BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
"We held a meeting in Raleigh to discuss what's happening
in world politics today, and among the half dozen people who
attended there was a lot of excitement about the latest issue
of New International," reports Brian Williams of Washington,
D.C., who was part of a sales team that spent a week in North
Carolina meeting with textile workers, farm workers, and other
politically active workers (see article on page 5).
Among these readers of New International, "we got more than $600 in pledges and raised about $200 in donations." Some of them even pitched in to help cover the costs of the team itself, whose members included socialist workers from Washington D.C., Atlanta, and Newark.
This effort to reach out to fellow working-class fighters and others in areas throughout the United States is an example of how to tap the interest in the Marxist magazine New International and raise money for the New International Fund, which will make it possible to keep this issue, which is titled "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War," in print along with the other 10.
We can say that the third week of the fund was the beginning of a real campaign. Supporters throughout the United States and several other countries have begun to organize systematically to raise money - collecting and sending in more than $9,000 since last week. But this also means the drive is currently two full weeks behind schedule.
In Des Moines, New International Fund director Maggie Trowe reports that more than $400 was collected at an October 9 fund-raising event. At the meeting, chaired by Young Socialists member Maryanne Russo, Socialist Workers Party leader Doug Jenness spoke on the theme of the contents of New International no. 11.
Among those present, three unionists who work at the Swift meatpacking plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, made contributions. Two are long-term readers and one is a relatively new reader who first began to read the Marxist magazine as part of a study group of workers last spring when Washington launched war moves against Iraq. At that time they studied Nueva Internacional no. 1, titled "The Opening Guns of World War III."
One partisan of the socialist publications, Mack Shelley, who teaches statistics at Iowa State University in Ames, sent a message of support. "The international sentiments that are so essential for a correct understanding of the contemporary global situation are expressed most clearly for me weekly through the pages of the Militant and in more depth through the New International. The latest edition of the New International (number 11) continues that well-established line of informative and insightful analysis," Shelley said. "It's always wonderful" he continued, "to read something that is much more enlightening that the propaganda that often passes for `objectivity' in the bourgeois mass media."
The fund-raising results of the meeting helped put Des Moines supporters at the top of the chart this week.
In New York City, supporters of the New International Fund have made an extensive series of phone calls to contact prospective contributors. One call especially bore fruit this week. A fund supporter followed up a phone call with a visit to a couple's apartment. They were so appreciative that they not only purchased issue 11 of New International, but they donated $500 to the fund and bought a two-year subscription to the Militant.
Along with contributions, please send in brief news reports on the progress of the New International Fund, particularly about reaching out to workers and farmers on the job and elsewhere.