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.

Have you not considered that the forces are merely a good career option? My uncle left school in 1930's, a time of high unemployment, and his mother managed to get him a clerical job. He hated it and considered it dead end. She was against the forces so he only told her after he had joined up. He went into the navy aged 16 as a stoker in the boiler room. He had a great career and rose up to be an officer and in charge of ship trials. He travelled the world, he and my aunt had three years in Malta among other places. His life would have been very narrow had he stayed in his small town job.
When my son couldn't get an apprenticeship ( another period of high youth unemployment) he applied to the RAF, he actually got an apprenticeship before he had time to sit the tests but had he not he would certainly have pursued it. My other son had a period of wanting to be an air traffic controller, he applied to both civilian and RAF and then decided on something completely different.
My friend's son is a dentist with the army, it gives him the lifestyle he likes.
You appear to have a very narrow view of a man with a gun and ignore the fact that 'the man with the gun' is the peace keeper and is the one building the schools, wells etc

Very true Miconium , it had never occurred to me that people didn't separate the two before Geckos started this thread.
The only thing that it has achieved is making me determined to wear a red poppy and remember our war dead. There is nothing political in it.

Good morning. Are we feeling more peaceful today?

Too early to say, Doublemuvver, I think we need to wait until everyone has had breakfast for real hostilities to begin!

Sausage sandwiches. Hmmmmm. And coffee.

Well, flat, I was merely indicating that because we have evidence that some people had armed conflicts of various types doesn't mean that it's a natural thing whatsoever. I'd also go on to restate that progress for us as a race is massively impeded by fighting and killing and we are a social animal where we develop by co-operation and partnership.

Anything to do with armed services is highly political and separating out the poppy from politics is highly naive. You may be remembering you loved ones as a motivator to do it, but you are also making a political statement.

We have this sort of thread most years don't we?

Every single bloody year.

Surely I am in possession of what political statements I am making. I make no political statement by wearing my poppy. I am showing an act of remembrance. For me I can separate political acts and the fact someone has fallen in the line of duty, I'm allowed to do that.

I have no problem about debating the issue, especially where both sides make rational and intelligent arguments. I truly get bored and annoyed with trite and emotive arguments - that it's disrespectful not to wear a poppy or that if we had no army we'd have no wars etc.

I also despise all the sort of public mourning/tabloid "our boys"/heroes/Armed Forces Day etc etc.

Actually Pan, it's people like you and Gecko that somehow make a simple symbol of remembrance a political thing. It isn't, and those that wear poppies in remembrance are not making political statements.

However much you believe they are pro war activists, they are simply remembering our dead, as the poppy campaign was designed to encourage. Sorry to disappoint you.

I've never worn the poppy as a political statement.

It's always been to remember those who have died, all of them, not just the two world wars that OP would .

I would have given up long ago on this if it took the normal route but it is so bizarre that I keep returning.

Oh it's fine, you are not disappointing me at all Pass. fwiw I didn't say poppy wearers are 'pro-war' and wouldn't as I don't believe it's generally true, why support something that has been so personally costly? - you've made that one up all by yourself.

It doesn't change the fact though that poppy wearing though is very political, as well as personal. If you wish to remember your deceased ones then just, well, remember them like we do with other dead friends and relatives. Once there's public resources put into the act, roads are blocked etc for a 'ceremony', the political leaders attend services, then you can't really avoid the thing as being fundamentally political.

What political statement do you think it is then if not pro war? What political statement is it that you're complaining people are making?

Also - just sitting at home remembering, as commendable as that would be, would not make much money to support veterans and their families.

I think what's being missed here is the overwhelming majority want remembrance to exist as it does. We want to collectively remember so we will and do. It's a shame that this can be misinterpreted and cause offence or for people to believe us naive, but if that's the price of us marking this through remembrance and the cost of conflict and war is highlighted at the same time then so be it.

