In Defence of DiNovo, or why I've been looking for a new Socialist home (Updated)

Having followed the cannibalistic feeding frenzy by a small segment of fundamentalist Leftists on one of the its strongest advocates in public life has been nothing short of incredulous. On the whole, this could be just another day on the Left and could be dismissed as a rather benign episode of "pajama people"* and /or rabblerousers responding with unhinged disproportion at a perceived betrayal of their pure, fundamentalist politics. Such derangement, however, has been possible only on the back of a totally disingenuous interpretation of DiNovo's actions and words, and has led to an unusual escalation culminating allegedly in threats of violence directed at DiNovo herself.

So what has DiNovo done that is so awful? To begin with, in babblean fundamentalist circles her first mistake was to treat a fellow MPP as a fellow parliamentarian and to show him anything other than contempt and disdain. DiNovo may have even used parliamentary and conciliatory language in dealing with Shurman. Shame indeed! In the rarefied world of pure antagonism of these fundamentalists, there is no nuance, there is no reverence, respect for alterity, and there is no forgiveness (a hospitable openness gifted in advance). In fact, in such a pure world, the enemy of one's enemy becomes one's friend, the friend of one's enemy becomes one's enemy, and ends justify means, regardless of how insidious those means.

Nonetheless, in order to entirely conflate DiNovo's remarks and position on the IAW resolution with that of Peter Shurman's requires nothing less than malicious and wilful misreading (something I used to call "pullin' a Cherniak", but now for nuance sake in Leftists circles I call it "pullin' a Unionist"), as well as a flagrant decontextualization of the two speakers.

To begin, DiNovo clearly speaks from a radically different place than Shurman. She speaks as a woman, a feminist, a theologian, queer rights activist, and social justice activist (her track record of standing up for oppressed groups -Muslims, Tibetans, Ukrainians who suffered Holodomor etc... is unmistakable)** Next, although in her remarks, DiNovo, I believe rightly, agrees with Shurman on the need to call into question the term "apartheid", she does so out of a desire for peace rather than a desire to absolve the State of Israel. And yes, peace means justice, and justice for everyone. Taking her cue from many Muslims themselves she spoke with, many of whom are not vested in the term apartheid, DiNovo pushes the need to talk about ending the occupation, to talk about the wall and for a two state solution. She in essence reiterates NDP federal policy, which even the National Post saw as her digression from Shurman's resolution and the conservative position. And the National Post's ability to deal with nuance is about as impaired as fundamentalist Leftists.

Then, there's the issue of whether speaking in agreement to one part of a motion constitutes agreement with the entire resolution, and whether in fact the ONDP did give its voiced support for the resolution in the legislature.

All to say, Leftist derangement that led to its pillorying of DiNovo hinges on the preposterous establishment of equivalences between Shurman and DiNovo. Since the rabid Left exhibits the nuance of a two year old (I think here of the psychoanalytic term "ambivalence" that characterizes among other things excessive narcissism and I think "fundamentalism") this led to deranged claptrap, assaults on her character, and, in my view, ultimately erodes the legitimacy of IAW.

When DiNovo's egregious actions weren't being met with derangement, they were met with a soft, "kind" patronizing admonishment that was in my view even more insulting. I'm thinking here of a letter circulated, by "academics", I believe, in which they gave DiNovo an out by patting her on the head and saying "dear dear, you just don't know all the facts, and just how bad it is over there. It's not your fault you didn't know how wrong you are."

Give me a f*cking break. Given DiNovo's education, her multi-faith background and her links to the Muslim community, not to mention to the Leftist/activist community, my sense is that she's not in need of any lessons about the suffering and human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory, especially not when those lessons issue from overprivileged, overeducated white boys whose acquaintance with deprivation is running out of Chardonnay at the Conference reception. I only resort here to hyperbole, because predictably also heard around rabble were comments like DiNovo deserves to experience first hand the deprivation in Gaza and so what if she's receiving death threats, her actions in the legislature help perpetuate bloodshed in Gaza.

And then, there were attempts to extract a retraction and an apology from DiNovo and demand that she throw herself at the mercy of good willed progressives. This coming from babble, the epicentre of derangement, and from "Unionist" no less!! Yes, the same "Unionist" who initiates a discussion to extort an apology from DiNovo, and subsequently in that thread writes "And by the way, Sineed, while it's not my place to ask her to apologize (as I mentioned from the outset), I have every right to condemn the shameful words she pronounced in public." Hello! If it's not your place to ask her to apologize, why start of discussion topic on it? This also the same Unionist who in that same topic grudgingly acquiesces that sending DiNovo death threats might be a wee bit over the top, but not nearly as egregious as her not having called the police. I wonder if her being out of the country has something to do with it.

