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MAKING CONTACT

Transcript: #26-98 When 'Populism' Has a Right-Wing Agenda
July 1, 1998

Program description at http://www.radioproject.org/archive/1998/9826.html

Norman Solomon: Welcome to Making Contact an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. I’m Norman Solomon.

Many Americans are inclined to agree when they hear denunciations of powerful interests. To a lot of us, government agencies are apt to seem oppressive, while big business just keeps getting bigger and more contemptuous of human needs. But just because an alternative newspaper or a radio program seems to be saying some good things, can we assume that its underlying agenda is to promote the values that we cherish. In other words, is the enemy of my enemy necessarily my friend? A case in point is a weekly newspaper with a wide circulation called the "Spotlight." To many readers, it’s fighting the good fight against a repressive federal government and voracious financiers on Wall Street. But who’s behind the "Spotlight" newspaper? It’s published by the Liberty Lobby. Well, who are they, and why should we care? Two guests are joining us now to address such questions. Martin Lee is author of the book "The Beast Reawakens," published last year. He’s at the studio here in San Francisco. Marty, welcome to Making Contact.

Martin Lee: Thank you, Norman.

Norman Solomon: And also with us is Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates in Somerville, Massachusetts. Glad you could be part of the discussion today.

Chip Berlet: Hi, how are you?

Norman Solomon: Well, thank you. And Chip, let’s start with you. A lot of people read the "Spotlight" newspaper and believe that it puts forward some very valuable perspectives. What’s the problem?

Chip Berlet: Well, the problem is the baggage of the "Spotlight" newspaper. What it is an attempt to fool people into only hearing the anti-government and anti-big business strains, while ignoring the historic claims about giant Jewish conspiracies that track back all the way...past a hundred years. There’s a long history of right-wing populism in the United States, and I think the problem is people think of progressive and democratic populism, and they think that’s great, and they don’t realize that the flip side is a kind of right-wing populism that, instead of building democracy, blames scapegoats.

Norman Solomon: So you’re making a very sharp distinction between different types of populism that may, at first listening, sound about the same?

Chip Berlet: The rhetoric, at first blush, is very similar. It talks about, you know, breaking up large corporations. It talks about corruption in high places and the need for reform. The question you always have to ask yourself: "Are people talking about a structural or institutional change, that will build more democratic access, or are they really trying to say that these bunch of evil people are screwing everything up. And if we just track them down and get rid of them, everything will be fine. And that begs the question, you know, if you really got rid of a whole bunch of evil people, would things still be fine? Well, they never have been fine, and the people are pretty replaceable. So it’s a form of scapegoating. Conspiracy theories in general are a form of scapegoating that blame all the social problems on a handful of individuals, rather than looking at the kind of underlying institutional and structural issues that keep people apart and keep people down.

Norman Solomon: And what would you think would be a good tip-off to those who are picking up an independent newspaper or tuning in to a radio program or cable TV...a tip-off when they hear stuff that sounds good, against Wall Street, against repressive federal actions? How can you really separate the valid stuff from the vicious stuff?

Chip Berlet: That’s a little harder. It helps to have a little history under your belt. If you’ve read some historical accounts of previous periods of right-wing populism, where this kind of scapegoating conspiracism goes on, you know there’s some kind of buzzword language. This distinction, I think, is in how it’s applied. For instance, Holly Sklars’ written a really good book on the Trilateral Commission. It puts it in a context of global strategy and corporate elite. But if you hear people talking about how the Rockefeller family runs the world, or the Trilateral Commission dictates all government policy, what you’re hearing is this kind of excessive exaggerated claim about omniscience and total power. The difference is, Sklar has an analysis that puts the Trilateral Commission as the bad guys, in a scenario of how corporations jockey for power and position in the world, especially in Germany, the US, and Japan. The scapegoating conspiracist version suggests that all world history flows through the Trilateral Commission. So you’ll start looking for those things like "they control everything," that "they’re puppet masters." So if it’s puppet masters, it’s a conspiracy theory. If it’s people jockeying for power in a complex world, that’s a structural analysis.

Norman Solomon: One element that seems common again at first glance is, what we could say is, a critique of unbridled capitalism. That whether you’re hearing a denunciation of Wall Street from the Right or the Left, it seems to be a criticism of the notion that these large corporations are just doing what they want and should be able to do so.

