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I understand what you're saying, Michelle, and I certainly respect your generous spirit. My issue is not with politicians who say dumb things or who may be on the wrong side of an issue. That happens all the time. But I submit to you, that it was DiNovo who sought to marginalize us, to silence us, and to render us "alone" when she knowingly, consciously, and with forethought branded us all anti-semites because we place the human rights of displaced and persecuted Palestinians before the comfort and convenience of powerful interests that hold the lives of Palestinians, as they did with black South Africans, as so much rubbish to be swept away. And, worse, her response has not been to step back and examine her words and conduct in light of the public reaction, but to use the words of the abusers and the oppressors to further alienate those she offended.
Michelle, I was going to write a satirical response to your most eloquent and sensitive comment @ 23. *satire alert* *irony alert* It would have started, "Michelle, you *redacted,* as you well know, I have never in my life melted down or talked trash of a living soul ... " /satire/irony But it just felt like too much work, so, to the chase:
Your reading from watching the real-time experience (which I didn't -- I gather there was even more than we're reading in the screen cap?) is eloquent and sensitive, and I'm sure most people here -- as there at the time -- genuinely feel sorry about all this, not at all gleeful. But two problems:
First, there are a lot of people on the broader left who believe much of what DiNovo said. A lot of Canadians who consider themselves progressive know next to nothing about foreign affairs and have never thought through the problems and psychology of imperialism, which is why some of them suddenly start talking from the heart of the white-man's burden, which to me is pretty much what DiNovo did, even though she was dissing white men. Some people do this out of ignorance because they really have fallen for the liberal myth that "enlightened" people like them/us can liberate others from their cultural backwardness, which is the white-man's burden in essence. Some others do this in full awareness and programmatically -- see, eg, the signers of the Euston Manifesto, which has had some influence in Canada. Under all the rhetorical cover, these were and are apologists for the Blair-Bush regimes, the invasion of Iraq, the demonizing of Iran, and so forth. This kind of stuff makes many Canadian dippers or self-styled left-liberals more comfortable than real progressive politics would, in the same way that Blair's "third way" for the Labour Party attracted right-wing dippers.
I don't mean to suggest that DiNovo is even conscious of allying herself with such politics, but she doesn't have to be. She just has to share the general discomfort with being, y'know, a serious anti-imperialist, which in North America is still considered bad table manners at least.
The second and more serious problem: We can't keep letting people off the hook for some of the things DiNovo wrote. Real live people get kidnapped; real live people get tortured; real live people die because we keep being generous and compassionate towards "nice" innocents like DiNovo who spit out lines about Arar the way she did.
If she thinks, eg, that Kazemi's story and Arar's have to be set up as a zero-sum game, then I don't think she is competent to serve as a representative of Canadian citizens, and I can think of a couple of dozen immediately urgent cases that will not be addressed until we stop cutting people like DiNovo slack and start thinking of actual suffering humanity, y'know?
I'm supposed to feel sorry for DiNovo because she had a bad week? Omar Khadr has had eight-plus very bad years -- oh, but, oops, sorry -- child soldier and probably innocent, but he's a straight Muslim male after all ...
On the left language is important, even critical, as the left is focused on education, empowerment, and justice. For the right, language is a means to an end, to be shaped, shifted, framed, and exploited where the end is the raw power of one people over another--the hierarchy of global, corporate capitalism. So the left views actions and language much more critically than the right who view errors as merely going "off message" on the way to consoldiating power.
PS to Tommy: You want to go toe-to-toe on Robespierre? Any time, kid ... *wink*
No, I think the right also has a view on hypocricy. You see them using that as a tool in the global warming debate, pointing to David Suzuki and Al Gore jetting around the country to decry co2 emissions. They just see their own hypocricy as something else entirely-- it's a perk of being part of the aristocracy. Of course there's one rule for them and other rules for others. How else could it be? It's not hypocricy, it's perfectly consistent.
Looking at the Stuart Parker discussion I guess this means DiNovi is now disqualified from ever being a federal NDP candidate.