Now onto the other big issue: the assault on free speech. This incidentally was the tac taken by reasonable Leftists with legitimate disagreement, but also by Leftists and NDP'ers who wanted to attack DiNovo (i.e. appease the dozen rabid Leftists and the three intimidating Islamists who complained vociferously), but had the decency not to use "the friend of my enemy must be my enemy" argument outlined above. You see, since DiNovo did not actually deviate from NDP policy on the Middle East, she could not be condemned for that (I've never heard Jack Layton refer to "Israeli apartheid", have you?) Nonetheless, it is claimed that in her denunciation of the term apartheid, she attacked free speech. My short reply is no! She exercised her right to free speech and denounced speech designed to foreclose free speech. She correctly, in my opinion, condemned needlessly inflammatory and incendiary language in order to keep speech open not to close it down.

I suspect critics who see this as an assault on academic freedom and/ or free speech see this as egregious owing to the fact that this was uttered from a place of power and privilege and "suasion". I agree that the position from which discourse issues is highly relevant. I suspect too that these critics would not view a similar condemnation of the term apartheid issued, for instance in an email or on the radio, as other than an expression of disagreement. While I'm sympathetic to the need to be vigilantly protective of our right to speak freely and openly, and I am sympathetic to the slippery slope argument, I don't believe the DiNovo's condemnation was wrong, nor do I fear that it could lead to labelling the term "Israeli apartheid" as hate speech.

While the resolution passed in the Ontario legislature does emanate not from an ordinary place, but a place of power, we do need to be careful. However, the resolution has at best "moral" suasion, and has no legal and authoritative power. These resolutions are brought forward all the time (e.g. I don't recall an outcry when parliament guided public opinion and resolved to commemorate Holodomor), so the issue obviously isn't one of parliamentarians exercising moral suasion. It was a toothless motion and given the current levels of respect for our political leaders and representatives, I'm thinking this resolution has little moral suasion. To call this censorship and McCarthyism is virtually to water down these terms to meaning disagreement. And if you censor disagreement, how will you know when the "real" censorship arrives.

That IAW would proceed as planned was never in doubt. There was never a call to silence or shut down IAW, rather a calling into question the deployment of a term, which even if descriptively accurate, is itself designed to preempt fair and open dialogue, is needlessly incendiary, and ultimately not at all useful if the objective is peace and justice for all. I recall speaking with a woman who is with Students for a Free Tibet who was perplexed at the thought of achieving peace by first slapping your enemy in the face. Tibetans, she argued, wish to speak with the Chinese, not insult them. By the way, here already lies an early warning to Palestinians that IAW is not really about them. IAW is not about peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis, it is about a larger revolutionary project of resisting American power and dominance.

Nonetheless, I do agree that we must be careful each step of the way. I have no doubt that political groups will attempt to use this resolution to promote their political agendas.

With respect to this particular case, my problem with the deployment of the term "apartheid" in IAW is only as it pertains to the attempt to pass off IAW as an unbiased, free and open dialogue going on across university campuses. For in my view, and I have attended IAW events in the past, it is precisely on university campuses that this kind of monologic debate needs not to be shut down but at least and always challenged and called into question. "Israeli apartheid", assuming apartheid is even an appropriate descriptor, does little other than to circumscribe the discussion within very narrow and highly volatile limits, to preempt disagreement, and to promote hostility, all of which in my view are anathema to university discourse.

As a rallying cry, as propaganda, as rhetoric for a social movement I have no objection to the deployment of the term Israeli apartheid. At least not in terms of its usefulness. It serves for the extreme Left a way to sharply demarcate its enemies and its allies. It serves to cleanly demarcate oppressors from victims. It serves to moralize the troops and fill them with information, as well as, far too often with hatred. While I believe in speaking truth to power, I believe the truth must be spoken out of love and forgiveness, not from a place of hate. And if the goal of this social movement is to broaden its base, I believe it needs to begin from a place of ethics, love, and justice, not antagonism and hatred.

This leads to a real objection I have with the term apartheid. There is a reason why the Left has prioritized the Palestinian struggle against its Israeli oppressors above many other geopolitical conflicts and injustices, and that's because the Left sees this as a crucial battle in the war against neoliberal capitalist expansion and American hegemony. Fair enough, a noble war indeed! However, to the extent that capitalism is reducible to pure desire, as desire always for more, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexuality etc., I find it highly ironic then, that the Left would vest so much in a term which is so laden with ethnic/racial identification, when in fact it's not all about the Palestinian people per se, its about the fact that they stand locked and opposed to Israel. I'm not saying that IAW is anti-semitic, I'm saying it is anti-Israel to the extent that Israel is strategically critical to US empire building.

