"Dear Friend"

...One problem about sending a few dollars to a worthy organization is that it's like tossing a coin to a street urchin...

...Before a word processor at this moment sits The Letter Writer, composing for some client a message to us names on a mailing list, alerting us to disaster, assuring us that we are the only people who can deal with it, and telling us where to send our $25 at least...

...Why am I left with the suspicion that like everybody else who is putting the arm on me, Dorsen wants it understood that his organization is untaintedly American...

...Back to The American Way...

...What would the Friends of the Earth say about this use of the nation's trees...

...Sorry, I can't give you the opening lines of the Friends of the Earth communique because they were printed on the envelope, which I heedlessly threw away...

...Okay, Common Causers, all together now????one...

...Sane, which sent me a six-page letter that "may be the most important communication any organization ever sent to its members" plus an opinion poll, apologized for its "duplicate" appeals...

...that to improve the quality of life we must strengthen the common cords that connect us as humans and as citizens...

...Miss Decter and a long list of Distinguisheds (Jeane Kirkpatrick, Saul Bellow, Raymond Ar-on, George F. Will) want me to support more military spending and more aid to repressive regimes because they are the best hope for freedom...

...No emergency there...

...You can't smile a nickel out of me for that...

...These people have been at it for going on 30 years, with absolutely no support from me...

...A local Congressman tells me in the first line of his pitch that he is sure I share his "profound anger...

...Pitchmanship brings out the hyperbolic in everybody...

...In fact, I don't like being called "Wally" by anybody...

...Yes, you read right, that's the name, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with taking the teeth out of English Lit courses...

...Where would I hang him...

...both believe they can define the American way...

...Another communication from Common Cause informs me of the launching of "OPERATION OUTRAGE...

...You and I have a once in a lifetime opportunity," writes Frank Church...

...Granted, I'm edgy about that word, "Friend...

...Okay, I'll give their stuff to Midge Decter, and she can add the League to her mailing list...

...You're a charmer, all right, but it's thin stuff and I don't see the humor in the idea of stemming the growth of government by increasing the defense budget...

...If Jerry Falwell has God behind him, so does Clergy and Laity Concerned, which prays that we will be saved from the Religious Right and is sensitive to charges that it is un-American because it attacks actions of the American Government exclusively...

...that there is more reason to continue to believe in the future than to despair of it...

...Massive can be either negative or positive, depending on whether you are being warned about a massive lobbying campaign against Free Choice or being asked to contribute toward a massive lobbying campaign in favor of Free Choice????either way, it's deplorable usage...

...One wonders what comes over normally sensible people when they are asked to put their signatures to these money-raisers...

...From the National Organization for Women: "If the Far Right has its way, abortion will be a crime classified as premeditated murder in some states and /or a felony in all states...

...The wordiest attack on the Moral Majority comes from Norman Lear, in behalf of People for the American Way, which holds the Tecord for the number of duplicate solicitations it has imposed on meand my mailman...

...it reminds me of Waldbaum's brand of cat food...

...I don't like people who come up to me at a party and wrap an arm around my neck or batter my vertebrae as an expression of good fellowship...

...they are offering an Alger Hiss poster if I send in $25...

...the National Mobilization for Survival (Benjamin Spock, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Dave Dellinger...

...Imagine being caught associating with Corliss Lamont, its chairperson, whose interest in civil liberties stops this side of the Soviet Union...

...Flattering though it is to be called "Friend" by the head of state, I don't deserve it...

...Executive Committee and the Sponsors of the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case...

...Speaking of the League of Women Voters, it is taking an unwontedly agres-sive line these days in behalf of "the dream of genuine economic equality for women...

...the opposition may be powerful but it's never concerned...

...She's on the Executive Committee of sane and on the National Program Board of the Disarm Education Fund...

...As a symptom of "economic discrimination against women," it notes that" 1 out of 3 women raising their children alone continues to live in poverty...

...Physicians, family and friends who help a woman get an abortion will be subject to prosecution...

