Talk:Protest Warrior

Temp article

While article is protected, edit @ Talk:Protest Warrior/temp.

Archive

• Talk:Protest Warrior/Archive 1
• Talk:Protest Warrior/Archive 2
• Talk:Protest Warrior/Archive 3

Primary sources

When I read the protest warriors website (which should be our primary source, eh?) they use the term "Leftist" by far the most often, and when they do happen to use 'liberal', they place it in paranthesis, like so. Re that, See

• [1]

• [2]

I am especially unimpressed w the argument that they are using the term perjoratively. They clearly think Nazi's, communists, and other groups offensive to them are leftist. See

• [3]

• [4]

• [5]

• [6]

• [7]

I understand that alot of you don't agree with their views, but this is an article about Protest Warriors and their views, not wiki-editors and their views ;) Review their website, and / or other expert sources, please. Sam [Spade] 00:51, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Again I'm confused by your reasoning. The fact that PW uses the term "leftist" does not make it neutral. We don't have to frame our article in terms that they choose. Like most people who use the term "leftist," they use the term as a label to belittle their opponents, hence it is pejorative. It's a loaded word, just like neocon or Islamofascist or statist or the several hundred other political words with negative connotations. And nobody is forcing us to use it.

For your second point, I agree. It seems they equate the left with dictatorship and communism, or at least its logical conclusion. I don't have a problem with including this, as long as it's attributed to them. What we had before was, this article literally defined "leftists" as "Nazis." Rhobite 05:10, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

While I personally think Nazi's were economically left of say.. George Bush or John Kerry, I happen to think they were essentially economic Centrists. Thats my POV tho, and I don't want this article taking a stand as to the politics of Nazi's. I do however want it taking a stand as to the politics of Protest warriors, who call all of their opposition "leftists". You may think thats an innacurate or perjorative lable. If so, I suggest you edit Leftist to make it more in accordance w your views, because it makes it pretty clear alot of people are happy to be called leftists, and that many political parties are leftists. Anywho, this doesn't much matter, because Protest warriors use the term alot, and we would be completely remiss to leave it out. Sam [Spade] 17:01, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Criticism Section

I think the criticism section needs a little revision. The criticism links were originally added by trolls, and thus I think a few changes need to be made:

• I don't think it's appropriate to call the links "Surveillance" and "Exposure". They should be named according to the titles of the pages.

• The second link seems to be a personal homepage, and it sounds more like a personal rant of a user over disputes that occured on the Protest Warrior forum. I think something more substantial can be used, and something that focuses away from forum activities and more on the main page of Protest Warrior and the official operations. The first article seems fine at my glance. There were some critical articles of Protest Warrior during the Republican National Convention counter-protests by Protest Warrior (I'll see if I can dig them up), and I think they will be more relavant to the article and organization.

• This might be completely trivially, but in the interest of fairness (and so this doesn't become an issue later on), I think the criticism section should not be a subcatergory, but the criticism links should instead follow the Protest Warrior links within the same section. I've noticed that this is the format with similar organizations like ANSWER and Free Republic.

--65.161.65.104 02:25, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The second link your are talking about is very relevant as this link is providing the very proofs for some of my claims you questioned in one of the upper sections. As you are the very Protest Warrior member who asked for support on the PW website in order to get a whitewashed Wikipedia entry there is no doubt that you as well as your fellow Protest Warriors who are trying to clean the article from unwanted entries are finding that link very disturbing. The link provides very good examples for the manners the PW administration deals with 'leftists'. And it is one of the websites the PW adminstration and their members hacked and defaced. PW's own goal of protesting and crashing the protests is perfectioned on that linked site as it is protesting and crashing Protest Warrior itself.

Second, since you are criticizing Democratic Underground for their banning policies it should be the Democratic Underground article format that should be used as a reference here: A subcategory with criticism from both sides.Bijoux 12:01, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

While I strongly rebuke him for his ad hominem personal attacks and rude attempts to shift the discussion from article content to the personal politics and qualities of the users discussing here, I do agree w Bijoux's second point, the standard on the wiki is to separate pro / con external links, mostly out of fairness both to the reader, and to the group / concept in question. Some readers don't want to go to pro-protest warrior ext. sites, some don't want to go to critical ones, etc... Also we can't very well have a complete imbalance (90% critical links, etc...). Please tone down to the ad hominems, Bijoux, were all equals here, regardless of POV. Sam [Spade] 17:08, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand your concern. It is my belief that you can find more relavant articles on Protest Warrior written by left-wing analysis websites and newspaper commentaries that deal with counter-protests and analysis of the signs, and that kind of stuff, rather than message board arguments. I think the focus should be taken off the forums (including editing the article and making the section about the forum more NPOV), and concentrating on the organization and what it does instead. I think I'll withdraw my third point, and instead, we could have the official website links, followed by pro & con links on the organization. --65.161.65.104 17:37, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Policy Library

