The Powell Manifesto


The Powell Manifesto - How a Prominent Lawyer's Attack Memo Changed America
by Jerry Landay

The liberal left, and the funders who support it, are only now realizing the magnitude of the agitprop organization that New Conservatism has fielded against it since the 1970s.

Liberals have focused on single issues, with projects funded only on a short-term basis. The right coordinated its activism on a focused agenda, and waged a culture war along a broad front.

Its huge constellation of attack groups is generously funded for the long term. Liberals who seek to re-energize their movement need to study the history of the culture warriors of the right who succeeded in shouldering the nation rightward. One little-known strand of the story involves a powerful memorandum written by a renowned corporate attorney on the threshhold of his historic Supreme Court career. Mediatransparency.org has commissioned a special report on the role played by Lewis F. Powell.