At the same time, this also goes along way to understanding why the event can't be called Palestinian Liberation Week or any such combination of terms which might glorify and empower Palestinians. I hope I'm wrong, and excuse me for being harsh, the way I see it, what is critical for the Left is not who the Palestinians are in themselves but their relational status to the State of Israel.

While I certainly agree that victims shouldn't have to be perfect in order to earn our solidarity, I also don't think victims should be exalted to a place of almost divine abjecthood, of sublime object cause of our ideology, and the Left has a strong track record of doing so, starting with that most glorious and morally untouchable object: the Proletariat. But here I get stuck, I don't really know where to go next. Is it possible to simultaneously be in solidarity with and to call into question, a victim? I get economic forces of oppression, I get the need to resist blaming the victim, and I understand the need to adopt a culturally relative approach. But I'm still troubled by the often appalling treatment of women and the ghastly treatment of "queers", not to mention our reluctance to speak up against those abuses because of a group's victimhood. It seems the only way to justify not speaking up is either intimidation or by entirely blaming an oppressor and thereby denying agency. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

* a handful of overeducated, overprivileged mostly geeky white males who have nothing better to do than troll the web all day in their pajamas from their hovels in Parkdale, provided they've managed to move out of their parents' basements.

** it would be interesting to compare the Palestinian struggle not only with South African liberation movement, but also with the Tibetan struggle to return home
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Update:

I did forget to mention that Warren Kinsella needs to be graced with a Cherniak Award for his hypocrisy over this. A Cherniak award is given to a Liberal who displays exceptional degree of malicious misreading, of willful distortion, of wanton decontextualization, of utter disingenuousness, and/ or basic intellectual dishonesty. When Warren pounced all over DiNovo for "losing it", I'm left to wonder why he found it so objectionable, understanding that for Kinsella flagrant hypocrisy doesn't apply to people who have handed him his ass in an election.

Regardless what could have been so objectionable from Kinsella's point of view?

1. That she was being labelled a Zionist (something Kinsella all too readily admits). 2. That she lashed out at someone insulting her online (Kinsella's online behaviour has not exactly been exemplary; he not only retaliates, he's been known to commission online "lynchings" and outings of people through his blog, he's made numerous sexist and racist gaucherie in public)

I also would think that Kinsella might have shown a little more sensitivity for someone who's been receiving violent threats, since I'm sure he's not unfamiliar with that territory.

Needless to say, my comment was not approved, but other interesting comments were. And one, by the very same Cherniak for whom the award is named, who chimed in to pile on DiNovo only to be questioned why he would object to DiNovo's "zionism". After all, it doesn't get more rabidly zionist than Cherniak. At the same time, it does seem that Kinsella has had a change of heart and that the State of Israel may not be beyond reproach after all, since he's quite content to allow a comment arguing in favour of Israeli apartheid.

Wanted: New Home for a Non-Deranged Socialist, or How I got the Boot from Babble

I know that for Liberals/Conservatives the term "deranged Socialist" is simply redundant, but what about within Socialist/ Leftist discourse? Is there a place on the Left for a democratic socialist whose politics include not only Marx, but also Christ, Gandhi, Beckett, Levinas, Derrida, Lacan and a healthy splash of Zizek to name a few. From Marx, I take political economy, from Christ and Gandhi I take strength, compassion, radical love, and a praxis where means and ends are inextricably linked such that the magnanimity of a goal never justifies achieving that goal ignobly. From Beckett and Derrida I take a path of interminable openness parodic laughter and intellectual humility. From Levinas and Lacan I take a respect for alterity. And from Zizek, I take the wonderful zeal, intensity, contradiction and brilliance that is Zizek.

I know I'm asking a lot, but at this point I'd settle for a home where the Left tolerates debate and doesn't respond with knee-jerk reactionary feeding frenzies when one of its allies publicly disagrees with a singular aspect of their revolutionary politics. At this point I'd settle for a home where members are not banned because a moderator finds their posts pompous. Not inflammatory, not incendiary, not offensive, not intellectually dishonest, but in the subjective opinion of the moderator, riddled with "pomposity". All of this while tolerating, in fact implicitly encouraging, favoured members to hurl epithets, name call, as well as to speak cynically, disingenuously, and quite frankly abusively.

