The war apologist crap being spouted by poppy blinded Kiwis criticizing peace activists ignores the supposed freedom our glorious dead died for!
There is an allegation right now that the NZDF has committed a war crime and attempted to cover it up. It was an attack that was signed off by the bloody Prime Minister himself and 21 civilians were killed or injured.
The Government’s response is that no investigation will occur.
There is no other day MORE appropriate than ANZAC Day to protest this on!
The day we all piously promise to never forget the dead and the horror of war we sent them into, that’s the day we can’t point out how we have betrayed their deaths by involving ourselves once again into a foreign war we shouldn’t be part of oh and by the way we might have killed and injured 21 civilians.
Asking peace activists to not protest against war crimes on ANZAC Day is like asking Maori not to protest broken Treaty promises on Waitangi Day.
What was the purpose of that sacrifice by our glorious dead if we can’t protest when we want? What is the purpose of promising to never forget them if we learn bloody nothing from their death? Aren’t we just being poppy blinded hypocrites standing at attention on ANZAC Day while our Army has been alleged to be involved in war crimes?
Where is the honour in that? Every single person at ANZAC Day this year should have ALL been protesting the Governments decision to not investigate the deaths in Afghanistan because that decision has stained our Armed Forces honour, because it hides what really happened.
Our glorious dead deserve better than the hiding of wrong doing, they sure as hell didn’t suffer and die for that.
Father and son clash with protesters at Wellington Anzac dawn service
Newshub was interviewing peace activists Ellie Clayton and Laura Drew at the capital’s Anzac Day commemorations when they were interrupted by David Broome, and his 12-year-old-son James Isa-Broome.
“Do it tomorrow, do it the day before, do it any day – but today it is wrong, wrong, wrong,” the boy said.
“You are so inappropriate, I just cannot believe this.”
Broome, who is the NZ First chief of staff, also told protesters their actions were inappropriate, and left a sour taste. His words have been backed by his party.
If this 12yr old NZ First war apologist is the result of kids at ANZAC Day, should we ban kids from ANZAC Day?
When did we suddenly become this aggressively pro military in NZ? Have we glorified the wars so much so that we have produced children who want to blindly praise our military without questioning why they were sent to war in the first place?
It’s not the forgetting of ANZAC Day that we have any problem with in NZ, it is the remembering of the lessons the ‘glorious’ dead died for. War is political, demanding the politics be removed from the day we remember those who died in war means we can never understand why they died or ever prevent that death occurring again.
Can’t you hear our dead in their graves scream in fury that their deaths have taught us nothing?
Because it is far louder, far angrier and far more disgusted than that 12 year old NZ First child.
At the time of the land wars, when there were insufficient numbers of gun-bearers loyal to the concept of empire in the country and it was arranged that semi-retired British soldiers would receive a land allowance for coming to NZ and helping fortify redoubts and being available to repel attacks by the [Maori] occupiers of the land -who were not keen on losing any more of it.
By the turn of the (19th to 20th) NZ was fully incorporated into the money-lender military empire and had sent young men overseas to defend or expand the money-lender military empire (Boer War).
We keep being fed the narrative that ANZACs “died for our freedom”…
Well, the right to peaceful protest and dissent is at the very core of freedom.
Postponing protest to a more “appropriate” time is not freedom by any definition I am aware off.
That young lad does not appear to have been schooled very well, in the meaning of Anzac Day, in my opinion.
Yes Frank, I totally deplore the vacuous hoary expression “they died for our freedom”.
That is complete and utter b…s.
There was no freedom involved.
The Great War began because European aristocrats were bored with the long peace that had endured since the 1870s. They wanted to prove themselves like in the Napoleonic era. The whole thing could have been prevented with negotiation but so many people were thirsting for battle glory that nobody wanted to stop it.
New Zealand’s involvement was as cannon fodder for the British aristocratic leadership. We didn’t need to even be there.
They died to satisfy the whims of warmongering upper class twits.
That is the truth.
