Talk:Ron Dellums/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Angola connection, revisited

So I finally found what deeceevoice was talking about with regards to Angola. Deep in the article she cites, Dellums is mentioned breifly, with no Angola context whatsoever. It is just the same stuff about Grenada rehashed. Here's a link to an easier to the article that isn't broken into umpteen sections[1]

The prototype of the Castroite congressman was, of course, Ron Dellums, of Oakland, California. His seat is now held by Barbara Lee, who for many years served the old lion as his top aide. She gained a bit of notoriety in 1983, when the U.S. invaded Grenada. Shortly before, Dellums had taken a "fact-finding" trip to the island, whose purpose was to persuade Congress that the air base there was meant for entirely benign uses. The invading Americans seized many official documents, among them the minutes of a highly unusual meeting of the Grenadian Politburo. They read: "Barbara Lee is here presently and has brought with her a report on the international airport done by Ron Dellums. They have requested that we look at the document and suggest any changes we deem necessary. They will be willing to make changes." Unfortunately for Lee, Dellums, and the fiction they perpetrated, the invaders also uncovered the diary of the former Grenadian defense minister. An entry in it reads: "The Revo[lution] has been able to crush counter-revolution internationally. Airport will be used for Cuban and Soviet military."

A second Dellums aide, Carlottia Scott, had written several notorious notes to the Grenadian strongman, Maurice Bishop, the most infamous of them being the most telling: "Ron [Dellums], as a political thinker, is the best around, and Fidel will verify that in no uncertain terms.... Ron had a long talk with Barb and me when we got to Havana and cried when he realized that we had been shouldering Grenada alone all this time. Like I said, he's really hooked on you and Grenada and doesn't want anything to happen to building the Revo and making it strong. He really admires you as a person, and even more so as a leader with courage and foresight, principle and integrity. Believe me, he doesn't make that kind of statement often about anyone. The only other person that I know of that he expresses such admiration for is Fidel."

Can we please remove this Angola information? Believe it or not, Dellums is a socialist who supports Fidel. There is no evidence that this is because of "liberation struggles" in Angola. I really can't see the motivation for editors inserting this information again and again. Being a socialist was pretty typical for the Dellums era in the East Bay so there's no use trying to cover it up, if that's what this is about.

Justforasecond 22:21, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

After 3+ weeks, there seem to be no comments on this angola connection, so I'm removing it. Justforasecond 19:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Considering the lack of discussion after over 3 weeks, the reversion of my edit, labeling it "vandalism" is not reasonable. If there's a reason this info is relevant please describe here. Justforasecond 23:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

socialist party?

Dellums calls himself a "socialist", but does he have any affiliations with a socialist political party? I just put the infobox up and it has a slot for party (I put Democrat)

Justforasecond 20:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I took the 'socialist' reference out of the infobox. Dellums is a socialist but isn't a member of the DSOC, especially because a) it's not a political party and b) it doesn't exist anymore. drseudo (t) 22:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure the DSOC wasn't a "party" (a group of politically like-minded individuals?) but he was the vice-chair of the "democratic socialists of america"[2], which I've put into the infobox. Justforasecond 22:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

'Was' is the operative word here. The infobox is for what party Dellums is currently a member of and caucuses with, which is undisputably the Democratic Party. The fact that he is philosophically a socialist, and was once the vice-chair of a socialist organization, doesn't change this. By all means mention the socialist stuff in the main article, but the answer to your original question 'does he have any affiliations with a socialist "politcal party" ' is no. drseudo (t) 23:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any mention of him quitting the party anywhere. It's not impossible to be a member of two parties. If you can dig up a mention of him disavowing his former party we can add a tag on "socialist" saying "former" but for now what we have are 1) many sites saying dellums is a socialist 2) a socialist party website saying dellums is a member 3) an article as recent as march of this year says dellums is still "affiliated" with the socialist party[3]. dellums did caucus with the democrats -- there were no other socialists to caucus with, and the dems are a lot closer than the repubs to socialist goals. you might notice the infobox says "party", which doesn't say anything about caucusing. deeceevoice, please discuss here. Justforasecond 23:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The DSA's web site[4] says that Dellums is no longer a vice-chair or any other thing. Dellums ran for Congress as a Democrat and for mayor as a Democrat. This is straightforward. And your 'article' is an op-ed; the difference is nontrivial. drseudo (t) 23:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The page you cite does not mention Dellums. There is nothing saying Dellums is not a member of the party and there are pages saying he is. If you can find something to the contrary I'd be fine with a "former" label attached to the socialist link, but if not, it should stay. Justforasecond 23:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

