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On Thursday, March 3, 2022, Mother Jones’ deputy editor, James West, is hosting a special live event for readers that is not to be missed. 

He’ll be sitting down with Black Lives Matter co-founder (and so much more) Patrisse Cullors, who has zeroed in on a related pursuit and passion: abolishing prisons, jails, police, courts, and surveillance as we know it. Her new book, An Abolitionist’s Handbook, offers 12 steps in the form of a guidebook that everyday activists can use to fight for an abolitionist present and future—and her bold, humanistic approach can be previewed in a recent essay for Variety.

“When people hear the word abolitionist,” Patrisse writes, “they usually think of slavery.” As with abolishing slavery, she argues, there can be no compromise, no half measures, and no rest. Is “defund the police” a literal call for a total, complete shutdown? For Patrisse and other abolitionists: absolutely. “This is not about fixing a broken system, we are not looking for better food or more access to education in prison. We are looking to abolish the entire system.”

Sign up for the free event on Thursday, March 3, 2022, at 3 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. PT to receive a reminder and link to watch afterward if you can’t join live, and use the form below to let James know what questions or thoughts you have in advance so he and Patrisse can unpack them with you and your fellow MoJo readers during the live discussion. 

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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