Talk:Penn Kemble

Note to relatives
In the off chance that a relative of Penn Kemble finds this page, please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have additional information, family photos, etc. which may be put into the public record. Thanks! —Tim Davenport, Early American Marxism website, Corvallis, OR MutantPop@aol.com Carrite (talk) 15:44, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits by Mr. C.
Carrite made some excellent edits. Kiefer .Wolfowitz 11:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Explanation of Central-America edits
I wish to explain three edits (old A-B and new C).

The initial edit (A) occured because the article had this sentence "This article (before my edits): 'Kemble alienated many activists in the Democratic Party by actively aiding the Reagan administration in its financial and moral support of the anti-communist 'Contra' rebels in that country. (Holley)" which was based on Holley's Washington Post obituary: "Washington Post: 'During the Reagan administration, he founded a group called PRODEMCA, or the Committee for Democracy in Central America. He caused consternation among many fellow Democrats by advocating support for the anti-communist contra rebels in Nicaragua. He sought a democratic middle way between communist Sandinistas and former supporters of rightist dictator Anastasio Somoza.'"

(A) I removed the old text because the phrase "actively aiding the Reagan administration in its financial ... support" had problems:
 * OR, because the source does not state that Kemble aided the Reagan administration in anything.  It states only that during the Reagan administration, Kemble advocated support. (As usual, however, the OR problem is a real problem, rather than a formality, for which anybody can provide a reference, because of a content concern.)
 * 1) NPOV/BIAS: Kemble lobbied Congress, which has the power of the purse, under the U.S. Constitution. The ambiguous suggestion that Kemble helped the executive branch provide funding is at best an infelicitous paraphrase:
 * 2) * The Iran–Contra Hearings featured subpoenaed testimony, given under oath, about illegal support and illegal solicitations of illegal support by members of the Reagan Administration and by its associates. (Cameron wrote some kind of public belated apology to the already dead Kemble in his book (p. 160).)

(B) Having these concerns, I restored the legitimate content, which had been removed in edit A.

(C) Today, I moved material on Central-American politics from a footnote to the main-text, and expanded the political context.

Elsewhere, an editor recently raised a good-faith (public) concern that my initial  edit (A) removed material because of my personal politics. Despite overlooking the middle edit (B) which restored the removed content, this public concern prompted my last edit (C). This sequence of edits exemplifies the complexity of editing political articles and our own limitations. Kiefer .Wolfowitz 01:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)