Alan Chartock: We Need Your Help, and Here's Why The March Fund Drive is upon us. Heeeeelllppp! You are all deputized to get this sucker done in record time. Here are ten reasons to do it faster than ever:  1. It is our station.  We dare to do things that aren't being done anywhere else. We have all put our shoulders to the wheel and made this enterprise work. Our drives have been incredibly quick because of the sense of ownership and pride that we all feel about the place. The faster we do it, the prouder we can be.  2. The powers that be in the new administration are planning to give commercial radio stations even more freedom to do whatever they want. This means that one or two conglomerates will end up running just about every radio station in America. The only way to protect the independence of WAMC from the commercialization of America is for everyone to do their part. If we don't protect what we have, it will disappear and then where will we be?  3. National Public Radio is now being run by top brass recruited from the ranks of the United States Information Agency. People love Morning Edition and All Things Considered but every bit of content in those shows needs to be examined in light of the new leadership. When we see a sympathetic interview with the Congo's new strongman, Joseph Kabila, we have to think about who's doing the interviewing and whether there's any ulterior motive in doing that interview. National Public Radio is always trying to get WAMC to play their programs instead of our local programming. Every dime and dollar you give keeps us free and strong and allows us to rely less on the network and even to criticize them when we have to. Programs like The Media Project, The Capitol Connection, Midday Magazine, The Roundtable and Vox Pop are just a few of the many shows that allow us to do that.  4. With the coming of satellite radio which will have a national footprint, we must do more to enhance our local and regional programming. We can't do that without your help. In addition to the dollars you give during the fund drive, someone out there must know of a family or small regional foundation that can help support a local regional news bureau in your area. Right now we are frantically searching for some money for a Western Massachusetts-Connecticut bureau. We need to get these bureaus up and running to make ourselves stronger. If you can help us, call me. If not, be there for the fund drive.  5. We are always willing to question authority. Now, more than ever, we have to question things that we are hearing, be they from the White House or the Governor's Mansion. We have to offer ways of analyzing the Orwellian doublespeak. If we hear that a Governor is pro-choice but then see him sponsoring legislation aimed at stopping so-called "partial birth abortions," we have to be there to point it out, no matter what our personal views on the matter might be. If the President starts to appoint Supreme Court Justices with a particular philosophy, it's imperative that everyone hears about it, whether you are for that nominee or not. Every dollar you give allows us to provide that type of in-depth coverage you cannot get anywhere else.  6. Every Tanglewood concert, The Metropolitan Opera, Music Mountain, Music Through the Night, Click and Clack, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, National Productions, The Roundtable, Vox Pop.  7. If you listen, you should support the station. It is the only way we can keep it alive. You know it and so do we.  8. For the staff who work their guts out.  9. For your children who may not hear anything worthwhile on the radio without it.  10. To get you through.