Dear readers, contributors, donors and members,

First, a few impressions from the US West Coast. Then details of the New York meet-up and finally, a reminder to anyone who feels like giving but hasn't got around to it yet.

Dear Supporters,

Thank you to all the readers who have got back to me saying they'd like to meet and talk while I'm in the US.

Here are the meeting arrangements so far:

Dear US-based Readers, Contributors, Donors and Supporters,
I am travelling to the US this coming week and would love to get together, face to face, with as many of you as possible. It is an opportunity to take you through the exciting plans we have for oD going forward. If you can make any of the times suggested, please email me. I will set up a venue as the time approaches.

Who would have thought it would come so soon?

I paused our 2007/8 "Think Long Term" campaign about 1 month ago to look after some pressing projects --- a conference with the MacAthur foundation on "Credibility in the New News", looking after the launch of our Russia project ... and taking a 1 week break.

As I restart the "Think Long Term" campaign, it strikes me that the long term is right now. I started the campaign with the question of whether we are entering a new epoch. The pace and direction of change we have seen this first quarter keeps making this look likely. Consider these 6 factors:

Dear readers, supporters and contributors,

Thank you to all who have donated so far. I have been out of touch for two weeks or so - a trip to talk to funders in New York followed by catching up on everything after a week out of the office. The New York trip went well, and our foundation supporters there really appreciate the membership commitment that your donations demonstrate. You can keep giving - click here!

Over the next 2 weeks, I am really going to focus on a seminar openDemocracy is hosting with the MacArthur foundation on "Credibility in the New News" - how do we decide what to believe in the ever-growing media torrent around us? How does technology help and hinder? And is there a way to make the fractured perspectives of globalisation a way of discovering a common humanity, rather than communities joined by their mutual incomprehension?

Dear Readers, Supporters and Contributors,

Thank you to all of you who have given this week. I love the page of testimonials that we are getting together - you can read it here. A good number of you have given but preferred to remain anonymous - thank you also!

Please keep giving - you can do so here. We have until February 14th, and I still need 300 new donors.

When I look at the site logs, I can see that beyond our 3 million annual visitors, there are 70,000 or so regular users of the site. People, like you, who come back regularly and read many articles per month. We need a small percentage of the 70,000 to become donors to maintain our independence. Please help us!

Dear Readers, Members, Contributors and Supporters,

Here is where we are with the Think Long Term campaign - 197 NEW donors, 850 previous donors, so 453 donors to go to get to our target. And only 3 weeks left to do it. So PLEASE donate - Click Here.

Once you have clicked there, you might want to visit our new front page and let me know what you think.

Many thanks for your donations,

Tony Curzon Price

 

Dear readers, members and supporters,

Thank you to all of you whose gifts keep coming to the Think Long Term campaign.

The question we posed at the start of the campaign was whether we face a new epoch. A combination of US defeat in the Middle East, economic slowdown and the dollar's fall, the realization that climate change really needs a global deal, and the retreat from a belief in the guiding principles of democracy and human rights at the highest levels of international policy-making---do all of these forces lead to global realignment?

Dear Readers, Supporters, Contributors and Members,

First - thank you to all of you who have given, and especially to those of you who gave yesterday. If we can maintain the 15 donations per day that we achieved yesterday, we will make our target of 1,500 supporters by February 14th. Thank you to those who have contributed, and Please Give if you can in openDemocracy's "Think Long Term" campaign.

Dear Readers, Supporters and Members,

It has been a real pleasure asking supporters for a quote and a link and posting these up on the site - it is a surprisingly lonely business, editing a magasine/web-site like openDemocracy. Of course, there is a great deal of talk and debate within the editorial team and with authors. We also have our appreciated and often regular commenters. But we can tell from the web server stats that we don't actually talk to 99% of the readers of oD. So it has been great to hear from some of you - please keep the comments and links coming in.

Dear Readers, Supporters and Donors,

First, I'd like to encourage you to click here and give in our 2007/8 "Think Long Term" campaign. We want to get to 1,500 supporters, and are now at 1,000 for the last 12 months. You can read why people are joining and supporting here. (Some of you are having technical trouble with our system ... apologies, and I hope we have ironed things out now).

Why give? Today's "Quote of the Day", selected as usual by our deputy editor David Hayes, provides a clue, I think: "Relativism of authority does not establish the authority of relativism; it opens reason to new claimants", Gillian Rose (UK Philosopher, died 1995).

Dear Readers, Contributors and Members,

Our "Think Long Term" campaign has just over a month to run, and we need more than 10 new donors per day to make our target. Please help us get there! You can donate by clicking here.

One of the themes of the campaign is how we as democrats, should respond to the generalised retreat from a belief in Democracy and Human Rights in the face of the US's borrowing of that language to justify its foreign policy.

