The Left, Marxists, Globalists, PC elitists and progressives endanger democracy

Posted on 21 June by Peter Senior

Many politicians and bureaucrats systematically cause delays and unnecessary expenditure, and ignore reality.  ‘Yes Minister’ really was a documentary, not fiction! Perhaps even worse, many from the ‘Left’, progressives, Cultural Marxists and activists keep trying to stymie democracy with their shrill, often illogical and ideological views. The following articles provide evidence.

More previous articles are linked below the most recent three.

Masks slip to reveal the ugly face of the future planned by Marxists

Masks slip to reveal the ugly face of the Marxist future  By Maurice Newman, The Australian, 21 June 2017

In his 1960s bestseller, The Naked Communist, former FBI agent W. Cleon Skousen lays bare an ambitious Marxist manifesto. He identifies 46 goals ranging from reordering Western values and institutions to a one-world government under the UN.

A major objective was the capture of one or both of the major US political parties. Marxists would use the courts to weaken US institutions through technical decisions based on human rights. Schools would become transmission belts for socialist propaganda and, by softening the curriculum, teachers’ associations would carry the party line in textbooks on the list of required reading. Loyalty oaths would be abolished

They aimed to infiltrate the media and control editorial writing, book reviews and student newspapers.

Where possible, key positions in radio, television and film would be filled with sympathetic presenters, actors and producers.

“Cultural Marxism” would target all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship”. Lower cultural standards of ­morality would be encouraged through wider acceptance of pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, movies, radio and TV. Degeneracy and promiscuity were to be presented as “normal, natural and healthy”.

Even churches would be targeted. Traditional religion would be replaced with “social” religion. The aim was to discredit the Bible and mock those who saw a need for a “religious crutch”.

Winston Churchill warned: “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.”

Maybe, but the manifesto’s authors must be feeling pretty pleased with progress. Today, “cultural Marxism” is pervasive.

In Australia, parliaments have surrendered traditional values with scarcely a sigh.

The curriculums in our schools and universities drill “progressive” ideology into the hearts and minds of students. A recent Institute of Public Affairs survey found almost 80 per cent of Australia’s universities stifle intellectual ­debate. Moral relativism reigns supreme.

Our courts are thick with politicians in robes. Conceited judges seek unnecessarily to bully critics into silence while, in sentencing, we are accustomed to criminals being treated as victims of an unjust society.

Our public broadcasters drip with fashionable left-wing causes. Cultural institutions foster leftist activists and socialist propaganda. Even our armed forces have been infiltrated. Shouting at subordinates is now outlawed and trainees who find instructors overbearing can hold up red cards. Ensuring that the navy focuses on all aspects of diversity, a strategic adviser on Islamic cultural affairs was appointed at the same time a 102-year-old motto was removed from chaplains’ badges lest it cause offence.

As US commentator Paul Murphy writes, the left seeks “non-violent revolution through their work in the rights and race businesses. Specifically, they defend ‘revolutionary subjects’ such as Islamists, Islamic terrorists, sexual groomers, rapists, criminals, leftist activists and so on. The rights of minorities are fought for and given a superior status vis-a-vis what they call the ‘dominant culture’.”

Now, with the finish line in sight, the seductive mask of socialism is starting to slip, revealing the brutal authoritarian face behind. We hear of meetings being abandoned because of threats of violence from left-wing activists. Hotel staff receive physical threats should a Christian meeting, opposed to same-sex marriage, proceed. Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali cancels her Australian speaking tour, citing safety fears. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson withdraws from a forum because her security cannot be guaranteed. Conservative Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt is set upon by leftists. The list is endless. Yet we tolerate the intolerant and defend the indefensible, cravenly shouldering the blame.

As the great Karl Popper said: “If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed and tolerance with them.”

No wonder the outrage that followed the treacherous toppling of prime minister Tony Abbott continues.

Brushed aside as the unassuaged anger of delusional conservatives refusing to move on, the mood at the time more likely reflected voter refusal to be deluded into believing that the Turnbull Coalition team would be other than a pale shade of the Labor Party. And so it has come to pass.

