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

[a_majoor]

The Heritage Lotterey's leadership is doing the same thing as the "White Poppy" campaign here in Canada, but since they have actual control of funds they can be much more brazen about their ability to exert power and control. As posted in the "Deconstructing Progressive Thought" thread, this is an extention of the same thinking behind the local Arts Council: http://Forums.Army.ca/forums/threads/64647/post-1245852.html#msg1245852

But that’s the whole point of the Arts Council - to circumvent the preferences of the public and how they’d spend their own money voluntarily.

Of course, given the history of Marxist infiltration of British institutions since the 1930's, this could also be a direct extension of the Communist Party's "White Poppy" campaign. Regardless of the motivation, this is attempting to attack a public institution and insert their own preferred narrative in its place.

 

[Journeyman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/08/brett-wilson-white-poppy_n_4243009.html


And now - I apologize for calling the white poppy supporters morons - for they are way below morons in my opinion. They are actually assholes. Or less.

    :rofl:    Love it.



(...and no, I still can't too worked up about the whole thing; I just thought it was funny)

 

[Vanguard48]

Ah where to begin. My opinion on the White Poppy. Please take it or disregard as you freely choose to do so.

Honestly its a huge slap in the face to the veterans and the very idea of Remembrance Day. No political correctness or debating needed, its just plain stupidity.

It takes a whole lot of retardation to come up with the notion to start campaigning this slop right around Remembrance Day, these so called "Students" and I use the quotations lightly are the product of moronic and over the top ignorance towards Canada and are feeling o so self righteous about it. The real kicker was when they quoted "We can't account for other people's feelings, however, no one has a monopoly over Remembrance Day," he said. Are you kidding me.

But I digress, the white poppy is just a symbol sure, but what lies behind it and its idea is what frustrates the frack out of me.

To them and all others who decide to support the White poppy and its idealism they should take a lovely trip to Syria. I hear its wonderful this time of year.

Thus ends my rant, I think it's time for more coffee now.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Slightly  ff topic: but ...

Today's Globe and Mail reports that in Chilliwack, BC, "when it is time for Mark Strahl, the local Conservative MP, to lay a wreath, Mr. Latulippe and other veterans will face away [because] veterans, he said, want to turn their backs on the Conservative government “just like the Conservatives are turning their backs on veterans.”"

I sympathize. I have been quite vocal about the New Veterans' Charter and why it is immoral to balance the budget on the backs of men and women who have been grievously injured while serving our country.

But: the Government of Canada, not the Conservative Party of Canada, is, formally, acknowledging the supreme sacrifice which was made by nearly 120,000 Canadians and turning his back on Mr Strahl will only prove that Mr Latulippe, a retired Air Force captain, has bad manners and, despite his long service and many medals, is ignorant about the significance of the day.

Claude Latulippe plans to turn his back when Conservative MP Mark Stahl lays a wreath at the
Chilliwack War memorial.
                                                                                              (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)

 

[Kat Stevens]

I posted this on Facebook originally (yes, I know, FB is evil, blah blah), but I just want to add it to these proceedings;


I really need to get this out, unpopular as it may be. There has been a trend the last few years to turn Remembrance Day into some kind of veterans day. It isn't. It's about all the ones we left on far off fields who never got the chance to be a veteran. We thank our veterans, but we REMEMBER our dead. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Stand easy, all the brothers and sisters we have lost.

 

[pbi]

But: the Government of Canada, not the Conservative Party of Canada, is, formally, acknowledging the supreme sacrifice which was made by nearly 120,000 Canadians and turning his back on Mr Strahl will only prove that Mr Latulippe, a retired Air Force captain, has bad manners and, despite his long service and many medals, is ignorant about the significance of the day.

I agree 100%, and I felt the same way about the vets who, a few years ago at the National Service, rudely turned their backs on Mme Jean, the GG. IMHO, these folks are indulging in exactly the same thing we are accusing the White Poppy crowd of doing: politicizing Remembrance Day.

We can't have two rules. Either it is a day for respectful, non-partisan mourning of sacrifice, or it isn't. For everybody.

 

[PMedMoe]

My niece just posted this on FB.  Seems appropriate.

