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what no annual poppy bunfight thread?

poppy?

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When you think about the formation of the British Legion it was a master-stroke of proto-small-state shysterism. Off-load the state's obligation to those killed, maimed or damaged onto a quasi-militarised, nationalistic body funded on the back of the 'popular' jingoism developed during the conflict. All of which had the effect of controlling and defusing the revolutionary potential of a mass of demobilised personnel. Important to remember that the 'grateful' state set mounted police on NFDDSS veterans in 1919 who dared to demand things of the state.
 
...and on it goes...


CS9r-YNWsAAuAMt_zps5a0iuuf8.jpg


Worth a read:-
MY NAME IS LEGION – The British Legion and the Control of Remembrance » VFP UK
With its links to the arms trade, increasingly militarised presentation of Remembrance, and growing commercialisation and corporatisation of the poppy “brand”, it’s time to reconsider whether the Royal British Legion is still suitable to be the “national custodian of Remembrance”.
Click to expand...
 
The RBL’s decision to launch their 2013 Poppy Appeal with corporate-friendly girl band The Saturdays dressed in patent leather mini skirts singing “I’m a bad girl, I’m a bad girl, I’m notorious” while wearing Swarovski-encrusted poppies, shows how badly the Legion has lost its way. In one sense it’s a remarkably clever and commercially savvy instance of brand product placement and what the Legion calls “Cause Related Marketing” – i.e. using a “cause’ that people care about in order to co-opt it to sell frozen goods, ketchup, or jewellery. But it’s also a deeply demeaning and disrespectful way to commemorate the deaths of those who dies in conflict.
Click to expand...

Not being familiar much with the Poppy Appeal, I found this particularly jarring, in addition to the dark irony of plastering a war machine with a supposed symbol of remembrance for the war dead. What the fuck?
 
brogdale said:
...and on it goes...


CS9r-YNWsAAuAMt_zps5a0iuuf8.jpg


Worth a read:-
MY NAME IS LEGION – The British Legion and the Control of Remembrance » VFP UK
Click to expand...


'Oooh look at our fancy new flying death machine... Lest we forget'

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This is mainly why I don't wear one anymore. I do want to in some way remember my poor relative who lied about his age to go off on the 'adventure' of trench warfare. He loved it so much he ended up staying six feet underground in a little French village having been mown down by machine guns at Paschendale. He wasn't 19 though like he told the recruitment office or what's written on his gravestone, he was 16... 16 FFS, fighting in a war he had no idea the reasons of. I wanna mark that in some way, I used to do that by wearing a poppy but I don't anymore because of this sort of thing. It makes me sick really that my relative's wasted life is now used in this yearly festival of jingoism.
 
said vulcan is old and never flying again and was part of the deterrence force so kept europe from having another chance to build war memorials. the fact that the old men who start wars are no longer safe if they go for the big wargasm means major world wars are off the menu they are left to a few proxy wars
 
likesfish said:
said vulcan is old and never flying again and was part of the deterrence force so kept europe from having another chance to build war memorials. the fact that the old men who start wars are no longer safe if they go for the big wargasm means major world wars are off the menu they are left to a few proxy wars
Click to expand...

Sorry I'm not up on which death machines are currently in or out of service, either way it's not really appropriate. World wars maybe, just maybe off the table. Instead we have instant vapourisation to look forward to.
 
likesfish said:
said vulcan is old and never flying again and was part of the deterrence force so kept europe from having another chance to build war memorials. the fact that the old men who start wars are no longer safe if they go for the big wargasm means major world wars are off the menu they are left to a few proxy wars
Click to expand...
I don't have a problem with the Vulcan. But I do have a big problem with the government/military poppywashing everything they do that might be vaguely military-related. Doctor Carrot's post being a very good case in point of the way in which the remembrance message has been hijacked and corrupted.
 
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