“Oh yeah? You don’t like genocide? Well you don’t get your cap and gown ceremony. So there.”
That’ll show 'em.
I wish mine had been cancelled lol, what a pain in the ass
You know you can just take the diploma and not show up? My college wanted like $200 for the official cap and gown. I said fuck that and moved out graduation weekend.
They mail out the real diploma anyway.
“Oh well you didn’t get that memory!” Of what? Being fleeced by the corporation that just fleeced me for four years, so I can be hot for 3 hours sitting nowhere near anyone I’ve met before? No thanks, I went to dinner with my GF (now wife) and had more fun than anyone who went.
Yeah I know but my family guilted me into it lol
I work for a university and am glad that it’s public because this nonsense doesn’t happen. We’re beholden to the public rather than to donors.
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Definitely shitty of them, but my point is that I doubt anyone at USC protesting this genocide is all that concerned with not getting a graduation ceremony right now.
Most people there have rich daddies. They are there because daddy wants them to have a respectable degree if you catch my drift.
ruin someone’s moment
And how many lives were ruined in last 80 years because of USA’s foreign policies?
Man… I support the Gaza protests. But this is a stupid take. I hope instead of going to work or celebrating your birthday, or getting married, or doing anything remotely joyful, you protest Gaza. If you’re not giving up life’s big moments in solidarity with Gaza, you’re not honoring their ruined lives.
Edit: I hope the people downvoting are out protesting right now. Don’t be hypocrites. Rather than downvoting on Lemmy, you should be canceling all other activities in your life and try to get arrested for Gaza.
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From the article:
The university said it will still host dozens of commencement events, including all the traditional individual school commencement ceremonies.
So it looks like they still have a regular ceremony from from the individual school, as usual. Just the main commencement is canceled. Everyone will still get their moment.
Yeah dont blame the people actually cancelling the ceremony and supporting genocide, blame the people protesting for having morals.
big “look what you made me do” energy.
The graduation ceremony isn’t your reward for your work. At least, it shouldn’t be. Your reward for graduating is the opportunities that you’ve opened for yourself for the next chapter of your life. I didn’t go to mine and I haven’t regretted it for a second. The knowledge didn’t leave my brain, at least not as a result of missing graduation.
My memory of my high school graduation ceremony was staring into the hot sun sweating up a dress shirt under a cheap and useless polyester smock that cost me a lot more than it cost to make while people I didn’t care about and who didn’t care about me made speeches with completely fake gravitas. It was the last time I saw a couple dozen people whose names I used to know and a couple hundred people whose names I never learned.
Why the fuck do we still bother with this crap? Who is it for?
Who is it for?
Parents/grandparents. What are kids for but as a vessel to live vicariously through?
Well, at the end of mine I handed the principal a frog instead of shaking his hand. I considered that worth the cost of admission, even taking into account having to leg it afterwards. (They did try, but failed, to withhold my diploma over it. That part was almost as hilarious as frog itself.)
I was already on the administration’s shit-list for calling out the selfsame principal earlier that week for taking credit for our star overachiever student when, in point of fact, the principal had just transferred to that school the same year as this kid’s senior year and was therefore not present for 75% of it. Pointing this out publicly, during the principal’s speech crowing over this, was apparently “not appropriate.”
“World politics”
The moment they canceled the Valedictorian speech, I would have simply failed to show up to the commencement. And I would have done my best to surprise USC of it. And I’d have organized or at least hoped other people would do the same thing.
Meh graduation ceremonies are cringe anyway.
Why is everyone afraid of college students protesting? I mean this police state response goes back to before Kent State and Tianemen square no doubt.
Well if it’s frightening- keep it up! There must be some form of agency there
I don’t think it’s the protesting, but rather the target of the protests. For some reason Israel seems to be held in higher regard than any American interest. We can protest and shit talk our own terrible politicians all day long and nobody really bats an eye. But ask that we stop murdering innocent brown children in Gaza? Threaten economic consequences for Israel if they don’t stop the murder? For some reason that is a grave offense worthy of trampling on our first amendment rights.
