The Randolph Bourne Institute, October 2002

Randolph Bourne, a notable American critic and social activist, courageously opposed World War I.

The Randolph Bourne Institute (RBI) seeks to honor his memory by promoting a non-interventionist foreign policy for the United States as the best way of fostering a peaceful, more prosperous world.

RBI is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(C)3 nonprofit educational foundation. RBI has a number of projects: a website, Antiwar.com; a fellows program for writers/researchers; a speakers program; a student intern and campus outreach program; and a cultural critique program. All RBI projects attempt to provide a forum where the entire political spectrum – libertarian, left, right, centrist – can join together on the vital issue of opposing war.

The RBI was founded in 2001, but the Antiwar.com website is now in its seventh year. It has grown greatly, as has its following both in terms of numbers of readers and in the ability to influence the type and tenor of debate about non-interventionism. For example, in mid-October, MotherJones.com’s front page featured Antiwar.com’s Editorial Director (and RBI Fellow) Justin Raimondo along with Geov Parrish of WorkingForChange in an examination of just this issue. Follow-up radio interviews have followed. We are really pleased with this, and will continue to do what we can to make the state-of-the-movement a visible, actionable issue.

Donations to the Randolph Bourne Institute (and Antiwar.com!) are tax deductible – and essential for the continuation of our efforts. We don’t carry ads; we don’t sponsor "shopping" – we focus on delivering a very clear, undiluted message of news and analysis of events, current and past. But we need you, our readers, to help us stay afloat. Without that, we’ll sink.

The Randolph Bourne Institute Projects

  • Antiwar.com is the RBI’s main project and it is the pre-eminent non-interventionist site on the internet. It provides daily, even hourly, coverage of breaking news and analysis on major world conflicts with particular emphasis on the US role – something the established media utterly fail to offer. To accomplish this, Antiwar.com has developed a combination of existing news sources as well as its own columnists and journalists in the various conflict areas. Our targeted audience includes media and college students, as well as concerned individuals and organizations.
  • Areas of ongoing concern include Iraq, Iran, India/Pakistan, Israel/Palestine, the Balkans, Macedonia, China, and Southeast Asia. Iraq has been for some time a primary focus; besides carrying related domestic and foreign coverage, the site maintains an "Iraq Update" page providing in-depth history and links.
  • September 2002 was our second-best month ever (after October 2001), with just over 300,000 unique visitors; we also topped our record on Yahoo Full Coverage, with 584 stories on their current events news. The site continues to be linked to and articles are picked up by an ever-growing number of news sources and journalists.
  • The RBI Fellows Program provides support for authors on the topic of non-intervention. Currently, the Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, Justin Raimondo, is also a Fellow. His writings include An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (2000); Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996); Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (1993); and numerous articles for newspapers and magazines (including the LA Times, New York Times, Chronicles Magazine). As a tool for RBI Fellows, as well as for other researchers and students, the RBI Library offers approximately 2000 source materials on political and historical topics. Writers are also welcome to use the library, which provides computer access, as a space for study.
  • The RBI Speakers Program provides speakers, primarily on US intervention, to colleges and other venues. Speakers have included our Fellows, columnists, and staff members. Justin Raimondo has been speaking at college campuses in Fall ’02, with Iraq as the centerpiece of his comments. We are actively seeking to expand in this area and have more scheduled events in the future. If readers have suggestions, we welcome them.
  • A Student Intern/Campus Outreach Program was initiated summer of 2002 with two interns who worked on setting up the RBI campus outreach program, as well as on the Antiwar.com website and RBI Library project, and meeting with writers and others in the Bay Area (e.g., Hoover Institute Fellows, Stanford and UC Berkeley students). The Campus Outreach Program is being coordinated out of Washington University, St. Louis, by Mike Ewens. We want to expand the intern program to year-round.
  • Finally, the RBI is initiating a new kind of effort: a Cultural Critique, targeted initially at American culture and its relationship to war. The first offering will be a photographic essay inspired by the on-line story "Toy Soldier Commandeers Barbie Dream House".