The Enemies List
Page 4
Anyone who refers to “the movement” and is not talking about bodily functions
Anyone who observes, studies, analyzes, or dithers on about race, class, and gender
And a special He-Has-Grown Prize to Mikhail Gorbachev Whew. You two don’t fool around, do you?
“I am a Catholic priest: usually good-natured, and occasionally utterly exasperated,” writes the Reverend Dennis P. Lyden of Bellaire, Ohio. Herewith his causes of utter exasperation:
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Writers, producers, and cast of Fox’s 21 Jump Street and, come to think of it, the whole Fox operation
Kurt Loder of MTV News
MTV
Writers, producers, and cast of ABC’s Head of the Class
Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys
Richard Gere
Siskel and Ebert
Sir Richard Attenborough
NAMBLA
Pittsburgh and Atlanta police departments
Burt Lancaster
Thomas Stoddard
Producers of Folgers coffee commercials
Writers, producers, and cast of CBS’s Kate & Allie
Anyone yammering on about the “spirit of Vatican II”
Liturgical commissions
Peace and Justice offices
Prince
WOC (Women’s Ordination Conference)
Garfield
German, Dutch, and Belgian theologians
Expurgators of “sexist” language in divine worship
The administration of Georgetown University
An anonymous correspondent from Eugene, Oregon, blacklists:
Dwight Eisenhower: emeritus distinction
Eleanor Roosevelt: ditto
Jack Odell, Jesse Jackson’s foreign policy advisor who’s so Stalinist he couldn’t win an election in the Soviet Union
Mary Hatwood Futrell
Marian Wright Edelman: While we’re at it, anyone who uses three names merits further investigation.
The National Civil Liberties Emergency Committee
Victor Rabinowitz of same
The sanctuary movement and its organ Basta!
The Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America
Its leaders, Renny Golden and Michael McConnell
Prairie Fire
Franklin Thomas, president of the Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation: Back in the original McCarthy days, the John Birch Society was wackily obsessed by the Ford Foundation, but since then the Foundation has grown into the job.
Jonathan J. Cohen, living in the very belly of the beast in Brookline, Massachusetts, lashes out against:
Marty Nolan
Ellen Goodman
Thomas Oliphant
Charles Pierce, gonzo-radical sportswriter for the Boston Herald
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
Ron Brown
Witt-Thomas-Harris Productions (Golden Girls, Soap, etc.)
Crosby, Stills, and Nash: Spare Neil Young because he’s Canadian
People for the American Way
The movie Old Gringo: Based on a Carlos Fuentes novel, with Jane Fonda and Gregory Peck—to die for, right?
Woody Allen
Rita Hauser
The EPA
Stanley Sheinbaum
Anyone who signed those pro-Palestinian ads in the New York Times
Lars-Erik Nelson and Jack Newfield of the New York Daily News: Would you believe it? Archie Bunker’s old paper has gone lefty.
John S. Davidge of Binghamton, New York, denounces:
Jessica Lange
Robert Heilbroner
Richard Goodwin
Burke Marshall
Henry Commager
Cornell’s Department of African Studies
The New Yorker
Time
Newsweek
Rudolph Giuliani
Richard Reeves
Jimmy Breslin
John Gofman
Tim Wirth
George McGovern
Charles Schumer
John Heinz
Augustus Hawkins
Susan Estrich
Les Aspin
Robert Byrd
Aryeh Neier
John K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith
Henry L. Gates
Bishop Paul Moore
Peter Bradford
Leonard Sand
Sierra Club
Friends of the Earth
Lee Iacocca
Frances Piven
Clyde Prestowitz
Jeff Faux
Robert Reich
Kronos Quartet
Ali Mazrui
Kathy Boudin
Bernadine Dohrn
Larry Davis
Susan Tipograph
Clarence Ditlow
Joan Claybrook
Russell Means
Americas Watch
The United Nations
The World Bank
Richard Bertovich of Eastlake, Ohio, is unhappy with:
Ex.-Gov. Dick Celeste of Ohio
Any politician who uses the term “Economic Justice”
Debra Winger
Hendrik Hertzberg
Sorry that Richard feels this way, Rick, but you did go to work in the Carter White House.
Keith J. Yoder of Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, castigates the following with a quote from musician Steve Taylor: “They’re so open-minded that their brains leaked out”:
Sinead O’Connor
Edie Brickell: would enjoy pushing her into deep water
Peter Gabriel
White Lion
Megadeth
Beach Boys: Reagan can be wrong.
Cyril Scott
The Grammy Awards ceremony
Robert Schuller
Ronald Sider
Faye Wentworth
Ron Reagan, Jr.
