ANZAC Day 2022 – Weep for we have forgotten our promises to the dead

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
50
1297

ANZAC Day has always been a deeply sacred day for us as a nation.

The haste and glee of how we fed the mincer of war with our most dazzling children and harvest of life has always called to us from the grave and demanded we never do that to the next generation.

That is the obligation of every citizen in a democracy.

I have no interests in singing the glory of war, each conflict is a collapse of reason and failure of diplomacy, we should only ever raise our arm to protect ourselves or protect others.

The lessons of this violence are to prevent such angers spilling over and staining our children with their dark treacle.

So as we stand in commemoration of the lives lost, our promise to the next generation looks weaker than ever before.

Covid has touched us as a people in a way that only the unique experience of global war can. It has frightened us and unleashed that fear alongside a torrent of misinformation and subjective emotional rage.

We have forgotten our obligations to the dead.

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The speed with which so many of our citizens have believed madness online and threatened  violence because of that madness is an affront to the democracy the dead fought for.

The speed with which middle class Wellingtonians cried out for the military to beat up protestors on Parliaments lawns is an affront to the democracy the dead fought for.

The speed with which we moved to give lethal military aid to the Ukrainians is an affront to the democracy the dead fought for.

The eruption of domestic violence and crime against one another is an affront to the democracy the dead fought for.

We have forgotten our promises to the dead, to de-escalate, to fight for peace, to do all we can to prevent violence from erupting in the first place.

The speed with which we have turned upon one another, the rush to demand violence against our enemies, the rage that now explodes against one another on a day to day basis.

We have forgotten the lessons of the glorious dead, we have forgotten our promises to them, we have become the rough beasts of Bethlehem.

Is this what our glorious dead died for?

As the drumbeat for war slowly echoes across the Pacific, we need collective courage for Peace first and self defence second like never before.

 

The Gunner’s Lament

A Maori gunner lay dying
In a paddyfield north of Saigon,
And he said to his pakeha cobber,
“I reckon I’ve had it, man!

‘And if I could fly like a bird
To my old granny’s whare
A truck and a winch would never drag
Me back to the Army.

‘A coat and a cap and a well-paid job
Looked better than shovelling metal,
And they told me that Te Rauparaha
Would have fought in the Vietnam battle.

‘On my last leave the town swung round
Like a bucket full of eels.
The girls liked the uniform
And I liked the girls.

‘Like a bullock to the abattoirs
In the name of liberty
They flew me with a hangover
Across the Tasman Sea,

‘And what I found in Vietnam
Was mud and blood and fire,
With the Yanks and the Reds taking turns
At murdering the poor.

‘And I saw the reason for it
In a Viet Cong’s blazing eyes –
We fought for the crops of kumara
And they are fighting for the rice.

‘So go tell my sweetheart
To get another boy
Who’ll cuddle her and marry her
And laugh when the bugles blow,

‘And tell my youngest brother
He can have my shotgun
To fire at the ducks on the big lagoon,
But not to aim it at a man,

‘And tell my granny to wear black
And carry a willow leaf,
Because the kid she kept from the cold
Has eaten a dead man’s loaf.

‘And go and tell Keith Holyoake
Sitting in Wellington,
However long he scrubs his hands
He’ll never get them clean.’

James K Baxter
1965

 

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50 COMMENTS

  1. On Anzac day, we acknowledge the many tens of thousands of Kiwis – Maori European & all other ethnicities – who fought & died for our free nation & it’s democratic principles.

    It’s unlikely that m/any of them or their descendants would put their lives on the line to defend co governance.

    Lest we forget

  4. Some of the greatest peace activists are former members of the armed services who have experienced war first hand…and do not want any one to experience that…where is the media coverage of those people?

  5. Even though History is written by the victors having done it all for god, king and country, and is garnished with outright lies, we still have learnt nothing from the carnage of past wars and seem to be quite happy to do it all again for god, king and country.

  8. The Nuclear bombing on Japan wasn’t essential to stopping the war in the Pacific, as Japan had been experiencing USA and it’s allies bombing of their Cities and military facilities months before the first atomic weapon was deployed on the citizen of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) which had no military instalments, it was a power grab for hegemonic world superiority and the Yanks weren’t going to let communist Russia whom had joined the fight facilitate a better surrender & peace arrangement with Emperior Japan before the bombs were dropped. This is European exceptionalism on steroids’ and is apart of the colonial mindset.

