The Real World/ Junk Mail Democracy
DEPARTMENTS
sant and the Chicago's South Side more than Scarsdale and Harvard Square. Waterloo may indeed have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but Belleau Wood and Guadalcanal are examples of...
...This is a very healthy feeling in a democracy...
...They help your .friends and harm your adversaries...
...In any business, that's...
...it has surpassed us in steel production and d0mmates world markets in cameras, hand-held calculators and television sets...
...perhaps that is why this century has had the two most inhumane wars ever known...
...Save America from mushy-headed liberalism, the letters beg...
...The environmentalist mailings make extra money by noting that Interior Secretary James Watt will pluck the last leaf from the last tree if the recipient doesn't respond...
...Increased Productwity . Presdent Reagan has prowded the ~ncentwes by cutt~ng taxes and ehm~nat~ng excess regulation...
...But it is a small price to pay for an alienation remedy...
...But is it good for the country...
...It enables an otherwise healthy and creative folk to go about their business...
...Lewis "Chesty" Puller,' for example, a genuine~ Old Corps leatherneck, was once asked during his long years as a bachelor why he had not married...
...And the root idea of direct-mail junk-mail computerized hit-listing advacacy is " I can influence my destiny...
...Do you think it's madness to let the Soviets have more and better missiles than we have...
...That negative campaign was targeted to defeat politicians whom the organization thought not properly proenvironmental...
...It is a small price to pay for a new political medium of communication that involves tens of millions of people who want to help shape their era...
...Of course, the "progressive" forces used direct mail to finance other" single issues"-to stop the war, to halt racism, to assail male chauvinist pigs, to promote consumerism, to enshrine Ralph Nader, 24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1982 and to make a common cause to purify government...
...He puffed up his chesL *narrowed his eyes, and pointed his spatula at me, all sternness...
...This article is adapted from Mr...
...For $100,000 a year, a little organization with passionate beliefs can employ three or four young activists, provide them with logistical support, put out newsletters and public!ty releases, hold press conferences, and gain a toehold on the political map...
...But recourse...
...That's why a certain Japanese automaker can produce 9 engines per employee-day while one large American car company turns out just 2. And so today, Japan leads the world in automobile production...
...he snapped...
...Proprayer, pro-defense, anti-SALT, antibaby killing, anti-Canal giveaway, anti-union, anti-immorality, antitaking, our guns away, anti-big spenders--the dreams are all carefully arrayed by ZIP codes...
...It seems odd to me that we even ask the question...
...that direct mail is the vehicle by which something terrible called the "single issue" tactic is~allowed to undermine all t h a t is noble in America...
...The pollsters have charted that feeling by asking respondents whether they think politicians in Washington "care about people like you...
...We do bus~ness throughout the world, but we can't sit back and watch Amenca lose ~ts compet~twe edge...
...Perhaps too thisexplains the periodic at~tempts to banish the Corps, or to assimilate it into a purely ornamental and colorful anomaly of one of the other military branchesmonly let us keep the band...
...Of coiarse, much of the money to defeat the Dirties was raised by direct mail prepared by computers...
...I am a Marine...
...It took the folks on the Right awhile to catch up...
...I . the name of the game...
...Send $15 to halt it...
...Now, direct mail is not popular these days...
...Like a priest, a Marine is forever...
...Send in $15 to stop it...
...Nowhere is this self-knoWledge more apparent than in the shared conception of Marines and former Marines the world over...
...One summer evening, upon discovering that my college roommate's father was a Marine veteran of Korea, I went up to him as he whs grilling hamburgers, in'tent on some small talk...
...With this understanding, rooted in an indelible esprit de corps, comes a perfectly natural cocksuredness, an attitude that outsiders-find either charming or infuriating...
...They promote your causes and ridicule the causes you abhor...
...But the dreams of onemailing list stimulate the dreams of another...
...People who bewail low voter turnouts and alienation-inthe-modern-w0rld also bewail the practices that increase participation and reduce alienation...
...Open the envelope'and inside--why, inside is a dream...
...We won't be spectators to that event...
...Ironically enough, in recent times it was the environmentalists who most flashily introduced and refined the "singleissue hit l i s t . " Back in 1970, Environmental Action Inc...
...We've seen that when government spending goes out of control, so do taxes and inflation And that results in the private sector losing control of ~ts economic future Here are some addittonal figures for our economic scoreboard..Each year, 115 milhon Japanese invest more in new plants and equipment than 220 m~lhon Americans...
...So W. R. Grace is calling for a new national pashme...
...The world will change...
...It is almost as though the country cannot countenance a group of men who know their job, do it welt, .and have no illusions about themselves...
...We're W. R. Grace &Co A $61/2 bilhon company producing chemicals, natural resources and consumer products...
...Whether the money is used as a campaign contribution to an on-the-fence politician or to hit-list an adversary or to lobby and publicize a particular set of views, a budget with a comparatively few dollars buys a lot of stroke...
...t hear you were a Marine," I said, in what I thought Was a complimentary tone of Voice...
...So, send in your $15...
...New York, N Y 10036 Ill THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1982 25...
...Increased ~ndividual initiative, ,coupled with a willingness to take on more responsibility, will pay off immeasurably for each of us and for our nat~on...