Shouldn't that be head to head?
LOL. Bring your knitting needles.
The funny thing is that I have been fighting what feels like a one-woman campaign for years now against the name of that obscene ministry we have as a match for the Merkins' Heimat Security -- Department of Public Safety. Gah!
I realize it was the Liberals who brought that in, and probably some gnome civil servant who thought it up, but srsly, folks: google "Robespierre Public Safety."
You can imagine how I reacted when Stockwell Day became minister of Public Safety. Toews isn't a great improvement, but some things are just so truly scary.
Yes, but note the right has a better understanding of us then we of them. They point to Al Gore to undermine leftist solidarity (as though the left is enamored with Al Gore). Their own hypocrisy, Rush Limbaugh with his wealthy, elitist lifestyle and drug addiction, for example, is a none issue for them, really. They obsess over what they perceive as our own hypcorisy because they correctly figure we will allow ourselves to become distracted by it in a way that their own overt and blatant hypocrisy never distracts them. Why not? Because, again, it is all just a program of distraction to obscure the actual goals which move along almost entirely unhindered. The true power elite, neo-liberals, only ally with the self-righteous moralaity crusaders in the same way sheperds ally with dogs--to do the corralling. In fact, the greatest political setback to the right wing agenda hasn't come from the left but from corruption within their own ranks, the bank crisis. But even that served the primary goal, thus no consequences, of transferring wealth (derived from a living earth) from the many to the few and then turned the crisis of their own making into a positive by using it to raise Tea Party anger against the left. Genius really, if evil is your cup of tea.
I think the advice of radiorahim, (or is it gained and shared wisdom?) is one some of us learn through time when working with people we might not agree with ideologically all the time , or even on what to have for lunch, but come to realize that they are still good people in thier way and have something to offer and that no matter what we have to work with them the next day and the next and so on. It is reflective in expecting purity, even though we desire it, or accepting that life is a continium and treating others with some compassion and knowing that purity is rarely if ever acheivable or sometimes even desirable. For me the test of maturity of these kinds of things (and I don't mean that by age) is the willingness to have a knock out drag out political argument, and then go out for drinks together afterwards. I am not saying that I can do that very often, but certainly I strive for that inner serentiy.
In this case I can't help but feel very sad. DiNovo, despite her failings, or humanity, has been an amazing ally for those fighting on equality and poverty issues. Her work has been amongst the best the left has to offer. What I have seen is that instead of working with someone of good concious to help broaden her perspective many lashed out at her almost violently. It might be understandable, but in the end does it accomplish anything? Some tried to do that, but it seems like they were drowned out by the intensity of the anger directed at her, including it sounds like in ways few of us could track and witness and moved from her workspace to her homespace.
DiNovo for her part doesn't appear to have tried to understand why people were angry or hurt, but instead reacted in a both hurtful and very personally hurt way. Again that might be understandable but does in accomplish anything? By lashing out herself she closed down the very lines of communication she talked about in her speech and in the rationalization of her comments afterwards.
I am just saddened and disappointed by this entire incident. I see good people on all sides yelling past each other and escalating something to a point that human failings entrench even more. It is troubling to see that someone who has worked so hard may now be having serious issues in her personal life from this and that opportunities to open dialogue, both ways have been lost. Both sides are attempting to demonize the other, and that rarely, if ever is a good thing, because tomorrow the fight for a lot of issues goes on, including what has been happening to Palestinians, on poverty issues and so many others it can be overwhelming and somehow we are going to need to find ways to work together and find solutions.
It is just sad from every angle.
skdadl wrote:
Your reading from watching the real-time experience (which I didn't -- I gather there was even more than we're reading in the screen cap?) is eloquent and sensitive, and I'm sure most people here -- as there at the time -- genuinely feel sorry about all this, not at all gleeful.
Yes, that's the whole of it - the screen cap got it all.
