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The section "Leftism, Pacifism and 'War on Terror'" seems to be degenerating into a very POV not-quite-rant. I'm busy elsewhere, but someone should take this on with NPOV in mind. -- Jmabel 11:31, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
A lot of the information in this section needs to be factchecked, and refactored into other articles on the anti-"War on Terror" movement, and this section restricted to just dealing with the Left itself. Pyrop 22:47, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
Since it seems that at least some people believe this section belongs here, and since my own "edit" would consist of deleting it, I'm going to try to raise my issues here and hope someone else will edit and meet my objections. If not, I intend either to slap an NPOV notice on this article or to move the section to the Talk page to be worked on.
While I'm at it, an aside: no small portion of U.S. left opposition to the so-called "War on Terror" has focused on its domestic consequences, such as increased powers for law enforcement agencies. The article as it stands does not even give this a mention, a cross-reference, anything.
By now you are probably saying that all of this gets rather far afield of an article on left-wing politics. Precisely. I think that most of this material belongs discussed elsewhere, maybe in an article on opposition to the Iraq War, maybe yet somewhere else. To draw out these distinctions to the level they require in order to treat them appropriately would blow this section up well beyond what is appropriate as a section of this article. Hence my inclination to delete the section. But it would be fine with me if, instead, someone builds it up into something solid, with the expectation of refactoring: eventually this article could have a section that is a summary of (and links to) a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.
That's it. I object to almost every sentence! Those of you who know me know this is not something I say often or casually.
Again, I'd be happy if someone salvages this material into a decent treatment of the subject, with a summary here and a real article elsewhere. Failing that, I'd appreciate any opinions on whether it's better to slap an NPOV notice on the article or to move the material to the talk page. I'm guessing that the former is considered more friendly. -- Jmabel 04:30, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)
By the way, User:Cab88 has now placed an NPOV notice on the article. As should be clear from my remarks above, I was holding off on doing that, and Cab88 has not indicated on this talk page whether his/her issues are the same as mine. Cab88: please indicate whether you are just raising my issues to another level or if you have specific other problems with the article. -- Jmabel 05:49, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)
I put the NOPV notice due to shared concerns over major POV issues with the section Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror". Cab88
For whatever it is worth, Sam Spade's recent edits make some of my quotations above from the article no longer verbatim, but I do not believe they address any of my issues. In particular, adding "perhaps" to a POV statement just makes it mushy, it doesn't make it NPOV or encyclopedic. -- Jmabel 05:17, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)
The people who have actively worked on this section, and who appear to be currently active on Wikipedia, have not done me the courtesy of replying to most of my specific issues in what is now a week, and the few responses to date by MathKnight above hardly amount to a defense of the present content of this section. I really would have preferred that someone else use my questions to strengthen the section. It is clear that will not happen in any timely manner. I guess I'll take a shot at it myself, but frankly this is not something I particularly want to do: as I said above, my feeling is that much of what is discussed in the section is peripheral, at best, to the ostensible topic of the article. -- Jmabel 05:40, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
As a first step in this work, I have documented relevant reactions both among leaders of Muslim (and especially of Islamist) countries and on the left in the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks. For the Muslims, I have used government spokespeople (I've also quoted Yasser Arafat, although the Palestinian Authority is technically not a state, and not Islamist; I feel the quotation is relevant, and that Arafat constitutes something of a mixture of Islamic and Left, and that a full explanation of context would be out of proportion.) For the left, I chose three generally respected writers from three different countries.
I wrote up another conceivably relevant paragraph:
I decided to omit this because the FSP are a small U.S. party of no great influence, and certainly are less listened to on the broad left than any of the three writers I have quoted.
I hope we have consensus that these quotations simply bolster the section, and that I haven't yet headed into my area of disagreement with the POV of the section, only with its lack of research. Again it may be argued -- I myself would argue -- that the article on left-wing politics is not where this material mostly belongs. I hope, however, that we can agree to leave it here until we can resolve the NPOV dispute, then we can decide how to refactor. -- Jmabel 07:26, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
BTW, sorry I am being slower than I intended to be in working on this. My job has been very consuming lately, plus I've had a series of visitors from out-of-town. I do intend to follow this through, it's my top priority in terms of any substantive research and writing. -- Jmabel 07:29, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
I'm doing my damnedest to cite carefully for everything I am adding, both in terms of what bolsters the pre-existing argument which I am disputing and what draws a different picture.
In the middle of the text I am adding, someone else has inserted more uncited, somewhat POV material:
Within Left-wing politics#Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror", I've now edited sections Background and Immediate reaction to the attacks to a point where I feel I no longer have a POV dispute about them. Cab88, do you still have POV issues about these sections? And MathKnight, do any of my edits in these sections raise POV issues for you? Assuming you are both happy (and unless someone else wants to weigh in), I think we can agree that the dispute is now confined to the sections currently entitled Anti War movement and Criticism. -- Jmabel 23:23, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)
I hope my recent edits down to and including the list of various reasons for opposition to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq will prove relatively uncontroversial. MathKnight, Cab88, can we agree that we are out of NPOV territory down through that, or are there things I've introduced that you consider a problem? -- Jmabel 01:43, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
I've made some changes in section headings. I believe the NPOV dispute is now confined to sections Character of the anti-war movement and Criticism, mainly the latter. I'll keep working on these. I'm doing some background work elsewhere first, because I've discovered that many of the groups I want to allude to either lack articles or are stubs. -- Jmabel 19:46, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
In the list of reasons for opposition to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq I still see one problem, but I'm not sure how to write it into the flow. Right now, the article mentions that "There was also an uneasy relationship with explicitly antisemitic groups who charged that the war was being waged on behalf of Israel..." This could be read as suggesting that belief that the wars were fought on behalf of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic, and does not explicitly discuss a matter far more relevant to the politics of the left: anti-Zionism, many forms of which are not at all anti-Semitic.
I'd very much welcome a "friendly edit" if someone sees how best to work that in.
