Why I No Longer Feel Comfortable Wearing a Poppy

[Geckos48]

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/madeleine-fry/poppy-day_b_4169581.html

very eloquently put. Exactly how I feel about the whole debacle.

November 11th should be for those who selflessly gave their lives in the World Wars, not those who chose to fight dubious campaigns abroad.

And what about those evil war mongers who were killed because they fancied driving a tank around the Balkans?

you might feel that we should support them, but i don't. i agree with the author of the huff post piece. i'm a pacifist and would prefer to withdraw all my financial support for our military.

OP you cannot compare the Falklands to India, particularly as the Falklands were uninhabited and

This is key...

The vast, vast majority of the Falkland Islanders view themselves as British and wish to stay that way.

You are on dubious ground to deny the right of a people to self-determination.

I say that as someone who hugely disagreed with British foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I believe there is one left and he speaks out very harshly about current conflicts.

it must be so hard to hear 'lest we forget' in line with people starting wars with no provocation.

There are plenty of relatives of WW1 veterans alive, memorials to keep clean and so on.

I also dont think we should forget the sacrifice made in the WW's just because the veterans aren't around anymore. It is a day we should always remember because of those wars, not tainted by current conflict (which it is)

I wear my poppy with pride every year. I do so to remember all the dead from war. This is very personal to me for many reasons.

I think people over complicate Remembrance Day. It's rememberance. What's so bloody awful about that?

The Falklands are not like India! We could not "return" it as it was not owned by anyone in the first place and we did not "steal" it. Please read your history and don't try and re-invent history to suit an argument.

I think it's incredibly naive to think it's simply about remembrance. All historical commemorations are more complicated than that.

Oh for heaven's sake. Every year someone makes baseless allegations about the White Poppy movement. The PPU is a pacifist organisation. It makes no bones about that. The White Poppy movement is most certainly not tasteless around remembrance day - its the red poppy that is tasteless.

If you're interested in the PPU you can read about it here www.ppu.org.uk

Yup, do away with the British Armed Forces.

Not entirely sure who we'd send out should there be another crisis somewhere close-ish to home like the Balkans though. I suppose we could leave counter piracy and getting people out of places like Sierra Leone entirely to private enterprise or something. That'd work

I just think the WW's deserve their own day.

I think the people deserve their own day to remember those wars without supporting further conflicts.

I dont think that a war fought over a rock belonging to a different country is an adequate example of when we had to go to war and kill our own. We were not under threat. People may now (on that rock) think they are British but they weren't there before that war.

We should not be sending our young men to die over bits of rocks connected to other peoples countries.

We should not have tried to take over the whole bloody world. We should own that we did and make things right as best we can.

But most of all, we should be able to honour the dead from the WW's (which include vast numbers of women and children who also fought their own battles on the Home Front) rather it being about the whole armed forces.

We could return the Falklands to the penguins.

Is that what I said skylerwhite? Are you having problems understanding me as you did on the last Anti-Military thread you were on?

I'm not being aggressive LtEve, I'm interested in your opinions and so asked for clarification.

This is what you said:
Dubious wars to YOU. Not to those of us that were actually there. You weren't, you don't know or understand.

This implies that you think that only those who were there can really understand what wars were about. If I've taken you up wrongly, then I'm happy to hear what you actually meant.

They do have their own days! Fair enough 11/11 has had other conflicts hoisted on it, but for WWII there's VE day and VJ day - people can and do mark these if they so wish.

Or we could have not lost 200 lives over a rock... Seriously.

The poppy is about Remembrance. It is NOT political. It is not about supporting or glorifying wars, conflicts or operations. The money raised by the selling of poppies goes towards the military, ex military and their families who need it. Those who need more support than the government gives them.

I believe there is a big difference between those conscripted and those that choose to join the armed forces.

Yes, this.

OP, I agree with you. And I hate the general trend towards sentimentality about and blind worship of our armed forces. Being in the military doesn't automatically make someone a hero.

Which rock is this, OP?

Gecko What do you mean the Falklanders weren't there before that war?

You are starting to sound like you don't actually know what you are talking about. I find your conflation of colonial India with the Falklands to be grossly offensive to those who suffered in such colonialism.

Calling the Poppy Appeal a debacle is offensive, in my view.

The Falklands are not a rock - this is a fact. They are not connected to another country - they are islands. British people (and Australian and New Zealanders) and lived on the Falkland Islands before the war with Argentina.

A day to remember that today, you can have these thoughts and speak them. Lets remember those who gave and still give so you can have the freedom of speech .
Yes those who join the forces today have a choice but that's because they believe in protecting what we have. If our shores are invaded today and we have no army how will we fight back?
My poppy is a small way of saying thanks

I totally agree lacey and I refuse to acknowledge the charity 'help for heroes' for that reason. I agree with the work they do, but not with the barstardisation of the word 'hero' nor the brainwashing of our young and their assistance in that.

I dont want my sons to think that joining the armed forces and going abroad to invade people makes them a 'hero' thank you very much!

November 11th is symbolic to WW11 as we all know. It is important that remembrance day is marked on that day. It is not important that all armed forces are remembered on that day.

I used to be quite vehemently for the red poppy, coming from a forces family. But I have found the fetishizing of all soldiers as ipso facto heroes somewhat distasteful. I still donate to the RBL because they do good work, but I don't wear a poppy.

Gecko, I'm sorry, are you saying no one lived on the Falklands before the conflict?

It was another poster who described it as a 'rock' not me (though I did re-use the phrase)

I think that you have to go further back, we should not have be colonising the world and that INCLUDES the Falkland Islands.

They were not ours to take or defend.

Anyway, this thread is not about the Falklands and trust me, you wont change my view on it, this thread is about Rememberence day being for those veterans of the WW's

And how important that is in our society.