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hey... did anyone else notice catchfire has called the same thing as me, but I am the only one of us being called partisan, smeared and sworn at, for my opinion on how CDN is being smeared, stalked, harrassed and bullied.
anyhow my points have been made.....
Hold your ground, Andrea!
Maybe she should find some, first.
I think Michelle or Unionist mentioned this a few days ago, but something is kinda odd about this.
Like a lot of people, I wrote to Horvath concerning the IAW issue, and I got back the form letter response we're all familiar with, which indicates that DiNovo was out of step with the party. But yet, Andrea is four square behind DiNovo.
Cut to what is really an innocuous debate about education funding in Ontario, and Andrea stiffles anything that might look like dissentious inside the caucus.
It's just plain wierd.
The only thread of consistency I can find in all this is that the official ONDP policy on all issues is that it's a party that sticks up for the little person, gives a voice to the voiceless, in as much as the general establishment is comfortable with it.
That's certainly not the NDP I joined way back when.
That's the thing Tommy. There are a lot of good people working in the NDP. Charlie Angus comes to mind first. Cheri I have no doubt did great things. I wish that she had just had a little more control over how she handled this. Before speaking on the Shurman motion she could have at least considered how this a) might affect the NDP and b) how it will appear to their voters. Either way, she should be taking some responsibility for this. Not the threats, clearly that is wrong and should be condemned.
It's not like Israel doesn't have strong supporters and backers in the Liberals and the Conservatives. There was absolutely no reason things should have gotten this far. Cheri screwed up - big time. In her haste to support the motion she threw a lot of people under the bus, and still continues to do so. Fascist idiots is what we are to her. Nice.
The people who are phoning/emailing her and threatening her, because they disagree, are indeed idiots, and they could easily be fascist in inclination, if not that they are certainly intolerant of other's rights.
That some people, who were not participating in the FB fiasco, or were not harassing her in her private life, are taking her lashing out comments personally, is hilarious.
As there is no reason to believe that she meant those who were/are in disagreement with on; her personal position on the use of the word aparthied in conjunction with Israel and that she thinks she has a right to legislate how people word use against violent colonialist xenophobic governments oppressing peoples.
People who are righteously angry, or upset, with her over her IAW position, IMV need to focus and disapprove on that, and in fact have a public protest against it, and to stop with the bullying and harassing everywhere online, it is hyprocritical, ego driven and divisive. And I stand by the fact it would never be done to a male politican.
That she has been blammed for being a victim, and that people have stated here, on a supposedly progressive forum, that they do not believe her when she says she was threatened, is indicative of not only hypocrisy, but also a lack of actual empathy and acceptance. A couple of the more pertinent requisites for denoting oneself progressive are significantly missing I would say, on the part of those that have done this.
For example, Michelle incorrectly used my antipathy towards EMay as an example that was close to all these threads on CDN, in an attempt to excuse them. I will here indicate that not once was EMay ever having to go public with being stalked and threatened at her home phone number for her stance on things.
...no matter my antipathy towards her, no one here would ever believe that I would have stated that I did not believe her, and then attacked her for saying so, if she would have had to go public on such a thing.
The way the carrying ons about CDN are going it is getting into the decidedly icky factor, and personally I do not think babble should be tolerating it further and Lou Arab was correct to call a halt to it. Too bad some people did not listen and continue with just slightly modified attacks.
Even when someone in the NDP is so clearly wrong they are always right with you, remind. You will condemn people of color, women of color, activists, people who have suffered oppression, anyone and everyone, who is critical of an NDPer who fucked up. You will happily throw them all under the bus and smear them with ridiculous accusations to boot.
Okay, enough. Either shit or get off your pot. Who made "threats"? Is there a police investigation? If not, then it is bullshit right along with this married woman's sudden relevation that she's gay. Get over yourself. It is this sort of blind obedience in the face of bald stupidity that keeps me from ever seeing the benefit of belonging to a party.