Also in the list of reasons for opposition to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I have not been citing sources as meticulously as in earlier passages. I'm hoping that this passage is relatively uncontroversial, but of course I would welcom appropriate citations; you could probably just add bracketed links, probably no need to quote explicitly; alternatively, just mention your citations here and I'll integrate appropriately. Also, if there is anything I've written that someone sincerely doubts, please call me on it and I'll track down a citation. -- Jmabel 01:43, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
Just so that no one thinks later that I'm trying to pull a fast one by citing myself: I'm currently laying some groundwork at ANSWER, Not In Our Name, United for Peace and Justice and probably elsewhere (I'll indicate where when I get to it). Those who are actively following this dispute might want to read those articles and add them to your watchlists. -- Jmabel 06:18, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
I have now almost entirely rewritten the section Character of the anti-war movement. I believe it is now much stronger, and I think it will be clear that it is by no means a "whitewash" of the groups in question.
I've written almost entirely about the U.S., because it's what I know. If it is unrepresentative, I hope someone will make comparable efforts to document the situation in other countries rather than throw in unsourced opinions.
Here are the two paragraphs of pre-existing material that I removed from this section:
I have no problem with including statements along these lines in the article if they can be documented. "Some rallies include what some have called..." does not belong in an encyclopedia, especially not in an article on a controversial topic. If there is clear citation on what was said when, and who called it hate speech, I will presumably have no problem with it being in the article.
As I argued above, the statement "many of them are peaceful civil demonstrations" is a backhanded way of implying (falsely, I believe) that most have not been. If you have specific citations of violence at leftist anti-war demonstrations -- and I hope we can agree that specifically Islamicist demonstrations in which the left played no significant part are not germane to the matter -- I absolutely agree that belongs in this article. Insinuation does not.
As to the second paragraph, it is vacuous without citation. Reaction had also included wishing that damn peace rally wasn't tying up the streets, or being glad it gave someone an excuse to be unable to get to their office, but "heroes" and "traitors" are strong words, and unless we can cite examples of someone using them, they don't belong in the article.
User:MathKnight, you are (or anyone is) more than welcome to address the above. I no longer have an NPOV issue with this section (duh! It's now mostly mine), only with the Criticism section that follows. If you agree that this section no longer raises NPOV issues, we can confine the dispute to one section. User:Cab88 doesn't seem to be actively involved in the discussion. If I haven't heard from you in 72 hours, I'll take the liberty of assuming the NPOV dispute no longer applies to this section; you can always reinstate the dispute yourself. -- Jmabel 05:34, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
As for citation, I have a citation for a violent anti-war rally in France, in which people were physiclly attacked and beaten up. Since two of the victims were Jews, the affair made headlines in Israel 18/04/2003 (Hebrew). I found also some reports in English on this incident: [5]. Also appears in the Hebrew article is the practice or burning flags (mainly of Israel) in (French) anti-war rallies - which is described by Aurélie Filipetti (a French Green Party member) as violent and antisemitic. She also states that she witnessed a violent anti-war rally, I translated from the article:
Also to note that slogans like "Bush and Blair are Nazies" is considered (by me, at least, but I believe also widely) as hate speech. MathKnight 09:45, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The orginal article may be found here: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/archive/ART/466/162.html
The left wing protests in France against the war in Iraq became anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist events
Sefi Handler, Paris , 18/04/03
Aurélie Filipetti { hencforth I will refer to her as A.F. -MK} felt bad. The brutal attack that two teemagers, member of Hashomer Hatzair, have suffered in a demonstration in Paris against the war in Iraq, made her wonder for exactly which "peace" she is demonstrating.
Aurélie Filipetti (A.F.) , a spokeswoman of the Green Party in Paris, was among the organiziers of the demonstration, in which its fringes Jews were beaten only because they wore kippot ( skull caps). She is 30 year old, French from Italian dynesty, not a Jewish. Niether anti-semitic. She is a left wing activists who thinks the state of Israel has a right to exists. This loaded combination have turned the young Parisian to a focus of political-idealogical public controversy, which exposes a lot more than the intellectual integrity of those who arose it. Almost forced by events, the honest spokeswoman of the Green Party to an exception which tesitify over the general common: a growing camp inside European left, which loves itself as equally as it loves to hate Israel.
After the attack against the Jewish teenager, who were in their way to their activity center in east Paris and walked accross the "peace" protest, A.F. decided to send some messages as food for though in the party's internet discussion board. The French left did condamned the attack, beside of the rally's organizers, which claimed it was a provocation of Betar activists.
A.F. asked to touch the truely sensetive points. "I felt we should stop puting our head in the sand, to say that these are only fringes effects and therefore 'not of our concern', to condamn and do nothing more." In the message she posted in the disscussion board she asked the participants why they allow a demonstration against the war in Iraq ( A.F. opposes the war ) to turn into an event in which the main theme is Palestine. She also asked if this has a connection to the attack on the Jewish youth during the rally. "I wrote that according to that logic\reason\sense , we can protest with Chechnya's flags, or Tibet's , but we {somehow -MK} choose to focus only in Israel and Sharon.
This uninnocent question, of a woman from the hardcore of the "enlightened left" touched the most sensetive nerves of the French "Peace camp". A.F. got tons of answers, most of them are hostile. "They explained to me that the slogan 'Bush Sharon are murderers' is not antisemitism but anti-Zionism. But for me, when you burn the flag of Israel (a common sight in anti-war rallies in france -Sefi Handler) it is antisemitism. The meaning is the delegitmation of Israel's right to exist."
Every left wing politician who cares about his chair and status, would mute after the wave of responses and would not turn against the pratice of burning Israel's flags. But A.F. decided to jump into the "lion's mouth" of anti-Zionism and held solidarity visit in Hashomer Hatzair center in Paris. In this visit "she'd gone to far" and made a commitment to carry the flag of Israel and the flag of Palestine together in the next anti-war rally in the Bastile square.
