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Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
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The follow is received from Dr. Boyle. While he has been a long time
subscriber he has some difficulty with his mail here and it usually
requires some reformatting so I have it forwarded to me where I fix it and
then send it on to the list. Frank is not being censored and can say
anything he wants to say here at any time... Hank
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle
How to Beat a Bully on His Home Turf
By FRANCIS BOYLE
On the morning of 13 September 2001, that is 48 hours after the terrible
tragedies in New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11th, I received
a telephone call from a producer at Fox Television Network News in New
York City. He asked me to go onto The O'Reilly Factor TV program live
that evening in order to debate Bill O'Reilly on the question of war
versus peace. O'Reilly would argue for the United States going to war in
reaction to the terrorist attacks on 11 September, and I would argue for
a peaceful resolution of this matter.
Up until then I had deliberately declined numerous requests for
interviews about the terrible events of September 11 and what should be
done about them because it was not clear to me precisely what was going
on. But unfortunately The O'Reilly Factor had the Number One ranking in
TV viewership for any news media talk program in America. I felt very
strongly as a matter of principle that at least one person from the
American Peace Movement had to go onto that program and argue the case
directly to the American people that the United States of America must
not go to war despite the terrible tragedy that had been inflicted upon
us all.
I had debated O'Reilly before so I was fully aware of the type of abuse
to expect from him. So for the next few hours I negotiated with O'Reilly
through his producer as to the terms and conditions of my appearance and
our debate, which they agreed to. At the time I did not realize that
O'Reilly was setting me up to be fired as he would next successfully do
to Professor Sami Al-Arian soon after debating me.
After our debate had concluded, I returned from the campus television
studio to my office in order to shut the computer down, and then go home
for what little remained of the evening. When I arrived in my office, I
found that my voice mail message system had been flooded with mean,
nasty, vicious complaints and threats. The same was true for my e-mail
in-box. I deleted all these messages as best I could, and then finally
went home to watch the rest of O'Reilly's 9/11 coverage that evening on
Fox with my wife. By then he was replaying selected segments of our
debate and asking for hostile commentaries from Newt Gingrich and Jeane
Kirkpatrick. We turned off the TV in disgust when O'Reilly publicly
accused me of being an Al Qaeda supporter. My understanding was that Fox
then continued to rebroadcast a tape of this outright character
assassination upon me for the rest of the night.
When I returned to my office the next day, so many complaints had been
filed and accumulated with numerous university officials that the then
Dean of my law school issued a public statement repudiating me and then
placing it on the law school's web-site. Obviously the then Dean of my
law school believed that a Law Professor should advocate the Law of the
Jungle instead of the Rule of Law. He is now "deaning" elsewhere, just
like a previous Dean who had tried to get rid of me because of my fervid
belief in the Rule of Law and public activities in support thereof.
On the positive side, however, my besting of O'Reilly in the debate led
to my being inundated by requests for interviews from mainstream and
progressive news media sources all over the world. This plethora of
interviews have continued apace until today during the course of all the
terrible events that have transpired in the world since September 11:
the war against Afghanistan; the global war on terrorism; massive
assaults on international law, human rights, civil rights, civil
liberties, and the United States Constitution; the war against Iraq;
Guantanamo; kangaroo courts; the Bush Jr. torture scandal, etc.
I have done the best I can to oppose this Bush Jr. juggernaut of
nihilism. Ultimately it will be up to the American people to decide the
future direction of the United States of America and thus indirectly,
because of America's preponderant power, unfairly for the rest of the
world.
The present danger still remains Machiavellian power politics. The only
known antidote is international law, international organizations, human
rights, and the United States Constitution. In our thermonuclear age,
humankind's existential choice is that stark, ominous, and compelling.
As Americans, we must not hesitate to apply this imperative regimen
immediately before it becomes too late for the continuation of our human
species itself.
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(personal comments only)
Can also be read at CounterPunch - Apr 11, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle04112006.html
[Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author
of Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, The Criminality of
Nuclear Deterrence, and Palestine, Palestinians and International Law,
by Clarity Press. He can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
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