James McLean scum or dead right

Myself no, I got into some difficult situations during my career but was fortunate enough to avoid any direct fighting. There are some who I would consider heroes people who put themselves out there to protect the people of the country they were in and their fellow men. I understand the arguments around Poppy Day and feel that at times the bigger picture is ignored, there are many victims of wars and some are forgotten.

I think that each person has the right to make their own choices that is after all what we fight for.

 

oh give over, McWanker the hypocrite shouldn't be accepting currency with the Queen's head on it and living in the UK if he feels that strongly about it.
You can't have best of both, if you choose to live in the UK then you can pay some ****ing respect to those that built the country into what it is today and our traditions. he's a bitter and pathetic part-time paddy.

 

He's a ****in cock.

That is that.

 

Why criticise it if it's as meaningless as you say? It's maybe you that can not separate two issues.

one) Lets take it as accepted its just another symbolic smoke screen cooked up by cynical govts and military machines. Like flags and anthems and pledges of allegiance...most intelligent people recognize that. Fair enough your are right there

But two) thousands and thousands of people (you may call them sheep) truly believe they are honouring the dead of mainly two world wars. As you say those wars were created by the rich and powerful playing their games of empire but the end result was the same. Young Seamus and Tommy Still had to go off to foreign lands and die protecting their homeland from an invading force after they had heard and witnessed what that invading force had did to others it had conquered. Ask 1000 people what springs to mind when you say poppy and over 900 will say WW1 and or WW2. To call them fools or sheep is still to tell them their granddad, uncle or still father and brother died for nothing and that their individual belief about what wearing the poppy represents to them is a lie. Why bother? To those people their relative was a hero for swallowing fear and going and protecting their family and their colleagues. No hero calls themselves a hero as Luv said, they believe it's a job to be done. But their loved ones get to remember them as heroes so why should they stand silently at their place of entertainment, they paid for and watch a foreigner spit on their beliefs and honoured dead?

At some point there may well be a discussion about the poppy's relevance once the generations directly effected by the world wars are dead and gone as that it was what most identify it with. I personally still think the act of remembrance has another purpose which I would have thought youd agree with B. It reminds populations all over the world what happens if you believe every justification your govt gives you for going to war, we are more sceptical towards symbolism and flag waving by the state.. While we still do go to war, the population is much more likely to question or protest the decisions without fear of being called a traitor. This puts pressure on govts that didn't happen at the turn of the last two centuries. Thoses millions that died paid for that development.

As for us Irish, going on the last 500 years we hardly need to go anywhere else to find reasons to kill each other do we?

Out of interest: Do you think if I'd gone to Peggy O'Maras funeral and told the procession that I believed the military trappings used at it were a smoke screen to romanticize involvement in a murdering organisation I'd have got the same reaction as McLean got from WB, Sunderland or Stoke fans or those Muslim protestors shouting murderer at coffins coming home from Iraq?

I'm sure I'd be lucky if I got only that. So who's more tolerant of freedom of speech????

 

You mean "why give my opinion on it" surely? And of course there are a few here to brow beat and use shame and emotional arguments and all rim each toher whilst doing it cos you all agree. Surprise

I am not criticising people remembering those who died, not wearing poppies. I am criticising the state and it's whole charade of "rememberance"
I made a small post, it got replies I replied, you are inflating this as if it was an active campaign combating Poppy Day. What it represents is a completely false narrative, as far as the state is concerned. Which is why I find Cameron wearing a poppy sickening

UK veterans are killing themselves at an alarming rate. More British troops have killed themselves than have been killed in Afghanistan.
The state's rememberance and the whole charade is all the more sickening given how vets are currently treated, and have been treated since WWI ffs.

So yeah it's not right. Remember the dead forget the living it seems.

It's so easy to remember the modern careerists going abroad and dying but nothing really gets said about the women and kids their military jaunts end up slaughteying.

But I remember you referring to "keeping the boot on" in the context of Iraq's occupation. You are not one to be taken seriously in such things given your obvious bias. You once called yourself a historian, you have some really distorted views on history, repeating the same polluted academic crap that has filled textbooks with nonsense for nearly 7 decades.

 

The 'State' don't buy the 40 million poppies every year, ordinary people do.

Neither do they raise the £40m for the British Legion, who use it to support those who carry the mental and physical scars of warfare.

Remembrance day isn't based on a 'false narrative' at all, people know exactly what it means to them and why they respect it.

 

All this bluster of "offending poppy day" and your faux "rememberance" for a day.

If you wanna remember, go read about these men. Go read about what they went through. Learn their names and where they were from. Not just the famous, but the rank and file.

Ah sure just wearing a poppy for a day, job done, easy.

 

Those are broad brushstrokes there are many people in the military who go to foreign shores and are willing to die for those people who you are accusing them of murdering. Opinion is one thing but you are covering everyone with your blanket here.

