and since it is a pulitzer price winning thick book I think we can tend to consider it thoroughly covering on it´s subject. --Pass3456 (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC) In regards to my edits being reverted without a valid reason, this edit summary is another example. Pass3456 wrote "has been extensively explained on discussion page." He did not say what had been explained. It is probably a reference to use of primary sources, but I didn't use any primary sources in the edit he linked to. Another example is on the article's talk page. Pass3456 wrote "Before I ereased some quotes the ratio was 18 sentences of historic quotes to 6 sentences of scholarly analyses. Wikipedia:No_original_research demands at least that it is the other way around." Another editor wrote "those are your personal views not Wikipedia rules." In fact Pass3456's link does not contain the word "ratio." This editor also wrote "all the cites that were erased [by Pass3456] follow the Wiki guidelines." In the early 1960s Lewis Feuer traveled to the Soviet Union to lecture the communists on Marxism. There can't be many English language scholars who can make that claim. As I will mention later, I did not pull any of his material out of context. Pass3456 should submit another fringe notice about the Wikipedia article present Feuer as an expert on Marxism. I think the notion that Feuer writes fringe theories is a fringe theory itself. In his first sentence at this board Pass3456 links to a subarticle "charges of communism." The subarticle has a different title. This is highly typical of his statements. He complains that I ignore him, yet makes obvious mistakes on the most simple things. Pass3456 suggests that I should start with the "result of academic research." That is exactly what I did, using scholars like Garraty, Feuer, and Brinkley. Yet he repeatedly removes this material. He says that I should read the blurb of Schivelbusch's book. I did. I read the book. My description of the book did not equate the New Deal and fascism. I did not cite any sources as making "charges of fascism." In the links Pass3456 provides I quote several authors saying that the New Deal wasn't dictatorial or totalitarian. What I did say was that there were a lot of similarities. The Amazon blurb for Three New Deals states "Yet in the 1930s, before World War II, the regimes of Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler bore fundamental similarities." Now why did Pass3456 leave that out? I have no doubt that David Kennedy's book is a fine work. Yet Pass3456 repeats his practice of using a source he likes as the Alpha and Omega on a subject. NPOV means considering all relevant and reliable points of view. Freedom from Fear is a long survey of how America responded to the Great Depression and World War. It does not explore similarities between the New Deal and fascism in depth; the word "fascism" comes up about seven times. In over 100 Amazon reviews not a single reviewer thinks that "fascism" is worth mentioning in the context of this book. The same is true of related terms like "fascist," "communist," and "communism." It's tough to search an online book; I could only find one time where Kennedy deals with complaints that the New Deal resembled fascism. This is a denial from Roosevelt, who like every politician has biases. Roosevelt's denial isn't candid. In a private conversation he once told a member of his cabinet that: “what we were doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some things that were being done under Hitler in Germany. But we were doing them in an orderly way.” The above quote may be what Pass3456 means when he claims that I take material out of context. I did not take it out of context. I challenge Pass3456 to provide the true context. This shouldn't be difficult if he knows what he is talking about. I ask Pass3456 to enlighten me on why he puts the at (@) symbol in front of my user ID. He accuses me of "fabricating" an analogy. Pass3456 should read the guidelines on civility and personal attacks. I am sorry this took so long, but there are no short replies to what Pass3456 wrote. LesLein (talk) 03:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC) I think this may be the wrong forum for your content dispute. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 04:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC) There are actually a couple of things to replay to LesLein. Just to start with: it is not a peronal problem of mine. User:Rjensen, User:DD2K, User:RashersTierney and User:no qwach macken made the following comments on LesLeins edits: Smacks of POV, "I hate America" wrote Kennan at this point--he had lost faith in democracy and America at this point says Gaddis (2011) p 100, the first quote sounds ominous; but read the whole text & see FDR was denying he was acting too slowly; the second quote is falsified--Ickes never said it (Goldberg got it wrong), The Swope was not part of the new deal – this background information belongs in the NIRA article, No, there is no Talk page consensus for linking FDR to Hitler, and this article is about the New Deal, not Wilson's programs, drop pov claims; FDR and Mussolini did not have a personal relationship, change 1 is unnecessary, change 2 doesn't completely make sense, change 3 needs a better source at least - just the title sets my BS detector off already, One problem with using primary sources is you can except them to make them sound diabolocal...""He said that what we are doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some things that were being done under Hitler in Germany. But we are doing them in an orderly way." now that means he is communist? fascist? opening death camps? killing Jews? killing kulaks? starving millions? jailing opponents? setting up a secret police? gigantic increase in military spending? shutting down churches? killing priests? building roads and highways? deficit spending? jailing political opponents? sending spies around the world???? By not explaining the context the quote is a deliberate device to make readers suspicious of FDR's motives., the problem with the actual Ickes quote is that it does not say anything about the new deal. Some people will read it to say that Roosevelt imprisoned or killed millions of people as Stalin and Hitler did in their countries. The 2nd Ickes quote (" Ickes warned Roosevelt that there was an increasing tendency by the public “to unconsciously group four names, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Roosevelt.") is a fake – Ickes never said it. The statement came in a letter to FDR, one of millions he received from private citizens., Goldberg got the source wrong--Ickes is nowhere mentioned. cite book|author=Alan Brinkley|title=The End Of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War ***click to read |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=3KwH05L49aYC&pg=PT39|year=2011|page=39 As for the first quote--it's a paraphrase and Ickes simply does not tell what FDR was talking about. Mentioning it is forbidden OR -- it involves contested interpretation not based on any reliable secondary source. Mentioning it is a rhetorical device that confuses our readers, suggesting FDR's atrocities on the order of Stalin & Hitler. As for Mussolini, there was one New Dealer (Johnson) who had a favorable view and he was fired for it. As Diggins says, "Hugh Johnson notwithstanding, the published writings of the Brain Trusters reveal no evidence of the influence of Italian Fascism." Diggins goes on to say there was zero influence of Mussolini on FDR. William Edward Leuchtenburg (2001). [http://books.google.com/books?id=grAgV8Dub_gC&pg=PA221 In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to George W. Bush ***click to read. p. 221.], The article will be used by high school kids who know very little about the New Deal but have heard plenty about Hitler's atrocities. "Any intelligent layman" will rwalize he's being fooled by the linking of FDR and Hitler but the kids won't. Again the Ickes quote (the genuine one) tells the informed reader zero--what program was FDR referring to??