World War 1 is debatable, I agree, except to say we were a fledgling nation then. Buf it need one, WW2 is the most excellent counter balance to everything you just said.
There is a copy of the Japanese plans for the South Pacific residing in Te Papa I am told. They were going to invade this country.
And if you want evidence of the fear they provoked among civilians, look no further than a rather old book called “Fear Drive My Feet” – the story of the coast watchers in the Solomons watching the Japanese advances, tracking aircraft and ship movements and radioing what they saw to the Americans or Japanese.
I assume you would rather not be speaking Japanese?
I hope not. They showed callous contempt for the millions of foreign civilians under their rule and it is a shame not more of their war criminals got hauled to account for their conduct.
Using WW2 to counterbalance my argument is a total red herring.
WW2 was a completely different scenario. NZ had no choice but to get involved because there were two militaristic powers bent on world domination and we were directly threatened.
WW1 was essentially a European conflict caused by unresolved diplomatic rows between empirical governments bent on European domination.
There was no need for NZ or Australia to get involved. There was no threat to us. We got involved because our governments regarded our outdated post-colonial attachments as more important than the safety of our people.
The British government sent our men into an area where they knew they would be massacred, but they didn’t care. To them, our men were simply cannon fodder.
And just one more thing, my father fought in WW2, in Italy and was repatriated after being seriously wounded.
So I know about the effects of war.
I have been researching what my family’s contribution to both World Wars was. I cannot find much on World War One, but World War 2…
https://willnewzealandberight.com/2017/04/25/the-story-of-lance-sergeant-eric-dennis-green/
Sooooooo, they showed the same respect for outsiders as the British? hmmmmmmmm. Who knows really how they would have treated us. May have been more respectful, may have been more brutal. But you can’t believe at all you truly know.
Frank what about the narrative that we owe it to the fallen to honour their sacrifice notwithstanding the politics. You conflate the issue of why they died with the fact that they did die. Freedom of speech and the protests are fine but they shouldn’t be disrespectful to the dead. I went to the dawn service to honour the dead. I am available for protests. I just don’t think it is appropriate to do both at the same time.
I you think they died so you could be an even bigger asswhole you are mistaken
So remind us why they died , lulu? I keep hearing this “freedom” bullshit but then people like you tell us we’re not free to protest when we feel it is merited!
That’s not freedom, that’s control.
So Sam and Samwise when and where is the protest you are organising going to happen? If it is not on at the same time as the dawn service i will be there with you holding a placard.
Or are you just keyboard protesters?
Ur hypothetical dosnt interest me. Over to Samwise, What say you?
I might protest next year, Sam. Lulu has encouraged me.
Anyway, it’s not whether anyone decides to protest or not. It’s whether people are tolerant of dissenting views and to run against the current of this Anzac orgy of war celebration. Because if we can’t protest against war, then that’s what Anzac events become, a celebration.
I think that’s more offensive than a protester with a placard.
Over to you, Sam.
An old man said it to me like this one, he said once a body decides to hold elections, the brain, hart and all the other important organs are represented and they would argue and fight and so on to see who would become prime minister. Almost immediately all the candidates started mocking the clean up crew at the buttom. So the asshole goes on strike and everything backs up and then every one says we give up, so the brain and hart an so on conceded defeat and made assholes prime minister.
What is disrespectful to the dead is to continue to fight in wars that have nothing to do with us and to support regimes that have dubious civil rights. WW1 was supposed to be the war that ended war, the fact that we have continued to send ‘our boys’ into battle in foreign fields of war is the ultimate disrespect to those who died.
That’s nonsensical. Everything about ANZAC Day is political.
Discouraging alternative views (or “protests”) at such important times just gives those in power a free pass to do what they like. Do you really think that the rhetoric about “honour and sacrifice” isn’t political? I think it is far more appropriate to do both at the same time – ANZAC Day is part of a larger symbol of New Zealand’s relationship with war. One can “honour their sacrifice” while acknowledging critical and alternative views. In my view, you seem to be saying we should remain silent and let those in power have their day.
Lulu, war is politics.