I am, of course speaking of that beacon of Leftist enlightenment, Rabble, and I speak as synthome, a former member censored and banished for displaying, you guessed it, "pomposity" (which I take to mean disagreeing with the essentialist fundamentalist views currently held on Rabble). I implore dear readers to weigh in on whether my banishment seems justified. Interesting that not one of those enlightened and "progressive" voices even raised an eyebrow at my banishment. It was passed over in complete silence, suggesting there was either unanimity of agreement or people were intimidated to speak up for fear of being banished themselves. Whatever the case, the total silence is symptomatic.

More importantly can anyone point me towards a Socialist community that believes in ethicality, democratic ideals, intellectual rigour, justice for all, and intimidation by none? I refuse to be intimidated by fundamentalism whether it be political (e.g. Unionist on Rabble), atheist (e.g. Richard Dawkins), or religious (Islamic, Christian or otherwise). Furthermore, I refuse to elevate victimhood to the impenetrable unquestionable status of a sublime object/ Cause (whether "the Proletariat", "the Palestinian", "the baby seal"). I believe in speaking the truth and I believe in love, and thus in truth spoken out of love.

Not that I wish to promote Rabble, but here are some threads in which the deranged Left is in fine form and in which yours truly, le sinthome (synthome), responds, leading to my eventual deactivation (followed by my brief re-emergence as objet_petit_a. Incidentally, I am open to the idea that I'm the crazy one. So let me know...

Here, here, here.

The Real Assault on Democracy

While Stephen Harper has provided obvious fodder in the last few months for the assertion that our democracy is crumbling, we ought not to lose sight of the fact that the real assault on democracy is being perpetrated by the Liberals. Harper throws wrecking balls at democracy, but Liberals are the water damage that erodes the foundation. Which is more insidious? I believe the duplicity and surreptitiousness of the Liberals is ultimately worse. Firstly, because Liberals are no better than Conservatives and secondly because the public, sadly even "progressives", repeatedly fall for the illusion that Liberals are an answer to the erosion of democracy and the future of Canada. Two examples come to mind from today's news.

In a real democracy, there ought to be a functioning progressive and critical voice represented in the spectrum of mainstream media. In Canada, for instance, even red necks, beer guzzling populists, and potbellied army loving mullet wearing males who revel in the destruction of the planet regularly are reflected The Toronto Sun and the National Post. Similarly, smarmy careerists and opportunists of middling intelligence burdened by colonial guilt but not really willing to do anything substantive about it and who equate democracy with Liberalism and conflate pragmatism with entitlement will find themselves reflected in The Toronto Star. What about a critical Left perspective? Wholly absent from mainstream media (yes in part owing to failures of the Left as well).

To anyone who has ever doubted that The Star is anything but a shill for the Liberal Party, you need to look no further than than today's paper which leads with a vicious, calculated and sensationalistic attack on Adam Giambrone. That an alleged affair by a mayoral candidate would make the news is not surprising. What is surprising is the newsbroker. If the Toronto Sun (which I'm sure is relishing piling on Giamrone) or Sue-Ann Levy (expect her hysterical contribution soon) had led the charge of such an attack, I wouldn't have blinked, but this was perpetrated by The Star; and in a fashion meant deliberately not only to sully his character but to destroy his political campaign. For right-wing Puritans the news of an affair would have been enough, but you add the revelations of the political staging of his live-in relationship and you add a whole new layer of dishonesty and opportunism. And what do Liberals notoriously excel at? Yes, staging, co-ordinated photo-ops, creating false appearances, and win at all costs opportunism.

Here's another take on events, about as substantiated as the Star's revelations. This entire episode reeks of gutter politics, precisely those not unknown to that prototypical Liberal, George Smitherman. Wonder if he's ever used his office inappropriately. The Star story is far too crafted and is deliberately nuanced to undermine the political campaign. This is clearly not done in the interests of the public, but transparently politically motivated. While various candidates stand to benefit from this crippling blow to Giambrone, Smitherman has the most to gain in that it virtually makes him an uncontested front runner. I'm not suggesting that the Smitherman goons have paid this woman to come forward (not that it's beneath them), rather that the changing political culture at the Star, as the unabashed mouthpiece of the Ontario Liberals, is such that it too now shamelessly engages in the same sleek, demeaning and nefarious kind of politics that characterize the modern Ontario Liberals.

I mean, even if what is reported is accurate, is it really that reprehensible that Giambrone would attempt to minimize his relationship if trying to seduce someone else? I certainly hope we never reach the day when all of our correspondences, especially those about which we have an expectation of privacy, become public. You can bet, however, that if someone did come forward with allegations about Smitherman's inappropriate sexual or professional behaviour, The Star would not take the lead.

