June 6, 2011

Michele Bachmann, Sustainable Development, and “Tenements”

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I have a story up today on Rep. Michele Bachmann’s history of saying absolutely ridiculous things—from the time she opined that Melissa Etheridge’s battle with breast cancer was an opportunity for the lesbian songwriter to turn away from her sinful lifestyle, to the time she suggested letting Glenn Beck fix the federal budget deficit. But a reader emailed to let me know I missed his favorite quote. And it is a pretty fantastic one: here is Bachmann, circa 2008, warning against the eight-headed chupacabra of sustainable development:

“This is their agenda. I know it is hard to believe, it’s hard to fathom—but this is ‘mission accomplished for them’: They want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take light rail to their government jobs. That’s their vision for America.”

Tenements? Really?

The idea that sustainable development is some sort of nefarious plot actually has pretty deep roots in the tea party movement. MoJo‘s Stephanie Mencimer reported last spring on concerns, among some on the right, that the United Nations is working in league with progressive activists and politicians to return rural America to nature.

Anyway, if your favorite Bachmann-ism didn’t make the cut, feel free to post it in the comments.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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