Talk:Front organization

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Contents 1 Old, unsectioned comment 2 PETA 3 Categories 4 "I have here in my hand..." 5 questionable sentence? 6 Correction? 7 Uncited text 8 Cleanup 9 Question 10 Serious balance problem 11 Scieno Fronts 12 Double frounts 13 Obvious, but hard to cite for

[edit] Old, unsectioned comment

I find the article is a bit biased against communism. I don't think communism should be put in 'banned terrorist organizations', this is not neutral.

You are right. Care to edit accordingly? -- Jmabel | Talk 19:02, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PETA

Can we fairly say that PETA works as a front group for Anti-Vivisection terrorist groups like Earth First! ? Paul, in Saudi 13:19, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• No. Although there is some cross-over membership, Earth Firsters, ELF, and ALFers generally tend to view PETA as ineffective and clownish and too compromising of ideologies. Jgw 03:58, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• I think not. Do you have evidence for that? As far as I can tell, PETA has its own leadership, and its "line" is in no way dictated by anyone else. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:19, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
• I would think that PETA has front groups of ITS OWN that are worth mentioning. (anon, 19 May 2005)
  • such as? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:00, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Why is this in Category:Lobbying groups? Yes, a front organization can lobby, but most front organizations aren't lobbying groups. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:12, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "I have here in my hand..."

Recently added to the article: "The Comintern set up no less than 82 front organizations in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s." I'm not saying it's not true, but this is the sort of thing that screams for a citation. Where does the number 82 come from? -- Jmabel | Talk July 7, 2005 04:30 (UTC)

The 82 number actually comes from a wiki article Communist front (not my work); recently I created the SISS article which the aforementined article refers too. Also, over the past few days I have began collecting many at List of Comintern affiliate organizations, and will soon delve into the SISS archives to research their list from 1952 against what I've put together so far.

Communist front attributes this clearly to a list prepared in 1955 by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. We should say the same here. -- Jmabel | Talk July 8, 2005 04:42 (UTC)

I agree, but being that soon I hope to source and corroborate that finding personally, perhaps if we wait a brief amount of time, so as not to compound any errors, might be advisable. Thank you. Nobs01 8 July 2005 14:05 (UTC)

[edit] questionable sentence?

"People who visited the website and signed up for the campaign didn't realise that these were not genuinely independent patient groups." While this is probably true, it begs several questions that can't be answered: which people? How many people? What percentage of people? Shouldn't we change this to something more verifiable, such as "the sites did not disclose their corporate affiliations"? -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:37, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

• Feel free, though it doesn't seem to me like much of a stretch to say what this currently says. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:36, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

• • The problem is that I don't know that the sites did not disclose their corporate affiliations. The text that is there now invites me to infer that they must not have disclosed their affiliations, but it only says "people ... didn't realise", which isn't really answering that question. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Correction?

This edit removes the naming of two specific organizations and is summarized as "correction". I have no idea whether it is, indeed, a correction or is simply an effort to obscure a front relationship. No citation was provided on either side. - Jmabel | Talk 04:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uncited text

There is an argument for removing the following text to the talk page, since it is uncited. However, editors have instead been removing it entirely, with unpleasant (and un-Wikipedian) edit summaries like "the fuck is this racist crap doing here." and "not "nonsense", fuck you you racist." Since I can't determine immediately whether the citation is to a reliable source, I'm not restoring it directly, but I am posting it here to the talk page, as those who removed it should have done. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been accused of using front organizations as a means of circumventing limits on campaign spending [1]. These front organizations have deceptive names. Delaware Valley Good Government Association (Philadelphia), San Franciscans for Good Government (California), Beaver PAC (Wisconsin), Cactus PAC (Arizona), and Icepac (New York) are examples of former AIPAC front groups.

It looks like the part about "San Franciscans for Good Government" being a pro-Israel PAC is true: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/toppacs1992.html That doesn't mean it's a front, of course, but it's more evidence that this should not have been dismissed as "nonsense". -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

About 30 seconds reading the source's main page is enough to convince me it's a kook site. Blainetologist 15:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem at all believing that you spent 30 seconds examining the evidence before dismissing it as "a kook site". Perhaps even less. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you even READ your sources Feldspar? You couldn't come off as less of a racist posting that sort of nonsense if you were actually wearing a Nazi uniform while posting.