Think about how wild that is - speaking out against the atrocities a foreign government is committing is worthy of taking away your freedom in the US.
The joy of a country run by religious loons that believe Israel will kickstart the Second Coming for them.
Remember, everyone: they want Israel to start a serious war in the Middle East. Because that’s the first step in all the Jews dying and those old rich white Christians being raptured up to heaven.
If anything, the only reason they don’t want it to start now is because they haven’t convinced all the Jews to go back to Israel yet.
I think it is just as simple as “oh no the youths” reminder when Reagan was governor of California he cracked down on a small protest over some benign shit, it wasnt even violent until Reagan stepped in the students and administrators were in talks about the whole situation.
Old people have a suicide death grip on this country and they would rather die and be buried under the rubble of their own hubris than let the people that have an actual stake in the future change anything.
Historically, it seems like they can inspire a whole nation especially if demonstrators get hurt or get killed by the police or military
Eventually every mishandled conflict becomes about the response to the conflict instead of the issue that started it. I still remember the end of OWS when no one was talking about the bailouts anymore instead talking about the difference between camping and protesting I also remember the daily reminders that some anti-war protestor in 2003 threw acid at a cop.
People have the right to make their voice heard. Governments should understand that, establish areas where they can make it heard, and do nothing to make it turn violent. Likewise protestors should make sure that they focus on the issue they care about an expel ones that start shit.
some anti-war protestor in 2003
It’s weird how now the protests are labeled “pro-Palestinian” instead of “anti-war” as they always have before. In 2003 people were anti-war, not pro-Iraqi. In the '60s people were anti-war, not pro-South-Vietnamese. Some propaganda outlets are even calling today’s anti-war protesters “pro-Hamas”.
My guess would be because we aren’t at war. It could equally just be because the media has an agenda that is furthered by that, or both of these. Anyone saying pro-Hamas shouldn’t be trusted at all though.
Hmm didn’t notice that before.
Disruption is an essential part of protest, otherwise it can just be entirely ignored. It’s meant to force results. If there’s enough support for it, it grows as the government cracks down on it (like BLM did in 2020) and becomes a conflict of attrition. If there isn’t, then the protesters get punished and the people celebrate it (like the truckers protesting covid restrictions in Canada).
If your protest inconveniences nobody, it’ll also result in no change.
They aren’t.
They are afraid of being labeled anti-semitic. That is what is driving this. Allowing the protests to exist gets the uni/president labeled anti-semitic, and that is unacceptable for the universities. The universities are then asking the police to break them up by force, because violent against students is more acceptable than being labeled anti-Semitic.
I remember them going after us for protesting the Iraq war.
This is why freedom of speech is important and why it’s important to argue specifics instead of generalities.
It’s easy to say something is “antisemitic” and get an emotional response from useful idiots. It’s a lot harder to explain why something is antisemitic and get the same response if it’s not actually antisemitic.
Why is everyone afraid of college students protesting?
Its not fear, its a show of force. This is an opportunity to unleash pent up rage and inflict callous brutality on a group of people that mass media have flogged and hated on for decades. College students are poor, weak, and exceptionally vulnerable. Teachers are poor and overworked and increasingly precarious in their employment. College campuses are hotbeds of Marxism according to your average Boomer or news hour talking head.
So this is where municipal and state officials can drop the hammer unimpeded. This is where they can really indulge in their fascist impulses. This is where they know nobody will try and stop them.
I mean this police state response goes back to before Kent State and Tianemen square no doubt.
If Tienanmen Square happened in DC today, the guy standing in front of the tank would be labeled at Tankie by the NYT Op-Ed section.
College students are easily subjugated.
The kids are alright.
i wonder how long it will be before we learn of the clandestine operations our institutions took to undermine these protests, this time around.
I feel like this is having a bit of a Streisand effect.
Watching the American democracy go down and the Palestinian people with it. So many young people losing hope and the alt right will elect a man even more opposed to the Palestinian cause than the current government of the United States. What a time so be alive.
the alt right will elect a man even more opposed to the Palestinian cause than the current government of the United States
It always gets me when we’ve got a government in which both parties rubber stamp another $4B genocide re-armerment bill, and you’ve still got some chucklefucks logging on to say “We need to support Biden if we want to help Palestinians”.
