Marxism, New Zealand Style

As you may or may not be aware, New Zealand is to host the Rugby World Cup next year, and the food and service workers' union, Unite, is going to use the event as a political football, pun intended. I have heard their president, Matt McCarten, on the radio quite often, and he is an unabashed, dyed-in-the-wool leftist, obviously.

Union threatens action during Rugby World Cup

Unite union is threatening industrial action to coincide with next year's Rugby World Cup.

The union's general secretary. Matt McCarten, said the union is planning "a big push" on behalf of its members in hotels, SkyCity Casino and other entertainment venues.

Interviewed for TV3's The Nation, he said current employment agreements had been "lined up" so they were due for renegotiation at about the time of the World Cup.

"We don't want to wreck the World Cup, of course not. But we certainly are going to be lining up the employers at that time and saying: 'Well, you're going to make a lot of money, what's going to be the workers' share?'."

Mr McCarten said he expected employers to be "more focused" ahead of the World Cup.

Unite hoped to be able to convince the public that it would be unfair for foreign-owned hotel chains to charge between $1000 and $2000 per night while continuing to pay workers the minimum or minimal wages.

The union said it would be unacceptable for people to work for less than $15 per hour, and in addition it wanted 10 percent of higher room rates to go into a special fund to be shared amongst workers.
Mr McCarten said millions of dollars of taxpayers' money would contribute to the World Cup's success, and it would be wrong for all profits to go offshore.

Now, those of you in the US need to know that the minimum wage in NZ is already $12.75 per hour, and that is still not enough to get a good number of people off their ass to get a job because in many cases one can get more money by being on a welfare benefit.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, indeed.

Who Wrote This?

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Any ideas? Need more?

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

If you think it was Rush, or Neal, or Beck, or Savage - you would be wrong. Here - maybe this will help.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another.

Last chance.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

OK - give up?
These are quotes from an op-ed in...are you ready?

Pravda.

The entire piece is worth a read if for no other reason than to illustrate how people outside the US can see what is happening, while many at home remain without a clue.

There are a few contentious, debatable points in the article with which one could take issue; see if you can spot them.

The History Your Kids Will Likely NOT Be Taught

The following video is from Glenn Beck. The Left will try to spin this as anything from being distorted to untrue or by attacking Beck himself. They will quibble about the actual numbers and make claims about being "taken out of context", but the fact remains that, regardless, scores and scores of millions of people died at the hands of despotic, totalitarian, Leftist regimes during the 20th century.

The Left cannot escape that fact unless they re-write the history - or wipe that history out of public knowledge altogether. Here in New Zealand, for example, our teenagers, who are just out of high school or nearing the end of it, have not been exposed to ANY comprehensive world history, let alone ANYTHING having to do with communism, fascism, etc. They are not even taught the history of their own nation except for certain aspects like the Treaty of Waitangi or the "exploitation" of the Asian immigrants in the 19th century. They are taught over several weeks, however, about places like Malawi, the "blood diamonds" of Sierra Leone, and the civil rights movement of the US during the 1960s.

Mae and I have had to fill-in A LOT of the gaps and direct them to further research various topics for themselves.

Anyway, enjoy these videos.

Obamageddon - What Could be on the Horizon with Afghanistan and/or Iran

I really don't have much to add to this article. I've snipped most of the relevant stuff, but read the whole thing to get the links contained within and to watch the Fox News interview with economist Gerald Celente. Large text emphases are mine

An American president is launching the most ambitious, the most expensive, and certainly the most dangerous military campaign since the Vietnam War—and the antiwar movement, such as it is, is missing in action. After a long and bloody campaign in Iraq and the election of a U.S. president pledged to get us out, our government is once again revving up its war machine and taking aim at yet another “terrorist” stronghold, this time in Afghanistan. Yet the antiwar movement’s motor seems stuck in the wrong gear, making no motions toward mounting anything like an effective protest. What gives?

We shouldn’t doubt the scope of the present war effort. Make no mistake: the Obama administration is radically ramping up the stakes in the “war on terrorism,” which, though renamed, has not been revised downward, as the Washington Post reports:

"As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war.”
{snip}
As the economic crisis escalates and the debt-based central banking system shows it can no longer re-inflate the bubble by creating assets out of thin air, an economic and political rationale for war is easy to come by; for if the Keynesian doctrine that government spending is the only way to lift us out of an economic depression is true, then surely military expenditures are the quickest way to inject “life” into a failing system. This doesn’t work, economically, since the crisis is only masked by the wartime atmosphere of emergency and “temporary” privation. Politically, however, it is a lifesaver for our ruling elite, which is at pains to deflect blame away from itself and on to some “foreign” target.

