Avengers: Infinity War is out. I hear the naysayers muttering: are we finally done with this endless litany of Marvel movies? 

Infinity War draws to a close an 18-film arc, an unheard-of cinematic endeavour of surprising complexity and huge box office earnings.

Last week, Avatar director James Cameron lamented the seemingly endless parade of big budget Marvel flicks, saying "I'm hoping we'll start getting Avenger fatigue here pretty soon". 

Let's ignore for a moment the fact that Cameron has four Avatar sequels slated and focus on the question: is the wave of Marvel films over? 

Is Infinity War the war that will wrap it all up?

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-26/avenger-infinity-war-marvel-univer...

RIDICULOUS...

by Andre Vltchek

Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and punishment.

By now it is clear that the West is the least free society on Earth. In North America and Europe, almost everyone is under constant scrutiny: people are spied on, observed, their personal information is being continually extracted, and the surveillance cameras are used indiscriminately.

Life is synchronized and managed. There are hardly any surprises.

One can sleep with whomever he or she wishes (as long as it is done within the ‘allowed protocol’). Homosexuality and bisexuality are allowed. But that is about all; that is how far ‘freedom’ usually stretches.

Rebellion is not only discouraged, it is fought against, brutally. For the tiniest misdemeanors or errors, people end up behind bars. As a result, the U.S. has more prisoners per capita than any other country on Earth, except the Seychelles.

And as a further result, almost all conversations, but especially public discourses, are now being controlled by so-called ‘political correctness’ and its variants.

But back to the culture of fear and punishment.

Look at the headlines of the Western newspapers. For example, The New York Times from April 12. 2018:

“Punishment of Syria may be harsher this time”

We are so used to such perverse language used by the Empire that it hardly strikes us as twisted, bizarre, pathological.

It stinks of some sadomasochistic cartoon, or of a stereotypical image of an atrocious English teacher holding a ruler over a pupil’s extended hands, shouting, “Shall I?”

Carl Gustav Jung described Western culture, on several occasions, as a “pathology”. He did it particularly after WWII, but he mentioned that the West had been committing terrible crimes in all parts of the world, for centuries. That is most likely why the Western mainstream psychiatrists and psychologists have been glorifying the ego-centric and generally apolitical Sigmund Freud, while ignoring, even defaming, Carl Gustav Jung.

The extreme form of sadism is a medical condition; it is an illness. And the West has been clearly demonstrating disturbing and dangerous behavioral patterns for many centuries.

Let’s look at the definition of sadism, or professionally, Sadistic Personality Disorder (SPD), which both the United States and Europe could easily be diagnosed with.

This is an excerpt of a common definition of the SPD, which appears in Medigoo.com and on many other on-line sites:

…The sadistic personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of gratuitous cruelty, aggression, and demeaning behaviors which indicate the existence of deep-seated contempt for other people and an utter lack of empathy. Some sadists are “utilitarian”: they leverage their explosive violence to establish a position of unchallenged dominance within a relationship…”

It is familiar, isn’t it? The Empire’s behavior towards Indochina, China, Indonesia, Africa, Latin America, Russia, the Middle East and other parts of the world.

What about the symptoms?

…Sadistic individuals have poor behavioral controls, manifested by a short temper, irritability, low frustration tolerance, and a controlling nature. From an interpersonal standpoint, they are noted to be harsh, hostile, manipulative, lacking in empathy, cold-hearted, and abrasive to those they deem to be their inferiors. Their cognitive nature is considered rigid and prone to social intolerance, and they are fascinated by weapons, war, and infamous crimes or perpetrators of atrocities. Sadists classically are believed to seek social positions that enable them to exercise their need to control others and dole out harsh punishment or humiliation…”

Just translate “sadistic individuals” to “sadistic states”, or “sadistic culture”.

Is there any cure? Can a sadist be effectively and successfully treated?

Treating a sadistic personality disorder takes a long time…”

And many sites and publications carry a clear disclaimer:

The above information is for processing purpose. The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency…”

And humanity is right now clearly at the crossroads, facing annihilation, not only a ‘medical emergency’. The world may soon have to literally fight for its survival. It is because of the SPD of the West and its Empire.

