[Peace-discuss] Fw: YMCA partners with ARMY

[Neil Parthun]

I think there is a distinct difference between high school and
college recruitment.

Most high schoolers are lured by having tuition paid for etc.
etc. whereas most college students already have most of that
taken care of, a chosen career path already picked out and it
will be much more difficult to sway them from that to join up
in the military.

So, there's a definite difference in what they are going to be
able to do -- I'd much rather have them focus their attention
on college kids who are not going to be very receptive to
their offers so they cannot use their efforts against high
schoolers who would be much more susceptible to all the
lipstick on the military pig.

By in effect asking the Y to censor speech simply because we
do not agree with it, aren't we being no better than the
neo-conservatives in power that create "free speech zones" and
rope off protesters to be blocks away from the President etc.?

The YMCA is promoting free speech and the inviduals seizing
that opportunity are attempting to recruit for the military. 
Instead of trying to censor the opposition perhaps a
counter-event could take place with notifications about
stop-loss, the extent of the Abu Ghraib violations in the
Taguba report, the lack of proper equipment for the
soldiers...we all know the reasons why the wars in
Afghanistan/Iraq are incorrect and being mishandled now that
soldiers are in a forward area so I do not feel I need to go
through a laundry list of them.

Just because the Y is open to dissenting opinions does not
mean that we should try to influence them to promote
censorship.  Hell, I remember when there was the Engineering
Expo where a bunch of us stood right next to Halliburton's
table handing out fliers regarding Halliburton price gouging,
human rights abuses etc.  There was no need to censor their
ability to speak but rather peacefully offer an alternate
interpretation of the swill that they were speaking to people
looking for jobs.  Something similar could be done in response
to future recruitment efforts.
Neil

OoOoOoOoO...
I can't afford to hate people. I haven't got that kind of time.
[kanji watanabe from "ikiru" (1952)]

Scholarship is essentially confirming your early paranoia through a deeper factual analysis.
[murray rothbard]

neil parthun || senior, history || parthun at uiuc.edu