Inside you’ll find several exposes that demand follow-through.
1. In logging towns across California and the Northwest, hard times and a cynical Bush administration change in timber law have made torching a forest one of the easiest ways to find work. The U.S. Forest Service isn’t investigating vigorously because they’re too busy salvaging logs from the burned areas. Help us break this conspiracy of silence.
2. The UN didn’t merely blunder in Somalia. It deliberately turned its back when begged to intercede, then sabotaged its one competent envoy as he began stitching together a peace that might have kept Somalia from unraveling. Join our call for a congressional investigation into the failures of the UN before the United States finds itself drafted as the world’s constable.
3. Our pullout on Clinton’s big-money contributors shows who paid for his campaign–and what return they ex-pect on their investment. Take back our country by unmasking these wolves in Democratic clothing and demanding that “soft money” be shorn from electoral politics.
4. The new administration’s first defeat-the Zoe Baird nomination- revealed the most disturbing aspect yet of Clinton’s character. Baird clearly felt herself above the law, but less widely disclosed was her use of legal chicanery to suppress corporate whistle-blowers. She probably would have kept the corruption at DOJ under wraps. Clinton was seduced by her situational ethics–and his own. Help us force the President to confront problems that require more than political “handling.”
5. A decade ago, the Vatican began lobbying Muslim nations to remove birth control from the international agenda. Their common interest? Preventing women from shaping their own lives. Our cover package explores how to feminize the balance of power in the world. It also delves into unconscious realms where political compasses lose their correctness. We at Mother Jones had a variety of responses to the photo above. Is it funny? Disturbing? Tell us your perceptions.
We need your thoughts and your support. We don’t have the resources to pursue all our investigations, nor to solicit new readers in the volume we’d like. We hope you’ll lobby a colleague, relative, or neighbor who might be in a position to remedy some of the wrongs we’re exposing. And that either before or after you read this issue, you’ll turn back a page and fill out the card offering a free copy of this magazine to a friend or two whom you think would like to join us in our efforts to reclaim America.
