Talk:Kathy Boudin

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wheather Underground Organization/ Weathermen[edit]

I think it should mention somewhere that she was a member of the Wheather Underground Organization

A much improved article[edit]

While the above assertions were correct at the time they were written, they no longer reflect the much longer article as it stands today. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 17:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Kathy Boudin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 09:25, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Kathy Boudin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Kathy Boudin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:26, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Needs work[edit]

The article needs more sources and better sources. I have tagged it accordingly. SunCrow (talk)

Issues with a source[edit]

Hate to be a bother, but I tend to be one of those readers that like to look at source material and obviously this page is fraught with issues, what with all the 'citations needed' and what not. That isn't the direct issue.

I went to look up one of the sources about the adoptive parents (I was curious about what happened after Kathy was arrested and she had to give up her child) and it led me to the "No tears for dead cops" article. The first line is, and I quote, "Being the child of left-wing domestic terrorists means never having to say you're sorry."

The entire article is a very obvious jab at the son of Kathy Boudin, who I don't know, I live in the UK. I realise it does, in a round about way mention the adoptive parents near the bottom of the article, it's also filled with a lot of very subjective, almost angry rhetoric. Especially as it tells the story of the robbery, which is not told very well here in the wiki article considering there is very little citations to back up most of the claims. Example:

"They're the 1960s group of rich-kid radicals who bombed government buildings and corporate headquarters, aided convicted felons in jail breaks, and participated in a 1981 Brinks' armored car holdup in Nyack, N.Y., that took the lives of three innocent Americans in the name of "peace.""

Or

"Two of the holdup victims gunned down in the botched Brinks' robbery were police officers. One was a private security guard. All three were veterans from working-class backgrounds. Neither the Times nor any other media outlet that has breathlessly reported on Boudin's Rhodes scholarship win has even seen fit to print the names of the Nyack victims: Waverly Brown, Edward O'Grady, and Peter Paige."


This article is definitely taking a stance against Chesa Boudin, and that's fine, whatever. However, to actually get to the information about Boudin's adoptive parents you have to go through all of that which we can't verify because it's on a news website that has very little information about it. And Michelle Malkin does have a reputation as being partisan, I don't think we can deny that, even I've heard of her in the UK.

So I found you this link, it mentions his parents, and the adoptive parents, even their crimes and the entire situations, and I will admit is a glowing review of him as a rhodes scholar (I don't know when it was written I'm afraid) but is at least not written by him (so it's not 'here's my incredibly hard life') and not written by someone who works for Fox News who may have a bit of a issue with a running democrat?

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1155

Anyway, sorry again to be a bother, hope this will make it into consideration. I dreadfully hate going to read an article and finding something so very partisan, either way, as you can imagine. Cheers.

Thanks for expressing your desire for a more neutral POV; I am sorry that the commenter, below, does not seem to recognize or accept that principle, nor do they –and this is the more salient comment—seem to recognize that 'opinion" blogs are not the same as news sources. Actio (talk) 21:48, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]


IT is not a sign of immoderate prejudice for an article about a convicted murderer to contain a bit of anger, in my humble opinion. 70.127.17.241 (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:37, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:53, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Recent death[edit]

She died. It was reported in RS's. She died on May 1, 2022. It should be mentioned in the article. Also, good riddance to her. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:36, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's in the article already. Someone also made a pass to past-tensify everything. There might be new content to add from the obituaries, hopefully some of which can support the uncited info currently in the article. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:52, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:48, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lead description[edit]

