Talk:F. William Engdahl

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[edit] Biased language

I have tagged the article for neutrality issues. The wording throughout several parts of the article obviously takes a one-sided stance on several controversial issues. This needs to be sorted out. __meco (talk) 17:47, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

No, really? ;-) I'd wade right in, but I'm not sure I want to make a career out of trying to do NPOV BLP on the kinds of conspiracy theorists who can, by way of formal professional preparation, sound quite scholarly at times. See my extensive edits on Leonard Horowitz, which I doubt I'll ever get straight. I'd say Engdahl's bio is in that highly problematic class[1].
Is Engdahl a conspiracy theorist? Yes. In particular, in his GMO book, it seems he cites NSSM 200, one of Dr. Horowitz's favorites when he's blathering about how the U.S. government supposedly created HIV for genocidal purposes. This supposed memo was the ostensible basis for a disinformation hoax that (IIRC) the Russians actually apologized for later. Engdahl believes MKULTRA created the hippie movement. He calls George Soros a "Court Jew". Engdahl claims he's not anti-semitic -- but he's clearly got a problem with certain "Jews who are not Jews". (You know the ones I'm talking about, don't you? The ones who run the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy? ;-) But can Engdahl also write in a persuasive, formal, scholarly style much of the time? So it would appear from a number of very lucid comments about his books. (Appear? Haven't you read them yourself? :p --bonzi (talk) 20:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC))
Engdahl has written for Executive Intelligence Review, a Lyndon LaRouche outlet. He claims he's not affiliated with LaRouchites anymore, but he does highly praise, and draw upon, at least one LaRouchite historian. I got here by way of October surprise conspiracy. There, it appears that Engdahl or some fan/proxy/meatpuppet has written up his theories on that (but without WP:V compliance, naturally, or any other Wikification).
The challenge here, as it has been for me with Leonard Horowitz, is to first determine if Engdahl passes basic notability tests. Has he been the significant subject of a reliable source or two? (Unfortunately, Horowitz cleared that bar with an inch or two to spare.) If Engdahl isn't notable per se, our job is easy: poof, he's gone. But if he passes, there is the challenge of getting verifiable information on him and treating him objectively, within WP:BLP. This is not, in my experience, a very easy task, since it means negotiating the "wilderness of mirrors" that conspiracy theorists have set up on the web, a network of mutual support and admiration replicated over many websites. You have to tweezer the sparsely distributed verifiables into place; after a while, you start wondering if you've crossed the line into WP:NOR territory. And all the while, you have to be vigilant against possible attacks on the article's objectivity from the subject's ardent defenders and his ardent detractors. What fun, eh? Yakushima (talk) 09:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Guys, questioning Engdahl's notability here, in encyclopedia that devotes pages and pages on each and every fictional character of old computer games, is ridiculous. I like the article as it is (although the list of his activities is perhaps a tad too detailed); it says he was a somewhat controversial economist, hints at his tendency toward conspiracy theories, mentions his interest in Brzezinski (and so, by extension, Bilderberg Club and all that jazz), lists the languages into which his work was translated (rather short list, even including obscure languages like mine, Croatian), and that is pretty much that. Interested reader will proceed to this talk page and get somewhat rounder picture, and then decide whether to spend time on his actual work. Sounds sensible to me. --bonzi (talk) 20:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The matter of notability is legitimate. The only way of really testing it is to submit the article to WP:AFD. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

I write some times for the hebrew wiki. I come across a few articles of this guy when i was interested in the ukraine-russia gas crisis.

In his articles he is using so much hidden propaganda against the west its amazed me i cant tell if he lies there, but it surely not written naturally. I think its awful to have him here presented in this way... that makes me sick please change or delete this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.177.114.246 (talk) 13:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)