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Because People Matter, our sister media project, badly needs your support.If you want BPM to SURVIVE and THRIVE, you need to SUBSCRIBE!
By Jeanie Keltner, Editor-at-large
As so often, it's the good news and the bad news.
The bad news is that BPM almost had a financial meltdown. Facing the full court press of the Bushies and their endless wars on people and the law, we got so caught up doing the news that we didn't do the money enough. We were like the frog in the pot on the stove, almost boiled by imperceptibly rising printing and mailing costs.
I say almost because many of BPM's core supporters came through and helped us jump out of the deadly pot. Their generosity created the cushion that gives us time to get the 300 NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS that will restore us to financial health.
CAN WE DO IT?
I feel certain now that readers are alerted to BPM's $$ situation, you will respond. Maybe you've just taken us for granted (or for granite, as a student once wrote). However, faced with the possibility of losing BPM, I believe even folks who don't ordinarily think of themselves as financial supporters will see that that $20 bill-which might buy a CD or a movie and a big popcorn-can go a lot farther and deeper if it keeps BPM on the streets bringing more people the crucial news that the big media ignores or distorts.
You can pick up the paper for free of course. But we need you to subscribe. Because BPM doesn't just preach to the choir. Our biggest brag and our primary focus is the boxes and racks and stacks of FREE BPMs around town (and in libraries and prisons too). For the last 15 years, amazingly, a few hundred subscribers have enabled BPM to put out 15-18,000 papers every two months-to reach folks who've been turned off politics by the triviality, shallowness, distortions, disinformation and outright lies of the corporate media-and to present ways to engage and get involved.
To inspire maximum generosity, I want to pass on some very good news that shows the power and importance of independent media-all those little outlets scrabbled together by groups and individuals on their own time-and often on their own dime, too.
After 9-11 when Bush first declared eternal war, I knew his high poll numbers were temporary. I knew none of us who were meeting during those fraught days to try to stop the oncoming disaster would go over to the Bush side. And I also knew that many from the pro-war side would come to join us. Even at those first post-9-11vigils at 16th and J, with cars sliding by in silent, dark hostility, I knew that the day would come when we'd stand with our signs amid a constant blare of honks for peace. And it has! It was a matter of getting the info out.
The people of this country have turned profoundly against the war. And it's certainly not from any info they've gotten from the big corporate media. This huge shift against the war was created by persistent and sometimes heroic actions by many thousands of activists-and by the independent people's media-like BPM-that put their stories out. (And of course the worldwide web, which connected us all.)
But there's even better news. The English visionary, William Blake, wrote, “You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.” I've hoped from the start that the Bush regime's bald-faced lies, distortions, and billion dollar corruptions are so over the top that people would see through not only this war but war in general.
And that, too, has happened.
In spite of the best military propaganda system in history-a corporate media which enthusiastically backed the war and ignored dissenting voices and the peace movement from the start, people now say overwhelmingly that war is not the answer.
Public Agenda's study, Anguish Over Iraq Shakes Public's Faith in Military Solutions, probes much deeper than typical polls, examining core beliefs about America's role in the world. In a list of proposals for strengthening our nation's security, "attacking countries that develop weapons of mass destruction" ranked at the very bottom (17%)-compared to 63% for improving intelligence operations and 55% for becoming less energy dependent.
Eighty-two per cent say the world has become more dangerous for the US and its people, and 70% say the US has been too quick to resort to war. On fighting terrorism, 67% say we should emphasize more diplomatic and economic methods, while only 27% call for more military effort. In dealing with Iran, for example, support for possible military action is in the single digits-8% www.publicagenda.org/CFPI4).
This is an amazing shift in the public mind, and BPM is part of the independent information web of people's media that has enabled it. BPM is an all-volunteer operation. The paper is almost completely written, put together, and put out for free-and we're happy to do it. Printing and mailing costs up to now have been covered by subs, donations, ads, and fundraisers.
With 300 NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS BPM's present and future will be assured. Won't you help?
It's true, 300 sounds like a lot. But just since I started this piece I've run into four people who took out subscriptions on the spot-two with generous additional gifts! So that's only 296 to go! Help us! Especially now at this critical time. Media is everything; it's what creates the public mind (and heart); as well as the very reality of the world in the public mind.
Without true info there's no democracy.
Keep BPM going: to borrow KPFA's slogan, it's news you can use for a change!
To subscribe (six issues per year), send check or money order for $20 to BPM/ 403 21st St/ Sacramento CA 95814
Topic: Boycoott To End The War
Dear Independent Media Editors and Publishers,
Please endorse the national shopping boycott to end the war and impeach Bush and Cheney on your website and in your publications.
Corporate media is mostly supporting the surge and continued Bush/Cheney presidency. An attack on Iran is a danger for World War III and tens of thousands of more civilians will die if we do not stop the war in Iraq.
Lets stand together on this effort.
Sincerely
Peter Phillips, Lew Brown and Dennis Loo