Like, fucking fine. He’s marginally better on Net Neutrality and maternity leave and green energy and student debt relief.
But maybe lets not drag 40,000 Palestinian corpses into the room and say “They want you to vote for Joe Biden, too”.
I don’t want to vote for anyone, because I am not a US citizen, but if I were, yes, I would say vote for Biden regardless. Why? Because even as a non US citizen I know enough about Project 2025 and this is not the future I want to see for this world. One good thing about Biden is that he will leave office when he loses. Last time Trump lost you nearly got a coup d’etat. But yeah, my comment wasn’t exactly about Biden vs Trump but more about the hopelessness of the current situation where it seems to get worse irrelevant of the direction you go.
Freedom isn’t free.
This generation needs to learn to fight.
Because as their elders we failed. Freedom can be bloodlessly maintained but not bloodlessly regained
Maybe it’s our turn to storm the capitol (peacefully) and establish actual fucking democracy (peacefully).
Unfortunately, revolutions don’t happen in a peaceful way. The ones in charge of this country would not simply give that power up without a fight. They won’t even let college students protest US support of Israel, peacefully.
I’d legit settle for us no longer being useful idiots in our social circles.
i.e. being proud to pay for things we can get for free while complaining we don’t have enough money.
This time they’d actually bring out the machine guns.
Protests are important, but I also encourage and hope that young people who care about the world become lawyers and politicians
Protests like these are often what politicians’ lives are built on. These students will be seen on the right side of history, and to have the conviction to be jailed for it? That would get my vote.
Most importantly, I hope they don’t sell out and become shameless capitalists like all the fucking hippies did.
Nah not all the hippies did that, we just don’t hear about them because it’s not them in power. But some of them are!
The hippies were a tiny minority. They were called the counter culture for that reason. They never had a chance to make an effective larger change, because there just weren’t enough of them
Even as few as they were was enough to be a major factor in the creation of neo-conservativism in retaliation.
Or mindless capitalism.
Also because their lifestyle wasn’t conducive to a long life…
My parents are in their 70s and 80s, as are their friends. The ones that overdid it with the drugs may have shortened their lifespan, but there were/are plenty of earthy/crunchy hippies that never even did more than smell weed. My mom and her friends were/are some of them
do you know lawyers and politicians? I’ve known a lot in my professional career.
They do not care about anyone but themselves.
Some lawyers in particular do, but they aren’t the ones making tons of money.
Most politicians also care, but most are local.
ah… the Land of the Free
If student unions can organize with worker unions for protests/strikes that seems like a possible way we’ll get enough momentum going to think about a general strike for some long overdue reforms
If student unions can organize with worker unions
Christ, can you even imagine what the police would do in the middle of a strike wave?
Battle of Blair Mountain eat your fucking heart out.
I thought we’d have mass uprisings when we saw all the videos of police over-reach / violence in 2020. That it didn’t happen then sort of quelled my expectation that it could ever happen, but who knows? This conflict is sustained in a way that has really touched a nerve with young people.
There were massive protests. We just haven’t finished the job of restructuring police in America. Once that happens the history books will acknowledge how far and wide protests were. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests
At first, I thought this might be the University of South Carolina, and I was impressed as hell. For Southern California, though, I’m surprised that protesting isn’t a graduation requirement.
Edit: Do people think I’m insulting student protesters? I’m not. They’re important, and it’s okay to make fun of friends.
Hey, you may not have noticed, but your bias is showing.
Please see edit above.
Are there any records of universities cancelling graduations ceremonies and/or arresting students for their support of Israel and/or Zionism?
Maybe in Iran.
💀
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What a boomer question…
They want the US to stop supplying weapons to a genocidal state and actually put pressure on Israel to stop with the wanton destruction. The US is propping up it’s ally with millions of $ in bombs, missiles, and other such weapons in what are ultimately being used to murder men, women, and children that have nothing to do with this war besides live in Gaza. The IDF is murdering, raping, executing, humiliating, mauling, torturing, and harming men, women, and children. Fuck them. The US should not be supporting this sort of treatment of civilians. Did that answer your pedantic, little “gotcha” question gramps?
