November 23, 2000

Depleted uranium suit possible

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Politics makes strange bedfellows, and so, apparently, does depleted uranium (see our 1999 exposé of DU in Kosovo, “Invisible Threat“). US-based families of Iraqi cancer victims and American veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome have been meeting to plan joint legal action against the US government over its use of DU during Operation Desert Storm.

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THE INDEPENDENT (UK) reports that medical experts, lawyers, and Gulf War vets will meet in Spain next month to talk about the pending lawsuit. Many believe there’s finally enough evidence to blame both a seven-fold increase in cancers in Iraq and the mysterious Gulf War syndrome on the effects of nearly 950,000 DU missiles and shells fired by the US military during the conflict.

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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.

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