Topic: Red/ Green/ White Poppies- Does The Colour Matter?- Merged

[FastEddy]

The poppies colour was of no matter.....
Once our fallen had bled over them, they were red - forevermore......

I think that really sums it up.

Cheers.

[Chief Stoker]

This facebook page was brought to my attention called the "White Poppy for Peace". This is some of the "stuff" that is being said.

I live in Canada.

My country's armed forces have never defended "freedom". We just install dictators in foreign countries at the behest of the American and British governments. All of our soldiers who go overseas volunteer to do so. I see no reason to "honour" their "sacrifice," they're a mixture of naive nationalists and those who simply have no value for the lives of others. They then return home with a inflated sense of self-worth, having heroically brought freedom and democracy to the people of Canada by installing heroin traffickers as authoritarian puppets and killed thousands while doing so.

That they complain over lost revenues for their clubs (in which they celebrate the wondrous accomplishments of the Ku Klux Klan, as we recently found out) is, to me, simply a further sign of their massive egos. As such I don't regard it as valid whatsoever.

On the ever-obsessed-over topic of the world wars, let's not forget that they were essentially one conflict, with a short hiatus during which all parties involved rearmed and further militarized their populations.

World war two could never have happened if not for the crushing sanctions in the treaty of Versailles. The British, Canadian, French, and American governments are as much at fault as the Nazis themselves, despite what we'd like to think. And before you pull out the holocaust excuse, how were Jewish refugees treated by the allied nations? If they had any interest in peace, why did they assist in the creation of Israel?

Both world wars were the inevitable result of nationalism and militarism running rampant among those with enough money to do serious damage. The best way to keep it from happening again is to stop both nationalism and militarism on a worldwide scale, and if that means we make a few narcissists angry, so be it. Mutually Assured Destruction is all that comes of the world's (universally) bloated military spending. If our governments acted like civilized humans towards the rest of the world we would have nothing to fear. 


I know this is a small segment that spouts this garbage, but the fact that it comes from young people and they really believe this stuff leaves me to think what's in store for our country in 20 or 30 years.

[jeffb]

I know this is a small segment that spouts this garbage, but the fact that it comes from young people and they really believe this stuff leaves me to think what's in store for our country in 20 or 30 years.

There were people saying this similar to what you've quoted here even when the events were occurring.  I don't think you need to worry about today's youth though. There are plenty of young soldiers serving today that I think are more representative of the leaders of tomorrow then the few comments on some facebook group.

[Chief Stoker]

There were people saying this similar to what you've quoted here even when the events were occurring.  I don't think you need to worry about today's youth though. There are plenty of young soldiers serving today that I think are more representative of the leaders of tomorrow then the few comments on some facebook group.

I know but it still pisses me off that people can really think that way. I guess serving ones country protect the freedom of speech these morons enjoy even though we might not like it.

[Good2Golf]

I know but it still pisses me off that people can really think that way. I guess serving ones country protect the freedom of speech these morons enjoy even though we might not like it.

Yes.

To be honest, it doesn't bother me that much; I just apply a little statistical analysis and figure people like those quoted above are a "minus 10-sigma" type.  The benefit to actually serving one's country and its people and preserving our values and assisting those of other nations far outweighs someone's myopic view of past conflict.

Regards
G2G

[Scott]

Just attention whores with zero education. Ignore then and you win. I know it's not easy.

[2010newbie]

This facebook page was brought to my attention called the "White Poppy for Peace". This is some of the "stuff" that is being said.


That they complain over lost revenues for their clubs (in which they celebrate the wondrous accomplishments of the Ku Klux Klan, as we recently found out) is, to me, simply a further sign of their massive egos. As such I don't regard it as valid whatsoever.

I have purchased poppies every year for probably around 20 years or so and it wasn't until this year that I realized that poppy sales revenue does not go to the Legion. It is held in trust to be spent on community projects and charitable organizations. I have mentioned this to a few people when poppy discusions have come up and they were shocked as well. I think it is a great thing that they do and the charitable work that Legions do in their communities should be more publicized. My local Legion is talking about how they can support the purchase of a new MRI for the local hospital! It is unfortunate that people making comments like this in public forums like Facebook will be believed by some and possibly sway someone's opinion to purchase poppies in the future based upon one person's misinformed opinion.

[acooper]

Scott has it right.

Ignorant trolls such as those claiming that vets have inflated egos, etc, get their power from the attention given them. Ignore them, and their power goes away. They are so set in their opinion that attempting to "change their minds" will just get turned around so that to them, you are just becoming what they say you are. If they are ignored, they will disappear...

[E.R. Campbell]

Yes.

To be honest, it doesn't bother me that much; I just apply a little statistical analysis and figure people like those quoted above are a "minus 10-sigma" type.  The benefit to actually serving one's country and its people and preserving our values and assisting those of other nations far outweighs someone's myopic view of past conflict.