When it was publish in Le Mond, France's most important newspaper, A.F. became a focus for unsacred wrath for many of her colleagues. "They stormed over me" she tells in an interview to Maariv. "I have recieved many enraged phone calls. They told me 'what is wrong with you?'. A senior member in the party told me that 'you can't carry a blood stained flag' i.e. the flag of Israel. Other explained to me it is the ' Sabra and Shattila flag'. There were also some who conveyed me a message that should I dare to appear with the flag of Israel in the protest 'ten people will come and break your face'. I have insisted that is merely a symbol of our commitment to Israel's right to exist."
The leadership of the Green Party in Paris, gathered urgently to discuss the two-flags issue and found an hypocritical solution to the hot problem. The Green Party declare they are "not a national party" and therefore none of its representives is allowed to carry national flags.
Filipetti honored the decision, and not carried the two flags { of Israel and Palestinian -MK }, but like all the participants in the rally she saw around her countless flags of Iraq and Palestine. "It was a violent event" she recalls "I said to myself that if I would carry the flags of Israel and Palestinian, I then would face some serious troubles {word-to-word translation of the last expression would be 'noy few (but many) problems' - MK} ."
Parallel to the confrontation over the flags, A.F. published an article in the left-oriented French newspaper "Libersion" in which she warned from the antisemitism that plauging its camp. An article, which only few, if any, in the European left would dare to write.
It is easy to the French left to protest against Le Pen, it is harder for it to admit that it let "its protestors to carry slogans that have nothing in common for the Palestinian's legitimate rights. There were slogan of those who were facisinated from the Palestinian suicide bombers' death dance" she wrote. "The French left must to recognize that while it developed the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, it acted as an ostrich and not fulfilled its duty: to think reasonbly. The refusal of the left to be questioned about it, and worse - to question itself about it, played to the hand of antisemitism."
"Zionism is Israel's right to exist. Period. The fact that Sharon gives Zionism an imperialist and colonialist definition not put in doubt the legitimicy and neccisity of the state of Israel. We support the legitmate struggle of the Palestinian for their rights, for their state and for liberating the occupied territories, and we oppose Ariel Sharon's brutal policy. Therefore, because of all this, we should not agree that this struggle will loose its dignity through barbaric acts that sums up in one word: antisemitism."
The article became the talk of the day among Jews, politicians, protestors and everybody else. "I felt they didn't read my article, but only one word from it: 'Zionism', and because of it I'm being scurned like a witch on the stake", she sums. Week and a half ago, during a meeting of the regional bureo of the party, she got intidada in home. "Do you understand you offended people by using that word (Zionism)?" one of the members slammed at her. Aurélie Filipetti do not regret, even for a moment. "Even if I had to pay political price, since I am a pro-Palestiniam Zionist." She sums with a sad smile.
The rest of the article deals with Jewish reaction of French Jews and Zionists to the anti-Zionist atmosphere in France, and campaign they are having to try to decrease hatred toward them. I didn't translated it since it is less relevant to the issue. If you want, ask me and I will translate it also.
More over, there is a reference to an article written by Aurélie Filipetti in " Libersion", I would be happy if French wikipedians will manage to find this article ans translate it, and olso will convet their point of few regarding the whole issue and the Maariv's article.
MathKnight 18:38, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Per discussion above, the NPOV dispute is now confined to a single section, Criticism.
For starters, I have deleted the sentence "This view [that al-Qaida's and Palestinian "terrorist" attacks as a legitimate asymmetric war against the oppressors] has not been publicly denounced by the AWM." There is no such entity as "the AWM" that can denounce something. Plenty of leftist and anitwar groups disagree publicly with this view, especially with reference to al-Qaida (as amply documented in the sections I've edited above). Does anyone have a problem with this deletion? -- Jmabel 19:24, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
Right now the article contains the following paragraph (the one from which I just deleted a sentence):
The cited source says nothing resembling this.
If someone can cite someone saying something like the criticism given here, fine, but if no one has done so in the next 72 hours, and if I can't find appropriate citations myself, I intend to delete this paragraph outright, pending restoration by someone with actual citiations. I promise a good faith effort to find such citations and I hope my work above shows that I am not trying to turn this article into a left-wing screed. -- Jmabel 19:33, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I found a citation which raises serious accusation against
ANSWER (which seems to be synonimous to many with the anti-war movement), the
WWP and
IAC for defending terrorists and atrocities commited by dicatoric regims. Ramsi Clarck has been accused in providing legal protection to war criminals. Here is the citation:
[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29524 Has antiwar movement been hijacked? Terror alliances, radical politics revealed at forefront |
WorldNetDaily.com | November 4, 2002 | Sherrie Gossett ] and here is a
[www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/828578/posts reprint] of it.
Another article,
[7] "I AIN'T MARCHIN' ANYMORE : Antiwar 'leaders' discredit antiwar oppostion – but there may be hope for the movement yet" by
Justin Raimondo is full of criticism over the internal politics of the anti-war movements. I think you will understand his article better than me, since I'm not well aquinted with many of the names he mention.
MathKnight 21:08, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
So, I agree we should change the "criticism" part to be more specific and cite its adress (ANSWER, WWP etc) rather the ambigious and amorphic "anti-war movement". I only can say that in my place many percieve ANSWER to be the major force behind the anti-war movement and the orginazors of most rallies. In the other paragraphs you wrote you embedded some of things that appeard bluntly in the "criticism" part. MathKnight 21:08, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure we could keep piling on citations (left and right) assailing ANSWER. I pointedly chose to quote Albert and Shalom because they are themselves far more prominent in the American left than is ANSWER: Z magazine is probably second only to The Nation as a voice of the U.S. left. I really feel that if someone wants to add further criticism of ANSWER and those connected to it (which at this point to me seems like beating a dead horse) it belongs at ANSWER, IAC, or maybe, where relevant Ramsey Clark. They are a small (if well-organized) group.
ANSWER put together demonstrations when no one else was doing it. People turned out because it was the only game in town. Many of these people had no idea of ANSWER's specific politics. Many of the rest came out despite those politics, not because of them. I think the article now makes this pretty clear, and I don't think there is a lot more to be said about ANSWER's, IAC's, or Clark's role in the antiwar movement that is germane to the subject of this article.
