Beginning the Ramparts

Let's leave this on an emotional level for a moment: What's your feeling about these times through which we're living? For me, the impression is of watching my fellow Rhode Islanders and fellow Americans building bulwarks against the invasion of an unknown future and being brushed aside each time I shout that they're making the whole thing wrong. A few years ago, we needed mostly to clear out some old rubble before building, but now, now we're going to have to dismantle a misguided structure — held together with the latest in stubborn fasteners and impossibly strong adhesives. Each new post raised and set in concrete will ultimately have to be pried from the ground. And the enemy is bearing down on us all.

That's a dark and cryptic metaphor, to be sure, but at all layers of government, it seems, the solutions that are en vogue resemble the problems that they purport to solve. Misanalysis is the order of the day, and self-serving blindness its foundation. What's needed is to increase the volume at which we who see can be heard, and to increase the number of our voices.

Our reaction to the last election, at the state and national levels, has served as motivation for us, at Anchor Rising, to ratchet up our output, increase our participation, and brainstorm new activities for the new year — leading up to the next election. Judging from the healthy rebound that we've seen in readership after the holiday lull, as well as feedback that we receive from around the state, you've been noticing our efforts.

We want to keep the momentum going. We want to assist in the construction of the right sort of ramparts.

There's only so much that hobbyists can do, of course, which is why we'd like to begin the transition to something more. The two ingredients for that project are time and money — the former of which may easily be expressed in terms of the latter. If we don't feel compelled to work extra hours on nights and weekends for financial reasons, we'll have more time to take up the goals of Anchor Rising. If we have the means to absorb hours of missed work, we'll be able to expand our participation in the civil debate. If we have the technology to maximize our investigational and literary productivity, we'll be able to cover more ground.

For some perspective, if three-quarters or so of the unique visitors to the site each day thought our daily offerings worth $0.25, or $7.60 per month, we could fund a full-time position based on that revenue alone. If you'd count yourself among that crowd, the "subscribe" button below and on the left-hand side of the page will enable automatic, regular payments.

We'll never achieve such a high percentage, of course, because some portion of our daily visitors are computers, not people, others come here randomly each day, and still others are folks who'd just as soon see us disappear from the Rhode Island scene. That being the case, any additional donations that you're willing and able to provide would go a long way.

Subscriptions and donations may be made using credit cards via PayPal (no PayPal account is necessary) by clicking the following:

Those who would prefer the more direct route of checks or money orders can make them out to Anchor Rising and send them to:

Anchor Rising
P.O. Box 751
Portsmouth, RI 02871

The interests against which we must struggle for the sake of our society are well organized and well funded. In response, our intention is not to redirect the funding of our allies our way, but to provide a common understanding of the landscape, to enable a forum through which to broaden our agreement and define our purpose, and to develop a communications network by which reformers can come together. We'll continue to work toward these ends regardless of our income, but our effectiveness will in part depend on its increasing.

Even as outgunned as we are, truth has proven to be a powerful weapon, but it is not enough if nobody hears it and if nobody acts on its basis. Please, help us to build the structure from which it can be delivered.