Talk:Michael Parenti

message: Is this article fair? At the moment it makes Parenti sound like a Stalin apologist, an apologist for Serbian aggression, and a Maoist....this may all be true of course, but the article does not prove it. It is, after all, an objective fact that accounts of the death toll under Stalin are routinely inflated in the West: pointing this out, does not make you a Stalin apologist. Also: if you are a Marxist then OF COURSE you are going to criticise Gorbachev for re-introducing capitalism (which of course he did): you may agree with him or not, but the fact is that it follows from his politics: it doesn't prove that he approved of the Gulag. Likewise, it is an objective fact (although Trotskyites may deny it) that during lenin's time Trotsky was one of the most authoritarian of the Bolshevik leaders (although he changed his mind later). It is also objectively true that Tibet was not a paradise before the Chinese invasion. 
Don't get me wrong. all this may well be true. but at the moment the article sounds grossly unbalanced 130.209.6.40 13:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair

message: WHO is the person who continually removes the sentences I add concerning Parenti's historical inaccuracies in his Assassination of Julius Caesar? I have the facts and sources to justify my statements and you keep removing them (I am forced to assume) because of your political support for Parenti's ideals and your concern about his liberties with historical accuracy. If an author proposes a thesis that is directly in contravention of the mainstream historical view this should at least be highlighted so students and readers can be allowed to draw their own conclusions! I am going to retool my concerns with Parenti's "facts" in 'Assassination' so that any pejorative connotations are limited - but historical innacuracy is historical inaccuracy (a spade, is, after all, a spade). SO - I do not expect the Parenti loyalists to remove my addition without at least having the decency to come on to this discussion page and justify their actions: alternatively we can just keep adding and deleting till the sun comes up.
-- OK, I have now read the NPOV and "weasel words" articles and hope that my brief addition (now online) will be considered acceptable (if not, please let me know what I should do). I understand that stressing the disconnect between mainstream interpretation and Parenti's may be considered an attack on the author, but, I assure all that my concern is purely historical. If you think I have done Parenti a disservice simply because of his political beliefs you should read the "hatchet job" I did on fascistic pseudo-historian Richard Landwehr! In both cases I was only trying to set the record straight with reference to accepted historical sources.
---
I reversed this persons DNS IP, he's from ottawa, Canada... Canada capital.  Interesting.
--- What the heck is that supposed to mean? What does it matter where the person comes from? I don't think that where I am from has any bearing whatsoever.99.240.142.65 (talk) 19:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I assure all that my concern is purely historical -- Such an "assurance" is worthless and contradicted by the evidence. -- 70.109.45.74 (talk) 05:25, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Caesar and accuracy

message: I have removed material from  that does not comply with our policy on the biographies of living persons. Biographical material must always be referenced from reliable sources, especially negative material. Negative material that does not comply with that must be immediately removed. Note that the removal does not imply that the information is either true or false.
Please do not reinsert this material unless you can provide reliable citations, and can ensure it is written in a neutral tone. Please review the relevant policies before editing in this regard. Editors should note that failure to follow this policy may result in the removal of editing privileges.--Docg 20:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed a similar chunk of material. Please note that re-adding unsourced material, particularly critical material, will get you blocked at this point. Phil Sandifer 18:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please rebuild in a neutral manner 

