GRATITUDE

It has been a thrilling last 24 hours, and I have you to thank for helping me soar ...

On Sunday morning, I sat down and typed one of those pieces that dragged me back in time to a newsroom long ago to help crystallize what is happening at this terrible moment in America.

This country is being suffocated by a lying, devious Republican Party while getting cover from the dangerous propagandists on the political right, but mostly by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox “News.”

The two have been going steady and swapping slobbery kisses during their assault on America and the truth for the past three decades. It would be impossible for one to exist without the other, and because of their dirty work are making it hard for us to exist at all in a place that laughably tries to tout that all men (and women) were created equal.

So I spent some time writing about that purveyor of TV propaganda and the three-headed monster they helped to sanitize, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. These grotesque men are war criminals all, who terrorized a generation of young men and women with their stupid wars, and wrecked the lives of everybody else while overseeing the greatest economic crash since The Depression.

Long way of saying that what we are dealing with now from these enemies of Americans is hardly new …

I used the last 400 or so words of that column to grudgingly ask for your support as I use this space to spread my truth — OUR truth— like a blunt-force object.

I know I’m not the only independent writer and/or journalist who finds it difficult to market themselves to their readership in hope of getting a little help with their expenses. At the newspapers where I worked, I never had to bother with this, because there were entire departments dedicated to pushing such things. In fact, there were impenetrable walls separating the editorial department from these other offices and people to avoid any conflicts of interest, or even the appearance that money would influence any news decisions.

Well, yesterday I went out hat in hand and pretty bluntly asked if any of my free subscribers might consider taking on a paid subscription to help with my costs, because maybe, just maybe, I was worth the price of admission.

I feel the need to stop right here, and say again that I know times are tough and shelling out yet more cash for yet another service feels like an audacious ask. I value all my readers, because the thing you learn on the very first day of your newspaper career is that they are the queens and kings.

You work for them.

You represent them at the school boards and city hall meetings … at the police departments and the fire departments … at the ballfields and at the parks. You are their eyes and ears. You are everywhere they can’t be to tell them what’s going on, because they pay good money for that service.

These days, I am a one-man gang and as I typed Sunday, “… have gone off to my little world of independence, where I call ‘em as I see ‘em, and can take dead aim at the public figures and events that have an out-shaped influence on our lives.”

I’ve seen few things during a wonderful life in which I have chased news all over the world, and for the past four years have been betting on myself to make a living offering readers my take on things.

Your response to that column has been overwhelming and wonderful.

As if these words, 32 of you have upgraded your subscription from free to paid. Never in my wildest dreams did I see that coming.

I consider all of you family, so to see that kind of response from people I respect and love so much has overwhelmed me, it really has.

I won’t lie to you, there are times when I’d rather be doing anything besides diving into the darkness and writing about this dire mess we are in right now. There are times I’d like to retire into writing about soft and lovely things. There are mornings I’d rather not pick up the phone and knock things around with sources, or plow through news feeds I still trust, and others I still deeply wish I could.

Our corporate media is by and large failing us right now, and I have come to understand that this is both by design and because of sheer incompetence.

All that said, the truth is I am exactly where I need to be in my life right now, and writing about things that simply have to be written.

I was made for this moment.

Words have meaning, and they have been an integral part of my professional life for five decades.

If it’s a fight these Republicans want, then it’s a fight they will get. I didn't serve my country to watch it get overrun by a bunch of white trash bigots, and pinky-out rich boys, who pathetically bow at the fat little feet of an orange America-attacking convicted felon, who has never served a single person in his miserable life except himself.

They are all abhorrent, and owe us a damn apology for the hell they have put us through.

Since I don’t see any apologies coming, they will deal with me and this readership who are sick and tired of them, and their repellent ways. We aren't backing down, and are coming for their lying asses. We are withering storms and bringing the heat. We are unbowed, angry and will be heard.

I want to be precise about this: We will have our day.

So thank you, you badasses you, for your friendship, and toughness.

Since you continue to honor me with your readership and support, you should know this: I believe in you every bit as much as you believe in me.

We’re onto something here.

Forward!

-Earl