I'm not saying that people here are expressing glee. I guess I said that wrong. But there's kind of an avidity to it, which I felt also at first last night, but which wore away within about 10 minutes for me. But I've had the feeling it hasn't worn off for a number of others yet on Facebook (not so much here on babble). And perhaps that's even understandable, considering how many people seem to not just feel politically, but personally betrayed by DiNovo's original action in the Legislature.
You're right, of course - people can't keep getting away with racist constructions of foreign affairs issues, especially people who are supposed to understand. And selling those of us who DO understand out to the Conservatives is beyond the pale.
But I guess I just wonder whether there's a way to deal with this without completely taking Cheri out. Because I went to a lot of all-candidates debates in her riding in the 2007 campaign, and heard lots from the Liberal who was running against her. It's not a pretty thought. Seriously.
What I want to know is if there a way of calling her on it without wanting to see her fall. I don't know if anyone wants to see her fall, but I'm seeing quite a bit of...I don't know how to describe it...glee is too strong, but something on that continuum...on Facebook. And I'm just not feeling it myself, although I've felt it in the past about other politicians, so I certainly understand the feeling and I don't condemn those who are feeling it. I'm just not there this time.
That was one of my one liners at the time. "Stockwell Day is Minister of Public Safety-- if that don't make you agraphobic, nuthin will."
We are awash in ignorance. Ignorance I can be forgiving of. Not even I know everything.
Lying, and perfidiousness though, are other matters, and I think that speaks to Cheri Di Novo, and a whole lot of other things.
Most people aren't up in arms over Arar, and the involvement of CSIS and the RCMP in the torture of this fellow Canadian Citizen because most Canadians, a vast majority of Canadians, don't see Arar as a fellow Canadian citizen-- I mean, it can't happen to me, can it? I'm white.
Yet, you and I know it very well could happen to us, very easily. CSIS and the RCMP, if not before, certainly crossed a Rubicon... or shall we better say, a Rhur, on that score.
For the men and women in Red Serge, their perfidiousness to those that have fallen in WWII to stop such attrocities has to be considered. For CSIS-- well, they are freaks beyond redemption just on principle, and there are no words for them.
But, you know, it doesn't stop there. When Zachardelli recanted his testimony to Parliament via a Mulroney envelope, why didn't NDP MP's at least move to hold him in contempt of Parliament? And failing that, why did they not jump up and touch the Mace?
And argue later it was only to wipe off Zachardellis spit.
But our NDP MP's perfidiousness is nothing compared to the grand move of all, Irwin Cotler backing Bill C-36. Astounding, even for a capital L Liberal, a party which cellebrates perfidiousness.
So.
Yes, I can see Di Novo being accounted as ignorant on Foriegn affairs, which isn't a huge crime for a Provincial MPP. And, she might score some points on the perfidiousness scale, this much is not up for debate I don't think.
But, in the grand scheme of things?
We have bigger fish to gut.
Bookish, I agree with almost your entire post, except for this...
Bookish Agrarian wrote:
What I have seen is that instead of working with someone of good concious to help broaden her perspective many lashed out at her almost violently.
Actually, I don't think that's quite accurate. After she did this, people wrote to the party (and probably to her) to protest it. And she did attack first by standing with the Conservatives against activists.
And those who were posting on that original FB wall discussion about IWD were actually quite reasonable and nice about it. I know, because I read the posts - no one was rude, no one was mean, no one attacked her personally. They were genuinely trying to explain their position. It wasn't until she started deleting people's posts from the discussion (selectively, leaving most up that supported her, and only a couple that didn't) that people got annoyed. And even then, they tried to post politely again, asking her to think about what they were saying instead of deleting their posts.
It was when she defriended a bunch of folks who had posted polite disagreement on her wall that the shit hit the fan on FB, and one of them started a group for people who had been defriended by DiNovo.
So really, DiNovo brought this mess on herself. No one "lashed out violently" on FB until she started deleting reasonable posts and defriending people. After having already helped the Conservatives accuse them of hate speech in the Legislature, that was probably the last straw for many of them.