I will agree. The apartheid word is not the problem with the debates about Israel/Palestine; it is a sympton of a problem in which the active supporters of the current state of Israel do not want people to get to the point where they are discussing BDS against Israel.
Personally, I have no problem calling Israel an apartheid state. It's just a description of what I think Israel is. South Africa was once an apartheid state. So, too, was the United States--particularly in the south.
Does using the word apartheid incite violence or hatred against Israelis and Jews? Again, apartheid is just a description of what one thinks Israel is. That word doesn't tell others to seek a course of action.
Now Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions do give people a course of action to take. It tells people to boycott products that come from Israel, to divest any investments they or their companies may have in Israel, and to advocate that goverments impose sanctions against Israel. None of these steps advocates violence.
I think that the supporters of the current state of Israel do not want people to get into a discussion about BDS because this may be more effective in getting Israel to negotiate on someone else's terms than all the violence that has taken place between the Palestinians and Israelis. BDS may change Israel's course of action because BDS may devalue the Israeli shekel. A devalued shekel may cause Jews to leave Israel in search of more economic prosperity which will weaken the Israeli state.
Personally I have no problem calling Canada an apartheid state given the way this country has treated the First Nations peoples. In fact Canadian apartheid was to a large extent the inspiration for South African apartheid.
Alright, I've followed this for a while with interest and read a little bit more into the political situation - which is admittedly not that deep. Israeli affiliated lobby groups and their erstwhile Earthly allies managed to take a student run annual educational drive/demonstration. And then there was a procedural movement - a piece of paper put forward to fellow representatives by our elected officials - that sought to demean and silence these students. I think that is the biggest problem that I have with this whole thing.
My elected officials do not tell people what is 'okay to say'. Whatever problems someone has with the IAW need not be escalated to these levels. It is unfair targeting and an exercise in control that just should not happen. Whatever the students have to say, let the individual universities and colleges try to decide what their students have the opportunity to say. They usually lose when they try to enforce things that are too absurd, but for IAW I can see a lot bowing to pressure. A lot of really committed people see a huge problem with silencing dialogue on our country's continued support of Israeli polices. Really, saying that IAW is 'hate week 2010 anti-semitism carnival' is the best defence that anyone can give. These aren't hardened terrorists, these are post-secondary students. Anyone who comes out as a whacky anti-semite is firmly shut down. I've never heard one person say some stupid racist shit about their Jews or break out into fascist rheotric or violent 'islamist' speech. If a person had the spine and lack of brain to do that, they'd probably get their ass walloped. No one who promotes violence is going to be open about it, is going to be advertising there. So why did Cheri DiNovo support this? She shut down harmless people concerned with something that her branch of Legislative Exsistence does not even cover.
That's fucked.
To be honest, I find that some of the rhetoric I've encountered at the IAW was a little bit on the hyperbolic side, but whatever - no one is there to give a speech the way that I like 'em. But for all of those offputting individuals there are hordes more dedicated, interested, open minded indviduals that are...I don't even know a word that puts into strong enough words what these people feel about the unceasing, callous aggression of Israel - its long history of brutally oppressing the Palestinian people. From what I've learned of the situation - sure, Israeli society is more liberal blah, blah, blah - but by any stripe a lot of countries that are mildly socially tolerant for their time and context can be monstrous abusers of entire peoples. I really think that it is hard to separate these things. The Israeli right wing isn't bashful about their military operations and defend their state and government - the government that perpetuates horrific things. There are a lot of UN...post-it notes, I guess for what they're worth. These documents aren't biased and raving anti-semitism from Babi Serafina or Shannon "One-Eye" MacO'Reilston, they're high level diplomacy for the most part. They have investigations, reports, eye witness accounts. The record is pretty good. And no one who actually perpetuates these things will fundamentally deny these things. They are the ones that talk about building 'security fences' and installing 'zone of denial' weaponary. You don't have to say 'apartheid wall' or 'white phosphorous burns', because the people at the top may try to hide, but the paper trail is there. Nobody is making these atrocities up. It isn't anti-semetic to point out that the government of Israel and a lot of Zionist thinking is sincerely fucked. And yet Cheri Di Novo made the decision to stand up and defend this by denouncing her own political allies and attempting to curtail the freedom of speech. She may not be as bad as the people making the motions, and maybe she just really isn't too informed on the topic. I don't know, I can't see someone like CDN coming out in favour of government policies that closely resemble the 'a-word' in many ways. Because if you were to take two charts and write out the recent use of policy against a target people in Apartheid S. Africa and 'a-word' Israel, you will see a lot of similarities. So even if CDN doesn't think that Apartheid should be used as the word describe it, it doesn't matter. You don't stifle something because of the name, because it is never good democratic practise. And coming from a New Democrat I found that very disconcerting.
