Just as it’s always cocktail hour somewhere, it’s always fundraising season somewhere, too, right? Now that our underfunded schools are back in session kids are on the move raising funds for special class projects by peddling goods and services (candy, greeting cards, car washes, etc.). Public radio and television have just finished their fund drives. The flurry of mail requests from charities that provide Thanksgiving meals and holiday items for the needy has begun. Churches have fall fund raising festivals in progress. The leaves are falling. The morning dew is hardening. The squirrels are acorn gathering. The furnace has kicked on. And in our heart we know what lies ahead: that long dark night of the soul — election season — with its barrage of dire threats and requests for donations to make the dire threats go away. The Big Squeeze is definitely on. Nowhere to run; nowhere to hide.
Not much is free these days. Speech and ideas are only free if they’re your own and remain unexpressed because it costs to share them, whether via internet, print, mainstream media, or bullhorn. Even the folks at the coffee shop where hardcore discussioneers go to hold forth actually want you to buy their coffee if you’re going to take up space.
Here at Eclectablog we’re ordinary Americans with a modest mission: to engage fellow Americans in the practice of active citizenship and active debate, which means we take note of what’s happening in our ever evolving world, assess the powers at play, and make determinations about where our government and events seem to be taking us. If we like what we see, we support it and shed a flattering light upon it. If we see threats, we take a writer’s aim in order to engage readers in actions to keep negative powers at bay.
We’re doing what we can to help hold on to the vestiges of our tattered democracy, the parts not yet scarfed up by the oligarchs. That’s why we’ll say things like “You DO know the reactionary right wing wants to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, don’t you? They’ll replace it with admonitions to stay young, healthy and wealthy, and hand your savings to Wall Street. Should you fail at these or bad luck befalls you, you’ll get a ticket to board the next passing ice floe. They won’t even consider the simple fix their hero Ronald Reagan enacted, raising the payroll tax cap on high earners, those earning more than $118,000/year. They’ll ignore the obvious because it doesn’t punish the poor and middle class enough.” And then we go to the data sources and show you Paul Ryan’s budget proposals and input from the Pete Peterson International Economics Institute that move these eliminations closer to reality.
We report, we analyze, and we provide a cautionary tale and sometimes even comedy when it’s helpful. We support and advocate for all those other groups: public schools, worker unions, like-minded media, the middle class and the poor, and, yes, even the squirrels and the environment. We do it by providing a forum for your comments on matters that affect our everyday lives, our future and our children’s future.
Most of us in the 99% have little left over in our budgets for donations. We know this audience is not comprised of millionaires or oligarchs, although we also know that the oligarchs pay trolls to keep an eye on blogs like this and insert misinformation whenever it serves their purpose, and we punch back. We will receive nothing from the Kochs or Sheldon Adelson, and frankly we wouldn’t want to. We merely want to keep playing defense, holding the line for ordinary Americans who live right and try to do right because we believe we can all live better lives when governed by progressive ideas.
If you like what we do and can afford to send a couple of bucks our way, we will be grateful and will soldier on. If you’re strapped for cash like we are or we wouldn’t be asking, stick with us anyway and keep lending your comments. Lots of ideas make a rich stew. But if you find some forgotten dollars in the pocket of that heavy jacket you pulled from the back of the closet to wear to walk the dog, please think of us and how we’ve struggled to avoid being super annoying about our efforts and our needs.
To donate you can use the PayPal form at the top of the right sidebar. Choose your level of support from the drop-box or indicate some “Other amount” in that box. One dollar a week is ideal and it’s the default amount of $60. You can also wait for the TinyPass pop-up — you know, that irritating one that shows up on every 10th click on the website — and donate that way. When you do that those gremlins will go away as long as you have cookies enabled. We’d be grateful for that buck a week to keep the fans running in our computers and our reference resources up to date.
If you’re a purist donor and you want all of your donation to land at Eclectablog rather than have some of it chipped out for PayPal or TinyPass fees, send Chris an email saying so, and he’ll close his eyes for a moment of grateful delight and will send you his mailing address.
Oh, and if you work for an organization that would like to support our efforts by placing an ad, click HERE for our ad rates and more information.
She also says you don’t have to be an organization to run an ad. Maybe you’d like to surprise your favorite progressive with a birthday message on Eclectablog or help promote your favorite group. Again, click HERE for more info.
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Thanks so much for your continued interest and support,
Judy, Anne, Chris, Amy, LOLGOP, Tony, Emma, John
