Commemorating war
Uncategorized - - Posted on September, 5 at 10:41 am by Ken L
As noted yesterday, September 3 is now Battle for Australia Day. Did you know that it’s also ‘Merchant Navy Day’?
A Rudd Labor Government will request the Governor General to declare 3 September of each year a national day of observance to pay tribute to the wartime service of the Merchant Navy in Australia.
Australia’s wartime history is full of the experiences of ordinary men and women who served their country in extraordinary ways.
The unsung stories of Australian and Allied merchant mariners, particularly during World War II, are a unique part of Australia’s wartime and maritime heritage.
It seems puzzling to have two different things commemorated on the same day - might not some people associated with one day or the other feel that their cause is belittled by being lumped in with another? - but then the attitude of the Rudd Government to all things military is a bit puzzling. Like, for example, the utterly pointless inquiry into the loss of HMAS Sydney, as if a bunch of lawyers with all their rigmarole can find the truth where military historians have failed. Vietnam veterans who remember the words ‘Agent Orange’ and ‘Justice Shepherd’ will tell you what they think of lawyers’ ability to understand what happens in wars.
As Juan Moment suggests in comments on yesterday’s post:
Makes you wonder where this need comes from to have more war memorial days. The timing is amazing, just when the Australian electorate is mulling over its long term commitment to the war in Afghanistan, we get a day to contemplate a heroic war some 60 years ago.
Indeed.
Posted in Uncategorized |
September 5th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
There has been quite a lot of academic papers over the last few years suggesting there never was a ‘Battle for Australia’; that the Japanese had no intention of invading Australia and New Guinea was a stepping stone further east not south.
I heard one historian interviewed yesterday who said that the bombing of Darwin was not a step towards an invasion of Australia.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
It doesn’t really matter as far as remembering those who died, SB. They fought because they felt they needed to.
Whether their sacrifices are being hijacked for political gain is a different question.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I am suspicious now of all these related military matters,every week popping up,with a level of incoherency associated with them.Well!I think its incoherent,and Rudd has to again point out how wonderful it will be with either Obama or McCain and he uses the word colour to,yes,everytime I eat my Vegemite,I automatically know all that is the American Australian relationship can be quacked by Rudd.I think this remembrance stuff for civvy steamers,is but another steam event coming off a quack turd ,that involves the Brits as well.Signal me Darling with your shipping themes!
September 5th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Kevin’s a permanent campaigner. He likes nothing better than being photographed shoulder to belt buckle with fit, military types.
If all these new memorials and commemorations came with public holidays or free stuff it might be worthwhile, but to expect us to go to work as well as sitting around mooning over dead people is a bit much.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
‘mooning over dead people’ I’ll give that some thought :).
September 5th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
This is nothing short of unbelievable. Our new Australian PM worshipping war and all its proven evils after we only recently hiked the last war-mongering devil and his Gestapo cohorts from office after their decade of horrors? Traitorous prick.
More suck-holing up to an insane American Rambo is NOT what the Australian electorate voted for in the last election. We’ve endured enough of that and last November we voted for distinct change. CHANGE - not more of the friggin’ same.
This represents nothing less than a total betrayal of Australia and everything that the majority voted for in our deep desperation last election. Mr Rudd, we don’t want to worship the idiocy and lunacy of friggin’ war. War is, without doubt, the greatest calamity and disaster ever undertaken by the human race. The world’s collective libraries of history books confirm this long-established fact.
Kevin Rudd’s “New Liberal Party” or “Second Liberal Party” is a treasonous betrayal of the millions who voted Labor last election. We voted for the destruction of Howard’s disgusting work place laws; not the waffling dead-in-the-water ambience that exists today. We voted to withdraw our troops from that fabricated and futile war in Iraq PRONTO - not piecemeal. Or maybe never.
We did not vote to retain our military bogged down in the ridiculous quagmire of Afghanistan or in any other ’stan’, or where our soldiers may die for absolutely naught, zero and zilch. We voted for positive action to reverse the stinking stain of Howard’s astonishing political Blitzkrieg on his own country.
Instead, none of this has transpired. Our Mr Crudd turns out to be obsessed with the idiot child king in the White House, the very last person in the world to whom we should turn for guidance or protection or sanity. Plus he’s a war-ophile, and an invadoholic, and a chronically obsessed lover of John Howard. Jesus’ teeth, can all this be true? It seems so.
The next time I vote will be sometime after Hell freezes over, or whenever the human race claims it’s finally discovered intelligence, whichever comes last.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
With sadness Ialso have to comment on related shyster stuff involving,the pushover need of certain Navy personnel re Firepower a Smartie for the fuel tank.The SMH reports how in love they are in promoting cleannesss and throw in their own money without even testing the bloody stuff.Shame on you bastards!At leat you got stung by the rip off.Makes me wonder wether there has been a cover up with a certain dead soldier from Victoria,if you cannot even test what you allow yourselves to be ripped by,and you use the bloody cannons to support your bloody economic rip offs.Its all very fine knowing at least the rust buckets are kept clean and well mopped by family men who find it difficult to be out on the high seas in case a Indonesian or something is mounting sharp pointy objects.Like the fucking Air Force,where bastardisation,and flybys with commercial planes is friend number one.And we have the hideous N.S.W. Police,if not women molestors in their College ,over night at APEC became people who knew terrorists come in womens dresses,and further to that as can be seen in the bloody report,the same… we are the Security apparatus heroes very similar to the turds in The U.S.A. that will not let the truth out on 9/11.So have job be heroes ,is now falling apart at the Uniform seams.Go back to being people on the unwanted list,and pull your bloody fingers out.The pie for you selected arseholes is too large.