Chip Berlet: Well this is the...the problem is the insider-outsider rhetoric. In other words, it’s not a criticism of unbridled capitalism, it’s a criticism of corporate elites that are internationalist in focus on behalf of corporate elites that are smaller, small business owners, textile owners, nationalist business concerns, businesses that are interested in protectionism. And what they’re going to do is, they’re going to try and find people who can be voters for business nationalism. Because you know, you can’t say that the militants of the world have a lot of votes when they want to have protectionist trade policies. So they’re going to sound like they’re very much our allies against GATT and NAFTA and MAI and all these other things. And what they're really doing is a sucker punch. That is what they’re trying to do is get all of us to get on the bandwagon with them so that they can in fact become the new global capitalist elite. The issue then isn’t that we shouldn’t work against MAI and GATT and NAFTA and all of these treaties, which are very harmful to workers, but if we do it by helping to build business nationalist interest...Let’s look at their history. This is the sector of the economy that is long engaged in union busting, it was the sector that really fought the Civil Rights movement...it’s the sector that has fought safety regulations. These are not people that we want to unquestionably form coalitions with. There are a lot of people who are fighting those awful global treaties who have unwittingly and unquestionably gotten into bed with folks that are busily throwing our friends overboard.

Norman Solomon: Well, let’s talk a little more about that right-wing populist bed. Martin Lee, your book, "The Beast Reawakens," really looks in depth at the resurgence of fascist and neofascist activities in various parts of the world during the last few decades. When you look at a publication like the "Spotlight" put out by the Liberty Lobby, how do those kinds of publications fit into efforts to resuscitate fascism in different parts of the world?

Martin Lee: The "Spotlight" in its news coverage, or quote-unquote news coverage, is continually promoting and endorsing neofascist movements in Europe and other areas. You can really get a good sense of what the international linkages are by reading the "Spotlight." In fact, I think it’s one good reason to read it. I can’t think of many other good reasons to read the publication. But if you want to have an index on who’s friends with who this month in the ultra right-wing milieu in the United States and abroad, in that sense this is a good publication to read. For example, the "Spotlight" will endorse groups such as the DeutcheVolks Union, which is the German Peoples’ Union. In Germany, it recently scored a major breakthrough in one of the very down and out eastern states, the former communist eastern states in Germany...won 13% of the vote in a region election, the most of any neo-Nazi party since Hitler’s time. And the Liberty Lobby’s publication "Spotlight" is continually promoting the DVU, as well as Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French Front National. They don’t refer in the "Spotlight," to these kinds of individuals - I should add also Vladimir Zhirinowski of Russia is another one of their darlings - they don’t refer to them as neo-fascists or neo-Nazis.

The "Spotlight" calls these people "populists." It’s really the code word, in my opinion, for fascist and Nazi. Just to give you a sense of how the Liberty Lobby fits in to this international network, when I was doing research for "The Beast Reawakens," I had interviewed several old guard Nazis, including some people who were members of Hitler’s inner circle, Hitler’s bodyguard, for one. This was Major General Otto Ernst Ramier. The first question, before I was permitted to ask any questions in that interview...the first question I was asked by Ramier was, do I read the "Spotlight"? And I was a bit taken aback. I said, "Yes," because I do, as part of the research that I do. The next question was, "What do you thing of Patrick Buchanan?" And I, again, didn't expect that question. I should point out that Buchanan is among the major political figures in the United States. He is certainly the person that the "Spotlight" and the Liberty Lobby rallies behind, and holds up as their guy. When Major General Ramier asked me about Buchanan I said, "Well, he's a strong speaker," which they took to mean that I liked Buchanan. And since I was reading the "Spotlight", that means that I was okay. They assumed I was friendly and it was an interesting interview that followed. But when I went to different countries in Europe, invariably, whether I was in Madrid or Rome, when I was interviewing neofascists, they would assume that I would be interested in meeting a fellow American from the "Spotlight", the correspondent there visiting and strategizing with these kinds of organizations. So the Liberty Lobby and the "Spotlight" is very much integral to the international ultra-right wing. I think you could correctly call it neofascist.

Norman Solomon: And you've got a copy of the "Spotlight" here. And being radio, our listeners can't see it, but it's a neatly put together, graphically well-produced tabloid form of a newsprint paper. It doesn't announce itself as being extremist. I'm sure many of our listeners have run across it at one time or another. Your book, "The Beast Reawakens," says that perhaps about 150,000 copies of each issue are printed. So it's getting some circulation. And what is its constituency?

