Anzac Day 2016

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1. RTM 1

   25 April 2016 at 7:01 am

   One hundred and one years since Anzac Day, and almost one hundred and fifty-three years since the beginning of the Waikato War, where some of the first Anzacs fought and died. The myth that the Anzacs had their origins has been debunked by scholars – there are two full-length books on the massive Australian contribution to the New Zealand Wars, and the camarederie that developed as men from the two settler nations fought alongside each other against Maori nationalists in the Waikato and Taranaki – but it persists in the popular imagination.
   http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2009/05/from-gallipoli-to-drury_17.html
   http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/culture/books/general-non-fiction/2358872/Blood-Brothers-The-Anzac-Genesis
   • One Anonymous Bloke 1.1

     25 April 2016 at 7:40 am

     The problem with your borrowed narrative is that far fewer people want to celebrate their “achievements”. Thanks for exposing your character, though.
   • peterlepaysan 1.2

     25 April 2016 at 11:53 pm

     Australian New Zealand Army Corps were first deployed by the British Imperial Army.
     The Anzacs were cannon fodder for british imperial interests.

     Anzac is an acronym stemmed from WW 1.

     There was no anzac behaviour prior to (or post gallipoli,and there was fa then.

     Australians have always regarded kiwis as pathetic also rans.
     Ex convicts always have to sledge others to make themselves look important.

     Yeah, sure the Maori/ Pakeha wars are important. They had no anzac signifance.

     Go away, grow up, get an education, and read some history.
     • Thom Pietersen 1.2.1

       26 April 2016 at 10:19 pm

       Many of those ex convicts settled in NZ – before we start pointing fingers
2. Ad 2

   25 April 2016 at 7:51 am

   Lovely set of interviews on National Radio at the moment on the 1860s Land Wars.
   • maui 2.1

     25 April 2016 at 9:38 am

     audio:
     http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/anzacday/audio/201798271/maori-and-the-new-zealand-wars
3. RTM 3

   25 April 2016 at 8:07 am

   I had the opportunity to walk up the Great South Road, the route built to send conquering troops into the Waikato Kingdom in the 1860s, last year, and talk about the history of the NZ Wars with the people who lived over old battlesites and redoubts and march routes (cfhttp://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/201781685/fragments-of-the-great-south-road). There’s certainly a real interest in that part of NZ’s past building. The Otorohanga-based campaign to create a national holiday for the Wars and the development of information centres at Queens Redoubt in Pokeno and at Orakau battlefield reflects this. Time now to get rid of the myth of the Anzac genesis occurring in 1915.
   • One Anonymous Bloke 3.1

     25 April 2016 at 9:41 am

     We should include wars of colonisation as part of the ANZAC spirit? You can’t see what the problem is with that?
     • Wainwright 3.1.1

       25 April 2016 at 10:15 am

       If we didn’t include wars of colonisation we wouldn’t include WWI, WWII, Vietnam, or Afghanistan either. All wars fought for colonial powers. That’s why some of us don’t celebrate this ‘ANZAC spirit’ with tubthumping patriotism.
       • One Anonymous Bloke 3.1.1.1

         25 April 2016 at 10:29 am

         See my response to RTM at 5.1.
         • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1

           25 April 2016 at 12:42 pm

           WWII was not an exception to Wainwright’s comments. A war of the elite, for the elite, where as usual the ordinary man was used as cannon fodder killing other ordinary men that they had no quarrel with.
     • Thom Pietersen 3.1.2

       26 April 2016 at 10:26 pm

       It was a war of colonisation (The Great War) – that of the British Empire v the Ottoman in fact, in this particular case. We might not now want to bow to a royal overlord, but please don’t be revisionist about how NZ’ers thought in the past.

       The ANZAC spirit in its original form does not exist to many people anymore – back then we (of euro origin) were the colonists – end of.
4. North 4

   25 April 2016 at 9:32 am

   But without Anzac Day as we know it where would be fake Churchill, fake soldier, fake patriot, fake All Black, fake truth teller, fake man, fake ladies’ hairdresser, fake ‘have a beer with guy’, John Key ?

