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characterization in the lead

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This is a WP:BRD discussion.

This revert, caught my eye. Which characterization is more correct: "militant organization" or "terrorist organization"?

Lead sentences from WP articles:

  • Militant: Militant means vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers".
  • Terrorism: Terrorism is, in the broadest sense, the use of intentional violence for political or religious purposes.

The subsection headings in the Major activities section of the article seem to fit with terrorism. An fbi.gov article titled Weather Underground Bombings says, "A domestic terrorist group called the Weather Underground claimed responsibility ...". WP:EUPHEMISM says n part: " Some words that are proper in many contexts also have euphemistic senses that should be avoided: do not use issue for problem or dispute; civilian casualties should not be masked as collateral damage."

It seems to me that "terrorist organization" is the more correct characterization.

Discussion? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill)

See MOS:TERRORIST. FDW777 (talk) 09:41, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is also Talk:Weather Underground Organization/Terrorism RfC. That goes on for quite a while and seems not to reach any conclusion.
I'm in favor of calling s spade a spade, regardless of personal opinion of its utility as an tool to aid in clarifying one's opinion about the utility of a project involving the movement of earth, towareds the objective of persuading a sufficient number of others to share that opinion so as to spur government action in a desired direction. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:12, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:TERRORIST is clear on this. FDW777 (talk) 12:33, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict). I'll add it here but I'll not belabor this further.
Re "best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject" in WP:TERRORIST; from some googling:
  • FBI ("A domestic terrorist group called the Weather Underground claimed responsibility ...")
  • Wikipedia List of Weatherman actions ("Weatherman, also known as Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization, was an American left wing terrorist organization " -- best to sweep that into this discussion, I guess)
  • PBS ("Some accused the group of terrorism, while others accused it of giving all activists, both militant and more mainstream, a bad name.")
  • Post "The “bomb guru” for the terrorist group the Weather Underground ,,,"
  • gobalsecurity.org (search for the term "terror")
  • U.S. Government publication listed at Amazon.com ("William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Weather Underground Domestic Terrorism, Fugitive Search, FBI Declassified Documents, Bombings, Plans for Violent Revolution (CD-ROM) ")
  • NPR ("The fact is they were terrorists and murderers.")
  • The Nation (" the scourge of left-wing terrorism, much of it by the Weather Underground, during the 1970s")
  • etc.
Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:50, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(added) Well, just one more:
  • Albert Parry (2013). Terrorism: From Robespierre to the Weather Underground. Courier Corporation. p. 325. ISBN 978-0-486-16185-3. in June 1969 a faction of the SDS, naming themselves Weathermen, resolved on a course of terror
Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:43, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Why do people always truncate what MOS:TERRORIST actually says? FDW777 (talk) 13:04, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It says and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution (emphasis added for the part that was left out of the post). The lead already does this in the second paragraph. FDW777 (talk) 13:48, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We tell the reader in the second paragraph that the FBI considers them a terrorist group. In that manner we satisfy MOS:TERRORIST. I don't see why we should do it twice, the second time without attribution.
Many writers on the topic are less inclined to categorize the group as terrorists. They agree with one of the participants, Bill Ayers, who wrote,

But we're not terrorists, I thought, no matter how many times they repeat the charge. We came close, it's true—whenever there are guns and bombs, the line narrows between politics and terror, between rebellion and gangsterism. We were part of a movement, and then of a tendency to armed struggle... To me the distinction was huge. Terrorists terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we're not terrorists.[1]

Professor Mona Rocha typifies this stance. She writes[2] that the Weather Underground Organization was militant and not terrorist. She says "militant" means a political group that uses violence to achieve political change. She casts a wide net, and it certainly captures the WUO style of action.
Dan Berger, author and activist, writes that WUO was militant, not terrorist. He defines terrorism in Caleb Carr's terms: "warfare deliberately waged against civilians with the purpose of destroying their will to support either leaders or policies that the agents of such violence find objectionable." Berger says[3] that WUO never targeted civilians. Binksternet (talk) 15:08, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
They targeted police, who are accepted by international law as civilians. They tried to kidnap a Rockefeller who was definitely a civilian. They robbed Brink cars which are civilian. They tried and failed to bomb the First National Bank of NY, which is civilian. They bombed Gulf Oil which is civilian.
I agree they didn't hijack a plane and crash it into the Twin Towers so its a continuum. But in my mind terrorist fits better than militant since they never raised a militia or engaged in any actions other than planting bombs, a jail breakout, and the occasional robbery.
Like the PKK or Hizballah at least have armies and engage in battles and proto-govern territory in addition to random bombings. Earlsofsandwich (talk) 02:15, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bill Ayers rejecting the label "terrorist" is irrelevant. So is the rejection of the label offered by the other admitted activists cited above. No reliable source that I'm aware of has characterized this group as anything other than a terrorist group. Being sympathetic to their cause doesn't mean we should avoid using the correct label. 2600:387:F:4313:0:0:0:2 (talk) 22:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you are ignoring the sources cited in the article and brought into the discussion here then you have lost all leverage for changing the article to suit your viewpoint. Binksternet (talk) 22:14, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To add to article

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To add to this article: an explanation of how this terrorist group possibly got access to the Pentagon in order to place a bomb inside a bathroom there. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 12:18, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Black Panther Party should be removed from the Allies section

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Fred Hampton personally disavowed the Weather Underground and called them "anarchistic, opportunistic, chauvinistic, and Custeristic". For some reason this is mentioned nowhere in the article. The Weather Underground looked up to the BPP a lot, but that doesn't mean they were allies. 69.145.32.181 (talk) 17:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

3 years later and I agree Earlsofsandwich (talk) 02:16, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Larry Grathwohl

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This edit removed a sourced statement and added new, unsourced commentary about Larry Grathwohl. Per the source I placed in-line, which was originally at the end of the paragraph: "To start, there is the testimony of a controversial and arguably untrustworthy source: Larry Grathwohl. He was the principal police and then FBI informant inside Weatherman in early 1970..." This suggests that Grathwohl is not good for self-sourcing. Further, the cited source notes, "But when Weatherman went underground, forming itself into small and clandestine collectives of deeply committed activists who had known one another personally for a long time, informant penetration of Weatherman became close to impossible. The FBI complained continually about this problem."

Per BRD, I have reverted to the original text, with the addition of the in-line citation I added for the specific claim. To change this, please bring reliable sources, AGF, and achieve consensus. Freelance-frank (talk) 01:28, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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