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.