Cheri di Novo self-destructs

boom!

All I can say is wow: http://sites.google.com/site/ricktelfer/eia/dinovo-rage

She has gone over the deep end riding, as one poster put it, "the Zionist playbook".

Holy crap. She really did self-destruct.

Will she quit before the next election? I don't think i've ever seen a politician so publicly attack their base support before.

Yes, it is the same. Glad that issue cleared up.

Michael Ignatieff doesn't lose any sleep over it.

I wonder if other politicians who supported this bill, or the sentiment expressed in the bill, have faced the same backlash?

wow...i am not a fan of her anymore.

I didn't realize that she is a queer woman and former street kid. Now that you mention that, maybe it makes her betrayal even more ironic. If you read her dirty little speech again, it harps on "peace". That's what she's preaching to the anti-apartheid activists that she is condemning. That's what she is preaching to the Palestinian people. She adds "justice" as an afterthought, but it's the "peace" goal which makes "inflammatory" language unacceptable to her.

Those who preach "peace" and "love" to the marginalized and the underclasses are not our allies. It may be a lesson she forgot as she climbed the social ladder to acceptability. Her aggressive tone with friendly critics and her deletion of comments she can't or won't answer bespeaks the same forgetfulness. But rather than speculate about her motives, I'm content to just see her dismissed with contempt wherever she shows her face - unless, and until, she does the right thing, recants, and asks forgiveness.

Someone on that Facebook page mentions wanting to meet with her. I hope someone does this.

Take away the pressure of the phone calls and whatever thats about, and its clear shes a Zionist and has that potent anti-Muslim rationalization. But there's nothing to be gained in just standing back and watching her morph into an active enemy.

The ones that caused this travesty and murder do not act as functionaries on behalf of people we elect to office. The list of atrocities that cry out for justice is quite long, they all deserve attention. Voices that are raised in objection only carry so far, and even here protest against what is wrought on our behalf is like talking to the wall on the best of days. Focusing effort where it stands the best chance of influencing the situation isn't entirely a matter of being selective with outrage.

wow, my take on this is, though I am in disagreement with Cheri's actions, reading that was like observing a teen age gang swarming of her and I really need to go have a shower.

Good to see Jerry West's name though, I miss him.

I saw the whole thing go down in real time last night on FB and I was shocked too.

To answer a question earlier in the thread - yes, I think the reaction to what DiNovo did in the Legislature would be the same no matter which NDP politician did it.  No, it's not the same for Iggy because we expect no better of him.  We know he stands on the side of torture and imperialism, and most of us don't vote Liberal, so it doesn't feel like a betrayal when he denounces activists.

That said...

I think what happened last night was sad, more than anything.  When I first saw it going down, it was a fascinating train wreck and I couldn't stop watching.  I was totally amazed and shocked that she was losing control like that.  At first, my reaction was of a rubber-necking bystander, the main emotion being, "Holy crap, LOOK what she's SAYING! Unbelievable!"  Especially when she called Andrew an idiot - definitely a low point. 

But as time went on, and I watched whoever it was (her? her handlers?) who scrambled to delete all the posts and then take her Facebook wall offline, I was feeling more and more uneasy and sad about the whole thing.  People have speculated that she might have been drunk when she said all of this.  Well, maybe she was.  I mean, certainly something was affecting her judgement. She also claims to not have slept for a week due to the phone calls she's been getting.  She also claims to have been threatened.

There was a whole lot wrong with what she wrote.  Personally, I think her calling Andrew an "idiot" was probably the easiest to excuse - who hasn't gotten into an online flame war at some point if they use online social media tools a lot (she asks, blushing)?  Obviously, it was the comments about how "the Left can't disagree peacefully" (maligning her entire base of support), and quoting Tarek Fatah calling the people who disagreed with her IAW motion support "fascists", and accusing "Left women" of not having said anything when Kazemi was killed in Iran and not supporting GLBT rights against fundamentalists that were most damaging, and are probably going to be the hardest for her to take back or live down.

And I was extremely unhappy and offended over her actions that sparked this whole thing, in the Legislature, standing in solidarity with the Conservatives as they called us antisemites and accused us of hate speech.

But after the initial rubbernecking "thrill" of reading something like this as it happened in real time, I started having growing feelings of unease and sympathy for her.  There is no glee for me in seeing Cheri DiNovo flame out like that, even if she did start it, and even if she did attack activists in her rambling speech in the Legislature, and even if she did "defriend" and delete the posts of a bunch of people on FB a few days ago.  (Some of whom, by the way, she has "friended" again.)

Because what we saw last night looked to me like a meltdown or a breakdown of some kind.  It didn't sound like a person in control of herself.  She says she hasn't slept in a week and has had threatening phone calls.  (Now, I have no idea whether she is just interpreting angry calls over what she said as "threatening" or whether she really has been threatened, but the point is, her state of mind was that she felt threatened by them.)  She has been under a great deal of pressure and stress.

On the surface, I agree with skdadl that people generally don't say the polar opposite to their real opinion in times of personal stress.  But then again, when I think about some of the stuff I've said in the heat of the argument (whether in real life or on babble), I know that I've rethought what I said later and realized, okay, I was probably wrong about that.  And hmm, I was probably wrong about that too.  DiNovo might be having that moment right now, waking up to the light of a new day and feeling sick over what happened the night before, and who knows, maybe wishing she could take it back.  Or, maybe she's still angry, but just unhappy with herself that she flew off the handle and called people "fascists" and "idiots".  Who knows.