If 65.161.65.104 is indeed a Protest Warrior and did not disclose that to us, Sam, that is far more serious than Bijoux's "rudeness", and you should know it. Why don't you? -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:39, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

First of all, I don't see anywhere on Wikipedia where it says that anyone that iss very familiar with an organization must disclose his or her relationship with the organization if he is to create or make additions to a Wikipedia page. Second of all, your automatic assumption that anyone who tries to edit this article in a manner different from your own must be from the organization is insulting. Thirdly, you don't seem to even know what Bijoux did. Please go to the history page, and read the edit at

10:41, 8 Oct 2004

As you can see, Bijoux did the following: 1) He reverted the article to an older version. 2) He added the sentence "The main target of the Protest Warriors is the entire Muslim world with which they seek to "nuke", to "flatten" and to turn "into a parking lot" for white Christians." Notice that he quoted the words "nuke", "flatten", and "into a parking lot". He did not cite these quotes in any kind of manner. He also added the line "based on white power", as you can see in the edit summary. However, to cover his tracks, his edit summary read "(wikipedia is NOT a propaganda platform but a neutral encyclopedia! / A.N.P. link removed.)". He purposely wrote "A.N.P. link removed" (that's the American Nazi Power for your information) to make it look like he removed the link. However, he did not do that. The Nazi party link did not exist in his revision, nor the previous edit that he reverted. He claimed to make the article neutral, when all he did was add uncited quoted words, and completely false claims about the organization.

This isn't "rudeness", this is a gross abuse of the Wikipedia system, and is a severe violation of the NPOV rules. With all due respect, I have to call into question your attitude in trying to work on this article. This isn't going to be unlocked until we all reach an agreement, so please try to be more helpful. Lets please also try to stay on topic with what we are discussing.

--65.161.65.104 18:01, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I second all of that, 65.161.65.104. On another note, Would you like to form a user account? That helps me remember who you are, and have a name to call you and stuff. Cheers, Sam [Spade] 20:47, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your first point is mistaken. Please read Wikipedia:Auto-biography, particularly the sentence "Editing an article about yourself or your organization is also generally considered improper and best avoided, on the same principle." In practice, this restriction is looser than it seems; people will generally not object to someone from the represented organization participating in the editing so long as they openly disclose their connection. Not doing so is considered dishonest.

Your second point is also mistaken; you have leapt to the conclusion that I make an "automatic assumption that anyone who tries to edit this article in a manner different from your own must be from the organization." This is absolutely false. If you were to attempt to back up this contention, you would find yourself empty-handed, because in no version of this page or any other on Wikipedia will you find me accusing or assuming that anyone is a Protest Warrior. What I did say, which you seem to have misread, was that if Bijoux's accusation that you were a Protest Warrior were correct (an accusation that I did not say I believed or disbelieved) it would be a rather serious breach of Wikipedia ettiquette to not disclose it.

I also said that there was a suspicion (which, in retrospect, I should have phrased as "I have a suspicion") that the freezing of the page in a condition where it contains no criticism of Protest Warrior might actually have been the goal of the vandal(s). If the vandal had truly wanted to smear the reputation of PW, why do it with easily-detected lies, lies that I myself, for example, could determine were false by following one link? Anyone familiar with Wikipedia could predict that a) the lies would be detected quickly, b) the page would be protected because of the edit war in the form that the worst-behaving party appeared to be opposing. Asking Qui bono? leads to the observation: it's Protest Warrior that has benefitted from the vandalizing.

Isn't that suspicion a little paranoid? You may well ask that question, since I asked it myself before making any comment at all on the article. My answer: it would be a paranoid suspicion if applied to most organizations. Protest Warrior, however, is a group whose primary activity is advancing the cause of the Right by going out and pretending to be members of the Left. It's similar to the story of the boy who cried wolf; when everybody knows you go around pretending to be someone you're not, you can hardly blame them when they suspect you of doing so again.

Your third point is well-taken; the edit you indicate (and I hope you will not mind that I turned your description of where the edit could be found into a direct pointer) does seem to indicate that Bijoux's one logged-in edit to the article has been deceptive and unfair (the only reason I use "does seem to indicate" instead of "makes clear" is because -- I think I can get agreement on this -- no part of this whole mess has been exactly "clear".) I find the edit that inserts "and black scum" into Protest Warrior's mission statement particularly unforgivable, because it's yet another instance of the dirty and dishonest tactic of putting words in your opponent's mouth, trying to get your turn to speak and theirs. That's deceptive and wrong whether it's done by Protest Warrior or to them.

