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Chip Berlet

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Chip Berlet.
Used with permission, © 1999 MH/PRA

Template:Dominionism John Foster "Chip" Berlet (born November 22, 1949) is the co-author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort and editor of Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash. He is a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a left wing non-profit organization based in Somerville, Massachusetts that "bills itself as a watchdog group that monitors rightwing extremists" that he joined in 1982. Berlet specializes in the study of far-right political 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. Much of his work is published online at PRA's website.

Berlet is a former vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild, a body described as pro-communist by conservative critics. 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.

Biography

Background

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, a liberal bar association.

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). Berlet served as Vice President of the National Lawyer's Guild, although he himself is not an attorney and does not have a law degree.

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 on the Web, and the first to provide an online application kit for requesting information under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act . He helped found the "Chicago Area Friends of Albania", in 1983.

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.

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 .

Online Journal Associate Editor Larry Chin charged that "Berlet is a gatekeeper who has made a career out of slandering and attacking whistleblowers, researchers and critics of the US government, of every political affiliation."

Daniel Brandt, an internet activist who maintains the Google Watch and Namebase websites, writes of Berlet, "He isn't critical of conspiracy thinking on the basis of the evidence, but waits until the theorist can be shown to have incorrect political associations. Berlet doesn't fit anywhere on our spectrum; he's running his own show" .

Criticism from David Horowitz

In 2003, Berlet was criticized over an article he wrote for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) entitled "Into the Mainstream", which 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", for passages pertaining to Horowitz's writings against slavery reparations and affirmative action . In an open letter to SPLC president Morris Dees, Horowitz urged Dees to remove the article from the SPLC website, alleging that it was "so tendentious, so filled with transparent misrepresentations and smears that if you continue to post the report you will create for your Southern Poverty Law Center a well-earned reputation as a hate group itself" . Dees declined to remove the article. Since then, Horowitz's Front Page Magazine has carried a response from Berlet accusing Horowitz and the CSPC of using "inflammatory, mean-spirited, and divisive language that dismisses the idea that there are serious unresolved issues concerning racism and white supremacy in the United States", a further rejoinder from Horowitz addressed to Dees, and an article by Chris Arabia harshly critical of Berlet in which he claims that Berlet's work creates the "false illusion that conservatism and racism walk hand-in-hand" and "has squashed vigorous debate and discourse", including among the political left.

The "A Guide to the Political Left", a political watchdog group lead by David Horowitz, at the Discover the Network website criticizes Berlet as follows:

  • Organizer of Friends of Albania
  • Specializes in writing smear lists of conservative individuals and organizations
  • Senior analyst for Political Research Associates
  • Member of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG)
    • "I have chaired committee meetings with debates featuring cadres from Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, and Maoist groups, along with Marxists, anarchists, libertarians, and progressive independents."

According to Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine.com, "Under Berlet's definition, any popular non-left politician is a fascist." Horowitz gives an example where he says Berlet uses this technique in an article that Berlet first published as an introduction to Russ Bellant's 1991 book "Old Nazis, The New Right, and the Republican Party." During the 1992 U.S. Presidential elections Berlet emailed an adapted version of this article along with comments on the presidential candidates to a committee of the National Lawyers Guild. The email suggested that all the major candidates, except for Bill Clinton, had connections or characteristics of fascism. Berlet said then-incumbent President George H. W. Bush had an "agenda of a managed corporate economy, a repressive national security state, and an aggressive foreign policy based on military threat" that "borrows heavily from...corporatism, authoritarianism, and militarism adopted by Italian fascism." Berlet also wrote about Independent candidate Ross Perot, saying "Perot's candidacy provided us with a contemporary model of the fascist concept of the organic leader."

Allegations of fascism and racism

Berlet also made allegations of fascism about the Republican Primary challenger to Bush Pat Buchanan, whom he said "hearkens back to the proto-fascist ideas of the 1930's." Berlet described Buchanan's speech to the Republican Convention as, "eerily invok(ing) Nazi symbols of blood, soil and honor." The voter guide article also grouped candidates like Perot and Buchanan with White Supremacist David Duke, saying, "Duke, Buchanan, and Perot all feed on the politics of resentment, alienation, frustration, anger and fear".

During the 1996 U.S. Presidential Election. Berlet published another adapted version of this article, again identifying Perot, Buchanan, and televangelist Pat Robertson of having connections to fascism. He described them as "three straight White Christian men trying to ride the same horse". and likened their populism to Benito Mussolini's Italy.

Bibliography

Books

  • (1995) editor of Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash, South End Press, Boston; paperback edition ISBN 0896085236
  • (2000) with Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, Guilford Press, New York; paperback edition ISBN 1572305622

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

Further reading

External links

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