*

So, what is in store for us now; for instance, for Syria?

What will the sadistic psychopath do to a country that refused to kneel, to prostitute itself, to beg for mercy, to sacrifice its people?

How horrible will the “punishment” be?

We have just witnessed 103 missiles being fired towards Damascus and Homs. But that is only what the Empire did to entertain its masses. It has been doing much more evil and cruel things to the nation which constantly refuses to glorify the Western imperialist and its neocon dogmas. For instance, the Empire’s ‘professionals’ have been manufacturing, training and arming the most atrocious terrorist groups and injecting them into the body of Syria.

The torture will, of course, continue. It clearly appears that this time the script will be based on some latter adaptation of the Marquise de Sade’s work, on his novel Juliette, not Justine. You see, in Justine, women were ‘only’ tied up, slapped and raped. In Juliette, they were cut to pieces, alive; they were burned and mutilated.

While Justine can still be read, no normal human being could go through the 700 pages of pure gore that is Juliette.

But our planet has somehow got used to the horrors that have been administered by the sick Western Empire.

People watch occurrences in places like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq or Libya as ‘news’, not as the medical record of a severely ill psychiatric patient.

The most terrible ‘novel’ in the history of our Planet has been written, for centuries, by the appalling brutality and sadism of first Europe and then by its younger co-author – the United States.

And the human beings in many parts of our Planet have gotten so used to the carnage which surrounds them that they do not throw up anymore; they do not feel horrified, do not revolt against their fate. They just watch, as one country after another falls; is violated publicly, gets ravaged.

The mental illness of the perpetrator is undeniable. And it is contagious.

In turn, the extreme violence that has been engulfing the world has triggered various neuroses and mental conditions (masochism, extreme forms of submission, to name just two of many) among the victims.

*

Exposure to the constant and extreme violence ‘prescribed’ and administered by the West, has left most of the world in a neurotic lethargy.

Like a woman locked in a marriage with a brutal religious fanatic husband in some oppressive society, the world has eventually stopped resisting against the Western dictates and tyranny, and ‘accepted its fate’.

Many parts of the planet have developed ‘Stockholm Syndrome’: after being kidnapped, imprisoned, tormented, raped and humiliated, the victims have ‘fallen in love’ with their tyrant, adopting his worldview, while serving him full-heartedly and obediently.

This arrangement, of course, has nothing to do with the healthy or natural state of things!

In Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, bizarre things are happening! People from those nations that have been robbed and devastated for centuries by the European and North American despots, have been flying happily and proudly to Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid, New York and other Western cities, in order to ‘learn’, to ‘study’ how to govern their own countries. There is usually no shame, and no stigma attached to such obvious intellectual prostitution.

Many victims are still dreaming about becoming like their victimizers, or even more so.

Many former and modern-day colonies of the West are listening, with straight faces, to the Europeans preaching to them (for a fee) about ‘good governance’, an ‘anti-corruption drive’ and ‘democracy’.

The media outlets of non-Western nations are taking news reports directly from Western press agencies. Even local political events are explained by those ‘wise’ and ‘superior’ Europeans and North Americans, not by the local thinkers. Locals are hardly ever trusted – only white faces with polished English, French or German accents are taken seriously.

Perverse? Is it perverse? Of course, it is! Many servile intellectuals from the ‘client’ states, when confronted, admit how sick the continuous global dictatorship is. Then they leave the table and continue to do what they have been doing for years and decades; the oldest profession in short.

Such a situation is truly insane. Or at least it is extremely paradoxical, bizarre, absurd. Even a mental clinic appears to make more sense than our beloved planet Earth.

However, clinical psychiatrists and psychologists are very rarely involved in analyzing the neuroses and psychological illnesses of the brutalized and colonized planet. They hardly ever ‘analyze’ the perpetrators, let alone expose them for what they really are.

Most of psychologists and psychiatrists are busy digging gold: encouraging human egotism, or even serving big corporations that are trying to ‘understand their employees better’, in order to control and to exploit them more effectively. Other ‘doctors’ go so far as to directly serve the Empire, helping to oppress and to ‘pacify’ the billions living in the colonies and new colonies of the West.