-- but will hint to the poor student that FDR admitted actions similar to Hitler., why can't you call FDR a dictator here -- because the RS strongly disagree. (Cooke wrote that passage when he was in his 90s and he garbled it completely. suggesting FDR was just like Hitler is likewise a no-no., re attacks on FDR try "Criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt" article, yes = primary sources. Hoover wrote at length and there is no mistaking what he meant: fascism = control of government by big business. (That is what Hoover meant by fascism but that never happened under Hitler or Mussolini.) FDR was talking to Ickes about XYZ, but Ickes never tells us what XYZ was. No historian has tried to guess XYZ -- there are simply no clues. The Ickes quote is used by enemies of FDR to trick people into linking FDR with Hitler's atrocities., I agree with Rjensen here. Might I also add that you seem to be trying to push a WP:POV here in an obvious manner. Using words like 'dictator' and attempting to link FDR to Hitler is definitely WP:FRINGE.. --Pass3456 (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC) I am increasingly convinced that the problem is mostly an original research (well and NPOV and undue weight) problem. If we could all agree that the notion of "liberal fascism", that basically implicates that any political group (exept libertarians) are fascists is a not notable subject, we could move on to the original research noticeboard. --Pass3456 (talk) 21:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC) If these are simply warmed-over arguments from Liberal Fascism then that is surely WP:FRINGE. Goldberg's scholarship on these types of things is only slightly better than Alex Jones'. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 01:25, 2 March 2013 (UTC) That is quite a list Pass3456 provides. He leaves off at least a few things. Take this edit summary by rjensen "keep well sourced debate; drop discussion of European terms--this article is not about Europe." The "well sourced" information was from me. The quote Goldberg alledgedly got wrong was actually from Alan Brinkley. A search of Brinkley's book indicates that Brinkley was Goldberg's source, as I claimed. Brinkley may have made a mistake (every author does). I pointed out at the New Deal talk page that the reference to FDR as a "dictator" was based on Alistair Cooke's statement calling the early years of the New Deal a "benevolent" dictatorship, my mistake was leaving off the adjective (I was trying to wrap up). See the National Recovery Administration article. Rjensen left that statement in the article when he edited it. It was FDR who "linked" himself to Hitler when he said some of his economic programs were taken from what the Germans were doing. Pass3456 reverted attempts to restore rjensen's edit, without getting any consensus. That's what started the whole flap. If Pass3456 had allowed the material to stay I would be long gone; I'm not obsessed with the New Deal. The Publishers Weekly review says Goldberg's book is "well-researched, seriously argued—and funny." That's not something reviewers say about fringe theories. Since Goldberg is so controversial at Wikipedia and elsewhere, I only use his book to find other sources. Every time I checked his sources they were always valid, so whatever one thinks of his interpretations, his facts are reliable. At least one prominent scholar on fascism seems to agree with Goldberg up to a point: "Fascism was sometimes perceived not innacurately as more of a heresy from, more than a mortal challenge to, revolutionary Marxism." The writer is Stanley Payne, whose work is justifiably admired by Pass3456. Payne is agreeing that fascism has far left origins. So Goldberg's chapter on Mussolini is vindicated. The term "liberal fascism" was originated by a prominent liberal, H.G. Wells. Wells was advocating liberal fascism. Lots of prominent liberals, or progressives, endorsed some elements of fascism up until the mid-1930s. The co-founder of The New Republic, Herbert Croly, often approved of Mussolini. Maybe Goldberg should have called his book "Far Left Fascism", but that wouldn't have been as provocative or marketable. Goldberg does not say that everyone but libertarians is a fascist. He says that liberals aren't really fascist so many times that it ought to be in the book's subtitle. I think that it's fringe theory to say that Garraty and Feuer, based on what FDR said and did, push fringe theories. I'm assuming that Pass3456 is acting in good faith when he says it's nothing personal. I'm wondering how he'd feel if someone said he fabricated analogies or pushed fringe theories. Taking this dispute to original research is fine by me as long as the dispute is closed here and moved to archives without further action. If Pass3456 does so, I would be grateful for a heads up. LesLein (talk) 03:04, 2 March 2013 (UTC) P.S., I'm sorry about saying "he." I don't know the gender of anyone involved here. Sometimes I forget the new writing styles. If you're using Goldberg to find sources, that sounds a bit like WP:CHERRY to me. Publisher's Weekly is a trade journal, about the business of publishing. It is not in any way an academic publication. If you're suggesting that these remarks in PW suggest Goldberg's scholarship is of high quality maybe you should try floating that over at WP:RSN and see what they say. I don't buy it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something (certainly possible), but it certainly looks to me like you're being disingenuous about the whole thing. I still agree with Pass3456 (in spite of that eye-burningly-awful page of links) that your material is WP:FRINGE until/unless I see some discussion over at WP:RSN that convinces me otherwise. I'm happy to consider this discussion closed (for my part anyway, not that i have any power or authority) unless you have additional objections. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 03:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC) Re "I don't know the gender of anyone involved here", I'm a Guy. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 06:34, 2 March 2013 (UTC) I am not trying to promote Liberal Fascism. I should have said that I only used (past tense) Goldberg to find a few sources. These are the Harold Ickes diary that paraphrases two FDR sentences that others can't stand. I haven't used that diary as a source since January. The other is an article by John Garraty. Garraty admired Roosevelt and the New Deal (see his textbook). He was president of the Society of American Historians and was selected to edit the Dictionary of American Biography. Another main source that I used was Lewis Feuer. Feuer was regarded as so knowledgeable about Marxism that in 1963 hs was invited to Moscow to give a lecture on the subject. Another source is an article by James Whitman Whitman's article appeared in the American Journal of Comparative Law. As a professor on that subject, he can be considered an expert. The Whitman article is available at JSTOR. The Garraty article is also available for free. Unfortunately, the Feuer article requires payment. The first page of his article is available for free and indicates that in the early years of the Soviet Union American intellectuals considered it to be a model for experimentation. If editors read the first page of Whitman's text they will see that New Dealers as prominent as FDR himself were interested in implementing Mussolini's policies. New Dealers played this down after the invasion of Abyssinia. The early pages of the Garraty article inticate that it is "neither capricious nor perverse" to compare National Socialism to the New Deal. The second page states that the two systems "displayed striking similarities" in antidepression policies while being "fundamentally different" overall. The examples I provided were in the areas of deurbanization (Whitman), employment (Garraty), and rural electrification (Feuer). Copying radical ideas in these areas isn't necessarily pejorative. The Garraty article was controversial when published in 1973 and along with a German language article revived interest in the topic. Whitman wrote that by the late 1980s it was "almost routine for New Deal historians to list resemblances between the New Deal and fascist governments." The Garraty article is already listed as a source for the New Deal article. His textbook also provides a quote for the article indicating that while FDR was no dictator, the New Deal drew on fascist economic ideas. So the alleged fringe theory is published in a widely used textbook; if anything I can say that my edits reflect textbook material It was Garraty who got me interested in this topic. I used to go months at a time without even thinking about the New Deal; I may propose a compromise within a few days. One can't say that I'm pushing a fringe theory without saying that FDR, Garraty, Whitman, and Feuer did the same. BTW, I agree with Pass3456 that the notion that everyone but libertarians are fascists doesn't belong in the New Deal article and wasn't trying to cause that impression. Thanks for reading this. LesLein (talk) 18:56, 3 March 2013 (UTC) You may be misunderstanding things. One can be adding fringe, undue, non-NPOV material even if the sources being used are perfectly above board and have wide scholarly acceptance. This happens sometimes. Taking things out of context or using cherry picked historical sources or quotes, one can promote all manner of fringe ideas without the source material being fringe per se. As I understand it, the issue is not your sources, it is your additions, which, to my mind, still qualify as fringe. Does that make things a little bit clearer, i hope? -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 20:29, 3 March 2013 (UTC) We are getting closer. I don't see how I can be using credible sources while pushing a fringe theory. My material is not out of context. Earlier, I requested that someone provide the actual context if mine is wrong. No one has responded. If there is a POV problem, it is because the current article is almost totally biased in favor of FDR's viewpoint. I will use the current "Charges of "fascism" subarticle for examples. The subarticle starts out stating that "Enemies of the New Deal" accused it of fascism. There are plenty of scholars and politicians, often sympathetic to the New Deal, who say that in the economic sphere the New Deal had resemblences to fascism. This includes FDR himself. I'm not "charging" the New Deal with fascism, just trying to point out evidence of similarities. A block quote summarizes Herbert Hoover's views. Hoover is the only person permitted to "allege" fascism; perhaps because he is easy to discredit as an opponent of FDR. Hoover refers to the "Swope Plan." Before I was involved in this, Hoover's quote was followed by an unsourced sentence stating that FDR never signed off on "any such plan." This implies that there may not have been a Swope Plan. If readers go to this link and read the Leon Keyserling interview, they will see that the Swope Plan was the starting point for key New Deal legislation; FDR endorsed it. I am not permitted to point this out, only provide a link to the Swope Plan (I have a source indicating that it was corporatist but not fascist). The most annoying part to me is the block quote of FDR's denial. If readers search this page for "Ickes" they will find a quote from Harold Ickes diary indicating that FDR said privately that the early part of the New Deal was based on some of the things that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were doing. No one has ever questioned this quote's accuracy. When I first provided this quote, it was removed on the grounds that editor didn't think the book title passed his or her "BS detector." Next, I obtained a copy of the Ickes diary to confirm that FDR actually made the statement. He did. When I referenced it, it was removed as original research. This is in spite of the fact that the subarticle has other original research and the Ickes diaries are quoted in other articles. Next I referenced Lewis Feuer's article. This is an excellent secondary source. It was removed because FDR was talking about slowness in enacting the New Deal. It wasn't. I'm not sure anyone ever checked the Feuer article or Ickes diary entry to see the actual context. Later an editor said that the Ickes quote of FDR can't be used because it might confuse "high school kids." I never heard of this before. I think encyclopedias should stretch the knowledge of students; we have teachers to help them out. I think it is misleading to leave out the quote and let FDR's block quote stand without contradiction. To do so is to present readers with a falsehood (all politicians say different things in public than what they really believe). I can be forgiven for suspecting that the goalposts keep getting moved. Later on the article provides two sentences from John Garraty's textbook. This is the only text I've been allowed to add. It is only allowed if it is chaparoned by another sentence stating that "Historian John Garraty searched for similarities between the New Deal and fascism without equating these ideas." The two sentences I provided are the only parts of the textbook that address the subject. The chaparone sentence isn't supported by the textbook or the Garraty article I mentioned earlier. Near its end, the subarticle states that there is no distinctive form of fascist economics. I added text from Stanley Payne, correctly identified as an expert in the field, indicating that there is a broad philosophy behind fascist economics. In sum, the article is currently very incomplete, biased, and misleading. My edits would improve it. Thank you again. LesLein (talk) 02:03, 5 March 2013 (UTC) WP:TLDR. Still WP:FRINGE. Good luck. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 02:18, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I have so much evidence behind me that it is difficult to keep it short. One thing we agree on is that Stanley Payne is a leading scholar on fascism. If you go to the talk page you will see that Pass3456 thinks that his conclusions are definitive. This comparison provides a quote from Payne's book. Payne writes without dispute that another scholar "concludes that the [Nazi] jobs creation projects were rather like those of Franklin Roosevelt's in the United States and did not work much better." If you check the revision history, you will see that other authors wanted to keep this quote in, but in rewriting some of the article Pass3456 took out his expert's statement.

