New Zealand Conservative

And... Lenin falls in #Kharkiv . pic.twitter.com/gymCiD93me — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) September 28, 2014

Total madness. Or do some people think it's just the amount we need to debate? For one thing, Lotto sales would fall off. So where should the appropriate maximum income be set? Paul Reynolds's obscene $5 million income is close to 200 times the minimum wage. My pick would be to set the maximum income at 10 times the minimum wage. This would mean a maximum income of $250,000. The easiest way to enforce this would be setting a 100 per cent income tax rate for the combined income from all sources (including share allocations, allowances etc) above this level. Linking the maximum salary to the minimum wage would have the added advantage of providing an incentive for the highest paid to lobby for increases in the minimum wage, unlike the present situation where the corporate sector argue for the lowest minimum wage possible. Minto Madness You can vote for the Mana Party next week, and John Minto is ranked number 4 on the list.

I wonder what this means? Nostalgia?  Or something else? ... Communist Sickle at opening of Olympic Games in Sochi Source: Bruce Arthur - Twitter Communist Hammer at opening of Olympic Games in Sochi Source: Rachael Bachman - Twitter Related link: ‘Big salute to communism’: Hammer & sickle appear at Sochi opening ceremony [pics] ~ Twitchy

New Zealand politics is largely a discussion of a variety of left wing viewpoints. Centrist arguments can often be labelled "right wing" and anything Conservative or right wing may be labelled a variety of terms often insinuating a slur from "fundamentalist" to "far right" or "religious". The argument is attacked even before it is considered. However, pointing out the left wing bias in everyday political discourse will invariably be meet with howls of derision. Reds under the bed? Calling the Labour Party full of Marxist ideology? Ooh, how extreme and how scary this unhinged person is for using the M word. Which is why I am taking the time to remark on an otherwise unremarkable editorial in the Sunday Star Times this week. In a reaction to high salaried managers being at the helm when a stuff-up is discovered in government, the editorial calls on a salary cap. It advocated for a cap of $400,000 because that is what the Prime Ministe...

This is wonderful news. Poland is putting the effort into finding her heroes. It could hardly have been a riskier mission: infiltrate Auschwitz to chronicle Nazi atrocities. Witold Pilecki survived nearly three years as an inmate in the death camp, managing to smuggle out word of executions before making a daring escape. But the Polish resistance hero was crushed by the post-war Communist regime – tried on trumped-up charges and executed. Six decades on, Poland hopes Pilecki's remains will be identified among the entangled skeletons and shattered skulls of resistance fighters being excavated from a mass grave on the edge of Warsaw's Powazki Military Cemetery. The exhumations are part of a movement in the resurgent, democratic nation to officially recognize its war-time heroes and 20th century tragedies. I've written about Witold Pilecki before , back in 2009. Poland hopes to identify remains of Auschwitz hero ~ Ynetnews

Before Karol Wojtyla was elected as Pope John Paul II in 1978, the Communist authorities in Poland considered him dangerous enough to keep under constant surveillance. “During the communist era, authorities saw all priests as enemies of the people and the party – Lasota explains – and they were placed under surveillance by the political police, the “Bezpieca”. Wojtyla had been under surveillance since 1946. This intensified in 1958 when he became Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow. As an archbishop in the ‘60s, he was considered a dangerous political opponent . This is why he was ferociously monitored in everything he did.” The Communists wanted to know everything about him, even down to what underwear he wore and who washed it! One of the documents presented in the book is particularly striking. It contains 98 questions which spies who kept an eye on the future pope had to answer: attention was paid to every minute detail of his daily life. From the time at which he got up in the morni...

Today is a high feast day in the Church of Socialism - International Woman's day Silly women think this is about their freedom. They have been duped - it is about turning them into worker ants and taking control of their offspring and raising them in "nursery's" run by indoctrination experts so as they can be turned into compliant worker ants for the benefit of the State.

The above video features an interview with Dr Patrick Moore, whose book   Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: the making of a Sensible Environmentalist , I am reading .  The introduction can be read free here .  He   describes how Greenpeace became taken over by extremists, at which point he left. I left a comment about this on Kiwiblog yesterday and DPF has picked it up and created a post about it this morning. Some snippets from the introduction - In the early days we debated complex issues openly and often. It was a wonderful group to engage with in wide-ranging environmental policy discussions. The intellectual energy in the organization was infectious. We frequently disagreed about specific issues, yet our ultimate vision was largely shared. Importantly, we strove to be scientifically accurate. For years this had been the topic of many of our internal debates. I was the only Greenpeace activist with a PhD in ecology, and because I wouldn’t allow...

