spotics
05-22-2009, 10:47 PM
From Justin Raimondo
Dear Antiwar.com reader,
It's hard to believe that we've been at this - putting out a daily edition of Antiwar.com - for a decade and a half. It seems like only yesterday that I wrote my first piece for this site, an article detailing the great danger posed by a group of ideologues known as the neoconservatives. Back then they were an obscure lot, known only to a few academics and political insiders, while today, of course, they are famous (or, rather, infamous) as the intellectual architects of the Iraq war and our disastrous post-9/11 foreign policy.
As I look back at the record - and it is there for all to see in our archives - I am struck by how much of what we have written on this site has been prescient, almost eerily so. To wit: the coming war in the Middle East, the complete absence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, the guilt of Scooter Libby, the collapse of the GOP, and the list goes on. As a guide to what is happening - and likely to happen - in our tumultuous danger-filled world, Antiwar.com has been indispensable to the serious student of foreign affairs. Over the years we've built up quite an audience and made Antiwar.com into a Web site that ranks up there with the big boys.
Which is why I find it hard to believe that we're about to close up shop, for lack of funding.
After all that work, all those fundraising drives, all the words written and posted - and all the times we have been right on the mark - it looks very much like Antiwar.com has fallen victim to the great economic downturn that now has the U.S. by the throat.
The great irony is that we warned about this, too, and pointed to one of the major causes - the vast strain on the economy that having an overseas empire entails.
I am told by our accountant that, unless we bring in at least $25,000 over the weekend, we'll have to start making cutbacks by Monday morning, starting with letting go of a good part of our staff. That would leave us with a skeleton crew of perhaps TWO people to put out the most comprehensive and up-to-date Web site devoted to foreign affairs on the Internet - an impossible task.
But the cutbacks won't end there. We'll have to stop paying our contributors, most of whom work for a pittance already. This will undoubtedly lose us a few of our columnists: these days, hardly anyone I know can afford to work for free. And you can't blame them, can you?
A long time ago we made a decision not to take money from certain major foundations whose money has all kinds of strings attached - more like ropes, actually. We thought we could appeal to our readers, every so often, to come up with the relatively slight funding we need to continue operating and still retain our editorial independence.
Were we wrong? It's beginning to look like it, but I still find it hard to believe that we're really on the brink of bankruptcy. Antiwar.com has been so successful in so many ways: we've built a large audience, we've welded together a working coalition of writers and activists who span the spectrum from Left to Right to unclassifiable, and we've begun to have a real effect on the debate over what kind of foreign policy America ought to have.
As America stands on the precipice, staring down into the graveyard of empires, Antiwar.com is needed more than ever - and so, I ask myself, can this really be the end?
Well, it ain't over 'til it's over. Monday isn't here quite yet. We have a whole weekend standing between us and extinction. So what are you waiting for? There's still time to save the patient before the line goes flat.
I've begged before, and I'll gladly beg again: please, if you value peace and liberty, now is the time to dig down deep in your pockets and give what you can, as quickly as you can.
When the staff asked me to write this letter, my immediate response was: Why should anyone respond to an appeal from little ol' me? After all, who am I? Some schmuck who writes stuff on the Internet. There are so many other better writers, better-informed, less - how shall I put this? - flamboyant, more sober, who write for our site. Yet they insisted, and so here I am, asking you - pleading with you - to save Antiwar.com.
We've always depended on you, our loyal readers and supporters, who have come through for us time and again. Now I'm turning to you once again for the support we need to continue our work.
It isn't much, even by the standards of nonprofits. Comparable media outlets spend 10 times what we do, if not more. The big difference is that they have major philanthropic and corporate donors who pay the bills - for a price.
That price is de facto editorial control and a whole list of "forbidden" subjects that can't be touched with a 10-foot pole. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I certainly would not be given a platform if the corporate moguls and establishment mandarins who control the big foundations had their druthers. I'm too "extreme," you know.
Well, to heck with them, and to heck with the establishment. Those guys have brought us to the edge of the abyss, and if they have their way we'll be jumping in head first. We'll never give up our principles. We'll never hand over control of the most widely read foreign-policy site to apologists for evil policies. We'd rather go down in flames - but, remember, it doesn't have to end that way. There's still a whole weekend to raise the relative pittance we need to get by.
