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Clouds Blur the Rainbow: The Other Side of New Alliance Party is a 1987 pamphlet by Chip Berlet published in by Political Research Associates (PRA). The pamphlet was written during the 1988 Presidential campaign of Marxist psychologist and political activist Lenora Fulani, and was explicitly written and distributed to dissuade progressive voters from supporting Fulani's bid and her New Alliance Party.. Berlet presents his view that Fulani and her campign manager and tactician Fred Newman "use totalitarian deception to manipulate social and political activists, and describe Newman and Fulani's therapeutic approach, Social Therapy, as "totalitarian cultism". Fulani went on to garner a quarter of a million votes and became the first African American and first woman to achieve ballot status in all 50 states.

In a 1991 interview, Newman described the criticisms as “absurd” and the product of jealousies on the left, and claimed that the majority of social therapy clients don't involve themselves in his political activities. In the Boston Globe in 1992, Fulani claimed "the entire thing is a lie," and cited what she described as Political Research Associates ties to the Democratic Party.

Stanley Kurtz of the conservative magazine National Review has described researchers from the Political Research Associates' publication the Public Eye as "conspiracy mongers".

Clouds Blur the Rainbow was cited in a 2004 article The Nation by Doug Ireland that strongly attacked Ralph Nader's 2004 3rd party Presidential campaign. Noting that Nader's bid made "no sense," Ireland wrote that "Nader's flinging himself into the embrace of the Newmanites" was "worse than a crime, it's a mistake." The PRA pamphlet is cited in Mandery's 2001 book on the history of political campaigns, Eyes on City Hall. Berlet and Lyons also cite the book in their 2000 work, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort.

The pamphlet also figured in a 1993 lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Fulani and Newman against the FBI and Janet Reno. FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed that the FBI had classified Fulani's New Alliance Party as a ”political cult” which “should be considered armed and dangerous.” A copy of Clouds Blur the Rainbow was amongst the items that were contained in the FBI files.

Newman, Fulani and the New Alliance Party challenged the FBI in the lawsuit, asserting the FBI "political cult" labeling had violated their constitutional rights, and was using private third-party organizations to evade federal guidelines prohibiting investigations of political organizations in the absence of evidence of criminal activity. In her ruling on the case, Federal judge Constance Baker Motley ruled that the "political cult" charge "could not be directly traced to the 1988 FBI investigation," and that "any stigmatization which NAP suffers could be traced to a myriad of statements and publications made by private individuals and organizations, many of which preceded the FBI investigation.

Fulani referred to the pamphlet in a public address in 2006, saying: "It was all a pack of lies – making false allegations of anti-Semitism and cultism against me and Dr. Newman. It was fairly vicious.". In an article on BlackElectorate.com, Fulani characterized the book as a "diatribe" written by "white leftists."

External links

• Clouds Blur the Rainbow, introduction, PublicEye

See also

• Fred Newman
• Lenora Fulani
• New Alliance Party
• Dennis King

References

1. Radical America, 1987; Vol. 21, No. 5
2. How Fred Newman & Lenora Fulani Use Totalitarian Deception to Manipulate Social and Political Activists, PublicEye, Chip Berlet, retrieved February 21, 2007.
3. Chip Berlet, Institutes for Social Therapy and Totalitarian Cultism, Public Eye, retrieved February 21, 2007.
4. 1988 vote: the final word. The New York Times. December 29, 1988
5. Grann, David. The Infiltrators. The New Republic, December 13, 1999.
6. Street-Wise Impresario; Sharpton Calls the Tunes, and Players Take Their Cues. The New York Times. December 19, 1991.
7. The Boston Globe. February 13, 1992.
8. Dominionist Domination, Stanley Kurtz, May 2, 2005, National Review Online.
9. Doug Ireland, Nader and the Newmanites, The Nation, January 12, 2004
10. Evan J. Mandery, Eyes on City Hall: A Young Man's Education in New York Political Warfare, Westview Press, March 2001, p. 379. ISBN 0813398150, ISBN 978-0813398150.
11. Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, The Guilford Press, November 2000, p. 411. ISBN 1572305622, ISBN 978-1572305625.
12. Federal Lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, New Alliance Party, Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani, Rafael Mendez, v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, William Sessions, director, James M. Fox, acting director, Janet Reno, United States Attorney General, 93 Civ. 3490., May 21, 1993
13. Anderson, Kelvyn. Capitolism: The FBI’s Spying Campaign against Candidate Lenora Fulani’s New Alliance Party. Washington City Paper, March 6, 1992
14. New Alliance Party vs. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 93 CIV 3490 (1993)
15. Lenora Fulani, Keynote address, March 17, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia, Southern Regional Conference of Independents.
16. Lenora Fulani, Politics Mondays: "The Real Al Sharpton (By The Real Lenora Fulani)" by Dr. Lenora Fulani, BlackElectorate.com, March 10, 2003