However, you say "You don't seem to know what Bijoux did" and that seems to be your basis for "question[ing] [my] attitude for trying to work on this article." Why is the same not true of Sam, who described it as "rude[ness]" in the first place? He, too, did not seem to know what Bijoux did, or else I'm sure he would have chastised Bijoux for much more than shifting the topic from the issues to the persons. You are right that your failure to disclose whatever connection you have with Protest Warrior is not more serious than editing Protest Warrior's manifesto to make them appear openly racist. But you are entirely incorrect in implying that I ever said it was.

Let's get back to the issues, shall we? Such as that Protest Warrior is a controversial organization and yet the current state of the article still contains absolutely no criticism of them. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Your first point is mistaken." - When the article says "your organization", that seems to signify ownership but not membership. In addition, the article doesn't state that your relationship with any organization must be revealed, nor is it suggested. And what about about "rival" organizations? Democratic Underground is a "rival" organization with Protest Warrior, and many members there constantly post their displeasure with Protest Warrior. Let's just say hypothetically that Bijoux is from that website. Should he reveal that? I think the Wikipedia page is written in too vague of a manner to really be considering, except in cases of obvious misuse.

I apoligize about the second point. I guess I just don't think anything an obvious troll says should even be considered.

"If the vandal had truly wanted to smear the reputation of PW, why do it with easily-detected lies" I can't answer that question. But the vandal truly believed that Protest Warrior is a Nazi organization. See here

Sorry about the "rudeness" thing. I guess I took Sam's comment as referring to Bijoux's activities on the talk page, and in your case of the word, I used it when consider all of Bijoux's editing of the page.

Anyway, I really don't know if this article is ever going to work out. I predict it'll just undergo more vandlism (according to the website, they're releasing a new video on Sunday) and there are still unresolved conflicts that I don't see being resolved.

whats going on w the talk page?

I suspect this section was created and filled with duplicated material by accident. Fixing would help all of us. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:43, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, I hope I fixed it, if not check the history log and try yourself ;) Sam [Spade] 22:00, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

on "strawman"

i agree that the protest warrior entry is problematic and incomplete. that notwithstanding, there are a few things to discuss:

1) the notion that protest warrior's techniques can be neutrally described as "strawman".

the impetus for the locking of the entry was the repeated vandalization of the page, featuring the conflation of protest warrior with stormfront. anyone who participated in this or failed to register like objections to these vandalisms, make their complaints from a position of much diminished credibility.

the protest movement of the left is rife with the sort of affront attributed here to protest warrior. a recent and widespread example would be the proffessionally printed "no draft, no way" placards provided at no inconsiderable expense to rnc-protestors by united for peace and justice with the purpose of implying, falsely, that the bush administration seeks to reinstate a draft. an equally eggregious example would be directly stated assertions that supporters of the administration's policy in iraq procede themselves from a disregard for the lives of iraqis. indeed, from racist and even genocidal motivations. such accusations emanate not from isolated and unnacountable members of the crowd, but from key organizers and ideologues such as katrina vaden heuvel.

many of the more troubling messages of the protest movement of the left are so clearly hyperbolic, that they can be identified as humor. it is suggested that leftists calm their tempers and recieve protest warrior's message in kind. i propose that the signs in question would be most neutrally described as "satire", while noting that these signs are merely what protest warrior is best known for and not the sum total of it's activism.

remaining is the question of whether this satire is predicated on s trawman. it is clearly not. the main reoccurring target of protest warrior's counter-protests has been international answer. while varrying leftist sects organize underneath their umbrella, international answer is a communist organization. to address a demonstration sponsored by intl. answer as communist is not strawman, but revealing of an unambiguous truth. in chicago, nearly all large-scale activist initiatives are organized by the bob avakian cultists of the revolutionary workers party. indeed, they organized the busses that transported chicagoans to the rnc protests in new york. similarly addressing these demonstrations as communist is also fair.

that "libertarian socialists", non-communist marxists, non-marxist socialists, and liberals, ranging from ignorant to this fact to expediently dismissive of it, march on a platform provided by communists is a small point and not at all a refutation. particularly in light of two points: A)that the conflation of republicans with nazis, the kkk and the like and other specious associations between moderates of the right and radical nationalists are staple components of even the moderate left's message. and, B) that conservatives, libertarians, republicans, et al, given the opportunity to march at a nazi sponsored and organized event under a broadly aggreeable message such as national pride, would refuse to do so. indeed, in protest warrior's case, radical nationalists are also an object of counter-protest.

this seems to be a distinction non-communist leftists, often extremists in their own right, seem unwilling to make within their own movement. as illustrated in this discussion, they simultaneously recognize it as damaging to their credibility and seek to silence those who point it out. it is only reasonable to derive from this that they own their association with communists and communism. it is therefor not innappropriate to poke fun at least by addressing them as such.