In true Labor style, utopian commitments are made in the full knowledge that the ability to pay for them is but a vain hope. Growth-stifling taxes and red tape increase along with bureaucracies to administer them. Ironically, the cumulative effect of these measures renders the prospect of honouring political promises ever more remote.

Meanwhile, Marxist aims for the UN are very much on track, aided and abetted by obsequious Western acolytes such as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. In a classic case of UN virtue signalling, an unnecessary advisory group has been established “to provide expert advice to support government and business to work together to improve human rights”. Really?

But this is nowhere as irresponsible as the ratification of the Paris emission targets, which effectively cede de facto control of the Australian economy’s commanding heights, critical sectors that dominate economic activity, such as electricity generation, heavy manufacturing, mining and transport, to unelected UN ­bureaucrats in Geneva and Bonn.

The Prime Minister described this as “a watershed, or turning point”. Indeed it is.

Such meek surrender brings the Marxist dream of one-world government another step closer. Its realisation is assisted by the existence of other supranational groups such as the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (a Keynesian brainchild), the World Bank and the G20. Each, despite clear evidence to the contrary, haughtily extols the virtues of centralised decision-making. But what should we expect from a political class whose power is amplified through these bureaucracies?

So long as this self-serving mindset prevails, we can expect ­financial and economic crises to intensify, living standards to fall, confidence in our democratic system to sink further and, like Greece, Venezuela and the rest, the economy to finally collapse.

“Then,” say the Marxists, “shall (we) stride through the wreckage, a creator.”

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Standing up to political bullies takes courage

Standing up to political bullies takes courage  By Dr Muriel Newman, NZCPR, 11 June 2017

Standing up to bullies takes courage. That’s true, whether it’s in a school playground, workplace, or a home. Politics is no different. It takes courage to stand up to ideological bullies, especially those with roots in extremist doctrines that are well organised and have strong links to supportive media.

The feminist movement is one such group. Their key goal is the destruction of the patriarchal married family. Major progress towards that goal was made in the seventies when Norman Kirk’s Labour Government was persuaded to introduce the Domestic Purposes Benefit. By giving a secure State income to mothers – conditional upon them bringing up their children on their own, without the help of fathers – the feminists incentivised decades of family breakdown and fatherlessness.

With statistics clearly showing that sole parenthood and fatherlessness are significant contributors to child abuse and neglect, replacing the DPB with support based on work, was one of the key recommendations of the Welfare Working Group – established by National in 2010 to advise the Government on welfare reform. Their advice however, was rejected and instead, the policy – which was tweaked and renamed Sole Parent Support – continues to put children at risk.

When US President Bill Clinton became aware of the danger to children of their stand-alone sole parent benefit in the nineties, he ordered it to be replaced with obligations based on work. In doing so he improved the outcomes of millions of American children and their mothers.

With almost no other countries having in place a policy which is so dangerous for women and children, it’s a tragic state of affairs when no politicians have the courage to stand up to the feminist bullies and call for reform.

Another group of ideological bullies are biculturalists. Their goal of Maori rule is being achieved through the implementation of anti-Government bicultural policies throughout the public service.

The Maori seats in Parliament are their power base. These race-based reserved seats were introduced on a temporary basis in the 1860s to ensure that Maori men could vote. But instead of being removed upon the introduction of universal suffrage, they were retained.

The 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System recommended abolishing the Maori seats if MMP was introduced. But while the MMP Bill tabled in Parliament by Jim Bolger’s National Government removed the Maori seats, the Party caved in to the biculturalists’ demands – not only retaining the seats, but changing the system to enable the numbers to increase from four back then to seven!

At the present time, no party appears prepared to stand up to the bicultural bullies, by promising to hold a binding public referendum on removing the Maori seats in Parliament.

