The Poppy - For Or Against?

[Vamp]

I buy a poppy every year and take part in Rememberance Day activities every year. I've limped the parade in the past because a twisted ankle was nothing compared to what soldiers have been through.

 

However, the poppy should be everyone's own choice. If it wasn't it'd defy the point of it, which is the problem I have with the BBC insisting on everyone wearing it. I'm against poppy burning though I'm not one of those morons who's shocked by the protests when the 'journalists' in this country continue to associate the poppy indirectly with their continued "Come on boys" approach to wars as if they're fucking football games. The poppy for me is mainly symbolic of the people who died in the World Wars. I've got nothing against current soldiers, I do have the obvious issues with recent conflicts that everyone has, although I'm not one of those patronising twats who talks about our 'lads' and therefore makes what they do look silly. I'm also not one of those deluded people that think all soldiers join the army as a part of a massive sacrifice to protect our nation. No doubt some of them do, and some of those do it out of bravery and others out of misguided logic but I'm sure there's also soldiers, especially since a lot of them seem to have young families, who do it because they can't find a job and need the money. No one deserves to get shot at, of course, but its easy to understand why other people might be less sympathetic to those who sign up to be paid to have just that happen to them. You know what you're getting. Of course there are those who do it for noble reasons (and of them there's even some who don't do that for ignorant reasosn because, of course, as with anything, there are those that do) and so there probably should be a level of human compassion and respect for them. I've also met armed forces people who were pricks. But hey, there's pricks everywhere.

 

Really half the problems of the poppy are because of shit journalism and shit fringe parties who try to defend the poppy and therefore make pricks out of the lot of us. Like the two EDL members who are spending a year in jail for spray painting a poppy and a cross to a mosque, only that mosque happens to be a part of a community that gives money to the cause. But, you know, they have a year to get something called common sense and lose their ignorance. Sorry Biggems if that sounds like I'm picking on your lot, they just happened to be EDL members. I'm sure you're as embarrased of them as everyone else is. I know I'd hate the pricks if I was you.

 

The other problem I have is half the people who sulk about the poppy not being respected seem to spend more time doing that then actually remembering what it's all about.

[Pyrotechnik]

You mention Saddam gassing the Kurds as if that was actually a genuine reason for war.

 

It is a genuine reason for war, prevention of further genocide was the entire reason for the Kosovo war in the late 90s.

 

Edit: Might not have been the reason we went to war in the end, and ironically it was a better reason than the ones given, personally it's the only justification I have for the entire Iraq situation through the 1990s.

[bobbins]

You mention Saddam gassing the Kurds as if that was actually a genuine reason for war.

 

It is a genuine reason for war, prevention of further genocide was the entire reason for the Kosovo war in the late 90s.

?? I was talking about Iraq, not Kosovo. But seeing as you mentioned it, the "prevention of further genocide" excuse for the bombing in Kosovo was a complete lie. Bullshit propaganda. Firstly, genocide is a big exaggeration, and the ethnic cleansing and massacres didn't really pick up until after the NATO intervention. The ethnic cleansing was a consequence of the bombing not the cause. The propaganda machine only started using it as justification after the fact.

 

Edit: Might not have been the reason we went to war in the end, and ironically it was a better reason than the ones given, personally it's the only justification I have for the entire Iraq situation through the 1990s.

But as I mentioned in the sentences after that one you quoted.....

 

The US and the UK supplied him with the means to commit that atrocity, and continued to sell him biological weapons and strongly support him diplomatically long after the fact. The UK were still granting export licenses to Iraq for materials used for biological weapons as late as 1997, 9 years after the Kurds were gassed.

....your justification is based on absolute bullshit. Surely you can see the conflict in the reasoning here.

 

Anyway, on-topic, Robert Fisk has given his take on poppies in the Independent.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ad-6257416.html

[David]

Anyway, on-topic, Robert Fisk has given his take on poppies in the Independent.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ad-6257416.html

That's an excellent article Bobbins, cheers.

[John Galt]

I got hassled in the pub on Friday for not wearing a poppy by some fat, Tetley's drinking mong who was kicking off, saying my friends and I were a disgrace and that we should be "proud to be British" like him. He even had a go at my shoes because I had them cross laced rather than straight laced meaning I was wearing them like "the Japs" rather than "our boys."

