what no annual poppy bunfight thread?

[Lo Siento.]

That's a disgusting post.

It's also basically carte blanche for participating in war crimes.

 

[coley]

And?

If they refuse or quibble then they will be embarking on a political course which will give your argument( and others) credence, until then?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's also basically carte blanche for participating in war crimes.

It's nasty. Toggle's right - it is accusing him of being a coward. So keeping quiet and sliding away and not making a fuss would have been the courageous thing to do?

 

[Lo Siento.]

If they refuse or quibble then they will be embarking on a political course which will give your argument( and others) credence, until then?

I'm running out of ways of saying this, but... here goes one more time.

Even in the best case scenario in which the army literally only does what the government tells them to do and nothing else, that's still a political role. Choosing to obey the politicians is a political course, just like choosing to ignore them is.

Our political system, like all political systems, has an underlying politics to it that goes beyond the individuals and parties that govern. Since 1900 that's involved British soldiers in torture, terrorism, massacres, suppressing revolts by colonised peoples, occupying other people's countries, running concentration camps, extrajudicial murder and firing into unarmed crowds. This they did in service to a British state which had broadly the same priorities regardless of which party was in power. Not because they were bad people, or because of the politics of individual soldiers, but because that's what the institution is for.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Anyway, here's a nice picture of the British Army not glorifying war and not using Poppy Day as a recruitment tool at Portman Road on Saturday

 

[likesfish]

Airborne military police could you be a bigger wanker if you tried

 

[Lord Camomile]

Bah, another tannoy announcement: "We will now be observing a 2-minute silence"

Oh, will we? Still think it should have been "for those that wish to observe it". The Italian and Spaniard in the office next to me had a hushed conversation about it and then just carried on as normal I blew a bit of a raspberry

 

[Citizen66]

I've just been shamed into the two minute silence. There was a tannoy announcement that I didn't quite catch followed by loud hushes and dagger looks.

 

[Lord Camomile]

We had a laying of a wreath

 

[goldenecitrone]

Our fire alarm went off to signal the silence during my break, which just caused me to utter a string of obscenities about having fire drills during break time. I had actually been quietly reading urban up until that point.

 

[butchersapron]

Help help i'm being oppressed! Won't someone HELP ME!

 

[Lord Camomile]

Our fire alarm went off to signal the silence during my break, which just caused me to utter a string of obscenities about having fire drills during break time. I had actually been quietly reading urban up until that point.

Just imagining the reverential silence being broken as "fuck that! " reverberates around the corridors

 

[Lord Camomile]

Help help i'm being oppressed! Won't someone HELP ME!

Don't worry, we'll send in the armed forces to rid you of this hateful tyranny!

 

[butchersapron]

We're never going to win the next war with this level of feebleicity and ok i'll read it out. Stand up quietly for what you don't believe in!

 

[rioted]

Lest they forget the countless children burned alive in napalm's fire
Lest they forget the dead civilians lying tangled in the wire
And the faces of the women raped and shattered to the core
It's not only men in uniform who pay the price of war.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Ok, now I really am just completely lost

 

[coley]

Just come back from the village remembrance, horror of horrors,the bairns from the infant /junior school were there, I will be calling for the headmistress to be sacked for exposing them to the rampant militarism of having to listen to the elderly members saying a few words about their loved ones who didn't come back.

 

[krtek a houby]

I have a lot of respect for the Lord Mayor of Dublin, mind.

 

[toggle]

It's nasty. Toggle's right - it is accusing him of being a coward. So keeping quiet and sliding away and not making a fuss would have been the courageous thing to do?

someone who was in the special forces didn't get there by being scared to fight. he's been in the thick of some nasty shit. he can't mention any of that to disprove the allegations that he's done this because he's scared. and he can't explain what bits of what he saw made him take the decision he did. he's far from the only soldier who has become disillusioned by the experiences he had, may upon realising that the line they were being fed about liberating the people from a brutal dictator didn't bear much relation to the reality he saw. but he's one of the few who can't say anything else about that. it's far more logical to assume he made that decision for similar reasons to the others than to assume that someone who served in the former Yugoslavia, NI and Afghanistan suddenly lost his bottle (given no evidence of PTSD or other combat related MH trauma)

 

[toggle]

found this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...-Army-to-conduct-American-foreign-policy.html

he was allowed to leave the Army with his exemplary military record intact and with a glowing testimonial from his commanding officer, who described him as a "balanced and honest soldier who possesses the strength and character to genuinely have the courage of his convictions".