That doesn't mean I think she should be hounded out of office. And it sucks that it's gotten so polarized. But I think in the interest of accuracy, it's important to recognize that many, many people did attempt to "broaden her perspective" in respectful ways, in the spirit of solidarity between disagreeing people on the same team. She was the first to reject those advances and label them "sexist" (in the case of the posts people wrote on her discussion thread for IWD), and then to label them "fascists" in last night's thread when she went off the deep end.
I was thinking more of the tone of some of the comments here on babble, some of which were quite, I don't know violent is not the right word, but neither is strong, something inbetween. I saw some comments on FB too that were pretty (again what is the right word) very soon after the story broke that were neither calm or respectful. I happened to have been online right then and they came and went really fast, so it may be that others didn't see them? And the tone was certainlly very aggressive and leaning towards violent-like language.
Anyway, I take your point that the original transgression was DiNovo's. That was so self-evident to me I guess I glossed over it. Nor am I trying to exuse DiNovo's actions, which I thought was clear, but I guess not. I think I can maybe understand that she was lashing out from hurt feelings, but lashing out she still was and that is never a good thing. I also understand why those involved with the IAW felt hurt too.
The point I was trying to make was that this whole situation is sad and tomorrow the fight for justice here at home and around the world goes on, so how do we learn from this and how do we find ways to cut everyone a bit of slack, becuase no matter what, someone of normally good conscious is going to screw up sooner or later and we can either try to use our in-door voice and find ways to make things better, or we can waste time screaming at each other while the right takes glee.
But even that served the primary goal, thus no consequences, of transferring wealth (derived from a living earth) from the many to the few and then turned the crisis of their own making into a positive by using it to raise Tea Party anger against the left. Genius really, if evil is your cup of tea.
Was that them, though or us? For a few brief days, leftists and right wingers were out protesting together, in a rather spontaneous way, on Wall Street.
The Teabaggers and whatever the Canadian equivelant of them are here can be a great resource for the left. But we don't even try. We just write them off as being too stupid, and therefore beneath our dignity to rub shoulders with. The Teabaggers aren't wrong to be afraid, they are not wrong to be angry, they are certainly not wrong in wanting to take on government.
They have just been aimed in the wrong direction.
Once again, this shows why people in provincial politics should know better than to say anything about the Middle East. Its a lose, lose, lose proposition and the more you say about the Middle East the deeper a hole you dig for yourself. Its also clear (as i myself have learned as well) that anytime people get into a discussion about Israel vs. Palestine etc... almost invariably people on both sides get overly emotional and personal and within five minutes you just want to walk out and have a cold shower. Its almost unheard of for there to be any dialogue - its just people standing side by side shrieking
If you are a foreign affairs critic in national politics then i guess you have a no choice but to take a position on the Middle East - but in provincial politics you're not expected to say anything.
dear michelle,
thank you for your thoughtful posts in this discussion. i agree with most of what you say, not with the language necessarily, but with the spirit of it which, to my mind, shows your desire to humanize this discussion. i think you show a good deal of sensitivity to both sides of the CDN wall and i thank you for that. i share your sadness in seeing this situation unfold, and i know from public comments and private exchanges, that many of the people who joined the FB group feel similarly. it's never fun to see someone whom you considered an ally fall into a self-dug pit. as the person who instigated some of the FB response to CDN, i can tell you with certainty that neither i nor others whom i know personally and who joined in that campaign intended to take CDN down. we are neither responsible for her comments in the legislature and their effects nor for her subsequent comments and actions and their effects. many of us who originally wrote to her did so in the spirit of engaging her in a substantive debate on the issues. there were no personality attacks. unfortunately, what showed as things were unfolding was not just her intolerance of criticism but her deep-seated and unacknowledged racism. it is very revealing that the people she kept deleting, defriending and then accusing of sexism and harassment, were precisely the people she keeps invoking to justify her position: gays and lesbians of muslim background, women of colour, and myself, an iranian woman whose work against islamic fundamentalism started way before CDN found the superficial language to speak of it. there is no glee in that revelation. only profound sadness and disappointment. that has been the emotive content of most of the posts i've seen on FB.