[David]

He even had a go at my shoes because I had them cross laced rather than straight laced meaning I was wearing them like "the Japs" rather than "our boys."

[Big Rob]

Yeah took 4 myself in 2006 would have been 7 without body armour, shattered my upper right leg and hip, so got off pretty lucky really

 

Plus I signed up in 1998 before any invasion so kinda fucks up David's "deserved" point

Funnily enough, it's exactly people like you who do deserve it in my opinion. Your anti-Islamic rhetoric and marches are a poison in this country, and the idea that our Government would hand someone like you a gun and send you into somewhere like Iraq or Afghanistan is disturbing to be honest.

 

See, once you actually see full on extremist Islam in action it does have a way of changing people's attitudes

Wanna know why I'm against extremist Islam in this country, well now you know

Why just extreme Islamism, and not extreme Christianity or any other religion/viewpoint?

[The Invisible Boy]

I always buy a poppy every year and think it is a very small way of showing my respect and thanking those who have fought for our country, some of whom were relatives of mine. I usually end up losing my poppy too, which means I end up having to donate more money for another poppy whenever I realise it's fallen off my coat but at the end of the day it means I'll be donating more.

[big mickey]

Yeah took 4 myself in 2006 would have been 7 without body armour, shattered my upper right leg and hip, so got off pretty lucky really

 

Plus I signed up in 1998 before any invasion so kinda fucks up David's "deserved" point

Funnily enough, it's exactly people like you who do deserve it in my opinion. Your anti-Islamic rhetoric and marches are a poison in this country, and the idea that our Government would hand someone like you a gun and send you into somewhere like Iraq or Afghanistan is disturbing to be honest.

 

See, once you actually see full on extremist Islam in action it does have a way of changing people's attitudes

Wanna know why I'm against extremist Islam in this country, well now you know

Why just extreme Islamism, and not extreme Christianity or any other religion/viewpoint?

 

Because, thankfully extreme Christianity isnt a widespread and as blood thirsty.

 

A good example is those Westboro Baptist dicks, now imagine millions & millions of them, scary isn't it?

[Kiffy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill

Yup, very scarey indeed.

[David]

Because, thankfully extreme Christianity isnt a widespread and as blood thirsty.

It's more widespread and bloodthirsty actually. The only real difference is that the people doing the spreading of the hate are smart enough to change the label. Extreme Christianity is called democracy, and the bloodthirsty aspect comes into it when "liberation" takes place.

 

Oh, and those who have the fucking cheek to stand up and fight against this extreme Christianity are called "terrorists" or "insurgents".

 

Whilst extreme Christianity may not have any shady looking characters with hooks for hands or whatever, it does have the scariest fucker of them all in its corner;

 

It's all in the eyes. That look is shared by the likes of Charles Manson, Sarah Palin, Tony Blair and so forth.

 

See?

[Vice]

And if sponsoring, perpetrating and organizing acts of terrorism, or aiding, supporting or harbouring the perpetrators of terrorist acts is a legitimate excuse for bombing a country to shit, the whole of the US could have quite justifiably been wiped out by countless countries over the last 60 years.

 

The really sad thing is just how much things like "the original 9/11" in Chile and the World Court ruling against the United States for bombing Nicaragua have been practically erased from (at least our) history. Who even talks about or knows about the US granting aslyum to tortures from throughout Latin America and convicted terrorists from Cuba?

 

The support of dictatorship in the Middle East is more widely known, but really only superficially. And it's shocking how to even raise the issue of the awful atrocities and serious war crimes we're responsible for somehow considered to be "siding with the terrorists" ('terrorists' apparently applying only to THEIR acts of terror, not ours).

[Vice]

Because, thankfully extreme Christianity isnt a widespread and as blood thirsty.

 

Are you aware that George Bush thinks God told him to invade Iraq? There's Christian extremism bleeding through every bit of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOTkVhfMWcw

[Blueknowzit]

all religions dont have extremists

[Duke]

all religions dont have extremists

That was really, really stupid.