Regards
G2G

I have a dog, or two, in this fight: my father, LCrd W.F. Campbell was killed in action at sea on 6 Feb 43 while in command of HMCS Louisburg; I served in the Canadian Army and CF for nearly 37 years in several different non-commissioned and commissioned ranks - I swapped the odd round with strangers; my son is a MARS officer, at sea, as we speak.

I agree with G2G; it, these opinions, don't bother me, either. I know why everyone from Jordan Anderson through Bobby Girouard and Geoff Parker fought and died and it was to defend our collective right to think and spout stupid things while we are all young.

Chill, as young people say.

[mariomike]

This facebook page was brought to my attention called the "White Poppy for Peace". This is some of the "stuff" that is being said.

<snip>

I know this is a small segment that spouts this garbage, but the fact that it comes from young people and they really believe this stuff leaves me to think what's in store for our country in 20 or 30 years.

More "stuff":
"Remembrance Day is a SCAM !":
http://www.billcasselman.com/holidays/remembrance_day__a_scam.htm

[E.R. Campbell]

More "stuff":
"Remembrance Day is a SCAM !":
http://www.billcasselman.com/holidays/remembrance_day__a_scam.htm

It's an opinion; we are free to have and express opinions. The reasons many soldiers fight and die is to preserve that freedom. It's not my opinion but I would fight for his right to express it; if I wouldn't fight to defend his (Casselman's) free speech then I would be a lousy soldier and a worse human being.

[jollyjacktar]

Opinions are like rectums.  Everyone has one.  Some though are rectum opinions.

[HavokFour]

Apparently individuals from the white poppy group went to the National War Memorial to lay a white poppy reef after the ceremony concluded and everyone left (I wonder why?). They were confronted by passers by, asking them to not lay the reef, and how the white poppy is an insult to veterans.

They layed it, but someone made off with it shortly after ().

And I quote, from a CTV interview.

Before: "It's not a political statement."
After (reef taken): "I feel violated, my right to freedom of expression was violated!"

Next year if I see white poppies on the Memorial, I'm going to have a go at them with a red sharpie. Deal with it.

[pbi]

There were people saying this similar to what you've quoted here even when the events were occurring.  I don't think you need to worry about today's youth though. There are plenty of young soldiers serving today that I think are more representative of the leaders of tomorrow then the few comments on some facebook group.

Idealism and strong beliefs, even if they aren't tempered by wisdom, are what we expect of young people:

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."  (Sir Winston Churchill, 1874-1965)

Despite that, what I see around me, wherever I've been in this country, especially in the last few years, tells me that the overwhelming majority of Canadians, of all ages, share in the true sentiment of Remembrance Day.

Just to clear things up. Calling people who are anti-war, or protestors, or a white poppy wearer a hippie, is as good an argument as them calling YOU a conservative, redneck, trigger happy, gun freak. You're going to have to remember that to fight thier logic, you're going to have to use more than the same insulting strategies they are using. Generalizations and steriotyping won't get your point across, and using such typical "conservative right" language puts you on the same level as them.

Good observation. We can be equally guilty of "politicizing" Remembrance Day, if we're not careful, thus pulling the rug out from under our own feet in the argument with people like the  white poppy crowd. 

As usual, in Canada  we are struggling with the question, (often debated on these pages), of just what freedom of expression really means, and how much right people have to express an opinion or belief that is considered hurtful, insulting or inflammatory.

Cheers

[E.R. Campbell]

Christie Blatchford is speaking for me in this column, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/christie-blatchford/best-we-forget-the-oprah-ization-of-remembrance-day/article1797577/

Best we forget the Oprah-ization of Remembrance Day

CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Nov. 12, 2010

It was the night before Remembrance Day, at the True Patriot Love dinner in Toronto, that it all became too much for me and I had enough.

During the course of the speeches – there were many – someone referred to the members of the audience as heroes for their support at this event, and for soldiers generally.

I can’t remember now who said it, but I almost gagged: The currency is indeed cheapened when plonking down $750 a plate, or plonking down not a sou but being the happy recipient of corporate largesse and being invited to sit at your company’s table, as I was, qualifies as heroic.

I slipped out shortly afterward, before the main event speakers, just as on Nov. 11 itself, I left the city’s annual ceremony at Old City Hall early.

I can’t remember ever before missing a minute of a Remembrance Day service, and I always go and always have done.

I don’t for a minute doubt the worthiness of that dinner, which raised $2.4-million last year for the Military Families Fund created by former chief of the defence staff Rick Hillier.

I’m not calling anyone’s noble motives into question.

I’m just weary of it. When I was trying to explain all this to my friend Mary, whose brother is a serving soldier with the reserves and a friend of mine, she said, “Oh, you mean the Oprah-ization of Remembrance Day?” And that is it exactly.