Now, I’m not about to speak on behalf of dead soldiers because I can’t say what their motivations were for going to war (the volunteers, not the conscripts). But if I were a fallen soldier and my spirit looked down to see a peaceful protest on Anzac Day, I think I’d be reassured that the freedom I supposedly died for was very much alive and healthy.
Don’t you?
War is the continuation of politics by other means.
So yes, war IS politics. War is where guns do the work of diplomats.
Lulu, so what you’re saying is protest, but don’t do it when anyone can actually see it happening? Is that it?
Golly gosh, that’d be like Maori protesters protesting the day after Waitangi Day!
I think Putin would be happy with this kind of “protest” activity. It’s a Clayton’s protest; the protest you’re having when you can’t see the protest happening.
Maybe the anti-Springbok Tour protests in 1981 should’ve happened after the Springboks went home to Sth Africa?
Suit you?
Frank: “Postponing protest to a more “appropriate” time is not freedom by any definition I am aware off.”
Hear hear, Frank!
And I agree completely with Martyn’s sentiments.
put me off NZF!….if his father is NZF….The name ‘Isa’ is the operative word here…dont tell me even NZF has been infiltrated?!
think I will be voting for the (idiot Shaw flag change) Greens after all
…still 12 year olds can be little fascists ….and they turn out ok later
I hate to say it, but I was pretty much like that kid as well, at that age; all opinion; no awareness. It wasn’t until my late 20s that my conservative views were challenged sufficiently to realise how wrong I’d been on issues…
ha ha …yes as a 12 year old newspaper reader I thought the communist Vietcong were coming down the peninsula to get us …and the brave Americans were defending us and our democracy
I use to think parents and teacjers where the smartest people in the world untill i cheacked there pay slips. Then reliesed theyre all a bunch of snake oil salesmen that never got real jobs, never found a girl to settle down with, never got married, didn’t save. Basicially sold me political agendas my whole life designed to rip people off.
Red Buzzard: “as a 12 year old newspaper reader I thought the communist Vietcong were coming down the peninsula to get us …and the brave Americans were defending us and our democracy”
Indeed. I was a lot older than that, and I thought the same. We were subject to relentless propaganda over that conflict at the time. It was many years later that I was privy to a dissenting view.
I flirted with the notion of NZ first for a while. I thought Winnie was very strong on independence and Sovereignty.His female offsider was also quite impressive on Waatea
But then I read that the US embassy assessed that Winnie was the most pro US NZ politician!
And when he was Foreign Affairs minister he certainly did a lot of schmoozing with the US elites
So, no Winnie you talk the talk but you don’t walk the walk
Just because Winston was assessed as the most pro U.S. politician does not mean the U.S. assessment is necessarily correct.
Inappropriate time?
I can’t think of a time more appropriate to remind people about the futility of war than an anniversary of a battle where our country lost a significant proportion of its male population in a war started because the European aristocracy were bored with peace.
Inappropriate?
I’ve said it before: it is not hypocritical to pay respects to those who died and at the same time criticise the absolute folly of the Great War.
Protest is ALWAYS appropriate to make a valid point. Now that’s something worth the supreme sacrifice!!
I do think it is a bit on the nose to protest on Anzac day.
A bit like the NRA doing a recruitment drive in the town of a school shooting the day after the shooting.
If the aim of protest is to raise awareness, gain sympathy or move minds then April 25th is clearly not the time to engage.
The poppy ban as a response to SAS atrocities, is equally ill thought out.
The cover-up is at state level.
Non payment of tax, placard waving at the Beehive or military bases would be far more appropriate.
The RSA is an easy target for their conservatism, but to my mind they are on the correct.side of issues more often than not. Flag referendum for one.
Be careful judging 50-100year old actions by todays standards.
Yeah I hate to say it, but the kid had a point when he asked them, if what they really care about is war dead, why weren’t they there the year before – or the year before that, when there wasn’t a scandal raging? It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the protesters care more about embarrassing the Americans over some dead Muslims than genuinely caring about our fallen from WW1 – who were just as much victims of geopolitics as the people who died in that raid.