It’s the oldest trick in the book, and it’s being played out right before our eyes, as the U.S. prepares to send even more troops to the Afghan front and is threatening Iran with draconian economic sanctions, a step or two away from outright war.

A looming economic depression and the horrific prospect of another major war – the worst-case scenario seems to be unfolding, like a recurring nightmare, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it. Are we caught, then, helpless in the web of destiny, to be preyed upon by those spiders in Washington?
{snip}
History has shown that Afghanistan is practically unconquerable, and we could send an army of a million or more and still fail miserably. But think how the endless expenditures will “stimulate” our economy!

Pay attention to this part.

Our current foreign policy of global hegemonism and unbridled aggression is simply not sustainable, not when we are on the verge of becoming what we used to call a Third World country, one that is bankrupt and faces the prospect of a radical lowering of living standards. Unless, of course, the “crisis” atmosphere can be sustained almost indefinitely.

Sound familiar? "1984"?..."Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. No, wait, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. No, wait, Oceania has always been at war with..."

It is said that FDR’s New Deal didn’t get us out of the Great Depression, but World War II did. The truth is that, in wartime, when people are expected to sacrifice for the duration of the “emergency,” economic problems are anesthetized out of existence by liberal doses of nationalist chest-beating and moral righteousness. Shortages and plunging living standards were masked by a wartime rationing system and greatly lowered expectations. And just as World War II inured us to the economic ravages wrought by our thieving elites, so World War III will provide plenty of cover for a virtual takeover of all industry by the government and the demonization of all political opposition as “terrorist.”

An impossible science-fictional scenario? Or a reasonable projection of present trends? Celente, whose record of predictions is impressive, to say the least, sees war with Iran as the equivalent of World War III, with economic, social, and political consequences that will send what is left of our empire into a tailspin. This is the popping of the “hyperpower” bubble, the conceit that we – the last superpower left standing – will somehow defy history and common sense and avoid the fate of all empires: decline and fall.

Could Afghanistan become Obama's Iraq? It's possible, if not probable, given that he has driven us further into debt and has plans for driving us further so; given that he has no qualms about national takeovers of corporations like GM and the banking industry. He could make it work with the politics of personality. That is, with his "kept whores" in the media, it could be sold to his unwavering sycophants on the left. Then we will see the "true colors" of the so-called anti-war crowd - that is, will all the anti-war protesters during the Bush era be out yelling in the streets, or were they "anti-war" because they were anti-Bush?

Time will tell, but things could get very interesting. Sleep tight.

Orwell's Children

There's not much to comment on this one either. Maybe I'm just feeling lazy, or I'm saving it up for something else. Here's a teaser:

It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984, and it has been thirty years since we saw the creepiest example of educated and free people willingly walking into a living dystopia. November 18, 1978, three decades ago, 918 people drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become "Big Brother." Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell.

Jonestown ended in mass suicide, but the real horror was that ordinary people, Americans like you and I, had become so decoupled from reality and morality that they could be led to surrender everything, even their lives, intoxicated only with the venom of modern Leftism. These were Orwell's Children.

We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described. Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.

Read the rest from American Thinker.

Now, if you are an atheist or an agnostic (like me), and you're having trouble reconciling the references to God, here's how I look at it. I'm an agnostic - I have my doubts as to whether God exists, but I couldn't look you straight in the eye and tell you with unquestioning certainty that there is no God. After years of religious schooling (from kindergarten through 8th grade) I made my own decisions for me and nobody else, and now, at 43 years of age, the thought of God hardly enters my mind for the most part; but I don't have a problem with those who do have whatever they consider to be a "relationship" with God. As long as nobody is forcing me to believe or give money to a church or whatever, I don't have a problem with it (too bad I can't say the same about paying taxes to the federal government). That is a far cry from the rabid, "freedom from religion" atheists who actively and vehemently attack Christianity and want to abolish from public consciousness any thought of or reference to God. They, in a sense, worship humanity, with the state as a figurehead embodiment of humanity. (Ironically, many of those people are the same ones telling us that humans are a virus on the planet).

Regardless of how you may feel about religion and how it's been the cause of so much death and misery throughout history - consider this: In the span of only a half century - far more death, misery, and destruction was dealt out at the hands of totalitarian regimes (Mao, Stalin, Hitler) where religion was replaced by the state and a man replaced God.