2) counter-protesting highly funded and organized demonstrations of the left's power is not divergent in form or character from the left's counter-protesting of international aid conferences and the like. in each scenario, an activist group utilizes their opponent's time and place to make their position known.

it is sometimes asserted that free speech applies only to private/public intercourse and that private/private conflict is somehow "illegal". this is a comical stance.

3) an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. it would be an unfortunate development if all entries on controversial organizations and ideas had to be locked because of vandalism. if the left maintains this program of poisoning the well of information, the reaction from freedom-minded netizens would be impossible to controll. civility and reasonability is advised.

anyone who participated in this or failed to register like objections to these vandalisms -- anyone who participated in the vandalism, certainly. But the notion that no one has credibility if they did not "register" their "objections" to the vandalisms is specious. There are too many reasons why someone might see the vandalism and yet not register an objection, such as they see the very objections they would make already being made cogently by others, or they did not even discover the article until the page protection brought it to their attention. There are too many reasons besides the 'too liberally biased to be fair' reason that you might be assuming. It's very difficult to conclude anything significant from what someone did not do when you know nothing about them save through the Internet.

the protest movement of the left is rife with the sort of affront attributed here to protest warrior. That may be so; even if it is so, it is a tu quoque defense, which most of us learn doesn't fly by the time we leave the playground. Should the entry on Michael Moore not say a word about his despicable half-truths because we can find a conservative documentarian who does it too?

key organizers and ideologues such as katrina vaden heuvel -- such a key figure that a Google search on her name turns up just two hits? I've voted delete on articles whose subjects got two orders of magnitude more hits.

in chicago, nearly all large-scale activist initiatives are organized by the bob avakian cultists of the revolutionary workers party. "Cultists". Well, let me tell you, this is the point where I really start taking you seriously, yaknow? I mean, clearly you're making an effort to look at this objectively.

many of the more troubling messages of the protest movement of the left are so clearly hyperbolic, that they can be identified as humor. it is suggested that leftists calm their tempers and recieve protest warrior's message in kind. It's all fine and dandy to say this should henceforth be done but that's a little irrelevant to the fact that now, a great many leftists feel that Protest Warrior is not putting a humorous, critical spin on their own positions, but on positions held by extremists that they are unfairly attributing to the left in general. To suggest that the article should contain a Protest Warrior-friendly interpretation of their activities but exclude the interpretation taken by their targets is, as I have stated before, ludicrous.

if the left maintains this program of poisoning the well of information, the reaction from freedom-minded netizens would be impossible to controll. civility and reasonability is advised. If this is your attempt to show that you are not coming at this with a bias too big to be corrected for, it's a failure. We do not know the vandals; we do not know their true motives; to falsely suggest that we not only know the motives but know it to be part of a large program of the left is simply abombinable nonsense. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:39, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

such a key figure that a Google search on her name turns up just two hits? - Just a quick note, the middle name is actually "vanden". If you search using Google with the incorrect spelling, the correct name is suggested, and that brings up 13,700 hits.--65.161.65.104 21:39, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wish it had done that -- brought up the correct spelling as a suggestion. I wonder why it showed up for you and not for me; did you search for the name as a quoted group or did you search for the separate names? -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:42, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Prime example for Protest Warrior's tactics

I am quoting 65.161.65.104 here:

First of all, I don't see anywhere on Wikipedia where it says that anyone that iss very familiar with an organization must disclose his or her relationship with the organization if he is to create or make additions to a Wikipedia page. Second of all, your automatic assumption that anyone who tries to edit this article in a manner different from your own must be from the organization is insulting. Thirdly, you don't seem to even know what Bijoux did. Please go to the history page, and read the edit at

10:41, 8 Oct 2004

As you can see, Bijoux did the following: 1) He reverted the article to an older version. 2) He added the sentence "The main target of the Protest Warriors is the entire Muslim world with which they seek to "nuke", to "flatten" and to turn "into a parking lot" for white Christians." Notice that he quoted the words "nuke", "flatten", and "into a parking lot". He did not cite these quotes in any kind of manner. He also added the line "based on white power", as you can see in the edit summary. However, to cover his tracks, his edit summary read "(wikipedia is NOT a propaganda platform but a neutral encyclopedia! / A.N.P. link removed.)". He purposely wrote "A.N.P. link removed" (that's the American Nazi Power for your information) to make it look like he removed the link. However, he did not do that. The Nazi party link did not exist in his revision, nor the previous edit that he reverted. He claimed to make the article neutral, when all he did was add uncited quoted words, and completely false claims about the organization.