I'm not a constiuent of Cheri Di Novo and my whole hearted endorsement of the NDP is tenuous and ephemeral, but really, she made a bonehead move. I honestly just think that she had a tremendous lap in judgement and isn't a terrible person. That's Shurman and his ilk. The NDP has handled this poorly, to be honest. CDN has handled this poorly. And I don't know why people are so surprised with the whackjobs. That's messed up but people deal with it all the time. For the most part the frequency of vitrolic bullshit is the scum byproduct of internet culture, but I am more than happy to let these things be investigated before I make any judgements.
Now, uh, I guess the ball for how to clean up this mess is left with are some soon to be really tired NDP workers, the caucus...and I really do hope that Cheri can make up for this blunder. But the hell if I'm not going to think that CDN made a really, really poorly executed series of gaffes and mistakes and bizarre decisions.
edit: now the wordmaker in my skull hurts.
There was absolutely no call for us babblers to "halt" the discussions around the fool DiNovo. Your interpretation is just that remind, your interpretation. Just because you stand by your arty right or wrong does not mean we will, and I can say we absolutely will not be backing off. I feel no pity for her. She had a chance, she blew it. She spit on gays and lesbians, she pretended to be the voice of Muslim women on this issue, and now the voice of Queers, because she all the sudden is gay.
We have absolutely NO PROOF beside her word that she received any death threats. No announcement of a police investigation. No e-mails she, in all honesty and to back up her position, could have released. Instead, we see her attacking her leftist base by calling them fascists. I have no idea what you definition is remind, but it appears that the label only applies to those people you say, with certainty, are threatening her.
Cheri sided with a fascist motion, she then would not engage her constituents and supporters in honest debate, instead she deleted comments and removed people. You might want to reconsider who the hell is a fascist and who isn't. Her best new buddy is that ultra right slime ball Takek Fatah. Yeah, all the sudden her bestest buddy, who also happens to be a Muslim hating pro-American policy fool.
And lastly remind, we will not shut up, or stop talking about this just because you feel we are hurting poor poor wee Cheri. Fuck that. Cheri went public with her full defence of restricting the rights of students and backing a facist motion. Fuck CDN. I shed no tears for her stupidity and she has only herself to blame.
If and when she ever decides to release the so-called threats, even that is a diffrerent matter.
If you cannot see how her actions and support of the Shurman motion were fascist (the label you gave to those who apparently threatened her) then there is no point in discussing this with you.
A lack of "real empathy" was shown by that dumbass Cheri when she decided that limiting the speech of students in favour of Israel right or wrong and then tossing everyone under the bus who questioned her. She showed no "empathy" for the Palestinian women she had the gall to claim to speak for. Screw her.
I find it incredibly ironic and sad that the "oh poor Cheri" crowd are asking for this discussion to be halted.
I've mentioned this a few times - but in her speech, DiNovo said that the Passover Seder begins with a prayer for the Egyptians, who were the enslavers of the Israelites. I pointed out that that is not only false, it is a loopy crazy invention - because the Haggadah (the booklet which is read and sang every Seder night) is filled with triumphalist rhetoric about God destroying our enemies, etc.