 

I don't have a problem with people not wearing a poppy we all have opinions and you are right in that there are many ways to remember all who are affected by wars and not just the military personnel.

 

Frank theres a big difference between Peggy O'Haras funeral and McLean. If for instance James happened to be in the crowd and did his act id bet hed get the same treatment youd get at peggys funeral. The reason he only gets twitter abuse is because hes protected by security at a match.

If you turned up to the funeral surrounded by police and said whatever about it id be pretty sure youd walk away safe.

 

Did you see my reply to your question?

 

Yeah , bud

On a slightly jovial note could you not tell people you lost your balls as a result of torture by a foreign madman. Much more exciting than the Mrs said get rid.

 

Again, you assume that people haven't read about the suffering and sacrifice these people made.

You also forget, that we're talking about relatives of virtually every family on our shores.

But as usual you pontificate about what you consider to be 'faux' without stepping back and even thinking about the reality of it, and how for so many the issue of remembrance runs deep and the reasons for that.

Your attitude on this issue is insulting and ill informed.

 

just have to ask.

was anyone on this thread on either side directly affected by a loss or serious injury in the north?

 

Yes.

 

Maybe I am being a little too generalising there luv.

When they are sent to send a country back several hundred years, like Iraq for example, for oil and money reasons. That undermines their whole point of being there does it not. If they were not sent there then who is there to protect from?

 

Not al all B. I'm not trying to shame you for having an opinion and as I said I don't disagree with you about the intention govts have when they create symbolism such as this. What I'm suggesting is that the general population have since personalised it and it now means something different and not always positively to the govt attempting to use it to their advantage.

Example.

Poppys and Remeberance/VE etc: Initially created as a pomp and ceremony to romanticize the dead in a hope that we'd all be too busy to ask why they all got killed. But the vast numbers that died meant almost everyone was touched personally by it and while they considered their dead heroes they started to wonder if bring draped in a flag is enough of a reason to die in such vast horrible numbers..that trust in flag waving nationalistic govts had resulted in two global wars and millions of lives gone.

Flags over coffins: trick used by govts to suggest the state is worth more than the life in the coffin. People should see the death as part of belonging to the state; a citizens responsibility to the whole. Unquestioning loyalty.

However..take the Vietnam, Gulf wars..night after night the relative publics saw rows and rows of flag covered coffins carrying teenagers coming out of transport planes and filling warehouses. Instead of underlying the need for obedience and sacrifice to the state it started the populace to question if the state had the interest of the populace at heart. The symbolism of those flags became waste of lives not glorious sacrifice. That didn't mean we considered the individual sacrifice worthless just the reason given for it. The intent of the symbolism no longer worked, instead it created more and more questioning of the state.

So, as opinions on this thread make clear. You don't need to constantly focus on the original manufactured nature of this symbolism. The majority of the populace get it and are sceptical when the state does it. But that doesn't mean we haven't personalised the symbolism to remember those we loved. I'd that emotional? Well yes, the act of remembrance is emotional...

The symbolism doesn't need attacked or explained to anyone. We can all put it to the side when we then question why the need for it in the first place.

I think public reaction to wars since WW1 and 2 show that. We separate the symbolism we want to use to honour the dead from the govt trying to use it as a smokecreen.

Your continued insistence to explain to people who already know how to separate like this suggest you underestimate their intelligence or that it is you that keeps getting distracted by the symbols..

I can wear a poppy and observe a minutes silence to honour the fact that my Grandfather served in WW2 or that my Great Uncle spent 3 years being tortured in a Japanese POW camp and watched comrade after comrade die and believe their participation heroic. While at the same time have the intellectual capacity to know how each participating state got to the point of each war, how they sold or misold that to their people.

Seeing David Cameron wear a poppy at the cenotaph didn't make me blindly agree with him over Syria and apparently it didn't fool the majority of parliament either.

I'd suggest it wasn't symbolism but just down right lies that got Blair and Bush what they wanted and no amount of symbolism after the fact convinced anyone they were right to lie.

We all get it B.

 

Hash, I was focusing more on the idea that while we can take an intellectual view on the symbolism used by govts and groups there's maybe a time and place and manner more suitable to express your opinion..Like this forum for example..or as McLean has done, in press interviews...express your distaste for it but respect your audience..old ground that bit though..

I find McLeans methods and timing as distasteful as if someone did the same however well protected at that funeral. Although I'm pretty sure I'd be the one arrested for attempting it rather than protected while doing it...And sectioned on all likelyhood...

 

For me the poppy is something that's becoming a bit too pushed an pc.

As in its thrown on by all and sundry and pushed down on TV etc. There's clowns I'd call scum running about wearing them with fake respect.

I didn't mind mcclean then. Football clubs should get involved in sticking poppies on shirts to put it on while half the players might be totally disinterested.

Him not having a touch of manners is a bit much though. It should have been dealt with before it occurred.