• Lerios [hy/hym]
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      2 years ago

      Its coming up to rememberance day (11th nov), which is ostensibly about mourning the people lost in WW1 and remembering how much war fucking sucks. People wear paper poppies because poppies apparently grew in the battlegrounds afterwards, and they symbolise peace and loss or something.

      In actuality, its an excuse for people in the uk to be jingoistic, nationalistic, and pro-army. Its the only time of the year when you'll commonly see american levels of "support the troops, kill the middle easterners :frothingfash:" shit over here. Its been coopted by the modern military over the last decade or two and there is a lot of hostility towards people who don't get involved.

      I remember a mate of mine once wore a white poppy to school instead of a red one (which iirc was a charity thing that explicitly supported veterans and/or their families but opposed any modern military action) and she got torn the fuck apart by teachers. Like, how dare children be pacifists. Shits fucked.

      • WeedReference420 [he/him, they/them]
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        2 years ago

        Yeah, and somehow every year rememberance day seems to get even more deranged than the last, half expecting Sunak and :tory: to do the next PMQs wearing ghillie suits made entirely out of plastic poppies.

        It seems even crazier too because I'm fairly sure all but the most violently nationalistic WW1 veterans/war dead would be more offended by the chud virtue signalling pagentry of it all than by shows of pacifism. I remember hearing from older relatives about how originally most rememberance events were an excuse to let loose, get drunk and go dancing for all the people that couldn't do that anymore, now the actual vets have died from old age it's become some sort of weird cult of military worship and propagandised history, creepy shit.