My point - how can a rational person stand up in public and make up nonsense like this? Did she just badly misinterpret something someone had told her?
It's a thought that occurred to me more than once when reading her Facebook foolishness - from Tarek Fatah to "I'm queer" to "leave my family alone" etc.
Anyway, that's for her friends to sort out. All I can say, as a Canadian, a Quebecker, and a Jew, that with friends like DiNovo, we Jews don't need enemies. I'll maintain that view until she comes to her senses (or overcomes her rather cosmic Ego) and backs off on what she said.
Maybe she was confusing Passover with Purim, Unioinist.
By the end of the party...
Hahahaha @ Caissa....
This is an issue in which there will be people on both sides who go over the top and act inappropriately. I certainly know a lot of pro-Palesitinian activists, Jewish pro-Palestinian activists in particular, who have been on the receiving end of harassing phone calls at 3 am, threats etc. I would be surprised if Libby Davies hasn't gotten a number of menacing and hateful phone calls and emails from Israel supporters as a result of her vote agains the federal anti-IAW resolution.
I wonder if it's possible that she was invited to some sort of "alternative seder" where they might have replaced some of the language. I've heard of progressives doing alternative ceremonies for various religious things.
I don't think I'd go as far as Stargazer. I don't think DiNovo's a fool or a dumbass. Calling her names just feeds the pity party being thrown by the mainstream media with DiNovo as the guest of honour. I think she's someone who got caught up in a politically bad action, and then tried to cover her ass with white liberal colonialist feminism when she was called on it, and now she feels like she can't back down or else she'll face a second onslaught from the other side, and deep down, she knows that the wingnuts on the right are way worse. (In fact, I'm willing to bet that the death threat was from some right-wing white supremacist neo-nazi type, not one of her left-wing supporters on Facebook. As Mycroft says - progressives in the public eye who stand up for Palestinians get no end of hate mail and threats. Here's a good example of what the wingnuts on the other side are like: Jewish shit list - not safe for work.)
And it probably also feels good to get all those positive strokes from her new fairweather Conservative and mainstream media buddies. You don't get that when you stand up for the oppressed, so she's probably not used to it, since she's always stood up for the oppressed before this.
And that's something else to remember, too, something I keep reminding myself through this. She IS normally on the side of the oppressed. This recent dumb move doesn't take away from the fact that she has done some amazing social justice work on behalf of impoverished Ontarians, like spearheading the minimum wage fight and advocating to end the Child Tax Benefit clawback. That doesn't make her right on this issue, and that doesn't make what she did okay, but it does mean that I don't write her off, nor do I consider her a fool or a fascist or any other hyperbolic label.
Yeah, aka M, maybe I should dig up hate letters we got (I and a few other Jews) in the 1970s, God how time flies, one of them with a crude drawing of people (us) at the business end of a sword, after visiting a university campus and organizing a panel discussion on "Zionism is racism" (which was then the official position of the UN General Assembly, until it was retracted years later). I can't imagine what kind of delirium or misplaced sense of self-importance would have possessed any of us to "go public" with run-of-the-mill stuff like this. And I don't know too many union reps that haven't been treated to threats on occasion. Honestly, her attempt to deflect criticism by portraying herself as a victim (whether she got the threats or not) was so typically the tactic that Israel and its supporters use that I had to take some déjà vu medication after reading those FB exchanges.
double post and double post....i know i like to read my self but the same thing twice is too much even for me.
i have not posted to the last 95 threads on this :-)
i do not know if CDN has recieved threats or not. But no women who states that she has been subject to death threats, threatening phonecalls or harrasment should need to be in fear.
i do not care if the women is someone i like, someone i dislike, someone i would vote for or someone i would vote against.
in 2010 very simply no women should live in fear. and if CDN or any other women states that she is in fear that is good enough for me.
Where did I put those déjà vu pills...
Where did I put those déjà vu pills...
You're right Michelle but cripes does she piss me off.
