Talk:Tim Wise

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[edit] Discussion between Daxtox and 68.45.229.208

(Daxtox:) I dispute the claim about Qadhaffi in this article; from everything I've read, the evidence points to his being framed, possibly set up by the Mossad (they've done such things in the past). Sources are "Killing Hope" by William Blum; the site www.whatreallyhappened.com is also valuable.

(68.45.229.208:) If you wish to edit in the claim then do so, however, be reminded that that claim is entirely based on opinion. Conspiracy theories about Mossad run left to right. Qadhaffi has ADMITTED guilt in the manner, so why would he do that? Why pay reparations if you were set up? The sanctions on Libya weren't lifted until he gave up chemical weapons, so that couldn't have been a motive. And anyway, you claim it was Mossad (The Jews did it!) whereas Tim Wise, according to this article, claimed that the Syrians did it, so your objection seems a little irrelevant.

(Daxtox:) Calm down. What is this "the Jews did it!" crap? Several Mossad agents have written about their experiences with the organization and its covert ops, similar to the way former CIA agents have written about their experiences. Victor Ostrovsky is a prominent example. I'm getting pretty tired of people shrilly crying anti-semite everytime Israeli actions are critically analyzed. You're right, of course, in in that I can't substantiate the claim, and frankly I have no interest in doing so. But terrorism doesn't belong entirely to Arabs, is my only point. How is yelling "the Jews did it!" (which I never did) any worse than yelling "the Arabs did it!", by the way? Grow up and read all sides of an argument.

(68.45.229.208:) Calm down? Where did I call you an anti-semite? It's called sarcasm, idiot. You missed my point entirely, anyway, in that Mossad, like the CIA, is blamed for everything, from the Tsunami to AIDS, and unless you can substantiate your claim (as you have admitted you can't), there's no real point in mentioning it, and since Wise claims it was the Syrians to begin with, it is still even more irrelevant. You clearly have brought the cliche, suppressed, angry "The Israelis are capable of terrorism too!" argument to this discussion, which baffles me, since it has nothing to do with anything. Vent somewhere else about Israel.

(Daxtox:) Fair enough. But you don't have to call me an "idiot" like a 5-year old, I never resorted to name-calling. And who in the world blames Mossad for the tsunami? Show me that source.

(68.45.229.208:) You told me to grow up on the false presumption that I propagate for Israel, so calling you an idiot was fair retaliation. As for the tsunami, that would be another example of SARCASM. They are, however, blamed for everything. They were even blamed for the recent Lebanese former prime minister assassination.

No one can tell when you're being sarcastic Anon until after you've elicited a (usually negative) reaction... MisterSheik 13:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] One-sidedness

I think it's safe to say that this is the most NPOV article on all of wikipedia, and I say this as a newbie. NPOV< that's the right abbreviation, right? Anyway, I removed a rather long edit by an anonymous editer claiming to be Tim Wise, because obviously he isn't, unless the original author of this article is right and Tim Wise does have such a large ego that he sits around all day typing "Tim Wise" into google to see if people are talking about him. This article needs to be severely cleared up. Say, cut out everything below the first two paragraphs? --TheBurningHelm 01:12, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the the part after the first two paragraphs is very opinionated. Actually, i would call it a venomous rant. (This is not changed by the words "critics say".)

You also raise a good point that we don't really know who the author of the "Notes from Tim White" was, although i think this is a secondary question. They were clearly written with the intention to defend Tim White, so they did put some balance into this article. By purging the defense you effectively left the section extremely one-sided. I was thinking of reinserting them, but there are two problems with that:

  1. Many of the comments were not helpful – a statement "read the book" without any abstract of what the book says on an issue is pretty useless in an encyclopedia.
  2. The criticism has grown considerably since the "Notes from Tim White" were added. This severs the connection between statements and replies. Example: After the reply "This last statement is one of the few accurate things in this critique" was written, the preceding paragraph grew to about three times its size, including accusations of witch hunt.

I therefore agree with you that cutting everything below the first two paragraphs seems to be the best for now. The information is not lost; people can always look it up in the history. I will also take some venom out of the first paragraph:

  • "angry rants occasionally dotted with profanity": This is a strong accusation for which I have not seen any example in the rest of the article.
  • "loose canon": If someone important said it, we might quote that person, but let's not gratuitously introduce offenses. (Besides, i don't know which meaning of canon is intended  ;-)

Sebastian (talk) 09:36, 2005 May 5 (UTC)

I think Tim Wise's criticms of Michael Moore, specifically regarding his alleged "Snide racism" should be placed into context - that being that Michael Moore, in the scene in question in Fahrenheit 9/11, parodied both white and non-white cultures. This is an important fact to note.

I've also read a number of Wise's articles to try to find the claims previously listed. It seems that Wise has made a number of dubious claims, mirroring Ward Churchill's claims about American Indian genocide ("infected blankets of small pox"/"American army exterminated 100 million people"). This may also be worth mentioning.--TheBurningHelm 02:25, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

That sounds very reasonable. Wikipedia can only gain from well researched facts.

I looked at this article again and found a few more things that we might consider changing:

  1. The two headings "Background" and "Criticism" don't make much sense. Maybe we should sort it by factual criteria such as
    • Current position(s)
    • Awards and such
    • Background (in the sense of "personal history")
    • On systemic white privilege
      (including 2nd paragraph of criticism section and the part from "Wise's supporters contend that he focuses his attention on white males" on.)
    • On Zionism
    • On Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
    • On Michael Moore (including your planned addition)
    • On American Indian genocide
  2. We could delete some of the http://www.zmag.org/sustainers links which are already accessible through the Main listing of Wise's online articles.
  3. I also don't like the first paragraph of the Criticism section. People have all sorts of reasons why they like or dislike him; we can't really pick one out. And "polarizing" is an attribute that applies to most activists.
  4. The article also needs a category. I'll go ahead and add Category:Civil rights activists, but that sounds a bit vague. I'm open to other proposals.

I currently don't have much time on my hands, though, and there is no rush, but i wanted to present the idea. Let me know what you think of it. — Sebastian (talk) 05:16, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

That looks great Sebastian. What do you think about breaking things up as they grow, so that we don't have once sentence under each heading? Anyway, I broke up the paragraph, to start :)

I think that some of the material currently on the page does not agree with his speeches. For example, the statement, "he argues that almost all white Americans are inherently racist in ways that they cannot detect", is inaccurate. He says, instead, that most white Americans support a racist system of oppression without their knowledge, and that when the majority of these white Americans are made aware of their unfair privilege and the resulting unfair proleteriatization of their fellow non-white Americans, they are horrified and willing to change. The word used, "inherently" (existing as an essential constituent or characteristic), is a very poor choice; "inadvertently" (not duly attentive) is a much better choice.

MisterSheik 14:27, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Amren URL

I saw someone edited in a URL of a debate transcript, which linked into the racist website of "American Renaissance"... I think it must be noted here that this is where the link points to, and also offer a link to the Amren wiki article which should be widely read to further disseminate that racism is certainly not dead, and is cropping up in all sorts of crypto/pseudo-scientific ways--and must be dealt with. If this edit is a problem, please someone else jump in or offer a revise... I just thought it absurd to link to Amren in an article about an anti-racist advocate and not mention to unaware readers what in fact Amren truly is. (This unsigned comment was placed here by User:207.237.44.250 15:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC) 70.23.167.179 05:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC))