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Gustnado's Talk Page
User:Gustnado has interests in keeping history accurate on Wikipedia, and beyond that, loves to chase storms and program computers.
Hi, welcome to the Wikipedia. I'm sorry your first experience had to be this contentious; the Kerry article has been getting a lot of attention, and people get a little testy. I hope you decide to stick around. Thanks, Meelar 00:05, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
P.S. If you need help with anything, ask on my talk page.
Well, when I tried to email you, it said you hadn't entered a valid email address as well. I'm not sure why this would be happening, if you did enter one--you might want to check the one you entered (use the "Preferences" button in the upper right). Good luck, Meelar 01:43, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Xenophrenic Attack!!!!!
“
This article needs balance - not the crucifixion of the WSI participants. The facts are that only one (that I know of) war crimes allegation was substantiated, and this article gives the impression that they were all telling the truth, which given human nature and the emotions about the war at the time, is absurd. My goal is to bring it into balance - where the article says what happened, and what validation did or did not happen, and what controversies exist about it. Is that too much to ask? If you know of more war crimes substantiated from WSI, please provide sources. Otherwise, that information is of far more import in balancing this article than a paragraph attacking Pitkin and some slurs directed at Lewy. Gustnado (talk) 04:33, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
”
Right up front, I'll admit my doubts about your intentions for the article, Gustnado. Not because of your personal point of view, but because of the repeated demonstrations of duplicity in our discussions.
Well, then we are in agreement - we both believe each other to be duplicitous and acting in bad faith. For example, you called me a "supposed" veteran even though you now admit that you had looked at my blog where the is ambple evidence of my veteran's status. So yes, duplicity on your part has been proven. You can accuse me of duplicity, and you may even believe it, but you are wrong. I have stated my goals, and those are my goals. Gustnado (talk) 04:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I maintain my skepticism about your (or anybody's) supposed veteran status until I see authentic papers first-hand or receive authentic verification from appropriate offices. You haven't proven "duplicity", you have merely proven skepticism - to which I readily confess. Your blog also proves nothing, except that you make certain claims. (I did roll my eyes when you asked for archive links to kerrylied.com, despite you claiming to be the webmaster, but I went along.) As for your duplicity, that has nothing to do with your "goals". As previously explained in the paragraph that follows, my comment was in reference to your double-standard when dealing with sources, statements and evidence:
It is rude to display your skepticism, just as it is rude to copy from my blog and paste it here. In both cases, I have to suspect that you are trying to provoke me into inappropriate behavior. But whatever... I am curious about why you rolled your eyes about kerrylied, though. What was there to roll about? Gustnado (talk) 02:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As to duplicity, your having read all the info on my blog, and then waiting a month to spring it on me, is hardly honest. It reeks of "gotcha" game playing. Gustnado (talk) 02:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see plenty of double standard that you are, at a minimum, allowing on that page. However, the talk page is the place to discuss the issue. Gustnado (talk) 02:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You found me out; you are correct. I'm not really skeptical, I only wanted to be rude to you. I didn't really come to your talk page to explain to you the need for proper sourcing in articles, I only wanted to attack you. I'm not really suspicious of everyone's online claims of military service, just yours - because I wanted to insult you. I didn't mention seeing your blog that you linked to your user page, not because I didn't think it mattered to our editing endeavors, but because I was just waiting for the right time to inflict maximum reeking gotchismo upon you. I didn't really archive the months and years old stagnant talk page discussions because it is routine policy to do so, but because I wanted to hide secret information from your eyes. I haven't really been attempting to engage in mutually editing a Wikipedia article; no, this has really been all about you. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation of discovering what my next victimization of you will be. Xenophrenic (talk) 15:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You'll argue that hearsay evidence discredits testimony, until your man Lewy admits his key evidence may have been hearsay -- then it's alright. You'll argue that a vet retracting a small portion of a statement throws his whole credibility out the window, unless that vet is slandering Kerry at a rally -- then the retractions are inconsequential. You act all indignant when I don't express unqualified belief in your claims to being a vet, but you have no qualms about questioning other veteran's status. Even more distasteful is the disparagement game played when sitting in judgement: So you were in the service during the Vietnam war, but you weren't in Vietnam; ok, so you were in Vietnam, but you weren't in combat; oh, so you were in combat, but you weren't wounded; oh, so you were wounded, but not as bad as that other vet -- and on and on. Sickening, really. When a person can exclaim, "Every time a Bush hater attacks his military service record, they are slandering my dead comrades, people who died in military aviation serving their country. They are slandering me, my brother and my friends, and slandering the men and women currently in the National Guard and Reserves.", and then turn right around and be a Kerry hater and attack his military record and slander his dead comrades, people who died in the Navy serving their country -- the duplicity is glaring.
On Sept. 6th, I left a note here on your talk page asking you to refrain from disruptive editing, and at the same time I put your pages on my watch list so I would be notified if you responded. Within hours I was notified of your edit to your user page - you removed the link to your blog - so out of curiosity I followed the link. I read your tirade about Wikipedia and the WSI article (and surfed most of your site - even listened to your whole 1.5 hour O'Neill "interview"), but decided to engage you in discussion anyway. For almost a month since then I've been waiting to see if something productive would come of it. I've endured your interpretation of the .PDF files on Swett's site, hoping for an original take on them (I combed through every one of them months ago), but you are just parroting Swett's misrepresentations. You are also echoing the feeble propaganda of Burkett, O'Neill, wintersoldier.com, etc., without raising anything new or substantial (read: factual).
I've removed the tags you placed in the article. One of them is inappropriate (to be used when there is no discussion at all), and the other two need to be justified with descriptions of specific issues. It is not sufficient to tag the article as POV, and then claim you'll show why after you locate some reliable sources. It is not sufficient to insert an accuracy tag in the article, claiming something is false because you say it is - yet you can't provide a citation to back up your assertion. You seem quite content to leave the tags in the article while you debate endlessly without substance - and even your last visits to the talk page over the past several days haven't been to discuss, but only to state that you were re-inserting the unjustified tags again. If you are indeed interested in improving the article, instead of just playing politics with it, you'll need to start following Wikipedia's policies. That means using reliable sources (no, Burkett and his Stolen Valor, and Swett's wintersoldier.com don't qualify); no original research (like reading .PDFs or watching videos and then performing your own analysis); Weight and NPOV (i.e.; minority fringe theories aren't presented out of scope).
Were allegations of war crimes from the WSI substantiated? Yes. Search-and-destroy missions; free-fire zones; ground troops and combat in Laos; the relocation of people into strategic hamlets, defoliation of agricultural land; B-52 pattern bombing raids against undefended villages and populated areas were all in violation of codes and treaties the United States had previously signed or accepted: the
Nuremberg Charter. Even Lewy admits that the war crimes alleged at the WSI happened - his disagreement was with the frequency alleged by the WSI. Lewy struggled to maintain the "isolated incident" image, while the WSI showed it was much wider spread than that. Xenophrenic (talk) 07:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply
]
Well, well. Yes, I removed the link to the blog because I didn't want this to get personal. Once again you have made it personal, attacking me again in these comments. That is simply inappropriate behavior. My POV is my POV. I have made no lies about my veteran status, in spite of your allegations above. I am a non-combat Vietnam Veteran - unlike Hubbard, I do have a DD-214 with a VN Service Ribbon. I had members of my unit die in service, but not in combat (but they're just as dead). Others in my wing did die in combat in Vietnam. I have never lied about any of this. Nor is it of the slightest relevance, except to you when you choose to use it to complain to me.
The statement that you took from my blog about slandering those who served is correct, and I stand by it - the attacks on Bush were that he was somehow not honorable because he served in the reserves, which directly maligns my best childhood friend who died doing exactly what Bush did. And since I was also a military (and later, civilian) aviator, I know the hazards well (as was demonstrated when my mentor, in my squadron, was killed in a plane crash along with a dozen other squadron mates). When the head of the DNC made that attack, I responded appropriately.
So now you know my POV. And you don't like it. That is irrelevant to the process of editing Wiki, or even appropriate to the dielectical approach. Since you choose to remain anonymous, I don't know as much about you, but your POV is clearly reflected in the propaganda nature of that article - which is what I seek to change.
I believe the article is strongly slanted, and my goal is to correct that. I don't expect an article which denies the existence of atrocities, etc in VN. I don't expect an article calling those who testified in WSI a bunch of liars or commies or whatever you are imagining. I do expect the article to reflect the nature of the event, which was classic agitprop. That doesn't mean the attendees didn't believe what they said (at least, some or most of them). It also doesn't mean that what they said was true - especially about the commonality of the events (as Kerry testified to the senate about, to his eternal shame).
Your assertions of bad faith on my part are incorrect.
I am not going to get into details here on my talk page about the disputes about sources, because that belongs in the article talk page. Suffice it to say, I disagree with your characterization of Burkett as no a reliable source.
That you are removing the tags when we there are clear disagreements in progress is an indication of editing in bad faith. Your marking items as resolved without my agreement is editing in bad faith. The POV of the article is clearly in dispute, and your bizarre assertion that since the wording corresponds to that of one source, it is okay for an encyclopedia, is, well, bizarre and incorrect. I ask that you restore thae tags, as is appropriate. You are welcome to continue the personal attacks. They simply provide insight into your psyche. I survived the Navy; I'm not phased by ad hominem trash. Gustnado (talk) 01:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Addressing your comments in order: I didn't comment on your POV (which I've known for a month), other than to say it was irrelevant to our editing efforts here. I am happy to see you stress the same point. Comparison of your ribbons to Hubbard's ribbons is equally irrelevant. If you wish to take my observations about hypocrisy and duplicity in editing as personal attacks, there is not much I can do about that. I'll just note that you didn't refute them, and move on. Perhaps we'll see a positive change.
Thanks for the rundown on your service history, but that, too, is irrelevant to our efforts here. I only raised it to illustrate my concern when you do things like act aghast at having your service questioned, yet you question the service of others; or when you belittle another man's service to his country with pejoratives like "short", "exaggerated", etc. Since you seem to feel I, having seen your blog, have a leg up on you, I'll disclose that I cannot claim Vietnam Vet status, but I do probably have a year or three on you in age; have family in Phoenix; and as a matter of trivia - I was re-coding the Compuserve forum software at the same time you were trolling in those forums. That's all you get.
Just out of curiosity, was Compuserve still running on Dec-10's at that point? Or are you talking about much later? I first used Compuserve in 1971 or 72. Gustnado (talk) 03:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My initial introduction was as a user in the early 70s as well, and yes, the clunky PDP-10s with the 11s as front-ends were still the backbone - but the coding I did was in the latter 70s. I was fortunate enough to have been allowed to maintain my free 70000,x and privileged 60000,x programmer accounts well into the 80s. Fun stuff. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did a lot of systems programming on the Dec-10s back in the 70s and found them to be very good machines for the time. I especially liked the very powerful assembler, TECO, and the hardware instruction set: it was orthogonal and algebraic, with 15 of the 16 registers usable interchangeably (copied later by the Motorola 68000 and the TMS9900). How in the world, after all that time, did you know that I had been a Compuserve user? Gustnado (talk) 02:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't write that WSI article, although I have edited it. My point of view, if not clear already, is that I favor hard facts and common sense over propaganda and innuendo. You call the WSI event "agitprop", which is grossly incorrect by the strictest definition of that term. If you continue to operate under that misconception, I'm afraid you'll find yourself continually frustrated in your editing endeavours, especially when it comes to backing that opinion with reliable sources. We appear to agree that atrocities and warcrimes happened, and that the vets were truthful, and that the motivations were sincere. Good start, but those were never the contentious parts anyway. If I understand your diatribe on your blog, your two primary assertions with which I disagree are 1) the organizer's goal was to "damage the US war effort", and 2) the organizers greatly exaggerated and misrepresented the extent of illegal conduct by the US armed forces, to the eternal detriment of the reputation of veterans everywhere. Am I misreading you? Correct me, or confirm, and we'll progress from there. [further comments redacted by Gustnado] Xenophrenic (talk) 05:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Xenophrenic - you started the revert war. I put in some changes, and you reverted them in total with no discussion. Perhaps you would like to be prohibited.
I am willing to talk. Let's start - I have restored the page to where it was before you reverted it so we can start there. I have responded in more detail in the article's talk page.
That is incorrect. You were the first to insert content cited to unreliable sources (such as wintersoldier.com, etc.), and I removed it. When you reinserted it, Geni removed it. When your edits are thus contested, it is customary to discuss them instead of continually re-inserting them. I had explained the removal on the article talk page before your latest reinsertion, but the problems with the edits remained.
I'll continue any future discussion on the article talk page. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 06:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Xenophrenic can demonstrate his respect for the etiquette explained to me above by discussing these issues in the talk section instead of instantly reverting them. (from WSI talk page, by Gustnado)
Hi, Gustnado. The above comment was unnecessary. Try to refrain from commenting on the editors, and stick to the article content. If you have something you must say about etiquette or respect, please bring it to my talk page. You have again inserted content cited to sources that do not meet Wikipedia's
WP:OR
. Cherry-picking quotes from a video to support a particular assertion or implication isn't allowed.
You need to fix the sourcing problems, but beyond that I see a number of other problems with your proposed edits. You claim Pitkin spoke at a "Vietnam Veterans Rally", when he actually spoke at a
Swiftboat Veterans for Truth rally (the announcer says so at the beginning of the video, see banner at the bottom of the screen); there is a difference, you know. You pull some partial quotes from Pitkin claiming he was told to say some things, and he begs forgiveness for saying them ... but you clipped out what he claims he was told to say. Is it because you know he never said those "lies" back in 1971 -- there is a transcript and video of every word of his testimony -- so there is nothing for which to be forgiven? Ooops, embarrassing for Pitkin. You also clipped out the part where he claims to have ridden with Camil to the WSI. Perhaps because you know that was a lie, too? (Pitkin recanted after Camil filed a civil suit against him and produced his own affidavit and travel receipts revealing Pitkin's lies. Can we say embarrassing?) How many times did he name Kerry during his speech, omitted by you in the article? We wouldn't want readers to know the real reason Pitkin was at that podium a month before a presidential election, now would we? I'm surprised Pitkin didn't accuse Kerry of fathering an illegitimate black baby as well. I see you also suggest adding "campaign worker" and "VVAW leader" descriptions to Camil, when he was neither during the Winter Soldier Investigation -- the subject of this article. You claim to add them to show Camil's POV, but I think that edit shows more about your POV. They don't belong in this article any more than these descriptions of Camil, "...2-tour recipient of two Purple Hearts, Combat Action Ribbon, two Presidential Unit Citations, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with three stars, Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm Leaf, and Vietnam Campaign Medal." Oh, you omitted those. Pitkin spoke before a rally of "several thousand Vietnam veterans..."? There were fewer than 200 people there, according to the video and the police, and by the sound of the feedback when vets were specifically addressed, maybe 25 of them were veterans. Your talk page comments suggest that you aren't aware that FOIA documents regarding war crime investigations don't belong to Swett. They have already been reviewed by other people, and are already mentioned in the article -- from secondary, reliable sources, I might add. [1][2][3]
.
Sorry, Gustnado, but shills like Pitkin and Swiftscum Vets that can lie through their teeth and disparage individual members of our armed forces for political reasons don't get any sympathy from me. Xenophrenic (talk) 21:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I responded on my talk page, and I also responded to your comments on the article talk page. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 08:52, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
AfD nomination of Porkulus
Porkulus, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Porkulus. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. XenocideTalk|Contributions 21:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply
]
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