Petition launched to save sacked SBS reporter Scott McIntyre as AFR journo tweets in protest

Did I wake up in an alternate universe, ones where the same journalists who support 18c and cheered when Andrew Bolt was found against, all of a sudden have discovered something called free speech?

Or is it really more the case that they only support free speech they agree with?

smh’s Michael Koziol also had a good piece on this.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/.....mtinw.html

Free speech- you mean use a National Day of Respect to cause hurt? He questions the ‘right’ of a battle that took place !00 years ago as if the same values of today apply? Are you kidding. He’s an immature mean spirited person who obviously is seeking his place in the ‘light’ at the best possible moment to seek it. Yes, go ahead and sack him Fairfax and on the way out give him his dummy back!

@Duncan, I agree. It’s a double standard we’re seeing here from the same people who wanted Bolt silenced.

McIntyre has the timing of a heckler at a funeral.

The SBS hierarchy deserve no respect after their spontaneous decision to sack McIntyre. By their action they insult the very notion of free speech – how are we to know that these executives won’t be trying hard behind the scenes to influence editorial content in SBS’s documentaries? Malcolm Turnbull’s unnecessary intervention is also a concern.

Tony Bee….. you said it perfectly – a heckler at a funeral…. !!

You cant compare this to the Bolt case as it has nothing to do with the Racial Discrimination Act. And even if you can make an argument that he could be fired for breaching social media policy, the FACT is that a lot of people agree with what he says. We just dont REQUIRE that all of Australia agree with us, unlike the people who brainlessly boost ANZAC day without question

In the Second World War certain enlisted men were referred to as LMF.
Both McIntyre and Winestock have every right to their opinions. They have both demonstrated by their actions that they are also worthy of the label LMF
Lack of Moral Fibre

Je suis Charlie unless you’re talkin about the Anzac.

the people who see ANZAC day as a way to glorify war and boost Australian power dreams are the one who accuse anyone with a different opinion of hypocrisy re. free speech. We have dealt with the hate mongering long enough, now you can deal with some free speech that you don’t agree with

No-one is challenging Scott’s right to have an opinion, but his timing of him expressing that opinion is beyond offensive to most Australians – in particular those whose forefathers selflessly served their country when asked. Thanks in no small part to those who served, Scott can think what he wants, but he should save his scorn for my grandfather, my father and those of my relatives who never returned, for another time and place.

Lest we forget :

– The thousands of soldiers sent completely pointlessly to their deaths in Gallipoli.
– The ardent support of the RSL for fascist paramilitaries in the 1920s and 1930s.
– The soldiers sent to force dockworkers to load ships with pig iron being sent to Japan in the 1930s.
– The slaughter of millions of Armenians and Greeks by the “honourable” Turkish soldiers.

I’d be curious if all change.org would be starting a petition if he had tweeted “The Anzacs would’ve successfully stopped the Asylum seeker boats”.

There would be just as many calls for his sacking, but from the ‘other’ philosophical side. And to clarify, that’s not my stance on the asylum debate before someone goes off on a mad rant, just an example!

I agree that there only seems to be ‘selective’ arguments for free speech, and that’s my problem. I support his right to free speech, (no matter how ignorant and ill informed they were), just as much as I support Andrew Bolt’s right to free speech (which is often the same).

But I’m ok with SBS’s decision because like any workplace, there would be terms and conditions of employment and a code of conduct. He broke those, so he got the sack. No different to any gross breach of your employment contract.

@Duncan, you want to talk hypocrisy, try Malcolm “je suis Charlie” Turnbull dobbing McIntyre in to SBS mgmt?

http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.....-society-e

Dear Myriad
The SBS is guilty of no crime other than to have done what most fair-minded Australians would have done under the circumstances. Like most, if not all, people Ive spoken to about this episode have said – Scott McIntyre is entitled to think what he wants, but there’s a time and a place for his comments, and the day commemorative services are being held to honour those who have selflessly served their country, is not the time – and his SBS twitter account, is not the place. So, save your sanctimonious dribble about ‘free speech’ for another day. His behaviour was appalling.

