The Film Archives: 'Religious Right, White Supremacists, and Paramilitary Organizations: Chip Berlet Interview'

Source:The Film Archives- with a look at the Far-Right in America.

"John Foster "Chip" Berlet (born November 22, 1949) is an American investigative journalist and photojournalist activist 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 media and on the Internet, and political cults on both the right and left of the political spectrum.

He was a senior analyst at Political Research Associates (PRA), a non-profit 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 Midwestern United States 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, a paralegal, was a vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild. 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 served on the advisory board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution. He was affiliated with Chicago Area Friends of Albania.

The most recent of Berlet's three books, co-authored with Matthew N. Lyons, is Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, published in 2000 by The Guilford Press. It is a broad historical overview of right-wing populism in the United States.

The book received generally favorable reviews. Library Journal said it was a "detailed historical examination" that "strikes an excellent balance between narrative and theory." The New York Review of Books described it as an excellent account describing the outermost fringes of American conservatism. A review by Jerome Himmelstein in the journal Contemporary Sociology said that "it offers more than a scholarly treatise on the activities of the Third Reich", that it provides a background to help the reader understand the Holocaust and that it "merits close attention from scholars of the political right in America and of social movements generally." 

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 analysis.

In articles, Berlet has argued that the United States 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 US'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 and 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 warned of a "troubling resurgence on the political Left" of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that undermine the effort of progressives to bring about social change.

Berlet has provided "research assistance" to a campaign run by the mother of Jeremiah Duggan to reopen the investigation into his death. The British student died in disputed circumstances near Wiesbaden, Germany. Berlet's statement suggests that the LaRouche movement bears responsibility."

Source:The Film Archives

I'm going to separate Conservative right wingers from the Far-Right in America, because they are almost completely different. Conservatives are democratic and believe in democracy. Even at times speak in favor of liberal democracy. Where as the Far-Right in America are authoritarians and statists and a coalition small but loud made up of Nationalists, Christian-Theocrats and Nazi's.

This post is about the Far-Right in America and I'm going to concentrate on the Far-Right. Theocrats mainly and how they came about. The Christian-Right in America has probably always been around and were originally part of the Klu Klux Klan or the KKK has its elements that the Far-Right came from and the Christian-Right in America, basically emerged politically in America as a powerful coalition as a response to the 1960s. And what they called an invasion of liberalism and social freedom throughout America.

As all sorts of groups in America emerged with new power and freedom. African-Americans, women, homosexuals and Latin-Americans. The labor and environmental movement, the antiwar movement, the Baby Boom generation and others. And they saw all of these groups as a threat to the Christian-Right's  way of life. Where all families have two parents living together, dad worked, mom stayed at home and raised the kids. But with dad making most of the decisions. African-Americans almost without any power. Homosexuals in the closet, pornography, sex before marriage, adultery, unmarried couples living together. All considered immoral and so- forth.

By the mid to late 1960s before the Religious-Right became a force in America, they were basically left without a political party as the Democratic Party became more liberal on civil rights. And Richard Nixon being the brilliant politician that he was knowing that the Republican Party was simply too small to compete with Democrats nationally, brought Christian-Theocrats what I call the Religious-Right into the Republican Party and started working the South. To expand the Republican coalition which is how he was able to be elected President.

The Christian-Right basically ran against the liberal 1960s in the 1970s and these Southern Christian-Theocrats came into the Republican Party in a big way. To the point by the 1980s Republicans pretty much owned the South. Or at least were able to compete with Democrats into the South as long as they appeal to these Christian-Theocrats. And thats how the political party spectrum was switched around in America with Democrats controlling the Northeast and West Coast and Republicans controlling the South.

The Religious-Right in America basically emerged in the mid and late 1960s in response to what they saw as out-of-control liberalism and freedom in America. And saw what they see as traditional America being under attacked. And what they saw as their religious freedom which at times is basically just bigotry against groups they disagree with as under attacked and grew throughout the 1970s, a major force by the late 1970s to the point that national Republicans couldn't win without them.