Environmental Media Associates
Better World Society
New Group of World Servers
Zero Population Growth
The Congressional Black Caucus
William C. Rice of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reviles:
Capitol Steps
Dr. Science
Educational Testing Service
Modern Language Association
October magazine
Warren Klofkorn of Manchester, Michigan, vilifies:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission
Marian Faupel, my ex-wife’s lawyer
Pete Rose
United Coalition Against Racism
Ronald McDonald
George Bush, for knuckling under to the anti-gun lobby
Latter-day hippies
The DEA
And he finishes his list with this doozy—hold the calls, folks, we have a winner:
Ann Arbor’s People’s Communist Lesbian Food Co-op
Keith N. Dickey of Forest Hills, Maryland, censures:
Sen. Claiborne Pell
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Any organization that has “freeze” or “nuclear” in its title
SANE
“Race Horse” Haynes
Melvin Belli
Suzy Pollok of Houston, Texas, pleads inclusion of:
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
George M. Mellinger who refers to himself as a resident of “Minneapolis, People’s Republic of Minnesota,” rails against:
Everyone named Fonda
Anyone whose name is even similar to Fonda: With that family we can’t take any chances. Let God sort ’em out.
The Mondale family
Bob Dylan
Joe Piscopo
Neil Young: Canadian cultural imperialism!
Mary Berry
Ellerbee wannabe Andrea Mitchell
Any Union of Concerned anybodies
Any organization that is a “Friends of...”
Nikolai Bukharin Fan Club President Stephen F. Cohen
Al Warmington of Cleveland, Ohio, upbraids:
The entire 185,000 members of the IRS
Adlai Stevenson III
Leon Trotsky: Dead, 1940, but we need the hatchet back, given our Defense Department’s dearth of Truly Threatening Anti-Marxist Death Machines
Jason Levine, a lonely and beleaguered conservative student at Brandeis, a branch campus of Patrice Lumumba University, gets a little of his own back at:
Lynn Samuels, New York City radio talk show hostess with the voice and sophistication of that city’s cab drivers
Willard Scott: Don’t fat, bald men who get rated in the “Ten Most Sexy” surveys bug you too? [No, Jason, at age forty-two, the idea of bald, fat, and sexy does not bother me. And as long as Willard bugs Bryant Gumbel, he’s OK by me.]
Amnesty International
Jon Bon Jovi
That poor man’s Berke Breathed, Doug Marlette
The Whole Earth Catalog
Oprah Winfrey, who could slim down even more if she would refrain from putting her foot in her mouth
The Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade
Gregory “I am not an American” Johnson, their stooge
Rolling Stone (Sorry, P.J.!)
Apology accepted, Jason. But, if I’m fired, can I crash at the dorm for a while?
Joe Skilton of Portland, Oregon, reprehends:
Jerry Brown
Gerald “Jimmy and I are here to help” Ford
A Chicago informant who shall remain nameless would ostracize:
Ira Glasser
Lou Palmer, columnist for the Chicago Defender
The Chicago Defender
ACT UP
The Windy City Times, a gay Chicago newspaper
ANC
The Liguorian
Planetary Initiative for the World
We Choose, a New Age organization for world unity
The Club of Rome
All adherents of Harmonic Convergence
The Institute for Critical Legal Studies at Harvard Law School
Tom Wicker
Political Science and Sociology Departments at the University of Wisconsin
ABC, NBC, and CBS
Vladimir Posner
The Humanist
Robert Sherman, head of the Illinois chapter of the American Atheists’ Society
Deng Xiaoping
FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
Harnet Pilpel
Anyone who uses the phrase “chilling effect”
Bob Guccione
The Washington Post
The Advocate
U.S. District Court Judge Eugene Sand (re: alleged housing discrimination in New York)
Former Senator William Proxmire
CPUSA (Communist Party, USA)
Communist Socialist Workers’ Party
The People’s Daily World
Hollywood, California
The National Abortion Rights Action League
Operation PUSH
The Hemlock Society
Dred Scott Tyler, of flag-treading fame at Chicago’s Art Institute
The Episcopal Church
The Brookings Institution
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Committee for National Security
The Peace Child Foundation
Youth Project
National Lawyers’ Guild
Massachusetts Fair Share
Illinois Public Action Council
Council on Economic Priorities
Economic Policy Institute
Roger Stryeski of Roselle, New Jersey, says, “I have a list for a War Crimes Tribunal when the Free Enterprise Revolution comes”:
The Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: They may not be pinko but any organization as unknown as they are has to be dangerous.
Hogan Family, especially their knee-jerk comsymp shows on smoking and apartheid
New Jersey Hospital Association, for assisting the state in converting failing community hospitals to failing socialized ones
Charles Rose, newscaster
“Cousin Brucie” Morrow just because he is a %$#9-wipe You’re wrong about Charlie Rose, Roger. I bumped into him not long ago at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant. No liberal eats Popeye’s fried chicken for lunch without an immediate fatal coronary.
Anthony Esposito of Margate, Florida, keeps it brief and to the point:
Sally Jessy Raphael
Thomas Edwin Walker of La Porte, Texas, scolds:
Bono
“Bobcat” Goldthwait
R.E.M.
Molly Ivins
Who’s another friend of mine, albeit a darned liberal one. I told you something like this would happen, Molly.