Unfortunately the military industrial complex demands to be fed and all we have right now are proxy wars. So propping up the IDF it is (along with the much more worthy support of Ukraine)
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Damn, if only there were more than just the two options. I mean, we stop funding genocide and then Hamas immediately wins, that’s the only possible way it could go, right?
Iran and Qatar, who funds Hamas, would, without US Support of Israel, almost certainly carry out their “jihad” (a genocide of its own).
We have to get Israel to stop killing Palestinians, and also get the Arab world to stop killing Jews.
A sad fact is that the money given to Israel saves more lives than it steals.
Are you just dense? The idea isn’t “no funding for Israel” the idea is “no funding for Israel until they start following international law and stop indiscriminately killing.”
Hamas is awful and should be destroyed but two wrongs don’t make a right and Israel is going much too far. Israel isn’t attacking Hamas at this point. They are doing to the Gazans what Hamas did to Israel, but a hundred fold worse. They are acting like either a terrorist organization or a genocidal regime.
I’m all for Israel defending itself. I am mostly okay with funding Israel to defend itself and stand up for itself. I am absolutely not for funding genocide and wars of retribution. At this point Israel needs to be brought to heel and, when safe, needs to be held accountable for its crimes and it’s long term policies of apartheid.
Where did I say I was against Israel following international law and stopping the indiscriminate killing?
Hint: I didn’t.
Do you want to retry having a good faith discussion with me?
Where did I accuse you of being in favor of indiscriminate killing?
Hint: I didn’t.
Do you want to try engaging with my argument that we shouldn’t continue funding for Israel until they stop the genocide and follow international law?
“we gotta genocide them before they can genocide us.”
Yeah dude, pre-emptive genocide. Does Israel have pre-cogs in sensory deprivation tanks or some shit?
I never said that, nor implied that. Did you mistakenly respond to me, or are you just being a liar?
Nope, definitely replied to the right comment.
By the way, does this ever work? It’s very clear what I was doing, and the fact that you can’t defend the position when it is worded bluntly says a lot.
Genocide apologia… Fucking disgusting.
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As evidenced by me getting down voted for saying both sides have to stop killing each other.
The dirty little secret about communists and anarchists is that many of them hate Jews as much as the most extreme Nazi.
Funny you say that, when Israel is a Nazi state
So let Hamas, a terrorist organization, run rampant on Israel right?
Instead we’re letting Israel run rampant on civilians and allowing them to slaughter thousands upon thousands and throw them in mass graves.
Fukkin boomers…
Yeah what reality do people live in where anything that happens in Gaza could ever be seen as “Hamas running rampant on Israel”?
And many of these people truly believe this.The delusion.
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But they don’t because they actually value life, unlike the baby killing, house people snatching low life animals that are Hamas.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what the fuck are you even on about? Bruh, you literally describe to a T what Israel is doing and then blame Hamas. Or did I miss the 75 years of Hamas bulldozing houses for settlers?
Go cheer on Israel throwing more bodies in a mass grave and lying about the shit they find to gullible rubes.
You all need to stop believing
HamasIsraeli funded news sites and look at how they actually, and cowardly, fightIsraelthe Palestinian people.“Hamas funded news sites” lol stop, you’re (figuratively) killing me like Israel (literally) murders people in refuge camps and humanitarian corridors.
Edit: I just really have to come back and point out how stupid this comment is
because they actually value life
Because if they actually cared about human life they’d open up aid and not withhold food and water as collective punishments against the uprising caused by decades of Israel not giving a shit about Palestinian lives.
If anyone was wondering if propaganda works, just take a look at that person’s comment… This person clearly does not see Palestinians as human. Not an exaggeration this time. This is what compulsory military service (funded by the largest and most advanced military in the world) in a literal ethnostsate looks like.
