Take a memo: Watch your back if you are a conservative

Everyone knows that the administration doesn't like being criticized. No administration does.

But the problem may be even more serious than anyone guessed. The opposition movement faces a significant challenge to its very existence. Whether you call it the tea-party movement, the anti-socialism movement, the anti-communism movement, or anything else, the fact is there are plenty of people in power who want it shut down, and that includes both Republicans and Democrats.

Face it, those are the parties of entrenched government power, and any power that returns to the people must of necessity reduce the power of those who wield it currently. So men and women on both sides of the political aisle have ranted about the growing power of the "radical" element on the right, never admitting that what they are really worried about is losing their own grip on power. But steps are being taken, and have been under way for quite some time, to shut down opponents of the liberal movement in America.

Indeed, one well-known political theorist has written a memorandum to the attorney general in which he encourages the administration to focus its attention on "policies and programs to combat the radical right."

That's not entirely unexpected.

The author of this memo notes that "the radical right or extreme right-wing, or however it may be designated, includes an unknown number of millions of Americans" and asserts that "these radical right groups are probably stronger and are certainly better organized than at any time in recent history." More importantly, "they are growing in strength and there is no reason to expect a turning of the tide in this regard."

The author of the memo acknowledges that some pundits believe the radical right is a "Republican problem" because it drains strength from mainstream Republican candidates:

"The growing strength of the radical right may indeed be an inconvenience to the Republican Party, but it is far worse than that for the Nation and the Democratic Party - for it threatens the President's programs at home and abroad. By the use of the twin propaganda weapons of fear and slander, the radical right moves the national political spectrum away from the Administration's proposed liberal programs at home and abroad."

So just who are these groups and individuals who comprise the "radical right"? Of course it could be the usual right-wing suspects such as the John Birch Society or the Minutemen. Or who knows? It might be you and me. The memo says that "All of these radical right organizations have the same general line: The danger to America is domestic Communism."

Well, come to think of it, I have said publicly that I consider communism to be a threat to our way of life, and that I see signs of creeping communism (and galloping socialism) everywhere in our federal government. So I guess I AM covered by the memo. The next part of the memo also sounds familiar from some of the criticism leveled against me by the occasional reader:

"They [the radical right] traffic in fear. Treason in high places is their slogan and slander is their weapon. They undermine loyal American confidence in each other and in their government.... Americans feel they are 'losing' for the first time in history. Since Americans intuitively tend not to believe they ever lose fairly, the radical right's charges that we are 'losing' ... because of treason in high places falls on fertile soil."

In other words, don't say anything bad about the president, or try to educate the public about the dangers of his policies, because that is "fear-mongering." You could well find yourself on an "enemies list" the way that Glenn Beck and Fox News have found themselves on the "enemies list" of the Obama White House.

But this is not a column about President Obama; it is a column about how the "radical right" is perceived as a danger to the United States because of its dedicated opposition to socialism and communism.

I guess we all have to ask ourselves if we support socialism or not. If you do, then, by God, get out there and fight for it. And please realize that what you will get is definitely a fight. Because there are, as the memo said, millions of us who will not surrender easily to a way of life that threatens our cherished freedoms, our Bill of Rights, and our very liberty.

And if you oppose socialism, as I do, then don't just remain on the sidelines while your government swings closer to Karl Marx and further away from Thomas Jefferson.

Don't let the author of that memo get his way. He encouraged the attorney general that, "What are needed are deliberate Administration policies and programs to contain the radical right from further expansion and in the long run to reduce it to its historic role of the impotent lunatic fringe."

In fact, it is safe to assume that if the left wing has made a concerted effort to reduce someone of Sarah Palin's stature to the "impotent lunatic fringe" simply because she is a passionate advocate of conservative principles, they will try to do the same to you.

But this is nothing new. Indeed, as the memo's author noted, "the struggle against the radical right is a long-term affair." So long, in fact, that it has stretched 48 years since the memo was written in December 1961.

That's right. The so-called "Reuther Memorandum" was written by Victor Reuther at the request of Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the first year of President Kennedy's administration. If it seems strangely familiar, that is because the battle under way today for the heart and soul of America is not a new one.

Indeed, Reuther represents a link between today's stealth socialists and the more up-front ones of 100 years ago. Reuther was the brother of Walter Reuther, the powerful president of the United Auto Workers union. Their father was a supporter of Eugene V. Debs, the famous socialist who ran for president in 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920.

Victor and Walter Reuther apparently shared their father's love of socialism, and they lived for a while in the Soviet Union, where they were apparently even too liberal for the communist regime. The brothers were expelled for leading a strike demanding safer working conditions at the automobile factory where they worked.

A letter that the Reuther brothers wrote to friends back home in 1934 from the Soviet Union later famously surfaced in testimony before Congress. Here is the letter's conclusion:

"We are witnessing and experiencing great things here in the U.S.S.R. ... We are daily watching Socialism being taken down from the books on the shelves and put into actual application. Who would not be inspired by such events? ... Carry on the fight for a Soviet America."

It almost reminds you of some of the members of the current administration such as Anita Dunn, who shared with graduating high school seniors last May that Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong is one of her "favorite political philosophers." Depends, I suppose, whether or not you like to get your political philosophy from homicidal despots.

And it also helps put into perspective the Obama Administration's push-back against Fox News for their role in "outing" the socialist allegiance of many in the White House.

As Reuther wrote prophetically in 1961, "The radical right cannot be wished away or ignored [and] its demise is not something that can be readily accomplished."

But with the right combination of "Administration programs and policies" and assistance from "the press, television, church, labor, civic, political and other groups," he insisted, the radical right can be reduced to "its historic role of the impotent lunatic fringe."

At least, that is what White Houses have been hoping for the past 50 years.

n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com