In 1920 there was a little known war between the brand new Soviet Union and Poland, whereby Poland stood in the way of the imposing Communism by force over Europe. Over a million Soviet soldiers attacked Warsaw, certain defeat loomed - yet, despite all odds, the Poles turned them back. This victory is known as the Miracle on the Visula, as the invading Soviets were said to have seen Our Lady on a cloud over the city, thus causing confusion in their ranks and leading to their defeat. A Polish chaplain told me of the Miracle of the Vistula while kilted Scottish pipers played the Polish national anthem. He told me of that eve of the Feast of the Assumption twenty years ago when Our Lady's Poland fell back in demoralised retreat before the anti-God hordes of Soviet Russia. THE MIRACLE OF THE VISTULA " We were beaten," he said. " Bitterly and terribly beaten, demoralised, crushed. It was at that moment that the hearts of our men went out to her whom we had cr...

I'm not talking about some sort of a spiritual church, but the real incarnated physical Church on earth, set up by Christ Himself to whom He gave the promise that the gates of hell would not prevail. Doesn't seem to stop hell from trying, however. Gramsci (1891-1937) was born in Sardinia, studied philosophy at the University of Turin, became a member of Italy’s Socialist Party and editor of L’Ordine Nuovo (The New Order). Shortly after founding the Italian Communist Party (1921), Gramsci, fearing imprisonment by fascist leader Benito Mussolini, fled to the Soviet Union. In Moscow, Gramsci shocked his hosts by daring to dismiss Marxist nostrums on dialectical materialism, economic determinism, and the violent overthrow of capitalist systems by the proletariat. Instead, he argued that Marx’s “Worker’s Paradise” could not be realized as long as Christian culture had a hold on the masses. For Gramsci, the number one enemy was the Roman Catholic Church, not capitalism...

Laos , Vietnam , and China to name a few. In China, it is recognised that rule of law and property rights is not enough sustainable economic growth.  A moral culture that most people follow is also necessary.  But thanks to Marxism, Confucianism has been decimated and no one believes in the Marxist-Maoist alternative which just legitamise existing power arrangements.  So, Beijing is in a quandry. This brings us squarely to the issue of religion. Even someone as militantly anti-Catholic as Voltaire acknowledged Christianity's civilizing effects upon those whom he dismissed as the great-unwashed. And religion is plainly on the rise in China. Five years ago, the English language version of the Communist Party's newspaper, China Daily , reported on the results of studies done by Shanghai University professors which indicated that millions of Chinese -- especially the young and particularly in the special economic zones -- were becoming Christian. Christianity is not reall...

Experience communism in a new Polish board game similar to Monopoly. Players try to buy basic goods but food supplies run out before they reach the counter. If a bed is needed, they may be offered stools instead. Players needing the shop's last pair of shoes can get edged out by someone holding a "mother with small child" or "friend in government" card. [...] "We may laugh at it today, but it was not funny for them, when they were wasting their lives in lines ." Related link: Polish board game recalls communist hardship ~ AP

A number of years ago, I wrote a post for Sir Humphrey's which included the quote below.  After finally finding it again for a comment made on Crusader Rabbit , I've now also found the source, which deals with the dealings of the Vatican with Communism. Here's the quote showing how much of a threat the Soviets considered Roman Catholicism: 'We Communists feel pretty sure we can triumph over London capitalism but Rome will prove a harder nut to crack. If Rome did not exist, we would be able to deal with all the various brands of Christianity. They would all finally capitulate before us. Without Rome, religion would die.' ~ Chicherin, Foreign Minister of the USSR in 1925, in a comment made to the Apostolic Delegate, Mons Michel d'Herbigny, from The Vatican and the Red Flag: the struggle for the soul of Eastern Europe by Jonathan Luxmoore, Jolanta Babiuch.