Martin Lee: Well it certainly has a lot of constituents and supporters within the militia scene in the United States. But the important thing about the "Spotlight" is the publishers of it realize that Nazism and fascism are dirty words. You don't go flaunting the fact that you are sympathetic to those ideologies. Even though, if you're attuned to it, you can read between the lines and you realize when you're reading the "Spotlight" if they're referring to a holocaust denier as a freedom fighter or a convicted Nazi war criminal as a war hero, that something funny is going on here. But most people reading the "Spotlight" wouldn't know that the person they're referring to is either a convicted war criminal or a holocaust denier, see. So, they use code words. They don't generally lambaste Jews, although that's the ultimate enemy for the "Spotlight". I understand it's dual loyalists they refer to, because they assume all Jews are for Israel; they refer to Zionism, not Judaism, as the great enemy. And there are other ways, where it's somewhat encoded, their racism and their scapegoating. It's not the usual type of obvious racism, where you think of Ku Klux Klan literature, with African Americans looking like apes in cartoons, Jews with big noses...you won't find that in the "Spotlight". But you will find, again, if you're attuned to the subtext, a publication that's still singing the praises of the apartheid regime in South Africa. That's deadfast against anything that smacks of racial parity or equality in the United States, affirmative action, any kind of ethnic diversity, the "Spotlight" would be rallying against. So it's not just a question of what you're against, whether it's Wall Street, big business, the CIA, or the Federal Government. You'll find all those kinds of "anti" themes in the "Spotlight". But what are you for? That's something we have to ask. And that's where you can see clear cleavages between progressive populism and reactionary populism. So when you ask what I think is a very astute question of, "how do you tell the difference?". I think there are other ways as well. I think one image to keep in mind is that of a vise. When you hear someone like a Patrick Buchanan, who I think in many ways embodies the political perspective in a much more astute and intelligent way than the "Spotlight" but nonetheless the raw politics are similar, Buchanan will not simply be lambasting big business, as he's taken to doing since the end of the cold war. He's combining that critique, if you will, with the scapegoating of those who are weaker. So the image, again, is of the little guy, caught between the vise of big business pressuring from on high, and the welfare cheats, so called, and those who are either genetically or culturally incapable of benefiting, the poor people of color, from your tax dollars, pressuring from below. That kind of image of a vise is I think the image of reactionary populism that we have to be very wary of. A flag ought to go up when we hear politicians evoking that kind of image.

Norman Solomon: Chip Berlet, reactionary populism, how much of a problem is that in the United States?

Chip Berlet: Well, right now it's a pretty big problem, because the paradigm of scapegoating, this idea of the vise is very crucial to understanding how that sells to middle class and working class people. In history, that's called producerism, the idea that there's these secret parasitic upper classes and these lazy shiftless no-good welfare cheats (quote unquote)... this has been used time and time again, this paradigm of the parasites at the top and bottom, to demand more access to power and privilege for people in the middle. But usually, since it's difficult to go after the people at the top, what happens is that the anger is deflected toward the scapegoats below. Traditionally that has meant attacking Indian people, attacking Blacks, attacking Jews, attacking immigrants, attacking anyone who can be labeled as the undeserving poor, or people who aren't part of the idealized "us" in the middle. And that has a very bad track record throughout US history and around the world. But when you first hear it, you can say, "That's right, I'm tired of having to deal with all these people." And it's a kind of demagoguery that is very appealing at the short term. I think a lot of folks don't understand how good this can sound at first blush. And it's picking apart who gets scapegoated, where the artful use of language and the code words. I mean, a lot of people are critical of Zionism. But if the word Zionism is just used as a code word to talk about a world Jewish financial capitalist intrigue, it's just the old anti-Semitism being reframed in a language that may seem, at first blush once again, less bigoted. But Carto has a long history of using coded language to sell his wares, and it's Willis Carto who's behind the "Spotlight" and Liberty Lobby. And you know, it's pretty clear who his heroes are throughout history. He's always really been a fan of a kind of populist version of fascism. In fact, fascism itself is a particular form of right wing populism that calls for a heroic struggle against some named conspiracy.

Norman Solomon: We're going to resume this discussion in just a minute. That's the voice of Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, based in the Boston area. He's the editor of an anthology titled, "Eyes Right," published by South End Press. Also with us is Martin Lee, the author of the recent book, "The Beast Reawakens," published in hardcover by Little, Brown. I'm Norman Solomon, and you're listening to the Making Contact radio program. We'll return to this discussion in a minute.

