Dear Friends,
This is to ask for your support for the work I do.
For the past 10 months, I’ve been sharing my insights at TheRaven.substack.com, bringing to bear the experience and knowledge gained in over four decades in journalism, activism and research, and nearly 70 years on this planet. For many years, I have researched and written on policy and technology to meet the immense challenges of climate and sustainability. From my work I can tell you, we have the answers. We just are not pursuing them with the urgency that is required. The blockages are political, and the ongoing disintegration of the U.S. body politic makes them all the more worse.
As with many of you, I am deeply disturbed by the course of events in the U.S. and the world, by political and economic systems and leaderships that are inadequately responding to the challenges we face, and are in fact digging the hole deeper. In a nation and world in conflict, we have dark forebodings about the future that have all too rational a basis in fact. I believe we will not resolve our mounting political, social and ecological crises without fundamental and systemic changes.
So I am now bringing to the foreground another field that has always been in the backdrop of my work, a passion for the study of history, particularly that of the U.S. Our multiple, interacting crises are deeply rooted in our history. We cannot resolve them unless we dig down to those roots and understand how they shape the present. With The Raven, I’m working to place current events in the historical context, and to propose strategies and solutions fundamental enough to shape a new history. This is not an academic exercise, but an effort to draw vital insights from our past to inform our actions.
I am convinced that only political organizing deeply rooted in places and communities can overcome the towering challenges we face. It will be people power that makes the difference. To develop effective strategies, we need to understand how we arrived in this position, and what we can effectively do now to move beyond it. This is the movement-building contribution I seek to make with The Raven. My latest is here.
So I’m asking for your support. I intend to keep The Raven free, but I need a modest amount to keep the bills paid. I’m offering you several ways to do this:
1) Subscribe at the monthly $6 rate, the basic $60/year rate, or the $120/year Flying Higher rate. https://theraven.substack.com/subscribe If you are already a subscriber, please renew when it comes up. And if you are subscribing at a basic rate, please consider upgrading to Flying Higher.
2) If you want to make a one-time donation that is lesser or greater, please send to my Venmo account, @Patrick-Mazza-5, or direct by good old snail mail. I will send you my address on request. Write me at cascadia2012@gmail.com. If you are already a subscriber and are in a position to offer additional support, of course, I would greatly appreciate it.
I hope you will support my work, and recommend The Raven to your friends.
In Solidarity,
Patrick Mazza