Roosevelt himself said that some of his antidepression programs were based on what the Soviets and Nazis were doing. This is no fringe theory.

In the long list of links, Pass3456 repeats a charge of falsification. I will submit a BLP notice. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Deal&diff=542294657&oldid=542236713

I don't know what you think you're gaining from continuing to plead your case here. You have repeatedly tried and failed to convince me.

I have no power over anything, no more than you have, but you have continued to try and restate what to me looks like the same arguments over and over without allowing that perhaps things need to be approached differently. You have responded to my admonition to "bring better arguments" by restating the same ones.

see WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:POVPUSH, and WP:DEADHORSE

I am glad you have identified at least one point where you agree. Use that as a starting point. I will not be commenting further. Marking resolved. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 21:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

There obviously are some similarities between FDR's policies on the one hand and communist and fascist policies on the other. This is because all countries were looking for solutions to the common economic crisis. They used state intervention - because in the 30s nation-states were expected to be strong and manage their national economies. The concept of Fordism Is relevant. Any proposed additions to the article must be based on very good sources meeting WP:HISTRS. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:16, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the potential compromise using Payne, Pass3456 won't stand for that. I inserted a Payne quote last week that supported my point. A second editor added some information for clarity, but apparently didn't think it was fringe theory. A third editor, you, removed a "PEACOCK" phrase. Apparently you didn't perceive my edit as pushing fringe theory. But as you can see, Pass3456 did. Pass3456 removed it after my second attempt. He must think that you and the other editor accepted fringe theory. If I'm pushing fringe theory, I have excellent company. This includes FDR, Ickes, Garraty, Feuer, Whitman, Payne, Patel, Schivelbusch, and Silverman. I'll be like the poor editor at the Haymarket Affair article. I'll keep shouting that the sky was blue, without needing to write a book. LesLein (talk) 21:00, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Cleve Backster

I don't have time to dive into this right now so I thought I'd just throw this to you folks. This article presents an uncritical appraisal of fringe ideas regarding primary perception. --Daniel(talk) 04:34, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There is an entire nest of articles like these on plants and conciousness or whatever. I worked on them a while ago and it's a mess, IRWolfie- (talk) 00:33, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Joachim Murat the Armenian?

In this edit, a claim that Joachim Murat was of Armenian origin was inserted into the article by an editor who apparently believes that the given name itself is an indication of this. Somebody interested in French history and preferably with access to a good recent biography of Murat might want to take a look at Talk:Joachim Murat. --Hegvald (talk) 10:03, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

• Sounds like blatant nationalistic bullshit (there is a fraction of people who believe all famous people should be Armenian somehow), however, I do not have the energy to fight this. My previous encounter with a POV Armenian editor (when I was asked to prove that somebody is NOT an Armenian citizen) took too much of my time and nerves, and I was lucky that the editor was already sanctioned previously with relation to Armenian-Azerbaijani arbcom topic, so he was told by someone to shut up. In this case, I do not see any previous sanctions, so you have to be prepared to fight and somehow prove that Murat was NOT Armenian (I bet such sources are not much easier to find than sources stating he was not an Icelander, Benghali or Tongan).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:55, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It's up to the editor who wants to add material to show that it is reliably sourced. I see that the edit added three sources. The first could be reliable. The other two aren't: one is a French source that is at best a newspaper; the other is a book for a popular audience, probably nationalistic. Even if the first source is reliable, all it says is that sometimes a claim is made that Murat was Armenian. Occasional claims are not something that we add to Wikipedia. Therefore the edit fails. I'm interested in French history and would be happy to look through any sources that are available online, although I'm not interested in the national origin of every minor historical figure. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:37, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Judging nationality by name is especially unreliable. My name sounds french, but in my genealogy to get to the first non-British ancestor you have to go back before 1648. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Strangely there seem to be very few recent sources readily available. There are a lot of old publications in English and French, some dating back to his lifetime. All say essentially the same thing, that he was the son of an innkeeper ("'aubergiste") in La Bastide-Fortumière. That's also what the Britannica and other reference works say. The village preserves the Murat Birthplace (Maison natale) and has a Murat museum. [2]. It's even renamed itself Labastide-Murat. I have not found a single reference to the Armenian claim that's not just web-gossip or from specifically Armenian publications the authors of which have no claim to expertise on Murat. Paul B (talk) 14:28, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Searching for this is impressively bad. If I use his supposed Armenian birth name, I get three hits in books, two by Armenian authors; I get nothing in GScholar. I get nothing old whatsoever. You would think that someone prominent from the 1800s would have a more conspicuous trail. This is "deathbed conversion of Washington" bad: this is not something for which we should have to strain for sources. Mangoe (talk) 15:04, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Presumably, by similar logic, the famous French poet Joachim du Bellay was also of Armenian origin. --Folantin (talk) 09:39, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I see nothing to indicate he was Armenian, and since he IS French, it would take a hell of a reference to prove otherwise... something along the lines of time travel. Still, if you want to have some real fun, don't try to prove he's French, and instead focusing on challenging someone to prove he's not Turkish. (Note: not a real suggestion...). Hiberniantears (talk) 23:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Fringe theory from Britannica?

