I can’t in good conscience wear a Poppy this ANZAC Day.
It seems ugly and wrong to commemorate the ‘glorious dead’ in a year when our Government have been confronted by clear evidence that our military committed a war crime and that our Defence force attempted to cover up that war crime.
The response by Bill English and the National Government to this evidence is to attack the Journalists involved and deny it has happened.
They have shut down any possible inquiry into this event and are protecting America’s use of Apache Attack Helicopters.
I can’t wear a Poppy when 21 innocent people were wounded and killed in a revenge attack that went wrong.
I can’t wear a Poppy when this young child lost their life and we refuse to investigate it.
There’s nothing to commemorate when we hide our war crimes, because the very honour we seek to respect can not stand while we turn a blind eye. To stand at attention during the Dawn Service with this disgrace hanging over our armed services makes us hypocrites, and the men and women who have died in our conflicts deserve better than that.
I wear this poppy
http://www.whitepoppies.org.nz/
With no particular disrespect to those that served, this year I will wear a little white feather in honour of our Conscientious Objectors…and Parihaka.
I really hope one day that Martyn that yo get a sense of reality.
Shit Dave you need to get some backbone as you are so spineless.
We need to have a conscience don’t you have one?????
I will feel soiled at our memorial gathering at our cenotaph this year ful knowing the dirt was swept under that carpet!!!
Just to clear this immoral Government of yet more wrong doing.
Dave have you read the book. Before making inane comments please do so. It is full of the truth, the truth that English is too frightened during election year to actually expose. If there were anything incorrect in it you can be sure that the defence force would have said so. But then I expect they are so busy trying to find out who spilt the beans.
I really hope one day Dave, that your diction improves. How old are you, two?
All wars have been and are crimes.
Wars have only ever been about money, power and control, exception Middle East where “alien” technology is being fought over (but MSM doesn’t tell us about that.) People are and have been brainwashed for centuries into believing that wars have been/are about “liberating” the oppressed. When we learn to say No Thanks there wouldn’t be a war. Jeez … what would the bankers and their Military Industrial Complex corporations do then?
No one will notice your protest as plenty of people don’t buy Red poppies.
I would suggest you buy both a Red Poppy (that supports the RSA) and a White Poppy (that supports Peace Scholarships) and attend services. Carry out a silent protest, hold up a simple sign eg. “NZ soldiers & Afghan civilians deserve better. Hold an enquiry now!” or something similar. Get some friends along to support, be respectful but exercise your right to protest.
Otherwise it’s just token, meaningless symbolism.
Carry out a silent protest, hold up a simple sign eg. “NZ soldiers & Afghan civilians deserve better. Hold an enquiry now!”
Good idea Greg. After all, it is said that our soldiers died so we can live in freedom.
But try holding up a placard like that at an ANZAC Day service and guess what the response will be.
It appears that the “freedom” our soldiers died for is the variety that demands we fall in line and observe the Services as dictated. Dissent is not considered part of that “freedom”.
The new breed of RSL/RSA managers are complete wankers. Its likes some one at the top said ask every one if they are seving members. A couple of our local clubs have carfully cultivated a voluntary workforce to out on a breakfast and rum & coffee. Even I was asked for ID by a young upstart thats taken over managment of the local RSL this morning.
These young people now have no idea what ANZAC is with what they have experienced. They can barley say whatbthey had for breakfast let alone share WW1 stories.
All the cool stories. Pretty soon ANZAC will be looked at like how we look at old 80’s pepsi ads after they were considered contreversial and edgy.
100% Frank, being the son of a returned serviceman, ww two, i have always been aware that, while fully appreciating what my parents lived through, breaking away from the pack (group think) has never been an accepted part of the plan. Ironic really when VC winners etc. usually win their awards by doing exactly that?