but whatever the emotions, the fact remains that not only did she betray her grass-roots allies (none of us are single-issue activists and many of us have worked in other campaigns that CDN attached herself to and contributed to her election campaigns too), but she also refused to engage in any discussion with people and then resorted to accusations. we can't take responsibility for CDN's actions nor how she feels at this moment nor should we be burdened with that. afterall, we have been on the receiving end of her indiscriminate lashing, and contrary to what may look on the outside, we're the ones who were agrieved to begin with.
i note this with some irony that these rabble discussions have been more of the space of gleeful bashing and personality recking than the FB discussions i've seen personally over the past week. from what i see, and i do not claim to be speaking for anybody or respresenting any group, many people in the FB group are quite clear that this debate needs to be recentred on ONDP and federal NDP. perhaps it is time that we collectively acknowledge our sadness for CDN, note the lessons we've learned, and move on to discussing how to pressure ONDP to take a clear public stance and how to pressure federal NDP to withdraw from CPCCA? i personally look forward to that.
thank you for reading.
Sure there is. Phone her up, explain in calm terms what she did that was wrong, and urge her to publicly retract the comments she made in the legislature, and apologize to all those that she wronged. She could take Horwath's letter as her guideline if she likes (aren't members supposed to toe the leader's line anyway?). And she can say that whether or not anyone chooses to call Israel an apartheid regime or not, it's a discussion that is legitimate and must not be suppressed. She could also apologize to Jews for speaking into Hansard bald-faced creations about the Passover Seder liturgy, but better yet, she could pledge that next time she is tempted to speak about matters on which she knows less than nothing, she will look it up rather than make it up.
So, Michelle, what do you think? If she doesn't want to retract her comments and apologize, then what? Why do you actually feel the onus is on you to save her, when the path to her salvation is so damn simple and obvious, only a total fool could miss it? Reconsider, retract, apologize - if she is a person of good faith, how could this possibly, conceivably hurt her?
ETA: I crossposted with Gita - please read what she said and you can skip over mine if you want.
Contrary to popular politician belief, it hurts no one to admit error and strive to correct oneself. The public, in fact, tends to be quite forgiving of politicians who admit error AND strive to work things out (NOT admit error and keep on doing it, or do no corrective work)
I continue to be amazed at the amount of vitriol spewed at Cheri while Andrea gets away with utter hypocricy not engendering a peep. In fact she gets defended on her hypocricy.
Her alleged letter condemning Cheri was never really made public. It was used only to respond to those who complained about Cheri. Andrea knew what Cheri would do in the Legislature and only when some went bonkers did she pipe up (albeit very very quietly so as not to attract too much attention) and basically threw Cheri under the bus.
This is very progressive of you all. I must say.
Unionist and Gita, I totally understand your point of view and I share everyone's anger and disappointment about what she did. I haven't changed my mind about that.
And I would ask you the same question, Unionist: what if, after she's heard our point of view (which I think she has at this point), she doesn't think she's wrong? What then? What if this is an issue we never agree on and she continues to hold her own point of view on this one issue? What if she never does what you hope she'll do and apologize and retract?
Does that make her the enemy now? On everything? Or do we at some point move on, find points of solidarity with her that we can, and focus our energy on changing the minds of and putting pressure on the people who actually make the REAL decisions on foreign policy?
Terrific post, gita. Thank you very much.
Wrong on what? On whether the legislature should publicly condemn activists organizing IAW? Then she should be denounced as being profoundly anti-democratic. Secondly, you write to the leader of the party and ask that she be forced to recant those comments, which she obviously made on behalf of the ONDP - or else be removed from caucus, as a minimum. Unless you think that this is a lesser offence than that of Bev Desjarlais?