Israel could exterminate every single living thing in that area in a matter of hours if they wanted to.
Oh wow they should be commended for… not being even more awful than they already are.
What a fucking braindead argument.
In 6-months, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, and wounded more than 78,000.
70% of those casualties are women and children.
Israel has destroyed more than 221,000 housing units, leaving almost half the population homeless.
Israel has decimated their civilian infrastructure, electricity, water, and sewage.
Israel has destroyed 26 hospitals, killed more than 400 healthcare workers.
Israel has destroyed every single University in Gaza, 56 different schools, and badly damaged hundreds more, leaving over half a million students without access to education.
Israel has violated international law. It has blocked foreign aid to help these people, leaving them starving, sick, destitute, and dying…
…and yet, it’s apparent that you believe that it’s okay for the IDF to do this. The fact that you even have the gall to comment on this either means that you’re so belligerently ignorant of the situation that you legitimately believe that the IDF is in the “right” here - in which case, you’re a reactionist, a weaponized pawn that merely gets angry at what they are told to be angry at (i.e. you are no better than a herded sheep)…or…this means that you legitimately think this is acceptable behaviors, and you exemplify the sickness in humanity that exists today. That wanton death and destruction is okay to you is frankly revolting, and the world will be a better place when you and people like you are gone from it.
either means that your so belligerently ignorant of the situation
You’re*
The rest of your comment was spot on
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Look up who funded Hamas to counter the moderate Palestinians.
lol you really feel irrelevant
We can start with putting a stop to supplying Israel.
Just getting those in power to listen to their good side is a victory. Let the diplomats work out the details.
Maybe the side that has 1000x the military capabilities could respond proportionately for once in history? Maybe stop murdering children for throwing rocks at IDF soldiers? Maybe don’t indiscriminately kill women and children or bomb hospitals and schools?
Pretty straightforward.
Probably should be protesting the terrorist organization of Hamas and not supporting them…
They are a cancer that needs to be removed in order for everyone to live in peace.
They are not supporting hamas. The US government is supporting the terrorist organization of the IDF. This is why they are protesting you dunce.
What organizations are supporting Hamas? I have yet to see anything of that sort.
Anything anti-Israel is
antisemiticpro-Hamas, didn’t you get the memo?
Hamas isn’t making mass graves of women and children at hospitals.
The protests are not in support of Hamas. They are protesting against a continuing genocide taking place with the support of their own government. I, personally, believe that genocide is bad, no matter who commits it.
believe that genocide is bad,
Controversial stance
Protesters: Stop killing children!
You: wow I can’t believe you support terrorism
Does ignorance really bring bliss?
Until it brings a boot on their neck
So I’m sure you agree that anyone who has funded them in the past should also face charges?
Might want to do a little research on Benjamin Netanyahu…
You’re trying to cure cancer with a machete.
If that worked it would still cost a million dollars for the machete and my insurance could only cover the first 96 cents…after I yelled at them on the phone for three hours
You’re not that stupid. You can’t be that stupid.
Attack ideas not people.
Either they’re really harmfully stupid, or they’re an unethical bad-faith/lying asshole. Pick one.
No.
I agree. As one of the seemingly few here. Crazy how biased Lemmy is on some topics.
Ya, Lemmy is so biased against genocide and the mass murder of women and children. It’s weird.
Ah yes now it is mass murder, let’s just redefine words however we want.
What do you call 34,000 dead, 2/3rds of which are women and children? And mass graves of 400 of women, the elderly, and wounded at hospital sites? What’s the difference between mass murder and that? Or do you just prefer the word genocide? Because that seems worse…
Okay, let’s talk about this seriously, thank you for your non-emotional reply.
We go back to the initial cause of this war. I would like to ask you what Israel should have done instead of what they did. Was there an alternative that did not involve striking back?
