Talk:Globalresearch/Archive1

Point of this article?
I was hoping to find out why Globalresearch.ca was being singled-out as irrational unlike more popular producers/propagators of news stories. Being "strongly anti-capitalist" is a political view, and so is being "anti-imperialist", "anti-militarist" and "anti-globalization". If anything, they're a healthy counterbalance of the mass media opinion makers and they're even in line with the ideologies of many governments.

So I don't see why they should be treated as less rational that CNN of FOX. The claim "its view of science, the economy and geopolitics seems to be broadly conspiracist"... again, compared to what? to outlets that propagate silly conspiracies such as a handful of troglodites in Bora Bora caves posing a credible threat to "civilization as we know it"? Compared to mainstream news about an imaginary "Al Qaeda" organisation with no clear goal other than being hell-bent on planting bombs where they most advance the US foreign agenda? Compared to the mainstream vision of an Iran bent on nuking Israel? There are no more crackpots drafting stories in Globalresearch than in Reuters, they just wear different hairdoes.
 * "The prevalent conspiracist strand relates to global power-elites (primarily governments and corporations) and their New World Order. Specific featured conspiracy theories include those addressing 9/11, vaccines, genetic modification, Zionism, HAARP, global warming, and David Kelly. Analyses of these issues tend follow the lines of the site's political biases." There you go kiddo.--Token Conservative (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Ahuman's stuff
It is a very biased article with a biased point of view. On what basis is it called conspiratorial?. Just because it raises issues against what is daily said by several right-winged capitalist media? On what basis it is psuedoscientific? again what is psuedosicence here? Is is because it says something that is not the others favorite? As an example raising issues in defense of Ghaddafi: Why shouldn't anybody accuse NATO of its savage attacks on the country? and now the Libya after two years turned into a garbage, no constitution, and mass anarchy rules there. 19:43, 18 February 2013‎
 * "Right-winged capitalist media" Oh boy. Osaka Sun (talk) 20:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * What a counter-argument! The grammar was slightly wrong (should read 'right-wing' rather than 'right-winged')! PWND!! 17:47, 1 July 2014‎ (UTC)
 * I don't think it was intended to be a counter-argument. And you are commenting on an year-old post.--ZooGuard (talk) 17:57, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, it was surely intended as some kind of critique of the original post -- my point was (fairly obviously, I would have thought) that it was an utterly feeble critique. And as for it being a year old, so what?

