Support social change; support the AGR

This work is not easy. Putting out a 20-page weekly newspaper is not easy. Digesting horrible news is not easy. Reading week in and week out about the deterioration of democracy, infliction of death on people, animals and our earth and the realization that it is all for the sake of money or power or both is hard to take. None of this is easy.

Our work as conscientious or oppressed human beings is not easy. There is an empire that seems to double its growth at every blink of the eye. It is a daunting task to attempt to bring to a halt such a multi-faceted, multi-terrorizing force.

More people than we can comprehend suffer at the hand of war, imperialism and globalization.

Those of us who are privileged enough to not know about these effects first-hand might not know about these atrocities at all if it were not for independent media -- perhaps, for some, if it were not for the Asheville Global Report.

The mainstream media, which repeatedly overlooks, waters down, or gives half-stories on the state of our world, cannot be trusted to report on the negative results of this empire. In fact, as Arundhati Roy, author of God of Small Things, puts it:

“It’s a mistake to think that the corporate media supports the neo-liberal project. It is the neo-liberal project. It is the nexus, the confluence, the convergence, the union, the chosen medium of those who have power and money.”

AGR believes that in order for people to create social change they must have a fundamental understanding of what is going on in the world and the institutions which control it.

For most media, a power shift from the few who own the most to the masses, thus resulting in what might look like democracy, would be bad for business. It is not in their best interest to report on the perspectives of those who are not in power.

AGR, however, does not have an any interests other than in social change.

This is the most notable difference between this paper and so many other papers that you might happen upon.

This difference is precisely why the Asheville Global Report must turn to you, our readers, for financial support. Everything about our content gives priority to information which equips our readers with ways to work outside or against the capitalist power structure. Therefore we often find ourselves low on funds.

Again, this work is not easy. Spending sometimes as many as 30 hours per week on top of working our oftentimes low paying jobs is not easy. Neither is the stress of knowing that unless our readers step up to the plate we might not know how we will print the paper in a few Thursdays. We have nine Project Censored awards, but do not have the funds to send one of us to the awards ceremony this weekend in California to accept the two that we received this year for excellence in covering underreported news.

We’ve seen tighter times, but money will always be tight for this paper so we will always be appreciative of any donations made. In exchange, you will find that the AGR will maintain being what corporate media is not: truthful.

Sometimes the truth hurts to read, but sometimes it’s this very truth which goads us into changing the news ourselves. Writing the news is not easy, nor is reading it, nor is doing something about it.

Many people have come to AGR editors with stories of emotional outbursts from reading the news we print. Many see this as troublesome, but at AGR we see these “outbursts” more as bursts of passion and outrage, which is the impetus to real change. This struggle is good.

Please, help AGR continue to fuel the fire which brings you closer to changing the state of our world.

Sincerely,

The Asheville Global Report editorial collective