Author: spencersunshine

A Festschrift for Chip Berlet

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Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy:
Celebrating Chip Berlet as Journalist and Scholar

Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy: Chip Berlet as Journalist and Scholar, which I co-edited with Pam Chamberlain, Matthew N. Lyons and Abby Scher, has just been released by Routledge. This festschrift—a collection of essays in honor of a scholar, often done at the end of their career—includes an all-star cast of scholars, activists, and of course Chip Berlet’s friends.

Chip has researched, written about, and organized against fascists and the Far Right for four decades, co-founding a think tank dedicated to this, and influencing hundreds, if not thousands, of people along the way.

Although I had already done activism and research on fascists and antisemites, Chip (as he is known to one and all) was the one who encouraged me to get more deeply involved in the work. He solicited from me, and then convinced his think tank, to publish my first major article on this subject in 2008. Later I ended up as a Fellow at that organization.

But more than that, over the intervening years Chip has been a resource and a friend. I’ve asked him for advice many times, and we have done talks together, even co-authoring a journal article. But at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Chip was forced to retire for health reasons. It is with great sadness that the journal article we did together turned out to be his last, and furthermore two talks I booked for him in March 2020 ended up being his final public appearances.

Although I already had written about the Far Right and have a different approach, Chip is the closest thing to a mentor I have had. And in appreciation for him, I and three others—two others who had worked at the think tank, Abby Scher and Pam Chamberlain, as well as Matthew Lyons, the co-author of Chip’s magnum opus, Right-Wing Populism in America—assembled this festschrift together. Chip has been such a mensch over so many years to so many people that our solicitations received an incredible response. Almost everyone we asked, no matter how famous or busy they were, contributed a piece. Indeed, Chip is one of the only people who can be said to have influenced everyone from the militant antifascist movement to the U.S. Justice Department, and this anthology reflects that. The articles themselves range in length from a paragraph to full-length essays. They include both personal and political stories about Chip, analyses of his work, and essays on the Right which are dedicated to him.

I encourage everyone to buy this book, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed working with Chip.

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

Part I: The Early Years
Part II: Analysis
Part III: Practice
Part IV: Legacy

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40 Maneras de Luchar contra los Fascistas

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40 Maneras: Zine formateado para impresión
40 Maneras: Lee en linea como PDF

40 Maneras de Luchar contra los Fascistas: Tácticas Legales Callejeras para Activistas Comunitarios

Edición original: agosto de 2018
Edición revisada: agosto de 2020
Edición en español: mayo de 2021
Gracias a Eberhardt Press por la impresión y el diseño inicial

CONTENIDO

I. COMO COMENZAR
1. Más información sobre los movimientos de extrema derecha
2. Encuentra colaboradores
3. Preste atención a la extrema derecha local

II. TOMAR ACCIÓN
4. Publica tu investigación
5. Eliminar y reemplazar la propaganda de extrema derecha
6. Impulsar a grupos públicos para que se opongan al fascismo
7. Dificulta que se reúnan los grupos de extrema derecha
8. Refuta sus mentiras
9. Utilice el sistema judicial
10. Exponer a los fascistas en casa y en el trabajo
11. Tumbar al fascismo en las redes sociales
12. Evita que la extrema derecha ataque a eventos de gente progresista
13. Genere brechas entre individuos y grupos de extrema derecha
14. Encuentra nuevos colaboradores
15. Organizar recorridos de bares antirracistas
16. Ayude a los fascistas a salirse de esos grupos

III. SE PROACTIVO
17. Envía tu mensaje primero
18. Desarrolla programas educativos
19. Celebra eventos conmemorativos
20. Haz un espectáculo
21. Organizar cursos de formación y ferias de recursos
22. Forma un equipo de respuesta a emergencias
23. Recluta a personas tempranamente y con frecuencia
24. Recauda fondos antes de que lo necesites

IV. CONTRAMANIFESTARSE
25. Ganar el apoyo de la opinión pública
26. Impulsar a los funcionarios locales para que hagan lo correcto
27. Organizar contramanifestaciones
28. Presiona a los establecimientos comerciales y de alquiler locales para que no traten con fascistas
29. Documente sus manifestaciones
30. No te quedes en desventaja
31. Avisa quiénes son los fascistas y llama a tus amig@s y colegas

