April 17, 2009

Cuba Update

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The latest from Havana:

Cuba has offered a surprise olive branch to the United States ahead of Barack Obama’s regional debut at the Summit of the Americas.

Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, said Havana was open to talks about “everything”, including contentious issues which have bedevilled relations for half a century, in a further sign of thaw between the two governments.

“We have sent word to the US government in private and in public that we are willing to discuss everything, human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything.”

And the American response:

The United States welcomes as an “overture” an offer of wide-ranging talks from Cuban President Raul Castro, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday.

“We have seen Raul Castro’s comments. We welcome this overture. We’re taking a very serious look at it,” Clinton said [in Santo Domingo] at a press availability with Dominican President Leonel Fernandez.

Maybe something comes of this, maybe it doesn’t.  But Fidel Castro never would have made such a conciliatory statement, and George Bush never would have responded positively to it if he had.  Times have changed on both sides of the Florida Straits.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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