The poppy thread

[Stillhomewardbound]

Didn't have anything to say, but as it's the season for it, I thought I'd open 'The Poppy Thread' ... a place where members will want to comment on the rights or wrongs of poppy wearing, honours sacrifice/glorifies war etc, etc, etc!, as invariably happens at this time of the year.

[mercia]

I give to the poppy appeal and other charities every year but feel no need to advertise the fact to other people (i.e. I don't wear a poppy).

[Lateralthinking1]

Good topic. I used to buy a poppy every year and always found Remembrance Day very moving. At university, there was a broad trendy rejection of it all, and some discussion about wearing a white poppy instead. I frowned on it. The feelings associated with poppy day were many - sadness at so many having to die so young in the main wars, respect for my own relations who had fought in those wars, a belief that it had delivered the freedom and privileges we enjoyed, some support for those in recent wars - Falklands etc - but with a feeling that those wars were wrong and the people involved had some choice on whether to sign up.

As you might expect, here comes my variation on a familiar jaundiced theme. It is not the same now. The emotions are quite different. What the ruling classes carefully pieced together ceremonially to keep it all taut for the general population has fragmented at least in my emotional mind. Completely. In a nutshell, paying for a poppy would feel like supporting a system that my godfather and uncles - if they were still here - would utterly condemn. As an idealistic youth, I sensed in them that sort of disgust for the state anyway but it would be twenty fold now. I believe that they would insist that I didn't buy a poppy in their memory.

Furthermore, there is the added feeling that the poppy thing now supports a whole range of atrocities in the modern military era like umpteen unnecessary wars, getting young volunteers to fight without adequate clothing etc, and the state being at best laissez faire about atrocious human rights abuses being undertaken by our army. After all, that's similar to its treatment of civilians.

So........I will be honouring my relations by thinking of them on the day, buying a garden plant and going for a walk. All such things represent more accurately how I feel and largely because they have nothing whatsoever to do with this country in 2011.

[salymap]

I largely agree with Lateralthinking. I also think of my mother's first husband, killed weeks before the Armistice, who would have been my father. My mother loved my father, her second husband, but never got over the tragedy after just one year of a very happy marriage.

[Mary Chambers]

I agree with Lateralthinking, too. I used to buy poppies, never now I have thought about it a bit more.

Has anyone else noticed an increasing sentimentality about the army? It worries me, especially when I hear it from politicians.

[MrGongGong]

Sadly, I feel that the whole thing has been hijacked by the "heroes" industry and used by governments to "normalise" their dodgy adventures.
To me, the poppy was a symbol of those ordinary people who fought in two world wars. The whole thing has sadly become a celebration of the military. The far from subtle ways that we are now supposed to see EVERYONE who is in the forces as a "hero" I find very distasteful and an insult to the memory of those (both in the past and more recently ) ARE heroic. Sitting in front of a computer and destroying your enemies with a remote drone strike is not the same as hacking through a jungle in South East Asia and spending years being ill treated in a POW camp.
I wont buy one or wear one and I find it more than a little worrying that the "your with us or against us" mentality seems to have extended to what always was IMV a personal statement.

[greenilex]

I bought my white poppy at the recent Trafalgar Square anniversary of the start of the Afghan War. But I'm unlikely to wear it, even beside a red one, as I'm reluctant to start arguing with people with unalterable opinions...

[amateur51]

I agree with all the sentiments expressed here, the sense of dislocation from the national 'gesture'.

Aeons ago there was an attempt to lay a wreath of pinks flowers in a triangle to co9mmemorate the gay men who had died as service personnel in the wars but that was received with hostility and not allowed. More recently I thought about wearing a white poppy but in the end it was the Legion's mistake of accepting Blair's royalties from his memoirs that has clinched it for me. His £4m donation means they don't need my pennorth and I'm afraid it shows scant regard for those who fell in the service of politicians who would take the nation to war on a very dodgy prospectus.:sadface:

[Mary Chambers]

I bought my white poppy at the recent Trafalgar Square anniversary of the start of the Afghan War. But I'm unlikely to wear it, even beside a red one, as I'm reluctant to start arguing with people with unalterable opinions...

