Wikipedia Fraud and why Conservatives Should Act
Posted By John Moore on September 4, 2009
Wikipedia is an important web resource that serves as an encyclopedia for far too many people. Wikipedia is open to editing by anyone, and is the largest encyclopedia in existence.
Unfortunately, as with many good things, the leftists have ruined it in areas of controversy, by aggressively editing articles, and persistently fighting to keep their own viewpoint dominant.
I was reminded of this today when reading the article on the so-called “Winter Soldier Investigation” – a 1971 propaganda travesty orchestrated by Jane Fonda, John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The purpose of this staged event was to record “testimony” of “Vietnam Veterans” who had seen and/or participated in atrocities. The intent was to invalidate the entire war effort. The organizing group (including John Kerry) had ties to North Vietnamese operatives and were clearly trying to damage the US war effort. A side effect of this effort was to badly damage the image of Vietnam Veterans, leading many to believe we were all baby killers or emotionally damaged.
And yet, today, the Wikipedia “authoritative” looking article on the subject, fodder for innocent history students, paints the entire event as completely legitimate and truthful. Not one reference (other than the ones I added today that will probably be removed by one leftist or another before you read this) exists to books and articles which debunk the veracity of the testimony, and the one brave participant who was courageous enough to publicly admit his lies (in an emotional speech to a 2004 rally organized by Vietnam Veterans for Truth, of which I was the Webmaster) is mentioned only to attempt to destroy his credibility.
This is happeniing on many pages on Wikipedia, and is part of the left’s quite successful campaign to re-write history, to make America look bad. Conservatives need to get active on Wikipedia and fight back.
To do so, you need to learn the rules and play by the rules. One silliness of Wikipedia is that anything you can make a reference to counts as important, but personal knowledge is worthless. This gives a natural bias towards the left, since they write most newspaper articles and most books and academic papers in areas of dispute.
But please, get out there and participate. Fight for the truth!
One thing we Vietnam Veterans can hold in hearts is that when our grandchildren are buried by their grandchildren, while Agent Orange may have worked its way out of Vietnam’s ecology, the kilotons of UXOs will be still be killing Vietnamese.
Nonsense. The mutagenic and teratogenic potential of Agent Orange was always grossly exaggerated.
More important, since our “leaders” kept us from winning the war, and then when we finally did, they pulled the rug out from under the South Vietnamese, generations of Vietnamese continue to live under the yoke of communist totalitarianism.
Tom Baxter is FRAUD! He was still calling himself Vietnam Veteran against the war last year. He is a disgrace to all veterans.
A conspiracy by the left to control the articles in Wikipedia? Wow. “By persistently fighting to keep their views dominant?”
First of all, anyone who believes passionately in ANYTHING should fight to keep his views dominant. Isn’t that what you’re doing?
Secondly, we’re not FIGHTING to keep our views dominant. THEY ARE DOMINANT! Your faulty reasoning – like much of the reasoning from the right – is largely the REASON our views are dominant. Why are you wasting your time trying to argue for the benefits of the Vietnam War? No one on the left is trying to “re-write history” in order to make the USA “look bad.” The government of our country is supposed to be by, for and of the people (a quote from a Republican president, by the way.) People are imperfect. People make mistakes. The Vietnam War was a mistake. That is not a “liberal” point of view. It is a historical fact: far more ill was done than good by the U.S. invasion of Vietnam BY ANY MEASURE.
The United States is the best country governed by the best possible government structure ever devised in human history so far. That is not a “conservative” position or a “liberal” position. It is a historical fact as well.
Get over yourself.
Not if my views are inconsistent with reality.
No, they are not dominant, except in certain circles (mainstream media, academia, and east/west rich folks).
As for Vietnam, the point of my disagreement has nothing to do with the larger issue of whether Vietnam was good policy, and everything to do with how the US was painted as an unusually evil nation, with unusually evil soldiers, by the VVAW and some others in the anti-war movement. They did (and do) that two ways: (1) making a big deal about the normal horrors of war – as if America was responsible for creating that); and by making it seem (quite intentionally) as if atrocities on the part of the US were both widespread, common and tacitly supported by the highers up.
It’s a disgusting tactic, because it smears the US, and it does it with lies. The left is very consistent in its smearing of our country, even as they love to live in it. They were terrible about Iraq, trashing a military that took more care than any in history to avoid atrocitiey. But, of course, they “support the soldier.”
Right. Ask the soldiers what they think about it and they didn’t feel supported at all!