There is so much problematic with the stuff she wrote, particularly about supporting Israel because women are oppressed by Islamic fundamentalism.  One of the other posters in that thread, Jason Kunin, took care of that argument nicely, so I won't get into that here. 

But after the initial thrill, my reaction to this is ultimately compassion.  She's a flawed human like the rest of us, and she freaked out.  She did what many of us do, but no politician is ever supposed to do - she had a human moment online and engaged in a flame war (and a pretty lightweight one too, at least by babble standards! :D ).  And she's going to pay for it in embarrassment and probably take a bit of a hit to her reputation, at least for a while.

And I suppose that is probably just.  I don't blame Andrew at all for posting her meltdown publicly after she deleted it - it was news, and she insulted him, and politicians need to know that you can't get away with doing that sort of thing to their allies and supporters (and I would be shocked if Andrew and many others who have been protesting her IAW action weren't supporters before that). 

But my personal hope is that after sleeping on it, and after this little scandal dies down, and once this is less of a "standoff" between DiNovo and Palestinian rights activists, she will be able to understand why her allies - and we are her allies - use the terms we do to describe Israel, and why we were so unhappy with her statement.  And I hope she will think twice before standing in solidarity with Conservatives to attack Palestinian rights activists, and come to realize that Tarek Fatah is not her "ally" simply because he is comforting her by calling the people she's upset with right now "fascists".  We all talk trash privately when we're upset with people, and that can be comforting in the moment, but often we realize once we cool down that we've gone over the top, and our trash talk is just that - a time of venting that doesn't really reflect our true feelings once the anger has subsided.

I also hope that we, the people who have been unhappy with her, can be satisfied with knowing that, even if she never agrees with us on the IAW issue, we have made our point and she has heard it loud and clear.  I hope that we can resist the urge to demonize her and completely write her off as a politician and a human being as a result of a (serious, I realize) political dispute and an angry exchange on Facebook.

And then, after all that, I hope she continues on with her otherwise excellent work as an MPP who is a real champion on domestic issues of poverty, homelessness, and labour.

Exactly what I thought when I read that.

We have workplace situations where (typically) the employer disciplines or fires a worker for having made "threats" against someone (often a supervisor or manager). Our response as union reps is: "Did you call the police?" When the answer is "no", we nod our heads, knowing that no one really took the threat seriously - and knowing that if management doesn't back off, we'll have a good chance of winning the grievance down the road.

I'm more interested in what the authorities said about the so-called "threats" that terrified Ms. DiNovo than what Ms. DiNovo said about them on Facebook.

In any event, I don't see anything fanatically Zionistic about what she said in public. She must be awfully shocked about what happened - all she did was ask the Palestinians to show some peace and love, and everyone not to use such terrible words as "apartheid" about Israel - and everyone got all upset and called her names! Combined with her pathetic whining on FB and her bizarre statements about Muslims and Jewish liturgy in her speech, one should not entirely write off the possibility that she is simply: (1) full of herself, and (2) not especially bright. A devastating combination.

ETA: Michelle, your analysis of the FB incident is based on a far closer knowledge of DiNovo than I could possibly have, but it doesn't take into account the days of denial, deletion of comments, etc. which make this appear more than a momentary meltdown. She is very angry, and at the wrong people.

I'm more interested in what the authorities said about the so-called "threats" that terrified Ms. DiNovo than what Ms. DiNovo said about them on Facebook.

I'm more interested in just getting it behind us.

You might have noticed over the years I don't often get into threads on middle east issues, precisely for this reason.   I mean, I'm not a carte blanche supporter of Israel, and I believe I can in fact take issue, if I had a mind, with the zoning decision of the Tel Aviv city council and not necessarily be an anti semite.

Too often, the debate becomes bitter because one isn't on someone else's side enough, or doesn't use the exactly precise word to describe this or that.  Then the accusations fly.

I don't live that far from the Beth Tefilah synagogue and the Or Shalom congregation, and there's times I've seen the Israeli flag and a protest march supporting Israel.  I don't doubt there's fanatical supporters of Israel that would indeed consider me anti semetic for not aggreeing with a zoning variation by a Tel Aviv city council.  And yes, that bugs me.

I can focus on that.  Or, I can focus on the fact that the Jewish and Islamic communities in London also work together for understanding, and charity domestic and foreign.

Stuff like that is probably much more common than the attention it gets would indicate.

And, that's where the only hope lies.

radiorahim and I were talking the other day about what union activism has taught us (well, mostly what it's taught him since he's been involved for decades and I'm a relative newbie).  And one thing is, trying to bridge gaps across ideological divides.  You get people of all political stripes in unions, and if you can't build solidarity across that, then you're screwed once it's time to go to the bargaining table for the stuff you do agree on.

Radiorahim is very wise.   For me, I look to my name's sake and the founding fathers of the U.S.  What is often forgotten is all the extremely significant--very extremely significant-- differences that the 13 colonies had with each other, and what had to be put aside in order for the common goal of independance to be realized.   The French couldn't do that in their revolution.

And, don't think we here are not chalk full of little Robesspiere's wanting to see the heads of their alllies more than their enemies.

More broadly, too, you realize that if we really are going to challenge the power structure, fight the patriarchy or whatever, we're going to have to actually build bridges, and for a time work along side people who hold some very different views than our own.

The fact that we are unable to do so is why we really haven't challenged any power yet.