What would be interesting, and worth citing, is if credible accusations have been made against larger and more prominent groups. If you look at the articles on ANSWER, NION, and UFPJ you can easily see that there is at least an order-of-magnitude difference in the size of even NION vs. ANSWER, and that NION is a member of the order-of-magnitude-larger UFPJ. I don't know actual numbers -- they'd be interesting to get -- but ANSWER and its affiliates probably number a few thousand people, NION is probably well into 6 figures, including several present and former members of congress, and UFPJ and its affiliates are well into the millions of people. The National Council of Churches (a UFPJ member) is probably all on its own larger than NION, let alone ANSWER. Admittedly, it's not a particularly "left" organization (although it is, in American terms certainly "liberal", which is to say in European terms it is social democratic).
I've put what I think is an honest 2-paragraph summary of the Gossett article into our article, and I've used where she quotes Raimondo. Take a look. As for Raimondo himself: Raimondo is a self-described libertarian -- that is, not a leftist -- and his article argues (in part) "this is a war that will be fought for Israel's sake, and to ensconce it as the dominant independent power in the region." I don't know how even to engage that in the context of an article on left-wing politics. Raimondo and his group (antiwar.com) are not particularly big or influential (nor are they so tiny as to be insignificant), they are certainly not leftist, they are part of UFPJ so they are not entirely irrelevant to the matter. In an article on the anti-war movement as such it would probably be right to discuss them. In an article on left-wing politics... well, they would be perceived by most on the left as among the "small right-wing anti-war groups... [who] ... participated in the same demonstrations with other opponents of the war..." (although as libertarians they would probably claim to be "neither left nor right"). I don't think they deserve more than the passing mention now in the article, but if you can indicate what you think is worth citing, I'd consider it. I hope it's not his general stuff like "...every pathetic leftie cause under the sun: free Mumia Abu Jamal (won't somebody free us from him?), 'money for jobs, not for war' (hey, bud, you get a job, and then you get the money!)..." The fact that a libertarian disagrees with the general politics of the left would just be stating the obvious. -- Jmabel 03:20, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
I've done my best to give an accurate summary of the Taheri article. Frankly, this sort of article that needs to be handled with extreme care as a statement of anything other than its author's own views. The material on (relatively fringe) leftist-Islamist coalitions in Britain and France seems solid. The material on the French Communist Party seems to me mostly like insinuation: as I've pointed out in quoting it, all he really says is that a study was commissioned about "electoral alliances with Muslim organizations." He doesn't say the organizations were Islamist. He doesn't say anything came out of the study.
After (reasonably enough) quoting two French leftists (one on "the struggle for Palestine" and the other to the effect that it is "natural" that Muslims in France "unite with the working class") he goes off into what seems to me to be la-la land; I've done my best to represent accurately in the article that in trying to find a leftist who has something good to say about Islamist terrorism, he quotes Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (Carlos the Jackal). I'm sorry, but this is roughly like Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski as a spokesperson for the environmental movement.
For now, trying not to pull the POV too far to my own side, I'm bending over backwards to keep in the accurate (but previously unattributed) quote from Carlos the Jackal; at least now that I've contextualized it, it should be clear that it is not representative of the left. I still think it doesn't belong in the article. -- Jmabel 04:04, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
I've just spent a bunch of time trying to find some relevant citations for the paragraph (mentioned above) that begins "A major criticism of the anti-war movement is the claim that they have turned a blind eye..." Frankly, most of what I can find is from people who are looking for any stick to beat the left with. On Saddam, my search words led me to far more references to the Reagan administration having turned a blind eye to Saddam's crimes while they were in progress than to the left doing anything of the sort then or later. I even found the accusation against the Reagan administration written up by Associated Press and published in the Moonie-owned Washington Times. [8]
With the exception of a few marginal groups like Workers World, the left has been pretty critical of Saddam for a good couple of decades. I really think this is a red herring, and I'm getting tired of doing a ton of research to refute nothing more than assertions. Similarly, I can't find anything that looks substantive at all on the left turning a blind eye to the actions of al-Qaida. As indicated above, it's not the least difficult to find leading leftists condemning the attacks as soon as they happened.
Palestine is a different matter, but it seems to me to be doubly removed from the topic at hand. We've gone from Left-wing politics (the topic of the article) to a discussion of Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror" (a rather long section), and now we are going to digress further to the attitude of the movement opposing wars in Afghanistan and or Iraq towards the Palestinian question? Maybe (I hate to say it) the article needs a separate section on The left, Israel and Palestine, but any evenhanded treatment is liable to as difficult as the section we've now been hashing out for the better part of a month. It's certainly not what I want to spend the next month doing, and frankly after going through all this, if someone basically blasts uncited opinion into the article rather than really researching the matter, I for one am going to be a lot less willing to collaborate actively and a lot more likely to just delete material as uncited opinion. Which is to say, if someone wants to work on it in a serious, scholarly manner, sure, go for it (assuming it's not all well covered elsewhere in Wikipedia: someone should check). Meanwhile, there is no way we can handle the matter at the level of criticism and response in a sentence or two, and I'd just like to get it out of this section.
Would it help matters any to change the phrase higher up in the article about "opposition to perceived U.S. imperialism" into "opposition to perceived U.S. and Israeli imperialism"? I guess when I wrote that I was, indeed, trying to duck this issue. I, for one, see the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions as only tangentially related to the Israel/Palestine conflict: no more tied to that than to U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Ultimately, everything (especially in foreign policy) relates to everything, but we can't talk about it all at once. -- Jmabel 05:58, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
Like almost everything in Wikipedia, this article could get more work, and like a lot of articles it could probably use some refactoring, but I think we are now out of NPOV-dispute territory. My edits sufficiently satisfy the issues I raised to bring it within the pale as far as I'm concerned. MathKnight, is it also OK by you? If so, feel free either to respond here or just to kill the NPOV label on the article, and we can take it from there like any other (controversial) article. -- Jmabel 02:06, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sure it will still be a contentious and controversial article, but I'm glad to have it out of NPOV dispute territory. -- Jmabel 22:04, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The section "Leftism, Pacifism and 'War on Terror'" seems to be degenerating into a very POV not-quite-rant. I'm busy elsewhere, but someone should take this on with NPOV in mind. -- Jmabel 11:31, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
A lot of the information in this section needs to be factchecked, and refactored into other articles on the anti-"War on Terror" movement, and this section restricted to just dealing with the Left itself. Pyrop 22:47, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
Since it seems that at least some people believe this section belongs here, and since my own "edit" would consist of deleting it, I'm going to try to raise my issues here and hope someone else will edit and meet my objections. If not, I intend either to slap an NPOV notice on this article or to move the section to the Talk page to be worked on.