message: I am troubled by the low quality of the article on Michael Parenti. It seems to be nothing more than a thinly veiled ideological attack rather than a description of the work by an outstanding scholar. Dr. Parenti has had a long and impressive career, dedicated to peace and social justice. Yet this article focuses on (and distorts) a few odd details and tries to make him out to be some kind of defender of communist tyranny.
I have used Dr. Parenti's book, Democracy for the Few, in a number of my courses over the years, as have other professors at my university. His dedication to democratic values in United States and everywhere else in the world is outspoken, admirable and unswerving.
The Wikipedia article was brought to my attention by a student in my class who was disconcerted by it and was wondering about its accuracy and balance. I agreed with the student that the section on “Political Views” is entirely biased against its subject; and is not at all what you would expect from an encyclopedic entry.
I have extended the biography section and added an introduction to the many aspects of his work This article needs much more work to be brought into balance.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.216.48.251 (talk) 20:34, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The above comments were from User:Migueldos I think.  The original biographic information added on Oct 28 strikes me as NPOV and well balanced.  Unfortunately for the biography  129.71.73.248 simply deleted the information.  Migueldos added it back, No.129 deleted it again.  The edits done by named users seem, for the most part, to have been responsible.  User:Phil Sandifer seems to have come to the conclusion that this is insoluble (actually, at a global wikipedia level) - his relatively minor removal of obvious unsourced material was reverted by No.129.  It seems to me that the only way to prevent libel here is to simply delete the stuff whenever a No. adds it.  It may seem hard, but I think WP:BLP is dead in the water (based on the Sandifer comments and observation about this BLP).  Jbowler (talk) 18:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An IP deleted some info for POV reasons, and you are taking this as an excuse for deleting all info for POV reasons. Phil Sandifer has probably abandoned this simply because he's forgotten about it, not because he has despaired in Wikipedian procedures. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I considered restoring Migueldos's original (Oct 28) non-controversial and useful "background" section, but the underlying problem is not that it is impossible to construct an NPOV biography, but that over 3 1/2 years attempts to do so have been consistently destroyed.  User:Phil Sandifer rang true, but I'm prepared to be proved wrong of course. Jbowler (talk) 06:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  If people want to adopt that approach then I can see a way forward which involves a discussion on these talk pages of the general form of the biography (i.e. no discussion of content, just a discussion of subject headings and approximate length), followed by a prototype on this page with a clear definition of a set of rules for the contents of each section.  That would establish criteria for any informed editor to deal instantly with abuse, and I think that might eventually stop the abuse (but I'm being an optimist here).  It is, of course, much easy to stub the page and lock it. Jbowler (talk) 06:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't mind reverting to Migueldos, but note that his version also includes the "Political views" bit. I'm glad you're being constructive, but I'm not sure I see what there is to discuss concerning the general form of the article. The current headings don't seem to be dispued by anybody and there are so many ways of adding a POV slant that it's impossible to predict them all, so future edits will inevitably have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The one clear thing is that any unsourced factual statements and any unattributed comments or reflections, whether critical or favourable, should be removed immediately.  --91.148.159.4 (talk) 12:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure how to read your statement, so I will revert to the Migueldos version, but modify the "Political views" bit to my version as opposed to the older, more critical one. Feel free to revert if you are not OK with that. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 12:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I've updated it after User:Jilliana27's additions to do what I actually said - i.e. "restoring Migueldos's original (Oct 28) non-controversial and useful "background" section", I'm sure your error in doing a complete revert, clearly not what I said, was unintentional and I have therefore simply corrected your mistake. (WP:AGF)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbowler (talk • contribs) 06:40, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Low quality of article

message: jbowler@acm.org: the problem is that the little which remains is still pegorative, pretty much by omission.  I will therefore continue to remove it.  Just leave the bibliography, let the guy speak for himself.  (Quoting half the truth is not the truth.)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.32.171.56 (talk) 06:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Low quality (was: more stuff) 

message: OK, you are already engaging in personal attacks, and we seem to be stuck over a number of issues. One is that you clearly think that the views of a person should be neither described nor discussed in his biography. Another is that you believe that you are entitled to use the "approach" of deleting all sourced information about Parenti's views on the basis of the assumption that I and other Parenti haters are using it or will eventually use it to "get our POV into a page". Maybe it's time to place an RfC about this and be done with it, OK?--91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm disparaging your approach to editing in the context of a biography.  I'm doing so deliberately.  I've repeatedly criticised your editing in a non-disparaging way, yet you consistently ignore my criticisms by repeatedly asserting that your edits are sourced and this is the way to do things.  I've quoted line and verse about why that doesn't work for a biography.  I'll repeat myself yet again "It's A Biography", I'll add, though I think it's obvious "It's An Encyclopedia" (an encyclopedia captures and summarises knowledge, it is not a forum for debate.) Jbowler (talk) 05:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: As for entitlement - if you add back disparaging and selective comments on Parenti's work you cannot reasonably expect anyone seriously interested in seeing Michael Parenti be a useful biography entry in an encyclopedia not to delete them.  I've quoted line and verse in biographies of living persons about that too.  All editors have the full authority of WP:BLP to simply delete the large paragraphs of disparaging comment introduced or re-introduced by yourself, No.129 and probably others further back in the history (someone with reasonable credentials correct me if I'm wrong on that, preferably with an explanation of why!) Jbowler (talk) 05:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: My primary aim here is to involve WP authorities in active review of this page and to oblige them to take action to end 3 1/2 years of abuse.  You've already stated you notified them, I've already stated the same (see the  noticeboard), I'm absolutely confident that people able to block either or both of us, to lock the page, to delete the page permanently and many other possible solutions are actively watching this discussion (I think it still passes the Monty Python definition of an argument.) Jbowler (talk) 05:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it's a common assumption among newbies. :) Don't be so optimistic. Believe me, nobody is do interested as to be tacitly watching our brawl without commenting, and even the people who show up in response to the RfC won't care to read more than a small part of what we've written above. That's why we need to summarize the dispute.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 13:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Ah, you didn't post an RFC.  Sorry, I misread your original comment in the previous section.  All input is welcome.  I'm really looking for a much more definite response - it seems that there has been plenty of time for general chat and that there have been a number of direct requests (that's hearsay) for intervention on this page, but I never refuse help!  Perhaps you could summarise what you feel the issues are, I will do the same?  Jbowler (talk) 06:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  An RfC, then? 