This isn't "rudeness", this is a gross abuse of the Wikipedia system, and is a severe violation of the NPOV rules. With all due respect, I have to call into question your attitude in trying to work on this article. This isn't going to be unlocked until we all reach an agreement, so please try to be more helpful. Lets please also try to stay on topic with what we are discussing. --65.161.65.104 18:01, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

All of these accusations and every single claim that user made is a deliberate lie.

The truth about "I added white power, nuke,flatten, parking lot, uncited quoted words, completely false claims, ....", about "I did not remove A.N.P", about "this did not exist", about "I covered my tracks" and about me "abusing the Wikipedia system" can easily be checked when clicking on this link. It compares my version to the one I edited: Bijoux' edit

Read the accusations that were made and compare them to that link. It's obvious. And it's a prime example for Protest Warrior's attempt to to discredit others here in order to get their version into Wikipedia.

All I did was removing the A.N.P link from the article and adding the Criticism subcategory after reverting it to a version that was not re-edited by the two Protest Warrior members.

Hopefully that will open some eyes here and make clear how the game is played here: The Protest Warrior style.

I do expect a pretty good explanation from Sam [Spade] as he's seconding 65.161.65.104's accusations and claims all the time here. But sure - I am the rude one here and violating the rules!! --Bijoux 10:18, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have no idea what you 2 were doing before I came, and I'm no wiki-cop to bother investigating it. I have seen you, Bijoux, be rude however. If you especially worked up about things, try Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. I'm not even an admin, I'm just a lay-user, so other than making my own comments / complaints etc.., theres not much I can do enforcement-wise. My primary advice is to cease the focus on personalities, original research and POV's, and focus on NPOV and factual accuracy in the article. Cheers, Sam [Spade] 15:44, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You don't have to have an idea what was going on before since I quoted 65.161.65.104's entry from yesterday where you applauded to with I second all of that, like your are cheering all of that users entries.

But after I proved that entry to be nothing but lies and personal attacks (Bijoux' edit) you are not somehow backing off your behaviour of always seconding the Protest Warrior 65.161.65.104, but instead you are again accusing me of being rude.

So what we have here is that you are seconding and backing up the Protest Warrior member although it has been proven beyond any doubt that he is trying to discredit me with lies and personal attacks. On the other hand you are calling me rude. Am I the only one to find that strange?

Think about your own neutral position on the issue.--Bijoux 16:24, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I just looked over the summary, and if you did revert it from the October 5th version, then it wasn't you who wrote in the trolling comments. I don't know how to compare what edit you used to create your version, I just clicked the (last) button and compared what had changed from the version previously behind yours. So I had no malicious intent in making the accusations that I did. However, it still begs the question as to why you used a vandalized version to write your comments and not the current revision? You skipped over the revisions from Oct 7-8, one which was pretty extensive, and went back to a version that contained incorrect and even offensive quotations (black scum, etc) when you could have edited the current version? That's why I got confused by your edit summary. You claimed to remove the ANP link, but it had been removed 3 edits prior to your edit. And the edit that you restored certainly wasn't neutral.--65.161.65.104 17:05, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OK, I'd like to ask everyone to calm down and try to keep an open mind for explanations that don't "prove beyond any doubt" that anyone else is lying.

65.161.65.104, I gather that you're somewhat new to Wikipedia and may not be fully familiar with all of how it works. When you looked at Bijoux's edit and compared it to the last version in the version history, you saw lots of inflammatory phrases that were now in the article that had (at least, apparently) not been there before. It might have seemed that he must have "added" this line and that. However, if you look at the diff Bijoux posted, between the version that was there after his edit, you will see that the actual changes he made were very modest and in fact were accurately described by his edit summary: he did remove a link to the American Nazi Party. He simply did so starting from a version of the page other than the previous saved version, which is in fact what often needs to be done when reverting vandals.

