We are letting the readers and supporters of Green Left Weekly explain why you should make a special donation for the Spring Offensive to help make our $250,000 fighting fund target.
Dick Bryan, Professor of Political Economy, University of Sydney, said: "Mainstream media coverage of economic and political events invariably tends towards mere description and a narrow spectrum of views.
"The economic downturn reminds us (if we needed reminding) that there is need for media that cuts through to the underlying issues of how capitalist economies work and search out deeper meanings.
"Over the years, GLW has been a leading contributor to this agenda, analysing issues from the local to the global, and making the links in between them. The left needs GLW as a critical input in our understanding and our debate."
US-based singer/songwriter David Rovics said: "You can read the Australian and find out that the leaders of the world are going to be meeting in Copenhagen in December to talk about the climate.
"But if you want to know anything about those of us from around the globe who will be descending upon Copenhagen to press our views and try to save our planet from the capitalists who seem to be bent on destroying it, and us all with it, you will have to read GLW — a clear voice of sanity amid the din of the corporate media echo chamber."
When the Tamil national minority in Sri Lanka faced a most brutal military onslaught earlier this year, members of that community in Australia were horrified to find that the mainstream media in Australia was prepared to remain silent (or worse) as thousands were killed, tortured and forced into concentration camps.
Some corporate newspapers even began to run the war propaganda of the Sri Lankan
regime.
Adrian Francis a leader of the Tamil Youth Organisation of Australia explained:
"GLW has been a beacon of light in highlighting the essential needs of our time, which are often neglected or brushed aside by most mainstream media.
"By standing up and voicing the fundamental rights and freedom of humanity and by promoting stewardship among human beings in looking after the earth, GLW must be admired for its courage and determination in bringing forth such issues.
"Without such a publication, the grave injustices of our time and the urgent necessities would not gain much attention, if any. And it is for this reason that we should all support GLW in its tireless efforts."
Catherine Deveny, a well-known social commentator and a regular columnist in the mainstream newspaper, the Age, also appreciates GLW and she got straight to the point of the Spring Offensive: "Cough up and keep this ripper publication going in swinging, fighting the good fight and poking all those rats holes."