Another possible headline was "At Morehouse, Biden says dissent should be heard because democracy is 'still the way'" or another "Biden tells Morehouse graduates that scenes in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas war break his heart, too"
Outside of the ceremony, a small number of protestors gathered while the commencement itself did not see any major disruptions.
Last week, Morehouse College President David Thomas said he would rather halt proceedings than have students escorted away for protesting.
"If my choice is 20 people being arrested on national TV on the Morehouse campus, taken away in zip ties during our commencement, before we would reach that point, I would conclude the ceremony," he said on NPR's Weekend Edition.
But, none of that happened -- either halting the ceremony or tackling or pepper spraying any of the people who were draped in Palestinian flags or turning their chairs around.
DeAngelo Fletcher, Morehouse College's valedictorian, closed his address to his classmates by addressing global conflict, particularly the Israel-Hamas war.
"For the first time in our lives, we've heard the global community sing one harmonious song that transcends language and culture," he said. "It is my sense as a Morehouse Man, nay – as a human being – to call for an immediate and a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip."
IDK how much more pro Palestinian than that he got, and it sorta sounds like "both sides." But whatever. Anyway apparently Biden stood up and shook his hand after. Here's the whole video; Biden's part starts at around 1:43:30. Comparing the tenor of the thing if you take a look at it firsthand, against the tenor that's created from reading this particular headline, is a good little window on what they were trying to do by writing the headline that way (i.e. not to inform about what happened), and what ozma was trying to do by posting it here.
I don't actually think it matters all that much what anybody says about Gaza. Biden stopping the weapons shipments, pushing for an immediate cease fire and humanitarian aid, and supporting an ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu would be a good start. I think mostly this commencement speech is notable in that, hey look, (1) there was protest and it was ok (2) you can make things sound way different depending on which aspects you present in the media coverage.
Good for them. They're standing up for what they believe in, and I agree with them, and I definitely think that this type of thing has some impact on Biden's policies. Although at this rate, all the Palestinians will be dead before he works his way slowly and gradually around to the idea that maybe he'll have to do more than a sternly worded phone call with Netanyahu in order for the killing to stop.
You'll note that, because Biden bears little resemblance to the monstrous authoritarian caricature you try several times a day to paint him as, he and the college (who I'm sure talked with him about this exact issue, beforehand) both made no effort to "crack down" on them, and in fact he explicitly called out their protest as a good thing, during his speech.
(My point wasn't that the headline was a direct lie, but an example of engineering a single true fact by blowing it up and warping it to create a slanted picture of reality in the reader's mind. That's why I sent the full unedited video, as a way of contrasting it with a single event or a single picture taken from the perfect angle. I actually can't visit X video links since Elon fucked things up, but if you want to send me some non-X videos I'm happy to take a look at those, too.)
(Edit: Actually, I think the thing that they walked out as he gave his speech might be an actual lie. According to The New York Post, which seems to be the source for ozma's photo, it sounds to me like the students who left stayed through Biden's speech and then left during a later part when he was still on stage.)
I know it’s hard to comprehend that there’s people that aren’t Trumpers/Republican that don’t support genocide Joe, but there’s literally millions of us.
And with regards to the photo you claim was from NYP…
Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Trumpers/Republican that don’t support genocide Joe, but there’s literally millions of us.
Disregarding the stupid “gEnOciDe jOe” comment, do you have a source for millions of people willing to switch from voting for Joe Biden in 2020 to not voting for him in 2024?
There’s literally no candidates with a better track record on this than Biden, and any candidates that could have a better Palestine policy aren’t going to win.
Ah, and then you get the guy from the party elected, that wants to force the US to send bombs to Israel. Makes total sense. Look, in this case both options are bad but one is objectively way worse. If you don't vote then you will get the way worse option.
Well for one, many people have problems calling this a genocide yet, me for one. I’ve had an entire branch of my family wiped out by the Holocaust, 90% of Belarussian Jews were exterminated, that’s literally almost everyone. The Germans purposely went door to door killing as many people as possible.
