No doubt about it. It’s been a terrible year if you hope for social justice. From Taxageddon to the net neutrality repeal, to environmental catastrophe and fighting white supremacists in the streets.
You might have noticed you haven’t gotten a fundraising appeal from Media Alliance.
That’s because on Giving Tuesday, we were deporting ICE from Oakland. In December, we were fighting for net neutrality at one of the biggest “Verizon Protests” in the country, and then in front of the FCC in Washington. We put fighting for you first.
But the bills still have to be paid, so its time to ask you to make space in your year-end giving and join with us for 2018.
And we have a very special way for you to do it.
This year, Media Alliance has teamed up with Artists for Media Diversity and the Latino Public Radio Consortium to support still-decimated Puerto Rico via the Artists for Vieques project, a 20-track musical compilation of donated music from artists in the US, Puerto Rico and the Navajo nation that aids the critical community tool of Radio Vieques. In the poorest and most isolated pockets of the region, Radio Vieques is providing crucial support and connecting people to resources, information and help in places with a failing power grid and little to no infrastructure.
A beautiful digital music collection features Los Lonely Boys, Willie Nelson, songstress Zoraida Santiago, Rei Ortiz, Calle 13, and Los Bandidos Cosmicos, among others.
It’s your gift with a $60 or more donation to Media Alliance by the end of the year, and $10 goes straight to Puerto Rican relief.
Yes, send me a copy of Artists For Vieques.
And we are nothing if not flexible. If you prefer a copy of The Brainwashing of My Dad, Jen Senko’s documentary about her father’s late life flirtation with the right-wing news machine, American DayDream,local author and educator Margo Pepper’s dystopian novel that imagines a world where what we see is the illusion, or the Hella Privacy t-shirt, which honors the fighting spirit of Oakland’s privacy activists who took on Big Brother and won our fight against the Domain Awareness Center, they’re all still available.
In 2018, the fate of all our movements for justice, equity, fairness and for freedom will depend on preserving the ability to communicate, to organize, and to express dissent. There are powerful forces trying to shut down social justice movements, and to track and profile and punish us so the cost of fighting for freedom is too high.
We push back every day to keep the Bay Area a safe place and a sanctuary for those who believe in justice. In city halls, in Sacramento, and in the streets.
But we can’t do it without your membership support.
So join us for 2018.
We can only fight back as hard as you will let us.