Informed Comment Annual Fundraising Appeal

From Juan Cole | –

We need your help! Informed Comment is almost unique in focusing on US foreign policy and Middle East affairs from a progressive perspective, in addition to providing crucial information on the climate emergency and progressive social policy. We carry original reporting, and curate the best coverage on these issues that have such a powerful impact on our lives. None of this comes without a substantial cost, and we know that readers will continue to be generous in supporting these initiatives. The good news is that Juan’s health is getting back to normal with the prospect of many years of blogging to come!

As editor and chief cook and bottle washer, it has been brought home to me how fragile this enterprise is in a media environment owned and shaped by billionaires for their purposes.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

This year those who contribute $100 or more to Informed Comment by Paypal, will receive a signed copy of my new book edited book, Peace Movements in Islam. Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor has kindly agreed to send them out for me off the Paypal addresses, which worked like a charm last year. (If you blocked your address at Paypal, you have to provide it to me to get the book). The supply chain issues this winter may cause a slight delay, but Nicola’s will try to send out the books in January and February after the Christmas holiday rush. Thank you to all of my supporters for your generosity and your encouragement of an independent press!

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The site is stronger if all fans participate. I sometimes get messages from readers doubting that a $5 donation would be welcome. Of course it is welcome! We just want 10,000 of them. 🙂 If everyone who appreciates Informed Comment donated even a small amount, we could turn it into a media giant. Moreover, giving in itself helps create community and commitment, and is welcome on those grounds alone.
All those who contribute to Informed Comment at any level will be included in an occasional private newsletter only for contributors with some additional big picture behind-the-scenes analysis which will be newsletter only. Remember that there are always contribution buttons floating at the top of all the individual post pages.

In the year ahead, global heating and the difficulty for the Democrats of passing large-scale government disincentives for coal, petroleum and gas (and unanimous Republican hostility to doing so) will continue to be one of our major stories. This concentration grows out of Juan Cole’s lifetime of engagement with the impact of energy markets on the evolution of the Middle East and what it has meant both for Middle Eastern politics and those in the US and elsewhere in the world. Ironically, the Middle East itself is among the major victims of the climate emergency, heating twice as much as the world average, even as carbon-intensive fuels coming out of the region are among its major engines. It is to the extent that some scientists wonder whether the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca will even be possible in the future.

Informed Comment is one of the few sites on the internet that attends to the issue of Palestine, where 5 million Palestinians are kept stateless and under military occupation by a foreign state that routinely usurps their land and resources and injures or kills noncombatants, including children. This focus has led to our site and me personally being smeared by far right wing pro-Israeli forces, in an attempt to marginalize us. Attempts ethnically to cleanse Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem continue. Palestinian civilians in Gaza continue to suffer under an Israeli blockade. CNN’s notion of covering it is for a former AIPAC employee to interview an Israeli-American correspondent on the Palestinians, and nor is it common for even that much attention to be given to the issue in US mass media. This, despite the billions of dollars a year the US taxpayer spends supporting the Israeli state and its policies. Only you can help us fight to bring this often-invisible issue to the attention of the English-speaking public.

We regularly cover Islamphobia and hate against Muslims, as well as offering depth on the history and culture of the Middle East. I wrote on this issue several times in the past year, for instance: “Republicans in Congress engage in hateful Islamophobia to defend their Islamophobe, Greene” , and we regularly curate excellent essays on this subject from elsewhere on the Web.

We will also keep the focus on US relations with Iran, given that the Biden administration has failed to move the US off its punitive economic and financial blockade of that country, which is a war footing, or to make significant progress toward restoring the 2015 nuclear deal that Donald Trump tossed in the trash can. The world’s biggest humanitarian catastrophe, Yemen, will also be a focus, along with the disastrous aftermath of the two-decades-long US quagmire in Afghanistan.

FDR is alleged to have told progressive Stanley Hillman, who pressed him to enact Left policies, “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.” We’ll have to work hard to get the Biden-Harris administration moving on these foreign policy, climate and domestic issues, to move the country forward to our best future.

If you agree that this is important, be sure to retweet or share this posting on your social media!