DSA isn't a political party per se. Some of its members are Democrats, some Greens, and some are in other parties. To some extent, it functions as a caucus group within a party. Dellums has long been a member of DSA, and has been a registered Democrat his entire electoral career. Argyriou 05:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

districts

down at the bottom of the dellums article is a box saying he was congressman from the 7th, 8th, and 9th districts. do we have any citations for this?

Justforasecond 04:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

You could look it up at the clerk of the house website. The numbering of districts in California starts at the north and works south; as the number of districts increased, the district Dellums represented changed number. I know I've voted against him in the 8th, then the 9th district. Argyriou 05:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks a lot, and thanks for making sure that no one removes citations. Justforasecond 06:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

talks the talk

If the Ireland quote is to be included, it really needs more context. Thing is, the cite is to someone citing it; can it be made more clear that Ireland was referring to the topic of the paragraph (lobbying activities)? Otherwise, it seems we'd need something like "Will Harper says Doug Ireland says...". --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, Ireland is referring to the lobbying. Most long-time supporters I know were shocked by his lobbying for a military contractor, but I'll add a counter view to make the paragraph "neutral". Justforasecond 16:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Which is why some of his old fans are so disappointed in Dellums now. James Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology, a group that advocates drug-pricing reforms, is among those who have soured on Dellums in recent years. Love said Dellums was "a big hero of mine" until he became a consultant for Bristol-Myers. "He was a real problem for a while, zipping around, pushing the drug company line. Some of us were disappointed. We were not happy with what he was up to. We didn't trust him."

Likewise, Doug Ireland, the progressive journalist who wrote "Dellums for Dollars" in POZ, said, "Ron has gone bad, I'm afraid. He talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk anymore."

...(then some info to make it "neutral")...

Still, some defenders say his current consulting work is consistent with his approach in Congress. "I think if you were to talk to him, he would say just because of the fact that I'm advocating for a company that may be paying me consulting fees, I'm not selling out my beliefs,"

• Oh, I don't care about that particularly -- I hate this "balancing quotes" stuff -- it just makes our articles seem like Fox News. My concern was with the quote itself, since there's no evidence in the reference provided that Ireland was talking about lobbying, only that Will Harper liked Ireland's rhetoric. A direct pointer to the source would be a lot better; why not just use that? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 01:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

path to FA

To get this article to "featured article" status, we need to expand on Dellums life *outside* politics. I'm going to begin restoring the "family life" section, which is now miniscule compared to the political section. Dellums upbringing, education, time in the Marines, career as a social worker[5], and Berkeley City Council activities[6][7] could also do with more facts.

Justforasecond 19:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Do we really? Other than his politics, Dellums is unimportant. There should be more on his time on the Berkeley City Council, though. Argyriou 19:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, we do. It's not a good biography if you don't cover a person's family (and it is suspect when the family information is actively removed). If the article were shorter it might be OK to skimp over it, but the article is quite detailed. Dellums family is also fairly interesting.

We also need a little more detail on his Congressional activities, Ron was involved, though I'm not sure how deeply, with reparations to Japanese-Americans and the Americans with Disabilities Act, neither of which are mentioned.

