Talk:Russell Means

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[edit] POV issue re: independence declaration

I appreciate that people are taking pains to emphasis that Means lacks any official credentials with his latest statements, but reading the rest of this article it seems 'rebuffed' is strong language to indicate previous losses. Note the small margin with which he lost the first election, as well as the fact that courts agreed the election was not entirely fair. The citation for this note is not even close to strong enough to support the original language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.74.216.233 (talk) 09:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

In fact the courts upheld the election he lost. One of many, many elections he lost. In fact, I don't think he ever won an election. His repeated attempts at gaining the very offices he later referred to as "Nazi" positions or positions of collaboration with Nazis, is telling. If Russell Means makes himself appear a petulant sore loser, then perhaps his biography should accurately reflect that.VanBrigglePottery (talk) 23:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any info about the elections, but it is a relatively old issue and should precede in another paragraph the issue of Lakota Republic. Also, it's WP:original research for you to draw conclusions about the fact that his group is taking these actions after he lost elections.

To me the POV issues are: a) do we need to mention BOTH the criticisms of "IRA" tribal leadership; that is what seems like POV over-kill to me; b) if we want both, we have to make it clear the second statement is NOT on the web page by putting after the first sentence about the DC events; and c) "Nazi" should not go before collaborators, because you are interpreting what they said; the reference to Vichy clearly is a reference to the Nazi occupation, as I put in the first iteration. But collaborators could simply mean collaboration with the US govt.

Carol Moore 23:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

PS. Why do you insist on deleting the fact that they say they met with groups in different cities? If it's true, it's of relevance and provides balance; if you can prove it's false, it also is of relevance. It's POV to delete info like that for no reason. Please see: Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes "Wikipedia is built upon the principle of representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias."

Carol Moore 00:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

You are mistaken. I haven't deleted references to meeting with groups in different cities. I added "what they termed" before "treaty councils" because the term "treaty councils" is meaningless. According to news accounts and their own admission, they do not recognize and did not meet with any elected tribal governments, so it is likely that these "treaty councils" are simply groups of like minded individuals with no official standing. Hence adding "what they termed as," to indicate that all data regarding such "meetings" in those cities is solely based on their say-so, with no public record of it.

As for you denial that Means compared those who dissent from his opinion to Nazi collaborators, I find it laughable that you can deny - with a straight face - that he did so. Usually those who attempt to re-write history wait a while in the hope people will forget the truth. LOL.VanBrigglePottery (talk) 22:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I have blanked the entire section, temporarily. Let's work out a NPOV version on this talk page instead of the constant reverting to POV versions.Verklempt (talk) 22:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Even better, I just put back original version of current political activities which seems pretty NPOV and accurate. At this point reliably sourced info mentioning Russell's activities best since obviously there are big disputes going on but this isn't the place to work it out. People can go to the two mentioned web sites and try to figure out the disputea from there. Carol Moore 22:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

That version looks okay to me. But, ti does need to be updated with the tribal government's response. In a non-POV fashion, of course.Verklempt (talk) 22:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Note that deleting the reference to Means hijacking the website was the best solution to the problem which it was hard to see because the POV long presentations of the other side of the argument sort of blocked out the realization that maybe WikiNews might not have been the most reliable source and therefore the info might be libelous - so it was just best to delete the assertion as someone evidently did in some edit!Carol Moore 00:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk The article does not mention Mr.Means'06:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)jeanne (talk) views on white European nationalists who are concerned about the horde of non-white immigrants flooding their ancestral homelands(Europe).Does anybody happen to know his POV regarding the issue?