A theory about the etymology of Easter from Britannica has been accused of being WP:Fringe. According to Britannica, the Eostre theory...

...presumes—as does the view associating the origin of Christmas on December 25 with pagan celebrations of the winter equinox—that Christians appropriated pagan names and holidays for their highest festivals. Given the determination with which Christians combated all forms of paganism, this appears a rather dubious presumption. There is now widespread consensus that the word derives from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (“dawn”) and became eostarum in Old High German, the precursor of the modern German and English term.

Someone at the talk page provided several sources supporting the Eostre theory. However, I'm not sure if this makes the claim from Britannica "fringe". Can someone look into this? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 04:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I knew of any secondary sources for this in albis derivations that Brittanica was drawing from. -Ben (talk) 04:33, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a copy of Shaw's Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons at hand, but he might actually discuss both this in albis business and the encyclopedia entry in it. It was over a year now ago that I read it. However, as I point out on the talk page, there's no shortage of material in Indo-European studies on this topic. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:24, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

General encyclopedias aren't automatically reliable sources and we should avoid them for subjects such as history in favor of academic sources (we discussed this at RSN a fairly short while ago). Dougweller (talk) 07:23, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The big problem we're going to keep having with Eostre is that a large chunk of modern scholarship, if not the majority, thinks that the Eostre-Easter connection is a bit of fakelore, intentional or not, made up by Bede and then expanded upon by the Grimms. The bare fact is that the Bede is the only direct attestation for such a goddess; everything else is puzzled out of placenames and the like. Easter in virtually every other language but English derives its name from Passover, and the Pascha-Pesach connection just makes a lot more sense because, after all, it's what the gospels attest to. Passover is of course locked to the spring equinox, and the Dionysian computus tries to lock Easter to Passover (it doesn't work quite right because of the Gregorian correction).

If we're talking the 1910/11 Britannica, it represents the same terribly out-of-date scholarship as Grimm and company. Ronald Hutton is a contemporary scholar of the matter who needs to be quoted; there are probably others. I wouldn't call this older view "fringe", but it's not where we are in current scholarship. Mangoe (talk) 13:09, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah... If we have to give this a label, I would use the word "outdated" rather than "fringe". Blueboar (talk) 14:44, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Guys, you are incorrect about modern scholarship on the topic and you seem to have misunderstood the poster's question; you have it backwards. Please see the examples from major scholars in Indo-European studies that the initial poster refers to. Eostre is simply considered to be a reflex of the PIE dawn goddess in modern scholarship, so much so that major etymological dictionaries simply state it as fact. Hutton is not philologist, an Indo-Europeanist, nor a Germanicist, and while he does a poor job of outlining the reasons why Eostre could not have been an invention of Bede, he does not conclude that Bede invented Eostre. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Stone of the Pregnant Woman

We have an IP, or 2 IPs making identical article and talk page edits reverting cited text that this is Roman and calling anyone who thinks it is a moron. This is an old dispute. I've reverted twice and stopped, but if these are the same IP they can continue to use different IPs. Dougweller (talk) 14:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Mangoe but of course you've been reverted. I've given the IP a 3RR warning although I think it's the same as the earlier one. Dougweller (talk) 15:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Taken this to ANI to see if anyone can say if it's possible the 3 IPs are just one editor. They won't add dissenting sources, are just deleting the source that says it's Roman. Dougweller (talk) 18:25, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I thought that we were supposed to go to SPI and get their take before going to ANI about multiple IPs being the same person. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:29, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

This seems connected to a pair of issues: first, some nationalism about the pre-Hellenistic settlement, and second, the kind of ancient astronaut woo-woo that invariably accompanies megaliths and cyclopean architecture. Right now the main article on Baalbek (anciently Heliopolis) is clean and sober. Mangoe (talk) 14:02, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

John Kanzius' "possible cure for cancer"

Noticed this article asserting that an RF technique is hailed as having "the potential to treat virtually all forms of cancer,[1] with no side effects, and without the need for surgery or medication."

Needs work. Will cross-list at WT:MED. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 16:39, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

There is also an article on this therapy system: Kanzius RF Therapy. It seems to have garnered a fair bit of media commentary at least. Paul B (talk) 17:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

What a mess. Watchlisting, and will start cleaning up when I have time. a13ean (talk) 17:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Notes:

Kanzius RF Therapy redirects to John Kanzius.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4271398

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070910/full/news070910-13.html

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/fire_from_saltwater

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:10, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

It only redirects because it has been turned into a redirect since I commented. The information on the talk page of both articles indicates that the Kanzius method is just a variation on an established idea, promoted by Kanzius as a new invention. Paul B (talk) 16:23, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Fellowship of Isis

Anyone want to turn Fellowship of Isis into an encyclopedic article? I got there after I found someone trying to turn Brooke Medicine Eagle into some sort of saint, from there to Nicki Scully which also needs work (she's an ordained priestess of Hathor). Dougweller (talk) 13:36, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Boyko Borisov's picture

Hello, I would like to report for an issue concerning the article for the Prime Minister of Bulgaria - Boyko Borisov. I should point out that the picture provided for the article is not appropriate one and can be treated as an act of disrespect. This picture has not been obtained by the official website of the government. Here is the picture provided by the officials. http://old2013.government.bg/fce/001/0219/bigimg/b_borisov.jpg Please take in account the information I provided you with.

