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Template:Protected2 John Foster "Chip" Berlet (born November 22, 1949) is an American researcher specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the United States, particularly the religious right, white supremacists, homophobic groups, and paramilitary organizations. He also studies the spread of conspiracy theories in the mainstream media and on the Internet.

He is the senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a non-profit watchdog group that tracks right-wing networks, and is known as one of the first researchers to have drawn attention to the efforts by white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups to recruit farmers in the American mid-west in the 1970s and 1980s. He is the co-author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort and editor of Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash.

Berlet, though not a lawyer (he was a paralegal investigator), is a former vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild, a self-identified progressive bar association. He has served on the advisory board of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, and currently sits on the advisory board of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation. In 1982, he was a Mencken Awards finalist in the best news story category for "War on Drugs: The Strange Story of Lyndon LaRouche," which was published in High Times. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution.

Biography

Template:Dominionism Berlet attended the University of Denver for three years, where he majored in sociology with a journalism minor. He left the university in 1971 to work as an alternative journalist. Berlet did not complete his degree. In the mid-1970s, he went on to co-edit a series of books on student activism for the National Student Association and National Student Educational Fund. He also became an active shop steward with the National Lawyers' Guild.

During the late 1970s, he became the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of High Times magazine, and in 1979, he helped to organize citizens' hearings on FBI surveillance practices. From then until 1982, he worked as a paralegal investigator at the Better Government Association in Chicago, conducting research for an American Civil Liberties Union case, involving police surveillance by the Chicago police (which became known as the "Chicago Red Squad" case). He also worked on cases filed against the FBI or police on behalf of the Spanish Action Committee of Chicago, the National Lawyers' Guild, the American Indian Movement, Socialist Workers Party, the Christic Institute, and the American Friends Service Committee (a Quaker group).

In 1982, Berlet joined Political Research Associates, and in 1985, he founded the Public Eye BBS, the first computer bulletin board aimed at challenging the spread of white-supremacist and neo-Nazi material through electronic media, and the first to provide an online application kit for requesting information under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Berlet is also a photojournalist. His photographs, particularly of Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi rallies, have been carried on the Associated Press wire, have appeared on book and magazine covers, album covers and posters, and have been published in the Denver Post, Washington Star, and Chronicle of Higher Education.

Berlet was originally on the board of advisors of Public Information Research, founded by Daniel Brandt. Between 1990 and 1992, three members of Brandt's PIR advisory board, including Berlet, resigned after complaining that another board member, L. Fletcher Prouty, was openly working with and defending Liberty Lobby and the Holocaust denial group the Institute for Historical Review, which republished Prouty's book Secret Team. According to Berlet, Brandt defended Prouty, and brushed off complaints that he (Brandt) was promoting alliances with right-wing conspiracist groups, some of which Berlet considered antisemitic or even pro-fascist.

In 1991, Berlet wrote a report entitled "Right Woos Left," which was critical of a number of critics of U.S. intelligence policy including Prouty, Mark Lane, Dick Gregory, Craig B. Hulet, and Victor Marchetti for being willing to work with groups on the right such as the John Birch Society or Liberty Lobby. Berlet has more recently criticized Ralph Nader for working with Roger Milliken on antiglobalization issues.

In 1996, he acted as an advisor on the Public Broadcasting Service documentary mini-series With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, which was later published as a book by William Martin.

Berlet argues that the U.S. is currently undergoing a right-wing backlash that is the most sustained of its kind in U.S. history. He argues that, although 95% of the USA's hate crimes are committed by people not affiliated with any group, they have nevertheless internalized a narrative developed and promoted by the right wing that demonizes certain groups, including blacks or gays. He argues that the left must develop coalitions to find a way to counter-balance these narratives, instead of becoming isolated as another side of the "lunatic fringe."

In ZOG Ate My Brains, Berlet warns of a "troubling resurgence on the political Left" of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories as a result of Gulf intervention and the 9/11 Terrorist attacks.

Criticism of Berlet

Berlet has been criticized by The New American for having accused the Anti-Defamation League, in a 1993 op-ed piece for the New York Times, of down-playing the right-wing threat while focusing on left-wing groups.

