Welcome Back, Boycotter p.3

It’s Not Easy Being Green<br>Gardenburger, NORPAC Foods Inc. and Wholesome and Hearty Foods Inc.

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The Oregon farmworkers’ union Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United) launched a nationwide boycott against NORPAC Foods in 1992, alleging that NORPAC growers repeatedly violate farmworker rights, and that workers who dare try to change these conditions face eviction from grower-owned housing, firing, even physical violence. The seemingly innocuous Gardenburger, made by Wholesome and Hearty Foods, is distributed by NORPAC Food Sales Co.; the union hopes that boycotting the veggie treat will force Wholesome and Hearty to drop NORPAC as a distributor, thus pressuring NORPAC growers into collective bargaining with field workers.

No Beef with Buffalo
Buffalo burger

For all you carnivores out there, the American buffalo is not classified as an endangered species; some 200,000 of them dot the countryside. Buffalo meat, raised by small independent ranches across the West, is 100% natural, raised without drugs or hormones. The USDA says buffalo has almost 85% less fat than beef, 25% more protein, and 50% more thiamin — and far less cholesterol than beef, lamb, pork, or even chicken, allowing buffalo promoters to boast, “Enjoy red meat and stay healthy.” Also available as steaks, roasts, or jerky.

Bite Me
It’s sandwich time!

What’ll it be? “Dolphin-safe” tunafish, or an Oscar Mayer special?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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