Agregator?
The website appears to be more of a news aggregator, with little original content - very few of the stories on their homepage are attributed to "Global Research News" or "Global Research". They also republish stuff from Russia Today (they didn't get the memo that it's renamed :)) and other news agencies, as well as a lot of stuff from various bloggers and other pundits. I'm not sure if it's automated or the editor(s) just add whatever they fancy from their favorite authors. I need to check if they add their own titles to some of the stories.--ZooGuard (talk) 20:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Anyway I do not think rationalwiki is a place for such statements "Many of globalresearch.ca's articles discuss legitimate humanitarian or environmental concerns, but the site has a strong undercurrent of reality warping and bullshit throughout its pages." About the source, it seems you are right. But I insist in removing the conspiracy, because it is really a personal view which I can attribute to Fox News and ABC news as well! 20:39, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Good article
This article is good, and could be better. Globalbulshit.ca/.org deserved its place here, but should be more information on their perfidious "work".--146.255.153.99 (talk) 13:34, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This article is garbage, like most of 'Rational' wiki's feeble efforts (For 'Rational', read: utterly unsceptical of the propaganda one is raised with -- or why else would mainstream news sources not be similarly ridiculed? -- combined with a wholly misplaced arrogance that such a stance represents the 'truth' and everything else 'bullshit'). 12:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between being skeptical of mainstream outlets and second-option bias. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:02, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * With respect, I don't think that answers the point I was making: namely, that 'Rational' wiki exhibits what I may as well dub 'first-option bias': ie, a website like globalresearch is rubbished for countering the information purveyed by mainstream media outlets, without the same critical eye cast on those mainstream sources. If the writers of this site were genuinely informed about world affairs, they would (IMHO) have a much more nuanced view about what constitutes 'bullshit' (and I say that as someone who can see quite clearly the flaws in some of the articles posted on GR).
 * Globalresearch.ca is rubbish because they think HAARP is a superweapon, vaccines are poison, global warming is false, and that the 9/11 attacks were actually bombs planted by the US government. That said, if you don't think we criticize "mainstream" news, you haven't read our articles on "mainstream" news. Go check out the page on CNN, whose journalism is described as "misinformation" and "crap". Or our page on Fox News, whose criticism section is longer than this page and the CNN page combined. Hell, our page on mainstream media is critical of mainstream media in general.  Frederick ♠♣♥♦ 17:45, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response. First of all, you misunderstand globalresearch's status as a clearinghouse of information from multiple sources: to take but one example, while there are indeed articles sceptical of the anthropogenic global-warming hypothesis, these are in fact outweighed by those which accept it as a given. Further to this, as you apparently see any AGW criticism as inherently ridiculous and 'beyond the pale', I wonder what your response would be to the articles on http://www.hirhome.com -- and this goes to the guts of my critique, namely, that 'Rational' wiki's determination of what is reasonable and what is authoritatively deemed 'bullshit' is NOT based on some kind of open-minded, wide-ranging search for truth, but rather on the prejudices of an insular Western group who are constitutionally averse to any political critique which contrasts too sharply with their own prejudices. As for the section on 'mainstream media', it's not comparable in any way to the uber-critical tone of this entry.
 * The point of Rationalwiki is to evaluate claims made by morons and see if they hold up to scientific evidence. The site Globalresearch.ca has frequently promoted such nonsense and therefore they are just as legitimate a target for criticism as Fox News. The other website you mention appears to be no different than any other website reporting what “they” don’t want us to know. It seems to be little more than an independent scaled down version of RT America.Alsto003 (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC) Alex
 * Well, who really needs investigative journalism then? Apparently the oracles who make up RationalWiki can correctly determine who is a 'moron' and who is not when it comes to the complex and rather murky world of international geopolitics, or the vagaries of climate science, or any other controversial matter. The formula appears to be: anything that poses too strong a challenge to a politically mainstream Western mindset is 'bullshit'. (Case in point: I referenced the hirhome website because I wondered what you would make of the *evidence presented* in the articles about AGW, but apparently you just looked at the website's design and decided it couldn't be trusted). This is hardly a rational perspective.&mdash; Unsigned, by: 49.224.241.232 / talk / contribs 23:32, July 20, 2014
 * Rationalwiki has nothing to do with the "western mainstream mindset" unless of course by "western mainstream mindset" you mean anything that critiques such ideas as 9/11 being an inside job. I didn't mention it in the last post but the reason why I rejected that website so quickly was because of its specific content. The articles on Bosnia and on Global warming relay Russian propaganda. If there is one thing consistent about Russian foreign policy it is there unapologetic support for the Serbs. The West is well aware of this tendency, it was after all a leading factor in starting the first world war (along with rampant German militarism and a combined German and Austria-Hungarian inferiority complex). To most western observers in general but certainly not exclusively the actions done by President Milosevic in the early 90s suggested that he regarded Yugoslavia which was supposed to be a Federation as merely an extension of Serbia. It did that by doing away with the governments of Vojvodinia, Montenegro, and Kosovo and replacing them with people friendly to Milosevic so as to give him an electoral advantage in acquiring the presidency. Basically the other Republics objected to the Serbia attempting to rule over them like they were provinces. However the Serbs would prefer to talk about how the Bosnian Muslims are dangerous fanatics and how the Croats are murderous Nazis. The websites skeptical view of Global Warming should have a message at the bottom which reads "brought to you by Gazprom". Its first instinct is to assume that the US government has a hand in everything that is wrong in this world, it is fundamentally flawed to view Russian foreign policy as being any different than American foreign policy, the fixation this website has on certain regions and events suggests that it's primary purpose is to advance Russian interests and to deride any critique of their stories as merely western propaganda. This website attempts to get past all propaganda and figure out what reality is. The Russian netizens in particular have a hard time accepting the idea that reality could be different than RT America's editorial line, in this manner there are no different than conservatives in this country who have a hard time accepting that reality could be different than Fox News' editorial line. Alsto003 (talk) 16:13, 21 July 2014 (UTC) Alex
 * I don't disagree with everything you say (for example, the contention that both Russia's and America's foreign policies are similarly self-interested), but I put it to you that you (and, apparently, the consensus here at 'Rational'Wiki) 'have a hard time accepting the idea that reality could be different' from some melange of CNN, NPR, the BBC and various English-speaking NGOs (what I broadly describe as a 'politically mainstream Western' outlook). Case in point: you appear to be convinced that their version of what happened in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, for example, is the truth, while countervailing narratives are to be dismissed as 'Russian propaganda'. However, by your logic, the Western narrative ought also to be dismissed out of hand, given that it fairly clearly supports the needs of Western power. This points up the biased standard on which 'Rational'Wiki's determination of truth vs 'bullshit' rests, and shows that it most certainly *does not* 'try to get past all propaganda and figure out what reality is'. Rather than dismissing the global warming articles I cited out of hand, I strongly recommend you read them through and consider the *actual evidence* they present, much of which is sourced to 'mainstream' Western publications, top climate scientists, US Congressional reports etc. Cheers
 * For once a civil conversation (my area of interest is actually the Middle East particularly Israel and Palestine so lately the discussions I have been having online have been decidedly uncivil). Unfortunately the concerns you present are out of my control given as I am rather low in RationalWiki's hierarchy. Thus if you wish to debate further it would probably be more productive to do so with a well established editor. Alsto003 (talk) 01:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC) Alex
 * Haha, fair enough man - I didn't mean to make you the 'fall guy' for everything I think is wrong with RW, you just happened to be the one who responded. Good luck having a civil conversation on the Israel/Palestine issue! ;-)

