Quarterly Fundraiser: Help Me Raise $1500 for My Work on Guantánamo, Torture … and Much More!

9.3.11

Please support my work!


Every three months, I put out a request for my readers and supporters to help keep me afloat financially. If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to make a payment via PayPal. All contributions are welcome, whether it’s $25, $100 or $500, and I’m hoping to raise $1500 to cover the cost of running the site, and some important technical upgrades, as well as covering the otherwise unpaid hours I spend writing the many articles that are published exclusively here.

Readers can pay via PayPal from anywhere in the world, but if you’re in the UK and want to help without using PayPal, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page), and if you’re not a PayPal user and want to send a check from the US (or from anywhere else in the world, for that matter), please feel free to do so, but bear in mind that I have to pay a $10/£6.50 processing fee on every transaction. Securely packaged cash is also an option!

Since my last fundraising appeal, at the start of December, I have been busier than ever, covering not only Guantánamo, torture and other aspects of the “War on Terror,” as I have been doing solidly for the last five years, but also branching out into new territory — the revolutionary upheavals in the Middle East, the unprecedented assault on the British state that is being waged by the coalition government in the UK, the WikiLeaks saga and the case of Bradley Manning, and the first stirrings of workers’ unrest in the US, at the protests in Madison, Wisconsin.

Thanks to your interest in my work, I now have more readers than ever. My website received over 250,000 page visits last month, and is regularly ranked by Technorati as one of the Top 100 World Politics Blogs (no. 44 at the time of writing). I’m also close to reaching my limit of 5,000 friends on Facebook, where my work is regularly shared by a wonderfully supportive community of activists and concerned citizens of the world, and I recently received my 1,000th follower on Twitter. In addition, a great recognition of the importance of my work took place in January, when this website was archived by the British Library.

Nevertheless, although I receive regular financial support from Cageprisoners (for whom I write two original articles a week) and the Future of Freedom Foundation (for whom I write a weekly column), much of my work remains unpaid — in particular, my forays into new areas of commentary, research and analysis, as mentioned above, and some of the costs associated with my outreach work. In the last few months, this has involved a visit to the US to protest about President Obama’s failure to close Guantánamo, as the prison began its 10th year of operations, a week-long Polish tour of a sub-titled version of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with Polly Nash), and my ongoing UK tour of the film, which mainly involves screenings to Amnesty International student groups.

My thanks to everyone who has supported my work to date, and who has helped to demonstrate that, in the new media world of the Internet, independent voices can be heard, and that the mainstream media no longer has a monopoly on what is newsworthy and what isn’t. Without your support, this experiment I began almost exactly five years would have come to nothing, and I mean it when I say that I would be nowhere without you. If you can contribute to help me to continue chronicling the often untold stories of Guantánamo and the “War on Terror,” to fill in the gaps left by the mainstream media’s analysis, and to reach out into new territory, then I’ll be grateful, as it will demonstrate that reader-supported new media can indeed be a viable alternative to the advertiser-funded mainstream.

Above all, however, I’m happy if you continue following my work, sharing it, tweeting it, Digging it, cross-posting it, linking to it, and generally making it as widely available as possible. In the last few months, extraordinary stories of the courage, determination and solidarity of the people have emerged from the Middle East, suggesting that real hope and change are possible, and I’m reassured also by  signs of an awakening of awareness, in the countries of the West, that we too have powerful enemies to defeat.

These are still dark times for the world, but I shall continue tracking the lights of hope, standing up for universal human rights, seeking ustice and demanding accountability from those in power, even when it seems to be a lost cause, and I hope that you will continue to accompany me on this journey.

Andy Worthington
London
March 9, 2011

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, on tour in the UK throughout 2011, and available on DVD here), my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles.

25 Responses

  1. Andy Worthington says...

    On Facebook, George Kenneth Berger wrote:

    Donated. Will share this now.

  2. Andy Worthington says...

    Rina Analyst wrote:

    Another way beside Paypal, Andy??. bank account??

  3. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, George. Much appreciated.
    And Rina, you could send me a cheque/check. Or cash! Depends where you are … Banks, sadly, tend to charge outrageous amounts for foreign electronic transactions direct to bank accounts, from my experience.

  4. Andy Worthington says...

    Noa Kleinman wrote:

    Is a cheque within the UK easier, Andy and do I make it out to you?

  5. Andy Worthington says...

    Yes, a cheque probably works best in the UK, Noa — to “A. Worthington”. Thanks very much!