As I fell asleep on Nov. 10, the last thing I heard was a Tim Horton’s commercial for Remembrance Day; this time it wasn’t the words that grated, but the wretched syrupy music. When I turned on the tube on Nov. 11, it was inexplicably tuned to a station carrying the Live with Regis and Kelly show; I believe it was Mr. Philbin who said, and I’m operating on memory here, “I think everyone should thank a veteran today.” I turned it off, lest I hear him tell Americans also to hug their veterans.

For virtually the entire month, and I know I’m not alone, I’ve been the recipient of a barrage of unsolicited Remembrance Day poems (mostly dreadful), songs (ditto), personal memoirs (ditto) and videos and speeches, most delivered in that heavy, uber-serious voice broadcasters affect when they want the viewer to pay attention.

Such overweening sadness, and certainly such pretentiousness, is not my experience of soldiers, modern or old, or even of the families of the fallen.

My memories of my time as an embedded reporter with the 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and The Royal Canadian Regiment 1st Battalion in Kandahar are of young men and women with a sense of purpose I envied, straight shooters always, who rarely spoke the hyperpatriotic language so in fashion now.

From commanding officer to lowly private, they were perfectly clear that they fought for one another and the well-being of their unit, whether company or platoon. They were funny, bright, profane, with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility that seemed to do little to temper a ribald, even bleak, humour and a tangible sense of well-being, odd as that may sound.

When one of their own was killed or wounded, they grieved hard and fast, and then got on with the job. Yet they never seemed even to try to do what in the modern lexicon is known as “moving on” or “getting on” with their lives. They spoke often of the dead, named bases and peaks and rocks for them, and when they got home to Canada, visited the families of their fallen, told them as much or as little as they wanted to know, and as often as possible, got ragingly drunk.

Perhaps because combat, as Sebastian Junger writes in his wonderful new book War, is so insanely exciting, because it strips away anything extraneous and imbues the trivial with huge importance (Mr. Junger’s illustration is the soldier with loose laces, who can’t be counted on to keep his feet when it matters and thus puts other men’s lives at risk), because colours are brighter and more stark, they were as often as not joyous.

They had nothing but disdain and suspicion, as did my late father (a navigator with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War) and those of his generation I met, for the military bureaucracy, for the plethora of paper-pushers at defence headquarters and for the endless B.S. and stupid rules that no other organization can perfect like an army can.

I cannot help but imagine that as glad as they might be for civilian Canada’s current devotion to “supporting the troops” – if only because it is far less unpleasant than the dark days of the Canadian Forces when soldiers occasionally would be spit upon – they would have little stomach for the witless sappiness that has been in the air all week.

If corporate Canada really wanted to show its appreciation for soldiers, companies could hire more of them when they leave the army: All any soldier really learns is how to lead, how to care more for his fellows than he does for himself. Surely the world can use a little more of that.

And if you really must say thanks to a veteran, send him over a damn drink and shut up.

Bang on, Christie. Thanks for saying it for me.



Edit: added link, which I forgot 

[GAP]

She does have the knack of getting to the nub of the issue.....

[CombatDoc]

Excellent article by Ms Blatchford, once again she hits the nail right on the head.

[milnews.ca]

Just a bump, reminding us the white poppy's still out and about....

Quebec’s first white poppy campaign is being heralded as a major success by organizers, but it has generated some backlash from those who say the traditional poppy is an important symbol of remembrance that should not be trifled with.

The white poppy, modelled after the red version that adorns the lapels of millions of Canadians each November, was first produced by Britain’s Co-operative Women’s Guild in 1933. The flower is promoted as a symbol of peace, and according to Britain’s Peace Pledge Union, “was not intended as an insult to those who died in the First World War.”

The pins have been sold in other Canadian provinces in the past, but 2011 marks the first time an official white poppy campaign has been organized in Quebec. The group behind the initiative, the Collectif Échec à la guerre, is an anti-war organization that promotes the non-violent resolution of conflict.

(....)

Several callers to a CBC Radio phone-in program last week expressed their discomfort with the idea of a different breed of poppy. The Royal Canadian Legion’s Quebec Command is being even more forthright in their opposition.

“We’re against it,” said Margot Arsenault, the Legion’s provincial president. “The poppy is the trademark of the Royal Canadian Legion and should not be used by any other association.”

The Royal Canadian Legion distributes 18 million red poppies each year as a reminder of the sacrifice of the 117,000 Canadians who died in the two world wars, the Korean War and other conflicts.

Ms. Arsenault, whose father was a veteran, said the traditional poppy holds a deep symbolic meaning for the average Canadian, and should not be modified in any way to promote a different cause.

“The red poppy already stands for peace,” she added. “(The campaign organizers) are saying they’re using this white poppy to promote peace, but nobody wants war. We’re very fortunate to live in a country where there isn’t war.”

The fact the white poppies are being sold at the same time as the annual red poppy campaign is another reason the Legion opposes it, Ms. Arsenault said ....

National Post, 9 Nov 11

[kstart]