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Let's leave out questions of the validity of biopsychiatry.
Let's all leave out questioning the validity of psychiatric diagnostics and nosology.
Finally let's forget about the impossibility of doing a post-hoc historical diagnostics.
What we have left is a common cultural narrative in which "mental illlness' is equated with violence,seemingly inhuman and exceedingly violent brutality. The assumption is then that the violence and brutality unleased by the leaders of the Nazis, be it Hess or Hitler is the result of unbalanced or irrational minds i.e. mentally ill. This of course ignores the majority of violence and brutality which that is carried out by so called normal people and also ignores the fact that most diagnosed as "mentally ill" are not violent.
I'm no psychologist, but those people were apparently too calculating and cunning to be considered psychopaths killing randomly and uncrontrollably. Apparently they went home at the end of the day and carried on like nothing was wrong. They kissed their wives, made more babies, and they helped their kids with homework. They could have been extricated from the jaws of justice and blended in with Americans and Canadians. In fact, many of them did just that with the aid of the Church, western governmental officials and the OSS/CIA.
Bliter: Hitler did not, early in the war, fly into enemy territory and place himself in great danger of being shot.
M.Spector: I ask you, would a guilty man do that?
This is so silly, that I have to wonder if I'm attempting to communicate with a sock puppet.
On the topic, no, I won't be wearing a poppy.
You know, I saw them being sold at the Toronto Anti-War demo... I don't really know where they came from or how to get them though. Try seeing if you can find someone who has them here:
http://www.acp-cpa.ca/
Graham Lettner, Opinion Staff
The Gateway, University of Alberta
7 November 2007
[ 08 November 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
I think we would be honouring our veterans by showing the poppy that they, in most cases, want us to wear - the traditional one.
It doesn't say anything else that you don't want it to. You may, as I do, wear a peace button beside the poppy.
Michael, how exactly do other people know what you want the red poppy to "say"? How do you limit it to saying the things you want it to say without letting it say a whole lot of other stuff besides?
If I wear a red poppy for the sole purpose of expressing solidarity with the beleaguered poppy farmers of Afghanistan, do you think there's a chance my message might be misconstrued?
If "honouring our veterans" means, "let us mourn those who fought and died as pawns of imperialist conflict for what they thought was a noble cause", I will definitely wear a poppy.
If it means, "let us honour those who fought and died for our freedom", I won't wear a poppy - that's just echoing and perpetuating the lies of those responsible for their deaths. If it was only WWII that was in question, I wouldn't really have a problem. Unfortunately, it isn't. I'd be happy to honour the WWII veterans but it seems impossible to do so without supporting what seems to me to be a particularly horrible - and deadly - kind of propaganda.
[ 08 November 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]
I wear a white poppy to honour and remember those who suffered during the war. I am reminded of JS Woodsworth who bravely refused to vote for war. Do we have any of his ilk in Parliament today?
I also do not believe the Allies fought to stop the Holocaust. It can be argued many helped some of the surviving victims at the end of the war but what of Canada's own refusal to allow in Jewish refugees? That makes me sad to be a Canadian - just as all the other actions - the deportation of the Japanese and more.
I loathe the fact that November 11 has become a love in for all things military!
On the other side of the coin, wearing a poppy clearly means you hate the environment on a lot of levels.
I remember a VA person coming to the house after dad died when I was 14. He promised all kinds of help to my mother and me, a veteran's orphan at the time. Nada, nothing. My brothers and I had to help mum pay off the mortgage on their war time house. It was a worthless shack my dad fixed up in the late 1940's. He bought railway jacks and dug out for a stone basement under it with a hand shovel one summer. Mum was pregnant, and there was no running water, just a backhouse and five miles to a water fawcet. The mill would layoff weeks before Christmas on time every year until the mini-boom Korean war years. It was as if Canada had been bombed to smithereens and not Europe.
They can shove remembrance day up their fat stoogecratic asses in Ottawa for all I care. We put flowers on dad's grave today. I know he would have said the same thing.
The problem with militarism comes from many non-poppy related symbols. There's a difference between the poppy, and a lot of the other celebrations of the "support our troops" variety (which really means, support our wars). And here's where those who support the "never again" and "never forget" themes shouldn't be afraid to wear the poppy just because they don't want to be associated with that type of militarism - even though that militaristic view tries to appropriate the poppy for it's own purposes. So I don't really see any need for the white poppy if there's a push back to reclaim what the poppy is really supposed to mean. I think those who try to hijack Remembrance Day ceremonies for modern day militaristic purposes, are usually pretty blunt about it, and pretty much say "support our troops" (which still really means, support our wars) and people who oppose that shouldn't have any fear about calling them out on their political appropriation of the Poppy.
Vance writes that "They [The Canadians] believed passionately that the fallen had died to save Christianity and western civilization from another dark age, and that the men and women who answered the country's call were ennobled by the experience. At the same time, the nations was raised to a higher level of existence because of it's sacrifice at Flanders. Whether these assumptions would stand up in the cold light of critical enquiry was irrelevant. For that generation, at that time, the belief was that their loss had meaning and purpose enabled them to cope with grief."
