My dad got really angry with me yesterday at breakfast with the family (in a restaurant) and told me to stop talking. What upset him was my claim that WW1 was a waste of time and life and that armistice day and the annual poppy fest ritual we have every year in the UK glorifies war and helps enforce the idea that joining the armed forces is a good and noble thing to do when it is not.
Some might say that Armistice Day was not the best day to bring this up but I say what better day is there? Millions of people in the United Kingdom have been buying and wearing poppies for decades, year after year without question. You know poppy time is approaching because for about a week or two before 11/11 the BBC forces everyone who appears on any of its TV programmes to wear a poppy. If you aren't wearing a poppy when you appear on the BBC around poppy season, expect to be questioned about it by the media on behalf of the outraged public. You'll get one chance if you say it was a mistake and claim you wore the wrong cardigan, but if you dare to refuse to wear one out of principle, prepare for the media onslaught. It's not just the BBC either. For quite a few years now, the English premier league has included the poppy on it's kits around the time of the poppy fest and if you refuse to wear a poppy adorned shirt, be prepared to suffer the consequences.
Take for example James McLean the Irishman who plays in the English premier league who has refused to wear a poppy for years because, as he rightly points out, the poppy commemorates those that have died in all wars, not just WW1 and WW2. He happens to have grown up in an area where the Britsh Army shot and killed 14 unarmed protesters in 1972. It was named "Bloody Sunday", you might have heard of it.
To make my stance clear. All men and woman that have died in war believing they were fighting for a noble and just cause should be honoured and remembered. They gave their lives because they believed what they were doing was right and necessary but that doesn't change the fact that they were wrong and that they were brainwashed and lied to to ensure they would not only fight, but fight with passion and conviction for the things that meant the most to them (their family and country). When I think about the millions of lives that have been snuffed out over the past 100 years to further the agenda of a handful of mem who are behind all the wars, it makes me sad initially but that is closely followed by anger. When I see hundreds of poppy wearers blindly marching and following the same old script and chanting the same pointless mantras like "Never Again" or "Lest we Forget" I want to shout in their faces, "We've forgotten, can't you see? The wars are continuous and are are not supposed to end and it is your ignorance in part that ensures they never do".
How many young people, as a result of the way we are taught to remember those that died in the wars, decide to pursue a career in the armed forces thereby ensuring that the seemingly endless supply of brainwashed order followers required to keep the wars going, continues? Why aren't their massive banners at every remembrance gathering in the country with Harry Patch's face on it telling the truth about war.
Harry was talking about WW1 of course but it was no coincidence that WW2 started almost 20 years to the day after WW1. An entire generation was sacrificed in WW1 and it took 20 years of state education and brainwashing to ensure there were another group of men ready to die to fight the Nazi's. The brainwashing continues today in the form of Holocaust museums and macabre tours of Auschwitz that ensure that people still believe there was a point to it all.
If everyone knew the truth about war and 'the wars' nobody would join the armed forces to kill on command and this is why the lies, brainwashing and things like remembrance day exist. They want us to remember, but only in the way we are supposed to remember. The sacrifices have to have been worth it otherwise people will realise that hundreds of millions of people have died for nothing and then it won't be able to happen again.
I'll end this with a fitting quote from "1984" by George Orwell.
The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.
Thanks for reading.
Stay safe
Jim