Military Recruiting via Facebook: Bring'Em on Your Campus - Today!
Attention Real Americans on Campus-
Your Country Needs You! [Part 1 of 2. Part 2.]
Even if you cannot, or will not, actually join our military, and even if you are a flaming liberal totally against the Iraq War, and even if you are a Yellow Elephant yourself, you can still help your country. Students, faculty, staff, maybe even alumni. Here's how:
First, join Facebook via your campus.edu e-mail. This gives you instant access to all of the "the facebook" info for your entire College or University.
Second, conduct a query of your school's students who identified themselves as "Conservative" or "Very Conservative." You should get back quite a number of names, even at the most liberal schools.
Third, compile all of these students' information into a word document listing name, age, e-mail address, major, realtionship status and cell phone # (when available). Also include important sales/closing info such as interests, if they were unemployed, etc.
Fourth, take your completed list along with an Army OCS flyer (see ArmyOCS.com or just copy down that URL) to your local Armed Forces Recruiting Station and ask to meet with the Station Commander. Explain to him or her that you are a concerned citizen who wants to Support Our President by encouraging his strongest supporters, if qualified, to volunteer for military service. That's what OYE is all about.
We're certain that the recruiters will appreciate the information, especially in such an easy-to-use format. We're also certain that those "very conservative" students will welcome an official invitation to participate in what President Bush has just described as "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."
We encourage everyone with a .edu address to exploit the fountain of info available at "thefacebook.com." [After all, the Pentagon is doing the same thing with high school students all over the country.] By consolidating this information for the recruiters, they are more than happy to "run down the lead." And if the students aren't interested, they'll Just Say No.
Major hat tip to IRR Soldier. Thanks also to DailyKos.
UPDATE: Thanks for your comments. If providing this info to "unauthorized third parties" (like military recruiters) violates Facebook's terms of service**, then please consider contacting your fellow Facebook members by yourself to encourage them to Be A Man! Enlist! You can also ask them to authorize direct contact by military recruiters.
Please let us know of any interesting responses for use with Operation Yellow Elephant Bingo.
**President Bush just adds a "signing statement." Why don't you?
posted by Karl @ 10/09/2006 06:27:00 AM
25 comments
25 Comments:
Great article! I'll be linking to you from my blog to spread the word!
I don't think this is a very good idea. Harassing our opponents with political stunts is not the way to change hearts and minds. We should be focused on raising awareness of the need to bring our troops home. Yes, most Republicans are chickenhawks, but stealing their personal info and taking it to military recruiters is not the answer. We wouldn't like them to do something similar to us, now would we? It's cheap, and it invades privacy, and we have so little privacy nowadays, that we need to protect what little we have left. Anyway. That's my two cents.
Great Idea!
Step up or shut up.
I think that's against the terms of use of Facebook...
This is a great idea. I know the College Republicans well. These kids take notes on professors and report them if they don't like what they hear in class.
I've seen them engage in a variety of bullying tactics. They deserve to be harassed.
No, I'm a big fan of the General, and of Operation Yellow Elephant, but this is wrong. It seems to me that the University Facebook information is for use by authorized parties, that is, normal use by members of the University community for their own purposes. It's not meant to be copied en masse and distributed to parties that don't have authorized access.
Apparently you've never read the facebook terms of use. I do not advise doing this.
I especially don't advise publicising the fact that you are doing this.
It's interesting how people called 'Anonymous' are saying that this should not be done. Apparently, they're smart enough not to put their personal info in a public place.
I don't blame them. Because, these days, everyone who doesn't want to be contacted pretty much knows not to do so. I'm not advocating spam, or anything unethical. But I think these pro-war students ought to be given the opportunity to verify their stance. Honestly, the recruiters already have their info, thanks to 'No child left behind.' We would only be providing one extra bit of information: that they support the war. And it's not like this information is something they want kept secret if they post it online.
We're in the middle of the War of Civilizations, the Great War of the 21st Century, where even the Constitution must be sent to the pulp mill in the Great Effort. Who the hell cares about "Terms of Use?"
Mustn't overplay our hand, I guess. As Lieberman-Broder would say, "I want to warn Democrats..." "I urge caution..."
We're at War in Eye-Rack with Islamofascism its ugly self, finding Weapons of Mass Destruction left and right, capturing The Number Three Man who attacked us in New York and Washington, D.C., every single week.
Who's standing in the way of our success with this "Terms of Use" crap? I say anybody who won't help our recruiters hates America.
Thank you all for your comments. We welcome more.
I've amended the post in several places to take them into account.
All of that said, however, if this really is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, well, then maybe it's time consider what an invitation to a healthy heterosexual military-age male to consider military service really means in America today.
As indicated in OYE103, we don't use personal info; nor do we post it. But military recruiters are certainly not the opponents of students who self-identify as "conservative" or "very conservative." Even the yellow elephants who engage with us still claim to Support Our Troops.
So we can't assume an invitation to enlist would be unwelcome. At least, we still have such hopes for the future leaders of our governing party.