Cant you understand that the same ‘rights’ that you have to protest are the same ‘rights’ the kid has to call it inappropriate.
You seem to claim rights yet deny the same rights to others.
Let me be clear, you have the right to protest. But as someone who lost family in World War 1, and who goes to an Anzac service every year to remember, I find your attempts to hijack such services as deeply deeply offensive. Take 1 Day a year, and put politics aside, and remember.
And yes, I believe the NZDF should carry out a full investigation into the claims made by Hager and Stevenson. I agree totally. But a remembrance service is not the time and place.
So yes you have your rights, you just lack class, dignity and frankly respect for all who served.
Its not always about you
My grandfather was gassed in WW1 and never recovered. Anzac day is a commemoration. All voices have the right to be heard, unless we don’t have the right of free speech any more. If Anzac day has any relevance it should be to acknowledge the insanity of war, and to learn from it now, and to never repeat the mistakes. “Put politics aside” Lol. War is political and being ” deeply, deeply offended,” is righteous self indignation.. Sorry if I have offended you Straight Up, but yours rights do not trump mine. It’s called equal rights.
When I laid a wreath at Burnham military camp yesterday – that wasn’t about me, it was about the six innocent people who died in Afghanistan who our defence forces mowed down in our name. There is no more important day to lay a wreath. Frankly more people should read ‘We will not cease’ Archibald Baxter’s book on pacifism and his treatment by the armed forces for being a pacifist. And then moved on to read Hager’s latest book. Suggesting that people died defending our rights is absolute nonsense. Most men went off to war on a boys own adventure, not for one moment did they think they would be slaughtered nor did they really think they would have to slaughter others. Stop this ridiculous performance every year with little kids being told how their relatives fought for us. Bullshit! Working class people killing working class people of a different ethnicity. War is war is war is. Politics is what war is about.
Clearly you struggle to read. I never made reference to the reason they were fighting. I never said we should celebrate the reasons they went to war. All I said was stop and remember that they sacrificed.
Thank Christ you dont teach our young people!!!
And tell us, “Straight Up”, what was it that they sacrificed for?
Totally disgusted with the media love fest over this kid and his backers! I personally have never “celebrated” ANZAC never attend and – though my grandfather went to World War I for whatever reason – am not a supporter of War. Dangerous track glorifying war and dying. All ups to the protesters – you have my admiration. Saying what needs to be said.
Well, well, well!
So once again my statements on NZ First being a National Party stooge have been confirmed.
And don’t hold the 12 year old responsible for those stupid statements. They have more to do with his idiotic father.
I am old enough to remember protesting NZ’s involvement in Vietnam. Protests on ANZAC Day were dealt with severely by the police.
It’s one thing to honour one’s ancestors who died in wars overseas before most of us were even born; it’s quite another to overlay it with trite nonsense about the ‘fight for freedom’ and so on.
It was the memorialists who first politicised these days after all.
I’ll stop protesting on ANZAC Day when the ridiculous expression ‘died for our freedom’ is dropped by the Government.
Kiwis really dislike free thinkers…
The boy and his father are quite right. How dare they interrupt our celebration of white nationalism.
It’s hardly surprising when virtually the only NZ history kids get taught in school is ANZACs ANZACs ANZACS.
It would be really good to see a broader view of history taught, which includes, Maori land wars, the treaty, protests, bastion point PLUS some focus on recent wars, and how political interference may have muddied the water, plus how activists have shone a light on the murkiness.
Everyday is a good day to ask for justice for dead civilians, casualties of war or collateral damage. Whatever you may to call them. The true is a war crime was committed and more will occurs if the NZ arm forces do not learn from this horrible incident. To re assess the need to send soldiers to fight a war that is, like all the others, morally wrong, also should be reviewed. Poor boy he do not know the true face of war. I hope he never had to fight in one.
It’s like saying people opposed to Trump’s presidency should protest any day except his inauguration. The ignorance is everywhere unfortunately. It’s not the boy’s fault; no doubt he’s a chip off the old block.