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Norman Solomon: Well, to resume our discussion, I'd throw this question out to both of you, Martin Lee and Chip Berlet, to what extent have progressive people in the United States who think of themselves as being on the Left, to what extent have those folks been attracted to the output of an organization like Liberty Lobby and its publication, the "Spotlight." Is that a significant problem?

Chip Berlet: Well, I certainly think it is. One of the most egregious examples is the Christic Institute case, which was filed against a number of key figures in the Iran-Contra controversy. The case started out as based on a pretty good set of allegations about covert action and wrongdoing on the part of the US Intelligence agencies. But somewhere along the way, the Institute began weaving in allegations from the "Spotlight" /Liberty Lobby crowd, and they took a pretty decent lawsuit and sank it underneath the weight of these vast conspiracy theories. And I mean, I confronted Danny Sheehan to his face about this issue, so I know this is not some rumor.

Norman Solomon: And Danny Sheehan was with the Christic Institute?

Chip Berlet: That's right, he was the head of the Christic Institute. The problem here is, again, this idea somehow that you can sift through the "Spotlight" for information that isn't tainted by its bigotry and its fascism. And I would maintain that you can't. That there are adequate sources of information that aren't tainted by bigotry that are much more reliable that you should use. But you can see the allegations of the "Spotlight" and people who read the "Spotlight" filtering time and again back into left circles primarily through individuals who promote these conspiracy theories in their local areas or in their local radio stations. And it's an ongoing problem.

Martin Lee: I think it is. When I travel around the country I invariably encounter individuals who think of themselves as on the left, progressive, for human rights, or whatever, who take the "Spotlight" seriously as a source of information. And my response is always, well, if they think the holocaust never happened, which is one of the recurring themes of the Spotlight", if they are so wrong on that issue, how can they be right on these other things? I mean, even a broken clock is right twice a day. And the Spotlight" might get it "right" twice a day, but that doesn't make the publication, as a whole, particularly valid as a source of information.

Norman Solomon: Well, let's talk for a minute about holocaust denial, the claim that the holocaust that killed so many millions of Jews and Gypsies and leftists and homosexuals...the claim that that never occurred has been propagated by, among other groups, the Institute for Historical Review. I wonder if you could shed some light on the relationship between that so-called Institute and the Liberty Lobby and the "Spotlight".

Martin Lee: The Institute for Historical Review is based in Southern California. It was formed essentially as a spin-off organization by Willis Carto, the founder of the Liberty Lobby. The Liberty Lobby sets up various front-groups that engage in different kinds of political campaigns. Oftentimes they try to camouflage them as conservative causes and so forth. But in the case of the Institute for Historical Review, it's out and out pro-fascist. Within the last few years the Institute for Historical Review or some of their individuals had a falling-out with Willis Carto, so Carto formed another group that denies the holocaust that centered around a publication called "The Barnes Review." The politics is essentially the same between these two competing organizations now, but it's just personality conflicts now. Actually, they're feuding over money. There was a lot of money left to them by one of the relatives of Thomas Edison, something like 50 or 60 million dollars at stake. And technically, the Institute of Historical Review was supposed to get it, but...it's one of those things. You find this kind of infighting constantly in ultra-right-wing circles. But I think it underscores the kind of racist organization the Liberty Lobby is. The anti-Semitism, again, isn't explicit in some of the old ways we would associate with it, but it's there throughout the publication in various ways.

Norman Solomon: Well, let's mention a couple of names in particular that may have some currency among progressives. One is Mark Lane, the other is Fletcher Prouty. What has been their relation to this essentially fascistic organization, Liberty Lobby?

Martin Lee: Chip, you want to start with that one and I'll fill in...?

Chip Berlet: Well, I've had some run ins with Fletcher Prouty. A number of people have begun to work pretty closely with "Spotlight," Liberty Lobby and its many offshoots, including people who have very good past track record on the Left and civil rights like Dick Gregory. Fletcher Prouty wrote a very interesting book about CIA malfeasance, called "The Secret Team," but then went off into this vast conspiracy and drifted toward the "Spotlight"/Liberty Lobby crowd and has begun to speak at their conferences and associate himself in some way with them. But sometimes when you pin these folks down they say, "Well, I have no official relationship." But clearly, a number of people, like Victor Marchetti and Mark Lane and Dick Gregory and Fletcher Prouty, and a bunch of others that used to be seen as people who had credence on the Left, or at least as anti-government critics, who have really become apologists for what is essentially a fascist and racist organization.

