A request to all that read and lurk and contribute

I fear that we (the liberal/progressive community) may lose one of the most important sources of information - ConsortiumNews.com

please read and if you have a couple dollars to help them meet their expenses, please consider giving

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/061606.html

Five Days Left

By Robert Parry
June 16, 2006

Some e-mailers and friends have asked why I didn’t attend some of the recent progressive conferences – like “Take Back America” or the “Yearly Kos Convention” – where media was on the agenda. The short answer is that I have been to progressive meetings in the past where media was discussed – and almost nothing gets done.

As the Right has built up a vertically integrated media infrastructure that stretches from newspapers, magazines and books to talk radio, cable news and well-funded Internet sites, wealthy liberals mostly have sat on their hands. Even now, as the Right expands that infrastructure horizontally down to state, district and local levels – with ominous portents for Election 2006 – well-heeled liberals remain mostly passive.

And this pattern has been going on for years.

<snip>

But we’ve had to struggle to raise even the small sums required for story costs and other operational expenses. Our current spring fund-raising drive, with the modest goal of $10,000, has raised only half that amount with only five days to go.

<snip>

In the meantime, we are trying to raise $5,000 in the next five days.

...more at link...

Thanks,

UIA

happening today.

if that first page asking for personal information had been a secure one.

Let me know if they fix it.

(watching my panicked and white knuckled mother during the McCarthy years has made me extraordinarily gun shy when it comes to putting my name out there.)

send to consortnew@aol.com

thanks!

I can't afford my life as it is let alone contribute. That really sucks. I hope it works out.

and thankyou for acknowledging his site.

I hope that no matter what he still blogs somewhere. It wasn't just Parry though. Molly Ivins and so many other articles there I've linked to. ALways well-written and researched. Never dumbed-down.

to do it. Few on the left do that - they're more about their own opinion and hot rhetoric. Parry lays out the FACTS and the historic context.

contributor to Counterpunch or Alternet instead of having his own shingle "Consortiumnews" - dayum I do wish Ted Turner would create a new network.

attacking the Democrats with disinfo.

do the journalism he wants to do without having to manage the 'business end' of the business? Some organization with a 'bigger name' so that raising money would not be a problem. The Nation? Mother Jones? MoJo does excellent investigative reporting.

You do ask a good question, and it actually illustrates the overall problem - there is precious little space available to a real reporter.

Donated. It would be terrible to lose his voice.

.

There's a reason the Truth is what the Busheviks fear most.

counting, and Bushite-controlled corporate news monopolies. The two most fundamental conditions of democracy: transparent elections and a free press. Join your local election reform group, give your time, energy, intelligence and heart to free and fair elections. Donate to, read, and spread the word for ConsortiumNews and other alternative news sources.

If we 90,000 DUers just did these two things with passion and consistency, we would have ourselves a revolution!

:patriot: :bounce: :hug: :grouphug: :hug: :bounce: :patriot:

Thanks, compatriot.

(1) Votejacking.

(2) Media monopolies.

(3) Growing concentration of wealth in few hands.*

The three interplay with each other -- for instance, elections involve vote counting (or hacking), plus media play (convincing people of who "won"), plus lots of money to buy media time, and lots of government (aka your) money flowing back to the wealthy from their "elected" officeholders in earmarks and crooked, no-bid contracts.

I've spoken with Parry. He is a real journalist, and deserves support. He bailed out of mainstream journalism when it became too silly and entertainment oriented.

There ARE very few paid real investigative journalism gigs around -- even Mother Jones is not doing their job on election transparency.

So, if we want real journalism by professionals, we need to at least put some money where our goals are.

I have a list of about ten journalism sites that I would like to support, that I depend on. I go down the list and rotate my support over a year's time.

____________________________________

* We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. -- Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice (1916-1939)
cited by an attorney friend, Michael Scott

NEEDS more than $10Million? Personal freedom be damned!-any excess (more than $10M) should be taken by the govenment and given to me (Congress) so I (they) can decide how best to spend it.

Relax - I don't rally mean it - but you see where it could go.

Good luck around here, man. I think your posts are going to be...very interesting.

thanks for posting this.

and fellow Marketeer! Good post UIA! Sorry I saw it too late to recommend.

Cheers :toast:

Julie

If we lose one of the few independent journalists we have, we're that much closer to fascism.