Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Became very conscious yesterday that I haven't bought, and therefore am not wearing, a red poppy. I usually do, almost out of habit more than anything, and I 'take part' in the observed siliences.
But I wonder if observing these traditions means buying in to the notion that HMs armed forces are noble public servants who should be applauded and revered as often as possible (there's no designated day of rememberance for fireman who die on the job, or for construction workers who died on site).
The Royal Legion have previously refuted that the poppy is a means of glorifying war, rather it is about remembering the dead of war. But isn't it actually glorification of the dead of war? Their deaths are more significant than most just as a royal birth is more significant than the dozens born every day?
Anyway, thoughts?

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, it's a glorification of war.

No, you shouldn't wear one. I don't even like the white (Peace Pledge Union) or black (Anarchist, commemorating deserters) poppies.

[bricolage]

here's what poppies are about, kids with future soldier t-shirts,
http://i.imgur.com/xHWDf4y.png

it's not an issue of abstract remembrance, but the glorification of militarism, implicit support for current british military actions, and the prioritisation of british lives over all others.

An-soldier on why he won't wear a poppy (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/poppy-last-time-remembrance-harry-leslie-smith), and another from this time last year (http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/ex-sas-soldier-blasts-poppy-appeal-1884260).

this time every year I just think of this same bordiga quote:

"In the name of a greater civilization, we curse those who for the sake of their ambitious dreams, brought about the massacre of so many young lives. No matter how brutal the crime, you will always get glorification of its heroism and tradition from the eunuchs of bourgeois culture."

[Quail]

I don't wear a poppy.

On a slightly unrelated note, I think that it should be the state rather than a charity supporting veterans. If the ruling class are going to send people to war, it should be on them to pick up the pieces. I think a lot of young people are recruited into the military perhaps because they don't feel there is any other way to get a job, and they don't quite understand the reality of what they are signing up for. (I'm not sure if they still do this, but I remember people from the army coming in to my school as a teenager.) It's just another way that working class people are fucked over - young people are recruited with dishonest propaganda and sent off to fight in wars for the benefit of the ruling class, and when they come back with mental and physical health problems and are no longer useful they get tossed aside and left to fend for themselves.

On another slightly unrelated note, I thought this (http://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/why-blackadder-goes-forth-could-have-been-a-lot-funnier/) article from Bristol Radical History Group about how soldiers avoided fighting in the first world war was an interesting read.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't like poppies. I do find it incredibly emotional and solemn thinking about the world wars, though. Especially WW1 - i'm teaching it at the moment and the sheer waste of life is just unbelievable. :(