November 3, 2008

Election Day: SWAT Teams at the Ready

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Early%20Voting.jpg

I voted the good ol’ fashioned way today—in person at my Oakland polling station (though a day early to beat tomorrow’s chaos). I was nervous when I saw the nightmarish line at Alameda County Courthouse, but surprisingly, I got out in about an hour fairly unruffled. The place was fully staffed, the line efficient, and the mood upbeat. A guy quipped, “Obama better appreciate this,” as he dutifully made his way to the back.

Not a whiff of the tension that riot police and SWAT teams are gearing up for tomorrow in Oakland—a phenomenon that, strangely, hasn’t been very widely reported. Troubling, considering that it’s happening mostly in cities with large black populations like Atlanta and Chicago.

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—Nichole Wong

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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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