to think it's OK not to wear a poppy?

[PieceOfResistance]

I think it's pretty frowned on in some quarters if you don't wear one.

I'm fully in favour of remembrance day in its initial peace-promoting purpose, and of commemorating all the thousands of people who lost their lives.

But I worry that poppy day sometimes serves to glorify war, and to raise a kind of patriotism which, to my mind, is definitely not entirely positive.

Molio the poppy doesn't support the recent wars at all.

The poppy is a symbol of Remembrance. It shows that you are remembering the people who have died in conflicts, the more recent ones included. Of course you don't have to wear one to do this, it's personal choice.

It is, also, a symbol to show support to the serving troops. I can't get my head round why so many people can't seperate the politicians from the troops.

Some people can separate them and still not support the troops.

I say this every year, but if the annual debates about poppy wearing have anything to teach us, surely it's that a symbol can't be forced to mean one thing only, whatever its sale price is donated to, and whatever the poetic symbolic use made of the poppy as an image of sleep or specifically in 'In Flanders Fields' (which is actually a nakedly martial poem, about passing on the torch of armed struggle and instructing the living to 'Take up our quarrel with the foe' or the dead will never sleep, even under the poppies).

It means different things to different people at different times, and there's no point in berating one another for not grasping or whole-heatedly acceding to what it means for one group.

Some people can seperate them and still not support the troops indeed Grockle. I would be one of those people, and there are many more like me.

I don't think you can separate the poppy from where the proceeds go. A big chunk of the money must go to participants of modern wars as the WW2 vets are over 85 now.

The Fairy Caravan you're completely wrong, sadly. The poppy should be a symbol of remembrance only, and a warning too, but unfortunately it has become more than that for far too many people. The whole jingoistic aspect of it I really don't like.

lougle aside from my mother's uncle who died going over the top in 1916, my father's family were continental and decimated in the Second World War, so could reasonably be termed 'victims'. As a close relation and one who felt the direct ramifications of that horrible loss, I'm wholly against war, even though in the '80's/ 90's I was a (rather patronisingly named) 'army wife'. Do you have personal experience to base your fairly sweeping statements on?

Remembrance may have many facets.

But the Poppy Campaign doesn't. It's all on the RBL website. You can agree with it or not, wear one or not. That's what freedom is about.

Whatever the website says, there is more to it than that. It's been appropriated by some people to mean much more, and you can't remove those connotations just because you'd like to.

Completely agree with grocklebox.

I have never encountered poppy fascism in real life, thing of course am aware of a couple of high profile cases of people having difficulty with a dress code which should never have been imposed in the first place (because it is not part of the Poppy Campaign).

I have however seen a lot more poppy bashing online this year. But much of it strikes me as a series of strawmen arguments - criticising things which are nothing whatsoever to do with the actual Poppy Campaign itself or what it stands for (essentially identical to all the White Poppy stuff, but without the linked 'abolish the military' aspect).

Personally, I don't wear a poppy of any colour, and haven't for a few years now. For a number of reasons, personal mainly.

I am however profoundly grateful for the many freedoms secured at such great cost to so many.

I have encountered poppy fascism in real life. I know other people that have too. It's a real thing and not just in the last couple of years.