John Snow Refuses to Wear Poppy

C

Cellar_Door

Whose Worth's unknown
Registered Senior Member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6134906.stm

I once got into a heated debate with my music teacher after he refused to wear a provided poppy on the 11th November.

To paraphrase: "I don't want to glorify war."

How can someone look on the poppy as a symbol of that? It reminds us to remember, as it were; proceeds from buying one go to the Royal British Legion. The dead, rather than the manner in which they died, is glorified. You could argue that the soldiers of WWI were fighting for a worthless cause - but isn't their bravery and loss worth something in itself?

The John Snow story is not a new one, but I thought it would be a good case to cite. If people stop wearing poppies because they think it glorifies war (despite the fact this is not the reason he publicly gives), that is exactly what it will come to represent. I would urge everyone who does not glorify war to wear a poppy with a view to preventing such a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If someone accused me of glorifying war by wearing a poppy, they would very quickly regret it. I'm not convinced that it is even possible to glorify war.

However - do Sciforumers believe there is an associated jingoism with wearing this badge? So much so they would avoid associating themselves with it?
 
It glorifies war and it glorifies death. What is wrong with living for your country? We need more people to do that. Dead people don't help keep corruption out of government or their widow's kids off the street.
 
It glorifies war and it glorifies death. What is wrong with living for your country? We need more people to do that.
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In what way does it 'glorify war'?

Dead people don't help keep corruption out of government or their widow's kids off the street.
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Neither do living people.
 
How can it NOT glorify war? Saying that we are honoring the people who fought in the war and not the war itself is just misdirection.
 
Cellar_Door said:
If someone accused me of glorifying war by wearing a poppy, they would very quickly regret it.
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Why, would you react like a warrior?

What about the people who DO remember and appreciate fallen soliders in their own way, but don't feel any need to take part in such jingiostic traditions?

We have people in the states who wave flags and banners and get awfully pissed off at those who don't.
Of course it doesn't matter whether those who don't wave flags are actually patriotic, responsible citizens - nor does it matter if those do do wave them are.

In my experience, those who not only go in for such jingiosm, but berate those who don't, more often than not do not live their lives as patriots outside those pratices.
They think that waving flags, waving poppies and chanting slogans makes them good Americans, but they scoff at civic duty, support hateful policy and use those symbols as weapons of division more than tools of unity.

I OFTEN see American flag pins (light-up ostentatious ones) and poppy pins for sale which were made in China.
I think that says it all.
 
I want our soldiers home when at all possible, taking care of their families and their own lives. We can build good defenses and we can be so strong that we can knock back any military in the world, let alone one composed mostly of people who throw down their rifles and run from an US attack.
 
It sounds like a symbolic gesture that shows appreciation for the sacrifices that have been made by others on behalf of the whole. There's no war mongering suggested in such a device of gratitude.
 
Bowser said:
It sounds like a symbolic gesture that shows appreciation for the sacrifices that have been made by others on behalf of the whole. There's no war mongering suggested in such a device of gratitude.
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I agree, if only there is no backlash for those who do not partake.
In that case, it is jingoistic, hegemonic nonsense at best and actively, purposefully divisive at worst.
 
Leave the guy alone for not wanting to wear a poppy. Part of the reason there are these mass remembrances and little rituals is to offset, in some hallucinated way, the horrible sacrifices of the soldiers. It is an attempt to make it alright as if all this honoring did them a shit of good.

If some people want to wear poppies, fine. But to expect everyone to participate is fascist.
 
I would rather honor them by taking better care of them while they are alive. How come so many people only qualify for decent treatment after they are dead? My tombstone should read "If you didn't respect me when I was alive, don't bother now."
 
MetaKron said:
I would rather honor them by taking better care of them while they are alive. How come so many people only qualify for decent treatment after they are dead? My tombstone should read "If you didn't respect me when I was alive, don't bother now."
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Well said. The treatment of veterans often especially by hawks is atrocious.

The best way to honor a soldier is to use that soldier as a last resort and to make damn sure the reason isn't to fill your pockets with money.
 
Has anyone else ever notice the little flower they hand out (at least in the states) isn't actually a poppy?

My grandfather fought in the great war. My uncle fought in world war two.

If you wish to be reminded of something. Be reminded that the proceeds actually go to help veterans. People who the local government forgets about just as quickly as they possibly can. Especially those vets who went and got injured in the line of duty.
 
I live in one of the aforementioned "states." I have never in nearly 40 years been exposed to this tradition. I know more about Bonfire Night than this tradition.
On the other hand, I don't know when I have lived within 15 miles of an establishment of the American chartered veterans organization, the American Legion.

// I'm informed that this was popular in the 1950's. Since I am post-moon-shot, I have not been exposed to it here.
 
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One_Raven
Why, would you react like a warrior?
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Erm... no :rolleyes:

What about the people who DO remember and appreciate fallen soliders in their own way, but don't feel any need to take part in such jingiostic traditions?

We have people in the states who wave flags and banners and get awfully pissed off at those who don't.
Of course it doesn't matter whether those who don't wave flags are actually patriotic, responsible citizens - nor does it matter if those do do wave them are.

