May 10, 2010

“We Are The World” (Tea Party Edition)

By <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh3.ggpht.com/_a2_I8uxeZsU/ScWNe9Ja1nI/AAAAAAAAAZs/UqwQL42co4c/DSC_0262.JPG&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wkNAg7z8fPxP0b61liynCQ&usg=__aWMNhox97VTn8xQibXLa9j_cmeg=&h=1063&w=1600&sz=139&hl=en&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=oANSK4yyGZxmFM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlloyd%2Bmarcus%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DG%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26as_st%3Dy%26tbs%3Disch:1,iur:f">Ted</a> under a CC license.

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Last month Mother Jones spoke with Lloyd Marcus, the black Tea Party musician who’s come to enjoy rock-star status at Tea Party rallies, thanks to hits like “Twenty Ten” and “We the People.” We had a nice conversation, but one thing I somehow neglected to ask him was whether he had any plans, in the near future, to put together a charity album modeled on 1980s pop ballads like “We Are the World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Now we have our answer:

In an event that’s one part “American Idol” audition and one part “We Are The World” recording session, conservative singer-songwriter Lloyd Marcus is planning to bring together the musical voices of Tea Partiers from across the country to sing the movement’s unofficial anthem, “Take Back America,” on a charity album to benefit the families of soldiers.

Marcus says he’s hoping to get big shots like SNL star Victoria Jackson and Time contributor Ted Nugent on board, which, if Nugent and Jackson’s recent appearances are any indication, should turn out swimmingly. But this is mostly about the little guys, like the mostly unknown artists we featured here back in March.

Anyway, because it’s Monday, here’s a clip of Michael Jackson and Tipper Gore singing “We Are the World” together on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Simpler times:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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