    “Truman correctly denied that he had miscalculated or that the intelligence had been faulty. He knew exactly what he was doing. For months, in fact, Allied intelligence had been accurately reporting Japan’s growing desire to quit and the fact that there were alternatives to using atomic bombs to end the war. On July 6, 1945, in preparation for the Potsdam Conference, the Combined Intelligence Committee of the Combined Chiefs of Staff issued a top secret “Estimate of the Enemy Situation.” The section on the “Possibility of Surrender” clearly stated:”

    https://apjjf.org/2020/16/TaniguchiKuznick.html

    • yes but it stopped the victorious red army from invading japan from the west, thus freeing up the US as future occupying power to have a free hand

      ‘We gotta nuke these japanese to save em from red hell buddy’

      • Good point. Were the Russians not likely to invade Japan before the US could mount the naval thing if they swept Eastwards, mashing the brave Japanese infantry with their T34 tanks, etc? Those two bombs stopped the Russians in their tracks. Or so I have read..

        • in reality possibly the far northern islands and maybe maybe small costal landings on the main islands, the red army was equipped for crossing wide europian rivers not a d-day.
          The red army wasn’t stopped by the threat of a-bombs but by the logistics of crossing a sea…witness the destruction of the kwantung army in manchukuo and the liberation of korea…

  9. Don’t talk to me about us being so grateful to those who gave their lives in defence of our “democracy.” There were more people in the nearby cafes than at the Anzac service we attended this morning. Others out jogging never broke step, and those riding bikes never stopped peddling. Gordon McLauchlin’s description of us as a passionless people was never more apt.
    “Suicide In The Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon
    I knew a simple soldier boy
    Who grinned at life in empty joy,
    Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
    And whistled early with the lark.

    In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
    With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
    He put a bullet through his brain.
    No one spoke of him again.

    You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
    Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
    Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
    The hell where youth and laughter go.

    • Why not pray for all and any imperialists, the big, the small-dicked and the insignificant?
      And why pray anyway?
      Why not just act as a decent human being that realises and respects your competencies, but realises you’re dependent on the competencies you don’t have.
      Or is that too bleeding heart shit?

  12. “ANZAC Day 2022 – Weep for we have forgotten our promises to the dead”
    Indeed.
    But also THEM appear to have forgotten their promises aussie.

    We, and them have a right, and a natural instinct to defend ourselves and our lives, and those of our offspring.

    If you can figure out a way to neuter the psychopath, or even the sociopath, let me know.

    I’ve been wondering lately whether or not massive doses of oestrogen might be the answer We could get some third world slave to start manufacturing the necessary. Give each of them a semi, and we could probably empower them to forcible administer the solution

  13. Hitler, Stalin, Churchill & FDR.

    So what has really changed?

    Same shit playing out in the very same countries over the same shit and countries.

  14. Its also unlikely many of our Maori men would have put their lives on the line if they had know they would have got treated like second class citizens.

  16. Yes but the white working class soldiers names all went into a ballot for farming land and they got a full pension. And who got all the welfare state jobs, the state housing corporation houses in the nicest areas and this list could go on. Many Pakeha NZers became middle and upper class due to the discriminative and racist implementation of government policies over many decades. Redistribution is also a dirty word.

    • not british ones my grandad came home to an economic slump followed by the hungry 30s..

      and I’m not saying maori weren’t hard done to, because they were, what I’m saying is maori suffering is not unique.

  17. Yes but the white working class soldiers names all went into a ballot for farming land and they got a full pension. And who got all the welfare state jobs, the state housing corporation houses in the nicest areas and this list could go on. Many Pakeha NZers became middle and upper class due to the discriminative and racist implementation of government policies over many decades. Redistribution is also a dirty word.

  18. Yes but the white working class soldiers names all went into a ballot for farming land and they got a full pension. And who got all the welfare state jobs, the state housing corporation houses in the nicest areas and this list could go on. Many Pakeha NZers became middle and upper class due to the discriminative and racist implementation of government policies over many decades. Redistribution is also a dirty word.