I think those defending him are confusing the right to free speech with his (former) employer’s code of conduct.

The brass at SBS have no issue with him expressing his views, just not as an employee.

I defend his right to say as he pleases (and agree with elements of what he said), but the timing of and vitriol in his comments was very poor form & suggests he was looking for the attention he’s receiving.

Heckling at a funeral is a perfect analogy & I’d have done the same thing as SBS.

Bad timing for sure, but that shouldn’t be a sackable offence.

Timing my backside. News corp and the radio weirdos would be screaming with outrage at any time.

Good to see someone speaking out about the death cult of anzac (sic) day. We never used to hear all this hype about anzac day, it was dying out. I can trace the hype and cargo cult bandwagon back to 1990 and the 75th anniversary. The hype that year was relentless and it has continued each year since. Hopefully now we’ve had the 100th anniversary we will have the rest of this year without anymore hype and BS.

Spare me all the sanctimonious bleatings from outraged journos about this McIntyre [Edited by Mumbrella]. Where were all these free speech advocates when Glenn Milne and Michael Smith were sacked from The Oz and 2UE respectively for asking difficult questions about Julia Gillard’s involvement in the AWU slush fund? And where were they during the 18C discrimination debate? McIntyre is a self-important [edited by Mumbrella] who should have known better. No matter, he’ll get a gig at The Guardian or The Conversation

McIntyre got a lot of attention for his decision to typecast a large number of people, none of whom he has met. The Hebdo folk also insulted a class of people they don’t know and have never met.
Seems to me there’s an increasing presence of people making careers out of faking the principles of free speech.
Whether any of them should be sacked or attacked is not my question. Rather whether we should actively ignore them.

If free speech unsettles and upsets the vast majority, at what point does it become an incite to unrest/riot and therefore an offence? If you say f*** off you c*** to a police officer you will be arrested…are the politically correct supporters of this [edited by Mumbrella] man suggesting that is a curb on free speech too? If you have no controls on the notion of free speech and political correctness condones everything, you have anarchy. Is that the direction all the defenders wish to take this country? Seems awfully unaustralian!

Very unpatriotic Scott, Bravo to SBS

As usual, the ignorant delusion of the left is only exceeded by their hypocrisy.

I have cousins, uncles, grandfathers, and good friends who were in the Australian Army. They didn’t ‘serve’ in the Australian army any more than I ‘served’ doing care work for our disabled people, or as a waiter while at school. I’m calling that language out because it makes the assumption that soldiers have done something which can’t be questioned because they ‘served’ us. People who fought in Gallipoli, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan have not served me in any way except to prop up my government’s position with the USA.

The reactionary comments on this thread are giving me a much clearer view of the readership of Mumbrella, and therefore the media professionals in this country. Good news really, thanks Mumbrella

Noooo. Legally this is so wrong. Scott McIntyre’s twitter feed was work related. His bio referenced his employment as a soccer commentator for SBS, Australia’s best soccer news media channel. 99.999% of his tweets were about soccer. He had 30k twitter followers following him for the sole reason that he, as SBS’s employed soccer commentator, could deliver those followers up-to-the-minute soccer news.

Those followers were following SBS’s soccer commentator, who happened to be Scott McIntyre, not following Scott McIntyre who happens to work at SBS. In this case 30k SBS soccer twitter followers were treated to Scott McIntyre’s personal hatred of Anzac Day, on Anzac Day instead of to breaking soccer news.

It is a condition of every employment contract that the employee should behave professionally and courteously towards co-workers and customers in the performance of their job and all incidental activities related to their work. Scott McIntyre sent a series of tweets to SBS’s followers – customers – declaring his opinion that they (if they were white and celebrating Anzac day) were poorly-read, and that those of them with family in the military and particularly ANZACs in their family history, were related to violent appalling people etc.

Twitter is a publishing platform. McIntyre’s breach was no different than if he had emailed 30k SBS viewers personally to insult their military service and Anzac relatives. There is no free speech issue arising here. Employees do not enjoy personal free speech rights to abuse and offend co-workers and their employer’s customers, free of any consequence like losing their job.