   And judging by Rawdon Christie’s not fake, extended orgasm as he interviewed Fake Key on TV One’s Breakfast this Anzac morning, what would dear Rawdon do with his tongue ?
5. RTM 5

   25 April 2016 at 9:53 am

   ‘We should include wars of colonisation as part of the ANZAC spirit? You can’t see what the problem is with that?’

   The Anzac tradition began in NZ in the nineteenth century, not at Gallipoli. You can’t understand NZ’s role in the wars of the 20th century without understanding the NZ Wars of the 19th century. The army that fought in WW1 had its origins in the Waikato conflict. Maori attitudes to and roles in WW1 and WW2 were the direct result of the paths that the 19th century wars took.

   Most of the wars of the 20th century in which NZ took a role were in one way or another wars of colonisation. Even in WW2, which is in some ways the exception to that rule, the Pacific campaign was largely an exercise in recolonisation.
   • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1

     25 April 2016 at 10:23 am

     It is the ways in which WWII is the exception to that rule that forms a large part of public sentiment in response. It can be seen in the different way in which that war’s veterans are received.

     The jingoism and out-right racism inherent in colonisation sit uncomfortably in such company.
     • Colonial Viper 5.1.1

       25 April 2016 at 12:35 pm

       It is the ways in which WWII has been propagandised as the exception to that rule that forms a large part of public sentiment in response.

       FIFY
       • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1.1.1

         25 April 2016 at 12:42 pm

         Obviously the propaganda doesn’t work on you 🙄
         • Colonial Viper 5.1.1.1.1

           25 April 2016 at 12:45 pm

           ? Can you address the point?
           • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1.1.1.1.1

             25 April 2016 at 1:05 pm

             Your assertions don’t have any.
6. RTM 6

   25 April 2016 at 10:37 am

   Public sentiment isn’t homogenous or static, and Anzac Day has meant different things to different people at different times. Talked about this a while back http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2016/03/rethinking-anzac-day.html

   By all means celebrate the anti-imperialists who died in WW2. John Mulgan and Gordon Watson were two of the most extraordinary. The history of the NZ 2nd division, which seems to have gone rogue and sided with the insurrectionary Indo-Fijian sugar workers when it was stationed in Fiji in ’43 and ’44, has yet to be told properly.
   • GregJ 6.1

     25 April 2016 at 5:12 pm

     I think you mean the Pacific Section, 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force later re-formed as the 3rd (NZ) Division which saw action in the Solomon Islands Campaign.

     Although the New Zealand Ground Forces in Fiji were relieved by the US 37th Division in May-July 1942 and the sent back to NZ to reorganise as the 3rd Division and then shipped to New Caledonia and then to Guadalcanal and the Solomons in 1943-1944 before the Division was disbanded in October 1944.
7. Penny Bright 7

   25 April 2016 at 10:57 am

   Ever read this 50 page, in my view, stunning, ‘insider / whistleblower’ account of who benefited from WW1?

   (I first read it last year – and was amazed / horrified that I had never previously heard of it. Seriously – it is a GREAT read – from someone who REALLY knows what he’s talking about.)

   “War is a racket” – by Major-General Smedley Butler – America’s ‘most decorated soldier’.

   https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/115545.Smedley_D_Butler

   “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.

   In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

   I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.

   I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.

   I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.

   I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.

   I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.

   I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.

   In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.

   Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.

   The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts.

   I operated on three continents. ”

   Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier
   _______________________________________

   Penny Bright
   2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
   • Colonial Viper 7.1

     25 April 2016 at 12:38 pm

     According to some, WWII is an exception because it wasn’t a war born of colonisation or economic hegemony. That’s rubbish of course.
     • One Anonymous Bloke 7.1.1

       25 April 2016 at 12:45 pm

       That’s right, social democracy is exactly the same as fascism.
       • Colonial Viper 7.1.1.1

         25 April 2016 at 12:49 pm

         Ahhh of course, we were fighting for democracy and freedom.
       • adam 7.1.1.2

         25 April 2016 at 3:14 pm

         Actually One Anonymous Bloke – the question is has social democracy delivered on what it said it would? If not – then is it any different from communism or fascism in practical application? Because Franco’s Spain was not Hitlers Germany, and both were fascist. Again Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam, was not Stalin’s Russia

         But, but, but…

         Yes we have freedom of a sort, we have liberty or a sort, fraternity, not so much. It is better that totalitarianism sure – but it is nowhere near the socialist ideas of freedom, liberty, and fraternity – nor do we have more democracy.