Polish up?
Lotta people on Twitter seem to cite this article as a response to others citing Globalresearch. Is there anything it's lacking, anything it could do with? - David Gerard (talk) 10:06, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The main focus of the website itself is political issues, and our article could do better to show why (at the moment it only points out where) Globalresearch's views on certain issues are misleading, misinformed, or at times absolutely wrong.  Frederick ♠♣♥♦ 06:25, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * As the RW critic who posted multiple times in the thread above, I'd obviously make more than a few minor changes to the article! But it seems fairly obvious to me that that would simply be too much for this wiki as it stands (which is why I haven't tried to make any changes: I may be an annoying talk-page troll, but I'm not an outright vandal ;-)
 * Anyway, the reason I'm posting is because one change which I think ought to be made in the interests of accuracy, and which shouldn't (IMO) be difficult for the editors here to accept, is to make it clear that GR is fundamentally a 'clearinghouse' of articles: only a small number of the articles are actually sourced to GR itself, or their 'staff writers', such as they are (as far as I can tell, mainly just Chussodovsky himself). Now, this page does make mention of this somewhat obliquely, but I suggest it ought to be more 'front and centre', as I've always thought it a bit silly when someone criticises something *posted* on GR on the grounds that 'GR isn't reliable', but the material actually originates from Consortium News, FAIR or some other source (and is clearly labelled as such).
 * I also think that some of this page's criticisms -- again, without going into the 'deeper' criticisms I've levelled above -- are exaggerated: eg, I remember reading GR around the time of the Libya thing, and while I do indeed recall a rather ridiculous article which stated that Gaddafi was 'not a dictator' (apparently true, if one naively took the formal structure of the government at face value), the vast majority of the material was simply opposed to NATO intervention, critical of the rebels, pointing out the (factually accurate) improvements the Gaddafi regime had brought to Libya, etc etc -- so I'm not sure it's quite fair to say the site flatly portrayed him as 'a paragon of a modern leader'. I mean, the very article cited on this page regarding GR's supposedly invidious stance on Libya is the following: http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-the-nato-powers-are-trying-to-assassinate-moammar-gaddafi/25255 -- is this article really an 'apology for Gaddafi', or is it simply pointing out (using some decent sourced facts) that NATO was using the human-rights card as a cover for a predatory imperialist invasion? I almost wonder if the editor who cited the article read it through!
 * OK, rant over -- take from it what you will. Cheers &mdash; Unsigned, by: 49.224.222.111 / talk / contribs 12:37, 14 August 2014‎ (UTC)

Conspiracy site?
No doubt, however, they obtain information for print from various sources, including leaks and preleaks from well known nations to pre obfuscate any potencial issues that could arrive, including issues where certain governments are indeed topling, but require an injection of post spite and kick in the face while down. These play in those ballparks, being subsidized by most any.
 * Be honest, are you a Markov Chain generator? Ikanreed (talk) 19:34, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No. More like someone trying to be understood in a language other than the one they grew up speaking. (from a Venezuelan IP, probably Spanish) I see what BoN 201 is trying to say. Please try again. Unique pinion (talk) 19:56, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Partisan references should be removed
The paragraph "It's no surprise then that the site has long become a magnet for radicals, fringe figures and whacko elements from the left in general. " should be removed from the article. It only serves to lessen the weight this page has as critique of globalresearch.ca.

