Fund pledges need boost in final stretch
BY DON MACKLE
The issue you are holding is the most effective tool to raise money for the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial Fund. The firsthand coverage from Yugoslavia featured on the front page is unique. No other newspaper has anything like it. The report comes from an international team of worker-correspondents who went to Yugoslavia to get the facts from a working-class point of view.
They describe the multifaceted events that have been unfolding since a popular revolt in early October brought down the hated bureaucratic regime of Slobodan Milosevic, with working people playing the decisive role.
They explain how workers are seeking to use the political space they have won in order to improve their working and living conditions; why the new government does not represent a break from the basic political course of the previous bureaucratic regime; how the imperialist powers seek to integrate Yugoslavia more into the world market system; the working-class resistance that can be expected as a consequence of such moves; and why 65,000 imperialist occupation troops remain stationed in the Balkans--a threat aimed at Yugoslavia and other workers states in the region.
Perspectiva Mundial is coming out with a 16-page special issue next week that will contain firsthand coverage on the events in Yugoslavia, as well as documents previously unavailable in Spanish on the fight for a democratic, secular Palestine.
With two weeks remaining in the $110,000 fund campaign, there could not be a better opportunity to systematically approach all readers of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial who need and look forward to this kind of coverage, and ask them to contribute to keep producing these revolutionary, working-class publications.
The public fund-raising meetings in this final stretch of the campaign are needed to collect the remaining pledges to the fund. But the key to successful meetings is the work that is put in beforehand to lock in contributions--discussing the political questions that will be taken up at the meetings, as well as firming up contributions and asking people to bring their checkbooks.
Leading the way this week are supporters of the socialist periodicals in Iceland, Australia, Sweden, and New Zealand, all of whom have reached or are close to reaching their quotas.
Another boost was given to the drive in the New York Garment District, Philadelphia, and Chippewa Falls, which raised their combined pledges by $1,240. Altogether six areas have increased their local quotas. More areas need to follow these examples in order to meet the international goal of $110,000--we are some $2,000 short in total quotas.
"Payments have been coming in regularly to the Militant from most areas," reported Emily Fitzsimmons, one of the organizers of the fund collection effort. "The next two weeks are crucial, to bring in the remaining $38,000--a substantial amount that requires focused attention every day between now and November 13.
"Contributors who have already paid their pledges, or are close to it, may be open to boosting their pledges a little in response to special opportunities like the reporting trip to Yugoslavia," Fitzsimmons added.
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