V. DAR APOYO
32. Apoyar a las personas amenazadas
33. Establecer un lugar seguro
34. Ayude a las familias de las víctimas
35. Ayuda a lxs heridxs
36. Apoyar a lxs que son blancos de la ley
37. Apoyar a lxs activistas encarcelados
38. Advertir a las personas amenazadas
39. Dar publicidad a las amenazas y los ataques
40. Apoyar a las comunidades que rechazan el reclutamiento fascista

Extra: Demostrar una visión política mas amplia

Apéndice: Recursos

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Review of Failed Führers by Graham Macklin

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Graham Macklin, Failed Führers: A History of Britain’s Extreme Right (Routledge, 2020). Review by Spencer Sunshine

Graham Macklin’s Failed Führers is a major new study of the British fascist movement, and will likely be the central reference point for scholars of that movement for the foreseeable future. … Failed Führers is a collective biography of six British fascist leaders of both the pre- and post-war periods. While this seems like an odd, if not downright antiquated, approach, it actually works quite well in helping Macklin cover a large amount of ground. The narrative arc doesn’t get turgid as it is frequently moving from one figure to the other. This structure also helps avoid a degeneration into a sectology illustrating how This Group begat That Group which splintered into Those Groups—although there is still plenty of that for the discerning sectologist!

The first figure featured in Failed Führers is Arnold Leese, who was active starting in the 1920s and became more and more focused on antisemitism as he pivoted his allegiances from Mussolini to Hitler. He continued his fascism career postwar, as did Oswald Mosley, the most famous of the six outside of Britain. The outline of Mosley’s prewar career is generally known, including his wartime detention, but I was fascinated to learn how extensive his work was postwar and how he was somehow rehabilitated into the mainstream, appearing, for example, on William Buckley’s Firing Line. The third figure, A.K. Chesterton (not to be confused with his relation G.K. Chesterton) also straddled the war. But he was best known for founding the League of Empire Loyalists—who, as the British empire crumbled, did what it said on the tin, albeit with a fascist core. The League wound up by fusing with other groups to become the National Front, the best known of the British fascist parties—at least to fans of 1970s punk rock and two-tone ska, as well as to watchers of the National-Anarchists. Fourth is Colin Jordan, who was mentored by Leese. Jordon was an openly neo-Nazi ideologue and organizer who was a cross between his contemporaries George Lincoln Rockwell and William Pierce. Fifth and sixth are John Tyndall and Nick Griffin; both of them overlapped in both the National Front and British National Party (BNP), which each led before being deposed (Tyndall from the BNP by Griffin, no less). Today, Griffin is the only living figure of the bunch. 

Read the full review at Three Way Fight

“Leftists on Left-Wing Antisemitism” panel

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Tuesday May 4, 2021
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
https://yivo.org/Leftists

There is a robust discussion inside the Left about antisemitism in its own ranks. This is not just related to Zionism, Israel, and Palestine, but also involves questions about conspiracy theories, notions of secret elites, and critiques of financial capital—as well as how to deal with openly antisemitic actors. This unique panel will bring together four scholars and activists on the Left, who have a range of different views to discuss this. What does antisemitism on the Left actually consist of? Where do different parts of the Left stand in relation to this issue? How is it addressed or ignored? And what are constructive ways the Left can better deal with antisemitism?

Moderated by Spencer Sunshine, this panel will feature Sina Arnold, Shane Burley, Keith Kahn-Harris, and Joshua Leifer.

About the Participants

Sina Arnold is a post-doctoral lecturer and researcher at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin. A social anthropologist by training, her current work focuses on contemporary antisemitism in Europe, memory politics and racism, left movements in Germany and the United States, as well as on (post-) national identities. She is the author of Das unsichtbare Vorurteil. Antisemitismusdiskurse in der US-amerikanischen Linken (2016) and From Occupation to Occupy: An Empirical Study of Antisemitism Discourses in the Contemporary US Left (forthcoming from Indiana University Press). Arnold also has twenty years of experience working in social movements against antisemitism and racism.

Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017) and Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021). His work has been featured in places such as NBC News, The Daily Beast, Truthout, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Haaretz, and The Baffler. He recently edited a special issue of the Journal for Social Justice on “Antisemitism in the 21st Century.”

Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist and writer, based in London. He is the author of six books, including, most recently Strange Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and the Limits of Diversity (Repeater, 2019) and Denial: The Unspeakable Truth (Notting Hill Editions, 2018). Kahn-Harris is a Senior Lecturer at Leo Baeck College, Project Director of the European Jewish Archive at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, and holds visiting fellowships at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck College, and the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics at Durham University.

Joshua Leifer is an assistant editor at Jewish Currents. Previously, he was an associate editor at Dissent, and before that, at +972 Magazine. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, Jacobin, n+1, Haaretz, and elsewhere.

Moderator Spencer Sunshine is a researcher, writer, and activist regarding the Far Right as well as antisemitic currents on the Left. He has been part of several actions to help drive out Holocaust Deniers and other antisemites from left-wing circles. Sunshine is the author of the guide 40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Street-Legal Tactics for Community Activists (PopMob, 2020), and is currently working on a book about the origins of James Mason’s book Siege and its influence on today’s advocates of neo-Nazi terrorism.

“I’ve Been Tracking the Far Right for Years. Then Lin Wood ‘Exposed’ Me as the QAnon Shaman”

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My crazy story about how a longstanding antisemitic conspiracy theory about me, cooked up by fascists, was picked up by a Trumpist attorney during the Capitol takeover – who accused me of being an antifa double agent posing at the “Q Shaman.”

“When the insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, I was sitting in my Brooklyn apartment in my pajamas, following live Twitter feeds. At some point I started getting messages that someone was accusing me of being a prominent QAnon activist who’d been photographed at the riot. As someone who’s written about the far right for years and had been the subject of their conspiracy theories before, I shrugged it off.

Then I started getting more messages. This time from old friends—classmates from college, even ex-girlfriends—to see if I was OK. It slowly dawned on me that the tweeter was not a run-of-the-mill unhinged person but a famous unhinged person: Trumpist attorney Lin Wood, who worked on the Kraken lawsuit and had over a million followers. Threats naturally followed, and Wood’s tweet was reported in The New York Times as part of a story debunking the false claims that antifa had secretly stoked the right-wing violence.

Wood’s Twitter was quickly suspended, but not before the post had, at least the last time I took a screenshot, 28,000 retweets and 47,000 likes. For days, right-wing social media and blogs have, repeating Wood’s claim, declared that I am actually the QAnon activist Jake Angeli. Nicknamed “Q Shaman,” he is known for his distinctive outfit—including Halloween-ey plastic horns and face paint—and high-octane rants against a supposedly satanic, pedophilic “deep state.” ”

Read the whole article at the Daily Beast

Trump Loyalists’ Breach of Capitol Is Likely to Embolden Far Right Street Forces

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“The dramatic events yesterday at the U.S. Capitol further open worrisome possibilities for future far right violence and disruptions. An escalation in aggressive actions seems likely, especially in the remaining two weeks of Trump’s term, but the effect may last much longer. However, there is also the possibility that both this and similar recent events could further widen the internal fissures on the right, to the detriment of the Trumpists.

Most immediately, Trump loyalists’ breach of the Capitol will undoubtedly embolden far right street forces who believe that the election was stolen. There were far right demonstrations outside state capitols yesterday, although — contrary to rumors — none were “breached.” (Protesters who entered the Kansas statehouse had a permit to do so.)”

Read the entire article at Truthout

“2020 Was a Record Year for Far Right Violence in the US”

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“The year was quite active for the far right in the United States, especially after its relative downturn in 2019 as a violent street movement — at least compared to the recent past. Although the far right may not have committed as many high-profile massacres as previous years, 2020 saw more murders and car attacks at demonstrations than any year in recent memory.

While the openly fascist wing of the “alt-right” continued to implode over the past year, some on the far right picked up steam: the Boogaloo movement — a new grouping of younger activists with militia-style politics, but the look and feel of the alt-right; Gropyers — white nationalists and their allies who are trying to influence the Trumpist movement from inside; and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, who believe Trump is always about to arrest a cabal of liberal, deep state, satanic pedophiles. Moreover, aggressive street demonstrations led by the Proud Boys reached a fever pitch, inspired by comments from Donald Trump, and renewed opposition to the revived Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.”

Read the full article at Truthout