...Dorsen's letter, incidentally, is good for a laugh if you get far enough...

...Anyhow, the League asks me to pass along duplicates to friends...

...Archibald Cox, in behalf of Common Cause, announces: "A fundamental dismantling of effective government is taking place in Washington...

...Why not leave that stuff to the N.E.C.L.C...

...Fine, but I want it understood that when I give, it is despite the prose, not because of it...

...Spooky stuff...

...three...

...How come we don't hear from you...

...director and N.C.R.R.C...

...Of course I won't throw it away, I wouldn'tdare...

...Concerned is a positive word...

...From the League of Conservation Voters (no relation to Women Voters): "Today our environment, our health...

...The Moral Majority undoubtedly believes that he is...

...The League's new line is a touch perplexing, however...

...But in our view, it is un-American not to criticize your country when it does wrong...

...Norman Lear has this in common with the Moral Majoritarian...

...Such a din...

...and our energy future are all in serious danger...

...The newly assertive League of Women Voters tells me: "The dream of genuine economic equality for women that you and I share is rapidly slipping away...

...Stone...

...On the other side are groups like the Council for a Livable World (no relation evidently to the free world...

...But maybe that's not the whole explanation...

...The Committee for the Free World is in a small minority in my sampling of solicitations...

...More effective even than supporting Norman Lear...

...I'dpro-bably be scared if I could grasp that image...

...My postman, a mild-appearing fellow, is the Typhoid Mary of apocalypse...

...That's why your opinion on these critical issues is so important...

...and Clergy and Laity Concerned...

...A popular technique is to ask you, as President Reagan does, to fill out a questionnaire, the strong implication being that somebody up there really cares about what you think...

...Does Lear believe the Moral Majority is an illegal alien...

...you remember...

...What's so unspecial about Brower's interests...

...The truth is, Ron, I don't have particularly friendly feelings toward you...

...Its rebuttal: "If it is un-American to be actively concerned about such things as human rights and hunger, both here and abroad, then yes, we are un-American...

...I don't like public relations people who, in our first telephone conversation, call me "Wally...

...Right, Fellow Member Dorsen, do you actually believe it...

...I'm a computer-buster...

...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Dear Friend' What do Ronald Reagan, Katharine Hepburn, Ramsey Clark, Norman Lear, GlennFord, Midge Decter, Benjamin Spock, Shirley Chisholm, Frank Church, Eleanor Smeal, David Brower, Mark Green, Norman Dorsen and a score of other people have in common...

...It's a battle of the pop culturists...

...A few of the signatories I have encountered in the course of my journalistic labors, but most are merely names to me, and I would never consider asking any of them for a handout, much less presume to address them as "Friend...

...The Old Soft Soap Many of the solicitations begin with the old soft soap, borrowed from those finaglers who assure you that they wouldn't give just anybody the opportunity to invest in their uranium mines...

...The titleof this vague body is a spin-off on those labels that used to be stuck onto front groups in the 1930s, while portions of Lear's all-American letter could have come straight from the White House: "PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY will head into the '80s seeking to help Americans maintain their belief in self...

...Hey, that's guilt by dear association...

...Rage...

...If James H. Cohen knew me better, he would know better than to ask me to fill out a survey...

...Here's the first sentence of a letter from Norman Dorsen, who addresses me, accurately at least, as "Dear ACLU Member": "It sounds unbelievable, but Congress is actually considering the destruction of our independent Federal court system...

...The New American Way The main enemy in my daily delivery, beating out even the Reagan Administration, is the Moral Majority and the "New Right...

...Messages from Alan Cranston and other Democratic officeholders and seekers blame it for the defeat in 1980 of Birch Bayh, Frank Church, George McGovern, Gaylord Nelson and other good guys...

...Indeed, Edith Tiger, N.E.C.L.C...

...A disarming goal, but sending a check to Ramsey Clark strikes me as chancy...

...The Environmental Task Force goes in for this in a big way...

