Revolution #100, September 9, 2007



Go to www.revcom.us for "What's New", Kick-Off's, Statements, and Fund Drive Materials

Revolution $500,000 Expansion and Fund Drive Takes Off!

Since the call went out for the Revolution Expansion and $500,000 Fund Drive the newspaper has received correspondence from across the country. What has stood out is the tremendous enthusiasm and creativity from long-time readers of Revolution as well as people who have more recently been introduced to the paper. People from all walks of life – a multinational mix of proletarians and attorneys, ministers and artists, youth, immigrants, teachers, professors, doctors and businessmen came to the 14 Kick-Off events across the country – and are joining with others to contribute, raise funds, and draw more people in to reading the paper and raising funds.

Here is a small sampling of what we learned about why and how people are taking up this expansion and fund drive:

A prisoner in Delano, CA wrote:“I read this paper because it’s extremely informative about what’s going on next door & in other countries with our struggles & the injustices that our fellow bruthas and sistas are enduring. When it shouldn’t and certainly doesn’t have to be that way. But what we or no one else is currently experiencing is nothing at all comparable to what we’re going to be experiencing if we don’t remove Bush & his criminal regime from their position of power. And it must happen soon….I’ve written to my family & some of my associates, still with a few more letters to write and request $5 to $10 from everyone that I’ve already wrote & the ones that I still have to write. I hope that we’re successful with raising the much needed funds.”

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We received correspondence that told about an ex-Black Panther Party member who is a vendor in Harlem, and came to a kick-off brunch and gave a statement about how he’s been searching some time for people who have some vision and can offer some hope, and now he thinks he’s found that. He decided to join a $100 team — people who are committing to work together to raise at least $100 for the fund drive — after he saw a beginning core of people coming together to take this up, and will raise the money selling bottled water and T-shirts off his vending stand.

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The following statement was presented at a kick-off event by someone who donated $6,000 to the expansion and fundraising drive: I am a person that has a professional job and have supported Revolution newspaper and before that the Revolutionary Worker/Obrero Revolucionario. I have made a significant pledge to this fund drive and urge other people, including middle class professional people, to dig deep to support it too.

I was shocked to read that many prisoners who ask for the paper don’t get it because there isn’t money to sustain their subscriptions.

Last year, I was out at the huge immigrant protest where I live and talked to immigrants who had traveled hundreds of miles to the protest who wanted the paper. Many asked where it was available. A few had internet access so they could get the paper online, but most did not. Even in the urban center where I live, the paper is not available in places that are easily accessible by these immigrants.

I have talked to progressive professors and students who are concerned about the lack of protest and debate on the campuses. Some tell me stories about how progressive professors are being intimidated, but many don’t know about the ongoing attacks and are surprised when they read the coverage in Revolution.

There are changes in people’s activities around impeachment, with many people who thought that this was too radical before now supporting impeachment. Many of these people talk to me about their concern about how to have a bigger impact, and see the struggle being whited out and belittled in the media. Revolution newspaper helps people find out about the movements of resistance. At the same time many of these people base their efforts on the constitution and the “rule of law.” The debate around this issue needs to be stimulated and the level raised. Revolution has written important articles on this but it needs to have a bigger influence.

If more people, youth, college kids, working people, prisoners, political activists and many others believed that they could and needed to contribute to the international movement to sum up and further advance the struggle for a completely different and better world, all sorts of movements of resistance would be strengthened. Revolution newspaper has played an indispensable role in this, but much more is possible and necessary. No other publication in an imperialist country, that I am aware of, with the roots of this paper, has attempted to take up this task.

A big leap to deepen the coverage of big and important events, that in many cases aren’t even known about outside of local people is needed.

For these and many other reasons people should contribute to this fund drive.

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Go to revcom.us to get more news

Check in frequently at revcom.us for news from the opening Kick-Off events, statements of support, and creative fundraising ideas that all kinds of people are coming up with. And, to keep updated on how it is all going! Send reports, correspondence, and photographs to rcppubs@hotmail.com or revfund@hotmail.com, or mail to RCP Publications.

Donations to RCP Pubs are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes.

For more information including fundraising resources go to revcom.us, call 773-227-4066 or write RCP Publications, Box 3486 Merchandise Mart, Chicago Ill 60654.

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