More to add: Dellums "assured funding for area projects such as the economically vital deep dredging of the Port of Oakland, and locating a new federal building and the nationally known Chabot Science Center in the city."[8]

We may also want to organize the references into a section at the bottom. Weblinks are great and simple to add, but when a website goes down or changing its url scheme we still want to have the title of the page, etc. (already happening!) Justforasecond 19:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Good article nomination failed

I regret to inform the editors that I did not find the article met all the criteria for good article status. While this is an admirable start, there are several issues that must be addressed before this article may be passed. To begin, the article is difficult to read and overly segmented; too many subheading makes it look much longer than it actually is, and needs to be condensed. The appearance of subheaders in the article with one sentence beneath them suggests that these are stubs, just as do the headers that have only one sentence. The article expands on the section of Dellum's career, which raises questions about consistency and emphasis, given that none of the other sections has any subheadings. While this article employs links to citations, there is no list of references readily available, making this article not readily verifiable. Because references are not listed, it also raises reliability questions as far as source materials. Also, though continued editing is encouraged, this article has been subject to some extremely heated debate on the talk page and still retains the tag describing it as a "testy" page. Large-scale edits continue, with many only today, and due to the amount of controversy that has surrounded this page and the number of edits continuing, I am not comfortable that these will necessarily be well received, and I cannot see that this article can be called "stable", according to the good article criteria. Finally, I feel as though some of the image choices are awkward and should be reconsidered. For example, using the cover of a book for the main photograph seems inappropriate when there is a portrait of him farther down the page. The picture of Oakland seems to be taking up space and not really enhancing the text of the article. Something like a picture from the campaign would be appropriate. Basically, the point is that Ron Dellums is an extremely public figure of whom there should be some public domain or licensed images available that would better the article. I do think this article has great potential, and I admire the work of those editors who are intent on making this a featured article. I hope that you take these comments in good faith as they were intended. I encourage you to address these issues and renominate this article. Cheers! Chuchunezumi 22:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, now we know what to do. I've changed the portrait and removed some of the subheadings. Sounds like the family stuff and other short sections needs to be expanded on. We also need to ad a referenced sections. I removed the "calm talk" section as it seems to be a factor in failing good article and it doesn't seem to have any beneficial effects. Justforasecond 23:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Great work on references

Plange, Agriyou, great work putting the references section together! I've found a couple of them are broken and have to be regenerated (probably from web searches I did which expired). Justforasecond 05:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

War crimes hearings

Why are we attempting to whitewash war crimes? The Dellums committee wasn't investigating alleged war crimes; it was investigating war crimes. (By the way, is [9] a reliable source?) --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The Dellums committee was a propaganda exercise which tried to paint normal and legal occurrences during wartime as war crimes, providing that the acts were performed by the U.S. The actual war crimes which occurred were tried by the Army. Argyriou (talk) 05:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That's a POV characterization, of course -- regardless of whether it is correct or incorrect. As is adding sneer quotes to what was then called a War Crimes Investigation; "alleged" in this case is the equivalent (it serves the same function as "so-called"). --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Bishop correspondence

The Bishop corresponence has been reported widely. We should replace the FrontPage reference with a more neutral source, though. I removed Horowitz's opinion as unimportant. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:21, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Additions by Justforasecond/Alexfusco5

Among your edits to the page

• The Dellums mayoral campaign was criticized for holding expensive fundraising dinners and because Dellums would not disclose his plans for the city, or his positions on issues. - please provide a reference for this; surely, per WP:BLP, you would never insert something like this without a source?

• Elise Ackerman, an Oakland resident who bought the domain recallmayordellums.com sent an open letter to Dellums that was covered in the local press, saying to Dellums, "African Americans and Latinos live in fear in Oakland because of your lies. Middle-class residents working two jobs live in fear because of your lies. Nurses, teachers and social workers live in fear because of your lies." Near the end of the message, she continues "You are not effective, you are not honest, you have no integrity and you should step aside." - what is your source for this?

• In 1972 John Lennon wrote the song Woman is the Nigger of the World. Asked for his reaction to the use of the word "nigger" by a white singer in a pop song Dellums wrote "If you define nigger as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others, whose opportunities are defined by others, whose role in society is defined by others, then good news - you don't have to be black to be a nigger in this society, most of the people in America are niggers!" Lennon was delighted with his reaction and proudly read the quote on the Dick Cavett Show prior to performing the controversial song with his wife at the time, Yoko Ono. - can you explain the removal of this material?

• Grenada and Cuba controversies, treason allegation - why did you add the bolded text to the header?