It is important to accurately reflect the reality of the situation. It does no service to those who died to stay silent. To stay silent is to enable the state’s continual rape of those who paid the greatest price.
You compare an inauguration to ANZAC day? You might be the thickest person I have ever met.
DId no one think to kick him in the crotch?
Do you think that is a clever question, that it provokes thought? Sorry, I disagree.
A. Yes. B. It did. Ergo, here you are. C . No need to apologise simply because you disagree with a tried and true method for dealing with morons. As for the kid? Well, shamelessly used by his father who failed to protect his son from things they boy surely has scant knowledge of. So, yep. Kick him in the crotch. I’ll stick with that.
If we’re gonna measure commitment by the amount of whanau sacrifice, I lost 3 uncles (me mum’s brothers) in WW1 & suffered a useless pisspot of a father who scared himself shitless flying around the North Atlantic in a silly little plane trying to protect pommie convoys, but I don’t think that’s any sort of a measure at all – like crime victims the bereaved can supply a little context but their personal experience neither makes em heroes nor makes em assholes.
I’ve always stayed away from anzac day’s dawn parade because I suspect I would get so pissed at all the contrived & faux emotion that I would spit on the rag they parade around under or, bail up the ex-military types and ask em if they got to rape or murder anyone interesting during their ‘tour’.
Anzac day was only good for one thing and that was the bust-proof two-up school that inevitably kicked off in the RSL carpark after the parade, but that was only in Australia.
AFAIK & from what I remember as a kid, two-up wasn’t a feature of anzac day in Aotearoa.
Now they don’t do it in Oz either; the bastardised version played in Australian casinos means too many don’t know the rules which leads to scuffles, it’s tough to find a decent spinner & the casinos harangue the coppers into raiding the schools – no one gets arrested cos even in 2017 busting a bloke for playing two up on anzac day would undoubtedly cause a furore, but a mob of arsehole jacks turning up uninvited does wreck the atmosphere.
The ‘cobber culture’ is long gone, I loathe war and everything it stands for but have no doubt that the horrors of Gallipoli, the Somme & Paschedale were at the heart of 20th century Australasian solidarity and distrust of bosses/authority.
That won’t happen next time – the next blue, be it in the Middle East or Korea, will feature orders of magnitude more civilian deaths and a helluva a lot less military casualties, the greedies don’t need humans pulling the trigger anymore, like everything else they have machines to do that in the 21st century.
Maybe we should do the same when the opportunity presents, but there is something somehow more pleasing about analog – manually putting them up against the wall one by one.
Yes – that has historical knowledge. My Grandfather lied about his age, joined up at 16, and took in a good dose of the Battle of the Somme. He was having shrapnel dug out of his thigh/knee even in his 60s. The shell-shock and trauma was probably more serious in how he related to his wife and children. That impacted on my parent. Sorry, but standing at attention at an ANZAC parade does not cut the mustard for me.
We have some silly posturers who carry on about remembering sacrifice, but who seem to have very little understanding.
They are too keen to glorify war and heroic sacrifice (it makes them feel good about themselves and their dead) but how much understanding do they have about the incurable evils that war inflicts on the survivors?
When we attack 12 year old children for voicing their opinion…….. ….very sad when we can’t tell the difference between adults and children.
I would say that the father hardly discouraged him… I hope the kid learns .
He seems rather precocious for a 12 year-old, which is encouraging. Hopefully, as he grows older, he’ll learn to examine what he’s told with a critical eye, conduct his own research and re-evaluate his opinions accordingly. It would be a tragedy if he simply trundled through life meekly regurgitating the opinions of his elders. Old people can be ignorant half-wits just as easily as the young.
If there is to be another ANZAC, how about making red hearts instead of poppies, make love not war?
It is very clear to me, that this young man, or rather boy, at age 12 only, is the PRODUCT of HIS PARENTS and other ADULTS that socialise with them. There is NO other explanation. The man standing next to him, his father, he appears to have almost instrumentalised his son, to speak for him, to make it more effective.
