OK, thanks to a $100 donation from a reader in Queens, NY, our year-end fund drive has now reached $200. Our summer fund drive topped $500. Can we manage to raise that much a second time by year's end? If we do, CounterVortex will have succeeded in meeting a large chunk of our annual operating expenses for 2017. That's all we ask. If you have appreciated our rigorous reportage and ultra-dissident analysis over the past year, please give what you can. Donations of $50 each from six more readers would do it. If you can afford to help us and appreciate our work, please do it now while you are thinking about it...

CounterVortex will be on hiatus through mid-November, as your editor Bill Weinberg will be traveling in Peru, gathering material on indigenous and campesino struggles against corporate land-grabs for oil and mineral exploitation. He may post some material from the road. But we will resume regular updates to the Daily Report and our weekly headline e-mails upon his return. We thank our readers for your continued support, and urge you to give what you can to sustain our efforts. We promise to be back in full swing within 30 days.

This year marks the 15th since World War 4 Report (now CounterVortex) was launched in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 to monitor global conflicts; support anti-militarist movements and autonomy struggles; and give voice to dissident-left perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America and around the world. We continue to have a dedicated following, but an admittedly select one. We continue to wonder how many readers "get" what we do, and how valuable it is to you. We would appreciate any response, either by e-mail or commentary on the website, to this brief reader survey...

Cuba became a living experiment in a post-petrol future for humanity after the collapse of the Soviet Union meant a cut-off of subsidized oil. This prompted a big push for self-sufficient and ecological models—bicycle transportation and urban farms in Havana, organic agriculture in the countryside. A generation later, Cuba is getting subsidized oil from Venezuela, opening up its economy, and hoping for an end to the US embargo. Have these ecological alternatives survived? CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg reports back from his visit to the island, with photos and discussion on Cuba's squats, community gardens and organic farms.

CounterVortex, an ultra-dissident voice of left in a time of deep reaction, depends 100% on our readers for support. We receive no foundation sponsorship to meet our operating costs of some $2,000 per year. You can't tell us we're beholden to George Soros, because we don't get a dime from him. We appeal, as we do once a year, to our readers to at least help us meet our annual costs. This year, we are especially appealing to new readers. There is a handful of around 10 hardcore supporters who have been extremely generous since our founding in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. But they have more than done their part. Google stats indicate that our readership is growing, at least modestly. May we ask those of you who have never donated before to step up to the plate today?

CounterVortex editor and chief blogger Bill Weinberg will speak at the Left Forum in New York City on June 4, at a panel on "Confronting 'Anti-Neoliberal Left' Collaboration with Trumpism and the Far Right." In spite of Trump making good on as many of his racist, sexist, nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-worker plans for the US as he can, a portion of the left continues to insist that the rise of Trumpism is preferable to or no worse than the "neoliberal" status quo. We see the same tendency now in part of the French and international left regarding Le Pen. Is this phenomenon due to ignorance of the dangers of white-nationalist authoritarianism, or because a portion of the left actually favors it over "neoliberalism"? This panel will offer diverse views on the causes and consequences of collaboration with Trumpism and the far right and will suggest diverse ways to try to keep it from stifling the real left—the growing Resistance in the streets.

CounterVortex editor and chief blogger Bill Weinberg will be on assignment overseas and away from Internet access for the next 10 days, so the Daily Report will be on hiatus and there will be no headlines e-mailing next weekend. The Daily Report should be active again Friday April 7, and the mailing should resume Monday April 10. If you wish to be added to the weekly e-list, please be in touch. Your address will never be shared with any third parties, and you will receive only one mailing per week. Meanwhile, please consider supporting our ongoing work. Remember: CounterVortex receives no foundation sponsorship; we depend entirely on our readers to keep us going.

World War 4 Report, the news service and digest we founded in the aftermath of 9-11, is being incorporated into a new domain: CounterVortex. We take this move in light of our expanding areas of coverage (beyond our original mandate of the Global War on Terrorism), and to emphasize positive alternatives to the consolidating dystopia. The planet is spiraling into a vortex of ecological collapse, permanent war, and totalitarianism—whether of the techo-security state or the religious and ethnic fundamentalisms that ostensibly oppose it. Through our resistance, we create a counter-vortex, generating movement toward sustainability, peace, and popular democracy.