         Don’t know about you but, but I’d like more democracy not less. I’d also like to live in a socialist society, not in a perpetual quasi democratic one.
         • One Anonymous Bloke 7.1.1.2.1

           25 April 2016 at 8:03 pm

           No, that wasn’t the question. Nor was a question asked. I responded to CV’s assertion and that’s all. If you want to read a bunch of other things I didn’t say into it that’s up to you.
         • Colonial Viper 7.1.1.2.2

           25 April 2016 at 8:29 pm

           Actually One Anonymous Bloke – the question is has social democracy delivered on what it said it would? If not – then is it any different from communism or fascism in practical application?

           OAB posited WWII as a fight with black-hat fascism on one side and white-hat social democracy on the other.

           This is propagandistic nonsense, as you know.

           The west has always been fine with fascism, with dictatorships, with bastard strongmen regimes – as long as they were regimes that were pliable and compliant and not threatening the geopolitical interests of the west.

           The American moneyed and industrial elite were very supportive of Hitler for many years as you know. And not just ideologically supportive, but also materially supportive with finances, with industry, with technology.

           But you know how the story goes. Today Eurasia are our faithful friends and allies but tomorrow they are suddenly our deadly and dastardly enemies, and yesterday disappears down the memory hole.
           • One Anonymous Bloke 7.1.1.2.2.1

             26 April 2016 at 8:03 am

             OAB posited WWII as a fight with black-hat fascism on one side and white-hat social democracy on the other.

             Nope. I simply noted that fascism and social democracy are different things, you recidivist liar.
         • Psycho Milt 7.1.1.2.3

           25 April 2016 at 8:31 pm

           So, you’d like to live in a socialist society, just not one that ends up as a totalitarian nightmare run by murderous criminals for their personal benefit. We’d all like to live in societies that are so good they don’t actually exist – I’d like to live in a hedonist society, just not one in which no-one does the actual work.
           • adam 7.1.1.2.3.1

             26 April 2016 at 12:29 am

             So why even both writing on the standard then Psycho Milt? I mean if the world is to much of a bother, and any sort of hope or desire for a better future is just too much? Would it not be better to just shut up, and accept your lot?
             • Psycho Milt …

               26 April 2016 at 7:28 am

               Any society can be improved; longing for a utopia is pointless.
               • adam …

                 26 April 2016 at 11:08 am

                 So where did I say utopia?

                 Just asking
     • Sanctuary 7.1.2

       25 April 2016 at 8:11 pm

       Why is it rubbish? You blithe dismissal of so much historiography intrigues me.

       The whole point of Nazi ideology was to use the wealth of the recently mass murdered Jews to fund a war of genocide designed to depopulate Eastern Europe and then create a new economic hegemony dominated by a Germany run by murderous racist gangsters, and the Japanese sought to control all the resources of South East Asia so they wouldn´t have to put up with those pesky Americans telling them off for murdering untold millions of Chinese whenever the fancy took them, but I somehow think this isn´t what you had in mind.
       • Colonial Viper 7.1.2.1

         25 April 2016 at 8:17 pm

         So according to you WWII was definitely a war of imperial colonisation and economic hegemony?

         You’ve just confirmed my point from 7.1, have you not?
         • Sanctuary 7.1.2.1.1

           25 April 2016 at 10:28 pm

           I don´t understand your point. And anyway, you appear to have little idea about what you are talking about other than in terms of bumper sticker slogans.