• Conservative journalist David Horowitz suggested Dellums' actions were treasonous. - source?

• Why did you change Dellums worked as a lobbyist for the government of Haiti in 2001–2002 to Dellums accepted $500,000 in payment for lobbying work for the government of the impoverished nation of Haiti in 2001–2002? How is it acceptable, per NPOV to add the impoverished nation of?

How is the addition of unsourced attacking material acceptable? How is this "not attacking"? This is forbidden under Wikipedia policy. If you repeatedly violate the policy on articles about living people in this manner you can be blocked. 35.9.6.175 (talk) 17:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

35..... this is all easily verifiable. Type it into google if you've got pressing doubts. Haiti is indeed impoverished, many sources online will attest to it. I have been meaning to put in references but its a holiday and the article uses the "ref" syntax rather than simple urls, so it takes quite a while to do this. I removed the John Lennon quote because it is not notable and is inflammatory, among other problems. Justforasecond (talk) 20:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP requires that negative claims about living people must be sourced. Apart from that, all this negative material seriously unbalances the article. In addition, as you well remember, there was an agreement here that all the stuff you wanted to add about Michael being a murder wasn't appropriate for this article. Guettarda (talk) 20:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't ask, don't tell

I don't want to be partisan here or anything, but Dellums was the original sponsor of the bill that came to be known as the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Seeing as it's such a big issue, shouldn't that make it into the article somewhere? Here's my source: http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/usc-cgi/get_external.cgi?type=pubL&target=103-160. Undomiel (talk) 23:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Go on and put it in there. Another interesting chapter in Dellums live is his support of Your Black Muslim Bakery. The leadership of this organization was allegedly involved in child abuse, rape, large-scale welfare fraud, and murder, but Dellums thought they were such pillars of the community that he wrote a nice letter praising them to the bankruptcy judge. Dellums lackey Barbara Lee also supported these thugs, but she withdrew her support once bakery members allegedly took a shotgun to a local journalist who was writing an unflattering piece about them. Justforasecond 18:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I followed that source link ([10]) and it says

"Sponsor: Rep Dellums, Ronald V. [CA-9] (by request) (introduced 6/14/1993) Cosponsors (None)"

The phrase, "by request" usually means someone else (typically an administration) requested it and the named sponsor acceded to the request. The Clintons (both Bill and Hill, as a "twofer ticket") campaigned in 1992 on the issue of eliminating the Reagan/Bush discrimination against gay personnel in the military. After the Clintons won the election, but before Bill took office, Republicans (including then-undeclared Colin Powell) led a campaign to keep gays out of the military. (I suspect an undeclared motive was the financial "peace dividend," i.e. the cold war was over and the military-industrial lobby feared the Clintons would redirect resources away from military spending and into social programs.) The new administration was comparatively inexperienced and defensive, a young George Stephanopoulos gave a press conference showing ignorance of history on this issue, and it seemed the administration wanted to bail out fast. As I recall, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" originated in the White House administration. They probably requested Dellums to sponsor it, because they needed a sponsor and he had such a respectable record. (You can see him here in 2008 speaking in support of same-sex marriage [11].) He probably agreed as a favor to them, in order to prevent the issue from derailing the Clinton agenda; sadly, the early surrender to the military-industrial lobby meant that the military was vastly over-funded and under-worked throughout the Clinton years, consuming resources that could have been better utilized elsewhere. If a source can be found telling the back story, I agree it would be noteworthy, but the bare fact of sponsorship without context could be misleading.TVC 15 (talk) 20:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

"Mayor of Oakland" section

This edit seems questionable to me. IMO, it should probably reverted, as most of the changes by the anon were unsourced and biased towards one point of view. Or is it just me? Bash Kash (talk) 08:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it bears the hallmarks of a Dellums crony, I agree it should be stricken. Justforasecond (talk) 06:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I've restored the original section. Bash Kash (talk) 02:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Michael, again

I've removed Michael Dellums from the list of children becuase he is described in his bio as an "ex-stepson" of Ron Dellums. That appears to be a very tenuous connection. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Michael is Dellums biological son from an earlier marriage. This is easy enough to find, Will. 71.112.10.248 (talk) 05:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Presidential candidate in 1980?