  6. Andy Worthington says...

    Jamie Mayerfeld wrote:

    Paypal is a nightmare. I can’t navigate their page, I can’t update my credit card, I’m through. Please give instructions for alternative means of payment for Americans.

  7. Andy Worthington says...

    George Kenneth Berger ‎wrote:

    Jamie–Try using Pay Pal as if you have no account. It’s a pain, but straightforward. I don’t know if it will work if you already have an account. I don’t and used it.

  8. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, George!
    Jamie, I hope George’s advice makes sense. If not, you can send a check if you wish (it costs me $10 to clear each check through my bank) or cash. The latter would encourage me to make another visit to the US!
    Thanks for the support.

  9. Andy Worthington says...

    Jamie Mayerfeld wrote:

    Thanks, George!!! It worked!!! Now I know how to use paypal. Just don’t bother with using or setting up an account!

  10. Andy Worthington says...

    Lilia Patterson wrote:

    andy – what’s your impression of the whole human rights and torture cases investigation of cheney and bush and what do you think of the new UK census that has been sent to UK households which is being processed by a US company responsible for building nuclear weapons and places where they torture people like guantanamo bay. surely it would be unwise for someone in the UK govt to have permitted a foreign military organisation potentially involved in war crimes and severe abuses of human rights to be given access to UK citizens private information, and surely it would be an act of treason for any person of the UK to permit this gathering of information of people’s private lives to be handed over to a foreign military organisation known to be engaged in war crimes?

  11. Andy Worthington says...

    Yes, it’s not good is it Lliia? Guardian article here about Lockheed Martin running the UK census:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/19/census-boycott-lockheed-martin
    Not sure I fancy a £1000 fine for not completing it, however …

  12. Andy Worthington says...

    Lilia Patterson wrote:

    Sure – I am just thinking that it is irresponsible of any person from the UK to consent to hand over private information to a company that engages in profiting from war crimes and would consider it treason against the British people and therefore a crime against the British nation and wondering if there are any laws to prosecute the person who sanctioned giving sensitive private information to a foreign military organisations responsible for criminal actions in the first place.

  13. Andy Worthington says...

    A Pierre Yurovski wrote:

    Donation made, keep up the great work.

    In the future, try using http://moneybookers.com/ instead (I know the founders) as the rates are much, much lower. Paypal is extortionate!

  14. Andy Worthington says...

    Lilia, it’s an interesting perspective — putting the blame on the person required to fill out the census! Unfortunately I don’t know the answer.

  15. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, Pierre, Jamie, George and everyone else who contributed to fund my work. Your support is very much appreciated. $260 raised on Day 1. I’ll be putting out a new appeal later today, but in the meantime if you feel the itch to support a freelance investigate journalist early in the day, please don’t let me stop you!

  16. Andy Worthington says...

    Lilia Patterson wrote:

    Andy, well – if it’s a foreign military organisation known for war crimes against humanity that wants to collect information on people in another country – then normally that is called espionage, so therefore I have no idea why any person in the UK government should have permitted this organisation to tender for the contract in the first place.

  17. Andy Worthington says...

    Ah yes, well that would be competitive tendering, wouldn’t it? I expect some lawyer has explained somewhere how it can’t be espionage if it advances the “free” market!

  18. Andy Worthington says...

    Lilia Patterson wrote:

    well the problem with all this ‘freedom’ is that the people who profit from ‘freedom’ most are the big interests who are best able to profit at the expense of everyone else who don’t get anything from being forced to provide ‘free’ information. I guess torturing people to get ‘free’ information would come under the same philosophy.
    The invasion of Vietnam also occured on the same principle of ‘freedom’, by bombing the place, then re-constructing the place using US contracts to give them the glorious benefits of american freedom. Iraq has operated on the same structure to provide the glorious benefit of free contracts for American constructions companies to the iraqi people. I don’t know why the UK don’t have a concept of protectionism. Other countries have a concept of protecting their boundaries, privacy, national interests. Freedom can mean many things. Exploitation of other people without compensation or consideration of their privacy and human rights is another. I guess people who rob you of your possessions also appreciate the benefits of freedom to break into people’s houses and freedom to take their stuff as well.