Lastly, I understand that tomorrow across Ontario will be held a forced ratification vote amongst the province's 9000 or so "full-time" faculty, a majority of whom are really not at all full-time but partial-load (which means no class limits, no job security, no pay for prep or evaluation). My understanding also is that the average annual salary of these faculty is just over 30000. My sense is that the dispute is hardly about a bunch of overpaid facultyThere are also about 8000 part-time & "sessional" teachers who do the bulk of the teaching, but that's a whole other story.

For the membership to accept the imposed final offer is quite simply is a capitulation to the continued undermining of collective bargaining and democracy in this province. The attack on this constitutionally protected right was brazenly started by Mike Harris who shamelessly repealed anti-scab legislation, made union certification more difficult and decertification easier, even repealing a law that had allowed farm labourers to unionize. Here's my problem: The current Liberal government swept into power promising to reverse the damage only to surreptitiously continue the assault on organized labour. Each time workers are legislated back to work, each time a forced ratification vote is granted, it only naturalizes these insidious assaults on democracy. And it is precisely in recessionary times that we must not cede ground.

For the record, a forced ratification vote is nothing but a calculated attempt to circumvent a duly elected representative union executive and its bargaining team by ignoring its legitimacy and attempting to sway the membership directly. It is neither endemic nor helpful to reaching negotiated settlements.

P.S. Sociopathic military leaders? That's only the second place I'd go looking for sociopaths. Number #1 location in Canada for sociopaths: Bay St., Toronto.

Translating Kinsella #5

During my usual morning strolling about the web, I am astonished to find out that our parliamentary democracy is in trouble. After all if Coyne and Kinsella are in agreement, it must be true. The obvious response is, where the f*ck have the two of you been? Our democracy has been thinning and receding longer and faster than has Kinsella's hairline?

On the subject of thinning democracies, I wonder how many people read last week about Dr. Milner's (a political scientist: you know someone who knows something about political science) report charging Canada's political institutions with being among the most dysfunctional of any in Western democracies. From Fair Vote Canada:

Canada has replaced Italy as the prime example of unstable and ineffective political institutions, according to Dr. Henry Milner, writing in the just published winter/spring 2010 issue of Inroads: The Canadian Journal of Opinion. As he puts it:

"Political science undergraduates used to learn about Italy as the model of dysfunctional political institutions, characterized by frequent elections and constant uncertainty under minority governments at the mercy of shifting political alliances. Italy transformed its electoral institutions in the 1990s, and while hardly perfect now – as the antics of Signor Berlusconi demonstrate – it has lost its place as model of dysfunctionality among stable democracies to, of all countries, Canada.

Dr. Milner is one of Canada’s leading academic authorities on electoral systems. The complete article is available here.

“Every nation wants to be number one at something,” said Fair Vote Canada President Bronwen Bruch, “but our political leaders should be ashamed of this dubious achievement. How long will they continue to impede electoral reform in Canada? How low does voter turnout have to fall and how high does public cynicism have to grow before they take action? Let’s hope there is a young Tommy Douglas of Democracy out there with the courage and ability to push ahead on long-overdue electoral reform.”

Our political institutions are a joke, our electoral system is inherently undemocratic, our levels of political apathy and lack of civic engagement: unprecedented. I don't need the detainee issue to tell me that our democracy is in crisis!

Phrase du jour: "crisis in our democracy" sometimes used interchangeably with "democratic renewal" (cf. Dalton McGuinty). When a prominent Liberal uses either of these phrases, it typically means "The Conservatives are overtly undermining what we erode surreptitiously and more elegantly. Besides when we get caught we have the good grace to say "oops we're sorry, let's move on now". Now let's count the votes, I think we can win."

There is a glaring difference, however, between the two warnings regarding the state of our democracy. Andrew Coyne, to whom am I ideologically opposed, writes with his usual deliberateness, genuineness, and competence. Coyne, let's not forget, is one of the few conservative (or liberal for that matter) voices in defense of electoral reform.

Warren Kinsella's lament over the state of our democracy, very quickly and predictably reveals itself as little more than an opportunity to hammer Conservatives and gain leverage in a purely political game. If Kinsella thinks the Liberals have been any less complicit in the erosion of our democracy, he is not only incompetent, he is delusional.

What troubles me most, however, is that more people may inform their opinions of the current sate of our democracy from the likes of Kinsella than from those who are more capable and knowledgeable. This is not a matter of being ideologically neutral in political commentary (that is impossible in my view), but it is a matter of competency, integrity, and knowledge. Kinsella's very skilled at manipulation and messaging (i.e. politics), although I'm not sure I'd consider him an academic authority on political science.