Categories says he was, but article makes no mention? Шизомби (talk) 14:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Superfluous photos

I removed photos of the My Lai massacre (though keeping the caption text), the Peacekeeper missile, the B-2 bomber, Lakeside apartments, because they seem irrelevant to the main article's subject. 11 Arlington (talk) 10:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Grenada/Cuba section

The entire section on Grenada and Cuba is poorly sourced. There's a citation to a David Horowitz article from 1897[sic], but no link available to the column. (And Horowitz has a POV that may make him a poor choice for citation.) There's also a citation to an article called "The Betrayal of the Church" on a website hosted by "Concerned Methodists." The excerpt has its own citations which, following the link go to:

"CISPES: A Terrorist Propaganda Network," by J. Michael Waller, Special Report of the Council for Inter-American Security, Washington, D.C.; KGB Today - The Hidden Hand, by John Barron (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1983), pp. 245-248; "Who Really Lobbies Against Aid to El Salvador," a speech by the Honorable Jack Fields,of Texas, in the House of Representatives, April 28, 1981, published in the Congressional Record, p. El890-91.

That's really three different sources smooshed together. Finally, the last excerpt isn't sourced at all.

I believe this entire section should be deleted. I've been away from Wikipedia for a while (and under a different name). Is there an appropriate tag to be used to propose this? --Ocnn (talk) 18:46, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

you could try to make the citations cleaner, but should not be removed. sounds like a lot of sources. Senor dellums (talk) 22:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Removed uncited material

According to WP:BLP

There is a source, although it was not used, for the diary.

The only source I could find for the diary is Jay Nordlinger.

Jay Nordlinger, in his book, In Castro's Corner — African Americans alleged affinity for Cuba claims that during the U.S. Marine invasion of the island, the diary of the former Grenadian defense minister was found, and that one entry (date not specified) in it read: "The Revo has been able to crush counter-revolution internationally. Airport will be used for Cuban and Soviet military."National Review

This is all that Nordlinger says. He doesn't expand on that. I couldn't find a reference to it anywhere else that didn't reference his book or the book review for the National Review, that he is senior editor for, which makes it akin to self publishing to cite it in any case. The book is, from my brief look at it, pretty much what you'd expect from the title, a series of guilt by association 'allegations' against African Americans. Whatever. That isn't as important as, he gives no verification for it at all. He just says it. So I removed it to here, for discussion.

Ultimately it is a good thing. Because he was smearing Dellums I got to find out about Dellums trip from this page and put that in another article that needed it. Anarchangel (talk) 14:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Good reference checking Archangel! Sounds like an article on Nordlinger might be and interesting read. And which article might the other one you alluded to be? Please educate us?Critical Chris (talk) 16:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Invasion of Grenada

Anarchangel (talk) 12:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

misrepresentations

"As crime rates in Oakland have remained high since Dellums took office in January 2007, at his first State of the City Address in January 2008, Dellums called for hiring more police officers. Dellums promised that by year's end, the police department would be fully staffed at 803 officers.[41] On November 14, 2008, 38 Oakland police officers were added to the force after graduating the 165th academy, bringing the department's force to 837 officers, the most in OPD history."

This makes it sound like Dellums was behind hiring more officers, when actually, this was a response to a lawsuit by a resident because a funds generated through a parcel tax residents passed to increase police staffing were being misused. The funds were to be locked up until the city reached "full staffing" of 803, then released to fund additional officers, but the city was spending the funds while the department was far under this number. Dellums had nothing to do with this other than doing his duties as required by law. Richmondian (talk) 21:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

