The editorial roundup item of Aug. 2 titled “Break AARP addiction” is an act of hubris or ignorance, or both. The writer is apparently unaware of what AARP and other citizen organizations really are. They represent just about the only help we Americans have to counter a powerful minority of self-serving, corrupt corporations and politicians.

Greed and corruption are pushing us to the brink of disaster in such critical sectors of American life as energy, security, health, communication, commerce and environment. The problems in those sectors are serious threats to our current and future generations. Unless each of us is part of the effort to solve those problems, we are by definition part of those problems.

In order to act as informed citizens, we urgently need the kind of information that hard-working citizen organizations like AARP, Common Cause, League of Women Voters, etc., are uniquely capable of accessing and presenting. We need their help to tell the difference between healthy, long-term policy and the rip-off policies that make our lives so needlessly painful. If we can’t tell that difference, we’re just stumbling around blind and dazed in the mine field that we’re leaving for our next generation.

Seabury and Sharon Lyon, Bethel

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