You sir are a disgrace. You seek to make political points on a day that celebrates the sacrifice made by others, for you. This day is about them, and their sacrifice, not your attempt to push an agenda
“Straight Up” – thank you for proving my point I made above (April 25 2017, 10:38 am post):
I’m with Straight Up. I attended the ANZAC Day dawn service. If I had seen your sign I would have said take that away and you are free to bring it back at some time when we are not honouring those that gave their lives right or wrong. No one is “demanding you fall in line and observe the Services as dictated”. You are a disgrace and that is rubbish.
So, your vision of the “freedom” that our soldiers died for is that I keep out of sight and not return until people like you have departed? You are indeed demanding that I “fall in line and observe the Services as dictated” – that is precisely what you have said; “I would have said take that away and you are free to bring it back at some time when we are not honouring those that gave their lives “.
Is that the “freedom” our soldiers perished for? That you have the right to take away a sign I might be holding?
Well, once again, “Lulu”, thank you for proving my point.
Remind me why you didn’t turn up with your sign this morning. Too early to get out of bed? Just an idea that someone else should try? Easier to bash out your thoughts on a keyboard than actually do something? I see you set out your untested reasons for inaction in your first post.
In reality if you had been bothered to actually turn up I would have just turned my back on you because, as you say, everyone is free to express themselves.
A simple thought. A time and a place to make your point.
Is there something about orginised human existance you want to wait on time for?
Because all our vets are moving on leaving those from Timor/Solomon/Afghan/iraq behind. Two notably successes Timor/Solomon. Unforunatly successive defence white papers sought to move away from those success and down scale defence sheeding about 2000 defence jobs or contracting out at below minimuim wage.
At your big ANZAC pirades you have bands and porters and all the bells and whistles, thats fine for TV and PR. It just means all other dawn services are on there own.
This is the type idiocy we should be standing against not waiting on time.
Some times I get the impression people forget why we remember so we wont fuck up again.
A simple question, Tom. Who decides a person’s right to a “time and a place to make your point”?
I don’t think freedom is defined by others deciding for you.
Of course you have that right. The right to freedom of speech. All I am saying is that makes you despicable. That you would chose a day which commemorates the sacrifice of young New Zealanders to make a political statement is the equivalent of pissing on their graves.
You do have the right to do it though, just as I have the right to call you on it. There is no moral high ground to what you say. 7447 NZers were injuried or wounded at Galipolli. Scores of other NZers were injured or wounded at many wars, both domestic and foreign. You dont have to support the politics behind the decision, but please stop trying to make cheap political points today. You have 364 other days to do so.
So… me making use of the freedoms which ANZAC narrative has decreed as why our soldiers gave their lives becomes, in your eyes, ” All I am saying is that makes you despicable”?
That seems quite a narrow definition of freedom. More like on your terms, ‘Straight Up’.
Have you given any thought why your terms are better than mine? What makes my right to protest – which is the very basis of freedom – any less than your branding it “despicable”?
In reality I respect your right to silently hold your placard and would just turn my back.
On any other day I would join you and hold the same placard (just let me know when and where the protest it).
Just not today.
I think you are wrong that we are required to “fall in line and observe the Services as dictated”. I think there is a time and place and the ANZAC service is not the time or place.
Which would be both reasonable and fair…
Frank what we are saying is just not today. However someone was at the dawn service I attended today making your point so you will be pleased. I am glad I didn’t see them. From Stuff:
Clayton and Drew attended the dawn service with the protest group Peace Action Wellington, and held a banner which read ‘Lest We Remember: No NZ support for war’.
They also laid a wreath at the cenotaph and a plaque for the civilians allegedly killed in Afghanistan during a New Zealand SAS-led operation in 2010.
“We’ve got to remember all of those who died, we can’t just remember the soldiers, it’s overwhelmingly civilians who are killed,” said Clayton.
“The people who were killed in those villages they were just living their lives, like the three-year-old that died. I don’t have words for that.”
In my distant Youth I was a member of an organisation that presented a wreath on Anzac day at the Auckland War Memorial that was labelled “To the dead and dying of Vietnam”, to the universal condemnation of the R.S.A colonel blimps and sundry hangars -on.Nothing much has changed!
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