           C.V. Wedgewood said that for us, history is where we start at the end and look back knowing the finish. But for the people at the time, they only know the beginning. And so it was with Hitler. The thing is, no one realised Hitler was an actual, bone fide mad and bad racist and genocidal mass murderer until 1935, the window between everyone slowly realising Hitler was a major league crazy guy and war was less than three years and hindsight is always 20/20. So of course business initially supported him, they had no idea what he was going to turn out like.

           The Nazi regime was parasitic, it´s initial confiscation of Jewish property was as much an act of economic desperation as anything else and as Adam Tooze convincingly argues, the logic of Nazi aggression contained a significant thread of economic opportunism to plunder other economies in order to prop up the German economy for another year or two.

           Roosevelt in particular was deeply opposed to Nazism, and was determined to bring the US into the war as soon as he could re-arm and get the American people onside. For example, the US Navy sortied a battle squadron in 1941 with the express purpose of provoking an engagement with the Bismark. As luck would have it, damage forced the Bismark to break off it´s planned sortie into the Atlantic and a likely encounter with several US battleships it would not have survived, so the British got the sink her instead. Had the US Navy sunk the Bismark, the US would probably have formally entered the war in May 1941, since it is difficult to imagine that Hitler would have just let having his battleship sunk just pass on by. As it was, the US and Germany were at war in the Atlantic in all but name from the middle of 1941 onwards. The Japanese just made it that much easier for Roosevelt.

           The second world war was a crusade because the virulence of the Nazis made it that way. They were in every way an evil regime, and destroying them was as just a cause as any history can provide.
           • Colonial Viper 7.1.2.1.1.1

             26 April 2016 at 11:28 am

             And the wealthy American bankers and wealthy American industrialists who supported Hitler and his regime?

             I am also interested in how you described the American leadership trying to engineer the American people into a war.

             Having said that, the US left the Soviet Union to do all the work in that war, supporting Stalin with money and materiel.

             If the US had not turned up at Normandy when they did, we would have been looking at Soviet occupied France.
8. Foreign waka 8

   25 April 2016 at 11:03 am

   War and the celebration of it is the ultimate perversion of the understanding of honor, country and fellow man. No war has ever been fought without having it instigated to someones gain. The solders indoctrinated to make it “their” cause giving their lives being cannon fodder for the powers to be with the hope that their battle is not in vain. And has anything really changed? Has the war or all wars brought peace and freedom for all?

   So lets remember the man that died believing that their lives spent was for a good cause and thank them for being brave but lets remember too that, a repeat with the same fate for another generation will not cut it.
   Their fate should not be seen as a celebration of war and fighting on some side for someones gain but a reminder that wars are not the answer. We do owe them that much. Otherwise their sacrifice was in vain.
9. Penny Bright 9

   25 April 2016 at 11:22 am

   Another direct quote from Major General Smedley Butler – “War Is A Racket”.

   Why am I choosing to draw this to your attention?

   Because it’s ANZAC day – (lest we forget) – and this book was written by someone whose opinion, as America’s most decorated soldier, in my view, is worthy of consideration.

   You don’t have to agree with what Major General Smedley Butler is saying, you don’t have to like what he’s saying, but I respectfully suggest that you don’t ignore it?

   http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

   CHAPTER ONE

   War Is A Racket

   WAR is a racket. It always has been.

   It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.

   It is the only one international in scope.

   It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

   A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people.

   Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about.

   It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.

   Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

   In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict.

   At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War.

   That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns.

   How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

   How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle?

   How many of them dug a trench?

   How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out?

   How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets?

   How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy?

   How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

   Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious.

   They just take it.

   This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few — the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war.

   The general public shoulders the bill.

   And what is this bill?

   This bill renders a horrible accounting.

   Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

   For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

   ……”
   ________________________

   Penny Bright
   2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
10. Tony Veitch (not the partner-bashing 3rd rate broadcaster) 10

    25 April 2016 at 11:57 am

    I was born nine months to the day almost from VE day, so I’ve got a pretty fair idea how my mother and father celebrated!

    My father was killed in a railway accident some years after the war, but, from what my mother told me, he was rather severely shaken up by his war experiences – in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy. She told me he had sworn to take me into the bush if ever another was broke out – rather than have me experience what he went through.