  19. Andy Worthington says...

    Hi Lilia,
    Your mention of protectionism has reminded me that it was something that both Thatcher and Reagan were committed to getting rid of, as it got in the way of their plans to create new and false growth by outsourcing as much manufacturing and labor as possible to cheaper countries as part of the “free” market, without considering what cost would be paid for this in terms of the permanent unemployed back at home. When it started happening in earnest in the 1980s I couldn’t believe it, as it seemed then to be so transparently counterproductive in terms of society as a whole (I didnt realize then that this new breed of capitalist really really really didn’t give a sh*t about “society”), and I recall Bob Dylan singing about it in “Sundown on the Union”:

    Well, it’s Sundown on the Union
    That was made in the USA
    Sure was a good idea
    Til greed got in the way

    After that, of course, the protectionism that had to be destroyed was that of the developing world, so that the “free” market could destroy their own countries’ production, and swamp them with imports from the West, benefiting no one except the transnational corporations and their shareholders.
    The most brutal example of this was in Bolivia, where water privatization led to huge increases in prices, so that ordinary Bolivians were working two days every week just to pay their water bills. Fortunately, this was so monstrously unjust that it led to a rebellion.
    I think I realized that there was no stopping this ruinous juggernaut when call center jobs in the UK — almost the lowest place on the food chain in terms of work — were then outsourced to countries where it was cheaper to give Indian workers Western names, train them to be able to discuss Coronation Street and Eastenders, and let them deal with train inquiries, utility bills etc.
    Now, of course, workers in the West are becoming even more redundant, as we can see from Governor Walker’s union-busting in Wisconsin.
    It really is time to fight back!

  20. Andy Worthington says...

    Lilia Patterson wrote:

    you’re absolutely right andy. I was involved in campaigning against the MAI which is a IMF/OECD agreement which was all about ‘freedom of international investment’ and it might sound like it has some benefits – but then if you look at the detail – it essentially permits big multinational business to profit even more from the economic differences of different countries to their own benefit, like you are saying, exploiting people in other countries the other side of the world becomes more easy as a result. We live in a world of conflicting influences and marketing campaigns always use catch-all phrases to encourage people to imagine this free fantasy world where everyone loves each other, but they don’t realise that the people who profit from this free world are those at the top of the big businesses sucking financial resources out of the people beneath them as much as they can. What I can see here with this new census touches a number of different legal issues that could be proven as criminal in a court of law. I am sure that the company itself could be proven as criminal and even the Patriot Act and how it was created could be proven to be criminal and against the US constitution as well. Just because some people in the UK government happened to have put it through, doesn’t mean that it is legal. The UK government unfortunately has a tendency to attract a lot of corruption with people unclear about how to follow laws a lot of the time.

  21. Andy Worthington says...

    Dejanka Bryant wrote:

    Hi Andy, I’ve just done it. Next time I will donate more I hope. Too many donations this month, sorry.

    You don’t need to go via PayPal, at all. Just type your details and when they ask you to use PayPal, do not log in. It says – continue without log in. Simple. Straightforward.

  22. Andy Worthington says...

    Thank you, Dejanka. That’s very much appreciated.
    And also useful to hear about how easy it is to use PayPal without even logging in.

  23. Andy Worthington « Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and Charles Goyette says...

    […] Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, discusses the quarterly fund drive that helps keep his website going; Obama’s decision to resume Military Commissions for […]

  24. Andy Worthington | ANOMALY RADIO says...

    […] Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, discusses the quarterly fund drive that helps keep his website going; Obama’s decision to resume Military Commissions for […]

  25. The “Dark Side” of Bagram: An Ex-Prisoner’s Account of Two Years of Abuse « Pakpotpourri2's Blog says...

    […] Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found onFacebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, on tour in the UK throughout 2011, and available on DVD here — or here for the US), mydefinitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.  […]

Leave a Reply

Back to the top

Back to home page

Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
Email Andy Worthington

CD: Love and War

The Four Fathers on Bandcamp

The Guantánamo Files book cover

The Guantánamo Files

The Battle of the Beanfield book cover

The Battle of the Beanfield

Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion book cover

Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion

Outside The Law DVD cover

Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo

RSS

Posts & Comments

World Wide Web Consortium

XHTML & CSS

WordPress

Powered by WordPress

Designed by Josh King-Farlow

Please support Andy Worthington, independent journalist:

Archives

In Touch

Follow me on Facebook

Become a fan on Facebook

Subscribe to me on YouTubeSubscribe to me on YouTube

The State of London

The State of London. 16 photos of London

Andy's Flickr photos

Campaigns

Categories

Tag Cloud

Abu Zubaydah Al-Qaeda Andy Worthington British prisoners Center for Constitutional Rights CIA torture prisons Close Guantanamo Donald Trump Four Fathers Guantanamo Housing crisis Hunger strikes London Military Commission NHS NHS privatisation Periodic Review Boards Photos President Obama Reprieve Shaker Aamer The Four Fathers Torture UK austerity UK protest US courts Video We Stand With Shaker WikiLeaks Yemenis in Guantanamo