The Enemies List Read online

  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.