So what the %&!@ are you waiting for? Hurry, because there's not a moment to lose. If any of my readers are out there and reading this, if you have valued my work over the years and think I'm making a valuable contribution to the fight for peace and liberty, then
Dear Antiwar.com reader,
It's hard to believe that we've been at this - putting out a daily edition of Antiwar.com - for a decade and a half. It seems like only yesterday that I wrote my first piece for this site, an article detailing the great danger posed by a group of ideologues known as the neoconservatives. Back then they were an obscure lot, known only to a few academics and political insiders, while today, of course, they are famous (or, rather, infamous) as the intellectual architects of the Iraq war and our disastrous post-9/11 foreign policy.
As I look back at the record - and it is there for all to see in our archives - I am struck by how much of what we have written on this site has been prescient, almost eerily so. To wit: the coming war in the Middle East, the complete absence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, the guilt of Scooter Libby, the collapse of the GOP, and the list goes on. As a guide to what is happening - and likely to happen - in our tumultuous danger-filled world, Antiwar.com has been indispensable to the serious student of foreign affairs. Over the years we've built up quite an audience and made Antiwar.com into a Web site that ranks up there with the big boys.
Which is why I find it hard to believe that we're about to close up shop, for lack of funding.
After all that work, all those fundraising drives, all the words written and posted - and all the times we have been right on the mark - it looks very much like Antiwar.com has fallen victim to the great economic downturn that now has the U.S. by the throat.
The great irony is that we warned about this, too, and pointed to one of the major causes - the vast strain on the economy that having an overseas empire entails.
I am told by our accountant that, unless we bring in at least $25,000 over the weekend, we'll have to start making cutbacks by Monday morning, starting with letting go of a good part of our staff. That would leave us with a skeleton crew of perhaps TWO people to put out the most comprehensive and up-to-date Web site devoted to foreign affairs on the Internet - an impossible task.
But the cutbacks won't end there. We'll have to stop paying our contributors, most of whom work for a pittance already. This will undoubtedly lose us a few of our columnists: these days, hardly anyone I know can afford to work for free. And you can't blame them, can you?
A long time ago we made a decision not to take money from certain major foundations whose money has all kinds of strings attached - more like ropes, actually. We thought we could appeal to our readers, every so often, to come up with the relatively slight funding we need to continue operating and still retain our editorial independence.
Were we wrong? It's beginning to look like it, but I still find it hard to believe that we're really on the brink of bankruptcy. Antiwar.com has been so successful in so many ways: we've built a large audience, we've welded together a working coalition of writers and activists who span the spectrum from Left to Right to unclassifiable, and we've begun to have a real effect on the debate over what kind of foreign policy America ought to have.
As America stands on the precipice, staring down into the graveyard of empires, Antiwar.com is needed more than ever - and so, I ask myself, can this really be the end?
Well, it ain't over 'til it's over. Monday isn't here quite yet. We have a whole weekend standing between us and extinction. So what are you waiting for? There's still time to save the patient before the line goes flat.
I've begged before, and I'll gladly beg again: please, if you value peace and liberty, now is the time to dig down deep in your pockets and give what you can, as quickly as you can.
When the staff asked me to write this letter, my immediate response was: Why should anyone respond to an appeal from little ol' me? After all, who am I? Some schmuck who writes stuff on the Internet. There are so many other better writers, better-informed, less - how shall I put this? - flamboyant, more sober, who write for our site. Yet they insisted, and so here I am, asking you - pleading with you - to save Antiwar.com.
We've always depended on you, our loyal readers and supporters, who have come through for us time and again. Now I'm turning to you once again for the support we need to continue our work.
It isn't much, even by the standards of nonprofits. Comparable media outlets spend 10 times what we do, if not more. The big difference is that they have major philanthropic and corporate donors who pay the bills - for a price.
That price is de facto editorial control and a whole list of "forbidden" subjects that can't be touched with a 10-foot pole. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I certainly would not be given a platform if the corporate moguls and establishment mandarins who control the big foundations had their druthers. I'm too "extreme," you know.
Well, to heck with them, and to heck with the establishment. Those guys have brought us to the edge of the abyss, and if they have their way we'll be jumping in head first. We'll never give up our principles. We'll never hand over control of the most widely read foreign-policy site to apologists for evil policies. We'd rather go down in flames - but, remember, it doesn't have to end that way. There's still a whole weekend to raise the relative pittance we need to get by.
So what the %&!@ are you waiting for? Hurry, because there's not a moment to lose. If any of my readers are out there and reading this, if you have valued my work over the years and think I'm making a valuable contribution to the fight for peace and liberty, then