David A. Stephens of Pecos, Texas, is very mad at:
Frank Sesno
Charles Beerbarrel [sic]
Richard Simmons
Media Pains in the Ass in general
Any self-proclaimed scientist who lends his name to idiotic and flawed studies which advance his agenda: As someone with a bit of training in science it offends me deeply to have “Dr.” this and “Professor” that lending their names to something purely political—for example, that infantile nuclear winter model.
Any organization with the words “Peoples’” or “Concerned” in its name
Luddites
Douglas Hurd
François Mitterrand
Helmut Kohl
Leader of the German Greens Petra Kelly: If she wants to sit naked in the weeds and eat dandelions, let her.
People who use locutions like “entitlement,” implying that others have a right to pick my pocket
People who use “NativeAmerican”: What am I, a potted plant? I was born and reared in Texas.
People who debase English by destroying words such as “prejudice” and “quality”
Anyone whom W. S. Gilbert didn’t like, excepting Sir Arthur Sullivan
People who produce commercials which scroll text on the screen and then read it to you
People who don’t take free advice (in my case, on computers) but bang your ear anyway and then buy what the Radio Shack salesman says to
Friends, or rather onetime friends, who invite you to a party and then you discover they’ve become “were [as in werewolf] Amways”
People who chant, listen to, or produce any sort of rap whatsoever
People who ask you the same question three times, thinking that you will interim become Enlightened and know the answer
People who make commercials that show a dog eating and expect you to watch it with interest
People who expect you to develop your cat’s palate
People who market scented and printed toilet paper
James A. Damask of Akron, Ohio, takes to task:
Anyone who uses the word “bonding” in reference to anything except epoxy glue
Anyone who uses the word “parenting”
Anyone who uses the word “wellness”
The entire cast of thirtysomething
Anyone who uses the word “ethnocentric”
Anyone who drives a car with a bumper sticker that reads, “You can’t hug a child with nuclear arms”
Anything “New Age”
Rep. Tom Sawyer (D-OH)
Rep. Tony Hall (D-OH)
Anyone who wears or otherwise affiliates his person with a “peace” sign
Bookstores which carry Mother Jones, Pravda, and Soviet Life but not the American Spectator
Anyone whose eyes gleam when he says “bran”
The Philosophy Department at every state university
The American Friends Service Committee
The Central American Solidarity Association (CASA)
Anything “Quaker” which ain’t oats
Anyone who uses the word “dialogue” when talking about foreign policy
Any female who uses the word “commitment”: Okay, they ain’t necessarily su
bversive, but I don’t like them.
Anyone who uses the word “compassion” when talking about foreign policy
Anybody who compared the massacre of students in Peking to Kent State
VH-1
Anyone who uses the phrase “social justice”
Tom Ealey of Findlay, Ohio, cavils at:
United Methodist Bishops: any connection to the United Methodist Church is merely coincidental.
Rep. Mary Rose Oakar (D-OH)
and asks, “By the way, what is ’Tikkun’?” [Beats my pair of jacks, Tom. Wlady Pleszczynski snuck it into the list.]
Dr. Dennis J. Doolin, who lives in Tokyo, deplores:
Warren Beatty
Sister Boom-Boom
The entirety of Castro Street in San Francisco
Everyone who orders “Perrier with a twist”
Every reviewer who disliked Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities
Michael G. Smith, address unknown, looks askance at:
Dr. Seuss
Most people who call themselves “Dr.” but don’t practice medicine
The Greenpeace mailing list
Ralph Moyed, pinkish columnist for the Wilmington newspaper
Denver, Colorado
99 percent of college daily newspaper editors
My ex-girlfriend, if her outlook hasn’t changed by the time she’s thirty
Timothy A. Curry of Seattle, Washington, objurgates:
Susan Brownmiller: for writing Against Our Will, the women’s movement’s Mein Kampf
Carl Sagan and Jonathan Schell, purveyors of nuclear winter, the most important scientific theory since phlogiston, phrenology, and the Piltdown Man
Tommy Smothers: Remember him telling brother Dick “Mom always liked you best”? Remember thinking Mrs. Smothers was no dummy?
Ted Turner, the only known human capable of producing a documentary on the Soviet Union so smarmy that the KGB was moved to apologize for it
Luke Asbury of Mill Valley, California, is steamed. He says, “You omitted”:
Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH), the most vicious enemy the Bill of Rights has ever faced, with his criminally insane campaign to abolish Individual Freedom to defend one’s Person, Family, Home, and Country, and restrict firearm ownership to the Police State and the thugs
“Also,” says Luke,
The entire California legislature, mostly a pack of bumblewits and/or poltroons
“And, sadly,” he continues,
President George Bush, who broke his word and sided with the “Don’t Burn the Flag—Burn the Bill of Rights!” media dupes
This is George’s second citation on the List (multiple mentions allowed because he’s a former Chief Executive). Maybe somebody in the White House should have a look at the effect President Have-Half had on the We-Ain’t-Taking-It part of his constituency.