Talk:Red-baiting/Archive 2

Including one sided opinions about Obama political position.
The portion that includes an opinion that declares Obama's opinion as Center-left should be taken out. Obama is a center right Democrat, he belongs to the New Democrat Coalition. He doesn't espouse progressive left ideals or push for left leaning legislation. He describes himself as centerist. The person that included it obviously has his own political agenda to brand him that way. I could find a million articles to counter this but it's better just to not encourage the red baiting in the red baiting entry.

Here's Red Baiting of Michael Moore. http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2011/01/20/page_one/doc4d385d61a73c6632830994.txt — Preceding unsigned comment added by 'Merikan (talk • contribs) 09:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

For the record: I am a progressive critic of Obama but I didn't let my personal political views influence my editing of this article. My only agenda is to improve this article from a neutral point of view. That being said, I included an argument from a reliable source. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth — what counts is whether readers can verify that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

I don't think the Enfield Public Library/Sicko controversy is a clear example of red-baiting based on the source you offered. I think is it best that we use sources that explicitly state that an individual was the victim of red-baiting rather making our own judgment. --Loremaster (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to reduce 'Red-baiting' to stub and completely rewrite
The article as it stands is incomplete and misleading. The sources cited are not good quality. I agree that the topic is going to excite contradictory views.

The article should rise above the level of a single line definition in an on-line dictionary. Wikipedia is, after all, an encyclopedia. I propose that red-baiting be placed in the context of a group of political tools that can be characterized as 'tarring with the same brush' and 'guilt by association'. Reference to specific use of such tools should be made.

Preliminary points, in no particular order:

the red flag existed as a symbolism of revolution long before organized trends of communism and socialism developed in the 19th century CE

anarchism is associated with the color black and a flag of that color; movements and revolutions from the left are associated with the color red a flag of that color;

'race-baiting' is in the same spectrum of political tools as 'red-baiting'

many examples exist of 'tarring with the same brush' and 'guilt by association' aimed at conservative entities (I don't know of a convenient term for this tool)

--Neonorange 16:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neonorange (talk • contribs) 15:31, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Although I think this article could and should be improved, I strongly disagree with your proposal to reduce it to a stub and completely re-write it. Instead, it would be more productive if you find essays/books written by scholars on the subject of red-baiting and suggest adding material based on their content. --Loremaster (talk) 23:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. It inspired me review some of MANY edits to this article. I agree reduction to a stub and rewriting will not result in a better article(or perhaps any article at all). I found some language I really like that got lost in edit noise. I do think, given past history, further edits should be chunks rather than nibbles. Suggesting scholarly references hits the nail on the head but therein's the rub. For this particular subject the authorships and sources of the cited material are likely to be more contentious than the content. Do you have any suggestions? --Neonorange 00:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neonorange (talk • contribs)

Material for the 21st century section
I removed the following material, added 21NOV13, from the lede of Red-baiting '; Socialism remains stigmatized in the Unites States. In particular, the ACA, commonly known as obamacare, is frequently thought of as socialism by American conservatives' and the cite 'http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/obamacare-socialism-louie-gohmert-steve-king_n_1383973.html?_r=1 retrieved 22/11/13. The section does need updating with more recent material, but the single cite does not support the statement "Socialism remains stigmatized in the Unites (sic) States." Adding more cites of the same type of material will not work because the statement still fails by WP:SYN (Huffing Post is ok as a RS, especially since the congressmen make their remarks on videotape). A reliable tertiary source must be found that itself includes a similar statement. - Neonorange (talk) 02:40, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Conflation of democratic socialism and Soviet-style dictatorships
Doesn't the extremely common conflation of (more or less radical) left-wing movements opposed to dictatorial rule (whether authoritarian or totalitarian), such as democratic or libertarian socialism, with Marxism–Leninism, i. e., single-party-ruled "communist" states like the Soviet Union, Mao's China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, North Korea, etc. (contrast Dictatorship of the proletariat, which is not actually a dictatorship), with the intent to taint them with the atrocities and other extremely negative aspects associated with these states, also constitute a form of red-baiting? (An analogous tactic applied to the right would be to treat conservatism as identical with religious fundamentalism and the advocacy of theocracy, or libertarianism as indistinguishable from Nazism/fascism.) After all, George Orwell, for example, is known as a harsh critic of Soviet-style totalitarianism, yet many are surprised when they learn that he still considered himself a socialist because they fail to appreciate the difference. From the article, it appears like the only victims of red-baiting are social democrats, who tend to dissociate themselves from socialism and Marxism (exactly because of this stigma apparently). Only the paragraph mentioning Bernie Sanders provides a timid hint that other leftist movements, especially socialist movements, might be affected by the same phenomenon. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:15, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

"Diametric Opposite"
What would be the "equivalent but opposite" term for smearing libertarian or conservative politics as "fascist" in the same way? It's not exactly a reduction ad hitlerium as cited on Wikipedia and calling it "mainstream journalism" would seem unnecessarily cynical ... 62.196.17.197 (talk) 15:24, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Disputed material copied from
Recently, User:JesseRafe inserted some disputed material from Lee J. Carter. He's been edit-warring to keep it in, even though it lacks citations. The only source for "red-baiting" is Jacobin, whose reliability for this has been questioned on that talk page and also on WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. Until the issue is settled, there's no reason to let him keep spreading it around.

After I removed it, User:Britishfinance asked me to explain myself here, which seemed reasonable. Now that I've satisfied their request, I'm going to remove the disputed material again. Please don't insert it unless you can explain why we should trust Jacobin's characterization. Thanks. 24.47.152.65 (talk) 00:17, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that summary; I am watching this page now. Britishfinance (talk) 21:55, 25 May 2019 (UTC)