Translating Kinsella #4

What's the difference between a Tory and Liberal?

Easy. The Tory stabs you in the front. The Liberal stabs you in the back. Yet, a knife by any other name would still be a neoliberal procapitalist swine nose deep in the pockets of big business and more concerned with votes than with people.

Anyway onto the word du jour: APOLOGY.

When Kinsella or any Liberal make an apology it means neither an apologia (to speak [rationally] in one's defense) nor the more contemporary "apology" (an expression of sincere regret for harmful action). Indeed, in the Liberal world an apology actually means the very opposite: a fleeting admission of wrongdoing followed by a rambling disavowal or rationalization in the desperate hope of not having an unethical action cost too many votes nor linger belatedly in the public's mind.

We've seen Kinsella apologize publicly for his public stupidity (i.e. his blog) several times (his sexist portrayal of Lisa Macleod, his racist insensitive remarks), so one would think he's learned a thing or two about contrition, reparation, apology. So how did he respond to the latest Liberal fiasco (an utterly tasteless photoshopped version of the famous photograph of Ruby shooting Oswald in the stomach in which Oswald's face is replaced by Stephen Harper's)???

Kinsella's response was remarkable only in its predictability. First, take the high road. Admit it was stupid and as he says "full stop". Oh, if only that were the case! "Full stop" for Kinsella means two things. First, look at me, I'm an honourable man who could threaten to equivocate but instead I'll assume the full brunt of my unethical actions. In reality, it's a pause of breath in order to buy time to equivocate and rationalize. Note the line immediately following "full stop". The lesson is not that being an asshole is wrong, but simply be more careful next time with the crap you post. Although, based on Kinsella's public blundering, I'm not sure he's the best person to hand out that advice.

Next, comes the equivocation and rationalization that undermines wholly an attempted apology. What we did was stupid BUT you haven't heard the rationatization yet.

1. Conservatives did the same with Dion.

2. At least we disciplined the idiot responsible (I wonder if Kinsella reprimanded himself after his cock ups)

3. We "apologized" (which we immediately disavowed through all this rationalization)

Of course nothing resembling a real apology was ever forthcoming. There is no ownership of the offence, no regret, no contrition. Only disavowal, beautifully embodied in the image captioned "Liberals apologize for photo". Rather than holding up the offending material in an act of contrition, Kinsella is holding up an image of Dion, which he hopes will rationalize the behaviour of Liberals and exonerate them in the eyes of the public.

One last thing. What to make of Liberals when they behave unethically yet refuse even to "apologize", even in the Liberal sense of the term?? I'm thinking here of their desperate smear of my MPP, in which Kinsella was a seminal participant. Does it get much worse than attempting to besmirch a person's long earned character with something they did 40 years ago as a teenager while living on the streets of Toronto? Does it get much worse than attempting to label someone as a friend of pedophiliacs and "axe murderers" by willfully misreading passages in an award winning theological treatise and in her past sermons? Does it get much worse than translating scurrilous libel into Polish and targeting the Polish/ Catholic households in the hopes of raising their wrath against an upstart United Church minister? Yet, never an apology by any of them. Is that because their pangs of conscience prevented them from issuing their typical hollow apology? Or are they just assholes? Something tells me the former is less of an option!

Harper scares me, but no more than a Liberal. After all, a knife by any other name ...

Neoliberalism As Water Balloon on Vimeo

At the request of one of my esteemed commenters (incidentally an avowed Liberal but of the rarest kind: intelligent and thoughtful), I am spending time on practical and prosaic considerations beckoning in these hard times. Thanks to the blog Relentlessly Progressive Political Economy for first drawing my attention to this brilliant video, in which even Liberals will be able to detect fundamental contradictions in the very system they hold so dear!

more about "Neoliberalism As Water Balloon on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

Translating Kinsella #3 (Updated)

Once again, for the benefit of the spin impaired and the Kinsella challenged, a summary and translation of the week that was in Kinsella land.

Thanksgiving weekend marked the release of Narcissiev 2.0 (the imperious and arrogant Liberal leader gets a bit of a makeover to appear more modest, compassionate, a kind of newfound sympathy for the poor and working class folk). If I didn't know better (you know, Kennedy's open support for Bob Rae and all), I'd think he'd taken some lessons from Gerrard Kennedy on how to manipulate the public into thinking you actually care about poverty rather than votes.