message: From the RFCbio template:
* Are the deletions performed by User:JBowler/74.32.171.56 on Dec 19, 2007 an acceptable response to problems in the Michael Parenti biography
* reason: While the biography has subsequently received a major update the moot question of whether the original (Dec19) delete was acceptable is still important for other potential cases
The following two sections contain summaries by Anonymous44 and JBowler of alternate interpretations of the actions which occured around Dec19; primarily the deletion of nearly all of the biography by JBowler.  (This summary and the RFCbio written originally by JBowler.) Jbowler (talk) 02:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't. After Jilliana's edits, the whole issue has changed, because there is now plenty of information about the man's political writings which arguably contains the same points. Under these circumstances, I don't insist to restore the whole old section. So if the dispute continues, the summary will have to be different. And BTW, the idea was to make a single brief dispute summary that both of us can agree on. --Anonymous44 (talk) 21:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

text: You can request assistance at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, and check out WP:libel as well. Maybe you should request the article to be protected, or try and ask some admin to watch it permanently. Or maybe you should watch it yourself. It's a pretty standard situation, don't freak out. --Anonymous44 (talk) 20:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Text for RFC on deletion of sections of Parenti article which composed a substantial portion thereof prior to [[User:Jilliana27]]'s addition of substantial text

message: :Don't. After Jilliana's edits, the whole issue has changed, because there is now plenty of information about the man's political writings which arguably contains the same points. Under these circumstances, I don't insist to restore the whole old section. So if the dispute continues, the summary will have to be different. And BTW, the idea was to make a single brief dispute summary that both of us can agree on. --Anonymous44 (talk) 21:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anonymous44's comments on JBowler's summary 

message: Ok, absolutely no comments and the vandalism has started again.  I'm going to simply undo vandalism like the one added on Jan 9, regardless.
Clearly wikipedia doesn't care about libel.  If you guys want to block me go ahead; so far as I am concerned this behaviour by a supposedly respectable organisation (no response to an official request - this RFC - no attempt to block the malicious editing) is totally unacceptable.  Jbowler (talk) 20:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You can request assistance at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, and check out WP:libel as well. Maybe you should request the article to be protected, or try and ask some admin to watch it permanently. Or maybe you should watch it yourself. It's a pretty standard situation, don't freak out. --Anonymous44 (talk) 20:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  General discussion 

