Every Liberator needs a North Star to illuminate the path, to help them to keep up the good fight. It's been said that it is better to die standing than to live on one's knees. Of course, there is one thing better than dying standing -- living standing.

The Liberator Magazine (the one you can hold in your hand) is published through the generous and faithful support of our North Star members, a group of monthly donors composed of both readers and our entire volunteer staff.

Today we are literally asking you to join us as North Stars -- to help illuminate our path and help The Liberator live standing. To be clear, we are not asking you to do anything that we are not first willing to do ourselves.

If we can meet our goal we will guarantee the sustainability of The Liberator entirely through the independent support of our global community. We will print 4 issues each year, reaching 15,000 readers in 11 countries and 10 U.S. metropolitan areas totally independent of corporate sponsorship.

It took time, and patience, to come this far -- over 120 volunteer contributing writers, over 40 volunteer photographers and illustrators, over 20 volunteer distributors in over 20 cities, and 9 volunteer staff editors (all pursuing advanced degrees, artistic, and professional careers independently, and sustaining families in the between time). We know it will take time and patience to get further.

Dr. Kelly Miller once said that we too often, "buy what we want and beg for what we need". If you believe there is a need for a publication like this one, take a portion of that $20 bill you'd spend going out to eat one night, or a portion of that $15 you'd spend to see a movie another night and support The Liberator while it's living so that we don't have to complain about the need for this type of publication when it's gone.

Contribute now, in order to help sustain an intimate, independent global-reaching space, in which passionate dialogue and the free exchange of ideas are alive and well.

Being independent means never being beholden to anyone but our community when it comes to what we discuss and how we discuss it.

Make no mistake, this is no selfishly egotistical endeavor. This project owes its existence to a tremendously focused, consistent collective effort; it is the sum of hundreds of individual contributions. Our approach is humble, but we have faith in our collective power.