The work week begins with a shot at the NDP, who apparently weren't quick enough to layout the possibility that Harper will attempt to engineer his own government's defeat with the HST. What Warren doesn't tell you, however, is that the only reason this is now a very real possibility is that the Liberals' ill-timed attempt to bring down the government, their failure to bring anything to the table, and their incessant internal squabbling have offered Harper an opportunity at forming a majority government the next time Canadians go to the polls. If Harper is secretly licking his lips to have an election, we have no one but the Liberals to thank!

Which brings me to the overspun phrase of the week in Kinsella land: "less unpopular". When Kinsella refers to the Conservatives having become "less unpopular" what he really means is Liberals are free falling and Conservatives are steadily edging toward a majority. I ask a similar question that I asked last week. If Harper is reviled, and the Conservatives are less unpopular, what does that make Ignatieff and the Liberals? Wouldn't that make Ignatieff the profoundly reviled leader of a grossly unpopular party???

Not to worry, Kinsella's week was only beginning, and he quickly found a bone to chew on for the remainder of the week: Conservative pork barreling and a politics of arrogance and entitlement. Now, all decent people should be indignant at the Conservatives' deployment of tax payer dollars, especially when Harper railed so strongly against the Liberals when they engaged in likewise cynical and disingenuous politics, while running on a platform of accountability and transparency).

However, here's my question. Does a man who brazenly puts on his website that he ran the war rooms of Jean Chretien and Dalton McGuinty not sound stupefyingly hypocritical when claiming to be aggrieved by Harper's Conservatives? Relegating the Sponsorship scandal aside and to the past (although let's face it, the not so distant nor the not so irrelevant past which today's Liberals want us to think it is), Kinsella has present ties with the McGuinty Liberals.

McGuinty Liberal governments have been arrogant and corrupt to the core and plagued by scandal after scandal. The recent eHealth boondoggle was only the most recent and largest (to date that is) of the reckless and grossly negligent use of public treasury by the McGuinty Liberals. McGuinty's governments have deployed "slush funds", and have been repeatedly scolded by the auditor general for lacking transparency and accountability in their accounting practices and their disbursement of public treasury. McGuinty governments are no less arrogant nor any less filled with overweening entitlement than Harper's Conservative government. McGuinty Liberals may appear a little more contrite when caught acting grievously negligent with our money, but don't let that fool you. From a Liberal point of view, it is not pork barreling that is wrong, it is getting caught; for that may cost them the only thing a Liberal values: YOUR VOTE!

As someone who very carefully observed and documented the negative attack by Kinsella et al on my now MPP, Cheri DiNovo, I have to say that perhaps even more dismaying than the kind of politics exhibited by Liberals, was the lesson drawn by Liberals. For this young brood of Liberals, which takes their cue from Kinsella (the Cherniaks, the Bowie's, Derek "Born with a Tail" Raymaker etc.), the chilling lesson was not that attempting to destroy a person's long earned reputation and good name is wrong, but that their error was the way in which they attempted to defame and dishonour this person in public. As they claimed at the time, they should have just released "the information" to media and let the media run with it and not they themselves.

Update:
Michael Narcissieff v2.0 codenamed TIN MAN FINDS HEART seems well under way. Seems that having not managed to dupe adults, "Miky" has opted for a longer term strategy (pretend you're Mr. Rogers, snow the kids with your false pretense and hope they vote for you when they're older). Problem is, in the couple of photos I've seen from this ridiculous photo-op, the children haven't appear the least bit impressed. As far as the announcement is concerned, Stageleft has the best riposte. What's next, a raise the minimum wage campaign, an outcry for affordable housing, for increasing welfare and disability benefits. Remember when Ignatieff sought "real" reform on employment insurance to protect workers. Well he quickly abandoned that when he thought he might have a shot at winning a forced election. Not even a child is fooled by Ignatieff's recent LEFT TURN.

Not quite the same as covering a Beatles song with Yo-Yo Ma backing up, but I believe

A little less Narcissieff Beta version 2.0 released .

Not wanting to bad mouth the Daily Bread Food Bank because I've volunteered and worked with them in the past and they do amazing work, but Daily Bread definitely knows which side of the toast is buttered. Being essentially a Liberal run organization (the last two executive directors were Liberal MP Gerrard Kennedy and Kennedy campaign booster Gail Nyberg), it is often out of step with other anti-poverty groups and often the first to lend some credibility to the Ontario Liberals' disingenuous attempts to deal with housing and poverty.