I think this probably true for what's going on in Afghanistan as well.
I too think of "In Flanders Fields" as a mass of the bloody ruthless killing of young men in their prime. I wear a white poppy I found a few years ago in Ireland (someone had brought it from England and they did not want it or any poppy but then Ireland was neutral during the war.)
beardless of semantics, it has become a politically correct symbol and even in England and Ireland, there is a lively spirited debate over whether news readers should wear poppies on air. Many regular folk think not. Or they suggest it be up o the beliefs of the reader her or himself. That may well depend on who is paying his or her salary however.
I know I won't wear a Red poppy even though for years I did, thinking I was doing my part not to forget the horrors of war. We all remember war differently and many of us have little recall of war period save for the stories we heard from family members. My gramndmother was Irish - as in born in Ireland - and opposed the war - but she did work as a nurse for the red Cross in London in WW2 and she told me some horror stories - and let's face it, while there are some inspiring, happy endings, most are the opposite. Young men dying, losing limbs and lovers, families separated. I won't even discuss the Jewish heritage of my family. Yet another reason to remember and pledge NEVER Again!! What does the Poppy mean to the holocaust - does anyone even think of it on Rememberence Day - do politicians speak of it in their speeches? Very few, as I can recall - very few. They do not want to recall the atrocity of not allowing in enough Jewish families so that more than necessary died.
And what of the legion - how does it account for its activities. about 10 years ago, th Champlain Mall - largest Mall in the Atlantic Provinces, probably maybe east of Toronto actually since I cannot think of any in Mtl that are as large - refused to permit the Legion to sell the poppies outside. The hue and cry was enormous and before long, the mall administration - who blamed their new manager , a woman from Quebec - (you can imagine the comments THAT brought about in a province where linguistic politics always simmers below the surface). Yet, does anyone ever see the accounts of the Legion - which is a vast lobbyist machine. Yes, it is mainly to serve aging vets but it is also an organization where in at least many Maritime communities, people go to drink and have a good time on the weekends. This is what the poppy is providing? I have admittedly been to the Legion on a Friday night and yes, there were a few vets there - my aging uncle for one - but they did not need the poppy sales to keep going.
Many people who join the Legion are not veterans of any war - except perhaps one of alcoholism - (I once ran an addictions center so I ponder these thoughts now and then) and so does the poppy help the veterans? I for one would like to see the books on this. I am certain that most people - especially the hard working men and women who operate these small legions - mean well and have the veterans' needs at heart when they are out collecting money - and I do think veterans talking to classrooms is not such a terrible thing. At least they can describe the horrors of war. I had a family friend who my grandmother cared for - who served in one of the wars (I was too young a child to pay attention) - and he would get drunk and he had suffered horribly in Hong Kong and he would talk about that to anyone who would listen - five year old child, blue wall in the kitchen , my 7 month old Siamese kitten, anyone.I can still recall some of the awful descriptions he gave, thing no 6 or 7 year old should have heard. Chopping off of heads and so forth. He needed help and where was the legion for him? We tried to aid him and did by providing a home and comforting environment and people who looked out for him - medically and otherwise. The Legion was a place he went and came home inebriated from. They did not provide counseling or assistance in medical care that he badly needed. That, we had to provide, even though he was was a cousin of my grandmother's whose own family gave up him. She just refused to let him go.
He is deceased now and I do think of him and several other uncles who served in the war. I do not need to wear any symbol or utter any slogan to do so. There are more personal ways of doing that and if the poppy money does go to help vets even on November 11 to have a good meal (though in the community I grew up in, it was often a drunken affair where all the horrors were relived. Is that service?)
Just some random thoughts and I am sorry if they seem scattered. Will I go to the cenotaph? If it meant that vets were truly remembered and the real meaning of war discussed, yes but I fear that will not be the case.
Aside from Veteran's activities, Legions are major supporters of children's sports leagues and other community activities. They are great supporters of free dinner events for the disabled and institutionalised.
Poppy sales generate revenue for more than Veteran's issues or lobbying.
I just came back from Europe and never saw any indication that the Euros had any interest in Rememberance Day but in an airport hotel,I met a young Canadian stewardess wearing a poppy. I asked her why and she replied that her grandfather had fought for Canada in WWII and she would always remember.
The Tyee took this approach in one of their surprisingly many Rememberence Day articles.
Remember the Brave Civilians, Too
It is a short article, and it doesn't even scratch the surface on the magnitude of the suffering and deaths of innocent civilians in all wars. These facts are often scratched from the history books, as I'm finding in my research of Bomber Command over Berlin during World War II. The Tyee article is short, and rather passive, but I guess at least one media source is recognizing these glaring omissions from many history texts.
[ 26 August 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
Or Winnipeg?