O'Reilly's shameful campaign

[Hannah Bell]

IN MY mind, when the Fox News star Bill O'Reilly decides to make you a target, it's a badge of honor...That's why his latest attacks on University of Washington Assistant Professor Amy Hagopian tells far more about the twisted mind of O'Reilly than the serious study the professor authored.

Hagopian wrote an academic paper for the American Journal of Public Health making the case that military recruiters in high schools were in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a threat to the public health of adolescents, and even suggesting military recruiting behaviors were akin to--as she put it--"predatory grooming." It's a serious, data-packed analysis of the way recruiters have manipulated information and targeted the most economically disadvantaged students to fill the ranks of those fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The overarching thesis of the study is hardly shocking or groundbreaking. After all, we know that in 2005, the Army ordered its recruiters to "stand down" for a day of retraining because of habitual mendacity. We know the intense pressures on military recruiters to meet quotas has led to a series of high-profile ethical violations.

I know from my work at D.C.-area high schools that the recruitment booths aren't set up at elite institutions like St. Alban's or Georgetown Prep. They're at public high schools like Ballou and Bell. In other words, recruiters fish in places where young people have fewer options. Hagopian's academic study simply backed up what has been over the last five years a very public scandal. This is what I thought when I read her paper.

When O'Reilly read her paper...all right, let's stop there. I will contend there is no way Bill O'Reilly actually read her piece. None....There is just O'Reilly doing his neo-McCarthyite best to chill free speech. All O'Reilly needed was Hagopian's use of the word "predatory" when describing recruiters. Next thing you know, he was hitting the airwaves attacking Hagopian for calling recruiters "child molesters."

Now, Amy Hagopian, for the unholy crime of conducting academic inquiry into a public scandal, has been harassed by O'Reilly's loyal listeners. They have sent threatening letters and e-mails to the school offices. They have made a series of profane phone calls to her colleagues. They have contacted her university and demanded that she should be fired for writing a peer-reviewed publication in the primary journal of public health in America.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/12/17/shameful-oreilly-campaign

[midnight]

1. Our children who have less options have always been the

target of military recruiters, but it is important to keeping talking about this.

[rucky]

2. Incentive to give children less options

from the military's perspective.

[SpiralHawk]

3. O'Reilly, of course, is a consumate Chickenhawk Republicon

Only chickenhawk republicons would whine like this about the absolute wrong thing...

Dude needs to go sit in the corner and amuse himself with his republicon loofah.

[outerSanctum]

4. What's her point though?

You have to be 18 to join the armed forces (without a parent's signature). In this rare instance, are 18 year olds now "children" in her eyes?

I ask this as the parent of an 18 year old that recently joined the army. He and I talked about it and I explained to him that it wasn't my first (or even 100th) choice for him, but he had to seek out his own direction in life. He's a smart young man, and he went with what was best for him. He's definitely not a "child" that needs to be protected by someone waiving the UN flag of Child Rights...

[Cid_B]

5. Possibly something along the lines...

... that if he had never been exposed to the news, a recruiter, a movie, a weapon or a sporting event up until he actually turned 18 he wouldn't have been brainwashed into joining the big bad military. Hence, the 'grooming' bit.

It's idiotic... but I think a good guess in any case.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. Well, now they can have gay people who actually WANTED to be in the military but couldn't

So maybe the pressure for recruiting will ease up a little -- the target audience just increased significantly.

Excellent news today, don't you agree?

[Martin Eden]

6. Most high school students are NOT 18 ...

... but they are still exposed to and influenced by these recruiters when they are still children in terms of the law and their maturity (lack thereof). At 16, 17 (and even 18) they are much more susceptible to what these recruiters are selling.

[Pathwalker]

7. They tried reruiting my sons when they were both 17. They called

our house so many times I got angry with them and told them to stop calling. They said I couldn't stop them, so I informed them that the phone was listed in my name, my sons were minors and if they didn't stop calling I was going to have them charged with stalking a minor by using the many phone calls as evidence. I told them I would never give my permission for them to join since I am the niece, daughter, sister, and mother(my oldest son was in Iraq 1.0) of war veterans and that my family was done offering up it's men to the MIC.

Then 12/12/2000 happened and I made my sons promise that they would not join the military, because I knew then we would be going to war. They agreed. After 9/11 that SAME recruiter began calling my youngest son at work, and my son came to me to ask if he could join. I insisted that he tell the recruiter about a medical condition he has - the recruiter said he couldn't join then. Then he called my middle son who simply laughed at him.

Predatory is a GOOD description of them.