The Darwin Awards commemorate those who yield to natural selection and "remove" themselves from the gene pool, ensuring that the next generation is fathered by one less idiot unless they were idiotic enough to father a child before they eradicated themselves. (Funny how we assume Darwin candidates are male, or is it a fact?) What a great concept. In that tradition, I propose "The worst ideas in the world award" which could suitably be named "The Midgley Awards". Thomas Midgley Jr . came up with some truly bad ideas. He was an engineer and chemist by trade, doing his "best" work from the 1920's. Thomas Midgley managed to severely damage the environment by synthesizing chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) and also came up with the idea of adding TEL (lead) to petrol, killing people and the environment with spectacular success. He is the perfect poster boy for this award, as he also qualifies for a Darwin Award. After contracting polio, probably...

For the last couple of days I've been pondering the following two articles. The first is Muslim Scholar Upholds Christian Presence in Middle East . The Muslim scholar was invited to a Vatican conference on the Middle East. He said at the conference that : "The emigration of Christians is an impoverishment of the Arabic identity, of its culture and authenticity," said Sammak, who is an advisor to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He added that maintaining the Christian presence in the Middle East was a "common Islamic duty as much as a common Christian duty." How often do we hear this sort of thing? Maybe some Muslims, just like some non-Christians see the value of Christianity among them, even though they do not wish to take that step themselves. But the more interesting article was the linked one at the end of the first, introduced this way: Those who have studied the roots of the violent conflicts in the Middle East have usually found that they stem...

Radical changes are afoot in Cuba. It seems Communism is turning to private enterprise for a solution to their economic woes. Fidel's brother, President Raul Castro has said the state's role in the economy must shrink! In a country where to work for a living is to work for the government, all that is about to change. Give that man a Cuban Cigar. Viva la revolution .

Last week, after all the excitement of the Pope's Anglican announcements , a news item of interest seems to have slipped past into the secular world without much a reaction from the Catholic blogs who have bigger things on their minds. However, as an avowed enemy of Communism, I have not allowed myself to forget this particular news item, as it implies a rehabilitation of Marx by the Roman Catholic Church when no such thing has happened. So, it looks like refuting a major error is up to me. On the 23rd October, the Dominion Post published a cut-down version of the The Times article Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde . The Dominion Post titled this cut-down version, "Church revises hatred of Marx" . The problem is that both The Times and The Dominion Post misunderstand the significance of an article published in the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano , written by Georg Sans, a professor at the pontifical Gregorian Uni...

School boys who photographed themselves bowing to a Nazi symbol have been made to apologise to the Auckland museum and spend some time teaching visitors how evil the Nazis were. But, has anything happened to Bob Brockie, who confessed last month to his father potentially helping Soviet soldiers with their dysentry problem in 1940 ? The year my Dad, when he was a child, was transported to Siberia in a cattle rail car in the dead of winter by Soviet soldiers with his entire family - their only "crime" being enemies of Communism. That same year where up to 21,857 Polish officers were taken in groups out to the forests to be shot and buried in mass graves by Soviet soldiers, so that the problem of Polish leadership in a invaded country would be dealt with (ie the Katyn Massacre ). A little something the Soviets learned from the Nazis. No apology in the paper, no having to educate readers on the evils of Communism. Nothing, not even a mention. You'd think it was a crime in...

So Margaret Thatcher did not want the Berlin Wall to come down and even pleaded with the Soviets to do all in their power to prevent it. Well, colour me not surprised. I wonder what other dirty little secrets exist of this nature. Two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Margaret Thatcher told President Gorbachev that neither Britain nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany and made clear that she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it. In an extraordinary frank meeting with Mr Gorbachev in Moscow in 1989 — never before fully reported — Mrs Thatcher said the destabilisation of Eastern Europe and the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact were also not in the West’s interests. She noted the huge changes happening across Eastern Europe, but she insisted that the West would not push for its decommunisation. Nor would it do anything to risk the security of the Soviet Union. Even 20 years later, her remarks are likely to cause uproar. They are all the more ...

"[Attacks on marriage and family] include promotion of sex education at schools. We have to remember who was the first to introduce the idea of sex education. It was communist ideologue Gyorgy Lukacs in Hungary, who thought promiscuity was the best method to fight the institution of marriage, in order to fight Christianity." Related Link: Polish Bishops Emphasize Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians Excommunicate Themselves ~ LifeSiteNews