06/26/2024
Covering the Southern Poverty Law Center massacre, as in SPLC Union Strikes Another Shattering Blow At $PLC. But Is This A Labor Or A Political Dispute?, I am more than ever convinced that it was actually a purge of pro-Palestinian Leftists to conciliate the SPLC’s donors.
Additionally, I have been very struck at the virtually total absence of MSM reporting.
After all, the $PLC is quite famous, and a much used MSM source.
Now a controversy involving even better known and objectively more important outfits seems to be getting the same treatment. I think the reason may be the same.
H/T RC for sending me ADL faces Wikipedia ban over reliability concerns on Israel, antisemitism, by Asaf Elia-Shalev, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 18, 2024.
Wikipedia’s editors have voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding it to a list of banned and partially banned sources.
An overwhelming majority of editors involved in the debate about the ADL also voted to deem the organization unreliable on the topic of antisemitism, its core focus. A formal declaration on that count is expected …
The century-years old Anti-Defamation League has long been the most powerful Media intimidation operation in America. Unswervingly dedicated to promoting Jewish interests, and hostile to American free speech, it is used to being treated with deference and reverence.
Wikipedia is perhaps the most extraordinary phenomenon of the internet. It self-describes as
the largest and most-read reference work in history,[3][4] and is consistently ranked among the ten most visited websites.
Crucially, it
is a free content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration
Because of this, the ADL’s standard attack method — going over the management’s head to pressure Wikipedia’s Board with an army of Big Feet — failed ignominiously: Wikipedia’s operator rebuffs Jewish groups’ call to override editors on ADL trustworthiness, by Asaf Elia Shalev, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 25, 2024.
The charitable foundation that owns Wikipedia said it respects the decisions of its volunteer editors… to declare the Anti-Defamation League an untrustworthy source on Israel and Zionism…
More than 40 Jewish groups signed a letter addressed to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation
The ADL’s Wikipedia problem is that Wikipedia functions as a democracy. When the SPLC found a significant portion of its staff were pro-Palestinian, it could fire them. Wikipedia cannot defy its volunteers. As the JTA article says:
The move by Wikipedia… to declare that the ADL cannot be trusted on some topics represents a staggering blow to the organization.
If the Wikimedia Foundation were to order a reversal of the ADL’s downgrading, it would be equally staggering. The foundation does not intervene in editorial decisions by its community of editors … A reversal would in all likelihood garner a backlash from among the thousands of veteran editors, who are accustomed to autonomy and who have volunteered countless hours of their lives to run the online encyclopedia.
The article then highlights another parallel with the $PLC story:
A monthslong debate among Wikipedia editors over the ADL’s reliability went unnoticed in the media until JTA reported last week that the debate was concluding and that Wikipedia had labeled the ADL “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In fact this very significant event is still being “unnoticed” by the media — or rather suppressed. As I write on Tuesday evening almost all the 20 or so stories about this situation picked up by Google News are Israeli or very specialized Jewish publications. The only true MSM account is a balanced one by CNN: Wikipedia now labels the top Jewish civil rights group as an unreliable source, by David Goldman, June 20, 2024.
The ADL is, from the point of view of an American patriot, a thoroughly bad lot: Did The ADL Think It Could Get Away With Hypocrisy On Great Replacement In US vs. Israel? Answer: It Probably Didn’t Think At All.
Even some Jews find its increasing arrogance offensive. The Forward (“JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT”) greeted the news with a remarkable editorial Wikipedia called the ADL ‘unreliable.’ It’s a wake-up call the civil rights organization badly needs, by Rob Eshman, June 29,2024.
Wikipedia has long been known for the Leftist bias and intolerance of its editors. Nicholas Stix amusingly reported on his attempts to protect their entries on John Tanton and VDARE from abuse in Truth Visits The Wikipedia VDARE.com Page, Gets Thrown Out On Its Edit By WikiThugs. He likes to call it The Pretend Encyclopedia (TPE).
And just this month, with no obvious trigger, Peter Brimelow was promoted to the most lethal category in American life: White Supremacist.
1/2 Hey, Wikipedia has promoted me to a "white supremacist writer"! https://t.co/8XHhN4EBcx
— Peter Brimelow (@peterbrimelow) June 21, 2024
But such a virtually complete blackout of this very important story involving two such prominent American institutions is positively weird. It testifies to the closeness with which the American MSM is controlled.
While it could be the standard reflexive repression of anything embarrassing to Zionism, I think a more immediately important event is the cause.
I suggested in NOW I See Why $PLC Dumped Classroom Propaganda Program. Left’s Palestinian Purge Problem Just Beginning that the reason this particular program was dropped was not just that those who worked on it were pro-Palestinian, but that their participating school districts were also Palestinian enthusiasts.
Now I see the SPLC Union has an X up saying that the trigger for purge was a company wide Q&A in which
Staff asked questions about organizational decision-making, support for Palestine, and the scope of our work
(My emphasis)
Staff asked questions about organizational decision-making, support for Palestine, and the scope of our work in a staff Q&A in March 2024 that was presented webinar-style so staff couldn’t see each other or the questions being asked. You know, for organizational transparency!
— SPLC Union (@SPLCUnion) June 25, 2024
The Left has just undergone a tectonic shift. Their Establishment is struggling with a volcanic eruption by hard Leftists calling Israel into question. The Wikipedia editors are merely moving with the times.
Hamas has won a great victory.
MSM orders are, keep the split hidden as long as possible.
What this has to do with America is another question.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.