One dreams of it reverting to its former name, for plagues have been unleashed upon the nation, plagues that have little to do with time-honored modes of direct mail.

The DMA, alas, has devolved from the protector of small enterprise to the mouthpiece of mega-corporations, as it has assumed the cudgel of arch plague apologist.

Until recently the DMA did a sensible and by no means socially irresponsible job of promoting alternative communications and distribution channels like direct mail, direct response space advertising and mail order. But now it worships different idols of the marketplace, and is in the business of promoting invasions into the private space of Americans via potentially toxic databases, spam and the most virulent, antisocial mode of marketing ever developed, telemarketing.

Folks enjoy catalogs, and you can even find pockets of affection for junk mail. But have you ever encountered anyone who has a good word to say about privacy invasions, spam and telemarketing?

One dreams of it reverting to its former name, for plagues have been unleashed upon the nation, plagues that have little to do with time-honored modes of direct mail.

The DMA, alas, has devolved from the protector of small enterprise to the mouthpiece of mega-corporations, as it has assumed the cudgel of arch plague apologist.

Until recently the DMA did a sensible and by no means socially irresponsible job of promoting alternative communications and distribution channels like direct mail, direct response space advertising and mail order. But now it worships different idols of the marketplace, and is in the business of promoting invasions into the private space of Americans via potentially toxic databases, spam and the most virulent, antisocial mode of marketing ever developed, telemarketing.

Folks enjoy catalogs, and you can even find pockets of affection for junk mail. But have you ever encountered anyone who has a good word to say about privacy invasions, spam and telemarketing?

“Telemarketing is one of the banes of modern life,” wrote Walter Mossberg in the May 8 Wall Street Journal (hardly an anti-business publication). “The volume of unsolicited sales calls pouring into the average American home is so irritating that many folks would do just about anything to stop it.”

In the May 18 New York Times, the National Review