Cheri di Novo self-destructs

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.

rasmus wrote:

Weird, i got locked out and couldn't edit my post or reply to this thread, or view my inbox. Anyway, yeah I was going to post this link:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3417/dinovofreedomofspeechbl.jpg

 

But I think it's the same as Frustrated Mess's.

 

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

Le T wrote:

I think of all the people who probably had trouble sleeping in Gaza when IDF was bombing the shit out them or Palestinian kids who can't sleep because they witnessed IDF soldiers break into their house and kidnap their family members.

Michael Ignatieff doesn't lose any sleep over it.

Quote:

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.

Catchfire wrote:

Should we ask whether Cheri DiNovo, who is nevertheless wrong on this question, is taking a disproportionate amount of stick for her pro-Israel views as a queer woman and former street kid?

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 - [i]unless, and until, she does the right thing, recants, and asks forgiveness[/i].

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.

skdadl wrote:

No progressives "championed" Zahra Kazemi (whose name she even gets wrong, although that could be a stress typo)? We all sold out Kazemi so that we could focus on Arar? We can't walk and chew gum at the same time?  

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.

Great post Michelle. Unfortunately, I have never been able to separate in my own mind my own domestic comforts and privilege from the very real and constant suffering of others. I can't make that disconnection. I appreciate many have never made the connection. I appreciate many on the left never recognize the blood that goes into providing us with a daily orgy of cheap. But I still expect, however, our political allies to never stand and sing from the same hymn book of those who not only make the connection but advocate in the defence and promotion of it. There is a simple rule politicians can use to guide their decisions on such controversial and explosive issues: the people with bloody hands building on the broken lives of others are always wrong.

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.

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.

Sineed wrote:

 

Is the right more tolerant of hypocrisy than the left?  If so, it's another good reason to be on the left, but maybe on the left people get beat up for human failings rather than any real failures of ideology or the ability to take the right kinds of action.

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.

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.

skdadl wrote:

PS to Tommy: You want to go toe-to-toe on Robespierre? Any time, kid ...  *wink*

Shouldn't that be head to head?

Tommy_Paine wrote:

 

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.

 

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.

[quote=skdadl]

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.

[/quote]

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.

Bookish, I agree with almost your entire post, except for this...

[quote=Bookish Agrarian]

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.

[/quote]

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.

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.

Michelle wrote:

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.

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.

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)