What has happened in this case is that an employee of a media organisation mistook a work-related twitter account for some kind of personal tumblr page. That other journos seem to be trying to make this about free speech is legally just incorrect.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what journalists actually do. Since when was patriotism part of a journalists job requirements? Why would anyone thing should they should stick to the government’s or their employer’s or their advertiser’s line? Surely questioning the kind of mindless nationalism and jingoism we see on ANZAC Day is part of the role? It’s fine to disagree or be offended by what he wrote, but in a free society, he has a right to say it. That’s supposed to be one of the freedoms worth fighting for. This fucking country had shed its larrikin streak and its disrespect for authority and become a nation of dobbers, narcs and whiners.

He’s a reporter. not a commentator. he needs to be impartial unless he’s providing an editorial that’s the view of the publication he represents. he wasn’t. he knew what he was doing. He’s Andrew Bolting in the other direction. Jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams.

I had 3 uncles that went away in 1942 to fight the Japanese to defend this mans freedom of speech … I grew up learning to be proud of what they fought for and this created an obsession in me to understand the incredible evil and darkness that enveloped the world from 1933 until 1945 …

40 years of poring over this history has brought me to the conclusion that if the terrible mistake that were made in the 1913-1919 period were avoided, then my uncles would not of had to fight the extreme evil that evolved into the Second World War.

You see Scott is right! The greatest defender of of empire , without a doubt ,Winston Churchill. He devised the Dardanelles WW1 and Greek, Crete campaigns in WW2 and pushed the Americans in to the Italian campaign in WW2. Their was no strong strategic objective against the Germans in Europe. Their aim was to secure the Mediterranean trade root to the Suez Canal through to India, the jewel in the crown of empire. For the same reason Churchill gave Stalin free rain in eastern Europe as long as he stayed out of Greece

Is it worth mentioning that we have only had this extreme unquestioning fervour for Gallipoli Since we have been fighting the illegal Iraq war…..kind off funny how their the same people .

In my mind we were born as a nation the day John Curtin defied Roosevelt and Churchill and brought our boys home to fight the Japanese ..that is a day to be proud of ….

Also their is very little to be proud of in the first half of the 20th century. it was an era heavily polluted with the science of eugenics ( the classification of human beings)

it baffles me how this enlightened multicultural generation can venerate men that so strongly believed in lesser and superior human beings …..

You see it was that mind set that has allowed us to kill on a scale never seen before in history…

To the anonymous query: “I’d be curious if all change.org would be starting a petition if he had tweeted “The Anzacs would’ve successfully stopped the Asylum seeker boats”.

There is a change.org petition calling for McIntyre’s sacking. Change.org doesn’t start petitions. You can sign it if you are so inclined and have the gumption to find it.

For the the historically uniformed:

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/24149

Once ‘Hiery -The Neglected War.pdf’ is open in the reader, do a search for ‘loot’ and ‘rape’ and see if you think McIntyre’s comments had no truth in them.

With a great uncle wounded at Gallipoli, a great uncle wounded at Fromelles, and a grandfather wounded and gassed on the Western Front,…and a father tortured on the Death Railway,plus his brother, my uncle who served at Trobruk and Kokoda, .. I don’t find. Macintyres comments offensive.
I did NOT march this year – each year I march, with my Dads unit banner and a chest loaded with dead men’s medals. But not this year. The Patriotic BS made me want to hurl….. And I know uncle Charlie, gramps and Dad would ALL have despised all the BS. The other relatives died before I was born, so,can’t attest to their opinions.
Australia REALLY needs to drop the nauseating BS about Gallipoli.
WTF were we doing there? Stupid, stupid, stupid….. And the sooner we get some perspective about our folly in other people’s wars, the better.
Why the FUCK have we sent more men to Iraq in 2015.? War is NOT the answer.

What has happened to this country? Are we really going to support this rant by a sports reporter? He knew what he was doing and knew that Anzac day probably wasnt a good day for that rubbish. “For those who have fought for it, freedom is something the protected will never know”. What do these journolists know about why and how we have freedom of speech these days.

Myriad, you ask “how are we to know that these executives won’t be trying hard behind the scenes to influence editorial content in SBS’s documentaries?”