Conversations With Moonbats

Back in July of this year Mae and I attended my company's annual mid-winter dinner for employees and their spouses or "partners" as is the current politically correct term for those who may be in a committed relationship but might not be married; you know where that all comes from; more on that later. Anyway, it was a nice affair, much better venue and food than the year before despite the weather being the same: cold and raining. Following the meal people began to mingle and move around, and a few of us, mostly smokers, went outside with our drinks to have a smoke. Mae and I had been sitting with one of my co-workers - let's call him "Ward" - from another department and his daughter (whom he brought instead of his wife) - I'll call her "Buffy" - and they joined us outside.

Ward and I are gear heads (or "petrol heads" as they are called down here), and we often discuss racing and cars and bikes and engines and...you get the picture. Well, Buffy is also a bit of a petrol head as well, and the three of us were having a good ol' time "shootin' the shit". Mae is not a petrol head: "It's all tin and rubber," she is often heard to quip, so she had wandered off not long into the conversation. Ward, not one to have an empty bottle in his hand on such occassions soon was back at the bar for a refill, leaving just Buffy and me having our conversation. She was telling me how much she really liked old American hot-rods and how she wanted to build one some day when she had saved enough money to do so. I was impressed; a girl who not only liked cars but who also apparently realized the merits and value of saving money toward achieving a goal as opposed to being only able to spend it as fast as she got it. That's where the conversation went sideways.

Out of the blue - and to this day I still can't explain how - Buffy, who is about 20 years old, made a comment about America having a terrible health care system and how there were so many poor and homeless people yet so many rich people who run everything and don't give a shit. I said, "Slow down; one thing at a time." I asked her what she knew about health care in the US and where she got her information from, to which she replied, "The news and that Michael...what's his name? The 'Fahrenheit 911 guy'. I just saw his film where he went to Cuba and got better treatment than the US."

"Oh, you mean Michael Moore, that fat fuck who lies and uses creative editing to make anti-American propaganda films and calls them documentaries," I responded.

Buffy, a bit shocked at my description of Moore, asked, "Well, the US doesn't have free health care, do you?"

"Nobody has FREE health care, Buffy. You don't have it here in NZ, either. You pay for it in taxes," I told her.

"Yeah, but we don't have to pay for going to hospital or for most surgery. You do."

"That's true, but you still have to pay to see your family doctor," I said, and went on to explain further. "You see, Buffy, most people in the US have private health insurance, and most reputable employers offer group HMO or PPO policies to their employees and dependents. It cost me like $50 per month. I had a good plan where I worked for a company of less than 20 people in San Diego. The last time I went to the doctor there the visit cost me $10 out of pocket and the prescription cost me $15. When I had to see a doctor here it cost me $50 just for the visit and another $30 for the prescription. Even had I been a resident or a NZ citizen it would have been only 10 or 15 dollars cheaper. So who's got the better deal?"

Buffy, quite surprised at that revelation, then asked the BIG question: "But what about the poor people who don't have health insurance?" Here's where it got REALLY interesting!

I said with a straight face and a calm tone, "What about the poor? Fuck the poor."

"What do you mean, 'Fuck the poor'," Buffy screeched in utter dismay and disbelief.

"Just what I said. First, define what 'poor' is. Let me explain a few things to you. People who live below the poverty line and actually have a paying job get all their income taxes returned to them at the end of the year, so they, in effect, pay no income tax. Furthermore, many of them get tax credits, or free money from the government, which comes out of my pocket and every other American who DOES pay income tax. These 'poor' people - many of them are home owners; drive cars less than 5 years old; have cable TV, cell phones, and broadband internet. Many of them don't have such luxuries, but it is all a matter of choice what people do with their money, regardless of how much or how little they have. Is it my fault if people choose to spend their money frivolously or my responsibility to make sure that people get their priorities straight and live within their means?"

"But the government should do something. They should provide health care at least."

"Why? You realize that when you say 'the government' you really mean the rest of the tax-paying citizenry. The government has nothing; it only has money that they collect from people who work and pay taxes. So what you are saying is that the government should have the right to force me, by coercion, by theft of my money, to pay charity."

"Well, it's for the good of society," Buffy said.

Channeling Ayn Rand I told Buffy, "I don't live for the good of society. I am a free man of free will, and if I choose to give charity, then it shall be my choice as to how much and to whom I give it. No government should ever think it has the right to force me, against my will, to live for the sake of another man. I have the right to be selfish."

Frustrated, Buffy asserted, "Well, if I ran the world, I would take all the money from all the greedy, rich fuckers and give it to the poor so there would be no more poverty."