Meanwhile the highest estimate for civilian deaths in Gaza in 30k, or almost 1.5%. There’s a massive massive massive difference between these two. Israel isn’t going door to door trying to kill as many Palestinians as possible or indiscriminately bombing refugee camps for the fun of it, they just don’t care if they kill 10 civilians for one Hamas member.
And on the other hand, literally every other candidate would do worse than Biden in Gaza, Every. Single. One.
He’s not just the lesser of two evils, he’s literally the only option.
It doesn’t matter what you call it by. Its very own definition. It is genocide and it is being committed by a fascist liberal, and trying to claim that somebody else would commit murder worse is asinine.
Israelis don’t need to go door-to-door to kill everybody because they’re using US supplied weapons and white phosphorus to carpet bomb them.
Israelis don’t need to go door-to-door to kill everybody because they’re using US supplied weapons and white phosphorus to carpet bomb them.
Disregarding the rest of your comment, just this is dumb enough alone and shows how you feel about the situation.
Israel hasn’t been carpet bombing Gaza, Gaza is tiny, Israel has enough weaponry to immediately flatten the entire place tomorrow if they want. What you’re saying is incredibly disconnected from reality, and if it was true the casualties would be much much higher by now, almost in the millions.
Israel has been doing targeted strikes, not carpet bombing, even if it doesn’t seem like it because they’re still murdering thousands of children. When Israel encounters any form of resistance, whether that be an IED, rocket, or small arms fire, they stop, issue an evacuation order for that neighborhood, wait, and then bomb the shit out of it and storm it. The majority of the deaths have come from them not properly notifying an area they were supposed to evacuate before bombing it, or from civilians still being in the area after a proper evacuation order.
This is effectively the exact same thing Russia is doing in Ukraine, still fucking awful, still needs to be stopped immediately, and Biden still isn’t doing enough.
But it’s not the carpet bombing genocide you claim it to be.
Well when I’ve been a member of a socialist party for almost ten years now and worked on several socialist’s campaigns yeah it kinda does.
When you call everyone liberals it makes it super obvious yall think you’re the only form of leftists meanwhile a lot of the people yall are calling “libs” have put far more effort towards revolutionizing society than you could ever dream of.
Liberals are not even remotely leftist so they are in their own group. They support capitalism in all the oppression that comes with it, and they will defend their version of the oppression that comes with it tooth and nail
Yep I’m perfectly aware that’s the traditional leftist idea of a liberal. I wasn’t calling liberals leftists, simply saying that when you call other leftists/communists/socialists liberals just because you dislike their foreign policy takes you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Theres nothing explicitly liberal about zionism, and you can come to either a Zionist or anti-Zionist point of view from leftism, as is obvious from Israel and Palestine both being controlled by socialists for the first 40 years of their history.
I think Biden is only about halfway to having humane foreign policy, which definitely isn’t enough, and I’ve said as much several times.
I think Biden is doing better than I expected a liberal president to do, he walked the picket line, the first ever for a president, he’s taken the green new deal and weakened it, which isn’t enough but more than what I expected, his FTC and NLRB have been great for the working class, he’s signed into law more protections for minorities and lgbt people, and then there’s the recent rescheduling of cannabis.
He ain’t enough, and I want him to do more on both foreign and domestic policy, but he’s not a fucking fascist like you’ve claimed.
I don't think you're a Trumper/Republican because you don't support Genocide Joe. I think you're a Trumper/Republican because the way you don't support him doesn't make any fucking sense. You criticize him for things he objectively didn't do, and you offer no particular solutions that would seem to lead to a better outcome for those of us who live in the US and want it to do less killing here and abroad, and the only solution that you seem to offer -- refusing to vote for him and offering an endless drumbeat of propaganda about him -- has an excellent possibility of leading to a catastrophically worse outcome for everyone. Including Palestinians. And, you're so vocal and consistent in criticizing him -- and only him -- for such a big variety of things real and imagined that it's hard for me to take away any possible conclusion than that you're trying to make sure he doesn't get elected.
It's possible that you're simply a very confused leftist. IDK. But that's my take on it. I note, also, that the story linked to also explicitly contradicts the headline, in terms of when students left ("walked out") from the ceremony:
Several students walked out of the graduation ceremony while Biden was presented with an honorary degree following his speech, CNN reported.
