An Appeal to Our Readers

October 6, 2021

Dear friends,

We are pleased to announce that World-Outlook is now bilingual! Thanks to the invaluable assistance of volunteers who have joined our team, Panorama-Mundial now exists as the Spanish-language version of the website. Since we published our first article in Spanish on July 1—“Cuba da el ejemplo al enfrentar a la pandemia” (“Cuba sets example in confronting pandemic”) —we have made a concerted effort to translate each new article into Spanish. With the launch of Panorama-Mundial, we will step up these efforts, while also beginning to translate previous articles that have so far appeared only in English.

Since we started translating articles into Spanish, readership in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as other Spanish-speaking countries, has increased. We can account for more than 500 “clicks” on articles from Cuba, 150 from Spain, and nearly 100 from Mexico, from dozens of new readers in each of these countries. Smaller but increasing numbers of new readers also come from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay.

This is the most significant of several steps we have taken in the past few months. Many involve new expenses. Today we are appealing to our readers to help us pay for these improvements to the site.

They include:

1. Upgrading the WordPress software we use to allow the full integration of the English and Spanish sides of the website. We have also upgraded the site to make navigation easier. The archive of previous articles can now be searched chronologically or by subject.
2. Purchase of translation software that will speed up the work of the growing team of Spanish-language translators.
3. Purchase of publishing permission for articles such as the first-hand reports from Cuba written this summer by Helen Yaffe.
4. Purchase of publishing permission for photos that help improve the site.
5. Travel expenses to make possible other first-hand reporting such as the comprehensive account of the August 28 March on Washington led by families who have lost loved ones to police violence. We know of no other publication that offered such a report or gave these families, who are leading the fight against cop violence and racism, such a platform.

Side-by-side with these steps we are proud of other accomplishments that include responding in a timely way with reports and analysis of new developments in the class struggle. These include the January 6 events in Washington DC, the fight to unionize Amazon, ongoing actions against police violence, the explosion of protest in Palestine and Israel, attacks on the Cuban Revolution and the response led by Cuba’s revolutionary leadership, and the end of the 20-year U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

We have also begun to post and re-publish articles on the history of the class struggle and the continuity of the Marxist movement. They include essays by Marxist scholar and working-class leader George Novack and one by James Mac Warren, also a long-time leader of the struggles of the working class and African American people. We plan to do more of this, sharing the writing by others that has enriched revolutionary continuity over many decades.

We want to express our sincere appreciation to readers who have contributed reports on important political activity such as the monthly caravans opposing the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba, the fight to defend women’s right to choose abortion, and most recently the protests against Washington’s barbaric immigration policy and deportation of thousands of Haitian refugees. These articles and the photos readers have generously shared are vital.

Equally vital is your financial support. Reader response to our first appeal for funds last spring was very gratifying and raised over $1,300. That includes several regular monthly contributions. We are turning to our readers again for the money needed to sustain these advances and make future improvements possible. Please use the link below to contribute whatever you can.

(Link to contribute: https://world-outlook.com/donations-contributions-2/)

Finally, we would like to single out Marcus Stilwell, a student in Phoenix, Arizona, who contributed his expertise and many, many volunteer hours to making the technical changes that now allow us to publish a genuinely bi-lingual site with improved navigation. We would also like to recognize the three new volunteers who have joined our translation team: Duane Stilwell, who now coordinates the work of the translators, as well as Aaron Ruby and Carolina Martin-Childers.

World-Outlook/Panorama-Mundial editors