I only caught a bit of a man on Breakfast TV, so I may have got it wrong,but I think he was saying that it is important that a society remembers things. People need to grow up knowing the carnage of WW1 etc and then we are less likely to repeat it. Collective memory is important for a healthy, caring, society. Remembrance Day is a chance to collectively remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

what needs to happen here is stringent regulation of the arms trade

How will we enforce it? Should we invade any country that won't cooperate?

I have to add that I have seen us make a lot of bad decisions. I'm not in any way suggesting we are always in the right. Just that the 'let's hold hands and it will all go away' is a pretty fantasy that doesn't help in the real world.

of course it is political, or we would remember police officers, fire fighters and other people who have died 'on duty'

we would have a totally different view on what 'duty' means.

I do not think that joining the army is a 'duty' I think that its too corrupt to possibly be considered that.

I do not believe in 'fighting for peace' I do not believe our armed forces defend us, I think they defend the relentless evil of Capitalism and in doing so keep at least 2/3rds of the world on poverty, ill health and war.

You could say I consider it my 'duty' to give the other side of the story, talk about peace as a process available to us and do whatever I can to make the world a better place. I dont think people in the armed forces do that. I think they are part of a bloody big evil machine that ruins lives on grand scales.

If it were about 'remembering the dead' then that would be fine, but it IS political because we separate the dead from the armed dead. Thats a pretty Roman ideal to me, its all about glorifying war, making it 'worthwhile' on an emotional level and I absolutely do not agree with it.

How do we enforce a regulation of the arms trade?

You deal with the people who MAKE and SELL arms rather than focusing on entire countries and having wars with them. You make it illegal to make and sell weaponry that it used to harm and injure people. You put in trade embargo, you improve world trade so people dont have to deal in arms and most of all you use the UN for what it is supposed to be for and bring people to justice who ignore the measures put in place.

There is no reason for civilians to be caught in the crossfire. Assads Sarin gas was supplied by us, we made it and sold it to him.

Thats where it has to change.

I agree with everything you said in the last post. However, countries can and will manufacture even small quantities and they can and will have wars. Once again, I'll say that I'm remembering the soldiers who died, dealing with the result of that and trying to help those in the crossfire, without any support whatsoever for the arms trade. In an ideal world, arms trade would be heavily regulated (if there has to be one) etc; but many leaders of countries (including ours) aren't as moral as all of that, and that's the unfortunate reason for wars. However, soldiers aren't involved in the arms trade and are defending the people who are caught in the middle.

gecko why don't you just not wear one and say nothing? Poppy buying wearing is in decline according to news on radio in the last few years so you are not alone

You deal with the people who MAKE and SELL arms rather than focusing on entire countries and having wars with them. You make it illegal to make and sell weaponry that it used to harm and injure people. You put in trade embargo, you improve world trade so people don't have to deal in arms and most of all you use the UN for what it is supposed to be for and bring people to justice who ignore the measures put in place.

Okay, let's work through that. We can only make it illegal to make weapons in the UK. All those other places have their own governments.

Ok so step one we destroy all of our weapons.

Now how do we force the others to stop? A Trade Embargo wouldn't work on any of the larger nations, but an embargo on the whole world could destroy our economy and millions might starve here.

It might work on governments of third world nations, but the worst ones will let their people starve before giving in - we've seen that before. Do you advocate that? Also to enforce a Trade Embargo means physical force unless you have the agreement of every single nation on earth.

You suggest the UN, but what can they do? Realistically they could send troops to enforce a ban on weapons, but they don't have an army of their own. It would be our army (and that of US/France/Germany etc if they agreed) and those troops would have no weapons under your plan.

It's like the recipe for Unicorn Soup.

It's really easy to make.

First catch a unicorn.....

Geckos I'd be really interested to see you respond to Back's post.

How exactly do you think the UN police?

If it's ever possible I think it probably starts from adjusting capitalism to stop it being a race to make and waste the most, and then population control.

Capitalism is the only system we've found so far that actually works, but I think we have stopped looking now. Even though true communism would be nicer there's no way I can see to make it work at all, but perhaps we could design something that you might call 'Limited Capitalism' in between.

The problem again is that you need everyone to cooperate in changing their system and to cut their population.