Please check your Facebook terms of use. [I'm too old for .edu so I haven't the faintest idea.] And please engage with your school's prospects directly if you do not want to pass along your leads directly to military recruiters.
As recent commenters have noted, we've just shredded the Constitution and habeas corpus and No-Fly Lists, etc., for Victory in the Global War on Terrorism. And somebody's worrying about Facebook's Terms of Use?
Regardless of your opinion of military action (either current or past conflicts), I don't quite understand the argument that if you judge it to be a worthwhile pursuit, the only rational course of action is to enlist.
I think the Peace Corp is noble, but I'm not volunteering for that either. In fact, I think what I do for a living is also worthwhile, and contributes positively to society. I guess I'm not so much questioning the Facebook idea, as the point of OYE in general.
Not a college republican, but am also not convinced they should be bombarded with as much invective as this site seems to heap upon those with different political viewpoints than the authors.
anonymous-
Please check out OYE 101 etc. in the upper right-hand corner.
We're focusing on the future leaders of our governing party who have a national leadership responsibility to set a good example for the rest of us. We're not focusing on "the rest of us."
Those with leadership aspirations need to lead! And now is the time.
Facebook is not anonymous ... anything a user places online is essentially public info approved by them. Employers use it all the time. It only seems reasonable to pass this along
I might point out that not everyone who opposes this idea is an anonymous Gooper afraid of being targeted by this scheme.
I'm a progressive anti-war activist, and I still think this is a bad idea.
I have no problem with shoving the hypocricy of the Republifundies down their throats, but think about it:
Do you seriously want these idiots in our military? They obviously have no respect for our country. So why arm them?
From the number of caution-troll responses to this action plan, I'd say there's some Young Republican readership here. Or Lieberman is lurking on The General's site.
"I'm a super-duper liberal, Progressive Extraordinaire, and livid anti-war activist; but I find this idea distressing."
Yeah, right.
I think this is a great idea. Perhaps there are a few out there that have considered it and not "pulled the trigger". Even better if the ideologically support the war. At this point in time, our military needs anybody they can get their hands on.
obviously it would be an invasion of privacy, but GODDAMNIT, if we don't fight them there in iraq we will be using our own front porches as machine gun pill boxes in a matter of MONTHS, PEOPLE!!!
if that doesn't call for a little law-breaking to get these god-fearin', country lovin', complete heterosexuelle patriots in positions to save our lives and our nation, i don't know what is.
but in all seriousness, in all seriousness... i really DON'T want these guys over in iraq. having these people over there pissing themselves every time a car backfires and jumping out of the humvee and projectile vomiting and simultaneously shatting themselves while they wriggle in agony with mouths agape flat on an iraqi road is not a way to win a war. in fact, it's a great way to lose a war.
just say no to college republicans in iraq!
Seriously, everyone who actually uses facebook doesn't like this, I'm guessing everyone accused of being a republican in hiding is actually a college student scared by the implications of such a campaign. Facebook is a social networking thing and is used by almost all college students - siphoning private info about people who may or may not be supporting the war and giving it to a public source is just wrong.
It's not about terms of use, it's just about the combination of false positives and violation of the expectation of privacy. I wouldn't enjoy every confirmed Dem's info (including my own) being used in some way.
What a load of mealy-mouthed excuses
It's a pretty sorry day for America when the "terms of use agreement" for Facebook trumps the Constitution. If these little College Rebublican twits want to brag about their affiliations then they need to be asked why they are not signing up
For those who must faithfully abide by the Facebook Terms of Service, please see Part 2.
Thank you.
Um, to the anonymous poster who sarcastically challenged my "progressive cred" or whatever, I would ask you to look at my blog before making such judgments. You might just find that, oh wait, I really am a progressive, and I don't appreciate being accused of "concern trolling." Jesus.
Ethan, I'm the sarcastic so and so who wrote about caution-trolls. You're right, you've got a great blog and liberal credibility. You're obviously not a troll. Sorry to get it wrong in your case.
I'm not sure about a Jewish Oakie's taking Jesus' name in vain though. What's that about? You're working on some other level with that.
Getting back to the recruitment plan, I myself still think anybody who IDs himself as a Repug, whether on Facebook, or on the registered voter rolls, needs a visit from the local Marine Corps recruiter. It's a huge pool of certified gung-ho big-mouths who told the rest of us to shut up about invading Iraq.
Keep up your fine blog, Ethan.
One more thing: recruiters have full access to our high schools. What's sacrosanct about Facebook?
As soon as Repugs squeal about how we're violating their privacy, we counter with the violated privacy of our high school kids. We're talking under-18 year olds, Foley-age harassment.
The most cowardly statement, I have ever heard in my life, is we fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them here. What army is going to invade the US? You must, you idiot coward have what is called a supply line. You must feed your soldiers, you must clothe them, you must treat their injuries, and diseases, you get my drift. In other words you must have a navy, air force, and army to attack a nation. Let me be short and to the point, this vet is ready to fight against any attack against america.
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