"For far too many, no long life ahead, free of struggle and pain and the gun
And we must remember the price that was paid, by each and every one
Regardless of views, opinions aside, no matter how each of us sees it
They were there and I cannot forget, even though I did not live it"

 

[x_para76]

 

[Brad Sallows]

Time for me to weigh in with my customary narrow-minded curmudgeonly unyielding extremist uncharitable intolerant grating opinion, but as ERC stated it and other have expressed and paraphrased:

"That's all it is about: not war, not veterans, not the military: just the dead and remembering "those," as Wilfred Owen put it "who die as cattle.""

Remembrance Day and the red poppy solely concern a debt of remembrance to those who died serving in war, and to honour them by living justly and peacefully as they cannot.

I went to the main service in Vancouver today for the first time in years (I've been going to ceremonies in smaller centres, which have refreshingly less political baggage), and found myself in disagreement with some of the sentiments expressed from the platform.  The occasion is not to show gratitude to all veterans, or serving members, or people who work for emergency services, or to acknowledge particular people or communities, or to lament other shortcomings and make vague politically correct noises.

As for the activists, it is also not to glorify or promote or excuse anything resembling war, militarism, or jingoism.  If they wish to choose for themselves another icon and define what it means, they can be as solemn or as ridiculous as they choose.  But they do not get to redefine or expand upon or reinterpret what Remembrance Day and the red poppy signify.

 

[pbi]

:goodpost:

 

[Journeyman]

Reprinted from yesterday's

Complete article at LINK  (National Post copyright)

Schultz & Weier: Why we wear poppies, both red and white

Christopher Schultz and Jonathan Weier, National Post | 11/11/13

.....
It is generally accepted that the red poppy was first promoted by Moina Michael (an American) and Anna Guerin (a Frenchwoman), two female volunteers with the YMCA during the First World War. Meeting at a YMCA conference in New York City, 1918, and inspired by John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields, they decided to encourage wearing a red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who were killed in the war.

The optimism of the 1920s would prove a cruel hoax, however, producing the white poppy in its wake. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 plunged countries around the world into the Great Depression. The resultant shock rippled across the political spectrum, resulting in ever hardening lines between the political left and right. Pacifists, leftists themselves by and large but also veterans and prominent members of mainstream churches, looked upon these events despairingly, seeing the seeds of global conflict once again being sown. Militarism, violence and revolution were becoming common. The white poppy became a symbol of the total renunciation of war, to be worn alongside the red poppy as a reminder of the desire for enduring peace and using peaceful means to resolve disputes.

The original idea behind the pacifist poppy in 1926, a product of the No More War Movement in England, was simple enough: place a pin at the centre of the red poppy stating “No More War,” replacing “Haig Fund” (the British Legion’s fundraising appeal, named after British Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig). Failing that, white poppies would be distributed alongside the Legion’s reds.

The white poppy became a symbol of the pacifist left, and has been distributed for Remembrance Day by the PPU in the United Kingdom every year since.

Complete article at LINK

 

[Ice97]

My  :2c:....just cause I can

I think the thing with the White Poppy is that it is almost like they were looking for negative attention.  Makes no sense to me....but I don't know how to explain it.  I live in Ottawa...yet I did not see anyone wearing a White Poppy before Remembrance Day...or even on Remembrance Day.  I don't think that the White Poppy itself is disrespectful....but their reasoning behind wearing it (Cause the Red Poppy glorifies War) shows how highly misinformed they are. 

Don't know what else to add to this other than my 7 year old kid knows more behind the meaning of the Red Poppy and Remembrance Day then these University students do

 

[AirDet]

We all are of the same convictions.  It is an insult to the Vets and those that serve, but a Right that our service has guaranteed them.  I think that if you seriously were to start to pull white poppies off these 'confused' twits, you would find that there would be a 'Barrack room Lawyer' in that crowd just waiting to charge you with "ASSAULT".

I suppose it's fortunate that I didn't see any of these cowardly and insulting symbols.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I suppose it's fortunate that I didn't see any of these cowardly and insulting symbols.

I just prefer to let people like that revel in their own ignorance. It's simply not worth my while to try convince such misguided souls.

After all, freedom of choice is one of the great things that the people remembered on this day fought and died for.