But given that Facebook deliberately suppresses left journalism and uses the right wing cult site “Daily Caller” as an arbiter, it is more important than ever not only to support the site if you like its news items but to sign up for delivery of the daily postings by email so you don’t miss even one.

In the so-called post-truth era, we need independent, reality-based news media more than ever, and Informed Comment has never been more essential. Without your donations, this site could not hope to continue to provide a platform to expert and cogent voices who challenge the rank falsehoods that often now pass as news.

A new generation may not know that Informed Comment came to national prominence standing against the lies of the Bush administration over the Iraq War. Since 2002, Informed Comment has stood against lies and propaganda, against bigotry, against injustice, and for reasoned and fact-based public discourse about the pressing public policy issues facing our country. I write a column daily, even when sick, and on a few occasions from a hospital bed. Don’t ask me how. In some large part, it is because I don’t want to let you down.

How to Help

Donations can be sent to Informed Comment via the contribution link in this post (which takes Paypal payments or credit cards). Here is the direct link again:

Thank you to all of my supporters for your generosity and your encouragement of an independent press!

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

Unlike other news outlets, it is a little unlikely that this site will be supported by right wing billionaires, and so if you want it to continue, it is up to you.

What we do for our Readers

At Informed Comment, I have tried to provide the historical background and the context to startling developments such as Washington’s attempt to put Iran into a box, getting beyond the one-damn-thing-after-another rush of news reports.

Middle East issues are often framed by right wing media such as Fox Cable News in Islamophobic and frankly racist ways. Unscrupulous “news” providers play on the comparative lack of good information and analysis to manipulate public opinion on these matters so as to create fear and promote right-wing policies. Informed Comment is one of the few solid counterweights to this propaganda. for-profit news outlets, even relatively liberal ones, can almost never report evenhandedly on controversial issues such as the plight of the stateless Palestinians, because of fear of consumer boycotts. Likewise, much of the corporate news in the US seems determined to obscure the dangers and sources of climate change, perhaps influenced by the vast wealth of Big Carbon or even because their parent companies are invested in that sector. Informed Comment is unconstrained by such considerations. We still get millions of page views a year at the server.

My aim is to be even more comprehensive, and to provide insights on world developments not found elsewhere that challenge lazy conventional wisdom and inside-the-beltway tunnel blindness. I seek to provide visitors with one-stop access to high quality curated sources for research on the Middle East, including maps and key documents and translations. That endeavor obviously requires resources, and the more we have the more we can do. Your support allowed me to pay guest columnistsfor some of our more popular entries this year. (Those who like the old weblog view and are mainly interested in my essays can still find it here (click on the underlined text).

Philosophy and Mission of Informed Comment

Despite rising costs of maintaining this site, years ago I decided that I did not want to put Informed Comment behind a firewall and charge a subscription fee for it. In my own view, there has been a long crisis between the United States (and perhaps much of the West) and the Muslim world that I felt a duty to attempt to interpret and analyze for both publics, not just for well-heeled elites. Pressing issues have arisen such a climate change and the energy and water crises, which have a great deal to do with the Middle East and South Asia, my areas of expertise. This is a democratic blog, for the people and in dialogue with the people, for the common weal. It can only remain that way, however, if readers who enjoy and profit from it support it.

Plans for 2022

For 2022, we are aiming to have more independent, progressive columns of the sort you are clearly pleased by. We will break the sort of news that will be useful in pushing the new Biden administration toward more concerted climate action, toward racial justice, toward a more just US policy in the Middle East, including rights and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis. We will continue to cover negotiations to return to the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and to the Paris Climate Accord and to end the ruinous Yemen War.

To make all these projects a reality, I do need your help. Our budget is a tiny fraction of any other news organization in the world. Given the wide online circulation of IC posts, your contribution here makes an incredible difference in the news ecology.

Smaller contributions are also very much appreciated! Paypal is convenient for small contributions and crowdsourcing is now the name of the game.

Independent Media

Your donation helps me keep Informed Comment independent and prolific. Together we keep independent media alive. I would like to thank all my readers and contributors again for your support in 2021and look forward to an even more productive 2022 together. Thank you for supporting our independent thinking and dialogue!