A third group of powerful ideological bullies is the environmental lobby. Many of the extremists within this group are said to have migrated there from other socialist causes. In particular they have seized on climate change and “saving the planet” as the vehicle for achieving their communist ends of curtailing economic freedom and progress.

Like the other groups, they are well-organised and have powerful friends in very high places, who continue to promote their alarmist claims – in spite of real-life evidence to the contrary.

Over the years, New Zealand politicians have pledged to confront these ideological bullies with their dangerous agendas – such as when National promised to abolish the Maori seats during the 2008 and 2011 election campaigns. But time and time again when they are in power and in a position to make the changes necessary, they lack the political courage to follow through.

That’s what makes US President Donald Trump stand out – love him or hate him, he is ignoring the shrill demands of the extremists by delivering on his campaign pledges to the American people to put America first.

His latest move has been to stand up to the environmental lobby and fulfil his promise to pull out of the Paris Climate Change Accord. In announcing this development, President Trump said:

“One by one, we are keeping the promises I made to the American people during my campaign for President… we’re following through on our commitments.  And I don’t want anything to get in our way.  I am fighting every day for the great people of this country.  Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.  So we’re getting out.  But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair.  And if we can, that’s great.  And if we can’t, that’s fine.”

He explained that the Paris Climate Accord undermined the wellbeing of American citizens by disadvantaging the US “to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers – who I love – and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production”.

He said the US would immediately cease implementing “the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country”, including ending contributions to “the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune”.

The Green Climate Fund’s objective is to collect US$100 billion from richer countries to redistribute to poorer ones. The promise of this money was instrumental in persuading many of the almost 200 nations to sign up to the Paris Accord. But officials have already signalled that $100 billion a year will not be enough and they are looking at increasing their demands to $450 billion a year by 2020.

The President outlined how the energy restrictions of Paris Accord could cost America as many as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025 – leading to “the further decimation of vital American industries on which countless communities rely”. This would put the US at a major disadvantage to other large economies like China and India that have no plans to restrain growth.

While the Paris Accord was promoted as a mechanism to save the planet, by requiring countries to lower greenhouse gas production to keep the global temperature rise from 2020 to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – with a goal of 1.5 degrees – its real aim is to curb economic growth and redistribute wealth.

James Hansen, a former Nasa scientist who is considered to be a ‘father’ of climate change, called the Paris Accord a fraud: “It’s a fraud really, a fake. It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, who claimed in his movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, that catastrophic human-induced global warming would destroy the planet by 2016, has described the Paris Accord as ‘symbolic’ – sending “a very powerful signal to business and industry and civil society, and countries around the world.”

So what will withdrawing from the Paris Accord mean for the US?

This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, Professor Richard Epstein of the New York University Law School, has examined the implications and believes President Trump has done the right thing:

“The Trump administration has bit the bullet, and to the outraged dismay of the political left has withdrawn from the Paris accord.  That agreement, which went into effect on November 4, 2016, just days before Donald Trump’s election is a complex affair in which the United States made the key ‘voluntary’ commitment to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions in the next decade by about a quarter of their 2005 rate, with further reductions to come thereafter. At the recent meeting of the G-7, Trump was the lone holdout against a ringing endorsement of the agreement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, joined by a cast of thousands, has denounced Trump and the United States for leaving the fold.

“The President’s instincts were spot on. Notwithstanding the furore, he was right to withdraw the United States from the accord… I see no gain in having the United States participate in a treaty that combines bad science with bad economics. In the long run, the United States will gain in both wealth and influence if it adopts a more restrained approach to climate change. It is fortunate that President Trump did not let himself be scolded to move in a fashionable but unsound direction.”

Through his actions, the President put American jobs ahead of the Paris Accord.

This raises serious questions about the priorities of our Government. Why are they not putting Kiwi living standards and New Zealand’s economic future ahead of posturing on the world stage to impress the environmental movement?

Why is $1 billion a year being allocated in the Budget for the big black hole of climate change, when communities are crying out for more Police and better access to health care?