"Then," I told her, "you are a communist and a fascist."

Buffy stood there, looking at me with eyes wide and obviously quite upset at this point, and proclaimed that she was not a communist. I then told her that redistribution of wealth to make everybody "equal" is the cornerstone of communism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The conversation was pretty much over at that point.

Mae informed me later that Buffy had told her about our conversation and was quite upset that I had called her a communist. Mae told me that she had set Buffy straight on a few things, telling Buffy that she was just young, naive, and idealistic. Then Mae gave Buffy the best advice she could give her at the time: "Have another drink."
*************************************************************************************

The preceeding conversation illustrates a fundamental difference in how two people, and to some extent, how two different cultures, view the role of government. Myself, an individualist who values freedom, free will, and self-determination, sees government as having a limited role in the lives of its citizens. Government should spend tax-payer money on things that benefit all individuals, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status - no "group" is entitled to preferential treatment or special rights promising "equality". Freedom means the freedom not only to succeed, but to fail. The US Constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself.

Conversely, people like Buffy see the role of government as being some sort of provider, there to guarantee equality. They see the individual as secondary to the overall collective social welfare. They believe in engineering society into some Utopian ideal where nobody wants for anything; where nobody gets offended. Government is there to protect people from themselves and provide a life-long safety net to catch them when they fall. Those who have more should have more taken from them and given to those who have less, all in the name of equality. As Orwell once wrote in his parable, "Animal Farm", there will always be those who are "more equal" than others. Equality is a myth.

Just remember one thing. In the 20th century alone, scores and scores of millions of people were murdered or tortured in the name of "equality" by communist or fascist regimes, but, whether or not they knew it, those people actually died for freedom. Think about it.

Another Leftist Myth

In writing a story last week about "the Hugo" inviting the Russians to participate in military exercises with the Venezuelan military, I thought about the possibility of having to deal with el presidente para vivir much like what happened in Chile when Augusto Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende in the coup of 1973. I decided to do a little research, a bit of a refresher on the subject, so I didn't go off half-cocked, and what I found was more than enlightening.

For as long as I can remember the Pinochet coup has been a favorite topic of criticism among the left regarding US "imperialism", American foreign policy "bully tactics", and the CIA providing covert aid to minority right-wing militias in overthrowing popular, democratically elected foreign leaders in order to further US interests abroad, thereby subverting the will of the people. The purpose of this discussion is not to defend, justify, or otherwise address the ethics or agendas involved in US foreign policy which has admittedly been flawed in certain cases; that is a matter for another discussion. What I will tell you is that concerning the Chilean coup of 1973, there is more myth than fact surrounding the circumstances of what led to the coup and the actual level of involvement of the US and the CIA in that coup.

Normally I would not cite Wikipedia as an authoritative or scholarly source on most subjects, but here it does provide with many outside sources a fairly factual overview of the history and events leading up to the coup and fairly good background discussion on both Allende and Pinochet. The real "meat and potatoes", however, can be found in this accounting which, presented in outline form, cites multiple sources from both right- and left - wing perspectives giving what can be as close to an objective analysis as reasonably possible (although it can be stated from the author's commentary that, while maybe not far-right, he is at the very least not sympathetic to the left or Marxist view).

So, what are some of the myths?

Myth: That the US supported a right-wing policy in Central and South America.
Fact: Not initially.

In the later years of President Jorge Alessandri's rule (1958-64) and even more under "Christian Democratic" President Eduardo Frei (1964-1970), Chile was an intended showcase of US President John F. Kennedy's "Alliance for Progress." Supposedly, if the US supported democratic left-wing reformers with generous foreign aid, potential supporters of Communist movements could be bought off.

Does this policy of appeasement and bribery sound familiar? Think of the similarities in how both the Clinton and Bush administrations have used the lure of greater foreign aid with North Korea's Kim Jong Il to not develop nuclear weapons. Also, consider Obama's proposal of negotiating with Iran's President Ahmadinejad.

Myth: Allende won the election in 1970 by a majority of votes cast.
Fact: Allende won the three man race with a plurality of 36.3%, barely edging-out right-wing candidate Jorge Alessandri (34.9%), and the remainder of votes went to the other leftist candidate, Radomiro Tomic (27.8%).

Frei was Constitutionally barred from succeeding himself in 1970, and the Right-moderate-Left coalition that had supported him fell apart. The Right nominated former President Jorge Alessandri, while the Christian Democrat Left stuck with Radomiro Tomic, who sounded almost as Left-wing as Allende. Alessandri had been favored to win the 3-man race; Allende's plurality (Sep 1970) was a surprise.