    That message, received second hand but from an impeccable source, has coloured my views all my life. If ANZAC day teaches us anything, it is that war solves nothing.

    We should never have become involved in America’s imperialist wars!
    • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1

      25 April 2016 at 12:40 pm

      “War solves nothing”.

      Ceding military matters to the Right is a mistake, for they will not hesitate to use violence when it suits them.
      • weka 10.1.1

        25 April 2016 at 1:29 pm

        That’s a bit of a non sequitur
        • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1.1.1

          25 April 2016 at 8:07 pm

          “War, what is it good for?” Well, defending us against fascist violence, for one thing. That being so, to refuse to study or understand its uses might seem, to paraphrase Sun Tzu, “the height of inhumanity”.
          • weka 10.1.1.1.1

            25 April 2016 at 8:37 pm

            Sure, and I can’t say I’m a total pacifist myself (although definitely more pro peace than most). But I didn’t see Tony’s comment as ceding anything to the right.
            • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1.1.1.1.1

              26 April 2016 at 8:16 am

              The sentiment involved is that it is better to hide than fight, because fighting is useless. If fighting is useless and we’re not doing it anyway, what’s the point of studying it?

              The Left-wing response to war is the UN. Those peace-keeping troops need training too.
              • weka …

                26 April 2016 at 11:26 am

                I always find it interesting that two people can read the same thing and come away with such different interpretations of what was said. I didn’t take it as a nation having to hide. There are more options than fighting wars on the other side of the world or hiding. I liked the story Tony told about his mother, and took it as a sensibility about the impact of war and wanting to protect children rather than being a head in the sand of kind thihg (which is what I think you are implying).

                “If fighting is useless and we’re not doing it anyway, what’s the point of studying it?”

                Er, because other people are doing it? I don’t vote on the right, but I still want to understand those that do.

                “The Left-wing response to war is the UN. Those peace-keeping troops need training too.”

                That’s one of the responses. Others are the peace movement, conscientious objectors, and peace activism. I don’t think that ‘war solves nothing’ is inherently incompatible with peace keeping troops.
    • Psycho Milt 10.2

      25 April 2016 at 12:58 pm

      “war solves nothing.”

      It did a pretty good job of solving the “what to do about fascism?” problem.
      • Bill 10.2.1

        25 April 2016 at 2:06 pm

        Did it? Sheesh! Must have missed that one. Nothing much was done about fascism.

        A couple of leaders and their particular brands of fascism were defeated in war. But nothing was done about Franco. Nothing was done about Salazar. Apart from promoting and installing fascists all over the show (eg – Pinochet in Chile), fascism as it expressed itself through the market, was ‘kept at bay’ in Social Democracies by tacking somewhat towards the statist expression of it (and that was all the voting choice we’ve ever had – should a balance be maintained by moving towards state fascism or towards market fascism). Fascism has essentially been habilitated by social democracies.

        Until now.

        Christ. Even Mussolini thought that corporations should ultimately serve the needs of the state. Not how it is now though, is it? The corporations have broken away from any state tethers that might have tied them and are now running amok.
        • Psycho Milt 10.2.1.1

          25 April 2016 at 8:34 pm

          OK, I get it, we’re just living in a different flavour of fascist society than the Nazi one. [Backs away slowly]
11. Penny Bright 11

    25 April 2016 at 12:59 pm

    Ever wondered why Gallipoli was such a military series of ‘cock ups’?

    Why did so many ANZACs die at Gallipoli?

    What if the Gallipoli campaign was never intended to succeed?

    A very controversial opinion – “Gallipoli: one great deception?”

    “The proposition is that it was the intention of the British and French Governments of 1915 to ensure that the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Campaign would not succeed and that it was conceived and conducted as a ruse to keep the Russians in the war and thus the continuation of the Eastern Front.”

    http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-24/30630

    “… It then occurred to me that the under-resourcing, informing the enemy five months in advance of the intention to attack, the hurried and inadequate planning, the overly complicated landing plan on exposed and difficult beaches with no initial massive bombardments to pulverise enemy defences, selection of the most incompetent and timid commanders for a difficult operation and apparent constant bungling that characterised the Allied conduct of the campaign may be attributed to something more than ineptitude.