  19. One thing with ANZAC it’s part of our culture and that’s important to keep going. I hope the commie leaders stayed well away. Altho plenty of commies within the ANZAC commemorations if the number of masked were anything to go by. Masks are a sign of group think subservience.. Nothing healthy about it. The sick should stay home, or ‘self isolate’ as they call it. When I grew up we called it staying in bed. Purely for sick people, not those trying to pull a sickie from work. Big difference. If yr not sick you don’t need mask. Common sense, it ain’t that common!!

    • FFS. I tell you what Roz, I would put money on the fact that many soldiers who fought and died either in WWI, or the pandemic that soon followed ,would not regard simply putting on a mask to help each other out as subservience. They might regard those that won’t as selfish pricks who need to put things in perspective.

    • so roz you’re prepared to condemn the rightwing terrorist ‘sovereign sherrifs’ who polluted ANZAC day?

      YES/NO will suffice

      and the soldiers all had ‘face nappies’ they were called gasmasks.

    • Oh Roz…….didn’t they have a rabbithole ANZAC ceremony somewhere, where you and your fellow fruitcakes, could have had a personal, private protest, with people who think (sic.) like you? A place where you could get chocolate medals with fairy sprinkles, in the shape of stars and unicorns?

      I’m looking at this video in this NEWS article and thinking, ‘what alien being, abducted these deluded and damaged people (sic.) and tampered with that wrinkly thing that should normally (and allegedly) be located within the cranial cavity?’

      Video emerges of self-proclaimed ‘common law sheriff’ being told to stop talking at Paraparaumu Anzac service
      Citation:
      video-emerges-of-self-proclaimed-common-law-sheriff-being-told-to-stop-talking-at-paraparaumu-anzac-service.html

      One tweet said:
      Batshit crazy “common law” sheriffs being “sworn in” today. Businesses and organisations around nz need to be made aware of these cult followers.
      Citation:
      https://twitter.com/Rngwelly/status/1518533183565799424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1518533183565799424%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newshub.co.nz%2Fhome%2Fnew-zealand%2F2022%2F04%2Fvideo-emerges-of-self-proclaimed-common-law-sheriff-being-told-to-stop-talking-at-paraparaumu-anzac-service.html

      A few vital questions to self-deluded and self-appointed sheriffs
      When did you and/or your ANZAC Sheriffs stop taking your anti-psychotics?
      Why did you and your mob not have your own little ceremony and award each other medals for resisting wearing a mask? Men and women fought and gave their lives to protect democracy, and Freedom of Speech and thought, to have ‘batshit crazies’ disrupt their dignified ceremonies throughout NZ!

      Give yourself a Will-Smith Selfie-Slap, then a my-little-pony sticker with no mask on the pony. It’s like you lot see the mask as a Judenstern. It’s not! The mask is a way to protect our vulnerable, which is what a civilized society does. We look after our vulnerable elderly because of their age and fragility, our handicapped with their associated compromised immunity, and our vulnerable Maori and Pasifika because of their immuno-compromised resistance to viruses.

      There was a line in the 1975 movie “All the Presidents Hollow Men (or something like that) that said:
      “Follow the money”
      For the government agencies who are trying to get to the bottom of all this domestic terrorism, Sheriff’s (or their deputies) or their “handlers” and agitators, Roz, please advise:

      What platform did you organize this coordinated Sheriff Protest at?
      Who paid and organized the Sheriff ANZAC Protest for people like you?
      Where did you get your fancy ‘sheriff stab-proof jackets’ from?
      How much were your “Sheriff Jackets”?
      What online (or local) store would I go to to buy a “Sheriff Jacket”?
      Do I pay GST on imported, or Aotearoa-Made “Sheriff Jackets”?
      What is your GST number, so I can claim my GST back f I were buying my “Sheriff Jacket”? (for a friend!!)
      Who are the shareholders in the company that advertises, or sells “Sheriff Jackets” in Aotearoa?