There are very few, well none I know, who do at age 12 have very clear, well informed and shaped political views. That is an age where most simply start learning about more serious matters about life, while still reluctantly parting with their cherished toys.
We must be concerned, as the man, his father, is a NZ First staffer. He was defended today by his party’s leader, Winston Peters.
This is very serious stuff, and should get us all thinking. How can we even consider to form an alternative government with NZ First, when they basically push this overly “patriotic”, one-sided view on ANZAC Day and what it should mean to us all.
How can “progressives” in Labour and Greens sit down and form a nationalist kind of party, that hold high this ANZAC spirit above all else, that also suggests we should trade with Russia and ignore what the Russian government may do here and there, also locking up gays and lesbians, who dare to live their lives as they see fit.
At times I have thought myself, maybe as a last resort a vote for NZ First may be the way to send a message to the government, but hey, how can I vote for a party with such pro military and one sided views?
It is time for Labour and Greens to be more bold, and fight the election without expecting NZ First to play a part in it, it will most likely not work, certainly not well.
And Labour should not shy away from taking a different stand on immigration, to what it may traditionally have done, also a different one to this government. Little must stick to his gun there, not go soft again, as he almost did when Guyon Espiner interviewed him on Morning Report on RNZ this morning.
We cannot carry on as usual, we are heading for a disaster, do not leave this area for NZ First only to talk about.
And for the record: ANZAC DAY IS AN APPROPRIATE DAY FOR PEACE VIGILS OR EVEN PROTESTS!
That was meant to read:
And while all this happens over a 12 year old brat son of a conservative dad, the world awaits the lunatics about to start WW3
Peters today;
ref: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/329555/'i-just-tried-to-listen'-anzac-day-protester-on-12-year-old's-interruption
So… the subtext is that Anzac Day is to celebrate war and those who “engage in war”?!
That comment says a lot more than Peters realises.
Hmmf. So Peters has his own personal rubber stamp for his employees that he can use when ever they make an outburst. So leaders of political parties can create cultural traditions in one TV interview out of the nothing when ever controversy rears its ugly head. Amazing!
The protestors have to choose the days they protest? Around the sensitivities of others?
The Government can treat us like shit overtly and by stealth every day of the year but protestors are limited to certain days? How does that work?
A twelve year old kid can get out on the street to make his mark about an issue of public interest and go ape about someone else doing the same?
How does that work?
A bit like letting people cast a vote (after endless biased MSM reporting and a government of the day applying ‘dirty politics’ strategies and tactics) once every three years, and then ignoring the people and their concerns for the next three years afterwards.
Democracy is more and more becoming a farcical kind of exercise in NZ Inc.
My understanding of ANZAC Day as a kid was to respect and support the families attending, who had lost members at the front. My father in law was classed medically unfit and was a guard at the internment camp near Palmerston North where the Japanese were held. They knew rural new Zealand well, as they had learnt about New Zealand in preparation for invasion. My main complaint (no comments here) is the fact, OUR Government saw fit to hold a SPY conference involving the western WAR mongers over the ANZAC week. Secondly, for all our Anzac ties with Australia, New Zealanders are the worst treated immigrants to the Lucky country.
Isn’t the salient point that this young lad (and his NZ First dad) chose to voice his displeasure at these protesters DURING an interview, though obviously they – the protesters – had not just shown up 5 minutes before. I could be wrong but hadn’t this boy’s dad been interview just before this? Isn’t it truly ironic (hypocritical ?) to telling people holding a low-key protest that it wasn’t a day to be political while engaging in a blatant political stunt.
So peaceful protest is a “political stunt” in your eyes, Cagey?
The political stunt is actually the whole ANZAC day ceremony. It is really still about the military and their attempts to maintain their credibility and their “political neutrality” (haa haa!).
To the right, any protest is a political stunt, unless it involves a farmer MP doing something stupid like driving a tractor up parliament’s steps, and then mysteriously it becomes legitimate.
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