Talk:Chip Berlet
The connections with Dennis King are not "implied;" they are documented. There is even a photo, for the skeptical. --Herschelkrustofsky 11:49, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I removed a number of anti-Berlet POV statements, the repeated use of the word "attack." and unattributed and/or unverifiable LaRouchite allegations about his ideology from Herschelkrustofsky at al. as part of the attemp to add LaRouche research into Wikipedia (see also Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche#Findings_of_fact)
In terms of being unattibuted or unverifiable (other than on LaRoucite websites) see these Google searches:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22populist+producerism%22&btnG=Google+Search
BCorr|Брайен 13:43, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Nota bene: none of the material you removed came from LaRouche or myself. I find it ironic that you apply exactly the opposite standard to this article, that you have applied in editing Lyndon LaRouche. I also modified your formulation on the relationship between Berlet, and John Rees and Richard Mellon Scaife. Your formulation conveyed the implication that Berlet was using them as sources, when in fact, they were funding and encouraging his efforts as members of the same anti-LaRouche "task force". --Herschelkrustofsky 14:30, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Bcorr, you clearly wish the article to tip-toe around the relationship between Berlet and his sponsors. Why is that? --Herschelkrustofsky 21:28, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- It is your point of view that there was an anti-LaRouche "task force" -- that is not a fact but an opinion. My goal is simply to keep that clear. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 17:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Really? How would you describe it? --Herschelkrustofsky 06:07, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- It is your point of view that there was an anti-LaRouche "task force" -- that is not a fact but an opinion. My goal is simply to keep that clear. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 17:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Hi,
Quite a bit of the text formerly posted on this page was simply false. And most of the false information originated from the LaRouche organization, although it gets laundered around on the Internet.
Note two salient facts. 1) LaRouche is a convicted felon. 2). When LaRouche sued me for defamation--he lost.
In his "affidavit," LaRouche agent Herb Quinde couldn't even get the year of the NY meeting I attended correct. In a recent smear, A LaRouche pamphlet has me working for the National Student Association more than five years before I was employed by the group, in order to falsely claim I worked with the group while it was secretly being manipulated by the CIA.
I support the idea of a collective encyclopedia, but folks need to be aware of how fanatic groups and their supporters can abuse the process. I note that the current editors are trying their best to be even handed.
Chip Berlet
p.s. What type of total idiot would make a big deal over the name my parents gave me--a name I rejected when I began to use my nickname "Chip" during my work in the antiwar movement--a name I wanted to distance myself from, because John Foster Dulles was an architect of the Cold War. This is a prime example of why conspiracism is a pointless waste of time. Am I supposed to be complicit in naming myself? What garbage.
- I wouldn't blame Chip for the name he was given -- but it is an eerie coincidence, given that Mark Evans accuses him of "Left-wing McCarthyism." Also, Chip's edits are a bit on the self-promotional side. Wikipedia frowns on that. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:05, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Bcorr, both you and Berlet seem to find the Train meetings to be something of an embarassment, and you wish to finesse the content of the article. This is not a matter of POV, but simply of factual accuracy. All the attendees were LaRouche opponents, whether from the left, the right, or the press. Berlet does not deny that the attendees were LaRouche opponents. If Berlet wishes to characterize it as a "debate", I won't object, but there was certainly no pro-LaRouche side to that debate, and to insinuate that there was is misleading to the reader. --Herschelkrustofsky 06:15, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I see that an anonymous editor has made a number of significant changes recently. While this is not a topic I am conversant in, I can easily verify one deleted detail, that the book Eyes Right! won a Gustavus Myers Award. Why was this information deleted? It is subjective and is fully NPOV. Willmcw 00:37, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Not "significant changes", but restoring some of the material that was changed or edited out here by Chip Berlet, and by somebody who is apparently a supporter of his. As it was, the article looked like a puff piece intended to stroke Berlet's ego, and giving the false impression that the only criticism of Berlet comes from Lyndon LaRouche-aligned sources. That is decidedly not the case. There are many on the left who believe his behavior from 1991 on has been disruptive, tends toward guilt-by-association and blacklisting tactics rather than serious criticism, is based more on identity politics than on anything resembling either liberalism or an old-left class based analysis, and often involves Berlet injecting some of his own unorthodox political formulations into his analysis (such as his favorite bugaboo, "centrist/extremist theory", his other bugaboos like "conspiracism" and "apocalypticism", and his belief that mainstream society and indeed mainstream liberalism is inherently racist, sexist, etc.)
If the article is going to mention awards his books have received, making him sound like some kind of saint, it should at least also mention that some believe his books are full of bad analysis and disinformation.
- The answer is not to anonymously delete factual information that you don't like. Instead, add additional information that balances it. And please get yourself a user name. Making anonymous attacks on others is cowardly and does not give your opinions credibility. Willmcw 00:18, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I understand that I have critics, but when people delete factual information and post false information it violates the basic purpose of Wickipedia.
"Wilcox also makes the observation that Political Research Associates is a three-person operation, with Berlet serving as both president, and the only analyst on staff."
This was factually false when it was written, and it is outlandishly false today. I have never served as president of PRA. Today PRA has a full-time staff of eight.
Out of basic fairness is it too much to ask that my entry be balanced by having criticism and support be roughly equal?
-Chip Berlet
- Chip, I'm happy to see you come around to balance and fairness, so late in the game. It reminds me of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." But it may take some time for you to get used to the concept. For example, if you are labelling your opponents "right-wing" you should not call yourself "progressive." You could either cut to the chase and say the your think-tank is "left-wing", or you could find a warm and fuzzy euphemism like "conservative" for your opponents. Weed Harper 07:05, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Chip responds: This is exactly the type of biased person attack posing as a call to be unbiased that I am objecting to. Only a tiny handful of critics object to my work, compared to the dozens of editors of print and electronic media in commercial and alternative outlets who consider my work fair and balanced. Political Research Associates has picked the term "progressive" to describe our work. I call people who are conservative "conservative." I call fascists and antisemites with their proper name. I have defended my terminology in court and in numerous publications in popular and academic media.