Most of that funding is associated with the bureaucratic Emissions Trading Scheme, which is New Zealand’s main policy for addressing climate change. Under that scheme, industries – including transport and electricity – buy carbon credits to pay for the cost of their greenhouse gases. However, the cost of this effective ‘tax’ on emissions is passed on to consumers, forcing up the price of all New Zealand goods and services, and putting increasing pressure on household budgets.

Signing up to the Paris Accord will make things a whole lot worse. National has now committed New Zealand to cut man-made greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent of 1990 levels by 2030 – that’s 30 percent below 2005 levels. Achieving this goal without compromising economic growth and reducing living standards will be impossible given that almost half of all New Zealand’s emissions come from livestock, and the only way to reduce those is to cut stock numbers. Further, with most of our electricity generated from renewable resources, the opportunity to reduce emissions in that sector is limited.

As a result, under the Government’s plan, only 20 percent of New Zealand’s Paris target will met by reducing domestic emissions – namely through phasing in electric cars – with the other 80 percent to be met by forcing businesses to buy carbon credits from overseas.

According to documents released under the Official Information Act, the cost to the economy of buying international carbon credits to meet Paris targets will be $1.4 billion a year. This represents a significant transfer of Kiwi wealth overseas, leaving New Zealand highly exposed to any increase in global carbon prices.

In effect, thanks to Paris, the total cost of climate change policy to the New Zealand economy will be a staggering $2 billion a year – similar to the cost of running New Zealand’s Defence Forces.

Whereas in the US, President Trump is putting America and its people ahead of an international agreement that would undermine their economy, our Government – in order to keep the environmental lobby happy – plans on wasting billions of dollars on a socialist scheme that will damage the economy, reduce living standards, and cost jobs, while doing nothing for the climate.

This is a price households will pay for politicians who lack fortitude.

With the election fast approaching, now more than ever, we need our politicians to find the courage to stand up to the ideological bullies who are damaging our future with their disastrous agendas.

Will any political leader have the courage to stand up to feminists by announcing plans to remove government incentives to break up families?

Is there a leader prepared to stand up to biculturalists, by not only removing their anti-Government propaganda from the public service, but by calling for a nation-wide public referendum to abolish the Maori seats?

And will any political leader be prepared to take a stand against the environmentalists and say no to reducing our living standards by pulling out of Paris – and abolishing the ETS?
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How radical Left shuts down debate

How radical Left shuts down debate  Gerard Henderson, The Australian, 3 June 2017

Once upon a time, universities in the West were a bastion of the free exchange of ideas — even controversial and intellectually unfashionable ones. It’s just that this was a long time ago.

Today, radical students with the support of some academics are in the forefront of moves, sometimes violent, to shut down debate. This is the case in Australia, North America and western Europe.

Use of the words racist, colonialist, imperialist, sexist, Islamophobic, homophobic and more besides as weapons frequently leads to the silencing of contrary views. The same is true of the demand for a safe space, since a reserved place for one person, by definition, leads to the exclusion of others.

In the lead-up to World War II, it was groups such as the British Union of Fascists that disrupted the talks and rallies of its opponents. During the past half century, it is predominantly the radical left that has attempted to censor opposing views, if necessary by the threat or reality of violence.

In recent years in Australia senior Coalition figures such as Julie Bishop have been subjected to violent demonstrations after accepting an invitation to address a university function. Commentator Andrew Bolt had to abandon a book launch in Melbourne when it was threatened by radical left activists, including tertiary students. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Lyle Shelton’s Australian Christian Lobby to hold any event of which the radical left becomes aware. Yet the likes of Bishop, Bolt and Shelton are willing to hear the views of those with whom they disagree, and all hold positions in the mainstream of politics.

The radical left is responsible for its own intolerance but its authoritarianism has been facilitated by the weakness of others — from administrators to journalists. A recent example: between its commencement in 1967 and the late 1970s, La Trobe University’s Bundoora campus in Melbourne was Australia’s most violent campus. The very strong student left went to war with the administration along with academics and students who took a different position to its own.