While I'm at it, an aside: no small portion of U.S. left opposition to the so-called "War on Terror" has focused on its domestic consequences, such as increased powers for law enforcement agencies. The article as it stands does not even give this a mention, a cross-reference, anything.
By now you are probably saying that all of this gets rather far afield of an article on left-wing politics. Precisely. I think that most of this material belongs discussed elsewhere, maybe in an article on opposition to the Iraq War, maybe yet somewhere else. To draw out these distinctions to the level they require in order to treat them appropriately would blow this section up well beyond what is appropriate as a section of this article. Hence my inclination to delete the section. But it would be fine with me if, instead, someone builds it up into something solid, with the expectation of refactoring: eventually this article could have a section that is a summary of (and links to) a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.
That's it. I object to almost every sentence! Those of you who know me know this is not something I say often or casually.
Again, I'd be happy if someone salvages this material into a decent treatment of the subject, with a summary here and a real article elsewhere. Failing that, I'd appreciate any opinions on whether it's better to slap an NPOV notice on the article or to move the material to the talk page. I'm guessing that the former is considered more friendly. -- Jmabel 04:30, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)
By the way, User:Cab88 has now placed an NPOV notice on the article. As should be clear from my remarks above, I was holding off on doing that, and Cab88 has not indicated on this talk page whether his/her issues are the same as mine. Cab88: please indicate whether you are just raising my issues to another level or if you have specific other problems with the article. -- Jmabel 05:49, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)
I put the NOPV notice due to shared concerns over major POV issues with the section Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror". Cab88
For whatever it is worth, Sam Spade's recent edits make some of my quotations above from the article no longer verbatim, but I do not believe they address any of my issues. In particular, adding "perhaps" to a POV statement just makes it mushy, it doesn't make it NPOV or encyclopedic. -- Jmabel 05:17, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)
The people who have actively worked on this section, and who appear to be currently active on Wikipedia, have not done me the courtesy of replying to most of my specific issues in what is now a week, and the few responses to date by MathKnight above hardly amount to a defense of the present content of this section. I really would have preferred that someone else use my questions to strengthen the section. It is clear that will not happen in any timely manner. I guess I'll take a shot at it myself, but frankly this is not something I particularly want to do: as I said above, my feeling is that much of what is discussed in the section is peripheral, at best, to the ostensible topic of the article. -- Jmabel 05:40, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
As a first step in this work, I have documented relevant reactions both among leaders of Muslim (and especially of Islamist) countries and on the left in the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks. For the Muslims, I have used government spokespeople (I've also quoted Yasser Arafat, although the Palestinian Authority is technically not a state, and not Islamist; I feel the quotation is relevant, and that Arafat constitutes something of a mixture of Islamic and Left, and that a full explanation of context would be out of proportion.) For the left, I chose three generally respected writers from three different countries.
I wrote up another conceivably relevant paragraph:
I decided to omit this because the FSP are a small U.S. party of no great influence, and certainly are less listened to on the broad left than any of the three writers I have quoted.
I hope we have consensus that these quotations simply bolster the section, and that I haven't yet headed into my area of disagreement with the POV of the section, only with its lack of research. Again it may be argued -- I myself would argue -- that the article on left-wing politics is not where this material mostly belongs. I hope, however, that we can agree to leave it here until we can resolve the NPOV dispute, then we can decide how to refactor. -- Jmabel 07:26, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
BTW, sorry I am being slower than I intended to be in working on this. My job has been very consuming lately, plus I've had a series of visitors from out-of-town. I do intend to follow this through, it's my top priority in terms of any substantive research and writing. -- Jmabel 07:29, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
I'm doing my damnedest to cite carefully for everything I am adding, both in terms of what bolsters the pre-existing argument which I am disputing and what draws a different picture.
In the middle of the text I am adding, someone else has inserted more uncited, somewhat POV material:
Within Left-wing politics#Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror", I've now edited sections Background and Immediate reaction to the attacks to a point where I feel I no longer have a POV dispute about them. Cab88, do you still have POV issues about these sections? And MathKnight, do any of my edits in these sections raise POV issues for you? Assuming you are both happy (and unless someone else wants to weigh in), I think we can agree that the dispute is now confined to the sections currently entitled Anti War movement and Criticism. -- Jmabel 23:23, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)
I hope my recent edits down to and including the list of various reasons for opposition to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq will prove relatively uncontroversial. MathKnight, Cab88, can we agree that we are out of NPOV territory down through that, or are there things I've introduced that you consider a problem? -- Jmabel 01:43, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
I've made some changes in section headings. I believe the NPOV dispute is now confined to sections Character of the anti-war movement and Criticism, mainly the latter. I'll keep working on these. I'm doing some background work elsewhere first, because I've discovered that many of the groups I want to allude to either lack articles or are stubs. -- Jmabel 19:46, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
In the list of reasons for opposition to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq I still see one problem, but I'm not sure how to write it into the flow. Right now, the article mentions that "There was also an uneasy relationship with explicitly antisemitic groups who charged that the war was being waged on behalf of Israel..." This could be read as suggesting that belief that the wars were fought on behalf of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic, and does not explicitly discuss a matter far more relevant to the politics of the left: anti-Zionism, many forms of which are not at all anti-Semitic.
I'd very much welcome a "friendly edit" if someone sees how best to work that in.