Bijoux, I have to ask: Why did you choose the 12:35, 5 Oct 2004 version of the page to start from? I'm keeping an open mind on whether it could have been a mistake (and I'm asking that everyone keep a similar open mind on that question) but I have to say: I'm having trouble understanding how such a mistake could have been made, how a page version from three days prior would have stood out as a more accurate base to work from than any of the three versions that followed it, especially when a comparison between the 12:35, 5 Oct 2004 version and any of those which followed it would have highlighted much larger problems with that version than just the ANP link -- which had been removed, in all three of the intermediate versions. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:35, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Talk:Protest Warrior/temp

Talk:Protest Warrior/temp looks good, and nobody's edited it in days. Are we ready to unprotect? Does some Jackalope plan on vandalizing it 1st thing? Speak now, or forever hold your peace... Minor edits are ok, but if you plan to tear the article a new one, would you please start on the Talk:Protest Warrior/temp 1st? Heres hoping, Sam [Spade] 23:36, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Would it be worth mentioning in the new article (which looks pretty good to me, but I'm hardly an expert on the subject) that the Protest Warrior use of "left" and "right" doesn't always agree with that of common usage? Particularly, theocracies and Nazis are typically described as "right-wing" rather than "left-wing". If the Protest Warriors provide an argument for why Nazis should be considered closer to the Communists than to the center, then that argument probably has a place here as well. Otherwise, the non-expert reader is just going to be confused by the article, I fear. Mpolo 06:56, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Good point. I will point out that it is not only "left" that is used perjoratively. Many on the right, particularly Libertarians, disagree completely with the lefts characterization of them, and respond to this by placing the Statism which they dislike in the lefts corner. IMO The left right politics is a false dicotomy, and so clearly there is a tendancy to pass unpopular groups like commies, nazi's, and theocrats back and forth, like a vollyball. Explain all that, and I'll give you a cookie ;) Sam [Spade] 16:09, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I confess I got sick of editing this, but it looks more or less fine right now. We should request unprotection. Rhobite 17:31, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

There's still a few problems that need to be addressed:

• "...behaving in an intimidating..." I don't think this is true. In fact, I usually see the opposite stated. Many left-wing blogs/articles have stated that because the numbers of Protest Warrior were much smaller than that of the protestors, they are considered to be insignificant. I can't find the article now, but there was one article during the Republican National Convention that had a protest organizer's comments about Protest Warrior, and I forgot what the actual quote was, but he compared the number differences between the two groups. That whole sentence needs to be slightly edited for grammar (aggressors/aggressive probably shouldn't appear twice in one sentence), and I'm not sure if "distressing" is a proper word in the context. I'd say something like

"Those who conflict with the Protest Warriors generally see them as acting in a provoking or agressive manner...."

• Swap the "Exposed" link (which appears to me to amount to forum "drama") with something having to do with the organization, like this, for example.

• Minor point: I'm not quite sure why "humorous" and "sarcastic" are wiki-linked.

Other than that, I don't see any problems with my quick scan of the Temp page. Comments? --65.161.65.104 20:43, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Inflamatory, etc..

I'm sorry anon, but protest warriors are aggressive and inflamatory. Thats what I like about them. I first learned about the concept when I saw a group of families of deployed US troops were counter-protesting near WPAFB on the local news. They showed a big, beefy redneck family member of a deployed soldier (someone I can certainly relate to) screaming in some raggedy old hippies face "You love Saddam, don't you? Don't you? Sieg Heil, right? You love anybody who hates america, is that right?" etc... I nearly fell out of my seat laughing, esp. when I saw the signs. I think their great, but they are aggresive, inflamatory, distressing, etc... Sam [Spade] 13:41, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

- - -

It varies. i am, unashamedly. a protestwarrior, yet I always find that I am in the majority when confronting people who use the fact that the majority of muslims are of arab appearance (using it to describe arabs, persians, etc) as a reason for Nuclear war against the middle east. amusingly, said posters usually get smacked down by the forum regulars.

the same is true of the protesters. from reports i hear, it varies from what you have just described, sam, to the very peaceful tactics seen in other videos.

ps, slight edit to the "temp" page on the subject of forums to clear up a few arguments that appear to have emerged on this page.

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further editing - changed "left wing protestor" to "anti war protestor" - sounds better --Smegpt86 21:24, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)--

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even further editing changed Free Republic mentions -seemed to me like Freepers getting more hits. altered the forums mention. either mention it properly or leave it out. re-wrote part, added "Liberty Forum"

Thanks, it's good to have a protestwarrior here helping out. Rhobite 00:07, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

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Gah! the actual article is being Crap and not updating. :S --Smegpt86 13:37, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's a known bug that's been showing up lately. The easiest way to work around it is to go to the "history" tab and click the "last" tab on the first line. Under the two-column comparison of the current version with the previous version, you should see the current version itself. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:07, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

unprotection

I pasted the content from Talk:Protest Warrior/temp into the article. Lets keep this page unprotected! I'm happy to discuss whatever needs discussing, Cheers, Sam [Spade] 14:35, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Liberal

