November 8, 2007

Homeland Insanity

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USA Today: “John William Anderson, who was born on July 4, 2001, is on TSA’s watch list. He was first stopped in 2004 when his mother and grandmother took him on his first plane ride to Disney World.” Anderson’s mom Christine tells the paper, “No one can give any answers to why my son is on the list or really how to get him off.” More than 15,000 want to get off U.S. terror list, USA Today reports. With the recent trial and conviction on 13 counts of bribery related charges of U.S. government security contractor Brent Wilkes, his Congressional benefactor/bribee Congressman Duke Cunningham serving eight years in jail, and the endless Orwellian insanities of the post-9/11 system as described above, anyone else get the sense that the whole homeland security project is more about enriching contractors and filling congressmen’s ATMs rather than anything to do with security? Then again, just what is under young John Anderson’s hat?

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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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