So they stayed to listen to him speak, and then walked out in protest when he was done speaking? This is impossible, to me, to read as anything other than a deliberate propaganda construction built on people leaving to go to the bathroom or something. IDK, maybe I'm missing something.
(Edit: Also, when I said the protestors were awesome and it's good that they let them protest, because it's a message Biden needs to hear because he is wrong, and then you immediately pretended that I had said the opposite and started lecturing me about how legitimate it is to disagree with Biden, I honestly didn't even notice because I'm sorta numb to that kind of thing at this point.)
Notably, there was an age divide in support among Morehouse graduates: The alumni sitting to the left gave standing ovations during and after Biden’s speech, while the 2024 graduating class mainly remained seated throughout.
We get it, you’re really dedicated to posting negative things about Joe Biden. “Did not receive a standing ovation from some of the crowd” is really reaching though
This doesn’t at all say they had to do this “or else,” it only talks about disruptions, not protests, and no one was compelled to be there. You literally started this thread with an article about some students who protested without causing a disruption, dufus
I know that if I was a Palestine protestor, and President Biden was going to speak, and the college said that they would immediately just end the ceremony if things got too out of hand, I would immediately think "Well that definitely wouldn't be a good outcome. I better quiet down; I was going to have this big protest, but if it'll end the commencement ceremony entirely, then I won't, because that would attract some attention to the cause I'm trying to promote. It might make the news or something. I'm scared of that outcome and wouldn't want it to happen; that threat is effective."
Your conclusion makes perfect sense that the crowd was mostly filled with people who were seething with contempt for Joe Biden, but cowed into obedient sitting-facing-towards-him by the threat that if they made too much ruckus, it would successfully disrupt the event.
How many Palestinian graduates were there at the HBCU today, genius?
Also, half the staff didn’t want Biden there…
In a split vote, Morehouse faculty votes to award Biden an honorary doctorate.
A procedural oversight turned the faculty vote into a way for staff members to voice their opposition to Biden’s visit. The vote was 50-38, with roughly a dozen people abstaining.
I notice that this conversation has a very particular type of flow -- Innuendo Studios talked about this in Never Play Defense.
Actually, I went back and looked at it's significantly worse than the example the video constructs. The video's example was dishonest, but the exchange was actually pretty coherent. I think this message is a particularly strong example of the flow you've been doing -- where I say the protestors are right and I'm glad that Biden is letting them speak and hope he will take their message on board because what he's doing right now is wrong, and then you get all hostile while lecturing me that not everyone who disagrees with Biden is a Republican. The Republicans in the video are never bad-faith to that comical a level, although the overall flow of "wild new assertion / coherent response / repeat" is pretty similar.
What’s your point? You’re not going to change my mind and I’m not going to change your mind. That was never the goal. There’s a reason I don’t type out a novel for every response like you do. Because I don’t really care. We’re getting Trump again and it’s all Biden’s fault.
Chin up boyo! You said you were gonna keep doing this all the way until the election. That's like 6 more months, you can't get all downhearted about it already just about some messages explaining why this one was bullshit too.
Hey, quick question unrelated to that obviously insane thing you just said: You posted a while back about how upset you were Joe Biden betrayed everyone, after he promised to decriminalize marijuana, and then didn't do it even though he could literally do it at any time he wanted and that's just one more example of him being shit. I listed out the things he had done (basically: federal pardons for possession, telling the DEA to reschedule it, and putting a decriminalization bill through congress), and then I asked you what else you would like him to do.
I think your post got removed as misinformation right after that, so I never got a chance to hear the answer. What else was it that you wanted him to do? That he could do literally any time, that you were upset that he betrayed everyone who voted for him by not doing?
Surely, since your goal is to push Biden left, not to just oppose him at every turn and make sure he doesn't get elected, you are interested in non-propaganda information and discussion on topics like this.
There’s absolutely nothing racist Joe “I don’t want my kids to grow up in a racial jungle” Biden can do at this point to earn my vote. He lost it.
Edit: also, politicians are not your friends. We should also force them to the real left regardless if it upsets some or not. You’re continually wanting to just continue the status quo.
