The James McClean Sponsored Poppy Thread

[DI Bruce Robertson]

people are just fannies tbh.

FTFY

[Dindeleux]

I wonder if we're also commemorating the hundreds of thousands we illegally killed in Iraq based on a pack of lies.

Never thought Diana was hot either.   Good chance she was murdered by mi5 at the behest of the royal family btw. 

I love the fact that you try to be edgy on here Pep as if we haven't heard it all before.

[Peppino Impastato]

Nothing edgy about it simple objectivity.   I love that you care though, touching. 

[KillieCon]

 

[speckled tangerine]

I was coming along Princes Street in Edinburgh yesterday to be greeted with a big van outside the National Gallery at the Mound selling "official merchandise".

So there you are. It's business.

[Sergeant Wilson]

3 hours ago, Peppino Impastato said:

Never thought Diana was hot either.   Good chance she was murdered by mi5 at the behest of the royal family btw. 

She was killed abroad, so surely it would've been MI6?

[Bully Wee Villa]

Maybe MI5 were on their holidays?

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, ICTChris said:

The one I remember is the Soham murders - absolutely awful double murder of two wee girls.  Every ground in Britain had a minutes silence betore that game.  I remember this because it was a Highland derby that weekend and there was a silence at our game.  After the match I went out for a few pints and as I was waiting in front of the town house with my mate to get a lift home later on I noticed that there were flowers and teddy bears and candles piled up around the spot for the old cross, all for the two wee girls.

I know it sounds cold but what sort of person does that, goes and buys a teddy and puts it at Inverness town house for something like that?  A terrible crime but I just don't understand it.

You don't put new teddies down, you get an old shite one from the back of the cupboard. Likewise my old football shirt trick of tying a Charlton Athletic 1987 away shirt to the railings to commemorate the latest junkie or alkie that croaks.

[Njord]

5 hours ago, Torpar said:

Although the British army wasn't involved, there was an estimated 2000 British soldiers who fought by resigning for the British army and enlisting with the Australian and New Zealand forces. The poppy is a great way honour those brave British men who went to war, like the British Free Corps, those rascals.

Indeed. Similar to those brave boys of the Commonwealth from India that signed on for Mr H. Think they saw the same amount of action , ie none.

 

Had it in my memory from TV/book @ 30/35 years ago that there had been boots on the ground.

Cursory search sort of backs that up on the Brit forums.

There were apparently 6 bars to the GSM awarded with the legend "South Vietnam". That would suggest at least 6 British soldiers did serve there.

Speculation has been that they were attached to the Aussie or Kiwi SAS in a training role, and ended up "in country".

First page says 'yes' but it goes to 75 pages ffs.

https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/did-any-british-forces-serve-in-vietnam.22383/

 

And Falklands definitely wasn't a War. 

 

Still to track down the last one though, the English have been diligent over the years in attacking folk.

[DAFC.]

Chap in my work got accused of being a "pro-IRA, disrespectful tool" for wearing a white poppy by an uber right-wing former Police Officer. He argued that it was an Easter Lilly and he was actually donating to the IRA. I am being serious. He then went on some random spiel about Bobby Sands. I honestly hate this time of the year.

I don't wear one. It's become a symbol of British Nationalism rather than a commemoration of those that died in both World Wars. Even at that it's a symbol for British Soldiers of all eras, which is quite dodgy because, y'know, the British Army committed a lot of vile acts in Palestine, Yemen and Ireland in the past, to name a few. 

[pandarilla]

It's a simple mark of recalling how shite killing folk is and it's apolitical.

[/img]

It used to be apolitical but not anymore.

I was almost sick in my mouth when that labour plp p***k asked the question of the pm. What an absolute c**t.

Her answer was pre prepared and basically mirrored the front page of the sun.

[The_Kincardine]

4 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

It used to be apolitical but not anymore.

I was almost sick in my mouth when that labour plp p***k asked the question of the pm. What an absolute c**t.

Her answer was pre prepared and basically mirrored the front page of the sun.

All this is tawdry bollocks and very sad and it's pathetic we've got here.

The poppy is nothing more than a Canadian-inspired aide-memoire and those who seek to politicise it (and yes, I'm looking at both the staunch Rangers fans and also the grey and green dross) are utter dolts.

[pandarilla]

All this is tawdry bollocks and very sad and it's pathetic we've got here.

The poppy is nothing more than a Canadian-inspired aide-memoire and those who seek to politicise it (and yes, I'm looking at both the staunch Rangers fans and also the grey and green dross) are utter dolts.

But it is political now - and has been for some time. It's a dog whistle issue for tabloid-reading numpties.

The change in the last 10-15 years has been quite stark.

[jagfox]

For me the poppy has become more synonymous with the increased heroin production in Afghanistan after our intervention there rather than for the poor feckers put through the meat grinder at those horrific battles of WWI.

In fact I've seen many pictures of WWI battlefields and there were f**k all poppies on show, just mud and shell holes.

FWIW I couldn't careless if someone wears a poppy or not. If someone really wants to show respect for old service people go to your local war memorial on the 11 November.

Also the hypocracy of the Earl Haig fund is never lost on me. We can send chaps to get killed, maimed or to lose their marbles but they get f**k all support on their return, it's fucking bonkers.

[dorlomin]

2 hours ago, renton said:

 However, i'd argue that from the famous pacifist oxford debates to appeasement itself there reflected an appetite to avoid another blood letting and that the notion of the futility of the first war was far from a projection of modern values but rather was a contemporary attitude

Futility? The British people went to war to defend the Belgian and French democracies. They did this, but at crippling human cost. Why do you think it was generally seen as futile before the hipper than thou 60s? So far as appeasement went, Hitler was originally pushing at an open door so far as the British were concerned. People were not all that bothered about preventing the Germans reunite with the Saar or even Austria. That does not mean they thought fighting for the Belgians was "futile". 

They certainly found it in them to do the same again for the Poles. 

Quote

As for the rest, yeah I seen one on facebook this morning,

Jesus wept. And that is how you diagnose a society spinning into militarism.

 

[The_Kincardine]

Just now, pandarilla said:

 

But it is political now - and has been for some time. It's a dog whistle issue for tabloid-reading numpties.
 

 

It's not political now and never has been and FIFA should never have got involved.

Armistice Day has always been benign, in my memory, since I was in The BB in the 1960s and the trolls trying to politicise it really need to GTF.

I may say this a few times more

[invergowrie arab]

53 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

It's not political now and never has been and FIFA should never have got involved.

Armistice Day has always been benign, in my memory, since I was in The BB in the 1960s and the trolls trying to politicise it really need to GTF.

I may say this a few times more

It's almost as if things change over time and that symbols have no innate meaning, only what individuals take from them.

[The_Kincardine]

1 minute ago, invergowrie arab said:

It's almost as if things change over time and that symbols have no innate meaning, only what individuals take from them.

You're making the classic mistake of confusing 'timeless' with 'immutable' and wrapping it in to a token.  Not that I'm at all surprised.

The Poppy is simply a token.  Can we stop the thread here?

[vikingTON]

No: feel free to f**k off if you don't like its contents though.

[Tony Ferrino]

7 hours ago, Hammer Jag said:

Yup. Shame on the spineless SFA for following their masters in London and bowing to the poppy fascists.

Scotland should just let England do it on their own. Could be the worlds first 9 pointer.