...They have all written me in the past few months, mostly with the salutation "Dear Friend," and exhortations to send money in order to defeat the machinations of the Right, the Left, and forces bent on despoiling the environment, depriving me of my liberties, ravaging the poor, blocking economic recovery, abusing women and old people, slaughtering peasants in the Third World, nuking everybody, and selling out to the Reds...

...If I had exhibited different political tendencies over the years, no doubt I'd now find myself being buttered up by the dairy lobby...

...Their graying committee is a tribute to the endurance of the Old Left, or anyway their ability to draw a semblance of political warmth to aged bones by stoking ancient fires...

...Well, he claims to have been "one of the first Americans to enter Dachau after World War II...

...The Outrageous Cause I have a hunch that all these letters are written by one fellow, a master of theshort, startling sentence that isguaranteed to shake the dollars out of your pants...

...TheF.B.I...

...Maybe it's all a practical joke...

...The long letter from Glenn Ford advises that the most effective action I can take to stop bigotry in America is to support the Simon Wiesenthal Center...

...It might wind up in Iran...

...Why Katharine Hepburn for Planned Parenthood...

...Speaking of association, there's a considerable overlap between the N.E.C.L.C...

...He bought my name on a mailing list, as did all my other Friends...

...After warning that the Constitution's balance of powers is at stake, he expands: "When that balance is upset, we know what can happen...

...Don't throw this letter away," they caution me...

...to reaffirm that in this society the individual still matters...

...1 have at least two answers to most questions...

...Politician and media are negative...

...Take, if you can stand it, the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case, which addresses me as "Supporter" as well as "Friend...

...Among black women the number is over half...

...willfinditin the garbage and I'll be sunk...

...In my town, the League performs the useful function of setting up debates among candidates for local office, but who's going to make out a check for that when they can give to the Gray Panthers...

...Sponsor, is active in other organizations as well...

...its president, James H. Cohen, actually states that the reason he is writing is to get me to fill out the 1982 Environmental Survey: "Only a small group of specially selected Americans is being asked to participate in this nationwide survey...

...I do, I hope, have a few friends, and prize them enough not to want their small company diluted...

...An organization that files this problem under women's economic inequality is not to be trusted with anybody's money...

...Anyhow, while I was still savoring that title, there came a letter from Midge Decter on behalf of the Committee for the Free World, celebrating the "one million Salvadorans" who "braved gunfire to demonstrate their faith in democracy...

...So that's the problem in Russia...

...And am I supposed to panic at David R. Brower's discovery of "a new coalition of greedy special interests and cynical government appointees...

...Honest, Senator, I'm no friend of these people...

...And, by the way, send along the largest contribution you can...

...The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee addresses me as "Dear Associate...

...That chuckle you hear is from the fellow at the word processor...

...Sure I'll name names????william Kunst-ler, Tom Hayden, I.F...

...In Russia, the Soviet Constitution appears to guarantee its citizens many of the same rights as our Bill of Rights, but the courts do not have the power to enforce those rights, and therefore they do not exist...

...And it will work...

...WhyEdAsner...

...The main objective of this group, an invention of Ramsey Clark, is to discourage American intervention in Central America...

...Why Glenn Ford...

...The signal goes out and in an instant you're surrounded...

...Really, Congressman...

...Oh, Frank, I didn't know you cared...

...From the Union of Concerned Scientists: "And every day that passes, we are driven closer to the possibility that the terrible destructive force of nuclear weapons will be unleashed...

...Could Norman Lear be a front for Ronald Reagan...

...Dear League, the women in my dreams never mention economic equality...

...Women's causes, especially abortion, compete with the ecology and the nuclear threat for the greatest volume of solicitations these days, as well as for the scariest language...

...It'saframe...

...The League of Women Voters explains that it's more expensive to remove duplicate names from its lists than to send out extras...

...asks the letter????and goes on, "As an old friend of the N.E.C.L.C...

...It must, or I wouldn't begetting three letters a delivery from Norman Lear...

...But James H. Cohen, my Dear Friend, doesn't know me from Edith Tiger...