This theme was particularly resonant to me in the two articles we have carried on the Kenyan crisis. Michael Hollman asks how much the west has turned a blind eye to misgovernment because of Kenya's "good ally" status, while Peter Kimani recounts the historical, Kenyan, Cold War and colonial roots of the Macchiavellian manipulation of tribe for the power of fiefdoms. Both underline the damage that has been done to democratic government by their fig-leaf adoption of the principles of democracy. Kenya is a failure of non-democracy, not of electoral processes.

Dear Friends,

The "Think Long Term" Campaign will run through until February 14th 2008. In that time, we want to have reached 1,500 paying members. We are already close to 1,000. But we need your contribution: it will keep openDemocracy independent. Click here to give.

Continuing our "Think Long Term" themes, David Hayes, our Deputy Editor, has published his perspectives for 2008. He lists 12 sets of issues that need our attention, and points to the dangers of their complex inter-linking: a sense of weariness and powerlessness in the face of global conflict; a combination of empowerment from new information technologies but also of helplessness in the media torrent; a destruction of collective identities and a profusion of attempts to fill the void.

Dear Friends,

 The "Think Long Ter" Campaign will run through until February 14th 2008. In that time, we want to have reached 1,500 paying members. We are already at 1,000. But we need your contribution: it will keep openDemocracy independent. Click here to give.

Continuing our "Think Long Term" themes, David Hayes, our Deputy Editor, has published his perspectives for 2008. He lists 12 sets of issues that need our attention, and points to the dangers of their complex inter-linking: a sense of weariness and powerlessness in the face of global conflict; a combination of empowerment from new information technologies but also of helplessness in the media torrent; a destruction of collective identities and a profusion of attempts to fill the void.

Happy New Year 2008

Dear 2007 openDemocracy Donors,

I would like to wish you a Happy New Year for 2008.

If you have not read them yet, can I recommend the collection of brief perspectives we have on-site today? Rajeev Bhargava's thoughts on the double-identity of the West --- the one associated with Freedom, Equality, Emancipation, Solidarity versus its twin of Cunning, Calculation and Exploitation --- resonated especially for me with our "Think Long Term" campaign theme of the worldwide retreat from a belief in democracy and human rights. A pessimistic belief that the twin Wests are joined at the hip will justify that retreat.

quotes

Join our supporters and give now: your gift will help to keep openDemocracy independent. Click Here.

 

March 25th 2008

Name	Reason for supporting openDemocracy	Link Love
Peggy Mason	I believe that Open Democracy is a superb site. The first thing I do every Thursday morning is to read Paul Rogers' latest analysis on the GWOT.  I cannot remember how many people I sent the Anthony Barnett analysis of Barack Obama and I regularly suggest the site to those unfamiliar with it.  My only complaint is that there are not enough hours in the day to read all the excellent material offered there.	http://www.pom.peacebuild.ca/
anon	Made a modest donation in appreciation of the excellent provision of the flow of a very wide range of topical references. Almost all are of interest to me, and most are comments I would otherwise miss. The openDemocracy messages are definitely the most interesting ones in my daily mail: many thanks for all the work that must go into gathering them.	http://www.wdm.org.uk
Gill Branston	'My, my. Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains.' Bogart line in The Big Sleep (1944)	http://www.transitiontowns.org
Hanne Petersen	A much needed source of information for world society
Peter Rainey	I use and enjoy openDemocracy as a necessary and attractive antidote to the triviality, blandness and banality of so much of mainstream media.
Des McConaghy	I have 12 grandchildren	http://chinadialogue.net
John Melvin	To misquote Marx - openDemoracy might not change the world but it certainly helps us to understand it. It might , you never know, even help to change it. It brings us news and views that one could get nowhere else.	http://www.johnmelvinarchitects.co.uk

Dear readers and members of openDemocracy,

Many of you in the US will be able to give to us and benefit from a tax deduction in 2007 - please contribute to our "Think Long Term" campaign in the last 4 days of 2007 to take advantage of our 501c3 status in the US.

For US tax deductible donations, Click Here

For other donations, Click Here

Dear openDemocracy reader,

I sent you this email yesterday, but all the links got stripped out of it. So here it is again - this time a bit easier to click through and donate in our Think Long Term campaign. I hope you get the time to do so before the seasonal break.

 YESTERDAY'S EMAIL:

Please support us financially if you can. We have just launched our "Think Long Term" campaign. To read more about it click here, where I describe what we need, our financial model and why we have called this campaign "Think Long Term - support openDemocracy".

I'll keep this message short and seasonal. The heart of it is simple: please make a regular donation of you can, ideally for £10 a month.

This link takes you to our support page where you can give - including tax efficient options if you are a UK or US resident.