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Anzac Day centenary celebrations in 2015 could cause divisions

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Glen48 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF48sl15OCg

The younger reporters of the tabloid trash should be taught more about what the Men and women went through and still going through today in a war, why they are not speaking Germanic language or Japanese, living on rice, they need to be sat down and told about life in North Korea were people eat the bark of the trees while their dictator is the biggest importer of Drambuie in the world, They should pray every morning theses men were around during the war:
Lest we forget.... we already have done so..
Click to expand...

+99 we shpuld never forget ,read thred on what if your country has no oil
 
Who ever wrote this piece should be taken out and shot. How divisive of them to selectively quote research relating to ANZAC day to link it to the immigration debate. I spend a lot of time in Turkey and if the topic has ever come up in conversation, Turks have been both respectful of the ties between the two countries and the annual ANZAC pilgrimage to Gallipoli. If they're ok with it, I can't imagine anyone else should have a problem with it!
 
I stumbled on this thread while searching in vain for a chat thread on 2015

The organisers haven't invited me to go along to Anzac Cove as a freeloader so naturally I'm agin it.:)
On looking back through this thread I noticed that its posters, like the ANZACS, have had a high mortality rate.
 
What concerns me more than any press report:
Why does every splinter group have to have a minority view on events like the Centenary Remembrance?
Why does the PC Brigade have to second-guess other minority groups' opinion about ANZAC?

Population groups of various backgrounds observe various rites of their respective heritage, and nobody with more than two brain cells will criticise -
  • Muslims for observing Ramadan
  • Jews for celebrating Hanukkah
  • Chinese about their oddly-timed New Year
  • Germans inviting to a boozy Octoberfest
  • Gays and Lesbians holding their Mardi Gras
  • etc...
So why is it OK to speculate about the possible reaction of any of those groups to descendants of early Australians commemorating their forebears' allegiance to the British Crown? If you don't share the history or creed, don't let it affect you: nobody forces you to participate. A civilised society ought to be mature enough to respect every individual's right to celebrate what they consider important. Anything but such respect is hypocrisy, and that is not restricted to the oft-maligned far left. Intolerance of others' rights can be equally found on the far right, radical splinter groups of Islamic or Christian fringes, and many others, who consider their own belief system superior to that of others.
 
Commemorating major events is fine until it comes to spending extraordinary amounts of taxpayer funds on so doing imo.

Australia will spend an estimated $325 million to commemorate this year's Anzac Centenary. To give that $325 million context, that's about three times what the UK will spend on its World War I commemorations.

We're told there's a budget emergency, young people will face stringent restrictions before receiving a paltry unemployment benefit, many other cuts are proposed, yet we can spend so much on ceremony? Doesn't make sense to me.
 
Julia said:
Commemorating major events is fine until it comes to spending extraordinary amounts of taxpayer funds on so doing imo.

Australia will spend an estimated $325 million to commemorate this year's Anzac Centenary. To give that $325 million context, that's about three times what the UK will spend on its World War I commemorations.

We're told there's a budget emergency, young people will face stringent restrictions before receiving a paltry unemployment benefit, many other cuts are proposed, yet we can spend so much on ceremony? Doesn't make sense to me.
Click to expand...
I'm not surprised that the financial aspect would be scrutinised by opponents.
Others will disagree and consider it money well spent. Comparing our budget to Britain's completely disregards the distances involved. For Britons, getting to the French killing fields ais just a hop across the Channel. Plus there is always the nagging doubt as to how keen they are to be reminded of their generals' incompetence and disregard for human lives... :rolleyes:

Counting the costs is IMHO inappropriate for another reason, too:
How does a month-long Ramadan affect the efficiency of workers? Nobody, to my knowledge, has estimated the costs in terms of lost productivity because of people starving themselves during the day and binging at night. And what about the victims of Octoberfest over-indulgence? Christmas road toll? Inconvenience from traffic hold-ups because of Mardi Gras, Christmas Pageants, etc...

Or how about the cost of sending a bunch of elite athletes to the Olympic/ Commonwealth/ PanPac ... Games? Forking out $Billions of Taxpayers' money on Football stadiums? Why can't the Gambling Industry finance it?

Mind you, I could well live without all of those "events", and if there were a Referendum, I'd probably vote for participants - including "officials" and "dignitaries" - to pay their own way or seek private sponsorship. But all of that money pales into insignificance compared to the waste due to corruption and mollycoddling of politicians and their associates.
 

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