    My detractors on this issue, however, tell me I should never dismiss incompetence in military defeats.

    But such a consistent level of stupidity?

    Respected Australian military historian, Professor Robin Prior, in his new book, Gallipoli, the end of a myth, lists a series of decisions and events that he describes as puzzling or incomprehensible.

    These become less puzzling if the intention of the operations is to guarantee a stalemate and maintain a campaign as ‘demonstration’ rather than a successful invasion.

    The desired result will be the same without the need to deliver on promises.

    Two hundred years or so of British and French foreign policy, which include support for the Ottoman Empire against Russia, make it clear that the Allies would try anything to stop Russia gaining Istanbul and the Bosphorus.
    …..”

    _______________________

    Penny Bright
    2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
12. Halfcrown 12

    25 April 2016 at 5:26 pm

    As it is Anzac day I thought I would share some of my army experiences.
    When I got my call up papers to do my National Service I had to report to Catterick Camp in Yorkshire.

    The train arrived at Catterick packed with other new recruits and we all piled out of the train in our stove pipe trousers, long jackets with the velvet collars and long Elvis type hair styles, commonly known as the teddy boy style.

    Man did we feel hip, or in today’s language cool

    The first thing we experienced was the Regimental Police screaming at the top of their voices trying to get this mass of humanity into some form of column. When it finally happened with a lot of shouting all the expletives under the sun, one of the corporals Shouted to one fella OY, GIT OUT IN FRONT, and to another, YOU GIT AT THE REAR. He then proceeded to hang notices round the necks of these two guys that said “Danger Marching Troops”. Look, if Hitler was alive we could have won the second world war there and then as he would have died with laughter. I have never seen something so ridiculous and funny in all my life.
    • North 12.1

      25 April 2016 at 6:58 pm

      Love your recollection there Halfcrown ! As pleasing in the mind picture as the better taking the piss stuff you see on UKTV.

      Actually what I’d logged in for was to say this (at risk of charges of heresy) – I’m not exactly sure that the apparent upsurge of attendance at Dawn Parade particularly by the ‘young’, is anything more than a studied ritual, much in the vein of the carry on we get from Fake Man Key. It’s a thing you ‘do’ on 25 April. And feel warmed and proud as punch that you ‘did’ it.

      While knowing nothing about a few years ago when Fake Man Key chose swanning off to Boston to watch a baseball game, ahead of being present when NZ’s dead military personnel came home. Such a Fake and Gutless Man !
      • North 12.1.1

        25 April 2016 at 7:45 pm

        Should add this Halfcrown…….my 7 years older brother was what we called a ‘bodgie’……..God was I ashamed of him ! Long pink jacket, fake oscelot collar, corrugated soled shoes, black stovepipes. A ’57 two tone green and white Velox.

        Looking back he was consummate style but I was a little snob 12 year old professor who in short time favoured Viyella button downs, woollen tie, cavalry twill and brown suede shoes. Determined to lift my family from its working class roots. Completely unconscious of my brother’s tremendous good fortune in a following of ‘widgies’.

        Thank God I’ve come home to an appreciation of the beauty of my working class roots. The values imparted. That’s why I have but contempt for the Fake Man Key, replicants and wannabes. The cheapness, the shallowness of the whole fucking lot of them !
        • millsy 12.1.1.1

          25 April 2016 at 8:25 pm

          In case anyone is wondering, ‘stovepipe’ jeans are similar to the skinny jeans today’s young people (and myself) wear…
          • North 12.1.1.1.1

            25 April 2016 at 9:29 pm

            Ummh…….Millsy…….how old are you ? I’m possibly being a little bit fashion police here but I recall a coupla years ago seeing a District Court judge in his 60s, demeanour a little bit Star Chamber on a bad day, perambulating around in skinny jeans. I thought to myself …….”For Fuck’s Sake mate…….get your gears right on your six grand a week. You’re looking like a egg !”
13. Neil 13