In 2015, I was invited as one of the speakers to the 14th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, held in Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa (hosted by legendary UNISA).

During that fascinating encounter of the leading global psychologists, I spoke about the impact of wars and imperialism on the human psyche, but I also listened, attentively. And I learned many shocking things. For instance, during his chilling presentation, “Human Rights and U. S. Psychologists’ Wrongs: The Undermining of Professional Ethics in an Era of ‘Enhanced Interrogation’”, Professor Michael Wessells from Columbia University, New York, spoke about U.S. psychologists and their participation in torturing political prisoners.

Instead of diagnosing the Empire with SPD and other violent and dangerous conditions, many psychologists are actually helping to torture those who are opposing this unacceptable arrangement of the world.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/25/diagnosing-the-west-with-sadistic-pe...

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In "Where to Invade Next" Michael Moore points out at the end that many of the great ideas in Europe and other countries originated in the U.S., such as the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishment", "abolition of the death penalty", the struggle for the "eight-hour day" and the "May Day" holiday, the "Equal Rights Movement for women", "prosecution of financial fraud" (ah ah ah, not one banker in prison, many promoted to "crisis solver" level) during the savings and loan crisis, etc.

Moore also points out rightly that slavery in the USA never went away. It's perverse and hidden. Due to tailored tough drugs laws, the majority of people in the prisons are black/coloured and there the people are treated like slaves by the said-system. They work for basically nothing. The list of commerce using these facilities is at the high end of town and should be boycotted, despite the whole atrocious system being "legal".... 

Read from top.

'It's 1938 all over again'. 'X, Y, Z, (insert name of latest Official Bad Guy ) is the New Hitler' 'Appeasement won't work- we have to take action!'

Sounds familiar? These phrases have been Neocon mantras for nearly 20 years now. The great irony is that what they're saying is true. We are at a '1938 moment' Appeasement won't work. We do need to take action. Against the NeoCons themselves.

Back in 2003, I warned in the New Statesman that the illegal invasion of Iraq wouldn't be 'the war to end all wars' but would be followed by threats to Libya and Syria.

READ MORE: 'Whitehall Knows Best' or the Art of Taking Britain to War

And look what happened. The Regime Changers never went away- and now, thanks to them we are perilously close to World War Three. To avoid it we desperately need to learn the lessons of the 1930s. 

Hitler was emboldened because of the ease with which he achieved his earlier ambitions. In March 1936 he sent German troops in to recapture the de-militarised Rhineland.

"The actual move was a staggering example of Hitler's strong nerve", writes historian A.J.P Taylor in his book 'The Origins of the Second World War' "Germany had literally no forces available for war. Hitler assured his protesting generals he would withdraw his token force at the first sign of French action."

But there was no French action. The Fuhrer moved on to the next territory on his 'To Do' list. Britain and France acquiesced as Austria was incorporated into the Third Reich in March 1938. That same year, Hitler got his way again at the Munich Conference where he was handed the Sudetenland on a plate. 

Can we really blame him for thinking Britain and France would cave in over Danzig and the Polish Corridor in 1939?

Hitler attacked Poland in the confident belief that he'd get away with it. Taylor argues that the German leader was not hell-bent on world war and that he could have been contained. 'Men will long debate whether this renewed war could have been averted by greater firmness or by greater conciliation…. Maybe either would have succeeded, if consistently followed; the mixture of the two, practised by the British government, was the most likely to fail.'

Britain did give guarantees to Poland in 1939, but the Germans didn't take them seriously. 

We are in a uncannily similar situation today. In the last 20 years the US and its closest allies have attacked/invaded a number of sovereign states, including the Federal Republic of  Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. You could argue that this record of international aggression was actually worse than the Third Reich's up to 1938, as there was no Versailles Treaty to undo. No one could claim for instance that in invading Iraq on the fraudulent basis that the country possessed WMDs, the US and its allies were entering their own 'back garden' as Lord Lothian remarked about the occupation of the Rhineland.

In Syria, the NeoCon project has been checked, on account of Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah military assistance to the UN-recognised government. But Israel's targeting of Iranian installations in Syria — plus the racheting up of the propaganda war against both Russia and Iran- indicate that we‘re entering a new, even more dangerous phase of the conflict. Put simply, the road to Tehran goes through Damascus and the NeoCons,for whom the word 'obsessive' might have been invented,  are prepared to risk quite a lot to get what they want.

