20 Years
By 
Today, Lawyers, Guns, and Money celebrates its 20th year of existence.
20 YEARS!!!!!
This is really incredible. Remember when blogs were a real thing. Any asshole could have one? Well, Farley, Lemieux, and DJW are definitely assholes who decided they could do this too. So I am, but I’ve only been here 13 years, so I am a mere pup.
I think it’s worth noting as we celebrate our anniversary and have our annual fundraiser how special this place is. There are effectively no sites that do what we do.
On a personal level, I can guarantee you that there is nowhere on the internet you get independent commentary on the labor movement like you get here. There are some journalist sites, though I would say they all have certain levels of problems, blinders from ideological commitments, etc. And there are a few older great labor journalists and writers out there–Greenhouse, Kuttner, etc. But in terms of real time commentary on the labor movement with a head that is immune to ideology and wants to praise labor for what it does well and critique for what it does poorly and where commenters can actually engage with each other on it, this is a truly unique space.
But that’s just one issue. If you look at the world of the internet in the Iraq War, which is why this kind of site took off in the first place, you have a few outcomes. One outcome was being coopted by the Democratic Party, which plenty of people were happy to have happen to them. Another was being coopted by a bigger media site, which was usually a disaster for the site as these new media sites shut down so frequently. We in fact were approached 8 or 9 years ago about joining Raw Story and thank God we asked them enough questions about how this would actually work for us that they dropped us. When was the last time you looked at Raw Story? Does it even still exist? The answer evidently is yes and it is all-Trump coverage all the time, but I had to look it up. Another option was disappearing out of frustration and boredom. This is why we have had some authors disappear over the years–it doesn’t work for everyone. But for the core LGM writers? No, this is a great outlet. We are determined to keep the spirit of 2004 alive as long as we can. It takes your help.
I mean, my God, I can actually comment on the world and people pay attention to it. I recognize that some people don’t care for my style, but I can’t really help that. What I can help is providing commentary and information on issues you aren’t getting elsewhere and a sometimes unusual take on issues that you do get elsewhere. If there is one true thing about me, it’s that I am a hack for no one. It’s amazing to have this forum and this opportunity.
But as I am sure our other writers will say throughout the day, writing for this site is a lot of under-compensated labor. That’s why we have the fundraisers once a year. We need to make this at least slightly compensated so that we still find reason to write here.
This shit costs money. We have accountants, we have legal fees, we have server fees, we have taxes of course. Meanwhile, we would never charge you. That’s not how we roll at LGM. There will never be a paywall here. Last year, we raised money to eliminate ads. We didn’t quite get there, but we sure were able to reduce the ads and we have had no complaints that I am aware of about the ads in the last year. Good. We want the site to be as great as possible for you.
But it all depends on you. If you can give, do so. Given the number of lawyers, doctors, professors, pilots, and other professionals who comment here, not to mention the vast majority of readers who don’t comment, I know you can help keep this project going. Please help us celebrate 20 years by donating for the first time, donating again, or if you are a Patreon sponsor, upping your donation a bit. Know that every dollar you give is used by this site to improve the experience and help us keep doing this.