I sorta had a feeling you wouldn't make even the slightest effort to defend that bullshit you had said.
politicians are not your friends
No, politicians are not at all your friends. What you mean when you say "support" for Biden or that Biden betrayed us, or that thing shills sometimes say about "falling in line behind" the Democrats and how they don't want to do it, is very weird to me.
Nobody in politics is your friend. The government is just a big, corrupt, very dangerous machine. It runs on money and propaganda and defense contractors, and sometimes good things come out of it and sometimes bad things, and Biden is one little cog in that machine. That's why I'm comfortable saying good things that Biden did, or that he's doing a very bad thing by enabling a genocide -- I'm not viewing either of those as a statement of my "allegiance." It's just, like, hey I am a free person and here is how I am viewing the world and what the truth is.
Ralph Nader did an talking about productive ways to push the Democrats to the left, and how upset he was at Democratic voters who were throwing away an opportunity to get some concessions from the Biden administration in exchange for their vote. His viewpoint makes a ton of sense to me.
Your viewpoint -- sort of based on emotion, this sort of teenager mentality like "YOU'RE DEAD TO ME NOW I'LL CALL UNCLE TRUMP TO COME OVER AND BURN THE HOUSE DOWN BECAUSE WHO CARES YOU BROKE MY HEART" coupled with a lot of the sins you're accusing him of actually being things he didn't do, is just weird. Like, if you want to push Biden left, fuckin go for it man. Sounds great. But if you've decided that if Trump comes to power and nukes Iran and makes being gay illegal and puts all the Hispanics in camps and cancels the next election, that's just the price the country will pay because Biden said this wrong thing about racism and it was so hurtful to you and he's definitely a bad person and that good person / bad person is even relevant to how to vote, then okay sure. I won't tell you not to. But I don't think you should pretend that I'm the one treating my politicians in a strange parasocial non sensible way.
Lawrence’s quote: “If you want to pull the major party that is closest to what you’re thinking, you must-YOU MUST-show them that you’re capable of NOT voting for them. If you don’t show them you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you. I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party. I didn’t listen or have to listen to anything on the left while I was working within the Democratic Party, because the left had nowhere to go.” – Lawrence O’Donnell on the 2006 documentary, ‘An Unreasonable Man’.
Back in the Clinton/Bush era 20 years ago when he said that, I actually think it made quite a bit of sense. The Democrats were a lot more corporate-friendly (dropping corporate tax instead of raising it like Biden did, boosting the WTO instead of telling them to go fuck themselves like Biden did), and the Republicans weren't trying to kill their political opponents or put minority groups into literal concentration camps.
I'm not even gonna comment on "'they' keep scrubbing it from YouTube."
He’s apparently an idiot, since every time Democrats haven’t won, the entire country has been dragged right.
Immigration is an interesting example of this. Funny enough, when Democrats were in power, policy trended further and further left with amnesty for dreamers and accepting refugees. After losing in 2016, the Democrat position has moved towards stronger enforcement and border security.
If Lawrence has not changed his mind since then, he’s a giant fucking idiot who doesn’t see reality. The problem with not voting for Democrats is that it means Republicans win, and they have a habit of moving all issues to the right.
You want the party to move left? Elect more progressives. Understand why voters are picking moderates over progressives in primaries, and course correct. It isn’t dark money, because there’s been plenty of that thrown around, and fake progressives have had more on hand versus their primary opponents.
And then, even with all the justification all the progressives had for quitting from the political system -- basically on par with if the US was directly sending 19-year-old US citizens over to Gaza and having them blow up hospitals and get their balls shot off, or if Biden himself were approving of the brutalizing of protestors, like sending them to the hospital with nightstick fractures and covered in blood, not "just" pepper spraying them and putting cuffs on them -- I feel like you can draw this absolutely direct line from 1968 and the disillusionment that stemmed from it into the grim nightmare politics that took over in America, because only the assholes were still voting, from Nixon to Reagan to Clinton until now we have just a wreckage of a system that someone from the 60s wouldn't even recognize.