Thank you. Best regards, Radoslav Naydenov

This is not the proper venue for this request. You should take it up on the article talk page. Mangoe (talk) 12:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Bigfoot

Just noticed a merge discussion suggesting a merge of Formal studies of Bigfoot to Bigfoot. It's an obvious thing to do, the article is just a content fork. There's a short discussion at Talk:Formal studies of Bigfoot. Dougweller (talk) 09:55, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Yowie

And while we are on the subject, some eyes on the latest edits to Yowie would probably be helpful. Nickm57 (talk) 10:40, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Genetics and the Book of Mormon

IP busy "removing bias". See my comments on the talk page. Dougweller (talk) 16:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Paul Bedson

Those who remember this editor might be interested in Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Paul Bedson and [3]. Dougweller (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Michael A. Hoffman II

In Michael A. Hoffman II, an ISP has been changing "Holocaust denialist" and "conspiracy theorist" (from independent secondary sources) to "author" and "political analyst" (from the subject's own website). An extra set of eyes there would be welcome. Thanks! Location (talk) 16:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Blankets with smallpox

Is the theory that the US Government deliberately infected blankets with smallpox and gave them to Native Americans a fringe theory?

Here are some pages and links that may be of interest:
Siege of Fort Pitt#Blankets with smallpox
http://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/amherst/lord_jeff.html
Ward Churchill academic misconduct investigation#Smallpox blanket genocide
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=plag;view=text;rgn=main;idno=5240451.0001.009
http://hal.lamar.edu/~browntf/Churchill1.htm
(If the above URL is down, the content may be found here, and someone saved a cache of it here.)
--Guy Macon (talk) 01:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not at all. There are copious historical sources documenting this especially in colonial times, but not exclusively, and to suggest they are all part of a "fringe" theory to make these records "go away" is just bewildering and smells political to say the least. It seems the definition of the nebulously and arbitrarily defined "fringe" on wikipedia in some people's view is growing wider and wider every day. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 01:54, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Did you bother reading any of the above links in the seven minutes it took you to reply? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:08, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

It has been a while, but as I remember it, there is a historical report of this being done, although I cannot recall the particulars so I cannot confirm that it was at Fort Pitt. (Note that if it was at the Siege of Fort Pitt, it would not have been the US Government, which did not yet exist.) Where it comes into play in the Ward Churchill misconduct case is that he was reported to have taken the one documented historical instance and spun it into a repeated pattern, narrating that it had been done at places where there was no record of this being the case. So, did it happen once, apparently yes. Was it done by the US govt, no (if it was Ft Pitt, which I can believe). Was it done where Churchill says it was, no. Agricolae (talk) 02:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

−

Mi'kmaq historian Daniel N. Paul devotes quite a few pages to examining the contemporary documents that speak for themselves. Here's some quotes:

"Not surprisingly, these actions have been studiously ignored or downplayed by most White male historians. However, their reluctance to enter into honest discussion and critically comment on the matter does not obscure the facts that the documents and journals left behind by colonial English and French scribes irrefutably prove... The same historical documents also prove beyond a reasonable doubt that supposedly "civilized" colonial English politicians and military personnel used means of terror against First Nations peoples which would repel truly civilized people. Thus, the reluctance of most White male scribes to discuss and put to paper the details of such behaviour is understandable. To do so is to question the very civility of those who perpetrated the atrocities. As a person who has no such reluctance tp expose the crimes against humanity committed by the English, I wrote this book. It details a chronicle of man's inhumanity to man which has few, if any, equals in human history... I have also quoted heavily from well-researched papers about the Mi'kmaq struggle for survival prepared by two White women. In distinct contrast to the whitewashing of the subject by most White male writers, these women condemn the monstrous mistreatment of the Mi'kmaq... Most contemporary authors who have written about Amerindian civilization have also used European standards to evaluate the relative merits of these cultures. Thus their efforts are flawed... (Chapter 1)

(Chapter 10) "The following is an excellent example of their racist mentality in action. In July, 1763, General Jeffery Amherst, the Commander in Chief of British forces in North America, sent a memo to Colonel Bouquet, a Huguenot in the service of England, asking:

'Could it not be contrived to send the Smallpox among the disaffected Tribes of Indians?'

Bouquet replied: "I will try to inoculate the Indians with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself."

Amherst answered: "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets."...

"An "execrable race" was the General Amherst's favorite description for the Amerindians [citation]; Colonel Bouquet's was "the vilest of brutes". [citation]. This racist language clearly reveals that White supremacist beliefs were prime factors in their desire to commit genocide. Lawrence Shaw Mayo states in his biography of Amherst:

As he sped on his way to the relief of Fort Pitt, the Colonel exchanged interesting suggestions with the General as to the most efficient manner of getting rid of the redskins. His first orders to Bouquet were that he wished "to hear of no prisoners should any of the villains be met with arms." Besides using smallpox the two gentlemen contemplated another method: "As it is a pity to expose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spanish method, to hunt them with English dogs."...