      And a few procedural questions you might be able to personally answer Roz

      Were your ‘Sheriff jackets’ stab-proof, so that no-one could inadvertently inject (stab) you with a vaccine against stupid injection, while you were bending down, signing your ‘sheriff papers’?
      Where are the links with Dirty Politics, the Hollow Men, the National Party and ACT?

      Are you real Roz? Or a ruse to lead informed and rational beings down a rabbithole to stop them commenting on real issues?

      So many questions, so little time before all QAnon Shaman Sheriff nonsense is exposed before the 2023 election? Eggstein and Rumadonna (Dumaromma?)) were exposed and expelled from National. Who will be on the Dirty Politics Hall of Shame for this tranche of anti-government domestic terrorism?

      There will be a few videos or tik-toks circulating around how to prevent rectal quivering at being caught out fomenting and manipulating the weak-minded.

      Nobody remembers the names of the guards at concentration camps, but everyone knows Goebbels and Himmler.

      Not your fault Roz! Please don’t take my observations and questions personally.
      QAnon and its operative Shamans here in Aotearoa, have developed sophisticated, persuasive ways to manipulate the angry, frightened people searching for solutions to their problems.

      Being a self-appointed sheriff, at an ANZAC Parade might have looked OK to a hollow man on paper, but it “barks like a frog”.

      Go blow your own trumpets down your OWN rabbitholes and leave the veterans of real wars alone!

  20. We have just about lost our souls as NZrs. We had an idea of what we wanted to be. I note from the lives of people I have come to know amongst friends and my family, also myself, how it is recreation that people are looking for, it’s experiences, not so much experience, how subtle we are – an ‘s’ opens a new world. Grave Mullane did not want to just experience being in NZ no she had to have the whole shebang.

    The 17 year old who drove wildly and madly killing a number of people when he had been forbidden by our legal pronouncement; in March he was before ‘the Beak’ again another offence. How often are we going to allow the chain saw murderer to rip us across our hearts.? Why should there be no death sentence for those who clearly deserve it, we aren’t cats – we don’t have 9 lives? We are prepared to send the NZ Defence Force to kill as a public service, so why not civilians. People seem to mouth their principles like false teeth, but we are all sly, ‘If you don’t like what you see well we have other ones.’

    My father went away in the midst of the 1940s and is under I think. a white cross close by his co-pilot and crew in France. He had his OE early I went in 1970s. I never went to his grave. It all seemed to be past and done by, not to be forgotten but to do better and stick to better standards, smarter, brighter, more caring future, more moral etc. Now we are diminishing society, teachers say children aren’t receiving a proper education. High poverty, low horizons. We can’t build decent houses. We can’t operate a people’s financial system helping younhgpeople save a bit, rent a state house. where they learn how to run one and how to manage their lives, their house, their relationship, their children, their extended family and work at a job, and strain at attainment, and laugh about foolishness but still keep trying, and play music and find our soul. But not under the present regime or the carping National one, or the C///ts in the Green Party, the
    Great Pretenders and the Maori parties kia kaha but to what end. It isn’t just expensive things or living rough getting. It’s about balance, having a try to do it all, and succeeding 99% a lot of the time, but a piece of wisdom, limiting the box.

  21. and before anyone says – huhhhh the sheriffz not politakal…they turned up in their little 2 dollar shop pretend uniforms….nuff said.

    a vigilante is a vigilante even with a pretend childs sheriff badge.

    I go back to a point I made in another thread…if I declare myself a sheriff and meet another person who self identifies as a sheriff…which of us takes precedence and whos entirely personal view of what the law is applied?
    answer — who has the biggest stick…

  22. I go back to a point I made in another thread…if I declare myself a sheriff and meet another person who self identifies as a sheriff…which of us takes precedence and whos entirely personal view of what the law is applied?
    answer — who has the biggest stick…

  23. The original veterans never wanted Cenotaphs. They wanted things to help them reintegrate. The Political Leaders wanted Cenotaphs to avert the gaze on their guilt of starting the whole thing in the first place. ANZAC DAY is manufactured

  24. The original veterans never wanted Cenotaphs. They wanted things to help them reintegrate. The Political Leaders wanted Cenotaphs to avert the gaze on their guilt of starting the whole thing in the first place. ANZAC DAY is manufactured.

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