Who else finds the rush to be seen wearing a poppy on Remembrance Day a bit nauseating? It has become one of the great British taboos not to be seen wearing one. For a TV presenter or a politician not to be seen ‘poppied’ is probably a sackable offence. It reminds me a bit of a ‘Pringle’ label; something you had have to have in the 70’s if you were going to be allowed to buy a drink at the golf club member’s bar (no offence A & M). The fatuous, sentimental nonsense spouted by some of the media and most vox popped citizens has turned the whole event into a group ‘cry in.’ If I hear one more out of tune last post echoing over the airways I will scream. The competition to find a hero in the family who ‘was in the trenches’ – flash the picture up on Facebook and wait for the surge of reflected glory to anoint the descendants of said hero is pathetic.
We now know the First World War killing methods were ghastly, terrible, shit (It’s hardly a startling revelation to discover that War is bad) – we do this objective acknowledgement no favours by turning it into a state sponsored myth machine fronted by a cool brand that certainly encourages nationalism and arguably militarism. Soldiers don’t die for Queen and country they die because they were unlucky enough to be in wrong place at the wrong time. Their tragic, futile deaths are the result of a societal disregard for common sense. A delusion that things can be fixed by lobbing bombs about. Surely with the combined brainpower of the great women and men of the world we can make the compulsory poppy party a thing of the past (where it belongs).
Church/state/military sponsored symbols encourage simple minded sentiments – get rid of them all! and that should also include our ridiculous monarchy (no office ER & P).
Now if anti-god posts don’t get you going anti-poppy posts might. Let the wave of hatred wash over me.
Love and peace xxx
I’ll rise to this one as it’a a debate I have annually with Joel. His mum was a peace campaigner and obviously refused to wear a poppy. I disagree.
Not many people are actually pro-war. I think it’s probably a source of shame for most human beings that we haven’t evolved to a state in which we resolve differences without violence.
But, given that war still happens, I don’t think it is militarist, nationalist or sentimentalist to remember that some people take on the dirty work and die doing so.
I disassociate the nonsense of the state pomp and ceremony from the fact that people are killed doing jobs which I would not be brave enough to do and yet indirectly have benefitted from.
For this reason I will carry on buying poppies and getting them stuck in the seal of my washing machine door in our atheist, royal-hating home until someone can convince me otherwise… have another go… love Vic xxx
I think it’s the way the poppy makes it easy for people to make a gesture which satisfies their need to conform to morally respectable behaviour without really thinking about it in a more complex way. I do the same with the Big Issue. I buy it to feel good about supporting the cause, but I rarely read it because actually I am not that interested in poverty. People buy poppies in part out of fear (in the case of public figures) and that must diminish the status of the original symbol although the original symbol was predominantly used for propaganda purposes anyway. Even the poet was a bit of a propagandist. I guess that same could be said of the Christian cross. Once Madonna started wearing it as a fashion accessory its meaning changed for the worse. This all centres on my manic need to be noticed by picking on anything that smacks of an authoritarian or conformist rhetoric. Nobody dares say bad stuff about poppies, Pudsy, Trevor McDonald, the Andex puppies and St Johns Ambulance or good stuff about tobacco, Rolf Harris, pollution or witchcraft. Watch out for my list of the 10 causes we should be supporting but aren’t. Xxx
Yes – poppies can be a gesture, but it is important with two such huge world events in the 20th century to ensure that those who died are not forgotten and if the wearing of a poppy – an iconic image which instantly means something to all ages – does it, then stop carping and pick on Pudsy instead.
Chris, Mark says ‘don’t be so daft, stop talking bollocks in your attempt to provoke’ .
And I say, isn’t your rant about the futility of it all exactly why we do wear poppies – to remind us of the nonsense of nationalism and militarism? The ‘poppy party’ is in no way compulsory, and I am surprised that you think people have no independent thought and feel compelled. Relax a little – this cannot be good for you! Love Jane
You should be comforted then by how quickly Rolf Harris managed to move from one camp to the other… does the same fate await that rogue roving-hands-Pudsy? xx