I used the term fascist in response to remind's use of the term. It was to highlight the silliness of using it against those who dissented and told Cheri so.
I'm just having a hard time trying to get over how she managed to split the left, piss on her leftist friends, and become best buds with right wing fools. I know she has done good work, but it appears that she is causing her own destruction and continues to do so.
It would help if Cheri had gone to the police. Has she? Has she contacted anyone besides Andrea with the threats? She should. Not only will it give her some credibility it will ease the minds of people like me, who are at this point, not so sure of her.
And wth??? A self-hating Jew list? Absolutely disgusting.
I'm a self-hating Jew, and I hate myself for being one.
Who woulda thought there's be so many names on that SHIT list. Even rabble gets a mention.
I just thought that this one was well-worth repeating - and that it might help put things back on track.
When synthome referred to the disproportionate response around here as rabid, deranged, essentialist, and fundamentalist, the sad reality is that he underestimated the severity of derangement and should have called the response hysterical and insane.
Babble policy:"You will not post material that is inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, obscene, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy or otherwise violative of any law."
Stargazer manages in one post to hit virtually all the notes. Any reprisals? any reprimands? Of course not, she's walking lockstep with the fundamentalist position here. I won't respond or repeat her bile because that would give it a basic credibility that it doesn't deserve.
I now understand why babble has a policy: to justify banning those who have the gall to disagree around here. Clearly enforcement of the policy is entirely uneven and arbitrary. Calling yourselves "progressives" is a defilement of everything I understand "progressive" to mean.
Unionist, I know you don't like being spanked around the way you have been by Dr. Dawg, spurs, etc, but your overweening attitude assures me that clearly you were coddled as a child. That I assume is the basis of your sense of entitlement to be head apparatchik, Grand Inquisitor, and Absolute authority. I am no Jew and have never assisted at a Seder supper, but in two seconds I was able to find a Passover Seder Haggadah, that begins essentially not only as DiNovo described in Hansard, but also are simply beautiful words:
But don't let this get in the way of your public scorn for a public official who dared disagree with you. You have special privileges around here. I get it! But, DiNovo silenced no one. She called into question, she disagreed, with the use of the term Apartheid in IAW. Next time she should consult her tiny rabid "base" (i.e. lunatic fringe) before speaking, especially knowing full well how disagreement with orthodoxy is met around here. If you silence disagreement how will you know when the "real" repression and censorship comes? IAW not only went ahead as scheduled, there was never any threat it wouldn't go ahead. And in fact, IAW not only ended up receiving way more publicity than it would have otherwise, it actually forced some people to think and at least rationalize their use of the term. Now whether IAW gains loses credibility from the deranged responses around here, will remain to be seen.
Fuck off troll.
@Michelle: "she knows that the wingnuts on the right are way worse."
That's at least a start, since you acknowledge there are similar wingnuts on the left. You're [edit: not to unfairly single out Michelle, I meant You in the plural sense] almost there. Quick! Find a mirror.
@Stargazer: "I'm just having a hard time trying to get over how she managed to split the left"
Yes, that's it, the Left needs help splitting itself up with derangement. And did you actually say "cripes"?
Everytime we ban someone like our new friend, we seem intolerant.
Dude, is this not the third or fourth time you have joined only to be banned? One can assume from that a few things, none very favourable.
Another thing dude, you may want to have a look at the link Michelle posted. That link is far right Jew hating drivel. Are they your friends?
@ Stargazer: Did you just say "dude"? Thanks for updating you're status to "really pissed". I needed the heads up. You're hipmeter is off the charts. I'm an equal opportunity hater of all drivel, especially hateful drivel, and you're keeping me too busy to go anywhere else.
Dude, I'm a Socialist!
Now don't feed the troll (the one contravening babble policy). Caissa, you're right. babble is not intolerant, it has tremendous latitude for its lackeys (yes, like Stargazer), just no so much forgiveness in terms of difference of opinion.