North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?
US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty Anti-Empire >>
A bird's eye view of the vineyard
Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb
The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?
What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are
Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader 2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of
The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by The Saker >>
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
Promoting Human Rights in IrelandHuman Rights in Ireland >>
|
Poppies: Patriotism and pyromania
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
other press
Friday November 11, 2011 19:33 by pat c
![Report this post to the editors Report this post to the editors](../graphics/report.gif)
James Turley writes about the criminalisation of those who have burned poppies and elaborates on the imperialist agenda behind the whole remembrance charade. Those who fell should be remembered but not to glorify imperialism.
It is that time of year, again, when the world is colonised by plastic poppies. No establishment luminary will be seen in a public forum without one of these slightly naff trinkets pinned to his or her lapel; and thousands more people around the country will likewise sport the designated symbol of remembrance for the war dead....
.
More troubling is the fate of three Northern Ireland teenagers, about whom little is known except their ages - two are 17 and one 16 - and that they were pulled up before Coleraine magistrates court, charged with ‘incitement to hatred’. The 16-year-old also faces charges relating to ‘improper use’ of a social networking site, thanks to his publication of damning visual evidence of the ‘crime’ on Facebook....
![Click on image to see full-sized version Remember, remember ... the imperialist slaughter](../attachments/nov2011/pop.jpg) Remember, remember ... the imperialist slaughter The poppy appeal is not simply about commemorating the dead, however. It is about our dead - it is about a hundred years, give or take, of British history, during which ‘our brave boys’ (and girls) have been massacred in two truly apocalyptic wars, as well as picked off in countless relatively minor scuffles provoked by the decay of the empire.
The poppy ideology is, in fact, a bait-and-switch; the very real generalised empathy of the population to those who paid for capital’s rapacious drive to war with their lives is mobilised to support the very same institution - the state - which feeds the meat into the mincing machine. Like all ideology, it is participatory: the annual ritual of pinning the poppy to your lapel seals the compact, just as a few words of mumbo-jumbo transubstantiates cheap wine into the blood of Christ. The British Legion’s orgy of emotional blackmail, which complements the whole thing - pictures of gravely wounded soldiers and bereaved families all over the tube - does not hurt, either....
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 2 1I really think the vast majority of people dont know that the money is goin to all the modern day veterns, lovely fellas like the paras who killed on bloody sunday, the sas etc. Is it worth havin a bit of a joined up awareness campaign on this??? It is one thing that gets on my goat this time of year. And there is nothin worse when some idiot tells me, that we have to respect other peoples tradition as if the poppy is a protestant/orange symbol, since when did imperialism become a tradition. Is facism a tradition, that should be remembered equally? The vast majority of people in those wars did not want to be there, and were there because of poverty, it was not a valiant liberation struggle but the carvin up of power amongst the elites of the world, simple as.
Anyone up for settin up an 'anti-war' poppy awareness stall where these brit legion fcukers are sellin these things
The real nub of this is that the poppy campaign is used to indirectly help finance the current imperialist war machine.
Money they might otherwise have to fork out for looking after the victims of their escapades is paid by the public instead, leaving their coffers free to finance the next invasion and the killing of more cannon fodder economic conscripts and many anonymous brown people and their families who have the misfortune to be living near oilfields and other natural resources or strategic routes..
I think one poster put it well on this thread:
https://www.indymedia.ie/article/94848
"I think the very last guy from WWI died recently...
the money you collect in your tin won't really do anything for him or his comrades. All it would do is help "externalise" the expenses of compensating ex soldiers from Iraq, Afghanistan etc who were "unpatriotic" enough to be shot but not to die. Don't you think governments have learned anything from corporate behaviour at all??
By wearing the poppy you help to support any recent imperialist military adventures that such sociopathic politicians choose to engage in. And sadly, it's obvious that all the things that the poor tommy or paddy thought he was battling in the awful hell of the trenches for, have been subsequently taken away from his children by their corrupt governments by strokes of the pen.
The poppy is truly the most cynical insult to the ideals of those who fought in the trenches"