This is just a sample of Paul's writing. Of course, from the POV that whites are superior to non-whites, as he describes, anyone speaking on behalf of the Native American point of view would automatically be regarded as "fringe", since only white males in this view are entitled to write the history of these things, and anyone else who tries to is therefore a priori "fringe" and not to be listened to... Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 02:41, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Please pay careful attention to the following. Read it twice if you have to. Did the US government do all manner of evil things towards Native Americans? Without a doubt. Could some of the be fairly described as genocide? I believe that is a fair description. Did some US Army officer or officers contemplate and write about infecting blankets with smallpox and giving the to Native Americans? We have sources documenting exactly that.

Do you have all of that? Are you sure? Good. Now show me a single shred of evidence that the US Government deliberately infected blankets with smallpox and gave them to Native Americans. As the eminent Cherokee sociologist Russell Thornton wrote: "The history is bad enough. There's no need to embellish it" --Guy Macon (talk) 06:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The 1763 accusation that Til discusses isn't fringe, and of course doesn't relate to the US government. The 1830s accusation is fringe of at any rate unsupported by evidence. That's from a reading of the sources you cite above. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Well that one certainly zoomed right past me. Sorry about that. Agree on both counts. Here is where we cover it:

Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst#Pontiac's Rebellion

Pontiac's War

Fort Pitt (Pennsylvania)#Pontiac's Rebellion

--Guy Macon (talk) 07:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

This thread is solid proof that the entire "FRINGE" project needs to be taken down several notches, it is the greatest single danger to the NPOV policy and the rest of project as a whole, it is enshrining bias and intolerance and pejorative, derogatory language as canonical, it is nothing but where the most self important and near-sighted editors congregate, those with the mentality that kicking down every one else's sandcastle is "fun", it relies on its own rolling arbitrary definition of "fringe" that cannot be backed up by any reliable source (there are Soviet sources on what defines "fringe". there are Nazi sources on what defines "fringe". There are ZERO reliable sources on what defines fringe, because it is SERIOUSLY' in the "Eye of the Beholder"... The way this board works, and gets more blatant about it all the time, is for the most narrow minded editors to congregate so they can swoop down en masse on an unbiased article for kicks and fill it with bias. On a globe, there is no fringe, there is only a fringe on a flat earth view of a globe. And of course where the fringe is depends on where you are standing with your flat earth view. This board should be scrutinized from the very top levels of the Wikipedia Foundation, because it runs directly counter to Jimbo's original vision of an encyclopedia where all points of view are treated neutrally, and where readers aren't TOLD like kindergartners what "the correct point of view" is.

Yes, as I said, there are copious documented examples of both English, French colonials AND United States forces using germ warfare on Native Americans. This may not sit well with you politically, but when you start trying to white wash it, you are taking things to a whole new level, and one where I cannot remain silent. Okay, this is what you consider entertainment, I can easily fill this FRINGE page (where it doesn't belong) to several times its current length with documented example after example of sources and documents stating United States forces passing smallpox infested blankets to natives (there ar thousands so this will take a while until you get the point) so we can have some fun watching the bigots here say to each one in turn "That doesn't count, because it doesn't represent the Mainstream POV of Mainstream White Male historians." Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 12:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Evidence, please. Thousands of citations proving that the US Government deliberately infected blankets with smallpox and gave them to Native Americans you say? Instead of casting aspersions on other editors and talking about another accusation that predates the forming of the US, How about naming just one source for your claim that the US Government deliberately infected blankets with smallpox and gave them to Native Americans? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:22, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Looking at sources like this, it appears that it is historically disputed with no clear outcome one way or the other. Though I certainly wouldn't call it a fringe idea, just a disputed historical occurence, of which there are many that reputable historians disagree on. Silverseren^C 15:28, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that source, but it calls the 1837 allegation "unsubstantiated". Unless someone can find a historian who says otherwise, the whole issue should stay out. That doesn't apply to the 1763 allegation. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why it shouldn't be mentioned in relevant articles that it is disputed by historians on whether or not such blankets were used in the 1837 event. Silverseren^C 00:13, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

You don't see why it shouldn't be mentioned in relevant articles that it is disputed by historians on whether or not such blankets were used in the 1837 event? Here is a good reason: it is not disputed by historians. I have asked again and again and nobody has provided a shred of evidence that any such dispute exists among historians. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

US Army usage of germ warfare on Native Americans - source #1 of many

• Author: M. Annette Jaimes, editor, 1992
• Source: The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance.
• Page: 33
• Quote: "Amherst's tactics may have been used by the fledgling United States against the Cherokees (who were allied with the British) in 1783: at any rate, the epidemic among them was very convenient for George Washington's rebel forces, and "broke their last resistance".[citation] Certainly the distribution of small-pox infected blankets by the U.S. Army to Mandans at Fort Clark, on the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota, was the causative factor in the pandemic of 1836-1840.[citation]
• Written as scholarly work, goes on for several more pages that we could also certainly look at if this isn't enough to prove the point. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 12:36, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it was written in an academic style, but South End Press is a leftist agitprop publisher. I also note in the Amazon reviews that there has been serious criticism of this book. Mind you, the biggest critics were native American scholars. Mangoe (talk) 13:02, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

"Leftist agitprop publisher"? Oh, but of course, THATs certainly not a "point of view", is it??? I guess what you are saying is "Look at the source. Stigmatize the source. Therefore if the source says there were smallpox infected blankets, it means there were none, because we've just stigmatized the source." Wow. Just wow. You know, I could keep this up for days, I've only just got started. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Look, Til, you're the one who tried to characterize this as an academic publication. OK, it was written by academics, but everything about its publication says that it's something that had to be published by a fringe publisher because nobody else would take it. South End Press is exactly as I have described it: they appear to have taken over as Chomsky's publisher because he has made too many off-the-wall accusations for, I don't know, HarperCollins or one of the other controversialist mainstream publishers. Besides, as I also said, native Americans working in the same field have strongly disagreed with this book. I just don't see this as a strong source. Mangoe (talk) 13:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Of course you don't, you see it as a "fringe source" because it doesn't toe the line you want it to, thereby allowing you to discredit the entire thing with a supercilious wave of the hand.

