Students, faculty and parents don't like having their commencement politicized

[bluestateguy]

That should be the lesson we take from the Notre Dame manufactured controversy. The commencement is for the kids to get their degree, celebrate their hard work and achievement and be offered some advice for the future. It's probably impossible to keep politics out of the commencement ceremony all together, but people don't like it when the commencement is used as a soapbox for every Tom, Dick and Jane with a cause and every crybaby interest group with something to whine about.

I seem to remember at the Ohio State commencement in 2002 there was a grass roots "movement" to have graduates stand up and turn their back on the commencement speaker, George W. Bush. Well, this little movement did nothing back attract derision and scorn from OSU students (a mostly liberal student body) and just about everybody else associated with the commencement. When the designated moment came for there to be this mass uprising of students standing up and turning their backs on Bush...a mere handful of students did so. I remember a picture of a large number of cap and gowned graduates showing one, yes exactly one student turning his back on Bush. The protesters made absolute fools out of themselves, just as the anti-abortion wackos did this weekend.

[ColbertWatcher]

1. To protest is not foolish.

Granted, I don't agree with the few wingnuts at Notre Dame this past week, it's their right.

I agree with you that a graduation should not be the venue for politics, but for people who want attention for their cause, having someone as high-profile as the president come to their school is an opportunity that can't pass up.

A few numbers:
12,000 is how many people were at Joyce Center; 300 is how many people protested.

If those numbers are exact, that's 2.5%. In other words: fewer than 3 people for every 100 protested Obama's "stance" on the sanctity of cells.

At the nation's largest Catholic university.

[Lasher]

8. Holy shit, check out these numbers:

Three percent of the Notre Dame student body didn't want Obama there. Ninety seven percent were in favor.

About two dozen Notre Dame graduates chose to receive their diplomas at an alternate ceremony in the Grotto. This is out of a graduating class of nearly 2,700 That's one percent. One fucking percent!

[ColbertWatcher]

10. Yup.

We give them more attention when we "ignore" them.

What really gets me, is were they this adamant when the media wasn't giving them attention?

[Lasher]

13. I just posted that as an OP.

I just looked those numbers up this morning. After two weeks of constant media hype, one percent of the graduates is all they could get to protest? And Google news gets 2,304 hits on 'Notre Dame protest'? WTF? I knew this was manufactured GOP astroturf but I didn't realize how blatant it is. Think I'll go look at pictures of the outside agitators. I'm sure I'll see some of the Terri Schiavo crowd there.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Agreed .........

Today was the Notre Dame graduates' day, and the outlanders who came running to South Bend so that they could get, maybe, some pictures in the paper was just disgusting. They exploited something that wasn't even theirs.

If the President of the United States had been my commencement speaker, I'd have been really excited. If he was a President with whom I had disagreements, I might - I think, maybe - stood and turned my back.

More likely, I would not have done that, simply because I wouldn't want to screw it up for my fellow grads.

The rude hijacking of a ceremony that's not theirs, well, these protestors should be ashamed of themselves ..................

[sandnsea]

3. Lies about war

cannot be equated to an honest and respectful difference of opinion.

Would you expect students to quietly listen to Dick Cheney this year?

[w4rma]

4. The anti-abortion nuts feel the same way about fetuses as we do about living people.

And vice versa.

[sandnsea]

6. It's not like it was NARAL up there

It was a person with a very rational view of abortion, that they have lied about in order to manipulate their base into a hate frenzy. We have got to stop equating beliefs and actions based on lies to ones based on truth.

[w4rma]

7. Yup. Their leaders lied to the followers. But, that doesn't mean that their followers feel less.(nt)

[ProfessorGAC]

15. It Was Also A Person With Two Kids

So, it's not like Obama is rooting for or encouraging abortions. He's just got a rational, logical, and non-religious view of it.

That makes his view even MORE different than one than starts an unnecessary war against the wrong enemy.
GAC

[Fumesucker]

9. I disagree..

If they truly felt the way about fetuses as most normal people do about the already born then they would be working to make abortion as rare as possible.

Yet the same people who protest abortions are also largely anti birth control, the single thing which will reduce the number of abortions by the greatest percentage. They also by and large are against any sort of support for women once they give birth to the precious fetus.

I'm not even a woman and I can see that their agenda is far more about punishing women than it is about saving the fetus.

[Skittles]

5. I would always turn my back on that bastard bush

always

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Before or after kicking his ass? n/t

[BostonMa]

12. thank you for your concern

[KharmaTrain]

14. Inconvenience Is Such A Bummer...

As a parent of one graduate with one on the way, and a grad myself, all I care about on Graduation day is getting the piece of paper and getting the hell out of there. Commencement speakers, no matter how powerful, popular or otherwise, are a major waste of time other than to fill time and let the school fluff up its own feathers. For the vast majority, all they/we are thinking about is all the years that went into getting that piece of paper, getting it and then moving onto the next stage of life.

Protests are important and have their place...and I applaud a truly grassroots movement to speak out against a speaker or other event on campus. However, this wasn't one of them. It was an astroturfed "event" by right wing fundies to make "news" and try to embarass the President. It's all they have. They've lost all political power and the credibility needed to win back that power, so now it's these staged stunts to draw attention.

It's just like the teabaggers...faux outrage played up for the cameras and pumped up by sympathetic media outlets dying for a chance to stir up the shit.