READ MORE: 'Neocons Were Masterminds' of 2003 Iraq Invasion – Researcher

Russia was praised by peace-loving people around the world for its lack of military response to the illegal US/UK/France air strikes on Syria on 14th April, but the concern is that the uber-hawks in Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv will be emboldened by the fact that they seem to have 'got away'' with bombing Syria on the pretext of responding to a non-verified chemical weapons attack. Already before the strikes commentators were coming forward to suggest that it could be worth calling Russia's bluff.

"If the international community-and Turkey in particular-starts challenging Russia, they might find that Rusia (sic) is not as formidable in Syria as it comes across," wrote Oved Lobel on 2nd April on TRT World.

Kyle Orton, a Research Fellow of the Henry Jackson Society, argued the same thing following Trump's bombing of the Shayrat airbase in 2017.

"It is now clear that Russia cannot protect the Syrian regime if the US is determined to challenge it. The myths and rationalisations of a 'Third World War' have been overthrown."

You can imagine similarly confident articles appearing in the Nazi press in 1939, seeking to assuage worries that Britain would stand by Poland. 

It's not hard to predict what the next 'act' of the drama will be.

Yesterday a source told Sputnik: "US security services  are planning provocations with the use of prohibited substances in Syria. The operation is led by a former militant of the Islamic State *[Daesh], Mishan Idris Hamash. The aim is to stage a chemical attack against civilians to be further spread in the media,".

READ MORE: Chemical Attack in Syria's Douma an 'Amateur Theater' — Czech Politician

If this 'provocation' does indeed take place, then we could be very close to a pivotal moment in world history.

Like Hitler in 1939, the neocons don't want a world war. Their strategy, as we have seen, has been to pick off 'target states' one-by-one. Remember that General Wesley Clark video? 

But a major global conflict could easily break out-unless the war lobby in the west is absolutely convinced that the Kremlin would respond with force to a further escalation of the conflict in Syria and a direct assault on Iran. Back in 1938, the one thing that could have saved Czechoslovakia was a formal alliance between Britain, France and the Soviet Union to protect the central European country. Today, what is clearly (and, I'd argue, urgently needed), is a formal mutual defence pact between Syria, Iran and Russia. If China could be persuaded to join, then all the better. 

The Neocons have caused death and destruction around the world for far too long. Better to act now to make sure that 2019 doesn't turn into 1939, and- indeed from a Russia perspective- that 2021 doesn't become 1941. 

Follow Neil Clark on Twitter

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201805041064162273-neocons-threat-not...

The Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) secretly deleted an incapacity policy to prevent an injured veteran claiming compensation. And it never told the veteran or his lawyer.

It was part of a decade-long campaign of delay and denial by the department against Martin Rollins, whose back was severely damaged while serving in the Army.

"After more than 25 years representing veterans in this jurisdiction I've never seen a case like Martin Rollins and the extent the department has gone to," Mr Rollins's lawyer, Greg Isolani, told 7.30.

"Their behaviour's been appalling."

Brian Briggs, a military compensation specialist at Slater & Gordon, said it goes beyond just obstruction.

"This is an act where you've gone to a new level of bureaucratic bastardry on a level I haven't seen before," he told 7.30.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-18/dva-changed-the-rules-so-they-didn...

Read from top.

Four years into this country’s over-the-top festival of remembrance for the centenary of the first world war, Australia has passed the point of peak commemoration.

No other country, not even Germany or Great Britain upon which the ludicrously misnamed “Great War” had a far more profound impact, have spent with such reckless abandon to commemorate dead soldiers.

Having spent more than half a billion dollars on commemorating Anzac since 2014 alone, Australia now apparently has a plan, needless and reckless in my view, to blow another $500m – this time to renovate the Australian War Memorial.

But wait, there’s more: Australia will this month open the $100m Sir John Monash interpretive centre at Villers-Bretonneux in Northern France – an arguably unnecessary museum dedicated to the already duly commemorated 46,000 Australians who died on Europe’s western front during the first world war. 

