Soothing Words for a Crisis

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SOOTHING WORDS FOR A CRISIS….Pretend you are an ordinary American. I know that’s hard: as a reader of an elitist coastal blog you’re barely even an American at all. But pretend. You just spent a hundred bucks yesterday to fill up your gas tank. You didn’t get a raise this year. You’ve got some unpaid bills you’re juggling. Your neighbor across the street just got laid off. Property taxes are coming due next month. Your car is making a funny noise. You just got a memo from HR telling you that the paycheck deduction for healthcare premiums is up again and your take-home pay will be $100 lighter next week.

You turn on the TV. At the commercial break there’s a two-minute ad from Barack Obama about the meltdown on Wall Street. If you actually sit through it, here’s what he says he’s going to do to make things better:

  • Provide a $1000 tax cut for the middle class

  • End the “anything goes” culture on Wall Street

  • Fast track a plan to end our dependence on Mideast oil

  • Crack down on lobbyists

  • End the war in Iraq

Jonathan Stein comments: “It is everything Obama has been criticized for being on the stump these past several weeks: thoughtful, measured, and post-partisan. It takes no jabs at John McCain or George W. Bush. In the last few days, though, Obama and his ads have hit harder; obviously the campaign felt the content of this ad is too serious to be presented in that style. Key question: Does it hold your attention?”

Well, ordinary American, what do you say? Does it?

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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