We're going to notice this pattern again and again in the coming days, I believe. No matter how many sources, from how many publishers, mention smallpox infected blankets, any indeterminate amount of these published sources may all be over-ruled on the authority of The Wikipedians Who Know The Truth. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:42, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

It has been alleged that this chapter, by Stiffarm and Lane, was actually written by Ward Churchill. Moreover, it has been said that it misrepresents its source. Have a look for yourself at Chardon's Journal at Fort Clark - it's on Google Books preview - and see if you can find where it says anything about smallpox infected blankets. I hope that the standards in WP:HISTRS can be our guide in this. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear, editor Annette Jaimes was Churchill's wife at the time. The specific chapter appears under the authorship of Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr. but when Churchill was later accused of plagiarizing the text, he claimed to have actually ghost written it himself. In other words, this isn't independent support of Churchill's position. It is Churchill himself. The citation to the Mandan incident is fabricated/fraudulent, as the primary source makes no mention of the Army in the context of the smallpox outbreak - 'Fort Clark' was not an Army post but a private trading post. See "Did the U.S. Army Distribute Smallpox Blankets to Indians? Fabrication and Falsification in Ward Churchill's Genocide Rhetoric", Thomas Brown, for a full analysis. [4] Agricolae (talk) 15:38, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Infected blankets, source 2

• Source: Chief Joseph, Guardian of the People
• Page: 64
• Date: 2006
• Author: Candy Moulton
• Quote: "Idaho newspapers reported on conflicts between miners and Indians and Indians and often stirred sentiment against the Nez Percés. In December 1865, when Indians attacked a Butterfield Overland Stage and Express Coach, the Owyhee Avalanche editor in Silver City, Idaho, wrote "Send some more blankets." Although not specifically stated, the request for blankets implied a simple act of genocide as one way to deal with recalcitrant Indians. This offhand proposal of mass murder, not unusual in the Indian-hating frontier press of the era, even had a historic, though accidental, underpinning: white traders had introduced smallpox to the Indians of the Upper Missouri River in 1837. A deckhand on a trader's steamboat first contracted the disease and later infected three Arikara women..." etc etc
• She goes on to discuss the Mandans and the Fort Pitt case, but does not mention the US Army, and also reiterates that while there is no evidence blankets were actually used in Idaho 1865, it is certain that they employed a scalping bounty for genocidal purposes. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

So one of the sources for your claim that the US Government deliberately infected blankets with smallpox and gave them to Native Americans actually says that there is no evidence that blankets were actually used? Can you not see what is wrong with this picture? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Infected blankets, Part 3

• Source: Herbal remedies of the Lumbee Indians
• Author: Arvis Locklear Boughman, Loretta O Oxendine
• Date: 2004
• Page: 88
• Quote: "Witnessing the devastating effects of smallpox in the Eastern United States, US Army and government officials distributed smallpox infected blankets during the frontier era among some Native American tribes (blankets from people suffering from smallpox) to further decimate the American Indian population in other parts of the country."
• I know, I know, this must be "fringe" view because they paid some apologist to write a "mainstream" (white male mainstream) article saying this never happened and it's all fringe, and presto! it's as if it never happened, eh? Wasn't that easy? Give me a break! Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Obviously a book on herbalism is not something one would look to as a major secondary source on this issue. Indeed, one of the Amazon reviews complains about how the interesting herbalism material is padded out with this political history. The authors obviously got this claim from someone else. Mangoe (talk) 13:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

So what? I suppose that makes it "fringe" too? How many sources are you going to get labeled as "fringe" in your agenda to apologize and whitewash the record of genocide? We'll find out! Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:45, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm wondering how many times we should ignore Til's personal attacks on people. Dougweller (talk) 18:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

From his user talkpage it seems Til has gone off the wall. It included a personal attack (you are perhaps aware), which was redacted. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:25, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Here's the real problem with giving a long list of cites

It's abundantly clear that Churchill's claims are, for whatever reason, false, and that anything which traces back to him has to be discounted. Therefore anything published after his stuff has to be discounted—especially if it repeats his specific allegations—unless it can be traced back to primary research that he didn't do. It's like talking about druidic material, which one has to specifically ensure never went anywhere near Iolo Morganwyg, or any number of people talking about anglo-pagan religion. If you can find this other primary research (and for instance nobody seriously contests the Ft. Pitt/British stuff), then we have something to go on. But Churchill has so contaminated the field that one has to assume bad faith about these claims until they can be based in someone else's research. Mangoe (talk) 14:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

This is a very old issue and has been repeatedly discussed in the past - with the same outcome. Til's hyperbole and chaotic piling up of any sources he can find with no regard to their value and status is typical of an inappropriate approach to historical topics. We should be looking at what the best soucvces say, not looking for those that confirm our prejudices. Also, all discussion of a topic should be kept under a single heading. Not to do so is to violate the conditions under which editors can follow a debate by looking at the edit historty of a single topic. Paul B (talk) 18:34, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Constructal theory

Just came across this. Article has a strong promotional/advocacy vibe, seems likely to be pseudoscience. Might benefit from editor attention, afraid I don't have time to look into it properly at the moment. -- simxp (talk) 01:11, 21 March 2013 (UTC)