Liberal, and Liberalism is one of the toughest subjects I have found on the wiki. The modern use outside the USA is the same as it ever was, anti-tax, anti-statism. Its essentialy US libertarianism, w/o the gun rights (unfortunately). In the USA however, the word "Liberal" is a synonym for "Left wing". Look into the political parties outside the USA who call themselves "Liberal". Cheers, Sam [Spade] 15:52, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

im unsure about elsewere, but definatly here in england "liberal" is used to define someone with left wing ideals... --Smegpt86 13:19, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Torture

I didn't watch the video so I don't know if the paragraph about asking protesters about torture is accurate. About my changes, irony is very hard to nail. Many people would disagree about the irony of PW asking antiwar protesters about torture under Saddam, and then the US torturing prisoners. So I took that out. Rhobite 02:21, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I see a few problems with that edit.

--”The Protest Warrior antagonists also ironically ask what the anti-invasion protestors have to say to prisoners being tortured in Iraqi prisons. “

I'm not sure why the term “ironically” was used, as the act of asking a question is not ironic. Nor why “antagonists” is used. The question posed by Protest Warrior to the protester is (my paraphrasing) “We're sending a video to the tens of thousands of Iraqis who were tortured in Saddam Hussein's prisons, is there anything you'd like to say to them”, and the protester replies “hang in there”.

--”This is ironic since the US would go on to torture Iraqi prisoners in those very same prisons, such as Abu Ghraib.”

I wouldn't call this ironic. Protest Warriors will claim that what the USA did doesn't come close at all to what Saddam Hussein did. The Saddam torture argument is still used on the Protest Warrior website, such as in their newsletter on 8/18/04, when they state “...consigned them to a decade of torture chambers and rape rooms and acid baths...”. I believe the newer videos of Protest Warrior also contain the same arguement about Saddam's torture despite the Abu Ghraib incident. I think even without the Protest Warrior perspective, most people would argue that what Saddam did was much worse.

Also, the section doesn't flow well with that edit appended at the end. The section is “Notable Moments”, and the point is to show that a portion of a Protest Warrior movie was used in another movie. I'm not sure that added text is appropriate in the section. I'm not really sure what it adds to the article as a whole either. --65.161.65.104 05:34, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If Protest Warrior is still claiming that the US invasion of Iraq was provably justified and it was the torture under Saddam Hussein that justifies it after the Abu Ghraib scandal, it should go in. The point is to show the Protest Warrior perspective, and if you believe that "most people would argue that what Saddam did was much worse", then you should have no objections. Of course, there's always the chance people will agree instead with the Republican senator who said we lost the moral high ground the moment we started using Saddam Hussein as a yardstick for our own behavior. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:59, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

i believe that the protest warrior view is closer to support the troops, and saddamn needed getting rid of ages ago, rather than "ZOMG! saddam torcheerd peepl!Kill that BAAAAD man!"--Smegpt86 13:17, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you would like to read the talk page carefully and note the section on "straw men". You might also want to do a "Find" on "ZOMG! saddam torcheerd peepl!Kill that BAAAAD man!" to see if anyone actually attributed that view to Protest Warrior. (It's funny, Sam still insists that there's no way anything about "straw men" will ever be allowed into the article, and yet here you are, a Protest Warrior editing the Protest Warrior article, using a double straw man to get your way.)

Protest Warrior, according to their videos, asked antiwar protestors how they regarded the torture of prisoners that went on under Saddam Hussein -- the implication obviously being, since Protest Warrior makes no secret that it believes it exposes the "hypocrisy" of the left, that any protestor who admits that the torture under Saddam was a bad thing is therefore a hypocrite for not supporting the U.S. invasion that toppled Iraq. (In the real world, that is false logic, since one can desire an end without automatically approving of every possible means to that end, but that's a side note.)

Now it is a fact that, of those who held up the torture of prisoners under Saddam as evidence that the US invasion was justified, many of those continued to do so after it became public knowledge that the US forces had in fact committed torture of prisoners themselves, in the very same prisons where Saddam had. The quotes are a matter of public record; many justified this by saying that, yes, US forces had provably committed torture -- had even taken souvenir photos of themselves committing torture -- but that the US invasion and occupation was still clearly morally in the right because the US had not committed as much torture in Iraq as Saddam Hussein.

If Protest Warriors continued to ask anti-war protestors how they felt about the torture that occurred under Saddam Hussein after it was clear that the US invasion had not at all put a stop to torture being performed in Iraqi prisons -- then that is significant information about Protest Warrior's point of view, and just what they mean when they talk about the hypocrisy of the left. If they are effectively crediting anti-war protestors with "hypocrisy" for not viewing the 'lesser' torture performed under the US as a clear improvement over Saddam's torture, well, then, saying "That's not really notable, is it?" will change nothing. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:53, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, very good, Sam. "rv unhelpful changes". Gee, maybe next you can follow in the footsteps of Rex and call any changes that don't portray the article's subject in an approving light "vandalism".