The two executives concerned are MD Michael Ebeid and Director of Sport Ken Shipp. These are not positions that have a say in the programming of documentaries, especially not the Director of Sport! And those who do program them have nothing to do with Sport. That’s just how it is.

What Ebeid and Shipp did do was try to save SBS from becoming collateral damage in “McIntyre’s Folly”. Most people would not have heard of monumental SBS stuff-ups like being sucked in by a fake criminal in Once Upon A Time in Punchbowl (qv). Probably more heard of the rumoured withdrawal from soccer coverage, instantly but not very convincingly denied (also qv). But EVERYONE has heard of an SBS journalist having a shot at the Anzacs on their centenary. They had to put some distance between him and SBS, and fast, or face becoming a sitting duck themselves.

Assume he was on a commercial network. His comments would put him offside with enough viewers that it would hurt ratings. He would be gone. A commercial decision.
Why are sports guys so good at this? I must ask David Morrow at the ABC.

If Scott McIntyre has evidence of these atrocities he tweets about he should reference his source. Otherwise this is just another stupid opinion from an idiot with a twitter account for reasons unknown. The fact that he worked at SBS and reported on soccer is the only reason he had any level of fame in the form of his 30,000+ twitter followers, not because he was Scott McIntyre. He published remarks on an account he used for his profession and referenced his employer strongly throughout it. The decision to sack him is just. It’s not an argument about free speech. Otherwise we could all say whatever offensive remarks we like about race, religion, sexuality etc and hide under the banner of free speech. But that wouldn’t be socially acceptable, would it?

SBS and McIntyre already put themselves offside with many Australians by ignorantly and disrespectfully insisting on referring to their favoured football code by the name of the overall game, not the name of the individual code. Intelligent, rational Australians still call it “soccer”.

He deserved to be sacked because he breached SBS guidelines for their employees by posting tasteless, factually incorrect rubbish, and also by demeaning those Australians who turned out to pay their respects on Anzac Day. No-one glorifies war. I’ve just been reading The RSL Book of WWI, filled with stories written by the WWI diggers, sailors, airmen and nurses themselves. Read it and learn. It’s a wonderful collection of descriptions about war as it was, and is.

Mc Intyre spoke his mind. He can be called to defend his views with evidence, and there is evidence that he was largely speaking the truth. The ANZAC Day is an exercise in glorifying war and militarism.

By the same token, will it be ok for Japanese citizens to celebrate the bombing of Darwin ? The ANZACS were diverse and did suffer great losses. The truth remains that Australian soldiers invaded a country which was no threat to itself, thousands died and the survivors suffered for decades. However, they were also used as instruments of British imperial interests.

The ANZACS stationed in Egypt brutally suppressed Egyptian freedom fighters who opposed British occupation of their country. Mindless support of jingoinsm and war mongering is one step towards fascism.

A heckler at a funeral ? Whose funeral ? It was a day of glorifying war and a war against a country that was not a threat to Australia. He merely tweeted his views as did thousands of others. If they are wrong, he can be asked to show evidence, there is enough evidence to broadly support his views. Evidence that is inconvenient to the rightwing chauvinistic myth making of the government and news corpse.

Anyone who thinks Anzac Day is about glorifying war is an ignorant fool.

@Tony Bee – well said

No matter how misguided the ideals at the time might or might not have been, those men did what they believed was right for their country and their fundamental beliefs…most of which are still widely held today – including freedom of speech. Most were too young to know better and lost their lives accordingly. Anzac day is surely there to commemorate the loss of their lives and to hammer home the futility of war – something the whole world needs to be reminded of all the time. As Tony stated it is NOT to glorify war. Who on earth could ever support the glorification of war? There are some seriously twisted thoughts out there if this column is anything to go by…and to think they hold the strings to most of what the general public is subject to in everyday messaging (advertising).

The notion that ANZAC Day ‘glorifies war’ is pathetically typical of the left-wing mindset – short on logic and rationality, and rife with ill-informed, delusional ideology.

