Unless you did it already, it’s time for you to send a check to support MRZine — just like I am doing for the second time this month. I’m not sending a gigantic amount, because that check would bounce and you shouldn’t do that sort of thing to people you like. So I sent $25 bucks last week, and now another $25 bucks this week. And that $50 bucks is going to get matched by a generous MRZine friend and end up being $100 bucks in all.
While I live well on my union staff salary, I don’t earn enough to “live it up.” But then again, those of us who are in this movement didn’t come here in the first place, nor do we stay here, because of the big paydays or long paid vacations. We stay here because we have a job to do. Some years ago I remember reading an article in Monthly Review entitled “The Responsibility of the Left.” Something about that article has stuck with me. Because it’s my responsibility to do what I can, to do my part, to keep this movement going and growing, come thick or thin.
These are challenging times on a whole host of fronts. But unless you make sure that you do something to teach people why this system is ripping them off and killing them; then we’ll never get enough traction to get going again in “Drive.” I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of living in the political version of “Reverse.” Folks like us have lived through tough political and economic times before; and they survived times that were a whole lot worse than anything we have to endure. They didn’t give up; they buckled down and trained and tutored the new generations of workers coming forward who had desire to live a better life someday, and wanted to know how and why it was that this system was rigged in favor of the boss.
So write that check, or get the credit card and find that part of the Web site that takes the money. And hurry up, the match only lasts until the first of the year.
Chris Townsend is the Political Action Director of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) in Washington, D.C.