Also in the list of reasons for opposition to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I have not been citing sources as meticulously as in earlier passages. I'm hoping that this passage is relatively uncontroversial, but of course I would welcom appropriate citations; you could probably just add bracketed links, probably no need to quote explicitly; alternatively, just mention your citations here and I'll integrate appropriately. Also, if there is anything I've written that someone sincerely doubts, please call me on it and I'll track down a citation. -- Jmabel 01:43, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
Just so that no one thinks later that I'm trying to pull a fast one by citing myself: I'm currently laying some groundwork at ANSWER, Not In Our Name, United for Peace and Justice and probably elsewhere (I'll indicate where when I get to it). Those who are actively following this dispute might want to read those articles and add them to your watchlists. -- Jmabel 06:18, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
I have now almost entirely rewritten the section Character of the anti-war movement. I believe it is now much stronger, and I think it will be clear that it is by no means a "whitewash" of the groups in question.
I've written almost entirely about the U.S., because it's what I know. If it is unrepresentative, I hope someone will make comparable efforts to document the situation in other countries rather than throw in unsourced opinions.
Here are the two paragraphs of pre-existing material that I removed from this section:
I have no problem with including statements along these lines in the article if they can be documented. "Some rallies include what some have called..." does not belong in an encyclopedia, especially not in an article on a controversial topic. If there is clear citation on what was said when, and who called it hate speech, I will presumably have no problem with it being in the article.
As I argued above, the statement "many of them are peaceful civil demonstrations" is a backhanded way of implying (falsely, I believe) that most have not been. If you have specific citations of violence at leftist anti-war demonstrations -- and I hope we can agree that specifically Islamicist demonstrations in which the left played no significant part are not germane to the matter -- I absolutely agree that belongs in this article. Insinuation does not.
As to the second paragraph, it is vacuous without citation. Reaction had also included wishing that damn peace rally wasn't tying up the streets, or being glad it gave someone an excuse to be unable to get to their office, but "heroes" and "traitors" are strong words, and unless we can cite examples of someone using them, they don't belong in the article.
User:MathKnight, you are (or anyone is) more than welcome to address the above. I no longer have an NPOV issue with this section (duh! It's now mostly mine), only with the Criticism section that follows. If you agree that this section no longer raises NPOV issues, we can confine the dispute to one section. User:Cab88 doesn't seem to be actively involved in the discussion. If I haven't heard from you in 72 hours, I'll take the liberty of assuming the NPOV dispute no longer applies to this section; you can always reinstate the dispute yourself. -- Jmabel 05:34, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
As for citation, I have a citation for a violent anti-war rally in France, in which people were physiclly attacked and beaten up. Since two of the victims were Jews, the affair made headlines in Israel 18/04/2003 (Hebrew). I found also some reports in English on this incident: [5]. Also appears in the Hebrew article is the practice or burning flags (mainly of Israel) in (French) anti-war rallies - which is described by Aurélie Filipetti (a French Green Party member) as violent and antisemitic. She also states that she witnessed a violent anti-war rally, I translated from the article:
Also to note that slogans like "Bush and Blair are Nazies" is considered (by me, at least, but I believe also widely) as hate speech. MathKnight 09:45, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The orginal article may be found here: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/archive/ART/466/162.html
The left wing protests in France against the war in Iraq became anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist events
Sefi Handler, Paris , 18/04/03
Aurélie Filipetti { hencforth I will refer to her as A.F. -MK} felt bad. The brutal attack that two teemagers, member of Hashomer Hatzair, have suffered in a demonstration in Paris against the war in Iraq, made her wonder for exactly which "peace" she is demonstrating.
Aurélie Filipetti (A.F.) , a spokeswoman of the Green Party in Paris, was among the organiziers of the demonstration, in which its fringes Jews were beaten only because they wore kippot ( skull caps). She is 30 year old, French from Italian dynesty, not a Jewish. Niether anti-semitic. She is a left wing activists who thinks the state of Israel has a right to exists. This loaded combination have turned the young Parisian to a focus of political-idealogical public controversy, which exposes a lot more than the intellectual integrity of those who arose it. Almost forced by events, the honest spokeswoman of the Green Party to an exception which tesitify over the general common: a growing camp inside European left, which loves itself as equally as it loves to hate Israel.
After the attack against the Jewish teenager, who were in their way to their activity center in east Paris and walked accross the "peace" protest, A.F. decided to send some messages as food for though in the party's internet discussion board. The French left did condamned the attack, beside of the rally's organizers, which claimed it was a provocation of Betar activists.
A.F. asked to touch the truely sensetive points. "I felt we should stop puting our head in the sand, to say that these are only fringes effects and therefore 'not of our concern', to condamn and do nothing more." In the message she posted in the disscussion board she asked the participants why they allow a demonstration against the war in Iraq ( A.F. opposes the war ) to turn into an event in which the main theme is Palestine. She also asked if this has a connection to the attack on the Jewish youth during the rally. "I wrote that according to that logic\reason\sense , we can protest with Chechnya's flags, or Tibet's , but we {somehow -MK} choose to focus only in Israel and Sharon.
This uninnocent question, of a woman from the hardcore of the "enlightened left" touched the most sensetive nerves of the French "Peace camp". A.F. got tons of answers, most of them are hostile. "They explained to me that the slogan 'Bush Sharon are murderers' is not antisemitism but anti-Zionism. But for me, when you burn the flag of Israel (a common sight in anti-war rallies in france -Sefi Handler) it is antisemitism. The meaning is the delegitmation of Israel's right to exist."
Every left wing politician who cares about his chair and status, would mute after the wave of responses and would not turn against the pratice of burning Israel's flags. But A.F. decided to jump into the "lion's mouth" of anti-Zionism and held solidarity visit in Hashomer Hatzair center in Paris. In this visit "she'd gone to far" and made a commitment to carry the flag of Israel and the flag of Palestine together in the next anti-war rally in the Bastile square.
