Topics have included the efforts to build revolutionary leadership in Haiti and the United States, working-class struggles in the United States, and the bloody record of imperialist meddling on the Indian subcontinent.

Through these and other efforts, fund supporters have organized to be within striking distance of their local and international goals. Supporters in four areas are on target, at 80 percent or more on the way to their goal. Swedish partisans of the drive are among a bunch of others who are close to that point.

Overall, however, the amount raised so far stands at a little over half the goal, meaning that in this last week supporters need to step up efforts to gain final contributions, collect pledges, and get the money into the New York office. The Militant and Perspectiva Mundial staff will count all checks received by noon on Tuesday, June 18.

The $50,000 is needed to help cover the costs of producing and distributing the English-language weekly and Spanish-language monthly. Unlike the big-business media, from the "respectable" dailies to the muckraking tabloids, the revolutionary press does not benefit from the backing of wealthy capitalists, any more than it dances to their political tune. The working people who write for, read, and distribute these periodicals are also the main source of the funds that are needed to make up the large gap between sales income and publication expenses.

Those costs have risen in the last year. Not only have printing fees gone up; postal charges will rise by 10 percent in July. The costs of mailing copies to subscribers and bundles to distributors--whether by the postal service or private courier companies--make up a substantial item on the debit side of the socialist periodicals’ budget.

"Our public meeting was a real boost to our fund-raising effort," wrote Andrea Morell from Boston. "It capped off a successful weekend in the campaign to increase the readership of the Militant and PM that is running in step with the fund drive. We urged those who bought subscriptions and copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution to attend the June 9 event.

"Sixteen people attended the meeting, at which Martín Koppel, the editor of Perspectiva Mundial, was a special guest," Morell reported. "He spoke on the theme, ‘From Palestine and Cuba to the U.S. Coalfields: Workers and Farmers Fight the Imperialist Assault.’ We raised close to $500 toward our goal of $1,850."

The event organized by San Francisco fund supporters brought in more than $1,500. Thirty-plus people heard a presentation by Militant correspondent Patrick O’Neill, who addressed a number of issues, including the conflict between India and Pakistan. O’Neill’s comments about the role of London and Washington in forging and then aiding Pakistan as a spearhead aimed at the national liberation struggle of the Indian working people sparked a number of questions and comments.

Fund supporters in Miami and Washington, D.C., held meetings entitled, "From Haiti to the United States and Canada: Prospects for Building an International Socialist Movement of Working People and Youth." These were the latest in a series of meetings featuring members of a Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists delegation at a May 17–18 meeting of university students and young socialists in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Jack Willey spoke in Miami and Arrin Hawkins in D.C.

"Eighteen people attended the event in Miami," wrote Argiris Malapanis on June 11. "Those in attendance included a Haitian man who works in an airline kitchen at the Miami airport, and a young woman, also from Haiti, who works as a waitress.

"People contributed a total of nearly $900," reported Malapanis. "This put the total pledges by supporters of the fund in Miami over the goal of $1,000."

Partisans of the fund also organized public events in Allentown--where the meeting doubled as a celebration of the opening of a new Pathfinder bookstore in Hazleton, Pennsylvania--and Charlotte, North Carolina, where Tom Leonard, a veteran socialist worker and former seafarer, spoke.

The experiences of these meetings and the response to appeals to funds should give us confidence that a solid collective effort will see the goal exceeded and the task nailed home. Onward to $50,000!  
 
 
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