 

[coley]

someone who was in the special forces didn't get there by being scared to fight. he's been in the thick of some nasty shit. he can't mention any of that to disprove the allegations that he's done this because he's scared. and he can't explain what bits of what he saw made him take the decision he did. he's far from the only soldier who has become disillusioned by the experiences he had, may upon realising that the line they were being fed about liberating the people from a brutal dictator didn't bear much relation to the reality he saw. but he's one of the few who can't say anything else about that. it's far more logical to assume he made that decision for similar reasons to the others than to assume that someone who served in the former Yugoslavia, NI and Afghanistan suddenly lost his bottle (given no evidence of PTSD or other combat related MH trauma)

Aye, got to agree, Sasaferrato was in the wrong to even suggest it.

Eta tag

 

[8ball]

My facebook is a mare of war glorification at the moment...

 

[coley]

In no country are the armed forces aligned to any political party. They are always aligned to the state and the present constitutional order. On regular occasions (Spain 1936, Chile 1973, Egypt 2013 being 3 very well-known examples) historically this has led armed forces to overthrow elected governments that they (or a substantial part of their command) thought were a threat to both.

The only real difference between those 3 countries and ours is that we've never chosen a government that the Armed Forces deemed a threat to constitutional order.

They are examples of armed forces acting in a political manner,if and when the British army does the same then it will have become 'political
Until then it remains, as I have said, apolitical.

 

[andysays]

They are examples of armed forces acting in a political manner,if and when the British army does the same then it will have become 'political
Until then it remains, as I have said, apolitical.

I've been resisting posting this for the last week or something, but you've finally pushed me over the edge

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's changed a lot in the last 20 years, I think. It used to be far more low-key. In part, I suspect this is because marketing bods have become involved at the BL, finding new ways to get poppies everywhere. I noticed a London bus covered in poppies the other day. Tastefully done, of course.

It's very little to do with the RBL, and quite a lot to do with the government (this lot and the last lot) attempting to render ideological something that wasn't previously ideological. Thatcher started this off in about 1983 by scoring political points via the 1983 Remembrance Day incorporating "her" war in the South Atlantic, but no-one really went for it until Blair wrapped himself in the flag during Iraq, and "stole" remembrance from the millions by making the issue about ongoing "sacrifice". Brown and Cameron carried on this sordid faux-tradition, and have turned remembrance into a "with us or against us" issue, when it is actually about mourning the dead and remembering why and how they died.

 

[DotCommunist]

hang your head andysays

 

[butchersapron]

I've been resisting posting this for the last week or something, but you've finally pushed me over the edge

Do you really think that's wise?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's very little to do with the RBL, and quite a lot to do with the government (this lot and the last lot) attempting to render ideological something that wasn't previously ideological. Thatcher started this off in about 1983 by scoring political points via the 1983 Remembrance Day incorporating "her" war in the South Atlantic, but no-one really went for it until Blair wrapped himself in the flag during Iraq, and "stole" remembrance from the millions by making the issue about ongoing "sacrifice". Brown and Cameron carried on this sordid faux-tradition, and have turned remembrance into a "with us or against us" issue, when it is actually about mourning the dead and remembering why and how they died.

While I agree with you about govt actions, it is also a very great deal to do with the RBL. They are enthusiastic participants in the process. As mentioned above, the way they sell corporate remembrance tie-ins is as stark an example of this as you could want.

 

[andysays]

hang your head andysays

Do you really think that's wise?

I knew I'd hate myself as soon as I'd done it, and I knew wiser heads than mine would criticise me, but I just couldn't help myself.

I can only say in my defence that I've been subjected to 20 pages of militaristic propaganda, and eventually something had to break. I can't even wriggle out with the "only following orders" defence

 

[ViolentPanda]

If remembrance it being pushed more, is it in part in response to greater demands from injured service people from Iraq and Afghanistan? And the centenary, is it not the reason for the poppy display at the tower?

As I have mentioned before, I don't live in the smoke, apart from seeing odd collections of people on the box wearing poppies, I haven't seen so much.

Remembrance is being pushed because it allows the government to pass the buck on responsibility for the results of their bellicosity, so "we" (the people) end up paying (through charitable giving) to rehabilitate British military personnel who were injured in their war. Remembrance, in the politicised form it has had since Blair, also allows the government to tie everyday policy to issues of "patriotism" - dissent and you're not only an extremist, but unpatriotic to boot!