Recently there has been a grassroots movement between the civilian and military population here in the US attempting to raise money to give to troops in Iraq to help pay for "items that established aid organizations and government bureaucracies are not designed to handle and that fall in the gaps between large-scale assistance programs - yet can make an important difference."
The website is here- Spirit of America .
Certain blogs decided to make a competition out of seeing who could raise the most money , with Michelle from A Small Victory firing the first shots across the bow. It's been a great example of the generosity that makes up the character of many people in the blogosphere, such as it was with Chief Wiggles.
Then, Dan Henninger from the Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial challenging the readership to help raise money for this worthy and important cause. He hoped to raise a few thousand bucks, maybe even break in to the six digit area.
Well, as of yesterday afternoon, some 3,694 Journal readers (and their friends) had contributed $707,750. The individual contributions ranged from $3.50 to $50,000.
By today it's probably well past a million, and it's probably safe to say that Spirit of America will get the funding needed to get that media operation running in Iraq so we can balance out the terrorist enabling staions such as Al-Jazeera (spit!).
From the WSJ yesterday-
"Jim Hake (director of Spirit of America) is stunned by the response. He says his friends in the Marine Corps are stunned. We are not. The generosity of this newspaper's readership is well known to those of us at Dow Jones who have witnessed it repeatedly over the years.
Mr. Hake is now purchasing the TV equipment -- new PCs, camcorders, editing equipment and the like -- which will be delivered directly to Camp Pendleton in California and loaded on the earliest available Marine transport plane bound for Iraq. When the dust settles, Mr. Hake will post a verbal and financial accounting of the project on the group's Web site, spiritofamerica.net. Mr. Henninger plans a follow-up soon in the Wonder Land column.
As to the project exceeding its funding goals, Mr. Hake says this ensures that the rebuilding and upgrading of community TV stations in Iraq can be extended. He has no intention of letting Spirit of America become "big and stupid." Any additional funds will be used as in all the group's projects up to now -- to respond to requests initiated by U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan for help with small, nonmilitary, civil reconstruction projects.
We suppose one can divine political implications from this remarkable stateside outpouring, but we think we'll forgo the politics and let the goodwill of our readers speak for itself."
I'm sure that the New York Times would be more than happy to help out this way too, right?
Right?
Money grubbing evil capitalists................
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