November 15, 2011

Bloomberg to Occupy Wall Street: Drop Dead

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It’s late and there aren’t many details yet, but apparently Mayor Bloomberg has decided it’s time to end the Occupy Wall Street protest. This is from the New York Post:

From the Post story:

The NYPD has begun evicting the hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators that have been encamped in Zuccotti Park for almost two months….Hours before the massive operation commenced at around 1 a.m., Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano and other officials convened in secret at City Hall to greenlight the campaign to clear the park, sources said.

….Cops handed out flyers early this morning declaring that, “The city has determined that the continued occupation of Zuccotti Park poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard,” to protesters as well as first responders, and ordered personal property removed.

The real motivation for Bloomberg’s action appears to be OWS’s announced plan to “Shut Down Wall Street” and “Occupy the Subways” on Tuesday. Check your Twitter feed for the latest. MoJo’s @JoshHarkinson and @jameswest2010 are both tweeting live from Zuccotti Park.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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