    25 April 2016 at 5:56 pm

    And not to forget our dear leaders relatives fought against kiwis in Austria in WW1 & WW2.
    • Foreign waka 13.1

      25 April 2016 at 7:33 pm

      Not being a particular fan of Mr Key – but please keep to the facts.
      Firstly, Mr Keys Mum was to my knowledge Jewish and fled to Britain. Many tried the same or went to reach the States. However, not everybody was as lucky to get away. Many, many hundreds of thousands were killed.
      Secondly, Kiwis were certainly not sighted in Vienna, I can wholeheartedly reassure you. Italy and Turkey but not beyond the alps.
14. RTM 14

    25 April 2016 at 7:33 pm

    ‘Although the New Zealand Ground Forces in Fiji were relieved by the US 37th Division in May-July 1942 and the sent back to NZ to reorganise’

    But there were still eight hundred NZ troops in Fiji in ’43, and that’s when the interesting folk songs that express solidarity with striking Fijian sugar workers was written. And according to recently declassified US military intelligence reports the Indo-Fijian strikers were getting and using guns from some mysterious force. I reckon there’s some research waiting to be done on that one, especially when we consider that there were a number of very effective left-wing activists, including not only the ill-fated communist leader Gordon Watson but the young Bert Roth, knocking about Fiji and other Pacific islands with the NZ forces.
15. RTM 15

    25 April 2016 at 7:33 pm

    ‘Although the New Zealand Ground Forces in Fiji were relieved by the US 37th Division in May-July 1942 and the sent back to NZ to reorganise’

    But there were still eight hundred NZ troops in Fiji in ’43, and that’s when the interesting folk songs that express solidarity with striking Fijian sugar workers was written. And according to recently declassified US military intelligence reports the Indo-Fijian strikers were getting and using guns from some mysterious force. I reckon there’s some research waiting to be done on that one, especially when we consider that there were a number of very effective left-wing activists, including not only the ill-fated communist leader Gordon Watson but the young Bert Roth, knocking about Fiji and other Pacific islands with the NZ forces.
16. Jenny 16

    26 April 2016 at 8:51 pm

    Anzac day in Papakura always seems to throw up some surprises. One year a leading senior student from Papakura High School gave an address condemning New Zealand’s involvement in Iraq.

    Judith Collins gives an address every year, this year her theme was there will always be war and we will always need to be prepared and need a defence force. Before she introduced her good friend Major John Cook.

    Major John Cook in uniform began his address in fluent Maori. Before addressing the crowd in English on the current threats we face.

    Isis and climate change.
    • Jenny 16.1

      27 April 2016 at 4:33 am

      Why New Zealand military leaders like Major Cook see climate change as a military problem.

      “Social unrest and famine, superstorms and droughts. Places, species and human beings – none will be spared.”

      http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/climate-change-violence-occupy-earth
      • Jenny 16.1.1

        27 April 2016 at 5:39 am

        Isis or climate change.

        Which is the bigger threat to New Zealand?

        We know about the New Zealand Defence Force deployment to tackle Isis.

        But the public know nothing about what the NZDF is doing about climate change.

        It would be interesting to interview Major Cook and ask him;

        “Major Cook, can you tell us, what is the NZDF doing, (or considering doing), to tackle climate change?”

        And;

        “Can you tell us what you think the NZDF should be doing to take on climate change?”

        Maybe some switched on journalist could could seek an interview with Lieutenant General Keating, head of the New Zealand’s armed forces, And ask him,

        “General Keating, do you agree with the public comments made by Major Cook on Anzac Day, 2016, that climate change is a danger to New Zealand equal to the threat from Isis?”

        “General Keating can you tell us what is the NZDF doing, or considering doing to tackle this threat?”

        And;

        “General Keating, We know that the NZDF has been allocated quite a large budget to fight Isis, is it your opinion that it would be worthwhile for the NZDF to receive an allocated budget to fight climate change?”

        “And, will you be lobbying for this budget?”

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