[Publib] Military recruiters & libraries: WAS Army and homeless and Army ...

[Backwage at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/20/2007 6:52:11 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
vsa.software at gmail.com writes:

Where to  draw the line, then? It seems to me that the [federal] armed 
services have  plenty of venues of their own, that they don't need to appropriate 
space in  the [locally controlled] public library. Would they put up a library 
poster in  the recruiting office? 


The situation here appears to be thus:  some librarians do not like  the 
military recruiting in libraries.  On the other hand, there wasn't any  problem 
about this at all during World War II, or, if you know your ALA history,  in the 
first World War.  Just lots of support.  What's the difference  now?
 
Obviously it has to do with changed perceptions of the military  and the 
nature of military service, both of which have everything to do  with the sort of 
conflicts we've been engaged in since the Second World  War.  That, and 
America has become a place where free expression,  particularly of dissenting views, 
is considered normal and healthy.  
 
It's important to understand the whole of this, but also to see the  
distinctness of the various parts.  Imagine if a chief librarian was of  sufficient 
Libertarian bent to forbid tax forms to be offered in her  library.  This 
argument has its parallel in colleges occasionally  refusing to permit military 
recruiters or the CIA on college  campuses.  Interestingly, you will not find 
library schools forbidding  recruitment space to library systems who offer 
unconscionably low pay--see  if they ever bar recruitment by those who fall below the 
new ALA standard, or  those of the few states which have them.  
 
Finally, I'd like to observe that opposition to military recruiting seems  to 
emanate most often from folks who have not been in the service.  Believe  me, 
there are plenty of reasons not to like military service, but those  who 
haven't been there have much less background to make judgments than they  believe 
they possess.  They have the right of citizens and taxpayers to  speak out, 
but, as a left-wing, nonconformist, anti-war veteran of the armed  forces, I 
say, there's no substitute for experience.
 
M. McGrorty



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