Martin Lee: I think we should be very specific. Mark Lane is the Liberty Lobby's attorney, and he also represents, or he once represented, the Institute for Historical Review, the holocaust denial organization, before its falling out with the Liberty Lobby. Fletcher Prouty was a member of the board of the Populist Action Committee...I believe that was what it was called. It was an organization set up by the Liberty Lobby, essentially to raise money for racialist and reactionary candidates, like David Duke, who is another darling of the Liberty Lobby. They helped launch his mainstream political career, in fact. This Populist Action Committee, that Fletcher Prouty was a board member of, along with former leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, and so forth. You know, that is an official type of association. He's been quoted in the "Spotlight", singing the praises of the "Spotlight." When you ask about influence on the Left, and how receptive people are in progressive circles, I was somewhat dismayed a couple of years back when I learned that some of the Pacifica radio stations were using as premiums in their fund-raising drives tapes by Fletcher Prouty. And not because no one should ever listen to him, but because they weren't identifying his associations with this Liberty Lobby-type of crowd. And this was of course, unintentional, I think. Had the various stations who were using Prouty's material as premiums realized these connections they certainly wouldn't have done it. And when it was brought to their attention, they stopped. But it goes to show you how easily that type of anti-government rhetoric can be appealing to progressives when they sort of, don't look further and don't dig upon what's really going on here. Again, because it's not just simply a matter of what you're against. It's what you're for. And if what Prouty is for is the type of information that the "Spotlight" is putting out, which he sings the praises of, then that's not good enough.

Norman Solomon: Another example would be the fellow who was the so-called Vietnam war hero, Bo Gritz, who was being championed for a while by some progressive groups until perhaps his colors became more clear, politically.

Chip Berlet: Well, Bo Gritz actually got woven into the Left by members of the Christic Institute. There was a brief period when several people in the leadership of the Christic Institute were sort of appearing on stage with him and appearing in videos and vice versa and promoting some of his ideas. I think to a certain extent that reflected a kind of historic ignorance of some of his themes, and as they became more aware, they backed off. But he had gotten entrée into the Left with his claims about how the US is directly involved in drug running into the ghettos and into the United States starting with the Vietnam War. But again, this isn't a structural critique. This isn't McCoy's book on the politics of heroin. This is again Gritz' claim of a vast conspiracy that goes back forever and ever. And that's again the difference. It's not that there isn't connivance between US intelligence agencies and the drug trade. It's just when you start to weave in this thousand year-old conspiracy that Gritz includes in his potpourri of possible co-conspirators, all sorts of Freemasons, Jewish families running the Federal Reserve, and maybe we have to watch out for the mark of the beast predicted in the Book of Revelations as an apocalyptic theme. The problem is picking and choosing out of the whole analysis certain points which you hear and screening out the kinds of bigoted and conspiracist stuff that goes along with it. My point, and Marty's point is, that you don't screen that stuff out, you consider it as part of the package, and decide whether or not it's appropriate to use the information or put these people in a coalition.

Norman Solomon: We have literally half a minute left. On the question of conspiracy, with those type of constraints, what is good or bad about looking at conspiracies as a problem?

Martin Lee: Well, very quickly, you know, it's one thing to talk about powerful people in collusion to promote policies that serve their own interests. Yes, but when you're talking about a single conspiracy that literally goes back a hundred years, and in which there's a satanically spawned cabal in the middle of it responsible for all these evil deeds, that's really where the Liberty Lobby and others on the ultra right are at, and it's a big difference.

Norman Solomon: That's Martin Lee, author of "The Beast Reawakens," published in 1997 by Little, Brown. And also we've been speaking with Chip Berlet, editor of an anthology called "Eyes Right," published by South End Press. He's a senior analyst at Political Research Associates. Thanks to both of you for joining us.

And that's about it for this edition of Making Contact. If you'd like a transcript or tape of today's program, or more information about Making Contact, please get something to write with because in a few moments you'll be hearing our toll-free number, which you can use from anywhere in the United States and Canada. Making Contact is an independent production funded by individual contributors. Our producers are David Barsamian and Phillip Babich. Our executive director is Peggy Law. To get in touch with our guests, or to receive some free background information, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. You can also order tapes and transcripts by calling the same number. A special thanks today to Paul Lancour for engineering the program.

This is Norman Solomon. For everyone involved with Making Contact, 'bye for now.