For Osaka Sun's comment "If we can't admit that this is semi-influential site of the extreme-left, then we can't be objective.". I asked twice in the commit comments to talk about this in the appropriate forum (here on talk). I have been asking to talk about this objectively the entire time. Lets take a look at one claim on this page regarding global warming. For the record, I believe 100% in global warming so you know where I am coming from. The wiki page lists two articles on globalresearch.ca strongly denying anthropogenic global warming. I've not met one 'lefty', ever, who has denied AGW was a fact. I hear that from the other side of the spectrum daily though. The extreme anti-zionist propoganda rarely comes from the left, but usually from various hate groups loosely associated with more conservative factions in the country. While there are articles there that are way left, there are plenty of artciles that come from the way right or, more commonly, more right/libertarian. To say is it is only a tool of the far left is disingenious, when it is really a tool of the larger far fringe in general.

Ultimately, I want to point out that if RationalWiki really wants to honor it's goal of "Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement", it needs to stick to scientific principles. Personal bias and perceptions have no room in scientific discussion. RaitonalWiki needs to educate it's readers, not throw personal opinions at them... We get enough of the that from politicians and the media all day long. That is why that statement noted above, which is very subjective and obviously biased, is poison to the entire article and as such, renders the entire article void. 02:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Classifying it as moonbattery?
I'm not sure if it's accurate to consider GlobalResearch as an example of moonbattery. By definition, moonbattery is associated with the extreme liberal/left, and given that GlobalResearch has promoted global warming denialism, that's not exactly leftist. Similar deal with RT. I think anti-American is a better label for both of them.
 * Responding to you and the paragraphs above: Aside from the AGW denialism (which is an interesting diversion), Truthersm, anti-vaccination, GMOs, anti-Zionism, Bosnian genocide denialism and Iraq War conspiracies are dramatics that more often than not inhabit the far-left than far-right, at least in North America. Chussudovsky appears to a trained economist whose anti-globalization beliefs made him go off the deep end.


 * It is not difficult to observe GlobalResearch's leanings; see this recent column on Obama's "neocon agenda." Obama's neocon agenda? Every neocon currently hates his guts for trying to make a deal with Iran, not toppling the Syrian regime, not 'aggressively' supporting Israel, not bringing tens of thousands of troops back into Iraq, and not putting Ukraine into NATO.  Hell, they're openly calling for his impeachment on television! Osaka Sun (talk) 02:51, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

moved from article
NOTE: This is not a credible source as to whether the website, GLOBALRESEARCH.CA is a trustworthy organization or not. Slapping the name conspiracy theorist, and saying that is wrong is not right either.


 * No doubt you're right, but I think you're on the wrong wiki. 'Rational'wiki is written by and for people who smugly believe they know everything about pretty much everything simply by referencing their society's propaganda, as well as their own gut prejudices: their lazy (and, it ought to be noted, irrational) knee-jerk opposition to 'conspiracy theories' is simply part and parcel of that (it's almost laughable that they cite 'David Kelly conspiracies' as something which supposedly discredits Globalresearch, given the highly unusual circumstances of his death, and the existence of a significant number of mainstream figures who have raised questions about it: for 'Rational'wiki'ers, though, the mere suggestion that powerful people in Western countries might engage in the silencing of those who threaten them is ipso facto absurd). It's also more than clear that this website has no real idea of how GR actually works, with editors for example claiming that it is 'anti-global-warming', when it is in fact a clearinghouse of varied and often contradictory articles, most of which accept the commonly-held AGW thesis. I'd advise against window-dressing this site's poorly-written attempts at articles, as it will only make their misinformation less obvious to readers and hence more pernicious: you're better off spending your time at the real Wikipedia.


 * Incidentally, anyone interested in some proof of how bad the Western media prism can really be, I'd recommend starting with the following article: http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/milospeech.htm (a warning, though: reading this could permanently damage one's favoured coffee pose of worldly, all-knowing 'skeptic' who gets their jollies by mocking those who seek information from alternative sources).