In my experience, those who not only go in for such jingiosm, but berate those who don't, more often than not do not live their lives as patriots outside those pratices.
They think that waving flags, waving poppies and chanting slogans makes them good Americans, but they scoff at civic duty, support hateful policy and use those symbols as weapons of division more than tools of unity.

I OFTEN see American flag pins (light-up ostentatious ones) and poppy pins for sale which were made in China.
I think that says it all.
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I have no problem with those who don't wear poppies, only those who have such a frankly disrespectful reason behind the refusal as my old music teacher did. To suggest that a poppy is a symbol of war corrupts their real meaning and the intention of those who wear them - I object to this.
Is a pink ribbon a symbol of breast cancer? No - it is worn to raise awareness for its cause.

Metakron -
I would rather honor them by taking better care of them while they are alive. How come so many people only qualify for decent treatment after they are dead? My tombstone should read "If you didn't respect me when I was alive, don't bother now."
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If that is your opinion, I suggest you do a little research on the work of the Royal British Legion.
 
I don't wear any stupid ribbons, flags, or poppies. If I want to help someone, I just do it and don't make a fuss about it.
 
I've in the middle of reading "The Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh. Enforced opium growth [instead of fruits, grains and vegetables] in India by the British caused immense hardship and starvation in India.

The poppy is a symbol of death and that is what it brought, not only to the afeemkhors [opium eaters] but also those who were impoverished by being forced to trade in it.
 
I feel like honoring soldiers that get killed in war is like honoring Darwin Award winners.

If you die for your country, you got tricked into sacrificing your fitness for everyone else's. Bravo?

The only legitimate reasons for enlisting is self-preservation and wanting to kill people.

S.A.M. said:
I've in the middle of reading "The Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh. Enforced opium growth [instead of fruits, grains and vegetables] in India by the British caused immense hardship and starvation in India.

The poppy is a symbol of death and that is what it brought, not only to the afeemkhors [opium eaters] but also those who were impoverished by being forced to trade in it.
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Who the fuck cares.
 
Roman said:
Are all Indians so lazy as to hate employment?
God, it's just endless bitching from you, isn't it?

Maybe if they don't like work so much they should stop working?
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Employment? These were indentured workers, the opium trade financed the British empire to an unbelievable degree. The poppy was seen as a death knell to the village. The British gave contracts to the farmers which they had to fulfill or it was considered a debt to the Empire which they must then pay back with the proceeds of their harvest. In effect, not only did the British take the opium, they also took [almost] all the money the farmers made from it as "debt", this had the effect of keeping the farmers in poverty and indenture.

I recommend the book, it is written as fiction but is based entirely on historical facts. Good read.


The widespread availability of the drug by the mid-nineteenth century was in no small part due to the expansion of the British Empire into India. In the eighteenth century opium had been imported chiefly from Turkey, which was not under British control. With the conquest of India Britain soon realised that the sub-continent could be utilised as a new source for the drug. In 1829 a physician called Dr. Webster exhibited at the Westminster Medical Society a specimen of pure opium which had been sent to him from Calcutta.

Webster hoped that his fellow countrymen would see that “if it [opium] could be obtained from one colony, we should have it from thence rather ... than we should go to the rascally Turks” (Berridge, 4). In 1830 permission was granted from London to extend the cultivation of the opium poppy in India. By 1832 a report commented that “the monopoly of opium in Bengal supplies the government with a revenue amounting in sterling money to £981,293 per annum” (Booth, 115). To create the basis for this huge trading mechanism, whereby opium could be imported cheaply by Britain, and exported profitably to China, vast tracts of agricultural land were turned over to the growth of the opium poppy. In fact the profitable export of the drug to China was worth so much to the British Empire that two Opium Wars were fought, from 1839-42 and 1856-58, to preserve this valuable source of income and trade.
Opium Pod

The huge expansion of the growing of opium in India was of course to have great implications for the availability and subsequent use of the drug by its native population. Opium had been used in India long before the British came to its shores, but with the imperial expansion of the traditional growing of opium into a great capitalist venture, drug addiction inevitably increased among the native population.

In a report in the New York Times of March 29 1896 the following graphic description of an opium den in Lucknow was given: “you will find yourself in a spacious but very dirty courtyard, around which are ranged fifteen or twenty small rooms. This is the establishment of the Government collector -the opium farmer. The stench is sickening, and the swarm of flies intolerable. Enter one of the small rooms. It has no windows and is very dark, but in the centre is a small charcoal fire, the glow of which lights up the faces of nine or ten human beings - men and women - lying on the floor like pigs in a sty. A young girl fans the fire, lights the opium pipe, and holds it to the mouth of the last comer till his head falls heavily on the body of the inert man or woman who happens to lie near him. In no groggery, in no lunatic or idiot asylum, will one see such utter, helpless depravity as appears in the countenances of those in the preliminary stages of opium drunkenness” (Schaffer, par. 6)

The reporter suggests that up to 14,000 people in Lucknow alone were “abject slaves of this hideous vice.” This report suggests that to the late nineteenth century mind the image of opium was very much entangled with concepts of the Orient, of deviance, and sexual licentiousness in an Eastern context - a very different image of the drug than the pharmaceutical panacea it was seen as earlier in the century.
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http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/opium.htm
 
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