The Left's actual popularity was higher than Allende's 36.2%. The 27.8% vote for Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomic cannot be considered anti-socialist, since Tomic ran a Left-sounding campaign.

Under Chilean law, Congress (who had the final say) were not required to elect Allende President with only a plurality. Nevertheless, Congress had not previously challenged a plurality, and moderate Christian Democratic deputies were not ready to start now. Congress elected Allende on conditions (Oct 1970), the most important of which turned out to be the Army's autonomy (de Vylder, p. 233--note 8 on chapter 3).

Myth: The CIA was largely responsible for the coup and Pinochet's rise to power.
Fact: While the CIA was involved in undermining Allende's rise to power and supporting Pinochet's subsequent reign, there was clearly no mandate by Nixon to put Pinochet into power.

One must understand that, since the 1950s, Allende had been backed by and had been receiving payment and aid from the USSR and was actually a KGB operative, codenamed "Leader". That is something the left conveniently fails to disclose or acknowledge. It was classic Cold War activity, so the US had every right to counter such foreign influence. That is something that the left refuses to acknowledge. Following the election of 1970 (but prior to Allende taking office), a botched kidnapping of Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief Rene Schneider, who opposed a coup, resulted in his death. The group of Chilean army officers to which the CIA had given guns returned those guns and reportedly another group of officers carried out the final action. That is where the situation gets a bit murky, but that is about the greatest extent of direct CIA involvement. Pinochet's coup in 1973 could not have been foreseen at the time of Allende's election in 1970, and Pinochet did not come onto the scene until just prior to his seizure of power which was the result of many other factors. In fact, Allende himself was arguably directly responsible for his own demise which will become evident under further examination.

During the first year of Allende's rule the economy did OK as he seized foreign controlled mining interests, paying only a fraction of the total worth, thus enabling him to pay down some of the previously accrued debt:

from a book value of $663.7 million, Allende's accountants deducted enough "excess profits" and other items to offer a laughable compensation of $28.3 million (De Vylder, p. 127). In any case, however, US economic pressure was only one of many unfavorable factors (de Vylder, p. 106); Allende's Chile continued to get credit from other sources, and engaged in substantial foreign trade to the end.

From then on the economy began to fall apart due in large part to "selective" wage increases and increased government spending. There were strikes and lockouts, street fighting between left and right wing militant groups, and property seizures. On top of that, Allende could not shore up support on any front: He was too moderate for the radical left, and too leftist for the opposition-controlled Congress who found him in violation of the Chilean Constitution and issued a declaration stating such.

Now, here's where the Leftist argument falls apart in glorious irony:

In the final weeks before Pinochet's coup, the Army used a 1972 gun-control law to conduct numerous searches for weapons in Leftist-controlled factories (Roxborough et al., p. 216). Apart from disrupting the formation of Leftist militias, this enabled Army commanders to collect intelligence on who their likely enemies were in each factory, and who among their own troops might be unreliable (Loveman, p. 306). General Carlos Prats, considered too sympathetic to Allende, was forced by other officers to resign as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Allende appointed General Augusto Pinochet, a man without a political record, as Gen. Prats's successor (24 August).(emphasis mine)

Did you catch that? Allende himself appointed Pinochet, the man who would bring him down in just over two weeks from the time of his appointment - August 24 - to the date of the coup - September 11!

The aftermath was, unfortunately, mired in systematic violence and torture against Allende supporters. Of course, leftist "human rights" groups like Amnesty International inflated the numbers in their initial evaluations. The official numbers obtained by the center-left government after 1990 when Pinochet retired were found to be much lower. Regardless, the resulting violence and bloodshed would have been unavoidable given Allende's complete mis-management of the country during his three years in charge.

Pinochet's supporters replied that a bloody collision was inevitable after Allende's coalition had so thoroughly wrecked the economy, polarized society, and destroyed respect for law. The radical Left had begun to mobilize for civil war, and Pinochet simply hit them before they were ready. (emphasis mine)

It is hoped that in debunking these myths of direct US involvement in the Chilean coup of 1973 I have also provided a prime example for the reader to perhaps understand more clearly the dangers of Marxist/Communist doctrine and socialist (communism "light") policies which may look good at first, offering at best only short-term solutions, but are unsustainable in the long run, inevitably leading to economic ruin, social unrest, and ultimately civil war or worse - totalitarian dictatorship.