As is the case with United States Presidents, who are generally held accountable for the economic successes and failures that occur during their time in office, it could be strongly argued in a similar fashion that big city american mayors are also held accountable, not only for police staffing, but even more broadly for crime stats that are chalked-up on their watch. The body politic of Oakland and local new media held Dellums' predacessor Jerry Brown accountable for the same crime and police issues, albeit in a different way perhaps. Your analysis of the Measure Y suit is an entirely different conversation in and of itself. Measure Y funds were not dedicated simply to hiring more officers; part of the money was actually earmarked by Oakland voters for social programs, remember? Back to staffing, take a good look at Oakaland's city charter, and you will see that the 'strong mayor' (I'm assuming you know what that means) actually does have hiring and firing authority over the Police Chief and City Administrator and not-insignifcant influence over fiscal year budget proposals, you know those annoying little details that affect things like police hiring freezes and whether there will be two, one or no police academy classes next year. If that merely constitutes an executuion of "duties required by law," you can make an argument that he's really anti-police in his heart of hearts until you're blue in the face, but that doesn't take away from the bottom line that he brought OPD up to 837 officers during his second year in office. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that he accomplished this while simultaneously pushing for the "civilianization" of certain OPD jobs that do not necessitate a sworn officer with a quarter million dollars of first year salary and training. CriticalChris 01:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

How does that change the bottom line that Dellums was responding to both a lawsuit and citizen outrage? The writing makes it sound like Dellums pulled for this, leading the charge, when in actuality he reacted.

Measure Y money can only be legally spent when the city pays for 739 officers out of non-measure-Y funds. Well the city wasn't upholding its end of the bargain: spending the measure Y money and shrinking the force below 739

Dellums pushed to get measure NN, another $75 million tax, on the ballot, knowing full well it would fail and he could claim "what can i say? the people voted against more police". What citizen would vote for another police tax when Dellums and the city refused to spent the taxes raised through measure Y on police?

Police Academy 4 comparisons aside, I think using less expensive staff where appropriate is a good idea. But none of that changes the misprepresentations in the article. Richmondian (talk) 17:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

"Bringing home the bacon"

Hardly encyclopedic language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.148.136.108 (talk) 16:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed inaccurate assertion

The DSA "historian" who claimed Dellums was the first socialist elected to congress after WW II ignores the tenure of Vito Marcantonio who served 10 terms in Congress and was elected twice after the end of WW II, in 1946 and 1948, from New York's 18th Congressional District. After winning on the Republican party ticket in 1936, he was on the American Labor Party ticket but was elected as a fusion candidate often simultaneously taking the Democratic and Republican party majorities in his races. Activist (talk) 06:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

2.2.5 "Opposition to integration of gays in the military"

That entire paragraph needs proper citation. Another editor weighed in on this topic by reverting the paragraph. I'm inclined to keep it out of the article also until it can be properly sourced from the Congressional Record, or any other sources, particularly the part about Dellums opposing defense appropriations "on economic principles." This is no place for WP:OR. Please weigh in on this, I'd like to hear from other editors on this issue. CriticalChris 06:17, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I see that few seem to have been particularly interested in this (the above author posted nearly four years ago), but this passage also caught my eye. Not only is the sourcing lackluster, but I think the title is misleading, for it suggests at a casual glance that Dellums was opposed to integration. Rscannix (talk) 01:52, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Primary sourcing, UNDUE, POV, SYNTH

I undid this edit for the following reasons

• "Far Left" - The article on the Peace and Freedom Party calls them left, not far left, while the Black Panthers were describes them as black nationalist and socialist; these are centre-left, not far left. (Maoist, for example, are far left). Seems like POV pushing to label these groups as "far left".
  • Supported by these groups - two primary sources, from 1968 and 1970 - are used to support the statement that support for Dellums came from these groups. Using two primary sources from 45 and 47 years ago to draw conclusions seems like WP:SYNTH
  • Focussing on support from two groups, without a proper analysis of where Dellums support came from in a broader context, raises concerns about WP:UNDUE
  • "Often referred to as a political radical" - again, it's inappropriate to draw from 45-47-year-old primary sources.
• Nicaragua - again, a statement without context, drawn from a 35-year-old primary source, raises questions of UNDUE.