Add it up. From 2014 to 2028, when the (still sketchy) proposed war memorial addition would be funded, Australia will have committed or spent at least $1.1bn (in today’s terms) on new war commemoration projects, presumably excluding recurrent funding of the memorial itself.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2018/apr/09...

All this money is spend to make sure you send your sons and daughters to the next slaughter somewhere on the planet, in defence of the US cash machine. And when they come back, mental and fucked up in the brains, and maimed, the government will make them beg for compensation... That's the deal. Meanwhile, the bozos who create wars and lead the soldiers will do glorious teary speeches to remember the dead ones... the sons and daughters you won't be able to bury, because they would have been blown into radio-active pieces.

Please stop this remembrance business NOW. Forget war. Forever.

Read from top.

and see this doco:

https://www.corbettreport.com/federalreserve/

Virgin Australia's move to give war veterans priority boarding and public acknowledgement during in-flight announcements has been described as "embarrassing" and "tokenistic".

• The Australian Defence Association has described Virgin's moves to honour veterans as "tokenistic"
• Qantas says it won't follow suit
• But the Tasmanian RSL says the move would help older veterans

Virgin's announcement, reminiscent of US airlines, came on the heels of the Government's announcements last week of a discount card and lapel pins for returned servicemen and women and a half-a-billion-dollar upgrade for the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

But the move received a lukewarm response from some veterans and politicians, while rival airline Qantas declared it would not be following suit.

Neil James, the head of the Australian Defence Association, called the move "tokenistic" and described it as a manifestation of American culture that was unlikely to translate well in Australia.

"The first problem is that there's other forms of service to the community … like policemen and ambos, and so would you actually start a queue of such announcements? That's a really worry," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

One Nation senator Pauline Hanson said she thought the veterans she worked with would find the acknowledgement "terribly embarrassing".

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-05/qantas-not-following-virgins-priority-boarding-for-veterans/

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This weekend the nation will mark the centenary of the Armistice of 1918. This year the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin has a "partnership" with the Australian War Memorial to support the commemorations.

In recent years at least six arms firms have been sponsoring exhibitions and contributing funds to the overall budget of the memorial. Some commentators see no problem. They argue that, because arms firms profit from preparation for conflict, and from war itself, it is only right that they help to defray the costs of running the memorial or major commemorative events.

This is twisted logic. To fund worthy causes such as a national commemoration, mounted in all our names, is why we have governments and taxation. Meeting the cost should not be an opportunity for arms firms to indulge in feel-good philanthropy, while promoting their brand names.

...

Museum director Brendan Nelson is proud of his pursuit of donations from armaments firms - on top of achieving $500 million in public funds for the enlarging of the museum.

Controversy has erupted. A public campaign is building around the slogan "Commemorate Don’t Commercialise".A petition is circulating through The Action Network.

How can it be contemplated for a moment that weapons manufacturers should fund a shrine and museum that plays such a pivotal role in shaping our national memory of war? How is it respectful of those who have died?

A glaring problem stands out: conflict of interest.

The AWM is probably more influential in shaping the Australian public’s understanding of war than any book, film, or documentary produced in this country. More than a million people visit the AWM each year.

Almost 150,000 schoolchildren visit. Their faces are filled with wide-eyed wonderment in weaponry, because these days the grounds and galleries of the AWM are littered with the trophies and weapons of war – and more are planned. Gallery storyboards seldom offer more than childlike simplicities in discussing the hardest questions of all. How do we get into war? For what precise aims did our soldiers die?

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/merchants-of-death-should-not-be-funding...

G: not only the firms of death tools should be scolded for selling weapons, they should be driven out of existence for selling war... Should a "war memorial" be an "exhibition hall" for the weapons of the future? NO!!!

The stunt started at 8.00 AM with the topless radical feminists jumping out of a car at the Place de l'Etoile and climbing the barriers of the platform, where 70 world leaders are expected to attend a ceremony marking the centenary of the war’s armistice on Sunday.

Under the arc lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which plays host to an annual commemoration event on every November 11, marking the anniversary of the 1918 armistice signed by Germany and the Entente Powers.

