Hello everyone,

Tomorrow is ANZAC day. For those of you unfamiliar with it, wikipedia is a fantastic resource. I just want to say "lest we forget" to all former, current and future ANZACs and a tip of my hat to one day when we can all live in peace.

It's always a shame to see men and women shedding their lives in the name of senseless warfare, so respect goes out to them.

However, I dislike how commercialised and politically charged the holiday has become. I read a great article last year about how the soldiers at Gallipoli had been glorified over the years to the point of godhood and that they were more than human for serving the ultimate sacrifice for the nation of Australia, though history disagrees over the details. It also mentioned the RSL's and veteran's clubs dismissing the pointless nationalism said during ANZAC Day. And then there's the companies taking advantage of the ANZAC legend to improve public relations and increase sales. It's very disappointing to see.

If anyone finds the article, then please post it here as I need to have a read through it again. I believe it was published a little before last year's ANZAC Day.

Yeah I remember that, atrocious! I had an awesome facebook argument about anzac with my ex that quickly became name calling, was awesome

All in all I find it hard to feel all that positive about it. Respect for the dudes that died (war would definitely suck an unbelievable amount) but fuck off all that jingoistic, "die for your country!!" bullshit and here's hoping all the pollies and corporations hoping to cash in from it die in a fire.

We have a similar holiday called Memorial Day in the US which falls at the end of May. Whether you agree with your country's military foreign policy or not, it is good to remember those who served and died, even if it was for a pointless or questionable cause. I feel this way, because I very easily could have been one of those people.

Agreed, and because many soldiers also died in wars that were not pointless.

VB's "raise a glass" campaign is particularly sickening - using the ANZAC memory to sell beer. I'll be having a few beers myself today but that's because that's what I do on a public holiday, and you can bet it won't be VB which is a nasty drop anyway.

I really dislike how it's become part of this mythology supporting jingoistic nationalism. I prefer to mark Armistice day.

I saw an ad on Facebook for some kind of ANZAC Day contest to win booze at a local pub. The ad featured a group of ladies wearing skimpy camo outfits. It was one of the most disrespectful thing I've ever seen.

To be fair, post-dawn service (the time where we reflect and contemplate ) ANZAC Day is mostly about sinking piss.

EDIT: Should add that it's more about sinking piss with mates - ie a bonding experience through drinking D: :O

Brisbane march was predictably a shitfight. This is what happens when you have bands playing on the side of the road and regiments trying to time off a band 2 regiments in front in the order of march.

I'm not putting words in your mouth, I just want to make clear to everyone that was not my intention when I started this thread.

Peter Cosgrove is a condescending asshole in those commercials, too.

Eh, any money donated to Legacy is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. At least VB is tipping some cash their way/

and pre-, as well, it would seem. (in my city in NZ).
I work nights, and it looked like there were a lot more people out drinking for a Wednesday night than the usual 'I have work tomorrow' Wednesday.

I was not suggesting that either, just commenting on the way it's become in recent years. You talk to young people these days, who have been fed by the myth-building machine, and the way they talk you would think that the Dardanelles campaign was a victory rather than the monumental disaster it actually was. It's so strange the way that the first world war is remembered here as opposed to in Britain. Most of my family being British, the collective memory is far from triumphal - it was, in family conversations, always marked with an overwhelming sense of bitterness and futility. So I find it odd and really quite grotesque that the whole "straya cunt!", "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi" element has overtaken it. It really says a lot about Australia's inferiority complex and desire to be a player in world politics that we glorify being used as cannon fodder like that. 50 years ago you could just about have called ANZAC day "fuck England day" the way old people I knew as a child talked about it.

If it came down to it, the Palestine campaign or the battles on the western front are more worth celebrating as far as an actual achievement, given that they were fought by distinctly Australian units under the command of their own generals. But there we have the problem - as a young nation with little history to talk about, we have such an inferiority complex that we have built up this thing into a celebration of "mateship", as if nobody else in the history of the world has had notions of egalitarianism or comradeship. Of "sacrifice", as if that's somehow unique to us. And as I say, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I much prefer to commemorate November 11th, almost as "fuck politicians day" for all the suffering they inflicted on the working class, regardless of nationality, than to buy into the bollocks.

And before anyone jumps in and calls me "un-Australian" (whatever the fuck that means), I'm a member of the Australian War Memorial trust, I work on local history preservation projects, and on November 11th every year I go and sit at the Shrine of rememberance and drink a beer by myself in honour of the day. But I loathe the crowds, the fake pagentry and the overall boganism that ANZAC day in Melbourne has become.

you'd think people would realize that you don't get up and stand around in the cold of dawn because it's a day for celebrating instead of for honoring the people who were fucked over by fools with power.

Hear hear! My great-grandfather was in the light horse and took part in the Charge of Beersheba. I never met him, but from everything I hear he was a rad guy.

Indeed. Sanctimonious nonsense. Anzac day should be about the folly of war, not a nationalistic rally.

We are meant to feel proud of our troops fighting overseas, but I certainly don't. I feel both bad for them wasting their lives and dismissive of them for giving someone else the means to control their life and death. No one is fighting any war for me and ever has.