message: The material that critics have put into the Parenti article has been
consistently negative and polemical and does not represent his actual
work. It is a hit piece and really a hate piece. It may even be libelous
and damaging to his career. It violates the Wikipedia rule that states:
“The views of critics should be represented so long as the material is
written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to
side with the critic’s material. Be careful not to give a
disproportionate amount of space to critics, to avoid the effect of
representing a minority view as if it were the majority one.”
The “Political views” portion should be left deleted. It is “beyond
repair.” It sides with critics’ material and gives almost all the space
to politically motivated critics.Jilliana27 (talk) 22:42, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I've substantially corrected what remained of this after your edits, No.91 apparently made a mistake when he reintroduced the Migueldos biography (see comments above). Jbowler (talk) 20:44, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I did leave in the 2004 'stolen election' reference.  I'm not sure it adds to the article - it's a very specific analysis of a single work, "deep diving", and the bio strikes me as long enough already.  (If the bio went to that depth on even a small fractio of Parenti's work it would be enormous!)  It's also not a good article to quote because it is a synthesis of several analyses (IMO) - it's effectively a case study of Parenti's work applied to a single thing (the US electoral machinery).  I'm not sure it's a very good example, the stuff has been extremely widely reported (e.g. I remember reading a BBC news article which said pretty much the same things). Jbowler (talk) 20:44, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Again a question of fairness

message: Oh no, it's wiki and multiple editors problem...
I am going to STOP copy editing Jilliana27's stuff for a day at least because I believe she is in the process of updating citations.  We will lose valuable and time consuming edits if we don't do this (believe me, I've experienced this in the past on high volume wiki pages.)
I've fixed all the copy edit problems that I can see.  I've added some of the book refs as complete citation entries.  I've corrected the section structure (indenting the analysis sections.)
Jbowler (talk) 20:38, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note on edits 

message: Normally I wouldn't explain such things, but the whole thing seems to be so sensitive that I'm doing it. Hopefully this is going to be my last edit to this article.
* I qualified Online Review of Books as " a publication aiming to express a progressive point of view and to give exposure to books that are independently published or ignored in the mainstream media", citing its website. This is relevant for obvious reasons - being credited by a non-partisan publication is one thing, being credited by one that belongs to your own part of the political spectrum is another. This time I haven't used the phrase "self-described" which Jbowler found pejorative.
* I requested a citation for the statement that "Democracy for the Few" is widely used as a textbook. Statements likely to be questioned should be cited, and It seems strange that such a "dissident" work should be used widely within US education; also, the statement could be interpreted as an advertisement for the book. 
Apart from that, I added wikilinks and, in their absence, external links for the various organizations and publications mentioned. --Anonymous44 (talk) 13:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: My most recent edit

message: Jbowler (talk) 17:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You've done the first before, and it has been commented on before.  I removed it - if you want to critique Online Review of Books and Current Affairs I suggest you start an encyclopedia entry about it, but adding comments that seem disparaging of a publication in a biography about someone [else] is inappropriate.  Please stop doing this.  Here's an RfC:
Copied back from the RFCtag:
Michael Parenti] sites an award from Online Review of Books and Current Affairs, [User:Anonymous44] added an apparently disparaing description of the web publication, I believe to lessen the value of the citation, this seems inappropriate within a biography - discussion of the credentials of the cited source should not be in the biography. Jbowler (talk) 00:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't understand what is disparaging about the description and I can't imagine how it can be disparaging if it is an almost word-for-word quote from the organization's own website. The description doesn't question the credentials of the citation (nobody doubts that the ORBCA is an authoritative source about its own awards), it simply adds to the information, saying not just that Parenti has been given an award, but also who has given it to him. The lack of a wiki article about the ORBCA makes the description appropriate as well. --Anonymous44 (talk) 16:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The citation should speak for itself.  Adding a description to it makes it appear that there is something wrong with the organisation - it isn't normally necessary (e.g., there is no description of "Nation" and I don't know any more about that than I do about "ORBaCA").  Why tell the reader something they can find by going to the web site?  What reader will go to the site given the information?  If the description was a complete copy of the 'about' page, maybe ok (but I think not), but it is selective therefore is editorialising on the site, and it's doing that within a biography, so seems inapproprate. 74.32.171.56 (talk) 16:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Making the biography comprehensible can require non-biographical specifications. The thing is that the reader is not likely to go to the website - why should he? The title "Online Review of Books" in itself can be misleading because it sounds "mainstream"/"neutral" and doesn't reflect the fact that the publication has a political stance. The Nation is much better-known, I'm surprised you are not more familiar with it than with the ORBCA; also, it has its own article for the reader to check. --Anonymous44 (talk) 18:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC: (not active) question about whether qualification of a citation link with a description of the cited source is appropriate

