I hate to be a pedant Mick but the GB think it's wholly acceptable to sing about Hunger Strikers (To praise them as heroes even) but not to praise men who died in the World Wars. That's why they are Hypocrites. Their own Politics are fine for Parkhead, just not anyone else's...on their watch .
****ing hell. If we have to have a "is the poppy a political symbol?" argument can we not save it for the appropriate time. Which according to the football authorities this year will most likely be Saturday, November 8th at 3.00pm.
The poppy has a long association with Remembrance Day. But how did the distinctive red flower become such a potent symbol of our remembrance of the sacrifices made in past wars? Scarlet corn poppies (popaver rhoeas) grow naturally in conditions of disturbed earth throughout Western Europe. The destruction brought by the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th Century transformed bare land into fields of blood red poppies, growing around the bodies of the fallen soldiers. In late 1914, the fields of Northern France and Flanders were once again ripped open as World War One raged through Europe's heart. Once the conflict was over the poppy was one of the only plants to grow on the otherwise barren battlefields. "The significance of the poppy as a lasting memorial symbol to the fallen" was realised by the Canadian surgeon John McCrae in his poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy came to represent the immeasurable sacrifice made by his comrades and quickly became a lasting memorial to those who died in World War One and later conflicts. It was adopted by The Royal British Legion as the symbol for their Poppy Appeal, in aid of those serving in the British Armed Forces, after its formation in 1921.
I'm indifferent Do you think it's acceptable to have a political symbol such as the poppy on a football shirt? Do you feel like a hypocrite?
I agree, it's hypocrisy that does my tits in as well. I'd be well up for keeping it all out of the stadium - but it's not all politics, is just anti-establishment politics that appears to be the problem. I'll no doubt continue to call the GB fannies (I do genuinely believe they are fannies), but I'll also continue to point out the hypocrisy of others when they try make exceptions for their own political causes being brought into the stadium (or advertised on our shirts during November).
It should be though. Many would be more willing to wear it and maybe arguments like this wouldn't arise...
After World War II, 12 to 14 million German people—including women and children under the age of sixteen—were brutally driven from their homes.[8]Some historians place the figure as high as fifteen million.[9] During the expulsion, thousands lost their lives from starvation, disease, and ill-treatment. Some died in wagons without food, water, or heating during long trips; others collapsed by the roadside. The death estimate is between 500,000 and 1.5 million.[10]*Other historians estimate that the figure amounts to 2 million.[11] Moreover, thousands upon thousands of children were separated from their families.[12]*Historian R. M. Douglas notes that many of these issues are not discussed among popular historians and even ignored in some scholarly circles. “Today, outside Germany, they are almost completely unknown. In most English language histories of the period they are at best a footnote, and usually not even that. “The most recent (2009) edition of Mary Fulbrook’s excellent*History of Germany1918-2008 disposes of the episode in a single uninformative paragraph…TheCambridge Illustrated History of Germanyis typical in not according the expulsions even a single mention.”[13] We shall remember them...
On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the "Florence of the Elbe" to rubble and flames, and killing as many as 135,000 people. It was the single most destructive bombing of the war—including Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and all the more horrendous because little, if anything, was accomplished strategically, since the Germans were already on the verge of surrender. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-dresden At the going down of the sun etc..