Basically I feel like 2016 was a repetition of that same betrayal, and I'm really hoping that 2024 isn't a repetition of the same fascist takeover that's enabled by it, because now we're much much closer to the edge. Daniel Ellsberg said that all the things Nixon did to him that formed one piece of his collapse and fall when they came to light, they're all legal now.
I think something we often forget is that people can have spot on analysis and very intellectual takes in the past, but it doesn’t necessarily mean their modern takes are also good. Sometimes that’s an inherent thing too because of changing times. People who criticized US actions in the cold war were likely right – but a lot of them have adopted the imperialist position today that Ukraine belongs to Russia and it should be a pawn between NATO and Russia, instead of a self sovereign country that makes its own decisions.
Makes you wonder a bit how things will develop in the future, but I digress.
I think there’s probably a tendency for a lot of well meaning people to blame Democrats because their civics knowledge is less than comprehensive. And I don’t blame them entirely for that, our education system isn’t great.
I wouldnt be complaining about not caring for the black vote because they don’t care. They use marginalized communities as human shields to defend their shitty politics. Then toss them back to the curb the day of the election.
Im suggesting Democrats use them to retain power, appeal to their needs every election cycle then toss them back to the curb the day after the election.
Because like most liberals, many dont see their needs are being exploited. Or that their rights are being held hostage until an election cycle, when they are showered with platitudes about concern and addressing their needs. Only to be shoved to the back of the bus the day after the elections
No, he’s saying that national Democracts leverage the black community for votes, and in exchange, repeatedly screw them over - when they manage to remember they exist outside of election cycles.
At least, that’s how I read his comment. It is only partially intelligible.
It’s possible they think that, but it’s not something that is made clear through their comments here, at least not to me. But that’s mostly because they’re very poorly written, like I said, only partially intelligible.
I can’t stand President Biden. I wouldn’t vote for him if he were the last candidate on earth. But, really? This man is the President, and you couldn’t do him the courtesy of sitting quietly and listening to what he has to say?
I'm legitimately surprised that so few of the trolls have hit on the idea of coming in being fake pro-establishment. Like if there were more people here being super pro-Israel and doing the "Hamas is lying about casualties" "what on earth is Israel supposed to do, not defend themselves" talking points, to provide some justification for all the other trolls claiming that Lemmy is filled with pro-genocide-ers and they're just doing their part sticking up for the unrepresented Palestinian viewpoint -- I think if I were running an influence campaign I would probably sprinkle in some of those people, too.
I think "of course Joe Biden is dogshit, we all agree on that of course, but by God you better sit up and salute when he's around, signed, your friendly Lemmy authoritarian person, fuck the protestors" is a likely candidate for one of those. If this is genuinely how you look at it though, have you considered reaching out to some of the shills and seeing if maybe you can get paid for posting this stuff? I think this would be a good tactical addition to what they're doing.
I can't open X links; I'm on Firefox and it's fucked on Firefox now and I don't really feel like hopping around on browsers just to keep Elon Musk happy. I'm happy to look at it if you can find it somewhere else. I did search for the quote and I didn't find anything.
You wanna address the thing with the second part of the headline, though? Because I'm not real sure I trust "freedomrideblog" on Twitter and I would want to know more details about how Biden's campaign is using the speech, and all that, but it definitely looks like part of the headline you posted was objectively a lie. No?
Among those issues, according to people familiar with the discussions, was student worry that their achievements would be overshadowed by a stump speech. They have expressed frustration that the format of the event and the level of security required for such a high-profile visit resulted in limited tickets for family members, many of whom would be required to watch from an overflow room.
Stephen Benjamin, the president’s director of public engagement who conducted the meeting, says Biden is intent on keeping the focus on the graduates.
So we're moving goalposts and just straight-up refusing to answer a simple question about why it seems like the thing you posted was not just misleadingingly framed, but actually false. Sounds good.
I do understand that I haven't been real polite to you and it creates a certain pressure to "get a win" by making some kind of counterpoint. Mission accomplished, I guess. Biden did actually give the speech he was invited to give, even though he's also campaigning and that makes things more complicated in some ways. It's true. You caught him.
Biden’s losing black support, of course he’s going to pander. Did you watch the speech? I honestly have no idea how he’s expected to make it another 4 years. It’s elder abuse at this point.
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