Im no international relations expert, I just know genocide is bad. But, if I were forced into the position, I’d probably suggest striking back proportionally, then make a deal to return hostages. This would probably involve negotiating for a two state, or even better a one state, solution. Negotiate with PLO to legitimize them, take the wind out of Hamas recruitment by giving the Palestinians full rights and sovereignty. Get international agencies in, and not just biased ones like the US and Germany, to help negotiate this so everyone gets heard. Basically, do something akin to dealing with what South Africa did, or how LBJ would negotiate with MLK to avoid dealing with the more militant black movements, or how they dealt with the IRA (negotiations, not violence).
But that is what they did? Strike back and the whole time try to get the hostage back. All they needed to do was give the hostage back to get a cease fire, but they didn’t. It same way there is no way to have peace with Putin, he simply does not want it. We can not negotiate with someone who declines or makes absurd demands.
Palestine did not get a “jail” because everyone around wanted to be mean to them. It got that way because of what the kept doing over and over. They have to change first before the others can open up again. Their terror attack only proved they are neither changing nor willing to change. So suggesting that is the way forward is really odd given what those around had to endure in the last decades. Like giving sweets to a toddler that is throwing a tantrum, that is not how it works.
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I know several Jewish people who told me that they’re going to vote for Trump and the Republicans because they’re the only ones supporting them.
I know several who said they wont
First they came for the trade unionists.
https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller/
You skipped a couple.
Thanks for posting the full thing!
I know several Jewish people who voted for Trump in 2016. People are willing to do all kinds of terrible, short-sighted things for flimsy justifications.
The really funny part is, it’s not like Biden or the Democrats have even been supporting the protests (outside of a small handful like The Squad and Bernie, the latter of whom isn’t even really a Democrat).
So the Jewish people you know are stupid enough to shoot their own feet?
No, the Jewish people I know are terrified of the growing anti-Semitism within the left
Well now you know a Jewish person who isn’t terrified of that at all. Hello.
Can someone explain for the unread what they are doing that caused someone to “break it up?”
I understand PROTESTING but were there justifying instances of damage, looting, violence?
Please, if you’re just as uninformed as me don’t comment. There’s enough people just shouting shit these days.
Most of them in this article, all but one, were arrested for trespassing. The one was arrested for suspected assault with a deadly weapon.
As has been the practice with these protests. The campuses have suspended the protesting students, which allows them to be trespassed.
The reason is they are protesting for the “wrong” side in the eyes of the media machine.
As lethargic as I have become to the world and all the bullshit. For some reason this is the last straw for me. If people can’t see how the media works to sway us in certain ways and will just gas light us then I don’t know what to say, but I will be becoming more radical from this point on.
Wow. Ok, that’s despicable. Suspended for what? I hope some pro bono lawyers ACLU will start hitting these colleges in the pocketbook.
It’s all they understand.
Suspended for having an unpopular (with the establishment) opinion. It’s funny how young people across the country are against genocide. It’s almost as though the older generations are completely out of touch. Kind of like with the USA war of aggression in East Asia (Vietnam) protests back in the day.
The olds have been indoctrinated to think Israel can do no wrong. They are steadfast against finding out that they were themselves wrong.
Why don’t we all go join them? (Don’t want to hear your excuses I’m not accusing anyone)
Maybe we can start something.
Would love a list of protests happening in campuses near me. Not sure how to find that info.
Because fuck this nearly century-old ethno-religious blood feud.
If peace-loving people on both sides got together and decided to institute a single government that upholds the rights of all, this would end tomorrow. But they don’t. Because the reality is both sides would prefer to wallow in their anger and hate than actually solve the problem.
I’m not gonna waste my time protesting for Israelis to unilaterally impose their way on Palestinians, and I’m not gonna protest for Palestinians to unilaterally impose their way on Israelis. And no one is asking me to protest anything else. So there’s no solution, it’s all just a big waste of everyone’s time.
Like I said, I’m not asking for your reasons why you don’t want to. That’s on you. The rest of us should go and turn this protest into a movement. Why stop at Isreal? We have plenty of grievances. Let’s go.
Why stop at Isreal? We have plenty of grievances
There’s enough that a person could spend their entire life doing nothing but protesting all of them.
Agree with you. Big waste of time.
I mean if everyone thinks like this nothing would ever get done and the more of us there are the faster something will come of it