Mohan, Turkey decided to enter the War on the side of Germany. They weren’t some innocent bystander invaded by imperialists. The “Young Turks” who ruled the country hoped that if Germany won, they’d regain land they’d lost to Russia, not to mention getting some land back in the Balkans (incidentally, the Ottoman Turks were themselves an imperialist power, who’d tried to conquer Vienna twice, ruled much of the Arab world and whose rule over places like Serbia, Bulgaria etc was deeply resented and only very recently overthrown at the time).

Hi Tony Bee,
Cue one “ignorant fool”.
I have been present at Sydney ANZAC marches as a very young child in the early 1960s.
I have seen the march – and the coverage – change to this jingoistic,puerile ravings of nonsense. I have seen the march transform from thousands of men wearing their medals, to hundreds, to none. I now march, my right chest covered in dead men’s medals. I march in respect of my relatives. But they themselves would be antagonistic to the CRAP that is spouted now about ANZAC day. It is instructive to review how the men themselves were treated as returned soldiers. It is in STARK contrast to all this BS. Uncle Jim, 9th division, fought at Trobruk and Kokoda. Where he contracted malaria. On return, his file shows, he attempted to get a pension. Nyet, nada, No Way, as the department refuses and claims there is no way to prove he contract malaria inNew Guinea!!!! The bureaucratic bullshit continues up until the last few entries – applicant deceased. Guess he WAS sick after all. That was 1954. Uncle Charlie was an alcoholic. Maybe he would have been anyway, but Western Front MAY have played a part. Dad had a fractured bone in his neck, from the butt of a Japanese rifle. He too struggled to get this war injury recognised. So the men themselves- they were not afforded all this glory and reverence during their lifetime. It is only now, when none of them are here to call BS that the nauseous glorification is allowed and vindicated.
Oh, and yeah, there was rape performed by Aussie soldiers inFeb 1942 when Singapore fell. That has been pretty much covered up. Dad claimed to have held off -using his rifle – a few “mongrels” as they attempted to abduct a “native” sheila, as he told it. Women get raped in our country NOW, so it certainly happened in the fog and madness of war.

How often do we have to say that Anzac Day is not about glorifying war and no veteran of any conflict glorifies war. Those who keep say this are indeed ignorant and foolish, mindlessly repeating it over and over. If you look back there were huge problems after WWI, with thousands of returned soldiers suffering from what we now know is PTSD. There’s nothing chauvinistic, and there’s no myth about Gallipoli. It was appalling, and so where this soccer commentator’s tweets.

Couldn’t agree more @ Tony Bee. The Anzac’s themselves didn’t want to be there.. Anzac Day isn’t a celebration of invading Turkey. Anyone that believes that is completely off the mark all together.

Anyone who can’t see how ANZAC Day has been promoted over the last few years is an ignorant fool.

He never lost his freedom of speech.
Just his job.

That’s how it works. The court of public opinion adjudicates on freedom of speech.

The situation is as it should be.

To those that mythologise Our Heros (or actually men of my immediate family).
Are you sure they were fighting for “our freedom”?
Are you homosexual? Well then, count yourself out. They were loving, middle class men of their day and found homosexuality disgusting.
Quote Uncle Tom H: if one man wants to bugger another man, I’ll stick a bayonet up his arse, that’ll fix him!
Are you Aboriginal? or an “abo” in the vernacular of the day. No, they did not fight for you. My grandfather advocated very strongly opposed to Aboriginal people being given the vote.
Are you an immigrant to this country? Well they did not fight for you. You were a dago, an eyetie, a spick, a chink. You have no place in this country.
Are you female?
Well you need to know your place. You belong at home. And you need to have dinner on the table when the men get home. You are a Sheila, a skirt, a sort. My Uncle Tom would not allow Aunty Joyce to get a drivers licence. Dad would not allow mum to work outside the home. Women needed to know their place and do what they were told.

These view, these are the REAL beliefs of the men that are now venerated. If they had a twitter account and articulated their real views, my god they would be getting trolled!

