Research

More For Them, Less For Us

Woman in hat and gloves holds sign reading "Racial Economic Justice Now."

Holly Sklar Chaos or Community? Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics Boston: South End Press 1995 Holly Sklar is on a mission to get readers to recognize that we need not be taken in by the “snake oil” of…

Article

The Resurgent Right

Why Now?

Boxes, prams, tarps, and other disparate items piled up under a blue sky on the sidewalk

For those who have worked to further social justice and democratic values in the United States, the election of November 8, 1994 was a defeat. The election results indicate that the American public has repudiated the liberalism that has been the…

Article

Racial Privilege, Racial Threat

A collection of signs reading slogans for the Black Lives Matter movement covering a fence.

Garrett Hardin Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economic and Population Taboos Oxford University Press, 1993 Tomas Almageur Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California University of…

Article

The Roots of the I.Q. Debate: Eugenics and Social Control

“Whatever the Jukes stand for, the Edwards family does not. Whatever weakness the Jukes represent finds its antidote in the Edwards family, which has cost the country nothing in pauperism, in crime, in hospital or asylum service.” -Albert E. Winship…

Q&A

The Snake Oil of Scapegoating

A Call to Defend Democracy and Pluralism

by the Blue Mountain Working Group Coordinated by Chip Berlet Jean V. Hardisty Suzanne Pharr Loretta Ross November 1994 We are a group of individuals interested in joining with others to rebuild a multi-issue movement for…

Article

Encountering Holocaust Denial

Glass candles in a row, with one of them lit.

In 1991, college students across the country were confronted with a shocking form of bigotry against Jews: full-page ads in college papers purchased by Bradley Smith, founder of a California organization called the Committee for Open Debate on the…

Article

The Chosen People in the Promised Land

Old scrolls of the Bible and Menorah lie on a black background.

It can be frustrating to warn the public of growing U.S. antisemitism when the reply (often from Jewish advocacy organizations as well as non-Jewish groups) is that Jews are doing well in the U.S. Never better, in fact. In Scapegoat in the New…

Article

In Their Own Words: The Christian Right World View

Jerry Falwell, a white man wearing a suit coat, speaks in front of a crowd holding signs reading "I love America."

Michael Lienesch Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1993. 260 pp., plus footnotes and index. In Redeeming America, Michael Lienesch examines…

Christian Reconstructionism

Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence

Overview and Roots The Christian Right has shown impressive resilience and has rebounded dramatically after a series of embarrassing televangelist scandals of the late 1980s, the collapse of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, and the failed…

The Hunt for Red Menace

How Government Intelligence Agencies & Private Right-Wing Groups Target Dissidents & Leftists as Subversive Terrorists & Outlaws

In this report, former PRA senior analyst Chip Berlet exposes the extensive and oftentimes illegal activities of the Right’s counter subversion movement in the United States throughout the 20th century. Rooted in conspiracist and anti-communist…

Black Conservatives: Part Two

A black and white photo of a Black man in glasses, and a black man in a suit.

In order to understand Black conservatism, it is important to understand the character of the Black bourgeoisie. Developing as it did within the context of white cultural oppression, it is not surprising that the values identified by Black…

Article

Confessions of a Religious Defender

Person's hand turning a page of a Bible.

Reading Stephen Carter is a frustrating exercise. His points are argued in reasoned tones, without the bombast or rhetoric of so many Black conservatives. In fact, he argues that he is not a conservative. He frequently assures the reader that he…

Article

Black Conservatives: Part One

A Black man in a suit, and a Black woman in a dress and a hat

For most African Americans the notion of a Black conservative is an oxymoron. The overwhelming majority of us reject conservative political positions because we understand in concrete, everyday, practical terms what conservative policies are and who…

Article

Buchanan, Fulani, Perot, & the Reform Party

The Repressive Side of Right Wing Populism What can possibly explain the Reform Party and the discussions about recruiting Pat Buchanan, that include possible support from H. Ross Perot, and Lenora Fulani? We think the rhetoric of right…

Article

The Wise Use Movement

Right-Wing Anti-Environmentalism

A red and white sign that says "capitalism is killing the planet!"

In the last days of the 1992 presidential campaign, George Bush Sr. denounced “environmental extremists” who sought to lock up natural resources and destroy the American way of life. At the heart of this imagined green conspiracy was the “Ozone…

Article

Environmental Justice

Grassroots Constituencies Criticize the Movement

A protestor's hand holding a sign that says, "Climate Justice Now!"

For many years, the large, mainstream environmental organizations such as The Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society, and the Sierra Club exercised hegemony over the environmental debate in legislation, the media, and publishing. In the 1980s and…

Article

Constructing Homophobia

Colorado's Right-Wing Attacks On Homosexuals

Two trans people in a park, looking at each other, laughing.

An eerie unease hangs in the air in Colorado. For lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, nagging questions pervade everyday life: did the kindly person who just gave me her parking place vote for Amendment 2? Did my landlord vote for the amendment,…

Article

Overcoming Violence

Pride Becomes a Movement

Group of people holding large pride flag above street at pride parade.

Readers who want to defend and advance the gay and lesbian rights movement will find these three recent books particularly helpful. They document the conditions under which lesbians and gay men struggle for liberation. To read about those condi…

Article

Theocracy and White Supremacy: Behind the Culture War to Restore Traditional Values

The first version of this article appeared in December 1992, and reviewed the role of Dominionism inside the Christian Right. To understand the Tea Party of today, it helps to see where the trend emerged. As the United States slides…

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