Note the political mileage that Gerrard Kennedy has extracted from sitting as ED of the Daily Bread Food Bank. Sitting on a board usually means very little, but for Kennedy it has enabled him to masquerade as an anti-poverty activist and extricate votes from "progressive" swing voters.

Still, hat's off to Daily Bread which despite being hijacked by Liberals keeps equality and justice alive. Pretty much my feelings about democracy. Despite neoliberals (Conservatives & Liberals) best efforts to either pervert or mitigate it, a democracy of the people will prevail.

Update:

"Michael" is such a compassionate man of the people; not an elitist bone in his body (unless you're Ukranian but that's a story for another day). For a more kindhearted advocate of the poor and downtrodden, perhaps only..... Gerrard Kennedy.

As well, for all you social conservatives don't fail to notice that Michael & Zsuzsanna are well suited to your nukelar (cf. Dubya) family values discourse. One "Hail Mary directed at "progressives"; one "Our Father" aimed at social conservatives (I mean, Ward, June, and Wally Cleaver- don't think "the Beav" can vote yet).

No counterspin needed, the recent spin attempts unwind themselves.

Translating Kinsella #2

For the benefit of the spin impaired and the Kinsella challenged, I thought I might provide another installment of translating Kinsella. The tortured and defiled word of the moment is "brilliant", a word used by Kinsella to describe Paul Martin's cheap shot at the Conservatives. You see, in Kinsellaland "brilliant" means predictably partisan, shallow analysis, and a word to be bandied about when trying desperately to survive an unthinkably abysmal couple of weeks. This isn't, however, about piling on; rather about counterspinning. So here we go in the week that was Kinsella's "musings" (remember back when the blog was named Kinsella's "musings" as if reflection not deflection were the impetus for the writing).

The week begins with textbook disavowal, under the guise of Kinsella's media rules: "When the National Post editorial board says you are making political mistakes, it means you aren't, at all. Keep doing what you are doing." Deny, deny, deny in the hope that it is a lie.

Then, having been outdone at manipulating the Canadian public by Stephen Harper, Kinsella must have been beside himself. That gratuitous photo-op could have been "Michael's", and the Liberals not the Conservatives could be flirting with a majority. In referring to Harper as "reviled Conservative Prime Minister", what is he saying about Ignatieff, whose approval ratings have steadily declined and are well below Harper's?

To be honest, what really made me take notice this past week was Kinsella's shameless deployment of a true working class hero of the Left, Pete Seeger, singing "Michael, row the boat ashore". While in keeping with contemporary Liberal ideology's penchant for saying, promising, and doing whatever it takes to win, it still seems a little hypocritical to reach that far Left for inspiration. Secondly, the song itself is a kind of "we shall overcome" anthem, referencing the archangel Michael, field commander of the Army of God. So Warren needed his batteries recharged, we can all appreciate that. I just hope he didn't identify with the role of the Liberal archangel in the service of the Liberal Cause. Or worse, that he didn't see "Michael", Ignatieff that is, as the archangel.

The rest of Kinsella's week is essentially consumed with flailing attacks on Harper, ending the week finally on a much less abrasive, almost conciliatory tone. One might think Ignatieff is about to set sail in an different direction. Seems as though Ignatieff is tired of being "framed" by the Conservatives. Apparently we're about to see a more cooperative and congenial Ignatieff. It's almost as though Ignatieff might have come around to the realization that the political pursuit of "the common good" is not necessarily equatable with repeating old cards about Conservatives, nor the self-evident entitlement of the Liberals to govern. Apparently, you have to bring some ideas to the table. Perhaps rather than a coronation in Vancouver, the federal Liberals could have discussed, I don't know, policy. Anyway, I suspect that since Ignatieff is seemingly about to adopt Jack Layton's position, we might see less bravado and fewer chickens up on Kinsella's site.

BTW, to appease Mr. Kinsella's newfound interest in economics, I would humbly send him over to The Progressive Economics Forum should he want to experience a real discussion on economics, and yes, sometimes punctuated with real brilliant insight.

Hearts & Minds Issue #3

Long overdue, but below is the third issue of Hearts & Minds. If there's a more engaged and intelligent riding association than the Parkdale High Park NDP Riding Association, I'd love to see it. While this newsletter results almost entirely from the heroic volunteer effort J. MacNeil, I contend it is as good as anything else out there.

It is such a shame that Peggy Nash was undone by strategic voting in the previous federal election (sadly many of them women who fell for Kennedy's "charm", I mean bullsh*t; there's more in the name than in the man to be sure).

Visit the Parkdale High Park NDP Riding Association website for more information or to subscribe for this excellent newsletter.

Hearts & Minds #3