My feelings, too. I admire people who do have the courage to wear a white one - perhaps I will this year, but I don't feel a need to advertise my opinions in that way, and I also don't like the idea of the arguments.

[kernelbogey]

[...] The far from subtle ways that we are now supposed to see EVERYONE who is in the forces as a "hero" I find very distasteful [...]

This expresses well the discomfort I feel every time I clap eyes on the 'Help for Heroes' publicity (car stickers etc). I've also had similar feelings to others' views posted above about the poppy appeal in recent years.

[Mr Pee]

Oh, how predictable and depressing. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-sad020.gif

As soon as I saw the thread title, I knew the usual suspects would trot out the usual bilge. Since when has wearing a poppy become a "celebration of the military"? Since when has "the poppy thing" supported a whole range of atrocities"? The money from the poppy appeal supports injured soldiers and their families. If that's an atrocity, then I'll start reading the Guardian.

If I may paraphrase Amateur's instruction to me on an earlier thread, I think you should get off your self-satisified, comfy, complacent fundaments and spend a few days with a limbless ex-Serviceman who's trying to rebuild his life with the help of the Royal British Legion. Then come back here and try again- you might just understand. Although I won't be holding my breath. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-angry032.gif

[amateur51]

Oh, how predictable and depressing. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-sad020.gif

As soon as I saw the thread title, I knew the usual suspects would trot out the usual bilge. Since when has wearing a poppy become a "celebration of the military"? Since when has "the poppy thing" supported a whole range of atrocities"? The money from the poppy appeal supports injured soldiers and their families. If that's an atrocity, then I'll start reading the Guardian.

If I may paraphrase Amateur's instruction to me on an earlier thread, I think you should get off your self-satisified, comfy, complacent fundaments and spend a few days with a limbless ex-Serviceman who's trying to rebuild his life with the help of the Royal British Legion. Then come back here and try again- you might just understand. Although I won't be holding my breath. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-angry032.gif

Do you actually read what people say in their posts, Mr Pee?

[MrGongGong]

Oh, how predictable and depressing. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-sad020.gif

[/url]

Try READING what people actually SAY rather than jumping to the same old ignorant conclusions ............

I find it grossly offensive that remembrance day is now equally in memory of the ordinary conscript teenagers who were killed in Paschendale and the soldiers who murdered innocent people on Bloody Sunday (and were able to simply walk away)..... If YOU can't see the difference then there really is no hope at all :sadface:

[doversoul1]

Mr GG

To me, the poppy was a symbol of those ordinary people who fought in two world wars.

very distasteful and an insult to the memory of those (both in the past and more recently ) ARE heroic

My thoughts and feeling exactly. Every year, two veterans come to my local Sainsbury’s with poppies. They are now very old. Seeing them makes you think what they must have gone through as young men and I always thought they were selling the poppies to remind people that what they experienced should never happen again. Linking the poppy with the recent wars seems to me very wrong.

I have never bought poppies. Coming from ‘the other side’, I still feel that it is somewhat insensitive of me to go up to them, although the loss to my family was just as great as to any British families. Those young men would never have chosen to become soldiers.

[Mr Pee]

Try READING what people actually SAY rather than jumping to the same old ignorant conclusions ............

I find it grossly offensive that remembrance day is now equally in memory of the ordinary conscript teenagers who were killed in Paschendale and the soldiers who murdered innocent people on Bloody Sunday (and were able to simply walk away)..... If YOU can't see the difference then there really is no hope at all :sadface:

Well, since the soldiers who were involved in Bloody Sunday walked away, Remembrance Sunday is NOT in their memory. Because they were not killed in action.

If YOU can't see that difference then there really is no hope at all. :sadface:

The clue- listen carefully- is in the word RE-MEM-BRANCE.......http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...olleyes003.gif