BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 01:20 AM

Backwoodsman, sorry. I was reactive and being "smart". Of course English people are entitled to their ceremonies and their patriotism.
But… I don't like the way that poppies seem to be required - apparently they're compulsory for people appearing on the BBC before 11 November. (I assume this is only for British people, but I'm not sure.)
To be clear, I don't like performative patriotism in my own country either, or in any country.
I do attend ceremonies commemorating our own war dead, which include members of my own family. But it absolutely grates on me when right-wing demonstrators carry our national flag, or claim that their type of patriotism owns or represents my country.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 01:49 AM

No problem at all Thompson, I totally agree with your final point, it boils my piss too. I’m absolutely not a flag-shagger, in fact, I don’t like Nationalist symbols such as flags at all. But I do like the idea of the poppy as a symbol of Remembrance, and I don’t mind if people wear theirs for a period before and after Remembrance and Armistice Days. As I said previously, I regard the poppy as remembering all those from all sides who gave their lives in all wars from the Great War onwards. A life is a life, regardless of nationality, and every life lost is worth remembering.

On a tour of the WW1 battlefields in Belgium a few years ago, the most moving moment for me was in the German Cemetery in Vladslo, where the monument created by Käthe Kollwitz, ‘The Grieving Parents’, stands - it really brought home to me the utter futility and stupidity of war, and the universal grief of those whose loved ones are taken from them in war.

Käthe Kollwitz, “The Grieving Parents”

Thanks for your thoughtful response above - we’re really not that far apart, are we?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 02:23 AM

Sorry for bringing in outside influences but as we can no longer comment on the US election thread...

It will affect the UK and the rest of the world. Looks like we are fucked;-(

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 03:47 AM

A very sad day, Dave - for the whole world. Oh America, what have you done?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 04:34 AM

One thing. At least this madness will be reversed in 4 years. Unlike Brexit!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 05:48 AM

> At least this madness will be reversed in 4 years.

.... 1461 days and counting.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 12:30 PM

Just a reminder of the resonance of the poppy!

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
       In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
       In Flanders fields.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 12:44 PM

In Flanders Fields was written in 1915. Two years later:

Dulce et Decorum Est
By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Nov 24 - 01:01 PM

‘In Flanders Fields’ is my favourite war poem, Nigel. Essex Farm was one of the truly moving highlights (if that’s the right word) of our trip to the Belgian WW1 battlefields, along with Tyne Cot cemetery, the German cemetery in Vladslo, and the Cloth Hall WW1 Museum in Ieper. We were fortunate also to be at the Menin Gate ceremony on the 11th November, a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Nov 24 - 06:07 AM

I'm not sure about 'favourite' war poem. 'For the fallen' also has resonances particularly with the very short extract used (and often misquoted) in the Remembrance Sunday services.
When I was working for HMRC (Hisssss) I used to put both on a staff contact website on 11 November morning to give those who had trouble with concentration for keeping a two-minute silence something to read.

For the Fallen

By Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Source: The London Times (1914)

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Nov 24 - 11:17 AM

Christmas: 1924
by Thomas Hardy
" Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Nov 24 - 12:38 PM

I can't stand any of those noble war poems. And I've heard former soldiers bitterly mocking them.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: DaveRo
Date: 09 Nov 24 - 03:44 PM

Some thoughtful responses today to the Guardian piece on “Has poppy mania gone too far?” My favourite:

I used to wear a white poppy for peace – alongside a red poppy, so that I didn’t get assaulted for wearing the white one!

Poppy mania and the endless fight for peace

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Nov 24 - 05:01 PM

Excellent!

In The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club [set in 1921] by Dorothy L Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey is able to date the murder of Gen Fentiman to 10 November and not, as first thought, Armistice Day, as the general was not wearing a poppy, which, of course, he would have been on 11 November.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Nov 24 - 10:19 AM

Mike Harding's excellent Christmas 1914

Best remembrance I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Nov 24 - 11:05 AM

Extraordinary, Davethe. What a song.
I've been reading Precipice by Robert Harris, a novel centred on the letters of Venetia Stanley to the prime minister of the pre-WWI and early WWI days, HH Asquith, which have been preserved, though his replies have not. Very interesting view of how the war to end all wars happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Nov 24 - 11:14 AM

Good un init :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Rain Dog
Date: 10 Nov 24 - 02:47 PM

"Very interesting view of how the war to end all wars happened."

I have not read the Harris novel. I did read an interesting review in Literary Review of

Disputing Disaster:A Sextet on the Great War by Perry Anderson

It is on my to read list.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Nov 24 - 08:36 AM

On the ‘US Election’ thread, Big Al wrote…

”However our own record in voting for loonies is not exactly blameless. There was Thatcher who finished off 28% of manufacturing in one year. Then there was Cameron who walked out because the Brexit vote upset him. And I'm not over the moon with Keir Starmer.
I think the trouble resides in the fact that we have a media who misinform us. Trump's victory and Starmers have in common the fact that the overwhelming nature of thevictories seemed to creep up on them by surprise.
This to me, argues that they don't really know whats going at ground level.”

Well, I agree with your first sentence (although I disagree with your use of ‘our’ - I’ve never voted Conservative in my life) and, whilst I’m not over the moon with Starmer either, I do believe he’s a better bet than the Tory alternative(s).

You’re dead right about Thatcher, and you’re partially right about Cameron, except that he didn’t walk out because the Brexit vote ‘upset him’, he walked because he realised that the Referendum question had been badly worded, and also what an utter disaster his mistaken decision to break with tradition and allow the Referendum to depend on a ‘simple majority’had dumped the UK into whereas, if he’d worded the Referendum more carefully and stuck with the traditional requirement for a ‘Super-majority’ of 60-40, the ‘Remain’ vote would have won easily. He knew he’d fucked-up badly, and that leaving the EU was going to turn out exactly the way it has - a total balls-up, with the likes of you and me paying the bill for the rest of our lives, while the toffs made, and continue to make, an enormous killing.

You’re also right about misinformation, but our media had Labour leading by 20 percentage points for months, so I can’t agree that Starmer’s and Labour’s victory ‘crept up on them’ - they were fully aware that victory was coming.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Nov 24 - 08:50 AM

Should have also said…

Whether they will use that victory to our best advantage remains to be seen. The disaster of fourteen years of Tory mis-rule can’t be fixed in a few weeks or months. It’ll take a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Nov 24 - 04:00 PM

I also meant to say that I’m sure we won’t agree, but that’s fine - we’ve disagreed before, and I’m happy to agree to disagree rather than fall out.