Of course not. We're not some university scholars here (and my apologies to those who are, no offence). We unite with people every single day who are sexist and racist and homophobic and everything else in the book. At least I do, in the union movement. We don't get to choose who works in our workplaces, but life and struggle brings us to together, where we set aside our differences and work for common aims on specific issues.
So unite with her all you want on all those issues where (to believe some here, and I have no evidence to the contrary), she is the Second Coming of Our Lord and the greatest fighter since Boadicea. But if she retains her views as expressed in the legislature, and her fascistic suppression of debate and discussion, then how can she be a political representative that deserves support? Because as a political representative, you need integrity and confidence and (yes) the discipline of the organization across the board.
Would you be comfortable with an ONDP elected member and indeed spokesperson who said, "I think Pride Parade and its organizers should be condemned, because it flaunts homosexuality which offends against my faith"? You wouldn't? No? Then how can you be comfortable with someone who says, "All parties should condemn those who advocate that Israel is an apartheid regime, because it offends against my quest for peace and love!"?
This is pretty basic stuff, and when it becomes most crucial to take a stand is when the individual who is suppressing the progressive movement has such a wonderful reputation. Because they do the greatest damage to the movement and to democracy - not the "REAL" enemies. The "REAL" enemies are out there where we can see them.
Think of this as the CDN-test.
And by the way, Michelle - why are you asking me this "what if she doesn't apologize" question? You asked if there was a way out of this without taking her down, and I replied. So will you try that route before predicting failure?
Are you suggesting that Peter Shurman is going to face a backlash from his constituents?
Actually, if you generalize to foreign policy taken as a whole, Stockholm is quite wrong. The former Premier of Manitoba, Gary Doer, time and again used that repulsive "Support the Troops" mantra during provincial elections and between elections. Obviously Doer, clever fellow that he was, was of the opinion that his veiled warmongering would benefit him at the polls.So it's not always a disadvantage - discussing or covering foreign policy - is it?
Of course the "Support the Troops" mantra is deliberately couched in such a way that it is intended to be immune from criticism. But it's still foreign policy whatever the lying liars say it is.
However, just in case Stockholm mis-interprets my comments as encouraging HIM, in particular, to discuss foreign policy here then I must add that some babblers should stay as far away from foreign policy as possible. 'nuff said.
Does anyone know what she meant by "Saudi/Iran" apartheid?
Right on, N.Beltov.
And if we let the lying liars do it by default, it is still being done in our name. People of the Other are being kidnapped in our name, tortured in our name, and dying in our name, and we make that worse by pretending that we're just too innocent and nice to grasp it all.
Tommy, you may have bigger fish to fry, but I don't know of any bigger fish at the moment than torture. Fighting some of the torture conspiracies could actually bring the whole house of cards down (see the British High Court, who will set precedent for us and the Merkins too), but even if not, even if it's only for the history books, it is still the story of this most filthy, guilty decade of our lives (well, longer than that, but this past dishonest decade especially).
If there's a bigger story coming, it will be the Israeli attack on Iran. For that reason as well, we cannot stand by while free expression is being subverted in Canada, because there could come a day very soon when we will need it, when we will need so many voices raised in protest that we can prevent heinous international crimes.
"She's the universal soldier, and she really is to blame; her orders come from far away no more ..."
I can guess. But when people are ranting and going into pretzel logic, why bother?
Michael, I think that's just some version of the mindless hash that people are being fed about ME/Central Asian politics -- see racist categories like "Islamist" -- well, they're all the same, don't you know; doesn't matter where you put them.
I doubt she has ever spent ten minutes wondering why Saudi Arabia is such good friends with the U.S., not to mention us, or why Egypt is either, or why Israel seems to get along fine with them both as well. The propaganda aimed at innocents here is that Saudis are oppressive bastards, which of course the ruling House of Saud is. But the same propagandists are just pleased as punch to be allies with that murderous bunch, and there are reasons for that, as I'm sure you know.
Yep Cheri de Nova, is evil personified, and all women are to blame for all the world's ills,....mens, they are perfect to behold, in deed and public good will.