Scintillating Confabulations of Outrage

An Internationalist Bridge Too Far

The cause of fighting against the Trade Pacific Partnership ("TPP") has been weakened by the syndrome of embarrassing advocates.

A local journalista/opiner has written:

The opposition to the TPP was ugly. Worse than that, it backfired. At first, the crowds of thousands walking Auckland's streets in protest were impressive.  Until you talked to them.

Too many of them didn't even know why they were protesting.  "I dunno, to be honest," was roughly what one man said.  "I'm just here for my people."  The sight of Sue Bradford wrestling with police - again - can do quite a good job of drawing attention to a cause.  But the sight of Sue Bradford sitting on the tarmac in the middle of a main road to deliberately disrupt the traffic of a city already cursed with motorway constipation is just infuriating.

How did the TPP become the fault of Aucklanders who are just trying to get to work? How did it require vandalism of one minister's electorate office?  How would molotov-cocktail bombing another minister's office stop it?

A  delicious irony emerges when considering these embarrassing advocates.
 To a man they are philosophically committed to internationalism and opposed to nationalism.  When it comes to human rights they are gaga global.  When it comes to aid, they whoop up an instant demand that New Zealand give more money to Hamas in Gaza so it can dig more tunnels to blow up Israeli kindergartens, replete with children.  When it comes to "genuine threats" like global warming they enthusiastically cheer the trans-galactically inept, corruptocrats in United Nations as they sign a (worthless) international agreement to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.

But when it comes to fifteen nations acting like grown ups, and deciding together to scrap tariffs on mutual exports and imports, instantly the brain dead protesters become resolutely opposed.  They emit more instant outrage than Naomi Klein could muster up in her entire svelte lifetime.  Presumably if the United Nations got all its member nations to, oh we don't know, but let's say Paris, and at that confabulation all the member states signed an agreement to scrap all trade tariffs these embarrassing advocates would whoop and cheer, Naomi Klein notwithstanding.

These embarrassments, clutching their outrage and nursing their molotov cocktails, remain full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  "TPP is internationalist, but not as we know it, Jim."