Topcat1066, I started this section for you to convince others that your lead changes are warranted. Can you meet the threshold of MOS:TERRORIST: "widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject"? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:24, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are two books premised on "law enforcement" sources that discuss KB's role in Brinks, John Castellucci's "The Big Dance" and William Rosenau's "Tonight We Bombed the Capitol." I've read both. (There is also Susan Braudy's "Family Circle" about the Boudin family, but that has a different focus.) Neither author could get interviews with the principals or access to their private papers, if any. Are there even-handed histories of WUO or M19CO (a/k/a Armed Resistance Unit)? One problem is that participants who later renounced their former views and actions (including Boudin, Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn, Susan Rosenberg, and others) nevertheless have not been willing to candidly describe much about what they and others actually did and what they were thinking, particularly in their alliances with the Black Liberation Army and with Puerto Rican nationalists.PDGPA (talk) 02:42, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The US Department of Justice describes KB as a member of a terrorist family in https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/big-dance-untold-story-kathy-boudin-and-terrorist-family-committed
The Telegraph, a reputable paper, describes KB as a terrorist: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/05/06/kathy-boudin-terrorist-weather-underground-turned-life-around/
The Times describes KB as a 'former' terrorist: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kathy-boudin-obituary-cr6537f0m
These are accurate and reliable sources which support the description of KB as a domestic terrorist, in that she used violence to achieve political aims. She was also jailed for murder during a robbery to support a terrorist organisation. Topcat1066 (talk) 09:04, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also, comparisons with Timothy McVeigh are valid. I note that he is described as a domestic terrorist. KB committed acts of murder in support of terrorism also. Topcat1066 (talk) 09:06, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Telegraph piece does not call Boudin a terrorist outside of the headline (see WP:HEADLINE) and the Times article is an opinion piece (see WP:RSOPINION). Castellucci's book is not affiliated with the Justice Department, they're just hosting a summary. I don't believe The Big Dance ever refers to Boudin herself as a terrorist. If it does, please supply a page number so I can check.
Even if it does, this does not come close to the "widely used by reliable sources" threshold of MOS:TERRORIST. Boudin has been the subject of hundreds of news articles and many books and peer-reviewed articles. With a body of sources that large, even a small handful of sources can't be considered "wide".
Per WP:ONUS: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." You have not met that onus, and I urge you to self-revert until you have. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:31, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Topcat1066: your recent reversion is hard to understand. You cite lack of consensus, but the status quo ante version usually stays up during discussion. Do you think we need to add a source that supports "radical leftist activist"? That's well supported by the body of the article (see WP:LEADCITE). Your reversion also restored an error to the article, as the Brinks robbery was not a "bank robbery". Please self-revert and build consensus for your changes here. Please also provide the page number for the book citation you claim supports "terrorist" and address the issue above about MOS:TERRORIST's threshold. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:58, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As one of the few other editors who appears to have taken an interest in this dispute, I will weigh in to say that I do not see Topcat making a good faith effort to satisfy WP standards under the Manual of Style as pointed out by Firefangledfeathers. Simply to cite back to FFF the same rules they have highlighted, without an effort to conform to those standards, seems more petulant than fair-minded. For example, the DOJ reference is to the publisher's promotional summary of a book, as reprinted in a card catalog entry in a DOJ library; it is not a cite to the source itself, assuming that source does supported your "terrorist" label for Boudin in particular. You also reverted an edit of mine that merely clarified simple facts that are well supported by all the cited sources. For example, Boudin pleaded guilty, quite appropriately, to "felony murder"; to change this to "murder" would tend to mislead a less-informed reader. (The term "murder" conjures up the sort of conduct engaged in by her co-defendant who fired a gun directly at a wounded police officer, intending to kill him.) Similarly, an armored car robbery is not a "bank robbery," even if the armored car is servicing a bank; why say otherwise? Does any reliable source describe the 1981 Nyack fiasco as a "bank robbery"? Boudin's role, as the sources say, was to act as a decoy (being a white woman) in a getaway switch-car for a group of black, male, armed robbers. It is no whitewash of the case to say so. If the robbery was an act of "terrorism," fairly defined (which I do not believe it was), then willingly participating in it might fairly cause reliable sources to describe her as a "terrorist" despite her lesser role. Do they? PDGPA (talk) 21:10, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I restored the version before the disputed edits. It's been a couple weeks with no talk page engagement or attempts to build consensus. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:01, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Firefangledfeathers maybe BLPN now? Doug Weller talk 08:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I agree with Doug. The problematic user has refused to engage on the Talk Page, does not respond to specific points of disagreement, and is making no effort to edit in accord with WP policies and standards. Unfortunately, I do not have time today to do this myself. PDGPA (talk) 13:55, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Doug Weller:, thanks for the advice. Topcat1066 was just blocked for a month, do you think BLPN is a good move anyway? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Firefangledfeathers good block, so no, not unless the problem recurs. Doug Weller talk 15:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If TopCat is blocked, why is the latest/current edit on the article theirs? PDGPA (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No good reason. I reverted. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Short description[edit]

@GhostInTheMachine edited my prior Short Description from "American radical activist and college prof." to "American activist and robber (1943-2022)." I can see and agree that "college prof" (Boudin's final activity for many years) is not her most notable, but "robber" is really not accurate. I'm not sure what word or two would elaborate on "radical activist" (if any is needed in the short description) to capture the key facts, which would seem to be her role as a founder and longest-standing participant in the Weather Underground, ending with her ancillary role in the tragic Brink's armored truck robbery-fiasco. But her most notable activity is not best captured as "robber," it seems to me. PDGPA (talk) 19:19, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I like just "radical activist", and it means we can fit in the dates. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 00:49, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Kathy_Boudin&oldid=1206102231"