Reviewing Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, Robert H. Churchill of the University of Hartford criticized Berlet and other authors writing about the right wing as lacking breadth and depth in their analyses, failing to make contact with significant figures in the movement and conduct significant research on the Internet, and for providing analyses of far right movements that proscribe as "racist" a braod range of conservative political ideologies that are "driven more by the association of the author with various civil rights organizations and leftist political activists outlined in the acknowledgements than by the primary evidence presented in the footnotes."

In 2003 the Southern Poverty Law Center published "Into the Mainstream," in which Berlet named conservative activist David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC) as one of an "array of right-wing foundations and think tanks support efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming slavery on "'black Africans ... abetted by dark-skinned Arabs'" and of "attack minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,' rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering racism." Horowitz responded that his reminder that the slaves transported to America were bought from African and Arab slavers was a response to demands that only whites pay blacks reparations, not to hold Africans and Arabs solely responsible for slavery, that the statement that he had denied lingering racism was "a calculated and carefully constructed lie", and that Berlet's work was "tendentious...filled with transparent misrepresentations and smears...". Since then, Horowitz's Front Page Magazine has carried a response from Berlet accusing Horowitz of "dismiss the idea that there are serious unresolved issues concerning racism and white supremacy in the United States", a further rejoinder from Horowitz, and an article by Chris Arabia claiming that "Chip Berlet has a demonstrated record of intolerance, inaccuracy, and distortion" and accusing Berlet of attempting to smear non-leftists by associating them with extreme right-wing groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Berlet was a founding member of the "Chicago Area Friends of Albania", in 1983, and though he says he was one of the few dues-paying members that was not a Stalinist, his association with the group continued until he left Chicago and is the source of continued allegations that he was a supporter of the Enver Hoxha regime. .

Bibliography

Books

(1987) Clouds Blur the Rainbow: The Other Side of New Alliance Party, ISBN 0915987031 , ISBN 978-0915987030 , Political Research Associates
(1995) editor of Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash, South End Press, Boston; paperback edition ISBN 0-89608-523-6
(2000) with Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, Guilford Press, New York; paperback edition ISBN 1-57230-562-2