When it was publish in Le Mond, France's most important newspaper, A.F. became a focus for unsacred wrath for many of her colleagues. "They stormed over me" she tells in an interview to Maariv. "I have recieved many enraged phone calls. They told me 'what is wrong with you?'. A senior member in the party told me that 'you can't carry a blood stained flag' i.e. the flag of Israel. Other explained to me it is the ' Sabra and Shattila flag'. There were also some who conveyed me a message that should I dare to appear with the flag of Israel in the protest 'ten people will come and break your face'. I have insisted that is merely a symbol of our commitment to Israel's right to exist."
The leadership of the Green Party in Paris, gathered urgently to discuss the two-flags issue and found an hypocritical solution to the hot problem. The Green Party declare they are "not a national party" and therefore none of its representives is allowed to carry national flags.
Filipetti honored the decision, and not carried the two flags { of Israel and Palestinian -MK }, but like all the participants in the rally she saw around her countless flags of Iraq and Palestine. "It was a violent event" she recalls "I said to myself that if I would carry the flags of Israel and Palestinian, I then would face some serious troubles {word-to-word translation of the last expression would be 'noy few (but many) problems' - MK} ."
Parallel to the confrontation over the flags, A.F. published an article in the left-oriented French newspaper "Libersion" in which she warned from the antisemitism that plauging its camp. An article, which only few, if any, in the European left would dare to write.
It is easy to the French left to protest against Le Pen, it is harder for it to admit that it let "its protestors to carry slogans that have nothing in common for the Palestinian's legitimate rights. There were slogan of those who were facisinated from the Palestinian suicide bombers' death dance" she wrote. "The French left must to recognize that while it developed the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, it acted as an ostrich and not fulfilled its duty: to think reasonbly. The refusal of the left to be questioned about it, and worse - to question itself about it, played to the hand of antisemitism."
"Zionism is Israel's right to exist. Period. The fact that Sharon gives Zionism an imperialist and colonialist definition not put in doubt the legitimicy and neccisity of the state of Israel. We support the legitmate struggle of the Palestinian for their rights, for their state and for liberating the occupied territories, and we oppose Ariel Sharon's brutal policy. Therefore, because of all this, we should not agree that this struggle will loose its dignity through barbaric acts that sums up in one word: antisemitism."
The article became the talk of the day among Jews, politicians, protestors and everybody else. "I felt they didn't read my article, but only one word from it: 'Zionism', and because of it I'm being scurned like a witch on the stake", she sums. Week and a half ago, during a meeting of the regional bureo of the party, she got intidada in home. "Do you understand you offended people by using that word (Zionism)?" one of the members slammed at her. Aurélie Filipetti do not regret, even for a moment. "Even if I had to pay political price, since I am a pro-Palestiniam Zionist." She sums with a sad smile.
The rest of the article deals with Jewish reaction of French Jews and Zionists to the anti-Zionist atmosphere in France, and campaign they are having to try to decrease hatred toward them. I didn't translated it since it is less relevant to the issue. If you want, ask me and I will translate it also.
More over, there is a reference to an article written by Aurélie Filipetti in " Libersion", I would be happy if French wikipedians will manage to find this article ans translate it, and olso will convet their point of few regarding the whole issue and the Maariv's article.
MathKnight 18:38, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Per discussion above, the NPOV dispute is now confined to a single section, Criticism.
For starters, I have deleted the sentence "This view [that al-Qaida's and Palestinian "terrorist" attacks as a legitimate asymmetric war against the oppressors] has not been publicly denounced by the AWM." There is no such entity as "the AWM" that can denounce something. Plenty of leftist and anitwar groups disagree publicly with this view, especially with reference to al-Qaida (as amply documented in the sections I've edited above). Does anyone have a problem with this deletion? -- Jmabel 19:24, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
Right now the article contains the following paragraph (the one from which I just deleted a sentence):
The cited source says nothing resembling this.
If someone can cite someone saying something like the criticism given here, fine, but if no one has done so in the next 72 hours, and if I can't find appropriate citations myself, I intend to delete this paragraph outright, pending restoration by someone with actual citiations. I promise a good faith effort to find such citations and I hope my work above shows that I am not trying to turn this article into a left-wing screed. -- Jmabel 19:33, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I found a citation which raises serious accusation against
ANSWER (which seems to be synonimous to many with the anti-war movement), the
WWP and
IAC for defending terrorists and atrocities commited by dicatoric regims. Ramsi Clarck has been accused in providing legal protection to war criminals. Here is the citation:
[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29524 Has antiwar movement been hijacked? Terror alliances, radical politics revealed at forefront |
WorldNetDaily.com | November 4, 2002 | Sherrie Gossett ] and here is a
[www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/828578/posts reprint] of it.
Another article,
[7] "I AIN'T MARCHIN' ANYMORE : Antiwar 'leaders' discredit antiwar oppostion – but there may be hope for the movement yet" by
Justin Raimondo is full of criticism over the internal politics of the anti-war movements. I think you will understand his article better than me, since I'm not well aquinted with many of the names he mention.
MathKnight 21:08, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
So, I agree we should change the "criticism" part to be more specific and cite its adress (ANSWER, WWP etc) rather the ambigious and amorphic "anti-war movement". I only can say that in my place many percieve ANSWER to be the major force behind the anti-war movement and the orginazors of most rallies. In the other paragraphs you wrote you embedded some of things that appeard bluntly in the "criticism" part. MathKnight 21:08, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure we could keep piling on citations (left and right) assailing ANSWER. I pointedly chose to quote Albert and Shalom because they are themselves far more prominent in the American left than is ANSWER: Z magazine is probably second only to The Nation as a voice of the U.S. left. I really feel that if someone wants to add further criticism of ANSWER and those connected to it (which at this point to me seems like beating a dead horse) it belongs at ANSWER, IAC, or maybe, where relevant Ramsey Clark. They are a small (if well-organized) group.
ANSWER put together demonstrations when no one else was doing it. People turned out because it was the only game in town. Many of these people had no idea of ANSWER's specific politics. Many of the rest came out despite those politics, not because of them. I think the article now makes this pretty clear, and I don't think there is a lot more to be said about ANSWER's, IAC's, or Clark's role in the antiwar movement that is germane to the subject of this article.
