Ginx,
you really should argue with the straw man "mac" that you have created, not me. I've explained what I mean by the term "British". Oh,I've heard English people describe Australians as "cowards" however, in reference to the the fall of Singapore, I won't forget that. I will not respond to any more of your offensive remarks, since you don't discuss the subject civilly. You make the error of believing that since we sacrificed so much in foreigners' wars it has to have been worthwhile and that they all value our contribution. What a fantasy!

Banjo,
the meaning of Anzac day is whatever we choose.

TurnRightThenLeft

You say that Anzac Day is just remembering those who have fallen. It remembers the fallen of particular wars, and only those in general from a particular side. Hence my question a little while ago about why not remember the fallen aboriginal resistance fighters (about 20,000 according to one estimate) who fought against our invasion of their land from 1778 to the 1920s. They shaped Australia too, and resisted heroically, but they are airbrushed out of official history because it challenges the rule of capital. They fought on the wrong side of the victors in the wars and don’t serve the propaganda purposes of the present elite who want to make foreign interventions like Iraq and Afghanistan acceptable.

Paul L

Clearly World War 1 was an imperialist world in which Germany and its allies tried to break out of the shackles of the world economy as currently then divided up. World War 2 continued that dispute, with an add-on that the other side was fascist. An old communist colleague used to say as a 16 year old he enrolled to fight fascism. As a twenty six year old he knew he had also helped British imperialism win, and lay the ground work for the expansion of US imperialism.
The war would have occurred who ever was in control of Germany because the forces at work - capitalist expansion through nationalist blocs – are intrinsic to the system and hadn’t been settled by World War 1.

Paul, if you want to know a bit more about the rise of fascism in Germany I suggest you read the writings of Trotsky on this from about 1928 on. Unlike Menzies and other ruling class twits he foresaw the dangers very early and his suggestion of an alliance between the social democrats and the communists (which Stalin in an act of historic criminality rejected) to smash the fascists before they came to power would have changed the course of history and perhaps avoided the war.

As the author says we need a day to recognise that war is the ultimate human failure.

Dear Passy,

Ruling class twits are ruling class twits whether they are named Menzies or Trotzky. The Kronstad sailors were assaulted by forces commanded by Trotzky and Zinoviev because they had the temerity to demand that Lenin keep his revolutionary promises. Then the Bolsheviks tried to paint them as tools of their enemies. My family came from Russia, In fact my uncle was a Bolshevik before the Bolshevik coup and was arrested by the czarist police. He left the USSR in 1921. After seeing what life under Lenin was like he was no longer a Bolshevik. Trotzky helped to put and keep a dictator in power. That's his claim to fame. Balbo and Strasser were also henchmen of dictators who helped put them in power. Trotzky was a brilliant man who might have done something worthwhile with his life, but he chose to support a one party tyranny with secret police, purges and and other apparatus of oppression. There is a nostalgia for dictators on both left and right.

The memory of the ANZAC ‘s has been desecrated enough in this thread. Please let them rest in peace.

Passy,

So you are actually going to pretend that the German invasion of France and Belgium in WW1 was actually a defensive act? It wasn’t their fault. Is that what you are saying? I know you hate to let the facts get in the way of your pet theory, but hey man, the rest of us live in the real world.

As for WW2. I studied history and politics at a University level so I’ve heard the rubbish that Marxist analysis comes up with. Clearly it excludes any possibility of individual responsibility. I don’t need any more Marxist “history” on that period; I am full familiar with it. But to suggest that WW2 is the fault of the Allies because of the Versailles treaty etc, is to completely lose the plot. That’s ‘blame the victim’ stuff and you guys would never stand for it in a domestic situation, unless of course it was a certain Lakemba Imam or his coreligionists.

Expansion of US imperialism. Do you mean spreading democracy and wealth throughout Europe and Asia, as in Germany and Japan. Two of the most wealthy and free countries on the planet, governed by their own people. If that is what you mean by imperialism then I think you need to recheck the dictionary meaning of the word. Or else find a new one for the 17th, 18th, and 19th century European inclination to empire building.

The world has moved on since the days of Marx, yet some people seem to doggedly cling to failed ideologies. Marxist analysis distorts the facts in order to fit the theory. The very notion that everything can be described in terms of the workers and the capitalists is so ridiculous that only the intellectually challenged can see any sense in it. The world is a vastly more complicated place than that. Seeing things in black and white is the ultimate indulgence of the faithful. It requires that you hand over your own powers of thought and comprehension in favour of faith in your declared belief system. Marxism is just another cult.

As a member of the peace movement, I’ve been monitoring blogsites over the last few Anzac Days of recent years. This year I have detected a noticeable surge in criticism.

The criticism is not so much directed at Anzac Day itself (although that is happening, too) - more the way it has been actively manipulated into a jingoistic occasion to serve dubious political and military agendas.

Hopefully, this is a healthy reaction against the Howard ‘silencing dissent’ era. Long-term, it will be interesting to see what eventuates under Rudd.