Selected papers and articles

(1980) "Lyndon LaRouche and the U.S. Labor Party: Cult Fanaticism and the Politics of Paranoia", Chicago Reader, March 7, 1980.
(1981) "Ever Hear of Lyndon LaRouche? He May be Keeping Tabs on You", Des Moines Register, September 23, 1981.
(1982) "Private Spies: A New Threat To Constitutional Rights", The Public Eye, Vol. III, Issues 3 & 4, 1982.
(1982) with Russ Bellant and Dennis King, "LaRouche Cult Continues to Grow: Researchers Call for Probe of Potentially Illegal Acts", The Public Eye, Vol. III, Issues 3 & 4
(1984) with Russ Bellant "LaRouche Loses Libel Suit", The Guardian, NY, November 14, 1984
(1987) Review of Inventing Reality: The Politics of Mass Media by Michael Parenti, in The Library Quarterly, Vol. 57 No. 2, April
(1990) Review of The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane FBI Informant to Knesset Member, Z Magazine
(1995) "The Violence of Right-Wing Populism", Peace Review, Vol. 7, Nos. 3 & 4, pp. 283288. Oxford: Journals Oxford Ltd.
(1995) "Uniting to Defend the Four Freedoms", in Chip Berlet, ed., Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash, Boston, South End Press.
(1995) with Margaret Quigley, "Theocracy & White Supremacy", in Chip Berlet, ed., Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash, Boston, South End Press.
(1996) "Three Models for Analyzing Conspiracist Mass Movements of the Right", in Eric Ward, ed., Conspiracies: Real Grievances, Paranoia, and Mass Movements, Seattle: Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment .
(1997) "Fascism's Franchises: Stating the Differences from Movement to Totalitarian Government", presented to the American Sociological Association, Toronto
(1997) "An Introduction to Propaganda Analysis", in Uncovering the Right on Campus: A Guide to Resisting Conservative Attacks on Equality and Social Justice, Cambridge, MA: Center for Campus Organizing.
(1998) "Following the Threads: A Work in Progress", in Amy Elizabeth Ansell, ed., Unraveling the Right: The New Conservatism in American Thought and Politics, New York: Westview
(1998) "Mad as Hell: Right-wing Populism, Fascism, and Apocalyptic Millennialism", presented at the 14th World Congress of Sociology, International Sociological Association, Montreal
(1998) "The Ideological Weaponry of the American Right: 'Dangerous Classes' and 'Welfare Queens'", presented at the international symposium, The "American Model:" an Hegemonic Perspective for the End of the Millennium?, Group Regards Critiques, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
(1998) "Who's Mediating the Storm? Right-wing Alternative Information Networks", in Linda Kintz & Julia Lesage, eds., Culture, Media, and the Religious Right, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
(1998) "Y2K and Millennial Pinball: How Y2K Shapes Survivalism in the U.S. Christian Right, Patriot and Armed Militia Movements, and Far Right", presented at the annual symposium, Center for Millennial Studies, Boston University
(1998) with Matthew N. Lyons, "One Key to Litigating Against Government Prosecution of Dissidents: Understanding the Underlying Assumptions, " Police Misconduct and Civil Rights Law Report, in two parts, Vol. 5, No. 13, Vol. 5, No. 14, West Group.
(1999) "Abstaining from Bad Sects: Understanding Sects, Cadres, and Mass Movement Organizations"
(2000) with Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, New York: Guiford Press.
(2001) "Hate Groups, Racial Tension and Ethnoviolence in an Integrating Chicago Neighborhood 1976-1988", in Betty A. Dobratz, Lisa K. Walder, and Timothy Buzzell, eds., Research in Political Sociology, Volume 9: The Politics of Social Inequality, pp. 117-163.
(2002) "Anti-Masonic Conspiracy Theories: A Narrative Form of Demonization and Scapegoating", Heredom, Vol. 10, pp. 243-275.
(2002) "Encountering and Countering Political Repression", in The Global Activists Manual: Local Ways to Change the World, edited by Mike Prokosch, Laura Raymond, and Michael Prokosch, New York: Thunder Mouth Press/Nation Books
(2004) "Mapping the Political Right: Gender and Race Oppression in Right-Wing Movements", in Abby Ferber, ed, Home-Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism, New York: Routledge.

References

Sources

http://www.publiceye.org/about.html
http://www.chicagohistory.org/static_media/pdf/historyfair/chicago_police_depts_red_squad.pdf
http://www.publiceye.org/aboutpra/pe_bbshist.html
Dan Brandt, "An Incorrect Political Memoir," Lobster, No. 24 (December 1992)
Chip Berlet, "Right Woos Left: Populist Party, LaRouchite, and Other Neo-fascist Overtures To Progressives, And Why They Must Be Rejected," Cambridge, MA: Political Research Associates, 1991.
http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/00june2.html
http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue29/hawkin29.htm
With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America at IMDb
Martin, William (1996). With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America. Broadway. ISBN 0-553-06749-4.
http://www.uua.org/ga/ga99/418.html
http://www.newint.org/issue372/zog.htm
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1999/11-08-99/vo15no23_police.htm
Churchill, Robert H. Beyond the Narrative of 1995 - Recent Examinations of the American Far Right. Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.13, No.4 (Winter 2001), pp.125–136.
Berlet, Chip (2003). "Into the Mainstream". Intelligence Report. The Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2006-04-23.
Berlet, Chip (2003). "Into the Mainstream". Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2006-04-23.
Horowitz, David (2003). "An Open Letter To Morris Dees". FrontPageMagazine.com. FrontPageMagazine.com. Retrieved 2006-04-23.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/readarticle.asp?ID=9831
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9830
Arabia, Chris (2003). "Chip Berlet: Leftist Lie Factory". FrontPageMagazine.com. FrontPageMagazine.com. Retrieved 2006-04-23.
Arabia, Chris (2003). "Chip Berlet: Leftist Lie Factory". FrontPageMagazine.com. FrontPageMagazine.com. Retrieved 2007-01-15.

External links

Public Eye.org - the Political Research Associates official website.

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