message: I've deleted this RfC because it appears there can be only one RFC per page and the extra ones confuse things.  The version of the page I was referring to when I entered this RFC is unclear (even to me), I think I intended it for the Dec 21 version.  Jbowler (talk) 17:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You said "Over time your technique works only because other editors merely whittle at it, this is why I am deleting it wholesale. You haven't convinced me, it's gone (I'll RfC that too.)" That's why I RfC'ed it myself. But - as you wish. --Anonymous44 (talk) 17:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I withdraw those comments with respect to your edits; after I'd looked further I became convinced that your edits maintain neutrality.  The problem came from other edits which you merely preserved and which I'm convinced weren't done by you.  I also withdraw the comments about the imbalance of the committee comment (I think I did that before, though maybe not very clearly) - without the inline quotations it adds to the article, but it still needs copy editing (the spelling thing which I added is a mess and should go.)  74.32.171.56 (talk) 04:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfC: Should the [[Michael Parenti]] article mention that he was a member of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic? 

message: The first line of the article is currently invisible, partly because of the decorative wikipedia fluff above it and partly because the TOC follows it.  There must be some way to fix this - it's stylistically lousy.  
Anyone know how?  Putting a heading above the first line would be odd, moving the {} templates below the first line helps a bit but may violate wikipedia rules and, stylistically, it still looks bad.  Maybe use tables (or CSS - whatever is accessible in the formatting language) to realign stuff?
74.32.171.56 (talk) 17:54, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Templates referring to the whole article are certainly never moved below the first line. Placing the "citation" templates at the very bottom of a page, in the "References" section, is something people occasionally do, although I don't know what the guidelines say about this practice. --Anonymous44 (talk) 19:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreadable first line 

message: The Getty thing has been sourced, with the efforts of two editors who were apparently sympathetic to Parenti (User:Bsirvine ) and User:142.103.168.16 , ). If you think that User:216.246.137.137's edit is vandalism or severely damaging to Parenti, you can request blocks here and here.--Anonymous44 (talk) 20:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for explaining the procedure for appeal/blocking.  I hadn't been able to find it, sounds like it might be more profitable than an RFC. Jbowler (talk) 18:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

text: On Getty, my primary concern is that it seemed to have degenerated into a discussion of Getty - not Parenti.  Parenti cites Getty, the final edit states "Parenti claims" - that's like stating "wikipedia claims" because it cites a controversial (but authoritative) secondary source.  It doesn't advance the article to have an off topic discussion - it's a biography about Parenti, not one about either Getty or Stalin.  Anyway, I think I got the point of the citation, but I don't have a copy of Blackshirts and Reds to hand to double check it. Jbowler (talk) 18:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Getty thing 

message: I'd added a verify on the use of "social democracy" vs "democratic socialism", because of the use/argument over the terms in wikipedia.  I just deleted it; I don't think it will ever get verified (it's been there two weeks already), it just makes the thing look a mess. JBowler: 74.32.171.56 (talk) 06:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social democracy 

message: The whole section on Yugoslavia is poorly written, poorly sourced, breaks the flow of the article garishly and reads like a poorly constructed hit piece. If anyone more knowledgeable with the proper editing process could look into this, please do. For example, there's several claims that aren't even cited and amongst the one's that are cited ~1/4 are dead links.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.71.131 (talk) 10:48, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: There do appear to be some issues that need to be addressed. I have drawn attention to your concerns in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Yugoslavia and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bosnia and Herzegovina. - Location (talk) 18:55, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've replaced the primary source material with secondary source material per WP:PSTS. -Location (talk) 17:12, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could Someone Please Clean Up This Article 

message: Substituted at 23:54, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: A quick search of "'Michael Parenti' 'Marxist'" did not provide RS descriptions of this subject as Marxist. The only published source I found that did is this, but I will not use CounterPunch to support this kind of ideological statement. I notice that this same question came up in 2006 on this talk page and no RS or self-description was provided in that discussion.
It seems that Parenti is sympathetic to quite a few figures who themselves embraced Marxism, but it would be OR to make the leap to describing Parenti himself as Marxist. In the current version of the page, I see he campaigned as a democratic socialist.
This is a response to recent edits. Freelance-frank (talk) 22:11, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. It should be reverted.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:32, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

text: Agree. I'd remove the Marxist writers tag too, as that's the bit that's uncited now, rather than that he's American. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:16, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marxist?