(Ebook) Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy: Celebrating Chip Berlet as Journalist and Scholar by Pam Chamberlain, Matthew N. Lyons, Abby Scher, Spencer Sunshine

(Ebook) Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy: Celebrating Chip Berlet as Journalist and Scholar by Pam Chamberlain, Matthew N. Lyons, Abby Scher, Spencer Sunshine

This book celebrates the life and work of scholar-activist Chip Berlet. His contributions over four decades have had broad-ranging impacts on activists, independent intellectuals, and academics, from think tanks and social movements to generations of scholars.

Berlet’s work over the decades has covered a wide range of topics, from the Christian Right, armed militias, social movement theory, and white supremacy to conspiracism, civil liberties, and government surveillance. This book features contributions reflecting on many of these topics by leading scholars and activists who have been inspired by his work and example.

This book will be of great interest to scholars, students, and activists within anti-racist, anti-fascist, and progressive social movements.

Introduction

Part I: The Early Years

1. Chip in the 1960s - Sue Kaiser

2. My Friend Chip - Terre Roche

3. From Way Back When to Now - Grace Mastalli

4. Chip: The "Winni" Years - Mary Eich

5. Our Best Friend - Penny Rosenwasser

6. Awe-Inspiring Moments and Radical Alterations: A Conversation with Chip Berlet -  April Rosenblum

Part II: Analysis

7. Ruminations on an Intellectual History of Chip Berlet and the "Right Wing Populism" Formulation - Spencer Sunshine

8. Transnational Right-Wing Populism: Chip Berlet’s Enduring Insights - Jason Wilson

9. Chip Berlet’s Brave Look at the Far Right’s History and Ourselves - Maresi Starzmann

10. Reading Chip Berlet in the Rose City - J. Sciortino

11. Chip Berlet and the Fidelity of the Clerks: A Historical Excursus - Roger Griffin

12. Understanding and Resisting Left-Right Convergence in the Internet Age - Ben Gidley

13. Social Movement Theory and Right-Wing Conspiracism: Hints from Chip Berlet’s Work - Steven Gardiner

14. What I Learned from Interacting with and Reading Chip Berlet: An Appreciation and Thank You - G. William Domhoff

15. Why I’m a Chipite: Lessons from Chip Berlet - Shane Burley

16. Agent and Archive: Chip Berlet and the Historicity of Right-Watchers - A.J. Bauer

17. Donald Trump and the Myth of the Deep State - Michael Barkun

Part III: Practice

18. Our Chip - Angelia R. Wilson

19. In Praise of Chip Berlet: Intrepid and Trustworthy Trail Guide - Kay Whitlock

20. Chip Berlet’s Magic and Militias - Kenneth S. Stern

21. Homage to Chip - Bill Weinberg

22. A Conversation on Chip’s Praxis - Mary N. Taylor and Sophie Bjork-James

23. Righteous Mensch - Holly Sklar

24. The Berlet School of Political Thought - Abby Scher

25. Chip: You Rock My World! - Loretta J. Ross

26. Fighting the Good Fight: No Chip on his Shoulder - Mark Potok

27. Genuine Chip - Mark Pitcavage

28. He Opened the Library to Me - Jennifer Mittelstadt

29. Chip Berlet, Co-author - Matthew N. Lyons

30. Chip’s Intellectual Influence in Exploring African Anti-gay Politics - Kapya Kaoma

31. The Still, Strategic, Organizer Mind of Chip Berlet - Kit Gage

32. Passing the Torch - Alex DiBranco

33. Studies on the Right with Chip Berlet - James P. Danky

34. Desperately Seeking Chip - Pam Chamberlain

Part IV: Legacy

35. Reflections on Reading Chip Berlet - Aaron Winter

36. Chip Berlet and Defending Dissent - Sue Udry

37. Always There in My Corner - Scot Nakagawa

38. A Bridge Called Chip Berlet - Cas Mudde

39. The Generosity of Chip Berlet - Donna Minkowitz

40. A Tribute to Chip - Carol Mason

41. For Chip - Joe Lowndes

42. A Hero - Talia Lavin

43. Chip Berlet was My Foundation - Daryle Lamont Jenkins

44. The Significance of Chip Berlet - Bill Fletcher, Jr.

45. A Bright Light of Scholarship and Reporting in a Darkening Time - Frederick Clarkson

46. Standing on the Shoulders of Giants - Brooke Binkowski

47. Chip Berlet Made Me a Better Researcher and Thinker - Heidi Beirich

Pam Chamberlain worked, for fifteen years, alongside Chip Berlet at Political Research Associates, USA, as a researcher and analyst, helping to produce the Defending Democracy series of activist toolkits. Her writing focused on issues of sex, sexuality, gender, and how the Right sought to limit progress and gain power through its organizing in these areas. She has been a high school English teacher, a sex educator, an anti-nuclear activist, and an advisor to LGBTQ youth organizations.

Matthew N. Lyons writes regularly for Three Way Fight, a radical anti-fascist blog. He has written several books, including one co-authored with Chip Berlet, and for various journals, magazines, and websites. His work focuses on the interplay between right-wing movements and systems of oppression, and responses to these movements by leftists, liberals, and the state. He is co-trustee of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust, which stewards the literary legacy of the late playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry.

Abby Scher is a New York-based sociologist whose writing on the Right, economic justice, and women’s and immigrant issues appears in national outlets. She served as Editorial Director and Interim Research Director of Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that tracks the U.S. Right, where she was a colleague of Chip Berlet. She is a partner in Research|Action, a worker-owned cooperative that allies with community and labor organizations to promote social change. The Ford Foundation recognized her organizing work bridging racial and ethnic divides with its Leadership for a Changing World Award.

Spencer Sunshine has a Ph.D. in Sociology and has spent over fifteen years researching, writing about, and counter-organizing against the Far Right. From 2013 to 2019, he was an Associate Fellow at the think tank Political Research Associates, USA. He has written numerous articles chronicling the Far Right in the Trump era, including one co-authored with Chip Berlet. He is currently working on a history of neo-Nazi James Mason’s influential pro-terrorist book, Siege.