Our friend, TheSaker, released an appeal for help for his blog. We post it here in order to support his awesome work.
Written by TheSaker and appeared at his blog HERE
Dear friends,
Today I am posting the “Fall 2016 State of the Saker Community” report and fund drive to inform you and to encourage you to support my work. To say that I need your support is an understatement so, please, help me to continue providing you this unique space of information and discussion.
First, the good news:
The main news to report today is that the blog is doing very well and has been doing so for a long while already. While current events do impact how many people visit the blog on a daily basis, the overall figures are excellent and stable. See for yourself on the following graphs created by my webmaster on the basis of our logs:
Raw numbers, however, even when they are good, do not tell the full story. One special source of joy for me is the high quality of the discussions taking place in the comments section. Nothing is perfect and there is always room for improvement, but I have to say that I am extremely grateful to the moderators who have succeeded in preventing trolls, provocateurs and even plainly stupid people from hijacking the comments section. As a rule, discussions here are interesting and most informative. My special thanks to all those who regularly contribute to the high quality of this blog!
Finally, I am also happy to report that articles from the Saker blog are regularly featured in other publications and even in various books, recently in the USA (Orlando False Flag) and in Sweden (Tankar Om det Otänkbara).
Bottom line: we are most definitely making a difference.
Next, I am working on a very ambitious project to expand the blog into a new section dealing with the history of the Orthodox people and their relations with other faiths. The main goal of this section will be to present the historical truth about crucial events in the history of the Orthodox people and to provide key historical documents on this topic to the English speaking public. This is a long term project which will require a new technical solution to incorporate it into the current blog. The good news is that I have the agreement and support of all the individuals needed for this endeavor.
One more thing. I am extremely happy with the very high quality of the contributions which guest speakers make to this blog. I don’t just mean Pepe Escobar, who is a star in his own right, but also the other regular contributors here who are true experts in their field. I get so many submissions that I have had to make a special “submission guidelines” page which I invite you to check out here:
http://thesaker.is/submissions-policy/
Now, the not so good news:
First not so great news – the Romanian Saker blog project is a complete faceplant. The person who wanted to start it simply disappeared. Not a big deal, but a disappointing nonetheless. Oh well, that kind of stuff comes with the territory I suppose…
Now the really bad news: donations are down. Like really, really down. Badly.
Except to a rather small faithful core of vital contributors without whom I could never maintain this blog (thanks guys!!), the vast majority of the readers do not, alas, appreciate the time and effort put into this blog. Neither do they seem to realize that I do not use a pay-wall, harass readers with obnoxious pop-ups, populate the front page with paid advertisements or threaten everybody with apocalyptic warnings that I am about to close the blog down due to a lack of support :-)
To those of you who might think otherwise, let me clarify this: I am not, to my great regret, a “paid Putin agent” (even though I am often accused of being one). In fact, I get no money from Russia at all (although recently I did get one donation, but that was the exception). So those who think that the Kremlin, Gazprom or Rosoboronexport support my work are quite mistaken: over 90% of my donations come from the USA and the remaining 10% from all over the world (and, no, if you wonder, nothing from Iran, Syria or Lebanon either). When I think that just one average “korporativ” (corporate party) of an average Russian corporation could pay for several years of my work on this blog I get very, very depressed.
Let me give you a practical example:As I have said in the past, there is a world war already taking place between the Empire and Russia and it is roughly 80% informational, 15% economic and 5% military. I fight in the informational part, but for that I vitally need ammunitions in the form of your financial support. So here is the deal: send me the ammo, and I will fight. But please do send me the ammo. If you don’t, you limit my ability to fight (yeah, I will still fight, even without ammo).
Right now my “travel budget” is exactly zero. This year I had to turn down several invitations to participate in various conferences and, even more frustratingly, to meet some rather important people. In one case, I was literally “rescued” by one very generous member of our community who paid for my travel costs to meet with a person I will co-author a book next year (sorry, no names at this point). But that was the exception. For the rest, my travel budget is still zero and it is hard for me to convey how frustrating that kind of “lack of ammo” issue can be (especially when I think of the Empire, Soros & Co. financing their “info-soldiers” with millions of dollars).
So, friend, please, pitch in, take that worry away from me, make me a birthday present (Nov 20) or invest in the future of our planet – whatever your motivation – and send me a tangible sign of your support for my blog. I can do a lot by myself, but for this I really need your help (there are plenty of options including wires, checks, Amazon gif cards, Bitcoin, cash in snail mail and PayPal)
Thank you!
The Saker
PS: Should God ever send me just one philanthropist/benefactor who would pay me a modest but decent salary to work on this blog I promise not to ever post another appeal for donations.
always can’t thank you guys enough. you all did an amazing job. the finance issue is always important.
i don’t think it’s a shameful thing to get some profit from this project. if you want to be as much as independent, you should not be in a financial crisis. to have a stable financal situation, will only make your project better and better. as long as you work for the truth, there is nothing to be ashamed of.
so you should consider different ways to get a more stable finance status. this will benefit not only you but also the people who visit southfront. like make your donate videos on youtube with ads. not only donates videos but also any videos which you could put ads you should!
i say it again. we all are going to benefit from that.
as you said, information war is very important, we could also witness that in syria. we all notice the different quality of pro and anti governments videos. well, the rebels and IS do not only have a lof of very expensive equipments. but not only that. as i got informed that the rebels and IS are sending their rough filming materials outside syria through satelite.
that means that professionals are doing the editing, sound effects and cg etc.
this is the difference between high and low funding. you are able to see that difference.
the truth, facts are the most important thing. but reality looks different. the majoirty of people don’t care about facts or truth. they do care more about fun, fancy and emotion. espacially emotion.
i am totally satisfied with the qualitiy of your work. you all are doing great. but with more funding you will have much more options available. like having meetings, taking part in forums etc which will contribute to your project.
so don’t be shy to make profit out of your project.
the other thing i want to talk is religion. i my slef used to be christian but not anymore. ok. to understand better, you also need to understand the religous context but a lot of people will disagree with me.
we are not fighting US imperialism. we are fighting against the people who dictate US imperialism. the people who benefit from US imperialism.
and to really understand it you also should know the religious context. it’s not about whether god really exist or not. nobody can prove whether god exist or not. like islam and christianity, satanism also do exist. nowdays, for younger people satanism is kind of cool, hip. it became a trend now. “satan is cool god is boring.” that’s the zeitgeist. you don’t have to believe in christianity to fight the tyrants but it will help you a lot in the fight when you have the religious background.
Dear friend, First fo all, thank you for the warm words. However, it seems there is some misunderstanding. This appeal was made by our friend, The Saker (his blog http://thesaker.is/). We posted it here in order to support his efforts. Sincerely yours, SF