Poppies and the "Heroes Industry" ?

[amateur51]

Why don't you engage with the argument instead of engaging in personal attacks? And you could do us a favour and stop waving your homosexuality in our faces like a trump card.

I was engaging with your argument, poppet.

Oh dear, homosexual panic strikes again.

And so soon after breakfast.

[MrGongGong]

Mr Pee, unfortunately the wearing of the poppy, for many people, is not "simply" a statement of respect.
It would be so much easier if it was.

I remember when this changed and it was at the time of the Falklands war, I was at art college and it became very obvious that opposition to the status quo was becoming socially unacceptable (as Elvis Costello / Robert Wyatt will tell you).
For me , it was also one of the reasons why I stopped being part of the CofE , even though I loved the music I found the hypocrisy of the church over it's complicity in the glorification of war impossible to tolerate. We were told to "rejoice" in the killing of Argentinian teenage conscripts and any dissent from the official narrative wasn't tolerated.
This was also at the time when the survivors of WW1 stopped being so present.


(and surely one "thrusts" homosexuality "down our throats" rather than "wave" it about like some kind of camp dishcloth while trying to usher a wasp off the petit fours ? )

[jean]

...By the way, I don't think there's anything "glorious" about the dead either. Let's remember that the Cenotaph was erected in 1920, close to the end of the First World War, and inevitably people thought differently then...

You won't find the word glorious on many war memorials up and down the country, either.

I think too that it is wrong to assume that anyone who speaks of sacrifice in any war must believe that the war itself was glorious; the concept of a sacrifice made in vain is very much part of our language.

The main purpose of the Legion was straightforward: to care for those who had suffered as a result of service in the Armed Forces in the Great War, whether through their own service or through that of a husband, father or son. The suffering took many forms: the effect of a war wound on a man's ability to earn a living and support his family; or a war widow's struggle to give her children an education...

...When the Legion's leaders looked around them in 1921, not only did they see a gigantic task in front of them looking after those who had suffered in the recent war, they also sought to prevent further sacrifice by reminding the nation of the human cost of war and to work actively for peace...

That is what the British Legion says of itself. That's its official meaning, as far as it has one.

.

[Ferretfancy]

With the greatest respect, surely we can't have things decided for us by what your father and brother thought? My granddad, got his throat shot out in the battle of the Somme, but survived, and my dad still has his injuries from Anzio, and both did (and do in my dad's case) think of the people that died around them as the glorious dead. However, I would not direct anyone to think along the same lines as these two Hoxton men. People should make up their own minds.

We should certainly make up my own minds. It's just that I suspect that many of us, while considering the feelings of others, are simply not persuaded that ceremonial occasions of the kind we will witness tomorrow are without a certain taint of hypocrisy while millions continue to die as they have in Syria and elsewhere.

[jean]

Here are some other people trying to change the widely accepted meaning of a symbol

The comparison is extremely distasteful, and not very apposite.

[Beef Oven!]

We should certainly make up my own minds. It's just that I suspect that many of us, while considering the feelings of others, are simply not persuaded that ceremonial occasions of the kind we will witness tomorrow are without a certain taint of hypocrisy while millions continue to die as they have in Syria and elsewhere.

I have suspicions too, and I am persuaded that tomorrow's ceremony contains no hypocrisy; and I feel many of us are persuaded likewise, but I think it's best left to people to make up their own minds, rather presuming on their behalf.

Anyway, it's a free country and we can think whatever we like!

[amateur51]

(and surely one "thrusts" homosexuality "down our throats" rather than "wave" it about like some kind of camp dishcloth while trying to usher a wasp off the petit fours ? )

I'm sure that the late Baroness Young would take that view.

[Beef Oven!]

(and surely one "thrusts" homosexuality "down our throats" rather than "wave" it about like some kind of camp dishcloth while trying to usher a wasp off the petit fours ? )

Keep up MrGG, now that you and other homosexualists have your gay marriage malarkey, it's time to start 'waving' the 'camp dishcloth' (your words chum)!!!!

[amateur51]

Keep up MrGG, now that you and other homosexualists have your gay marriage malarkey, it's time to start 'waving' the 'camp dishcloth' (your words chum)!!!!

I'm sure that your exhortation Remember the fallen, remember the dead........................ includes LGBT members of the services.

[Beef Oven!]

I'm sure that your exhortation Remember the fallen, remember the dead........................ includes LGBT members of the services.

Why the fuck wouldn't it?

[amateur51]

Why the fuck wouldn't it?

Don't ask me chum - I was rather surprised by your neanderthal dig at MrGG about equal marriage, but perhaps I should have learned by now.

[Beef Oven!]

Don't ask me chum - I was rather surprised by your neanderthal dig at MrGG about equal marriage, but perhaps I should have learned by now.

The question has to be addressed to you - you made the offensive prejudiced comment.

[Flosshilde]

The comparison is extremely distasteful, and not very apposite.

The comparison is uncomfortable, but not, I think, distasteful. The comparison is appropriate - as is the example of the use of the pink triangle by the gay movement (sorry Mr Pee to wave it again) in the '70s & '80s.

Jean, the 'mission statement' of the British Legion might say that they "actively work for peace" but I wonder how many of its members - and the general public - see that as its primary purpose? Oh, & the poppy appeal isn't run by or for the British Legion but the Earl Haig Fund, so the British Legion's statement is irrelevant to the discussion of what the poppy means.

[amateur51]

The question has to be addressed to you - you made the offensive prejudiced comment.

You enjoy blowing in so many directions it was scarcely prejudiced. How do you reconcile your offensive comment referring to 'gay marriage' as 'malarkey' with 'Why the fuck wouldn't it?'?

[Beef Oven!]

How do you reconcile your offensive comment referring to 'gay marriage' as 'malarkey' with 'Why the fuck wouldn't it?'?

Easily. I do not have to believe in same sex marriage, to abhor unjustified discrimination. The fact that you had to ask the question in post #54 demonstrates that you do not have the same honest, flexible outlook on life.

P.S. If you thought my comment was offensive, you should have said so when you replied to it, not now. You are being slippery.