I quote from an earlier post: It is worth mentioning that we have only had this extreme unquestioning fervour for Gallipoli since we have been fighting the illegal Iraq war…..kind off funny how they’re the same people .
I agree with post that locates this jingoistic ANZAC mythology around the Time of John Howard. I remember the 1980s and Eric Bogels And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. In the 1980s ANZAC was. Bit of a joke – as far as the MSM was concerned it was about to die out, and good riddance to a ridiculous ritual. Then Howard came in, and was influenced by the US Project for a New American Century, and the cult of ANZAC was fostered.

Yep.

What happened to free speech? “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” VOLTAIRE

@ Michael Rogers 27 Apr 15 8:52 pm

Re: Change.org and petitions. Fair call, I stand corrected on that. Though suspect they are very selective in which petitions they promote to the media, and please don’t claim that they don’t do that, as that would be very naive thinking.

If Scott McIntyre and supporters want to flag the “Free Speech” card for McIntyre’s comments, why not show some consistency. For example, they say nothing when laws take away Free Speech, like the Tasmania abortion laws. This is where there is a ban – a 1 year jail term and $10,000 fine, for any person going within 150 metres from an abortion clinic protesting peacefully against abortion, or even offering help to pregnant women, or standing there and praying silently? McIntyre and his advocates won’t say “Boo!” here about Free Speech, will they.

Wow Cannes laughter, love the “respect” you have for your grandfather, not to mention the fact that you have just decided that every single person who served in both world wars must have thought just like him! Stereotyping surely!

Eric Bogels is a Scottish immigrant, who wrote that song as a backhanded attack on the Vietnam War in the 1960’s. He’s actually said that when he wrote it he didn’t know much about ANZAC Day etc. My memory of the 1980’s was that the “MSM” was “amazed” by the increasing attendance at ANZAC Day marches. The days of it “dying out” is more 60’s and 70’s (like Bogels’s song). Howard didn’t “revive” it, although he certainly tried to exploit it for his own purposes, like politicians of all stripes today. That’s what they do. It’s generally best to ignore them. The point of ANZAC Day is to remember the dead, and the sacrifices of these soldiers. You can attack some of the jingoistic elements without attacking the troops in general, and I’m always amazed by these people who imagine they’re well educated on the subject fail to understand that Turkey made a conscious effort to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers on the basis that they’d regain some of their lost empire (imperialism surely), and they subsequently massacred millions of minorities.

I can certainly understand “ANZAC Fatigue”, but it is a significant anniversary, and it’s to be expected. McIntyre’s invective used his position with SBS to give him “authority” and was deliberately designed to be abusive to a large portion of the population, and exposes his own fatuous ignorance whilst he imagines himself to be well informed. The One Day of the Year is a play, not history. The Turks made themselves our enemy (they could have stayed neutral), and the Sultan (as Caliph) called on all Muslims to attack us, which resulted in an Afghan camel team leader (and ex-soldier in the Turkish army) shooting up the Christmas Picnic train at Broken Hill in late 1914. You can’t really say we “had no quarrel”. Nor is Anzac Day about “hating” the Turks, or Germans, or Japanese etc. We’re not in Afghanistan because of ANZAC Day. Nor do we “celebrate” the atomic bombing, or these various atrocities McIntyre asserts Anzacs committed in Japan. Personally I hate the way Williamson in Gallipoli tried to make a “virtue” of the troops smashing up that Egyptian’s shop etc. But that’s a separate issue.

As for you Jo. McIntyre was sacked by SBS. He isn’t hauled before a court and forced to make apologies and banned from making comments on the issue again (the way Bolt was, or do you exclude him from Voltaire’s dictum). Do you have the same view of that guy who was forced to resign as CEO of Mozilla because he’d donated to a campaign against gay marriage in California as a private individual? Or the academic who was forced out because of a few e-mails he sent, and which, unlike the tweets, weren’t supposed to be for public consumption? This sort of thing cuts both ways. And whether you like Bolt or not, the truth is that many of these people who are getting upset about McIntyre were either cheering the court on, or were conspicuous by their silence, and certainly didn’t want any changes to 18c. I wonder if McIntyre could be charged over 18c since it wasn’t published in the name of journalism, and he was certainly wrong to say the “ANZACS” dropped the bomb on the Japanese or that we had no quarrel with Turkey.