Well, thank you for your opinion, anonymous person who chooses to ignore Wikipedia policies such as WP:NPOV. For your information, "Israel" is not a race, so frankly it's the people who scream "He dared to actually allow someone to suggest that just possibly the government of the state of Israel might be in some way, shape or form criticizable! Obviously he is a racist!" who come off as the paranoid kooks. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, thank you for spouting your ignorant mouth off, moron who can't read policies. You're obviously a foolish anti-semite, since you didn't bother taking any time to read that ridiculous "marwenmedia" site that was linked up as "proof." Go find something useful to do now, please, and stop trying to insert your racism into an encyclopedia.

In case you haven't done your research, which you haven't, that essay is located on a number of different sites, not all of which are as easily dismissed as you would like to assume. If the same text is printed by both the New York Times and the National Enquirer, does that mean it's automatically junk because it appeared in the Enquirer? Please stop violating WP:CIVIL, by the way; making hasty and irresponsible accusations of racism and anti-Semitism is only going to wind up getting you blocked for disruptive editing. -- Antaeus Feldspar 05:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and just as a hint? Vandalizing my user page really, really, really, REALLY is not going to give ANYONE the impression that you're the responsible, mature person who is representing the LOGICAL side of the argument. -- Antaeus Feldspar 05:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I want to support Feldspar on this particular issue. Neither Jewish Virtual Library nor Open Secrets are kook sites. The latter is non-partisan and objectively passes on factual material. If you think that citing factual material from these sources that could be used by people with an anti-Israel agenda is in itself racism, then you are wrong. And making hasty personal attacks on this basis is very poor Wikipedia practice. Let's either debate this issue sensibly or not at all. BobFromBrockley 13:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Bobfrombrockley, I think you're not bothering to read the very sites you're claiming are not "kook" sites. The marwenmedia site is blatantly partisan and openly racist in its views, and not suitable at all for use as a reference. Blainetologist 16:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Marwen Media is clearly not citable, but we make extensive use of the Jewish Virtual Library.

For whatever it is worth, there is nothing "racist" (or anti-Semitic) about saying that AIPAC uses front groups, although if one is going to say that they use them "as a means of circumventing limits on campaign spending," which is a violation of the law, the citation should be rock solid. AIPAC is quite controversial even within the Jewish community (I say this as a Jew who is no fan of theirs). By the way, despite its acronym, AIPAC is not a "PAC" in the usual sense: it is primarily a lobbying group, not a campaign fundraising group. - Jmabel | Talk 17:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

JMabel, my problem with it is that they do not provide any documentation for their claims that the various groups mentioned are front groups, much less the claim that it is for the purposes of violating the law. I've spent quite a bit of time making sure that other items I on this page have proper cited backup. Blainetologist 17:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you telling us that you consider WorldNetDaily and Discover the Networks "proper cited backup"? -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:55, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

DiscoverTheNetworks has been rejected by several editors as being a qualified WP:RS in questions on both the WP:RS talk page and its own; I'm removing material sourced from there. Also, Blainetologist seems to have been indef-blocked. - Valarauka(T/C) 15:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I've just tried to clean up the article and keep what good edits were made this weekend. I respect that some of the editors/admins involved had good motivations, but I feel they exerted profound lack of judgement after reading the various edits.

Please, people, show some respect. It doesn't help us to have anyone behaving this way, least of all supposedly "respected" administrators. Blainetologist 16:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Front organizations are designed to hide their ties to the parent, shouldn't we include a mention that verifying their status can be difficult? Xvidme 03:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Serious balance problem

I think that it is a serious problem that all reference to fronts for the Israeli right in U.S. politics were removed, and their place taken by Islamic fronts. The addition of the latter may be fine, but combined with the removal of the former, it strains credulity to imagine that this was done in good faith. - Jmabel | Talk 17:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Then if you want to add them in, you should provide sources! I don't see what's so hard about that simple concept. The items as noted in edit summary were removed for being unsourced. Uzumaki 14:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, given what replaced them, it strains credulity to believe that is why they were removed. Much uncited material was left in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 08:04, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone has now restored a paragraph on AIPAC, with quite solid citations. Conversely, the material on Islamic groups is cited to (in order):

1. Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha, Middle East Quarterly, a reasonable citation
2. David Frum, National Post (Canada), a reasonable citation
3. Nothing at all.
4. Steven Emerson, Counterterrorism Blog, a more-or-less reasonable citation, since it is a multi-person blog that seems to have a number of semi-name bloggers
5. Debbie Schlussel, personal blog
6. An unsigned item from KXMA, a radio station in North Dakota.
7. Riehl World View, a personal blog
8. Nothing at all.

