The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a loser for National, or else both John Key and Chester Borrows wouldn't need to resort to name calling and in Chester's case something worse (Chronicle, February 12).
Key called citizens engaged in democratic protest opposing the TPP a "rent-a-mob". This dismissive insult contains a falsehood, as those folks were not some paid sham group but volunteers, citizens from across the country, some of whom may have voted for him.
Those citizens could, with greater validity, claim that Key and his party are "rent-a-pols" since citizens hire their services for a definite term.
Chester Borrows earned a wag of the finger for trying to smear the protesters, claiming they were violent and destructive of property. That mis-characterisation reflects badly on him but also makes the police, who reported no arrests, appear incompetent.
Borrows went further and conflated protesters opposing the TPP with the violence of the Springbok protests. This false accusation amounts to guilt by association and is something that would have made Joe McCarthy proud. It is thoroughly unworthy of a sitting parliamentarian.
Mr Borrows developed a "straw man" to attack, claiming incorrectly that the protest is entirely about sovereignty.
He proceeded to enumerate examples of associations that New Zealand has already joined - like the United Nations or the Commonwealth - claiming each one entails a loss of sovereignty which has been harmless. Except that none of his examples entail real loss of sovereignty.
If a politician repeats a falsehood often enough it can dull the mind so that it appears true. If you repeat the word "sovereignty" many times it loses meaning, especially emotional meaning. The technique, originally discovered by British psychologist Edward Tichener in 1916, is called cognitive diffusion.
Mr Borrows would have us believe the TPP is like joining any club. Except that entry to this club comes with a potential poison pill called ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement) and receives nary a mention in Chester's article.
ISDS permits multinational corporations to sue New Zealand for lost corporate profits due to regulatory barriers like environmental protections, health and safety rules, generic pharmaceuticals.
"Investors" - that is, multinational corporations - can sue New Zealand under the treaty, and taxpayers get to pay damages for lost corporate profit.
New Zealand cannot sue the corporation/investors for any damage they may do. In effect, for corporations it is "heads I win, tails you lose".
If the TPP is truly without danger from ISDS, as Mr Borrows would lead us to believe, then why have we signed a side agreement with Australia stipulating neither we nor they will allow their corporations to sue under ISDS against the other (http://tinyurl.com/gt82udj)?
Smearing of TPP opponents is designed to paint peaceful protesters as radicals, hence untrustworthy. But the radical shoe is on this government's foot amd no amount of cognitive diffusion can hide the fact the TPP contains a Trojan horse called ISDS, bringing an invasive force of legions of lawyers of multinational corporations.
That radical shoe may come to hobble this government in next year's election.
-Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for fly fishing. He spent 40 years of his life comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
