November 25, 1997

Thank You, Mr. President

An oil company kisses up to Bill and his weak global warming proposal

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The environmentalists are pissed and the oil companies are pleased — last month Bill Clinton announced the U.S. negotiating position for the U.N. global warming treaty, and it was the weakest one on the table. His White House advisers had split on the issue, the enviros urging the strongest cuts in emissions, the Wall Street types urging the weakest. Guess who won.

The big oil firms are more than relieved; some of them seem downright enthusiastic. From a source in Washington, the MoJo Wire obtained this letter written by Sunoco CEO Bill Campbell, thanking the president profusely for going so easy on his polluting industry. You might say he gushed.

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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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