Can you imagine yourself, as a Paleo / Primal or even low-carb diet practitioner tooling around the Internet with the intent of silencing vegans critical of your dietary practices?
I don’t see it. If anything, the more information the more education and the more education the better off we all are. Is it possible we could be so certain, so locked in our own dogma that we have no room to consider other possibilities?
I certainly hope not and I would fight tooth and nail against any such trends. Remember, Animals Don’t Need Gurus. Please pardon me for quoting myself.
But then there’s that Guru factor, and I just hate that. I loath Gurus, and you should too. You know what I think a Guru is? It’s someone who sells you tantalizing, feel good, sound good lies or incomplete information that rarely if ever works for anyone as advertised. When it doesn’t work for most (i.e., it works for some, just like stopped clocks are right twice per day) there’s always the subtle implication that you’re just not applying the info right. But don’t worry. The next product speaks exactly to those problems. Repeat. Over and over.
But I guess the vegans are in die hard need of a guru in the form of T. Colon Campbell, owing to what we’ve been seeing already, and now, their laughable ‘rally the troops’ shenanigans over the editing of The China Study article on Wikipedia. Now, I must warn you ahead of time. This next link I’m going to provide and quote is foot stomping hilarious. For the sake of your electronic equipment, set all beverages you may be drinking aside and by all means, do NOT have anything in your mouth whilst reading this, lest it end up all over the place.
Here you go, from a true zealot. I think I’ll quote the whole thing just because it’s so damn funny.
by Betty Banana 1 day ago
Help in maintaining the Wikipedia "China Study" page, right now under heavy attack by professional lobby groups, among other disguised as "Denise Minger" posting anti "China Study" propaganda! It is URGENT! They basically plan to explode the entire article! I know this type of attacks as a long term Wikipedia editor!
I am sorry if this request lands in the wrong thread, but please alert all vegan Wikipedia editors and admins of this (if you know any)! "Denise Minger" is very likely a large scale underground defamation campaign against Dr.Campbell! No matter if she is a real person or not, this is no "private blogger". I wrote already to Dr.Campbell himself, I hope there will be more awareness of the case. But what is essential is urgent protection and following up on the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study
Wikipedia is one of THE 10 most visited pages WORLDWIDE. Each day thousands of people basically read "Dr.Campbell is a quack and was demoted by a fellow scientist" (=Ms Minger, who is again and again showed in the position of somebody with scientific background; any adds about her "private fun blogger without deeper education" status get instantly removed). I have seen too many real large scale defamation campaigns (I edit the Wikipedia almost since the beginning, and mostly anonymously after some large scale clashes with exactly such professional underground attackers).
I have read many very professional and scientific comments in this group, and I understand that I am far below the educational level of many people here, but I have enough experience as Wikipedia editor to tell apart when something is going wrong, and going wrong fast.
It seems that this "Denise Minger" is involving people in long scientific discussions – which the average layman is unable to understand at all – and ultimately the true attackers proceed on with their real task, while basically stealing your time and strength. It is good that there are so many knowledgeable people who can debunk that horrid nonsense she/they is/are spreading, but the average layman will be unable to tell anything apart. I have seen the graphs she posted in one of her recent articles, they look like "Dr.Campbell did not tell the truth and hid important data", all those graphs showing "no correlation between food and cancer" and "some people get cancer and some do not, and some of them eat meat and other eat no meat". I have no means to tell where she got that from and if this is something from the data or if she or somebody else made this all up and what the hell.
But the average simple people without scientific background will see only that, and that will be all what they understand. The online masses are not very knowledgeable, but they do have a large impact if many of them support a certain cause. And this is part of the plan here as it seems. A large scale defamation campaign "from behind", which may or will reach the "major press" one day. And literally tear apart any credibility of Dr.Campbell and his publications!
I am aware that those people are reading these threads here too, therefore I do not provide too many inside informations. I only hope to direct some of your attention to what is happening in the Wikipedia article (right now!). Many people, simple people, only know what is written in the Wikipedia. They presume that it is maybe not all true, but most of it IS. They presume that if there is a long Wikipedia article with a lot of scientifically sounding material, then this is the current stance of the real science! It is very easy to quickly destroy even the most credible people and organizations, by massively – but professionally – exploding and rewriting major Wikipedia articles!
Please do not take this lightly. This is a war somebody is leading on, but it can be stopped by focused and clear approach at the major concentration points (like the Wikipedia).
I have read through most of the comments in that scam blog and it seems only a few seem to be mistrusting the truthfulness of this entire bizarre scenario. Just tell me, which "private fun blogger" is able, aside of her alleged full time work and study of "English literature", to write 36 pages of scientific responses to a professor?!! And again and again??? Either "she" is some sort of very mighty – and very mad and crazy and hate filled – genius, which in itself would be something extremely rare and highly unlikely (really, why would a pretty young girl have so much reason for such a giant ordeal, fight, all that massive work, all that hate??? such a massive and time consuming insane campaign on such a scale??? and why does "she" have so many "sudden" supporters, and why is she portrayed so elaborately as a "scientific opponent of Dr.Campbell" in the Wikipedia???). Or "she" is in reality another underground camping. And I have seen enough of those.
Please consider adding this possibility to your agenda and to support the Wikipedia article on a daily base. Thank you in advance (sorry for my phony nickname, but I have also seen a lot of real violence, and try to protect my privacy art least a bit, even if this is often impossible).
I considered going through and deconstructing some of the incoherency but what’s the point? That would merely distract from the overall absurdity of the thing. Also, there’s more inanity following that entry, such as this one.
I just come back from the Wikipedia with a small first victory :) I was alerting many (vegan) admins and long term editors, and other people were on the move as well, and finally one of THE major Wikipedia admins, who happens to be vegan, is now watching over the article. ALL the "Denis Minger" blah got removed :) Plus some of the other only blog published, not peer-reviewed and not in the least scientifically backed nonsense too!
I am never too optimistic, but this is one good step in the right direction.
Your idea of adding 30bananas.com as source is basically good, but I tried that already, and it got wiped out in no time, even with sarcastic comments added. I wanted to add some of the material that Dr.Campbell left here on his own, so it was all credible and not some private blog, but it seems as I said, somebody is trying to manipulate and spread intrigues in the background, and so 30bananas.com is seemingly one of the targets :(
You can’t make this stuff up. Real life: far stranger than fiction.
Moving along, I want to make a few things clear. I don’t have a problem with private censorship. I do it here, even. But something purporting to be a legitimate source of unbiased information such as an encyclopedia should, at a minimum, include biased sources from all legitimate sides if any is going to be included at all.
Yes, you can complain that Denise Minger is merely a young, bright English graduate…and how can her analysis be trusted without at least some sort of review process?
Good question. Fortunately, the answer to that question has been provided by none other than T. Colin Campbell himself, in two substantial replies to Denise’s work.
A Challenge and Response to The China Study
Ms. Denise Minger has published a critique of our book, The China Study, as follows (PDF)
I quote from the second link.
It is both interesting and gratifying that there has been such a huge response, both on her blog and on those of others. This is a welcome development because it gives this topic an airing that has long been hidden in the halls and annals of science. It is time that this discussion begin to reach a much larger audience, including both supporters and skeptics.
But I guess he didn’t really mean it since, as already shown, Campbell appears to be cheerleading this sort of behavior from the bananas (literally) people from the safety of the sidelines.
A last final note: this is no call to action. Everybody does what they want, independently.