This year, La Trobe is celebrating its 50th anniversary. On February 24, the ABC’s 7.30 decided to mark the milestone by reporting the return to campus of two of “the La Trobe Three” — Brian Pola, Fergus Robinson and Barry York. The program reported the La Trobe Three were “student activists protesting the Vietnam war in the early 70s who refused to obey a court order banning them from the campus — as a result they spent several months as inmates of Pentridge Prison”.

This is a fudge. Pola, Robinson and York were jailed by the Victorian Supreme Court in 1972 for breaching a directive to stay away from the La Trobe campus. The order was successfully sought by the administration to prevent illegal occupation of university buildings. There was no causal link between La Trobe University and the Vietnam war. After repudiating any form of violence, the La Trobe Three were released from prison. In his book Student Revolt! La Trobe University 1967 to 1973, York acknowledges the “dogmatism and youthful intolerance” of his one-time comrades.

In her 7.30 report, Josie Taylor said Pola and York returned to La Trobe in February as “honoured guests” and were “warmly welcomed” by vice-chancellor John Dewar. Dewar told 7.30: “They haven’t asked for an apology, but I must say I do think that setting in train events that led to their incarceration without trial or without charge for an indefinite period of time was an excessive reaction by the university.”

In other words, according to Dewar, the events of 1972 were all La Trobe University’s fault, on account of the “excessive reaction” of the then VC, David Myers. Dewar implied the university should apologise to the La Trobe Three but made no demand the radicals apologise to the administrators, academics and students whose lives they disrupted. It is this kind of weakness that is responsible for the fact many universities have surrendered to the radical left’s authoritarianism.

There were a few academics at La Trobe in the 60s and 70s who stood up to the radical left in defence of pluralism and freedom of expression, in particular professors Hugo Wolfsohn (a German-born Jew who had family members murdered by the Nazi regime) and Joan Rydon (who was a social democrat).

Earlier this year, Dewar put out a collection titled From the Paddock to the Agora: Fifty Years of La Trobe University (La Trobe University Press). The vice-chancellor commissioned Robert Manne to write a chapter on the campus during the period 1975 to 1988. Manne used the occasion to traduce the academic reputations of Wolfsohn and Rydon — both of whom are dead and have no right of reply. Manne’s attack on Wolfsohn included the totally false statement that in 1975 he insisted all members of the politics department eat lunch together in the staff club. Dewar refuses to produce evidence to support Manne’s claim or advise whether Manne’s chapter was fact-checked and, if so, by whom.

So there you have it. La Trobe’s vice-chancellor warmly welcomed the return to the campus of Pola and York, who once attempted to curtail the freedoms of others. However, Dewar has presided over an unprofessional attack on Wolfsohn and Rydon, who once stood for freedom of expression in the face of violence and intimidation.

Nothing better explains the weakness of the intelligentsia.

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About Peter Senior

I'm a very experienced and pragmatic management consultant. I've reviewed and led the restructuring of many organisations - large and small corporations and Government Departments, much of the time as President of the New Zealand Institute of Management Consultants. Before that I was General Manager of a major NZ newspaper; earlier, an analyst for IBM UK. I gained an honours degree in engineering at London University, and studied management at Cambridge University. This wide range of experience has left me frustrated: I continue to see too many examples of really bad management. Sometimes small easily fixed issues; sometimes fundamental faults; and sometimes really tricky problems. Mostly these issues can be fixed using a mixture of common sense, 'management 101' and applying lessons from years of management experience. Unfortunately, all too often, politics, bureaucracy and daft government regulations get in the way; internal factors such as poor culture and out-of-date strategies are often evident. So what's gone wrong, and why, and most importantly, how to fix 'it'? I hope there are like-minded people 'out there' who will share their thoughts enabling 'us' to improve some significant management failures that affect the general public. If you just accept bad management, you don't have the right to complain! If you'd like to share thoughts on any aspects of management, send me an email to petersenior42@gmail.com .
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