What would be interesting, and worth citing, is if credible accusations have been made against larger and more prominent groups. If you look at the articles on ANSWER, NION, and UFPJ you can easily see that there is at least an order-of-magnitude difference in the size of even NION vs. ANSWER, and that NION is a member of the order-of-magnitude-larger UFPJ. I don't know actual numbers -- they'd be interesting to get -- but ANSWER and its affiliates probably number a few thousand people, NION is probably well into 6 figures, including several present and former members of congress, and UFPJ and its affiliates are well into the millions of people. The National Council of Churches (a UFPJ member) is probably all on its own larger than NION, let alone ANSWER. Admittedly, it's not a particularly "left" organization (although it is, in American terms certainly "liberal", which is to say in European terms it is social democratic).
I've put what I think is an honest 2-paragraph summary of the Gossett article into our article, and I've used where she quotes Raimondo. Take a look. As for Raimondo himself: Raimondo is a self-described libertarian -- that is, not a leftist -- and his article argues (in part) "this is a war that will be fought for Israel's sake, and to ensconce it as the dominant independent power in the region." I don't know how even to engage that in the context of an article on left-wing politics. Raimondo and his group (antiwar.com) are not particularly big or influential (nor are they so tiny as to be insignificant), they are certainly not leftist, they are part of UFPJ so they are not entirely irrelevant to the matter. In an article on the anti-war movement as such it would probably be right to discuss them. In an article on left-wing politics... well, they would be perceived by most on the left as among the "small right-wing anti-war groups... [who] ... participated in the same demonstrations with other opponents of the war..." (although as libertarians they would probably claim to be "neither left nor right"). I don't think they deserve more than the passing mention now in the article, but if you can indicate what you think is worth citing, I'd consider it. I hope it's not his general stuff like "...every pathetic leftie cause under the sun: free Mumia Abu Jamal (won't somebody free us from him?), 'money for jobs, not for war' (hey, bud, you get a job, and then you get the money!)..." The fact that a libertarian disagrees with the general politics of the left would just be stating the obvious. -- Jmabel 03:20, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
I've done my best to give an accurate summary of the Taheri article. Frankly, this sort of article that needs to be handled with extreme care as a statement of anything other than its author's own views. The material on (relatively fringe) leftist-Islamist coalitions in Britain and France seems solid. The material on the French Communist Party seems to me mostly like insinuation: as I've pointed out in quoting it, all he really says is that a study was commissioned about "electoral alliances with Muslim organizations." He doesn't say the organizations were Islamist. He doesn't say anything came out of the study.
After (reasonably enough) quoting two French leftists (one on "the struggle for Palestine" and the other to the effect that it is "natural" that Muslims in France "unite with the working class") he goes off into what seems to me to be la-la land; I've done my best to represent accurately in the article that in trying to find a leftist who has something good to say about Islamist terrorism, he quotes Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (Carlos the Jackal). I'm sorry, but this is roughly like Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski as a spokesperson for the environmental movement.
For now, trying not to pull the POV too far to my own side, I'm bending over backwards to keep in the accurate (but previously unattributed) quote from Carlos the Jackal; at least now that I've contextualized it, it should be clear that it is not representative of the left. I still think it doesn't belong in the article. -- Jmabel 04:04, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
I've just spent a bunch of time trying to find some relevant citations for the paragraph (mentioned above) that begins "A major criticism of the anti-war movement is the claim that they have turned a blind eye..." Frankly, most of what I can find is from people who are looking for any stick to beat the left with. On Saddam, my search words led me to far more references to the Reagan administration having turned a blind eye to Saddam's crimes while they were in progress than to the left doing anything of the sort then or later. I even found the accusation against the Reagan administration written up by Associated Press and published in the Moonie-owned Washington Times. [8]
With the exception of a few marginal groups like Workers World, the left has been pretty critical of Saddam for a good couple of decades. I really think this is a red herring, and I'm getting tired of doing a ton of research to refute nothing more than assertions. Similarly, I can't find anything that looks substantive at all on the left turning a blind eye to the actions of al-Qaida. As indicated above, it's not the least difficult to find leading leftists condemning the attacks as soon as they happened.
Palestine is a different matter, but it seems to me to be doubly removed from the topic at hand. We've gone from Left-wing politics (the topic of the article) to a discussion of Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror" (a rather long section), and now we are going to digress further to the attitude of the movement opposing wars in Afghanistan and or Iraq towards the Palestinian question? Maybe (I hate to say it) the article needs a separate section on The left, Israel and Palestine, but any evenhanded treatment is liable to as difficult as the section we've now been hashing out for the better part of a month. It's certainly not what I want to spend the next month doing, and frankly after going through all this, if someone basically blasts uncited opinion into the article rather than really researching the matter, I for one am going to be a lot less willing to collaborate actively and a lot more likely to just delete material as uncited opinion. Which is to say, if someone wants to work on it in a serious, scholarly manner, sure, go for it (assuming it's not all well covered elsewhere in Wikipedia: someone should check). Meanwhile, there is no way we can handle the matter at the level of criticism and response in a sentence or two, and I'd just like to get it out of this section.
Would it help matters any to change the phrase higher up in the article about "opposition to perceived U.S. imperialism" into "opposition to perceived U.S. and Israeli imperialism"? I guess when I wrote that I was, indeed, trying to duck this issue. I, for one, see the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions as only tangentially related to the Israel/Palestine conflict: no more tied to that than to U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Ultimately, everything (especially in foreign policy) relates to everything, but we can't talk about it all at once. -- Jmabel 05:58, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
Like almost everything in Wikipedia, this article could get more work, and like a lot of articles it could probably use some refactoring, but I think we are now out of NPOV-dispute territory. My edits sufficiently satisfy the issues I raised to bring it within the pale as far as I'm concerned. MathKnight, is it also OK by you? If so, feel free either to respond here or just to kill the NPOV label on the article, and we can take it from there like any other (controversial) article. -- Jmabel 02:06, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sure it will still be a contentious and controversial article, but I'm glad to have it out of NPOV dispute territory. -- Jmabel 22:04, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)