Forget it. There are other articles to be worked on. I don't have the energy to fight your double-standards on this one; I leave it to you and your Protest Warriors so that you can keep it the way you want it, as a puff PR piece that could have come directly from the Protest Warrior steering committee. Have a nice life, buddy, wouldn't want your karma. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:19, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and the torture part does not really need to go there - it could go in a notable quotes section maybe?

i suggest starting another subtopic with the heading "notable ideas" (or something similar) and including some of the sign's and some of the other things - like the torture thing.

Article edits based on Protest Warrior founder quotes and points of view

I will link and quote here the Protest Warrior founders. When a link does not work anymore then it has been deleted or edited by them. As this happens very frequently on Protest Warrior I would advise that at least one member here checks those links and quotes to be real ones in order to prevent future claims that these quotes are made-up.

That being said, I edited the comment about Protest Warrior not banning anyone and also about the open and honest debating style of Protest Warrior according to these two quotes of the founders:

I'll admit it, we're banning you solely for personality issues. Congratulations, you're the first. We simply don't want you here. Posted here by Protest Warrior founder Alan

To another poster here: You're fired.

And here: BANNED PERMANENTLY

As a reply to this message of the poster Tharkun: I am a conservative and I used to love Protest Warrior, up till now. Liberty Rising sunk to scum leftist levels and instead of working to address what were fair and softly put criticism, Kfir and Alan have responded by telling anyone who disagrees to fuck off, including chapter leaders.

Protest Warrior founder Kfir replied here the following: Hey Tharkun, maybe you didn't get the memo. Out entire modus operandi from day one has been to use the Left's tactics against them. The difference is that we fight for liberty and they fight for tyranny.

Protest Warrior claims that no poster has ever been banned for stating any opinion, although several posters have been banned for spamming the boards. Protest Warriors believe they are right and therefore hold to the view that engaging in open and honest debate is far more effective than simply silencing the opposition.

I removed this portion until we can come to some agreement on it. Sam [Spade] 13:17, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not accepted. You had no problems with Protestwarrior does not ban anyone or Protest Warrior believes in honest and open debates. Both claims have been approved by you in the article, no proof for these statements were needed. Now, when I show 100% safe proof that Protest Warrior does ban and that they are engaging in the very debating style they are accusing the leftists of then you delete that part. Although my edit was based on the Protest Warrior founders quotes who are representing the entire organisation.

Stop acting like a spokesman for Protest Warrior! When you accept unproven claims that are showing Protest Warrior in a positive light then you have to accept any edit that is correcting these wrong claims, particularly when they are based solely on facts.

And I have LOTS more of Protest Warrior founder statements; when you will go on with deleting every section that will be questioned and proven wrong by the founders themselves then you can as well delete the entire article right now. Do not believe that people here will accept that the Protest Warriors can place a propaganda piece on Wikipedia with your complaisant help.Bijoux 12:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ha! Sam [Spade] 13:47, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Do you have anything more to say or can I go ahead with editing the article based on Protest Warrior founder statements?

And I removed the entire notable moments sections as the Protest Warrior 65.161.65.104 removed the part about one Protest Warrior acting violently. When that violent Protest Warrior does not stand for the entire organization then that single anti-war protester and his comments, the basis for the notable moments section, do not stand for the anti-war movement and must therefore be removed as well.

You know, the standards that apply to anti-war people also apply to Protest Warriors. Bijoux 10:41, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Liberal, Conservative

I am concerned these words are being misused in the article. Protest Warrior is not conservative, by any stretch. Neo-Conservative, sure, but that means liberal to me. Conservative is isolationist, anti-globalist, protectionist, in favor of a balanced budget, opposes foriegn aid, doesn't want to risk american lives defending Israel, etc.. Sam [Spade] 13:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

Please review NPOV. Some of the things you have placed in the article are beyond the pale of what is acceptable on an encyclopedia. Sam [Spade] 20:23, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sam, I would have reverted even more of the anon changes, such as the removal of the "notable moments" section and the assertion that the term "islamo-fascist" started on PW. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe Little Green Footballs actually coined that term. Maybe you're not done. I'll take a crack at fixing the article later if you want. Rhobite 20:38, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

I did some searching and it appears the term "islamofascist" was first used by Stephen Schwartz in a column entitled "Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection," in the Spectator, shortly after September 11, 2001. So the anon contributors are wrong about that little tidbit. Rhobite 20:43, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)