Let Him Be.x.

MAlcolm (free speech) Turnbull mat as well have said.

I will decide who has free speech, and under what terms they will use it.

ANZAC isn’t about glorifying war ! Well what is it then ? Who remembers the aboriginals who died fighting to defend their lands in wars all over the country ? Why are Aboriginal soldiers sidelined ? And Turkey entered the war on the side of Germany, true enough, but Australia was by then an independent country and Turkey did not threaten Australia ? So why is the invasion of Turkey worth glorifying and not the Aboriginals who fought for their lands against colonisers ?

Will the supporters of the militarism agree to Japanese marching to co-memorate the bombing of Darwin ?

Nowhere In my blog do I condemn nor comment on the harshness of the penalty imposed on Scott McIntyre by SBS.
I discuss the ideas behind his comments, I call them inappropriate and I add my personal observations of ANZAC day.
ABC also interviewed me for the 7.30pm report thinking I wrote about freedom of speech, which I also didn’t do.
I guess when emotions are high, people read into things anyway they want.

Reinstate Scott McIntyre – In my opinion Australians have sanitized ANZAC Day with BEER pomp and ceremony – and we now know that it was a slaughter field for young innocent men who had no idea of what they were fighting for all that way from their home country. Australians should not have been there in the first place.
REINSTATE SCOTT MCINTYRE and stop playing up to the average Australian. Political correctness . KEEP FREEDOM OF SPEECH .

If more people new the truth about WWI then even more people would be supporting Scott. Maybe SBS could do a doco. Hidden History, The Secret Origins Of The First World War. The book has been done and there is the title.

Mohan, Turkey declared us to be their enemy, and as I explained, the Sultan’s call inspired an Afghan camel leader to shoot up the Christmas Picnic train in Broken Hill in 1914.

ANZAC Day is about remembering the soldiers, not celebrating the invasion of Turkey (the campaign failed BTW). As for the Japanese – the bombing of Darwin is a minor matter for them, but they do have a shrine in Japan to commorate their dead on the Kokoda Trail. Should we demand they tear it down?

As for you Brian Johnston, a couple of people have written a conspiracy theory. It is a theory, not the unquestioned truth. I dare say they have more going for them than Moon hoax people, but even if they’re right, what does this have to do with not remembering the soldiers themselves?

My god its so sad to see comments that these men went away in 1915 to fight for freedom.

No they went away to Fight for Empire and if u look at Empire in a harsh light ..it is nowhere near freedom ….

PT, do you know that Turkey was undecided on it allegiance in the war until Britain decided to keep naval ships built by them under contract to Turkey . Germany giving them replacements ships might have been a clincher.

You see a little less reneging and a little more diplomacy by England and its possible 100.000 lives could of been saved

I’m completely lost with tour comments in relation to the bombing of Darwin and Kokoda ?? . Darwin was bombed by the Japanese 64 time the first raid was 288 planes strong . you have to agree this is no “small matter” by any standard.

Kokoda was a massive Campaign For the Japanese . Moresby was a huge objective and New Gunea was an incredibly important buffer in the defence of Rabual .

We fought WW2 for LIBERATION and freedom from the evil of , greed,Racism and tyranny in the form Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany . Honestly we fought WW1 to DEFEND the evil of, greed ,Racism and tyranny in the form Imperial England.

I know which one I would rather see as the birth of my nation ….

and im sorry PT most Anglo men of that era did think that way. Conditioned by every aspect of their lives from birth . Every thing from mainstream religion to Science ( eugenics ) to politics, assured those men falsely that they were superior.

History is riddled with evidence of this you just have to look

True ausy men of the era were down to the earth and larrikins , what they were not was multicultural . Their sense of superiority (Racism) was hard wired into their DNA . Their was some free thinking people, manly those that had lived and learnt the exceptionality of other peoples and there cultures but sadly they were often viewed as freaks in their day …

If you look at the article by Professor Philip Dwyer, Professor, Director of the Centre for the History of Violence, University of Newcastle you may be surprised that what Mcintyre said is actually quite historically accurate. Judge for yourself.

http://theconversation.com/anz.....tory-40955