11/22/10 – Angela Keaton – The Scott Horton Show

It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
And our next guest is this show's producer and AntiWar.com's development director, Angela Keaton.
How's it going, Angela?
It is going really quite well, and I have a wonderful new announcement today.
For those of you who are donating now, we've managed, and it was difficult this time, and I'm not going to toot the horns of our support staff and our leader, Eric Gares, but thanks to some horse trading and some amazing generosity from some people who I'm not sure actually really had it there but made the sacrifice anyway, we have a matching pool of $23,000.
What?
Yes, and if you give a donation of $100 today, what's going to be is that those donors are going to match that donation.
Wow.
It's only good for the 29th.
We have to kind of do these things on deadline and obviously around, you know, while these people have the money, so it's really important that if you donate today, we can finish the pledge drive right after Thanksgiving, and the AntiWar.com, a few of us might be able to have a holiday.
Maybe.
Yeah, right.
Well, not Eric, because the fact is the news doesn't stop on Thanksgiving Day.
Who the heck are we kidding?
It would be much, much, much gratitude if you could support us today with a $100 donation, but any donation will do, and we're grateful for every penny, and there's so many ways you can donate, and, of course, I want to thank those of you who've been calling and writing in.
Hold on a second now.
Let me make sure I understand this right.
I saw Justin mention this in his article last night, and there's a splash page up at AntiWar.com explaining it, but just to make sure we're clear here, up to $20-something thousand, I forget, clarify for me in a second, any donation of $100 or more will be matched by this small group of donors, I guess, that you're talking about that came up with this.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So it's not just $100 donations.
It's any donation.
So if somebody were to give us $1,000, these guys will match that, up to $20,000.
In other words, if you give $1,000, any donation of $100 is going to be matched, up to $23,000.
Up to $23,000.
Yeah.
Well, whoever that is, thank you.
I guess I don't really want to know because, you know, what if it was David Rockefeller?
I wouldn't want to have to be beholden to him.
That was a joke.
And I'd be stunned if David Rockefeller had any idea where his money goes.
He has people who handle everything.
Every aspect of his life is fully handled.
He doesn't have to think about these things.
Well, I'm sure none of it goes to us.
Our donations usually come in, you know, $50 chunks.
So we need your $100 chunks.
We'll get the matching funds.
And, you know, here's the deal about this, y'all.
And you know it well.
It's the Great Depression already.
TV won't ever call it what it is, but you know what it is.
And it's going to last a long time because Democrats and Republicans control the state.
And, you know, they're waging a full-scale war against anybody who's not a billionaire, basically, just taking everything that they can from us.
And so we're all in that same boat.
In fact, there are probably some billionaires who are in that same boat.
They're just not invested in the, you know, war industries, people who are trying to do legitimate business.
They're getting warred against too.
And those, you know, the most powerful people who use the state, particularly the biggest banks and the arms industries and whatever, they're making it very hard for all of us.
And so we understand that makes it harder for you guys to donate.
But it also makes it harder for us to stay alive.
And so those of y'all who love us the most, we really need to ask y'all to come through.
And it's, you know, $15, you know, $50, $75.
Sign up for a monthly donation of $25, something like that.
That can really help us out a lot.
And now with this matching funds thing, if you break $100, they'll match it up to $23,000.
That could be very useful for, you know, continuing to have antiwar.com into the future, which is I think that's what we're talking about.
We're not talking about, like, maybe a person will get laid off here or something.
We're talking about the site going back to when it was Eric, Justin, and Jeremy and not much coverage compared to what we have today.
Well, also, too, we have, just so people are clear, we have made substantial cutbacks.
We have made some cutbacks to coverage.
We did, one of our staff members has gone to halftime.
We had to make some cuts, and we are going to continue to look for better deals.
Our leader, Eric Garris, has renegotiated.
I just want to give some people some numbers, though.
Some people who are not in business don't understand how much it takes.
It cost us $35,000 a year alone to process credit cards, thank God, that's been renegotiated because people are taking mercy on nonprofits.
And not that it's just antiwar against the world.
I mean, the fact is there are people who sympathize with our cause who can't give us much other than business discounts with their own trade and services.
And when we're fortunate to run into those situations, we're very, very blessed.
But, yes, it cost that much just to process the cards.
That's amazing.
I had no idea.
I mean, I knew that any kind of credit card company is screwing everybody coming and going, but I didn't realize that.
Jeez, $35,000 a year just to process the donations we get.
Right.
I mean, everything costs.
I mean, in some of the fantastic columnists we get, I mean, every person who writes for Antiwar.com, some people donate it, and others we get it through syndication services, but some of these people, that's what they do for a living.
I mean, we're talking about the actual food on their plate.
When they write something serious for Antiwar.com, that takes an amazing amount of effort.
So it's not, I mean, everyone thinks that the, I mean, I think people still think it's Eric and Justin in a basement somewhere, and that may have been true 15 years ago, but to keep what you see as Antiwar.com, it is endless effort and money to keep it going.
I mean, we, it's not, but it's still the best value.
I mean, what other, we're at one of the top, we are clearly in the top five of libertarian organizations, and we have the smallest budget.
So for half a million dollars a year, I'd still say we are the best value.
Yeah.
Well, and you know, we're making progress.
Like George Bush used to say, it's hard work, but we're making progress.
And like, for example, I finally got this radio show, thanks to your efforts in great part on KPFK, and yet KPFK doesn't pay.
But I've got to be able to find the time to put the show together and do the show, and that means I need this job.
Yes, you absolutely, I mean, none of us, I mean, it's nearly impossible without other, you know, whether family members supporting incomes, trust funds, anything else, to do a job like this at the low pay.
It's nearly impossible.
Everyone has to double up in some way or another and makes huge sacrifices to do this job.
Well, and you know, look at what's going on over this autumn, with Justin Armando speaking to her, going around to these colleges and giving speeches to young people, telling them about the history of the peace movement on the non-Marxist left in America, giving them speeches about the history of the peace movement on the right in America, and, you know, how everybody's traditional values that they cling to are, you know, mostly what we call Americanism is completely and totally compatible with being peaceniks.
And, you know, I haven't been able to see any of these speeches, unfortunately I missed them when he was here in L.A., but I like to imagine rows and rows of young kids going, Garrett, Garrett, huh?
Well, maybe I'll take a look at that.
So, you know, it's worth it to have Justin doing things like that, to have AntiWar.com, and he's talked more and more about taking part in these, you know, like Kevin Ziss and Voters for Peace and the new, you know, left, right and libertarian anti-war coalitions and trying to work on higher levels of organizing a left-right single-issue movement against the wars.
Sure is nice to have the right out of power at a time like this, actually, when their minds could perhaps be changed.
So, anyway, all that is because Justin writes for AntiWar.com that he's able to do that, and it's part of the advance of this entire freedom movement and the peace movement specifically in this country.
It's got to be done.
Wouldn't you say?
Talk about the left and the right, but I just want to make a personal note that will be meaningful, I think, to a lot of people who are in the audience who've been long-time libertarian activists.
Left and right, Republicans, Democrats.
It was December 11, 1971, when David Nolan and many others gave an alternative called the Libertarian Party.
So, David, thank you, what you did for peace, and you were a proud donor here at AntiWar.com, and you were very proud of that.
I'm sorry about your friend, Angela.
That's David Nolan she's talking about.
I'll cover a little bit more of that when we come back from this break.
Thanks very much, Angela.
AntiWar.com/donate.
All the contact info is there.
Thanks.