We can't have editors delving into ancient primary sources to cherry-pick bits of information or draw novel conclusions. Guettarda (talk) 04:52, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

And this uses an SPS to make disparaging statements about a living person, which is not acceptable per policy. And it looks like there's existing information sourced to David Horowitz's "FrontPage Mag", which is not considered a reliable source for news, far less for a BLP (per extensive discussion in the archives on WP:RSN. Guettarda (talk) 05:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• It was not cherry picking that the primary sources are not "ancient." These two bogus criticisms are evidence of WP:BIAS
• The sources used were standard accepted sources, among them the New York Times.
• Because a source is 45 to 47 years old does not make it false. In fact it is very appropriate considering that they are contemporary sources.
• Calling the Black Panthers "centre-left" is laughable. The group is even listed as Far-Left in the article on Far-left politics. And John F. Kennedy historian Arthur M. Schlessinger in "The Imperial Presidency" (p. 258) referred to the Peace and Freedom Party as Far-Left. Both groups are connected to the Workers World Party, a Marxist-Leninist group. It is you who is pushing POV.
• The two assertions about WP:UNDUE are fallacious. The sources used are all Reliable Sources and the assertions appeals to novelty, a logical fallacy.
• As for the message regarding living people, said articles should have both positive and negative information as long as they are supported by the facts, otherwise they will not have a neutral POV.Rickm7x (talk) 05:31, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Additionally, you incorrectly removed an item as SPS, but if you had looked at the source it had a pdf of the actual letter. The letter can be seen on the cited page, therefore it does not constitute SPS.Rickm7x (talk) 05:45, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I did not add information from FrontPage Mag. That was another user. You need to check your facts before making accusations.Rickm7x (talk) 05:33, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Based on the above, I undid your revisions and removed the citation from FrontPage Mag that was introduced by another user/editor as SPS.Rickm7x (talk) 05:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The letter can be seen on the cited page, therefore it does not constitute SPS - Please don't make as transparently false a claim as this. Guettarda (talk) 06:02, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

1. Articles need to be based on high-quality secondary and tertiary sources. Especially controversial material about living people. When you pick two sources from almost half a century ago, you're cherry picking. Why? Because you aren't representing the full spectrum of primary source material. Of course, we can't fairly represent half a century of primary sources. Which is why we use secondary and tertiary sources.
2. Yes, some of these are reliable sources. I never said otherwise.
3. Quite honestly, I know nothing the Peace and Freedom party (PFP). So sure, if you provide a source that says that they are Maoist or Marxist in their ideology, I'll believe you. But saying that they were linked to the Workers World Party is just the typical sort of claim that people make who are trying to invent reasons to invent connections. You know, like the people who have to label groups as Far Left. In the book "Maoism in the Developed World" it says that "a diversity of far left groups" operated in the PFP. The book "The Negro in Third Party Politics" says the same thing. The book "Presidential Election" refers to it as a "far left group." In the book, "Tom Bradley's Campaign for Governor" it calls the PFP "the flagship of the far left." Is this a sufficient amount of secondary sources from respected authors and presses that call it Far Left? As for the Wiki article, it's wrong.
4. Please read WP:UNDUE. It's entirely orthogonal to WP:RS.
5. And no, WP:BLP does not permit unsourced or poorly-sourced negative material. Even when it's true. That's just policy. Guettarda (talk) 06:13, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

A. Voting information is of necessity going to have to come from that time period. Moreover, the sources constituted reliable mainstream news sources. That is not cherry-picking. Additional sourcing can be added, but it will not change the factual information that was included. For the information on Ron Dellums' secretary, this is also cited by Guenter Lewy in "The Cause that Failed" (Oxford University Press) on p. 223. Another source is "The Grenada Documents" (Sherwood Press) which transcribed the documents. But again, seeing the original document itself is best, which is on the blog.

B. Maoism and Marxism are not the only examples of the Far Left. In fact, however, the Black Panther Party was Marxist and around the time the subject ran for office, Eldridge Cleaver, a leader in the BPP ran for President on the Peace and Freedom Party. This is noted on his Wiki page. If you read the Wiki page for the BPP you will see it is designated as Far-Left. Providing the link to the WWP was just to provide an example as I did not think it necessary to provide multiple sources, but if that is what is needed to end this, I will.

C. "Orthogonal" is a technical term with different meanings depending on the context. Do you mean tangential?

D. Nothing I provided was unsourced or poorly-sourced.Rickm7x (talk) 06:45, 25 February 2015 (UTC)