As I guessed, not exactly something that shows great concern for sourcing on the part of the person who wrote it. - Jmabel | Talk 19:04, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scieno Fronts

I see we don't have any mention of the cult of scientology's groups like the "Clearwater Business Association" that loves to go around handing copies of $cieno literature to politicians while giving them their bribes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.114.238.19 (talk • contribs).

If you claim to "see" such a thing then I can only assume that you didn't even bother to look at the article before making that claim. Perhaps you should go look again before making any more claims. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Double frounts

"Unite Against Fascism, the Anti-Nazi League, the Stop the War Coalition and RESPECT are all criticised as being fronts for the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (UK). (The latter two are also accused [citation needed] of being fronts for the Muslim Association of Britain, which has been accused of being a front for or connected to the terrorist organization Muslim Brotherhood." Since a front as defined in this article is "any entity set up by and controlled by another organization" how could Respect and StWC both be fronts for SWP and MAB. Its one or the other surely?--JK the unwise 17:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been a bit unhappy with this phrasing for a while. I'm going to edit now. BobFromBrockley 13:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Obvious, but hard to cite for

Someone has requested citation for "Other CIA-funded front groups have been used to spread American propaganda and influence during the Cold War, particularly in the Third World." I would have thought that this was obvious, but it is difficult to cite for, in that mainstream sources don't usually say this so bluntly, and that non-mainstream sources that do say this bluntly could be considered partisan.

I'm going to sketch out how we might cite for this; I'd appreciate some discussion before we try to carry it into the article.

• Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-50, a publicly released excerpt from a larger classified draft study of CIA involvement with anti-Communist groups in the Cold Warm, written by the CIA's own staff.
• James Petras, The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited in Monthly Review, a leftist take on the Congress for Cultural Freedom, arguing that "It is impossible to believe [Sidney Hook et. al.'s] claims of ignorance of CIA ties." Petras has written extensively on this topic, there is probably quite a bit that could be found citable from his work.
• Robert Dreyfuss, Cold War, Holy Warrior, Mother Jones, January/February 2006, mainly on U.S. relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood in the Eisenhower era. On page 3:

  There's another intriguing question that emerges from this period in Ramadan's life: Had he been recruited by the CIA during his 1953 visit to the United States? Ramadan's family denies that he was, but declassified documents in the Swiss National Archives, uncovered by Sylvain Besson of Geneva's Le Temps newspaper, reveal that in the 1960s the Swiss authorities considered him to be, "among other things, an intelligence agent of the British and the Americans." In July 2005, the Wall Street Journal, after extensive archival research in Switzerland and Germany, reported: "Historical evidence suggests Mr. Ramadan worked with the CIA." Documents from West German intelligence archives, uncovered by the Journal, reveal that Ramadan traveled on an official Jordanian diplomatic passport secured for him by the CIA, that "his expenditures are financed by the American side," and that Ramadan worked closely with the CIA's American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, Amcomlib, which ran Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (both CIA front groups) in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the Journal, in May 1961, a CIA officer with Amcomlib met with Ramadan to plan a "joint propaganda effort against the Soviet Union."

• From Spartacus Schoolnet's article on Thomas Braden (caution: I gather that a recent ArbCom decision characterized at least some uses of Spartacus Schoolnet as inappropriately "partisan" or "extremist"; the characterization seems very odd to me, and I don't know whether it applied to the whole site or to some particular article):

  "The IOD [CIA International Organizations Division] helped established anti-Communist front groups in Western Europe. The IOD was dedicated to infiltrating academic, trade and political associations. The objective was to control potential radicals and to steer them to the right. Braden later claimed that such measures were necessary in the early 1950s because the Soviet Union operated 'immensely powerful' front groups in Europe."

This is the result of about 20 minutes of Googling. I supect that if we really need a citation for this, it might be better for someone to put in some time in a library: I'm sure there are good books on the topic. - Jmabel | Talk 21:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)