...But" in SemperFi, Mac, an oral history of the Marines in World War H just released by Arbor House ($15.9S), author Henry Berry allows these vets their reminiscences...
...Waterloo may indeed have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but Belleau Wood and Guadalcanal are examples of lessons learned at Parris Island and Camp Lejeune, where the technical ability to fight has always been girded with an understanding of the Corps' role in history: SemperFidelis, always faithful...
...When they jump out from their anonymity on a mailing list and assume activist roles, sometimes they turn out to be jerks...
...But think for a moment..What are they actually doing, these purveyors of direct-mail single-issue computer-produced junk mail...
...Do you think that abortion is murder and ought to be outlawed...
...We choose not to admit that there is cruelty in the world...
...These $15-a-clip single-issue folks, on both the Left and the Right, can get very zealous...
...So on the average, machinery in Japan is now 6 to 7 years newer than here...
...That is true...
...GRACE One step ahead of a changing world W R Grace & Co, 1114 Avenue of the Amencas...
...F1 Is.America getting beaten at its own game...
...Hawkins, the Carlson Raiders, etc.mbut it is through the memories and anecdotes of the common grunt that the Marine Corps soul is revealed...
...Of course, practicing politicians don't much like what's happened...
...And whenthings don't work quite right, those problems become ten times worse if angry voters think solutions are being shoved down their throats and they have no recourse...
...Do you think that the folks who are against, abortion are assailing civil liberties and want to put Ronald Reagan in your bedroom...
...They are selling us dreams...
...We don't thinkwe're asking too much of ourselves or of anyone else: Just the kind of energy arid creativity that has already given the world everything from the computer chip to the curveball...
...The point is they've learned a lot more from us than how to hit home funs and how to execute the double play This dhart compares the U.S, economy with Japan's over the 1962-t980 period...
...Like primaries and public-opinion polls, direct mail is an advance of process, not substance...
...It is quite clear that in political terms these tactics are successful, both on the Right and the Left...
...Maybe the Marines are anachronisms, holdovers from a more self-assured time...
...We'll need to be more responsive to those forwhom we work and more sk~llfultn motivat#g those who work . for us...
...Other liberal campaigns are also doing just fine in these days of alleged conservative tilt...
...Do you think the nuclear-arms race is madness...
...Dunnq those years, Japan's GNP growth rate ~n constant dollars wass times ours, because its tnvestment rate was 1.8 t~mes ours...
...can influence my nation's destiny...
...But they knowwho they are: United States Marines...
...But these days the postman's bag is also full of often strident conservative mail...
...It is a small price to pay for adding another American idea to the practice of democracy, a strange mechanized very-American idea that--in the terms of political science--manages ~o marry aspects of representative democracy with aspects of plebiscitary democracy and participatory democracy...
...began its "Dirty Dozen" campaign...
...its productivity grew 3.5 hmes ours--while government spending as a percent of GNP in Japan was less than half ours...
...But the health of democracy is process, not substance...
...So much of what_they started with in technology and management skills was once stamped "Made in America...
...What do you mean 'were a Marine...
...Sometimes it is noted that nasty machines called computers actively produce the direct mail that allows single-issue groups to .erode all that is noble in America...
...Send in $15 to make it happen...
...p roductivity Gains...
...The potency of small amounts of money has been apparent at just about every spot on the political spectrum...
...they had b e t t e r care about me...
...Send $15...
...Now ~t's up to U s to support our Presdent and make the most of these new incentives...
...Wattenberg~'s bi-monthly United Feature Syndicate column...
...After all, the root feeling of alienation is "I cannot control my own destiny...
...JUNK MAIL DEMOCRACY by Ben J. Wattenberg I t has been noted by political analyst Richard Scammon that America has Contributed two valuable, and original, ideas to the practice of democracy: the primary election and the public-opinion poll...
...And the most important aspect of political direct mail is that the political dreams so often come true, for the dreams are about power...
...It is a feeling endorsed and encouraged by Richard Viguerie, conservative direct-mail whiz, and by Tom Mathews, a direct-mail pioneer on the liberal side...
...And right now, American business is losing its lead Since 1962, Japan, for one, has increased its productivity 31/2 times faster than we have: What we tend to forget thoughis that, ~n terms of productMty, we taught them the game...
...That is a bad feeling to let loose in a professed democracy...
...Sometimes it is called "junk mail...
...We progressives instinctively recoil at any aspect of war...
...Politicians, who have to hassle with them, say that their jobs are less "fun" than they used to be...
...Histories attempting to capture such a feeling almost always fall flat, for the Corps in its pure earthiness transcends the written word...
...Both see direct mail as a healthy alternative means of communication...
...Let me add a third: direct mail...
...No one who has been involved in national politics can fail to understand just how powerful a small amount o f money can be...
...If the Marine Corps Wanted me to have a wife," he answered, " t h e y would have issued me one...
...Sometimes it is noted Ben J. Wattenberg is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute...
...even in the form of a small check, provides the safety valve for steaming political emotions...
...All the legends are there ~ Capt...
...If there's one thing people in public life have learned in recent years, it is that there are no easy substantive answers to intractable problems...
Vol. 15 • November 1982 • No. 11