With flowers in their hair, the women had “Fake Peacemakers, Real Dictators” written in marker on their torsos and brandished bloodsoaked signs emblazoned with “Welcome War Criminals.”

Another sign quoted the famous mantra from George Orwell’s novel 1984: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

“We have come to protest against the coming of heads of state who are shaming peace. Most are dictators who do not respect human rights in their country,” 24-year-old activist Tara Lacroix told gathering media.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/443630-femen-armistice-protest-paris/

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Trident Juncture 2018 was by far the largest exercise hosted by Norway since the end of the Cold War and the largest NATO has held in decades. Involving some 50,000 troops from 31 countries, about 10,000 combat vehicles and 250 aircraft, the Trident Juncture was to hone the troops' combat skills in harsh Nordic climate – the one that probably led to some embarrassing setbacks.

Residents of Norway have filed hundreds of complaints with their country's military, drawing attention to human waste left by foreigners in public places. NATO troops – mostly Swedes and Americans – were reportedly caught relieving themselves near kindergartens, schools, and sports facilities, according to Norway's broadcaster NRK. 
Other complaints came from local farmers who were angry about their property being damaged by armored vehicles. Norwegian Major Marianne Bo, responsible for damages and environmental protection during the NATO exercise, said the army usually has “a system for treating this” but something apparently went wrong.

“This is terrible, it's about having common decency,” the officer lamented. “We have to clean up after soldiers who have relieved themselves. It's literally a s****y job.” The news was met will little praise from Trident Juncture HQ either, which promised to take all the complaints seriously.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/443633-norway-nato-failures-drill/

See also:

http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31277

Right on cue, Finnish Prime Minster Juha Sipila has stated that “it is possible” that Russia was the “disrupting party” (referring to the GPS problems, not the pooping near Norwegian kindergartens).

“We will investigate, and then we will respond,” he added. “This is not a joke, it threatened the air security of ordinary people.”

Too impatient to wait for an actual investigation, the Finnish PM went on to speculate that Russia jammed up Finland’s GPS in order to “demonstrate the capabilities for such actions.” Case closed?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Sipila’s accusations “groundless,” adding that Russia is regularly accused of “all mortal sins.”

“We have no knowledge of Russia possibly having any role in GPS malfunction. You should ask experts or the Defense Ministry. But there is an obvious trend to blame Russia for all mortal sins and then some. As a rule, these accusations are baseless,”Peskov said.

READ MORE: NATO’s secret weapon? Chiseled Norwegian man-bun hunk promotes massive war games (PHOTOS)

Norway warned of possible GPS problems for pilots in its own airspace at the end of October – when the NATO exercise kicked off. But Norwegian officials have apparently remained more tight-lipped about why such a warning was issued.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/443778-nato-finland-gps-russia-blame/

And by the way, should it be real war situation, do you think the Russians would not interfere with the GPS? So deal with it. It's likely that the US fuddled the GPS to make it more like a "real" situation. Meanwhile, should there be a "real war" situation, nobody, especially troops, will have the luxury to survive...

Every 11 November there is a lot of talk from our politicians about the peril of forgetting – “lest we forget”.

We’ll hear it again today, as our leaders in commemoration speak of the “glorious dead” and “the fallen” – the Australians who “sacrificed” themselves in a “spirit” of Anzac, apparently to guarantee the “freedoms” (contestable, and an issue for another column) we now enjoy.

The language, ecclesiastical in tone, that politics has grafted onto Australian war remembrance for over a century now has served well the intended purpose of raising commemoration to a quasi-religion. Such language also tends to sanitise acts of public, mass commemoration from the putridity of war’s reality.

Remembrance is as much about what our cultural and political leaders willingly forget as that which they recall.

So this Remembrance Day, I’ll be remembering something Australia’s commemoration sector won’t remind you of: politicians will always jump at starting wars in which young combatants and civilians of all ages will die horribly in their millions.

Before Australia’s $600m, four-year festival of first world war commemoration (Australia spent more than any other country on remembering each of its 60,000 dead first world war soldiers), a Vietnam veteran, Jim Robertson, wrote a submission to the federal government about the tone of the remembrance.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/11/this-remembrance-d...

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See also: russian V-Day, not VD... — as we approach 11/11/19 at 11:00...